Designing and piloting a drone show is no easy task. It takes hundreds of hours of preparation to control thousands of drones that all need to move in pattern so precise, it comes down to the centimeter.
Drone Show Designer Grant Reichardt has worked on some of the world’s biggest drone shows. We talk how drone shows are designed, spending million of dollars on drones and what it takes to create a hologram in the sky.
Then, in the Pointless part of the show, it’s Sparklers and Black Cats vs. Bottle Rockets and Roman Candles as we countdown the Top 5 Types of Fireworks.
00:00 Introducing Drone Show Designer Grant Reichardt
01:04 Designing a Drone Show
02:56 A Very Special Type of Drone
06:56 When Something Goes Wrong
10:49 The Future of Drone Shows
15:15 Pointless
39:12 The Top 5 Types of Fireworks
Interview with Drone Designer Grant Reichardt
Nick VinZant 0:12
Welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode, drones and fireworks.
Grant Reichardt 0:20
You know, honestly, with when we started, that was something that we really had to figure out from the ground up. There's no, like, way to do with, we're talking beautiful animations and RGB colors, so they're they're tweaking colors to where even they can match skin tones. I can't say the, the specific number, you kind of keep the under wraps, but you're looking at the range in the multiple 1000s.
Nick VinZant 0:45
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, we really appreciate it, really helps out the show. So I want to get right to our first guest. This is Drone Show designer Grant Reichard, how do you design a drone show? Like, what goes into putting all of this together?
Grant Reichardt 1:07
Yeah, so honestly, it takes a lot of time to design a drone show. We're looking at about 80 to 100 hours. First off, as a site survey, we go off of a grid launch, and for grid launch, it's very specific dimensions. Let's say you're doing 150 drones, usually that would be about 10 by 15 meters. Each drone would have one square meter of space. So we need to go to a site, make sure that we can actually launch, and then we go through multiple storyboarding processes, where we're just kind of brainstorming, figuring out what they want to see. And once that's finished, we go ahead and submit those storyboards to our designers, who on Blender will go and spend, you know, some like 80 hours on there, and just building a complete show from scratch. We're talking beautiful animations and RGB colors, so they're they're tweaking colors to where it's even they can match skin tones.
Nick VinZant 1:57
So, when, like, when you design it from that standpoint, is a computer plotting the path of all of these drones, or does somebody have to go in there and, like, this drone is going to go here, it's going to go here, it's going to go here, it's going to go here.
Grant Reichardt 2:12
It's a completely hands-on process. It really is a person going and designing kind of maybe 3D models and placing drones at each spot, and it's a very substantial process, because they have to also think about how fast the drones are moving, how far they are apart, making sure that's a safe, safe distance. So these guys are spending, you know, incredible amounts of hours, very artistic, but also very technical job.
Nick VinZant 2:38
It sounds like a logistical nightmare.
Grant Reichardt 2:42
Yes, sir. Yeah, it definitely.. if I was doing it, it definitely would be with these guys. They're the best in the world at it, and they make magic happen. I mean, that's really the entire drone show processes. It just feels like magic. The
Nick VinZant 2:56
drones themselves.. like, is this the kind of thing that I can get at Best Buy, or are these very specialized?
Grant Reichardt 3:03
So, these are specialized drones. They're from our manufacturer, they're called in. They manufacture in South Korea, they're called Unified. They're an American company, and they're a specialty drone. You got to go talk to Robert, he's our contact over there, and he'll get you the drones if you need them.
Nick VinZant 3:19
So, how much is each one of these going to cost?
Grant Reichardt 3:22
Looking at around, I'd say around 3k So, yeah, so if you're doing these big, big shows, you're, you're, you're, you're racking up with a significant cost, right around that point. I'm not sure exactly, but it's right around that point.
Nick VinZant 3:39
So, then, like, I would imagine that is one heck of a capital investment when you're talking about drone shows. I think your guys' record is 10,000 drones.
Speaker 1 3:48
Yeah, it's pretty significant. It is significant.
Nick VinZant 3:53
I'm fascinated by the logistics of it, because it's not just programming where all the drones are going to go, but like, how big are these? How do you get them all to the show? Like, the logistics of it is what
Grant Reichardt 4:05
you know, honestly. With when we started, that was something that we really had to figure out from the ground up. There's no like way to do it, like, per se, where there's like, hey, you know, it's a burgeoning industry, so we really had to figure out the logistical end, and you know, we can't fly because we're transporting these drones with, you know, hundreds, sometimes 1000s of batteries, and the crew flies oftentimes. So, we'll have, you know, for a day of show, we'll have two pilots and a crew of maybe around, you know, for the average show, maybe around four people, and we're transporting sometimes during, like, let's say, for the week of Fourth of July, we're doing 20 shows.
Nick VinZant 4:44
Is are there, are there, there is there limits to the drones, like, for the most part, what can they do?
