38 JCK, Selling Out, Email from Across the Pond & Bonus "Footage"

Episode 38 is here, and somehow we survived Memorial Day weekend with all of our brain cells mostly intact. This week we’re catching up after the holiday chaos, briefly discussing how quickly we’d sell out to the highest bidder (answer: probably faster than we should), and sprinkling in a little JCK Vegas chatter because apparently that’s what responsible jewelry professionals do this time of year.

We also read and react to an email from one of our loyal listeners “across the pond” — yes, England itself has officially entered the Bench Jeweler Memes cinematic universe. International fame is clearly moments away.

AND… because making questionable decisions is part of the brand, we included some audio from our very first video podcast test run. It’s raw. It’s awkward. It’s probably a mistake.

Oh… and if you make it all the way to the VERY end, there may or may not be a surprise song from the upcoming BJ Mandrel album waiting for you. Consider yourself warned.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Good morning, Brad. Good morning, Dusty. It legit is morning right now. It really is. So this is the first time in a long time. Maybe not when they're listening. First time in a long time that we've had to record before opening. The Memorial Day holiday really jacked up our schedule. And so today might be a little shorter than the last few episodes. Because we have limited time. We have about 35 minutes, but we have a little special thing at the end planned. And by special, I mean not that special at all, actually. It's kind of special. Um where where are we going to start? So it's basically like um uh like if you had to write a paper in high school and you just like it's gotta be five pages, so you put a big uh like graph in there to take up space. That's exactly what we're doing today. Yep, yeah and also at the end, I think we're going to replay track something about that. We're gonna at the end, instead of our normal outro song, little jingle, we're gonna play. I think, Brad, we haven't talked, we should play track 16 of the new BJ Mandrell album, Bench Drooler Melodies Volume 2, which drops May 30th this Saturday. Dang. Now, depending on when you're hearing this, then this Saturday may have passed. It probably maybe. Also, while this is while the album is dropping, um, I think JCK is officially underway uh by the time this goes. Let's go find the dates because I don't know what the exact dates are. Do you know? I think it is Friday through tomorrow, right? Monday or something. I don't know. Um, yeah, no, it starts today. Yeah, no, tomorrow. Yeah, Friday, yeah, Friday through Monday. Okay. It does open today, though. Um so a lot of people maybe they'll be too busy to hear this because they'll be so busy out there. Because then sadly we will not be there. But I do think this is a great opportunity for some vendor to potentially hear this. Mm-hmm. And for next year, bring us in. Bring us in. Like we can just hang out in y'all's booth, or if you want to buy us a booth. Can you imagine? Buy us a booth. Buy us a booth. They're so I just realized how that sounded. You buy us a coffee, buy us a booth. Um but wouldn't that be I don't know. How many people would you you just bring in just by having us here? It's like I don't know. I mean, I feel like I feel like we have to be like we have to be set up with I'm just gonna say the names. Um Steller, uh Geswin, SCP Tools, oh P Oh Gab Gabby over there in um Chicago. I think he's got a booth this year. Which tool companies am I forgetting? Pepe Tools, do they set up a shop? They do, yeah. I don't know. I've never been to JCK, so I have no idea. Any of the big tool companies, I would imagine could be worth their while because that's where we would be hanging out the whole time. They need like a little section or a booth or two that are just for like the bench toolers. But then again, are bench jewelers going to JCK? I don't know. Yeah, that's the question. I don't really know. I mean, we would have a we would have a reason to go regardless because we do have a retail jewelry store, so we could probably find some other benefits. But I wonder if you're like exclusively just a bench driller, like do you get to go as kind of like a like a hey, great job. You want to come to Vegas this year with the team? You know what I'm saying? Or I I feel like I feel like that would never happen, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm a little pessimistic this morning. Maybe you you know um something to be optimistic about though. What's that? Um on Instagram, you can now use BJ Mandrell's song as your audio. Yes. And we're gonna have to get on him too, because I see that he I noticed that he started an Instagram account. Um didn't even tell me. So did he tell you? I saw I got the follow notification. But yeah. Sometimes when you when I text him, he's in another part of the world, so he doesn't respond. Like Newfoundland. Yeah, he frequents Newfoundland apparently. Um but anyway, yeah, so he's on there, and I'm gonna try to push him to once this album is out for a couple weeks, to start putting all the songs like in real form that way people can start using them. So I think it would be super cool if he's got his work cut out for him. The the bench drillers out there, when they do get their vacations, and maybe it's just for a couple of hours, um, that they show some footage and put that music to it. And for real. And uh, like uh, I don't know, we should come up with a cool little hashtag for that. Um almost makes me want to buy a bottle of rum. So I can pop that bottle and pour that rum. Yep. Could I legitimately I have been singing that song so I sing it all the time in my head? So I unfortunately opened Yep. Go ahead. Are you done? I just went into my own little jam set. Um I unfortunately opened uh Instagram first thing this morning, and so that song was the first thing I heard, and so it has not left my head. Beautiful. That's a good one to get in your head.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

