As the Author of A Head Full of Ghosts, The Cabin at the End of the World and Horror Movie, horror writer Paul Tremblay knows what scares people. We talk the psychology behind horror, the scariest things he’s ever read and turning books into movies. Then, it’s hootenanny vs. shindig as we countdown the Top 5 Party Words.
Paul Tremblay: 01:14
Pointless: 29:01
Top 5 Party Words: 53:33
Interview with Author Paul Tremblay
Nick VinZant 0:12
Welcome to profoundly pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode, horror and
Paul Tremblay 0:19
parties. Horror just asks, I think art's most difficult question in interesting ways or answers those questions, like the questions like, what do you do now? How do you live through this? How does anybody live through this? And I think horror can get at that, at really interesting ways, when reality just has, like, this weird little slip, when everything seems like your everyday thing, and then there's something strange that happens that sort of reminds you, oh, like our lives are on a lot more unsure footing than we're used to, and Tor is kind of blown up a little bit in the publishing world, where there are so many there, I don't think there's ever been as many horror titles being published as there are. Now
Nick VinZant 0:57
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. So I want to get right to our first guest. This is horror author Paul Tremblay. So what do you think makes something scary?
Paul Tremblay 1:16
So this might sound weird, but like when I'm writing horror stories, I don't worry about the scare I feel like, if it moves me or makes me feel something, then the reader will feel something that said, I'll give you my personal answer. What scares me are when reality just has like, this weird little slip, when everything seems like your everyday thing, and then there's something strange that happens that sort of reminds you, oh, like our lives are on a lot more unsure footing than we're used to, and those tends to be the things that really get to me.
Nick VinZant 1:46
Do you tend to go more in terms of, like, scary, like, wow, this is a really scary looking monster, or is it more about psychological? For you?
Paul Tremblay 1:55
For me, I definitely tend towards the more psychological. That's what I'm interested in as a reader and as a writer. And what I tend to try to do is, even if I have somewhat outlandish premises, I try to make it feel as real as possible. So like I had a story that was or I had a novel called The head full of ghosts that was a riff on a exorcism possession story. And to me, the conceit was, oh, like, what would this really feel like? What would this look like? And of course, a reality TV show would show up, you know, to try to document, like, what was going on, you know, So little things like that. Again, I think that goes back to my answer about what scares me is when things seem as real as possible, and you just have this weird little left turn into the into the uncanny. I guess,
Nick VinZant 2:37
when do you, when you, when you go to write a horror novel, like, where do you start? For
Paul Tremblay 2:42
me, it's typically, you know, I'll get, like, a what if, or just an idea, or maybe even a scene. And this, I keep little notebooks, and I'll jot stuff down in the test for me, especially if it's gonna be a novel, something that I'll spend a year working on, that idea has to keep coming back to me, like, even when I'm not actively thinking about it. And then if I'm interested enough in the idea, then I, you know, I go straight to the characters. I try to figure out who is the story about
Nick VinZant 3:08
how long does it generally take you to write one? Like, do you feel like it flows pretty quickly, or is it more of a struggle? For lack of a better phrase,
Paul Tremblay 3:18
it's always a struggle. Yeah, I would say, typically, it's 12 to 15 months to have a draft that I turn into my editor. But then there's time added after that. Because, you know, it might be a couple of months before I get edits and copy edits, but for the first draft, you know, some books have gone quicker, some have gone longer, but you know that 12 to 15 months is about my sweet sweet spot, and it's always a struggle for me.
Nick VinZant 3:41
How is horror kind of different than other genres? Oh,
Paul Tremblay 3:45
that's a great question. Uh, well, I mean, I mean, so on one hand, there's the affect of horror, right? Like, you know, the scare, or you're feeling dread, you know, we're certainly, when I say we, you know, horror writers and filmmakers are trying to pull an emotion out of you, but I mean, I mean that a specific emotion out of you, I would say. But for me, what, what? What horror is different for me is that horror, like all art, sorry, I'm stumbling around here, but all art tends to, or tries to expose the truth, right? You know, it could be a romance story, it could be any kind of story, but you're exposing some sort of truth in a horror story. The truth is pretty horrible, but I'm fascinated by that, because I'm fascinated by, okay, what are these characters going to do now, now that this terrible truth has been revealed,
Nick VinZant 4:32
does it say something about you, or the people who read it at all, that it's horror like, should I read some somebody like coming into this from the complete outside, should I read anything into you as a person, or the people who read horror genres
Paul Tremblay 4:49
so and I say this all the love in the world, because I get this question frequently you're trying to ask, how much of a degenerate are we? Or how much of a degenerate am I? And I, believe me, I am a degenerate, but not be. Because I like horror and weirdly, if you go, if you were to go to a horror convention or horror writers convention, I think you'd find that, you know, most of the people there really like sweet and really nice and supportive. You know, I've been to general literary conventions where it feels a lot more competitive, whereas the horror people tend to be a little bit more opening or open. I honestly think, you know, horror readers in particular, more, even more than just horror movie goers, that they have a real strong sense of empathy, because they have the ability to empathize with the characters on the page, and they really connect with you know, the danger that these characters are
Nick VinZant 5:33
in. Does it like, will you set out trying to write something really scary? Is that, like the number one goal of the horror genre, or is that kind of more of a side effect of the rest of it?
Paul Tremblay 5:48
Yeah, for me, it goes back to what I said earlier, about, like, I'm really obsessed with the idea of revealing this terrible thing and then having, you know, then the having the characters be like, Oh no, what are we going to do now? And whether or not it's scary. Again, I honestly don't worry about it, partly because I'm a scaredy cat, like I still run up the dark basement stairs if I'm home alone, like the kids are gone and my wife's like, on a business trip or something. I'm not above sleeping with the light on, because, unfortunately, my brain still works that way. But again, to me, honestly, the horror genre is much more about that, you know, so that empathy with the characters that I'd mentioned, and again, the focus on like the reveal, and horror just asks, I think art's most difficult question in interesting ways or answers those questions, like the questions like, what do you do now? How do you live through this? How does anybody live through this? And I think horror can get at that, at really interesting ways.
Nick VinZant 6:39
I have to make a confession, in the sense that I cannot handle anything scary. I can't handle anything scary, whether that's movies, books, whatever, but I do love Wikipedia in the plot of scary movies and books like I'm fascinated by the plot and that kind of supernatural aspect of it, but I can't handle any of the actual scare part. Could you do this without any of the scary?
