From seances in the White House to curses that have haunted families for generations, Troy Taylor studies the paranormal history of the United States. We talk America’s most haunted places, famous ghost stories and how the paranormal has shaped our society. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Most Underrated Halloween Candies.
Troy Taylor: 01:20
Pointless: 31:50
Top 5 Most Underrated Candies: 49:32
Interview with Paranormal Historian Troy Taylor
Nick VinZant 0:00
Nick, welcome to profoundly pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode paranormal history and underrated candies.
Troy Taylor 0:21
It seems like every major event in American history, from from war to disasters, they all have a ghost area too attached to them, and it is a big, creepy, foreboding place. And it is the first place that I actually saw a ghost. My favorite president as far as ghosts go, American history. Harry Truman, who was absolutely convinced that the white house was haunted, I
Nick VinZant 0:46
want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance subscribe, leave us a rating or a review. We really appreciate it. It really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a long time listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So I want to get right to our first guest, because he studies something that has been a big undercurrent throughout all of American and world history. This is paranormal historian Troy Taylor. How big of a role has the paranormal played in American society? It's
Troy Taylor 1:24
a lot bigger than most people think its role in in American history, going back to like when the first settlers came to New England. I mean, they brought with them their fear of of witchcraft, for instance, which would lead lead to all of the witch trials and to all of the events in places like Salem. And then in the 19th century, you talk about the spiritualist movement, which was something that was created with the idea that the dead and the living could communicate with each other, that there would be messages sent to the dead that would be returned. And you know, that started in the late 1840s and it became a national fad. I mean, it was a time when the population in the United States was at about 10 million people, and it was estimated that 3 million of them were spiritualists, having seances and talking to ghosts and resurgence in it, interest in it took off again after the Civil War. It would happen again after World War One, not just in America, but around the world. Because, you know, no one had ever seen this kind of death before. You know, the numbers of people that died the first seances in the White House took place when Jane Pierce was there. Her husband was Franklin Pierce and their son died in a train accident on their way to Washington for his inauguration, and she actually was so heartbroken, she had spiritualists in the White House doing seances. Mary Lincoln would do the same thing later when her son, Willie died in the White House, died of a disease, and there are diaries and letters from spiritualists that still exist that say that not only was Mary involved in the seances, but so was her husband, Abraham Lincoln as well. The first person that ever ran for president, or first woman to run for president, was a woman named Victoria Woodhull who did not do well. She couldn't even vote for herself at that point in history, but she was a spiritualist medium. My favorite president as far as ghosts go American history, Harry Truman, who was absolutely convinced that the white house was haunted, he used to send letters home to his wife all the time, talking about how he would hear footsteps in the hallways of people knocking on his door. And during the time he was in the White House, they did a big renovation, so he had to move across the street for a bit, and when they were getting ready to reopen the White House, he actually took a big group of reporters on a tour to show them the work that had been done. And when they published their articles the next day, most of the stories that that were in it weren't about the White House. They were about all the ghosts in the White House, and how President Truman couldn't wait to get back so he could start ghost hunting again. Not Making This Up, it's all true. So it seems like every major event in American history, from from war to disasters, they all have a ghost story or two attached to them.
Nick VinZant 4:19
Why do you think that is? Why do you think what is it something uniquely American about us that we gravitate towards this?
Troy Taylor 4:27
You know, I always like to see that America is a nation of extremes. We we've always been that way. You can take that back to the very beginning, and why people came here in the first place is because there were a lot of extremist religious groups in Europe that came here looking for freedom, and they just kind of brought that stuff with them. We really go to extremes. So when we jump into something and we're fascinated by it, we'll we'll take it all the way. And I think that the supernatural has been one of those things. Americans just love ghost stories. I think that ghosts also appeal to us in another way too. More than any other type of the supernatural, because ghosts kind of the same way that spiritualism did back, you know, in the 19th century. It gives us a little bit of hope, even if we don't dwell on that aspect of it, we're really looking at what's scary about it. Most of the time, we love to be scared, but deep down, we have this idea that if ghosts are real, if they're real, if these things really happen, then that means there's something after this. When
Nick VinZant 5:29
we look at kind of the paranormal History of the United States, does it gravitate in a certain direction, like people have always really gone to ghosts, or they've gone to psychics, or they've does it seem to have a direction overall? Honestly, I
Troy Taylor 5:46
think it varies. I mean, it varies by time period. A lot of it depends on what's going on in current events, as to what we gravitate toward, whether it's ghost stories or whether it's psychic mediums or, you know, reincarnation, or you name it. I mean, we've had it all, but I think a lot of it has to do with what's happening. It can be, you know, historical or a political thing. It could be a war. It could be, you know, some kind of conflict. You see interest go up in the supernatural. It also depends on what's happening in pop culture, too, like in the 80s and 90s, when Ghostbusters and The X Files were hot stuff, everybody was into ghosts and UFOs and anything paranormal. And then later it would be like reality TV ghost things, you know, with the guys on TV running around, chasing ghosts and stuff, it all goes in waves. And I say, like right now, for instance, we're sort of in between waves we have been since the pandemic. Because I don't think since the Civil War, our country has been there hasn't been this kind of divisiveness. When
Nick VinZant 6:52
you kind of look back in history, does the time now remind you of anything back in history, paranormal wise, it
Troy Taylor 7:01
does kind of remind me of the years after, say, World War Two, because there was a real lull in that period, which is odd, because after the First World War, people were just sucked back into spiritualism and reincarnation. I mean, there's just tons and tons of material. It was front page news in the newspapers. There were seances going on. You had people like Harry Houdini, who's running around debunking fake mediums, you know, and getting a thrill out of the attention that it got him. And, you know, chasing people around Scientific American magazine, which we think of, is like this very dry, important thing. They were running a contest in the early 1920s to pay $10,000 to any spirit medium who could prove they could contact the dead. I mean, this was like on the news. I mean, this is every night kind of thing. And then after World War Two, that all sort of changed, and maybe that had something to do with the fact that we just dropped a couple of atomic bombs, you know. And the world was feeling really weird about things. And then people seem to kind of focus away from spiritualism and ghosts and hauntings and things. And they started to look, say, into space, you know. And now we're thinking, Okay, we want something weird. It's going to have to come from somewhere else, because we've already seen this place is terrible, you know. And and it stayed that way until probably the mid 60s or so, when things took kind of a darker turn, and we got really interested in the occult, and not just the supernatural, the paranormal, but a lot of, you know, black magic and things I mean, and that all kind of played out in culture. You know, you had Rosemary's Baby, the founding of the Church of Satan, big pop culture things, you know, The Exorcist comes along, The Omen comes along. That was kind of a dark time in our history. And then it just, sort of, it just keeps going back and forth. So this world we're at right now kind of makes me think about that period after World War Two, because we are not really focusing on, you know, ghosts and the paranormal as much at the moment, but it'll change again. And we always come back to the paranormal. We've been doing it since we were living in caves, you know, we we love things that are out there. You know, in the night, it provides explanations for us, you know, of what's happening.
