From intricate flowers with detailed petals to giant dragons carved from 300 pound blocks of ice, renowned Ice Sculptor Shintaro Okamoto turns ice into art. We talk Ice Sculpting, chainsaws and the joy and pain of watching his art melt away. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Winter Animals.
Shintaro Okamoto: 01:24
Pointless: 35:17
Top 5 Winter Animals: 52:06
Interview with Master Ice Sculptor Shintaro Okamoto
Nick VinZant 0:00
Hi welcome to Profoundly Pointless, my name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode I sculptures and winter animals,
Shintaro Okamoto 0:21
in a way, I think there's a, there's a ghost that you always carry, you know, when you're creating something static was an ice, it's gone. And there's something very liberating about it, how warm ice and cold ice interact is very different. And these little sciences that we know, we manipulate to the max to create what we create. And then I use a chainsaw, no matter how big how small the sculpture is, I would say about 70% of the work we do we use a chainsaw,
Nick VinZant 0:51
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 us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So our first guest creates some of the biggest, most intricate and awe inspiring ice sculptures in the world. This is World Champion ice sculptor, Shintaro aka Moto, what is it about ice like why ice? To me
Shintaro Okamoto 1:26
ice is the most under investigated underappreciated material, you know, ice is, is is ephemeral, it's it's a, you know, constantly changing, you know, deteriorating disappearing material, I see ice is more of a performance piece, you know, all the work that goes in there to create something, but I think I think the real power happens once he leaves our studio. You know, ice has a volume, but no color, other, you know, with the transparency. So, you know, it relies on its silhouette and contour. It's Crystaline in the sense that it really resolved its volume through light. So we have to think about, you know, refractions is has, I think a real fitting place in places like events industry, because it's that one time, you know, of the moment, kind of physical Ising, the time passing kind of thing, you know, that
Nick VinZant 2:28
makes sense to me in the sense that art that ice is art is always changing is that something that kind of draw drew you to it, in that regard, that this sculpture that I created at eight o'clock is not going to be the same as the sculpture is at nine o'clock.
Shintaro Okamoto 2:42
I mean, that constant changing is definitely attractive, you know, no matter how much we kind of have, idea, a plan of what it will do. It's always defies expectations, you know, because there are so many variables to what what, what will change ice from the room temperature to airflow to, you know, sunlight, or how much people are touching, interacting. And, and to me, it's just humbling because, you know, my, my formal training as a painter, something that's incredibly on the up, you know, static on the other end of it. And, and then once you create something, it stays and lives with you. And on a personal level, or, you know, I see what I learned from but I'm always running to move on to, to kind of you know, grow from that point. It's, you know, when you making something I think that stays you're thinking about what next can you create, and in a way I think there's a there's a ghost that you always carry, you know, when you're creating something static was an ice, it's gone. And there's something very liberating about it. And it has allowed me to just really focus and enjoy the process
Nick VinZant 4:05
is ice from a technical standpoint, is it fundamentally harder or easier to work with and other sculpting mediums as
Shintaro Okamoto 4:12
a sculpting process is very similar to any other hard material carving, you know, it's essentially reductive carving. But you know, the tools that we use from chain saws, chisels, drills, saws, you know, it's about, you know, taking away the negative material and you know, creating a form that lives within a space. So if you have a very sharp material you know, it's it's a very similar process. It's a big difference with I think any other material is that you can execute incredibly fast. So what it takes for in days and weeks, months with stone or wood, we can realize it in hours. And I think that's something very, very different.
Nick VinZant 5:03
Why is that? Is it just because ice is a more malleable material? Or because of the techniques that you're using? Like, why are you able to do it faster?
Shintaro Okamoto 5:10
I think with a sharp, sharp tools, it's very receptive to cutting, you know, I mean, I mean, I think that's the interesting about ice as a material is there's this constant kind of polar dichotomy to it, that it's, but it's because it's, it's hard, but it's soft, it's, it's strong, but it's fragile. And, you know, depending on how ice gets hit on the surface, at what angle, it reacts very differently. You know, it's heavy, but it's it's buoyant, you know, it floats in water, you know, it's a very interesting material.
Nick VinZant 5:52
Yeah, I would imagine that you could crack it all the way through quite easily.
Shintaro Okamoto 5:57
You can I mean, if you have an ice pick that has a force in one singular, you know, point it can shatter. But if you take a sledgehammer and try and break ice, he actually doesn't break that that easily. You know? So how you hit and where you hit, ice behaves very differently.
Nick VinZant 6:18
Did you step into another medium? Could you go work with wood? Or go work with stone? Like, could you? Could you translate to another medium easier than somebody could come into ice? Do you think
Shintaro Okamoto 6:28
the act of carving is very similar? The tools we use to carve is very similar. But like with any material, it has its own tendencies that we all have to learn. So it does a crossover? Well, yeah, I think it does cross over well, and, and then the rest is all small things, you know, you know how ice behaves in below freezing environment is very different from how ice behaves in above freezing melty environment, how warm ice and cold ice interact is very different. And these little sciences that we know, we manipulate to the max to create what we create.
