Death Diving (Døds) is a mix of danger and style. Like Cliff Jumping mixed with Professional Wrestling. The sport is soaring in popularity worldwide and Asbjørg Nesje and Jonny Nyberg are two of the best. We talk Death Diving (Døds) basics, overcoming your fear and why getting hurt is part of the game. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Best Looking Foods
Asbjørg Nesje and Jonny Nyberg: 01:12
Pointless: 30:38
Top 5: 47:55
Interview with Death Divers Asbjørg Nesje and Jonny Nyberg
Nick VinZant 0:00
Hi welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode depth diving in good looking food.
Jonny Nyberg 0:21
The whole idea originated as you're playing chicken with the water. So I
Asbjørg Nesje 0:25
yeah, I was standing on top of the type of takeoff for like 40 minutes ready to jump before I actually managed to jump because I was so scared. I would say
Jonny Nyberg 0:35
if, if rebel high diving is the UFC death diving is the WWE.
Nick VinZant 0:43
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. And if you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So I want to get right to our first guests. These are champion death divers, as bjorg Nunez Jay who you'll hear first and Johnny Nyberg. So just looking at this, like what is what is death diving. Okay,
Asbjørg Nesje 1:17
so you're jumping from a high platform or a cliff or something like that into water. And in the air, you want to make it look like you're supposed to belly flop. And you want to hold the bellows up position as long as possible before we hit the water.
Jonny Nyberg 1:32
The whole idea originated as you're playing chicken with the water right so you take a big run up and then you want to at the as late as possible that's really important to death diving is you want to close we call it into a shrimp, you kind of punch the water with your hands and your feet at the same moment. And when you close like that it doesn't really hurt feels the same as if you land on your feet. What got you
Asbjørg Nesje 1:53
into it if you run off the cliff, and you have like a lot of hype. That's how you get like this flying feeling. And I don't think you get the same kind of flying feeling if you jump feet first. I guess a lot of people do it for the adrenaline. I also do it for like the mastery because you can imagine it being It's scary. It's it's really scary. So for me I guess it's the feeling of overcoming my fears and show to myself that I'm I'm stronger than my fears I guess
Jonny Nyberg 2:26
we're on that now in the sport and within the community I know a lot of stuff. A lot of the best Cliff jumpers and death divers and and high divers right high diving being like the pointed toes and proper form technique type of stuff like Red Bull does. I think all of them give you about the same amount of adrenaline. I think it really breaks down to what your personality is like. That that is one of the judging criteria is is actually based off of like how hype you can get the crowd on the platform. And like how much attitude and swagger you have. I really enjoy the whole vibe of the competition, not just the actual job. It's more
Nick VinZant 3:01
judged for the entertainment value than it is technique.
Jonny Nyberg 3:04
Absolutely. I would say if if rebel high diving is the UFC. Death diving is the WWE. I
Nick VinZant 3:13
think it seems like a little bit like you're supposed to make this difficult thing look like it's just nothing to you. Oh, yeah, got this, I completely got this
Asbjørg Nesje 3:22
already from when you're just standing on top of the platform before you jump you will be like just waving waving to everybody chillin, um, that you're not supposed to look bother at all like, I could do this. In my sleep every day. I'm not even scared. And on the inside of your body, you would be scared. But you're not supposed to show it to anyone because it's kind of a show sport. So it's part of the show. Just if you walk up to the platform, and you look down and be like, okay, and you're tense and obviously scared. You don't get the same feeling like watching it. I'm chilling. I don't need to look at a water I can I can lift my cycle, I can look at the judges or at the audience, just kind of chilling in the air having a lot of attitude. Maybe you can point at someone or throw them a case do something in the air just to show that you're in full control. I'm not afraid I can just have a lot of Steve's the landing
Nick VinZant 4:21
part of it. Like I could never quite tell watching some of the videos like how are you landing? Like what? Because it's so quick at the end. I couldn't figure it out. Like what are you trying to do?
Jonny Nyberg 4:32
There's three accepted ways to land a death dive in competition. The most common one, like I said, is called the shrimp which you basically you tuck your head down into your shoulders, you punch forward into the water and you bring your legs up to try and touch your hands. So you try and close in half. If you know this is your hands, this is your feet. Yeah, try and hit the water like that. The second way is called the bullet or the crusher. It's almost the same thing but you basically protect your your head with your forearms, and you kind of learned like this, and you kind of crush into the water, that hurts a little bit more, you'll sting your your arms. But it's louder, and it gets a bigger splash. And those are two things in depth diving competitions that the judges are looking for. And then the third landing, which is somewhat dangerous, and I've really only ever do it in actual competitions is the no hander. It's where you put your hands behind your back, and you're just head but the water, put your head down into your knees, and
Asbjørg Nesje 5:28
then you want to have a high, high splash, it's possible. And if you're gonna have had it like perfect, you get up to the surface quickly. So you can get like the rain of your own splash in the in your own head. And if it hurts, because it might hurt. No one's supposed to know, not the judges or the audience will be like, ooh, that's exactly what I'm meant to do. didn't hurt at all. That was awesome and you swim in. But
Jonny Nyberg 5:57
this is not something that like we came up with people have been landing like this for years, it's just we kind of made it competitive and put some rules to it.
Nick VinZant 6:05
Does that kind of hurt the spirit of it in any way. That's actually
Jonny Nyberg 6:09
a big kind of conversation within the community is there obviously if you want to be competitive, you have to have rules, because you can't just you know, but if you have too many rules, it becomes high diving or freestyle diving with a funny landing. And then it takes away the spirit of the sport, which is you know, the, the personality and the style you bring to it. So it's definitely kind of in the middle that diving needs to have some qualifications. But I think that oftentimes the judging is pretty subjective, which does lead to some controversy and competitions because sometimes people just flat out disagree with the judges. But that's what I think makes the sport fun and entertaining as you never know.
Nick VinZant 6:51
How popular is it?
Jonny Nyberg 6:52
I would say in the US right now. If you ask the average person on the street, maybe five out of 10 of them would know what it is if you showed them a video it because it's pretty popular on like Tik Tok and YouTube people have seen it before. But I would say maybe two and 10 people would from the get go if I just said, Have you ever heard of debt died? Or would go like, Yes, I know what that is. Now, if you go over to Europe, especially like Norway, every kid at your local pool is doing a death dive.