Nick VinZant 9:22
I do think definitely like, like it. Can see it after the pandemic, after the political situations that we've been going to not get into that necessarily, but like, I can see us heading towards a period of stability where everybody just wants to, like, No, I just want everything to be like the 1950s in that sense that we just want everything to be nice and safe and good, and then we'll kind of go in the opposite direction of that, after that,
Speaker 1 9:48
right, right, yeah, um, you know, it does make me wonder what's around the corner, because we did have that lull there for a while, and then, um, society changed so much. Much after that period, just culture and society with, you know, music and, you know, the hippie movement, all that kind of stuff. And then, you know, things got really dark. You know, by the end of the 60s, things got dark. And it kind of makes me wonder if we're gonna, if we're planning on repeating that history or not. I guess we'll see, hopefully not quite that extreme. I just, I don't want us to end up in the 1980s again, when you know, people believed, without any evidence whatsoever, that, you know, there were devil worshipers and permeating every corner of our country, the
Nick VinZant 10:34
ones where I kind of think of big moments, paranormal moments, so to speak, in US history. I think of the Salem witch trials. I think of the Satanic Panic. Are there other big ones that you would say are out there that maybe people don't immediately know about?
Speaker 1 10:50
It's a period we don't talk about much anyway, in the in the teens, the 19 teens, the only time we've talked about that was in 2020 when we were comparing it to the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. Nobody was talking about what came with that, which was this huge resurgence in a belief in ghosts and hauntings and going to see psychics. I mean, that's why people like you know Houdini ended up with a career, because most people could tell you he wasn't that great of a magician, but he was a great escape artist, and he also had this fascination with spiritualism. I mean, this was one of the biggest celebrities in the country, and he got other people interested in it too. Because initially his idea was he wanted to find somebody who was legitimate that could put him in touch with his dead mother. And he went looking, and couldn't find anybody. And he kept seeing, you know, fake ones that were doing things he could imitate on stage. And then he became angry and decided to try and take down the whole movement. And so he started deeply he write, wrote books about how it exposed the fakes he did stage shows and things and but the interest in it around the country is, as I mentioned earlier, I this was front page news. You had wars of words between Houdini and prominent spiritualists of the day appearing in the front pages of newspapers. And our entire country was just wrapped up in this stuff. And this was right in the middle of prohibition, because, well, we needed a distraction, you know, I mean, the roaring 20s were out there. Business was going good. Things were hopping, but you couldn't go buy a drink anywhere, and you had gangsters shooting each other in the street. So what's the opposite of that? Well, how about if I just go talk to my dead aunt, Gertrude at a seance down the street? And people were just just enraptured with the whole idea. And it lasted until about the well, it lasted until the beginning of the Great Depression. Do
Nick VinZant 12:46
you think that we generally seem to be Are we more skeptics or more believers?
Speaker 1 12:50
I think that people in general have become more skeptical. But I think this is something that people can let in a little bit of belief, because it's fun. Frankly.
Nick VinZant 13:01
Are you ready for some harder slash? Listener submitted questions, sure, sure, of course. What are some of the most haunted places in America?
Speaker 1 13:11
Places? I would say I on on my list. I would put the Gettysburg Battlefield near the top of my list. Well, actually, Gettysburg or Antietam. Both of them are well preserved, and that may have something to do with it. But you know, you're talking about places where 1000s of people died in a one to three day period, and you know, there's been a lot of history left behind there, and based on the sheer number of reports over the years, I honestly think that they would rank way up there as one of the most haunted places. Another one, I would say, is the Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky. It's an abandoned tuberculosis hospital built back in the 30s, a lot of stories over it. I'm one of those guys who's a real stickler for making sure stories are accurate. I've been doing that for a long time, and while all the stories are way out of control about how many people died there, there were still a lot. And it is a big, creepy, foreboding place, and it is the first place, well, probably the last place, at least, that I know of, that I actually saw a ghost. I actually saw a ghost at Waverly Hills, and that convinced me. Uh huh, you know, I guess there is something to all these stories, you know, but it did. It did frighten me. I'm not going to lie. I I was startled by it because I was walking down a hallway with a friend of mine. No electricity in the building. It's dark, but there's enough light to see, and a man in what looked like a doctor's coat just walked across the hallway quickly ahead of us. Now, he looks so real that we thought someone had broken into the hospital, you know, because it was, it has, it's a real target for vandals and things. At least it was at the time, this was early, 2000s And so we went in to tell the guy he had to leave, and when we went into the room, he was gone. There was the room was empty, and there was no exit door other than the one we just come through. And that's when I realized I've seen a ghost. I've only ever seen one other one ever, if there's more than that, I said, I don't know but, but that definitely got my attention, and I would definitely say it's a very haunted place. The limp mansion in St Louis, that's another one, and that was just owned by a family who were millionaires. They had started a beer brewing empire in St Louis, which was famous for that. I mean, that's where, like Anheuser Busch is based out of but the limp family and their beer no one's heard of anymore because they went out of business start a prohibition but, but the limps were, or were this German American family that you could kind of say were cursed. One of the sons died, followed by then the suicide of the patriarch of the family. Later, his oldest son committed suicide, and then one of the daughters committed suicide, and then another son committed suicide, three of them in that house. And so I've spent a lot of time there at that place over the years. This visiting because it's always been pretty close. And yeah, it's, it's by sheer number of reports, it's got a lot of them. Did
Nick VinZant 16:23
the haunted places, the most haunted places, do they seem to have something in common about them?