What a beautiful week. Not at six in the morning.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Um all right, so yeah, all the quick announcements are uh the Bench Dooler Melodies Volume 2 drops May 30th, the whole album, 17 tracks, three um little surprise interludes. Mm-hmm. You love those. So you're gonna want to stream that album, listen to it, play it in the shop, play it in the store. It doesn't matter. Y'all won't y'all won't do it. Play it on your drive to work, from work, on vacation, in Vegas, even. Make that song go viral in Vegas this weekend. You know what I'm saying? For the song that that album. Yes. There's a couple in there that would that would definitely could be a good idea. We gotta plan ahead better and have BJ make some like JCK tracks if we are releasing it close to that. Well, dude, also somebody said how awesome would it be if if BJ like showed up because you know they they hire performers to come out during these events. I think there's like Nelly or something. Like, who is that? But BJ Mandrill, if he showed up. Now if he showed up. Dang. I bet the crowd. I mean, see, that's the kind of stuff JCK is they're trying to they're trying to be this nice world renown event when they could be bringing in us and having BJ Mandrell do some stuff. Right. They're overthinking it, you know. Just it's so easy. It's not that hard. Um, the other thing is um uh the way to support our show is buy me a coffee. This came up yesterday with another content creator we had visiting, not a jeweler content creator. Bourbon Brad. It lives in the bourbon space again. Not me. Not not me when I drink. So Brad had a few drinks yesterday and started we started talking, talking shop. Um but um talked about the idea of like Patreon stuff. I think one day we're gonna get there. I really do. I think we want to really fine-tune some video stuff. We want to make it worth everybody's while if we're gonna do like a patron and stuff. Yes. But in the meantime, the way these kind of shows last and don't die out is by either corporate sponsorships, which we get in. Which apparently we might not ever get. We have learned um in not so subtle ways that we cannot keep our mouth shut. But we also have learned that that's what makes us a little different, and I know we won't ever be like some of the other content creators and podcasters out there. Yeah. And so it is what it is. Um, if you guys want us to just cave and sell out, then just let us know. Email us. But if you don't want us to sell out, then you can click the link where you're listening to this at the bottom of the description. It says buy me a coffee. If you click that link, you can send us a dollar or a thousand dollars. Uh, we use that money to upgrade stuff for as this podcast expands and grows. Um, we do have to buy a new computer very soon, which we've uh saved up. And by saved up, I mean uh not spent all the money that has been sent so far since we started to buy me a coffee. Um, hence I was pouring my coffee this morning. It's been a while just to prove it. Sounds like coffee. We will use that money to probably buy a new computer soon so we can do some more um aggressive editing because we are gonna slowly switch over to video podcasting for our YouTube subscribers only. Um, and then that means we'll need better cameras um to make it really good. And I think once the content gets top-notch, um then we'll charge you guys to listen, I guess. I don't know. I don't know how this works. I think we're gonna do that. We're gonna go exclusively Patreon only. No, we would never do that. This is too fun. Um what also it's that's a good point. If we sell out, it will be sell out too. Oh that's not what you're gonna say. No, it will be the the listeners' faults. So don't don't be like, oh Brandon, they sold out. No, no, no. Over here pushing pushing stellar lasers all of a sudden. Oh, we uh we will too. We will sell out with the best of them. Oh my gosh. This this B D laser, wow. This is the best, guys. And we'll try to like we'll take our Sisma laser in the background of our videos and just like cover it with like with a piece of paper, sensor it out. Yep. Yep that's how fast we'll do it. Oh, that junk, that piece of junk, that sees me.

unknown 9:52

Shh.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

No, we love our seisma. We love everybody. That's the thing, is we love everybody, and this is how you know we love everybody. If we make fun of you, we love you. We love you. If we laugh at you, we love you. The the the people you that should be probably the most I shouldn't say worried because we're just two random dudes with a microphone. Yeah. But the ones don't be worried. But like if we just completely ignore you, it's because maybe we probably do like get on our nerves and we would just rather not say it than to be jerks. Well, we're not jerks. Yeah, and and we just talk about the things we use and we use the things we love. So it's not like there's other things out there that we don't use, so we don't know to talk about them. No, that's true, very true. Yeah. One thing I have made fun of that I hate. But if they if all these companies would just send us free stuff, then we could be honest, you know what I'm saying? Right. But the one thing I have made fun of that I do hate that I don't love quality gold catalogs. And I'm not I'm talking about the extra ones. Yeah, you know the ones. Oh, yeah, the ones that you don't need. Yep. I mean, I can't even remember the last time I sold something out of one of those bonus. Like, we got a stack of what, seven or eight this week. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And like I'm pretty sure we're gonna throw away seven out of eight of them. Yep. Maybe eight out of eight. Yep. But some stores maybe they utilize those. I don't know. Stepdaddy Ron commented about how they look like uh 70s album covers. And Ari had talked about how like somebody had gotten a hold of uh AI. So I I could definitely see yeah, they they're really trying to get noticed. Yeah. Well, notice this in the trash can.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Uh well, we still have some more stuff to talk about. We have rambled quite a while on updates. Um, this video obviously will not be video, but I'm hoping maybe the next one will maybe. Maybe. Maybe we currently have a video of ourselves on YouTube if you haven't watched teaser that might be posted at the end of this one. Just the audio. Maybe the audio version of our video podcast will be added to the video when we're all done. Well, not everybody's seen it because it didn't have 23,000 likes, I can tell you that. So I don't know why not. You know what we need to get into? It's been a couple weeks. Shop talk.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Shop, shop, shop talk where we talk, shop, shop, shop. Let's talk shop.

unknown 12:22

Woo!