Grant Reichardt 4:50
Yes, so for sure, yeah, for the most part, they can fly up to about 400 feet by the FAA. What's great about that, if you got a relationship with. The FAA, we can fly higher than that, so the drones themselves, the limitations are mostly in flight time. You can keep adding drones as long as you have large enough space to launch from, so you're looking at our flight times around 12 to 14 minutes. I know we are looking to know the industry is looking to up that number. Our drones, we do anticipate in the near future to someday fly up to maybe around 20 minutes or so. Other than that, it really is wind speed weather. If it's raining, it's thundering, that can be an inclement to the drones themselves into the drone shows. So, we usually don't fly in crazy bad weather.
Nick VinZant 5:39
Do they have.. I mean, are they okay? This one can flash blue, this one can flash red. Like, what are there in terms of like projecting? What can they do?
Grant Reichardt 5:47
Yeah, so they are full RGB color. So one of my favorite designs we've ever done was, you know, I'm in Minnesota, and we love prints here. So for a drone show last year for Burnsville, we did 1000 drones, and we did a portrait of prints in the sky, and it's incredible, because it can, the RGB colors on our drones, I think this is what makes them really special, is that they can do skin color accuracy, like that's how close those colors can get, so you can put faces in the sky, and we did 10,000 drones once, too, so we did a bunch of different faces, images, and you can get skin tone, color, accuracy on those most drones. There's not really anything that we can't do. It's really, what can you imagine? And we'll put it in the sky. And I know there's new technology that are coming to drones. There's, we can launch fireworks off of drones, although our company has not done that personally yet. There's also lasers that are being attached to drones, and it, the industry really feels like it's so new that people are catching up to it, where almost the ideas are just like people are like so new to it, where they're like, well, we can do anything with this, it's pretty much a hologram in the sky. How
Nick VinZant 6:56
often will one of the drones just not work in a show? I mean, is the whole, if you've got 1000 drones up there in this intricate design, is the show ruined if one or two of them don't work?
Grant Reichardt 7:07
Yeah, honestly, if you're looking at 1000 drones, like one or two not working will not really ruin the design, you will really still be able to see the outline of one or two like move away. It really is kind of a percentage game where you know if you have, you have 150 drones and 10 fallout, and then you're kind of looking at, you won't be able to see as great of an image, of course. If you're flying 1010 go down 1520 you still will get a great image. Now, of course, our, our, our failure rate is very low. Those, these drones are bulletproof, they do a great job. They're kind of like the Toyota of drones. They'll keep on chugging along. Our failure rate is about 0.04% So we, for most shows, we're not even expecting a single fallout.
Nick VinZant 7:52
Your average drone show is going to have how many drones in
Grant Reichardt 7:57
it? I'd say the average drone show has around, I'd say 200 to 250
Nick VinZant 8:01
When you get more of them, are you just making the picture, so to speak, bigger, or can you make it more intricate?
Grant Reichardt 8:09
So, really, it's both. We can, depending on the site, that's kind of our constraint for how large we can go, but the adding more drones just means, like you said, it's more intricate. You get designs, you can move drones to really build out a hologram in the sky. So, once you get to that 1000 point, you're really doing full images, you're doing globes, you're doing people's faces. So, it gets to the point where you're looking up and you're like, man, I could not differentiate that from a image or hologram
Nick VinZant 8:41
when you're there, right, like when you're kind of on the ground, right next to it, does it look the same as what people see from the audience, so to speak? Yeah,
Grant Reichardt 8:51
it's definitely distorted, because the what's incredible about the design, as well, is that it's oriented to the audience itself, so a lot of people think that, you know, when they're seeing it, looks like a screen looks straight on, but what they're actually, what the drones are actually doing is they're tipping like this, and then orienting for the perfect viewpoint of a specific audience area. So, when we're seeing it straight on top of us, we're, we can kind of make out what it looks like, but we're more monitoring the stability of the drones themselves. So, like, the image kind of looks funky to me. If let's say I'm a co-pilot, I'm looking up and I'm monitoring the stability for the pilot, it just looks like sometimes dots in the sky that are sort of resembling images, but it's definitely not as great of a view from the as it is from the audience area.
Nick VinZant 9:36
Are you ready for some harder slash list or submitting questions?
Grant Reichardt 9:40
Let's do it, all right. Let's make it happen.
Nick VinZant 9:42
Best place for an audience member to sit,
Grant Reichardt 9:45
I'd say a rule of thumb is you want to be around 200 to 400 feet away from the show, that way you can get a great view, and then you want to be, of course, parallel with where the show is flying.
Nick VinZant 9:56
How fast can the drones get from one place to essentially to another? Like, if you're trying to do an image here and do an image there, like, how quickly can they kind of move around?
Grant Reichardt 10:06
Our speeds are capped off at about six meters per second.
Nick VinZant 10:10
Like, what would it look like if you were doing this in the day without the lights, just watching the drones kind of move around in these patterns?
Grant Reichardt 10:18
You kind of just see a black.it looks like a mosquito out in the distance, kind of moving around.
