Editing The Pen Addict 720/transcript (section)

== Transition to Fountain Pens ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um, so how did that escalate a little bit? Did you ever use fountain pens when you were younger? Did you start using fountain pens later? How did kind of like, not a transition, but just like learning about a new type of stationery come about?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Well, my grandmother was always buying me the Schaefer calligraphy sets when I was young. So like middle school on middle school, she bought me more in high school. So I always use those. And then around 2018, I think it was, I started bringing all of my Schaefer's back out because I was binding my own books and doing like journaling and they look so nice on the paper. And they just had a certain swirl to them that I really liked with my handwriting. So I started using those, but it was so random. I was on a black wing Facebook group and it said, Hey, anyone in your Orlando area, there's an Orlando pen show. It's their inaugural year. And I was like, Oh, that is so cool. A pen show. I've never been to a pen show. That's right up my alley. That'd be amazing. And then I went, it was just, we just Ruben and I did one day and we were so underprepared. We bought $200 and we didn't get anything. I think some poor vendor had pity on me. One of the older guys and like handed us each a preppy. Like he didn't even have us pay for it. Yeah. So, so unprepared. But from then I was like, Oh, I was hooked from, from that day to a year. I went nuts and bought several like actual fountain pens, like the Kaveco Lilliput. And I was buying more Kavecos and more Twisbys. And I was like, okay, so the next year in the Orlando pen show kind of falls on my birthday. I was like, okay, that's going to be my birthday weekend. We're going the entire weekend. And Ruben was like all groans.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' As you know, Ruben.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Not anymore.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' He's a good sport. No, not anymore. I can't say that anymore. The transition is real. So we went the entire weekend and then it just so happened that we met, uh, Tianta and Steve who are now the co-founders of the Orlando pen club and met Joe. I won a pen. I got to sit at a table with you. Yeah. And it's, it's been like rocket speed lighting ever since it's been crazy. And the very first meeting, the pen club meeting, I had approached Joe and been like, Hey, so you have Florida fountain pen. I do photography. I said, I'd love to add more product photography into my portfolio. And he's like, yeah, sure. So come on down. And I went to his place and we started doing a bunch of photos for some pens and some ads and reels. And, um, I had already known then that I wanted to start a YouTube video and channel. Um, but to begin with, I thought it was going to be more photography, but then the pens and stationary kind of took off. But then later on, Joe was like, Hey, did you ever think of doing pen shows? And I was like, yeah, but I don't know how to get to them. Like, I don't know what that entails and all. And then, uh, I believe it was, I was supposed to go with them in Atlanta and I had already committed to helping my mom with the convention. And I was like, no, no, I got to do that. But he's like, how about triangle? And I was like, Oh, I could do that. That'd be fine. And we drove up with him and his wife, Angela, Ruben and I, and took all the pens and went and set up. And I became a vendor from then on. And this past show that we were just at triangle marks like two or three years. I was going to say, yeah, yeah. Three years. That's our third anniversary.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow. That's super cool. That's super cool. So you got hit with, um, what a lot of first time pen show attendees get hit with what, well, you got hit with two things. One, the overwhelm, right? Like it's despite the size of the show, which Orlando the first year being on the smaller side, it's irrelevant to someone who's just walking into the show.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' That room for the first time. It's seriously overwhelming. Number two, you got the first taste is free preppy. Yeah. From one of the vendors. Yeah. And I had done like the pilot varsities before that, but then the preppy, I don't know. That whole show just set, set a whole chain of event. And I got the brass lily put and I carry that thing everywhere and it just spiraled out of control.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's a really fun one. The brass lily put, it's such a unique pen. Um, it's not for everybody, but like if it clicks for you, it's super fun. And I think I still see you carrying it. Like later we'll talk about like your notebooks and your traveler stuff. I think I've seen that when I've like looked at some of your notebooks and stuff. I've since gotten like three more of them. Yeah. As it happens. Was that the first fountain pen you bought? Do you recall like out of your own money? Like, did you, do you recall what the first one is that you bought?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Probably. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I believe, I mean, besides the pilot varsity, I think that was the first real one, um, where I was like, oh my God, I spent this amount of money on my pen. But before that, I actually have video of it because Ruben and I around the same time we started my YouTube channel, we were doing a theme park YouTube channel and he was doing a vlog. And I have footage, I believe Ruben still has it, of me buying a space Fisher pen and me walking out of the store going, oh my God, I spent like $65 on this pen. So, I mean, that's technically the first, but the first fountain pen, definitely the brass caverco.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, that's super interesting. Yeah. I love that. It's, God, it gets you quickly. It does. Like you start making excuses like really early on. It's like, I can't just, I can't believe I just spent $65 on this pen. And then it's like, give it a month and like you, you've just like opened up this wound and it's just, you know, now being filled with stationery for the rest of your life, which is good. Yeah. We love it. So you had already been doing YouTube. You transitioned me perfectly. Um, what made you want to start doing some of the fountain pen content?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' So I thought I could merge. I thought I did feed your creativity because I thought that's perfect. It could encompass everything. My photography, my filmmaking. And I love stationery and pens. And I thought, why not? Why not try it? And I have a video from the antiquarian book fair because I thought, oh, I could, I could just group all these together under one channel and it'd be feeding your creativity. So that's kind of what I was thinking, but I had already, I knew my theater program was going to be done and that they were closing the doors on us. And I thought, you know, that would just be so cool to inspire people. Yeah. And then I've always loved stationery and I don't know, Ruben and I were talking about that the other day. I don't know what made me go, let's film this Orlando pen show this time, but it just took off.