Editing The Pen Addict 194/transcript (section)

== Sustainability ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, that's the key part of it, right? Is we want to make this a sustainable thing. So we're just being upfront and honest about what we're looking to do. And I think that I'm also, I'm happy that I was able to explain things in a way that you were comfortable with. There was one thing I was worried about is that, like, I was not going to represent your thoughts well enough. But I'm pleased that eventually I did a decent job.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It took a minute. I was a little steamed in the beginning, not at you or at them. But I was just like, this is not, tell them why. Tell them why. I was like, hurry up. Tell them. Tell them why we're doing it. And then you're like, oh, he nailed that. Thank you. But yeah, but that was like more than halfway through the episode, I think. It took a while. Good job. Good job then on the podcast stickiness there. I definitely held in there for a while.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We'll put a link to the episode in the show notes. It's thoroughly considered number nine. If you want to go ahead and listen to that, you can.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and it's called Asking for Money, appropriately titled. So what we're going to do right now is ask you for money. No, I'm just kidding. I am going to ask you for a click, though, if that's okay. There's a website that Jeff and I love and a lot of people love called Carryology. And I posted this on the Knock Twitter and tweeted it on my account. They do a Carry Awards every year. And they're probably the best known carry backpack accessory travel website on the planet, in my opinion. And they're doing awards. And they're taking nominations right now. So I'm definitely doing the self-pimp thing under the best accessory category. The Knock Sinclair, I think, would be perfect. And so we put everyone out there. Put the link out there for everyone to see. And hopefully, you know, they'll throw some love Knock Co's way and see if we get past this first round and into, like, the real voting. And you never know how these things play out. But I didn't have a problem sending it out to the crowd and sending some clicks that way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I may have just voted again.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't encourage multiple votes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. But I did it. We're friendly with the Carryology people. We talk to them from time to time. They've reviewed a Brasstown back when we first launched the shop. They have some people that write for them that are fans of the company. But I'd say their general reader doesn't know who Knock is. But it's really good. It's really good. So the best accessory category.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, best accessory is the category that you need to vote in. And it's all – there's no choices. There's no drop-down. You have to write it all in. So Knock Co, Sinclair, tell them why you love it in the best accessory category on the page.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What they're doing right now is getting the information, collecting all the names and brands, and whatever the top ones are, those will go into the final voting for the products of the year.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Man, that feels like it would be a nightmare to solve. Because it's all just text entry, right? You have to look at every single entry and categorize them. Woof. Good luck, Carryology people. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So we've talked a bunch about the LA Pen Show in the past weeks. And, you know, we just wanted to wrap it up with really a couple more articles related to that. One was Matt Armstrong's – he did a four-part series on the LA Pen Show, so all his thoughts are out there. And his wrap-up on the day four recap I thought was really good. He talked about some of the difficulties he had with, you know, some of the vintage vendors and some of the attitudes at the show. So, I mean, I think generally, you know, it was generally positive. But, you know, there's always, you know, some things we run into. He has a wonderful picture of him with a magnetic knife and fork with me making a derp face in the background. That's a lovely picture. Not my best effort there at the show. No. You know all about that. But, yeah, you know, he talks about these things and, you know, the challenges that we have in bridging the gap between, you know, kind of the old guard and the new guard.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, you wrote a great section about this in the Refill newsletter, which is Brad's membership newsletter, which I continue to pimp because I love so dearly. And it is really interesting and echoing some of the writing over at Penavit. But it is interesting to see this. And I can see that there must be a real, and we're going to talk about this a little bit more in a moment. I can see that there must be a real disconnect and fears, maybe the wrong word, but unsureness from the old guard. The people who set up the vintage pen tables and stuff like that, and they see people like me and you, younger people, coming in and we huddle around certain tables because they're in the community. And it must have a real weird feeling and probably something that has only really come about in the last year or two in kind of the pen show circuit.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So a few thoughts on this. I don't know if I've made it clear when I talk about old guard versus new guard that when I say that, I'm not referring to age. I'm referring to attitude.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There's literally nothing regarding to age because the pen addict community ranges from people in their teens to people in their 70s, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, absolutely. Without question. So it doesn't have anything to do with age. It's more of an attitude thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, you know, just people with, you know, different attitudes on how they were brought up in the community and have been doing this for decades in a lot of cases. They've experienced, you know, the last 15 or 18 years much differently than we've experienced the last two years, right? It's been a completely different vibe. But I do think, you know, the more I get away from it and the more I'm able to reflect on it, the more I think it's a two-way street as well. So I made a point to say that I need to do a better job in going to these vendors specifically and having a conversation with them, even if I'm not purchasing anything from them. Tell them, hey, you know, who I am, what I do. They roll their eyes. That's fine. You know, hit them up about, you know, why can't I have a conversation with them, you know, like I would with you at the bar. Why can't I have a conversation with Bob at his table and say, wow, how long have you been doing this? You know, where did these pens come from? You know, what's your favorite brand? You know, tell me about this pen. You know, why can, you know, I can make an effort to kind of ease that a little bit. And, you know, it's just kind of breaking down a little bit of a mental barrier that some vendors have when they see someone who they they're making an assumption that they're not into vintage pens because of their age, which is completely, you know, erroneous. So, you know, I think, you know, I can do a better job and we're actually going to do some things in Chicago. We're working on for the Chicago pen show to kind of help that because a lot of vendors in L.A. were coming up to Lisa and saying, you know, this happened to us in Atlanta. What's going on? You know, what is why are all these young people here at our pen show?

