As the son of Timothy Leary, Zach Leary has spent his life at the forefront of the psychedelics movement. We talk the growing legalization of psychedelics, the use of psychedelics in therapy and psychedelic experiences that changed him forever.
Then, it’s Halle Berry and Don Cherry vs, Bob Lemon and Julius Peppers as we countdown the Top 5 Celebrities with fruit names.
00:00: Intro
01:16: What are Psychedelics
03:57: How Psychedelics are Changing
06:06: Psychedelics Legalization
11:01: What Magic Mushroom are Like
12:30: What Ayahuasca is Like
15:28: How Psychedelics Changed Me
16:56: What Ketamine is Like
18:06: States where Legalization is Likely
20:33: Being Timothy Leary's Son
22:00: Finding Yourself
25:36: Pointless
51:02: Top 5 Fruit Celebrities
Interview with Psychedelics Advocate Zach Leary
Nick VinZant 0:00
Nick, welcome to profoundly pointless. My name is Nick VinZant, coming up in this episode, psychedelics and
Zach Leary 0:21
fruit, whether you know it or not, whether you feel like, oh, psychedelics aren't for me, these things aren't a good idea. They're dangerous, whatever, our entire way of living and cultural construct was completely changed by psychedelics for a lot of people, and like the way I grew up, it was really just to have a spiritual, mystical kind of consciousness, expanding reality, bending experience. Well, the active psychedelic ingredient in Ayahuasca is DMT. And DMT that the tryptamine, dimethylated tryptamine is the most powerful psychedelic on the planet.
Nick VinZant 0:54
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, because he has been at the forefront of the psychedelic movement for more than 20 years. This is psychedelics advocate Zach Leary. So when we talk about psychedelics, what are we talking
Zach Leary 1:21
about, generally speaking, we're talking about MDMA, psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, Ayahuasca, San Pedro, wachuma, DMT, five, MEO, and, to a lesser degree, ketamine, as well, compounds, medicines, drugs that elicit psychedelic effects. The word psychedelic is relatively new in the English language and the vernacular. It was only coined in the 1950s by one of the first rounds of psychedelic therapists, a guy named Dr Humphrey Osmond, and the word means mind manifesting. Okay, so I'm
Nick VinZant 1:58
familiar with like I live in Washington, I engage in the things that Washington legally allows. I think I've tried mushrooms. When I was much younger, we had no all know the effects of alcohol. When you talk about psychedelics, what's generally the effect that someone is going for? Like, what are they trying to accomplish when they take them
Zach Leary 2:17
for a lot of people and, like, the way I grew up, it was really just have a spiritual, mystical kind of consciousness, expanding reality, bending experience that allows you to pierce the veil and see reality in a different light. But a lot of people these days really come into using psychedelics for mental health reasons, for depression, PTSD, anxiety and things like that. So what you're going to get out of it is kind of what you put into it, in a way. But the general thing, I think, which you can pretty much guarantees, like, what you're going to experience is some form of ego disillusion, right?
Nick VinZant 2:57
Like, when you look at alcohol, you kind of to just put it bluntly, right, like I'm gonna get fucked up, right? Is that the same kind of place that people currently are coming to psychedelics for?
Zach Leary 3:09
Definitely not. On a general level, absolutely not. Of course, there are outliers who do use psychedelics irresponsibly and overuse them recreationally and use them as escapist tools to just get fucked up. But I think for the most part, the vast majority of people who use psychedelics do not use them for that. In large part, that's because if you do use them for that, that's most likely what not what's going to happen if you're looking to escape and just kind of numb your feelings, like alcohol does or or what opiates do, or something like that. Psychedelics aren't going to do that for you. So it's pretty hard to just to get fucked up and run around and create chaos, you know? But sure, there are outliers,
Nick VinZant 3:58
like when I kind of think of psychedelics, right? Like mine go My mind goes back to the 70s, that kind of stuff. How has that in? Let's just say the average person's mind like, how has psychedelics kind of changed? Where are we at today with them? Would you say,
Zach Leary 4:17
Yeah, look, there's no question that. Like the American and the introduction to psychedelics in the West, at least on a mass level, really happened in the 60s and 70s, right through the counter culture, the hippie movement, and that spawned, you know, a tremendous shift in our culture. You know, whether you know it or not, whether you feel like, oh, psychedelics aren't for me, these things aren't a good idea. They're dangerous, whatever, our entire way of living and cultural construct was completely changed by psychedelics. Look at your record collection, look at music, look at pop culture, look at art. Look at the civil rights movement, the anti Vietnam War movement, Earth Day, the ecology movement, the sexual revolution, all of these things kind of respond from. Psychedelics. But so when it kind of introduced, was introduced on a mass level, it definitely, you know, there was a lot of serious research going on before that, in the 50s and early 60s for to treat alcoholism depression, and it was really kind of a response to psychology at the time. And then, of course, you know, the counter culture happened, and legitimate psychedelic research kind of went underground. And in the last 20 years, we've seen an incredible resurgence of psychedelic research from very, very credible institutions like Johns, Hopkins, NYU, the VA with the whole maps, PTSD, MDMA treatment and so many others so psychotic have come a long way in terms of, I mean, sure they're still used recreationally, you know, in kind of big subculture, things like Burning Man or whatever, things like that. But I think what we're also seeing now is a much larger understanding and acceptance, that these are very powerful healing tools as well. Do you think that it
Nick VinZant 6:05
can kind of go mainstream? Because kind of forgive me for the choice of words, but I'm not smart enough to use other ones in this terms. But it seems to me that it's never about what somebody is doing, it's always about who is doing it, and alcohol is normal because the normal people do it, and marijuana is now normal because the normal people do it. Can psychedelics get to that level? Or is it always going to be like, Yeah, but the normal people aren't doing it.