Asbjørg Nesje 7:18
A lot of people do it. And you're right. It's so funny to go down to just like a swim, swimming place during summer. All the little kids, no one jumps or dive anymore. Everyone just that lives. So it's like a big thing here. Everyone knows what it is. Most people have tried it. And it's growing so fast. I think that's
Jonny Nyberg 7:38
having right now is kind of what skateboarding was in the 90s. It was kind of something that not that many people were really into. But if you're into it, it was pretty cool. And generally when someone sees that diving, especially once it gets explained to them, we're like, Okay, this is done intentionally, people usually get pretty stoked on it. I very rarely find someone that just hates it for what it is. Do
Nick VinZant 7:58
you get this sense at all that people are watching it, hoping that somebody fails? I mean, I'm watching
Jonny Nyberg 8:05
it hoping someone fails. There's never a death diving competition where someone doesn't wipe out. The two people that are in the diving community competition, height for death, I think is really low. It's between 10 and 13 meters, usually which is 35 to 40 feet. In the grand scheme of things. A lot of you know, high dives are done from 89 feet, freestyle cliff, jumpers will do 100 foot jobs. So a debt diving competition. Even if you do wipe out, the worst that will happen is you'll have a you know, a really bad bruise or you might get the wind knocked out of you. But it's very rare if ever that someone gets legitimately injured in a death, I mean competition, which I think is some of the fun of watching it as you know that like, wow, everybody's probably going to be sore tomorrow. Does
Nick VinZant 8:50
that hurt? It'd be from becoming a bigger thing in the sense that you know what, like, It's not that serious BS.
Jonny Nyberg 8:59
I think that death diving could find its place in popular culture by being more of a performance art than it is a competition. I think that if you did you go to a big EDM music festival, you get a big ol pool, paint up a bunch of debt divers with neon paint, and let them jump off a platform while everyone's listening to some music. I think that would be the type of medium that would secure death diving as something that's a legitimate art form. Because I do agree with you that the ceiling for death diving as competitions go is only so high because of how subjective the judging is combined with it's kind of silly. Like it's not, it's not that deep. And again, I love that that thing. I want it to be the biggest thing on the planet. And I think there is I think that there's more potential than we've reached with that diving. I think it could get bigger, but I don't think I think you're delusional. If you think that that will ever be in the Olympics or if it will ever be as big as snowboarding or skateboarding. Just because one, there's there's no product to sell, right? You can sell skateboards, you can sell snowboards. I guess you could sell swim trunks, but there's not really a product to sell. And yeah, to. It's really cool to watch. But it's, it's like a circus thing, you know, and I'm not embarrassed to say that I still I'm a competitor. So whatever activity I'm involved in, I'm going to do my best to win. But I think that if you're looking at Red Bull or monster, or the people that sponsor really big sports, they probably would see that dive into something that doesn't have as much potential as, you know, insert extreme sport here. I think it has enough potential to have an ecosystem of full time athletes. I do think that there can be a good group of people that are full time death divers. But I think in order to do that, there would need to be more events where death diving is incorporated. And I think that it would need to be more than just competition. I think death diving events would need to be you know, like I said, maybe there's people that that dive at festivals, that is the type of thing that maybe people aren't going to pay money to go specifically see at that time in competition. But I can guarantee you that any person that is walking by that diving competition will stop and watch it. Oh, yeah, I've
Nick VinZant 11:16
watched it. So put all humbleness aside. Are you the best in the world at it right now.
Asbjørg Nesje 11:24
And it's hard to say because there's so many different things to be good at. You can have like jumping for heights or doing tricks, or competition. Death diving. I would say like all humbleness aside, yeah, I would say I'm pretty clearly the best on the woman's side. Right now, I've won the last three World Championships. What
Nick VinZant 11:47
do you think makes you good at it? Like, what's kind of? Why do you usually win the competitions you're in?
Asbjørg Nesje 11:53
I have already a good like body control for my gymnastic days. But I think what makes me better than a lot of other people is that I'm, I'm really good at doing things. Despite the fact that I'm scared. I, I would. Or I have like a pretty like logical way I would say of coping with fear. So I would just ask myself, before I do a jump like is, are my surroundings safe? Like, is it deep enough and stuff like that? And then I would ask myself, if it was if, if I'm not thinking about being scared at all? Do I think I physically would be able to do this, like if I tried? And if I can say yes to both of those things. There's nothing but my head that can stop me. So no matter how scared I am, I've already decided that if I do it, I will manage it. And it's Yeah, so there's no reason for me to chicken out. And I hate backing out. So I would no matter how much I would hate life on top of that cliff, I would still do it. Because I know that if I walk out of here without doing it, when I know that I could have done it. I would I would not be able to let that go like that would be hanging over me and I would not be happy with myself. So I think there's the my ability to do things. When when you kind of like I'm scared to top I don't want to jump right now. But I know that I can I know that I will be happy when I'm at the bottom. I
Nick VinZant 13:26
understand what you mean, in that kind of sense. Like the fear of regret is more than the fear of failure. Yeah, more afraid not to do it than I am
Asbjørg Nesje 13:35
to just I think I'm just really afraid of feeling like a coward. I hate that feeling. Are
Nick VinZant 13:41
you? Are you still scared though? Every time you do it? Oh, yeah.
Asbjørg Nesje 13:44
I mean, every time I'm like, not even on like really big heights, I would feel like, okay, I guess we're doing this now. But if it's from a height that I've done it from, like, a lot of time, like 10 meters, for example. It will be a bit scary. But I know that I am going to do this because I've done this countless times before. There's no reason for me not to do it. So I'm just going to do it. Even though I'm feeling oh, it's bit scary. And that's fascinating. Because like every other thing you when you practice you get better. I realized that doing things, despite of fear is actually something you can practice. So now I'm way better at doing something when I'm scared on the top of the cliff than I was like, four years ago.
Nick VinZant 14:34
Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Absolutely.
Does it hurt?
Jonny Nyberg 14:39
Sometimes they can. It's like asking you playing football hurts. Sometimes.
