Editing The Pen Addict 314/transcript (section)

== Sponsor Break ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' All right, should we take a break? Yes, let's do it. All right. I want to thank Mack Weldon for their support of this show. Mack Weldon, make the most comfortable underwear, socks, shirts, undershirts, hoodies, and sweatpants you're ever going to wear. Mack Weldon is better than whatever you're wearing right now. Trust me on this. Like, I absolutely adore all of my Mack Weldon stuff. I got, like, a bunch when I was in San Jose. I had a bunch of stuff delivered to me. I got, like, six new pairs of underpants. I got a brand new pair of their sweatpants, which is just, like, the greatest thing ever. Because I want to be nice and fresh. You know, get a fresh pair for when we go on our honeymoon. Because that's what I'll be wearing when I'm on the plane. Um, and I also bought myself some of their swim shorts as well for the beach, you know? Like, they just do such great stuff. I absolutely love Mack Weldon's clothing. And they're so confident that the quality is going to be right for you that they have a no-questions-asked return policy. Mack Weldon are so sure that you're going to be super comfortable in whatever you buy. If you don't like your first pair, they will refund you, no-questions-asked, and you just keep it. Don't send it back to them. They don't want your used underwear. Like, you just keep it, and they'll refund you. Mack Weldon pair premium fabrics with meticulous attention to detail and couple it all together with a simple shopping experience. Mack Weldon delivers a new level of daily comfort right to your door. They make undershirts that stay tucked, socks that stay up, and waistbands that don't roll. Everything they make is with premium cotton blended with natural fibers. Mack Weldon also have a line of silver underwear and shirts that are naturally antimicrobial, which means they eliminate odor, which is some cool science stuff. Mack Weldon's underwear, socks, and shirts look good and perform well, too. They're good for whatever you want to do in your daily life. And listeners of this show can get 20% off with their first order at mackweldon.com. That's M-A-C-K-W-E-L-D-O-N.com. So get 20% off just by using the code PENADDICT at checkout. It's all one word. 20% off with the code PENADDICT at mackweldon.com. Thank you so much to Mack Weldon for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I wonder if Mr. Jeff Bruckwicky will be rocking his Mack Weldon on the way to the St. Louis PEN show this weekend. Because he's going to be there, leaving tomorrow. I can't believe it's PEN show time again, Michael.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm. It's like, there's something about this where, like, I heard you say, one of your Twitch streams, which you were helping pack him up. There's almost like a first day of school kind of vibe to this. You know? That you're like, you got him already, you got his bag packed, you got him his lunch, and you're sending him off.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep, yep, exactly. So that is, he was nervous for about a second, you know, when he decided to go. He's like, well, I'm going to need your help on, you know, how to do this. I'm like, yeah, I got you. We got this. I was like, you're good to go. He's like, okay, cool. Then that was it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I can imagine it as a nerve-wracking experience, right? Like, anything where, if you've done something a certain way multiple times, and then it's being changed significantly. Like, you know, you two have always been there together at these things. And if he's gone on his own, it's like, what about everything that Brad does? Like, who's going to do that, right? I get it. I totally get it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So he's good to go. He'll be there. We actually got a better table now. We were kind of like the last table, squeezed in the exterior hallway, and then someone had to back out at the last minute. And there's an inside main ballroom against the wall table now. So we've upgraded our table. Nice. So find Jeff in the room now instead of hovering around the outside. And we also got a room at the hotel because someone hooked us up. So we had an extra room. So, yeah, it's lining up perfectly. Jeff will be in late Thursday. Be ready to sell Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I look forward to just what this show is going to be like overall. I think it's going to be good. But, you know, as with any new show, we'll see. But I don't know any show that has put as much into, like, the effort of getting the word out as the St. Louis show has. So we'll see if it's how it stacks up. But I definitely want to hear from you all. If you all go to the St. Louis Pen Show this weekend, let me know. Shoot me some tweets. Send me some messages, emails. Let me know what you think. Let me know if you had fun. Let me know what you bought. So it should be pretty cool. Related to the show, we got an Ask TPA question that I thought was really good and timely. It's from our friend Claire. She says in the last few months, I've heard more and more people say I'm going to pick up X Vintage Pen at Y Vintage Vendor at Z Pen Show. Are you finding that some of the vintage vendors are starting to get more of a following? And I'd say absolutely.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' People like ourselves who may be new in the vintage pen market, we're looking for comfort and safety when we make a purchase, right? So it can be intimidating. It can be scary to buy vintage pens because you don't have as much information. The pens aren't coming new in a box. Like your new pilot pen might be. So there's a lot more questions and a lot less knowledge that you may personally have. So as a community, as an online community in general, we've started to share information on where we find things that, you know, that are good quality or vendors we've had good experiences with. And I do think that the vendors who embrace not necessarily this generation, but just embrace the openness and sharing of information and helpful nature. Those are the ones whose names end up getting repeated by our friends in the online world. And then that's who you want to seek out when you go to a pen show. So, you know, people like Paul Arano, you know, has definitely been, you know, helpful in this regard. And he will talk to anyone about pens and vintage pens and help you out. And, you know, there's, gosh, I don't know. There's probably a list of vintage vendors like that are the most helpful. I don't want to say anyone's not helpful, but, you know, you know, there's certainly favorites in this category. So, you know, and then we have people in our community, community like Jessica Coles, who sells Estabrook, who's going to be one of the guests while you're gone. And Myke, so she's going to be on the podcast in a couple of weeks and we're going to talk about just vintage pens and vintage pens selling at a show and being, you know, a younger female in an older male world. So that's going to be a really good episode that I'm looking forward to.