SPEAKER_02 12:23

I think that was a long enough pause. Is it enough time? Yeah. I never did it. Yeah, I guess you haven't added to the body. I have not added the the button to it. I think about it in this moment every single week. But uh shop talk, Brad. This is like I said, post-Memorial Day. We're right going in the summer, school's coming to an end, graduations, Father's Day's coming up. How is your box of repairs? Pretty stacked because we just are coming off of Memorial Day, and that's when Mondays are usually when we get most of the work done. And I was where were you at? I was at an see. Was at an amusement park? Yep. Yep, a local amusement park. Oh lord. You were at the lake. Yeah, usually on Memorial Day. Uh my in-laws have a little place on the lake. So we were on the boat doing some tubing. Um nice time. But like you said, we came in, that means we had to come in Tuesday, and we were already behind on Friday when we clocked out. Yep. I'm actually doing pretty good, but I think it's because you haven't dropped off a lot of stuff on my bench to finish up. But I do have some a couple of custom things to finish, some stone settings, which I'm hoping to get done this week, but we can always do it next Monday, you know? Yep. Yep. So um anything fun or anything on your bench that's been a pain in the butt or fun. I posted a a video a little on my story of this giant amethyst. It's like 19 millimeters long pear shape. Mm-hmm. And the lady just wanted it set on a ring. She was like just big, gaudy ring. So then I had to take a giant silver band. It was like 17 millimeters wide, hammer it, which Ari and Brad whined about because I had to hammer it for so long. God, yes, non-stop. Just tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. That's how you make jewelry, Brad. That's how it sounds. No, it shouldn't. Well, it is. Oh. And then I had to order the biggest basket ever. I mean, this is so stupid. Somebody was like, I post a little video, and they're like, it looks a little crooked. I'm like, it probably is because it's silver. Shut up. Yeah. That's why we don't post the stuff we do because no matter how no matter how perfect it is or is not, someone will comment on it. That's gotta, we gotta, we gotta fix this, guys and gals. We gotta fix this type of mentality.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Maybe I put it in the tumbler and then it turned out it straightened everything out. Straightened everything out. Fixed it. So that was the only thing that I was and actually wasn't that bad. I was dreading it and I put it off. Actually, this client, she kept saying it wasn't no rush, and I think I've had it in my basket for like three or four months. Worst thing to tell Dusty. It's not a rush. If you say no rush, it is going to the back, and everything that comes in will go in front of it. Yep. And then so once she finally was like, All right, you know, yep, that's perfect. And it's also in those jobs where I set a really high dollar amount so that she would say no. And she said, That sounds perfect. And I'm like, crap. It wasn't that bad though.

SPEAKER_03 15:25

That's good.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Anything frustrating or exciting on your bench? Did you mess up any more watches? No, I did not. Um you gotta tell what happened with that guy. The watch, the Invicta that you scratched. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I didn't have to deal with him. That story will be on the at the end of this podcast if you didn't catch it on YouTube. Um Yeah, so the guy picked it up and uh Ari helped him and then Dusty clarified. So basically Ari is like, yeah, we we couldn't couldn't do this one, and uh Dusty's like, yeah, but man, that's it was a toughie. We tried. And uh haven't seen him since. So and it was scratch. He scratched it more. It was not that scratched. I mean, it was pretty scratched, but it was not scratched, scratched. I mean it was scratched. It was you know what I'm saying. It was so like if it had been less scratched, he would have noticed it. But because it was a big scratch, somehow those people don't even notice. Right. Exactly. Um sorry, I keep cutting you off. Anything hard or sucky. And and you already posted about it. It was the uh man's uh wedding band that we you had flush set some diamonds into and made it the perfect size, and he's like, No, actually I need it a size bigger. That's that was so frustrating. Like, and because we have to work on that one today because it's due tomorrow. Yes, and and that oh so let me clarify it was actually a special order from Steller. Oh, so you didn't set it. Um, thank God no. Oh, okay. Um I realized they could do it, and the clients had came in multiple times to discuss this, and you could tell that the wife was way more into this process than the the husband, but the ring was for the husband. And so it was like a million questions, a million texts, million phone calls. They visited several times to measure his finger to make sure they had the exact width. We f found the exact thing that they were kind of looking for at Stellar, uh, had to have it made to order, of course, because it had to be a very particular size. Sure did. And um, so all the diamonds are evenly spaced out, flush set in all the way around a men's white gold band. And um she picked it up, I want to say, before the holiday, and yeah, not even a week later, he comes in, it's too tight. We have to size it up an entire whole size. Yep. And we have sized that man's finger several times. I think every time he came in, we sized it. Yeah, I mean, of course, now it's like high heat, high humidity. So like I get it, but it and I I basically just said like one section is gonna have a bigger space than the rest. And I have a feeling like no matter how well we do it, it's gonna if you look hard enough, it's gonna be like, oh, it looked like it was sized. But he doesn't seem to care, so hopefully his wife doesn't care. He does not care. So whatever. So this is one of those I just know I'm just and it's it's like what is it like eight millimeters wide? It's probably three millimeters thick, too. Yeah, it's huge. Gosh. But and of course, all lab grown diamonds set into it so they could save some money. Anyway, um, all right, so that's that's shop talk.