Speaker 1 16:28
Yeah, I think every one of them. Because I would also list places like Alcatraz or Eastern State Penitentiary, places like that too. All of them have a lot of tragedy and a lot of death associated with them, you know, and, and it doesn't always have to be, it doesn't always have to be, oh, all these people died there. I honestly think that most hauntings just, you know, chronicling them the way that I have for 31 years now, I think that a lot of haunted places. It's it's really just history. It's just an impression of the things that have taken place there that have left an impression behind. I live in a town called Alton, Illinois, and it's known as one of the most haunted small towns in America, which is funny because back in the 1870s Mark Twain called it a dismal little river town, and the two names go together, and the reason why it's the most haunted is because it was a dismal little river town. We had fires, we had epidemics, we had a the fair state penitentiary in Illinois was here turned into a Confederate prisoner camp during the war. There just been a lot of things that have gone on here, and it's the same way with all of these places that I list as most haunted spots, and I honestly think that most hauntings, I'd say 90% of hauntings, are not what we would call ghosts. They're more like just some energy left behind. I always call them residual hauntings, like sort of like a memory that leaves a recording on a place, and then, for whatever reason, that recording will kick back off and replay itself, and people would hear footsteps, or they'll smell things, or they'll see a ghost, and it's not really a ghost, it's just an apparition of something that was there many, many years ago. To give you an easier example, the most haunted place in almost any supposedly haunted old house is normally the staircase. People always talk about ghosts going up downstairs. They hear them, they see them on the stairs. I think the main reason for that is because back in the days when those homes were built, where were all the bedrooms second floor, so more people spent time on the staircase than probably anywhere else in the house, going up and down, expending energy, and now that energy just is hanging around. But then, you know, I honestly do think that there are cases of, you know, places that are haunted by what we would see ghosts, like on TV, you know, somebody's personality that stayed behind. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 18:56
I've always kind of looked at it like, I'm personally skeptical. I personally haven't had experiences. But my thing is, whether it's real or not, if you believe it's real, then it's real. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 19:06
Yeah. You know they say three out of five Americans have had an experience with a
Nick VinZant 19:11
ghost, if it is so prevalent, though, right? Like we have all these places, we have so many people that, like you said three out of five. Why do you think there is such a skepticism about it such an external skepticism and an internal belief.
Speaker 1 19:24
I think that a lot of people will have experiences that they're not positive about. Sometimes they'll tell them to someone else, sometimes they won't. But if you don't want people to think you're crazy, you keep that stuff to yourself. But yet, when someone asks you anonymously, well, do you believe in ghosts? Well, you're quick to say, Well, yeah, I mean, as long as nobody knows it's me that's admitting to it. So I used to like to say that there are two kinds of people, those who believe in ghosts and those who just won't admit it. But I'm not sure it's quite that cut and dried. It just makes for a funny line. But I think that a lot of. People have an interest in the possibility,
Nick VinZant 20:02
what is your personal favorite ghost story?
Speaker 1 20:05
My favorite ghost story is resurrection Mary. She is just to give it to you. In a nutshell, she is a ghost who haunts the southwest side of Chicago. There's a road called Archer Avenue, and there's a cemetery on it called resurrection cemetery. And for years, I mean, all the way back to the 1930s people claim that they have picked her up and have given her a ride. I mean, she's a vanishing hitchhiker story. She just peers out of the car, often at the gates to the cemetery. Now, I always say, though, that this particular story is a little different than most of the vanishing hitchhiker stories, because it's not a friend of a friend story. There are real names, real people, real places, and it's the only ghost that I know of, or at least that I can think of, off the top of my head, that actually left physical evidence behind. Where she was observed. She was seen standing at the gates to the cemetery by a passing motorist, holding onto the bars, looking out a young woman was, we'll leave it at that. He went down to the police station just down the road. Told him that there was a woman who had gotten locked into the cemetery by accident, probably. So the police went back to look a cop named Pat Homa, as a matter of fact, so there are real names in the story. Went back to the cemetery. They couldn't find anybody. And then he shined his light over on the gates to the cemetery, and the bars, two of the bars where the girl had been standing, had actually been pulled apart. And there were finger you can see in the photograph, fingertips pressed into the metal where it was burned. Because the bars were burned, they had been like a greenish color, you know, like copper does, except now, they had been burned out where it was that were blackened, and you could see the fingerprints in there. But this story is so interesting because there are, like, a couple of different descriptions for the ghost. I mean, some people will say she's a blonde and a white dress. Other people say she has dark, kind of like shoulder bobbed hair, and it's dark, and she's wearing a kind of a light, purplish colored dress. And it's why is there two stories? Well, the weird thing about it is, I'm pretty sure that, and this is again, one I've spent a lot of history, a lot of time working on the history and trying to research it. I think it's more than one woman who died who's now ghost is being picked up along the road. One of the first ones was a woman named Marie Burgo. Oh, gosh, I just lost everything. Her name was Marie burgovi, and she was a Polish immigrant worker who lived not too far away, and she was killed in an auto accident. And in 1934 March 11, 19 434. She died, was buried in resurrection cemetery, and within like a week, the cemetery caretaker had called the guy who'd embalmed her and said, I saw a ghost in the cemetery. And then went on to describe Marie to a T and that wasn't the weirdest part. The weirdest part was, not long after that, people started seeing a young girl with dark hair wearing an orchid, kind of a light colored dress, running out from the cemetery gates, trying to flag down cars to get a ride on the road. And sometimes she would jump onto their running boards and try to climb in the window and stuff. Yeah, no, no kidding. And the weird thing about this was that the people who this was happening to recognized her as Marie bergovi. They knew her because they all grew up in that same neighborhood, and they all used to go to the same place. There was a dance hall down the street called the O Henry ballroom, and when it literally went on to become the Willowbrook but they actually recognized her. And so they're like, Okay, this is we're not going to drive by here anymore at night, because we're seeing our dead friend and in front of the cemetery. So that went on for a long time. And then there were the people who claimed that they had picked up this blonde. There was a guy whose name was Jerry Palus. He met a girl at a dance hall one night. Blonde spent some time with her. She asked if he could take her home. He drove her down Archer Avenue, and they got to the front of the cemetery, and she told him, this is where she had to get out. Well, he thought she meant on the other side of the road, because off the road there were some apartment houses, and he offered to drive her the rest of the way. And she said, No where I'm going, you can't follow. Got out of the car, and instead of going toward the houses, she went across the street and disappeared when she got to the cemetery gates, this guy swore it happened. He swore he spent the entire evening with her. He was interviewed in the newspapers. He was on, I think, like Unsolved Mysteries, one of the TV shows from the early 90s, and he died in 92 and up until that time, he swore, absolutely swore, this really happened.