Nick VinZant 10:22
Are they kind of zipping all over the place, or they just okay, goes up to this level, hovers over to the right, hovers over to the left, or are they more like zipping all over the place?
Grant Reichardt 10:32
I'd say they're they're moving very smoothly. It's maybe the best way I can, I can explain it. Where it looks like very natural motion, it's not like some lose drones, where you're seeing it like move just in space, like it's.. it's nothing, but it's a very smooth flight, and it feels like an animation.
Nick VinZant 10:49
Where is the industry kind of headed, in the sense that, like, are companies just popping up all over the place, or they're just a few big players? Like, what's kind of the status of the industry?
Grant Reichardt 11:00
Yeah, as far as the industry, there are a couple good big players in the US. I think it's something that a lot of people want to get into. So, we're seeing new drone companies pop up all the time, but maybe a, as far as big players, you're looking at maybe two or three.
Nick VinZant 11:17
How many drones do you guys own overall?
Grant Reichardt 11:20
Overall, that's a.. I can't say the, the specific number, we kind of keep the under wraps, but you're looking at the, the range and the multiple 1000s. So,
Nick VinZant 11:30
this is.. this is 10,000 drones in the air.
Grant Reichardt 11:34
This was an endeavor, for sure. This was.. this, but beautiful to see.
Nick VinZant 11:40
Oh, wow,
Grant Reichardt 11:41
yep. So this is the record for the largest LED screen in the sky, and it shows multiple images of different, you know, incredible masterpieces throughout history.
Nick VinZant 11:51
Wait, so how are you doing that? The drones are you're projecting onto something like, I don't even comprehend how that is happening.
Grant Reichardt 11:59
So each of these drones is a pixel in the sky, and they're, they're all kind of lined up in a line, and each of them is a specific color, kind of, and it to our eye, it's just like they all meld together as a pixel on a screen, and they're building these, these images
Nick VinZant 12:17
to me, it's baffling, in terms of like, but all of that comes together like somebody programmed all 10,000 of these things.
Grant Reichardt 12:25
Yes, sir, it was an endeavor. It was, it was quite the crunch to do it. We did it about three months to this entire show came together, and I think you just saw a QR code pop up. We had the large QR code in the sky too, and completely scannable too.
Nick VinZant 12:40
You can scan it from there.
Grant Reichardt 12:42
You can scan it. Yeah, people on the ground can scan it. It's insane. If you see the entire portion, you can look down below the show, and there's this field with, like, that's lit up. That entire field was covered with drones, and we released it up an entire city to kind of run batteries were charging 24/7 and it was, it was, it was crazy.
Nick VinZant 13:07
What really impresses me about this is the waving is how the flag is waving like it's in the air.
Grant Reichardt 13:12
Yeah, yes, sir.
Nick VinZant 13:14
So the drones are just moving in that pattern.
Grant Reichardt 13:18
Yup, they're just moving in that pattern. Each of them knows exactly where it needs to be to a centimeter level accuracy, where it's like, hey, you're going to be right here at this GPS location, and drone, you work as hard as possible to stay right here.
Nick VinZant 13:30
Is there a rivalry between fireworks show designers and drone show designers?
Grant Reichardt 13:36
Honestly, I know this question comes up a lot, and I think the industries are, you know, people are trying to put us at a crossroads, but I kind of think of it as, you know, you know, fireworks, they're this ancient technology, and they're incredible, people enjoy them, and then the Germans are kind of this new thing, and I kind of think of it as, like, no music, and like television, as soon as we started having television, we still listen to music, even though that's probably the older thing to do, and it's not, as you know, maybe you can't do as many things, you know, it's just an audio experience versus an audio visual experience, but I think that's kind of how drones and fireworks shows are, where I think there's people still want the boom, they want that feeling in their like chest of, you know that loud track in the sky and drones are kind of the the advent of this new technology that allows us to tell stories and visuals and bring people's imaginations to the skyward that's kind of a limitless you know open area so I think what we're looking for in the future is really the the blending of the two together,
Nick VinZant 14:42
so people want to find out more about your company. Where can they find you, all that stuff?
Grant Reichardt 14:46
Awesome, you can find us at Light Up the sky.com and same, you know, ads for Instagram. We're also on YouTube. You can also look up Aerial Illuminations and get access to all our shows online as well.
Nick VinZant 14:59
I want to thank. Grant, so much for joining us. If you want to connect with him, we have a link to him on our social media sites. We're Profoundly Pointless on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and we've also included his information in the episode description. Okay, now let's bring in John Scholl and get to the pointless part of the show, do you count down or do you count up? Like, are you a 123, go, or are you a 321, go guy?
John Shull 15:30
I mean, I'm usually a countdown, you know, 321, but I'm also notorious for not actually getting to one, you know, three, two, yank the tooth out or pull the band aid off, something like that.
Nick VinZant 15:44
I feel like I'm more of a count up person, like I'm going to go 123, and then go, unless I'm really tired, then I'm going to give myself a countdown.