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know, why are they hanging around your table? Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But then they understand that, you know, well, we're into this hobby, too. And, you know, we're certainly happy to be there and want to be there. So I don't know. It's, you know, you hate to see issues. There's always going to be issues. But there are plenty of times where, you know, us as a community can help bridge that gap to, you know, be super friendly to these people, you know, check them, check them, check out their their pens and paper and everything and just strike up a conversation with them. Even if you're not no interest in purchasing, you know, that it just kind of chips away a little bit here and there. And I think that's something I can do a better job with. On that note.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' On that note, our good friend, Father Kyle, who's in the chat room today, did an exemplary job of getting some thoughts out in a post he launched this morning called Letter to the Pen Addict Community.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It doesn't surprise me that Father Kyle wrote something like this because he's one of the nicest people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, right. And he will be in Atlanta this year. I've confirmed just right before the show. I was like, you're going to be there, right? That was my favorite selfie from from last year's Atlanta Pen Show, by the way, mine with Father Kyle. Wow.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So he's coming at it from the point of how would you say this where he doesn't he's not taking me to task, but he's pointing out that, you know, certain people in the communities word carries a lot of weight. Yep. And that you a lot of people who listen to the show, read all the blogs in the community, really, you know, hang on the words that some people say about certain products and reviews and things like that. And, you know, I don't necessarily think of it that way, but I understand it is that way. Like, that's a fact. Like, he is true that if I say something positive or negative, it moves the needle that way. That's just part of the deal now. It's grown. That is a fact. It's grown big enough to where that's the case. And the one thing I wanted to talk about, I guess, the most in this is Father Kyle's post is kind of around how the old guard was in a different time and they had to figure this stuff out on their own. And they had to make the mistakes that a lot of us in this information age don't have to make because we have so much content and community online where we can get this information. It's like the old guards been through those battles. They've lived it. They understand, you know, what pens are their favorites, what pens are the best. They've, you know, probably wasted all kinds of money and time going down the wrong path, finding all these things out, you know, the hard way, if you will. And nowadays, I can come up to a table, a vintage table and say, you know, I want a vacuumatic major with a double jewel and a blue with a stub nib and this type of thing. You know, I can reel out 10 things of the specific vacuumatic that I want where he's had to figure out all this stuff on his own, you know, for the day.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Looking them up, looking at them, like, and working it out by using them and making mistakes. Like, it's a totally different way of doing these things where the information age has completely changed that because we have your website. We have, like, the forums to go and look at all of this stuff before ever even needing to go to a table at a pen show.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But I do think that one of my core beliefs with the pen addict is I do want to make those mistakes for people. You know, I mean, I'm okay with that if I can help someone make a better decision. So that's never going to change from my perspective.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, because fundamentally, I believe, as I'm sure you do, too, that that is a service to people. Like, the reason that this stuff exists, the reason we do this show, the reason you do the site is so people don't have to make those mistakes with their money.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, right. Which is, you know, some of the things that I did when I was starting the blog, you know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I bought a Visionaire, right? So you didn't have to.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I enjoy doing that. I'm luckily fortunate to be in a position to do that. And, you know, I'll continue doing that, you know, giving my honest opinions about products. But in the end, kind of how Father Kyle points to, it's still just one man's opinion.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, there is a middle ground to be found here. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. I mean, in this, you know, the way I write reviews, I write it from my point of view. It's a personal review. I do try to point out bigger picture things that more people may have issues with or more people may love. But in the end, is this pen right for me? And what are my thoughts on it? And only because I have a huge base now of reviews that I've done, you know, and people that have been reading the blog for a long time can kind of piece together, like, the things that I like and things that I enjoy. And you know how you kind of know the answers ahead of time a little bit because you've put together the puzzle of me and what I like. But it's still a really good point to understand that it is one person's opinion and that you are going to make mistakes. And leaning on some of the vintage dealers to help answer those questions, you know, I think is really, really good. It's a good idea. And it's something that I want to do more frequently in future shows.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Most definitely. I mean, because fundamentally what you need to remember as well is that Brad has taste and his taste informs his decisions. And like you look at even me and you disagree fundamentally on some things. Like, for example, I think the jet stream is an abomination and you think it's amazing, right? So you think about stuff like that and you start to see that maybe you can just take these things as guides rather than like rules about the stuff that you should buy. And I agree that, you know, this is obviously a thing that we're thinking about now is the community starting to grow and change. And this is something that we can all be conscious of when we're in these environments.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So I thought that was a really good post by Father Kyle. And it really had some great points in it. So we'll have that link to the show notes and all of y'all should definitely go out and read it if you haven't done so already.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And if your podcast app of choice does not show the show notes to you, you can head on over to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 194 where you will find the link to that and everything else that we discussed today. So let's move on to talking about skulls.