Nick VinZant 7:16
So where do you get the ice from? Like, does it have to? Is it a special kind of ice or is it just man I just fill up. This is just regular old ice,
Shintaro Okamoto 7:26
it is a special kind of ice. You know, in the industry standard is the ice, there's the carving blocks, it's a crystal clear ice, it's crystal clear because it's it's free of any air bubbles, that's trapped inside that would naturally happen when you're freezing still still water. You know, if you have a bucket of water in a freezer or below freezing environment as is you'll get very cloudy white ice, like ice, again, conventional freezer in your refrigerator. Right? Those are tiny air bubbles, so it gets trapped inside. Because, you know in the process basically, when you're freezing from all sides, the last place that freeze is the middle of your water. And at that point, as water freezes these, these air bubbles from the air from HTO. You know, as he becomes more static, kind of kind of kind of release itself. And you know, there's no place for that to go. So you get these cloudy ice, clear ice happens. Where you we have two things One Direction freezing. So it's not freezing from all around but from for our machines and our machines, not a special machine that we build, but it's an industry standard machine. But it freezes from bottom up where there's only a coolant in the bottom and all the rest of the sides just have installations to kind of keep the temperature focused, so freezes bottom up. And the second thing is moving water agitating the water as it freezes by, by freezing one direction, you're keeping the impurities in air bubbles on the surface of the ice as he freezes. And by moving the water it kind of brushes the surface of the water constantly and releases to air bubbles as it goes. It's a slower process than freezing still water. So it takes about about three days a cycle, an industrial machine makes two blocks per machine. Usually, each block is about 300 pounds about you know for little over 40 gallons of water. And I mean that's that's how you making me. i It's often said that he kind of mirrors how Lake ice is made, because Lake ice is kind of inverting that that idea. Lake ice naturally is kind of moving circulating within that lake. So the water is constantly moving and it's freezing from top down. You know the bottom is the warmest you know, you know relatively so oftentimes an old times that you know once you cut the whole snow part of the top Ice you get a very clear you know blueish ice that you can pull out
Nick VinZant 10:05
Will you ever use kind of like natural ice will you ever do that
Shintaro Okamoto 10:09
I have I'm gonna have an opportunity there are you know very choice i sculpting competitions exhibitions way up doors you know they're famous ones are like the ice Alaska up in Fairbanks, Alaska to Yellowknife up up in Yukon Territory in Canada, you know and where you can get naturalized and it's where very hardcore ours Carver's will love to come get together and it's, it's come become a pilgrimage for a you know, top ice carvers to, you know, eventually get to where you get to carve natural big blocks of ice to to carve something. I've always had a chance, you know, opportunity to carve glace glacial ice in the past, you know, I Carina ice ice berg, that was really interesting. As if that's a there's a different ice where ice resulted from, you know, just 1000s of years of compacted snow and raining whatever into it. It's actually not a great carving ice. It's got a lot of sediments and volcano ashes and all these things that will really damage your tools right away. And it's very, you know, porous and brittle and unexpected. But it's you know, it's definitely a fun experience.
Nick VinZant 11:29
So then when you work on the ice, like what, what temperature you like, ideally like you're trying to work on the ice and this temperature of a room.
Shintaro Okamoto 11:37
There are two ways of carving though we we all come across we are either a wet Carver or dry Carver dry Carver's are those who carve in the freezer, or below freezing environment. Wet Carver's are those who carve outside the freezer, you know, my father, who taught myself and you know, many of the, the carver's that have grown to, you know, become principal Carver's, for us in our studio, we all were taught. As wet Carver's, first, there's a lot more variables to to planning, think about because your ice is melting as you're carving. Now, clear ice is slow melting ice, much, much slower than kind of the conventional kind of cloudy white ice, you know, being clear of air bubbles means he's got least amount of surface areas, and the rate of melting other than the temperature is really the exposure to that surface, where air can can really react to the temperature more. So crystal clear ice is very slow melting ice and, and you know, even in the hottest days and you know, in the above 90 degrees, it's, it's, it's workable. And of course, we just have to plan that much more to it, you know, you have to really plan your steps, you know, you need to save your details to the very, very end, you know, what you want to think about where you want to exaggerate certain forms. So you can kind of really hit that spot right when you're done. A dry carving is then is visibly different. Uh, a game, you know, when you're doing something very, very, you know, meticulous detailed. A dry carving, carving in the freezer will definitely free as of, of, you know, worrying about losing losing those details. So at that point, you can really focus on on the you know, the forms and and really push the boundaries of the materials. But sometimes it's harder to see where you're going to get because when you cars inside the freezer, your your eyes tend to get a little bit you know, hazier. So in which case we have to kind of blow torch the surface or heat on the surface to to get it all clear up, I think you'll learn a lot more as a woodcarver. It's it's kind of a old school way Old World way of carving something and, you know, just like anything, you know, the old ways it just everything's just more manual. You know, it's everything's little more right at the tip of your fingers and you got to be on your toes to get everything everything done. So you know, but we do both in our studio.
Nick VinZant 14:28
Is there a rivalry between the wet and dry Carver's like oh, look at this guy. Yeah, wet car where you can't carve dry.
Shintaro Okamoto 14:37
Well, I mean, if you get wet carve, I mean, everyone who dried carves. I mean any wet Carver's can go in the freezer and be like, Wow, this is so great. You know, it's not melting so I can have so much more fun. But I've come across many dry carvers, Carver's have only carved inside the freezer. Just panic when you're carving outside because, you know they Haven't had the the foresight that brain muscle to really know to plan your your course of action, you know, because your ice is melting. So I think there's definitely advantage when you know how to carve, do you
Nick VinZant 15:16
have to kind of anticipate how the ice is going to change like, Okay, I'm gonna make this feature, but I know I have to make it like this and then let it melt down and then it will look the way that I want it to. Yeah,
Shintaro Okamoto 15:29
this definitely certainly way to modify and manipulate, accommodate, adjust the design based on melting. But mainly, it's really again, like knowing ice as a material, oftentimes what we do, you know, we run an arts business, you know, we carve something and has leaves the studio, it needs to be wrapped, it needs to be transported, oftentimes disassembled in parts, and then deliver to a site and then reassembled and then go through the duration of the event. And, and live through its peak, you know, viewing in those hours. So we know we have to think about all of that as we're carving it. So if you're carving something pointy, will often not take it to that point, but give a little bit of bluntness, you know, blunt tip at the edge, and that gives strength so that when you hit it, it, you know, when you wrap it, or as we hold it, it doesn't just break off, but he has enough taper that as he starts melting, or even even then, like he has, you know, he has suggestions of point already, but strength given by its volume, and the way he melts, really kind of follows that form some Carver's may keep it chunky and say, Well, this is gonna look great, you know, a couple hours into it. But I'm realized that it's, you know, if the silhouette, if the, if the lines are correct and tight, it it melts that way. You know, if you carve chunky, it stays chunky, even as it melts away and disappears. And I always believe that with ice sculpture, it's the first impression and as he melts away that memories told kind of stays, you know, so it's it to me I experiencing ice sculpture is really more about the memory of what it is then what really is that
Nick VinZant 17:45
kind of leads us into some of our listeners submitted questions. So are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions?
Shintaro Okamoto 17:51
Yeah, let's do it.
