Latex Model Kitty Malone

For Kitty Malone wearing latex is both a transformation and a mystery. As soon as she puts it on she feels sexy, powerful and confidant, while her clients can only wonder what’s underneath her skintight clothes and hood. We talk wearing latex, normalizing fetishes, interesting requests and more. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Things We’d Like To Be a Model For.

Latex Kitty Malone: 01:40ish

Pointless: 38:29ish

Top 5: 50:59ish

https://twitter.com/latexkittyxxx (Latex Kitty Malone Twitter)

http://latexkittyxxx.com (Latex Kitty Malone Website)

https://www.instagram.com/latexkitty_ (Latex Kitty Malone Instagram)

Interview with Latex Model Kitty Malone

Nick VinZant 0:10

Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode latex and modeling,

Kitty Malone 0:19

the way it makes you feel, it makes you feel really sexy, powerful, confident, horny. I think a lot of men, when they wear latex, they might want to do the makeup and the lipstick and the high heels and the big boobs and they want to transform themselves. And that's the greatest thing about latex, it's you can transform yourself into someone completely different. So when I put my head down on my latex, and some guys wants, you know, SBH small penis humiliation, I'm up for that, man. I'm like, that is a fucking small debt, blah, blah, blah, what am I gonna do with that, whereas in real life, I just be polite,

Nick VinZant 0:59

I want to thank you so much for joining us, if you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it really helps us out. So our first guest is a professional model and an industry that is both very popular and very secretive. There's a good chance that somebody you know, is interested in latex and rubber. But despite how popular it is, there's still this idea that it's weird. That's a stigma that our first guest is trying to fight back against. This is latex model, Kitty Malone. So how did you get started in this? Were you a model who got into latex? Or did you like latex and then get into modeling

Kitty Malone 1:47

No, so it was a boyfriend. So I always loved cosplays or dressing up being somebody else a bit of an alter ego, especially in the bedroom. And then a boyfriend was into latex while an ex boyfriend was into latex. And I really wasn't into it at all. I just thought, I don't know the material or whatever. And he gave me a rubber 55 latex hood and just said put it on try it. So I did I put it on. And I thought wow, this makes me look completely different. Like I don't even recognize myself. This is very sexy. I loved the feel. I liked being somebody else and how it made me look like somebody else. So yeah, it all started with a hood. And then little bits of latex started coming in, you know, I started shopping for latex buying more latex, and then just dressing in latex, you know, at home in the bedroom, and then decided, well, could I make a thing of this? And I did.

Nick VinZant 2:56

So what is it about it that makes you enjoy it is a sexual thing I'm assuming, right?

Kitty Malone 3:04

Yeah, it's like I said before, it's the way it makes you feel it makes you feel really sexy, powerful, confident, horny. Just the whole getting ready for the putting on the makeup because the hoods are so pretty, but I think that it really emphasizes on your eyes and your lips. So I do spend time making my you know doing my makeup so that the hood brings out the eyes and then just getting dressed into the latex and then the finished product is all shiny and you just feel awesome it's just the feel the smell the way it looks everything so what will people generally have sex in the latex or is this more of something that you do before? No no in the latex so I mean I couldn't speak for men but I think they find it as well when you put it on it's the feel the smell how it feels against your skin how it feels against certain areas makes you feel horny everything that you well more or less everything that you buy in latex has got zips in the you know the important areas. So yeah, latex is for having sex in and some people get confused with that. They're like, do you really have sex in it? And you're like, of course you do. You swear you get hot you get you know, it's like the the feeling of it. It's it's just brilliant. Now is this is this a popular thing? are more people into it this than I would think I'd say it's more popular than you'd think for men. Not so much girls. So a lot of men ask me, How do I get my girlfriend into it? And there are a lot of men that wear it and want their girlfriends to wear it and they enjoy wearing it. But their girlfriends don't like them wearing it. But with regards to poppy It is very popular, but it's more of a not spoken thing. Like you don't go down the pub with your mates and say, Yeah, I love wearing latex. They go, what are your freak? It's kind of like that. Not a lot of people would admit to liking latex. But I think that a lot of people do love well would like to or try it or haven't tried it or Yeah, I think it's popular.

Nick VinZant 5:26

Why do you think that is, though, that it's a popular thing, but yet people don't want to talk about it.

Kitty Malone 5:31

Yeah, because it's like the GIMP look for men. Uh, you know, I think that a lot of men that were a very submissive, a lot of my clients want to be my slave. They want to be a gimpy so. So it's obviously their submissive side. And you know that when you speak about latex, it is like, all that's a bit weird or is weird. You know, a lot of my family and friends know what I do. And they know I wear latex, but they don't discuss it. It's just something that they just don't want to discuss, because it's weird. It's BDSM it's bondage. But it doesn't necessarily have to be BDSM bondage is just a fetish. Just like people would have a foot fetish or a nylon fetish, or, you know, any fetish. It's just latex, but I think it's just people view it as weird. But what's great is that a lot of you know, famous models are starting to wear latex. You know, Kim Kardashian is wearing latex, Lady Gaga is wearing latex. So but that's in a fashion sense, rather than a sexual, you know, sexual thought pleasure fetish kind of thing.

Nick VinZant 6:45

Now does do other kinds of fetishes and kinks go along with wearing latex or is it pretty much just?

Kitty Malone 6:51

Yeah, I think that if you wear latex, you're involved in the fetish scene. So a lot of people have different fetishes. And they, you know, I can I do Skype bookings, custom videos. And the requests I get are obviously for their fetish. So it could be nylon, it could be butt plugs, or, you know, they want to do that they want to do it. With me giving instructions. I think that it's just everything goes with latex, every fetish goes with latex, I think a lot of men, when they wear latex, they want to dress as a rubber doll. So they might want to do the makeup and the lipstick, and the high heels and the big boobs, and they want to transform themselves into a rubber doll. And that's the greatest thing about latex, it's you can transform yourself into someone completely different. So a lot of guys transform themselves into a rubber doll. And you wouldn't even know that if they were a guy or a girl. And that's the best thing about latex.

Nick VinZant 7:55

Is there a difference between latex and rubber?

Kitty Malone 7:59

I think that with regards to rubber. A lot of people use the word rubber when they're talking about latex, like I use the word rubber. But I think that it's more sexier, like I'm going to put my rubber on rather than latex. Because obviously, with regards to what I do, it's sexy, and I haven't you know, so when I say I'm going to put my rubber on it's it's sexier. But rubber is really rubber products as molded products, like the dildos rather than latex is a sheet of material.

Nick VinZant 8:32

Is it expensive, it would be expensive,

Kitty Malone 8:35

very expensive. I mean, you can buy cheap latex outfits from China. Whereas obviously you can buy lots of cheap stuff from China, but it's just crap. It's just it rips, it doesn't sit well. So if you're buying latex, the price will probably represent the the quality of the garment. So you're paying for say one of my hoods that I have. They're about 100 pounds per hood. The ones that have the ponytails or the pigtails, you're talking 120 if they're tailored and designed, it could go up to sort of 130 pounds per hood. And I have roughly around 30 to 40 hoods.

Nick VinZant 9:21

Oh my gosh.

Kitty Malone 9:23

And yeah, a cat suit. You're talking sort of 300 to 350 pounds. I have around 10 cat suits, then there's corsets heels, you know, latex, brows and cardigans and dresses, not cardigans, you can edit that out because you don't get coated with anything tight fitting, you know anything that's rubber is you know of good quality is going to cost a lot of money. I've just bought a course there. And I think that costs me about 400 pounds.

Nick VinZant 9:58

Wow and for for a year. Audience a pound is roughly double that you have an American dollar. So we're talking like 800 bucks. Yeah, but more than that, probably but man, whoa, yeah, that is expensive. Now do you have to? Does it has to be is that because it has to be custom? Because it's so tightened and like everybody's body is a little bit different? Or can I go to like the the latex store and get a medium?

Kitty Malone 10:23

Now it's all the same pricing, depending on the size, it's just I guess, latex is expensive.

Nick VinZant 10:31

So how did you know when did you make the choice to become to do this professionally?

Kitty Malone 10:35

What I've always been like quite sexual, and Randy and like quite a show off, I guess, as in like, hair, I don't mind going on camera and showing off and doing all of this kind of stuff. So I started coming through adult work. And just going on, on my days off logging in, in my latex. And I guess there's not many latex girls doing that. When I started. There certainly wasn't there was lots of girls that would slip into their lingerie and they would come You know, whereas I was more of a fetish model. So I used to be work was really busy because people hadn't seen this. So they were like, Oh my god, this is something different. Very fetish, very naughty. And then I got a lot of men on that wanted to be slaves and subs and do naughty things. And I was their mistress. And they wanted instructions. So I became very busy doing that. And I was working full time, and then got made redundant and thought, Well, I'm going to start doing this full time. I wonder if it can work. Got a website, social media, obviously get your following up. And that's how it all started to be honest. You get followers, you get regular clients, then it's private Skype calls. And then

Nick VinZant 11:57

yeah, it went from there. Like what do you get? Do when you do a custom video or one of these Skype calls? Like what is the person? Is it usually a man who's requesting this? Or is it usually a woman who's requesting this? Oh, man. Oh, man. Pretty much all men. Yeah. What like what do they usually want?

Kitty Malone 12:15

Well, most of its goi, so jerk off instructions me telling them how to jerk off. And then they get to request outfits. So they'll say can you wear this particular hood? Can you wear this particular outfit? Can you maybe do a nurse scenario? Can you do but it's more or less? You know, the porn industry, I think because now it's free. You don't need to pay, you can just jump on Pornhub search whatever you want. And there it is. I think that the way the porn industry is going now is that you can you can get really up close and personal to your favorite models. With regards to only fans, you can chat to them. Whereas you never used to be able to do that. You can request a video and say can you say my name and it's person personalized to them? So I'm saying hi, john, how are you? You know, this is your video, your personal video and I'm going to get really dirty for you. And you're going to take out your cock and you're going to do this and you know, it's only a 30 minute video but instead of going on Pornhub and searching I'm literally you're literally talking to me it's like right now I'm talking to them kind of thing instructing them. I think that's the way the world's going with custom videos.

Nick VinZant 13:33

How do you feel about that? Right? Because now this is kind of maybe before you were doing it in front of a camera and there's kind of like, but now it's a real person like you're doing this for someone does that does How do you feel about like that? Do you like that? More? Do you like that? Less? Like what do you think about the idea that now you're doing this for john smith? Yeah,

Kitty Malone 13:56

I love doing personal videos because you know, some of them send me a script so I have to not read from a script but obviously they will do scenarios positions they want me to get into and I will literally be talking to them rather than the videos that you know that I'm posting on my only fans is is just a ray of light naughtiness, I guess or you know, new outfit new hood. In my latex. I do a lot of smoking fetish videos. I love doing them this you know, I used to, like I said to I started off with coming on Adult work. Now I don't get the time to do that. Because all my business or my work is doing these custom videos for everybody that they're so popular. I'm just so busy with them. And it's nice because I can take my time recording. I can have fun. They then get a great finished edited video from latex kitty that they can keep forever. Obviously they can't share it, put it on any websites and make money for it because it's got their name all over it. Um, but I love doing them absolutely love doing them. When you're doing this kind of all the time does that then does that take away from your personal life in

Nick VinZant 15:08

the sense that like, you know, anytime I think once something becomes a job, it becomes less enjoyable outside of that. Right? Like, do you still? Is this something you still participate in your personal time?

Kitty Malone 15:20

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I do it during the day. And sometimes, obviously, if I've done quite a lot of custom videos, or if I've had a few Skype calls, and they've been intense, then yeah, I'm like, you know, don't want to worry, I sometimes need a week off or, you know, a few days off to just sort of get away from the latex. But I'd say, even when I walk past the room that I store my latex in, and I get the smell, I'm like, Oh, that smells good. And I love cleaning it and washing it and making it look good. So I never seem to get tired of it. To be honest, I do get exhausted with you know, with the messages and the constant chat that I you know that with regards to emails and stuff that I get, but that's fine. That's all part of the job, when you'd have that in a full time job, right? You'd have emails and stuff and inquiries coming in. But with regards to my loyal fans, I love chatting to them. And I think they love it that they can reach out to me and I, you know, I say to them, a guy a couple of weeks ago was going through a bad time, you know, I'm here to chat if you need someone to chat to just, you know, reach out to me, I don't mind chatting. So it's more of a like a personal thing as well, rather than, you know, I can't be there for everybody, obviously, but my loyal fans that you know, that have stuck with me since the beginning eight years ago, I've become really good friends with them.

Nick VinZant 16:45

Will you ever do things in person?

Kitty Malone 16:47

Well, yeah, lots of people would obviously love me to do things in person in real time, and meats and things like that. And I did do that, but I found it. They get too attached. You know, and it then becomes I just didn't like that I'd rather keep it sort of virtual, where I'm home and in, you know, safe. To be honest, I don't want to put myself out there to people that think because I wear latex, they can then meet me tie me up with me and spit on me. And, you know, whatever. I mean, one day, I might do that, but it would be as distressed rather than as, you know, people just fucking me kind of thing. And, you know, a lot of people do want real time Mr. Sessions, so maybe one day I will explore that area and go around fucking other people as in fucking men than rather than fucking me.

Nick VinZant 17:43

That seems like the natural evolution, right, in a way, doesn't it? Well, I say I just progressed to that. Right?

Kitty Malone 17:50

Yeah. I'd say 99.9% of my clients are all slots and just want to be fucked. They don't want to fuck me. They just want me to fuck them. And I think that's the way we're going. And I think that men shouldn't be ashamed of that. It doesn't necessarily mean they're gay, bisexual, whatever. It just means they want to have fun. They want to, you know, have some of what we're having. And why not? Oh, is

Nick VinZant 18:13

it good to ask you? Oh, like one of those custom clips? Like, how much would you generally charge for a custom clip?

Kitty Malone 18:18

Well, I'm obviously going to speak in pounds. So then you can like, yeah, so it's 65 pounds? For a 13 minute video.

Nick VinZant 18:27

It's about 120 bucks. I feel like that's low. Is that low? I don't know. I thought it would be more expensive than that. For some reason. Maybe. Because the latex is so expensive, expensive.

Kitty Malone 18:39

Yeah, but I think you'd pay more if I think people would pay more if it was me with somebody else. So if I was fucking somebody else, but because I'm so low, and you know, it's more or less, just me. It's 65 pounds. Someone else said to me, that's a bit cheap. So maybe I should put my prices up. But, you know, I don't want to like scare people off. And yeah, I'm busy at the moment. It's working at the moment. But 65 pounds obviously I have the latex, it's a big outlay when you're buying outfits, obviously. But then when you have it, it's a collection. And then yeah, it's but it is time consuming. You know, you film it, you edit it. You've got to get ready. You've got to get set up. You've got to but it's fun. So yeah, maybe next year I'll look at maybe putting my prices up but i do i do i too. The prices do vary depending on what people want. Like

Nick VinZant 19:33

how long it is and stuff.

Kitty Malone 19:35

Yeah, how long they might want it double you know, for example, smoking video, they want me just make seven cigarettes or something and then I'm going to put in the price of the cigarettes. I'm not going to be buying the cigarettes and having that come out of my budget. And then you know, if someone wants me to pump my pussy till its massive enjoy. Well, that takes an hour. So I'm going to put that in there because I'm not doing that in my own time while I'm doing my housework, walking around with a pussy pump attached dinner.

Nick VinZant 19:58

You know Will you just wear latex around the house just randomly? Yeah. You ever go well, people go outside and like just walk around?

Kitty Malone 20:08

Well, we go to events and people walk around at events and sort of, you know, London fetish weekend and stuff. But I live in a place where I really wouldn't want to go out in latech. Because I think I'd get too much attention. Like, if I went for dinner, I'd wear a pair of latex leggings with a pair of heels, for example, and you wouldn't get looked at because it's just leggings. Obviously, the hood, I wouldn't wear the hood out, because that would be a bit freaky, you know, freakish for people to look at. But yeah, latex leggings, or, you know, if you're doing a photoshoot in public, I don't see that there's a problem in wearing full latex. I personally like head to toe in rubber. I like the full cat suit, the forehead, no skin, use your imagination, you're completely enclosed. And I think that's really hot.

Nick VinZant 20:59

I think the thing that would stop me from doing it is just like, it feels like it would be hot and uncomfortable.

Kitty Malone 21:05

Nice. Not a lot of people, you can buy latex, which is chlorinated, so it's basically easy to put on. And it doesn't sort of stick to your skin and it's more comfortable. But I don't chlorinate my latex. So I use a dressing aid. And then I wear the latex, it sticks to me. But it's not uncomfortable. You'd be surprised how comfortable it is, once you put it on now once you put on your for latex, and maybe you then add a corset, and then you add a collar, and then you add maybe your heels and a hood, maybe two hoods that can become really restricted. But that's the fun of it. It's been restrictive. It's sweating in it, it's being uncomfortable. You know, and that's what I didn't get, obviously, when I first got into latex when that, you know, my ex boyfriend got me into it, I thought well, isn't it going to be uncomfortable? And then I tried it. And if you get a good quality cat suit, that's, you know, nice and comfortable, nice and thin. It's brilliant. It feels fabulous.

Nick VinZant 22:15

How much different is his latex kitty? From your, from your, from your personality? Do you feel like you go through a transformation? Are you pretty much just accentuating a side of yourself?

Kitty Malone 22:29

Yeah, when I put the hood on and the latex, I think I become a completely different person to what I am every day. Totally. Like, yeah, it's completely different. I think I even speak differently when I'm latex kitties or when I'm my normal self, but then I think people do when they're on cam or recording videos or, you know, we obviously you do the job does your does your voice change to everyday life to when you're interviewing or I try

Nick VinZant 22:59

to sound smarter, but I don't think it actually works very well. I tried to sound like a little deeper. But pretty much I feel like I just come off. No, not not so much. But then I've done it so long that honestly I don't even notice anymore. Which one would you say though is your? So I'm a big comic book fan. This may make sense to know what he may make sense to everybody. But there's this argument about like, well, who's the real person? Is Batman? The real personality of Bruce Wayne? Or is Bruce Wayne? The real personality? Like which one would you say do you think is your real personality latex? Kitty? Are you in everyday life?

Kitty Malone 23:39

Um, I mean, like I said, I think that I would 100% say that I changed when I'm in the latex and everything. But it is a bit of me. Like I said, I've always been a bit of a I wouldn't say slapped. I'd say I've always enjoyed sex. So therefore, for example, when I'm even chatting to someone that you know, I get cigarettes delivered to me that I shouldn't probably you probably couldn't say this, but whatever. I even flirt with everyone, you know, I'm a flirt. I'm a bit of a you know, a tease. I've always been a bit of a tease. So even when I'm chatting to a guy or you know, it's in a restaurant or in a pub is I'm always been a bit of a flirt a bit of a you know, chatty, flirty, which is kitty completely. So yeah, I'd say half and half.

Nick VinZant 24:27

That's about that makes sense. I understand that

Kitty Malone 24:30

looks wise completely different. Whereas personality still filled the slot I can be a filthy slot in real life, you know, even when I'm out in the pub as myself. So yeah, but when I you know, go on cam and I've got a guy who wants to be humiliated and stuff, I can be a bitch and that, you know, the latex brings out the bitchy me whereas in real life, I probably wouldn't be able to do that. So when I put my head down on my latex and some guys wants, you know, SBH small penis humiliation And I'm up for that, man. I'm like, that is a fucking small deck bla bla bla, what am I gonna do with that, whereas in real life, I just be polite Brits are polite, we are polite people, but I just couldn't be horrible to anybody. And it's taken time for me to get used to be in horrible to people when I'm latex kitty because it feels it felt really uncomfortable. But now it's what they want. I get that they want to be humiliated. They want to be called a piece to share. You know, so I'm down with that, but only as kitty not as myself.

Nick VinZant 25:33

Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Okay. Favorite color of latex?

Kitty Malone 25:43

Definitely black. I think it's gonna be the same for most people. It's sexier, it's like, like stockings or black. You know, it's just black is a sexy color. And it's shiny. And so when you've got four black latex on and it's it's shiny, it's it just looks awesome. So yeah, Black is definitely my favorite color.

Nick VinZant 26:09

What's your least favorite?

Kitty Malone 26:12

I'd say green, like a really like green. I just don't understand green like mint green. I love nurse green. I love but I just have never really fancied green.

Nick VinZant 26:24

I can see green being like strange. Pink. Yeah, for some reason. I feel like pink would be a weird color. Oh, I like pink, pink.

Kitty Malone 26:34

Pink rubber dough. It's kind of cute. I have sort of some fuchsia pink and some baby pink. It's a bit like when you go out and buy clothes. You think girls would wear a pink dress girls would wear a sexy black dress, or not necessarily would wear a green dress?

Nick VinZant 26:52

Is there a difference for people who like somebody might distinction or whatever word that you want to use? Like for somebody who maybe just wears the latex bodysuit and doesn't wear the hood? versus somebody who wears the hood only?

Kitty Malone 27:04

Yeah, I wouldn't just wear a herd only I think that you have to I think you could wear it you could wear a cat suit only and have a you know a pretty head sitting on a cat suit. But I don't think just a herd. I'm not sure I think you could because the hoods the the rubber doll Look, you're looking at somebody else. So why not just cover the rest of your body? Why just cover your face?

Nick VinZant 27:27

Most common misconception about latex?

Kitty Malone 27:30

Yeah, that it's weird that it's like, you know a lot of my family and friends know what I do. But like I said, they don't talk about it because it's weird. It's underground. It's a fetish. It's like, not spoken about, you know, like I said, my friends know what I do. They just don't like to. They just think I'm weird for wearing it. And I don't know why. I don't understand why it's got that persona of being weird.

Nick VinZant 27:56

What would you say to somebody though, that they want to explore this? Maybe they want to explore this with their partner. And their partner just doesn't want to do this. What would you say to somebody who wants to get into this? But feels like they can't?

Kitty Malone 28:10

Yeah, that's a good question. Because a lot of my followers a lot of my clients are the same it's it's a one sided thing, whereas he wants to get into it but the wife doesn't to the extent where it's she thinks it's weird. And never force it upon a girl You know, like never say you have to wear it or you know, it's slowly introducing it. I think that everyone has the right to have a fetish and it just doesn't need to be seen as weird I think that if a man had a you know, an a nylon once you know to see a sexy go on a pair of nylons, then that's fine, but if he wants to see her in a sexy pair of latex leggings, it's not fine. And I just think that that's just bizarre. It's the fetish. It shouldn't be the underworld anymore. It should be. It's a sexy garment. And I wish that every girl could just experience latex the way I do and how sexy it makes you feel without thinking it's weird. And I was one of those girls I did think it was weird. I was like that strange. Just you need to be open about it and just try stuff new. I think that you know if any girl would just try it you either hate it or love it. Maybe it's like Marmite you hate it or love it. I don't know if you have that saying in in the US you either love it or hate it. And you will and I loved it. And I think that a lot of girls if they tried it, they would love it. And there's a lot of girls on Instagram that wear it and modeler and they get so many likes and comments and then they then create an account and they get so much attention because they text is becoming huge. It's so sexy and they love the comments and the loves right? Other than the latex itself, which is fine. You know, it's like modeling anything. If you feel sexy, new, you're getting the love, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna love it. But secretly, you can't wait to get it off and just get into your comfy pajamas. But with me, I love that.

Nick VinZant 30:13

Have you had some clients that have that have run into issues with like, you know, you're you're the only person that I can talk to about this? Yeah.

Kitty Malone 30:23

Yeah, so 50% of my clients, they come with me, or they get customs from me because their wives, their girlfriends are not into it. And they need a release. So they need that time where they can wear their latex, and they have someone to share it with. They can't go to events because you know, the wife doesn't let them or the girlfriend doesn't let them. Whereas I'm not their girlfriend. But I'm there for them to talk about the experience and come with them whilst they're wearing it. I don't want to be their girlfriend. They don't want me to be their girlfriend. They just want to enjoy latex with another person who enjoys latex, I guess

Nick VinZant 31:03

for maybe for a perspective, like what is something that you would look at? And think oh, that's weird.

Kitty Malone 31:09

See, then I don't I don't think anything is weird, because I'm open to everything that anybody wants to explore. That makes them happy. I'm like, that's your thing. Because this is my thing. And I get like, it's not a conversation. You know, I could have with my mother. Oh, I'm a cam girl. Oh, that's nice. But I wear this and this is a picture of me in a hurt should go. What is just I don't understand why though. Why should you think that that's any different to being a girl that comes in my knickers and bra. In fact, I'm wearing more clothes than a girl with knickers and bra. But people love the full coverage. I get more people asking for custom videos of me completely covered than I do get custom videos of with my tits out and everything which can you just wear a latex bikini? Everyone? Everyone wants the latex? But yeah, in the normal world, it's

Nick VinZant 32:06

just weird. That kind of makes sense to me actually. Right? Because it's kind of like because it's so tight. You're revealing your body but also keeping it a secret at the same time. Of course,

Kitty Malone 32:17

it's use your imagination to what's underneath.

Nick VinZant 32:21

I get that aspect of it, why people would request more you have more requests fully clothed

Kitty Malone 32:27

it I love it that when I wear the herd, I get a lot of a lot of requests saying can you just take the hood off? And it's not because it's all because they want to see what I look like. That's the main thing. And that's what I love. I love them not knowing what I look like. And then for example, when I do post a picture without my head, they're like, You're so pretty. You shouldn't wear a head you're pretty without your hair. And I'm like, that's not why I'm wearing a hurt. I'm not wearing a head to disguise a scar on my ugliness. It's because it's the fetish. It's the not knowing. So that's why I wear it. I'm not wearing it because I'm ashamed of my face. It's my fetish, but a lot of people think it is. And then you know, my only fans page, I put loads of pictures out on my only fans page without my hood. And then I get Oh, can you do a custom video without your head? No, because that's not why I did this. This is not why I started this because I don't then feel like kitsy

Nick VinZant 33:25

your most common request your most interesting requests that you've gotten?

Kitty Malone 33:32

Well the most comments requests that I get from fans and followers is can I be your slave so they want to 100% submit to me and be my slave which is very difficult because I'm virtual I'm just online so that makes it difficult. But yeah, a lot of people want to to worship me but requests wise is all about being a mistress and that's really when I started this you know I'm a very sexual person I wanted to submit to people and be fucked by a rubber guy that's dressed in rubber and big shoe you know big sort of like army boots kind of thing and be treated like a piece of cake kind of thing. But then when I turned it into work, I thought no because you have to have trust in someone to be able to fully submit and I'm not going to be trusting anybody to go on calm and them saying to me do this do that. So I kind of went down the mistress route and I loved it. So I am more Mr. Se and I just love the requests I get like I was saying earlier about humiliation. Jao why a bit of teasing. I want everybody to worship Me and you know, that's the main bulk of my business is the mistress. Smoking. Because when you put the latex on and when you see a powerful a sexy woman in latex even myself when I see a sexy woman in latex like automatically think powerful, strong. I have been asked to do a custom video of me and latex hoovering which I found really weird because I love hoovering. Don't get me wrong I love my house being clean but that was weird.

Nick VinZant 35:25

Is hoovering is that I don't know what that means that cumin that Oh, okay, yeah we call it hoovering. I've never heard of that sexual term.

Kitty Malone 35:35

I mean, I've been asked to suck before but sucking up dirt is like with a vacuum is really was like, Oh, that was weird. Like,

Nick VinZant 35:43

I don't want this to sound like I'm judging it but like, well, I don't, I guess I don't understand. Right. Like I understand the idea of being fully clothed in latex versus being not fully clothed. I guess I don't understand what would be the attraction of the vacuum.

Kitty Malone 36:02

itself. And yeah, and I wasn't prepared to do that one because it just I don't know. You can't just say yes to everything right. You have to say what? How can I do that? Do

Nick VinZant 36:15

you remember? Was it like a specific kind of vacuum? No, it was a regular.

Kitty Malone 36:21

Yeah, I just couldn't you vacuum in latex on it, and I could have done my health work at the same time. And yeah, that's

Nick VinZant 36:30

kind of sounds like you missed out on some easy money. Honestly,

Kitty Malone 36:33

it wasn't even in a maid's outfit. I mean, I have latex maids outfits that you know, that's fine if you want me to be a latex maid and

Nick VinZant 36:41

um, okay, so I don't have a sense of smell. So this is this might not make sense to me. But like, what, what what's the best smelling kind of latex? Does

Kitty Malone 36:49

it all smell the same? Oh, smells the same. Yeah, like I keep mine in a in a clothes wardrobe. And when you walk apart, my house smells of rubber. So obviously people that come here to my house, and they can always smell rubber. Another thing is my floors. I've got wooden floorboards in my house. So when you put latex on I use a dressing aid, which is kind of like an oily lube. And if that goes on to the floor, it becomes very slippy. So my floors are always slippy, and I have a dog and bless her. She's always slipping on my floors, because she's trying to run away and then she slips. And I'm like, it's like having oil on your floor constantly. So yeah, it's the smell. My house always smells rubber, latex.

Nick VinZant 37:33

This is the last one we got. How do you feel about Catwoman?

Kitty Malone 37:37

Catwoman wasn't Isn't she like the how kind of latex started and for cats the show, right?

Nick VinZant 37:46

Yeah, that was, I would imagine that most people's first kind of introduction to it.

Kitty Malone 37:51

Yeah, I haven't heard with cat kitty years cat is, you know, full black latex suit, full black hood with kitty is, but plug as a tail, and massive big platform shoes and your cat woman. And to go with that, obviously, you need a big whip. And yeah, that's that's what latex is.

Extreme Kayaker Dane Jackson

From dangerous white water rapids in Pakistan, to 130-foot drops off waterfalls, Dane Jackson has taken his Kayak to places no one else has ever been. We talk kayaking tips, the best rapids near your and his next big adventure. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Most Boring Things We Have To Do.

Dane Jackson: 01:21ish

Pointless: 32:15ish

Top 5: 54:07ish

https://www.instagram.com/danejacksonkayak (Dane Jackson Instagram)

https://www.youtube.com/danejackson (Dane Jackson YouTube Channel)

https://www.redbull.com/us-en/athlete/dane-jackson (Dane Jackson Redbull Page)

Interview with Kayaker Dane Jackson

Nick VinZant 0:10

Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode, we're getting extreme on the water, and boring at home,

Dane Jackson 0:22

I'd say the most challenging, and it's probably the Indus River and Pakistani some of the biggest whitewater that I've ever run, as well as I have the least amount of portages, because I ran this one math about but it's the first person to run it. The biggest waterfall I've run is about 134 feet. I did it last beginning of last year, the biggest risk and the biggest thing people are trying to avoid when running big waterfall and having the front of the kayak stay up, which is what called a boo. And that means landing flat off the waterfall. And what that would mean is that that can often lead to breaking your back.

Nick VinZant 0:52

I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, like download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it really helps us out. So our first guest has taken on some of the most dangerous environments on Earth. We're talking about kayaking through class five rapids in Pakistan, and dropping off of 130 foot tall waterfalls in South America. This is extreme kayaker Dane Jackson. So I was watching some of your videos on YouTube. And I was trying to figure out is this safer than I think it is? Or more dangerous than I think it is.

Dane Jackson 1:31

I would say that probably a little bit more control. And more that goes into the clip just seeing then you probably realize like scouting, we look at the features, we have safety. There's a lot of processing like a lot of things happen before we you know, fall off a 60 foot waterfall 100 foot waterfall run the biggest whitewater there's a lot of things that need to happen before that. Like it's almost like a star in a movie. Like we scout it out. We make a plan. We need this person here for safety. And there's a lot that goes into it on top of just our general skill to do it safely. until there's probably a bit more control than you think. But of course, it's always dangerous. The natural river

Nick VinZant 2:05

I guess because I was looking at it right. It's it's definitely not just like, Hey, I got a lifejacket on, like I'm gonna float. Right? Does it work? Does it work like that at the end? Like, all right, whatever happens, I got this life jacket and I'm gonna be okay.

Dane Jackson 2:18

Not quite, I wish it would that strike behind for sure. I mean, there are times that you know, the river maybe just goes into a big pool below. And even if you came out of your kayak, because you have that light jacket on, you're probably gonna be fine. But a lot of times when it comes to the much harder whitewater like, even if it's not even the most insane thing ever, there's a lot of things in rivers that can be dangerous, you know, water goes in between two rocks in a weird way. Or maybe water gets pushed under kind of like a cave, or maybe just delivered just keeps going and going and going. So if you came out of your boat, you wouldn't be able to stop essentially. So there's, it's not just safe, because you have the life jacket like jacket really helped. But there's definitely still a lot of dangerous factors in the river that we have to kind of maneuver around or deal with or be ready to deal with if something goes wrong.

Nick VinZant 2:59

What's kind of the most dangerous thing like what are you always looking out for? Is it a drop? Is it the speed of the water? Is it hitting something on the bottom or what is it?

Dane Jackson 3:09

It just depends on where you're at. You know, there are different risks and different things to look out for when it comes you know big waterfalls versus big whitewater or if you're in a very tight little technical river tight little creek or steeper whitewater. Usually what happened is, there's places where the water gets shoved in between two rocks where you wouldn't be able to fit through what's called like a sieve. So it depends on the way water you're dealing with. But in the end, everything has its own danger. I mean, even one country to the other might have a different style of danger because of the different types of rock and stuff. And when it comes to big water, you know a lot of times the issue with that is that like it sounds like big whitewater, if you're out of your cave, you ever came out of your kayak, you know, it's much more powerful. There's much more like scenes where like the two flows come together, you can get a lot of downtime, they're out of your kayak, like things like that. So there's everywhere had its own kind of risk. And there's a lot of things you're looking for at each different river like every river is different.

Nick VinZant 4:01

How did you get started in this man?

Unknown Speaker 4:03

My dad's a professional kayaker. When I was born, he was already broke. I could have just gone to the 92 Olympics for slalom. So he basically grew up doing that on top of doing a lot of whitewater. And when I came around, he made it he's retired from slalom made its full switch, basically over to whitewater kayaking. And when I was born, I was born in Washington DC and I have an older sister as well. But when we were about four years old, we moved into an RV full time for about six years. And all we were doing is traveling around going with my family to wherever my dad wanted to go kayak whether we go to this area because he wanted to run the river or we go to Colorado because that's where all the kayaking events are. So we're basically traveling around full time without a house for about six years. And even when we moved to Tennessee back in like 2003 we still travel most of the year in an RV and even now that I'm on my own program, I'm in my RV right now and I'd love to end up February and I won't be going back out of my RV until pretty much November. What do you like about it? One it gave me the opportunity through kayaking I'm sure my dad would have done with any sport, but through kayaking allowed me to grow up with my family and travel all these amazing places and have a very unique childhood. But on top of that growing up and even now moving forward, it allowed me to go to so many incredible places all over the world, while doing the sport that I love. And I actually just enjoyed going kayaking every day, if I can, wherever I am actually enjoy hiking, it's not like I'm just hitting for glory, you know, I just actually really enjoy hiking, when I get to go to all these amazing places with my family and friends and see places that most people might not ever get to see.

Nick VinZant 5:31

Why are you good at it? Like, are you? Are you technically proficient? Do you have like, the strongest arms in the world? Like, what what, what, what, why are you good at it?

Dane Jackson 5:43

I think there's a lot of things, I think there's a lot of different factors. A big part, it definitely didn't hurt growing up, and I had my dad there the entire time to coach me, it doesn't hurt to have the bet there all the time. But not only did I have my dad there, but I also grew up because I grew up surrounded by kayaking, rather than getting into it laid out surrounded by growing up, I got to hang out and watch basically all the top hikers of the world, whether in person or all the kayaking videos that were coming out. So I had a very strong influence growing up and a lot of things that I could watch. But on top of that, I did start to get pretty good and an early age, which allowed me to kind of progress along like just kind of learn things along the way that helped me even now like just things that I learned when I was 10 still benefit me and I can continue to learn even now 27 you know, but also I think a lot of it has to do with like mentally, I'm able to really like understand that like no matter how good I get, I can always get better or right now you know i i didn't always love huge waterfall, but I started to get a little better at running waterfalls, I decided now's a good time to maybe see if I can get better at running big waterfalls. And now I feel really strong running waterfalls. But on top of that, the biggest thing is that I do all aspect of hiking. So I do freestyle kayaking, which is like standing features, little short kayaking, do flips, and things like that. But I also do racing like to time trial, I had to had it like someone who like saw him in other places, like I do races like that. But then I also do a lot of Expedition and extreme kayaking, big water, waterfalls, whatever it is. So I think by combining all the different aspects, each kind of played off each other, and I can learn one thing in the freestyle aspect that allowed me to do better in extremely thing or stream kayaking, whatever it is, and vice versa. So I think that the main thing is always willing to try to learn new things progress, my skill, but also, everything kind of feeds off each other to have a lot of very technical things as well.

Nick VinZant 7:37

Not to imply that you're chasing this or anything like that. But when you look at the sport as a whole, like where's, where's the money in the glory ad, right? Is it in the Olympic stuff that I see in the Olympics, where they're going back and forth? It is in the crazy expeditions to places that nobody's ever been? Is it in the most extreme stuff? Like where does where's the money in the glory, so to speak,

Dane Jackson 7:59

it depends on how you presented and do it, you know, like there. In the end, obviously, big waterfalls, and extreme hiking is one one of the more one thing to watch, and one of the more dangerous aspects of hiking, but it's definitely in terms of even non hikers can kind of understand like, you're running a waterfall, like that's insane. You know, like freestyle kayaking, it's a little trickier, but you have to know the tricks and things like that. So I would say that in terms of general audience and you know, really capturing attention, you know, waterfall next to a guy can definitely the easiest, but the biggest thing is that you can find you can become someone in the sport in any of the aspects of it. It's just a matter of like, doing it right, like training it right. You know, maybe you make videos, whatever it is, everything kind of comes together. But waterfall definitely, I would say with the glory that but I don't want to really use that word. Because Yeah, you don't want to run waterfall. You don't want to run waterfall just because that you want glory. Like that's the last reason you should ever be running big water bowls and things like that, if you're just doing it for joy, and hiking very much a sport that you know, it's a smaller, nice sport. For the most part. If you're in it, you're just doing it because you love it. And anything that comes after that is is a bonus. But in the end, if you're not in it just because you love the sport, it can be easy to get burnt down on because the smaller sport it takes a lot of effort to keep going all these got to work hard at it. You got to you know, find ways to mark yourself, you know, I'm a videographer, photographer, all that stuff. So I have to do most of the work myself to presenting out along with my friend. So it's a lot of work to be a pro kayaker, but that was great that it's worth it because you actually just I actually just love the sport and Sony pretty much everyone that didn't.

Nick VinZant 9:36

Do you know, is this full time living? You can make a full time living off of it.

Dane Jackson 9:40

Yeah, yeah, it's not always the easiest. But I'm fortunate enough to have some big sponsors on top of the fact that I also have a lot of ways that I can market myself and work whether teaching photos, videos, YouTube, whatever it is a lot of different things that I can apply to be a pro kayaker, and that's what a lot of people do AT Pro kayakers because it's not the biggest sport so you can't rely on Just 100% on skill alone, they use that the find something that allows you to continue to connect. So some people teach in the summer and then travel during the winter. Or like my friend of mine coaches, traveling kayaking program, things like that you kind of gotta find something that works with hiking. And if you truly enjoy the sport, they're gonna work hard, and every cent you make goes right back into be able to pack more.

Nick VinZant 10:21

Okay, I'll ask if you want to answer this directly, feel free to just put a number on it. But let me ask you this, essentially, when you when you look at your earnings, are you closer to ramen noodles or mansions?

Dane Jackson 10:33

Ah, it's all relevant. People might think that I'm a millionaire, the places I go. Like, I people think that because I'm in a big RV, I got a truck and I get to travel year round, they're like, you must be a millionaire. It's like, No, I just like hiking. I like what I do. So I then I put all my money towards kayaking,

Nick VinZant 10:48

when when you run a river? Are you fighting against the water? Or do you just go with it? And like, I'm just trying to survive here?

Dane Jackson 10:57

Yes, we are going against the water probably in a lot of ways. I mean, we're with the water, but water going against it. And that sounds very cheesy, like somebody just put out a card. But um, but basically, yes, we are going with the river, you know, like our goal. It's like some rapids and some rivers like a lot of rabbit, you don't even need to do much other than just say in the middle of the river. And you might have to deal with some features, but you're gonna be totally fine. And other rapids and a lot of times when it comes to river that I don't want to fighting isn't necessarily the word I would use. But basically, obviously, there's a lot of features on the way down a river down a rapid and those features are what make the challenges and the risks and things like that. So like, there's a lot of features that like you know, if you're starting the middle of the rapid middle of the river, and there's something dangerous in the middle at the bottom left of a rapid, you're going to be working against features, whether it's boiled, eddyline, slower water, big crashing feature, you might be working against those features to try to get to the right side of the river and away from whatever dangerous on the bottom left, if that makes sense. So I would say that you're the you're with the river, because you might use some of those feature to your advantage. And then you're also kind of working against it at time trying to get over these features that are trying to put you in either a bad spot and make you have a not as good of a line, if that makes sense.

Nick VinZant 12:17

Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? some fantastic, do it hardest run you've ever done?

Dane Jackson 12:24

That's a tough one. But I would say the most challenging and it's probably the Indus River and Pakistanis, some of the biggest whitewater that I've ever run, as well as the hardest, not only the hardest whitewater and the biggest whitewater for myself and what a lot of people aspire to go run. But also, when you don't run a rapid it's called portaging. And I think people have heard that term before the Indus River. It's even the world top hikers go there. The question people get asked afterwards is how many times did you Portage cut it the Rhondda gorge at the end is and there's a ton of rapids in it. And if you Portage one of these, like all that one Portage, I have the least amount of portages because I ran this one massive app, but it's the first person to run it. So I only have one ported on the entire section. And there's a lot of big white water in there. So I'd say that was my most challenging river I've done so the thing that but there's also some harder ones.

Nick VinZant 13:10

The thing that I've heard is like, Okay, so this is class one, class two, class three, class four, class five, are is what you're doing class five, or is that like, hey, that's just that's for non professionals. And I'm doing something even above that, like class, normal acts or something.

Dane Jackson 13:26

That sounds way cooler than the grading system. grading system guiding is not very strong, because it's very subjective. So yeah, I'm doing clash pod. like to clarify, but my class five might be like someone that's only doing class two, which is the major river, and they step it up into something, they might think that the class five or because it's all about skill level, and like, certain challenges might appear harder to someone else than for myself. So it's a very subjective system. But in the end, yes, I am doing class five, but unfortunately, I wish we had a better system.

Nick VinZant 13:58

So people shouldn't ask you like, Hey, man, oh, that's only class one. And then the beginner gets in there. And they're like, doing double backflips, like he said, but he's kayaker me. Yeah.

Dane Jackson 14:09

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, it's my class. class three is probably a little little easier than most people. But yeah, it's all relevant for sure. It's all subjective,

Nick VinZant 14:19

biggest drop you've ever done.

Dane Jackson 14:21

On the biggest waterfall I've run is about 134 feet. I did it last beginning of last year. The salt O'Malley drop in Chile. It was one of the coolest waterfalls I've ever seen. But it's it's one of the few drops that I'd actually seen a photo like three or four years prior. And I just remember coming back to the photo all the time like oh, I really want to go do this waterfall but I hadn't. I people had told me to shallow 100% sure but ended up going to do it. They started last year and it was incredible. did a whole project on it things like that.

Nick VinZant 14:51

So when you say like 100 134 or 131 say 130 134 so the second tallest job has been done is that The whole like, I go off the waterfall I fall 134 feet I land in the water, or is that like in stages you go down?

Dane Jackson 15:09

No, that's one consecutive drop. When we say coming across a drop height, we're talking about the actual consecutive drop. Even if it's a 20 footer into 100 footer, we're gonna say a 20 foot drop and 100 foot drop, and this one with 134. So it's basically the lip where it becomes vertical and when it hits the bottom now,

Nick VinZant 15:25

did you test that out? Or did you just do it like you like put a cardboard box in a kayak and run it off there?