Nick VinZant 24:50
Does America have certain famous ghosts? Like, who are America's most famous ghosts? I would
Speaker 1 24:55
put Abraham Lincoln on that list. I always say he's the most well. Traveled ghost in American history because of all the places where he's supposed to haunt, from his tomb and where he was buried in Springfield to his home in Springfield to random places all over the country, the places that he stopped at once, or places where you know Abraham Lincoln slept here, well, apparently now his ghost does too, because there's so many stories. Fort Monroe in Virginia. He stayed there a couple times during the Civil War. People claim they've seen his ghost. Ford's Theater, his ghost is supposed to haunt there or the house across the street where he actually died. But if there's any place that he does haunt, we're back to the White House again because it's Lincoln's ghost that everybody has seen. I mean, we're talking presidents, politicians, people who, you know, gosh, Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy. I mean, there's just this long list of people. You know, Truman always thought it was Lincoln that he heard walking around Winston Churchill in December 41 spent the night at the at the White House. Was there to meet with with FDR, and he spent one night in the Lincoln Bedroom, and the next day, he asked to be moved to another room. He said that he was taking a bath, and he got out of the bathtub and was walking around the room naked, looking for a towel. And he looked up, and Abraham Lincoln was standing in front of him, and Churchill claims he said to Lincoln, Mr. President, I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage. And then Lincoln smiled at him and disappeared. Yeah. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands spent the night in the White House. She was there to speak to Congress, but she stayed FDR was kind of backing her for political asylum, and she'd stayed there during FDR presidency. And the next night, after her stay at a cocktail dinner, she told the President that she'd fainted the night before, and the President asked her, What do you mean? And she said that at two o'clock in the morning she'd heard a knock on her door, so she'd gotten up to answer it, and when she opened it, and she even said, I know you're not going to believe this, but Abraham Lincoln was standing in the hallway, and she said, and after that, everything went black, and I woke up on the floor. I mean, she had no idea that Lincoln had been this long running ghost who'd been seen. So I put Lincoln pretty high on that list, because they're talking about an All American ghost. I mean, you can't, you can't ask for a bigger one than that. Probably the other one that I would say, though, would be the bell witch of Tennessee. It's one of those stories that we call it a witch, but it was really a ghost. That was the turn they had for it in 1814, when this whole thing started. They were settlers. The bell family were settlers to Tennessee, and for some reason, they were targeted by what they call the witch, and it was this ghost who just wreaked havoc in their house. I mean, tore the place apart, banged on walls, broke things, attacked John Bell, who was the patriarch of the family and his daughter, Elizabeth the ghost, would always go after her too. It would beat both of them, slap them, pinch them. And this would happen in front of dozens of witnesses, I mean, and there are affidavits still on file in Tennessee from people who claim that they saw it happen. And apparently Andrew Jackson himself got involved in this story, because John Bell Jr, who was the oldest son, had served with him in the army in New Orleans at the end of the of the War of 1812 and so Jackson had heard about this ghost story that was going around at the time, and came to visit, and he and his men were actually scared away by what was happening inside the house because of all the violence and activity. But what makes it cool is that it is the only ghost story in American history where the ghost took credit for killing someone because John belt died. He was poisoned. He was he became very sick because of the effect that this ghost was having on him, and at some point, he died, one point during the night, and it was discovered that his medicine had been replaced by this black bottle that had something in it. They didn't know what it was. No one recognized it. The doctor said he didn't prescribe it. So they took some out and they gave some of it to a cat, which immediately died. So it's wherever this bottle came from. It poisoned John Bell, and supposedly the ghost who could speak, but nobody ever saw they would hear its voice, took credit for killing John Bell. That farm is still around. You know, the the foundations of the house are still there. People still talk about the story, because on that property was a cave that the family used to use for storing, like, you know, perishable foods during the summer time. And the the story is, is that the when the when the ghost left the family, it went into the cave. So the bell witch cave is another place I would put on the list. Is one of the most haunted places in America. Not so much. I'm not convinced that it's the bell witch that haunts it, but man, is it a weird place, really weird. I spent the night there once in 1997 I'd never do it again. I mean, this kind of stuff doesn't really scare me, and it's my job, but I spent the night in that cave, and I I wouldn't, I wouldn't stay there again. It was that freaky. I mean, I all night long, I kept hearing voices and people walking around. There was no one in there. I mean, it was empty, with a locked gate on it. Nobody could have gotten in. And I don't know what was going on, but, man, I've seen some, like, weird photographs and things from there, and all kinds of weird stuff happens, and I don't know it's just kind of an anomaly.
Nick VinZant 30:43
That's pretty much all the questions that we have, is there kind of, what's coming up next for you? I know you got a lot of books. I know you got the show, the museum,
Speaker 1 30:50
yeah, yeah, yeah, yep. Got a podcast. I've got, you know, I've got a new book coming out in November about the history of American circuses and side shows and some of the ghost stories that go along with that, but it's really just an excuse to get to write cool stuff about, you know, side shows and carnivals, but it's still got ghost stories with it too, and and that's been a big part of fun, part of the project. But, yeah, I I'm actually going to Houdini seance on Halloween night, because Houdini always said that if it was possible to come back, he would. I
Nick VinZant 31:24
want to thank Troy so much for joining us. If you want to connect with him, we have linked 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. If you want to see some of the places that we talk about. The YouTube version of this interview will be live on October 31 at 12:30pm Pacific. Okay, now let's bring in John Shaw and get to the pointless part of the show, assuming that they are real. Which Halloween monster? Would you be most afraid of vampire, werewolf, mummy or a witch?
John Shull 32:07
Uh, probably a vampire.
Nick VinZant 32:12
Oh, I think it's werewolf. I think a werewolf is actually scarier than a vampire, because a vampire you're either dead or you're going to be a vampire, which doesn't really sound that terrible, a werewolf, it's just bad all around.