Paul Tremblay 7:09
Oh, absolutely. And actually, you sound like my dream reader, like I want to get those people, I want to get people like, you dick. You know, this might be a side answer, but like, I feel like horror, maybe even more so than others other literary modes, horror is sort of like associated with maybe some of its worst representatives, you know. And what I mean by that is like, let's listen, every genre has like their works that fail. Fail is art, I should say. Or, you know, aren't that smart or aren't that well done? I just think when horror does it, when horror fails, when horror goes bad, it's memorably bad, memorably bad, because your horror relies on a transgression, something that's going to make you feel uncomfortable. So I know I think Nick You just haven't you haven't seen the right movie or watched the right book. I think there's something that could turn you into a horror fan. And even when I say that, like there's plenty of horror movies I don't like. I'm not really a slasher guy. I'm not into the gore, but there are so many other types of horror movies and books. Are there
Nick VinZant 8:09
different genres, genres within the horror genre?
Paul Tremblay 8:13
Oh, sure. I mean, there's all sorts of sub genres. Was it the substance the movie? The substance that was, you know, nominated for an Academy Award, right recently. You know that that falls in sort of the quote, unquote, body, harder body horror category. You know, there's people like to call my quiet horror. I mean, there's so many different names. And, you know, honestly, like the names of the sub genres themselves don't interest me as much. But what does interest me is that there are so many ways, you know, to tell a horror story or or to experience one, you know, if I can briefly respond to a little bit what you had said a second ago about, like, it's too much, and I get that feeling, I totally get it for me, why I keep going back to horror is because there's, for me, there's that recognition, like, if I'm watching a movie or Reading a book that I really enjoy, and like, oh, the writer or this filmmaker recognizes that this is awful, like there's awful things happening. And it's almost like, you know how, like younger people, I'm not going to age you, but I'm older. You know, the idea of being seen is like, Oh, this, this reader, the storyteller, feels the same way I do. It makes me feel less alone. That's why I like horror. I know so many people talk about, for them, it's like the catharsis and the roller coaster thing, you know, the roller coaster effect. But you know, for me, it's, it's about, oh, there's other people who recognize this world is messed
Nick VinZant 9:34
up. Would it be a bigger genre if you could kind of do it by another name, in the sense that, if you could talk about these themes, but you just didn't make it scary, and you made it high fantasy, etc, yeah, would it be a bigger genre, or would it fundamentally lose something about it?
Paul Tremblay 9:52
I could lose a little something, you know. And the funny part is, for decades, the pub, the publishing industry in particular, as you know, for at least. Until, like, the last few years, because horror is kind of blown up a little bit in the publishing world, where there are so many there, I don't think there's ever been as many horror titles being published as there are now. But when I went ahead full of ghosts, I'll reference the first book that, again, that broke me open in 2015 you know, there wasn't, they didn't say horror anywhere on the cover. You know, the publisher would say psychological suspense or other things, because there's a publishing memory from the 1990s when the when the horror sort of genre, at least in publishing terms, crashed. But yeah, I mean to really, I guess answer the first part of it is no. I hope you know, I please people read my books. I want horror to do well. Things have gone well for me the last few years, but at the same time, I really believe it's horror's job to poke and prod at the at the boundaries of pop culture, or in culture in general, and be transgressive and be disturbing. I think that's horror's job. I would feel. I don't think it would be right if horror ever became sort of the mainstream culture, because its job is supposed to make us feel uncomfortable, you know, to challenge us.
Nick VinZant 11:09
Yeah, it seems kind of like dipping your toe in the water of society in some ways that like, oh, you can it's on the fringes, but it can be brought more into the mainstream once it's talked about. Does that make any sense?
Paul Tremblay 11:22
Yeah, for sure. But I also think what tends to happen when horror is brought into the mainstream, some of its sharper edges end up getting sanded off, you know, and it becomes like Scooby Doo horror, you know, if you know what I mean, like, yeah. Now listen, like, I love horror comedies and, you know, and things like that, but I certainly wouldn't want every horror story to be a Scooby Doo horror story.
Nick VinZant 11:41
What do you think is behind the rise of it? Why is it becoming more popular? Man?
Paul Tremblay 11:46
I think there are so many reasons. I think one, I think film tends to lead in that case, and so like, when Jordan peele's Get out, you know, first came out and hit in the mid 2010s I feel like that was one of the first horror movies that the mainstream sort of entertainment press took seriously is not, hey, this is not just another horror movie. This is something we can take seriously as art at the same time. There are all these people my age and younger who grew up reading Stephen King and don't have the stigma attached to horror that for decades, I think many people have had. You know, that's still there, like, especially in academic circles, but it's definitely decreasing. And I just think, I don't know, we're kind of lucky that there's so many creators, so many talented creators, making really good horror right now. You know, it does feel like, in some ways, that we're in a golden age of horror, which is really exciting to be a part of.
Nick VinZant 12:37
Do you think it is, has it grown because of the creators that have been behind it, right? Like, more talent brings more people. Or do you think something has happened in society that people are kind of drawing over to this now,
Paul Tremblay 12:50
you know, I sort of resist the second thing. Now, although a lot of people will argue that, hey, in times of like, strife and awfulness, you know, horror does really well, but part of me is like, well, it's always been awful. I mean, granted, there are to a certain degree, yeah, there are shades and ribbons of awful. So, I mean, you know, that might be part of it, but I do really think it's more like pop culture is. So, I mean, the monster of pop culture is just so it's hard to get your arms around it now, compared to what it was in the 80s and 90s, when it was just cable television and the start of the VCR, and now it's like everybody can look up any movie, any book they want, in a matter of seconds. So I think that's part of it, you know, just the accessibility that we all know have to it. It's it's easier to be a horror fan than it was 2030, years ago. Even
Nick VinZant 13:36
going into some of your books, head full of ghosts. Where did you get the inspiration for it, what's kind of the main theme?
Paul Tremblay 13:43
Yeah, it's funny. So that one, I was super lucky that this never happens to me. But I feel like once I had the idea for the book, like the whole thing almost just fell into my lap. But it was February of 2013 and I happened to be just reading a book of essays about the movie The Exorcist, you know. And the essays were sort of about the politics of the time, at the movie, and, like other essays are sort of discussing the movie in sort of like academic and artistic terms. And, you know, I never thought of the movie or the book that way it to me, was like, Oh, this is, like, one of the most curious things ever. And instantly, I was like, you know, this was 2013 I was like, oh, you know, Hollywood just continually pumps out possession movies. But there really hadn't been a big possession novel in a while, so it was like, Oh, how would I write a possession story? And it really just started with that. But the story itself focuses on two sisters, Mary, who's eight years old, and her older sister, Marjorie is 14. And Marjorie is either going through some sort of schizophrenic psychotic break, or she is actually possessed. And you know, one of the things that makes maybe the book a little bit different is that a reality TV crew shows up to document the attempted exorcism. And so the novel looks at the story in all sorts of different ways. That was the book. Stephen King tweeted a head full of ghosts scared the living hell out of me. I'm not easy to scare. Yes, I've memorized that tweet, you know, and that obviously, really, you know, I can't, I can't overestimate how much that helped the book in my career. Frankly, what was
Nick VinZant 15:16
that like? Seeing that right? Because, like, he is, to me, the most prolific offer, and what would seem like to be that genre, but also in so many other ways. What was that like for you? Like, oh, wow, that's a really good recommendation.