Dane Jackson 15:31

You just like now? I'm just yeah, that pretty much sums up the sport. Yeah, that pretty much sums up our sports to cardboard boxes. No, basically, like I was mentioning earlier, when it comes to something like waterfalls are definitely not everyone loves doing them because they from 10 footers to 110, footer, waterfalls, it definitely can be one of the more dangerous aspect of hiking on or at the very least good way to potentially like you can get hurt on waterfall. And one of the riskier aspects in terms of like just trying to avoid injury. Because even if you have a perfect line, there are things that can just be a little off and you might pull a muscle, you know, or dislocate your shoulder there are ways to get hurt even if you have a perfect line, waterfall, there. Like by the time you actually see us running a very big waterfall. It's almost like I mentioned earlier, like a stunt a movie, like there's a lot that goes into that one moment, like all you're seeing is the final product. But there's a lot that goes into being able to run that as safe as possible. One, you know, we don't if you've only run a temporary waterfall, you're not going to go fall off 130 foot waterfall the next day there is actual technique and things you can learn to get to allow you to have a better line. And for those that might be confused the goal for a waterfall when you're running it in a kayak and to be a vertical as possible. Hopefully a little bit in the flow that's falling but as vertical as possible and get your body as tucked up as possible. The biggest risk and the biggest thing people are trying to avoid in running big waterfall and having the front of the kayak stay up, which is what called a boob and that means landing flat off the waterfall. And what that would mean is that that can often lead to breaking your back now the crazy thing and the often scary part. It's someone that runs like hunting for waterfalls, people break their backs on 10 foot waterfalls 15 foot Waterfall by landing flat and some people might back in Ufa, I got 90 for waterfall be totally okay if you never know sometimes when it comes to that the ultimate goal is to land add vertical if possible. Sometimes you go over the handlebars and land on your head, which is not a bad landing flat, because usually what will happen is you eject out of your boat when that happened. So that's a much better situation than potentially breaking your back. So either way, we just got a waterfall the biggest question is like what's the best way to make sure I get the front of the kayak down the landed vertical as possible. And the crazy part about that is you actually only have the like split second at the lip, you only have that just like top like 10 feet of a drop to really set your angle you can make adjustments, but at the front of the kayak starts coming up at the top of the drop, there's not so much you can do to save it at that point. So there's a lot of techniques and skills and things you can learn to allow yourself to have the best time possible. And then on top of that, the best way is usually we actually will go look at waterfall without water before we even get to run it because we'll swim below we'll see there k behind it is there a shelf coming out from below the flow like there's a lot of things we scout before we even fall off a bit. So the perfect world we see without water we swim around below. We check behind the fall we check all the different things make sure it's deep. And then once it actually water weather, rain fed gambling, whatever it is, then we have safety team below we'll have three or four people maybe two people in their boats, two people on the shore with throw bag broke the thrill out of like so we have a lot of safety and planning that goes into it so that way if something goes wrong, we're ready. We're definitely not just showing up and falling off. But

Nick VinZant 18:45

Wow, man, if I was gonna go off 134 foot waterfall in a kayak seems like that would be the worst way that I would want to do that person. right because it looks like all right, what's the plan? I'm gonna slam my face into the water all right.

Dane Jackson 19:06

I guess when you put it like that it's happening.

Nick VinZant 19:10

But it looks cool. That's good. Did you have like any Did you get anything from it? Or were you just any bumps bruises? Nothing or do you just like alright, it's no Mario's Tuesday.

Dane Jackson 19:21

Yeah, well the one thing about that is um, so I ran that waterfall and sometimes waterfalls can be anywhere from feeling absolutely nothing just so much. It's like a transition and flow like almost just jumping into a pile of pillow that can literally can like I always do that reference but the only thing I can think of but it can sometimes feel like nothing where you you run the drop and you feel exactly the same after or sometimes it can feel like getting hit by a train. It just depends on the line, the drama and sometimes it just comes down to just the slightest change an angle, but that one I was totally, totally fine. I expected to have a much bigger hit but a very soft, didn't feel anything. And then I actually two days later on the morning, of my Flight. It was an 11 hour drive, but I drove like seven hours the wrong way. It's no way I could run another 104 Waterfall and I'd always wanted to do, I ran out like 7am and then I rallied 11 hours and barely caught my flight. I'm out of Santiago because I just always wanted to do that drop

Nick VinZant 20:14

this that kind of feeds into this other question run where you just got your ass kicked. Either from like a physical or a technical standpoint. Yeah, you just got your ass kicked.

Dane Jackson 20:24

Um, I've been pretty fortunate in the end like I tried to pick I mean, there's been times even on moneda on waterfalls, you know, I've had a few times where things haven't been as soft whether I've been not pulled through multiple that probably have broken a couple of ribs. There's one time where I ran a lot of times you want a good amount of water when it comes to running waterfall because the more water there is, there's more variation and bigger boil below so you know if you the big difference between jumping into air and water versus jumping into flat water, so the more water there is usually means that you can have a softer hip because there's more flow more boiled it doesn't always mean it's softer hit but you definitely don't want to fall off a waterfall had no water at all, but then he was landing in green water and that would be a lot worse. One time I ran a waterfall that wasn't didn't have as much water as I probably should have run it but dropped that hadn't been done and why and I really wanted to do it at about 50 feet, not crazy tall but still a solid side job. Didn't have I had a pretty good line but like I didn't want to stay tuck forward and paddle off to the side. I'm fortunately opened up a little bit I kind of landed behind the waterfall it wasn't a very high volume waterfall. I kind of landed in the green water behind it and from that impact actually kind of almost knocked me out essentially where I would actually like out of it for like 20 to 30 seconds kind of like luckily I stayed up right but I definitely blacked out for at least 20 seconds kind of like pattering the water like really confused and out of it. And then once I came to I was luckily still upright but it was definitely one of the bigger kind of impact I've had in on a waterfall and kind of anything in general

Nick VinZant 21:51

best place in the US to kayak best place in the world

Dane Jackson 21:55

depending on what you want to do. I wish that was an easier question to answer but I would say that every US had a couple different have depends on what you're looking for whether it's steeper kayaking or freestyle kayaking or big water whatever it is. The southeast is an incredible hub for kayaking because you can kayak almost year round even in the winter because you don't really get that much snow and a lot of areas so if it rains you can go hiking even over Christmas to Southeast an incredible spot but there's always California Idaho Washington tough depends on what kind of hiking you're looking to do. best spot in the world. Again, we're looking forward to one big water Africa is usually like the place to go like the damn big river that below the Victoria Falls. One of my favorite sections in the world. I go there every winter, the autumn river in eastern Canada for big water. And you know if you want waterfalls, Mexico, or you can go to Chile. They want to go to Pakistan if you want like if there's hiking all over the place. It depends on what kind of hiking you looking to do. Zealand, India, Indonesia, and it's everywhere. But yeah, no, I think North America and Chile as well as Africa like the strongest, the most popular areas for sure. And I'll do a ton in Europe. Favorite get really long. Yeah. Basically everywhere, everywhere. Everywhere. It depends on what you want a

Nick VinZant 23:12

day away from the Sahara Desert. Not the best kayaking. Right, but yeah, that's pretty anywhere else pretty much good. Your favorite? What is your favorite piece of kayaking lingo?

Dane Jackson 23:24

Oh man, why am I blanking on the tongue? Um, I probably saved more too much. Rowdy, I don't like it. I'm blanking on it right now. It's the dumbest thing to be blanking on. I can I can talk for 10 minutes about all the places in the world I can't pick the one I'm embedded on like I don't know what what is my favorite

Nick VinZant 23:44

best kayaking scene in a movie?

Dane Jackson 23:46

Like it needs to be kayaking or kind of just involved with like the river anything anything overall will depend on whether or not you mean cheesy or epic You know, there's when it comes to you know, there's always like movie scenes where the person falls into the river they're like splashing around and flat water and all sudden it cut to some aerial shot and like the word CGI then bit falling off like a 600 foot waterfall and then being totally fine after, like, movies like that all the time. I mean, depends on what there's I mean, there's like, you know, there's hiking like into the wild, like a friend of mine did the stump word for that on the Grand Canyon. And then there's, without a paddle, there's a drop that they fall off, the three of them fall off. In a canoe they fall off like a 80 foot waterfall, which a friend of mine actually did some work for that as well. So it's but there there's not a whole lot of kayaking in movies, but there's definitely a lot of ridiculous scenes in movies where they're actually like, it's it's the worst CGI but that is falling out 500 foot waterfalls and being totally fine with it's like Rambo or pretty much any Harrison Ford movie or things like that.

Nick VinZant 24:51

If there was a fight between kayakers canoers and stand up paddleboarders, who's winning

Dane Jackson 25:01

Oh man. Well, it's gonna be between the kayakers and supporters started canoes but that's just kind of i think i mean i don't know they're they got big canoe words usually think maybe they like to hunt man that's tough you know kayakers I mean both suffered and kayakers have like they're they're tough you know supported the long paddle they definitely have more ability to you know they have a much better weapon although paddled are pretty long blades on both sides. If that can be a battle to the end, it can be Last Man Standing I think that would be that'd be a brawl, I think people will pay paper for that. Yeah, that's, that's gonna be a tough one. I think it'll be kayakers and supposed to be the last one standing. Who it's gonna be though I don't know.

Nick VinZant 25:45

mistakes that a newbie makes

Dane Jackson 25:47

one probably tried to learn by themselves and, or just more than anything, kind of get some be motivated or just kind of loses motivation when they're not progressing as fast as they might expect. Or maybe they're the other people progressing a little faster. So take the biggest mistake newbie make is is like something come will come fast, something might take a little bit more time. But just just have fun with it. Because if you're not having fun during the learning process, that doesn't mean it will be fun later. But it's always a learning process. And it's always a way to progress. So yeah, just making sure you're actually really enjoying yourself and having fun with it no matter how quick or slow something coming to you

Nick VinZant 26:24

tip or tip or piece of advice that you would say, changed your approach.

Dane Jackson 26:29

I can't really say I have like, like one like piece of advice, because I but I would say that the more the mentality that could become invited that just you know, some people want comfort, stability and things like that, but maybe my dad growing up, and my sister kind of motto as well. And everyone can live without compromise. Like a lot of people say, Well, if you if you love this sport, you can't if you got a job, you can't spend as much time doing things with your family, or whatever or whatever, like, you basically just do what makes you happy, do what you want to do, and find a way to make that work. Rather than doing something you don't want to do in the hopes that one day everything just gonna work out and then you're gonna do whatever you want to do like it, you start now and forever, you're not doing exactly what you want to do find a way to make it work. And it's not always easy, might not always be the most stable or response like the most stable or comforting way to do it. Sometimes you might not be my app, I spend all your money so we can go traveling the place you want to go or spend all your money to go travel with your family. So it basically, if you're not doing what makes you happy, don't expect it to come later on.

Nick VinZant 27:36

What is the holy grail of kayaking right now, the thing that like blew, everybody's everybody's going through this,

Dane Jackson 27:42

I would say that there's not like one particular thing because, you know, everyone kind of got different pursuits, you know, there are different things that are being progressed or pushed right now, whether it's downward or freestyling. For myself, as well, a few other categories, you know, downward and freestyle off of waterfall, where you're actually just running the waterfall normal, you're doing tricks off of the waterfall, which is even more dangerous. But there's we're starting to kind of learn it. starting to realize that there's more control than we might have thought we can start doing downward fruit off a bigger drop, or just more types of downward freestyle. There's obviously also the world record waterfall, it's probably right now the world record is 186 feet, please fall in Washington, massive waterfall I haven't done it looks like fun, I don't think I'm gonna do it. I prefer it. If I'm gonna rent something that big. I'd rather save it for something else. That's like four people have already done that drop. But I have a feeling that someone is going to go for the world record sometime soon. I don't know what it's going to be what drop. The hard part is that there's a lot of challenges with big waterfalls when it comes to what makes it safe to do or allow you to have the best life possible. And that drop watch attended about perfect but that drop kind of dropped get at that height. But I'm feeling someone probably going to go for something here in the near future where it's going to be what it's going to be. Maybe that 200 foot barrier will be broken. Who knows. But then with freestyle, you know, the one thing I want to do is the duck like when standing like big freestyle waves are super fun to surf. They're like big standing wave big bass. It's kind of like a an ocean wave but not barreling, we can do really big freestyle tricks and I want to do the double there's an airscrew with a barrel wonach I want to do two rotations and then land someone actually just did not not on a wave but on a waterfall another kayak or handle Sir soulstice just did a project in Chile where he did a double rotation off of a waterfall which was super bad at me not want to do it on a wave. I've been wanting to do it for the last three years I know the wave I want to go to and I've tried them a few times but the problem is I haven't been able the wave hadn't been coming again so I'm just waiting for the day that the wave come back in and we can get back into Canada to do it but yeah, I guess there's not necessarily one thing you know, we're we're all looking at different things when it comes to what's next on it and you know, but record might be broken soon. Things are gonna start getting thrown off of big waterfalls more often, you know competition to get harder that everything kind of got its its next level coming you know,

Nick VinZant 29:56

you've got one run, last run You can only pick one and you're going to be doing this one for the rest of your life. Which one are you doing?

Dane Jackson 30:06

Oh, boy, that's hard. I'm probably I don't know, I guess I probably have to say the Ottawa River in Canada. Because I grew up kayaking there. It's a big water deep waters, one of the most amazing places to learn kayaking, but you can kayak it. It's like a super long, super fun river with a bunch of fun big water rapid but in the springtime, it's some of the best big wave surfing in the world. And then in the summer, the water becomes super warm. And even at lower water, it can be 20 feet lower than it is in the spring. But there's still a lot of really good freestyle, but also it just summer amazing place to hang out paddle with people, just one of the most amazing places especially to learn kayaking, but in the end, it's still some of the best kayak came from the highest water, the lowest water. And so I would pick that because you know, it's good in spring, good in the summer, a lot of fun people to hang out with.

Nick VinZant 30:56

That's all the questions I got, man, anything you think that we missed, or what's coming up next for you?

Dane Jackson 31:00

Right now I'm just currently out here in Washington. Normally, this time of the year, I'd be traveling international weather, no Norway, or we're hoping to maybe go to Iceland or other places this summer. But obviously with travel restrictions can't quite go anywhere this summer. So right now I'm just trying to figure out what to do for the next month or so until I basically until things start to heat up in the East Coast weather rain. And then as I get into the fall after I finish up some races like October, November, that's the time where I can start traveling international looking for other places to go whether Bazile Ecuador, Mexico, I go back to Africa, New Year's, things like that. So just try to figure out the next month and a half. And then after that it's kind of back to full steam ahead and figuring out where the best place to go.

Pole Dancing National Champion Chloe Anderson

Chloe Anderson is a 2x National Champion Pole Dancer. But for her Pole Dancing is more than just a competition, it’s a way to fight back against depression. We talk pole dancing basics, strip clubs, music and more. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Unintentionally Attractive Things.

Chloe Anderson: 01:31ish

Pointless: 25:25ish

Top 5: 41:29ish

https://www.instagram.com/chloeandersonpole (Chloe Anderson Instagram)

https://www.facebook.com/chloe.anderson.923 (Chloe Anderson Facebook)

https://www.thepolelab.com (Chloe Anderson Website)

Interview with Pole Dancing Champion Chloe Anderson

Nick VinZant 0:11

Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant coming up in this episode, pole dancing, and things that are accidentally attractive.

Chloe Anderson 0:23

As a female, it's very rare to find a sport that one is very sexy but two involves a lot of strength and flexibilities you need to obviously have a lot of elements to be good at pole dancing, because a kid I had depression and I really suffered with it. And then I've not had a problem with that since doing pole, it's such a good thing to do for your mental health. It's obviously your exercise as well. But also get that level of achievement that you get in pole to do something you never physically thought that your body could do. There's no feeling like it,

Nick VinZant 1:00

I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it really helps us out. So I am fascinated by people who are really good at the thing that they do. Our first guest is a two time national champion pole dancer, who has taken this art form and really turned it into something so much more. This is Chloe Anderson. So why pole dancing, what brought you to it,

Chloe Anderson 1:35

and I used to teach English as a foreign language in Spain, and I sort of lost my passion for it. And I did some life coaching. And it came out as as learning to dance. I never wanted to learn to do ballet, or anything like that. And there was a poll studio that opened up down the road from me. So I attended a class and, and fell in love with it from from the first moment. And I think I was going about four times a week.

Nick VinZant 2:06

What was it about it?

Chloe Anderson 2:08

I think as a female, it's very rare to find a sport that one is very sexy. But two involves a lot of strength and flexibilities you need to obviously have a lot of elements to be good at at pole dancing. But also it's very empowering at the same time. And it's very rewarding. So when you get that new move that you've been trying to do or achieve that you've been working months on, and it doesn't matter what level you are, it's beginner to intermediate to advanced. It's just as rewarding at each level. And I think that you end up doing things you never thought you would possibly be able to do. Yeah, it's highly addictive.

Nick VinZant 2:50

To me. All right, Joe, as a man watching listening to you like right, you say that it's empowering. But for a man. Like I'm only thinking about one thing when I think about pole dancing necessarily. So there seems to be this kind of like, how do you explain that kind of contradiction that women feel empowered by it, but men are just leering at them while they're doing it.

Chloe Anderson 3:11

I think back in the day, it was like Polo used to be very different. Now, it seemed much more gymnastics sort of style much more technical than it used to be. So when I first started, it was 12 years ago now. And anytime I'd mention it, it would be like oh, what club Do you work in? are so you're restricted? And whereas now if you tell anybody about it, people, male, female, whatever gender they always are, Oh, I know someone who does that. Oh, you really need good upper body strength, good core strength. So I agree with you. I think back in the day as well. There were less and less variants simple. I think nowadays, there's so many avenues you can go down. So you can go down the strippers sort of more heel side of it, which is a lot sexier side, you could go the more trick heavy, which is definitely gymnastic base, and you can go down the choreo. So it's a lot for sort of gentler, more dance sort of style. So I think it's education. Now I think a lot more people see it for what it is. Rather than just being that sort of strip club pole dancing. memory that it used to be but yeah, no, it definitely when I started that was the response that I would get was very much strip club, whereas now It surprises me when I meet someone who's Oh, what club Do you work in? But it just doesn't happen as much which is why it's more surprising. Now.

Nick VinZant 4:34

Do you think that just because more people were doing it or like what do you think caused that change?

Chloe Anderson 4:40

I think more people are doing it and I think where it's become so popular. You've had people come from different avenues. So we get a lot of dancers we get a lot of people with gymnastic background, so they're going to bring their influences into pole pole is still relatively new in terms of classes and things when I started there was no You can train to be an instructor when I started, if you wanted to teach pole, all you had to do was an exercise to music. So it was very new back then. And it was it did mainly come out of strip clubs, they were the people who were teaching. Whereas now there's so many qualifications that you can get to teach pole and you have to be able to be qualified to teach pole. But we do have people who have come from gymnastics. So they're doing all these amazing flips. They're like jumping backwards of the pole, or you've got people who've come from the circus, they're jumping pole to pole. And then you've got dancers who've come in, and then they're obviously exploring more of the dance element of pole. So I think it's branched out more that when people look at it, they go, Oh, actually, that's not very sexy. That's actually pretty impressive. And I think it's seen differently because it is there are more different styles. Now, when did you start competing, and so started competing in 2014. And that's the first competition I won my first competition. And then I've continued competing ever since. So the biggest one I won was it's a national pole dance competition called UK PPC. And I got sponsored choice for elite in that one. And then yeah, I've sort of branched out a little bit, that's very trick heavy, that's definitely more of a gymnastic sort of competition. So it's, you know, pants have to be a certain length and costumes have to be a certain style that nothing shows it's, it's definitely not the sexy side of it. Whereas now, I would say I'm enjoying more competitions that have a bit more comedy factor to them, and a bit more risque. I think, like you can express yourself a little bit more and have more fun with it. And I think the audience will hopefully the audience enjoy it. Whereas I can find like the trick heavy one is very stressful on the body. And I'm getting a bit older now. It's getting a bit more painful.

Nick VinZant 6:52

Why are you good at it? Like are you unusually strong? Are you unusually coordinated? And by unusual, I mean, like more than the average person? Like, why are you good at good at it

Chloe Anderson 7:05

Practice. So I didn't have any strength when I started. So as I said, is teach English as a foreign language. And I remember one day, I was teaching and I pointed at the board, and I saw my, my arm wobble and wobble for a while. And that was in my head, I was like, Okay, I need to change something about this. So I went to pole to get stronger. And in regards to flexibility, I've never been flexible. I couldn't do the splits when I was a child couldn't touch my toes. And I've just trained for 12 years now. And I think, like anything, the more you train, the more you throw yourself into it, the better you're going to be. But I just I loved it. I think that's it, I absolutely loved it. And for me, it's a such a, a way for dealing with mental health and things like this as well. Like as a kid, I had depression, and I really suffered with it. And then I've not had a problem with that since doing poll. It's such a good thing to do if your mental health is obviously your exercise as well. But also get that level of achievement that you get in pole to do something you never physically thought that your body could do. There's no feeling like it. So I think it has so many benefits to it. And yeah, I didn't want to do without it. I don't know how to survive lockdown without it, that's for sure.

Nick VinZant 8:25

For a competition, right, like what are they judging you on? Like what's, what's the criteria that they're looking for?

Chloe Anderson 8:33

So depending on the competition, so for the sort of trick, heavy gymnastic, sort of themed ones, you'll be judged on your costume. You'll be judged on your technique. You'll be judged on your floor work on your theme on how you incorporate your theme, obviously with the pole with the floor as well your musicality Do you hit the beats. And so there's sort of the main ones for the technical side of it. And then you've got things like Paul theater. So Paul theater is a lot more about your performance. So your story, how you've incorporated your your story into your routine, but also technique and also your it's like your tricks, but it will change in percentage, depending on which competition you enter. So for a more drama themed competition, your tricks might only be 30% of it. But then for a trick heavy competition, it might be 40% of it. So it changes depending on what's on what Yeah, what competition you enter,

Nick VinZant 9:39

which one of those disciplines is kind of like the big one?

Chloe Anderson 9:43

Depends on the pole dancer. I think everyone's so different. Now I have some students who aren't interested in tricks in the slightest and they just want to learn choreography or they want to learn heels. They want to learn how to dance around the pole. And then I have some students who absolutely do buys all choreography and couldn't think of anything worse and only want to learn all the big tricks and all the transitions and basically just wants to stay up the pole. So I think it all depends on the pole dancer, I'd say I'm more known for my low pole stuff, I'm probably better down on the like, base work and floor work and choreography, which is why I like to enter competitions as well, because it makes me do more at the pole, it makes me climate and do some tricks up there, which probably should do a bit more often. But I didn't think that you could really say one was better than the other. I think at the minute, it just depends on the person.

Nick VinZant 10:37

Do you have to do any kind of outside training, right? Or do you sit basically, you want to get better at pole dancing, you just pull dance? Do you have to like, go running or lift weights or stuff like that.

Chloe Anderson 10:50

So I hate running, which is good, because you don't need to do that. And so cross training is really important as it is with any sport. So for example, with pole dancing, flexibility, big one. So things like yoga or attending stretch classes does flex classes designed for pole as well, most pole studios offer those. And also with cross training, like strength. So yeah, the gym is really good. CrossFit, anything like gymnastics is really good as well. The issues that we have with pole is even though we train both sides, we can be one side dominant. So it tends to be that we have one side quite overdeveloped. So if we do go to the gym and do CrossFit, and are all these sort of different activities that are much more leveled, it's going to really help us in our body and also reduce the risk of injury as well. Same thing with the flexibility, if you're not flexible enough to get into a move again, you're higher risk in your injury. So the more you can cross train, the better you're going to do at pole dancing.

Nick VinZant 11:49

Okay, let me think of the way to ask you this question without coming off a certain way. Um, when you look at other people who are really good, like elite level pole dancers like yourself, is there a certain size, right? Like, are people who are five, two generally better than people who are like six foot or like, Is there a special size that a pole dancer usually is.

Chloe Anderson 12:14

So I say, men are particularly amazing at it, because they've got very small hips and good strong upper bodies. So men tend to pick it up very quickly and very easily. And women, we do tend to carry heavier weight in our lower area, so in our bombs, so it can be harder for us to lift. And also, we don't tend to be very strong on top. So that can be harder for us as well. In terms of body wise, yes, it definitely plays a part in it. And if you're shorter, then it's definitely easy. You've got less to lift. So for example, one of my instructors, she's got very, very long legs, which are absolutely beautiful. But it's taken her so much longer to be able to get like straight leg, invert straight leg shoulder mounts, because obviously the lever is much longer so it's harder to lift. So yeah, so it definitely plays a part in it being shorter, being smaller, makes it easier.

Nick VinZant 13:04

Are there a lot of men who do it? Like if you put a percentage on it? Like how, how many how many people in a class of yours are in a competition or like men?

Chloe Anderson 13:13

So we don't have masses amount, we probably only about 10% in competitions quite often you have female category and male categories. But I think now they are tending tatsoi they have the tendency to mix them more now.

Nick VinZant 13:28

But predominantly women so far.

Chloe Anderson 13:30

Yes. Yeah. I think it's changing a lot more. Now. I think I don't if you see on social media and stuff, the guys in New York City who were on the trans and everything during these crazy poll moves. And I think for certain men, they prefer to see it more like a Chinese poll, which is still very similar, but obviously a Chinese poll, you can do it and close. It's silicon based. And so yeah, I think it's transitioning a lot more. We're definitely seeing more men and more interest through men.

Nick VinZant 14:00

Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Yes, I think what is the hardest pole dancing move?

Chloe Anderson 14:11

Oh, good question. I think there are many, many difficult policies. I probably say the hardest one that I personally can think of would be a move called rainbow Marchenko. So if you were to imagine someone was sat in the splits on the floor, and then was to reach backwards, bending their back and grabbing their foot behind their leg behind their head and lying almost flat to their leg backwards, and then flip them upside down and stick them on the pole. Yeah. So it's called a rainbow Marchenko how someone even thought that move up. I cannot begin to imagine.

Nick VinZant 14:49

I don't think that I could do that like in a pool. Right? Like with no body weight, like if somebody put a pole in a pool, I couldn't. I could not do that. figure out a way to do that. With no bodyweight, the level of flexibility it involves is immense. What is the best pole dancing move,

Chloe Anderson 15:08

though? Oh, I think there's too many. I mean, everyone has their signature moves. I'm quite bad with names in pole moves. So I tend to just make names up. And the one that I do a lot, which I know the name of is called olivi. Lula. I don't know who names him normally the person who creates some names. And as I said, Paul is still a relatively sort of new sport. So we have some interesting names in pole dancing still. And but yes, Liverpool is probably my favorite one. It goes in most of my routines, but there's too many. I love combos as well. And I think Paul's not just about the move, it's about how you get in and out of moves and make things look interesting.

Nick VinZant 15:49

This kind of segues a little bit into our The next question, which is what is the best named move? Just the name in and of itself? We like who I like saying that?

Chloe Anderson 15:59

I mean, I can tell you my least favorite one, but I don't think I have. This is a very nice move, and it looks lovely. But it's called scooter Boyd.

Nick VinZant 16:13

That's terrible.

Chloe Anderson 16:16

And it's a beautiful move. And I think I know who made it. I'm not going to call her out on it. Because she's one of my favorite products is but the move itself is stunning. But what name was it mean? Do you know?

Nick VinZant 16:29

The first thing that I think of is a dog like scooting it's bought on? That's what I think of what is what do you do in the actual move.

Chloe Anderson 16:40

And it's, I can explain it as a as an instructor you go you hook in inside legs, you're upside down, you come into a straddle, invert and you took an inside leg. And then the inside arm comes off and holds the pole. And you've basically got a leg hooked over the arm. And another leg. Like a poem is very hard to explain to pole dancers, let alone to people who don't pull right.

Nick VinZant 17:02

Yeah, it's kind of like writing Twister, so to speak. Right? Like Yes.

Chloe Anderson 17:08

And I'm a very visual person. I work better by watching.

Nick VinZant 17:13

Yeah, I know what you mean. Um, our strip club dancers generally good at pole dancing.

Chloe Anderson 17:22

Whoo. I think it depends on the pole dance. It depends on the country. And it depends on the club. And there's a lot of factors. And in Brighton, for example, which is where I live. I know. I know, some who really love pole dancing and like are incredible. And I know some who aren't interested in doing the big tricks. I think in strip clubs, it's more about the chat than it is the pole dancing. However, I believe in this only what I've heard of I've not been yet. And America and Australia I heard that the the level of pole dancing in strip clubs is pretty high. And in London as well, I hear it's more of a show rather than just just dancing the pole like they do have performers as well as the girls who work in the strip club as

Nick VinZant 18:08

well. I have been to a strip club in the United States. So I can comment on this. I remember going to one and seeing one woman that it was he was physically impressive what she was able to do. I was like, Oh my god, and everybody was watching her not because they for the her athletic ability. In doing it. It was really impressive. She's doing like pull ups and all kinds of stuff is amazing. Yeah,

good. Best Song. And,

Chloe Anderson 18:39

again, depends so if I do slower routines or more technical routines, I really like glass animals, they have some really good music and two feet as well. They're excellent. And then faster. And I really like kvp V and it's the song coop problems. It's like my favorite song for heels dancing at the minute so it changes weekly but yeah, that's that's my go to at the minute some repeat. What's the most overused one like you're at a competition or you're at a class you know like oh, and sale sale? Yeah, so you know it Yeah, that was used a lot what was the other one? rag and bone man did one that was used a lot. I Imagine Dragons there was one by Imagine Dragons that got used a lot as well. Yeah, they tend to come out and then everybody uses it and then everyone's sick of it. A river as well river by as it Bishop, something Bishop,

Nick VinZant 19:43

but who is like the Michael Jordan of pole dancing. Oh, okay. That's, that's the best.

Chloe Anderson 19:50

And so there's a few Janine butterflies one of them so she's American bass. She used to work for Cirque du Soleil Las Vegas, and she did the pilot Dancing for them for quite a few years. She's incredible. UK bass we've got bendy Kate she's probably the most well known and just spectacular in her movements if you ever get time watch some of our competitions. The one that she did too too big to boots by stormzy is my absolute favorite competition piece of all time. And that was by ben de Kate and then people are popping up now it since lockdown people who've never competed, folks, that's how people get their name out is through competitions. Whereas now because of lockdown, everyone's gone through social media. So we've there's a new goal, or she's not no she's been doing Paul for years called gab Araya. And she just superhuman, like the things that people are able to do I never thought was possible. So I would say now, there's so many so many artists out there that just blow me away. But yeah, they're the three that comes to the top of my head.

Nick VinZant 20:56

Are there different kinds of polls? Like is there an industry standard? Like this is the poll you have to use?

Chloe Anderson 21:04

No, it's you don't have to use certain polls. And I use Expo and I also I work I do instructor training for expert, which is part of Expo as well, and Expo worldwide. So that I would In my opinion, I'd say the probably the most popular one. And you also have different ones like loopup poll. They've got free standing polls as well, which have loads of different companies as well. But yeah, as far as far as I'm aware, I would say expos probably the most renowned one. But I would say if you do buy a poll, always check one that is no plastic part two, that's reputable, reputable, and make sure you've read any reviews as well, especially if it's from a brand that you've never heard of, or, or people don't know too much about. Definitely check out your safety. At the end of the day, you don't want to buy a pole which is going to fall over all the time. So

Nick VinZant 21:58

I do always laugh at those videos, though when somebody like gets on the pole and it collapses.

Chloe Anderson 22:03

See, most of the time when this happens is what what they've done is they've gone around to their partner and they'd be like, can you set this up for me is that I don't need the instructions. I know what I'm doing. And then they set it up without reading the instructions. And then the whole foods falls down. So normally, it's been set up badly or someone's bought a knockoff pole on eBay, which cost them 50 quid and it's full of plastic parts. That tends to be what hat but I've been doing it 12 years and I've not had a pole fall down on me yet.

Nick VinZant 22:32

What country like what's the dominant country in terms of like interest like goo, the Bolivians, they love it, or what country is kind of the preeminent pole dancing country?

Chloe Anderson 22:44

See, I think the Australians because they're just next level, like the just the energy that they have in a dance, I think as English poet says we're very interesting in our dance. And I think we were more maybe a bit more creative with our movement. But the Australians that don't know what's in their water, but one their abs are insane. And two, they're just so fast. And they're clean lines, and there's tricks are strong. And they're just amazing. The Yeah, another level. So I'd say Australia,

Nick VinZant 23:17

I guess where do you what do you think the future is?

Chloe Anderson 23:21

And good question. I think I'd like to think that there's going to be even more diversity through poll, I think, sadly, there's been maybe a few issues with with certain parts of pole, like some people have problems with the fact it comes from sort of a stripper background, some people think it comes from different background. And I think once hopefully the pole community comes together and realizes that it's okay, that we can have all these different variants of pole, and they're all as amazing as each other, then hopefully, poll will progress in a really positive way. Because when I started it was such a supportive environment. I think it lost its way a little bit recently, but it's coming back to it again. So I hope that again, more creativity, I hope, you know, it becomes even more popular. And even more people see it for what it is and how you can be so creative and how amazing is for mental health. And I'd like to see, like other genders come in. Like it doesn't need to be female or into orientated. I think it's now time that more people get into it. But Fingers crossed. Let's see.

Nick VinZant 24:35

That's pretty much all the questions that I have. Is there anything you think that we missed or what's kind of coming up next for you?

Chloe Anderson 24:41

And so next for me, I've been performing again, which has been lovely, and it's nice to be back perform again. I was on my fly pole at the Fringe Festival in Brighton last week. most terrifying thing I've ever done in my life isn't scared of heights, but it's good fun. And But yeah, I think hopefully We can all get back to a bit of normality. We can open our studio, stop performing again and push pole dancing bit more.

Cryptocurrency Expert Preethi Kasireddy

As an entrepreneur, engineer and investor, Preethi Kasireddy is one of the most influential people in cryptocurrency. We talk getting started in crypto, the future of digital currency, and the best investments. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Kinds of Hats.

Interview with Cryptocurrency Expert Preethi Kasireddy

Nick VinZant 1:24

basically what is cryptocurrency?

Preethi Kasireddy 1:41

Zooming out. There's a lot of different ways to explain cryptocurrency. But the very basics, it's a digital currency that is completely managed by a decentralized network of nodes. And so typically, when we think about currency, like fiat currency, like the dollar bill that you use on a day to day basis, how is that fiat money created? Right? It's created by a central entity, which is the government central banks with digital currency. These are basically currencies that are created by people like me and you and they're completely managed by a decentralized network of nodes.

Nick VinZant 2:21

I think that for people like myself, when I hear about cryptocurrency, the biggest thing is like, I just don't know what's going on. Yep. Is Is that a common thing? Like, Does everybody understand this, but me, or very few people really understand this.

Preethi Kasireddy 2:37

The reason that cryptocurrency is so hard for people to understand this because, you know, you can come into crypto from many different angles. And crypto really touches a lot of different subject areas, from economics, to finance to computer science to policy and legal philosophy history, like code touches a lot of different things. And so it's, it is very this like all encompassing subject. And so when people come into crypto, they try to maybe understand it from the wrong lens. And so they might not have an interest in that lens. But maybe if they look through another lens that might interest them, but people often fall off is they, they learn a little bit about it, and they don't get it. So they give up. It's like to spend a little bit more time how to do a little bit more reading, like if you truly, you know, truly spend, you know, how long like many hours or days or weeks just dabbling into it. And if you still don't get it after, you know, months of like trying to figure it out, then you know, go, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. But most people give up too early.

Nick VinZant 3:48

When you talk about like coming at it from the wrong angle. Is that coming at it from a money standpoint? Like look, you can't look at this, like you look at the US dollar? Is that what you mean by like coming at it from the wrong angle, that it's more of kind of a overall philosophy slash movement?

Preethi Kasireddy 4:08

Well, what I mean is, you know, crypto, effectively, if you go down to the very bytes of it, it's essentially a tool, right? It's a primitive, it's a computer science, or math or science primitive tool that allows us to do all kinds of things. We have this thing called a blockchain and it's basically a digital decentralized record of things that happen in a network and using that we can do all sorts of things. And so for example, some people didn't get crypto until defy came along to them, you know, finance makes sense for them decentralized finance, like Oh, I get it, decentralized finance, okay. So instead of a central bank, or a central financial institution, instead of a central institution, creating all of these financial services that people have access to, we can have someone Just write code with all of these financial services and it's decentralized. And so they understood crypto after defy came along, or, for example, creators and artists, for them, like crypto didn't make sense. And if these came along, right, and they're like, oh, wow, I get to own my art, and she made my art in a completely decentralized way, there's no middleman, like, that's cool.

Nick VinZant 5:22

What would you say is kind of the overall point or goal of having these different cryptocurrencies?

Preethi Kasireddy 5:31

The goal is really, the goal is really, I think, to move power to the edges. And so before you had all of the power, slowly getting concentrated amongst these various large bureaucratic institutions, whether that's, you know, the Fang, like Facebook, apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Googles of the world or governments, right, like they have a lot of power. And if you think about how the financial and economic world runs today, it's like these people have all the power and whoever controls money controls the world, right. And so the point of crypto is to give that power to the, to the people to people like you and me and to the edges. And so, because we don't need the centralized institutions to manage a lot of these services, we can kind of create them from ground up using code and encode them in the blockchain, we can almost, you know, remove the need for them. Except in certain scenarios, it's not like all centralized entities are going to be unnecessary. But in some cases, we might, we don't need them to facilitate that service. And so we give, we encode it in a blockchain and it runs on its own and it leaves the gives the power to the edges. The basic, very basic example I think that makes sense is example of like this kind of decentering, Mr. intermediating, the middleman is like, you know, if you've ever sent money across the world, like you know how painful that is, right? And you have all of these banks in the middle that do all of this hopping, to get your money from one country to the other. It's like with Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency and i, you just send one, click and go and stare in 10 minutes, and you're like, what, like, you know, we didn't need a bank to do that, right? I didn't need a bank to send money across the world. So it's a very basic example. But you can kind of extrapolate that and see how the same thing is true in other areas as well.

Nick VinZant 7:40

Is is kind of the goal behind it. I know we're talking in very broad, broad terms. But is the goal behind it to replace the dollar to replace other currencies? Or is it just to be an alternative?

Preethi Kasireddy 7:54

Mmm, that's a good question. And I think Time will tell whether it replaces the dollar or whether it serves as a hedge or something else. But I think it really depends on it only makes sense to replace the system if a system is no longer serving or doing serving its stakeholders and constituents right? In the in, in the dollars case, right now, the dollar in nominal terms doesn't really have CLE, like hyperinflation, right. There's inflation and other ways, but it doesn't have hyperinflation. But you can imagine this scenario where that does happen, especially with what happened in 2020. And the bank's printing all that money and just people losing faith in larger organizations and our economy just being weird, right? Like, how is the economy just like, hose there's so much money flowing into the economy, like, there's definitely inflation from like a assets point of view, right? So if we extract extrapolate, you can imagine how the dollar if there's a scenario where there is hyperinflation for the dollar, then of course, something like cryptocurrency could be a replacement, but at the very least, it could be a hedge.

Nick VinZant 9:13

So I know nothing about it. And that sounds great. Is there any concern though, that we just replaced one master for another? Right? Because somebody is creating this and they're ultimately not going to do it for free, though Okay. Now the banks and and the government doesn't have control but we now we just got Tom Smith with NF t coin or something like that. Like, how do you keep replacing? How do you keep from replacing one master with another?

Preethi Kasireddy 9:42

Well, that's thing right? With crypto, there's really no master. It's like you have a team that launches their protocol. And sure, in the early days, they do own a big part of the network of the decentralized network. So over time, the network gets decentralized and the controlling ownership of that network gets distributed to the stakeholders, which includes the users and various people who are part of the network and helping maintain that network. And so there is no such thing as one master. Instead, it's a group of people who are controlling this network collectively. And depending on how much skin in the game you have, you're able to kind of have that much impact in the network. And that's why, you know, only if you really believe in a network, you can own part of that part of that network, and you can become part of an owner. And now you have a real say in what that network could do and what it could become. So that, like, in this centralized entity, you don't have that, like, it's not like, if you disagree with the federal, Federal Reserve of their policies, you have the right to like, go up to them and be like, hey, like, I want to I have I have, I don't agree with this, you don't, you don't really have that, like, we don't have a way to get people's inputs, and, and so forth, and, and decentralized control with the crypto network again, because users own it and govern it as well. And you know, a lot of these crypto networks, it's not just decentralized ownership, but it's also decentralized governance. So how the, how the network is actually maintained, what changes are happening in the network? What upgrades are happening, all of that is determined by the stakeholders of the system. So there's no one mastered? What's the catch? Is there a catch? The catch is that building something like this is just a lot more resource intensive and a lot more difficult. Because now, it's when you building a centralized entity, it's a lot faster and a lot easier, because you don't have to worry about distributing power across so many nodes with crypto, because these are open and decentralized networks, you don't really have a choice of who's going to participate in these networks. anyone in the world can participate as a stakeholder in these networks and parking and participate in these governance roles. That leads to a lot more malicious potential, where you can have a bad actor or many, many bad actors colluding to try to destroy the system. And so that's kind of the catch here is that it sounds good. But building these systems is a lot harder than building a centralized system. Because it's decentralized. Now you have to figure out that now that you're giving this power to all these nodes, you have to figure out how to avoid them abusing that power

Nick VinZant 12:41

on like a scale of one to 10. One being, nobody is ever going to do this thing. Nobody knows what it is 10 We are at dollar level. Where do you think that like cryptocurrency is right now? In terms of being accepted by the mainstream? I would say about 10% of the way there. Wow, that's like a one. There's like a one or a two, right? Oh, wow.

Preethi Kasireddy 13:06

Yeah, we're still early. I think. I mean, none of no one's using crypto on a day to day basis. It's not like it's mostly a hobbyist and speculative asset today. And it's just people's imaginations that are driving the prices wild. So like even like bet world class applications that are being built like defy and NF T's and all that. Like, I guess you can say that artists, there's a little bit of traction there. But even there, it's like, you look at the volumes. And it's like, some news platforms have hundreds of transactions a week, compared to like me, that's nothing right. So I just I think we're still early and it's it's mostly just people's imaginations that are, it's one of those things that it's just like slowly will creep up on us. And slowly we'll see more and more crypto be part of our lives, whether it's very direct are kind of in the foreground or background. And I think it will be at least another you know, 10 to 20 years before we start to see crypto being a part of your like daily life.

Nick VinZant 14:10

So this may be a long winded long winded question. But grandpappy VinZant always used to say buy land because they're not making any more of it. Right. The dollar used to be on the gold standard. Is crypto fundamentally based on anything that if the apocalypse comes, I can take this and I can get this thing for it. Right. Like is there fundamentally a backing that could ultimately move this to where the two to take this as far as it could go? Is there something there?

Preethi Kasireddy 14:46

Well, what's backing it is again, the ledger the proof, the ledger that says that you own this and that ledger is maintained and has been maintained by miners All around the world who expend it in the in bitcoins case, for example, the ledger has been maintained by miners who expended all of this compute power to verify every single transaction that went into that blockchain. So you can argue that it's backed by their compute power. And so it's not backed by anything physical, like, you know. And so when there are a lot of people get caught up there, because they're like, we're just so used to the physical paradigm, we're not used to the idea that something that's purely digital and ones and zeros, could be valuable. But if we all decide is valuable, who's to say it's not? Because at the end of the day, what is money, right? Like, why do we believe a paper paper bill is a piece of paper is valuable, because we all collectively believe it's valuable. And so same thing here. It's like if we all collectively believe that we want to consider this ledger, to be a source of truth and something that has value, then you can take that to someone else who also believes that same thing, it is kind of interesting how we, as a society, just decide that this thing is now like, we just how do we do it? Well, we just decide that we're gonna do it.

Nick VinZant 16:08

I mean, it's kind of like, yeah,

Preethi Kasireddy 16:11

yeah, exactly. values of subjective, right. It's like, why is a piece of NF? T, that's digital, like, why is that worth anything? Because we all decided is, are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions?

Nick VinZant 16:25

Sure. What is your biggest fear when it comes to cryptocurrency?

Preethi Kasireddy 16:30

That's a good question. Um, a couple of things. One is like regulation, that regulation slows down innovation. And I think you see that a lot. And we're seeing that a lot, right? Like in the US, for example, launching a cryptocurrency app is just have to jump through a lot of huge hoops in India. It's just, there's so many developers who want to build crypto applications, but the regulation is just like so unfriendly, and so unclear. And so I fear that regulation just like slows down innovation and discourages people from getting into the space because they're scared of getting fined or getting going to jail or getting taxed or whatever. The other thing I fear is, like more and more, I think one of the things you saw we sometimes see with crypto is a lot of like cult like behavior where there's very dogmatic views about one cryptocurrency being better than another. And I think reality is like, I believe in a multi currency world where all these different currencies represent different philosophies and different approaches to solving different problems. And so it's not that one is right and one is wrong, it's just that we just have different ways of solving the same problem, or different problems. And so I worry that all of that dogmatism and close mindedness will just lead to a ecosystem like of like, insular cryptocurrency networks, instead of all these cryptocurrency networks operating in interoperating. Together, I think crypto is is interesting in the sense that every network is workable. So if someone doesn't agree with one philosophy, or one approach to building a network, they can just fork it and create their own version with better rules. And so, because of that, no matter what happens, we'll look at there's a mechanism for the system to evolve into something that is better than what exists today. You know, and that, that's just that's powerful.

Nick VinZant 18:38

If you are a betting person, can you name the exact year that cryptocurrency will become mainstream?

Preethi Kasireddy 18:45

Maybe 2030 2035 10 to 15 years? Yeah.