John Shull 15:57
I guess it really doesn't make sense to count up, because if you're counting up, you're supposed to be counting down to something, right? Counting up would be going away from it. I feel
Nick VinZant 16:07
your argument makes perfect sense, but I also don't agree with it. I feel like, no, you on three, so you go 123, you wouldn't say on three and then go three. I think thought about this because I was at the gym, and for some reason, if I'm doing like a lot of reps, I'm always doing a lot of weight, so like, look, we know that, granted, I'm pushing heavy weight, but if I'm doing a lot of reps, I find it easier to count up, but if I'm doing a low number of reps with even heavier weight, then I'm going to count down, and somehow that changes my mindset about how I'm approaching something that's
John Shull 16:46
interesting, that's that's a good way to put it, that's I never thought about it that way,
Nick VinZant 16:50
I don't like talking about working out, working out is getting on the list of things that I don't like talking about anymore, mainly because I don't think that I have the right to talk about working out, because I don't look like a kind of guy who should be talking about working out.
John Shull 17:07
I agree with that, but I also think some people need that sense of camaraderie, that community, they need to talk, tell somebody that they ran a mile and get that, you know, even if it's a second of positivity or something, reaffirmation from another person. I think you know that's how, like, I'm that way when I, when I run, I'm part of a little group, I guess, and every time you run, you know, it's like, hey, we did this today, and they're like, hey, great job, and I'm, you know, not running at a marathon pace, you know what I mean, I'm running a fat guy pays. I don't deserve any credit.
Nick VinZant 17:43
I just guess I feel like that's lying to people, because if you're out there and you're running a 10 minute mile, I can't just sit there and honestly say good job to you, because I don't think that that's really good,
John Shull 17:55
which, which to most people that is fantastic, by the way. I don't want your cynicism to dissuade people. I mean, it's not like if it was my job, and I don't want to say me, if it was a person's job to run a mile for a living, and yeah, they did it at 10 minute pace. Okay, but I feel like you have a different, you know, conceivement of a person than if it's their job to run a mile and they post a 10 minute mile, you're like, well, what are you doing? You know, you're, you're failing at your job. But if you're a dad who works 50 hours a week, has a family, doesn't, you know, keep up the greatest, and you run a 10 minute mile, good job, man. Good on you.
Nick VinZant 18:36
I just, I agree with you. I agree with you. I just can't be that whatever with people, because I could say, hey, man, that's really good for you, but I can't. I wouldn't be just like, hey, that's a good job, that's really good, you've ran a mile in 15 minutes. Well, it's like, it's.. it's not.
John Shull 19:00
Let me, let me ask you a question, and then we can move on, because I feel like we've spent a lot of time on this. One of your co-workers, you know, whatever, you're in the office and you're just making small talk, and they go, "Man, I ran two miles this morning at 12 minute 52nd pace. You're gonna say good job, you're not. There's no way a person is going to look at that other person unless you know them that well and be like, oh man, that sucks. Like, you suck.
Nick VinZant 19:31
Yeah, I agree with you. I could say with honesty that that's good for you for going out and doing that. It's good that you did it, but I'm not going to say to you that that was good. I'm glad that you are showing up, which is probably the most important part for most things, is just doing them, but I'm not going to sit here and lie to you and say that that's good.
John Shull 19:55
But are you being the person that's giving the reaction? Are you. Really, gonna say that, say, like, "Hey, good job for at least getting out there.
Nick VinZant 20:05
Oh no, I would say, like, "Oh, that's good, but in my mind, I'm not like this is.. I think that this is some of the things, is right? Like, we're kind of always lying to people all the time. I
John Shull 20:19
mean, yeah, we live in a world that, yeah, we live in a world that's fabricated to make people think they're bigger, better, stronger than they are, but I also think on the flip side of that is some people who are at the top are complete liars and you know falsifiers, and it's all just one big muddy pool at the end of the day,
Nick VinZant 20:42
yeah. I don't want to contribute to that, that's the way that I see it. I do not want to contribute to the lying cesspool that is society. I'm going to be honest, I was like, hey, I'm glad for you for doing it, man. I'm glad for you for getting out there, but that's not really a good time.
John Shull 20:56
Well, I appreciate my group, because I don't look like a runner, I never have, and they still tell me, "Good job. All right, even that fat guy pays miles, which you know I'm - that's what I do, which is fine for me.
Nick VinZant 21:10
Okay, good for you. I'm glad, I'm glad you are out there doing stuff, but I'm not gonna tell you that. Okay,
John Shull 21:18
I saw on Father's Day you had a nice little jaunt, had a nice, nice little time at the Mariners game.
Nick VinZant 21:25
I did. I went to the Mariners game, had a great time. Congrats to your wife.
Nick VinZant 21:30
Do you know how cheap the Mariners have food at their place? This is the best, so that
John Shull 21:36
that's so. Hold on. So I want you to say that, but I also want you to answer the question, after that, to would you rather go, because I'm guessing what you spend, you don't, you don't have to say it, but 50, 100 bucks, probably on the day, right? Maybe, maybe a little more.