Paul Tremblay 15:29
I mean, August, 19, 2015, what time
Nick VinZant 15:34
was it exactly? Do you remember
Paul Tremblay 15:36
it was like? It was like, 7pm I was home. I've been a high school math teacher, pretty much my whole professional life too. So I was home like school was coming. I was really cranky. I was moving furniture around, and other friends saw his tweet before I did. So like, you know, my my phone was blowing up with with texts from my from friends who saw the tweet first, and I got teary eyed, you know, I had no idea that was coming. I started. I became a reader because of Stephen King. Never mind a writer. So, yeah, that remains, like one of my top three, you know, professional moments,
Nick VinZant 16:08
the new book, or what seems to me the most, newest book, horror movie. Yes, which ones? Where'd you get the inspiration for that?
Paul Tremblay 16:18
So, horror movie and novel. It started with it started with me sort of digging into and in reading about the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So I know I had said earlier that I don't love gory movies. So that was a movie I didn't see. I was afraid to watch it until I was in my mid 30s. Where's my my psychopathic brother? He's not a real psychopath, but he's my brother, who's five years younger. Saw that movie when he was 10, but when I finally saw the movie, is like, oh my gosh, this is actually, this is, it's a brilliant movie. It's really well done, and it's almost bloodless. I mean, there's, don't get me wrong, there's disturbing, very, you know, disturbing, terrible stuff that happens in the movie, but you don't see the chainsaw connecting with anything. All the all the sequels revel in the gore, but the original does not anyway. When I was reading about what the what the actors went through on set, it just seemed like a very dangerous set like there. There definitely could have been a few times where the with the chainsaw slipped. So my the first what if that started horror movies like, oh, what had happened if there was an accident on set? So horror movie is about this. These, you know, these mid 20 year olds in 1993 Providence, Rhode Island, set out to make a small independent film. Something terrible happens on set. And then, if you flash forward, the movie never got made. But Hollywood's trying to reboot, trying to reboot the movie that never got made, and one of the main characters from the original movie is telling you the story, both about what happened on set and also, like what's going on with the reboot and weird stuff happens.
Nick VinZant 17:51
You know, one of the things that jumps out to me about, like horror movies, necessarily, is always the jump scare, right? Can you do the equivalent of a jump scare in a book? Or how do you kind of get around what seems to be the low hanging fruit way to scare
Paul Tremblay 18:04
people? Yeah, I've always threatened with my publisher that, like, we're gonna do the jump scare, they're gonna have to do like, a pop up book, just so you can have something literally pop out at you. You know, as someone who isn't like, a huge fan of the jump scare, certainly, if it's like the cheesy one. I mean, the cheesy, hacky ones were always like, oh, there's a you're in a hallway in like a cat jumps out at you, and then the real thing jumps out at you. So actually, with horror movie, I tried to go the other, total opposite direction, and really hold on to a moment and sort of dissect it and make the reader wait for something to happen and sort of sort of live in that moment. Because for me that those are some of my favorite moments in horror movies, is where you see a scene, you see a dark hallway, or you see something, and you know something's coming, but it just holds there. It doesn't jump scare you. It just lets you, your imagination, sort of live in that moment for a little
Nick VinZant 18:55
bit. Um, not to go through all the books, necessarily, but another one that's, you know, I think a lot of people have heard of the cabin at the end of the world
Paul Tremblay 19:02
I was flying back from LA. I was at a book conference, and I was just trying to come up with an idea for the next book, because my editor had actually rejected another idea, which was fine. I wasn't in love with the idea, but I drew a little cabin in my notebook, and that made me think of one of the sub genres of horror. Is the home invasion story, which to me, is one of my least favorite, partly just because, like you, I can't handle it. You know that the person on person mileage is just so realistic and so icky at times, like I tend to avoid the home invasion story sub genre. Now, there are still some of those movies that I've watched and enjoyed, but on the whole, I'm not a huge fan. So it became, oh, how would I write a home invasion story that I would actually want to sit through? Or what kind of, you know, what could I do that was somewhat different with it, and that was really just the start. And, you know, some of the as far as, like, some of the plot and the characters went, it was really just that original logic experiment that I went
Nick VinZant 19:55
through. Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Yes. What's scarier, supernatural elements or real life elements?
Paul Tremblay 20:08
I would say real life elements, you know, to the point where, you know, I'll bring up a head full of ghosts, really briefly. Again, in that book, you know, there could be something supernatural happening, but I wanted to make the non supernatural events the most scary. That makes sense,
Nick VinZant 20:20
yeah, yeah. Because in the supernatural, you can kind of explain it away, like real life, I feel like you can't really explain it away as much. I think just, oh, some of these, I have to kind of interpret a little bit exactly what, what they mean by that scariest thing you think you've ever written so scariest thing from your works, scariest thing you've ever read from somebody else,
Paul Tremblay 20:48
just based on sort of reader reaction, I think a head full of ghosts is probably the scariest thing. Really quick story, when my when my agent was pitching the book to people. I had no idea if it was scary or not. I thought it was smart and clever and good, but I had no idea if it was scary. But he had sent it to an editor who called him at like, 1130 at night, which is very unusual. Editors normally don't call agents. And when he picked up, the editor didn't even identify herself. She just said, I just read the tongue scene, and I had to hear, I had to hear someone's voice. And then she hung up, and I was like, yeah, maybe it is scary, the scariest thing that I've ever read. I'm gonna, I'll just go with one of my recent favorite novels, a novel by an Argentinian writer named Mariana Enriquez, and her novels called, it's called our share of night. It came out a couple of years ago, but it's so damn good. And a lot of it is like, you get sort of the history of Argentina and what happened in 1980s with their dictatorship, and you have this weird, like, super rich family that dabbles in the occult. And then there are these just scenes, these really, like Starburst scenes of supernatural intrusion, there's no doubt that something supernatural is happening, and it's so damn good and so damn disturbing and scary. And that book made me gasp A couple times out loud,
Nick VinZant 22:09
trope you love, trope you hate.