Zach Leary 6:35
Well, when you say the normal people aren't doing it, I do think that has changed a lot, especially in the last decade, you're hearing a lot more people who you would not think would be psychedelic advocates, kind of coming out of the closet and kind of being cheerleaders for psychedelic research, even people who I generally think are, you know, terrible people like politically, you know. And I couldn't disagree with them more, yet, there they are, you know, stumping for psychedelics, you know. So it's a really weird time that we live in when we see, you know, pretty alt right conservatives who I think are kind of abhorrent in their normal lives, but, you know, they are out there really stumping for the positive effects of psychedelics as a healing modality. So a lot of bridges have really been kind of mended through this. So, you know, that whole thing about normal people, I think that's starting to kind of go out the window. Can it be mainstream like cannabis and alcohol? You know, I'm not sure. There was really recently a rant study that came out a couple years ago. It came out a year ago, but the research was from two years prior to that, and I think the year was 2022 they estimated that 4.5 million Americans did psychedelic mushrooms that year. That's a pretty big number, but will it have the same mass kind of use potential as some of those other things? Probably not. I do think that there's a finite sort of ceiling, you know, in that. I don't think psychs are for everyone, even I admit that and concede that, you know, they're not for everyone. They're pretty powerful tools, and that's not for everyone
Nick VinZant 8:13
if, let's say, on a scale of one to 10, if five is over the hump, so to speak, where do you think we kind of are on that scale, and like, 10 would be alcohol,
Zach Leary 8:23
you know, yeah, I think we're definitely over the hump. I think we're probably in a six or seven, and it's a good metaphor. I appreciate that for sure. You know, I'm definitely seeing, I mean, I've seen social acceptance, and, yeah, social acceptability and kind of the kind of general viewpoint on permissibility changed more in the last seven years ish than it had in the previous 60 years.
Nick VinZant 8:52
What do you think's the hold up? Are we talking society, or are we talking more legal,
Zach Leary 8:56
both, both. You know, I think the hold up is that so much of what we're seeing in the psychedelic movement right now is a course correction of 60 years of disinformation. You know, there's so there was so much effective propaganda put out in the late 60s and early 70s thanks to the war on drugs, and it takes a long time to course correct.
Nick VinZant 9:20
Would legalization like if we're talking whatever level of legalization we're talking about? Yeah. Is that possible? Really possible? Yeah.
Zach Leary 9:33
You know, my answer on that has changed a lot over the years. You know, it's kind of a strange irony in my life. The more the older I get, and the more involved I am in this community, the less of a zealot I become, you know, had you asked me 15 years ago, I was definitely one of those guys who was like, Hey, let's put acid in the water supply and we're going to make a better world, you know. And I'm not so sure I feel that way anymore. So I. Yeah, in terms of legalization, what we're kind of seeing now, at least look like in Oregon and Colorado, is a very kind of tempered rollout of psychedelic under psychedelic use under the care of or supervision of a therapist or a healer, or you go to a healing center, or things like that. It's not quite at the state yet where you can just walk to the head shop and buy an answer shrooms or anything like that. So I think for the next couple decades, in terms of legalization, of policy change, it's definitely going to be in under the umbrella of psychedelic assisted therapy. Even as things start to become decriminalized. I still think legal use is going to be kind of under that those kind of parameters, so to speak, before we see you being able to walk into the head shop where you went you got the receipt, and also on the shelf is a bag of mushrooms. And that will happen eventually, but it has to go slow.
Nick VinZant 11:02
So can we do this? Can we kind of, I'll name and psychedelic essentially like, Okay, what it does? Your experience with it? Chance of full legalization or chance of broad legalization? Start with, I guess, the easy one, mushroom.
Zach Leary 11:17
When we're talking about macro doses, there's micro doses and macro doses, and macro doses two very different things, but when we're talking about macro doses, which is basically like, you know, a gram and a half or more, you know, some somewhere like that, they can expect to have a four to six hour experience. And the more you do, the more kind of out of your ego, out of your body, and into a place of just observation that you've become. So that means, if you take three grams of mushrooms, it's not like you're going out and going to a party. You are in a very controlled environment, perhaps at your home or with a loved one, or enough with a friend, and you've created kind of a ceremonial special container to have this experience in so you are safe and there aren't external distractions, and the music is good and the setting is good, and your set, which is your mindset, has been looked into ahead of time. So that's basically what you can expect and how you should be using them. High possibility for legal, full legalization of all of them, that is the one that has the most chance of widespread legalization,
Nick VinZant 12:30
Ayahuasca.
Zach Leary 12:32
Ayahuasca is used under the care of a shaman, right and a shaman who has been initiated into an Ayahuasca lineage like Saint Peru or Brazil, most commonly the Ayahuasca tourism. People who go to Peru, they sit with a shaman from the Shipibo tribe. They have been using ayahuasca for hundreds and hundreds of years, and it is really just woven into their culture of ceremonial and sacred use, and that is a very comprehensive and long experience that takes a lot of preparation and a lot of planning and requires a lot of care and considerations before going into it very, very serious psychedelic so it will never be legal in the sense that you can just buy it off of the shelf and use it. It could be legal in some circumstances, like what we're seeing in Colorado, where you can go to a healing center and experience it, but that one is not for anybody just to be using on their own.
Nick VinZant 13:41
What kind of an experience is it? Well,
Zach Leary 13:43
the active psychedelic ingredient in Ayahuasca is DMT. And DMT that the tryptamine, dimethylate tryptamine is the most powerful psychedelic on the planet. Extremely visual, extremely consciousness altering, extremely ego dissolving. So when you go into an Ayahuasca state, for the most part, you are visiting another place, like, you know, Zach and Nick are no longer Zach and Nick, you know, for those eight to 12 hours, you are taken some place else. And what that place is, you know, different people feel have different opinions on that. If you ask the native the indigenous leaders and elders, you know they believe that Ayahuasca is a disembodied teacher, and they're actually teachers within these plants that are there to show us other that are there to teach us, that are there to heal us, so you are taken to a different place and really observing your consciousness, your life and your place in the universe in a very, very unique way.
Nick VinZant 14:53
I'm I'm like, do it? Do whatever the hell you want to do. Like, for me, that's like, Nope.