SPEAKER_03 18:36

Shop talk.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

Um well the last thing on the agenda was an email, right, Brad? Sure was. So we've said this before. If we said this in the early days, we really want to hear like your crazy customer stories or crazy shop stories, but I get that everyone is not a um a writer, a suspenseful writer. Well, we had someone email us who is an amazing writer, and what he emailed us is I hope he doesn't mind us saying his name and stuff. I won't say all of his um Well it'll make sense. Well, it's just his first name. His name is Rob. Um he sent us an email, and this is the emails, these are the a perfect example of the emails we would love to get from you guys in case you're wondering where do we send that email? It's bench jeweller memes at gmail.com. We check it once, twice a month, and this one took me a while to get to it. Let me see how long it took me to see that he emailed me. Oh, it was only like well, that wasn't too bad. Four days. Oh, that's pretty good. That's pretty good for me. If he had emailed four days earlier, it would have been eight days. Make sense. Yeah. Yep. That's the math. The math be math and it do be. So we're gonna read this. It's a long email, but he paints a beautiful picture for us bench jewelers. Okay. Shall we just get into it? No, no, let's stall. Let's just keep talking about it. How was your day? This is so he says, Greetings, gents. Ooh. A big hello from Chester, England in these unprecedented times. That's how I imagined he said it. Wow. Wow. Just wow. He said, That's right. I'm a member of your international listenership. I'm gonna pause it because someone made a comment on one of our reels recently talking about customers interrupted and he's trying to listen to a podcast. And I said, Well, obviously, it must have been our podcast. And he said, Uh, sadly, my English is not that good, but I did try. So he gave it a valiant effort to hear us ramble. I think even if you speak like the Queen's English, you're probably like, What are they saying? I was like, We are not the podcast. For those who are not experts, I also saw in another random uh content creators post, it was like jewelry pet peeves. Pretty sure they copied our idea, but um somebody said when uh American jewelers don't pronounce the L and solder that drives them crazy. And then they were like all these like all these Brits were over there making fun of us. Solder solder?