Paul Tremblay 22:13
Oh, man, I get asked this all the time. I don't think I ever give the same answer. Well, the trope I love is, you know, Is it real or is it supernatural? Since I sort of, you know, roll in it all the time, you know, the trope I hate is, man, I can't stand dream scenes and horror movies, especially because to me, it just feels like it's just being a lazy screenwriter or director that, oh, it's been like, more than 15 minutes, we need a scare, and then, like, a dream will show up and I'll nothing to do with the story. They just needed some scary images. That makes me nuts. Like, do a better job writing the story. If you want to scare at that point, you have to have it be part of the story, not just throw a fill in dream
Nick VinZant 22:54
book or section of a book, like, Oh, if I had another crack at that, huh, I would make it this way.
Paul Tremblay 23:01
Um, I don't, I mean, I don't think I have one. It's not because I think I've written the perfect book. But like, these books just represent who I was and how I was feeling at those times. So like, I don't really, I don't spend any time thinking about past books, because I'm, luckily, like, the publisher wants more books for me. So I'm really, once I finish one book, I have to move on to the next book and just, you know, put all my energies and focuses there.
Nick VinZant 23:26
How big, from an economic standpoint, like, how big is the horror genre? Like, what would it kind of, you know, I would imagine, you know, fiction, non fiction, like, Where does kind of horror rank in the genre list, so to
Paul Tremblay 23:40
speak. Well, I mean, for movies, no, no other genre has the list of movies that have been more profitable when you compare it to budget, than John, if you look at like, the top 10 biggest grossing, like, when you compare what was, what was spent on the movie, you know, if you went by percentages, I should say like, what movie grossed the most, percentage wise, compared to, compared to its budget, probably six, if not seven, of the top 10 would all be horror movies. So I think Hollywood wise, it helps drive harm. It helps drive the whole thing. I mean, part of it is evergreen, because, like, teenagers are going to go to horror movies, whether they're good or bad. You know, they're gonna, they're gonna go, you know, hopefully for the good ones you get the adults to go to too. With publishing, publishing is always, like, sort of lag behind. I mean, especially now, like, I mean, publishing in general is just not selling as much or making as much money as film or video games, etc. But, you know, I have no idea what percentage is. It's gotten bigger. Who knows how much bigger it'll get before it collapses? I don't know.
Nick VinZant 24:46
Where do you think it kind of goes from here?
Paul Tremblay 24:50
I think we'll continue to see. You know, certainly in the literary side of things, you know more people mixing genres, which is one thing that I really. Doing about horror is, and sometimes I think about stories that ways, like, I'll, I'll read something that's a literary, you know, quote, unquote literary story. Like, Oh, that'd be kind of cool if, if I did this and turned it into a horror story. And I think that's like, the nice thing about horror is that you can put it like, you can have a science fiction horror story. You can as you met, you know, mentioned before, you could do, like a fantasy horror. I mean, you can sort of sneak it into a lot of other places, otherwise, like, you know, I think we'll see, you know, we'll probably see a lot of stories, you know, that deal with eco horror. Maybe that's a new, a new ish, you know, sub genre, you know. And certainly you know horror stories that deal with, you know, the struggles in the in the in the things that we're dealing with in America in 2025
Nick VinZant 25:45
for sure. Yeah, that was kind of one of our questions is, like, what topic of horror, right? You mentioned, like, eco horror, we have aI horror. Like, what do you think are the scary things that we'll start to see in books and movies as we move forward? Oh, yeah,
Paul Tremblay 26:01
for sure. I mean, the book I have coming out next summer, June, 30, 2026. Is a, you know, an anti AI screed. It's called dead but dreaming of Electric Sheep. So it definitely, sort of, it mixes science fiction and even some humor too, but certainly some horror. You know, I had spent two years as a part of a lawsuit, suing chat GPT as well. So, like, I've definitely been personally invested, you know, what you know, in the sort of the wreck that AI is making of, not only, you know, publishing, but you know, obviously Hollywood too. And as an educator, like, it's been such a shit show, if I could swear on this podcast. Yeah, as a teacher, I can tell you like nothing good has come from it only bad, and it's only gonna get worse. What's the
Nick VinZant 26:47
worst idea you've ever had for a horror story?
Paul Tremblay 26:52
Oh, man. See, I don't know if this is my idea. I'm really I'm one of my best friends, writer friends is named John Langan, who's just a wonderful writer, and he's super smart and positive and fun, and he had written a short story where something really disturbing happened. Disturbing happens with a cactus. And I'm not going to go too far into detail, and then I don't know if I came up with it or he came up with it, but he continues to threaten that he's going to write a where cactus story. I think that would be the worst idea in the world. I will not write it, but I hope John does. Could
Nick VinZant 27:28
it be like Sharknado, though, where it's so somehow bad that it ends up being amazing?
Paul Tremblay 27:34
Well, the thing with John, like, he's talented and smart enough for him, the challenge would be he's like, No, he's not going to make this like, he wouldn't make it a Sharknado. He would try to make this like, you know, a story that you would take seriously, which is probably partly why he hasn't written it yet. But I don't doubt John. I bet John might be able to pull it off.
Nick VinZant 27:51
Well, we'll look out for Wear cactus, yeah, to a bookstore coming soon. Um, that's pretty much all the questions we got. Me. Is there anything else that you think that we missed, or anything like that?
Paul Tremblay 28:04
I don't think so. Those are fun questions. Nick,
Nick VinZant 28:07
where can people find more of your books that kind of stuff? Yeah, so I have a
Paul Tremblay 28:11
website. Paul tremblay.net, I have a newsletter. It's a free one. It's only once a month you can sign up for free at my website. Otherwise, I'm most active on Instagram at Paul G Tremblay, also blue sky. To Paul Tremblay. I used to call it blue ski because I can't spell or I can't read, but it is actually, in fact, blue sky
Nick VinZant 28:31
and the new book comes out when? Yeah, so the new book
Paul Tremblay 28:35
dead, but dreaming of Electric Sheep comes out June, 29 2026
Nick VinZant 28:40
I want to thank Paul 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. And if you want to see more of this interview, the YouTube version is now live. Okay, now let's bring in John Scholl and get to the pointless part of the show. Do you usually drive with one hand or two hands on the wheel? One hand? Do you have a slight lean? Are you a leaner? Do you like try to be cool when you're driving one hand and lean? Yeah.
John Shull 29:21
So I'm definitely, I definitely lean in towards the council.
Nick VinZant 29:25
Okay, could you just demonstrate what you think would be your normal level of lean? Oh, that's, that's a little bit too much lean, to be honest with you. My Lean is a little bit, it's, it's slight, but I have a stick shift, so I have a reason to have my hand over there on the stick shift, or whatever you call it, for you people who can't drive sticks.