Unknown Speaker 14:59
Not. For everyone that is, that's I got
Nick VinZant 15:01
too many questions about reality as it is. If that makes any it's a lot, it's a lot, a lot, right? It's not
Zach Leary 15:07
but, but I will say, though, yes, it's a lot. However, when used with care and preparation, that's also extremely safe. You know, the worst that will happen is you might not enjoy those eight to 12 hours, but you'll come back from it a different person. You know, it's not like it's going to harm you.
Nick VinZant 15:28
Just talking about some of the most powerful ones, right? Like, can people go down a road where it fundamentally changes them? Like, Oh, I'm a different person after doing this,
Zach Leary 15:39
I am a different person after doing it 100% you know, the person that I was before psychedelics and after psychedelics, and it's a completely, completely different person. You know? It completely changed my worldview, changed my relationship to my spirituality, changed my relationship to my ego. Yeah, it is life changing.
Nick VinZant 16:03
Do you think, though, kind of, I don't know if devil's advocate is the right thing, right? But, like, is it really the psychedelic, or is it the time and the place in the person's life? Like, just to throw this out there, right? Like, would you have had this change if you found Jesus or Buddha or anything like that. Or do you think it's no it's It's this. It's something about
Zach Leary 16:27
this. There's no one road to discovering, you know that awakening. There are many. You know, of course, I'm discovering the Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, whatever it is. You know, those things are very valid paths as well. But I will say this, I get Alex express routes. You know, they will get you there, really, really, really quickly. They won't keep you there, but they will take you there, and what you do with it afterwards is kind of up to
Nick VinZant 16:55
you. Ketamine, that's another one. I keep hearing a lot
Zach Leary 16:59
about. Ketamine is legal right now, yeah, not for recreational use, but every major city in America has, you know, you're in Seattle, there's probably a dozen ketamine clinics there, just as there are, where I live in Austin, where you could go and sign up for a series of ketamine infusions to treat a variety of mental health conditions under the care of ketamine assisted therapist. And you go and have a pretty extensive intake and screening and etc, etc. And then you know, when it's time for your infusion, they take you to a very quiet room, hopefully, and you're under the care of a psychedelic assisted therapy when done right. Anyway, not all kind of mean clinics do it right, but those that do do and you get the injection and you have a 45 to 60 minute experience that is pretty powerful, yeah. So it is legal in in a medicinal, clinical
Nick VinZant 18:01
sense. Are you ready for some harder slash? Listener submitted
Unknown Speaker 18:04
questions, yeah,
Nick VinZant 18:06
state where you think this is moving forward, the fastest, state where there's no chance, like new chances is happening,
Zach Leary 18:16
Colorado, moving the fastest. No chance, and I'm not no chance, but very, very, very far down the road the Deep South, yeah, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, things basically
Nick VinZant 18:32
your personal favorite, your least personal favorite,
Zach Leary 18:35
mushrooms and MDMA. Certainly LSD is, you know, is really what changed me the most, but these days, probably mushrooms and MDMA my least favorite, um, ketamine.
Nick VinZant 18:53
I always thought that LSD and acid are the same thing. They are same thing. They are the same thing. Okay, that always threw me off, yeah. But does acid kind of have like to me, when I think of acid, I think of the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and like for me, like that looks awful, right? Is that a reputation of it or is like, no, that's not really true.
Zach Leary 19:17
That's not really true. No. I mean, look at the Summer of Love and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in 1967 you know that's acid as well. You know peace and love and dancing around and loving your neighbor and listen to amazing music, and making records like Sergeant peppers and and completely changing the world. So now there's many ends of it,
Nick VinZant 19:38
and MDMA and MDMA ecstasy in Molly, is that all the same thing, or that, like, it's not the same,
Zach Leary 19:44
but it's it is the same thing. But it's a good question, one worth clarifying, because MDMA is a very complicated molecule to make. It's very sophisticated, and because it's so sophisticated, what has been called at. Seat or Molly and made its way into the club scene or the street scene, or, you know, high school and college parties. That is not pure MDMA. It's adulterated and poorly made, and that is because the demand cannot keep up the supply. So there's a lot of bad MDMA out there, and they call it ecstasy or Molly. And a lot of people who have had Molly experiences, they probably have not had pure mtma Because it's hard to get
Nick VinZant 20:33
this one is very broad. What's it like being Timothy Leary's son?
Zach Leary 20:38
It's complicated. It's largely inspiring, largely great. And, you know, he was an amazing teacher, and just an extraordinary mind, so so gifted and so prolific, and he was a great father. The other side of it is, yeah, it's hard to grow up with somebody who's that brilliant and that famous, you know, it was not an easy transition for me. You know, everybody you know who thinks that growing up with a famous father of any kind, you know, not just like I did. Yeah, they think, they think they have it made and, oh, life is so easy. You've been gifted the world. And I would encourage you to rethink that it's not the case.
Nick VinZant 21:23
If you were gonna put a date on full legalization, what would your bet be in enough states that you would say, like the same thing with kind of cannabis where you would for the most part, that's pretty much legal.
Zach Leary 21:37
It is. But still, interestingly enough, cannabis is still a schedule one drug. On a federal level, you know, it's not enforced that way, but the insanity of it is, it's still a schedule one drug, which is the same as meth and cocaine and heroin. So go figure. But on a state level, in enough states, I would say, by 2030 what would
Nick VinZant 22:01
you say that you've learned like for you, what was the biggest thing that you've learned throughout your experience with psychedelics?
Zach Leary 22:09
The biggest thing that I've learned is that's lots of answers there, but the biggest thing that I've learned is how to get in touch with my own voice, with my own expression of who it is that I am. And psychedelics have really helped me to kind of chip away at my insecurities and my thinking that I'm not enough, that I don't have anything to offer the world, and really shown me that, you know, my authentic mind, heart, spirit, that I do have a lot to offer the world, and has really helped to get me in touch with my voice, and I'd say, also my connection to spirit. You know, I'm pretty spiritual person, not super religious or anything, but pretty spiritual, and psychedelics definitely helped me jump start my connection to the universal truth, whatever it is that we call God.
Nick VinZant 23:10
Know you got a new book coming out, already came out, came out in April. Tell me a little bit about it.