Nick VinZant 18:53

Do I need to understand cryptocurrency? to invest in it? Or to use it?

Preethi Kasireddy 18:58

I would say yes. It just got general philosophy of investing, right? Why would you invest in something you don't understand? It's my it's your money. And so you're gonna, you're just gonna throw it into something? You have no idea. This because other people say it's valuable. So I would say yeah, you definitely should spend a good amount of time figuring out whether you believe in whatever you're investing before you put your money in. And also be very careful of how much money you put in because if you're getting into crypto, I think you have to come in with the mindset of like, you're investing how much you're willing to lose. This one just says, What if this actually happens? I guess I think what they mean by that in the sense of like, Alright, you talked about earlier how maybe we're 10% of the way, way there, since we have 90% of the way left to go.

Nick VinZant 19:43

Like, is there a looming issue? Is there a thing out there that like, oh, wow, we really shouldn't have done this. Right like is, is there any worry in your mind that we are creating something that we shouldn't have created?

Preethi Kasireddy 19:57

That's an interesting question. I do think about that sometimes, because there's a part of me that like, you know, there's the digital internet is great, right? Like, it's enabled a lot of things like for us to do something, this was never possible before without the internet. But there's also a lot of downsides, right? The internet has just as many dark sides of the has good sides. And so anything digital, anything, any technology can be used for good or bad. And I think, you know, if we're not careful and cautious and thinking about how to build these networks, there could be a scenario where we're just not happy with the outcome. Like, for example, even with the internet, right? Chris Dixon talks about this a lot, where he says he feels like the algorithmic ad model that we have on the internet was the wrong turn for the internet. It's not the internet that we want, right? Like, is that really like? Do we want to live with this forever, where people, these big corporations are basically feeding off your information and data and sending you ads based on everything you say, view watts, like this is that sounds like, just disgusting, right? Like, is that the internet we want? And so same thing can happen with crypto, like we have to make sure that whatever we're building is like, is long term, what we want and create a net benefit for society and not not perverse incentive intensive in incentives. But that's also the beauty of crypto is that because it has incentives built in? From the very beginning, you can kind of figure out that the the incentives of the system and make sure that because the only way it cryptosystem works is if all the stakeholders agree to the rules, and they agree to participate and govern those rules. And so if any stakeholder of that system is not happy with the rules, the system doesn't work. Right. Like in, in, in centralized entities, that's not necessarily the case.

Nick VinZant 22:03

Is Ilan Musk, good or bad. And that's specifically him, I think you understand, like, in the sense of like, are people like that somebody who can swing the market? Is that good? Is that bad?

Preethi Kasireddy 22:15

I think it's, it's just is, you know, it just?

Nick VinZant 22:21

Yeah,

Preethi Kasireddy 22:22

what what do you do? Yeah, like, it just is, and it's like, he can control the market, because that's how much power he has as an individual. And just, I think it's, rather than asking whether it's good or bad, it's like, try to kind of dig a little bit deeper and try to figure out like, what does this mean? Is there

Nick VinZant 22:40

What do you think I guess is kind of like to me, somebody's looking at it from the outside. First, there was Bitcoin. Then I heard about Dogecoin. Like, what's the next big one in your mind that I'm going to hear about? I'm surprised you haven't heard about aetherium. Okay, that one's a little bit familiar. But the thing is, is that the picture of Dogecoin is what really captured my attention, right? Because I'm like, Oh, it's a DOS.

Preethi Kasireddy 23:03

Yeah. I don't know what the next one will be. That's a good question. So Bitcoin and Dogecoin are probably well known because they're, they're basically memes, right? There means right? Bitcoin is a meme. And Dogecoin is a meme. And that's one of the things cryptocurrency showed us is the power of means and how much value means actually have and people try to rationalize it, but it's like, there's no rational reason for why Dogecoin is valuable. If you're trying to put common sense into Dogecoin. Like you've lost already, right? It's It's It's just psychology and human behavior and and mathematics. Explain what Dogecoin is,

Nick VinZant 23:41

is there a specific country that you feel will end up benefiting the most from this, like in the quest for global dominance, who emerged who emerges victorious?

Preethi Kasireddy 23:54

I actually think it's like the smaller nations that will benefit a lot from it, because you know, they don't have powerful economic centers or currencies, but they can if they embrace crypto, then they can almost like leapfrog the larger nations and create a digital and decentralized currency that's powered by the blockchain. And you can see countries like Estonia and Singapore really embracing crypto, for example, these are very small countries. But as a result, you're seeing a lot of talent move to these places because they're crypto friendly. And so I think in the long run, they can have a competitive edge in terms of just attracting talent and doing things ahead of everyone else while like nations like the US kind of fall behind. If they don't, you know, catch up.

Nick VinZant 24:48

Is there a country in your mind that like you guys are screwing this up like the way that you are doing this, this policy, this attitude towards this whether from the government from the people in charge From the people like you, this is the wrong approach.

Preethi Kasireddy 25:04

I think the US isn't a is one. India, you know, I'm a little bit disappointed by how India is managing it, I think they'll come around to doing a little bit better job. But

Nick VinZant 25:16

yeah, when you before you like investor before you get involved with a different coin, what do you look at?

Preethi Kasireddy 25:23

I look at a few things. One is the look at the team. No matter what investment you make, it's really important to really look at the team and what their background is, and figure out whether they're the right team to build this. Second thing is I look at the technology obviously figure out like, what are they building? what problem are they solving? are they thinking about the problem in the right way? Their thing I look for is token economics, if they have a token to the project, and I'll try to figure out whether they've really thought about how this token is gonna be used, whether like it aligned with the interests of the different stakeholders in the system. Beyond that, you know, I look at I tried, it depends on the specific use case and the industry. So like, I'll like look at competitors and see if anyone else is doing something like this, I'll try to figure out and extrapolate how big I think this can be. And what I think like, you know, if you just kind of play out the success scenario, whether this could be something that's truly, truly meaningful and make an impact, or whether it's sort of like too small to make a good investment

Nick VinZant 26:32

for people who want to learn more, how can they How can they contact you, like what's coming up next for you, that kind of stuff?

Preethi Kasireddy 26:40

Sure. So I have a free crypto email course, which they can sign up for the link is on my Twitter, as well as on my website. And it's just a sequence of emails that really digs into and teaches you the history of money, how, how central banks manage money, and then it goes into the history of Bitcoin and how it got created. It also teaches you a little bit about Bitcoin. That's, of course, is free for anyone to sign up. And then I'm also going to be launching a my first cohort based course on aetherium development. So it'll teach you how to go from knowing if you're a software engineer, I'll teach you how to become an aetherium developer in seven days. And this is a boot camp type style thing. It'll be a seven day intensive boot camp, likely launching either end of August or beginning of September. So I haven't opened up applications yet, but I'll be opening up applications sometime in mid July. So if you're on my email list, you'll hear about it.

Nick VinZant 27:48

I want to thank preethi so much for joining us. If you want to connect with her, we have a link to her on our social media accounts. We're Profoundly Pointless on Twitter and Instagram. And we have also included her information in the episode description if you really want to get into cryptocurrency. If you want to learn more about it, she teaches some excellent courses that she's made available. Okay. Now, let's go ahead and bring in john Joe. Okay. Do you think that you're going to adapt with the future or that it will pass you by?

Unknown Speaker 28:23

I will say that I will adapt where needed. But even in terms of like today's technology, I'm already behind to a certain degree because I still read books. If If I didn't have a job that required me to be on my phone constantly. I wouldn't care what kind of phone I had, you know, I just so that I don't, I don't think it'll pass me by but how much I partake in, it might not be a lot.

Nick VinZant 28:50

See, I think that means it's probably going to pass you by. Because you're not going to do the necessary thing to like, keep up with the next thing. And then the next thing comes. And then the next thing that happens to you is you're the guy one finger typing on the keyboard that doesn't understand like, wait a minute, where's any key? I can't find any key like that. That's what's gonna happen to you think that's gonna happen? What's gonna happen to me too?

Unknown Speaker 29:14

I think we're on that fringe. Like age, you know, like we weren't born into, you know, like, when we were teenagers. It wasn't all about technology. But, you know, like, half of my high school class had a cell phone, but not everybody.

Nick VinZant 29:29

Yeah, my high school class. So a couple of people still had pagers. Like somebody had a pager and you had to stop at it. You had to stop at a payphone. Like oh, man, I'm getting paid. It's called the payphone. But we grew up with the basic language, right? Like we could figure it out. The reason that I asked this is because our guest is a cryptocurrency expert, and I don't have any clue what that is like no. And I feel like that whole thing this next wave that's coming is just gonna go right past me. You can go right over my head.

Fireworks Show Designer Phil Grucci

From national celebrations to world records shows with nearly a million fireworks, Phil Grucci is the creative force behind some of the world’s biggest fireworks shows. We talk fireworks shows are put together, how fireworks are made and the world’s best fireworks shows. Then, we countdown a special Top 5.

Interview with Phil Grucci of Grucci Fireworks

Phil Grucci 0:12

By the time I could realize that you had the pressure of a family business, I was already addicted, green and red is probably the easier colors to make. So when you see a firework show that's predominantly red and green, it's just because they can't make a good blue.

Nick VinZant 0:30

Most fireworks, you've launched at one time

Phil Grucci 0:32

960,000 devices, which was a world record. In eight minutes 52 different cities spread out around the entire Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Nick VinZant 0:44

I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it really helps us out. So no matter when you're listening to this or where you're listening to this, we have all seen and been captivated by a firework show. But what does it take to actually put one of these shows together? It is so much more interesting and complicated than I ever would have thought. Our first guest is part of a family that has been making their own fireworks and designing firework shows all over the world for six generations. Our first guest is the creative director for grucci fireworks. Phil grucci. So as the creative director, when you get ready to put together a firework show, like what goes into that.

Phil Grucci 1:37

So when that call comes in, we kind of feel the client out on what they're looking for. And that puts us in an area of the scale of the performance, the performance where it's going to be if it's going to be in downtown Manhattan, or is it going to be out on out on a farm out in eastern Long Island that sets our stage? What is the stage is a roof of a billion dollar building? Or is it out on a barge on the Hudson River, for example. That's the staging. Naturally, this the business aspect of it has to happen such as what the budget is that they have. Some of our programs range into the 1000s of dollars into the millions of dollars. So obviously, that puts you into into a box that you have to work to create something, its budget and what the stages. Once we have that, if it's if it's a performance that we're choreographing, to music, it's setting a music score. So we listen to all the music depending on what the celebration is naturally, on the Fourth of July and Independence Day, everything is very patriotic, everything is very pure and colorful and red, white and blue. If it's a wedding, then it's generally what's the bride's favorite music? what's the what's the groom's favorite music? What's the message, what's the theme. So when we pick that soundtrack, we go through that process of then scoring that music, and then that becomes the bed or the timeline that the fireworks performance is, is is designed to. But then there's some clients that have a theme that that we have to create uniquely and what the celebration is about. And then then the design is the meticulous setting of every single firework device that's going to be displayed in that program at a very precise moment in time based on what that music what the tempo is. If the music is big, robust and Baroque, naturally, the fireworks have to match that. If it's soft and delicate, you don't want to be bah bah bah bah bah bum in the sky real loud, you want to be soft and delicate with the product that you select. So it's, it's very much like casting a ballet or a dance, you know the certain characters or certain performers act and do things uniquely than others do. So we'll have a firework that's called the Golden Comoro that's very elegant and at first, it's very gentle when it when it when it displays and then we'll have a firework device called a reporter salute that all it does is make a bright white flash and a bang. And those get choreographed into that performance at the appropriate time when it matches that design, tempo and feel. So then that's all the design side of it, then that's about a third of the activity every every minute of fireworks you see in the sky takes me about two hours of scripting and design time to kind of plot that material out on where it's going to be at what angle it's fired from which portion of the theater or the stage that we're working with, where does it get located. And we have 12,000 points to pick from to discharge fireworks from. So that's how how elaborate some of the performances can be when we're picking a single device that's going to be on the pinnacle of the building, and it's gonna fire at a 45 degree angle to the to the south. That's the kind of precision that goes into some of our performances. So once that design is completed, then it goes to the programming department. And they they meticulously take line by line and, and put it into a computer program that then generates all of the drawings and scripts and all of the to give to the prior technicians that are in the field to know how to actually install this, this program that I may have envisioned on on my system here at the studio, but then translate that into paper where the pyrotechnicians in the field can set all of that product up properly and have the green when fire when the green was was the fire in the pink one fire when the pig was was the fire. Then it goes down to our factory in Virginia. And all of those characters, all of the gold willows and all of the red strobes in the Gulf that are split split comets, they all get put in a range. In order by which they have they're going to be displayed and they get numbered. So each circuit every single firework has an electric circuit that it gets fired from. They all get packaged, and then they get shipped from our factory, which is a regulatory rich oversight that we have. We follow a lot of laws to move explosives because it's not sneakers and socks to any place around the country of the world. So sometimes we have to put our fireworks in containers and shipping by sea. Most of all of the fireworks get shipped around the United States by truck. And on the rare occasion when the time is very short, the client has to pay the the exorbitant expense to fly it by air. Then when it gets to the site. That's another five is six. The largest program we ever displayed was a Guinness World Record which we had 250 pirate technicians working on site for over a month and a half. We serve 15,000 lunches to this team to be able to put the show together that only last six and a half minutes.

Nick VinZant 6:47

I cannot believe how complicated that is. I honestly thought and I don't mean any offense like I thought it was like a guy pressing a button.

Phil Grucci 6:58

There is a guy who presses a button at the end of the day guy or gal we've got plenty of female pyrotechnicians, but there are the pyrotechnic pyrotechnicians eventually does press that button that starts at all. But all that work that I just talked about has to happen before that proverbial push of the button happens.

Nick VinZant 7:17

So you got like your average Big Show say? city fireworks, your average like city fireworks. When when do you need to start planning for that fireworks event? Like how long does that whole process take?

Phil Grucci 7:31

No,that's a good question. Most of the time, we prefer to get eight to eight months to a year to prepare for a show. Fourth of July we have 8080 some odd firework displays that will produce in that one weekend that one day. And what I didn't include before in my description is all of the logistics that has to happen. Moving crew around getting the airline tickets, getting the hotels, the hotels, getting the trucking routes, getting the permission from the area that you're going into the display, the show, the fire department, the Coast Guard, the FAA, all of the regulatory parts of it,

Nick VinZant 8:05

it's pretty much based off of music is usually how you're going to kind of choreographic right that kind of dictates everything from and it flows from there.

Phil Grucci 8:12

This these days, most of the shows are choreographed to a music score. There are a few that still wish to have them traditional which they're beautiful shows where you really focus on the beauty of the product and not the the influence of music.

Nick VinZant 8:29

When we talk about these fireworks, you know, the big ones that are being sent off into the air like how are they different from the stuff that I buy it the stand like how is it different from that

Phil Grucci 8:39

the chemistry is pretty much the same as far as the combustion create colors and the crate noise and create crackle and whistle. It The difference is the volume is the size is the sum of the chemistry is different because of the user and the trained aspect of the professional prior technician then the general public. And by and large, most of it is larger. Some of our devices are 12 inches in diameter and the burst size of three or four football fields. There's differences in how its how it's fused. So when you light it with a with a with a lighter, it takes so much time before it ignites as compared to most of all of our products are filed electronically. So we have very elaborate computer systems that will initiate things electronically. He said a lucrative business, my family's been producing firework displays for six generations now. We don't have a Learjet but we do support our families. You know, we work for the money that that we make through the through the business. There's a lot of employees that are not Gucci's but yet they've been with us for 3040 years. So it's it's lucrative to the extent that we support our families we live comfortably but it's not a business where where we can retire in one year.

Nick VinZant 9:56

Was it something that like does this something that You really wanted to do, or was this because it's a family business like, Look, this is always going to be your path.

Phil Grucci 10:07

No, no, no I, I went to college and I got my degree in finance and business administration. And I knew when I was a very young age as a young male, you got that that energy and that power in the blood when you were a young 16 years old. Remember being on a barge with my dad in Coney Island. I, every Tuesday, during the summer, we would have a performance for the music park in Coney Island, and then every Wednesday would be Rockaway Playland. So I got into my blood in a very young age, back in the 70s. It was, it was a little easier than it is now. So Mike, my son, Christopher, and my nephew, Cory, they couldn't touch anything, or even be anywhere near the fireworks until they were 18. So they kind of missed that, that period of time they get addicted to it as much as I did when I was, you know, that was the only thing I really knew that was as exciting as as you know, as anything. And I chose, wow, this is what I want to do. I didn't choose it, because I felt I was obligated to do it because of the heritage I was too young to by the time I could realize that, you know, you had the pressure of a family business. I was already addicted. So I and I even today, even with the challenge, it's not an easy business. It's not an easy occupation. But the part of it that keeps you going is the art form. You know, the creative aspect of it and see something is short term, you create it, you see it the sky. You see the pleasure brings to your question before Yes, it's it's, it gives us financial benefits to survive and feed our children and put clothing on our backs and have nice houses and nice cars. But the addiction part of it is is the creative part and watching a firework show and turn around Look, look at the audience and you're looking at the five year old grandchild next to his or her grandfather, or grandmother. And they're looking at the firework show in their face looks almost exactly the same. The only difference is one has more wrinkles than the other but the expression on their face. It's pretty much the same. The jaws open. They're not looking at cell phones, they're not. You know, they're not they're not they're not texting, they're not playing games and watching for that 20 minutes or 10 minutes or however long The show is that watching that firework show. And for the for the elder people, the adults for that 20 minutes or whatever it is they have no, they have no worries, they forget about all the problems that they may have, or the problems in the world.

Nick VinZant 12:43

What do you think? Is it about fireworks that kind of captivated us so much? Because it is like it's a bright light in the sky and a loud noise. But for some reason, like it really gets our attention. One it's,

Phil Grucci 12:58

it's it's energetic, right? It's it's energy. It's a lot of it's forceful and in and it's dangerous to an extent right to the audience. It's like, it's that little mystery that's going on behind that, behind that behind the fence line saying, Wow, you could hear the power. And it also it also tickles all of your senses. If you think about it, right? You can watch a movie, or you can watch a powerful fireworks program on television. But do you get the same reaction if you're if you're live? No, you get a better reaction because it's live because you could feel it on your skin, you could feel the pressure on your face, you can, you could smell it too, right? You could smell the smoke in some cases, and it's bigger than life, you know, it's something that's what you feel like you could reach out and touch it. And it's, you know, your peripherals filled? Where do you Where can you get a medium like that in the art forms? That provides that kind of excitement. And then a little bit of an I do believe is the fact that it's it's it's got a little element of danger in their perception, like going to a car race, right? Think about how many times or what opportunities you have to really hang with your family. And all of you enjoy the same thing.

Nick VinZant 14:06

So we don't usually get into this this early. But I think a lot of these kind of sum up questions that we would normally talk about. So are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Absolutely. What is the most impressive firework to you?

Phil Grucci 14:23

The most impressive to me. This is a show that we actually manufacturer and it's a show that my dad kind of it was I should say kind of did develop and and displayed it in such a way that it became close to our trademark lock. It's called a Gucci. It's a golden flitter split splitting comment in the Shell has multiple dimensions to it. So when it bursts one The color is very rich, it looks like 14 karat gold, but it's got a shimmer to it. And it has inside of the shell. It's got 52 of these very large comments that when it bursts, it looks like a spider's legs that are coming in And then just as it appears like it's going to go out the ends of all of that the tentacles at the bottom, all spit, split and explode at the same time. So it's a double dimension, dual dimensional item. It's very elegant, we typically would display that right before the finale. So when you have those fireworks that I always think of the one that's like, boom, and then it goes, boom. And then there's like, shoot, and then a boom. Right? So that's multiple shells inside of the same multi break shell. That's correct. Yep. Or, or the Shell has one break. But the components inside of it, then have multiple breaks. So you can have a splitting comment, as I meant just mentioned a gopher to splitting comment, which is one break one burst. But all the little cola comments inside of it have another secondary burst. So you get kind of a two stage effect that

Nick VinZant 15:52

are they fickle? Are they pretty, pretty reliable in the sense that Yeah, we're dealing with explosives, but this thing is going to act exactly how I think it's going to

Phil Grucci 16:00

it's by the time we bring it to the site to the display site into our staging area. It's it's been tested at the factory. Now it is it is a an item that's primarily made by hand. That's why it's still very much an art form and a craft because a lot of the products are molded by hand, although the components may be molded with biodegradable polymers and things like that. But the the construction of it is made by hand. Do you ever have a failure? Yes, sometimes we do have a failure of the device. So it may not look as perfect as it is but that's that's way down in the in the sub percenters, you know some single digit percentages? And you know, there's there's laws and there's regulations on the distances to the audience and things like that to accommodate for that. So have you noticed the firework display? You should not be very close to that point of discharge when that fire is coming out?

Nick VinZant 16:57

How much like how would your average firework that that we see in a firework show like how many how many things of TNT or like how powerful and explosive is usually?

Phil Grucci 17:09

Well, there's there is a T and T equivalents to it. But you know, and the general public doesn't necessarily know what a factor of one, this is a one half of it, you know the value of t and t. But the the explosive that we work with primarily is black powder. So we're T and T is more of a cutting type of a high explosive for for doing damage black powder, although it's explosive. And although it makes noise and it does things like Push, push fire auction to the sky and burst fireworks open. It doesn't have what's called the Verizon says TNT does. So the TNT equivalent of black powder is lower. If you did like them, and you did and they did like unintentionally in bulk. There could be there could be substantial Calla collateral damage done in the area that they fire, if they're not launched out of a mortar to be fired in the sky as they're intended.

Nick VinZant 18:05

Is there one firework that you guys have that you would say like Oh, God, like, Hey, guys, we this is, you know, you know, Betsy here is is she's the dangerous one. Are they all pretty much the same?

Phil Grucci 18:17

That well know that there are items that you have to have, you know, as I mentioned before, yeah, there's a distance that we have to the audience based on the firework, diameter in size. So yes, as the, the size and the weight of the firework gets larger, larger, they become more and more powerful. So if we bring out a 12 inch in diameter shell, it's treated with a little bit more a lot more distance to the audience, because it's going to burst about 10 times the diameter as this little two inch shell that you might be able to even see sold down south, you know, legally a consumer fireworks area. But there's not those items you look at and go oh, this was a lot less reliable than the other one. In your opinion, what

Nick VinZant 19:03

is the most overrated firework, not saying it's not good? Just the one that you're like?

Phil Grucci 19:10

That's a good question. I never, ever thought about overrated. You know, I don't. You got me stumped you. You're right. Some of these questions I've never heard of what's the most overrated I guess the most overrated fire or could be a salute. It's a it's a, it's the one that goes in the boom, you'll hear boom, a white flash of path of, you know, it's the chemistry that's used inside that gives you the white flash. It's the easiest firework to make. Because it's very, this two components and then you put in a cardboard tube and that's what you know what the bad guys make as far as you know, the contraband and illegal illegal explosives that are out there. People call them fireworks, they're not fireworks, they're illegal explosives, because it's so easy to make. So that one I would say is overrated because you get too much this too much attention to it. Because everybody says, I know how to make fireworks and you make that it's too easy.

Nick VinZant 20:05

What's your favorite color of firework blow my least favorite,

Phil Grucci 20:11

green, green and red. And the reason why green or red is because some back to the green and red is probably the easier colors to make. So when you see a firework show that's predominantly red and green, it's just because they can't make a good Blue. Blue is very difficult blues and purples are very difficult to make a good blue.

Nick VinZant 20:35

What's the hardest color to make

Phil Grucci 20:37

blue, blue is because of the temperature, the temperature band in order to create blue is much narrower than some of the other colors. So the temperature that you have to burn Burn the copper which which is the metal that's used to create the color blow. It has the range that you have to get it into in order to get that blue spectrum is much narrower than the other colors that you that you can create white Cz. And like I said the reds and greens are kind of kind of the easier ones to make in the color spectrum, blues and purples, those are a little bit more difficult. And then the other thing too, is to control the burn. Having the ability to control how fast they burn, because you can make a really good blow. But it burns too slow. And if it burns too slow, all of the blue items that are coming out of your firework show are landing on the ground. So if you can't control how fast they burn, then you may have something that becomes that shell that you say hey, we can't shoot that because all the products will land on the ground and put the grass on fire put the woods on fire.

Nick VinZant 21:44

Most fireworks you've launched at one time

Phil Grucci 21:46

960,000 devices which was a world record. In eight minutes 52 different cities spread out around the entire Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Nick VinZant 21:59

Can you tell me how much they spent on that?

Phil Grucci 22:01

Well, the 12 million, which is not relatively speaking, it wasn't that much for them for that for that size.

Nick VinZant 22:09

This question is kind of interesting. When you watch other people's firework shows, what is a rookie mistake that other people make in programming their firework shows like if you're watching somebody else's firework show, you'll see it and be like that's a rookie mistake

Phil Grucci 22:25

too much too much of anything is sometimes not a good thing. So sometimes people feel that the more you put up in the sky, the better the show is going to be. So you may have seen some shows that what we call white out, so if you if you fire the beautiful blues, the beautiful greens, the beautiful reds, the beautiful oranges, purples, and all that and you fire them too quick and you have too much in the sky. It basically waits out you don't see the colors anymore. plus another factor is when you when you when you fire too much, you got too much smoke. And then after a few minutes of the program, it obliterates the sky. Well, you can't see the fireworks behind it.

Nick VinZant 23:08

What is a show that you said that you feel like people people should go see that at some point

Phil Grucci 23:14

is a performance that we have every year at the hagley Museum in library which, which is in Maryland. And it it's at the old DuPont factory that made black powder on the brand new on the Brandywine River. And that's a program that they've maintained their traditional ways where the old set pieces in the in the fire paintings in the pinwheels and all of the old style of fireworks still exist in that program. We've been displaying that for many years now. And that one for us is a special one because it brings back all of that old school type techniques they haven't gotten overly addicted with the technology where everything becomes a little stale sometimes when you when you have super precision and it's always you know this this is after a while you want to see a little bit of organics to it things kind of free flowing. And that hagley Museum and Library is the one that you'd want to go see.

Nick VinZant 24:12

What would you say overall is like when you look look at your career so far what would you say is like that's the coolest thing I've done

Phil Grucci 24:19

it Yeah, that's there's a few of them. And that's what gets you waking up in the morning to do it another one sometimes I wonder while you're while you're producing them whether you could take on another one of them because you because your body can physically take it anymore. But yeah, one I would say was the world record in 2014. When we had it was in the Middle East and we had that's where we had the 250 pyrotechnicians and we had the 12,000 devices on the on the on the on the roof on the building of the Burj Khalifa which is the world's tallest building. We lit up the entire island that was in the shape of a palm tree with 250 boats and 50 Two flatbed trailers full of fireworks and then we had the world islands. We had 132 Islands up, you fired from all simultaneously at the same time. And when you came in a week, when we accomplished that feat, it was something that when you get compliments from your own industry members and your competitors and said, How the heck did you guys do that? From a from a tactical and logistics perspective, it was pretty impressive. From a creative perspective, you know, there was probably Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge when we when we produced the Brooklyn Bridge Program. And most recently, I see most recently, but 2014 was the 200th anniversary on that of the national anthem of our Star Spangled Banner. And we were commissioned to produce a firework show, they wanted to have something unique. And it was just at the time, when we developed and patented a microchip that we put inside of some of the very high end fireworks that we display. And that microchip gives us the ability to launch an item in the sky, and put a 30 foot.in the sky of a color. And when they came to us for the celebration of our national anthem, it was at Fort McHenry, which is in Baltimore, which is the area that Francis Scott Key, actually penned our national anthem. So we propose to them to put an American flag in the sky that's 700 feet wide by 500 feet high, right at Fort McHenry. And they gave us they commissioned us to do that, and to sit there and watch that flag unfurl in the sky in front of the front of the fort, to commemorate our 200th anniversary of our national anthem was, that was a special moment in my life, because all of the design and the engineering that it took to create that and it it came off, like perfectly it looked so spectacular.

Nick VinZant 26:48

This is the last one for me. What's the next thing like what's the future

Phil Grucci 26:53

Oh, you know, something, what the future is right now was where we're where we're putting a lot of our resources on the environment. Right so fireworks, when they go up in the sky, they burst and went up it goes up comes back down to the ground paper or whatever they're made with or whatever they made some of it burns up. So we're we're working very strongly very hard and investing a lot to to reduce the carbon footprint to to make the debris that comes down biodegradable, it is biodegradable now because it's all paper, but make it such that it can be molded, you know, with similar to the way you mold plastic, but yet it's not plastic, we don't use any plastics in our fireworks, because you know, over the waterways and things like that it's not it's not healthy for the environment. So we're going down the path there. We're also going down a path in technology where some of its on the business side which is boring, you know, the production management, all that good stuff, but on the fire, specifically, to be able to address something, put the address, so when you've loaded into the mortar, you don't have to have any wires attached to it you just loaded it into mortar very quickly and the firing systems find those shells, you know, with RFID technology and things like that. to the audience, it's not really it's not really seen but it but to the for the efficiencies and safety it's it's it's an advancement for us. And then we're always developing things like the Pyro drone, like the microchip and things like that. So the audience does appreciate those new and innovative scenes. So right sometimes gets get going in multiple directions. Fortunately, we have a factory that of Virginia, we have just under 200 people in our factory in Virginia so we could develop and make our own fireworks without you know, off having go offshore and get made in in Europe or into in China or Asia. So it's exciting, exciting. But another part of our business is actually in simulation manufacturing products for our Department of Defense. So you know, hand grenades simulators, and mortar simulators and things like that. Fireworks have a great synergy. Bang smoke flash, right loud noises. So we make all these training devices that are not lethal. And then we can train the troops on the delay time of throwing a hand grenade and the bank without having the lethal the lethality of the of the shrapnel. So that's another part of our business that's actually saved us during the COVID periods because our factory was essential. And when the fireworks displays basically stopped in 2020 a lot of our employees we moved them down to Virginia to sustain their employment while we were going through this 2020 horror of of COVID.

Nick VinZant 29:36

America loves fireworks. But what country likes fireworks the most.

Phil Grucci 29:42

America has one I could tell you I don't know. You know there's a lot of there's a you saw last year in 2020 if anyone of any neighborhood that I know of this last year just opened up, you know to shooting their own firework shows because of you know being pent up in house and things like that. I guess the the other one would be maybe Spain, you know, Spain does some pretty impressive firework displays, China naturally on their Chinese New Year, they have huge firework shows coast to coast, although they're, they're starting to suppress having those kind of, you know, they in China, there are no regulations or were no regulations, the public can go out in the middle of the street and display something as large as what we would when we would produce right in the room, you know, on one of our professional displays, but they were having, you know, many, many injuries, and they started to cut down on it. So, but I think I think the United States is, by and large, the United States consumes the most fireworks in the world in the consumer fireworks science. So the public, the general public, is only I think two states in the country that do not allow fireworks, the majority of the other states all allow some form of firearms. So it's very popular here. And I suspect this fourth of July, you'll see quite a lot of activity out there. I just asked you to please make sure whatever anybody that's listening, don't do it. If it's illegal, it's not worth it right now with the security of the of the world and the country. And you know what we're going through right now, if you are caught with fireworks illegally in your community, you could be in a lot of trouble and it's not worth it go to we do a professional show, or only use the consumer fireworks that are legal in your area in your community.

Nick VinZant 31:26

I want to thank Phil so much for joining us if you want to connect with him. We have a link to him on our social media accounts. We're Profoundly Pointless on Twitter, and Instagram. And we have also included his information in the episode description. Do you trip Do you trim your armpit hair? Yes, I shave it all off. Actually. you shave it straight off.

Celebrity Publicist Danielle Sabrina

From actors and athletes to musicians and thought leaders, Celebrity Publicist Danielle Sabrina can turn talent into a star. We talk celebrities, building a brand and the unique mindset that took her from a high school dropout to the head of one of Hollywood’s leading public relations agencies. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Kinds of Bread.

https://www.instagram.com/daniellesabrina7 (Danielle Sabrina Instagram)

https://tribebuildermedia.com (Tribe Builder Media)

https://www.facebook.com/daniellesabrinaofficial (Danielle Sabrina Facebook)

Interview with Celebrity Publicist Danielle Sabrina

Nick VinZant 0:11

Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode, celebrities and bred,

Danielle Sabrina 0:20

a publicist can also help with like image and branding and like, oh, here, you know, why don't you polish yourself up a little bit here? Why don't you go to this party? Why don't you, you know, make an appearance here, let me get you on this red carpet. And you have to be in a space of receiving. And if you can't be receiving and you're constantly letting that flow come out, you're not you're like you're never replenishing yourself. And people can feel that and nothing comes to you, you have to go out and get everything.

Nick VinZant 0:48

I want to thank you so much for joining us, if you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it really helps us out. So we're going to do something a little bit different. In this episode, we're going to have one guest but talk about two distinct topics. Our first guest is a celebrity publicist, who has worked with some of the biggest names out there, and really specializes in helping celebrities build a brand. But she also has a unique business mindset that has really allowed her to grow these businesses and have a good life outside of them as well. This is celebrity publicist, Danielle, Sabrina, what makes a good celebrity publicist?

Danielle Sabrina 1:36

Um, no, I think building relationships with people is the same no matter whether, you know, you're trying to just network sales, whatever it is, you know, you want to be as authentic as possible. I mean, I think it doesn't necessarily have to be like a good celebrity, it like just being a good publicist, having a strong handle on what it takes to move a person or brand, how to communicate effectively. And your ability to build relationships are is so important.

Nick VinZant 2:07

How is working with a celebrity different than like doing public relations or publicist work for, say, a brand

Danielle Sabrina 2:15

it's different in that, with a celebrity, you're not so much on, you're doing more like story control, a lot of times, you know, so you want to really help guide that narrative. Most of the time, you know, press are pretty interested in speaking to celebrities and seeing what's going on. So making sure that you know, when you are announcing something, or, you know, maybe that somebody is putting out a new product, or they're starting a business, that that narrative is there. And when you're working with a brand, you're really building relationships and telling their story, but also building them up as a thought leader. Whereas with somebody who's already kind of established,

Nick VinZant 2:57

why is that important with a celebrity to control the narrative of it?

Danielle Sabrina 3:02

Well, because sometimes, you know, what they're doing is really important and can have a big impact, but their, their status as a celebrity can outshine that. So they might be doing, you know, in an initiative within a nonprofit, or, you know, something that could have a tremendous impact if you want this spotlight to be on what that impact is, and not necessarily the celebrity themselves.

Nick VinZant 3:24

What do you think makes you good at it?

Danielle Sabrina 3:27

Um, I have a lot of different experience. So I used to be a trader, that I worked in the IPO space, and then I did business intuitive work. So and I've had my own businesses, this isn't my first business. So I feel that I have a like, a very, like vast understanding of the different components. And I, I built my own brand and marketed my own self, just to make sure that, you know, I'm not talking about something I haven't already done myself.

Nick VinZant 3:57

When did you kind of transition into working with celebrities? Was that something that you wanted to do? Or was that something that just kind of happened?

Danielle Sabrina 4:04

It just kind of happened on its own, I never set out to, you know, specifically work with celebrities or anything, it just happened. We have like an associate like a niche with people who are celebrities in particular, who are launching businesses or products. So that's, like, that's an area of ours. We're like, we just Excel really well. And I think that came from like my business development background, my marketing background. And then combining all of that together. There's not a lot of publicists that I know of that specialize in that particular area,

Nick VinZant 4:36

how kind of has the business changed since you started,

Danielle Sabrina 4:40

it used to be very much like, Oh, you get into this publication and it will drive your business forward. Like, you know, you get into the, you know, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and all of a sudden, like sales are flying in and, but there's so much content out there. Now. Brands really need to bring bring that back in house and think about how they're like going about their thought leadership instead in and be more creative and create pieces, whether it's like their own thought leadership pieces, or, you know, think about the expertise that they're sharing with the media. And it's less about what the company's doing. And it's more about who the people are, that are in the company, the challenges that they've overcome, how they can inspire others versus like, hey, look at me and what I'm doing.

Nick VinZant 5:27

Do you think the media in general is more important now? Or less important? Now, because people can kind of create their own? Right, like the celebrity or whoever the brand can just put out their own statement? Do they need the media anymore?

Danielle Sabrina 5:43

Yeah, it's still definitely has that external validation and the right. If you align with the right writer, the right publication and the right messaging, it can drive sales to your business. Absolutely. So you need to have those outlets that remain unbiased. And are, you know, their goal is to put out great content, because audiences follow that. And not many brands are willing to do that, that their content is going to be very much centered around driving business.

Nick VinZant 6:14

Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Sure, person you were starstruck to meet.

Danielle Sabrina 6:24

You know, I might have been, it might have been Mike Tyson, because I feel like he's been such, like, there's been so many different perceptions of him. And I don't know if I was starstruck, but it was more just it was such an interesting experience meeting him, because it was so different than what I anticipated. So it was there's a lot, you know, there's people that I've met, like summaries or exactly how I thought they would be, you know, like, that's exactly how I would that they thought they were exactly, I wasn't surprised. But with Mike Tyson, I, I was just really surprised how connected to the university is how spiritual he is. And how insightful about life, he is, because I just kind of pictured this guy who

Nick VinZant 7:07

is, you know, while partying like fighter is what I had, thinking maybe was gonna be walking into, who is generally harder for you to kind of work with as a client, a person who is really famous, a person who is kind of famous, or a person who is just starting out and has like a little bit of fame.

Danielle Sabrina 7:32

There's many factors in that, but the client that is most difficult to work with, in general is one that thinks like that, is very controlling. And once you know, it's just like, this is what we want. And like this is this is how it's going to be done. And when you get someone like that, it's really difficult for the brilliance in a campaign to come out. Because everything becomes very tactical. And the creative starts getting squeezed out.

Nick VinZant 8:03

What do you do when someone isn't as famous as they think they are?

Danielle Sabrina 8:08

Um, it depends on how that's coming out, if that's coming out in their attitude towards press, in their entitlement towards press or, you know, like having, thinking that, you know, they deserve to be flown out in a private jet for an interview or, you know, some, something, you know, just outrageous requests. That has to be a discussion, because I'm not going to expose my relationship to people who I value and help support my business because someone might not be self aware enough to be like, it really comes back to like, it's not okay to treat people like that. That's really what it comes back to you. So do you think some things are more famous than they are, that's probably coming out in a way, I shouldn't have to do this, or they're lucky to talk to me or you know, like that type of energy. And that type of energy isn't gonna result in anything good. It's going to if anything upset the person on the other end, which is the writer or the reporter, most interesting campaign you think you worked on, there is one that we're working on, that I'm working on right now that I'm excited about, because the founder of the company is very forward thinking and he's just really cool. And we're going to do a series with him and his daughter. He has his eight year old daughter, and it's this like driving app. So it's not you know, it's an insurance driving habits. were producing a whole series based on like conversations with him and his daughter and the places they've been, and she's this just really cool eight year old when you're in the kind of the celebrity publicists world, is it a thing where they come to you. you recruit them, like how does that process and then generally work when you get new clients. Um, this already said it can come either way. Like, I don't really recruit celebrities at all. So I prefer that either find me on their own or they come in through a referral. Because I like to have some sort of trust established or something where like, you know, either competence or trust already established,

Nick VinZant 10:09

what is generally easy to manage easier to manage a celebrities rise or a celebrities fall,

Danielle Sabrina 10:17

I mean, it's obviously easier to manage the rise, it's a little more hectic, it's the Fall is something that is that if they did something like domestic violence or something like that, I think there's a better publicists out there that they can work with to help support them in that downfall. Because I just like, that just doesn't align with me, I don't care who it is. I don't think you really like if they're working with a publicist, they're probably not going to be going backwards during that time. It's probably they already went there. It's like, not like, on the way up, like, yeah, of course, if you're part of them, because you're building their brand, but they're, you're not gonna I would be like, if you weren't as a publicist, and your client is going down.

Nick VinZant 11:05

You're not a good publicist for very long, right. Like, what's happening that like? We wouldn't Would you say that in general, right? Like, not specifically you But in general, in that this kind of an industry? Can the publicist make someone a star? Right, like, this person would be a famous actor, if only they could get the right publicist.

Danielle Sabrina 11:29

I mean, they just, it depends on what the talent themselves are, like, what is happening, if they're a publicist can definitely start building up that, like, get that buzz and that momentum going. So if the talent is already there, they're already a buy, but they're, you know, they already have the whole piece. A publicist can also help with like, image and branding, and like, oh, here, you know, why don't you polish yourself up a little bit here? Why don't you go to this party? Why don't you, you know, make an appearance here, let me get you on this red carpet. Let me start building some stuff, and then show you how to leverage it. Like, let's make sure we're posting this on social posts that you're wanting to talk about this, like, so you are guiding them. And you can like, yeah, that can absolutely help you grow your whatever it is, if you're an actor, that's your business, you know, like, that's your craft. So but I mean, if you're not like, if the foundation isn't there, like you can't turn someone into like a star, if there are, but they're not a good actor.

Nick VinZant 12:26

So let's switch gears really quick. You have this remarkable story of going from a high school dropout, to working in a variety of different fields, starting your own business that was named one of the best PR companies, and you're a mentor with Entrepreneur Magazine, when people come to you for business advice, wondering how did you do this? What do you tell them?

Danielle Sabrina 12:50

I talked a lot about like energy, how to like utilize the energy of the universe, into your business, how to break like how to recognize when something is a limiting belief, and how to feel through something that like when to stop pushing through, because there's like resistance and how you can look at that. And like that can end up saving you a lot of money in your business, it can help you to not make decisions that you're going to have to go back and fix anyway, I talked about how like, I love talking about how important it is to just be your authentic self. And sometimes that's a process and like, how you can really manifest incredible abundance in your life, both financially and just happiness and joy. Like I had never worked fewer hours than I do now. And I've never had more money. So I've never had more as much joy and stability in my life as I do now than when I was grinding and like just work, work, work work plugging away plugging away. It was like, always such a force, you know, and now things just fall together. Like I barely have to like, I can just have the thought and it almost happens immediately. So I like to that's my passion personally, like that's trained my team. That's how like, when I hire new staff, we talk about all this stuff is way more important than any of the tactical stuff.

Nick VinZant 14:17

When you built your when you built your businesses, what do you think kind of really contributed to your success in that regard?

Danielle Sabrina 14:26

My ability to work with the universe, that's what made me successful, because, and I never really became like action definitely will get you there, but it's only going to get you so far. So you're going to find at some point, like, you're probably telling yourself like once I get here, then I can relax. Then I can have fun, you know, then I can do this. And everything like any of the abundance that you do have in your life that you're getting like is resulted in like, you know, probably way harder. work then and it's necessary. And I think a lot of people don't have any balance because of that. And then you just find yourself like very disconnected.

Nick VinZant 15:10

You know, it always seemed to be a thing for me like growing up, you could just work hard, work hard, work hard, keep your nose down, keep your nose down, keep your nose down, keep going. Do you think that's really successful and email,

Danielle Sabrina 15:20

you don't need to do that. That's what there's, there's literally everything is energy. And if you can align, it's like, if you want something, and it's right here and your energy is right here, you'll get it. But if what you if what you want is right here, and you are like either grinding too hard, or like down here, you're low vibing, like you will not align to it. So it has to be perfect. And you have to be in a space of receiving and if you can't be receiving and you're constantly letting that flow come out. You're not you're like you're never replenishing yourself. And people can feel that and nothing comes to you. You have to go out and get everything. And now like, I don't, it's been a while since I've had to like, anytime I find myself like I need to like, you know, do this, I have to work harder this like it's never resulted in anything that was great. The things that are great just kind of happen, organically.

Nick VinZant 16:23

To play lady, a little bit of devil's advocate, so to speak, do you think? Is it really the energy of the universe? Or do you think that at some level, you're just kind of, you're just following the thing that you really want to do?

Danielle Sabrina 16:41

Well, you can think like that, following the thing that you really want to do. If your heart center, if you are centered, and you truly are in alignment with that, it will come to you and it will be a great fun process. And that's how you know that you are in alignment to it. But if it's not a fun process, if it is extremely unpleasant, if it feels like you're just like, you know, on a hamster wheel, or it's a lot of work for not as much return, you know, like, how are you really in alignment with it? Or is that the only path that you know or that you knew to get you there?

Nick VinZant 17:18

When did you kind of figure out that this was the approach that you wanted to take.

Danielle Sabrina 17:24

When I missed most of my trip my daughter's childhood because I was working crazy, insane hours building this building someone else's business. But regardless of what I was doing, I reached a financial success point, I didn't feel any different, nothing changed, my house got bigger, my car got more expensive, my vacations, got more elaborate. bills were a little easier to pay, then nothing else changed. Except for I missed, like having fun. I was tired all the time. I was like burnt out all the time, I was just going through the motions a lot. And then looking back on that none of that stuff mattered. I don't even talk to that person who own that business. I don't even have anything to do in the financial space. Like none of it matters.