Unknown Speaker 29:51
You like driving stick? Does it make
Nick VinZant 29:54
you I do actually, I love to have a hard stick in my hand. Really. Love to grab the shaft. Left, stroke it
Unknown Speaker 30:02
up and down. Sense makes much as I
Nick VinZant 30:03
can Okay, I think you have too much of a lien. But when will you now? When will you put two hands on the wheel? Like, is that serious? Like, if you put two hands, are you getting serious?
John Shull 30:15
I mean most well. I mean, anytime I'm in traffic, I'm a pretty nervous driver when it comes to parking lots in any kind of traffic for the most part, oh,
Nick VinZant 30:29
all rock one hand, all the way up until I'm pulling into the parking space traffic's I'm not afraid of traffic. I
John Shull 30:36
wouldn't say I'm afraid of traffic, but, you know, like merging on and off the highway. If, you know, if it's like a busy time of the day or whenever and the highway is, you know, there's a lot of traffic on the highway, I'll use two hands
Nick VinZant 30:53
the Now, see, I won't use two hands for traffic, but if the weather gets dicey, if the weather gets bad, I'll put two hands up there. Like, oh, I should probably have two hands on this right now,
John Shull 31:06
I actually don't. The weather doesn't really it's more traffic for me than anything. Like, I can't there are times, obviously, with snow and ice, where you just have to go two handed. But I don't recall a moment where I'm like, Man, I have to go two handed because of the weather, like, you know, but I'll be like, Man, traffic slow today. I'm going to make sure to have my full vision and attention on everyone else so I don't run into somebody listen. Can we talk about how for the last week, I basically have been following my wife's mood swings like she's actually hurricane Melissa, because my name, my wife's name is Melissa. So throughout the last week, I'll be looking up your cat one today. Can't wait to see what cat two is like later tonight.
Nick VinZant 31:53
God, dude, like you've been married for how long
John Shull 31:58
going to be 10 years next year already,
Nick VinZant 32:01
right? And you wonder why your wife gets upset when you're airing out her business like that. Like, yeah, she's gonna be angry with you. Sounds like she's the one who's in the right? It's, I don't care how mad my wife is, there's not gonna be a single person who knows about it.
John Shull 32:16
It's more of a joke than I mean, this is Hurricane Melissa is not a joke. And I'm not trying to say that by any means, but it was kind of funny this week when my wife would get angry and I would just be like, Oh, there's the rain. When's the wind coming.
Nick VinZant 32:31
Okay, that is that. I mean, that's, that's very funny. Like, I have a secret name for my wife that's not anything, but, like, I wouldn't share it with other people. I mean, what do you call your wife? What do you call your wife again? What's your name? Call your wife Dawn,
Unknown Speaker 32:49
sure. Well, I call my wife
Nick VinZant 32:51
Melissa. That's not what it is. Yet, neither you can say it or I can say it. You don't remember it. It's either like then you guys call each other hubby and wubby, hubs and Bubs. What are you calling giant fancy
Speaker 1 33:05
you're close. You're close.
Nick VinZant 33:08
Boogie and Woogie boy? No, that would be pretty what is it? Just tell me what it is. Tell me. What do you
Unknown Speaker 33:14
think of my basement behind me,
Nick VinZant 33:15
WABA. Is it WABA and Bubba?
John Shull 33:19
It's it was Wubba and hubba. But as we've gotten older, those names have kind of gone away.
Nick VinZant 33:26
So that's because every married man is secretly a pansy. Every good married man is secretly a pansy who like, Oh no, I do love my wife. Like they're soft, they're cuddly.
John Shull 33:40
I more or less think that we just you, you get married, and you gain a certain level of just smart about you, like you know, not to push buttons at certain times. I don't think you become pansy. You just, you learn to live with someone of the opposite sex. Have it be terrible all the time.
Nick VinZant 34:03
I agree. Probably shouldn't be referred to, but that is funny. Like saying category three Melissa, that is, I
Speaker 1 34:09
mean, it was fucking hilarious. Don't say it isn't it
Nick VinZant 34:13
is funny. I just don't think that, like, you know, you gotta keep that, you gotta keep that private.
John Shull 34:19
I don't know. I don't think it's out of some of the things that we said on here, that I've said on here, when we literally talked about my parents when I was like, eight,
Nick VinZant 34:28
okay, oh yeah, you saw them having sex. When you saw that mom and dad having sex? Yeah, I don't think were you when you How old were you when you saw your mom and dad having sex
John Shull 34:37
at seven or I mean, I don't remember the exact age, I just remember it's burned in my brain for the rest of my life.
Nick VinZant 34:44
What did you think that they were doing? Did you know they were like, Oh, my mom and dad are having sex? Do you think they're doing something else? I don't
John Shull 34:51
want to go down this road. I don't know.
Nick VinZant 34:55
Man, it's not like anyone make eye contact. Did anyone make. Did they make eye contact when they saw you?
John Shull 35:03
Anyways? Are we ready for shout outs? Can we stop? I hope they would have stopped, but they didn't anyways. Can we give some shout outs? I don't, I don't want to talk about this anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'll do anything. We could talk about anything. I don't want to talk about that anymore. Okay, all right, here are some shout outs for you this week. GRANT Blankenship, Sergio Barnett, Emma Palmer, Beth Mullins, Ricardo Ricon Dwight, bridges, Beth Fisher, Johnny Robinson, Willis, Lynn, I don't you're just waiting for me to get done. So you have some smart ass things.
Nick VinZant 35:46
I don't have anything to say for those that you can't
John Shull 35:49
Nick's just he's just has his face like he's getting ready to say something,
Nick VinZant 35:53
just watching you, just letting you do your thing, man, I'm just enjoying the process, just giving, giving love to all the people you're shouting out right now. That's all I'm doing.
John Shull 36:02
Cheyenne Whitfield and Vivian Barton, appreciate all of you.
Nick VinZant 36:07
Are you finished? I am because your dad probably finished inside
John Shull 36:15
your mom. I hope everyone else went through that with me, because I knew it. I just knew you were waiting for that.
Nick VinZant 36:21
I never saw my parents good.
John Shull 36:24
And I don't want to have this conversation. What percentage
Nick VinZant 36:27
of people do you think have seen their parents having sex like do you think that other people share your pain, or do you think you're alone?
John Shull 36:34
No, I think it's much more common than you think.
Nick VinZant 36:38
I could go 10 to 25% I
John Shull 36:40
I mean, I would probably go between 25 and 40%
Nick VinZant 36:48
I just remember one time where my dad really wanted me to like, hey, go to sleep. You should go to sleep. You better go to sleep quick. Like, why does he want me to go sleep so much? Yeah. And then later I was like, Oh.