Zach Leary 23:16
Yeah, it's called your extraordinary mind psychedelics in the 21st Century, and how to use them. I'd say it's 25% autobiographical, 25% prescriptive. In that prescriptive, I mean, there's like question sets and workbooks in there to help people use psychedelics wisely and safely, and then 50% commentary on my decades being in this movement. A lot of the research from the past, but also a lot of the current trends and what we're seeing. So a lot of commentary on that and kind of plotting the best way forward. But if you're new to psychedelics, I think the book is very friendly for the newcomer, for someone who's just mildly curious, it's not overly technical, it's not overly intellectual. I think it's pretty approachable and accessible.
Nick VinZant 24:05
When you think of like when people kind of get into it and they're taking it for a spiritual journey to help with their mental health, what's usually the mistake that they kind of make,
Zach Leary 24:15
rushing into it. There has been so much press in the last decade around psychedelics, sort of like this miracle cure for treating PTSD, or this miracle cure for depression or anything like that. A lot of people, I noticed, just read the headlines and are like, Oh, wow, I've tried everything else. It's failed. I've tried every other medication, and I've tried all these forms of therapy, and it's failed and I'm still stuck, and I can just take this and it's just going to cure me, and that is a huge, huge mistake. These things do not cure you, and you are highly advised to take it very slow and be very cautious and really do your homework, especially. Especially with mental health, while it can be very successful, and the efficacy rates speak for themselves, it's done very cautiously and prudently with the help of experts, you know. So that's the biggest mistake you can you can do is rushing into
Nick VinZant 25:16
it. I want to thank Mr. Leary so much for joining us if you want to connect with him, we have linked to him on our social media accounts. We're profoundly pointless on Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube, and we've also included his information, as well as a link to his new book in the description of this episode. Okay, now let's bring in John Shull and get to the pointless part of the show. Would you eat out alone like go to a restaurant, sit at a table by yourself?
John Shull 25:50
Does going to a bar and sitting in a bar count? Does have to be a table?
Nick VinZant 25:55
No, I think going to a bar alone is different, as long as it's a neighborhood bar, and as long as you belly up to the bar, I think that's acceptable, not that eating by yourself is wrong in any way. Just like, I don't know if I would have the social courage to do that. I don't think I could enjoy it. I would just feel like everybody was looking at me the whole time.
John Shull 26:16
Actually, the only time that I've ever done that was my couple of internet dates that left me.
Nick VinZant 26:23
How many times did you get stood up?
Unknown Speaker 26:26
Three times? Remember, we we've talked about this.
Nick VinZant 26:31
Remember it wasn't, I don't remember the various details of all the times I got stood up once, and it was apparently legitimately an accident. I don't know if that's actually true or not, but I believed them.
John Shull 26:46
Well, one was kind of your fault for me, because you wouldn't stop frigging texting me. Remember that
Nick VinZant 26:52
wasn't getting stood up. She was there. You just didn't pay attention to her.
John Shull 26:56
I mean, well, the other two showed up, but then they left, and I had to eat without them, so, well, I was there without them.
Nick VinZant 27:03
Oh, they showed up and left.
Unknown Speaker 27:07
Yeah, you know this. We've talked about this. I
Nick VinZant 27:09
don't remember it, though. And I'd also like to re go. I'd like to relive your humiliation. How long like out Wait? How long did the date last?
John Shull 27:20
It is so the first one was we ordered drinks, and she looked at me and said, I just don't think this is going to work out. And left, dang.
Nick VinZant 27:30
How did you feel? How did you feel at that moment?
John Shull 27:34
Think I went out that night. The second one was more brutal, because we have been talking for quite a while. Finally, went to a very nice steak house in downtown Orlando. Order drinks. Everything seems to be going well. Order food. She goes to the bathroom, comes back, grabs my hand. I'm like, this is kind of weird. Looks at me and goes, you just don't look like what your profile picture? Were you
Nick VinZant 28:03
using a fake profile picture? Were you catfishing people?
John Shull 28:08
Was not cat? No, I ended up later finding out that she was kind of a Nepo baby, and I had no chance from the get. And that was that was kind of that. But she waited until after we had ordered food to do that. So then she leaves, and the waiter comes over, and she's like, Sir, we've the chefs already started preparing the meals. I don't think I can get us to take this off. And I was like, that's fine. And I remember I took her meal home and had it like, I don't know the next day or for I don't know lunch or dinner.
Nick VinZant 28:44
Did it taste good? Or did it remind you of your pain? Oh, I mean, I
John Shull 28:47
was already over it. I probably went out with you both nights, you know, after that.
Nick VinZant 28:52
So I don't know if I ever had, I only had one girl that I went on a date with that I was just like, You know what? What are the we don't need to do this again. Only one time you were catfishing people with your picture
John Shull 29:08
was not, was it? You? I know this is where it was gonna go. I don't know that. I know see,
Nick VinZant 29:13
but men look like their pictures generally. Now a woman, yeah, you can see a picture of a woman, and then she can do her makeup or her hair dressed differently and look completely different. I don't think, I think guys generally look the same. Were you using a picture from, like, 10 years before?
John Shull 29:33
No, it was. It was a college picture, but I was less than seven years removed from college,
Nick VinZant 29:40
so you were using a picture that was seven years old,
John Shull 29:43
yeah, but I haven't changed that much like
Nick VinZant 29:48
I mean, they didn't think that you looked like you. I actually I understand, because I have a LinkedIn bio that I use a picture that's probably five or six years
John Shull 29:58
old now she just wasn't like. A good person, and I it was just a bad decision. But the best part of the whole story is I was so butthurt by that moment that I stopped online dating, killed my liver at the bars that went good, killed my liver, decided to go back on online dating, and that's how I met my wife.
Nick VinZant 30:22
So no, there is, like, there's definitely things where you realize that all of these things led you to one place or another. Like, can you think of decisions at points in your life where if you had made a decision, you would be in a completely, totally different place than you are now, not a big decision, but a little decision.
John Shull 30:43
I also think back to man, should I have made those decisions and see where life, you know, would have taken me?