Nick VinZant 14:45
What's the most common injury? bruises,
Jonny Nyberg 14:48
bruises on your arms and legs? I think the most common serious injury is burst eardrums, which is but when I say common, I'm saying that happens to maybe four or five guys a year and there's more Probably 10,000 people around the world that that dive.
Nick VinZant 15:02
Yeah, like when it's serious, that's what happens. Can you make a living on this?
Jonny Nyberg 15:07
I think you could. If you move to Norway, that's probably the only country that has enough interest in the sport to, to make it full time.
Asbjørg Nesje 15:16
I am actually like, I just started doing it full time myself. There's not a lot of people doing this full time. And it's hard, definitely. But I don't think I would be able to do it full time if it wasn't for social media. It's like a really social media friendly sport. So I would say, like, I have some of my sponsors is from like the sport itself. But also most of my income is from social media. Yes. But
Nick VinZant 15:48
I think people know what you mean, in that sense, right? And you make a living, not just from prize money, but from clicks, so to speak. Highest, you've gone from
Asbjørg Nesje 15:57
30.5 meters. 100 feet. Exactly.
Nick VinZant 16:01
What was that? Like?
Asbjørg Nesje 16:03
Oh, yeah, I was so scared it because I also had to jump, it was a spark with a lot of gap. That means I have to jump really far from my takeoff. So the takeoff is here, and the water is like here, and underneath, it's just rocks. Which means I have to jump really far to get to the water. So I guess that was what was freaking me most out. So I yeah, I was standing on top of the path of takeoff for like 40 minutes ready to jump before I actually managed to jump because I was so scared. And I was trying to hype myself up several times to be like, Yeah, I'm gonna jump now. I just couldn't make myself start the countdown. And I was in the Air Force such a long time I had time to think was, oh, long. And then the impact came and I was like, Okay, here goes, I don't know what this is gonna feel like. And it was totally fine. Like when I landed, like, all of my other like, 20 plus meters has been less painful. may have been more painful. I mean, because now I think I was it was so much adrenaline. I was so nervous. And I was like, wow, that was like nothing. Do you think you could go higher? I think so I'm not going to go higher just to go higher. Like, I'm not going to be I'm going to beat my record or something like that. But if I'm at a spot that is higher, I could tell from the impact of the 30 meter or the 100 foot or that oh, yeah, I can I can definitely. I can definitely, like take more impact. So if I'm at a spot and I'm, I'm feeling it, I'm stoked. I want to jump I probably will. But it's not like I'm gonna go looking for somewhere higher to jump just to just to do it. Because I think that's when starts to get scary when people are trying to go higher just to go higher. The
Nick VinZant 18:02
only thing that I Okay, so like when you're trying to get yourself hyped up to do it. Did you ever kind of run up to the cliff like I'm going to jump and then back out at the last second? Or did you once you started going did you go
Asbjørg Nesje 18:15
I always count down before I jump. It's kind of a trick actually, it's really scared to do the jump itself. It's a little bit less scary to start countdown. So if I'm really scared, I would start from five. Sometimes I'll just start from three. But if I start the countdown, it's easier. Just yelling five, then actually jumping. But if I if I start the countdown, the counter is holy like I cannot back out on a countdown. So once I say five, and everyone starts yelling 432 I know that I'm going to go on one
Nick VinZant 18:50
easiest trick that looks hard. hardest trick that looks easy.
Jonny Nyberg 18:55
Okay, I actually love this question. I think that I have like a signature trick or trick that I do really well. That looks insane. And it's so easy. You it's basically a late 360 I wrote off the platform. When I jumped I kind of turned my body sideways, I reached out and grabbed my legs, I hold it for a really long time. And I'm looking down at the water at the last second I'll flip my body around so I'll do a twist and then impact. It looks crazy. It is so easy to do. Anyone can do it. But it always scores really well in competitions. I get great, great scores from that. And then the hardest trick that looks easy. I don't really know. I would I would probably say like a something with a stall in the middle. So basically, you break the trick into two parts while you're in the air. You do the first half of the trick then you stop your body. And then you do the second half of the trick. There's this guy from Norway who's one like Three World Championships. He's one of the best ever. His name is Kim. Soo, he looks great in the air. He does this trick where he'll do one spin and kind of kick his legs out like this. And he stops his whole body for a second. And then he flips his legs and spins again. It doesn't look like it would be that hard. I've tried it maybe 100 times I've never been able to land it. So I'd say something with a stall. a 720 stall would be something that's really hard, but looks easy.
Nick VinZant 20:26
I can't think of any of any other sport that's more like based on showmanship essentially.
Jonny Nyberg 20:33
Oh, definitely not. That's why duck diving is so entertaining to watch.
Nick VinZant 20:38
Best bite let's let's keep this to the United States. Best best place to do this at Okay,
Jonny Nyberg 20:43
so a big thing with cliff jumping is not giving away the spots because generally, people will go and litter and spread trash everywhere and they won't clean up. So I won't say actual locations but the best spot in the entirety of the United States to find cliffs that is in Northern California. It's there's so many like Northern California, where you're at in Washington, Oregon. Just because you're in that Pacific Northwest, you've got a mountain range. You've got tons of waterfalls, you have so many like ravines and gorges cliffs and things like that. And to everyone watching this, if you're gonna go Cliff jump, bring a trash bag. And even if you don't put any trash on the ground, pick up someone else's we want to keep we want to keep the cliffs clean so that people see cliff jumping as a good thing.
Nick VinZant 21:29
How deep does the water have to be to do it? Okay,
Jonny Nyberg 21:32
so for depth diving, because basically your whole body hits the water is one piece of meat, one mass, right? You're not You're not like when you look at regular diving, they're tucked really tight. And they go Yeah, 1520 feet deep. That diving. If you jump off of, let's say 10 meter platform, that's usually our baseline height. So 35 feet, I mean, maybe eight feet, if you know what you're doing 10 feet, if you're new, but you don't, it doesn't need to be that deep for depth diving. What's
Nick VinZant 22:00
the holy grail of this? Like, what's the thing that the trick or the height or whatever, that everybody's kind of like
Jonny Nyberg 22:07
the Holy Grail for the average death diver would be winning the death diving World Championship. That's like the the pinnacle. And as far as winning that goes, the cool thing is tricks are developing every year. So generally, whatever the winning trick was last year, is going to be out of style. So there is no holy grail in terms of like there's a trick that everyone is trying to get to. Right now because of how new debt diving is the holy grail is to come up with a trick no one else has done before. Because it's so new that you can do that pretty regularly. Like most people in debt diving who have done it competitively have at some point come up with a trick that no one else has ever done. When
Nick VinZant 22:42
do you start getting like what what what height is like alright, that's getting up there. For
Jonny Nyberg 22:46
me, I would say 20 meters, which is a good like 66 feet is kind of what it starts to go from like it could sting to you could get hurt. But generally, I would say to anyone that's thinking about trying this, learn it at 1520 feet. Once you're comfortable with the technique go up to 30 to 40 and stay there for like a year.