SPEAKER_03 21:07

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

They were like S-O-D-D-E-R, that's how they say it. That is that is how we say it sometimes. Okay, back to this. Back to Robert. On the 4th of July, that's what how we say it. But an extra we take that L right out of there. All right. That's right. I'm a member of your international listenership. My name's Rob. On Insta, I'm filled the blank. We've interacted on there from time to time. Anyway, sorry I'm late. I knew you started podcasting, but I only got round to throwing it on this last week or so. And I'm on a speed run of the old episodes. I just wanted to please remember that I can't read, so as we're going through this, I have a problem. Yeah, I should make Brad read these. No, you should not. Um, I just wanted to drop you a message and thank you from the The bottom of my heart for all the memes and the content. This can be a lonely job sometimes, and just knowing you guys in the community are are also out there and that the highs and lows of this line of work are so universal. Well, it goes a long way, and I appreciate what you're doing. I feel seen. That's just that's just a little intro. Um, you're welcome. Uh before we keep going. I'm just looking up where Chester, England is. Are you paying attention? It's up near um Liverpool in Manchester. Yeah, with some let's play some football. The football. Up near the football. Okay, I'm gonna keep going. Okay, you keep going. I'm 20 plus years in the industry, straight out of college. Like me and Brad. And I've done a bit of everything. Nowadays, I'm a one-man setup working directly for the trade, so I pretty much sit here by myself every day. And like you guys, I don't consider myself an expert by any stretch, but I know what I'm doing with most processes. I set, I cast, hand fabricate, repair, and like everybody, I have many stories, but I'll share this one for now. It is not exactly jewelry specific, but I do think it speaks to the three jewelry workshop realities. Number one, the utter expendability of the lowest ranking member of the workshop team. Always. Number two, the total inability of a good workshop to ever throw anything away, ever. Three, the apparently inexhaustible list of responsibilities which the general public perceived to fall on their local jewelers. I I just I can I just express how much I love this email. Because those three things are so universally true. But let's continue reading. A shop I used to work for was immediately adjacent to a small courtyard which served as the entrance to a bar and which could be seen from the street. I'm just imagining I'm I like imagining it like kind of cloudy and foggy. Yes. The courtyard was probably because it's English. Yes. The courtyard was netted over to prevent birds from nesting. One morning the shop was uncommonly busy, but not for sales or people selling their gold or even watch batteries. No, every person through the door wanted to bring one thing and one thing only to our attention. A crow had somehow become entangled in the netting and was very not happy about it. I bet so. The following conversation was pretty representative. Quote, hi, um, I just thought you ought to know that there's a bird. It's next door. It's sort of trapped. Yes, we know about the bird. It's just it's very distressed and making a lot of noise. Yes, we can hear it too. Well, are you going to do something about it? Well, it's not really our courtyard or our problem. Right. I'm worried it's going to die. Well, I just thought I ought to tell you about it. Thank you. We're trying to get something done about it. He goes, We absolutely weren't trying to get something done about it. But after hearing some version of this story for the twentieth time, we decided that maybe we should. Naturally, there are probably phone numbers we could have called, but why do that? When the youngest dog's body on the team, me. What? Dog's body. I'm assuming that's a British term. Dog's body? Yeah, that's what it's spelled. D-O-G-S-B-O-D-Y as one word. Okay, I won't look that up when they continue. Go ahead and I need an update on that. Okay. When the youngest dog's body on the team, and he said me, it's a derogatory but informal term for a person who does all the menial boring or unpleasant tasks that others, typically those in authority or higher stat status, I got you that do not want to do. So we need to basically are. I was gonna get there, but you just came out and said it. Okay. Right to it. Alright, so all right, naturally they're phone numbers we could have called, but why do that when you have a dog's body in the shop? That was him apparently. And then they could be talked into dangling out the window whilst being held by the ankles. Even at full stretch, hanging almost vertically, I was about four to five feet shy. Okay, I'm surprised he used feet there, shy of the crow. So we fashioned a device, a length of wood with half I I swear, I it's so fun reading British stuff. Okay. So we fashioned a device, a length of wood with half a pair of scissors, duct tape to the end, and I went Spider-Man down the wall again, now clutching the device while the workshop manager held me by my feet out the window. I carefully cut through the netting, one strand at a time, while the crow watched me with one beady eye. I am convinced it knew I was trying to help. It took over ten minutes, but finally the bird got free. I spent the rest of the day in a shredded t-shirt and with aches in places I never knew existed. The length of wood with the scissors duct taped to the end was still lead up in a corner of the workshop when I left that place six years later. Dang. Thanks again for the company and the laughs. It is a genuine public service you're providing, and we salute you. There are so many things I've wanted to chip in on and talk to you about, or things I think would make great topics for the podcast, but for now I'll just send you a pic of my bench and especially what I spend eight plus hours a day sat on. That's usually a pretty good conversation starter. Uh we need a whole episode on chairs. I'll buy you a coffee just as soon as I work out how he did message me and say he figured out how to buy us a coffee. If you ever fancy a guest with the international flavor, give me a shout. Warm regards with warmest regards, Rob. We do fancy We do fancy that. We fancy it. Um so I I think what but this is like it's funny that this story happens in England and it's just kind of so out there, but it's legit a similar story that we just go through in 2026 all over the world. Like the amount of things that one, like you mentioned, the the utter expendability of the lowest ranking member of the workshop team, that just made me laugh because we used to work at a place and thankfully we were never the low men on the totem pole. I mean, it's one point at one point I was, yeah, when I first started. Um and so that that just made me laugh because we all know it's true, especially if you've ever worked in a workshop with you know two or three jewelers or just um yeah, a place with you know a few staff members, there's always the low person on the totem pole. And um but yes, but the main thing is the total inability of a good workshop to ever throw anything away. Um, there is something about jewelers and and workshops that you never know when you'll need it. I know, and that's what is so annoying. And you just buy tools or you inherit things. Like I when I purchased this shop, it was a jeweler before me, and everything was so crappy. Alright. It was so junky, and there's just things I'm like, well, I could use that one day. And I know I know deep down inside I will not use it. But I'm like, but maybe. And truth be told, even if that moment came, I don't know where it would be. Right. But where would I even find it? But the truest part of the story is the apparently inexhaustible list of responsibilities which the general public perceive to fall on jewelers. Yep. Like we I mean, we've probably talked about it to um to some degree, but the things people come in and just assume jewelers can do. Last week I had a guy brought in, I think it was like the the motor for a toy train, um, and he had stripped the screw to replace the battery. Yeah. He was like, I just figured you guys could get this. I was like, well, I'll try. I could not. We've got our fair share of women that bring in purses that have screws. And the screws, in comparison to a watchmaker screw, are like 30 times too big. Yes. But they're like, I just thought you'd have small screws. And I'm like, well, we do. We do. This is not a small screw that you're missing. In the realm of what we do, this is a massive screw. Yeah, you might as well have just said, hey, do you have one of these roofing nails back there? We might. We might. We would before we have I mean the list goes on and on. It's it's you know, purses, trains. I mean, I get back in the day, maybe uh a common thing for a jeweler would maybe have a watchmaker and a clock repair person, but those days have been so long gone for at least 30, 40 years, I would imagine, that you could just walk in, like who well people do it, so I shouldn't say who, you know, takes their hundred-pound clock off the wall that hasn't worked in 30, 40, 50 years without calling and loads it up, wraps it up in a blanket all nice and pretty, pull drives to the jewelry store and unloads it and carries it in. I just want to see if you're able to get this clock. I used to hate that. Now I love it. Because we don't get it that often anymore. And and when people because you see them struggling to get it out of the car and like having to open the door, and I'm just sitting there chuggling the whole time. The question always really is do you let them tell the story first before you say, Oh, I'm sorry, we don't do clock repair, or do you try to like get it like as soon as they walk in, oh I'm so sorry, hey, hey, well, you know, we don't do clock repair. Because I've done both, and both can be pretty satisfying. Yep. Oh, yeah, because you're like, Oh, I'm so sorry we're gonna do clock repair. Oh, well, do you know anybody that does? Absolutely, I don't. This is just uh it means a lot to me. I got it. My dad got it in the war. Yeah, we're in Germany. He carried it throughout the war and then brought it home. It was a cuckoo clock, which is not a hundred pounds, but could be. You never know. Some of them got pretty big, I think. Should we have a clock maker come on the show, Brad? No. I'll answer my own question. But it's, you know, it's the people who cluelessly come in and are like, hey, you know, can I get a you you guys, you know, fix watches? Yeah, we do. Oh, I my Apple watch needs a new crystal. It's like, okay, Susan. Those aren't the same. That's the dumbest thing ever. Like, how did you make it this far to think that that was the equivalent of changing a watch crystal on a s on a Seiko? You thought the screen that you touch and play games on and treat like you're a Power Ranger or a spy kid. You think you could just walk into a jeweler and we're just gonna pop that off and put a new one on? We're not. I do know that some jewelers got into the cell phone repair game. I think they did in the early days, but I think those Yeah, it's now kind of separated again. Yeah, it's too it just doesn't make any it just doesn't make any sense to me anyway. But there's so many things that yeah, just random stuff people bring in, and I'm just like, that's no. Why would you think there was a time where it thankfully it has not happened in a while, but I wonder if other people get it. The the the um the boomers come in with their uh old razors, electric razors. Oh yes. It's been a while. Do you guys do electric razor repair? I'm like, literally no one does that, sir. And probably hasn't since I've been born. You know what I want is your your body hair uh in my shot. Where I where I repair Rolexes. We we don't we don't we don't we don't repair Rolexes. Somebody's gonna send us an email. I didn't I didn't know y'all did that. Can I send it in? Oh, they wouldn't even ask. It's on the way. They won't even know where to send it. I don't know. Do you think how how anonymous do you think we really are at this point, Dusty? I don't want to give people a reason to go looking, so okay. Still still pretty anonymous, I guess. I mean, I think you can find whatever you want to find in this world. We can just delete this part if you don't want to talk about it. Well, it is what it is, especially now that um you know people saw our faces for the first time. If you're following our, I posted a little clip that you will hear. And we're sending out merch. If if you get merch from us, it comes from our address. Yeah, we're gonna have to get a PO box or something. But even that, you're gonna know our general vicinity. And then yeah, and then it's just a few clicks away. We did not think this through. We did not. I joked with um I forgot who it was, um, but somebody alluded to something, what you're saying. And I was like, well, what if the ultimate prank was we close down our retail store, we go private jeweler or like wholesale trade work, and our shop is called Bench Jeweler Memes. That would be fantastic. And then we don't even make it a secret anymore. And then and then, like we discussed previously, we are the dick's last resort of jewelry stores. Yep, yep. It's gonna be great. But then we can when somebody sends us like, hey, here's 10 repairs, and we could just roast their well, I guess it would be their client's stuff, it wouldn't be their stuff. But we could roast them of how they took it in. Like oh, fix? Okay, cool. We'll fix it. Oh, five minus. You need it sized up to a five minus, that makes sense. Idiot. Uh okay. Well, I hate this. I hate this so much because it's been so long since we had to end a podcast so we could go open up. Ari's Ari's not here today, too. So she is not. It's gonna suck. It will. Yeah, we have so much work to do. We'll have to free any birds that get stuck in the netting. Well, I won't um if you're the dog's body. I wonder how they say it though. I doubt they say it dog's body, like you just said it. Oh, I'm just the dog's body. Dog's buddy? You think it's that? Dog's buddy. Get the old dog's body over here to pick up these diamonds I dropped. We lost all of our listeners in overseas. Tune in next week while we do Indian accents. All right, I'm just joking. Um, if you listen this far, stay tuned. At the end of this, um, we're gonna cut in and add uh the part that we added to YouTube. It's not gonna do it justice at all. Um so you should go to YouTube and subscribe. Um, that will be another way we can make some money is getting monetized on YouTube. Um, but we got to get them numbers up, people. Got to get them numbers up. So go subscribe. So go subscribe. That's where you eventually see our faces. Um, plot twist, not that special. Um, so stay tuned for the extra bonus footage slash audio at the end of this, and then at the very, very end, we're gonna play track 16 of the new album because it's a little thank you song from me and Brad to all of you guys for listening. Oh, yeah, it is. Yeah, so nice. Anyway, talk to you everyone later. Later, good boy. Boy.