Nick VinZant 30:50
That's all I want when I die. That's what I want when I die, is to go to wherever you're going, imagining that you get to go somewhere like imagine that you get to go somewhere, the only thing that the thing that I would really want to know when I died, I would want like a review of all the different things I could have done, like if you would have chose option A, here this is what would have happened to you if you would have chose option B. This is what would have happened to you. I would just like a review when I die of all the things that I could have done. I PowerPoint presentation,
John Shull 31:26
because, like, what if, I mean, it's not like, I'm unhappy at all with my life. I'm grateful for it. But like, what if you die in, you know, if you would have taken that cross country move and you would have become a billionaire and had the model wife, and, you know, like, I don't want, I don't need to know that. You know what I mean, I don't I don't want to look back. I don't want to have a real shown to me when I pass away.
Nick VinZant 31:50
Oh, I would love to have a real shown to me. Like, you could have been this, or you could have been this, because you're definitely going to have some that are better, and probably going to have some that are worse. I would just like to see what the possibilities would have been for my life. That's what I want when I die,
John Shull 32:08
when I die assuming I'm going to die much sooner than all of you if I keep eating six cheeseburgers a day and drinking coke like it's chocolate milk, I really just, I really just want to hang out with you all in the afterlife. That's all I want. Want my wife, my kids, my friends. I don't need anything else.
Nick VinZant 32:27
Do you really think that you could be with your wife for eternity?
John Shull 32:33
I mean, what? I guess so the first question that comes to mind is like, what's what's the other option just being alone?
Nick VinZant 32:40
Could you think that you could spend the rest of eternity with your wife, with anybody, like the next 20 million years? How long have you been married? 35 million years?
John Shull 32:54
I mean, of course not. But if I had to pick anyone, I'd pick her.
Nick VinZant 32:59
Sure. I wonder how long, okay, if you had to put a number on it, how long? How many years total Do you think you could spend with your wife? You'll get me in trouble. Like, could you get Okay, let's do it in digits. Could you get three digits? Like, 100 years, 100 years to 999 years. Could you get three digits? Could you get three digits? Could you
John Shull 33:24
get four digits? But like, I'm not aging right, the years are just passing.
Nick VinZant 33:27
You're both trapped in what you are, both set in what you consider to be your prime. How long could you legitimately spend with your
Speaker 1 33:37
life? I mean, hitting three digits would be tough.
Nick VinZant 33:41
100 years married to the same person would be pretty hard. Like, at some point, I think you would shake hands and be like, let's go try something else for a little while, see you in 100 years.
John Shull 33:51
I mean, I think you would definitely try some other things, but I think the love is still there in a relationship that lasts. Isn't that part of it? Isn't that what all these people who have been married for? Been married for 5060 years say is that, you know, there's a lot of hard times, but there's more good
Nick VinZant 34:07
ones, right? But that's 50 or 60 years, not like 1000 years.
John Shull 34:12
I don't even know what I would do if, like, I was alive for 1000 years. Maybe we are, who knows what happens when you die? No one knows.
Nick VinZant 34:21
I mean, I think that it would be potentially so, like, boring, like, what are you gonna do today?
John Shull 34:29
Well, I mean, have you? Did you ever have an in Did you ever have an in law that was this in law, you know, you're talking about death or whatever, and out of nowhere, they just, they just come out of the blue, and they're, well, you know, when you die, all you do is die, your soul goes away, and you just, there's nothing, not there's nothing when you die.
Nick VinZant 34:50
Oh, yeah. I mean, like, not that realistic. Well, I mean, why not tell people that that's personally what I believe. I would love to believe something else, but I think. At the end of it, you just die. I mean,
John Shull 35:02
what happens to your I mean, we don't need to talk about this. I just what happens to your soul, what happens to your mind?
Nick VinZant 35:08
Like, where were you before you were born? If you're this timeless being, where were you before birth? Shuts that whole thing down, doesn't it, sure
John Shull 35:19
does. Man Well anyways, right?
Nick VinZant 35:22
Like, if you're going to live in eternity, where were you before you were born?
John Shull 35:26
But what if you, if you believe in reincarnation,
Nick VinZant 35:30
yeah, but then is that really you? It's, it's a whole thing, right? Nobody would like
John Shull 35:38
this, yeah, religion is like politics. We've always stayed away on this show, and I think we should continue.
Nick VinZant 35:45
I don't know if it's religion. I think it's just a discussion about like, I just think, you know what it's over. You have a good run. You try to make the best of it that you can, because nobody knows what they're doing in life. Nobody, nobody knows
John Shull 35:58
so, so you mentioned, you made me think so. You mentioned, when you you live, you die, you know, you want to see it a reel of what could have been. What if you die too soon? Would you want to see what life could have been?
Nick VinZant 36:13
Oh, I would want to see all the possibilities. Because even if, like, you blew it, and you were supposed to be the president of the world, but you made all of the wrong decisions. At least you could have seen what you were capable of. I don't think most people really get to find out what they're capable of.
John Shull 36:30
Yeah, I don't, because we can't. We all, most of us, live in a society where we can't realistically do that.
Nick VinZant 36:38
No, it's a weird thing in which we all kind of, it's like all of us try to get through the door at the same time, and we kind of get in each other's way. Okay, let's move on.
John Shull 36:49
Let's get some shout outs here. All right. We're gonna start with a good one, King Compton. What a name. King Compton, Valentino, Humphrey, Caroline, Pittman, Ramona V Gordon, Luna. Shout out to Luna. Love best club ever, Metro, Detroit. Journey. Dawson, Gordon, lunatic, Halley waters, Remy Garrett, Magnus.
Nick VinZant 37:17
Peterson, hmm, I don't mind the Magnus name, but you need to be like Swedish or Finnish or some Netherland, like
John Shull 37:24
country. Speaking of the that guy from Game of Thrones, the big the mountain. Remember him out? Yeah, yeah. He just set the world record for the heaviest deadlift.
Unknown Speaker 37:35
Cool.
John Shull 37:36
I think his name is Magnus. That's why I brought that
Nick VinZant 37:39
up. His name is Thor, by the way,
John Shull 37:43
I don't know, uh, Hannah Cox, Alina Abbott, and we're going to end here with Maximilian Esparza. No, probably just Max.