John Shull 32:26
All of those creatures are scary, no doubt, but a vampire can blend in and, you know, they can catch you off guard. I
Nick VinZant 32:37
agree that the vampire is probably the one that's going to get you easier than the werewolf is gonna get you. But I don't think the outcome with the vampire is as bad as the outcome with a werewolf. Which one do you want to be turned into? More a vampire or a werewolf?
John Shull 32:51
Oof. I mean, that's tough to actually be turned into one of them. Yeah. I mean, be kind of cool to be like a running werewolf. You know what I mean, like, I don't think, I don't think I'd want to be a vampire.
Nick VinZant 33:04
I think I would rather be a vampire than a werewolf, although I guess maybe you you're only a werewolf, like once a month, which doesn't sound that bad.
John Shull 33:13
What are the other two options?
Nick VinZant 33:15
Mummy and mummy and a witch?
John Shull 33:17
Yeah, witches don't do anything for me, mummies. I mean, mummies have never been realistic. I don't know how anyone decided that a mummy was going to be classified as a scary thing.
Nick VinZant 33:31
I mean, they were real. Which is odd is that the least scariest Halloween monster is the one that was a real thing, like we add mummies. Okay, well, I did poll the audience about this, so 50% of the audience agrees with me. 50% of the audience said werewolf is the scariest, followed by vampire at 30% which at 17% and mummy at 2% so nobody's really scared of mummies. All
John Shull 33:57
right, let's give some shout outs, and I'll try my best not to make this as uncomfortable as possible. Uh, so we'll start with Lucas, Brazi, Connor, Johnston, Luke, Brian, Tino, Amber, rebaca, see, I'm doing it again. I'm just going monotone. I
Nick VinZant 34:15
need to like and help it, man. I need to try to, like, liven it up a little bit, right? Like
John Shull 34:22
Alright, alright. Let's try. Let's try it. Thomas Pawlowski,
Unknown Speaker 34:27
okay, alright.
John Shull 34:31
Top. Tommy Lee, Brandon Blakely, come on down. Ken Smith, sendo Garcia and Frank Gill,
Unknown Speaker 34:41
all right? I
Nick VinZant 34:43
mean, it's something you can work on, right? I don't know what you're gonna do, but you got to do something. What
John Shull 34:48
you're gonna do. Brother,
Unknown Speaker 34:50
who's that from Hawk COVID? Oh, okay, he's
Nick VinZant 34:57
overrated.
John Shull 34:58
Mr. America. Who could. Can rip his shirt off at the Trump rally a couple of days ago?
Nick VinZant 35:03
Well, dude, it's I couldn't. Could you rip a shirt? If I said, right now, take your sweatshirt thing off that you got. Could you straight rip your shirt?
John Shull 35:15
Ah, I mean, if I had what he always had, where they pre cut it for me, sure.
Nick VinZant 35:20
But could you just straight rip it like I don't think I'm strong enough to just take a regular shirt and just rip it like that at all. And I work out, don't stress your collar out, dude.
John Shull 35:32
I have a million of these, and you work out, okay,
Nick VinZant 35:34
well, then let's see you rip it if you've got a million of them.
John Shull 35:39
I mean, I just don't want to rip my T shirt. I don't know if I could or I couldn't. I think I could. I don't think I could. Let's see. So I have a couple updates in my life that people were okay waiting for, um, here's, here's a here's a tip, don't ever go into traffic court thinking the cops not gonna show up.
Unknown Speaker 35:57
Oh, I was
Nick VinZant 35:58
wondering, so can I give the backstory for this? Really quickly, John got a ticket for doing a California stop, for not completely stopping, and he was wanted. His plan was to go ahead and try to fight it, even though that he admitted during our fake trial that he didn't stop, and he knows he didn't stop, but she went in there to try to fight it for an expired license plate. Right?
John Shull 36:21
I had no idea I've only fought one ticket in court, and it was not a traffic ticket. First off, had no idea that when I walked into court, and I live in a decent sized town, about 45,000 people. I mean, it's not small by any means. I had no idea that every cop that had given a ticket, and I had a court date was going to be there, so, oddly enough, I actually ended up sitting next to the cop, and we were kind of funny. I mean, he's a good guy. I mean, once again, yes, the California roll is my fault, whatever. But we were kind of laughing, having some fun. Then my name gets called, and he walks up there, and he did a real solid thing, man, he he dismissed every every I got three citations, he dismissed two out of the three, and they took my impeding traffic down a little bit. And, yeah, I'm just honest. Feel like, if you're honest, judges and cops are human beings, right? Like they understand, oh, honesty
Unknown Speaker 37:20
is the best policy, man, I'm
Nick VinZant 37:22
glad. I'm glad that it took you 36 years to figure that
John Shull 37:26
out, seven actually, so i This caught me by surprise. I can't believe we're already this time of year, but this Saturday going into Sunday is falling back. Yeah, so are you a fallback guy or a spring ahead guy?
Nick VinZant 37:44
I just wish we kept the same time all the time. I'm just, I just don't see why we continue to do things, just because that's what we did. I would get rid of daylight savings time just because, quite frankly, I don't feel like going up there and changing all the clocks. This is my other question to you, are all the clocks in your house set at the same time?
John Shull 38:04
No, because that's impossible.
Nick VinZant 38:07
Are they close? I'm not saying they all have to tick off 142 and change over at exactly the same time. But if you look, if you go to different rooms in your house, is it always the same time in your house.
John Shull 38:22
Uh, yes, pretty much within a minute or two, but I'm the douche that sets the clock five minutes fast.
Unknown Speaker 38:31
Oh,
Nick VinZant 38:33
so you've confused everybody in the house about what time it is,
John Shull 38:36
yeah. So when I'm like, you know my wife to my wife, McKay. We need to be there in 10 minutes. We actually have 15, you know what I mean. But
Nick VinZant 38:46
why do it? It doesn't work. Everybody just then just knows that the clock is fast. The only way to do that is to have somebody else set the clock and not tell you how fast it is. I
John Shull 38:58
think you're getting way too deep on this. And I don't think it's more than just setting
Nick VinZant 39:02
the clock. Does your wife know that the clock is set five minutes fast?