unknown 37:38

Doors locked.

SPEAKER_03 37:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Grab a seat.

SPEAKER_03 37:47

Oh, I got something we can talk about as well, Last.

SPEAKER_02 37:50

Oh, you got something to talk about. Let's do mic, mic, mic, check. So the album will be. You're gonna have to put talking to the microphone. I'm ready. Oh, okay. We gotta get this thing going.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

Oh, we gotta get the Panter Time. Excellent.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

We just need to get the show on the road. I thought Road show. I thought we're just gonna do it here. Oh, we do have our booth at JCK. My wife um sent me a message after seeing that. She's like, Oh, y'all are going to JCK? First off, coffee time. You hear that? I hear it. Okay, everybody knows what's been a while. Nobody cares. I think people miss it. They miss it. I I think not. But she's like, You you guys are going? No. Yeah, yeah, we're leaving out tomorrow. You didn't know. Yeah. Seriously. I like the difference in how our wives re would react to your wife, is like, oh yeah, I didn't know you are going to JCK. My wife would be like, uh. Should have told me seven months ago so I could have planned prepared for it. Yep. Hope Brad has fun by himself. Because you ain't going. She's nice. She is nice, but the idea of leaving her with five kids while I go have fun in Vegas ain't happening. It turns her not nice. Real quick. Um, maybe rightfully so. Yeah. If she told me she was going to Vegas at the last minute, I would have the exact same reaction. Exactly. I know you're not. Nope. You're definitely not. You're not leaving me here with these people. And by people I mean my children, my offspring. What's how what's the longest you've been uh with just the children? The children. I don't know. She's went a couple two or three nights away. I don't remember. Man, that's right. Seems like she's got all kinds of stuff planned this summer, that's for sure. She does, man. She said, All right. I'm done with you just having fun. Coffee is brewed. Coffee. Jingle jingle it. I gotta get everything ready. We don't have a lot to talk about today. We do. It's gonna fill the time quick. Okay, let me see here. Before we get ready, let me get everything ready. Let me get everything ready, ready. We're ready. I gotta get everything ready so we can be ready. Ready. Okay, um, I think I got most things ready now. Let me take a sip before we get going. That's our new song, new single. It's called Reddit. What do you think about that? Ready. Um, all right. Are we ready? We are going. We gotta get going. We gotta get going. Yes, dude. Okay, let's see. Let's turn up our put on our speaking voices. Do you want me to clap? No clapping. Oh, okay. All right, three, two, one, let's go.