Nick VinZant 17:52
So this first one is kind of along those lines in the sense that do you look at the fact that it melts as sad or what makes it special,
Shintaro Okamoto 18:01
I certainly am in a camp of of it being very special, that it melts away on a personal level, it's, it's that it's that practice of letting go for me that I really appreciate. You know, it's, it's, I get to really focus on the process, the beauty of working with ice is not the fighting of it disappearing, it's really the embracing of it disappearing, that's what makes it special. It's really amazing when people see our work and and be so amazed at how much work you put into something that's disappearing. And that that gap really activates the sculpture and that I think the art experience like nothing else a sculpture Do you know
Nick VinZant 18:51
follow up that insightful and thoughtful answer with how do you get rid of it like do they just let it melt? They just throw it in the bathtub like what do you do? Yeah,
Shintaro Okamoto 19:00
there's a lot of logistics there there's definitely an art of its own and disposing ice but essentially it's about breaking it and you know controlled contain breaking and again that you know that's similar question of is is sad to break it can come into play but I think all of us who work with ice also find it incredibly liberating to break it away to If anything, it's like this stress reliever you know, we often joke how you know we see these like, you know, break rooms where, where people can go into like, abandoned cars and smash things to relieve your stress. It's very close to that. You know, it's great to go in there and just break everything. I mean, if that's if our job is to just break well, we got it can be really fun. We can use various tools to break our eyes but our favorite tool of choices as Simple good ol ice pick,
Nick VinZant 20:01
is there anything that you can't do in the sense that like, oh, I would really like to do this, I would really like to do this sculpture, but you just can't do that with ice.
Shintaro Okamoto 20:10
There's a lot you can do with ice. I mean, the only thing is we can defy gravity. I mean, as I say, that's what I say to my clients, you know, we get to work with, you know, car designers, and, you know, design a runway and lighting designers and we've made chandeliers, you know, out of ice and hanging from the trusses. And there's so much that that, that the we been challenged to do and it's really about solving problems. What was
Nick VinZant 20:42
your personal favorite piece thing that you've done this, like, Ah, that was that was, that was my favorite.
Shintaro Okamoto 20:47
My favorite pieces are all public installations. You know, just because it's where we get the show slice of magic of what we do. And having the people who didn't expect to encounter our work, to, to find in their passing or days to, to see your work, and then interact with it, and interact with real physically, you know, where, where our pieces are, where we're where we invite people to touch our eyes. That's another thing that I always love is I love people touching our work, you know, in kind of, you know, art world etiquette, you don't touch art pieces, you know, you don't touch sculptures, but when people touch our sculptures, and then be like, Oh, wow, it's ice, it's really ice. And it's really this big. And why is it here, you know, and again, I love making ice sculptures in this city that I work in, because we've got to do some really cool things. And we get to have a lot of people, you know, experience our work, I've done pieces for we've frozen 1000 pairs of flip flops, in the middle of Union Square, where people were invited to, you know, try to melt the ice away and to grab, you know, parents of flip flops, or, you know, we've done you know, you know, cityscape, inspire pillars of ice, where people can walk around, like amaze. Just really cool things and to be able to again, share with people who are unexpecting Do you
Nick VinZant 22:39
think that can this love raise to the level of kind of high art? And when I think of kind of high art in terms of like Weronika or Mona Lisa, do you think that this medium can raise to that level of high art?
Shintaro Okamoto 22:52
I think so. Art is is is documented and and understood in such spectrum today. And it's, it's, I think it's ultimately where we choose to engage ourselves in.
Nick VinZant 23:10
So this one here? Yeah, this is essentially a shoe like, how did you do this?
Shintaro Okamoto 23:17
I mean, this is a great example of really having that little sneak peek of though magic or where you create something, you know, this is a you know, a video piece collaboration, we deal with hype Hypebeast, where we were I got to carve, you know, the Air Jordan, um, you can see the video, it starts from a block of ice and we you know, I cut it to the overall volume of, of the block. And I did a simple grid transfer of the image. And then I use a chainsaw, no matter how big how small the sculpture is, I would say about 70% of the work we do, we use a chainsaw, electric chainsaw that we use. And I cut the negative space. And then I do the basic leveling of the kind of the volume, the angles, I pushed the chase as much as I can. It's amazing. You can see how amazing level of finesse you can get from something as brute as chainsaw. You know, there's a lot that you can do. And then once we have the shape, pretty much said I use what we call a chipper, which is basically like a multi prong ice pick, which has been kind of a preferred tool, very similar to chisels, but much easier to maintain and eats ice much easier. So why use a chipper or chisel to get the final overall volume? And then I use die grinders to really fine tune shape, and dine grinders have different bits that heads they can create the shape. Like in this video I have Burr, which is this tiny prickled bit it says orange had bit that you've seen a video that really shaves off all the corners and edges of the shape that I've chipped away. And I really tend to smooths out the overall shape. And I really kind of finished the total complete outer volume of the shape. And then from there, I use finer bits like knife bits and needle bits, we call them. As you can see from the name, they had a finer tip. Sometimes I'll finish off with small chisels to, you know, push down certain areas. So I look like if overlapping ones on top of each other or going under. That's about it. And then I finish it off with either a torch or sometimes even a splash of water and get it all nice and clear.
Nick VinZant 26:11
I noticed that but what why is the bullet Now why does the blowtorch make it look like that? Like I'm looking at it? It's a little bit. I'll just use the word I kind of cloudy and then you hit it with that blowtorch. And I'm like, Oh my God. Yeah,
Shintaro Okamoto 26:24
yeah, well, you know, the fine. The final tools that we use are Sol Sol fine that in between the tool bit marks, snow gets inside, you know. So the haziness comes from the snow. And you know, in this instance, he was nice, cold day. So, you know, there's some Frost's that can remain or maintain on the ice surface. So we often do a finish with either water or blowtorch to get the true clarity to really kind of basically melt down the snow particles that that sticks to the ice. And once that's cleared up, we once we put it in the freezer, you know, all those wet surfaces will dry up right away, and it becomes a stable, you know, final state, you know, state is in a stage of the sculpture.