Nick VinZant 21:53
I mean, this is the perks of having a wife that is a teacher. We got free tickets.
John Shull 21:59
Well, perfect. Okay, let's just say tickets were 25 bucks a piece, right. We'll just say that's
Nick VinZant 22:04
that's that's a reasonable amount. I would say 25 to 30 is, you can get nosebleeds at the Mariners game for that. Yeah,
John Shull 22:10
would you rather go to 10 Mariners games or two World Cup matches?
Nick VinZant 22:19
I mean, two World Cup matches, simply because that is more of an experience, and then if you start going to things pretty regularly, I think that they start to lose this special-ness of them. It becomes a habit, I think. Anytime you start doing something really regularly, each individual event becomes less special. World Cup, I mean, that's I I,
John Shull 22:43
I give Seattle credit. I'm sure you haven't cared to join in any of the fun, but USA played there last Thursday, I think, or Friday, and it seemed like the whole city showed out. So that was a good one.
Nick VinZant 22:55
I was, I was shocked, I was really surprised. I had to work that day, and like, actually work, like you actually have to do work today, and pretty much every bar that you went past, there was people there at 11 o'clock throughout the entire city. I live about five miles away from the stadium, and they were just, they were busy all over the place. The whole city was out for it. It's cool, like even if you don't get, have aren't lucky enough to be able to go to one of the games. It's pretty cool to go check out the environment. You don't live in a major city, so you won't be able to do that. But
John Shull 23:35
I knew it. You're right. I don't know. I under.. well, I understand why Detroit didn't get a game, but also the same point, you know, Dallas, Boston, they all made their football stadiums into soccer pitches. Detroit could have done that, you know. We have Ford Field, but we weren't selected, so
Nick VinZant 23:54
Detroit's not everybody knows Detroit's not on that level as a city. Detroit is not capable
Grant Reichardt 24:00
for
Nick VinZant 24:00
that kind of thing. They're not a championship, not a championship kind of city. They don't want any of the World Cup teams playing in a city that's going to ruin the vibes. World Cup teams don't want to play in a city that's not used to championships.
John Shull 24:13
Move on to shout outs now, before you have my blood boil over. All right, here's some shout outs for us this week: Leo Bradley, Jude Bell, Andrew Hawkins, Tyree Moss, Ben Hogan, Alan Diaz, Jake Wells, Nicholas Townsend, Mason Duran, and Bob Wiping. I, that looked.. I was more confident when I wrote that one, or when I put that one on my phone, that I would get it correct, but now I'm not sure if it's WA Pan or Wiping, so I'm just gonna go Wiping W A I P E N
Nick VinZant 24:58
WA Pan. And I bet it's what pen I really don't know how to pronounce things not good with words,
John Shull 25:09
I've been doing this for eight years, I still don't know people's names, apparently, and I'm the one who selects the names, all right, I did something last Friday that I think people look at as well, they're mostly gone now. I think in America, I can't say for the rest of the world, but they're like a vintage thing to do, and I thought I would have enjoyed it a lot more than I did, but I actually did not like it at all, and that was, I went to a drive-in movie theater. The
Nick VinZant 25:43
last time I was at a drive-in, I got arrested. That's how long it's been for underage drinking. That's how long it's been to go drive in. I just don't want to do things that I could do more conveniently, like, hey, you want to go sit outside in the summer heat and watch a movie from really far away. No, I don't
John Shull 26:09
mean I give. I give the driving credit. I'm sure it's this way everywhere that has them, but now you can tune in in your car, you know, they have Bluetooth, blah blah blah. That was fine. It's just I don't know. I just, you know, you adding kids to the mix, and it's just, it just wasn't the greatest. Like, I'd rather go to a movie theater and sit in a reclined seat and just be in a controlled place, I guess that makes any sense,
Nick VinZant 26:39
right? It's just I don't want more inconvenience, and I think that the drive-ins have gone away because it's just an inconvenient way of doing something. So, wait, I can go and sit in my car for two hours, that's not really what I want to do, because it just reminds me of being in traffic. And then I can watch a movie from much farther away on a crappier screen and pay a good amount of money for it, like none of that sounds appealing. Each one of those things is worse than the alternative,
John Shull 27:08
like. But then I thought about, like, the drive, and that's all they do is movies. Like, I feel like they're missing out on all kinds of profits, you know. Do sports games, like, do stuff, you know, like at night when it's dark, like people will come out. But yeah, no, I'm, I'm good. I did it once. I told my wife, like, you know, and she, she had to make a big, like, whoop de do of it, you know. We had to take, like, an air mattress, so the kids could sleep or lay in the back of the car, and all this stuff. And I'm like,
Nick VinZant 27:35
way too much work. Yeah, even if you have a good time doing it once, it was because of that moment, like you're not.. that's not going to be a regular thing, like you know what I really love doing, sitting in my car and watching a movie.