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm looking forward to that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But she focuses on vintage Estabrook. Like, that's her thing. I mean, she has lots of vintage pens, but she's known for her Estabrook. So once you start building that relationship and building that rapport, word travels fast. So some of the vintage vendors are getting a following and they're going to be the ones who are going to be the most successful, at least in our market. Now, the other ones who, you know, who don't necessarily, you know, have the time of day for some of us, you know, that's OK, too. We'll just move on to the next one. There's always going to be someone else. So that's the thing about vintage pens is there's a lot of them. So you can find what you want in multiple places usually. So I think that's a really good question. And I think we're starting to see that, you know, play out in the in the real world here. And that was one of the things I mentioned when we were talking about the future of the industry. I think there's a huge opportunity in vintage as long as, you know, you can. You know, kind of. Bring those products into a more modern setting in that setting requires, you know, information and it requires patience and compassion with the people you're working with. So it's it's only going to get better and more refined as the years go. At least I hope so.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I think so. I'm excited to hear that episode, too. That's going to be a good one. So that's one to look out for. Yep. I mentioned that you were streaming. Oh, boy. Does Brad Dowdy stream? You know, stop is what happens. You've been over at twitch.tv slash pen addict. You've been streaming stuff like basically every day for the last week or something. Yeah. And in a way that I can't fully understand, but I know because I do this stuff a lot. I've watched. I've just happened to catch some of the stuff and I've just had you on in the background for like hours at a time. Yeah. It's working really good, man. I think you're doing a really good job of it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So I don't have any direction necessarily yet. And the reason why I've been streaming a lot is twofold. One, there's some construction going on at my house, so I don't want to be there. So I stream from not at my house. I stream from Studio B, which has amazing Internet. And that's where all my streaming stuff set up. So I haven't been home. I've been over here in Studio B primarily because my house is a wreck right now. So that's been one reason. Well, if I'm here, I'll just turn on the stream. And the second reason is I want to get past the affiliate hump. And in Twitch, you get more tools to use in the background, like lesser delay and different things like that. You get more better amenities, if you will, on your trip during your Twitch stream. And one of the things you have to do is, I forget, I don't know if it's seven or ten unique days in 30 to get affiliate is the last thing I have to do. So I'm just trying to get all my individual days in so I can apply for affiliate and get the extra tools for the stream. And three is it's fun and I'm trying to figure it out. So like what you're saying is like I'm all over the place. Like I'm going to have dedicated stationary streams. And those are the ones where I pop up the big the big pen addict overlay. And those are the ones I upload to YouTube. So the next one is going to be Thursday. I haven't published the time yet. I think it's going to be 5 p.m. Eastern time again. And we're going to do fountain pen cleaning.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I want to give you a little Twitch tip here. At some point I need to impart to you the wisdom I've learned over the last month or two. There's a thing in Twitch called events where you can schedule an event. So for your big episodes like this, you can go in and say like what it's going to be. You can set a custom artwork and a time. And then people can like add it to their calendar or add reminders for the specific events that you're going to do. So when you're doing an episode of what you're referring to is like the pen addict, not just like I'm playing video games or I'm just hanging out. So you can set those in advance as like events that people can go and watch. Right. I mean, they stream in the exact same way, but it gives people like, and as well, you can share that link. Right. So when you're saying like, oh, hey, I'm going to be doing this, there's a link to share. So that's a good little feature for you. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Better scheduling. So, yeah, you know, I'm still trying to the other reason why I'm streaming all the time is I'm trying to figure out all the buttons. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out what I want the stream to be, how I want it to look, you know, what's what's good out there. And since I'm not at home as much this week and I have work to do, well, if I'm sitting in front of my computer, I might as well turn on the camera. And that's what ended up happening a lot this week. That won't necessarily happen a bunch in the future, but it will. I mean, I have work days where I just sit and work for hours. I might as well turn on the stream and chat with people like it's fun. And like, that's what people were saying, what you did. They're like, I just put it on the background. And, you know, if I hear something interesting, I'll just jump in and say something. But, you know, it's a hearing a familiar voice in your ear. It's soothing. And then I like to play video games. So if I'm going to play a game and I'm not at my house, well, I'll just throw on the stream here and goof around. So, you know, it's been fun. I'm trying to figure it out. I really enjoyed it. The feedback's been great. And, you know, I just want to keep getting better and, you know, giving more to the community that follows, giving them more things to do. Like we've been doing polls in the chat room and having fun and doing things like that. So it's been fun. And I will continue to get to continue to work on it and get better at it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Twitch.tv slash pen addict. Go and follow. And then when Brad hits affiliate, go and subscribe too. That would be my recommendation to you. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Cool. We need an intervention, Myke. A pintervention, if you will.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What did you do?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, it's not what I did. It's what our good friends at Bung Box are doing to us and Sailor. Sailor has been like the most impressive, aggressive special edition maker on the planet. And our favorite vendor, Bung Box, has this edition called Fujiyama Blue. Myke, did you see this before I put the link in the show notes?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, man. Because I, for my sins, followed the Bung Box Instagram. So I see all of these things pop up in front of me on an extremely frequent basis.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So this is one of the finer examples of Bung Box pens that they've made.