Speaker 1 37:02
I well, I don't really want to dog this anymore.
Nick VinZant 37:07
You wanted the lucky 10. I'm gonna go, 25% I'm gonna go.
John Shull 37:11
25% I'm gonna go. Four out of every 10 people have have witnessed that, I think. Okay, okay, let's see here. There wasn't a whole lot of positive things to talk about this week. I'm a little
Nick VinZant 37:27
nothing positive. I
John Shull 37:30
legit spent 20 minutes today just trying to find little random, fun nuggets to talk about. And it's all just negative. I mean, we can talk about how the President United States just had the East Wing demolished, and no one knows anything about that. That seems like a good idea, or about how Amazon just laid off 30,000 corporate employees that they're going to replace with AI. That's positive.
Nick VinZant 37:58
I don't see like I don't understand this thing with AI, because, like, who's gonna buy your stuff if nobody has a job? Like, I just don't understand what the end game is here. Like, what are we trying to do? We're gonna replace all the workers with AI, and then who's gonna buy your product if nobody has money.
John Shull 38:24
I mean, I think it's, I think the and, listen, there's people smarter than us that are running these companies, right? They know, oh, I don't think so. You don't think
Nick VinZant 38:32
I think that. I think that that is one of the biggest things that I learned growing up in the real world, corporate America, so to speak, people aren't smarter than you, like they're really not. You would like to think that people who make decisions and are in leadership positions are smarter than you, or more experienced than you, or have some kind of perspective that you don't have, but they don't. They're not really any different. They're just in the room.
John Shull 39:02
I mean, that's half of it. As I get older, and probably a lot of our audience has felt this, you know, it's just, you're just there, right? It doesn't mean that you're smarter or better or even more qualified. You're just there for whatever reason. Anyways, the AI thing, I feel like it's all a money thing, right? But you're right. You lay off people, but I mean, not to be Mr. Doomsday central here, but at some point we're gonna have to have the bubble burst, like we've been saying that now for since the pandemic. But it has to burst. I don't know how. I mean, if you're trying to buy a house with no equity, I don't know anyone can afford it, it's insane,
Nick VinZant 39:46
Oh, yeah. Like, eventually, at some point, this all comes crashing down.
John Shull 39:51
It's just like, what, what's the, what's the rock that falls off the tower, so to speak. You know, that's, I think that's what everyone's waiting for. But no. He seems to know what that is.
Nick VinZant 40:02
I think it'll be the thing that nobody ever predicts. It's that seems to be the way that it always happens. And then we'll all look back and be like, wow, we really shouldn't have done any of this. And you because I was a history major in college, and you would read in about history, and you would always wonder, like, how did they make this clearly stupid decision, like, how did they make these clearly glaring mistakes? And then you live in the present, you're like, Oh, we did it again, and we do it again. I will go back to this, though. So I polled the audience about driving with one or two hands on the wheel. 70% of people say mostly one hand. 20% say mostly two hands. 10% say 5050, I would make a strong argument that even though it's the better way that you're supposed to drive with two hands, people who drive with two hands are probably worse drivers. They're the kind of people that don't get in accidents, but they've caused a number of them.
John Shull 41:03
I mean, I don't know about that. I I will die on this hill that the worst kind of drivers are those who shouldn't be behind the wheel because of their age, and anyone in a pickup truck, that's what I'll die.
Nick VinZant 41:18
Oh yeah, pickup trucks are bad drivers. Bad Drivers, because they're overconfident in their ability.
John Shull 41:25
Do you care at all about Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry?
Nick VinZant 41:32
I mean, I think it's odd, but you find happiness where you find happiness like, that's an I
John Shull 41:39
just that's, that's apparently Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey to me, like, I just don't, it just shouldn't make any sense. You know what? I mean,
Nick VinZant 41:48
yeah, that's why they feel like those like, I don't think that anybody really thinks that Kelsey and Taylor Swift are going to be married for a long time. Like, not, not really, or seem like each other's type, unless the type is just like, hey, let's, let's just get married and get as much attention as we can and have a deal on the side.
John Shull 42:13
I just, I mean, neither of them need it, right? I mean, neither of them need the billionaires
Nick VinZant 42:19
don't want any more money, but they still want it. Like some people, I think that. I think that people who pursue fame, not someone who tries to be really good at their craft, but somebody who pursues fame that's just a black hole that you'll never fill, like they'll never have enough attention, never Wow.
John Shull 42:40
You should, you should put that on a trading card. That was pretty good. Oh,
Nick VinZant 42:43
you're gonna hand out baseball cards at Halloween. Is that you still your idea that's gonna make everybody in the
John Shull 42:48
neighborhood hate you? Yeah. Have you seen the price of chocolate?
Nick VinZant 42:52
Are baseball cards cheaper than chocolate?
John Shull 42:56
Probably not, but I have plenty from I'm not talking about giving out.
Nick VinZant 43:00
You're gonna hand out your old crap. So you're not even gonna buy new baseball cards. You're just gonna get rid
John Shull 43:06
of crap. Yeah, I'm not handing out, like, new cards. These are from like, 1989 Fleer, you know,
Nick VinZant 43:13
oh god. So you're just gonna give some little kids. You're you're just basically gonna use this to get rid of
John Shull 43:17
garbage, and I won't even be handing out the cards. So what do I care? Who's going to hand out the cards? My father in law, apparently,
Nick VinZant 43:29
you know what I passed. So to make this story really quick before to get John on his soapbox, John's father in law likes to put up a lot of inflatables outside of his house. And I think the number was close to 20 or 30 at one time. Is that correct?
John Shull 43:46
Yeah, I forget. I think it was 20 451, year. I think
Nick VinZant 43:51
I saw a house with 20 with, like, maybe 20 inflatables outside of it, and it looked ridiculous, like your house must have looked like a goddamn circus.
John Shull 43:59
Well, that will no longer happen because he is physically unable
Nick VinZant 44:05
to perform. Do you would you rather see him having sex, or your father having sex? You can see your father or your father in law? Which one are you
John Shull 44:15
that what I'm not answering because I'd rather have my eyes guided out with
Nick VinZant 44:19
this. What if they were having sex
John Shull 44:23
once again, that is things that literal
Nick VinZant 44:26
nightmares. Would you rather see having sex your father and father in law, mother and mother in law with each other,
John Shull 44:34
Jesus Christ. I don't want to discuss this or even think about that, and I hope our viewership has turned off
Nick VinZant 44:44
well now just imagine you're no you
Unknown Speaker 44:47
brought this up. I
John Shull 44:54
listen. I want it to be known that I made my second professional wrestling appearance. This past Saturday.