Nick VinZant 23:04
What's your worst injury? I
Asbjørg Nesje 23:06
haven't really gotten a lot of injuries from death diving. My worst one is when I was actually trying to land on my feet so that wasn't that nothing at all. But I got like a heavy whiplash and I've been struggling with my neck a lot for almost three years now. So that's been really bad but that was not from Destiny. That was from cliff jumping. So oh my some of the bruises I get.
Nick VinZant 23:35
and did what are you doing every day?
Asbjørg Nesje 23:39
That's when I busted my eardrum it's just me flopping a lot. In every time like I've tried a lot of things
Nick VinZant 23:52
Yeah, are you good at this? Everybody's failed real looks like this right? Or you're wondering like man, you really go for it though. Don't
Asbjørg Nesje 24:00
yet. Yeah, I mean, I usually try to send it does that happen every time? No, that's okay. Every time that is from like when I flop but I flop a lot. fail a lot. But it can happen if I have like a landing very close. Just like not very much. That's the 100 foot jump, huh? Yeah, so you can tell like it's like a big gap that I have to jump out. Wow, that's far and you can visit Yeah, it's Hi. This is in like real time. So you can tell like, I have a lot of airtime.
Nick VinZant 24:38
Oh, I see what you mean about that left side, right. Like it's not close, but it's close.
Asbjørg Nesje 24:43
Like following it down all the way and it's like, ah, kind of like claustrophobic Yeah, that was Yeah.
Nick VinZant 24:54
That was cool. Thank you. Yeah, you can see that like that's you don't you know you Think about it like, Oh, it's 100 feet 30 meters, then you see it, you're like, Oh, that's a lot. That's
Asbjørg Nesje 25:07
pretty far. Yeah, it's pretty fun. You could definitely, definitely land on one dry. I was gonna say,
Nick VinZant 25:16
yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of the end of that, isn't it? Yeah. That's pretty. Like, that's impressive. How did you decide on that pose? Did you think about the pose for a little while, like, what am I gonna do?
Asbjørg Nesje 25:27
That is like my, kind of like my signature pose. I guess I just had to go for something that I knew I could do. And it was like, I couldn't like, try something new, something, some news post or something. This is a competition in Utah. I actually won this competition. And it was like mixed class. So I was like, Oh, you beat everybody? Huh? Yeah, I was really proud of myself for winning that. You have usually three jumps. And one of them has to be classic, like the second jump I had there. And then the final jump is what counts? Yeah, you can find me on Instagram and on YouTube. I do a lot of like longer videos and YouTube too. Or I'm going to make more of them at least. And I post a lot of my jumps on both YouTube and Instagram. My name is really hard to remember. But it's asked underscore n. So yeah, it's the same one. It's the same one on YouTube and, and on Instagram. So that's yeah.
Nick VinZant 26:34
Let's see. I know that last part is always awkward. But honestly, we take stuff and we put it in the episode, just
Jonny Nyberg 26:39
this is the original spot that me and my buddies built to practice that tree has since fallen down. But this was one of the last times we got to jump it before it fell.
Nick VinZant 26:47
So you're trying to just pause as long as possible. Yes,
Jonny Nyberg 26:51
there's two types of death diving. Freestyle, which is what you're seeing here with spins and flips. And there's classic, which no flips, allowed no spins, that's all about the attitude. So if you see someone doing something like that, we call it a freestyle death. If and if you see someone doing like that, that's me, that's a classic death dive is
Nick VinZant 27:11
one kind of looked at being as more pure or more popular, or whatever word you want to use than the other.
Jonny Nyberg 27:18
During competitions, they will have a round of freestyle and then a round of classic. So both of them are equally as important. The Freestyle is more to show the athleticism and the classic is more to show that you, you understand the basics of the attitude behind it.
Nick VinZant 27:35
So okay, if you were to kind of put a number on it, you've got to prepare for the landing, how many feet before you hit the water five
Jonny Nyberg 27:43
is probably when I start closing the saying is you try to hit the water harder than it hits you. So I'm not. I'm not fully closed until my hands are hitting the water. I'm not braced for impact, I'm actually trying to close as I hit.
Nick VinZant 27:57
But if you screw that timing of it, that's the that's
Jonny Nyberg 28:01
when it starts hurting is especially in competitions, the judges are looking to see if you close too early. So oftentimes, the competitions people opt to just not close at all or close, you know two feet above the water and just take the pain. Because generally, if you close the right way, if you closed late, the only thing that's going to get slapped are your shins. So we generally just take some leg slaps during competitions.
Nick VinZant 28:27
So you got to just be prepared for some pain. Yes, absolutely.
Jonny Nyberg 28:30
When you when you go into an actual death of a competition, just be ready to be sore the next day. And that's part of the fun. Everyone knows that like, okay, it's gonna be rowdy,
Nick VinZant 28:39
I understand that. Like, there's something about like, I got to, like, I'd like to go snowboarding and if I come back, not a little sore, I don't feel like I went snowboarding.
Jonny Nyberg 28:48
And it's not for everyone. I don't think that that diving has to be universally accepted. But I think that the people that want to get into it should have an outlet to explore it.
Nick VinZant 28:57
That's pretty much all the questions I have man. Is there anything that you think we missed? Or how can people kind of find out more I would say
Jonny Nyberg 29:03
so I actually just this last Tuesday released a documentary about debt diving, it's on a saw on YouTube, you can go it's one of my main sponsors is a brand called impossible. They're just like a holistic alternative to energy drinks. They they have like healthy supplements that are good for energy, good for sleep. So if you go to it's on YouTube, if you just look up impossible death diving, it'll be the first thing that pops up. And it goes really in depth into the process of depth diving from finding the spot to checking the water depth to making sure it's safe. It's more than just the cool clip. It's the full thing.