Nick VinZant 18:09

When I kind of hear that. It's like against my nature. I feel like the way that I was brought up. Mm hmm. Do you run into that more with men are more with women?

Danielle Sabrina 18:21

With exactly what you're saying for sure. with men with women, it's more guilt driven. So they're more like, I can't imagine thinking you know, living like because it feels like they're like they feel they have so much guilt. Usually guilt for not being with their kids, though for not working harder. Guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, we're like, yes, men are like very provider driven. So they're like, work hard, work hard, work hard. I'm the provider. Like, that's what gives me you know, like, that's me fulfilling my role. So yeah, you're writing for sure, on that side. But people who really want to have like larger than life experiences, and people who know that there's something more for them out there. Even if they don't know, even if they don't quite understand what I'm saying, or they don't quite like, get it. They're open enough to realize like, okay, there might be something to this. And let me just, maybe dip my toes into it and start proving it for myself, which is what I always recommend, like, I always say like, it's up to you whether you want to listen to me or not. I'm going to share with my experience and what it's done for my life and people that I love that has chosen to like look at things a little differently. And the universe will deliver signs.

Nick VinZant 19:38

That's pretty much all the questions that I have what's coming. You think there's anything you think that we missed or what's coming up next for you?

Danielle Sabrina 19:45

I'm launching a music label. Pretty cool. I'm also going to be producing a feature film with an award winning director. So I'm really excited about that as well.

Rodeo Clown Brinson James

As a Rodeo Clown, Brinson James travels the world entertaining crowds and protecting cowboys. We talk dodging 2,500lb bulls, growing up on the road and the best rodeos. Then we countdown the Top 5 Western Movies.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100046780853468 (Brinson James Facebook)

https://www.instagram.com/brinsonjames (Brinson James Instagram)

Interview with Rodeo Clown and Entertainer Brinson James

Nick VinZant 0:11

Hey everybody welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant coming up in this episode, rodeo clowns and western movies,

Brinson James 0:22

and I stood on top of my clown barrel while the bullfighters brought the ball over to my clown doll as fast as they could. And I jumped over the bull while he ran past me. So only thing I'm thinking is jump as high as you can and run as fast as you can. And actually the bookable industry is so big. They're a bull sold at the there's just a huge bucking bull sale in Las Vegas every year, and a bull sold there. He was a two year old bull. He's never had a cowboy on his back. But he sold for $1.2 million.

Nick VinZant 1:03

I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, like download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it really helps us out. So our first guest travels all over North America, entertaining crowds and protecting cowboys. And he has some fascinating stories about what it's like to face off against a 2500 pound bowl, how you can keep crowds entertained, and where you can find the best rodeos in the world. This is rodeo clown and entertainer Brinson, James, Was this something that you always wanted to do? Or was this something that just happened?

Brinson James 1:44

No, it was definitely something I've always wanted to do my my dad was also a rodeo clown growing up so I don't know if it was something that I always wanted to do or it was something I had to do. It was kind of in my blood then we I was born to do it.

Nick VinZant 1:58

What do you like the most about it?

Brinson James 2:01

To travel and meeting all new people and making new friends but my biggest thing is I love to go out and make new friends and have fun in different places. And with this job, you only only get to work in a two hours every Friday and Saturday usually or sometimes we have no Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday events sometimes like that, but you only get to work two hours a day. So throughout the rest of the day we got to do something fun so that's my excuse to get out and you know it's almost like a vacation but you getting paid as well.

Nick VinZant 2:29

Can this be a full time living?

Brinson James 2:30

It is so actually this is my full time job since COVID I had to do a couple little small jobs here around the house but they're actually I'm quitting those because it's coming back to rodeo season in blue, red and Tom because almost all year people ask you know does rodeo or our brains have a season and it actually is nonstop all year long? winter time we just go indoors Are you pretty much guaranteed to get hurt in some way?

Nick VinZant 2:58

Maybe not rushed to the hospital go to the doctor kind of hurt. But are you going to get hurt pretty much every rodeo

Brinson James 3:05

me my job there so the road the the job of the rodeo clown 20 years ago, 30 years ago was a real big job because they had to be funny, tell jokes, do comedy acts throughout the whole rodeo. And then when it came down time for the bull riding, they put on the pads and they were serious and they protected the Cowboys once they fell off the bull. And that was the job of the rodeo clown throughout the whole rodeo for a long time. But now since probably know the later 90s, early 2000s it's really split to do different jobs. You have your crazy Daredevil that are just looking for that high energy bullfighters that will are absolutely nuts they put on the pads and now they're cowboy bodyguards they were literally jumped on a bull's head to save another cowboy or did you have your rodeo entertainers which can be funny can talk on a microphone can no handle a crowd can keep up keep a crowd you know no busy no when something goes on and stuff like that. So it's really split to two jobs because some people can be funny and some people aren't they're devils so that so I've really split and get to the funny side just because really they get paid a lot more they do it which is which is crazy someone who risked their life by putting on pads and protecting another human being gets paid way less than the guy that's out there just picking this up and making fun

Nick VinZant 4:35

now did you start out kind of doing the the more kind of rodeo bullfight getting the way the bull stuff and then say like no,

Brinson James 4:42

My dad did. My dad was a rodeo clown My dad was the rodeo clown that did both back in the day before I was born. He was the comedy clown did all types of jokes acts but then when it came down to bullfighting he put on the pads and protect the Cowboys but then once I was born He really started to move away from that aspect of protecting the cowboys and just really became more of a comedy clown and pushed me in that direction as well. Because again, you can't make a really a super good great living on protecting cowboys you're guaranteed just like you're gonna say there's guaranteed to get hurt every single rodeo almost when your clown you're way out there in the arena you're either up on the fence or in the crowd having fun is that to two totally different jobs now that I can step around the ball every now and then I've done it just to say I've done it but I like to say out there with all the rest of the people have fun.

Nick VinZant 5:39

So like when you go to a rodeo what's kind of like your staple of like what is the role what do you what are you doing as an entertainer when

Brinson James 5:46

my kind of style is a little bit different than everybody else's. I really like to keep our high energy I love to go out in the crowd and have fun with the crowd and get everybody on the edge of their seat because these bull riders and bullfighters that I've been out there and watching and part of the event they've told me before Hey man when you get the crowd to screaming and are cheering is at the top of their lungs, I feels like I can do anything the bull riders tell me that it feels like they can ride you know any bore any animal that is possible. So that's where I really kind of am trying to fit in is I'm just trying to get that crowd up to the higher energy where we can see some awesome bull rides or some awesome horse riding wherever we or event we're having the rodeo and so I'd come out there and just have a more of a high energy dance. I do a lot of dancing. I big big with dance and I love music. So that's pretty much my thing as we go out there. Have fun, get them clap and get up dancing and make sure everybody is going to danger have a good time when they come to the show.

Nick VinZant 6:49

Okay, but tell the truth. Tell the truth. The guys, the rodeo guys who are out there scaring away the bull. Do they look at you like Look at that guy just jumping around. Right is Is there any Is there any on animosity there? Is there any kind of like write

Brinson James 7:09

me and the bullfighters are usually we are the best of buds but there is a little spot where they don't like so bullfighters in the New Age bullfighters now that are taking it seriously because they're an action sport and they're protecting lives. They don't like to be called the rodeo clown. So so just your town folks and people that are just coming that aren't your normal people that see rodeo all the time. They go over there. It's a rodeo call video call. And they these guys are they're pretty much action sports. You know, they're they're crazy to jump in front of these wild animals. So they don't really fit see themselves as being a rodeo clown. So they kind of Yeah, and I'll make fun. Yeah, he's the clown. All right. So yeah, there's a little there's a little bit of back and forth there. But ya know, you're usually just a virgin and mostly helping each other out. Actually, last weekend I was in Tennessee at a rodeo and I stood on top of my clown barrel, while the bullfighters brought the ball over to my clown barrel as fast as they could. And I jumped over the bull while he ran past me. So there's kind of a tag team of all of us working together. But ya know, it's almost like a big team out there.

Nick VinZant 8:26

What's that? Like when you got a bowl which I'm gonna just gonna throw out a number I'm correct me 2000 pounds.

Brinson James 8:32

2500 is usually running at 2500 is usually those the nice big ones that they wanted those rodeos? The smallest that you'll ever see it at a rodeo or Bull Run is maybe 1800? And yeah, no, so only thing I'm thinking is jump as high as you can and run as fast as you can. It's no Yeah, no, it's your only instinct kicks in and the only because I've been around it my whole life. And I kind of have seen the professionals do it. I've seen everybody cut that the ball growing up. And I kind of know the gist of how to get around the the animals. So I kind of trust myself and I trust the bullfighters and my friends that are in the arena also to get my back just in case something goes wrong.

Nick VinZant 9:14

What would you say to somebody who says like, Look, this is abusing the animals? This is taking advantage of them. This isn't something that should be happening. What for your, from your perspective as somebody who is there? What would be your response to that?

Brinson James 9:33

Yes. So a lot of times at the rodeos people come up and enter asking those things or confronting up with with information. And a lot of the information is false just because they were fed wrong information. Lots of people think that we tie something around their testosterone producing anatomy. And that is the farthest from the truth. We could we couldn't first off Jim The men that are listening in if yours were tied, would you want to run jump in book? No. In the horse riding a lot of the horses that we buck and rodeo are female. These horses are horses and bulls that are in the rodeo world are worth a lot a lot of money there and they're bred to be buggers. They're bred to be just like the racehorse business out his. His dad was a racehorse, his mom was a racehorse so his whole racehorse DNA is bred to run fast. These bulls are the exact same way his dad was a bucking bull. His granddad was a bucking bull. And his great great granddad was a bucking bull and his mom, but also, so it's all bloodlines, they're all worth a lot of money. So if you hurt one of these animals, where they don't want to buck, that's actually money coming out of you know, the owners pocket because he's taken that bull note to different rodeos or bull runs across the country and making money. Whenever he books and stuff like that, they get an out fee, and if they bump the guy off, sometimes they get even more money. So it's all about how much money these bulls can make for their owners. And it's a big, big business right now a lot of retired bull riders that are no just getting out of game a little bit are still saying in the whole rodeo and bull riding world by owning bucking bulls and growing the bucking bull industry. And actually, the bucking bull industry is so big. There a bull sold at the there's this huge bucking bull sale in Las Vegas every year. The last one that they had I was in 2019 I do believe and a bull sold there, he was a two year old bull. He's never had a cowboy on his back. But he sold for $1.2 million. He's never you never had a cowboy on his back. And that and so when they don't only they wait till three years old until they bubbles with cameras on their back. They're all still a little too young before then. So it's all about that now he since he looks so good, and he won the award and he's they sold him for that much money. Now he can produce a lot more bucking bulls and make so much more money off of him. So it's a huge, huge business. And when you go in with huge, huge money, there's no way we can just maybe accidentally hurt these animals where it can't happen like that. Because that's the biggest thing is we protect these animals, we feed them the best feed that they got, we take care of them with the trailers, and that are the top the top of trailers that are going, No, they're all up to par with everything they have to be. There's always veterinarians there at the event checking out the animals before and after is a big big thing because of course, a lot of people think that we injure these animals, but when some people says Oh, you're you're hurting him by poking them with a stick to get them to go through the gates. Gee, he just got kicked by another ball back there. There's no there's no way I could do any type of slinging of a bat hit this ball that would compare to this other bull hooking them with another horn. So I mean, there's them just traveling it or standing in it pinned together is way more of a no they get battled around way more than anything we could ever do.

Nick VinZant 13:33

I honestly when you said how much that bowl sold for I was thinking like, Alright, it's gonna be like 15 Yeah, so can be like 20, which I would have thought that's

Brinson James 13:40

the normal bulls at the lower end just if you go down the road and check out your local rodeo. Though those bulls average if you're just selling them to other rodeo places around 10 to 20 10,000 9015. The good ones Of course, you want those that jump the kicks been and that are hard to ride. And the harder the red, the more money they cost. So yeah, so but there's some of them that are up there in the PBR. They're on TV right now. They're making a good bit of money traveling around with four or five bowls. And they're traveling all around the country making money with these animals. So it's awesome to see. And it's a big big industry that is just keeps keeps growing.

Nick VinZant 14:24

Do you think like Did you ever see yourself? Not doing this? Right? Is this like is this the kind of it's just like a phase job? Right? Like you're gonna do this for 510 years ago.

Brinson James 14:36

I don't think so. Just because it's so much in my blood now have been grown up with it. I've literally just eat sleep breathe rodeo because we were on the road. traveling from rodeo to rodeo growing up. We didn't really have a home we just traveled to rodeo to rodeo so it's something that I think about all the time. And it's something that and I love being in front of people and entertaining too. That's my biggest thing is I love making people laugh. I used to get in trouble in school being the class clown but take that teachers I'll get paid at it now.

Nick VinZant 15:07

When you know you Britain, you mentioned like a mascot and I'm kind of thinking give me some perspective in this right like I've been to sporting events. And you know there's a mascot there he's over there doing so that right? But when you do a rodeo are people like proportionately paying more attention to you than somebody like myself would be paying attention to the mascot at like a pro sports game? I do believe so. Right? Are you more in? Are you more involved in the overall

Brinson James 15:33

I am I just because I'm thinner stage for two hours, I'm right in front of you. There's nothing else to look at, except for the eight seconds while a bull riding is going on with our action in our eyes, turn to the button, shoot me watch the action. Then after that we have about two minutes of downtime. And that's why they're getting paid to come to the event. I feel the lows of the performance whenever we're going down and a Broadway style or something like that. I set out there right in the middle of the arena and take control of and take time. You know, either with dancing with jokes with an act, I trick rope with the last news, I cracked lips and do tricks. And so I just and that's my thing is to distract people from actually what's going on. While we can get some stuff done, and then keep the flow of the show going.

Nick VinZant 16:25

Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Let's do it. Okay, so obviously, all the rodeos you go to are great. They're all fantastic. Which is, which is the one that you're like, man. Whoo, I got I got to have it tonight. This is this is the one

Brinson James 16:46

I got to one. So yes, just like you said, I love every rodeo. I love every event I go to I don't think I have a worst one. But there is one that if you love rodeo or you love action sports, you just need to go to Quebec, Canada, there's a little bitty small town that is called St. teat, Quebec. It's a I think, probably three hours north of the border. And it's a small town that has a population of 1200 people. But when a festival is called a festival, Western de St. htet. And it's all French, because Quebec is all French. And it's 10 days long. And 800,000 people come through this small town of 1200 people for a festival. And it's a 10 day rodeo every night. Well. There's no hotels in the south. So that many people flow through this town and say in their campers intense in their horse trailers. And they've completely sell out every yard, every backyard, every side yard every parking lot in a 10 mile radius of this town. And literally, they have an 8000 seat stadium right in the middle of the town. And they only have a rodeo there once a year. It's every September. And it's amazing. There's no energy like show, there's no show in the whole world that can match the energy of this show. Just because everybody in that culture are very outgoing. They want to do more. They're larger than life. They're drinking. That's another thing they love to drink out there. Yeah. So And literally, so usually the the more the lower time times of the event, you know, the the boring types of times of the show is when we take the tractor out there and we drag the arena real fast. Well, not here. Literally the guy says on the microphone in French who knows exactly what he's saying. But he says something like, All right, everybody stand up. Let's go, let's have some fun. And 8000 people stand up and start stomping their feet. And it's a 10 built building, and the whole building starts to rattle. And I just go out there and I dance for two minutes while that attractor drags and they play fireball. And it's high energetic. People are screaming dancing, literally right before the show, I go out there before we have any type of rodeo events. I go out there just before we start the event, and I walk out there and I asked him to clap their hands. By no microphone, I don't have a microphone, I don't speak French. So I just walk in the middle and I just kind of give you a hand signal of Please clap your hands and 8000 people's clap their hands immediately. And then I'll stop just by putting the hand up and then I'll start stomping my feet in the middle arena and then eight And people just stomp their feet there is so responsive. So I've worked quite a bit all over the world, Australia, Canada, Canada, New Mexico, Mexico, of the I mean, it's been quite a bit all over the place and there's not one venue or event that I can even come close to this one in Canada.

Nick VinZant 20:23

That's crazy. That's cool. Like I want.

Brinson James 20:26

That sounds like a great, amazing, it's absolutely please check it out on YouTube. It's a festival Western to st it. They have some crazy, crazy new events that they added to rodeo. And they actually have so in Western Canada is the Calgary Stampede was the largest outdoor show on earth. Literally. It's huge, huge, huge rodeo 30,000 people are sitting in the sands looking at the rodeo actually. And it is it's one of the best rodeos in the world. But still, the energy doesn't compare to Eastern Canada at the St. T. French show. It's absolutely crazy. Just check it out on the videos. It's amazing.

Nick VinZant 21:05

Best rodeo song.

Brinson James 21:08

Best rodeo song. So there's a couple different ones that if so, rodeo song. I for me, I kind of feel like I've been everywhere man. I've been everywhere man cuz rodeos are everywhere. And yeah, I mean, when I think about it, I'm I'm traveling every single week and seeing someplace to do and I'm on the rodeo trail. And that's kind of something for me is on the rodeo trail and you're on the road. I mean, on the road again, of course that's another good one. But but so now it's kind of this kind of new, which I changed up and we're trying to get away from the country that a lot of these shows now they're trying to PVR the professional bull riders, they rarely ever play country music now. It's like a rock concert with some bulls involved. It's really crazy. So we do a lot of you know, hardcore rock and roll a lot of a lot of rap. But there's not there's one song that we play almost at every rodeo. And it brings everybody together that pretty much I think it brings the whole event together. And it's journey don't stop believing. Oh, yeah, that's the classic, that it brings everybody together and we're all you know what I mean? It you're just you're all together as one and yeah, you see right now you know,

Nick VinZant 22:38

you can't you can't help living in

Brinson James 22:43

every, almost every show. And and that's the one of our highlights of the event. We do a sing along and get the whole crowd on it. And when there's 10,000 people singing, is there's no there's no show like it.

Nick VinZant 22:56

scariest bull that you've ever seen.

Brinson James 22:59

So I've had a quite a few instances with some rules and some scariness in the years. So the first thing that jumps in my mind, every bill is scary. I mean, every bullet can get you down and hurt you really bad. But when I was 18 years old, we were in Boston, Massachusetts, or rodeo, and my dad and I were rodeo clown team or growing up and we're there working the show together. And this bill Oh, ran out to the middle of the cowboy fell off immediately, and then kind of made a lap around the arena will when he kind of came over by us. I've jumped up the fence. And my dad did the same, but he didn't get up high enough. And he hooked his legs out from underneath him. And he went down on the ground and the ball kind of, you know, hooked him on the ground a little bit. And when the ball went to leave, it wasn't like he was just super mean. But he put his head in the right spot. And he actually put his horn through my dad's pocket of his rodeo clown pants. So the horn, just stabbed right through the pocket. And my dad's rodeo clown baggies, which are the bigger no big size. Yeah, yes. We're hooked to his head and my dad was hooked to this Bull's head for 40 seconds. And I was I was there I was 18. And what do you do this this, there's nothing you can really can do. He was hooked to his head, his pants finally came off, his shoes popped off. And after 40 seconds, he crawled over to the fence and his left shoulder was dislocated. And his right foot was broken or his ankle and his foot was kind of looking over there to the neighbors. So I mean the ball then ran out and they had to actually unwrapped the pants off of the bull's head. It was wrapped around the horn so tight and I mean if that was just The first note, bro, that stands out in my mind, you know what I mean? wreck out your dad,

Nick VinZant 25:06

when you get it obviously like you can't get inside the animal's head but like the bull is, is the bull trying to hurt people? Or is the bull just like look trying to get away from me and I happen to be a 2500 pound animal and my little nudge is gonna send you across the road

Brinson James 25:22

just like a people, they some people are, who have good attitudes, some people have a bad attitude. Some people have good days, some people have bad days, these rules are exactly the same. A lot of them, you can get back there in the pins with them and stretch them on the back or when they come by the fence. You can rub on arm and stuff like that. They're they're not mean, they know it's their job to run, jump and buck. And so when they get into the book and shoot and they get demand on their back, they know it's time to do their job. And so they jump in but there is sometimes a couple that will they've had a bad day. You know what I mean? And and so they'll definitely be there to come in to try to get you but usually we're working with some that are you know, they're fun that they know it's their job to jump the kick as soon as the guy comes off. Oh, we're okay. And it's time to leave.

Nick VinZant 26:15

Well, it's interesting to have such a personality, right? Yeah. Best named bull. Oh, good one for horse.

Brinson James 26:22

Horse I guess. Best name bull I've ever heard. He was from I believe he was from Wyoming and it was out there at that bowl booking calm contest that I told you about that half a million dollar bull. He didn't win but his name was close hearted. hearted.

Nick VinZant 26:47

It's like an equal mix of fantastic and terrible

Brinson James 26:52

Maybe like a 13 year old boy at heart. That's why that was my favorite name. But um, I think that's the best personal that pops in my mind.

Nick VinZant 27:02

It's definitely better than like the jif or something you know, I mean, like it sticks in your mind. Oh

Brinson James 27:08

yeah. That's a good that's a great one. I'm gonna like the best build that is still bucking that and is in the PBR professional bull riders. His name is airtight and that bull can really get some airtime he jumps super high and when he kicks his feet come almost directly above his head so it's a it's a really well named bull and it definitely know what's going to happen if you draw that bone to get on his back. Yeah,

Nick VinZant 27:37

right that's it guys. You're in for a rough time not like snuck

Brinson James 27:44

This is sweet don't want to go home and tell your girlfriend Hey sorry sweetie. I fell off a Buttercup.

Nick VinZant 27:51

Right right right would you get last place Buttercup What made you want to be something like you know, I'm more important to a cowboy.The belt buckle or the hat question

Brinson James 28:07

I think the belt buckle because the belt buckle is the trophy the belt buckle says I'm better than you and that and that's then that's what it is is not your Tractor Supply belt buckle that you go by on it that's got you know the horse going through the open trail but the actual belt buckles that they've won is they're they're priceless cities cowboys. And yeah you don't want to mess with the Cowboys had either but these buckles are that's why they do it is they want their name engraved in gold on a gold Douglass's that their world champion and that's that's the angle to all these cowboys. But again, though, wear cowboy hat, you don't want to jack with a gun guys probably have especially when we're out eating or dancing or hanging out afterwards. You know, that's fightin words. If you start jacking with a cowboy hat, those are expensive some cowboy hats are those three four or 500 600 bucks they're worth a lot of money and, and cowboys take it seriously.

Nick VinZant 29:12

When you're out there. Like what is what is what is your fear what scares you?

Brinson James 29:19

Um, okay, so there's a couple, the one of my biggest fears is for me not to be able to do my job properly. And so to not be able to know get the crowds attention or fill, you know, a certain spot that needs to be filled. You know, if something were to happen with a microphone or have something to happen with no props and stuff like that, of course, on my end, that's where, you know, I'm always double checking and thinking about and stuff like that. But, of course, another thing too is you know, you want to definitely in that night on a good note, so nobody getting hurt is of course the best outcome. you're fearful a little bit for your friends. But we know that these are all professionals, people that come to these games now and, and are playing, not playing a part of it. They're professionals and they know how to get out of it and get out of certain situations. So we do feel pretty comfortable and a lot of the crazy situations, but I think the biggest one is just you want to see everybody get out there, okay.

Nick VinZant 30:21

Anything that you think we missed, or what's coming up next for you.

Brinson James 30:24

Um, so there's a bunch coming up now. I mean, it's really getting to rodeo season. I mean, of course, the summertime is a little more jam packed full of events. So I'm June I'm actually every single weekend, July, me and my girlfriend we happen a little bitty Prius and we drive from Florida all the way to Gallup, New Mexico for the first weekend of July, and we do a Gallup New Mexico then on to Salt Lake City, Utah, and then back down to Texas and then Louisiana after that. And so I'm looking forward to doing a lot more here in 2021. And end of the year on a good note because it's been a pretty low for the past year, and I'm ready to turn it turn it around and make it a turn these frowns upside down it's rodeo season.

Professional Eater Katina Eats Kilos

From giant stacks of pancakes to buckets of seafood, Professional Eater Katina Eats Kilos travels the country taking on legendary eating challenges. We talk tasty restaurants, America’s hardest eating challenges and what happens to your body after 10lbs of burgers. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Best Buffet Foods

www.YouTube.com/katinaeatskilos (Katina’s YouTube)

www.Facebook.com/katinaeatskilos (Katina’s Facebook)

www.Instagram.com/katinaeatskilos (Katina’s Instagram)

www.TikTok.com/katinaeatskilosofficial (Katina’s TikTok)

www.katinaeatskilos.com (Katina’s Website)

Interview with Professional Eater Katina Eats Kilos

Nick VinZant 0:11

Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode, the biggest eating challenges and the best food,

Katina Eats Kilos 0:21

I want to go and like try a restaurant challenge or competitive eating. So I bought a cheap like $90 camera to get to my first ever restaurant challenge, did it no problem wanted dessert afterward. And the rest is history I just was hooked, you generally find that people who do competitive eating are relatively fit. And that's because there's this theory that's about the bigger you get, the more like, the more fat that's around your organs, the more that's pushing down on your abdomen, and stopping your stomach from being able to expand as much as you want.

Nick VinZant 0:53

I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it, it really helps us out. So our first guest has traveled the country taking on some of the most well known and biggest eating challenges out there. And she has this fascinating insight not only into where you can get a lot of food, but where you can go to get some really good food, and also what happens to your body after you eat 10 double cheeseburgers or a giant plate of seafood. This is professional eater. catina eats kilos. How did you get started in this? Was this a goal that you set out for? Or was this something that just happened?

Katina Eats Kilos 1:42

It was kind of a goal that I set out for in a way I got my start after doing a bodybuilding show in 2019, I did a women's physique competition at a little bodybuilding show called The Empire classic. And as I was dieting for the show, I was very very hungry all the time, obviously. And so I was watching people on YouTube do like big cheat days and competitive eating. And then I was of course a big fan of Man vs food growing up. So I kind of had that in the back of my mind as well. And the whole time kind of leading into the show. I was like I could do that I could do competitive or professional eating. I could do a restaurant challenge. No problem. So after the show I placed really well I got fifth, which wasn't bad because I competed as a natural. And this was an untested show. I'll leave that where you will on how you want to infer that. But I was really tiny on stage I was 104 pounds and I was like I'm going to put on muscle and I'm also very competitive. I want to go and like try a restaurant challenge or competitive eating. So I bought a cheap like $90 camera to my first ever restaurant challenge, did it no problem wanted dessert afterward. And the rest is history. I just was hooked kept taking a camera along and beating bigger and bigger local challenges here in Spokane.

Nick VinZant 2:53

Now did you know always like okay, I can eat a lot? Or was this something that like you were? Oh, man.

Katina Eats Kilos 3:00

Yes, so I've always known I could eat a lot. As a kid I had a really huge appetite. Like taco night, I was always keeping up with my dad, my stepbrother and everything. So I mean, I always kind of knew that. And then I think like the defining moment was as I was dieting for I dieted for a lot of years, kind of just for fun, just to kind of look good, feel good. But while I was deployed, we kind of had like a dining system like a cafeteria, so it's kind of all you can eat in a way. And I would load up so much vegetable and stuff on my plate just to stay full, that like it would flex my paper plate in the cafeteria. And so like the workers started calling me spinach, and we're like in shock. So I just have this like thing, just full of food. And so I actually had a buddy that was like, you know, it'd be kind of cool if you started a YouTube channel about being fit, but being able to eat a stupid amount of food. And at the time, I was like, No, that's a ridiculous idea, then, you know, Flash forward two years, and I ended up doing it.

Nick VinZant 3:56

Why are you good at it? Is it just is there something physiologically like? Is your stomach bigger? Are you just like, I'm just gonna keep eating like, Why? Why are you good at it.

Katina Eats Kilos 4:09

There's some, you know, genetics involved there that some people are just genetically able to hold more food in their stomach. And then some of it also is dieting. The physiological and psychological effects of dieting for a long time can be a severe food focus, and then trouble with hormone regulation. So to where it to the point where you could eat until you're physically miserable, but like sight, psychologically, you're still going to want to eat food. And that kind of like that hunger, that drive can make it to where like even doing my first restaurant challenges where I wasn't trained, practiced at all. But it was like, man, no big deal. I mean, I'm really, really full, but I'll keep eating. But as that kind of goes away, and as you put on weight and you get back to a healthy weight range and your hormones come back to normal and everything like that, then it comes down to doing a lot of practice. And so I think just being that that discipline from my body, Building side and competing on that side kind of carried over to practicing and staying physically ready for the restaurant challenges.

Nick VinZant 5:06

You're obviously a very fit person, like, how do you? How do you balance those two things out between looking fit, but eating like 10,000 calories a day?

Katina Eats Kilos 5:19

Absolutely, yeah, it takes a lot of math. And so I've actually always been a pretty big nutrition and fitness nerd. So it kind of does help. And then my degree is in kinesiology. So basically, so on camera, I'm eating these crazy meals, right, but I don't eat like that every day. So basically, how I look at it and how I looked at my bodybuilding diet as well was I instead of looking at my calories on a daily basis, I looked at them on a weekly average. So I figured out that if I wanted to slowly gain weight, which was my goal with the professional eating that I needed to eat roughly 21,000 calories per week. So if I film, say, two videos in a week, maybe one restaurant challenge is 6000 calories. So there's that one day and then maybe later on in the week, I do like a smaller for funsies challenge that's only like 4000 calories, I know that I still have 11,000 calories to play with throughout the rest of the week. So sometimes, you know, the day after doing a big restaurant challenge, you're pretty much full and I might completely fast the day after a challenge some still satisfied and full. Or maybe I'll only have like a small salad or something like that. So basically, it just comes down to your nutrition and staying disciplined. When I did my came back from my recent Florida tour, and that was two months on the road, where I was doing restaurant challenges back to back, I had zero time to exercise and I didn't have time to keep my calories under that 21,000 per week. So I got pretty big. So the only reason we're talking now and I look relatively fit is I've had about two months of dieting back down again and getting myself back into kind of fighting shape. So it's just a little bit of knowledge, a little bit of discipline,

Nick VinZant 6:56

your natural weight would be about what and how is that different from other people who do what you do like I did they weighed generally the same? Are they much bigger? like three 400 pound people?

Katina Eats Kilos 7:10

No, actually, you'll find that in the professional and competitive eating circuit that most of the top competitors are going to be at a lower weight range are very, very fit. So if you look at those who are doing the Nathan's hot dog eating contest, there's really nobody that's that overweight that's up on stage performing. Well, if you look at Joey chestnut, he's a pretty built guy. He's the guy who's done like 75 hotdogs in 10 minutes. You look at Matt Stoney who was one in the past. If you remember, Kobayashi from years ago, if you ever watched that on ESPN, the little Japanese guy, he would pull up his shirt and you know, gas, you generally find that people who do competitive eating are relatively fit. And that's because there's this theory that's about the the bigger you get, the more like the more fat that's around your organs, the more that's pushing down on your abdomen, and stopping your stomach from being able to expand as much as you want. And surprisingly, the act of eating is pretty physical and you need to be in really good shape. So the the fuller, you get the the more pressure that also puts on your lungs so you can get to the point of fullness where it's actually your you can only really take deep shots or excuse me very shallow breaths. So it's kind of like a in your heart is going like 120 beats per minute. If you don't have that cardiovascular health, that would be super, super dangerous. I can I can imagine. I mean, there's really not a lot of study that goes into that. But for the most part, everyone who is a would consider themselves a professional or competitive in any way is going to be in really decent shape.

Nick VinZant 8:39

Are you a competitive eater or a professional eater like what's the so cific nomenclature I should be using here

Katina Eats Kilos 8:46

I consider myself a professional eater simply because I haven't actually ever done a food eating competition. So I consider a competition where I'm side by side going head to head with somebody doing something like Nathan's hot dog eating contest or a taco eating contest or something I've never actually done one. Every time I've signed up for one the event has been like canceled or something has happened. And it's really just not my forte. Anyway, I'm more of like an endurance runner, if you would put it that way. I can eat a lot over a long period of time. And I'd rather do that. As opposed to soaking a hot dog bun and water and stuffing it my face that just doesn't really appeal to me. I kind of like to enjoy the food at the same time. I'm a foodie at heart, but I also am competitive. So professional eater is kind of a term that I use mostly all attributed to my boyfriend's been using it for a while my some of your viewers might have heard of him Randy Santel. He's a pretty big household name. He actually just did his 1,000th restaurant challenge when just a few days ago. He kind of helped coined that term and basically it just means that you earn your living from eating food and touring and doing this as a as a job and there's no side hustle to it. That's all it just became the primary focus. So my job, basically I consider is to entertain people through the act of eating food.

Nick VinZant 10:06

You yourself like, what is it like 250,000 subscribers on YouTube? Yeah, what's over that? Are you surprised that there's that many people who are interested in it

Katina Eats Kilos 10:20

not that are interested in the topic itself, because I think everyone can relate to eating. I mean, that's a that's a discipline that we're all pretty focused on. And we require, so I think everyone can relate to it pretty well. But I was definitely surprised that that people specifically wanted to follow me, my channel grew way faster than expected. I was really, really lucky when it came to my YouTube growth and my reach in that way. So I was able to go from YouTube kind of being a side hustle to being my profession, much quicker than most people would a lot of people it takes years and years. And for me, I was able to do that within five or six months. So I was definitely blown away by the level of support that I got on YouTube and the helpfulness just of the competitive and professional eating community. Because we are a pretty small niche. As far as content creators go. I mean, we all have probably heard each other's names. And but as far as viewers go, there's a lot of different types of eating that people like to watch. I know that sounds really weird. So you have people that like to watch the man vs. Food style restaurant challenges, you have people that like to watch people build challenges at home, you have those that like to just watch people sit quietly and talk to a camera about food that's called a mukbang, which is like an eating show. I think I pronounced it. I've never know, some people were like, it's a mug bang, I don't know. But um, it's like a phenomenon where you just sit and talk quietly, there's people that are into what's called ASMR, where you don't talk at all. You just like they like to hear the chewing noises. Which is a little far fetched and different for me, not my cup of tea. But I mean, there's a wide gamut of what people want to see. So yeah, yeah, there's definitely a lot of viewership in it and a very broad, kind of like diversity of the type of people who want to watch as well.

Nick VinZant 12:05

When you talk about people who are watching it, are they generally watching it? Because they just want to, you know, see the places that you go see the different challenges? Maybe just, you know, they relate to you? Or does it sometimes verge on like, okay, maybe we're getting into, like, fetish kind of things, right, did it?

Katina Eats Kilos 12:25

I would assume that if maybe like ASMR, maybe would kind of fall into that category you're talking about not necessarily like a fetish. I mean, to me, that kind of has like connotations on the back end. Yeah. But I think that for the most part, you kind of have this range of people that are into it for watching the food, maybe they're on some sort of like specific diet themselves, and they can't eat it. So I know that there's like a lot of viewers that are, you know, maybe diabetic, and they can't have a doughnut and they love to just watch you eat a doughnut, or maybe they're gluten intolerant or something, they just want to see you eat that kind of food. And then you have the other end of people that do they want to see the travel, the unique restaurants, etc. And then those that just want to see the the competition of it all. And then there's those that have a combination of all of them. So like me, as a viewer, before I got started, I liked the competitive nature of man versus food and being like, wow, that guy just ate eight pounds of cheeseburger That's crazy. Like, that's awesome to see that that's physically possible. And then there was the other side of me that was also watching because I can't eat the food. So I'm just going to kind of live vicariously through so and so eating the food. So I think it might just be like a combination. But it's kind of hard to speak for whatever other people are into, you know, I'm not entirely sure.

Nick VinZant 13:43

How does your body adjust to it right? Are you all? Are you basically either completely full or starving? Or does your body kind of adjust pretty quickly throughout the week?

Katina Eats Kilos 13:53

It depends on the sort of schedule I'm on. So like, when I was touring in Florida, there was zero time to get hungry, I was so full that it was actually kind of holding me back because it was like, I'd have a challenge. And maybe I'd only have 24 hours to recover before the next challenge. And being kind of a smaller sized human, I'm not able to kind of burn those calories, burn through that fuel as quickly as others maybe could. So whereas someone like my boyfriend who's six foot five and a big guy, he can ride his bike for a couple hours and at least digest a fair amount of food. me it would take you know I'm, you know a third of his body weight, it would take me three times as long as at least to burn those calories. So generally, if you're on tour, it's mostly feeling uncomfortable all the time and very, very full. But when I'm at home and I have like a more relaxed schedule, I maybe only filmed two videos a week at the most. And so I'm able to make that a pretty good balance and I'll kind of strategically do maybe one super high calorie day like today. I'm actually filming throughout the day, so I'll probably be between 10 and 15,000 calories today. So I know that later on in the week when I am going to film again. It'll probably have to be a really small challenge. And then I'm also probably gonna end up fasting tomorrow, I don't imagine I'll be hungry tomorrow. And maybe the day after that, maybe I'll only have like five or 600 calories. And then by the time the next day rolls around, I'll definitely be good and hungry and ready to film again. So it's all just balance.

Nick VinZant 15:16

What's the next day like, after a big challenge,

Katina Eats Kilos 15:21

it depends on what the kind of food is there sometimes where the day following a challenge, I'll feel fantastic because I'll all that energy will be there, I'll have a lot of carbohydrates, and I'll perform great in the gym. But that's generally if you have something that's more middle of the road, like maybe a pasta challenge or like an easier pizza challenge. But if you have something that's like, relatively heavy, or very, very high in fat, or very, very high in sugar, it can definitely make you feel very sluggish and just kind of, excuse me sleepy and kind of tired throughout the day. So it really just depends on what I'm what the challenge is made of. A good example was, I did a really big barbecue food challenge. And as delicious and amazing as that was two racks of ribs has like the fat content that I should be eating in like a month. So I was definitely very sluggish The next day, and I feel like that one was probably one of my longer recoveries probably took me about 30 hours to recover from that challenge. Just feeling dizzy, just kind of sleepy and all you really want to the the energy that normally I would be able to go and lift something at the gym and have a good workout. I was like, oh, maybe I'll go for a walk slowly. And just kind of chill. So it all depends. Really.

Nick VinZant 16:33

Are you ready for some listener slash harder questions? Absolutely. Yeah, open book, easiest challenge that you've ever done.

Katina Eats Kilos 16:42

Probably my very, very first one. My very first restaurant challenge was the fat burger, triple XL King Burger Challenge. And basically, you have a 20 minute time limit to finish a, I believe it's three half pound patties with like all the toppings of just like a cheeseburger and so you have to eat it and it's maybe comes out to like a pound and a half like a two pound challenge. You just have to finish that in 20 minutes. So that was the first challenge I ever did in fat burger is a smaller chain, I think they have they have some here in the Washington State. There's a couple in like Vegas, maybe Arizona, California. It's not a huge chain, but they're they're around. So that one was probably one of the easier ones. hardest one that that changes every time. I always have like a different opinion of what what was hard. But probably one of the ones that I went the hardest on was my boyfriend and I did a team cheese steak challenge. And it was four feet of Philly cheese steak that we had to finish. And it was I can't remember if it was it was somewhere between 12 and 14 pounds total of food. But the bread was just so thick. And it was like that really crusty kind of bread, you know, almost like a super bread. So that came down to the wire we ended up winning but to win, I was dipping the bread and he also had to finish a shake at the same time we tried to finish a shake. And so I was dipping the bread and shake. And then it got so tight at the very end that we were both dipping our bread, which is something that I just brought up. I hate doing dipping the bread and water and it was my first time ever doing that in front of people and I was just cramming as much as I could into our face just because the combination of the bread being filling and the just the jaw fatigued from having to chew for an hour. And on steak and cheese that got cold and all that stuff. It was the hardest thing ever, but we came away with the win in that one hour time limit. So probably that one.

Nick VinZant 18:39

What's Why does the water help? What's the I don't know?

Katina Eats Kilos 18:43

Exactly just makes it squishier. And you don't have to really chew it. So you know how like so you get something kind of like, I don't know something like can't really think of it's like a brownie. If you eat a brownie. Yeah, the easiest. Swallow doesn't maybe chase it with some milk or coffee. It's kind of like that idea just kind of helps you swallow the food and get it down quicker instead of just chewing on it for so long. Because that outer crust when your jaw is tired is just brutal, absolutely brutal, hardest food to eat.

Nick VinZant 19:10

Easiest food to eat like oh, this is a pancake challenge is easy. No, this is a potato challenge. I'm in trouble.

Katina Eats Kilos 19:19

I think one of the easier foods to eat quickly is probably something like an omelet challenge or eggs because you kind of can just shovel it in your face pretty easily. So like eggs or like hashbrowns or something, something really soft, where you can literally just kind of shovel it in and there's really no technique involved. And then on the flip side, ones that can be challenging are like sandwich challenger stuff, things that have a lot of chewing involved. Steak can be difficult if it's overcooked or any sort of meat challenge because you're spending so much time cutting it so much time chewing it that obviously doesn't taste as good if it's overcooked. So I mean it can be anywhere from a super chewy crust pizza to an overcooked steak. Those. those tend to be the

Nick VinZant 20:01

Do you ever get the meat sweats?

Katina Eats Kilos 20:04

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. While you're eating food, it can get to a point where you're just so hot and so overwhelmed with like heat that you just feel absolutely miserable. And I remember probably one of the worst ones for that like miserable hot feeling was I did a I think it was five or six pound chili cheese hot dog challenge. And it was in San Jose, California, at a place called Parker's chili dogs. And it was on Man vs food. And it was in the middle of summer. And so this little shop had like one little AC unit. And it was probably like 90 degrees in the shop. And then you're eating this boiling hot five pound platter of chili and cheese and hot dog and meat. And I remember just being drenched in sweat just like trying to eat this and when you're hot. You know how even in the summer like oh, you kind of want is maybe like couple pieces of fruit and you're good. Like we're a small salad and you're good. It's it's like that so you're combating just that I do not want food. My body temperatures way up here. Yeah, that's not fun. I really don't

Nick VinZant 21:06

have any of these challenges ever kind of ruined like a food for you. Like I can never eat that again.

Katina Eats Kilos 21:12

Yeah, unfortunately, over in the Seattle area and not to throw anyone under the bus. I got food poisoning from a place called Sam's Tavern while doing a burger challenge. And they had a blue cheeseburger there. And I could kind of taste it. The blue cheese was a little off as I was doing it. But I mean, I'm in the middle of the challenge. I can't really just be like, well not gonna finish it. So I'll just do that anyway, and was kind of hoping that maybe I just wasn't hungry. And that's why it tasted weird. And yeah, I was very, very sick after that very sick. And to this day, now I can almost smell blue cheese again. And I used to love blue cheese. That's why I ordered it is one of the burgers But yeah, I can smell it again. And now I'm kind of like Okay, that sounds okay. For but for a while it was to the point where even just saying the word bleu cheese was like repulsive to me.

Nick VinZant 21:56

Couldn't even put that put can't even be next to each other in a sentence.

Katina Eats Kilos 22:00

And I believe that's one of the only times I've ever had food poisoning from from a restaurant challenge. So I mean, that's it's not exactly common, and it was very kind of just off the wall. So not to throw them under the bus. I'm sure normally they do a great job and I'd never heard of it happening to anyone else before it was just an off day.

Nick VinZant 22:17

What was the tastiest one like is the food usually good? Are they like okay here comes to eat or? No.

Katina Eats Kilos 22:24

No, most of the time it's very delicious. But the tastiest one I did was a very recent in Florida. It was a place called the ugly grouper on Anna Maria Island. And they did this giant seafood spread. That was incredible. And I love seafood but they made this big two pound shrimp taco with fresh, blackened shrimp in it and everything and it had this beautiful like crispy cheese skirt baked into the taco shell. It was beautiful. They did a fried green tomato topped with like a crab Romulan type thing that was divine. They did a Polynesian boat filled with blackened grouper. That was next level cheese logs. And then they had a lovely cocktail that they served with it. I think normal shrimp cocktail with it. And then dessert was a turtle cheesecake. And it was just every there was so much variety, there was nothing to get sick of it was just like all these different little things to taste and try and all of them were done. So amazingly, it was one of the most fun challenges I've ever done just for that reason.

Nick VinZant 23:29

You you've reached a level like do you have to do you tell these restaurants you're coming you show up.

Katina Eats Kilos 23:35

So it kind of depends. The recent thing with me meeting my boyfriend is he hosts them he hosts like events. And so he's got such a big following that, that people will come out to watch him like the man vs food TV show. So he'll get, you know, 5060 people there. So before that point, I would just kind of show up to a restaurant, you know, double check, they had the challenge till and I would just show up film myself doing the challenge and have the video and skedaddle. But with him, it's it's like a tour. And a lot of the times restaurants will reach out to him actually and say, Hey, we want to bring you in, we want to kick off a challenge or we would just love to have you eat this crazy amount of food for us. And you know, just get our name out there and stuff like that. So it's kind of turned into more of I go along that event line with him now and I don't think I could ever look back from that because it's so energizing to have those people live in the crowd. You're not just doing it for that. While the people on the other side of the screen will forgive me if I lose when you have people that are just roaring for you to finish and just so pulling for you. It is so motivating, like that Philly cheesesteak challenge. I don't think I would have had that. There's a point where your mental fortitude only goes so far. But when you have the crowd of people there was probably 80 to 100 people at that challenge just screaming for you to finish. You're just like okay, I'm going for it. It's like a big Superbowl event or something.