John Shull 39:07
Now she does? Yes, so then
Nick VinZant 39:09
it completely makes it pointless. Because I'm just saying it's not you're not thinking this all the way through. But when I was growing up, depending on what room if I was in in the house, it could be anywhere between 115 and, like 230 because everybody would set the clocks at different times.
John Shull 39:28
Yeah, I can't have that. My OCD Ness would go nuts. Gotta
Nick VinZant 39:33
all be the same time. And stop lying to yourself about what time it is. Dude, it doesn't it's not going to work.
Unknown Speaker 39:40
Well, it used to work,
Unknown Speaker 39:43
then you figured it out. Okay,
John Shull 39:45
maybe, maybe, maybe within the first year of marriage. Um, oh, other life update. Uh, have I had my last probably bachelor party over the weekend?
Speaker 2 39:55
Oh, how did that go? Did you represent? No. Nobody
John Shull 40:00
got shot, nobody got arrested. So a pretty successful bachelor party.
Nick VinZant 40:07
So just to for people who are not familiar, John has been to a bachelor party where somebody did get
Speaker 2 40:11
shot. My own bachelor party. You're at
Nick VinZant 40:15
your own bachelor party. Somebody got shot. Did somebody get arrested for being
John Shull 40:20
shot? Yes, but they were in the hospital, so, oh,
Nick VinZant 40:26
man, he got arrested. Wait, he shot himself. Went to the hospital and then was arrested for shooting himself.
John Shull 40:32
He was not, not necessarily. I well, actually, he did get charged with reckless dis discharge of firearm, but I think it was more or less the gun charge that they were more worried about than anything. Oh,
Nick VinZant 40:46
he wasn't supposed to have it, huh? He
John Shull 40:48
was not, no, not that kind of caliber weapon. At least new Apple iPhone came out. I'm sure you give a shit about that. Don't care at all. So I wanted to ask you, this is really just a segue. Do you have a Blackberry? Like, what? What are you rolling now?
Nick VinZant 41:06
Uh, I believe I have an iPhone six.
John Shull 41:12
Oh, my God, man.
Unknown Speaker 41:13
Oh, it works.
Nick VinZant 41:14
Does it end there's like, can I text, can I look at the internet? Can I go on social media? That's the only thing I need the phone to do. Like, I don't get any personal satisfaction about like, Oh, I got the new one. So the old ones work.
John Shull 41:28
If I were to tell you that Colin Farrell, apparently, is now the world's sweetheart instead of the world's bad boy, would you believe it?
Nick VinZant 41:39
Yeah, because his performance in the penguin is one of the greatest performances I've ever seen in my life. It's incredible. I donated to his charity because of his performance in the penguin. It's it's one of the best things I've ever seen. It's incredible, really,
Unknown Speaker 41:59
oh yeah,
Nick VinZant 42:00
it's amazing. It's unbelievable how good he is in that he would have no idea that it's him at all.
John Shull 42:10
I mean, who, who was a better penguin? Him or Danny DeVito? Oh.
Nick VinZant 42:15
I mean, each for their time, Danny DeVito is great in that role, but Colin Farrell is like, what the penguin would probably really be like. It's, if you haven't seen it, it's one of the greatest performances I've ever seen, if not the best I've ever seen.
John Shull 42:30
I'm just looking it up. That's the mini series, right? Yeah,
Speaker 2 42:34
it's, it's incredible. Great job.
John Shull 42:38
Alright, maybe what? What's that on? HBO. HBO, okay, alright, Home Box Office, great. It's
Speaker 2 42:46
fantastic. Home Box Office.
John Shull 42:49
I feel the need to tell you this because you're always shitting on it. The World Series is the most watched World Series in nearly 20 years. So looks like baseball is back. Stuff wise, no,
Nick VinZant 43:00
baseball is not back. They have the two biggest teams in the entire market that are playing each other. Baseball is not back. It's just that they have the two biggest things going on. Not anybody more like other people aren't more interested in just the two biggest cities.
John Shull 43:15
Listen, you might be right, but I'm just going to pretend it's back, because
Nick VinZant 43:19
it's how many people watched it? How many people watched it?
John Shull 43:24
Oh, man, I want to say the second game, game two I saw, there was like 13 million.
Nick VinZant 43:30
I mean, that's a lot, but that shows you how really that all any of the leagues really want playing is New York and LA. Every League's dream matchup is just the New York team versus the LA team. That's all they really want. Listen,
John Shull 43:43
I, I'm I'm only going back to this because this kind of explains what you just said. The Detroit Tigers, their entire a their entire wild card roster that was on the wild card team was about 18 and a half million dollars in payroll. They faced a pitcher from the Houston Astros who was making $19.5 million that year. Must have been so that's insane. Must
Unknown Speaker 44:13
have been something really interesting.
John Shull 44:18
Well, it is. If you cared at all about what you say instead of just saying
Nick VinZant 44:21
not there anything, you said, you're completely frozen.
John Shull 44:24
I said you would care if you compare about or care about anything that you said, which is talking about the two biggest teams in baseball facing each other, which is true because there's three teams in baseball that equal about a billion dollars in salary, and then everyone else is far below that combined.
Nick VinZant 44:42
Oh, your entire thing frozen. I didn't hear anything you said. I then you came back all hot.
Unknown Speaker 44:48
You came back all pissed off.
John Shull 44:52
I hate everything. I hate, I hate. I just hate it all.
Nick VinZant 44:58
I didn't hear anything that. You said you were completely frozen. But then I think you heard one thing that I said, and you just got all fired up about it. It just came in all pissed
Unknown Speaker 45:08
off. Yeah, I don't know who could Damn it, mom. I
John Shull 45:15
don't know what's happening. This whole episode has been a Technic, technical nightmare.
Nick VinZant 45:21
It's been a technical difficulty. I enjoyed it. Though. I like watching you struggle.
Unknown Speaker 45:25
It's enjoyable.
John Shull 45:27
I mean, on my end, it's fine, so I don't, I don't know. Oh,
Nick VinZant 45:31
who knows. Okay, so what was your big rant about baseball? Is it important the southern about the Detroit Tigers and how they did what Detroit does, and give everybody a little bit of hope, but, and then ultimately, remember that they're Detroit, and they're not going to win anything ever, ever again in any sport at all. Let's
John Shull 45:47
just, let's just move on. Um, did you see Dwayne? Wait, did you see Dwayne Wade's new statue?