Nick VinZant 37:52
Probably Max. I don't mind the name Remy if you're a man, though you need to be from Louisiana, because all I think about is gaming Remy level.
John Shull 38:05
So this is all theoretical here, but I was having a conversation somebody, and it made me, made me wonder, you take away, like, say, you take away New Orleans from Louisiana.
Nick VinZant 38:16
New Orleans, yes,
John Shull 38:18
Louisiana sucks. Then right? Like no one would go to Louisiana. You would not want to be in Louis, Louisiana, if it wasn't for New Orleans.
Nick VinZant 38:26
Well, I mean, assuming that something else wouldn't just take its place, and all the people would go to like, Baton Baton Rouge. No, no, I think that's French. But a lot of places are like that. Like, you lose, sure. I mean, you lose the big city in any state, and the state becomes much less interesting. I think the only exceptions you could make for that would be California and Texas. Like you lose Houston, you still got Dallas, you lose LA, you still got San Francisco, but if you lose Seattle, you got nothing.
John Shull 38:56
But you lose Orlando, you have Miami.
Nick VinZant 39:00
Oh yeah, I guess Tampa, Texas, Florida, California.
John Shull 39:07
You got to put New York in there, because you lose buffalo. You have New York City. You lose New York City, you still have buffalo.
Nick VinZant 39:14
I don't know if buffalo quite don't white. So look, I have a Buffalo Bills bandana, and actually, I don't, the dog has one. Gotta have to wear that. So the dog has to wear every single game day. Now, because they won in a massive comeback, we don't need to know. We don't need to go into why the Buffalo Bills are a team that's on the rise and a good team, and a team with a history of at least being a winning organization, right? A good organization. We don't have to talk about the Detroit Lions, which are going to hit their peak, which is losing in the first round, the first game of the playoffs. That is the peak of the Detroit Lions. Grit. Does the grit involve winning?
John Shull 39:55
Does the grid involve winning a game? For those of you out there that aren't aware, and I don't. Blame you. The Buffalo Bills went to four straight Super Bowls in the early 90s and lost every one of them.
Nick VinZant 40:06
Oh, so coming in second is somehow worse than losing in the first round of the playoffs. It's like, oh, you're not a good team because you got to the Super Bowl and lost. We're a better team because we lose in the first round.
John Shull 40:19
If we were having this debate for real. Yes, I would say coming in second, I would rather finish last. I would rather not.
Nick VinZant 40:27
It doesn't make them a better team. Like, oh, it's, you know who the better team is. Look this, this, the team that plays second is not as good as the team that placed 14th.
John Shull 40:38
I'm not saying that the lions were better than the bills or
Nick VinZant 40:42
lines have never been good at anything, except for the losing.
John Shull 40:45
They were one quarter away from getting to a Super Bowl two years ago. They were a good team.
Nick VinZant 40:51
Oh, so they were a good team because they were one quarter away from getting to a Super Bowl.
John Shull 40:55
I'm just saying you're I mean, is that your rush now for what's Why are you such a troll? I'm gonna because you a costume,
Nick VinZant 41:01
because you said that they were a good team last year and they were one win away from getting to the Super Bowl, while also making fun of the bills for getting to four straight Super Bowls.
John Shull 41:11
I was making fun of the organization, not the bills in general. You would be dumb to say that Josh Allen isn't the best player possibly in the game of football right now,
Nick VinZant 41:20
is he better than Sebastian Janikowski? I don't think so.
John Shull 41:25
That, my friends, is all you need to know about Nick's opinion on
Nick VinZant 41:29
the greatest athlete of all time, Sebastian Janikowski and Bartolo cologne and Rick and keel when he used to throw pitches into the stands. But anyway,
John Shull 41:37
Bartolo cologne is actually pretty hilarious. I love. Not gonna lie to you, check him out on social media. He's pretty funny. If you've never heard of him, let's see here. We got to talk about this, because it is insane to me, and if you haven't seen the photo, you need to check it out. The Rock lost 100 pounds. We talked about this last week. Hold on, hold on, I'm not. I'm not. Isn't referring to him. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Another wrestler was a photo was taken of him, also a movie star, and he has lost an absurd amount of weight and muscle. Dave Bautista,
Nick VinZant 42:17
almost as if, as you get older, taking massive amounts of steroids that greatly increase your frame tends out to be, turns out to be a bad thing.
John Shull 42:28
I'm just saying that that okay for all of you, we'll say 25 to 45 year old men out there, you grow up with these guys, and now they, you know, they're, they're 160 pound dudes, but it's insane. Like, I don't want to think, and this was a question, that's why I brought this up. I was wanted to ask you, would you rather remember somebody at the height of their career, or have them for a long amount of time and go through kind of like what we're going through now where you know, like the rock, right? Big wrestler took steroids, didn't take steroids, lost weight, gained weight, now he looks like a fucking twig.
Nick VinZant 43:10
Oh, I think if you're truly a fan of the people themselves, not necessarily a fan of where they are at in that moment in time, but if you're a fan of the person themselves, and they inspire you or whatever, then I think it's fine to see them go through life's journey that they're not always this perfect person. I think that's why some people who die young, Kurt Cobain, other people who are in that like 27 year old club, are remembered as being so much better than maybe that they really were, because they died at the height before the rest of their careers could kind of unfold, like, would Nirvana still be such a great band if they move forward and made a bunch of crappy albums afterwards?
John Shull 43:55
I mean, that's, I mean, that's a fair question, and that also kind of brings me to something I'd I had typed this out. I wasn't going to bring it up, but because we did that, or you brought this up, so there's going to be a John Candy documentary released. And it kind of brings up the point like, John Candy, Jim Belushi, Chris Farley, you know, other people, Gilda Radner, etc, you know, they got past that initial point of their career and then they died. So is that why they're remembered, because they left a little bit of legacy, or do people remember them for what they could
Nick VinZant 44:33
have been? I yeah, I think that people remember them at their peak and assume that that peak would have continued, as opposed to remembering somebody who maybe peaked and then fell off a little bit and then you don't look at them in exactly the same way. Like, imagine if something had happened to Tiger Woods at the peak of his career. He does not remember the way that he is now. Yeah.