Nick VinZant 24:59

So Do you ever get in like, can you get injured? You injured your stomach?

Katina Eats Kilos 25:05

I mean, I'm sure it's a it's a possibility. And I believe it's happened before. And obviously there's always the risk of choking or something. But no, for the most part, I at least play it safe. I'm not doing the competitive eating type stuff where I'm eating like swallowing ridiculously large chunks of food very quickly.

Nick VinZant 25:25

challenge you felt like you were over your head. Like, oh, this is?

Katina Eats Kilos 25:31

Yeah, so in this video actually, it's funny you say that just posted and it was unfortunate. It was the finale tour. It was my final tour when we final excuse me restaurant challenge while we were in Florida, and we had a culvers franchisee that wanted to host a food challenge for Randy and I to do at their at their local culvers restaurant. And so talking to them, we were originally going to do 10 of their butter burgers with a side of cheese curds and then a concrete mixer. Which if you haven't heard of culvers it's basically like a really hard frozen custard. And then you have your fried cheese curds. And then a butter burger is just like a fancy kind of version of a burger. Pretty good, though. But we got there. And the the owner kind of was like, well, we think that the single butter burgers are gonna be too easy. What do you think about doing doubles? And my boyfriend agreed to it? He goes, Okay, we'll do it. I think we can do it. And so since he agreed to it, I was kind of like, well, I'll agree to it. And so I agreed to it. And the moment I saw him struggling through the challenge, I was like, I know this is gonna be so hard for me because that adding that extra Patty to 10 different burgers was an extra 30 ounces, which is an extra two pounds. Oh, wow.

Nick VinZant 26:49

Yeah, let's just say that, like,

Katina Eats Kilos 26:51

two pounds. And so and then they come out and you know, imagine your standard fast food tray. When you bring that out to you. Those were full of the burgers. Plus, it was a family size thing a cheese curds, which I believe came out to just try are just over a pound plus the concrete mixer. So in total, my guess was that was probably between seven and eight pounds of food total with all that bread. And then you know, meat gets cold over time as you're trying to eat it. And yeah, I had just done a challenge that I had lost that was just 10 burgers without the sides. And so that like the moment it came out, I was like, well, this is gonna be rough. This is gonna be real rough. But I gave it my all I just didn't quite make it for the finale challenge. But that was one where the moment it came out. I was like, Yeah, no,

Nick VinZant 27:38

no, this ain't happening. That's not happening. What's kind of your what's like your holy grail one, what's the one that you're looking at, and like, I haven't done this yet.

Katina Eats Kilos 27:48

But some Ooh, that's something that I would like to do. Who you know, there's a lot over. In like the UK, I would love to do there's like some really cool looking barbecue challenges over there. So there's a lot kind of overseas, that really appealed to me, it's kind of hard to pick and choose which one I would like to do the most because I kind of tie the location to why I want to be there more so than the challenge itself. I'm trying to think of if there's any sort of like holy grail challenge I can think of I've kind of already did the one challenge that was always on my bucket list to go and try even before I started professional eating. And that was the 72 ounce, big Texan steak challenge in Amarillo, Texas, I was able to go and do that challenge. And that was kind of my original Holy Grail. That's like something that anybody should just go in order just for the sight of it and the experience of it, they make a show out of it. It's only $72 if you blues, take it home and enjoy. It's a really good steak but it's they put you up on this awesome stage. And this challenge has been going on since I want to say the 60s they put you up on the stage there's like actual like official timers going like you'd see it like a sports stadium. You can watch them cooking the steak and like everyone's cheering for you and there's live music, and it's just an event. It's an event it's so much fun and I think that even if you know that you're not going to finish it just go up there and have fun. Sit up on the stage and just go eat some steak and enjoy yourself.

Nick VinZant 29:21

It does sound kind of cool. 70 pounds of steak that's a lot of steak for $72 that's not is actually kind of cheap.

Katina Eats Kilos 29:29

Yeah because you get you get a potato on the side you get three prongs and the sides out

Nick VinZant 29:35

Can you just order it and then just give like walk off the stage and split it with your family I feel like that would actually be a budgetary decision

Katina Eats Kilos 29:41

oh no use you do sign like a contract. I think there's somewhere in the paperwork that says that you can't share it but you can if you can't finish it box up and take it home but there's no sharing allowed at any points when you order that you do sign like there's some small fine print. Don't quote me on it, but I'm pretty sure I read that you couldn't share you have to take it home.

Nick VinZant 30:00

That's pretty much all the questions that I have anything, anything that we missed or what's kind of what's coming up next for you.

Katina Eats Kilos 30:06

Next for me is moving to Milwaukee with my boyfriend. So Randy Santel and I are moving to Milwaukee and he's going to be starting his registered dieticians internship. So we'll be over there and I'm excited to try new food and kind of start highlighting that on my channel and just have fun kind of almost being like a little bit of a food tourist in that area. I'm also going to be going to Vegas in July for my 30th birthday, so I'm excited to go. I've never been to Vegas. So hit up some of the big buffets. I plan on visiting Hell's Kitchen, you know, maybe doing a couple restaurant challenges there. So it's gonna be a lot of fun. There's a lot upcoming.

Penguin Researcher and Antarctic Scientist Dr. Michelle LaRue

Dr. Michelle LaRue works in some of the harshest environments on the planet, using satellite imagery and up-close encounters to study everything from penguins and seals to mountain lions. We talk polar biology, climate change, conservation and penguin jokes. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Animal Movies.

http://drmichellelarue.com (Dr. LaRue’s Website)

https://twitter.com/drmichellelarue (Dr. LaRue Twitter)

https://www.alumni.canterbury.ac.nz/penguins (Penguin Research Fund)

Interview with Dr. Michelle LaRue

Nick VinZant 0:11

Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant coming up in this episode, first we're going to Antarctica, then we're going to the movies,

Dr. Michelle LaRue 0:21

I think it's probably because they kind of waddle the way that we do sometimes and like they can like kind of what so I think sometimes maybe a little bit like subconsciously, we kind of see ourselves in the in them because depending on the species in particular, they can be they can have some really strong personalities. So the things that I've seen are the ice that forms around those two islands in particular is really shrinking. And the reason that's important for emperor penguins is because the chicks need to get old enough to fledge their their downy feathers and get their swimming feathers. So if the ice melts too fast, they're likely to not be able to survive. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If

Nick VinZant 1:00

you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it, it really helps us out. So our first guest works in some of the harshest environments on earth. And she studies some really fascinating animals, penguins, seals, mountain lions, this is antartic scientist, Dr. Michelle LaRue. This probably isn't the question I should start with. But I found myself wondering this. Obviously, penguins can't fly. But could they ever fly?

Dr. Michelle LaRue 1:31

I don't think so. No, there's no there's no evidence to suggest that they were ever able to fly. evolutionarily, penguins diverged probably from some other flying birds or flying birds that could dive about 40 million years ago.

Nick VinZant 1:47

Why do you think they seem to captivate us so much?

Dr. Michelle LaRue 1:50

I think it's probably because they kind of waddle the way that we do sometimes. And like they can like kind of what. So I think sometimes maybe a little bit like subconsciously, we kind of see ourselves in the in them because depending on the species in particular, they can be they can have some really strong personalities, too. So like, I think when we see them on TV and stuff, and they interact with each other, and they're a little bit cheeky from time to time, and you know, have really strong opinions apparently about things. I think we kind of see ourselves a little bit like, weirdly. So I think that's one thing. I think the other thing is, possibly at least were like with with the US frame of reference. We don't have any penguins anywhere near us, right. And in the wild in the United States, you have to go a really long way. So I think there's a little bit of novelty, again, with at least with the US frame of reference.

Nick VinZant 2:41

And that makes sense, honestly, because as you were talking about it, like I could see myself as a penguin much more than I could see myself as like a rhino.

Dr. Michelle LaRue 2:50

Great, great. Yeah, cuz they walk onto the penguins walk on two feet, and they kind of you know, they have relationships and like you said, when when you see them on, you know, frozen planet or or planet earth or whatever, some of the the TV shows that you see them on they, they they have, they have personalities, they really do. We had an elephant researcher on one time, they

Nick VinZant 3:10

said rhinos are stubborn, but kind of dome. They're kind of a dumb animal are penguins. Are they smart? Compared to other animals? I think like what are they like? Like, if a penguin was a person, what would like what would they be like?

Dr. Michelle LaRue 3:28

Okay, that is a that's a wonderful question. And in my experience, it completely depends on the species. So, using Adelie penguins, as my first example, if an Adelie Penguin, were a person, they would be very opinionated, and very, like, what's the word very type A, I feel like they would be a very type A down to business, like, I need to do the thing that I need to do get out of my way. And if you're in my way, I'm gonna yell at you. I'm unafraid of things, or at least unafraid of people in my experience, and yeah, just very, like very opinionated, and like, move I need, I've got stuff to do here. On the other hand, emperor penguins, which are like almost the complete opposite, they're super chill, and relax, and they kind of like walk really slowly, and they don't seem to be in a hurry ever to do anything. So like their exact opposites, which I think is really funny. So those are just two, you know, kind of two examples. So I think it really depends on you know, where they live and probably what like people, right, like, you know, there are certain certain people have different personalities and certain populations of folks may have, you know, stereotypically certain trends of personality types and, you know, ways of going about life. And I think penguins are a lot like that to

Nick VinZant 4:42

how do the, you know the things that I've always watched on TV and grain of salt because you're watching it on TV, but they seem to always like, and they come back to the same place every winter every summer, like how do they navigate frozen ice basically?

Dr. Michelle LaRue 4:56

Yeah, I think that's a really good question. And I actually don't Know exactly the answer. So I'm going to use the my best ability to think about why that could be, because I think a lot of people are still trying to figure that out, like, how do they, you know, navigate to some of these places. So I think there's clearly some sort of, of drive for them to be able to to be anywhere on the ocean and kind of get back to where they're going. So if it's navigating based on some sort of sense of smell, or, or if they're just using their sight, because if you think about it, you're a penguin, you're swimming in the ocean, you can't see that far, right. So they have to have some sort of capacity. So I don't know exactly how that works, to be honest with you. But what I can say is, I think they're once they at least get up onto the ice, and they've got like this expanse of ice, they must use the sun or the stars or something like that to kind of narrow back to where they're supposed to be. And then when they get relatively close, I think they do use landscape features to identify where they need to be. And the reason I say that is because just a couple of years ago when I was at a place called cape Crozier, which is in the southern part of the Rossi and it's home to one of the largest Adelie penguin colonies in the world. I was there doing fieldwork and we were flying nearby the emperor penguin colony, which is also at Cape Crozier. And we were flying over in and basically taking pictures of all of the emperor penguins and we happen to see just opportunistically, this little group of Adelie penguins that were hanging out on the ice. Now, they're not supposed to do that they're supposed to go to the the, like, their actual colony on land was only I think, three kilometers away. So they got really, really close. But they just like this group of maybe 500 or so kinda was just like, we'll just we'll just hang out here. And it was really weird. And I thought that this doesn't seem This doesn't seem normal. So I think what happened possibly, in that particular case, is the so that you have the cape, and the Ross ice shelf is continually moving, right? Because it's basically a gigantic glacier. And so I think what happened is from whenever the last time those particular birds were at Cape Crozier, I think the Ross ice shelf moved out enough and kind of blocked were like their, their sight of where the cape should be. And so they said, Okay, I think it's supposed to be around here in this particular spot, but we can't see it. And so we might as well just stay here. So I think that's potentially what happens. So that's why I say that I think they, they have some sort of ability to get into the general vicinity, and then they do use landmarks and the sun probably to figure out where to go. And then when they get to the particular spot, things have changed a bunch, they kind of make it up as they go.

Nick VinZant 7:38

How do you generally study them? Like what's what's your process for studying animals in that area?

Dr. Michelle LaRue 7:44

There's a couple different ways largely, I use the the images. So that's literally just a matter of looking at the images and seeing what we can see. It's very basic and straightforward. And of course, the the statistics and the modeling and things that come out of it afterwards, is is a bit more complex. But the gist of it is really like being able to look at an image, which is and saying, you know, what do we see here? And what does this tell us about the landscape, and when you can do that over? You know, just like I think we looked across 260,000 square kilometers of basically the size of New Zealand's worth of ice to see where all the Weddell seals were living. And that alone was like a major advancement in being able to look at all of them at the exact same time. So rather than kind of piecing things together, which was what we had to do previously, because it's really difficult to get to all of these spots at the same time. In fact, I would argue, it's probably impossible to do that. By being able to have this remote view and count them all and look at them all. That you know, really set forward our ability to understand what the what the system is like. So I'm trying now to kind of like put those pieces together for lots of different species.

Nick VinZant 8:53

Obviously, climate change is a huge concern. What what changes have you seen just in like, the last couple of years, decade, whatever frame of time you'd like to compare?

Dr. Michelle LaRue 9:04

Yeah, um, most of my work has been in the rostie, which is likely to be what's called like a rifugio, or a refuge for a lot of species because it's supposed to stay fairly cold and ice is supposed to be fairly stable into the future, however, I should say, and that's with comparison to places like the Antarctic Peninsula, which is losing ice like crazy. So relatively speaking, the Ross Sea should be fairly stable, but the things that I've seen, and again, I can't necessarily say that these changes are because of climate change, but they're certainly changes that I've noticed. Places like Franklin Island or Beaufort Island, both of which are home to both Adelie penguins and emperor penguins. You know, the ice forms around the island in the winter time and it kind of will hang on as long as it can into the summer. And the reason that's important for emperor penguins is because the chicks need to get old enough to flage their, their downy feathers and get their swimming feathers. So if the ice melts too fast, they're likely to not be able to survive. So the things that I've seen are the ice that forms around those two islands in particular is really shrinking, like, to the point where if we fly over and say October, where the ice should still be almost at its maximum extent, the fast ice extent, it's really, really close to the colonies now. So I've seen that I would say, both in person, so like flying over myself, and also on the satellite imagery. So those are just kind of two examples that I think is probably due to climate climate change, and it's a bit scary,

Nick VinZant 10:42

scary for their future or scary for our future, or both.

Dr. Michelle LaRue 10:46

Um, I would say both definitely scary for their future. Because if you know, the way these long lived, animals work is, you know, things kind of get tough. And, you know, say you're saying you lose a cohort of chicks or something, the breeding population won't change a bunch, right? Because the adults can still survive, and they can swim, and they can kind of probably adapt. But at some point, if you continually and this is an extreme example, I'm not saying this is happening yet. But in the extreme example, if we start losing chicks over and over and over again, the population will eventually start to decrease. And there's lots of modeling studies by colleagues of mine that are suggesting that that's exactly what's going to happen. So definitely not a good thing for them. And I think it's awful for us too, because I don't want to live in a world without penguins. They're so cool.

Nick VinZant 11:37

Yeah, it wouldn't be the same. I mean, what would we have? Like, what would kids movies be without penguins?

Dr. Michelle LaRue 11:42

Exactly?

Nick VinZant 11:43

Yeah, I know, right? I know, it would be terrible. Speaking of that, kind of, are you ready? For some harder slash listener submitted? Questions?

Dr. Michelle LaRue 11:52

Yes, I hope Oh, my gosh, I am so nervous.

Nick VinZant 11:57

If you were a penguin, what kind of penguin would you want to be,

Dr. Michelle LaRue 12:02

um, I would definitely want to be an emperor penguin for all kinds of reasons. But largely, I feel like completely, like if we're at completely anthropomorphizing penguins, now. They are just very laid back. And I feel like that would be a really nice way. But then, but but then in reality, though, like, once you get to be an adult emperor penguin, your survival rates are really high. So the likelihood of you know you continuing to live from year to year is, is pretty darn good. They, they're just really relaxed and chill. And they're also really well adapted for the place where they live. So they live in the cold, they're really tough. You know, they have to survive, and like huddled together and work together to, to survive in the middle of winter time. So they're just this, I think they're kind of you know, to be cheesy about it, they're kind of inspiring, because they really do have to, you know, like, work together and survive, and they're really tough. And all the while, anytime you see them or or, you know, have an interaction with them. They're just like, really relaxed about things, and they walk real slowly, and they don't seem to be bothered about a whole lot. So I feel like that would be a really nice way to live.

Nick VinZant 13:13

What do they seem to dine penguins in general? What do they seem to think of us?

Dr. Michelle LaRue 13:18

That also depends on the species. So using emperor penguins as an example. So the other thing, this is actually a really good time to point out that all of the animals in antarctica are protected by all kinds of different international treaties and conservation acts and stuff. So I want to point out that all of the interactions that I talked about, are absolutely within the boundaries and the limits of those acts. So for example, if I don't have a permit to touch a penguin, which I never personally have, you cannot touch them, you cannot bother them in any way. As a matter of fact, if I am like walking along, and a penguin crosses, the, you know, crosses my path in front of me, and I continue walking and scare it, that's against the international treaties and conservation acts and stuff. So it's really, really serious. So I say all of that having been, you know, and all of these interactions that I'm talking about are definitely within the boundaries of those things. So what we do is, if you are, say, out in the middle of Airbus Bay, which is relatively close to McMurdo Station, which is the US base, you're out in the middle of Airbus Bay doing something else, which is definitely something that has happened to me and you see penguins kind of off in the distance. You kind of just keep going about whatever it is you're doing. And then all of a sudden, one day we looked up, and they were right there. And by this Conservation Act, you have to stop what you're doing and not scare them or bother them. And you have to sit still, until they go away. Like you can't say hi, you can't approach them. You can't even really, like we were just very, very quiet and we sat on the ice and just waited for them to walk away.

Nick VinZant 14:50

Are they curious about us? Yes. Are they just kind of like Ah, so new rock. This one seems to be moving. Okay.

Dr. Michelle LaRue 14:59

Yeah. So Right. Yep. So that's right. So emperor penguins are very curious. Like, the example I just gave, we were doing something else entirely by one of the islands and we saw them off in the distance. We're like, Oh, that's pretty cool. And then yeah, maybe, I don't know, half an hour later or something, they were right there. And like I said, we had stopped what we were doing and kind of wait for them to move on, which, of course, was not terrible at all, we sat down and you know, very, very carefully got our camera gear out of our out of our bags and things like that, and just waited for them to go and do their thing. But they must have spent, I would say, at least a half an hour, maybe 45 minutes, just like kind of wandering around, and they never really get too close, but they're definitely very curious. And then once they kind of move away, moved away from us, then went and we're inspecting our snow machines and kind of like looking around, and then they kind of just sit there for a little bit longer, and then eventually they decide to go away. So emperor penguins are very curious about people. I feel like Adelie penguins, on the other hand, again, in my experience, are they just have this very, like hardwired thing about them? Where I, it seems to me like they don't necessarily like that, like if you're walking and you're, and you're doing your best not to, you know, bother them or anything. I feel like they still get very like, okay, but you're taller than you should be. And you're definitely not a penguin. And I'm not really sure what you are. So I'm going to like yell at you. So that that's happened, that's happened. I've seen that happen before. And also one time I was sitting down at the edge at the edge at the kind of at the at the boundary where the birds were kind of coming in and out and I was kind of far enough away. And I was sitting eating lunch, and I turned around and all I did I just went like this, I turned around and there was this penguin there. And it was kind of like it had no idea that it was that I was a human. Like I must have been sitting there long enough and still enough that it didn't even notice that we were sitting there so yeah, there. It definitely depends on their personality. I feel like

Nick VinZant 16:58

okay, if you were to describe like, imagine you're at penguin High School. Who which which type of penguin is the jock like the athlete. Which one is the cool kid stereotype? Who's the nerd and who's the socialite?

Dr. Michelle LaRue 17:13

Oh, wow. Okay, well, emperor penguins are definitely the jocks. Like they're like the cool laid back jocks. And the reason I say that is because they can dive the deepest. They can hold the breath, the longest deck, they are definitely marvels of evolution. They're definitely the jocks, the nerd who would be the nerd. I could be going out on a limb here. And I feel like maybe other penguin people would disagree with me, but I feel like maybe gentoos Gentoo penguins are the nerds. Largely just because they kind of they kind of just do their thing. And they're not like I really like Gentoo penguins. I think they're cool. But I suppose they're a little bit nerdy, but I can't really say why. I don't know exactly why it is. I think that they're nerds. But I think that they probably are. What were the other options. So Oh, the socialite that is, uh, I feel like penguins are really, I mean, they are very social, but I'm just trying to think of who the would be the most social of all of them. Um, I'm okay, this is also probably going out on a little bit on a limb here, and maybe not being very creative. But the little blue penguins that I have had experience with. And these are in settings where they're in a rescue center kind of a thing. So they they were in the wild, but they got hurt. And so we're in a rescue center. And so that's my basis for my experience. And they seem to be very, like acute and and very, like, happy to talk to you and and they have you know, this like they they and it's I'm sure because they're in a rescue center and they deal with people all the time. They seem to be very happy to socialize and to kind of like waddle around a little rooms and stuff when they're getting their checkups and they don't seem to be, you know, afraid of people at all. So that's what I would say. I think the Yeah, the social ones are probably the little blues. And also, they're the ones that I have seen in the wild a couple of times that like I saw one was it was alive. And I think it's, I think it's probably fine. But it came up on shore just on a beach here in New Zealand, kind of in a place where it wasn't supposed to be. And it could kind of see it. It was kind of like looking around like well, this is not where I'm supposed to be. But it didn't flee and like didn't run away. It kind of just sat there and was like looking around and people were kind of you know, giving it space and kind of marveling at it and it didn't really run away so I feel like that's as best you can get as far as like being social for a penguin

Nick VinZant 19:38

best Wadler.

Dr. Michelle LaRue 19:40

I think Gentoo penguins are the best swaddlers Yeah, they have a they have a really great like I have several pictures of the so they make these little like highways in the snow. The I mean let's penguins do this, but like they make these little highways where they come down into the ocean. And I've got this set of pictures where I was sitting kind of at the bottom and watching these gentoos like it marching in a line. And they just looked like little, I don't know, like a marching band kind of just like walking down and they had this fantastic, fantastic waddle and they were kind of all like off kilter and not really, in, you know, in step with each other, but it was really cool to watch.

Nick VinZant 20:15

What is your favorite penguin related movie? What penguin related movie makes you mad? Oh, not how penguins are at all.

Dr. Michelle LaRue 20:26

Oh, that's a really good one. Um, I have to say, I haven't seen the movie in a long time. But I really did like Madagascar. Like, I really, really enjoyed that movie. And I thought it was really funny. And I also think that as I recall the movie anyway, like their personnel, like they feel like they got the personality is correct, which was really fun. So that was good. I think the one I really like Happy Feet as well. But that one also makes me mad, not for them doing a bad job of depicting penguins. But it makes me mad because it's very true. Like, the whole point of the story is that, you know, their food is being taken away, and you know what's happening? And actually tells a really good message, I think. And so that one is like, people can, you know, listen and pay attention, it would be really great. But I think they also did a really good job of depicting the different species in that one as well.

Nick VinZant 21:17

what's what's what penguin movie kind of drives you nuts, though? like, Ah, that's not right.

Dr. Michelle LaRue 21:25

Um, the only thing I guess that slightly bothered me about March of the Penguins, is they? Now we know. So it's not their fault. So like, I definitely want to say like, it's, it's not March of the Penguins fault or anything. But we now know that that particular colony may not necessarily be representative of all colonies of emperor penguins. So for example, that big long march that they do I, I don't know that every single colony does that necessarily. And there's really no way to know. So we're kind of just using that particular spot as a, as an insight to, you know, all of their behavior. So I think that part like kind of just suggesting, and, and again, there's nothing else you can do about it, you kind of have to do this, but just suggesting that that one spot is the way everybody you know, all emperor penguins behave. Largely speaking, it's probably fine. But that may not exactly be right. So I guess that's probably, if I were to think of something that's probably the one that I'd be like, well, now we know more, maybe we should update the movie. I don't know.

Nick VinZant 22:25

Do they generally, though, like those kind of penguins, do they generally go on this big journey? Or is it just Hey, this is just what that colony did? And that's their thing?

Dr. Michelle LaRue 22:34

Well, I think it depends. So So it depends on how extensive the sea ice is, if the sea ice is not very extensive, they don't have to go very far at all. And I actually think in some cases, we have evidence suggesting that there's like, so they live on a on this platform called fast dice. So it's ice that's fastened to the Antarctic continent. And the reason that's important is it's different than the pack ice out in the middle of the ocean. So the fast dice will form and it hangs on a little bit longer sometimes then the pack ice does. And it forms cracks in the ice as well. And the reason that's important is because I think sometimes, like if there's a nice crack in the ice, and it's open long enough, they'll just go in the crack that that's nearby rather than going, you know, really, really far out into the ocean. I don't know that that's necessarily always the case. But we do have evidence because as you can see, like, there'll be like little cracks in the ice and you'll see these little guano stands kind of along and suggesting that there were at least hanging out long enough near the crack to leave leave there. guano.

Nick VinZant 23:28

What is your go to penguin joke? Oh, no,

Dr. Michelle LaRue 23:33

I don't have any penguin jokes. I don't have any. I know. I know. I don't I don't have any penguin jokes. And I have a terrible memory too. It's like,

Nick VinZant 23:42

How do you not have any penguin jokes

Dr. Michelle LaRue 23:43

No. I don't have any penguin jokes. I don't think I know and you know what's going to happen is like, as soon as we get off the podcast here, I will remember a penguin joke and be like, Ah, that's what I should have said. But yeah, off the top of my head. I don't have any penguin jokes. I'm so sorry.

Nick VinZant 23:57

What are you guys even doing out there? I know. I know. Most impressive penguin fact. You're at a cocktail party. You gotta you gotta Wow, this person with a penguin fact. They've got all your funding wrapped up?

Dr. Michelle LaRue 24:11

Oh, no.

Nick VinZant 24:13

You're in town entire all of your funding millions of dollars at stake, but they need one penguin fact. What's your go to

Dr. Michelle LaRue 24:22

so much pressure? And that a lot? It is? That's a lot of pressure. Um, my my penguin fact that I think is so impressive is that emperor penguins can dive well below 1500 feet below the surface and hold their breath for more than 30 minutes. Think about that. That would be like the equivalent of a fish of a fish jumping out of the water 1500 feet out of the water and holding its breath for. That's not exactly right. But that's for lack of a better example that

Nick VinZant 24:58

doesn't like it first. We like 1500 feet, then you think of it along like, wait a minute. That's more that's almost like half a mile. Oh,

Dr. Michelle LaRue 25:09

it's a long ways.

Nick VinZant 25:10

Yeah. How are they? But how do they handle the water? Or the water pressure? Not that much there, or they just don't like that.

Dr. Michelle LaRue 25:16

Yeah, so they I mean, they have their diving physiology is totally, totally fascinating. And I'm definitely not a physiologist. So I can't speak, speak as an expert on any any of that. But yeah, like they, they have the capacity because they've evolved to do this, right, like, so they are perfectly adapted to not only living in the cold, having tons and tons of feathers to you know, keep themselves warm. And they huddled together that by the way, they're the only penguins that do that, like so all other penguins are territorial, and they like to stay away from each other. Obviously, male emperor penguins need to rely on each other in the middle of winter time in order to survive. So that's a really cool thing about them, too. But then, yeah, they when they get hungry, and when they need to go and do what we call chick provisioning. So go out and forage. They don't routinely dive to 500 meters or 1500 feet, but they can and there's been multiple records of them doing that. And so yeah, they they, you know, get down at depth, and they have all kinds of, of, I guess, physiological adaptations that allow them to do that. So they I don't exactly know how it works. But basically, they can come all the way back up without any, you know, they don't get the bends or anything like that. They can come back up and they don't have any negative. Nothing negative happens to their cells the way it would you know, for like a person or something. They slow their heartbeats down to you know, just a few beats a minute to kind of conserve energy and to conserve the oxygen that goes out into their muscles. It's they're incredible. It's absolutely amazing.

Nick VinZant 26:49

I always look at a penguin specifically, like the emperor penguins. I mean, they kind of fat. Was that fat? Is that fluff? Like, why are they built like that? Or that's like, what's the purpose of them being built like a pair? Yeah. Right.

Dr. Michelle LaRue 27:03

Exactly. Yeah. So they you need to be you need to be fat in order to survive in the Antarctic winter, for sure. So it behooves you to like build up as much mass and energy as you can before you get back to the colony, because then they end up having to the males at least, will have to starve themselves for a couple of months while they're incubating the egg. So you end up looking like a pair so that you can survive on all of your resources for several months while the female is out foraging. And hopefully she comes back alive still with some food for the chick, and then the male goes out. So you end up Yeah, looking like a pair. And then furthermore, like I suppose they're, they're fairly streamlined. They're very, you know, hydrodynamic. And they just, it's really funny to watch them on land, or I should say on on the sea ice, and then watch them swim in the water because they are just like, beautiful, beautiful masters of swimming, but they look so silly, like comparatively speaking on the ice, because it kind of just like waddle around, they look really awkward, except for when they're tobogganing, I guess. So when they toboggan that's when they go on their bellies and kind of like kick their feet up behind them, which is a more effective, inefficient way of traveling. And it works really well if you're on like, really nice, flat sea ice. But sometimes the sea ice is not flat, and so then you have to, like have to climb up. And they look very awkward. But my point is when they're not in the water, but when they're in the water, they're just amazing,

Nick VinZant 28:27

best name, mountain, Lion, Cougar or Puma. But they're all the same thing, right? Are the same thing.

Dr. Michelle LaRue 28:34

They are, they are all the same thing.

Nick VinZant 28:36

How did that happen?

Dr. Michelle LaRue 28:38

Yeah, well, I can tell you how that happened. So um, mountain lion. So taking a complete left hand turn away from penguins, mountain lions, were once the most wide ranging one of the most wide ranging mammals in the world. So they were they ranged from the Atlantic to Pacific oceans on both North America and South America and all the way from like British Columbia down to southern Chile. So like they were a very wide ranging species. And so unnecessarily So, all of the different peoples who coexisted with them for however long, you know, 1000s of years, probably more than that had different names for them. So they have the same exact species has multiple different names. And I think the estimate that I heard was there are upwards of 36 different ways of referring to Puma concolor, which is mountain lion. Puma. Catamount,

Nick VinZant 29:30

that that's all the questions that I have. Is there anything else you think that we missed or like, anything like that? No, those

Dr. Michelle LaRue 29:36

were fantastic questions. And now I'm going to have to go back and find a penguin joke because that's a hair thing that I don't I know, I know. I've got like nerdy science jokes, but I don't have a penguin joke in particular, and that is a little bit embarrassing.

Decathlete Devon Williams

He’s one of the best athletes in the world and he’s hoping to prove it at the next Olympics. Decathlete Devon Williams talks track and field, training for ten events and Olympic preparation. Then, in celebration of our 150th episode, we countdown our Top 5 Life Lessons.

Interview with Decathlete Devon Williams

Nick VinZant 0:11

Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant coming up in this episode, the greatest athletes in the world, and the best advice in the world

Devon Williams 0:23

is the most grueling event like you see at the end of our race that everybody kind of just balls across the line is just laying laying out like a graveyard. And

Nick VinZant 0:32

I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it, it really helps us out. So our first guest can make a legitimate claim that he is one of the best athletes in the world. And right now he's getting ready to try and prove that at the Tokyo Olympics. This is decathlete Devin Williams. So I probably shouldn't start with this question. But I just kept thinking about this with 10 events. How many pairs of shoes do you have to bring to the track with you?

Devon Williams 1:09

I have about I think I have about six shoes. Because some some shoes crossover events.

Nick VinZant 1:15

Do you have to bring like a lot of stuff with you Like when you come to the track? Like oh man, that's a decathlete. Look at all that stuff he's got as compared to like the sprinter

Devon Williams 1:25

It's really easy to spy because we because we all of us have our own suitcases that just full of like our spikes, snacks to snack on throughout the day, water, Gatorade, all kinds of stuff. But it's really easy to spot when in the airport because we'll be the ones carrying like a big 20 foot bag of pole ball poles over our shoulder. I have a suitcase on the other hand and a carry on bag on our back like it's it's a sight to see.

Nick VinZant 1:52

How Now, did you when you started your career like did you I'm going to be a decathlete or did you just transition into it later?

Devon Williams 2:01

Well, I'll be ready to try it since I was about seven or eight years old. So back then I was when I was just getting started. I was kind of like a 100 200 400 runner. And then over time, like I just progressed into the hurdles. And then from that I progressed into the decathlon, which at the time that was the pentathlon, which is five events. Because at that point, I was kind of already I was already doing the Sprint's I was already hurling and I was already doing like long job. So my dad was just kind of like if you're already doing all these events, you might as well just try to attack on and do them all together.

Nick VinZant 2:36

Is that how kind of most athletes most decathletes get into it, like they transition at an early age or to do most decathletes like, Hey, I'm in the 100 meter. And I'm right at elite level. But I can't quite get to like Sue, I can't I can't do the 100 meter full time. But I could do decathlon. Is that how that works?

Devon Williams 2:56

I think it depends where you come from. So some of my teammates are from Estonia. And they grew up doing the decathlon. I don't believe they started off doing like one event, I think they just kind of start off training for the whole multi event. Whereas usually in America, most people don't find out about the decathlon until like they're older. So a lot of us we start out doing just singular events. And then either like you realize you're good at a lot of them, and then decide to do the whole thing. Or just kind of slip into it just having fun and say, Oh, I try that. Now. I don't think too many people like in America grow up doing the decathlon or pentathlon.

Nick VinZant 3:45

Okay, put all humbleness aside. Like, why are you good at,

Devon Williams 3:51

uh, I think just years of being in the sport. And just having a background in so many other events. At one point, when I would run symmetric on my dad's club, I will be doing the decathlon. So that's 10 events, plus the open events that I was already doing. So that's the 110 hurdles, I was doing the 400 hurdles and the long jump. So in a weekend, I might be doing 13 hold events. So it is kind of thought process behind that was just like getting more practice and doing like hurdle races and just competing more. So by the time I got to college, I was like, What do you mean, I can't like do hurdles and do this, in addition to the decathlon. Like when I got to college, I kind of became just a decathlete. So that was kind of like taking some of the load off. But to answer your question, I guess more directly. I don't really know why I'm what I'm good at. I mean, I grew up playing almost every sport, and my dad was kind of the coach of almost all of the sports I played. So I kind of grew up as the coach's son and kind of grew up with that pressure to kind of like do stuff even away from the playing field like at home, just like do extra workouts. So I kind of always grew up with the motivation to be great, and always grew up wanting to be an athlete. That was all I want to do growing up. So I think just kind of a mix of all that kind of just made me progressed over time and get better. So I guess maybe that plays a part.

Nick VinZant 5:22

What's like your typical training week look like? Are you just, I'm at the track from 8am until 8pm every day, or is it more recovery based, because you got to do so much stuff.

Devon Williams 5:36

Um, it's actually not as long as probably a lot of people would think are practicing it usually take about two, maybe a little over two hours, depending on the day. Our weight room sessions usually lasts about an hour, hour and a half. on that track sessions are usually like, two hours. But we usually try to do depending on the day, three, like three or four events a day. So we kind of just touch on a lot of the events throughout the week. You know, if we're doing long jump, we might just get a few approaches in No, we're not trying to like overdo any of it. We're kind of just continuously working on things. But then moving on to the next thing, just so we can kind of roll through everything. Hardest and longest days are usually Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And then Tuesday and Thursday are usually like the days that we lift and do like a throw so shotput or something. And then the weekend, all we do is lift up a quick live session. So we we work six days out of the week, and then on Sunday is usually just like our rest day. I guess it's typically is considered like a recovery day. But really every day is a recovery day. Like we have to do something recovery wise every day after practice. But Sunday's kind of just like a relaxed day.

Nick VinZant 6:50

Do you have to like balance out the way that your body works, right? Like let's say you're I'm just making stuff up, your shot puts not as great as you want it to be. But if you improve your shot, but then do you transition your body so that you're not as good at sprinting? Like Is that something that you guys have to kind of plan around like, you can't really train this event that much because it'll screw up the other events,

Devon Williams 7:15

not necessarily shotput. But we kind of take that approach with the 1500. That's our that's the 10th event in the longest and the longest race. So that event, we don't do a lot of long distance training, because every other thing in the decathlon is fast twitch. So we usually train the fast twitch, and then kind of just touch on the longer distance. So a lot of people when I say like we run the 1500, they think that to train for that you just run miles and miles. But that's not the case, we usually will do like two laps at our race pace. So whatever we want to come through the 15th. or whenever we run the 50 100, whatever we want to come through at the 800 mark, we practice that pace in practice. So then we get in the race, that pace is familiar to us, rather than just running miles and miles and miles, you might build up your stamina, but you're not really practicing like your race execution pace. If that makes sense.

Nick VinZant 8:19

It does. It kind of a little bit sounds like we train for fast twitch. And then we just mean we just hope when we get to the 1500

Devon Williams 8:27

we can get through it. If you train the slow twitch muscles too much, then your fast twitch will suffer. You just kind of have to think about it from Okay, most of these events that we do require you to be fast twitch, but for the 1500 is just all endurance. So we do practice endurance, but it's not like we just don't run miles and miles just to train for the 1500 is kind of just more of like a get used to the pace kind of perspective.

Nick VinZant 8:58

When you're in the event. Right? You're at the top tier event. Is it all out every single event? Or do you try to just like okay, this is gonna This is enough for me to do this place and this event. And that's all I need. And I'm going to save the rest for the next one

Devon Williams 9:13

It's pretty much all out when you're in competition. As decathletes, we all tried to pass our personal best. So that's pretty much our goal. Every competition is just doing better than you did last time. So it's not so much about that place that you come in each event is more about how well did you do? Because the decathlon was based on points. So you can come in first in four out of 10 events. But then if the other six events are terrible, you're not going to place high at the end of the decathlon. So it's really about just being consistent and trying to limit bad performances in each of it.

Nick VinZant 9:56

Yeah, no. Are you big for a decathlete. fleet small for a decathlete average for decathlete?

Devon Williams 10:06

Yeah. Because there's, there's so many events. So there's people that are on the bigger side. And they usually shine and like all that throwing events, some of them can run pretty fast. But then a lot of bigger guys suffer in the 1500. Or like the longer running stuff. But then you have, you know, smaller guys who were super quick, but they might not throw as far but they can run the 15 because they're like in a have a lot of endurance. So it's just kind of, I think it's all based on the athlete. And however the athlete performs at their best. So if they perform better when now they're all bulked up, that's how they perform. But if they perform better when they're leaner, that's where they're more comfortable, then that works for them. But it is kind of all up to the individual athlete.

Nick VinZant 10:55

Wikipedia says you're six three, is that right? Yeah, like really? six, three, are you like six, two and a half? And you lied to somebody that says, Well, if

Devon Williams 11:03

you go to the doctor, probably six to something. But when I have shoes on, I'm six, three.

Nick VinZant 11:08

That's that's the official American count. Right? Yeah. Obviously, like, getting ready for Tokyo 2020. What is that? How does that work? Like? Is there a qualifying process for the United States team? And then you go to Tokyo or what? You got to hit a point total? Or like, how does that work out?

Devon Williams 11:28

Yeah, so I'm freezing up for the United States, we all have to reach a point standard. And then on top of that, we have to qualify, we have to place within the top three places at the Olympic trials in June. So the United States is kind of not unique, but different from some other countries. Because other some other countries, you can, you know, just get the Olympic standard. And then you're just automatically on the team of that country to go to the Olympics. But for the United States, you can hit the point standard, but then you still have to go to the trials and qualify. And so at the top three,

Nick VinZant 12:07

so are you nervous me?

Devon Williams 12:12

yeah, I think everybody kind of has those nerves, just because it is like the major dream of a lot of us. Because it's our Super Bowl, we have a Super Bowl every year. For us, our Super Bowl comes every four years. We do have the World Championships every two years. But I mean, the dream is to be an Olympian. So it does add some pressure to it. But I think that's kind of where experience comes in. And just knowing that you knowing what you've done in the past and having faith in your coach and your training. I think that helps kind of settle the nerves a little bit. But the nerves are definitely a natural thing.

Nick VinZant 12:54

Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Let's do it. Hardest event for you. And then what overall decathletes would say is the hardest event 1500 hands down. No question. Like, that's an immediate.

Devon Williams 13:09

Yeah, that's, yeah, that's the 10th event. And it's the most grueling event like you see, at the end of our race that everybody kind of just balls across the line is just laying laying out like a graveyard. And yeah, Tanja, for sure.

Nick VinZant 13:26

Easiest event,

Devon Williams 13:27

for me the hurdles, because that's like my most natural event, I would say just kind of like a more over overarching easiest event. No disrespect to like any people that do this event. Just individually, but probably the shotput just because I would say that's like the least technical event out of everything that we do.

Nick VinZant 13:54

If you were to look at the events and say like, okay, obviously you're very good at all of these events. But which event Are you generally like farthest, or decathletes in general are usually the farthest from the best in the world. Like which event are decathletes? Usually the most, behind the Olympians who are there specifically for that event?

Devon Williams 14:14

I mean, probably, there's probably a lot of them. Just depending on how you compare people, because there's some people in certain events that can run with the best in the world. But then you look at like, the rest of the academies and then I might not be that strong of it. But I would probably say shotput

Nick VinZant 14:37

Yeah, that's kind of not really fair. Right? Like, those are some big dudes.

Devon Williams 14:40

Exactly. Um, and also the 1500. I think those guys I mean, all of them run under four minutes. But all of us are usually there's some good 1500 meter runners that kind of run like low for minutes, but most of us are kind of run it for 20 to 440 range. Which isn't really acceptable for your like open 1500 meter runner.

Nick VinZant 15:04

I don't know what the like the Greek word would be for 11. But if you could add an event to the decathlon, what would you add?

Devon Williams 15:12

That's a good question. I'll probably add the 200. I used to run the 200 when I was a kid. And I remember that at one point was my favorite event.

Nick VinZant 15:21

What event Do you forget is in the decathlon?

Devon Williams 15:26

I don't think I forget any other events at this point? Oh, yeah, I think I'm pretty much got it all down.

Nick VinZant 15:32

I was wondering like, Oh, yeah, I forgot we got to do that. Do that was kind of hard to forget. Right. Right. I guess when you do it professionally, you dendrite, you tend to remember these better to be stronger or faster.

Devon Williams 15:47

They go hand in hand so much. But if I had to choose, probably faster, because every event in the decathlon is based on speed. So there's some events that you can solely just rely on your speed to kind of just carry you in the event, whether it be the 100, the long jump hurdles, so I'll probably go with speed.

Nick VinZant 16:13

We interviewed a to Table Tennis Olympians before a couple of weeks ago. And they said that China is basically the country when it comes to table tennis, ping pong. They haven't been beaten in 21 years. Is there a country for decathlon? Like oh, man, here comes the guys from

Devon Williams 16:31

I will say the top countries historically, I've been the US. Germany, Canada has been strong. I think those are like the top ones. Usually.

Nick VinZant 16:43

What did you think about? Did you see DK Metcalf? Ron? Yeah. Do you think about that?

Devon Williams 16:49

I was surprised. I was shocked. Honestly, I didn't know he had been training for the the 100. I thought it was just like, the thing that he just jumped into the race. He's like, all fast, I'm just gonna jump to the race. He actually looked really good. Like, I didn't think he would get out that well out of the blocks. Because in the 100, that's pretty much the whole race right there is if you get out that sets up the rest of your race. But if you mess up your start, there's really no coming back from that. But he got out really good. And ran at a faster time than I thought he would run.

Nick VinZant 17:21

I think the most impressive thing that I personally saw about that is afterwards, when they showed him in the interview, and the other guy looks like a child next to him. Yeah.

Devon Williams 17:34

He's the starting line. Like they took a picture of him and then like everybody else that was on the line with him, and everybody just looks like high schoolers. If

Nick VinZant 17:43

I was a defensive back, I would retire. Dude, I'm not doing that.

Devon Williams 17:49

Then he got passed on to you in the game. So he lives even bigger. But also, like I said, effect that, you know, when he looks big in football games, too, but has that same effect that when you look at football players playing a game? I mean, they're all pretty much the same size. Yeah. But then you put a football player on the track with the track guys. That's when it looks really different. Oh, so we That was funny.

Nick VinZant 18:13

Okay, man. Here's the big one. Are decathletes the best athletes in the world?