Nick VinZant 45:01
Oh, is that what they're calling it now?
John Shull 45:03
And I actually took a bump or two.
Nick VinZant 45:05
And let's hear it. Let's hear it injured. I can't believe it.
John Shull 45:10
No, you know what I will I'm sure that it's because I'm an outsider, but the group of guys and gals that I am part of their wrestling organization, I mean, they're like, Listen, I'm going to protect you. And I took a pretty nasty punch, or at least it looked that way on tape, but he I got hit in like the shoulder, like it was nowhere near my face. It's all acting, and I did a pretty good job.
Nick VinZant 45:39
So on a scale of one to five. It's real to me, damn it. What would you give your performance a
Unknown Speaker 45:48
five? I was fantastic. Whoa,
Nick VinZant 45:51
that's I gotta tell you. Have a link. Do you have a link we can put in the episode so that people can watch?
John Shull 45:57
Uh, it should be up by then. Yeah, I will send it to you if I find it. I was, yeah, I love it, man. I love entertaining. I love acting like it's it's awesome. I love that seem fun like I because I get to be somebody else in you know, I get to be a bad guy, which, if you know me, I'm like, the opposite of a bad guy in real life. I'm this giant teddy bear that looks like I eat Snickers and drink Gatorade every day like I'm not sure why that makes me I don't know
Nick VinZant 46:31
exactly what somebody like. I can't really picture in my head like, Man, that guy looks like he eats Snickers and drinks Gatorade every day. I actually don't even hate Snickers. I noticed I do. I can see you're a little more confident, right? Like, you're swooping the hair more in, like, a stylish way. You're out of the dad thing, right? You're moving it like you got a little bit more confidence in yourself. You're moving out of the dad thing.
John Shull 46:56
I started going, I started going to, like this, this gym, like, like, where they have classes. So, like, I'm, you know, I've, I'm feeling kind of good. I'm gonna get, hopefully, nice and strong again. And,
Nick VinZant 47:08
wait a minute, are you doing, like, aerobics you got there in a dance to Zumba class, dude,
John Shull 47:14
I would, God, I would. I'm not even kidding. If I could just do dance robots, or whatever they're called, I would do them. I mean, who doesn't love to dance? I would just love to do that.
Nick VinZant 47:23
I'm not gonna lie to you, first of all, I wouldn't do that, but there is a Saturday morning gym class, the Zumba class at my gym that I go to that like, man, that does look pretty fun. Like, just,
John Shull 47:36
yeah, it's okay. Anyways, it's by, by next summer, I'm gonna have, I'm gonna be on Andro and hydroxy cut.
Nick VinZant 47:48
Will you just write out? Will you just roid out? Just head annoyed
John Shull 47:53
out. My heart would probably explode, to be honest. Oh
Nick VinZant 47:56
yeah, you're not gonna make it through, like, heavy doses of that. Like, like you're not. You don't have the heart for it. Like the guy's not. You're the kind of guy that like the dealer, like, No man, I'm not telling you this. I'm not selling this to you, buddy.
John Shull 48:10
All right, real fast, because you made me think of that. How crazy is that Chauncey Billups illegal gambling ring that that they busted that? Hey, just to give the audience just like 10 seconds, Chauncey Billups, Detroit piston, Hall of Famer, one of the greatest ever, basically the middle man for the mafia to bring in rich people to these poker games. And then they would cheat by using x ray tables and like glasses where you could see the cards. It was pretty high level stuff. I feel I don't.
Nick VinZant 48:51
I'm just not surprised I find to me by okay, my first reaction to it was like, How are my first reaction to it was like, Oh, let's see how big a hypocrites all these people on TV are because they're talking about this thing. Like, it's so bad. Meanwhile, we're sponsored by FanDuel and ESPN bet. Like, what? What are you really saying? Like, Oh, he's, he's this guy's terrible because he was gambling. Pull down the bug that says that we're sponsored by like MGM Grand gambling has taken over sports. Has absolutely taken over sports.
John Shull 49:36
I mean, it's, I wouldn't say, just has now. I do think it, for sure, has now, just because of the access that everybody can have. And I don't know how any major sports organization can combat it, like, because, literally, all you have, I could this whole episode. I could have been sports betting with you, like, it's that easy.
Nick VinZant 49:58
That's my thing. Is. Like. Don't clutch your pearls, then afterwards, right? Like Chauncey Billups, because major story, I can't believe the corruption. I mean, I mean, it is big. That's, I think that's the only problem that really anybody has with it. Was the idea, it wasn't that they were gambling, was the idea that they were cheating. That's really only anything cares about cheating at it
John Shull 50:20
well, and I think of him as a person. And I mean, you are now caught in between all these rich people that you effed over and the the they kept saying the five families of the mafia, which I didn't even know there were still five families the mafia, but I guess there are, like, that's a really dangerous place to be in if you're Chauncey Billups.
Nick VinZant 50:43
Oh yeah, like you. I wonder what they had to be doing to find himself in that situation. I haven't seen a thing, though. If they said that he was, was he actively participating in it, or is it kind of, I'm could be completely here, wrong? But if I remember right, like the Gilbert Arenas thing, who is another former basketball player that got busted for something along the lines of gambling, but it was really just like a house that he owned. He wasn't there. It was just was, but I don't know if Billups was actually involved in it, or was like involving him, and it was like he was just happened to be there at the game, and did he know about it, I guess, is the thing.
John Shull 51:22
I mean, he was a head coach, and I think, I think there's two things with him, which is what makes it so intriguing. One was the cheating on the games. Then the second was him, like legitimately being the middleman, you know, for Hey, bring in Mark Cuban to spend $5 million on a game knowing that, like you know, Mark Cuban was going to lose all his money to whoever he was playing against.
Nick VinZant 51:47
It's It's interesting. It's fascinating. I just don't feel like, from a moral perspective, that they're so bad when we're all kind of guilty of it, they just got me hot.
John Shull 52:02
I mean, listen, if you could tell me that I could cheat and win, I mean, I'd probably consider,
Nick VinZant 52:08
well, that's the thing too. Like, right? These people were arrested for doing the thing that a lot of people would probably do if they thought they could do it,
John Shull 52:16
like, if you were to hand me a pair of X ray glasses. No one's turning that nobody?