John Shull 27:54
Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, it was not.. I mean, it was nice, but yeah, I'm good. I'm good. It's one of those things I don't ever have to do it again. It was 32 bucks for a car, I mean, but like, but like comparatively to move, if you go to the movie theater, aren't tickets seven to 10 bucks a person, so it's kind of the same thing, like,
Nick VinZant 28:22
yeah, to me that's relatively the same amount of money for a much worse thing.
John Shull 28:28
Here's something you won't care about, but I feel like I want to ask anyways, because for some reason I've had multiple discussions about this the last week, but Jelly Roll, you know, Jelly Roll, the singer,
Nick VinZant 28:42
that's a person that I have intentionally, I am familiar with him enough to answer your questions, but that is a person that I intentionally stay away from. Like, as soon as I see any headline that starts with Jelly Roll, I'm not listening. The thing, the thing that I have heard about Jelly Roll that seemed to sum all of him up for me is he's the kind of person who makes music for people who have tattoos of their kids, but not custody.
John Shull 29:12
One could argue that's what most country music is, but I don't, I don't want to go there or say that on the record.
Nick VinZant 29:20
That was the vibe. Once I read that about Jelly Roll, I was like, think that's all I need to know about Jelly Roll. Pretty good. Without
John Shull 29:27
who put that in there, Rolling Stone GQ, they put that quote.
Nick VinZant 29:32
I don't remember. I saw it in the comments, and I just was like, oh, don't need to know any more about this.
John Shull 29:41
I will say he has a very interesting life story. His music is, it's catchy, it's, you know, it's definitely poppy country, but he does have some, some good songs out there, I think. Anyways, in saying that, him and his wife are getting a divorce, and it's kind of funny once again. You mentioned this earlier about everything being a lie, because it all, it came out that, like, she cheated on him, but he hit her one time, and then they both come out and make this big PR thing about how that's all a lie, and they just, you know, they're just separating, and it's got me thinking that, like, for one, I don't really care that much, and who, who would spend all their time just devoted to that, like, and is Jelly Roll that big of a star that we care that much about his personal life?
Nick VinZant 30:30
I am fascinated at how people get so wrapped up in celebrities' lives, like
John Shull 30:37
it's..
Nick VinZant 30:38
I don't know, I've never understood that, to know kind of the ins and outs about something, I may be curious about her story, or about what happened there, about like some gossip or something like that, but I would have a real hard time spending more than two to three minutes on any celebrity's Wikipedia page.
John Shull 31:02
Well, I mean, I don't know about that, but just in terms of actually going through the effort, other than like Wikipedia, to really care about somebody is really hard pressed by me now at this point in my life. Like, I just.. I just don't, you know, they're all people, like I.. you know, I don't care anymore. Like, there is no.. like when you're a kid, right, or even a teenager, like, oh man, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, The Undertaker is really dead, right, he's from Death Valley, blah blah blah, and then you learn that he's just a human, he was just a tall person that got a lucky break, like, you know, I don't need to stalk them,
Nick VinZant 31:38
that, that's the way that I look at it, is that the difference between you and successful people slash celebrity people is it's not that they're special, it's that the circumstances surrounding them were special. There's so many other people that could have been in that same position, like there's 1000s of people that could have been in that same position. It just, they had the circumstances that put them in there, so I, that's why I'm not just a regular person. It's just they're really probably not that different from you.
John Shull 32:09
Yeah, I just let's see, wrote out a couple of Trump things, but I feel like that could just be
Nick VinZant 32:19
I am following the reflecting pool, like that to me is a fascinating, like this was a simple job. How did someone screw that whole fucking thing up? Like, all you got to do is just do this job correctly, just do this thing correctly. Can't
John Shull 32:39
do it. That's yeah. Well, I had, I wrote down the reflecting pool for those of you that aren't aware what there was some minor construction or something, they were going to be cleaning it to the reflecting pool, and then somebody or something vandalized it, and the Trump administration is now making it into this gigantic circus, they've arrested people, though they haven't said who they've arrested, I think the vandalism was really just someone poured green dye into the water, like, or blue dye. It's just, but it's all weird, like, it's just, it's a whole gigantically weird thing, mind you. They just had that large event on the White House grounds, so there was all kinds of people from all over there, like, yeah, it's crazy to me. It's crazy to me that that's what the administration wants to pivot on when there's dozen other actual news things happening.