Devon Williams 18:19

For sure. I mean, by definition, we run at a high level we jump at a high level we throw at a high level, we're the most versatile athletes. And by definition that would make us the the world's greatest athletes. I mean, no disrespect to like basketball players like LeBron, like great basketball players. But I don't think being a great basketball player makes you the greatest athlete. I think being able to do a lot of different things at a very high level. I think that makes you the world's greatest athlete. And by definition that will make the Catholics the world's greatest the world's greatest athletes.

Nick VinZant 19:00

I think one of your friends submitted this one. Are you actually a better athlete than your sister?

Devon Williams 19:07

I don't know what friend that was. But me and Kendall we've never like compared ourselves to each other. We don't have that sibling rivalry. And we never did. Like we just grew up always supporting each other. I always tell people like if I had a brother, I'm sure we'd have the sibling rivalry and I would definitely be better than my brother. But my sister my little sister at that, like there's there's no comparison between us. We don't like to compare ourselves to each other. We just like to kind of push each other and and just be the great athletes that we are individually.

Nick VinZant 19:40

Um anything else you think we missed or anything else you want to add or anything like that?

Devon Williams 19:45

I'm not think I'm good. I have my own brand. leevers me it is it represents kind of my mindset, and also the mindset of the decathletes to like I told you earlier, we kind of just, we all compete against ourselves and our own personal scores. And that's kind of what makes the decathlon a unique event compared to all the other events is that, yeah, we all want to win, but we're not out there to just beat each other. That's not what it's about. It's about doing the best that we can each of our individual events along our decathlon and then ending up with the highest score that we can at the end of so that's kind of one of the means behind my brand nieghbors. Me and whoever wants to support they go to shock MBM. COMM have a little bit everything on there. And yeah,

Marijuana Photographer Chris Romaine

Photographer Chris Romain is at the forefront of the growing cannabis industry. He travels the world taking pictures of things you can barely see. We talk cannabis and macro photography, the best weed and the future of marijuana. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Best Snacks.

Interview with Cannabis Photographer Cris Romaine of Kandid Kush

Nick VinZant 0:11

Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. And coming up in this episode, cannabis culture, and snacks.

Chris Romaine 0:21

I think it comes from people now being able to see something that they weren't able to see before. And what's really fascinating to me about that as a photographer is thatit's also a living organism. So it dies after, you know you're done. And these are oil glands. So like when you hear like sticky weed or something and you touch like cannabis, and sticky, that's actually the oil glands bursting in your hands. And that's the oil getting over your fingers, you're never gonna find like them. When you go to the grocery store. You're never going to find the aisle starts with chips, then it goes Pringles, then it goes to more chips. Pringles is always isolated on the sides of the chip aisle, is it not?

Nick VinZant 1:06

I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it, it really helps us out. So in this episode, we want to take a look inside. One of the United States is fastest growing industries. And this is really fascinating for me, particularly, because, look, I'm a guy who used to, to buy weed in a back alley and then smoke it out of an old pop can. So to see this sophistication,and how much how much marijuana and cannabis has changed, just in the last couple of years is amazing. Our first guest is a photographer who specializes in taking pictures of cannabis and marijuana. And these are amazing pictures. I had no idea that that's really what cannabis looked like. This is cannabis photographer Chris Romain of candid Cush. One quick note, we have to get really into photography at the beginning, just to explain how it's even possible to take pictures of something this small, but even if that's not your main area of interest, stick with it. Because I think Chris has some fascinating insight into building a business pursuing something that you're passionate about, and where the cannabis industry is going. Basically, what is marijuana photography?

Chris Romaine 2:38

First, I would call it cannabis and that is a part of trying to remove the stigma of the plant itself over you know, the past, you know, however many decades of the war on drugs, right? And so cannabis photography, specifically the photography style that I do is macro and extreme macro, and I use a technique called focus stacking. So that is the process of taking multiple images at different focal lengths to help reduce the depth of field that there is with macro photography. So are you familiar with photography at all like terminology, aperture, shutter speed, things like that depth of field,

Nick VinZant 3:23

I have heard all of those words before, but they mean nothing to me.

Chris Romaine 3:27

Okay, so shutter speed is pretty straightforward, like the rate your shutter opens and closes, the aperture is kind of like your pupil like it will dilate in a darker setting to allow more light in and go to a pinpoint to close off, like more light, right. And so when you are in the process of macro photography, your working distance is really close to the subject. And that creates a very shallow depth of field meaning that if we are focusing on the tip of a pen, the background and the surrounding areas will be rather blurred out and focused right or out of focus. And so to help eliminate that fall off, you would take different images at different focal lengths, and then combine them all later in post processing. So a lot of the images that you would see on my pages are of trichomes and the trichomes are the glands on the cannabis plant that has all the cannabinoids like THC CBD being like the primarily known ones, right? And these are oil glands so like when you hear like sticky weed or something and you touch like cannabis and sticky that's actually the oil glands bursting in your hands and that's the oil getting over your fingers as far as cannabis photography. When people ask me like oh, like I couldn't imagine there being a cannabis photographer like what why do you take pictures We'd or this and that, well, cannabis is just like any other commerce, right. And especially nowadays being in such a digital age and everybody just like looking online for their products. And you know, each state has different regulations about how you can see the product in the stores. And a lot of the times you're not able to smell, touch or even like see the product, you just see it in its package. So that's why the photography aspect of it in the cannabis industry is so important.

Nick VinZant 5:30

That is one of the things that kind of jumped out to me, right, I was looking at some different cannabis photographers looking at your work. And I was very surprised to see that there seemed to be this massive following, dedicated to cannabis photography. Where do you think that where does that come from?

Chris Romaine 5:49

I think it comes from people now being able to see something that they weren't able to see before, and not really having any idea that like, oh, wow, like that sea creature. That's cannabis, that's a plant, you know. And so if I back up a little bit, these trichomes average, around 75 to 150 microns in diameter. So the average human hair is about 100 microns thick. If you think about that, for a second, you can kind of see try comes when you're looking at the plant with a bare naked eye. And maybe it kind of looks like grains of salt, or sugar or something like that. And then when you see my images, like you're looking at it from anywhere from like a 1234, or 5x magnification. So it's really like I'm able to show people, things that they've never been able to see before. And what's really fascinating to me about that as a photographer is that it's also a living organism, so it dies after, you know you're done. Or like while you're shooting, it's dying. And that's like one of the challenges of working with the plant is that often times well, pretty much for all of the tricon photography, the plant has been that particular cut has been taken from the plant. So now it is no longer attached to the main plant. So it has to be held in water or some other type of vessel to keep it like alive while I'm shooting.

Nick VinZant 7:26

So what kind of camera are you using? Then? I'm imagining like you're taking a picture with a microscope? How do you even see it? Like, how do you take the picture? What are you using to take the picture? I have so many questions about

Chris Romaine 7:38

I got the answers. Um, so really, when it comes down to the photographic gear, and this is like a really common question to is always like, what camera are you using? What lens Are you using, and, you know, it does matter to a certain extent, you know, depending on like what your outcome is wanting to be. But as long as you have, you know, solid macro lens and a camera body, you'd be able to do macro photography, but the gear that I use is a Canon five DSR. And that's a 50 megapixel camera. And then I do use some specialized lenses, the one that I use for the trichome photography is called the 65. mp. And that camera lens has the ability to capture from a one magnification to a five times magnification. And the working distance on that meaning the amount of space in between the subject and the front of the lens is really, really small. When you're out of 5x it is, I don't know, like right off the top of my head, but maybe a centimeter or so away two centimeters or so just like really, really close, which creates challenges of its own, right when doing photography, like allowing for light to enter the lens. Because if the subject is covering the front of the lens, you know, then you create a barrier basically, for the light. And then also, with the art of focus stacking, I use an automated rail that I can input, the starting point, the end point, how many how often I wanted to take a picture, so like a step in between each frame. And oftentimes, at a five times magnification, I will be taking a picture anywhere between five and 10 microns at a time. So he will take a picture. And then usually wait a couple seconds because everything needs to be super stable. And then it'll advance forward about five or 10 microns, whatever I decided to put it in, and then take the picture and then wait and then do it again and do it And do it again until the entire focal length or focal plane is captured?

Nick VinZant 10:05

Damn.That's my whole response to all of that is like, right? Like, I didn't honestly think that that would be nearly as complicated as that, like, I got an iPhone, can I do this? Like, it doesn't seem like you can do that very easily. But when, like when you're taking these pictures, what is it for the consumer or for the client? Like what are you trying to capture in the photo.

Chris Romaine 10:33

Um, you know, that's really a case by case like situation depending on like what the client wants. For instance, like, when I do, if we're talking about just tracking photography, you're able to see a number of different things depending on if you know what you're looking for, right? Like, you can tell the maturity of the plant by looking at the different colors of the trichomes, you can tell the health of the plant, you can tell a lot of different things like that, like if you are a hash maker, you can see the size of the trichome heads the size of the stocks, and get a good idea if those trichome heads would be able to break off to create hash. And hash is an extraction process, right? Or it is an extract. So you would just like essentially remove all the plant matter and only have those bulbous trichome heads and then that would be hash. And then also, it just serves as you know, fine art. And like it's a really beautiful plant. And I love like playing with compositions and giving the viewer like an otherworldly or underworld experience when they're viewing my photography. When it comes to stores, and e commerce photography, like if you think about like eBay or Amazon and everything being on like a seamless white background, that is really crucial to the menus on for stores, and having like a well represented image of the product itself, like a nub shot, right? Like just like the picture of the bud, so you can see what you're going to buy.

Nick VinZant 12:22

So when you're taking a picture is the specific plant representative of the entire crop as a whole? Are you picking out like the one good example. And to put that maybe in a clear context, right? Like, I can find one really good apple and take a picture of that really good apple. But that doesn't mean the rest of the apples in that particular tree all look like that. Right? Is the is the particular thing you're taking a picture of usually representative of everything else in that line? Does it make any sense?

Chris Romaine 12:55

I know that that that makes total sense. And okay. I mean, I guess if you, like take a step back and look at like food photography as a whole, oftentimes, like, the product that the photographer is taking a picture of may not even be edible, you know, they use like motor oil to mimic Yeah, syrup and stuff like that. So from like a marketing advertisement standpoint, you would always want to grab like the best selection, you know. So to answer your question, yes, I do choose a premium choice cut flower when I am at a farm or a facility. It is representative of the entire crop. And that would be more based off of, you know, like the brand's reputation or so like, if the brand has like a great reputation, and I'm taking like a choice cut flower from it, people are generally not going to question like, Oh, do they all look like that? Or does it not look like that? Because ultimately, my client wants is hiring me to take the best picture possible to represent their product, right. And I also do a number of different styles of photography. So I'll do like on the vine shots or whole room shots and everything like that, to capture the entire, like vibe of the facility or the farm. Does that answer your question? Yes. Okay.

Nick VinZant 14:24

Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. Right? Because it so it's not like, Hey, you know, you go to McDonald's in the picture on the menu is like, Man, that was good. And then you get this thing. You're like, what the fuck happened? This is clearly not. This is clearly not the same thing. Oh, yeah. How did you like how did you find how did you get into this? Is this something that you set out to do? Or is this something that happened?

Chris Romaine 14:47

This is something that happened, and when I mean that, so I've been using cannabis my entire adult life. I'm 34 and I've been using it since I was like 2021 and I've been involved in the arts and creative my entire life as well. I started doing photography in high school and worked or was practicing photography throughout my entire adult life doing landscape photography, model photography, all different types of photography and really wanting to like make it a profession, but really had no idea since everybody since like, iPhones were coming out and everybody was having a camera. And I was living in Las Vegas at the time in like 2009 to 2015 14. And I moved to San Diego, when I moved to San Diego at that time, cannabis was medically legal in California, and you could get your medical card, online and order we do your door same day. And I thought that was pretty mind blowing. And so I went on an app called weedmaps, which is kind of like the Yelp for cannabis, right. And it has pictures and descriptions and menus and all these different things you hook up with like delivery drivers, everything, all the pictures were incredibly awful, just kind of look like, you know, little turds or bugs or something like that. And I thought to myself that I could probably take better pictures in this, you know, I'm just going to order from the nearest guy with the best ratings, order a few different types, take a picture, text him the pictures and be like, Yeah, can I get a free eighth for every picture, I help you build your menu, I start getting you know, hooked up with herb and then I don't know, see, see where it goes. Right. And at the time, there was another photographer, his name is Eric. And he goes by the photographer nug shots. And I had had one of his books, the Encyclopedia of green, which is a really cool book to check out, if you're interested in that, and I was just blown away by his macro photography and everything like that. And that was my one reference and kind of resource to you know, I'm taking all these pictures and I'm getting herb and my friends are smoking for free. And you know, everything's cool. But at the same time, I was working in a nightclub three nights a week in San Diego a day club. And I was doing car product photography for the Audi there four days a week. And I was doing the cannabis photography and trying to like figure that out. You know, I didn't really know what focus stacking was at the time, and I couldn't quite figure it out. Like how to get the images fully in focus. And we're just talking just the nugs of nowhere near tricon photography yet is getting pretty burnt out, like being pulled from all ends, you know, with my hospitality jobs and the photography jobs. And that year, I told myself, if I wasn't making at least 50% of my income from photography, I was going to go back to school, again for like, radiation technician or something, you know, something stable, that was kind of like photography, and everything. And that year, I did make more than 50% via the, you know, outtie gig and doing freelance photography. So I decided that I did not want to be a 30 year old bartender anymore. And I took the leap to move to Oakland because that was the mecca of cannabis, you know, broadly in America, definitely the West Coast and see if I could be a cannabis photographer professionally up there. I emailed every cannabis company. And two of them got back to me, one of them thanked me for my interest and said they had nothing available. The other one said that they were looking for a part time photographer and took about a couple months of interviewing and going back and forth, meeting them talking to them about my skill sets and showing them my portfolio and everything like that. And then they sent me home with a bunch of herbs and was like basically show me what you got, like we're looking for the trichome shots and this and that. And honestly, I didn't really know how to do the tracking shots at that time. And I didn't really know about like the focus stacking technique like I didn't have that dialed in and so I went and rented a 65 mP lens, which is that one to 5x lens. And I just crammed like all night and all day just practicing trying to get it down. I ended up by I research and found out through like bug photography, about focus stacking and I got a manual rail where you would just like where the camera attaches it to the to the tripod, and you would manually turn a little dial as like consistently as possible, like over and over and over all the way through the focal plane. Luckily, I did a good enough job and they hired me and I worked with that company for about three and a half years and I started as a part time many photographer and ended up working my way all the way up to an Associate Director of Photography, I was wanting a change of pace and like different creative ventures after like being there for a while, and so I decided to resign and opened up my own photography studio in Oakland.

Nick VinZant 20:23

So I think the the natural kind of question there the curiosity and can answer this however you want to, how much do you get paid? I guess Like what? Like, how is it a? Is it a financially lucrative job? Are you scraping by like,

Chris Romaine 20:38

I'm right now I am doing really good for myself. Um, it has not always been that way. It was a fucking grind. And it was hard. And it was like, why am I doing this? You know, working with that company. I was a salaried photographer, which I'll just be upfront, it was 80,000 a year. And then my enfold benefits. And then I also did freelance work on the side. So I was clearing six figures. And I was working a lot, like all day, every day, and it's like passion driven to so and that's like, the thing about this is like, yeah, it's totally a job. But I love what I'm doing. And so it doesn't always feel like work. But it's definitely been a challenge being paid what I value myself as, and I think a lot of creatives deal with that. And it's not anything unique to being a cannabis specific photographer. I think that I do. Make more probably as a niche photographer than like, say, like, I don't know, like a baby photographer or something like that.

Nick VinZant 21:59

Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions?

Chris Romaine 22:03

Yeah, let's do it.

Nick VinZant 22:04

Okay, so I don't know what the word necessarily to use, right? Because I take edibles now. I smoked weed when I was a teenager, that kind of stuff. But I come up from the generation like, when I first walked into, like a shop was like, just give me weed like, I don't know, like, this is a weed. Can I Can I have that? So I don't know like the lingo that I'm supposed to be using necessarily. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. So favorite cannabis that you ever photographed? Hmm, like variety or strain or whatever the right word is, is that I'm supposed to be using?

Chris Romaine 22:40

Yeah, a strange variety cultivars. I think all of those would work. You know, that's like a really hard one. Because throughout the years as just I get better as a photographer, like my favorite images, like change, you know, this last year in California, hopland, California, kind of by Ukiah, like central meant, like central Mendocino, I guess. One of my clients, sensia Gardens, they have, I think 12 to 14 different cultivars in their library. And they have some really cool looking flowers. And what I mean by that is just like, the colors are really amazing, like extreme deep purples like right next to like neon greens, and everything like that. I find that stuff really fascinating. A few years ago, I photographed some cannabis, I believe it was called rose lemonade. And it had pink polka dots in the trichome head, which I found pretty amazing.

Nick VinZant 23:47

So when you take these pictures, right, like, Does, does the cannabis really look like that? Are you making it look like that? Does that make sense? Right? Like if I looked at this with my eye, and I had Superman vision and could see this, would it really look like that? Or is it the lighting and the editing and the camera? Or does it really look like that?

Chris Romaine 24:10

So in short, yes. But remember, like lighting changes everything. If you really understand lighting, and you know how to shape and everything like that you can bring out more three dimensional looks and like color highlights depending on like, if you're shining like a backlight to create like a halo or a rim. It really changes colors. As far as the editing process. No, I don't like bump the saturation in the vibrancy. Of course I do do touch ups to make the image look like really nice and pristine. I'm more of a purist when it comes to product photography because the customer like they're buying something based off that image, right? And so if the weed looks purple, and then they get it and it's like brown, you know, that's it. Well, I don't even think that's like morally right. But like, you know, it's just, it's not accurate at all.

Nick VinZant 25:06

What is your favorite weed that you have used, but that does not photograph particularly well. Like, oh, it's kind of ugly, but it's really good.

Chris Romaine 25:19

I guess it's super subjective because I myself am really into organic seed grown full term cannabis grown outdoors. So cannabis grown from seed in the ground for the entire year, outside. And then the another style is like indoor cannabis, where the environment is extremely controlled, and the plants have a different structure and everything like that a lot of people find the indoor cannabis, more aesthetically pleasing than outdoor cannabis. Because outdoor cannabis faces the elements, right? I love outdoor cannabis. And it doesn't always photograph the same as indoor cannabis. So I would say that, but as far as like a specific cultivar or, um, I'm pretty big into like, Oh, geez. And I guess that those are just more green and like kind of tree shaped. So that could be like really beautiful somebody as well. So I guess it's just so subjective,

Nick VinZant 26:29

coolest person you've met doing this?

Chris Romaine 26:33

Oh, man. coolest person I've met. I would, I would say to answer that question. It's not about the coolest person I've met. It's about the coolest opportunities I've had, I've got to hang out with, like Kyle from slightly stupid. Don Carlos, a reggae artist, you know, shooting their cultivars of cannabis. I've gotten me some really important people in the cannabis industry, you know, from breeders, to iconic activists like Ed Rosenthal, it's enabled me to travel the world, and like, you know, go to Morocco and Barcelona and just meeting anybody honestly involved in cannabis. And creating that bridge has, like been just like mind blowing to me.

Nick VinZant 27:36

This is the last question we had, where do you think, how has the industry changed? And where do you think it's going. And that can be the cannabis photography industry, or just the industry as a whole.

Chris Romaine 27:53

So the industry as a whole is like a really big rabbit hole that I would prefer not to talk about. But cannabis photography. That I mean, has changed so much, just in the past few years, from you know, shops having their bud tenders or their body just taking a picture with an iPhone to hiring people like myself to do like, really high end, in depth photo shoots. I believe that it's only going to the demand is only going to increase for photographers like myself, as legality happens nationwide and globally. I think we're still at the beginning. I think there's plenty of opportunity for tons of people to get involved. I think there's more than enough clients. And I don't think that there is enough really good cannabis photographers in the field right now.

Nick VinZant 28:57

Does that cause any problems for your business? Right, that it's not legal? In some states to be paid in cash?

Chris Romaine 29:06

Yeah, I mean, yeah. So I mean, that is a major issue because no one can bank. I mean, I can, I'm just a photographer. But my clients can't bank. So say my client gets robbed of his cash. And I was supposed to get paid well, then I just don't get paid. And that's happened multiple times throughout my career. And then I get a bunch of cash. And then I have to constantly be depositing I have you know, cash on hand at certain times. And it just creates like a bunch of like, you know, security issues and it's just like a huge headache. Honestly,

Nick VinZant 29:45

did we did we just make you a target for robbery. Please contact Chris. Currently at blank blank Street. By the way,

Chris Romaine 29:58

just cash

Nick VinZant 30:00

You see this guy with this really nice photography camera, you can rob him for the camera and the money. Well, now they won't even feel guilty about.

Nikck VinZant 30:18

No, that's all the questions I got. Is there anything else you think we missed or what's kind of coming up next for you,

Chris Romaine 30:24

I'm actually going to be going out to Oklahoma City, which is like booming for cannabis right now, surprisingly, enough. So that's gonna be a pretty cool road trip, probably in the end of June. And then I'll be back in Northern California for the harvest season. In October, November. I'll probably be in Santa Barbara throughout the year for some clients down there. And probably have to start working on the van again next winter, because I don't think I'm going to get it done by June.

Table Tennis Olympians Sam Walker and Kanak Jha

From National Championships to the Olympic Games, Professional Table Tennis players Sam Walker and Kanak Jha have represented their countries at the highest levels. We talk table tennis vs ping pong, the Tokyo Olympics and the best table tennis trash talk. Then, we countdown a special thirst-quenching Top 5.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Interview with Table Tennis Pros Sam Walker and Kanak Jha

Nick VinZant 0:12

Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant coming up in this episode of Olympic Games and drinking games,

Sam Walker 0:22

I remember standing on a stool so I could see over the table and just play him and my dad and my granddad at the beginning. And he said, Yes, I was, too, when, when he first started, get got me playing,

Kanak Jha 0:34

the ball is traveling. It's such an intense speed that a lot of times you're not really thinking consciously or what's happening in that point, you're just kind of reacting naturally. And when you got the uniform, and you see the US flag on your shirt, it's a really humbling.

Sam Walker 0:52

But doing an Olympics was just that was so many specialists, we had to get through that first match against France, I think we'd be friends, three, two, it was like five and a half hours long.

Nick VinZant 1:04

I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it. It really helps us out. We have two guests today. So I want to get right to them. Both of our guests are professional table tennis players who have competed at the highest level. Sam Walker competed for Great Britain in the 2016 Olympics and at the Commonwealth Games, and cannot jauh competing for the United States at the 2016 Olympics. And is the United States world champion. Just for some housekeeping, I'll ask a question. You'll hear Sam Walker first, and then cannot jaw. So what's your earliest memory? What's your earliest memory of table tennis?

Sam Walker 1:49

I've always played as far back as I can remember, I've played three sports. So table tennis, cricket, and football. And I remember I remember standing on a stool so I could see over the table and just play him and my dad and my granddad at the beginning. And he said yes, I was too. When, when he first started get got me playing,

Kanak Jha 2:10

I would say my earliest memories playing with my mom, actually the one local community center, like five minutes from my home in California. Where are you?

Nick VinZant 2:20

When did you realize you were good?

Sam Walker 2:22

I guess I've realized I was good was when I was like nine or 10. So that's kind of when I realized, okay, actually, you know what, like, I am quite good at this game.

Kanak Jha 2:32

The first time I played the tournament internationally was when I was 11. It was a 12. And under competition kind of for international for young players, I kind of had no idea what to expect going in there. I thought maybe I would be terrible. But no, I was okay, compared to a lot of the kids from the other countries. And that kind of gave me an idea that I was not bad for my age.

Nick VinZant 3:00

So what makes you good at it? Do you have like an impeccable strategy? Are you really athletic, like great reflexes? Like why are you good at

Kanak Jha 3:10

I think tennis in general, it's a sport that requires a lot of different qualities to be a good player. I mean, mentally, you have to be extremely focused on the table and physically have to be quite fast and explosive, with a lot of fast movements in the sport, everything is fine. As you know, there's not many long rallies, per se compared to tennis or badminton. But rallies are really short and intense. For me naturally, I've always had quite a good sense of focus and awareness of what's going on in the match. So I can kind of see the game pretty well compared to a lot of players. And I think that's one of my biggest strength. Now, there's

Sam Walker 3:55

a lot of different factors right now. One being simply the amount of hours I've trained for it, and the amount of experience I've got now. And you know, being just keeping that motivation, that dedication to go into practice every day for four or five, six hours, sometimes every day. And the mentality around that. And, you know, times when they are hard when you know you've put in a lot of practice, you're not seeing the results that sometimes are a bit demoralizing to then keep getting up to go to practice. And, you know, a lot of people say to me, like, oh, but you've got a great life, you know, you can you get to travel a lot for your job, you get to do something that you love, which is absolutely true. You know, I don't feel sorry for myself one bit, but sometimes it's really hard when you don't see. See the work straightaway. You know, like the results of the work you've been doing straightaway. Sometimes it can take you know, a couple of years to see something happen in a match that you've been practicing and the amount of time you spend on your own travel in Table Tennis in individual sport. So although you're playing for clubs and you're playing for your country, you spend a lot of time on your own. And you have you have to learn to, you know, enjoy that time being by yourself. And, and that's something that I think a lot of table tennis players have struggled with. And in terms of mental health as well, I think there's been a lot of like, people struggled with mental health in table tennis, that probably not a lot of people know about, because of the way the sport is. So there's obviously, when you say, how would you be good at table tennis, obviously, you have to be good at Table Tennis on one side, you know, through the training and everything like that. But you're also have to learn and understand that you're going to be, you know, doing a lot of traveling by yourself, you're going to spend a lot of time in hotel rooms by yourself. And you have to learn how to kind of deal with that and be be happy and enjoy that

Nick VinZant 6:01

when you go up against somebody. Obviously, you're trying to win the point. But what are you trying to do? Are you trying to put enough spin on it so that it puts them out of position? Are you trying to just blasted past them? Like, what's this? What's this strategy?

Sam Walker 6:16

It's kind of dependent. First of all, well, first of all, my strategies will be to go and try and play my game, which is an attacking game, I want to play in top spins, rather than, you know, the defensive shots. I want to, you know, try to be get playing aggressive, playing early, taking the ball early and, and you know, playing with a lot of spin but topspin rather than backspin and be an attacking. So that's my first game plan against anybody, then the rest of it in terms of the very detailed tactical stuff. So am I gonna serve? Sure, am I gonna serve long? Do I play more to the backend more to the forehand? How do I receive that all depends on which player I'm playing against, that comes with study in that player before you play them. Or sometimes you just know the players, you know, a lot of players, you just know, because you've played throughout the tournament and the leagues for so long. And you just know those players anyway.

Kanak Jha 7:20

I mean, in the end, you're trying to just win the point, however you can, I would say the basic strategy, especially in higher level table tennis is to try to kind of impose your game onto the opponent. For example, My style is I really like to stay close to the table and play with a lot of speed. What I try to do is not let the other opponent oftentimes have more power than me have more time to play their big shots and longer swings and try to put them under a lot of time pressure

Nick VinZant 7:53

table tennis more than any other sport that I can think of the difference between what reg, what it looks like when regular people play and what professional people play. It looks like a completely different sport.

Kanak Jha 8:06

Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's, it's a special compared to a lot of people. Yes, it's really a different sport from what people imagine their heads, the professional stage, it's a really high speed and very physical sport in general. So much spin in on the ball and the players are so physically fit with a lot of power and precision. So it's really a really technical as well as physical sport. And I think, I mean, that's one of the things I love about it is that it has so many different aspects to the game, not just the physical side, the technical and mental side.

Nick VinZant 8:43

How fast is that ball moving? Does anybody ever, like clock it with a radar gun or anything?

Kanak Jha 8:50

It's really quite fast. I'll tell you that. Actually, it's fine. Today in my training, we had a kind of device that helped practice speed of the ball. And I mean, sorry for the people watching us because I mean, Jeremy, so these kilometers, but I mean, the ball is going at an average of 7080 kilometers per hour or even going to 100 kilometers per hour. So it's really fast sport.

Nick VinZant 9:18

I only know this because I live close to Canada, but 100 kilometers an hour is 60 miles an hour. So like you You must have very good reflexes I'm assuming.

Kanak Jha 9:28

Yeah, definitely. reflex is a huge part of the field. And it's I think it's one of the fastest reflex ports to be honest, you require a tremendous amount of reflex. I mean, the ball is traveling so fast and often with a lot of speeding that you have to be able to adjust and even less than a second at times. When you're judging the spin. Are you watching the ball itself? Or are you watching how your opponent hits it? To tell what the spin is going to be? Normally you're watching the opponent And first, of course, how he hits it. And also, in many cases, you can hear the sound if the racket makes of the opponent when they hit it, which helps give you a better idea of the spin on the ball,

Nick VinZant 10:15

you can tell the spin by the sound of it. Yeah,

Kanak Jha 10:18

I mean, the sound is, I would say a part of the way players read the spin on the Pro, for example, if it's a very brushing sound from the opponent, you can tell there's a lot of spin on the ball, then, of course, it also comes with a lot of just muscle memory, where naturally, you just know what's been a ball from so many different practice sessions with different players. I mean, in the master game, the ball is traveling, it's such an intense speed that a lot of times, you're not really thinking consciously, or what's happening in that point, you're just kind of reacting naturally and making small adjustments with your head during the point. But a lot of the techniques are just what you practice in the hall every day, and it's muscle memory.

Sam Walker 11:04

But it depends if if I've played a shot first, if we're in the rally, I played my shot first. And there's only so many different variations of spend that they could put on, depending on what shot I've done. So it's easier to predict when you're in the rally, because you can kind of minimize their their options. Whereas when they serve, and they've got the ball in their hand, and there's not been any shot, before that they have every single option that they are capable of doing. So that's when it's a lot harder. And that's when I will, and probably most players will then watch the ball a lot more closely, depending on see which way the ball experience. So there's a little, there's a little marking on the balls, which is like the brand of the ball. So there's always a marking to say which brand has made the ball. And you can always see that spinning. And the more you practice it and the more you see and the more you concentrate in on that, the easier and quicker it gets to read that spin and see that that marks been in in a certain direction or sometimes not speeding, which means there's there's not much spin on the ball.

Nick VinZant 12:24

So you're never like thinking, Oh, I should hit this to the left side, or Oh, I should hit this to the right side. It all just kind of happened.

Kanak Jha 12:31

Yeah, definitely, I think in the rally when you're attacking, it's normally the other players defending so you have a little bit more time. And then you're kind of thinking more to the point. But for example, the rally is going really fast and both players are attacking close to the table, then most of the time, it's really hard to think where to play the ball or how to play the ball. And it's more just reflexes and subconsciously trying to reach the ball in time

Nick VinZant 12:59

are most like in terms of a physical size, like is there an optimal size for a table tennis player

Kanak Jha 13:06

compared to other sports, it's a lot more open ended. Then for example, in gymnastics where normally they're quite short, and obviously extremely flexible and explosive. I mean, table tennis, there are some general similarities between all high level players. And normally you need a really strong, an explosive legs and kind of a strong lower body. I mean, the core is also extremely important because I mean, it feels like you're changing directions so fast and depends a lot on your style. Because in table tennis players tend to have a lot of different styles depending on their body type. For example, me I'm quite short and a bit smaller than most high level tennis players, which is why my style is trying to be a little more quicker and faster and staying closer to the table to give the opponent more time pressure versus some players that are taller and bigger. And they're generally not as fast as the smaller players and they need more time and they tend to play a more powerful game.

Nick VinZant 14:16

What's it like competing for your country

Kanak Jha 14:18

is it's always amazing to play for your country, you know, whatever, whichever tournament that is. But doing an Olympics was just that was something special. It's what obviously what, you know, I took up table tennis because I want to represent my country at the biggest stage in the world. And that's the Olympics for our sport. And yeah, it was just such an incredible feeling to be able to go out there and play in front of, you know, one of the biggest crowds we've had as certainly as one of the best crowds I've had as a player in Rio, and we're to get through that first match against France. I think We'd be France Three, two, it was like five and a half hours long, like the longest match ever recorded in table tennis, and Olympics. So it was crazy.

Sam Walker 15:11

I mean, it's an amazing feeling for sure. I remember the first time when I competed, and I was young. And when you got the uniform, and you see the US flag on your shirt, it's a really humbling feeling. Because when growing up you see on TV and a dream, you know that these are really a special group of people. So me to represent my country. It feels like the greatest honor you know, and I'm always so proud to wear the shirt. And it also gives you a bit of a extra motivation when you put on the shirt to know Wow. Now representing my country now, it's a great feeling. And a very proud feeling. Were you in Rio, I competed in Rio. I was really young at the time I was 16 years old. And so I say it was a really cool experience. I lost really early in the competition. The first, say the first preliminary round, I lost quite fast. And that was a really memorable experience for sure. And it gave me a lot of experience and confidence going forward. The Olympics is the biggest of events for me, for everybody in general. And also for table tennis. It's really the most prestigious event there is in the sport. I mean, it's really exciting. And looking forward to it and hope to compete. Well there.

Nick VinZant 16:36

Are you ready for some harder slash listeners submitted questions?

Kanak Jha 16:42

I don't know. But I think so.

Nick VinZant 16:44

So let's see, which title Do you prefer table tennis or ping pong.

Kanak Jha 16:49

I prefer table tennis Jessica gets it sounds a bit more professional. But I know a lot of people call ping pong too. To be honest, when I'm in the US, I called ping pong to people also, because they kind of have a better recognition of this word. But if you can, I would say table tennis,

Nick VinZant 17:06

hardest type of spin for you to deal with.

Kanak Jha 17:11

There's a lot of spins in the game. I gotta say the hardest type of spin to do is when you don't know what spin is coming, which is most often the case when a player is serving, and they have a really quick wrist motion. And you almost couldn't catch what they what they just did. And then if you don't know what spins coming, you can just touch your racket and fly off to the left side, the right side, just directly down. So the hardest spin is the one you don't know. It's on the ball.

Nick VinZant 17:43

I would imagine that that this is the type of sport where even professionals can sometimes look completely ridiculous, right? Like the ball just goes shooting off into the stands. Does that happen?

Kanak Jha 17:54

Yeah, I mean, a lot of times you can even top players they can look, I mean bad, you could say compared to what people would think. If you miss read the spinny can often times lead the ball going completely opposite the way you want the ball to go.

Nick VinZant 18:10

I can't say that I've watched a lot of table tennis or tennis. But it does seem to me like the person serving has a massive advantage, right, and the person who wins seems to be the one that can eventually break serve.

Kanak Jha 18:23

Yeah, the serve is a big advantage in sports. I mean, I would say like this, in general, when it's close, you want to be the one serving, especially when you reach a higher level, the players they're playing with so much quality on the ball that a lot of time what you're practicing is having to serve and protect the next ball. So what players especially the high level do is they're so knowledgeable about the spin they're putting on the serve, they kind of know what to expect on their sleeve. And that helps them prepare their shots beforehand, while compared to and once you reach the rally, I mean, it's more speed and reflexes and just kind of subconscious playing but especially in table tennis I'm not so knowledgeable about tennis is that with the server, you can really prepare how you want to rally to start. So the server definitely is a really big advantage. And for the most part, the server has the advantage because he can kind of dictate how the rally will start.

Nick VinZant 19:24

I've always wondered when I've seen it right. And you see some of those like long rallies and both players are like as far back as they can possibly go. Like why doesn't somebody just hit it short?

Kanak Jha 19:35

Yeah, I mean, when the both the pump both the players are kind of farther away from the table. In general, you're playing the ball with a lot of topspin because you need the ball to have the power to go to the other side. So you're playing the ball without topspin, which means when it bounces on the table, it kicks a lot to the underside of the table in general Yes, it is pretty much almost impossible. I won't say possible because everything is possible. But it's almost impossible to play the ball short, just because you have to normally play a lot of pops and back just to have the power to make it reach over to the other side of the table. I mean, what a lot of players like to do is when they're close to the table, and the other players kind of farther away in defending is they like just kind of call it a drop shot, where they just kind of touch the ball and make it go short over the table. So the player who's farther farther away from the table, can't run back in time to catch it. But it's a really advanced shot and quite difficult to do.

Nick VinZant 20:44

Do you ever name any of your shots? Like, the Jha express or something like that?

Kanak Jha 20:51

Yeah, I suppose it's a bad name. No, normally not.

Nick VinZant 20:57

Is there trash talking and table tennis.

Kanak Jha 21:01

I think there's trash talking and all sports. To the degree I think more than others. I mean, we're definitely not like maybe the UFC or NFL or something where we're just trash talking on the court. Most of us are quite polite, in most cases. I think one of the things to be honest, that has to do with that is sport is really dominated by Asians at the higher level, there's the Asian countries are really so strong in the sport, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan. And in general Asian cultures, they're really polite on the table in the way that they don't trash talker, kind of provoked better players, that's kind of guess how their culture is seep maybe a bit into other countries at a higher level. But there's definitely some trash talk and some seven motions, which always course makes it fun for both the players and the spectators, you can get this more kind of arguments with the umpire. Because

Sam Walker 22:05

there's a lot of rules around the service that you're not allowed, you know, you have to throw the ball up so high, you're not allowed to hide the contact. So when the ball hits your bat, you're not allowed to hide that contact from your opponent's like vision. So they have to be able to see that contact so that they've got a chance to read in the spin. And you have to have like a flat palm, you can't put spin on with your hand when you throw the ball up. So there's a lot of, you know, that is a tough thing that for an umpire to kind of have to judge all of those things. And it's quite a tough thing to referee. But you know, when you can imagine when you know, there's a big match in a big stage, and, you know, some guy's got a really obviously illegal serve, because he's totally hiding it, throwing it back, you have to throw the ball up straight. Because those kinds of things make it really hard to receive a surf. You know, if you throw the ball straight onto the bat, rather than up, you can generate so much more spin and pace on your surf. And it makes it very difficult to read the surf. And some players bring that out only in an important point. And that's when you can have a big argument because is not always easy for the umpires to see when when a player has not done it or match. And then suddenly, it's his nine oh, in the last set. And they need two more points to win and they've got two serves and there's bring out these two serves that are totally illegal out of nowhere. And it's quite tough for an umpire to stand up and say no, that's, that's an illegal serve. Because then your opponent, get their opponent or get the point. You know, so. And that's when you can have arguments in in table tennis. That's the main reason you get arguments and kinda, you don't really get trash talk. But between if you only do between the mace that they're like you say, I like if your friend is a really bad shot, you'll say oh, that's got his own plane ticket, you know, like he's missed a table by like miles that we tried to play a sharp and you say, you know, that was great. You're implying that it's got its own flight ticket or, you know, things like that. Yeah, there's there's some when I used to play that local league that everybody used to say like, if if I served off if I served off in local League, there's this against this one guy. So local league is when I was going back to when I was like 1011 years old playing against all these old guys, which is just like in a local league kind of competition. And this other guy, you'd always if I saved off it always go Happy birthday. Like you know cuz it's just like an easy it's like the easiest point to give him who is the greatest table tennis player who's the Michael Jordan of table tennis.

Kanak Jha 25:00

I mean, for me, and for most players, its name is Milan. He's from China. And he's the current Olympic champion, he wanted Rio, and he's the, the previous three World Championships, he has won, he's really something, there's something else in the sport, and he will also be competing in Tokyo. And if he manages to win there, I think he'll be the first or second seed going in there, he'll be the first player in history to win two Olympics. And that two, two Olympics in a row. So

Sam Walker 25:30

the Chinese players in table tennis is, you know, almost, you know, everybody knows that the Chinese are the best at table tennis. And they are incredible. And they haven't lost a team match for 21 years now. Which is incredible. When you look at any nation of in any sport, which, which nation has gone 21 years without losing a team match, you know, in any sport, if you can name me one, then that's just incredible. You know, when I hear people talking about are these are this is the best sports team in the world. This they are, you know, for me, the best sports team in the world has been China and table tennis because they've not lost a match for 21 years. And that's, you know, that's gone through three different generations of players maybe more.

Nick VinZant 26:27

This this being an Olympian or a table tennis pro help you with the ladies is the question.

Kanak Jha 26:33

I think being an Olympian maybe without more of us and saying I would say you're being punked, US normally doesn't have such a high connotation in someone's mind.

Nick VinZant 26:48

Yeah, you gotta lead with the Olympian.

Can this be a living for you? Right? Could you do this for 1015 however many more years and then retire,

Kanak Jha 27:11

I would say it is possible if you're, if you're at a really top and you really maximize your profits in terms of sponsorships and competing and prize money and the league. But in general, it is really difficult. And it is a lower salary sport compared to other other sports and in the US, it is impossible to be a professional tennis player.

Nick VinZant 27:31

How good are you at beer pong?

Sam Walker 27:36

You know, I haven't played beer pong, probably since I was about 16 or 17. house buyers, when I was like, still like, towards just coming towards the end of school. And I did actually used to be really good. So if anyone wants to challenge me, I'd be well for a game cuz I've not played for ages and ages.

Memory Researcher Dr. Colleen Parks

Memories are the stories of our lives. They connect us to our past and predict our future. But how are memories created and why do we forget? Memory Researcher Dr. Collen Parks joins us to explain. We talk how memories are made, the secret to improving your memory and if we’ll ever be able to download our memories. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Things We Always Forget.

Interview with Memory Researcher Dr. Colleen Parks

Nick VinZant 0:11

Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode, remembering and forgetting

Dr. Colleen Parks 0:26

what's really happening is you are reconstructing things from bits and pieces that you have in the present. I think we're still quite a ways away from being able to download memory. Is it impossible? I'm not sure. At a just level, like just knowing what happened, you probably have it down really well. When it comes to remembering really specific details about something, there's a good chance you have a lot of those incorrect.

Nick VinZant 0:58

I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it, it really helps us out I want to get right to our first guest. Because this is absolutely fascinating to me. We're going to talk about memory, specifically, what happens in your brain when you remember something, why you remember some things and forget others. And if our memories could ever be downloaded, this is memory researcher, Dr. Colleen parks, how does memory work?

Dr. Colleen Parks 1:32

I would say the answer is probably to start with how it doesn't work. So it's not like a video. We're not recording things constantly. It's not like a filing cabinet, you can't go back in and just pick up the same file. What's really happening is you are reconstructing things from bits and pieces that you have in the present. So you might have somebody asked you having somebody asked you a question. And that serves as a cue to your own memory. Whether that will be successful or not depends a lot on how good the cue is. So, you know, if they're asking you a really a really vague question, then you might not be able to remember whatever it is they're trying to get at. Whereas if they asked you something very specific, like, you know what happened at the party last night, that you would be much more likely to be able to remember. But I think I think the takeaway is, when I say memory is reconstructive. What I mean is, it's kind of like you're getting these bits and pieces back, but it's not going to be perfect. So you're going to make little mistakes that most of the time don't matter at all. And sometimes you make a bigger mistake, that does matter. It's okay, it works most of the time. And the purpose of memory is not to record our lives. It's not to it's not even for us to reminisce really, or to think back specifically, it's really to give us an understanding of what's going on and help us you know, expect what might come next. So it helps us build predictions about our the world around us. And sometimes that means you need to remember a specific event, like, you know, how did this person act the last time I saw them, but other times, you don't need all the details in order to predict something, you know, I don't have to remember everything in my kitchen to know what your kitchen is going to kind of be like in general.

Nick VinZant 3:50

So when we remember something, what I'm imagining is, is there a physical change in our brain? Like how are we remembering it?

Dr. Colleen Parks 4:00

Yes, there is. So there is a structure called the hippocampus. It's kind of buried in the brain, it's underneath some cortical layers. That structure is really important for remembering previous episodes of something or a previous event. So what happens is, neurons fire in in that particular structure. And it kind of connects all of these different pieces together. So if you are remembering a visual component of something, this one structure the hippocampus is going to talk to the you know, visual processing areas in the brain. It can then connect up all of these kind of different sensory components of the memory and in conjunction with some other some other areas like that is how you remember is you've got this kind of indexing system. Right. And that's kind of what the hippocampus is doing.

Nick VinZant 5:04

When we decide kind of what we remember and what we forget, does our brain subconsciously make that decision? Right? So something happens, but our brain decides, hey, this thing is important. Or do we just happen to remember it,

Dr. Colleen Parks 5:20

I would say more often than not, there's something there. That makes it somewhat more important to remember than say what you had for breakfast yesterday. So if you spilled your breakfast in your lap, then maybe you would remember it for longer than you would if you had not, and it was just kind of a normal morning. So something that is important for what we remember are things like emotion, whether it's connected with some sort of reward, like we're going to get something out of it. And that kind of tags a memory as being more important than other memories. So what happens is, you get these little kind of tags, along with things that happen. So, you know, you spill your breakfast in your lap? Well, that's novel, right? It probably hasn't happened a lot. And so that's going to stick out a little bit more, it's going to garner more attention from you. And so you'll be more likely to remember it. Whereas when you normally eating breakfast, you're not really paying attention to what you're doing.

Nick VinZant 6:36

There's some subconscious thing that triggers even if we don't realize it, that's flags, this is being like, Hey, you might need this for later.