Nick VinZant 27:22
Now, how long would that how long did that take you to do? The sculpture itself
Shintaro Okamoto 27:27
probably took about an hour itself to really carve it, I would like to go fast as I can, because I'm carving outside the freezer one. So I'm wet carving here. So ice is slowly melting. But I can go that fast, because I took my time to plan my tools. You know, I can go that fast, because I did my drawing. So I think it's a very fair thing to always calculate what how much planning goes in there to, you know,
Nick VinZant 27:58
yeah, there's a huge difference between the time that like, I'm actually physically working on it versus the preparation for it. Yeah. Like, it's really impressive. I have no artistic ability, or whatever, like just just as this a whole car.
Shintaro Okamoto 28:15
Yeah, that was a fun collaboration I did with Porsche. And this was cool, because I know I got to carve the replica of the sculpture. And then we blow torched it down to nothing. But then the director then played it backwards. As if the fire is what's making the sculpture. So that was his, that was his narrative. And, you know, gave me this, this, this this concept, and I just thought it was so brilliant, you know, simple and direct and really kind of turning itself.
Nick VinZant 28:56
I'm amazed at the amount of intricacy that you can get in there now. So, okay, I don't know anything about art. So this question is might not make any sense. But like, how do you get kind of the perspective on it in the sense where like, you can see the angles, it looks three dimensional? Like, do you have to account for the way that light is going to hit it?
Shintaro Okamoto 29:21
You know, creating a sculpture? I mean, to do anything, right? Anything you do you break it down to small pieces. And it's about it's about putting together the building blocks to get to your goal, right. So for sculptures, it's a 3d piece, we can break it down to series of 2d pieces, you know, so you understand the front, the side yeah, right, the backs and tops, you take those measurements, you and then You You piece them together, and you naturally get the 3d piece achieved that that said, I you know, in our studio I think almost all of my Carver's that I work with, they're painters, and maybe because one my backgrounds, my background is in paint painting, I'm a painter, I think everything in paintings. I think too, you know, as a painter as a draftsman, you know, you, you, I quickly learned that you carve as well, as you draw, you know, you need to know how to draw, and especially because what we do, we don't make sculptures that investigates the material vise, you know, what we do is not just abstract pieces, you know, it's not what we want to do only, we recreate pieces, what our clients bring to our table every day. And one day we'll carve a replica of, of, you know, of you, you know, or, or, you know, we carve a replica of a Porsche, or, you know, Air Jordan sneakers, or a logo, or a building or whatnot, you know, or a kangaroo, you know, and knew you need to have this basic knowledge of proportions of things in the world, we often talk about that, you know, you kind of have to know, these things, you have to have a very deep, I think, sixth sense of what things kind of, is shaped like, you know, we all have this general curiosities of, of shape, in everything. And that's a very, very special thing that I was looking for with people that I work with, you just have to be curious about
Nick VinZant 31:54
everything. So what is this tell me about this, and
Shintaro Okamoto 31:58
this was a collaboration we've done with Hunter boots, people love seeing things frozen inside ice, you know, when you see something frozen inside ice. Again, there's another sense of timelessness, you know, there's a, you know, frozen in time, that's literally there, you know, um,
Nick VinZant 32:14
that's pretty much all the questions I've got, is there anything that you think that we missed or anything like that,
Shintaro Okamoto 32:20
ice sculpting ice carving, I think is fascinating, because it kind of exist outside of, I think what people understand is, is a, an art world, you know, it's it's essentially an outsider art genre. You know, it's, it's a sculpture that's often mostly done by non art trained artists, you know, because ice carving, most often come across, especially in America through culinary lineage. It's many of those Carver's are people who were ex chefs. And it's a very passionate community. It's a very innovative community, because most all of our tools are something that developed from taking tools off the shelf from from hardware stores, and then modifying it to work with ice, and then sharing that with ice community at large. So I fell in love with this craft, I think a lot less about the craft itself, but really people and and even for today, you know, I have so many mentors in ice community, who are constantly pushing the material. And I really owe to them more than anything with what we get to do every day, and I don't take it for granted all the knowledge and skill set that we have, that it's in the it's really in the you know, the pillars and foundations of so many crazy as people who work with ice.
Nick VinZant 34:08
I want to thank Shintaro 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 tik, Tok, Instagram, and YouTube. And we've also included his information in the episode description. If you want to see more of some of the sculptures and how he creates them. The YouTube version of this episode, we'll be live on November 30. At 12:30pm Pacific. One show change that I probably should have mentioned a long time ago, but just kind of forgot about is that we're restructuring the way that we do the show. We're still going to have exactly the same kind of guests and exactly the same kind of conversations. It's just that we're going to group things along monthly themes. So October we did spooky. November was sex and money. December is going to be all winter and then going into January, we're going to look at the future. Okay. Now let's bring in John Shaw, and get to the pointless part of the show. Do you have any artistic talent? No. What areas of life? Do you feel like you just have no talent in probably
John Shull 35:23
anything to do with art?
Nick VinZant 35:25
I feel like I have no talent artistically. I can't repair or fix anything or build anything.
John Shull 35:33
I mean, am I good at cooking? Probably not. But I like to do it. So I mean, do I have talent?
Nick VinZant 35:40
No, I can't cook. But I don't have a sense of smell. So I have a really good reason for me not to be able to cook so I don't care about it. Like nobody would ever look at me and be like, Who's Who should cook this? We'll have him do it. Like, No, I shouldn't be the one doing that.
John Shull 35:56
What are you? Are you afraid to cook?
Nick VinZant 35:59
I have never cooked for anyone else.
John Shull 36:02
Except your wife? No,
Nick VinZant 36:05
not even my wife. I have never like cooked for my wife. I browned meat or something like that. But I don't have a sense of smell. So like, why would I cook for somebody? Why would be like, well, who should do it? Right? Like we need somebody to look something up? Well, you wouldn't have the blind guy do it? Well, that's not the ideal choice.
John Shull 36:25
I feel like that's going to completely like, you know, far left or right. Example there. But
Nick VinZant 36:32
an example right, it's also losing a sense that is crucial to that thing.