Asbjørg Nesje 29:40
Yeah, you can find me on Instagram and on YouTube. I do a lot of like longer videos on YouTube too. Or I'm I'm going to make more of them at least and I post a lot of my jumps on both YouTube and Instagram. My name is really hard to remember but it's asked you're just cor n. So yeah, it's the same one. It's the same one on YouTube and, and on Instagram. I
Nick VinZant 30:07
want to thank Gianni and as Bjork so much for joining us if you want to connect with them, we have a link to them on our social media sites. We're Profoundly Pointless on tik, Tok, Instagram and YouTube. And we've also included their information in the episode description. If you want to see some of what death diving really looks like, the YouTube version of this interview will be live on April 25, at 12:30pm Pacific. Okay, now let's bring in John Shaw and get to the pointless part of this show. So are you going to tell the people
John Shull 30:45
when I don't really I wasn't actually going to bring it up. But I can I suppose. Yeah, due
Nick VinZant 30:50
to course. I want to hear all about it. I haven't gotten the details. Nothing. Simple answer
John Shull 30:54
is I tore the lowest muscle in your back. What's even worse about it was I was mad as embarrassing. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 31:07
that's why I wanted to ask you about it. Right. Let's get to the point where we find out how you do.
John Shull 31:11
Let me preface it with one thing. So here's what's the worst part about this whole situation is I've been going back to the gym, after like, eight years of not going, I've dropped a little weight. I'm doing well. And I'm I'm out in the yard getting ready for my kids birthday party. And I'm picking up dog shit, but I go to pick up the bucket with the poop in it. And that was it.
Nick VinZant 31:37
I feel like it's been enough days where I can now approach this as being funny. That may not may or may not be the case for you. But so you tore a muscle in your bag. How much dog poop was in the bucket. It
John Shull 31:50
was a full bucket but it wasn't like wasn't heavy at all. I mean, I had mowed the lawn before with the front lawn before that, like I had helped my father in law was in town, which made it a little worse but like I was helping him do a couple of
Nick VinZant 32:03
things. He thinks you're weak now. Now is your week and now he's looking at you like this is the man that marry my daughter. Tory's back picking up two and a half pounds of dog poop.
John Shull 32:15
So probably the most uncomfortable part of all of this. So I get to the ER you know, I go into the the non trauma bay or whatever the ER and a doctor comes right in. By the way, shout out to Beaumont Hospital here in southeast Michigan. They were fantastic. I get on a gurney and the doctor comes in. And I'm I'm I'm facing the wall, like I can't really see her. But my wife is there with me. Which makes it even worse. And I look at my wife's face and like she's kind of, but she's getting Ghostface did right. She's getting like what is happening. And then I hear the doctor go. Alright, so I'm just gonna give you a quick rectal exam, to make sure that you can still you know, that you haven't lost control of your butt muscles. Dude, I swear to God, from somebody that that hasn't had fingers up his butt very often. Oh, they went up the butt, huh? No, no, I rolled over. And I was like, I don't need that I'm fine. So like I kind of pulled down my pants. And I showed her I could like clench my ass cheeks. And then she goes, Well, our arrow rollover the other way, I want to make sure that the other part works too, because at that point, they didn't know if it was a slipped disc or like maybe if I maybe even broken something. I guess they were trying to see but I was like, No, the front of the back is fine. You do not need to touch anything.
Nick VinZant 33:37
First of all, that's hilarious. Second of all, just let the doctor do their job, man. You know how many fingers or dots they probably had up? Like, think of how many times the doctor has put their fingers up. Somebody's bought like they don't care, man. Yeah,
John Shull 33:50
no. Well, guess what? This doctor, she didn't get to put her fingers up my butt that day, maybe in the future, but not that. Not that day.
Nick VinZant 33:58
Eventually everybody gets something up there. But that's just how it's gonna work. Whether for personal pleasure or medicinal purposes, you're gonna have something up your butt at some point. Just get it over with and take it.
John Shull 34:12
The other thing that was kind of funny, but not really was my wife was so empathetic throughout the whole thing, right? She's, she's by my side. She knows how much pain I'm in. Once you realize it's a torn muscle. All the feels sorry for you goes away.
Nick VinZant 34:30
Oh, yeah, yeah. 100%.
John Shull 34:31
And, you know, it's, I think I can quote her and say, Well, I mean, I've given birth a couple of times, like you should be able to handle this. You know, he's playing that card. So they rolled me out of the hospital in a wheelchair. And it was it was not cold but it wasn't warm and I was wearing shorts and stuff. And I'm sitting there on the curb waiting for my wife to come pick me up. And she pulls like 20 feet away from me. Go doesn't get out of the car and I have to like waddle to the car. And I know am I a dick for like thinking maybe she could have just pulled right up and I could have got right in, I
Nick VinZant 35:08
think you have a big issue at hand, I think you have a broader issue at hand right now. And that is that you've hurt yourself. Significantly, you had to be taken to the hospital, you couldn't walk for what seems like something that shouldn't have hurt you at all. And now all your family members think it's your week, she's testing you. Because this is going to determine whether or not you're going to stay married for the rest of your life. She is testing you, which she should be doing. Because right now you look like somebody that's not fit to continue to care for children. If you're gonna hurt yourself, not two and a half pounds of dog poop. Quite frankly. If my wife if I was in a similar situation, and my wife divorced me right afterwards, I would understand. Like you're not signaling that you are evolutions finest.
John Shull 35:57
I will say this, I did enough beating myself up. For sure.
Nick VinZant 36:02
I'm sure you've done that many times. Yes.
John Shull 36:06
Well, you know, I've What, no one cares. But if you've ever torn a muscle, it's it's almost like if you fracture a bone like you just want to break it that way, you know, like, because the tear just sucks, man. Toughen
Nick VinZant 36:20
up, man. That's basically what it all comes down to is your soft.
John Shull 36:25
Well, trust me I've every time I looked my father in law in the eyes, as he's, you know, doing things around the house.