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And I mean, I have like, if you look back at the earliest videos, I have like some of the zine and I went to a zine fest that I had my own photography and made my own zines and the book content. But for some reason, the pens just took off. And I think it helped going to so many shows and recording them. Yeah. Because I didn't see it too much. And I was following a bunch of YouTubers that were doing stationery content. I was like, this is a thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' So just further inspired me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But the show, the show content is, is kind of evergreen in that people are always just curious about what that type of events like.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' True.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Whether you're a first time attendee, like you might've been the first time you went to Orlando, or even if now I've been to save someone like myself, who I've been to Orlando several times, I've been to these other shows several times. I still want to see what's going on because it changes every year. Like once I'm into it, it's like, I'll always go and watch that type of content. And then like pen specific content is, you know, people are always looking for information on that. So yeah, I think, I think it's great. And you were obviously like naturally predisposed to, to doing like the video content just from your background. Right. Right. Just creating that came pretty easy for you. Yeah. Generally speaking.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Right. Yeah. We thought we have the skills, why not use them? And I mean, people don't, we know how much work goes into it, but it's crazy that like we could film for three days and then Ruben takes 20 to 50 hours editing. We were at a little craft fest and I had subscribers come up to me Friday and they're like, oh my God, I'm so excited for the video. And then Saturday morning, they were all screaming at Ruben, where's the video? Where's the video? And he's like, no, no, no. It's like a combination of all three days. And I got to go home and I got to edit. Yeah. It's so funny, but yeah, it's a lot of work and effort, but thank God we had the skill for it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, exactly.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And the talent and the love and the passion. I think one passion feeds the other, which is really fun.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I always try to explain that to people. It's like, yeah, not everything's a VOD. Right. You don't just throw it up there and go live. Right. So you, you mentioned little craft fest and some of the videos you're shooting from on locations. And you mentioned, uh, Florida found the pen and Joe, um, who also runs the Orlando pen show. We'll talk about that here in a little bit. Um, what did you think when he did ask you to hit the road and help with, with pen shows? Like what? That's a lot of like time and effort driving the, driving the van around. Yeah.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' The pen surprise. Oh, at the time he didn't even have the van. He had a truck. Okay. So it was even, even more of a traveling journey, but I was all for it because I've always been freelance for video and photo. So I was like, Oh great. Another freelance job. I could jump. Even at the theater, I was still freelance.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That makes sense.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah. If I had a photo or video job and we were in the middle of a production, they'd be like, hand me your binder, go off. We'll see in a week. So they were always super, super helpful. The director there, Frank Blocker, he was just always so supportive of that. And he knew I had a passion and love for photography and filmmaking, just always fed into it, which was fantastic. Always would help me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Did you think, or did you plan on going into it when you're going out to these shows is like, Oh, I can just double up and make some content as well.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah. I mean, that's kind of what I told Joe, like how it's great to work with you, but also I would love to film the video. I was there. I said, if it was kind of like, can I do both? And he's like, yeah, I don't, I don't see why not. And we've made it work since then. And it's been great because I've, it's like, we're advertising for him. I'm advertising for the show. We're advertising for multiple vendors. We're helping out mom and pop. We're helping out big companies by showing off their products. So it's been wonderful.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I love seeing the purple van at pen shows in the parking lot.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Very recognizable.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What is the longest amount of time you've spent on a van road trip?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' So Baltimore took us, not this year, the previous year, 16 and a half hours. And I literally could not function the next day. I have, I'm going to, I'm going to embarrass myself. I'm going to tell a funny story because we were, it was our table at Baltimore. We had Rich of Riversity behind us and next to him, they kept saying Lauren, but I didn't know her as Lauren. I knew her as Lucky Star Pens. So I'm telling Ruben, I was like, I got to find Lucky Star Pens. They have that ink. It's going to sell out. And then Rich is like, are you okay? I was like so tired. So this year we did better, but yeah, it was like 16 and a half hours. We were all pretty, pretty cooked from that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hey, I'm sure a lot of people just call her Fly Girl Elliot too. Just, you know, from the old Instagram handle. That's all I always have to remember, but that's, that's great. It, um, the carny, the carnival, the, the, the traveling carnival will do that to you. It will.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' So, um, their longest trip is coming up St. Louis. We break that into two days, but it's like 22 hours.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. So, and yeah, y'all are dropped just for people who don't know y'all are, we talking a lot about Florida and Orlando. So from the Orlando area to St. Louis, about 22. Ooh, that's rough. So leave a, leave ahead of time, but it's great. I didn't realize that you're able to like break it up. Like the freelance work that, that you took it as like this opportunity is like, well, this is kind of like how I operate to begin with. So let's just go for it. And how do you think that's been working out so far?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Oh, I've absolutely loved it. It's, it's been so incredible because now I have Pen family all over the country and then we gather all over the country. It's so incredible to think that way. And I love DC Pen show because it still amazes me. This will be year three and it still amazes me how a group of like-minded people can take over an entire hotel. And not only that, we completely sell it out and go to different hotels. Like you can't turn.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like every square inch of that hotel.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah. You can't turn any which way and not see a Pen person or someone, you know, which I think is so wonderful and so lovely. And the community has been so helpful that it's been fantastic. It's been a fun, fun time. I'm so grateful. I get to do so many shows. I mean, this year we're going to close out probably at nine. I mean, nine's on the books, but I'm hoping to add maybe one or two more towards the end of the year.