Dr. Colleen Parks 6:44

Possibly, yeah. And I think it can be both conscious and subconscious. So you would have some sort of emotional reaction that is conscious. But you it's not like you're trying to remember it, right? It's just that that little emotional tag is going to make that memory a little bit more important than whatever happened right? Before that was part of your normal routine.

Nick VinZant 7:08

I'll use this analogy of a computer harddrive. And hopefully for the more computer educated people, I don't mess this up. But I always remember them talking about like, right, if you delete a file, it's not really gone. It's still there somewhere. It's just a lot harder to find. When we don't remember something. Is it there somewhere? We just can't find it? Or is it really like the brain just says, we're done with this get rid? Yeah,

Dr. Colleen Parks 7:33

both I would say. So. There's a lot of times when you will forget something, and then you remember it later on. Right? In those cases, what happened is it's like you're just running up against a wall or something. It's your your, we call it blocking. That doesn't mean that the information isn't there. But for some reason, you're not able to get to it at that moment. But there are also times when it seems like the information is just gone. And we think that it kind of depends on what kind of information it is. If it's, you know, kind of simple information, say a face, recognizing a face, that is probably still there later on. But if you have to remember the connection between a face and a name, that's the kind of information that might just we don't know exactly how but somehow it disappears. Can you research how someone forgets? Yeah, actually, that's really interesting, because I am just starting to get into that kind of research. So one of the things that we're looking at is kind of how, how different types of memory processes decline over time. So more generally, what we're doing is just looking at how memory declines over time. And seeing if the way that it declines differs depending on like the type of information, again, like a single face versus a face and a name. Those two types of pieces of information might decline differently over time.

Nick VinZant 9:26

What are some of the other research that you're working on?

Dr. Colleen Parks 9:29

So I'm also looking at a way that memory changes over time. The technical term is reconsolidation. But essentially, it's just how does memory change? Well, traumatic memory is something that people are working on. This is not something I'm working on myself, but there is a lot of interest in this kind of memory change and how it might be beneficial for helping to treat PTSD because one of the main symptoms of PTSD is maladaptive memories. So if you can break the connection between somebody's conscious memory of this traumatic event, and their fear response, like their bodily response to it, you can help them with those maladaptive memories so that they can still remember what happened, but no longer have the anxiety and the fear. So that's the direction this kind of research is going in. When you

Nick VinZant 10:29

look at people's memories. Do we generally? Are they generally good? Or are we generally bad at remembering things? Like if you were to ask the average person about what happened? And then we went and looked at a surveillance camera of what happened, would we be pretty close? Or pretty far away?

Dr. Colleen Parks 10:47

Yeah, that's really interesting, because there was a recent study that came out, and they tested random people's memory for public events. And then they asked a bunch of memory experts, how well are these people going to do? And the memory experts massively underestimated? how well they did? So they actually remembered things pretty well. Now, did they get all the specific details? Right, that's another question. But did they remember that something happened? With pretty good accuracy? Yeah, they did. So I would say that, in general, our memory is pretty good. Right? It's just when you get into specific things, or special circumstances that it gets weird.

Nick VinZant 11:42

Kind of like What color was the car? We remember that it was blue, but we don't remember if it was like navy blue, or dark royal blue, or that kind of stuff? Is that? Is that kind of on the right track?

Dr. Colleen Parks 11:52

Yeah, exactly.

Nick VinZant 11:54

So are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions?

Dr. Colleen Parks 11:58

Okay, I'll give it my best shot.

Nick VinZant 12:00

How closely is memory tied to intelligence?

Dr. Colleen Parks 12:04

That is a good question, there is a pretty good link between the two general intelligence tests that we administer in a lab do have a significant memory component to it. But at the same time, you can have somebody who suffers from amnesia, and their intelligence, as measured on those tests, except for the memory part is fine. So on the one hand, there is a link, and on the other hand, you can distinguish between the two. So memory certainly helps us be more intelligent. But once you have developed, you know, as an adult, if you lose your memory, in the end, when I say you lose your memory, you lose the ability to create new memories. That doesn't necessarily affect your overall intelligence, any chance we will ever be able to download our memories. Oh, I have no idea. But that's really interesting. I don't think we're there yet. I think there's a lot of really cool stuff going on with AI and the brain and brain computer interactions. So we know that there's a bunch of stuff you can do, like people can play games with their mind when they have an ECG, or, you know, the kind of brainwaves. So an ECG that measures brainwaves and talks to a computer. But that's not memory. So I think we're still quite a ways away from being able to download memory. Is it impossible?

Nick VinZant 13:48

I'm not sure. But there is something physical in the brain that is happening. That if we could figure it out, like you could download this physical process as ones and zeros.

Dr. Colleen Parks 14:02

Yeah, potentially, because, I mean, it's all happening at really small scale, like, you know, you can get started talking about proteins folding when you talk about memory, but if you can find the right scale to work at, then Yeah. You know, something is happening there. You have chemical processes, you have electrical processes. And so there are ways to actually read memory from various brain imaging techniques, so you can kind of have somebody imagine something, or remember something, and they can take your brain activity and predict what that thing is.

Nick VinZant 14:50

Like, like, in a broad sense, like, Oh, this is a happy memory or I can specifically predict you're going to this is you in Disney World in 2012. Right?

Dr. Colleen Parks 14:58

more broad than that. Yeah. So it's more like, Okay, are you looking at a face? Or are you looking at a house? Or are you thinking of a face? Or are you thinking of a house? So are you you know, and you can say that with memory as well. So there's the opportunity to predict what people are thinking or imagining. And with that technology, I would imagine that eventually we'd get to something where we are if not able to write to memory, and download memory, we're certainly able to kind of read it better.

Nick VinZant 15:35

Do you think people how much faith should people put in their own memories?

Dr. Colleen Parks 15:40

I would say a decent amount, like, let's say 60/40, something like that. 60% confident 40%? I'm not sure about that. Again, I think it comes down to what we call the gist of something versus the details.

Nick VinZant 16:02

Can we intentionally forget something,

Dr. Colleen Parks 16:05

there is evidence that you can. And there's a debate about how that works. But if you practice not thinking about something, you can reduce the likelihood that you'll remember later on, you're not going to erase it from your memory, but you may be less likely to think about it at some future date. So if we take an example of something like the last really embarrassing thing that you did, right, you probably experienced that and then thought, Oh, I don't really need to remember this. And so maybe you whenever it starts to come to mind, you're like, Oh, no, I'm not thinking about that. Right? So you could replace it with something else, think about something else. The debate is over, whether that's the only way you can do it or not, because there's some evidence that says you just suppress it, somehow, you just, you know, stamp it down, basically stamp on it, and it reduces the likelihood that you'll remember it.

Nick VinZant 17:14

Kind of on that note are repressed memories are real thing. No.

Dr. Colleen Parks 17:20

No, they are not, um, has it ever happened in the history of humanity? Maybe. But the vast majority of them are some sort of false memory. And it's not that the people who are experiencing this are lying in any way, I believe they have this real experience of memory. But that is a subjective experience. It doesn't mean it's accurate, right. And there's a lot of different ways that this can happen. Some people just fall prey to suggestion. There have been a lot of cases of false memories, you know, so called recovered in therapy sessions. And I would say those we trust the least. There are also people who report kind of spontaneously remembering things. However, is it truly a recovered memory? Not necessarily. So there's this anecdote about a woman who was sexually assaulted. And she recovered the memory and told her boyfriend and was like, Oh, my God, this horrible thing happened to me. Her boyfriend said, No, you told me about that five years ago. So yes, it happened. But you it's not a recovered memory, you've already remembered it. So our ability to remember something like that, I told you something already. That declines to so my memory of my memory, can decline. So there are a bunch of different ways that people can develop these things. But the majority of the evidence really just does not support that they are real.

Nick VinZant 19:10

I heard one time that if you remember something, take a picture of it. And then let's say like your good travel memory, and then you see this picture, again of this great moment that you're actually remembering the picture, not the actual event. Is that true?

Dr. Colleen Parks 19:26

I think there's some evidence for that. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's probably a little bit easier to remember the picture because it's like this nice and capsulated scene. So yeah, there's also man, there's evidence that it it can not overwrite, but interfere with the original memory a little bit. So if the picture is more recent, maybe that's just me, you know, maybe you're remembering that better because it's easier to get to it was more recent. So I've had that experience, actually. So I thought that I remembered something at an improbably young age. But I didn't, it was that I had seen pictures of that event. Right? And that's probably what happens to a lot of people who say, Oh, I remember this from when I was two. No, that's pretty unlikely.

Nick VinZant 20:21

What is the earliest we're capable of memory.

Dr. Colleen Parks 20:24

There are certain memory systems in place when we are born, but they're automatic and unconscious. So the kind of memory that people are usually interested in is conscious, like my ability to recollect my ability to reminisce or something like that, that starts coming online. Probably at the same time, language starts coming online. And it develops over adolescence and probably reaches its peak somewhere around, I would say, 18 to 25.

Nick VinZant 20:58

When you look at, at older people and talking 70s 80s, did have their memories just faded? Or has their brain just age to the point where it can't quite get them as easily? Or is there? Is that even a difference? Really?

Dr. Colleen Parks 21:13

Well, I would say it has gotten to a point with all the changes that are happening to the brain as we age, it's gotten to a point where it's harder to get back to memories like to retrieve them, it's also harder to encode new memories or to, you know, learn new information. So trying to remember a face and a name, when you're at is going to be a lot harder than doing that when you're 20.

Nick VinZant 21:43

I never thought of that, like you would have difficulty making a new memory.

Dr. Colleen Parks 21:47

Yeah, and that's, um, that's really common. And that's what happens, actually, when we talk about amnesia is usually it's not that they can't remember their past at all, it's that they have trouble making new memories. What why would that make them seem like they can't remember their past? There is going to be some loss of memory from the past. But in general, those the older memories are actually more protected than the newer memories. So the newer memories are, you know, the older memories are there because they're it's kind of like survival of the fittest. Right. So you can get back to the older ones more easily than the newer ones, because the newer ones are decaying or declining over time. And they're declining much more quickly than the older ones are. But when when we get older, and we start forgetting things, usually what we're forgetting is, you know, we're forgetting something that I did yesterday, did I already paid that bill? Did I already tell, you know, my spouse, this piece of information, rather than let's say, forgetting where you live, where you grew up?

Nick VinZant 23:06

How our phones and screens impacting our memories?

Dr. Colleen Parks 23:10

Or are they there's no real evidence that we're seeing a decline in memory. Certainly, we are able to kind of what we call offload our memories onto these devices. And it's really helpful, but there's no evidence that that is going to hurt our memory. So I like the analogy of when novels first came out, people were all up in arms that that was going to, I don't know, hurt the youth somehow. And now, when paper came out, they were like, oh, people don't have to use a slate board anymore. So I think it's kind of the same thing. It's a new technology, there's always some fear that comes along with new technology. I don't think it's going to replace memory for us.

Nick VinZant 24:00

There's also you don't need it, right, just the brain basically, in terms of memory, just chuck anything it doesn't need.

Dr. Colleen Parks 24:05

It does a lot. Yeah. Which is not to say you're never going to remember something totally random and irrelevant. But it does kind of get rid of a lot of the unimportant stuff.

Nick VinZant 24:15

These are some more maybe personal questions, but not my personal. Um, would you rather remember every day or just one day? Yeah. And when I say remember every day, like everything about it, right, like you wear

Dr. Colleen Parks 24:32

everyday you can? Um, yeah, they're called highly superior autobiographical memory, or they have highly superior autobiographical memory. They can remember just a crazy amount of information from their lives. If that is what we were talking about, I think I would say Yeah, that would be pretty cool. Rather than just one day, however, you can also imagine a case where You have so much information in your, in your mind in your brain that you can't get back to anything because there's just too much there. For those people like what's,

Nick VinZant 25:13

what's different? Like, why is their brain like that?

Dr. Colleen Parks 25:17

We don't know yet, um, they are looking into it. So there have been some brain studies. And my memory of them is that there weren't a lot of differences that would be kind of immediately obvious, like, oh, there's, you know, the structure that supports memory for events, like what I, again, like what I had for breakfast this morning, it's bigger than them, that's not the case. It is possible that they just rehearse their memories more. And there is some evidence that they do that. It's just something they enjoy. So that could be a component of it. So it could just be that they're practicing a lot more. At the same time, it's hard to imagine that there are no differences in brain function between you know, them in house. So I imagine that that will come out at some point that there we will find differences, brain differences.

Nick VinZant 26:14

Are they smarter, generally, than most people?

Dr. Colleen Parks 26:18

No, they're not. What's really interesting

Nick VinZant 26:20

that they're not smarter than right, like you would think their IQ would be like 350, or something like that.

Dr. Colleen Parks 26:26

I know. Well, and that's what makes it so interesting is that when it is about them, they remember it really well. But if you put them in a standard memory test, where we have people learn a list of words, and then we ask them to remember them, like 20 minutes later, they do about the same as everybody else.

Nick VinZant 26:49

So there's just Narcissists, basically. So really, they just care about themselves.

Dr. Colleen Parks 26:55

That is a possibility.

Nick VinZant 26:58

We cannot scientifically rule that part out, right? Yeah, more important for the brain, remembering or forgetting,

Dr. Colleen Parks 27:06

that is a tough one. Because if you did not forget, you would probably not be able to remember either, there would be so much information, crowding your mind that you go and try to find, you know, that analogy of going and trying to find one piece of that information. It's like trying to find your keys on a messy desk. Like there's too much stuff there for you to actually see the thing that you need, I would say they're, they're both really necessary. Because the memory portion allows us to build expectations, and, you know, make predictions, even if they're unconscious predictions. And that's really important for daily life, like you have to have some idea of what's about to happen. Right? So I have to know that when I go into my kitchen, the table will be on the floor and not the ceiling.

Nick VinZant 28:02

How can two people who see the same thing, remember it so differently?

Dr. Colleen Parks 28:08

I think it has to do with what they're paying attention to. So, you know, we can experience the same event. And if I'm paying attention to one aspect of it, and you're paying attention to another aspect of it, we may come away with radically different interpretations of what happened. Very different memories of what happened. So and then your memory, like, you can kind of build on that if you remember it, you rehearse what happened, then those two memories can become more and more divergent from each other over time. But yeah, and the other aspect is, you were talking about narcissism, but like, how did that event affect me? Like maybe the event affected me differently than affected you? And so that is going to contribute to our memory of what happened?

Nick VinZant 28:59

What is the most interesting thing about memory to you?

Dr. Colleen Parks 29:03

Oh, that's tough. I would say that there are both conscious and unconscious forms of memory. And the unconscious forms are things like, you know, muscle memory, that's a real thing. And some of those, sometimes, those automatic forms of memory actually mess you up, instead of helping you. And I find that really interesting. When, you know, you do have memory for something, but it leads you in the wrong direction. So like I was saying, you know, you have a memory for these two people talking about the death penalty, one Republican, one Democrat, and sure you have a memory of it, but your automatic bias leads you in the wrong direction to remember who said What

Nick VinZant 29:54

does that happen a lot, or just more than we might think?

Dr. Colleen Parks 29:58

I say more than we might think. For example, a recent study we did compared images and sounds. And people are way better at images remembering images, and they are sounds. And so now we want to figure out why.

Nick VinZant 30:12

I mean, that makes a lot of sense, right? Like just thinking of it right now I remember, mostly pictures in my mind. I don't remember very many sounds.

Dr. Colleen Parks 30:21

Yeah, I know, it's it is, I think it is really intuitive. And what interests me is that it's really intuitive. But if I ask people like, why do you think that is, then the intuition kind of disappears. It may simply be attention. We're visual creatures. And so we're just paying more attention to the visual world than we are to the auditory world. But it could also be something specific about memory. It could be that, you know, when we remember something that's visual, we remember really precisely, but when we remember something that is auditory. Maybe we get more of the just information and not those specific details.

Nick VinZant 31:05

Something that I've always wondered is, I can remember in my mind, fantastic detail about my wife's face. But if somebody asked me to describe it, I couldn't. She got eyes like I couldn't describe it in any way. Yeah, that a memory thing? Or that's just me being an oddball.

Dr. Colleen Parks 31:24

Now, I don't think it's an oddball. And I don't think it's a memory thing, necessarily. I think it I think it has to do with visual imagery and conveying that to somebody. So I think it's just the communication process. So because the ability to remember, you know, exact detail of your wife's face, that seems just about right.

Nick VinZant 31:49

Do you have a good memory? As a memory researcher? Do you feel like you do? Know?

Dr. Colleen Parks 31:55

And there is a, you know, kind of a cliche in academics where they say you study the thing that you're bad at? And I wouldn't say that I'm bad at it, I would say I'm probably pretty average. But that is frustrating. I want it to be better given that that's what I study.

Nick VinZant 32:13

If somebody wanted to improve their memory, what would you say like, well, you should do this,

Dr. Colleen Parks 32:18

you can practice the kind of memory that you want to improve. So if you want to improve something like muscle memory, then you practice the skill that you're trying to try to get. If you're trying to better remember, like, if you forget your grocery list, and now you're in the store, and you want to remember what you needed. That's something you would probably have to practice specifically. What's interesting about training, though, is that it doesn't seem to transfer very far to other types of memory, like you get better at one kind of memory that you really practice. But you don't necessarily get better at everything.

Nick VinZant 33:00

That makes sense, right? Like you could you get great at remembering the grocery list, but not the to do list. Yeah, like that. I mean,

Dr. Colleen Parks 33:08

yeah, but yeah. But then there's also general kind of just general advice, and it's a little cheesy, but what is good for the brain is what's good for the heart. So nutrition and exercise, unfortunately, is really good. Exercise is has been shown to be really important for peak brain function.

Nick VinZant 33:37

I have one question that is more of a so I was born without a sense of smell. And I've always been told that smell is strongly related to memory. But I have a fantastic memory, at least compared to my friend, is his smell. How do like how does that relate to memory?

Dr. Colleen Parks 33:56

I think the key with smell is it doesn't happen all the time. Like, I don't notice smells a lot of the time. But I have like suddenly encountered a smell that vividly reminded me have something. So in fact, I remember the event, I was walking near some bushes, and all of a sudden I thought of my grandparents backyard, and was like, Wow, that's a really specific smell. And I hadn't thought about my grandparents backyard in years. So it's not that smell is necessarily happening all the time and creating, you know, these are great ways to get at memory. It's that when it does happen, and you get something really specific, it acts as like this really good cue, like I'm giving you a lot of information, even though it's just a smell. And it seems to work and there there are reasons for that that are brain based as well. That's

Nick VinZant 34:57

that's pretty much all the questions I have Is there anything you think That we missed or anything like that.

Dr. Colleen Parks 35:02

Not that I can think of without just giving you a lecture.

Sex Toy Designer Mike Blacksmith

Dildos, vibrators, cock rings, whatever you can imagine. Mike Blacksmith makes sex toys for Tantus Inc. We talk how sex toys get made, the best sex toys for you and customer requests. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Least Attractive Qualities.

Interview with Sex Toy Designer and Tantus Inc. CEO Mike Blacksmith

Nick VinZant 0:12

Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. Myname is Nick VinZant coming up in this episode, sex toys and unattractive qualities,

Mike Blacksmith 0:22

it's not what you think, you know, everyone thinks that I sell my soul to the devil and I'm gonna make millions of dollars. Well, the reality is, is it's manufacturing, we design a toy to hit anatomical targets and to create a sensation. Our toys are some of our toys are pretty damn ugly. But when you turn the lights off, and you use the toy for what it's intended, or close your eyes, or get blindfolded and tied up and use the toy for what it's intended for, we'll take the Pepsi challenge against anyone person wrote in and said, How about this toy, it's called the H bomb about this toy. frickin beautiful love the toy. It's just amazing. But I bought it for my wife, and she saw it and was scared. I want to thank you so much for joining us.

Nick VinZant 1:14

If you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it. It really helps us out. So do you ever see something and find yourself wondering who designed this? And how did they make it? Our first guest is an expert in the design and manufacturing process. The difference is he designs and manufactures sex toys. This is the CEO and lead sex toy designer of tantas. Incorporated, Mike blacksmith. How did you get into this sex toy sexual health industry

Mike Blacksmith 1:51

my undergraduate is in is in art. I've been a fine artist since the day I can remember drawing and sculpting and these sorts of things that really had no bearing on how I got into it. But it is how I kind of stayed in it, I guess. It's a really actual funny story that I was high tech guy. I've been a senior manager for some really prominent high tech companies that are still around. And I had kind of retired in 2000. And you know, I hit that.com boom did really well and kind of retired in the mid 2000s. And a friend of mine called me up and said, hey, there's this company having problems with their internet? Would you be so kind as and they're networking, would you be so kind as to it's a small company, would you be so kind as to go down and try to help him out. So I went down to tantas, early 2000s and fix their computer system forum, I got chatting with the owner of the company, which I later married, we really hit it off. And I you know, I had been in manufacturing for a long time as a as a senior as a senior manager up to Vice President level. And so I ended up taking the job. And I've been here for 16 years as as the CEO of tannous. My art background led into also me being an graphic designer slash I was doing industrial design as well. Let me tackle the job of creating new parts. When you went into it.

Nick VinZant 3:26

Was there any kind of reservation? Because obviously people on the outside world might be like, do you want to work at a sex toy industry? Like Did you ever have those kind of not not? Not that there's any kind of value judgments that should be directed at it? But did you ever feel that.

Mike Blacksmith 3:45

It wasn't something that I said oh my god, I'm gonna jump into the the sex toy industry or the sack the adult industry and be pigeon holed for moral standards or moral compass. But it was plainly clear, right, right from the get go that that people or other businesses judged you on morality and these sorts of things, and that I've always been kind of a fighter. So that actually, that actually kind of perked me up a little bit and said, you know, you know, fine, you don't want to, you don't want to have my bank account. Us Bank, you don't want to have my bank account? Well, EFF you, I'll find a bank that wants my bank that wants my money. Some have been surprising. And the other way where it's been a company that you went, there's no way that XYZ will ever be a business partner of ours and they've been one of the best business partners. So going through it to a benefit dinner or something like that. And you're sitting tied up and someone comes up to you, Hey, I'm, you know, this person with global finance and blah, blah, blah. They're like, what do you do and I go CEO of a manufacturing company, and you just hope it stops there. Right? And then what do you manufacture and we we manage facture silicone parts. Oh, and then you hope it stops there and then that the next dig in what kind of silicone parts and then you say, dildos and vibrators, and usually, specially business people that are fascinated by the process, it seems like it's really profitable. And you say, It's not what you think, you know, everyone thinks that I sell my soul to the devil, and I'm gonna make millions of dollars. Well, the reality is, is it's manufacturing, it is literally the same except when you walk in the back of my building, the shape of the things in the back of my building are different than the shape of the things in the back of other buildings.

Nick VinZant 5:36

For you guys, like what kind of sex toys Do you guys make?

Mike Blacksmith 5:39

We started with a no plugs, and insertable still does, and vibrators and our vibrators are a lot different than than the traditional what you think of as a vibrator like a rabbit or these things, we believe that the toys should be able to be hygienically clean, because if you play with a toy, your hand, excuse me, your hands or whatever is carrying DNA around, right. And once you're done, you always hear the word foreplay, but you never hear the word after play, right. So you don't think about the cleanup and these sorts of things. You think about rose petals on the floor, or chains from the ceiling or these things, and you really think about that for a day. But when you're done, you're done. So when you got to clean a toy, you should be able to remove the vibrator and hygienically clean your toy. And then we migrated into cock rings and, and slings. They were all made out of metal at the time back in the early 2000s. And there were some safety issues with that where you could bio biological male could be fully in gorged and that constrictive ring or the teardrop would, would potentially and from time to time not let not let those vestibules ever drain. So now you had to put this on when you were soft, and then you got hard. And then you stayed hard, and you couldn't get the ring off. And so you'd have to go into the hospital and get the ring off. So we were the first company to make these out of silicone, which meant that if you had an issue where you call it was called locked up, you are fully in gorged and you didn't come down and couldn't get the ring off. You had to go to the doctor with a big giant purple penis and have someone cut this thing off. So making it out of silicone let you take a little pair of scissors, cut it and remove it. And then we've gone into we've gone into other other toys as well. Some really high end BDSM toys, some paddles, some rope, some rope rigging devices for like a Japanese rope shabari and that nipple clamps these sorts of things that we make that are really, really high end, we kind of pretty broadly diverse, but we started with essentially insertable dildos vibes and butt plugs.

Nick VinZant 8:02

How do you design it as a sex toy? like where do you? Where do you start?

Mike Blacksmith 8:08

Well, the business guy me starts in the business side. And then the passionate artist starts in other side, but usually medicine I or our salesperson, myself and Matt a swell say, hey, it'd be really fun to make my new vibrator. Brad is number one and XL toy category is really moving. And so we'll say hey, we should make an toy in the XL line. We already have a toy that hits the prostate, we already have a toy that really stretches but we don't have one that stretches and hits the prostate. Let's design something that way. So we really take out and try to try to hit sensations, right? Okay, so we're making a new dildo we have we have these toys that are kind of large, we don't have anything that's really small and non phallic. And that someone can leave in their drawer or do this or people that aren't into seeing a bio penis right. And and and, and let's design something that way that hits a target that works is like a G spot toy. But is non phallic and is actually maybe a little bit longer because we don't have anything that hits that works for people that are more full figure right both male and female. We design a toy to hit anatomical targets and to create a sensation. So I probably our toys I always say this that will take the Pepsi challenge with anyone but our toys are some of our toys are pretty damn ugly. But when you turn the lights off, and you use the toy for what it's intended or close your eyes or get blindfolded and tied up and use the toy for what it's intended for. We'll take the Pepsi challenge against anyone. we design our toy we design our toys to work in the body, not work on the retail shelf. Like

Nick VinZant 10:05

when you do that when you design things to work in atomically, do you have to have somebody go in? And like take measurements?

Mike Blacksmith 10:11

Oh, no. So well, we have a lot of experience of making toys, right of doing this for over 20 years. But we do have a bevy of people that we know that say, let's go back to that g spotting toy. Right? Yeah, we have a bevy of people that we can say, Hey, we know these people, they're very, they're their sex toy reviewers, they're bloggers, they're in the, they're in the adult industry, or they're just been customers of ours for a long time. And so we'll prototype a toy, right, we'll go through the whole process of manufacturing, essentially, well sculpt the toy, whether it's digitally, whether we still sculpt toys out of clay, we sculpt them digitally in CAD, we sculpt them in 3d modeling software that's used in the animation world, so they can get really skin texture and look really real, we can do it all sorts of ways. And then we'll prototype the toy will, will tool the toy. So we'll turn it into molten tooling. And then we'll make the version of the toy. And we'll send it to 10 to 20 people that we believe that, you know, their their their personal human form factor is larger than average, they left G spot play and they hate. They hate they don't they're not big into phallic toys. And we'll send those out, we'll send those out. And we'll get feedback in a week or two. And they'll say, hey, work for me too long. work for me too short work for me to smaller diameter, not enough curve. And so then we'll make the changes, right in the in the sculpture and the design, and we'll retool it, and we'll send it back out to those people. Here are your changes? What do you think? Oh, yeah, that that if it was just a little shorter, and if we get a consensus, right? We're trying to make it we could make a toy perfect for one person, we get this consensus. So it works with a variety of body types, a variety thing, but it hits its intended purpose. Then we go to final tooling, and we bring the toy to market.

Nick VinZant 12:17

And then would you make that let's say you come out with a new a new toy, would you then make it in different sizes? Like small, medium, large?

Mike Blacksmith 12:24

No, we don't. We do that on a few toys. There's a toy we have called the Amsterdam. This is a brand new, a new toy just launched off this but there's a toy called the Amsterdam and it's based on the traffic bollards in the city of Amsterdam. right the the big steel poles and, and, and we brought this toy out and it's a huge toy. It's like three, three and a half inches in diameter. We had a lot of feedback the toy has been around for god man, eight, nine years, we had a lot of feedback of Hey, we'd like this toy smaller, smaller, smaller. We never did it we but finally I think about four weeks ago, we made up four or five weeks ago, we launched a small version called the Amsterdam Junior that's based on the traffic bollard. And then we have some progressive things but we've we've specifically designed those for people who want to try animal triangle we have a progressive set of toys that say you start here and you go here you can go as big as you want. But you can stop here but this is kind of a you know a thing to kind of get you into get used to it. So for some toys, but they're designed specifically for a progressive set.

Nick VinZant 13:36

That makes sense, right? You don't want to start with the big guns.

Mike Blacksmith 13:40

Some people some people to some people go straight for it right out of the gate. Yeah, we we have this toy that's about four inches and four inches in diameter the toys it's literally I mean it's this big around and we had a customer service email person wrote in and said how about this toy? It's called the H bomb about this toy. frickin beautiful love the toy it's just amazing. But I bought it for my wife and she saw it and was scared Is there any way I can return it right like never talk to his partner right and buys this toy that is literally that like the king of what we make it thing is huge. It's probably four. Four pounds of silicone.

Nick VinZant 14:32

Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions?

Mike Blacksmith 14:36

Sure.

Nick VinZant 14:37

Harder toy to design toy for a man toy for a woman.

Mike Blacksmith 14:43

toy for a woman. How come you matter pet matter pegs? I mean straight up this is this is true, right? It goes back to the must have baby. Right What once a man's brain is turned on. They're just they suck. They're just pigs and in a good way. Right? I mean If you play with men, you understand that that that male heat is freaking awesome. But but they don't care women. In the 60s men were the largest in the 60s 70s 80s 90s, early 2000s men were the largest demographic of purchasing adult toys, and they're still probably 50% whether they're purchasing it for their partner or, or not, men are men are a lot easier to satisfy because once once that gets going in the human brain, it's they're just on and ready. Women have become they are savvy shoppers, women are the people that know about theodolites cadmium bad things in their sex toys. So and they're and they're pretty specific of what they want for the human body for their body. And you know, women care much more about color guy doesn't give a shit. Right? Yeah, right. I mean, women want the women know what they want. And they're much more savvy and much more knowledgeable about their purchases. So definitely designing a toy for a woman even getting feedback from our viewers, because you could send a toy to a bunch of guys into what do you think is fucking great? Right versus at you send it to women, you're like, hey, the curve could be a little deeper, the toy could be a little longer could be a little less in diameter, right? Because men buy toys for women. They think that all women want these big huge twice because I can't satisfy her. She needs a bigger dig. And that's not the case at all.

Nick VinZant 16:35

Best Selling sex toy for men best selling tech sex toy for women.

Mike Blacksmith 16:42

I'm gonna answer this as a I'm gonna answer this as an industry broad. Not just my company. The best selling sex toy for women, I believe has always been the rabbit. And I think you know, you saw that from the TV show. But the rabbit is probably the number one selling sex toy for women. Not necessarily that works the best. There's some great rabbits out there but they're very far and few between. and best selling sex toy for a man man would probably be in my for me, it's definitely the COC are small cock rings are super soft COC rings, you can put those on when your art and then plugs as well.

Nick VinZant 17:28

Most interesting request you have gotten from a customer.

Mike Blacksmith 17:33

It's not hard for me, I'm not thinking how to answer this. Ah, without being insulting or because I have no, I have no no intent to be insulting. My what I mean, I've had some really outlandish, crazy requests. And I you know, I don't even I don't count those. But on general terms we've had, we have this multiple times a week. And it comes from men. And the request is, so again, I said we make these toys that are four inches, three inches, actually, we have one that's seven inches at the base. The requests and I always find these very interesting and fascinating. Maybe your listeners or viewers will comment below why they think this is. But we all get a lot of people saying hey, I just bought I'll use the H bomb, because that's the name I already brought up. And I'm sure that someone's going to go to Tennessee calm and look at the H bomb. I bought the H bomb and is four inches in diameter. If you made that toy at three and 15 sixteenths instead of four inches, and you brought the length down by 16 inch toy if you brought the length down to 15 and seven eighths and the second ring down the toy instead of being instead of being two and a half. You made that at two and seven eights. That'd be awesome. Right in my mind, I got what is your acid caliper?Right. I mean, like, I don't understand that. And it's a it's like a 16th of an inch. And I don't know, you know, for me personally, I don't know if it's because someone doesn't want to admit that they really like playing with this toy. And they use the clinical side of it to say I really don't like playing with the toy, but I'm only doing this for science. right or that that's just the way their brain works. But this is the most common request that I find very interesting. You know, if you made this toy to an eight, if you made it two and a quarter, it would be a much better toy. And there's no way that that a Muscle Band vaginally Anneli Going to be loosened up right? When you just, it's just like stretching, right? It's just like stretching before a workout or stretching before athletic maneuver, your muscles are going to be able to calibrate an eighth of an inch. It's just not, it's just not humanly possible. And he gets they get actually, some of them are really specific, like you're talking 100 of an inch. Instead of making it four inches, if you made it four point, or a 10th of an inch, I'm sorry, if you made instead of making four inch, if you made it 4.1, I think you'd hit your sweet spot, and you'd sell twice as many. And that's their, that's what we get, we get, you know, you'd sell twice as many. And I have no problem answering back and listening and sometimes taking their feedback and saying, Hey, you know, these people are right, if we made this toy just a little bit bigger, it would probably play better, but not when you're talking about, you know, 10th or, you know, a 10th of a 10th of an inch.

Nick VinZant 20:51

What do you think is the future of the sex toy industry? Can it change that much are we I mean, we only have so many places to put things right.

Mike Blacksmith 21:00

I you know that that obviously virtual virtual reality VR sex could take off, I don't know. I hope it moves more towards healthier, consistently progressive, as you know, we were the company that that changed an industry we Henry Ford, this sucker. And I hope it can, I hope that more and more toys move to move to healthier material and healthier pigmentation. So it's two components, it's the material and the pigment. And I also hope that you know, some of these little companies that are moving forward, I hope that more of the bigger companies start making toys. And that's going to right as the as the consumer gets more aware, they'll do more research. And makes toys that hit anatomical targets, you know, phones, working remote toys, working remotely, that's been around forever, we had a toy big thing that we that we had, we were one of the first people to ever do is called the audio and it would, you could put the vibrator in the toy and put this it looked like a page or go on your hip. And if someone talked to you every time their boy said it if you went to a club and you were dancing at the bass beats so that's been around for a long time, I think we were one of the first people to do that we no longer have that it just it didn't sell enough for a small business like us to keep producing it at at our at the cost we were making it I think it's just gonna go healthier as the consumer as the consumer gets more and more knowledgeable and more and more okay with their with their body and with their ability to talk to their partner and say, Hey, you know, or talk to you be honest with themselves and say, hey, I want to try this.

Nick VinZant 22:49

Oh, this I missed this one most popular color.

Mike Blacksmith 22:52

Purple.

Nick VinZant 22:53

How come?

Mike Blacksmith 22:54

You know why? Right? That's easy. Boom, hit me with another one of those. That was boy, yeah, purple. My farm purple is the number one selling color give you a great story on this. So we had this, we were young in our infancy, we had this. So this chain of stores in San Francisco woman found a chain of stores and the buyer for this chain of stores her favorite color was green. And she would buy all this one, this one toy in green. And we'd look at our spreadsheets and say my god green, great color. That's the worst color. So worst color in the industry is green. And we just thought based on numbers, right, the green was the best color and it was something that we really paid attention to. And so we ended up making all of our toys in green because it was such a great color. Because if you looked at the spreadsheet, oh my god green salt. But we had one buyer that bought for a whole bunch of stores. And so we made a bunch of green products that took us years to sell. But purple by far across the board for female toys is the number one selling color and red and black for men. A dark red and black for male toys. Purple for female toys. Now I'm not saying that other colors don't sell but the variants of purple. Literally 10 to one for female toys is purple.

Nick VinZant 24:18

what's the what's the worst?

Mike Blacksmith 24:21

Green? Yeah, or like green? Green or dull brown or? Yeah, these sorts of things, but green is by far the worst. I mean, you think about it you're you're having sex with a zombie, I guess.

Nick VinZant 24:32

Yeah, that would be kind of weird. I guess.

Mike Blacksmith 24:34

Now we do have a couple toys a green a very neon bright green that but I'm talking like hunter green, you know? Like Yeah,

Nick VinZant 24:45

What do you think? I mean, does that have any relation to the shades of people or do you think that's just, that's just an easy no

Mike Blacksmith 24:54

actually. So we make binary slash trans slash community. With all the modern slashes, we make a prosthetic device called a packer. And it's for people who want to put a bio walk around with a bio male organ in their pants to feel more true to their soul, which they have every right to do. And so we make this we make this so we make it in three skin tones. But one of our number one sellers of that is actually in a purple, just because it's like, Look, I want to feel it. But I don't necessarily need to exactly rapid replicate a skin tone. It kind of just says, This is fucking me. I'm sorry, this is me. I'm sporting Purple Man as my they're called Packers. I'm, I'm, I'm sporting purple. I'm packing purple. I don't need to pack some stupid skin town. I got purple in my pants. And I think that's really fun, man. I think it's really cool. I think actually skin tones. They're down there. I don't think people are necessarily as into, you know, it's what, again, that's a male question. You know, if you're a female interviewer, you'd be asking me a lot different questions. But a male buys a toy thinking that it's something that, you know, my partner is missing. And it needs to be real, and it needs to be larger than me or needs to look real. That's what my wife is missing. But if you literally pulled women on, which has been done by us, but if you were to go out and pull women on what they like, it's going to be a lot smaller than you think it's going to be smoother than you think it's going to so not represent a penis. It's going to be if you think about a male body, the ugliest most aggressive thing on a male body is an erect penis. frickin women don't want to see that. They don't want to see the heart on chasing them there. Something central something that's going to make me feel good. It's not necessarily it's aggressive, hard, giant penis. That's frickin trying to chase me down the alley and attack me you know,

Nick VinZant 27:03

the male penis does look ridiculous.

Mike Blacksmith 27:06

Hitachi magic wand number one another top selling toys. Just a large plug in vibrator, right. Good friends of ours. So the people that bring it into the United States there. It's just an amazing toy. Right deep, heavy vibrator. So we were asked to make a attachment that goes it's an external toy, right? So you play on the outside of the body not not really an internal playing toy, we were asked to make a head that you put on the top of this just looks like you know, just a massager. Just Right, yeah, we were asked to make a head that went around the top and then had a little bright came out like this. And you could use it as an insertable toy. Well, we had a lot of experience with G spot insertable toys. So we make this toy. When you we send it out to reviewers. When you put the toy in, if you let if you let turn the Hitachi off. And the toys now inserted the things up against up against the legs and clitoris and all that and up against kohtaro legs. And you put the toe and as soon as soon as the button was all the way up soon it was up your orgasm. It literally and it sucked because everyone hated it. Because there was no build up. There was no anything right? It would be it would be like a man waking up and before your mind even came on. You're already already assuming for the day. You're like, oh, god that sucked. Right? I mean it was so you can actually you can actually make things too well, it goes back to the designing part. Right so you you are actually designing a journey for someone and I think that that's that's what we do.

Nick VinZant 28:52

I want to thank Mike so much for joining us if you want to connect with him. We have linked to him and tantus Incorporated on our social media accounts. We're Profoundly Pointless on Instagram and Twitter. And we have also included their information in the episode description. Okay, now let's go ahead and bring in john Scholl. 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, like, download, subscribe, share. We really appreciate it. It really helps us out. What do you think are some of the most unattractive qualities? It's really hard to be lying. I think lying should have been much higher on the list. But laziness just kind of incorporates all of that to me. I don't understand the fingernails thing that john was talking about. But man, however you get down is however you get down

Monster Truck Driver Coty Saucier

Growing up Coty Saucier dreamed of driving a monster truck. Now, he races them while backflipping over 60 foot jumps. We talk monster trucks, racing and more. Then, a special vehicular Top 5.

Interview with Monster Energy Monster Truck Driver Coty Saucier

Nick VinZant 0:11

Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode, monster trucks and ridiculous cars,

Coty Saucier 0:21

it's everything from being on a roller coaster that you are in control of the track direction mixed with standing at the edge of a cliff with about 1000 foot drop off in front of you. So all that combined is just it's intimidating. It's exciting. It's it's just a rush like no other. we'd stop at a red light and I'd shut the truck off so wouldn't get hot and there's people pulling up next to me like the hills, a monster truck tune in and turning way,

Nick VinZant 0:51

can you look back on a spot on a moment in your life, where you could say I should have made a different decision here. I screwed my life up here. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, like download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it, it really helps us out. So our first guest has one of these jobs, that I think anybody who's seen this on TV or in person thinks for at least a second. Man, it'd be cool to drive one of those things. He is the driver of the Monster Energy monster truck. This is monster truck driver, Cody Saucier, what's it like driving a monster truck,

Coty Saucier 1:35

it's tough to put into words. But the best explanation that I can give. It's everything from being on a roller coaster that you are in control of the track direction, and what loops it takes and what high speed curves it takes. And if it's going to go forward. And if it's even going to go backwards, mixed with standing at the edge of a cliff with about 1000 foot drop off in front of you. So all that combined is just the ultimate adrenaline rush. I've rented ridden dirt bikes before and I've jumped big on those things. But it just doesn't compare to the size and the power of the trucks because it's it's deceiving. You know, they're not supposed to do what we do with them. And then to get inside and strap in and do the things we do. It's it's intimidating, it's exciting. It's, it's just a rush like no other.

Nick VinZant 2:29

Is it because of like the raw power the horsepower? Is it because of like, this thing's hard to control? Is it because of the jump or just kind of like all of the above? Um,

Coty Saucier 2:41

They do you have big power. To me, they don't have enough power. But what they can be dangerous. I mean, it's not sugar coated, they can be very dangerous to the driver. So you got to respect the and and drive it with some respect and, but just to think like, Man, I'm getting ready to hit this jump that's in front of me, that's four times the height of the truck itself and send this thing, easily 100 feet in distance, that's nothing, and it's gonna go 60 feet in the air. And that's nothing. So just to think about what you're doing in the trucks is just, it's pretty impressive.

Nick VinZant 3:16

I didn't realize he was that those jumps with that hire that far. Like, he doesn't know quite like that on TV.

Coty Saucier 3:23

It doesn't, but you go to some of the events, you know, and they have these pit parties that are out on the track before the event. And you know, you could walk around and see the trucks up close and actually walk on the track and I get it all the time from from a lot of newcomers obviously like man, I jumped in look like that on television. I'm like, Well, welcome to our world. It seems like they get bigger every weekend for us. But yeah, man, they the dirt crew that that Monster Jam has is those guys are also man, they they try to nail it every weekend given us the same faces. I say faces the other the face of the ramp every weekend and things change. And especially during the freestyle events, you know, the first guy to go out can kind of make or break how the rest of the field is going to perform. Because if he goes out there and knocked all the ramp down will now you get to work to do to make yourself look

Nick VinZant 4:17

I would have assumed like guys like 15 feet high and maybe like two cars long. I did not read that's Damn.

Coty Saucier 4:25

Yeah, there's some big stuff out there, man there, you know, the piling up school buses side by side and stack and cars inside of them. And then they're piling dirt beside it. And they're like, Okay, good luck.

Nick VinZant 4:38

Have you ever gone up to one and been like, Hey, man, I don't know about this jump. I don't think we should add the lava and the flaming hoop and the alligators all the same time. Have you ever had like an instance where I don't know if I want to do this one?

Coty Saucier 4:51

Often Yes, but it's not to say that we don't go for it. Anyway, we'll make some changes. We'll tell the dirt crew like hey, Man that that that just looks a little too steep, you know, it's just not going to, it's not going to have the effect that you're looking for, you know, take it from us, we're behind the wheel, if if the dirt is cut out, then it's just it's not going to make for what you think it's going to do. So we constantly make changes and you're in control of vehicles. If there's something out there, you don't want to hit and by all means, you don't have to hit it. Some things are extremely intimidating. I, you know, I see it all the time. It's like, Man, that's, that's a straight up wall right there. I'm gonna go drive around that.

Nick VinZant 5:32

Is this something that you set out to do? Or is this something that just happened?

Coty Saucier 5:36

As a kid man, I have always been intrigued by the trucks in particular, I mean, I'm a gearhead my whole life, I've followed all forms of Motorsports. But just something about the trucks. I don't know as a young kid, if it was like a cartoon come to life kind of thing. And, you know, the trucks are big, they're loud and intimidating and scary. As I grew older, and like, you know, I got more mechanically inclined and knowledgeable. like, Man, these things really are frickin cool. So, at an early age, I just fell in love and like, man, I would like to try that one day and my love for that in baseball. I wanted to be a pro baseball player and make enough money to have my own monster truck. Well, that no none of that ever happened. I had to go work for somebody that had their monster truck and I could go play there. So here I am.

Nick VinZant 6:26

Do you fill out like a job application to be the driver? I mean, how does that you just work your way up? Or how does that process work?