unknown 41:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

Um, let's see. Wonder if there's any fun text messages to read from clients. From clients. This one says, so sorry for the delay in response. All right, let's get it going. All right, clap. All right, I'm gonna go three, two, one. Good morning, Brad. Good morning, Dusty. Trying something new today. We are, and who knows if anyone will see this, but this will be a fun thing to test. Are you looking at the camera? I am. Which of the cameras do I look at? All of them. Wave. Are you waving? Yes. So do you not see me? I think this would be a good one to kind of explain what people are looking at. Obviously, they're looking at us, but the way we have it up, we're gonna hopefully maybe in time improve the setup. Most people listen anyway, don't watch, but if you are watching, now there's a visual. Just one camera angle, it is what it is. But what you're looking at is, I guess on one side of the screen. Describe what they're looking at for you, Brad. Um, you're looking at the laser. Yeah, the laser behind you. Yeah, the TV where we show people things. I don't, I guess you can see that. Your little tiny bench. My little bench. He hasn't he's not big enough to get a full grown bench. One day a little small one, yeah. One day. You're you're doing good. Keep up the good work. Thanks, man. And on your side. Yeah, this is this is kind of our this used to be an office when we took over this location. But um, we we converted it to kind of our polishing room over here. We got a TV up there with uh kind of the security cameras. Right. I'm sitting at our watchmaker's bench that used to belong to Mr. Sherman. Shermanu, my uh wife's grandfather, watchmaker of almost 60 years. Um, this is pretty much where we just do batteries now. Um, battery display, we've got all of our watch crap, we got a whole pile of invictas over here that we did worked on yesterday. I also have this watch that uh Brad scratched up yesterday. You want to tell him about that? I don't fall asleep about it. Did you really? Oh it was an Invicta. It is an Invicta. Sure, it's a stupid little rose gold plating that's like a thousandth of a millimeter thick, and so like there's no no fixing it. This one's pretty this one's pretty rough. Uh but behind me over here is our um polisher. I mean polisher, ultrasonic, steamer, stuff like that. And this is pretty much how we record almost every single time, right, Brad? Yep. So this is not a split screen, correct? It's not a split screen, there is just a wall right there separating us. And did we do this on purpose? Is it because the very first time we're like, I can't we can't look at each other, or was it just uh Yeah, yeah, I think there were a lot of things. I think mainly it was the chord difference, but um I think I'm trying to think. Didn't weren't our mics at that point set up a different way so You couldn't really just hold your mic without it just like making sounds. I don't know. I think we just thought let's do this that way we don't look at each other and start, you know, laughing and getting distracted. And um, this is not the ideal setup. I wanted to sit at my bench, but one, um, it's a hot mess. It's embarrassing bad. And we just can't figure out we're just so far apart that way that it just we can't we need more cameras and that requires more stuff. And if everybody's not donating enough, buy me a coffee. So it is this is what you get. It's your fault. Like we said it before, you get what you pay for, and this is what y'all paid for so far. But we're gonna try it, see how it goes, and we'll see. Yep. This is just a test run. We're gonna talk for what ten ten more minutes or so? I guess. Maybe like we'll talk for like seven more minutes. This way I can see if this is gonna be worth posting or not. I know. That was a little midweek teaser, maybe. We don't know. We can say that um uh we are uh an episode coming up whenever if this ever gets posted, is the next one that we do will be with BJ Mandrell. Will it be video? It will not be video because we have to do a completely different configuration when we have a third person in the in the house. And he wants to remain anonymous. Yeah, and that's a big part of it. That is his stage name, not his real name. So I think people, if they did see him, I think they'd be a little shocked to try to match what he looks like with the with the voices that he does. Why? Well, I mean, you know, some of the things I can't I can't tell you. Oh. Okay. Yeah, I think yeah, some of well, he has quite the range. Yeah, and maybe some of the range he can do, you'd be like, yeah, that makes sense. But then other songs are like, I did not did not see that coming. But why are we having BJ Mandrell on next? New album coming out. Man, it's got some bangers. Everybody's about to as we're recording this on the Friday that we're about to do like the our premiere of episode 37. And at the end of that is a is one is the new single. Is a taser. Yeah, we're gonna do it. I th I can't wait for everybody to hop on the on the live tonight. The live the tonight, the live chat, whatever it is. I don't know. Yeah, premiere, live chat. Should we just go ahead and say one beautiful week? Yeah, that's all we can say. That's the single that's the single from the new hot album. 17 tracks. That's crazy, bro. I wonder if any of our songs he he put in some work. Yeah. I wonder if any of our songs, um, you know how on Spotify they show how many downloads have been. Like and and forever it's been less than a thousand because they don't keep track unless it's over a thousand. Let me check. Yeah, check and see. Let me pull up Spotify. You can talk a lot later. And if there if if what song do you think has the most downloads? I don't even bro, I I honestly don't. No, they all just say less than a thousand. Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

What are you people doing?