Unknown Speaker 45:54
No,
John Shull 45:56
well, I'll let you look for yourself, but it may be one of the four statues I've ever seen. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 46:00
Oh gosh,
John Shull 46:02
it is not well done. In my opinion. It actually looks pretty bad.
Nick VinZant 46:12
I mean, maybe that's what he's really look like.
Unknown Speaker 46:15
Oh god.
Nick VinZant 46:20
That's terrible. That's bad. Oh, my God, that's terrible. It looks like, it looks like if they took him, put him in a horror movie and then had the main villain, like, cut his face off and wear it is what it looks like to me, like, that's
Unknown Speaker 46:43
awful. Oh, I'd
Nick VinZant 46:44
be so like, what are they gonna do? Like, would you keep a really terrible statue of you up there
Unknown Speaker 46:56
and be like, hey, look dude, you gotta redo that. What are
John Shull 46:58
you supposed to do?
Unknown Speaker 47:01
Well,
Nick VinZant 47:02
I mean, you think this is what I would do if I was Dwayne Wade in that regards to that statue, I would play it off and be like, Okay, thank you. It's a huge honor, because a lot of people did come out. I mean, he doesn't like you, don't this is an honor. We're honoring you, right? Like, this isn't something that you don't you didn't pay for it. So this is a free thing. Like, someone is doing this for you. You can't sit there and complain about it, and I would sit there and be a good sport about it, and then secretly, like, look, I'm going to pay for a new one. Let's put a new one up here, and let's get this done. Like, I can't, yeah, that's what I would do as him, Oh, I see. That's atrocious. That's one of the worst things I've ever seen look after,
John Shull 47:49
after the fact, you'd like have it redone, or you would pay for it to be redone, or something. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 47:54
he's got plenty of money, and I would easily put that down as a thing that I would pay for to be redone. Because that is awful. That is awful. Like, that's embarrassing, that somebody thought that you looked like that.
John Shull 48:08
Well, like, I always wonder, like, doesn't he get to, like, see the bust, you know, doesn't he like to go? Doesn't he get to see it as they're developing it? They must
Nick VinZant 48:16
not. But other people have seen it. Somebody has had to have seen that and thought, wow, that looks awful.
John Shull 48:22
Like, if you're, my immediate thought was, like, if you're the general manager of the heat, they're like, hey, check out the statue we're unveiling in three hours. Like, what do you do? Oh,
Unknown Speaker 48:35
you cancel the whole thing. You
Nick VinZant 48:37
you come up with something. You have to come up with something. Like, there's no way you could allow people to look at that. Oh, that's the worst thing I've ever seen. Like, I'll be so poor guy. But then sometimes I'll see a picture of myself and be like, oh god, that's what I look like.
John Shull 48:56
Oh yeah, all the time for me. Oh, it's humiliating.
Nick VinZant 48:59
I don't really want to look in the mirror in any way past the age of 35 Yeah? Like, I just want to exist without knowing what I look like. I
John Shull 49:08
kind of wish I didn't even see myself recording. Oh, yeah, I
Speaker 2 49:12
wish I could do that too. Yeah. Okay, poor guy. Whoo, yeah. You
Nick VinZant 49:16
gotta change that.
John Shull 49:17
Brother, just see you. Uh, anyways, that's it. Let's move on. Bourbon and coke. Yeah, I
Nick VinZant 49:25
go through phases where sometimes I like to drink it out of a cup more.
Unknown Speaker 49:30
Okay,
Nick VinZant 49:31
so our top five is the top five most underrated candies. What's your number five?
John Shull 49:38
My number five the classic all American good bar that is called the Almond Joy.
Nick VinZant 49:46
Is that underrated? Though I feel like it's making a little bit of a comeback. I like seeing an Almond Joy in the candy stash.
John Shull 49:55
How many people have you been around, including your children, who see Almond Joy? Is, and they're like, Ooh, no, we're not gonna eat that. But they are damn delicious.
Nick VinZant 50:06
I'm not gonna pass up an Almond Joy. It's just not gonna be one of my first choices. The problem isn't that Almond Joy isn't good, it's just that other things are better. Like, can I have this Almond Joy, or can I have a Reese's? Well, I'm gonna get the Reese's every time.
John Shull 50:23
Yeah, I don't. I don't disagree with that, but I think there's a good, good place for that candy.
Nick VinZant 50:28
My number five is a Tootsie Roll. Incredibly underrated candy.
John Shull 50:35
It's garbage candy,
Nick VinZant 50:38
it's delicious. You're underrating a juicy role. Man, that's the problem. You're not respecting
John Shull 50:44
Tootsie Roll. Crap candy, get a tootsie roll.
Unknown Speaker 50:48
Okay,
Nick VinZant 50:49
all right, what's your number four then,
Unknown Speaker 50:50
Pez, I was
John Shull 50:53
trying to figure out what these were called, and I'm not sure I think these, I think this is the correct name, but juicy fruits, you know, I'm talking about, like the they're the hard, kind of gelatinous candy that are in the shape of fruit that kind of tastes like fruit, but they're like a hard, like a hard gel candy.
Unknown Speaker 51:15
Oh, I have no idea what you're talking about. Alright.
John Shull 51:17
Well, that's fair. Anyways, juicy fruits, my number four.
Unknown Speaker 51:22
My number four is 100 grand.
Nick VinZant 51:26
100 grand is a great it's a poor man's crunch bar. Is
Unknown Speaker 51:29
what it is.
John Shull 51:32
Not bad. I mean, it's fine. I've no real issues with 100 grand.
Nick VinZant 51:38
Okay, all right. I could also put payday at my number four. I could have accepted payday as well to number three.
John Shull 51:46
Uh, so I I think these are underrated, but because I think a lot of people don't like them, so that's why they're on my list. But I put Tootsie Pops.
Nick VinZant 51:56
How are you going to be so mad about Tootsie Rolls? And then put Tootsie Pops higher on the list
John Shull 52:01
for two reasons. One, the Tootsie Pops are surrounded in sugary goodness, whether it be strawberry or cherry or even chocolate. Two, anything on a stick is better than a standalone candy. Sorry.
Nick VinZant 52:18
Oh, I would disagree. Oh, so if you get anything on a stick is better than a standalone candy. Is that the position that you're going to
John Shull 52:27
go with? Uh, yes, Dum Dums.