Nick VinZant 36:33
Oh, and then he's going to be talking to your wife, like goes to John hurt his back? How's he doing? Picking up didn't weigh that much God, you have to you have to read? What are you going to do to reestablish dominance? What are you gonna do to show your father in law and your wife and your children? That you're not an embarrassment? That you are the man of the house, so to speak? Like, how are you? What are you going to do? You have to start doing feats of strength in the backyard.
John Shull 37:02
I feel like I'm gonna have to just take an axe to a random tree. Or go find a squirrel and present it to my wife or something. You know, like something when wilderness the squirrel
Nick VinZant 37:13
is not gonna do it. It's got to be like a coyote. Gotta be bigger squirrels not gonna do it you got to be. It's got to be big. We
John Shull 37:20
have deer. What if I come like riding through the neighborhood on a deer is back.
Nick VinZant 37:24
You need to have the deer hoisted on your own back. That's the only way you need to kill a deer. And then put it on your shoulders and walk into the house and then throw it down. And then say dinner's here. That's not the only way to reestablish the fact that that's the only way it's the only thing that you can do. You have no choice.
John Shull 37:44
How long do I get to how what's the window the time window? For me to do this before I want to Motability?
Nick VinZant 37:50
Oh, maybe end of this month? Honestly, probably.
John Shull 37:57
Well, we'll see. Maybe, I mean, trust me, that gave me enough painkillers and other medicine that maybe I can maybe I can do that one night, you're
Nick VinZant 38:05
gonna have to do something, man. You can't let this you can't let this slide. You can't, you can't. Okay, I had another question. But I think this was just much better and more interesting. Would Okay, here's my other question related to that. Where would you say on your body is the worst place to have a minor ish but nagging injury? I
John Shull 38:24
mean, the obvious answer after doing it now is my back but say that I don't know that pain. Or that the back is negated for me, I will say small but annoying pain, you know, probably some more like in your foot or your toes? Oh, I
Nick VinZant 38:42
can see that a little bit. My answer would have would have been neck. I feel like I've you got a little bit of thing in your neck or that shoulder area that like that's going to bother you no matter what you do. I feel like you can get around a back injury if it's minor a little bit. But I feel like no matter what you do,
John Shull 39:02
I feel like feet are just gonna they're gonna it's gonna be nagging. Like it's just gonna be bad.
Nick VinZant 39:06
Yeah, but you can just sit down, neck even sitting down like you can't mind by votes for neck. I asked the audience. We'll see if we get any answers by the end of this. But let's move on.
John Shull 39:17
Let's let's. All right, let's give some shout outs. So we'll start with Mitch Suzuki. Joseph Chad Lek. Michael hedge guy Seeley, Greg, Tony. two first names there. Matthew Wiseman, Vaughan trail Johnson. JJ Harper, Dylan Condon, Alex Washington. And we'll end here on let's see Mark Oliver. Sugar Bear 9105 What I'm about to handle.
Nick VinZant 39:49
I'm always slightly fascinated by whenever you have that kind of juxtaposition of a very normal name and then a name that sounds very certain ethnicity like MIT Suzuki, right like i My name is Bob Kawasaki like those two things go together that well
John Shull 40:07
got some got some local feedback that apparently people thought my segment last week with you. It's funny. No, okay. Okay, all the pointless variation of you know, marry fuck Hill. So I kept the same this week, you know can always change it next week if it gets stale, but this week it's a little different.
Nick VinZant 40:25
I went with all that to say I kept it the same and then immediately say you changed it.
John Shull 40:31
It's a little variant, you'll just let me finish the sentence. Alright, I went with all fictional characters pool. And the three options this week are you have to fight one of them. You have to share a hospital room with one of them where you cannot get out of the hospital bed. And the third is you have to give one of them a foot rub.
Nick VinZant 40:55
Oh, okay. Okay. All right. All right. All right.
John Shull 40:58
So we'll start with probably the easiest pairing here. Gollum Michael Myers, or Ed Cullen from Twilight.
Nick VinZant 41:11
I already forgot what the options are. What are the options again? Fight
John Shull 41:16
one of them share a hospital room or give one of them a foot rub.
Nick VinZant 41:21
Well, I'm gonna share a hospital room with Gollum because he's leaving, right if he can escape from Mordor and Lord of the Rings. He's not going to be in my hospital room for very long. So he's out. Edward Cullen is the guy from Twilight, right? Huh? Well, he's a vampire. So you're gonna lose that fight. I'll give Michael Meyers a foot rub in the hopes that maybe you know he'll see the light he could change. Because if I remember correctly, he's not like a bad guy. Right? Like maybe he's just misunderstood. Everybody just wants to be heard. I think you could reach Michael.
John Shull 41:54
You clearly have never seen the movies, which makes it never
Nick VinZant 41:57
seen it. I've never seen it at all, but I'm not gonna fight a vampire. You're gonna lose that 1,000% There's no way you would vampire Michael Myers. I'd lost several times.
John Shull 42:07
I'd fight Edward Cullen. I don't know why, but he just looks like he has a punchable face. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 42:11
but he's a vampire. You're gonna lose. So I guess I would give the vampire a foot rub and then I would fight Michael Myers. He's either war it can be done.
John Shull 42:21
I mean, Busta Rhymes beat them. So you have a shot.
Nick VinZant 42:25
Man, Busta Rhymes is still going, right. That's one of the best rap that's one of the best, Nick. That's one of the best artists names of all time, Busta Rhymes. What's he doing? Like? What What is he doing? Everybody knows exactly what Busta Rhymes is doing. I do anything, that
John Shull 42:46
we are so old that people like are artists like that are now going on tour and they sell out. Because we go and see him.
Nick VinZant 42:56
I wouldn't go see any artists from my youth. Like why would I go see that? I don't understand that. To me. That's like, why would I go see somebody new I would just like
John Shull 43:06
a soldier nostalgic reasons. Digital
Nick VinZant 43:10
reminder how old you are. Let's go see the Rolling Stones. At what the concert starts at 4pm.
John Shull 43:23
It's true. We
Nick VinZant 43:24
should start at 4pm.
John Shull 43:25
Last call like 645. Right. Like,
Nick VinZant 43:29
Listen, guys. We're starting right at four right at four. And they probably get Anxi and start at 330.