Nick VinZant 33:31
I think it's a certain amount of symbolism for how things are going, right? Like, I think people kind of gravitate to that, and it's like, God, can't you guys do anything right? And to talk a slight bit of politics. This has always been my thing with that administration. I'm somewhat understanding of people's different beliefs towards things, because people come from different places, they have different mindsets, different priorities. So I can understand why people may believe that this is the thing that we need to do. What I don't understand is the idea of, like, yeah, but you can't do it that way, right? Like, hey, to make maybe a terrible analogy, we've got a patient that's sick, they've got the flu, like, okay, let's treat them, but the right way to treat them isn't to chop off their left arm, so that has always been my thing with this administration, is like, okay, if you want to do that, fine, but that's the exact wrong way to go about it. Should we start a war with no real plan? No, we probably shouldn't do that, like, okay, if we want to attack Iran, or we need to protect ourselves from Iran, or whatever, but let's have some sort of plan about what we're doing before we just do it. That's that's always
John Shull 34:52
that's so FIFA announced was a couple days ago that Trump is going to be giving the win. Nation the the trophy, the World Cup trophy at the World Cup final, and all I kept thinking was, and this isn't going to happen, but like, what if Iran won it? What would he do? Like, you know,
Nick VinZant 35:15
the sheer hilarity of it.
John Shull 35:18
Yes, and what Good,
Nick VinZant 35:23
I am fascinated by, like, how some of this FIFA stuff has worked out. In that, look, Seattle is a left-leaning city. Seattle is a left-leaning city. Washington is a left-leaning state. They are going to have the pride match between, I think, it's like Saudi Arabia and Iran or Saudi Arabia and Egypt here in Seattle, and it's going to be that game. Like, did you guys really should have picked a different game for that? Like, maybe not have countries that I'm just amazed at how bad people are at things. This goes back to my whole thing about, like, you can't tell people that they're doing a good job when they're not.
John Shull 36:07
I'm sorry, I like to think I'm kind of up on at least the World Cup, and so there's.. it's Saudi Arabia, Iran, and they're all right. Hold on, no, it's. it's Egypt, it's Egypt, Iran, and that's going to be a pride game,
Nick VinZant 36:24
that's the pride game, probably should have picked different countries to be the pride game, and somebody looked at, like, how many layers, how many layers of people looked at that, and we're like, yeah, let's do it there. That's the good, that's the right one
John Shull 36:48
to do, dude. I mean, I'm just looking at that day alone, and there are.. and once again, I don't think Nick or I are coming out like it's just the way that the Muslim, you know, a faith is with LGBTQ plus right, but like when you look at the calendar that day, there's Norway, France, Uruguay, Spain, New Zealand, Belgium, like there's other case that could have been the pride game, and you make Egypt, Iran the pride game,
Nick VinZant 37:14
right, that's the problem, right, like this isn't this isn't an LGBTQ thing, this is just like you probably should have picked another.
John Shull 37:24
Well, I mean, let's, I mean, do
Nick VinZant 37:26
that. FIFA
John Shull 37:27
also gave Trump a World Peace Prize award, too. So, let's, let's not forget, FIFA does suck, by the way. They put on the best tournament in the world, but they do suck.
Nick VinZant 37:38
Oh, oh, I went to the one of the games, I went to Belgium, Egypt, but I was fascinated by is how corrupt FIFA seems to me, or just the idea of their corruption is that they've got all of these people streaming into this stadium, like something close to 70,000 people with tickets upwards of $300 and all the people working the vending were volunteers. They were volunteering.
John Shull 38:08
Yeah, that's that's that's garbage. I mean, in your mind, though,
Nick VinZant 38:13
garbage -
John Shull 38:16
it's, it's truly insane. And they'll never release this publicly, I bet, but just how much money they'll be making off of ticket sales alone has to be in the hundreds of millions for the games. Sucking, hold on, I want to say one more. I looked at the reflecting pool, so apparently people are saying it was never vandalized, the work created chipped paint, obviously, and some kind of blooming algae that would turn the water a different color, which apparently both have been found in the reflecting pool, and I guess there's internal memos that say that, like that, have been passed around that say that it was never vandalized, so I don't know, I don't know what's happening, but have, have it, what you is, or what it is, that's that's apparently what might be happening.
Nick VinZant 39:08
All right, you ready for our top five?
John Shull 39:11
Let's do it.
Nick VinZant 39:12
So, our top five is top five fireworks.
John Shull 39:15
My number five, I'm gonna go with snaps or smoke balls, you know, like you throw them on the ground and they make that, that brief snap, and then obviously we know what smoke balls are, same thing, you throw them on the ground, there's little little plume of smoke. So my number five are smoke balls and snaps.
Nick VinZant 39:34
Okay, okay, I'm glad that you have them on your top five. I have those a little bit higher, but I'm glad that you have them on your top five. My number five is smoke bombs, not great, but I think you got to get at least one. I remember putting like 20 in somebody's mailbox and then waiting to see all the smoke that comes out of the mailbox. You got to have one, gotta have one smoke bomb.
John Shull 39:57
My number four, and I actually had to look with these, I had to look. Many of these up, what they were officially called, but my number four is going to be mountain or fountains, not mountains, fountains as my number four.
Nick VinZant 40:11
I like fountains. I just can't believe anybody bought that. Like, wow, you paid like $30 for that, just shooting lights into the sky, like
John Shull 40:20
I would like them. I went to, you know, what I probably shouldn't say the name of the company, but I went to a website while I was doing some brief research. Fireworks are expensive, man. Like, good Lord, I don't know why people like to have a decent display over a couple of days, you're spending probably four digits.