John Shull 44:58
I mean, okay, yeah, I was gonna say something. Do. That at the peak of his career.
Nick VinZant 45:01
Well, I mean, like, if he wasn't there, right? Like Tiger Woods, he'd be remembered as the greatest golfer of all time, and no one would even be close to him. And now you kind of remember him more Tiger Woods, his wasted potential.
Speaker 1 45:14
No, I'm not, I'm not doing this with you. But once you agree
Nick VinZant 45:18
with my assessment of Tiger Woods, that now you kind of, you don't look at him the same way, as if something would have happened to him at the height of his career.
John Shull 45:25
I mean, I don't know, I don't look at him the same way, but unless you were just kind of goofing around he, I mean, he's not the greatest golfer of all time, if he would have stayed,
Nick VinZant 45:36
I he would have had, I think that if he would have continued on that, but let's say something happened to him on the trajectory that he was at at the height of his career, people would have considered him to be like, Oh, he would have destroyed all the records. He's the greatest golf golfer of all time, as opposed to like, Oh, no. You kind of live to see like you if you go past your peak, I think that your legacy suffers.
John Shull 46:01
Ultimately, this conversation really doesn't matter, because the best golfer of all time is John Daly.
Nick VinZant 46:09
Oh, I would say the best golfer of all time is Happy Gilmore,
John Shull 46:14
that movie is not too bad. The second, no, he's not a real golfer. Last thing, and we don't really talk about this, because we're gonna piss off most of our fan base. There was a new study that came out that basically the younger generation below us, all the generation below us, aren't drinking alcohol.
Nick VinZant 46:34
Oh, I've seen that.
John Shull 46:36
That kind of pisses me off, like, what are you doing with your life then?
Nick VinZant 46:41
Well, I think that they I think that they more do like other drugs. I wouldn't think that they're just staying sober. I would think so, but
John Shull 46:50
because what effing fun is that? I mean, I think
Nick VinZant 46:54
that they've really kind of found that alcohol is like, not that great for you, but millennials, like our generation, we will. We're just hard drinkers. Like, I think that our group, our age group, has just always drank like, that's, that's what she did. I mean, she didn't have any other options really, growing up like you can drink. Yeah.
John Shull 47:19
I mean, drugs weren't as big as they are now, or the different forms of them, like, plus it wasn't legalized when we were growing up, for the most part, didn't stop us from getting it, but I feel like that's a lot more readily available, which takes away. You know, there's so many craft beers now. You know, like, I
Nick VinZant 47:39
yeah, I follow it, right? Like, 18 year olds aren't drinking craft beers.
John Shull 47:44
They're not plus they probably can't afford them. They're pretty expensive, right?
Nick VinZant 47:47
Like, where's the Natty Ice? 99 a case? Can I tell you one four
Unknown Speaker 47:54
pack? Can I tell you one quick
Nick VinZant 47:56
birthday story from last week? Oh, you got to work your birthday in here. Go ahead.
John Shull 48:00
My birthday was last Wednesday. All I wanted to do was go to go to a bar, have some beers and hang out, right? Yep, I took the I took the day off because that's what adults do. They take the day off on their
Nick VinZant 48:11
birthday. Take a day off for your birthday. What are you six?
John Shull 48:15
I wasn't going to but actually a couple of my co workers told me I should, so I did,
Nick VinZant 48:21
what day of the week was your birthday? On a Wednesday? Not acceptable, not taking a Wednesday off in the middle of the week.
John Shull 48:29
So I go to the neighborhood hole in the wall here in my city, and I'm, I'm known, I guess, like, you know you you know people. I walk in it's 1159 because I'm not going to start drinking till afternoon, right? You have standards walk in. There's a couple people that are already kind of drunk, which is fantastic because they open at 11, uh, sit down, and they have one of my new favorite, current snob beers on tap. And bartender comes there. She's like, hey, what can I get you? I'm like, Can I get one of those? And she's like, You wanted a tall I'm like, sure she gives it to me. I drink it pretty fast. A buddy comes up. I have another one. Another buddy comes up. I have three of these. 24 ounces a piece,
Nick VinZant 49:14
72 ounces of beer. 72 ounces, six beers, basically 12% beer
John Shull 49:21
in less than three hours, and it was a great time, and I love it. It was. But anyways, so yes, I would prefer snob beer over Bush latte any day.
Nick VinZant 49:34
I can't I just don't know what like. I don't know what you're either doing right or doing wrong in life that you're going to a bar at 1159 on a Wednesday to get hammered like neither doing something wrong or doing something right, and I don't know which one is,
John Shull 49:51
well, I did everything responsibly, right. We I had an appointment in the morning. We did that well. We took the kids school, went to the appointment. Not only did that happen, I got a run in before. Where I went, and I walked to the bar, and then my wife picked me up after and I still made it the kids drop off or pick up.
Nick VinZant 50:08
Did you pick the kid like you went with your wife to kids pick up, I'm assuming. Yeah. Oh, pick up the kids.
Unknown Speaker 50:14
No, no,
Nick VinZant 50:16
my wife drove me home from the bar, and then, oh, why didn't you just walk back, you lazy ass. How far away is the bar from your house? A mile and a half. It's easily walkable, drunk distance. I don't mind just walking around.
John Shull 50:32
Remember the last time we hung out and we went up to your local neighborhood bar and yeah, Tucson or Phoenix, wherever it was, and you're like, Let's ride bikes. Yeah? Well, you made me a bike with two flat tires, you dick. Sorry. A man could have handled it. Yeah? Well, I did make it work, except you taunted me the whole way like a real asshole.
Nick VinZant 50:53
That's what you do. So you know who your friends are. Do you have anything else?
Unknown Speaker 50:57
No, let's I'm getting hot, getting sweaty. Let's move on.
Nick VinZant 51:01
All right, so our top five is top five celebrities named after fruit.