John Shull 43:38
The pre ban meetings at like 1145 right after breakfast. They
Nick VinZant 43:43
want to do to do that. doctor's appointments the next day. We got to get out of here. Okay, okay, that's my choices.
John Shull 43:50
All right. Second round here. Once again, it's fight fight one of them share a hospital room. Give one of them a foot rub. Big Foot. Yoda or James Bond.
Nick VinZant 44:05
Oh, I'd want to share a hospital room with James Bond. Because you're going to get some good stories and you don't know what's going to be coming in there. Man. That's gonna be entertainment. Like something's going to be happening. You have a risk of significant collateral damage. But I'd still be like, right, I could go either way. Okay, all right. So foot rub. Yoda feel like he deserves it
I'm not gonna fight Yoda. I mean, he's gonna He's gonna crush you. Well, no, you fight Yoda actually, because he's probably like He's too nice. And he probably just like use the force and put you aside like, I don't think he's going to kill you. Big Foots going to rip your arms off. So I would give big foot a foot rub.
John Shull 44:58
Big Foot and fucking around. Oh,
Nick VinZant 45:00
no big feat.
John Shull 45:04
All right, the last round here. Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, Wonder Woman, denarius Targaryen Oh, man.
Nick VinZant 45:17
Sure hospital room. I mean, all three are fine and all three. I'm fine with all three options for all three. Except for maybe Katniss Everdeen I don't really have that much of a desire to give a foot rub too. I don't really have a desire to give the foot rub to anybody. We've done this on top five. One of the things that I really don't like is having my feet touched or touching other people's feet. I just have no desire to do that. But all three are fine for all three because I'm losing to all three in a fight.
John Shull 45:51
I don't know I well guess denarius? Targaryen would have a dragon so yeah,
Nick VinZant 45:57
yeah, all three are fine for all three with me. That's that's just roll the dice and I'm okay with whatever the outcome is.
John Shull 46:06
All right. Well, that's That was fast. Okay. Man, you killed him.
Nick VinZant 46:11
Seeing dancers right. Trying to keep it focused, because I know your back is going to collapse because you're a weak man.
John Shull 46:21
What am I just fell off the chair.
Nick VinZant 46:22
Well, then you did seven. Did you cry? Did you cry at all? Even a little tear to yourself? Even a frustration cry like God dang it. On
John Shull 46:33
the way on the way to the hospital? Yes, I probably did. Shed shed one or two, but I was just so uncomfortable sitting in the passenger seat. You know? Yeah.
Nick VinZant 46:45
You can't cry in front of your wife in the passenger seat, dude. Back seat. Okay.
John Shull 46:50
I mean, once again, it wasn't like a full long cry. You know, it might have been like one or two that roll down the cheek. It wasn't like I was sobbing in pain. Now, I'm not afraid to shed a tear. If I'm in pain.
Nick VinZant 47:03
I'm afraid I'm okay of crying emotionally, but I'm not gonna cry physically. Not in front of my wife. You've got to return yourself. You're good. It's gonna have to be an elk. Deer is not even going to cut it. You're gonna have to you're gonna have to kill an elk. Well, we
John Shull 47:19
don't have any l vine down this way. Find one find one and make it happen. Go to the zoo and just
Nick VinZant 47:26
kill this. Right like this. Probably not the best results of our poll man you got crushed. 100% of people are saying neck 100% Say neck. That's great. All right. 100%. We'll see we'll check in one more time before the end of the episode. I don't know that's that's that's that's neck is a big pain in the ass back. You can? Yeah, like I could agree with that because you can't like turn or anything. So anyway, but our top five is top five best looking foods. Not necessarily the best tasting just that you look at and like, man, that looks good. What's your number five?
John Shull 48:07
Like a good yogurt parfait.
Nick VinZant 48:09
Yogurt. Oh, is that what your number five is? Yeah. I I agree with you. I love the way a yogurt parfait looks they look delicious. Oh, good choice.
John Shull 48:24
Yeah, that's I thought I thought about this list for a few minutes. And this. There was look, I suppose there's some fruit on them. Or they're so good. So yes, yogurt. parfaits because
Nick VinZant 48:34
it looks like healthy. Like a lot of food and it looks filling. yogurt parfait. That's yeah, okay. Oh, that makes me that makes me question my top five. Honestly, because you started strong. Okay, lasagna. I think lasagna is the best looking Italian food. Like it just looks good. If you see the side if you see it from the sides, maybe not in the pan necessarily, but when it's on a plate and you can see all of it. That's when I think zanis like oh, that looks good. Like,
John Shull 49:15
I mean, it's fine. It's a pretty average thing to me, but it's fine. Okay. So my my number four I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't eat salad specifically, but like a good looking salad one that has like walnuts and cranberries in it. Maybe some goat cheese. And it's just all done up nice. Like a good looking salad will make you think it's good. Even though it may not be I
Nick VinZant 49:42
can understand that you can class up a salad but I would never listen be like ooh, that salad looks good.
John Shull 49:48
Oh man. Or, or like if you're like at a restaurant you're like, I mean, haven't you ever been perusing a menu and you're like, oh, that Cobb salad looks pretty good. No,
Nick VinZant 49:57
no. Well, I have gotten a salad Let in order to kind of offset the other's shame that I'm about to feel for the other things that I'm going to eat. But I've never looked at a salad and been like, yeah, give me that.
John Shull 50:09
Yeah, I made a good looking salad can be pretty good. Fruit salad, maybe. But yeah.
Nick VinZant 50:17
Ah, my number of I mean, there's just so many that I had a really hard time picking honestly. So I tried to do a little bit different categories. My number four is any kind of stir fried rice.
John Shull 50:29
Okay, I mean, that's kind of like lasagna to me, like it's pretty easy to make it look good. And look, you know, I don't know, just, I don't know. I
Nick VinZant 50:39
just like a lot of stuff that looks like a lot of stuff. There's a bunch of different things in there. It looks kind of healthy, but also like it's gonna be really good. That's why I would put stir fried rice is my number for any kind of thing like that.
John Shull 50:54
So my number three I want. My top three are are virtually interchangeable. We'll say that but I had to rank them three to one, obviously. So my number three I went with sushi.