SPEAKER_02 47:06

We can't even get a thousand streams. Come on, guys. BJ Mandrell, Finch Jeweler Melodies Volume 1. World renowned. Soon to be volume two is dropping at the end of May. Maybe. I don't even know if I want to at this point. Um, in case anyone knows if they are watching this, so now we can say more if there's a camera because I have the store phone, the store cell phone and I'm just checking messages from customers. Uh let's see here. Oh boy. This dude, um, one of the customers we're doing uh already been working with with the custom. He came in like this is what I want, and then we did it and he changed it. Yeah. So I forgot yesterday that um our buddy Jake Fox uh updated uh CAD for me, but now yesterday, because I didn't send it, he has sent another thing.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

No.

SPEAKER_02 47:56

But I think it's I don't think it's gonna I think it's gonna be pretty close. I honestly the thing that that Jake did is way better than what he just sent me. So we'll text him later. Um let's see here. Oh, this is Lily uh texting. I hope people find health coverage that costs less than ACA or employer plans. You want info? Reply three to stop. Or I could just report spam. There we go. There we go. Oh, here's a good one. Uh 9 34 a.m. We open at 10. Uh hey, I own a timex watch and I would like to remove a few links to adjust it accordingly for my wrist. May I may I know if you can help with this thing? What? How why do people type like this? I'm gonna read it again. Exactly word for word what it says. Hey, I own a Timex watch and I would like to remove a few links to adjust it accordingly for my wrist. May I know if you can help with this thing? Who talks like that? I need to turn my headphones down, I think. You should just hit him back with You may know. We do help you with this thing. I'm gonna hit him back with we can help with that, because I'm a professional. We can help with that. Anything else I should say? Uh check back in a couple weeks. We're both done. Oh, you can hear that? Hello, blue. And then here's the cads that I did not save and send yesterday that I texted myself. Oh, what is this guy? What does this lady want here? Oh, you told me to text. Okay, yeah, somebody just checking to see if you got my render done. I'm just gonna send it. I'm gonna send it right here live. You won't. Right here in the live live live. Oh, wait a minute, where's it that? Oh you wouldn't do it. Oh boy. Okay, never mind. I'll do this later. Anyway. We did get the tens out yesterday. Got the tens out. Um, shout out for uh a Stellar sponsoring the packaging. Mm-hmm. Yep, they came in clutch. They don't know that they sponsored the packaging, but they did. So props to them. And they wrote on there from Daddy Stellar. I know that was very sweet of them. They didn't have to do that. They didn't have to do that. You know what they cannot do? Uh or what they can not do. What? Stop sending us freaking mystery pops. We're gonna we're we're about to start turning this into a thing. And it seems like we've got it seems like we've got support. I think people are tired of it. They stellar I hate that they can't see that we get hundreds of messages about all day. Well, it's kind of like the the BJ Mandrill thing, it's like less than a thousand, so you know we're getting close though. Yep we don't know the exact number. But it it's high. It's up there. Well, it's a Friday, Brad. We do have to open our shop. We'll see if we'll see if only we see this or if somebody else sees it. Either way. Also, we will fix the lighting. This is a trial run before we open. We will be doing these on Monday. I like the lighting. We're gonna get some some lighting to shine on us. Um we didn't get have a chance this morning to do our makeup and stuff, so we didn't want to put all the all turn all the lights on. So put my face on. Yeah. But next time we will. Yep. We have hired a um airbrush artist so that no one can without your money that you've graciously given us everyone. We could have airbrushed faces, but y'all being stingy. Yep. Alright, well, time to sign off. We're gonna edit this and see if it's a complete waste of time or not. See y'all later.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

Crack prongs and a customer who won't leave me alone. She swears a diamond shifted since she brought it home. I've got rouge on my fingers, flux fumes in my hair, a stack of ring shanks and a thousand yard stare. My loops fogged up from breathing too hard again. Brads re tippin' the same tennis bracelet for the tent. We hit record just to hear ourselves say someone out there had a worse day. So pour me another cup. I'm running on Got a sizing job, put no air in this room. The client's one miracle, the milgrain's one. But if you're listening, baby, just throw something in. We don't need but just enough for the rent. Baby song beans that aren't already spinning, keep us going. You know what we mean. Jars open in the coffee machine. Dusty's gotta repair the king with no photo. It looked just like this. She's a draw in a circle. I smile through my mask like a man who is fine. Went home and cried to a podcast by nine. We talk about bezels, we talk about grief, we talk about customers looking for relief. We hit record just to hear ourselves say, Someone out there understands anyway. So pour me another cup. I'm running on a size and job doing no error in this room. The client is one miracles, the milk ring's one. But if you listen in, baby, just throw something in. We don't need much dust enough for the rent. Baby zombies that aren't already spending. But I know what you mean. Please buy me a coffee. Please buy me a coffee. We learn to set stones before we learn to sleep. We learn to smile back when the markup runs deep. The flex shaft's a lullaby, the ultrasonic comes, and somewhere a listener is sending us funds. Please, we're begging with love. Just a couple of jewelers with burned up hands and a microphone. We built something tiny and called it a home. So if this show ever meant anything to you, buy me a coffee, or I swear I'll re-tip that bracelet again.