Atkins Labcast

Atkins Labcast Episode 38 - Paul and Kate chat

• Paul Atkins • Episode 38

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We’re back at it again, totally not recorded at the same time as the episode 36!
Frank is again showing us the way. Meanwhile we discuss product cycles, new design templates, some staff updates, some frustrations.
Enjoy!

Refocus Retreat
https://refocusretreat.com.au

SPEAKER_02:

This 100% is not recorded on the exact same day. Daytime, evening. No,

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no, we worked about 30 paces before. 30

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paces? Yes, this is 30 paces later than the previous recording.

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But you know what? It's good because we're actually still quite a long way from home. We are

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so far away. This is every fucking walk I have ever been on with you. Listener, I used to go, when I was wooing Paul and attempting to convince him to marry me, I went on so many fucking bushwalks because he is a bushwalk lunatic and goes on these very complicated bushwalks.

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I've got one tomorrow morning I'm going with a friend. I'm

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thrilled that I'm going to be in bed ignoring the whole bloody thing. 6.30 in the morning. Yeah, gross. Just those words makes me want to puke. Anyway, so he would do this thing where he'd be like, we'd be walking and I'd be, I don't know, two hours in, wanting to fucking slit my throat. And I'd go, how much longer? And he'd go, it's almost done, just around the corner, we're almost. And then it would be another four hours. before we actually got home. Yeah,

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because when you go out two hours, you've got to go back two

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hours. That's why two plus two equals...

SPEAKER_00:

Two plus two equals...

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Two plus two equals I'm not getting out of bed. That's what it fucking equals, okay? Not getting out of bed, it's a hellscape. There's a dog. Dog's going to go completely shit-faced when he sees... Should we go back on the other part? No, it'll be fine. Oh, maybe we could.

SPEAKER_00:

The centre path? Yeah, let's just cut across that. We don't

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want the listeners to have to listen to dog

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hysteria. Because Frank can be really embarrassing.

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It's only because he's exactly like you and desperately, desperately wants to be around all the dogs and all the people and lick them all. I

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don't want to lick people. Well.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Settle down. Settle the fuck down, mate. Keep it PG, except for the swearing.

UNKNOWN:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

What were

SPEAKER_00:

you saying? So, hang on. I'd love to know whether people like this new format, whether they can...

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Can stand the background noise of

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being... Can't stand, yeah.

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We're walking through a field and...

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We're literally walking through a field. Through a

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literal field and... It is a full goddamn moon, which I am a fan of. Just

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quietly. It's still a full... Oh, we can't say that. That means... Oh, everyone knows we're recording the same

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way. Yeah, fucking what?

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But there is no werewolves. We've kept our eyes

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open. It's so beautiful.

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Yeah, it's incredible. Hey, have you got your phone with you? You should take a photo of the...

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Take a photo of the moon?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

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Yeah. Have you ever taken a photo of the moon? Dude, it's going to be so shit. You should fucking know that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but just think... It's your

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job. Oh, it's not bad. Apple's making it look better than it is.

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this could be like we could put this in the show notes

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we put in the show notes yeah all right behind a cloud okay come

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on

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so yes right so this week i am what you call overwhelmed

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oh are you

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yeah i just i've been working on all these bloody engraving files like

SPEAKER_00:

What are engraving files, Kate? Oh,

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fuck you, Paul. The files that people can choose, designs that they can choose to engrave on their shit, right?

SPEAKER_00:

On what shit?

SPEAKER_02:

On the fucking boxes and crap we make, right? And... Are you saying what we make is crap? Oh, shut up. And we've had the most chaotic fucking collection of designs that were done by me and they weren't... Like, the designs are fine. There's nothing wrong with the actual designs, but there's issues with the naming of them because I tried to do it so that there were some designs that could only go on... say this shape box or whatever and what ended up happening was that then People would go. Oh, I know that's only supposed to go on that shape box But I want it on an album and we'd get confused. It was a whole fucking horror show. So I'm fixing all of this up, right? It has taken a year and a half To do this

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but

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so many new designs

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like you've got a new staff member helping you.

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Oh, yeah, my babe.

UNKNOWN:

Oh

SPEAKER_02:

So who is helping me at the moment? Because we've had some doing it, but we're doing them more.

SPEAKER_00:

Is she your favourite? Is she more favourite than I am?

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Than you are?

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Is she more of a favourite of yours than I am?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, it depends on the context. I mean, you know, like if somebody walks in the room and goes, I'm going to kill Paul or Josephine, which is it? I'm going you. Hey! Obviously. She's my child. She's my flesh, okay? She's annoying though. And she's young, so she deserves to live. You will go. I haven't finished. my boat yet i need to go sailing it won't matter you'll be dead you won't even know there's a whole point of being dead you don't have to worry about any of that anymore

SPEAKER_01:

you're horrible

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so anyway jojo my beautiful second born screaming lunatic child who i love with a fiery passion of a thousand suns she is helping me

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more than the other daughter the other daughter

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don't Bloody compare them like that. They're two completely different creatures. So she's helping me. Listen, she's helping me, which is good, but I'm still completely overwhelmed because I have that. I have the boxes. I have all the new different album cover things. I have all the foiling things. I have the other packaging things people don't even fricking know about. I have all the video, all this stuff. That was supposed to be launching. I can't launch any of it because none of it is like fully ready and perfect. And I'm so anxious about launching it. I'm so anxious about launching any of it because I'm just, I don't know. It's been so long since we've launched a new product. I feel like I'm going to launch it and everyone's going to go, well, this is shit.