Nick VinZant 51:06
Okay, okay, sushi. Definitely. Yeah, there's some sushi that doesn't look like but but almost sushi always is like, Oh, yeah.
John Shull 51:15
Oh, like, you start watering at the mouth makes me want to go carry an elk home. Like,
Nick VinZant 51:21
oh, no, but wait, especially Sushi was sauce on it. Sauce and that look like the crust stuff? Yeah, yep. My mind number three is pizza. But it has to be the only reason I don't have pizza higher is it's got to be a thicker pizza. A thin pizza doesn't look appetizing to me. I'd mean it does. But like it's got to be a little thickness to it. And then pizza to me is number three. Like
John Shull 51:48
what's what you know, that's out of my honorable mention. For sure. But yeah, once again, just I feel like pizza always looks good, but I'm always like, oh, yeah, the pizza looks good. Never like, oh, I can't wait to dig into that thing. It just looks so beautiful.
Nick VinZant 52:04
And you gotta get like Meteor pizza man. Do you go thin crust? medium thick.
John Shull 52:09
I used to go deep dish. Uh huh. Detroit original, I think along with Chicago.
Nick VinZant 52:15
But no, it's not. Dude. Detroit does not get credit for every single thing in the world. You always try to talk about Detroit like it's done all this stuff. Nobody knows anything about Detroit Food. I can't name you single Detroit Food like, oh, yeah, I've heard about that.
John Shull 52:33
I mean, that's that's fine. You don't you know what I you know what I learned the other day actually a business that started in Seattle, Washington that I you would never have guessed it?
Nick VinZant 52:44
I don't know. Anything.
John Shull 52:48
Red Robin? Yum.
Nick VinZant 52:51
Yeah, there's places in the United States that I would say are famous for certain kinds of foods, like Texas barbecue, or New England Clam Chowder.
John Shull 53:03
Or Detroit style pizza that
Nick VinZant 53:04
nobody's ever heard of that. Right. All right. Well, Denver style pizza. Nope. Nobody's ever heard of it. Okay,
John Shull 53:12
I mean, listen, I
Nick VinZant 53:13
just said step up your food game Detroit.
John Shull 53:18
Yes, all the city of Detroit. We're gonna host the NFL draft the day after this episode comes out. We'll see what happens.
Nick VinZant 53:24
Oh, lions are going to be good too. Aren't they? Super Bowl
John Shull 53:28
favorites. I think at least I don't want to say that. I don't want to jinx anything. But you know, they're definitely favorites.
Nick VinZant 53:34
Are they not the current champion? Not the current team. It's like oh, cuz he this is what I mean about your OB your unabashed love for Detroit. Even though you don't live there and you moved out and put your back and you're in Detroit property you would have been left to die like a my way shouldn't be you should have crawled that's what you should have done. That was how you regain your manliness. I hurt my back, but I'm going to finish the job and then crawl to the hospital.
John Shull 54:04
Fair enough. Anyways, my number two, I went with like a good looking hamburger. Like sometimes away a hamburger can be presented. It just it just as beautiful. Just a gorgeous, quick
Nick VinZant 54:18
clarification question are you know, then cheeseburger is not your number one then Right?
John Shull 54:25
No, I mean, my number two could be cheeseburger hamburger. I mean, it's uh, I guess she's burgers my number two then officially, because nobody needs a hamburger.
Nick VinZant 54:33
My son needs a hamburger. And he's seven and I'm kinda like, you don't want cheese on that? Why would you? I don't understand whenever there's an option to add cheese as long as it's not like a bodily issue. Like you're lactose intolerant. Then I would add cheese to anything. Is there anything you wouldn't put cheese on?
John Shull 54:55
I mean, other than like the things that are so outrageous, but I mean, I put Cheese on just about anything to at least try it. Sure. Would you
Nick VinZant 55:04
put cheese on sushi?
John Shull 55:08
Yeah, why not? I mean, it wouldn't taste very good but sure. Well, I mean, well, no, wait a minute there's cream cheese in some sushi.
Nick VinZant 55:15
Oh, there is cream she I don't know if I would put like a slice of American on top of one. But I would have to sushi. Yeah, sure. Every time I say it it sounds like sushi. There's no There's okay. Anyway. My number two is a chili cheese dog.
John Shull 55:32
See, I almost went hot dog on my list. And I mentioned I thought about it. I
Nick VinZant 55:38
thought of them. That's the only thing to me is I could expand chili cheese dog to also include like any kind of covered dog. Anything with like, extra stuff on a hot dog looks amazing to me.
John Shull 55:53
It does, man. See, that's why there's so many. I mean, just a regular hot dog with the with it sweating a little bit in a bun. Even that's kinda kind of sexy.
Nick VinZant 56:04
Do you want me jokes?
John Shull 56:07
No. So my number one speaking of meat. I put like a like a nice piece of meat. Like a steak, or something like that. But yeah, so my number one overall is just meat.
Nick VinZant 56:21
I have started watching like cooking shows, or not, not cooking shows, but like you can go on YouTube and you can find like a Japanese chef preparing like Wagyu beef or whatever it is. And like, oh, that does look pretty good. Okay, my number one is a cheeseburger. I don't think anything looks better than a cheeseburger. Like that just looks so good.
John Shull 56:48
Yeah, I mean, I, I don't disagree with you. I mean, it was my number two for a reason. I mean, it's it's all in the way it's presented, right. But I feel like we don't take time to really care about the way our food looks sometimes. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 57:03
I would agree with that. What's on your honorable mention.
John Shull 57:07
So like I said, the the main two that I'll bring up are pizza and hotdogs. I mean those. I wanted to put them on the list, but I just I just did it. Okay,
Nick VinZant 57:17
um, I've got nachos. Waffles. I think waffles are great. Probably the best looking breakfast food eggs can look really good. But waffles, I think are the ones that are better looking as a breakfast food. I can put bacon up there. Mac and cheese.
John Shull 57:38
Those are but they're just all that kind of plain foods that I guess if that makes any sense. I don't know. Oh, okay.
Nick VinZant 57:46
All right. We're gonna take that shot. I'm glad you hurt your back. Okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it really helps us out and let us know what you think are some of the best looking foods. Man just the I mean cheeseburger. That's hard to be even like a junky cheeseburger still good lookin
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