John Shull 36:37
I honestly feel though that if this if the roles were reversed, and I just admitted to you that I had never cooked a meal for Melissa, you would be dragging me through the mud if I had a smell or not know
Nick VinZant 36:51
cuz I like to me, though that didn't make any like, I don't see why that's a big deal. I
John Shull 36:57
mean, it's I think it's more of a thought it's more of taking the time and effort to try and do something for the other person, whether it's good or not. I just I'm more I'm more amazed at the fact that you've never cooked a meal for her. How did you get away with that?
Nick VinZant 37:13
Why? Because I don't have a sense of smell. Why would it like Do you want me to make something for you? That's not going to taste good? No? Okay, then like, that's a pretty easy situation to solve.
John Shull 37:23
I'd still take it I you know, if you came to me, you're like, to me, that's just
Nick VinZant 37:27
a waste of time. I don't understand that at all. But he wants you to do something poorly for
John Shull 37:32
me. But here's the thing, maybe you're actually an outstanding cook, but you've never tried it.
Nick VinZant 37:37
I'm not. I've made meals for my children. They're not any good. That does a cow. Kill. It doesn't count. It's the same basic principle, if you will. I don't understand why you would want someone to do something for you. If you know that they're not good at it.
John Shull 37:52
I understand. You're saying I don't think you've given it a fair chance. That's all I'm saying. You
Nick VinZant 37:56
want grilled cheese. I'll make grilled cheese. I've made my wife grilled cheese. I'm not going to sit there and try to make her like pasta. buzzoole
John Shull 38:04
Alright, so we'll start with Robert miles. Winston Wolf. little alliteration there. That's cool. Jim knots. Matt Taylor. Christian wager Lee. David Perez, Brian Poon insky. Michael Vivi air, Rene. Vela. And Brian rea says, appreciate all of you.
Nick VinZant 38:30
Okay, okay.
John Shull 38:32
Got it. I was Chris that was crisp and clean. Huh? Got some bangers for you. Okay. This one's a weird one. And I'm not really sure most of these came to me while I was sitting, thinking after a couple of pops over the weekend, so I don't know how these are going to turn out but
Nick VinZant 38:58
are they legible? Like did you write them down?
John Shull 39:02
I wrote them down on my phone but the words are were so Miss jumbled, but I think I got it. Why didn't
Nick VinZant 39:08
you just use voice to text?
John Shull 39:09
I mean, you've been an abbreviated Do you think things through because I don't
Nick VinZant 39:17
know Not really. But I still use voice to text if you use voice to text do you hold the phone out in front of you or to the side of you? Ooh
John Shull 39:28
probably out in front I don't I don't use I don't utilize that very often. Oh, I've become
Nick VinZant 39:33
too lazy to even like type out text messages. I want voice to text the whole way.
John Shull 39:38
You want the BlackBerry back is what you want.
Nick VinZant 39:41
I loved my Blackberry was a great phone. Still the best phone ever had so easy. Alright,
John Shull 39:46
let's see. So this one, I believe this is what it was. Would you rather be a kid your entire life or an adult your entire life?
Nick VinZant 39:57
How old is the kid? I need to know specifics right? There's a big difference between a five year old I don't want to be a five year old all my life. I could be maybe an 18 year old all my life.
John Shull 40:06
No, I'm gonna say 12 or 43.
Nick VinZant 40:13
That's like a hard age range to well, 43. Man, I mean, ultimately, you want to be able to like experience life and do all kinds of stuff. You don't want to go through life as a 12 year old. That's not because you won't be able to do a whole bunch of stuff. Right? You couldn't explain to people that no, I'm actually 47 I just looked like a 12 year old. So I'd rather be 43 Especially if you were going to be like a mortal, on that immortal, but your whole life at 43? That's a pretty good deal. That's what I know. This is an easy answer. I think I would much rather anything under 70 I would rather spend my whole life under 100 That I'd rather spend my life as an adult, you can do all the adult things.
John Shull 40:51
I think there's a sense of honesty of being trolled your entire life. You can just have fun, no risk, no real responsibility, could eat and drink all the crap you wanted.
Nick VinZant 41:01
Because yeah, but you're gonna be like looking like a 12 year old when you've been alive for like 50 years, man, you're gonna be pretty tired of playing at the playground. I
John Shull 41:10
mean, listen, Benjamin Button, calm down over there. You look like you're 12.
Nick VinZant 41:14
I'm just saying, well, that's a compliment. I'll take that. You know,
John Shull 41:17
that leads me to something else here. All right, I was. I was age profiled over the weekend, and I'm a little upset about it. I'm at a grocery store checking out. And I had a bottle of tequila that I was buying. And the woman comes over. She wasn't going to check my ID. She looks at me and she goes, you don't have any gray hair. So I'm going to need to see your ID.
Nick VinZant 41:43
Okay, sounds like she's doing her job.
John Shull 41:45
I look 40 I clearly do not look 21 and under, but because I don't have any gray hair. So my question is, I don't know if that's a compliment. Or if I if I look so young that like it's just not attractive anymore? I don't know. I don't know.
Nick VinZant 42:02
Well, it's probably an insult if you're under 25. But if you're like 40, and somebody's checking your idea, that's a compliment. Okay, all right. Yeah, it's an insult if you're that age, but like 22 and somebody's like, you look like a 16 year old and you're like, Oh,
John Shull 42:18
I kind of gotta have annoyed for like a quick second. Because I'm like, I have some gray hair or rare some gray hair. Well, I I just wow,
Nick VinZant 42:28
rare. Good way to do it. I don't mind it, actually.
John Shull 42:32
So clearly, I she wasn't looking at my hair. She just wanted to find an excuse to card me, which is fine. I don't mind like I'm all for it. But you know, don't. Don't come at me. It's what I'm saying. Why
Nick VinZant 42:45
don't you let these minor inconveniences affect your life? Because, like, why did you Why do you let this affect your life? This would not affect me for any second, right? If somebody carded me, and was like, hey, I need to see your ID for a second. One second, after they hand it back to me. I've already forgotten about it. Like, you can't dwell on these things, man. Okay, move on with your life. When At what age?