Nick VinZant 52:32
I do like the name Dum Dums. Okay, so then, by your argument, a Tootsie Pop is better than like, a HERSHEY's Bar or a Reese's cup. Anything on a stick is better that's well
John Shull 52:44
than a Tootsie Roll. Absolutely.
Nick VinZant 52:48
Okay, so you're saying that a Tootsie Pop is better than a tootsie roll. I can understand that argument, but don't come at me with some kind of ridiculousness that anything on a stick is going to be better than a candy bar.
John Shull 53:00
I mean, I'd only put one or two kinds of candy above, uh, above it. So,
Speaker 2 53:05
okay, okay, peppermint, Peppermint Patty.
Nick VinZant 53:12
Peppermint Patties are
John Shull 53:12
good. God, you're no, they're not actually very
Nick VinZant 53:17
underrated candy, very good candy, if you get if you're in the mood for it, it can be very good.
John Shull 53:26
Yeah, I don't know, not, not making my list, that's for sure. Okay, alright, what
Speaker 2 53:32
else is on your list? Then? Swedish Fish. Ew. Those are disgusting.
Nick VinZant 53:40
No, no. And I live in an area where a lot of Swedish people live, and so, like, we've got all kinds of Swedish candy around here. None of it's very good to me personally. I would take Swedish Fish. Someone handed me Swedish Fish. I would put it where it goes, which is in the garbage.
John Shull 53:56
You probably hate IKEA too, don't you? No, I
Unknown Speaker 53:59
like IKEA.
Nick VinZant 54:00
I don't want to go to Ikea, because then I'm going to be there for the entire day. But I like Ikea stuff. I got a lot of Ikea furniture. IKEA is a day. If anything involving IKEA is going to take you the entire day, whether it's going to the store and you're going to be there for the entire day, or if you're assembling something and you're going to be doing that for the entire day, IKEA is basically English for entire day. Is what it means in English.
John Shull 54:25
That's just what it means, just entire day, entire day.
Nick VinZant 54:31
My number two is jelly beans. You forget how good your jelly beans are.
John Shull 54:39
You will come to find that jelly beans nor candy corn made my list.
Speaker 2 54:43
Okay, okay, okay, cool, cool, cool. What's
Nick VinZant 54:47
your number one? Then are you on your number one?
John Shull 54:50
Yeah, because anyways, going back to candy corn and jelly beans, ephemeral, all right,
Nick VinZant 54:56
okay, candy corn, all right, right. Even. Candy corn isn't really that bad. It just gets a bad reputation. It's like the kid that just gets made fun of all the time, not really a reason for it. Everybody just picks on that kid, which is candy corn. It's just developed a bad reputation. It's it's kind of like candy corn is the nickel back of Halloween. It's really not that bad. Everybody just likes to pile on it.
John Shull 55:24
Wow, you just compared. I mean, I feel like that's a comparison right there that needs no explaining. Candle,
Nick VinZant 55:30
yeah, Candy Corn is the nickel back of Halloween. Nothing wrong with it. It just gets piled on by other people. What's your number one?
John Shull 55:38
Uh, wax bottles.
Nick VinZant 55:41
Oh, yeah. But like, I just, I understand that those are good. I just have no desire to ever have one of those. Like, I would never pay money for that. And if somebody said, Oh, I got candy, and it's wax bottles, like, such as, if
Unknown Speaker 55:54
you had candy,
John Shull 55:55
yeah? I mean, that's why they're underrated. They're actually quite delicious. And they're just, it's a fun, it's fun to bite the wax off and then check the little juice inside.
Nick VinZant 56:06
Oh, you can't eat the whole candy. You can't eat the bottle. No, you
John Shull 56:10
should. Yeah, you should definitely try to eat a whole thing of wax. That doesn't sound terrible at all, but it's not edible. I don't think so. If it is, I've no one ever told me, and I'm gonna be pissed that's the case. Yeah, I think I gotta look this up. No, I don't think you're supposed to eat the wax bottle.
Nick VinZant 56:30
Well, that's such a waste of candy. Yeah?
Unknown Speaker 56:35
No,
Nick VinZant 56:37
yes, the wax and wax bottle candies is edible, but it's meant to be chewed and not swallowed. I don't, I mean, eventually you have to, dude. I every time I look up one of these AI answers that comes up on there, I feel like they're always kind of wrong. Oh. I mean,
John Shull 56:54
I don't think, yeah, I don't think you're supposed to eat the wax bottle.
Nick VinZant 56:59
Here we have some sort of an answer, you're supposed to rip the wax off and drink the liquid or chew the wax to get the flavor out and then spit the wax out. So maybe you're not. That's why it's way too much work. That's a terrible number one. That's way too much effort for King dude.
Unknown Speaker 57:15
It's still, I don't want
Nick VinZant 57:16
to be putting in effort for candy. My number one is Smarties. I think they're very underrated. I think they're fun.
John Shull 57:26
I don't think they're underrated. I don't think Smarties is underrated at all. I don't
Nick VinZant 57:29
think they get enough respect, though, but you're not going straight to the Smarties. You're going straight to the chocolate. I think Smarties deserve more credit. I think that maybe not. I think one out of every five times you go back to the candy bar or to the candy jug, the candy thing, whatever they call it, I think you should get Smarties, and I don't think that they get enough attention. Do you have anything else on your list? I
John Shull 57:54
put hot tamales on there. Also have Twizzlers, but I don't think Twizzlers are underrated.
Unknown Speaker 58:00
No,
Nick VinZant 58:01
I think they're right where they kind of should be. They are good, but it's like I'd just rather have something else. I
John Shull 58:06
do have. The other thing I put on there were warheads.
Nick VinZant 58:10
Oh yeah, I don't mind a sour candy. Every once in a while, I have a payday. And Whoppers. Whoppers are great, no,
John Shull 58:20
Whoppers are terrible. They're in the same category as tootsie rolls for me. Oh,
Nick VinZant 58:24
my God. Oh, put it on a stick and you'll love it. Oh, 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 subscribe, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it really helps us out and let us know what you think are the most underrated candies. I can't think of a candy maybe besides, like licorice or soft Taffy that I would really just say no to. Otherwise, I think it's all great, pretty much. I mean, I'll eat anything i.