John Shull 51:07
Who's your number five? Did you find that this list was actually, like, there was too many once you started looking it up?
Nick VinZant 51:14
Oh yeah, there's a crazy amount of people named after fruit.
John Shull 51:17
Yeah, it's, it's, it's, way it's it's actually kind of too much, all right, so I feel like this could have been number one, but I'm just going to put him as number five, and that's OJ Simpson,
Nick VinZant 51:32
oh, I don't have him on my list only because, for some reason, I didn't feel like OJ counted.
John Shull 51:42
I figured there was orange in the name. So it counts. It's a fruit it's a fruit juice, right?
Nick VinZant 51:47
So, yeah, I just, for some reason, didn't feel like it counted. My number five is Halle Berry. I would have put Halle Berry higher, but she's just, it's too generic of a name, like she's not specifically named after a specific fruit.
John Shull 52:05
Ah, I mean, I have her on my list, but she's a little little up there, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna
Nick VinZant 52:12
refrain yet, don't tell me the answer, but I could see you putting her as number two,
John Shull 52:19
you were wrong. Okay, number four, but number four is Darryl Strawberry.
Nick VinZant 52:24
Oh, way too low, high for Daryl strawberry. I think that he should be much lower than that. I think Darryl Strawberry is an iconic fruit name.
John Shull 52:33
I mean, it's good, and it also, like, it's even better, because he was, like, a wild person, right? Like he was, yeah, he was, so, yeah, he was, he was
Nick VinZant 52:46
a fruit. My number four is Julius
Speaker 1 52:48
peppers. Oh, that's a good one, okay.
Nick VinZant 52:52
Is a fruit. A pepper. Is a fruit, Julius peppers.
John Shull 52:55
So, so my number well, we'll get to that in a second. My number three is Halle Berry. Okay, yeah, you have to. She's probably the best looking fruit on the list.
Nick VinZant 53:07
So, yeah, I could go as high as, I mean, if somebody put Halle Berry as number one, I wouldn't be. I wouldn't argue with it that much. Only I think that she needs a more specific fruit name.
John Shull 53:21
I think she's the easy one, right? When you think of food games, like she's the easy one, because she's just amazing.
Nick VinZant 53:26
So my number three is Don Cherry, the hockey announcer. Yeah, he's a good person. Oh, wait, didn't, did he do something? No, he just isn't.
John Shull 53:38
He like, he's not. He's very
Nick VinZant 53:41
Canadian. We'll put it that way. Oh, you got something wrong with Canada?
John Shull 53:46
No, I just, I remember back in the mid 90s when the Detroit Red Wings had a had a line called the Russian five, and all he did was just mock it and make fun of the Russians. Well, those specific Russians, and it's like, dude, like, get a grip. They're fantastic hockey players like
Nick VinZant 54:06
Detroit, no, but no one outside Detroit has respect for Detroit.
John Shull 54:12
We won multiple Stanley Cups with that team. So, oh, wow, hockey.
Nick VinZant 54:16
So just you know, on TV? Was it even on TV?
John Shull 54:20
There's a reason why we're called hockey town. Didn't know that. Yeah, because you're not a real fan. You're not a real man, not
Nick VinZant 54:29
of the Detroit Red Wings. No,
John Shull 54:32
what's number two? A real man would know that. So you're gonna hate this. And I don't know, actually I was, I wanted to get him on the list, so I put him as his number two, though, I don't think he's a fruit,
Nick VinZant 54:45
Carrot Top. Who is it? Who
John Shull 54:47
Carrot Top? That's not a fruit, not a fruit. Keep it as a fruit. I want to put him on the goddamn list. I'm keeping him on the list.
Nick VinZant 54:55
My number two is Fiona Apple, great fruit. Great musician.
Speaker 1 55:03
Okay, can you name me anything that she's saying? No, okay, I, I don't know.
Nick VinZant 55:13
I'm some kind of, like, really artistically well received thing that, like, I don't really am capable of those emotions.
John Shull 55:21
I mean, so the problem so I was looking at her name, I'm looking at it right now. When I look at her, I think of that Canadian singer, Lance Morrison. I can't,
Speaker 1 55:32
I can't, oh yeah, separate them for him at all. I actually don't Sure.
Nick VinZant 55:42
I don't really know any of Fiona apples, other songs.
John Shull 55:46
Can you name a couple? Maybe somebody out there knows them?
Nick VinZant 55:50
Criminal, sleep to dream across the universe every single night. Pure imagination. Shamika. Criminal is probably their biggest hit, though. Yeah, criminal for sure. Yeah, I don't remember the name of it, fast as you can, paper bag pre trial. I don't I actually haven't heard of any of these songs. Angel Eyes, anything you want. Oh, yeah, Bridge Over Troubled Water. But I think that's probably a what do they call it when they redo an older song, like a remake, a remake? Yeah, I couldn't think of the word. Who's your
Speaker 1 56:27
number one? Or a rehash?
Nick VinZant 56:30
Well, I just wanted number one going to be, I have no idea it's, it's a
John Shull 56:35
safe choice. But I, when I, when I think of, like, names with fruit, I don't know this one just came to my mind as Chuck Berry.
Nick VinZant 56:44
Oh, okay, so if it had been more our time, I could have gone Chuck Berry. My number one is Darryl Strawberry. Great Fruit. Great player. Interesting story like you knew who he was.
John Shull 56:59
Yeah, I Chuck Berry. For me, is number one because of everything he did. Thing he contributed, dude was, he was a master class, changed the guitar forever.
Nick VinZant 57:09
Oh yeah, he probably should have been number one. He was probably, of those people, probably the most talented. Do you have anything in your honorable mention?
John Shull 57:18
I only have one. I actually don't. Yeah, I don't
Nick VinZant 57:23
Bob lemon. Oh, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of profoundly pointless, I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate. It really helps out the show, and let us know what you think are the best celebrities named after fruit. If you are happen to be listening on Spotify, maybe some other platforms. We do put polls up now that you can vote on i i don't know if OJ counts. I mean, I know we should, anytime. I can think of a reason that he should. I can think of a reason that he should.