John Shull 43:06
Do you start to get annoyed when you get when you get carded? Never
Nick VinZant 43:10
because it's just somebody's doing their job. It's like I would if I was 97. And somebody was like, hey, we need to see your ID. I'm like, okay, cool. Here it is. Like, what's the big deal? Do you know why you never get into your life?
John Shull 43:25
Do you know why you never get carded? Is because you buy the shittiest beer and they know someone who's super old is buying that beer. Maybe
Nick VinZant 43:32
because I don't really stress out about little situations. So that keeps me looking younger and then I get carded over things
John Shull 43:39
I didn't say that I was stressed out I was just I was just like huh like you're already punching in the you know the okay and then you look at me and then now you want my ID or
Nick VinZant 43:50
they probably remember that they have to scan it for bike store policy and they just thought of something to say to us so they they didn't have to hear you get all pissed off about also like I could just say this store policy I didn't need to card you or they could be like oh you look young and then you'd be like oh I guess I do and then handed right they're just sucker new in man they're just why
John Shull 44:10
didn't you just make me sound like Santa Claus for a second oh
Nick VinZant 44:16
well you probably like oh I do look young today right like your a gap or gap
John Shull 44:22
I did actually I did like I did. I did turn it around and I was like, I'll be carded anytime oh that's a great thing and
Nick VinZant 44:29
yeah see right they suckered you right in you played right into their hand now they got your ID all your information they probably opened a bank account in your name and pretty soon you're going to be living on the street all because of this one interaction.
John Shull 44:40
But I did get the tequila and it made for a fantastic
Nick VinZant 44:47
I can't drink tequila man anymore. I just even the word
John Shull 44:52
I had to get something and it was a wrestling Pay Per View night all boys so you know it was it was a good night sad. At last, that means
Nick VinZant 45:02
whacking off in the base.
John Shull 45:06
I don't know where you're going with that. I'm just like, I have no idea where I was going with this one. But
Nick VinZant 45:13
we're gonna get upset about getting carded and then go home and buy a wrestling pay per view. Like I'm an adult. Time to get this wrestling pay per view.
John Shull 45:20
Hey, just so you know, wrestling is a global thing. It's just not you know, a lot of a lot of us out there, so be careful. They man, your thing. We've had a professional wrestler on the podcast.
Nick VinZant 45:32
Isn't he? Good? Now? You got and I thought he was doing really well.
John Shull 45:36
He was he he's still around.
Nick VinZant 45:40
He was okay. Anyways,
John Shull 45:42
would you rather wrestle an alligator? Or a gorilla? Probably a gator, right? Yeah.
Nick VinZant 45:50
Because they don't have a hands, right? Like, I can probably do better against a alligator because I could just get on top of it. Like, if I just held on what's it gonna do again on a gorilla has arms and hands is gonna tear you apart. But
John Shull 46:05
I feel like if the gator gets you, you have a less chance of doing anything than if a gorilla is in the same position. Like I feel like, I feel like a gators gonna wrap you up and drown you as well. At least, you know, a girl is probably gonna smash you're facing, but at least for a half second, you may have a better chance of trying to escape. I
Nick VinZant 46:27
don't Yeah, but I think that the gator has less of a chance of getting you. Maybe you have a point in that regard. I think it's completely over if either one of them gets a hold of you. But I think you have a better chance of like evading the gator for longer. The gorilla is just going to absolutely wreck you,
John Shull 46:44
man. It's yeah, like I said, I don't know where any of these have have come from. But good ideas come in the middle of just thinking
Nick VinZant 46:55
oh, yeah, that's amazing. If you just stop and let your brain run for a couple of seconds. Like how many thoughts are just ping pong and around? Oh, man, you don't know what's gonna happen?
John Shull 47:03
Which we never do, right? Like we just never. We never do. I
Nick VinZant 47:08
do every Friday and Saturday night. Take a bunch of animals and just stare into the night and think about thoughts
John Shull 47:17
engage in those activities. All right, last last one here. It's more of a question than a than a banger. But what kind of Christmas tree do you have? You'd go cut one down. Do you have a fake one?
Nick VinZant 47:29
I have a fake one. Right? fake trees and titties are my favorite things. Why get the real one when the original when the fake ones can be superior? That's so much less. That's so much easier. I don't have to go pick it out. I don't have to worry about is this going to be a good one? I don't have to worry about how much it's going to cost getting rid of it. Just go get the fake tree and be done with it. And if you want the scent, then buy a candle I'm sure you've got many recommendations of candles that smell like trees.
John Shull 48:06
I mean we can start if you want there's even a pine tree one.
Nick VinZant 48:10
Can you just give us a one and not go down the road of recommendations just give us a good tree scented candle.
John Shull 48:17
A good tree said to Canada Well, first one that comes to my mind. It's I've looked at the name pine star I think it's called Pine star by Yankee Candle. It's just it's just amazing. And it just smells like pure pine. However, if you have a fake tree I am going to recommend they actually sell like things that you can put in the tree. That will give it an aroma of being in smelling like an actual tree.
Nick VinZant 48:47
Okay, what do you got? Do you go buy a real tree every year carry that damn thing home?
John Shull 48:53
I used to and then the pandemic happened and we bought a fake tree. And that's one of the good things that actually came out of the pandemic for me is I learned how much of an idiot I was forever wanting a real tree.
Nick VinZant 49:06
Yeah, I mean, a fake tree is way easier. I could care less about a real tree like Is it real? Is it fake? It's a tree that way.
John Shull 49:14
Don't Yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, I get it like it's all part of the of the ship but you know, there's no needles that drop it's easy to take up. It's easy to put down. It's yeah, it's just it's easier.
Nick VinZant 49:28
I think it's cheaper to I'd much rather have a fake tree
John Shull 49:31
because you're gonna make fun of me for this but when we did do it, we used to go to a tree farm and cut down the tree. So there was funny thing there was multiple other men like my end women like like myself and others who would physically cut trees down and by the time you're done cutting a tree down. I didn't give a shit how big it was. So let's just get it in the wagon to get back to the car. I
Nick VinZant 49:53
can't actually imagine you cutting down a tree. Did you use an axe or saw
John Shull 49:58
a saw? It's actually a hand I saw it that it's actually it's not bad. You always have that one. That one, you know, over overzealous person who brings a chainsaw.