Nick VinZant 52:21
No, yeah, that's the problem. That's the thing that I have with it, is that people kind of being hypocrites about it, and acting like they did something so morally wrong, which, I mean, really the thing that they did was cheating, but like, you would have cheated too, if you could have right,
John Shull 52:40
wouldn't even think twice about it. But I don't have to worry about that, because no one's coming to me with a pair of X ray glasses asking me to win $10 million so yet,
Nick VinZant 52:51
gambling doesn't appeal to me. It's too I can't handle the stress. $5 is about the most I'm willing to wager. I can't I can't
John Shull 53:00
handle it. I will say I've been in Vegas with choice with you at least once, once or yes, yeah, you, you were, you, you were more of a sit back and talk to other people and have them waste their money trying to get their room comped.
Nick VinZant 53:16
Oh, yeah, God, he didn't get his room comp friend of ours went on roulette and got all the way up to 18 $800 which is a lot at the time, and then lost it all. He didn't get his room comped, even though he screamed it 15 times. Anyway, you got anything else? Are you ready?
Unknown Speaker 53:34
Let's go. Let's do it. So
Nick VinZant 53:37
our top five was a listener suggestion, top five ways to refer to a party. To number five,
John Shull 53:47
do we? Does his listener have a name?
Nick VinZant 53:49
No. Oh, anonymous suggestion.
John Shull 53:53
Can I call them Charles? Yes, perfect. Well, thanks, Charles. Appreciate you. My number my number five is, I'm gonna go with probably the most formal of suggestions. And I like this title. I've always loved this title, and that is just a black tie affair.
Nick VinZant 54:13
Oh, okay, all right. That's what I would call like a field party. I would use it like reverse psychology?
John Shull 54:23
No, I like, I like. I've always liked the black tie affair. You know, you know you're getting dressed up. It's gonna be a good, nice time.
Nick VinZant 54:34
I've always liked a good sausage fest. Anytime I hear a party being referred to as a sausage fest. I just laugh. It's just a perfect description of what's happening there. You hear somebody say sausage fest. You know exactly what a party looks like.
John Shull 54:51
That's a really good one. I I never heard sausage fest? Yeah, of course. I mean never to like, yeah, I have. I've been at a few sausage. Fest, I feel I get you.
Nick VinZant 55:03
It's just hilarious to me. It was a sausage fest. Oh yeah, man,
John Shull 55:09
my list is gonna be pretty boring, I think, compared to yours. Now looking okay, okay, okay, my number four is just to hang out, just, you know, just hanging out, just getting together and having a few brews with the old buds, hanging
Nick VinZant 55:25
out. Okay, okay, that's pretty boring. I'm gonna hide my face. You want to hang out? My number four is a shin dig. I love saying the word Shindig.
John Shull 55:40
Uh, yeah, I don't know it's I've never, ever said, Hey, let's get together and have Shindig, man.
Nick VinZant 55:48
You said, look, I mean, let's hang out. Like you don't really say anything. Like, I would never be like, Hey, man, you want to hang out, come over. Yeah? Sausage fest. Your number three,
John Shull 56:06
the wing. Ding, you ever heard of a wing? Ding, no, let's go, come on over. Let's have a wing day. True story, I actually, actually said that once and only one person showed up out of the five I invited.
Nick VinZant 56:24
Yeah, that's that is the appropriate response. I have more respect for those people than I do for you. Wing ding, my number three is a kegger. Okay? That is 18 to 23 year old when you went to a kegger.
John Shull 56:40
So I have that combined with a toga. A toga party is my number two, because they're both like college parties.
Nick VinZant 56:47
At what age can you no longer have a keg in your house
John Shull 56:55
whenever you are old enough to not be able to handle one beer?
Nick VinZant 56:59
I don't think you should have a head. I don't think that you should have a keg in your house past the age of 27 I mean, can't be 32 with a keg. Why? You just can't
Speaker 1 57:15
bourbon. Well, bourbon.
Nick VinZant 57:19
I actually know somebody who bought a barrel of bourbon. It's like $2,000 I was like, what are you gonna do with that? Yeah, what did they do with that? Probably, no, they still have it. It's like 20 years later.
John Shull 57:34
Well, get them on the podcast. Let's see what
Nick VinZant 57:36
they're doing with it. Not the kind of person, the kind of the kind of person who buys a barrel of whiskey for themselves, not the kind of person that I'm really associating with. I think they're criminal. I think that we also brought them up in a way. In last episode, when we met, talked about how many people we knew who went
John Shull 57:54
to prison. That's fair. That's fair to number two. So my number two is the A kegger and a toga party. Oh, it was, did you already say that? I did say it, but it's fine, fine. My number
Nick VinZant 58:08
two is a rager. You know what you're getting into if you're going to a rager, like, that's going to be good time, but you should probably leave a little early.
John Shull 58:18
I just never understood like, the term rager. Does that mean like, we're gonna get so effed up that we're gonna just start kicking the crap out of each other, or like rage
Nick VinZant 58:30
in whatever form it it happens like you just rage, and you don't know which way it's gonna go, like you rage, and it might be like a fun rage, it might be a little bit of a violent rage. That's why you got to leave early if it's going to be going to be a rager like you don't want to you want to be in the you want to be in the middle of people leaving like you want to leave a little early.
John Shull 58:54
All right, so my number one is I was so I was going to put rave as my number one, but I decided to take that off, because I've actually only been to like three raves in my entire life, and they weren't that great. They were actually full of controversy and terribleness. So my number one, I'm gonna go with a blowout. Oh,
Nick VinZant 59:20
okay, okay, my number one is a hoot nanny, course it is. What's wrong with a hoot nanny?
Unknown Speaker 59:30
Because no one even knows how to say that.
Nick VinZant 59:33
Oh, I don't know how to spell it, but I know hoot nanny is a good time.
John Shull 59:38
That's like a blowout, like, if I'm saying. I'm like, Hey, let's go and get fucking smashed tonight. Let's have a blowout. You know what's happening? You know what's happening.
Nick VinZant 59:47
I feel the same way about bash Soiree. What other ones do you have? What's your honorable mention? I got a few. Soiree is a good one.
John Shull 59:56
Sorry. I mean, I had bash on there. Or I also nobody will know what this is, but that sounds really dumb. Pineapple foot. Come on, man, let's get together and have a pineapple foot. Like I said, no one will get get that one rave. I'll put rave officially on there, yeah, that's, that's kind of it
Nick VinZant 1:00:23
a pineapple foot.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:26
Pineapple foot. Let's get together. Have a pineapple foot.
Nick VinZant 1:00:29
Man, you know, a pineapple is the international symbol of Swingers, right?
John Shull 1:00:34
I do know that, and that kind of has to deal with some things. So you think your parents were swingers?
Nick VinZant 1:00:42
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. Really helps us out. We really appreciate it and let us know what you think are the best words for party. I was gonna say synonym, but I never quite remember what a synonym is. I think it's a synonym. Can't have a good shindig without a I'll just yeah, I'll stop. I.