Nick VinZant 40:39
Oh yeah, I think. Do you have one relative that would go all out on fireworks?
John Shull 40:45
No, I did not.
Nick VinZant 40:47
Every.. I think every family has the one relative, usually an uncle, that's going to go all out on fireworks. Everybody else can spend like $20 he's coming in with like 500 bucks, goes to another study if I
John Shull 41:02
did, if I did, I didn't get the invite, so maybe I do, but I never got invited.
Nick VinZant 41:08
My number four is Roman Candles, Roman, that's my number three. Roman candles are solid, you point them at people, you shouldn't, but you point them at people
John Shull 41:19
to me, there's several movies that have made that very comical, but at the same point, if you've ever been in that situation in real life, it's pretty scary.
Nick VinZant 41:32
Oh yeah, you absolutely shouldn't do it, but that's also what everybody does.
John Shull 41:38
Absolutely.
Nick VinZant 41:40
Okay, so your number three was Roman Candle.
John Shull 41:43
Yes,
Nick VinZant 41:44
my number three is Bottle Rocket, because you, there is that to me is the most.. I don't know what word I want to use, but that to me is the of all the fireworks. That's the firework. You're like, I'm not sure where this thing's gonna go. Let's just watch and see what happens. That is the most public awareness firework. Everyone, somebody has a bottle rocket. Everybody's got to be a little bit like, where's that thing gonna go? Everybody's gotta be a little on watch.
John Shull 42:15
So, like, with all of these, except for my number two, which are the lamest, most pathetic fireworks you can imagine, though. I think they're designed for kids, but regardless, and I was thinking about this, I don't know. So, my number two are sparklers, and I don't know, out of any, like, you know, fun type thing, if anything's more lame than a sparkler, but yet they're so popular, and everyone does them. If you don't do them, you're lying.
Nick VinZant 42:46
Yeah, my number two is also Sparkler, which I think statistically is the most dangerous firework. I think that they have more injuries from sparklers than any other firework.
John Shull 42:59
I mean, probably based upon volume of this of what they sell alone, but it's like it's probably kids like touching the end, which doesn't count. I need like missing appendages, you know? I need that dictionary
Nick VinZant 43:13
that's going to be like black cats, surprisingly. Okay, what's your number one?
John Shull 43:19
Well, I, I think our number ones are the same, so I kind of want to change my number one to be a little different. Mine is
Nick VinZant 43:26
not, I mine is not, mine's not going to be what yours is.
John Shull 43:30
Okay, so my original number one, which is what I would like it to stay as, are firecrackers.
Nick VinZant 43:36
You're talking black cats, that's the way that I always refer to them as a black cat, whether or not it's actually like a labeled black cat, but when I think of, like, you just light it, it goes off in a second, like,
John Shull 43:50
yeah,
Nick VinZant 43:51
like you have, like, a second to get rid of it, or something like that,
John Shull 43:55
yeah, yeah, I mean, a firecracker, and they make loud noises, and they're disruptive and annoying, and give veterans PTSD. Like, yeah, those things.
Nick VinZant 44:06
My number one is a snap. I think those little tiny fireworks that you have that you can like snap in your finger, or you can throw 'em on the ground. I think those are the funnest fireworks, because you can kind of mess with people a little bit, but they're also, they're safe, right? Unless you're a complete idiot who's like, "I'm going to put this thing in my eye and then try to pop it with my eyelid, which I'm sure somebody has fucking done. It's amazing the amount of stupid things. It's almost impossible to think of something stupid that people have not done.
John Shull 44:44
I mean, yeah. And speaking of, I think the Jackass movie comes out next week. I'm very excited to see that little slug for Jackass
Nick VinZant 44:52
man. I don't know how those guys are physically able to still do that. They've got, they've got to be in the 50s. Yeah,
John Shull 45:02
well, I mean, as they should have, I think they're all done drinking and doing drugs and things. I think most of them are. I mean, Johnny Knoxville is like he's mentally gone, but he can still walk straight. So, what I was thinking about putting as my number one, which is what I really wanted to do, but I thought it was a cheat. They're called, they're like when you go to fireworks shows, they're the big boom cannons. I know what
Nick VinZant 45:30
you're talking about,
John Shull 45:30
but
Nick VinZant 45:32
Johnny Knoxville is 55 Johnny Knoxville is 55 years old. That's way too, not surprising stuff, which means like when Jackass came out, he was in his.. when they were really popular, that would.. he was probably in his 40s.
John Shull 45:52
No, I mean, when probably mid 2000s so 20 years ago, so he would have been late 30s, been ours.
Nick VinZant 46:03
That's still physically I feel like too old to be doing that stuff. I would not have thought that he was that old. Okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it, really helps out the show, and let us know what your favorite firework is. I just feel like the snaps are the perfect firework, because unless you're really doing something foolish, they're pretty much harmless, but they also kind of encapsulate everything about a firework at the same time, but let me know what you think.