Nick VinZant 50:09
You don't really need a chainsaw to cut down. It's cool one inch tree. No, but anyway, you should have used an axe. The only appropriate way to cut down a tree is with an axe, because that's how a man does it. I don't care what else you're doing, it should be done with an axe with and quite frankly, the forearms need to be shown. That would be my rule. If I was ever like running a lumberjack place or a tree place they'll ever look everybody cuts down the tree with an axe. And you've got to roll up your sleeves because if you don't, you're not doing it correctly.
John Shull 50:41
All of your lumberjacks that have their forearm showing while sweat and got to
Nick VinZant 50:44
have your forearm shown, if you don't have forearm showing, and you're using it not using an axe, you're not cutting down a tree. It's not the right way to do
John Shull 50:50
it. Don't know what kind of business you're gonna be running there. But sounds like you're gonna have a lot of applicants. So good luck. Clearly.
Nick VinZant 50:56
You've never seen the Brawny man.
John Shull 50:59
Yes, I think so. Yeah, I have terrible reference. But yes, I have. Ah,
Nick VinZant 51:04
who do you think would win in a fight between Ms for Who do you think would win in a fight between the brawny guy and Mr. Clean? Like which one of those guys do you think can handle his business better?
John Shull 51:15
Well, I mean, I remember Mr. Clean smiling a lot. So on basis of that alone, he seems way too happy. So I'm gonna go with Mr. Brown. You
Nick VinZant 51:24
don't think that he has like he does. He's not aggressive enough. Do you think Mr. Clean is too much of a nice guy. Yeah,
John Shull 51:29
he reminds me of a former coworker of ours. Oh,
Nick VinZant 51:33
yeah, he does. Actually, now that I think about it. I think Mr. Clean would actually win. I think the brawny guy puts on a good show, but I think Mr. Clean is the guy who can get down to business when he needs to.
John Shull 51:44
I mean, did they was there ever a celebrity deathmatch, that that pitted them against each other? There has to be someone that did this. There
Nick VinZant 51:51
has to be I still think Mr. Clean would win. I think he can take out the brawny guy. Okay, do you have any other bangers? Any other
John Shull 52:00
thoughts? No, no, that's, that's it. We learned enough about you from this episode. Okay,
Nick VinZant 52:04
so our top five is top five winter animals. What's your number five.
John Shull 52:09
So my number five I'm getting I don't even want to put them on the list. Because I detest these animals. But they have to be if you're talking about winter, ask animals. They have to be on the list. And that's penguins.
Nick VinZant 52:23
Oh, penguins should be much higher on there. I paid her fantastic winter him.
John Shull 52:28
I agree. But I don't like them for whatever reason, and they're lucky to get on my top five.
Nick VinZant 52:35
Why do you have such a problem with penguins?
John Shull 52:37
I spent they're overrated animal. They're like dolphins to me. Like they're just overrated animals that have been propelled to the top of the animal food chain by us humans. And I just you know, I just don't get it.
Nick VinZant 52:49
They're cute and they walk funny. I agree with you about dolphins though. I don't trust those. I don't trust dolphin.
John Shull 52:56
I mean, super obese people waddle and we don't put them in a zoo and laugh at them while
Nick VinZant 53:02
they have suits on. Do they look like they have a tuxedo on? And then maybe we would?
John Shull 53:07
Do they eat raw fish and make weird noises. My
Nick VinZant 53:10
number five is a walrus. I don't think that walrus is good enough credit as an animal. They're kind of sweet.
John Shull 53:17
They're huge. Man. They are gigantic. I didn't have to be alone get there like 1000 pound animals like they are large creatures.
Nick VinZant 53:24
The problem is, is that I think that people get seals, sea lions and walrus is all kind of mixed up slightly and you think that the walrus isn't that much bigger and then you see a walrus and you're like, holy crap.
John Shull 53:35
That's funny. You mentioned that that's my number four is a seal
Nick VinZant 53:41
Oh, I don't know how is that a winner animal?
John Shull 53:47
Oh, they my only basis for putting them as a winner animal is because they're you know, every time you see a documentary about you know, the North Pole, or the South Pole or somewhere where it's cold and they only show orcas feeding and the cold waters are always going after seals. So
Nick VinZant 54:05
I would never consider a seal to be a winter Animal Man. They very well it to be exact opposite to be honest. Not
John Shull 54:12
be. But that's my perception of them.
Nick VinZant 54:15
My number four is a reindeer.
John Shull 54:18
See I left off render once again. I feel like they're friggin overrated. Man. Overrated animals.
Nick VinZant 54:25
If you had a bunch of like deer, like animals lined up like an elk or moose, a deer and a reindeer, could you actually pick them out and be like, No, that's a reindeer not an owl.
John Shull 54:37
The moose I think I could only because by the way, I feel like I'm gonna get hammered on social media for the seal number four. And I've been pretty impressed with the amount of people commenting. So bring it I guess. But regardless, I'm saying that to say this. I believe moose are way bigger than both of those species. That's how I think you'd be able to know the difference. I
Nick VinZant 55:05
couldn't tell the difference between a reindeer and a caribou. I don't know if they're actually even a different thing. I don't know if I can tell the difference between a rainbow caribou and an elk. But I can tell the difference between deer and moose is gigantic. I've seen a moose in like real life. And it's like, whoa, Just get the hell away from that thing.
Unknown Speaker 55:24
That thing's pissed.
Nick VinZant 55:26
They're mean animals. They're very mean animals. They'll follow you man. Don't mess with a moose, though people are worried about bears, but you should really be worried about moose.
John Shull 55:37
Alright, right. Well, my number three. Not a transition from that properly. I have an orca as my number three.
Nick VinZant 55:46
I don't know really what your classification of winter animals is to be honest with you. I think that you just thought of place the animals that live in cold places. And we're like, I guess that counts. Just
John Shull 55:57
go to bed because I'm gonna get butchered on this. But I don't know for all I mean, I know that you know, orcas. They're like a Pacific Northwest animal and they go into the Atlantic Ocean down near Antarctica. They're in cold water. Which all waters gold.