SPEAKER_00:

You just may have dropped a little bit of mojo, Ho Ho.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I don't know. It's

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been a pretty full on couple of years. We dealt with it last episode. If you didn't hear, listen to the intro and the full episode last time. You'll hear a little bit of the horror.

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But I'm meeting with Henri, who is, if you're on TikTok, if you're on Instagram, and you're interacting with somebody, it will be Henri.

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You mean Atkins Lab? Yeah. Interacting with a business. It'll be somebody.

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Fuck me, shut up.

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He's not omnipotent.

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That's

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right. He might be.

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He might be. He can do a lot of amazing stuff. It wouldn't shock me. But anyway, Henri is doing that and Henri's also helping us with video and he's helping me with creative stuff. And

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he runs C41 and black and white film processing. And he does the most

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brilliant job of really tricky emails kind of stuff. Anyway, I'm obsessed with him and he's becoming my right hand. Anyway, so I'm having a meeting with him and Mandy, the manager. Isn't

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she your other right

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hand? Yes, I have two right... Listen, I have three kidneys and three right hands.

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Hang on, who's your other right

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hand? My own right hand. I'm not giving up a hand.

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Anyway, whatever. What am I?

SPEAKER_02:

Whatever. I'm meeting with them. They're going to give me a quick slap across the face. and tell me what order to release and get the marketing plan. Because what people need to understand is that the marketing plan is Kate sitting in her bedroom going, hmm, what should we do for this?

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Hang on. There's ideas bouncing around with different stuff. TJ's loaded with great ideas.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, but we don't have a marketing department, right?

SPEAKER_00:

No, that's you.

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We're not like these overseas labs that have the team. that does marketing and there's 25 of them in four cities. Our marketing team is Kate, sitting in her bedroom, looking at her aquarium, current obsession.

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Insert current obsession here. Hang on, are the fish part of your right handedness?

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The fish are my escape.

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your moist pals.

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Hey! Don't use that word. Just flying out that fucking

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word. Which way do we go? Which way do we go? I

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don't fucking know. I don't even know where we are.

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I'm so disorientated. We are now in pit lane for the Australian Tourmaline Grumpy when it was in Adelaide. Oh, I don't give

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two kinds of a fuck about...

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And it's now like... It's still pit straight. It's

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an armpit that sounds like an armpit. I don't care. I don't like armpits. I don't like this either.

SPEAKER_00:

How do we get back to the house? We're pointing at the house now. Don't

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give me your fucking which way is north bullshit. I don't want to hear it. So my point is, what is my point? What are we talking about?

SPEAKER_00:

We're talking about the interview. Marketing.

SPEAKER_02:

So I don't know. because I'm not fully like, I'm just, I don't know. I feel a little bit broken at the moment. I just feel like I've been staring at these ingraving designs for like two years and I want to rip my face off if I have to look at them anymore. And we're building a new website, which is a complete joke. Why would anybody do that? What a stupid idea. Let's take the website, two websites that we own, smash them together in a completely different format. and start from bloody scratch. Who thought that was a good idea?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I know. And that's actually probably more of what's been taking a couple of years than anything. Because you've been working on that for a long time.

SPEAKER_02:

I know.

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And of course that stalls everything because you kind of want to get the website.

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Well, the problem is it keeps growing, right? So then now we've got all this amazing video footage and we want to put that in there. But it's like now we have to get all that ready. So that's putting it all on hold again. So it's just like, oh, I shouldn't have eaten two pieces of sourdough bread before I came out. Did I mention I'm now making sourdough bread again?

UNKNOWN:

What did you say, like two years behind everyone else?

SPEAKER_02:

You

SPEAKER_00:

actually made it two years ago. No,

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I made it seven years ago. No, ten years ago I started making sourdough. And then I got bored of it, so I stopped. Time is an onion. And now, because I never leave the house, and you can't get anyone to deliver any fucking bread, Woolworths

SPEAKER_00:

and Foodland. We have a word now why she doesn't leave the house. I'm useless. She's currently leaving the house. Yep. But there's

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no sweaty, nasty people coughing their filthy COVID on me out here. There's

SPEAKER_00:

no one here. This is perfect. Can the listeners hear the cockies?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, the fucking cockies are going to be right up their asses in a minute

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if we keep walking. Cheeky cockies.

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They're the loudest cockies in the southern hemisphere, I swear.

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The Corellas, actually. Are

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they?