Nick VinZant 56:13
You know, Antarctica is South Right? Like yeah,
John Shull 56:16
when I say North I meant I meant that they go south. Sorry. Yeah, that's towards
Nick VinZant 56:20
Antarctica. But yeah, Arctic. I still get confused. Let's just say my number three is a real winter animal a Snow Owl. Not only do I think a snow animal is a sweet winter animal, but I think it's probably the it's probably one of my bits. My favorite owl easily.
John Shull 56:41
Once again. I was are overrated.
Nick VinZant 56:45
I don't have a problem. I mean, I've got Do you think what do you think is more sick of hearing people make noises at it? A owl or a wolf? Woof.
John Shull 56:56
That's a great question. I feel like I was don't give a shit. I don't know why but when you look at an owl they just look like they don't give a shit what you're thinking.
Nick VinZant 57:05
Yeah, they seem like they're probably smarter and that they don't really care too much of they're like all these idiots. But a wolf seems like they probably get a little bit annoyed. I've been this places where the like a zoo with a wolf and they specifically but like, Don't howl at the wolves. Alright,
John Shull 57:21
my number two is a moose.
Nick VinZant 57:25
Okay, okay. Moose is respectable. I don't know again. I'm not sure what qualifies. Is it a winter animal? But that's, that's fine. But I think he just picked animals like what is it big and lives nor pick it?
Unknown Speaker 57:42
Yeah, I mean, why not?
Nick VinZant 57:43
I mean, all it's really none of this really makes any sense. If you think about it. It's not like all these animals are aren't alive during the summer. She's kind of like we just decided like that's a winner animal. i My number two is a penguin specifically an emperor penguin. I think of that as a winter animal.
John Shull 58:01
Yeah, I mean, like overrated. I don't know how I mean, those are the only good penguin was Danny DeVito
Nick VinZant 58:10
he was a good penguin. Right like he was born to play that is like who's gonna be the penguin like well, Danny DeVito everybody they've as soon as that roll was announced that he just was like, Well, I'm gonna be that guy. So
John Shull 58:24
what am I Oscar now?
Nick VinZant 58:25
Did he win an Oscar for no no it terrible Oh, because he didn't deserve it. I don't think not enough credit goes to actors who played like roles that we'd like I think we have the same number
John Shull 58:37
one you you have to there really is only one dominant winter animal and that is the polar bear. Polar
Nick VinZant 58:44
Bear. I 100% agree that the polar bear is the dominant winter animal because not only do I think about it and associated with winter, but I also think of it as like the North Pole. Those Coca Cola commercials it's the dominant winner
John Shull 58:56
and you know it's gigantic. It has snow that are further that reflects what it lives in the snow. I mean, come on man. What
Nick VinZant 59:07
What color is a polar bears for?
John Shull 59:11
This is a trick question. My first initial reaction is to say white or gray but I'm guessing it's gonna be like brown or something.
Nick VinZant 59:24
A polar bear skin is actually black and the polar bears furs also translucent. Wow. So it has clear fur. Oh, it does look black. That's kind of crazy.
John Shull 59:41
Everyone listening to this airs. Now googling what a polar bear looks like.
Nick VinZant 59:45
The hair of a polar bear appears white because airspaces in each hair scatter light of all colors. And it is mostly around the color white so that's why it appears to be white but the pair is actually translucent, which is It's crazy to think about. Okay, what's your honorable mention? You haven't even mentioned
John Shull 1:00:04
other animals. So I have an Arctic hair. Bunny. Okay, okay. Okay. Arctic Fox.
Nick VinZant 1:00:13
Okay, um, yeah, the animals with the word Arctic in front of it. She just decided
John Shull 1:00:17
I was actually just trying to think of of one but I can't
Nick VinZant 1:00:21
think of another one. Yeah, I
John Shull 1:00:23
don't think I can think of another one. Arctic owl an Arctic owl. Yes. But not the kind of owl that you decided to put on this. Yeah, I mean, not Not much. Not many others. Not really.
Nick VinZant 1:00:39
Okay, we got an Arctic hair and arctic fox. That's it. Oh, an Arctic turn and Arctic woolly bear and Arctic Wolf. Okay, that's probably enough. Arctic, the Arctic grouse. You know what animal I would put in there that I'm just now looking at is the musk ox like that. Okay, gas ox with a bunch of hair. That looks pretty sweet Dara buffalo. It's not a buffalo to musk ox. It's a very different thing. I'm not getting into this whole debate with you about the buffalo. For people who aren't familiar with it. John thinks that he can outrun a buffalo which buffalo can run at 40 miles an hour. I doesn't make any sense to anyone why he thinks that he can outrun something. He's just math again. He's
John Shull 1:01:25
gonna cut me off before I finish this. But it was a it was a bet or want to be bet that I could I think I said I could finish a 40 with a 10 yard head start standing still
Nick VinZant 1:01:39
before a Muslim No you couldn't and then part about the Head Start with something that you just now added in there because you're trying to cover up for it and make it easier slightly realizing that there's absolutely no chance I don't think that you could run 40 yards to be honest with you. So you're crazy. I don't think that you get I don't think that you could Sprint 40 yards right now without hurting yourself. You could go outside dead sprint 40 yards right now and not pull a muscle. Yep, I don't I or trip or fall down? I don't agree with that at all do though.
John Shull 1:02:07
I'm only in my mid 30s. If any, if any mid 30 person no matter. Your conditioner shape, can't sprint for eight seconds. Then you got other issues.
Nick VinZant 1:02:17
I actually know very few people who are in their mid 30s who do not regularly who don't play professional sports that could run right now dead sprint and not hurt themselves.
John Shull 1:02:33
I mean, obviously I do a quick warm up like I would do a stretch so I don't tear a hamstring like I did one time.
Nick VinZant 1:02:39
Exactly. They don't even need to get hit right yeah, I don't need to I won't get hurt. I won't get hurt. I would I have been hurt doing the exact same thing and I won't get hurt. 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. It really does help us out and let us know what you think are some of the best winter animal. There really doesn't seem to be any classification or qualifications for the winter animals that we chose. It's basically entirely subjective but I do think that polar bear is the best winter animal. I don't know about some of John's choices. I wouldn't consider that consider them to be winter animals but whatever.