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We just say cheeky cockies. And there's some sulphur crescents as well. Families of sulphur crescents.

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Oh, the real drunky stone looking ones are the other.

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And they've got bat colonies everywhere too. Oh, don't

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talk about the fucking bats.

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And we hear this like, and then we become vampires because there's a full moon and there's bats everywhere. Shut up.

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No, we'll just get COVID from the bats, won't we? Oh,

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come on. Oh, yeah. Or

SPEAKER_02:

you think it's a lab leak? Shut up. The lab is leaking. I fixed the roof. That's right. He did fix the roof. The lab is not leaking

SPEAKER_00:

anymore. Let's get on the track because... Oh, what track? The point

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is to not be on track.

SPEAKER_00:

No, we've got to... We can't let listeners go on forever with this stuff. We'll have episodes a week. This isn't one of them. Because we've got an interview after this. Another interview that you told me I'm not allowed to

SPEAKER_02:

have. The whole point was to not be doing interviews every single time. And now you've somehow wrangled your fucking needs to be met with your fucking extroversion requirements.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. So, Kim from Refocus Refocus

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retreat. Refocus

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your fucking retreat. Refocus retreat. I know the last episode, that entertainment tip I gave you.

UNKNOWN:

You dickhead with your refocus.

SPEAKER_00:

I

SPEAKER_02:

can't

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even deal with it. What do you want me to say? Tell me. It's

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refocus. It's not

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refocus. Like when you talk to a photographer. Do you say defense? Hang on. Do you say defense or defense? Listen, when

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you talk to a photographer and you go, oh, I think the focus is off. Do you say, you should just refocus? Is that what you say? I don't know. Hey, why don't you just refocus on that thing a bit more? clearly no you do not say why don't you refocus

SPEAKER_00:

okay we'll call it refocus yeah and we'll say defense and not defense

SPEAKER_02:

no no we're not american we're just normal

SPEAKER_00:

Hang on now, are we going to go over to this park to finish up?

SPEAKER_02:

I thought you were like, it's not a show, it's just an intro, we have to be finished.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so this interview is with Kim and it's not just about the refocus retreat that we're going to later this year in September-y type of thing. I still can't remember exactly the date. It'll be in the show notes, so just ignore what I'm saying. But we talk about her personal work, which is very, very, very, very interesting. And she has got a book that's coming out

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called Peep Show.

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She's got a book coming out, Peep Show, where she photographed people with their consent through the windows of their homes.

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Doing horny things.

SPEAKER_00:

Doing horny things, that's right. And she works with the alt... community, the sex positive community, and she's got some killer work.

SPEAKER_02:

How did you manage to get through that interview without giggling like a four-year-old boy? That is what

SPEAKER_00:

I want to know. Oh, you haven't heard the interview? Oh,

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so you have. You just giggled all the way through like a fucking stupid little teenager.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, close.

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Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00:

But it was an excellent, I really had a great time. The best part about it was, it was the first interview that I've recorded in over a year. And I had a really lovely time. She's a great interview.

SPEAKER_02:

Did you stay on track, Paul? Did you keep to the time limit?

SPEAKER_00:

No, I didn't keep to it. Well, yeah. Of course you did. It's an hour long interview. All our interviews have been an hour long.

UNKNOWN:

Come.

SPEAKER_02:

Don't tell him now. Now he's sprinting across the fucking road.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a big road. It's a big road.

SPEAKER_02:

All right.

SPEAKER_00:

So, anyhow. Anyhow. So what I'd like you to do is to listen. Who?

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Me?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, no, you should listen to it anyway. What should I listen to

SPEAKER_02:

what? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. We're not going to record the intro again.

SPEAKER_00:

No, we want the listeners to enjoy and listen to this and what we'd really like them to do is to register to come along. I thought you were going to

SPEAKER_02:

do like rate and review.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no. We want them to book and come along. Kim has got a special discount code for Atkins listeners that will... Yes, she has. That'll get them a chunk of change off the booking for a week. But that means once this podcast comes out, we'll make that live. But it's

SPEAKER_02:

all women, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

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Or female presenting.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. But she said she hasn't had a male presenting person book and she probably wouldn't say no, but she'd think they probably would know that it's female focused. But Regardless, I'm going to be there. So obviously the mould is broken.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

The last year when I went there was, I think, six or seven blokes. But they were all part of,

SPEAKER_02:

like...

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, sponsors and we were... And everyone who was there was very...

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, KL is Dude City.

SPEAKER_00:

Michael Marlborough from KL has been here

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since

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day one. Are we such a sniffy dog?

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Let's do it. You've had plenty of walkies.

SPEAKER_00:

At any rate... What we'd like you to do is to put in your diaries to come along to the retreat.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, they can't just put in their diary. They've got to book it in.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, correct.

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Buy the tickets. Be a grown-up.

SPEAKER_00:

Buy the tickets and be a grown-up. Anyhow, and we'll see you on the next episode. I

SPEAKER_02:

don't know how that goes.