Coty Saucier 6:33

You know, kind of like other forms of motorsport you work your way up from the bottom I literally started just kind of volunteering my time when the events would come around me I would just I would just go and hey, do you need any help doing anything? I've I've got two hands I'm willing to work I've got my work boots on let's let's do something so it was slow at first you know all I got was like a yeah kid Yeah, you can you can wipe the truck off if you like or at the end of the show you know come back and you can roll up extension cords for us and help us pack the trailer that went on for the longest of times. And finally it just it it picked up enough to where I got my face recognized and my name known so whenever the guys did come back to my area like oh hey man, call that one kid up Cody, you know you can come help us change that transmission or something that we get a knockout before the event even starts so little by little it led to a part time gig to a full time position to man 24 seven kind of thing you know, living and breathing out?

Nick VinZant 7:36

Is this the full time living like you could you can do this and someday retire just off of it or do you have to supplement in other ways?

Coty Saucier 7:44

You know, I know some guys that what they're considered in the industry privateer or independent teams guys that you know i footed their own bill doing this stuff. Their entire monster truck career, like for example is a gentleman that lives right here near me in Florida. Scott heartsong, he has The Gunslinger truck. And he's been in the industry since the late 80s. And he's just made a huge name for himself and I respect the guy so much because it's always been just the name of the truck on the side and not a sponsor sticker to be found. And he's still out there taking names and you know, kicking ass with TV trucks and he's got to figure it out, man. So to answer your question, there's definitely money to be made. Absolutely.

Nick VinZant 8:28

Like when when you're driving the truck, do you do everything else too? Like are you the mechanic? Are you the I don't know enough about mucking around with any other hidden mechanic? Um,

Coty Saucier 8:40

it used to be that way. Yeah, my first few years driving I started competing in 2014. And for the following three years or three tours, I guess you could say 1415 and 16 Yeah, I was the kind of built my own truck maintain it going up and down the road, I'd stay out on the road with it, you know, we'd pack and leave for three months and that that truck was priority. So every day you know, you had to be hands on it there was something that need to be adjusted and fixed and it's like a full time babysitting job with the trucks

Nick VinZant 9:16

are a lot of people kind of long time drivers or is this something that somebody like you're going to come in you can do this for two to five years and get go on to something else like is do a lot of people stick with it?

Coty Saucier 9:27

There's probably more guys that have been with it for you know, several years if not decades. Then there are newcomers that are just you know, fly by night here one weekend go on the next there's there's probably more guys that have been involving industry 1010 plus years versus guys that are here for a season or two for sure. Yeah.

Nick VinZant 9:49

All right. Correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm gonna reveal my my ignorance about the subject. So are you guys racing racing? Are you like racing like, yeah, we're racing, but really, we just We're just gonna hit the jobs

Coty Saucier 10:02

it says heads up as it comes man we really nobody out there wants to lose we're all out there to help one another when the helmets off when the helmet goes on it's I can't wait to kick that guy's ass and then buy him a beer later tonight.

Nick VinZant 10:16

What? What's kind of the strategy then when when when you're racing does it like depend on the track the dirt, the truck? The

Coty Saucier 10:24

Yeah, man, you nailed it a little bit, everything you got to know, you got to know what your your own equipment is capable of. So a guy like myself, mechanically inclined, I like to think that I have a one up on somebody that may not be in the shop all weekend long, maybe one of these flying guys that just braces, monster trucks on the weekend or something like that. So we can always kind of sneak in there just just like any other form of motorsport, do your little tricks to set up the chassis just the way you like it to compensate for what type? Of course it is. What's the dirt doing? Is it sticky? Is it too low? Me is a dry is it? What is it? So you take all that in consideration. And then a lot of times, man, you just got to drive accordingly. And drive your own race. Because if you if you look at the other guy, if the race course gives you an opportunity to look at the other guy in the other lane. And you just record yourself, you don't ever want to look at the other guy. So I try to always just run my own race and, and stay consistent. It's kind of like bracket drag racing. Austin trucks. Monster Truck racing is like record drag racing, you always just want to hit your marks. And you got to be fast, of course. But as long as you hit your marks, you should make it to the final round. No problem.

Nick VinZant 11:40

How come you don't want to look at the other guy just because that the moment of distraction or because maybe what he's doing on his side isn't the same as yours. Or

Coty Saucier 11:50

for sure. Just that moment of distraction almost like a jinx kind of thing. Like, oh, man, I looked at him now. No, I'm flustered and I'm ahead of him. Maybe I can back off a little bit, or I'm behind him not gonna catch up. Now I'm driving way too hard. I'll just crash the truck because I'm trying to play catch up. So I don't don't look at the other guy.A lot of times, I don't even know if I want like I'm telling my crew. I'm like, Wait, are we good? Can I stay strapped in? or? Yeah, no, you're good. Like, you went six rounds, right? You're going to the final like, okay,

Nick VinZant 12:21

we actually have a ton not a ton. A good amount of like listener submitted questions. So are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions?

Coty Saucier 12:30

Oh, yeah, man, bring it on. I love to hear that kind of thing.

Nick VinZant 12:33

Who is more who is generally more interested to find out? You're a monster truck driver, kids or adults?

Coty Saucier 12:39

Ah, man, that's a good question. I would probably tend to say lean a little bit more towards adults. I'm 35 years old. I guess I don't look my age. I look younger people say I'm trying to toot my own horn or anything, but I look younger. So whenever I'd say I do this, I've traveled to excuse me. Almost 30 countries, racing monster trucks professional and they're like you do What? Are you ever going to grow up kind of thing? I'm like, No, I get paid well, and I love what I do. And it's a blast and travel the world and I represent, you know, a huge household name or household brand and the kids just kind of they see it, you know, they come up to me at an event and they just know that I'm the driver of that truck. Like oh, that's him. That's Monster Energy. I don't know his name, but that's how

Nick VinZant 13:33

they're they're more the truck. The adults are more like me. And that's a current job.

Coty Saucier 13:38

Correct? Yep. He's like, man, how do you land this gig? Or? Oh, he's like, did you go to school for this? And then it's like, the adults the adults are always more intrigued by the driver. You know his backstory than anything.

Nick VinZant 13:52

Could you or could somebody else right like can some another professional driver for the NASCAR driver that I can think of right off the top of my head like Dale Earnhardt, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Could he come in? And like, I got this I can take this truck or is it a very specialized kind of driving,

Coty Saucier 14:10

he could probably run the throttle, no problem and get the hang of that pretty quick. But everything else man, it's, it just comes with time. If you have some motocross background or even some like dirt track experience, something that's you know, a lot of RPMs and a lot of drifting and, you know, with the late the round track, late model stuff and then this motocross stuff, the jumping and knowing the position or the attitude of the vehicle in the air. combine those two things. That's kind of what monster trucks is it's Supercross mix with late model mix with Top Fuel or top alcohol drag racing all in one. So it takes a it takes a different breed of cat so to speak to figure these trucks out. And I've noticed if there's a newcomer coming In, you can always tell if they do well, the very first time that they get in the truck, you know, they do well, I mean, they can operate the front rear steering, clearly, you know, in a controllable manner, they know when the hit the throttle and when not to hit the throttle. If they got that kind of fundamental stuff, they're golden. A lot of people man the first time in, so you can see him struggle. And right off the bat, I can say he or she is not gonna make it. He is she's not going to make it he's gonna have poor performance or they're just not going to like it and just OPT themselves out. That happens.

Nick VinZant 15:36

It's really like it's one of those things you can do it or you can't.

Coty Saucier 15:38

Exactly it's kind of like playing guitar. I wish I could play guitar. I'm a huge guitar fan, but I can't

Nick VinZant 15:44

how much horsepower? Does your monster truck have

Coty Saucier 15:47

horsepower, um, my particular truck is roughly at best and at best meaning you know, right conditions, you know, not high in altitude. Not too much humidity. I think the best we've ever gotten man out of our dyno guy Richard midges, our engine builder, is right at 1400 horsepower at the crank. Port horsepower can kind of multiply a little bit with the gearing that we have in the trucks, you know, their gear, there's so many gear reductions in the monster truck to make the huge tires turn that you could probably add a couple 100 horsepower, just to the gearing so we're close to 1500 horsepower as the truck sets race ready? It's a stick shift, right? No, it's a it's manual valve body. So you have to shift it high low gear. Most common is a Chevrolet based powerglide transmission, which is you know, low and high, fast and faster, I call it so manual valve body, you know, it's got a foot brake, there's no clutch foot brake you holeshot you take off. Click second. And that's it.

Nick VinZant 16:59

That kind of leads us into this question. What is your favorite sound that the monster truck makes?

Coty Saucier 17:05

Favorite sound? It's probably there's so many sounds I come from, but I'm just old school with it. There's nothing like just a big blown alcohol injected motor motor with just as gnarly can just Rob Rob Rob at idle you know, I mean, that's it sounds so healthy. It's so macho. I think that's the coolest thing. Just hearing those trucks idle.

Nick VinZant 17:30

What do you what do you do with the old tires?

Coty Saucier 17:33

That's a very good question. I've seen so many different uses with old tires that aren't being able to be used anymore. You know, the they're been cut too bad or the beads have broken on the on the bead lip or whatever you want to call it is broken that they can't even seat again on a wheel and hold air seem to be used as landfills. I've seen them be used as like flower pots. I've seen them be used as elephant toys, literally elephant toys.

Nick VinZant 18:00

How do you get them on? Like do you is it take a couple of couple of people to do it or do you have to use like a machine to do it.

Coty Saucier 18:10

We have a pretty gnarly electric over hydraulic jack that we reel around and we put under each axle to lift one end of the truck at a time. So we can put two tires on at a time. I can hire up a truck, you know a guy that's confident and knows what he's doing safely. I can tire up a truck and by myself in 20 minutes. Really? Yeah, you they're kind of you know, you use your use the weight of the truck and weight of the tires to your advantage. So you just kind of push them around where you want it and then use the electric jack to kind of work with you and lift the tire up onto the hub and then spin it to where you got it lined up on the studs and shove it on there. And then and it's it's a lot easier than you think.

Nick VinZant 18:54

But they're heavy as hell though right?

Coty Saucier 18:57

they're very heavy man they're probably around anywhere between seven to 800 pounds per per tire. The entire truck fully tired up culinaire driver in it ready to go racing as they're pushing about 12,000 pounds. This kind of leads into the next question that somebody sent us which aspect of the truck are you most impressed with? engine tires or frame I would have to put this in order I would probably say the chassis design the frame design engine then the tires themselves. I mean, the tires that particular size, the chevron pattern that's been a staple of a monster truck since the very beginning in the late 70s. So the progression of that has come a long ways from them again me wrong, you know, there's spec tires being made anymore, but the motors I mean these engine companies and an engine component companies are always coming out with something new always better and you know, the cylinder has always bettering the the rod and piston And so that's always changing. It seems like usually that kind of makes a change for the better. Put the chasse ease man The chassis is or anymore. That's what's, that's what making the trucks be able to do what we do nowadays, you rewind five, even 10 years ago, there's no way a 10 year old truck could compete with today's trucks safely? And do the crazy stunts that we do. It's just just fatigue, it's so bad that they would not last,

Nick VinZant 20:31

do you have to constantly rebuild the truck or is it basically the same truck.

Coty Saucier 20:37

so we typically get about three full years, which is quite a bit of shows, man, that's probably pushing over 100 shows on a chassis. And after that, we cut the chassis apart, take all the components off of the chassis and put a fresh chassis underneath it, you can only bend and twist metal so many times before it comes brittle. Breaks easy. You don't always want to be welding on the thing because it just becomes unsafe, you know, for the driver, you just, you can't you can't be replaced in bars and all the time. So every excuse me every three years we put a new chassis in it. Good bad doesn't matter. It's just insurance for us. less work in the long run. Yeah, that's that's how we operate? Is it?

Nick VinZant 21:25

Is it safe? Or is it like, as safe as we can get it?

Coty Saucier 21:29

The monster truck industry is, you know, I've never been in any other form of motorsport professionally. So I can't really sit down with their rulebook committee guys and say you're doing this wrong, are you doing this right, but man, I have been involved for many years and have followed for many years. And the progression has come from guys wearing open face helmets wearing a lap belt in these trucks way back in the day to now man we're doing this we're looking at we work hand in hand with like, the Navy and stuff and we're using very similar belts that these fighter pilot guys are using. And that's the kind of thing we're messing with any more containment seats that are built specifically for the driver. You get a suit made you get a tuxedo made for yourself for a big event. That same dimensions of your body were taken into consideration to get these seats built. So the seat and each truck is built for that driver just so he's contained. Archie is contained that much more and is that much safer. We're using seven point harnesses I mean, you know, ever since Earnhardt's accident years ago, everybody wears some sort of neck restraint. I personally use a Honda device you have to wear some sort of neck protection and not just a net collar some sort of neck protection device that is held on to your helmet held on to the restraints in the in the seat. Because man we're pulling some extreme G's when we take these these hits, you know even just a landing off of a big job is is insane. Have you ever been injured? Knock on wood, nothing serious. But I'm sore the next day for sure. Because I made every jump is is a car crash. In the beginning my first few years driving my very first weekend. I'll be honest, I didn't really have a clue what I was doing. But I remember getting in the shower after that night. And just my thighs around my, my thighs down my crotch and my shoulder blades. It looks like somebody beat me with a leather belt just for being strapped in the truck and getting tossed around.

Nick VinZant 23:30

I once accidentally jumped a Buick like a foot off the ground. And I still remember landing and thinking like, holy crap that is not what I thought it would be.

Coty Saucier 23:41

yeah, man I've hit and i've you know, I've driven the truck around like moving it and stuff and I've was totally unstrapped not doing anything crazy. I'm moving the truck and it was fully tired up. Get the shocks were gassed up everything ready to go racing so I just move it. I traveled along first gear. Alright, I'm pretty high in rpm. I don't want to hurt the motor. Click high gear. I'm going maybe 25 miles an hour. And I hit a curb and a parking lot. It literally almost threw me out of this like on the ground out of the truck. Just there's so much tire bounce. And you know it's so it's so rigid doing the little things. It's meant to be jumped in jump big. So it's crazy how much we rely on the belts and harnesses and the seat to keep us safe with E in the truck.

Nick VinZant 24:32

busiest road you've ever taken it on. Like you can't drive that. Can you drive that street?Like that's not legal? not legally

Coty Saucier 24:41

No, not legally without permits and stuff. I have driven them. Yeah, I've driven them quite a ways actually. enough to where we had to refuel and on public road. Oh man, this was years ago like 2008 something like that. We did a display at a Ford dealership in Oklahoma City. And our Big was having some issues so we weren't able to go pick the truck up, take it back to the arena. So we got with like, the local law enforcement, they gave us a police escort and it was like, it was like 10 city blocks away. Back to the arena. We had to obey, you know, streetlights and stuff like that. So I got this police officer in front of me, way in front of me because I told him to stay pretty far ahead of me because I can't see directly in front of his truck so tall. I can't just see over the hood. You need to stay 50 yards ahead of me so I can safely see you. And we'd stop at a red light and I'd shut the truck off so it wouldn't get hot. And there's people pulling up next to me like that's a hell of a monster truck tune in and turning way.

Nick VinZant 25:44

I knew this is the wrong day to drive through down. Yeah, I do it. Yeah. Okay, so obviously your truck is the coolest name truck. But if you had to pick a different truck, like who's got the coolest name?

Coty Saucier 25:56

Oh, man, there's there's some pretty catchy names out there. Man. You know I've always hated when people compare to to wrestling monster trucks and wrestling. I hated that. But there's so you can't help but there's some cool names and wrestling and there's some cool names and monster trucks and it kind of coincides that way. But I mean, how cool is the Grave Digger? Like, that's scary. That's scary as hell and it's like intimidating and the trucks just badass. Look in. It's got this Grim Reaper dude in the side of it. It's like, that's pretty damn cool. I mean, Bigfoot, that's just that's a staple. That's just cool. That trucks look like a Bigfoot. I don't know.

Nick VinZant 26:33

That, that is kind of like, in terms of a viewer to like rank things like that's, that's some of the best names for that thing. Like, great diggers gotta be up there. Right? Like, that's pretty good name for that thing. Um,that's all the questions that we got, man, there's anything kind of you think that we missed or what's coming up next for you?

Coty Saucier 26:56

Oh, man, we could sit here and talk, you know, the past the future reconsider for hours talking about it. But man, it's just, it's hit or miss right now with events with what's being allowed, you know, certain cities and venues as far as what we can do event wise. So it's been slow. It's been, it's been a waiting game for a lot of us, including myself. So I'm hoping by July, we're back out there. I know, there's a lot of events on schedule, without a truck and driver list. So I'm hoping to get back out there sooner than later. I'm working full time at a full drive shop here. I live in Tampa, Florida. So I'm working at a four wheel drive shop here in the meantime. But man anxious to get back out there for sure. I mean, it's been my life. For my entire life. It's been my dream to compete in Monster Jam and monster truck. So you can't come soon enough. It just COVID is messing everything up. But we got to stay healthy. And if it means sitting out for a little while. And that's what we got to do.

Elephant Researcher Dr. Caitlin O'Connell

We look different but we are very much the same. Dr. Caitlin O'Connell has been researching elephants for nearly 30 years. We talk elephant behavior, animal rituals and the battle between elephants and rhinos. Then, we countdown a special scary Top 5.

Interview with Elephant Researcher Dr. Caitlin O’Connell

Nick VinZant 0:11

Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant coming up in this episode, elephants and scary stuff.

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 0:20

It's really amazing how similar elephants are to us. You know, we talk about personality and character traits. Well, elephants have personalities too. And you know, there'll be the big softy the diplomat, they'll be the general, whatever's in their way, they walk in a straight line. And if something's in their way, you better get. And so that there's a big contention between elephants and rhinos. There's so many different subtle things that we can learn from elephants. And really, by looking in the mirror at another species, it's just a humbling reminder of our own humanity.

Nick VinZant 1:02

I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it, it really helps us out. So I have always been fascinated by elephants, because they look so different, but seem to act so much like us. Our first guest has spent the last 30 years researching elephants in Africa. This is elephant researcher, Dr. Caitlin O'Connell. In your study of elephants, how much are they like us? Are they very different? Or are they very much the same?

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 1:39

It's really amazing how similar elephants are to us. They grow up in these very social large families. The males get that young adult itch to leave the family because they want their independence. And mom, she also sees that you're kind of being a pain in the butt to the family. And she also wants to kick you out. And it's a matriarchal society. So the mothers, grandmothers aunts, are leading. And really one older female is leading the family. But if you spend, you know even an hour at a waterhole watching the interaction between individuals within a family, they're so similar, you know, the little boys want to play with each other, and the older sisters there to make sure that the roughhousing doesn't get too crazy. It's, it's really fascinating how similar they are and how caring they are to each other and want to protect each other. It's kind of humbling to see how similar they are to us.

Nick VinZant 2:45

Do they have that kind of a social structure for a biological reason, like to survive as a species, they had to adapt this? Or are they just that smart, and that kind of flows from that

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 2:57

they are a social animal. And by being social, by nature, you depend on others within the group. And usually, you have to learn certain survival skills like for elephants, they don't know what to eat, when they're born, they actually have to learn what is safe to eat from the others in the family. So they'll go around and place their trunk in the mouth to see Oh, okay, that's safe to eat that safe to eat. So, elephants need to learn from each other to survive. And then the benefits of that is safety and numbers. They can deter predators, you know, if lions try and surround them, if there's enough of them, they can really push off the lions.

Nick VinZant 3:44

When I think of elephants, I always think of the big African elephant like on the savanna. Is that primarily what you work with? Are there other kinds of elephants I don't know about?

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 3:55

Well, there's the Asian elephant, which has smaller ears and hump on its back rather than settle back for the African elephant. But most of my work is done in Namibia, which is the country just above South Africa, on the west coast of Southern Africa. But I found that there's so much to learn from one population and returning to that one population is more informative for me than to compare between populations, just because it's kind of like being an anthropologist, and you go out to study a social group, and you want to see how the dynamics of the groups change over time based on environmental and social factors. So it's, it's been really fascinating to be able to go back and see the same elephants every year and you know, who's had a new baby and how does that baby change the dynamics of the group and with the male elephants, who's on top of the hierarchy and how does it change when that there's a changing of the Guard, because I can ask questions about, say, you know, we talked about personality and character traits. Well, elephants have personalities too. And you know, there'll be the big softy the diplomat, they'll be the general and they'll be the bully. And these character traits really are durable that there they are the same until you get some, let's say, an inciting incident where the dominant bull disappears, let's say and two bullies at the bottom of the hierarchy. This kind of happened in my situation. Two bullies at the bottom of the hierarchy decide they want to climb to be the number one, Bull. But it turns out, nobody likes a bully. And they had to figure out how to be born diplomatic, where the dominant boy was really a master at the kind of carrot and stick politics. Like, I'll be really nice to you. But I'm also gonna jab you if you step out of line. And so these other bowls when he left, he disappeared, they had to then change their dynamic in order to be more likeable, which is really fast. It is very human.

Nick VinZant 6:15

What do you look at? Like, who rises to the top, so to speak? Is it generally through sheer strength? Or is it more through kind of like politics?

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 6:24

Oh, it's character, the dominant bowl that we had, for six years, he had very small tusks, he was not the tallest. But his character was so intimidating, that he rose to the top of the hierarchy, you know, when these bigger characters want a bigger group, so they, they solicit these younger bulls to come and be with them. And, you know, literally, they'll take their trunk and kind of hold it over their back or say, Okay, it's time to leave and kind of push them out and force them to not force them, but invite them to follow them. And that means that they have to share all the resources with these younger bulls. So there's got to be some benefit. When a male elephant does not want a younger male to say adopt him as a mentor. They will not let them follow them. They'll shake their heads at them as they're leaving the waterhole, they'll make it very clear that they do not want this bull in their presence.

Nick VinZant 7:27

So then, where are the baby elephants and all of that, like, Who do they hang out with?

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 7:32

Oh, the moms, the mothers, the aunts, the cousins. They're all kind of tucked in to the family. And they extended family reunions are just thrilling events. All these youngsters get to run around and play with each other. And this huge, elaborate greeting ceremonies where the females place trunks in the mouth is a greeting ritual. And then they urinate and defecate because they're so excited to see each other.

Nick VinZant 8:02

I did not know that I thought it was all like men and women grouped all together in a big pack. But so it's really just a pack of women and their kids. And then the men are just kind of wandering around.

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 8:13

Yeah, in their own cohorts. They have very bonded groups just like the females do. And very similar rituals, you know, when the dominant bull wants to leave the waterhole, he engages in the same, let's go vocalization ritual that the females do. And then there's a volley of responses from the other males. So they're very much like an intact family. These bonded groups of males,

Nick VinZant 8:41

do the men have much of a role in rearing the child

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 8:45

No, they, they may be able to detect relatives through smell like we can, mice can, many mammals can detect a relative through what's called the major histocompatibility complex, there's a gene that actually has a smell associated with it. That is a relatedness gene. And, you know, mice have this ability so that they don't mate with siblings, you know, there's obvious reasons, to advantages to know who your relatives are. And I suspect that male elephants might be able to do that, since they don't stay around after the meeting event. You know, they don't pay attention to who their offspring are. Unless, once that baby is a young adult and is entering the male society, then there might be some favoritism and decisions made to have more of a related group than not. And we know we see very different culture going on in the desert versus areas where resources are more ubiquitous. where water is more ubiquitous?

Nick VinZant 10:02

When you when you're studying them? How do you study them? And do they? Do they acknowledge you? Do they recognize you? Well,

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 10:10

that's a good question. You know, as a scientist coming back to the same place over the years, it would make sense that they would recognize, okay, here are these crazy researchers setting up shop again. But as a scientist, I have made the very conscious decision to stay in the background, and not interact with the subjects, because that would change their dynamic, we're there to watch them live out their lives and not insert ourselves into their lives. And it makes sense in a zoo environment, because elephants really want to have a relationship with you, you know, they don't have their whole society and the hierarchy of elephants, especially when there's only a few of them in the zoo environment, then making having a relationship with that elephant totally makes sense. But in the wild, it really doesn't. Inserting yourself into their social environment means that they're going to make decisions possibly based on the fact that you're there. And so we try to remain as neutral invisible as possible. They know that humans are there, but we don't, you know, seek them out, as you know, oh, Willie, hi, great to see you again. You know, we don't do that. But we have an observation tower, and everything's behind this cloth, called Boma cloth, it's like a canvas, so they can't see our interactions and movements around the tower. And we have a whole database and data logger of measuring scoring behaviors as they interact with each other and different set for the females versus

Nick VinZant 11:56

the males show our elephants endangered still threatened? What's the status there?

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 12:04

For the most part, they are endangered. You know, in some areas, particularly in southern Africa, there are larger groups of elephants such that there, it's more of a space issue.

Nick VinZant 12:21

Are we actively doing something about that? Do we need to do more? Are people kind of just like this is what to do

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 12:28

We need to do more, you know, he especially protecting migration routes. There are areas in southern Africa that if we make the right decisions now, we could keep these large groups, transnational groups intact between Mozambique, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, there's these five countries that have formed a national park with a plan to keep these corridors and space for elephants. And we need to make sure that that actually gets implemented because it's one thing to have a paper park but to actually make it work takes a lot of effort and a lot of coordination. And fortunately, in the country of Namibia, they have shown that people can benefit from having wildlife in their area versus more cornfields.

Nick VinZant 13:25

Are you ready for some harder slash listeners submitted questions?

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 13:28

Sure.

Nick VinZant 13:29

Who has been your favorite elephant that you have studied?

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 13:36

Well, I figure I'd be allowed to favorite elephants, one female and one male. That's true. The male that I like the most is Willie Nelson, named after the singer Willie Nelson because of his long, scraggly tail and kind of tattered ears. But it turns out that Willie Nelson is the diplomat. He hates the bullies and will have no qualms about telling them that look, we don't want you here. And we don't want you even drinking with us because you're such a jerk. And I love that he spends a lot of time on this. And he's such a net, just natural, nice, all around sweet guy. But he will not tolerate the bullies. And I just I just love it. And my favorite female is Big Mama. She has an enormous family which may end up not being a smart move for these females in the desert. But she is also the diplomat and in my favorites are the diplomats because there's a lot of politics that go on to really caring about justice, you know, social justice. She will share the waterhole where Other very aggressive matriarchs will not tolerate other families being anywhere near the waterhole, they will chase them without a question, but she will, okay, well, we can move over here. And she's just a really gentle giant, she doesn't get ruffled by anything. And that really has an impact on the rest of the family, the character of of a leader, and you think about human society to the character of Big Mama means that her whole family is kind of chill. And that's just that's pretty cool. I love that.

Nick VinZant 15:42

Have you learned by studying elephants? Have you learned more about elephants or more about people?

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 15:47

Yeah, that's a great question. I would say both. I learned about myself, constantly reminded by elephants of turn taking behavior. For example, in a conversation, how many times do we overrun? Or do your friends over run the conversation? You think, Oh, my God, I can't get a word in edgewise? Well, when these females are leaving the waterhole, they will have discourse and sometimes heated discourse, but they let the other one finish their sentence first. And that is really cool. And there are some physical reasons for this, where if you one individual rumbles, and then the next one rumbles, and the next one rumbles, you're actually creating a much longer signal that will travel into the environment further, but also on a social practical level, it is letting the other person have their say, and, and that's really interesting. There's so many different subtle things that we can learn from elephants. And really, by looking in the mirror at another species, it's just a humbling reminder of our own humanity. And we can learn a lot about ourselves by really pausing and thinking about our behavior. You know, I watch elephants greet each other, I think, Oh, my gosh, we need to be that excited when we see each other. I mean, sometimes we are for a reunion, we haven't seen each other for a long time. But they do this all the time. And it's really important important hormonally it facilitate stronger bonds. Or sometimes even in your own household, you kind of forget, good morning, you know, don't even say good morning, don't look at each other in the eyes. But it's a really important ritual to greet each other. And, you know, I wrote this book recently, wild rituals, just because I was so inspired by watching all these different animals engage in ritual, and how important those rituals are to those animals and how they are to us. But we kind of forget their importance and just go, we don't need to be now because of the pandemic. We know how important seeing each other in person is and what we've lost by not being able to see each other not being able to smile at each other because we have to, you know, keep each other safe by wearing masks. There's all these things that that pandemic has reminded us of how important ritual is,

Nick VinZant 18:09

why do elephants make me cry?

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 18:15

I, I would say, it's because they are incredibly emotional animals. And, you know, seeing a young male shaking his head at you and having their trunk all flailing about, they're so excited they wear their heart on their sleeve. And just seeing how emotionally similar we are, is, I mean, they'll make me tear up really, I mean, they make me cry often. There's so special. And so I think the other thing is when you know, I also get very emotional when I see excess facial expressions on great apes, because there's so similar to ours, it's just oh my gosh, we are cousins. And so when, you know, directly evolutionary cousins, but for elephants, they look so wildly different, but yet we have the same emotion. So it's just a reminder of how interconnected we are with other animals in nature. And and we're not so special. We are on par with these other species, not above them. And elephants are a good reminder of that.

Nick VinZant 19:35

What's the deal with the elephant graveyard? Is that a real thing? Or did I like see that in a movie

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 19:40

There are a number of different explanations for an elephant graveyard, but that kind of segues into grief and grieving. So some elephant graveyards have been explained by early mass hunting, for one that elephants would be all killed. You know, 100 elephants in one place in the early days when early, the great white hunter thought that no animals were infinite. But other explanations are that no elephants like to when they're feeling ill, an aging elephant, they don't want to leave water when they're sick. And so elephants in an area that might have an ephemeral or permanent water pool in the middle of the jungle that could have dried out over evolutionary time, elephants would go towards a water source to die. So that's another explanation of how you'd get so many skeletons in one place. But on the point of grieving, elephants are very similar to humans, in terms of feeling the loss of a loved one, needing to visit that loved one, after they pass, to the point of even wanting to bury that loved one and have a ceremony for the loved one. And, you know, I write about this in wild rituals in my grieving chapter, How touching it is when to see how elephants really feel that deep loss that we feel and the importance of expressing that loss, and also the cultural transmission element of elephants who have experienced a grieving ritual in the wild, coming into captivity, and expressing that grieving ritual where others that grew up in captivity, did not express that did not have ever experienced agreement ritual, and did not engage in the grieving rituals as the others do did. And I talked about this in the grieving chapter. How to elephants from Mozambique were imported into the US, and they had experienced a wild culture in their youth, and knew what a grieving ritual was engaged in that grieving ritual when the matriarch of that captive group passed away. So they have grief and grieving rituals just like we do. And they know the importance of engaging them.

Nick VinZant 22:23

slightly lighter question. Who wins elephant versus Rhino?

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 22:28

Oh,that's a very good question. rhinos do not like to give way to elephants, they don't like to give way to anything, whatever's in their way, they walk in a straight line. And if something's in their way, you better get out. And so that has developed a real contention, whoever asked this question must know this, that there's a big contention between elephants and rhinos. And, in the end, an elephant, if it really wanted to, would probably win if it charged at the rhino, but really the elephants like whoa, okay, I'll go, I'll just step over here. You know, whereas the rhinos like, No, no, no, I'm not moving from my path. You're in my path. I'm moving forward. So I would say that in the end, the elephant is most likely to back down because that path is not as important to the elephant as it is to the right now.

Nick VinZant 23:36

It's not it's not worth it for the Rhino

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 23:41

Not worth it. You're having a bad day. I get it. I'm just gonna go over here.

Nick VinZant 23:45

rhinos do seem grumpy. They seem like a grumpy animal in general. Right?

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 23:50

Well, the problem. The reason is, black rhinos are territorial and very territorial. And the males are very aggressive. And when they come across another one when they're drinking at the waterhole, they don't want to see that other male and they're very grumpy about it and very vocal up to it. So it makes sense. But for the white rhino, white rhinos are very gregarious, and they're not nearly as aggressive. But I mean, a rhino is very similar to puppy dog. It they are credibly. just adorable. They, they communicate with their long ears. And when they're when they supplicate they flatten them against their head and they kind of mu and they have all these supplicating kind of puppy like behaviors. rhinos are really under sold in there in terms of personality. They have a lot of personality and they're really amusing to watch.

Nick VinZant 24:59

Favorite fictional elephantFace favorite fictional elephant?

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 25:02

Oh, I have one that I'm writing. But published fictional elephant. I love that Babar.

Nick VinZant 25:18

Yeah,

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 25:19

it's the story is so tragic. I mean, you don't realize as a child, all the books that you read are so traumatic and, you know, I suppose they're they're trying to help you process grief vicariously to be able to experience it in a safe way. But so many terrible things happened to him. But I do love the story. And Dumbo I mean, how could you not love Dumbo,

Nick VinZant 25:47

Dumbo? There's no way an elephant could fly, though. Did you discover that in your research? It's

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 25:53

wonderful, that those big ears, it'd be great if they could

Nick VinZant 25:58

best name for an elephant like, oh, maybe you didn't like it wasn't your favorite elephant. But that was a really good name for an elephant.

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 26:07

Oh, well, I do have a favorite there. His name is Guk kulu. He's a huge elephant and very gentle. In fact, he's not a diplomat because he doesn't like politics at all. So he just sidesteps our main dominant ball. But his name came from the Zulu word for very large. And he's got these really wide splayed tests. And one of them's his right test who's a little bit higher than left. So you can see him from a kilometer or two away, you know, that guy kulu is coming. It's a beautiful sight.

Nick VinZant 26:45

So tell me about wild rituals.

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell 26:47

Wild rituals, is a book about animal rituals and our own rituals, and the importance of ritual in our lives that we often forget or just are too lazy to engage in. And I show 10 different very common rituals, you know, play greeting, group rituals, grieving rituals, and how these rituals are expressed in different animal societies and how similar and sometimes different for our own societies, but just how important ritual is in general. And, yeah, that came out in January, and we're developing a documentary series and it's it's really exciting.

Meditation Coach Lodro Rinzler

Stressed? Anxious? Depressed? Your inner voice can guide you through the darkest times. You just have to be able to hear it. Meditation Teacher Lodro Rinzler can help you find your inner self. We talk meditation techniques, the benefits of meditation and calming your mind. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Pieces of Playground Equipment.

Interview with Meditation Coach Lodro Rinzler

Nick VinZant 0:12

Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode, finding your inner self, and the top five pieces of playground equipment.

Lodro Rinzler 0:25

That meditation is, in this essence, a way of becoming more familiar with who we truly are. Every time we do that we are rewiring the brain, we are retraining it that we don't have to chase after every anxiety producing thought that comes up in our life, we can make a different choice choice to be present to choice to be mindful choice to be in sentence kinder to ourselves.

Nick VinZant 0:46

I want to thank you so much for joining us, if you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it really helps us out. So I have reached a point in my life, where I'm constantly trying to reflect. Problem is, I'm not really very good at it. Because every time I tried to do this, my mind just bounces all over the place. And it's been like that for a while. But I think that the pandemic and what we're all going through has just made it so much worse. I think so many more people are dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety, and there isn't time to just kind of relax, and think our first guest is an expert at dealing with that stress and anxiety, and really helping people find out who they really are. This is meditation teacher lodro rinzler. So I think a lot of people have heard about meditation, but what what am I actually supposed to be doing when I'm meditating.

Lodro Rinzler 1:55

So actually, we get a lot of meditation teacher trainings. And the funny thing is, I always have to give them the bad news, which is a large part of the work we do is like, re educating people around this word and what they should expect. Because most people have been sold a bill of goods, which is like you see the magazine cover, and you think, oh, if I meditate for a moment, I find everlasting peace and bliss. And it should feel just about as relaxing as massage when in fact, meditation is actually us, learning to know ourselves better. My favorite word for meditation in the Tibetan language is golm g o m. And that can be translated as familiarization or meditation. And it equates the two, that meditation is in this essence, a way of becoming more familiar with who we truly are. So there's the sense of, I mean, there's a million types of meditation out there. But since I come from the Buddhist tradition, you know, the types I talked about are often based in some form of mindfulness. So mindfulness of the breath, for example, we sit down, we meditate on feeling each in breath and out breath, when we get distracted, we come back, there's something very simple about that. And yet, when we sit down to do it, we often find that our mind is a little over the place. It's just ramping thoughts and sort of a bombardment of thoughts one after another after another, so that formerly after mentioned, bill of goods that we've been told, this should feel relaxing, this should feel good and only feel good. We feel like there must be something wrong with me, if I'm experiencing something other than that, when in fact, it's just about every human being out there, that when you sit down to meditate, whether it is meditation, on sound meditation on emotions, or meditation, breath or any number of things, it's actually this deeper experience of just getting to know how many thoughts we really have, and then starting to work with it over time, in the same way that we might learn a new language, we might train, learn a new musical instrument, the more we pick it up in little bits every day, the easier it becomes. And the easier part here, it was simple, but now it's easy to just sort of it's like the volume of the thoughts gets turned down, like the actual level of the volume. They become less alluring to us that we're more able to stay with our object of attention, such as the breath. And as a result, we feel more of a sense of peace.

Nick VinZant 4:20

I can't get this done in five minutes, right? Like, that's kind of how I feel. The normal approach now is like, I'll meditate but I got five minutes. And if I don't have everlasting peace after five minutes, probably not gonna do this again. Do you run into that?

Lodro Rinzler 4:35

Yeah, that's exactly it. It's like, we want amazon prime. for meditation. We don't want to wait the seven day day. 10 day shipping, we want it like tomorrow or it's not worth it. And same thing here. It's like the science. There's so much science these days around meditation. It's like every week there's some new study from some University saying if you meditate just a little bit every day after a period of some weeks, you start to see Increased gray matter in the hippocampus in the brain using more activity in the ACC the brain, which translates to were more productive, we're more efficient, we're more present, we sleep better boosts our immune system. We're a minute away from BuzzFeed releasing the 20 sexiest reasons we should be meditating, like, it's really getting up there. But the idea is like in that fine print, there's this marker of, well, you have to do it for a few weeks, you have to do it consistently for a few weeks, you can't just do it once or twice.

Nick VinZant 5:28

Can you do meditation without the spiritual slash religious aspect of it?

Lodro Rinzler 5:35

Yes, absolutely. So there's, I mean, you know, we always hear about these things within religions, like the Buddha wasn't a Buddhist and things like that, right? He was a person. He's a person who tried, actually a bunch of different types of meditation then settled into just being with the body breathing mindfulness of the body, and was able to wake up in a really big way, which is why we say, Well, here's a good example of what we could do with these simple practices. But the idea here is that that is not a religious experience, that is not a it's, you know, because his words were passed on. And we have this advice today, when we call it a religious tradition. But it's not a religion, per se, as we might normally think of some of them. But the spirit of it has never been do these things on this day, and then you are good. And do these, if you don't do these things, or you do these other things, then you're bad. The core of Buddhism in particular, and I know you're asking about meditation in general, but I'll come back to that. The core of Buddhism in general, in particular, is that there's, we are all inherently wakeful. We're all basically peaceful, basically good. As is. That's who we are. And if you I mean, have kids, if you have a nephew of God, child of some sort, you know, like any, any sort of kids in your life, you see them come into the world, and they aren't sitting around being like, Oh my gosh, what's wrong with me? Why am I like this? That's learned behavior. They come in from the sense of, Oh, I'm, I'm good, I'm whole and complete. And then they get picked on by society. And you know, all the other influences there have, and start to second guess that. So this is not even like a Buddhist teaching. It's like we see this in our in our life. This is just experience that we might have of Oh, yeah. You know, when I meditate, for example, I might have a moment to just resting with the breath, and I feel good and complete, and everything's okay. In that moment, I'm not mentally freaking out about my finances. I'm not freaking out about my friendship. But what it is, it's like, I'm just okay, I'm here and present. And that's not a religious thing. That's a human thing. And that's just something that we can discover for ourselves. I think, pretty much

Nick VinZant 7:42

any rational person. Here's what has been said, what you've been saying about meditation. Here's what they have read, right? I think that this is something that everybody would agree like, this is a good idea. I should do this. But we just don't like, I've done it before. That was fantastic. And I just don't do it. Why do you think that is? How can we change that?

Lodro Rinzler 8:05

I don't think do you exercise in some form?

Nick VinZant 8:09

I do. Yes. In the mornings?

Lodro Rinzler 8:10

Yeah. What do you do?

Nick VinZant 8:12

Running? Basically? Great.

Lodro Rinzler 8:14

So you put on the shoes, and you step out is super cold in that moment? And in that moment, you don't say I can't wait to do this. You say? No, I'm gonna do this. I know, it's gonna be uncomfortable as No, it's gonna take a minute for me to warm up. And I'm gonna be tired after that to stretch. But I'm doing it because you have your own Why? Right? Like, it may. Yeah, because I like the way it feels after because I want to lose weight. Because whatever it might be, it's always very personal. But same thing here. I think there's discomfort. And the payoff, if you will, is a little bit less obvious than some other things. Because we could measure Oh, I've been running for three months, and I lost this many pounds during that time. We it's harder for us to be like, oh, I've been meditating for three months, and I am 10% kinder than I used to be. Right? Like, it's just how would you measure? I'm a little bit more present with my family than I was before is, it's often something that we are sitting out with people and they noticed that we're acting differently to see what's going on. Because I don't know. Maybe it's because you've been meditating. It's sort of, it always gets mirrored back to us. It's so subtle.

Nick VinZant 9:23

I don't like refer back to my spreadsheet and say, Well, I'm 10% happier today than I was last week. You know, I guess you mean, right? It's not a quantum easily quantifiable metric.

Lodro Rinzler 9:35

Yeah, it would be a lot easier if it was, but it's the effects are huge. And they are I mean, I work with people for years at a time. And, you know, someone would come to me and say, Gosh, compared to when we started working together a year ago. I just feel like I'm handling this whole chaotic pandemic, family situation, work issue, whatever.

Nick VinZant 9:55

It is so much better than I would have if I hadn't been meditating. Do you think Though that is from the practice of meditation, or because we know ourselves more and become with our Okay, thoughts, like, Where do you think that peace kind of comes from?

Lodro Rinzler 10:13

With this bombardment of thoughts? Most people don't realize that they walk around with this little inner narrator, I guess that this is constantly chattering the way I think like, okay, after this, I'm gonna go do that. And then after this thing, I got that meeting and what's going on with that person? Right, I need to talk to them about this. It's just constant, like chatter. And it's, we're listening to our own inner radio station there. And sometimes that radio station is actually quite cruel. Sometimes radio stations self aggressive. Why do you say that? You know, you shouldn't have prepared for that as a jerk. Why are you like this. And meditation, to some degree is like turning the dial down. And either not listening to it or not like, it sort of becomes background noise. And we're more present. Often in meditation, the I was talking to a friend of mine, who's a colleague, earlier, Susan Piver, she's written many books on meditation as well. And my favorite definition of meditation comes from her, which is substituting your discursive thinking for another object of your attention. So the conscious act of saying, I'm going to stop focusing my attention on that inner narrator, that radio and focus it on something else is radically shifting the way like it's just rerouting the out of the whole operating system. Here. I'm saying no, this is not what I'm doing right now I acknowledge the thought, I come back to the breath. Maybe that same thought comes up again, oh, no, I'm acknowledging it, I'm coming back to the breath. Every time we do that, we are rewiring the brain, we are retraining it that we don't have to chase after every anxiety producing thought that comes up in our life, we can make a different choice, a choice to be present to choice to be mindful a choice to be, in some sense, kinder to ourselves. And that's really good training for the rest of our lives. So that we can learn to be present. In every other waking hour, we can be present with our tea, we can be present with our spouse, we can be present with a good meal, and actually start to enjoy it more. How often do you generally recommend like somebody should do this, this often this wall, it sometimes varies. But I would say for many people, I would recommend something along the lines of like 10 minutes a day, and trying to make it a daily practice. Now, I also acknowledge that most people have like their nine to five or some version thereof, Monday to Friday. And then the weekends are a little different. And so it's sort of hard to get into real rhythm. Because there's sort of two cycles, there's the a cycle of like my work day schedule, and then my B cycle weekend cycle. So if a daily practice ended up becoming five days a week, for example, because we get thrown off here and there. I think that's the end of the world. But I do think starting at that 10 minute mark is really powerful. Because quite frankly, we all do have 10 minutes a day, I work with all sorts of people who are, you know, hold really rigorous jobs, people who have kids and their kids are sitting on their lap while they meditate, like, people make it work, which is it's beautiful to see. But 10 minutes, we all we all can do it somewhere in there. It's interesting, right? Like jump times, your brain gets so tired that I feel like I've been doing all this stuff all day. I don't have time to think anymore.

Right? Like, can you just meditate just sitting on the couch?

Unknown Speaker 13:30

You can I mean, I often think it's a great thing to sort of have an established corner or an established chair or something that says that's where I go to meditate something that magnetizes and says that's where I go to do the thing. Absolutely, I think that can be really helpful. And again, it doesn't have to be elaborate. It could be could be meditation cushion, we can mark the space with an incense burner, a candle an image of someone we admire a statue, any number of things. But suddenly it's like, oh, yeah, that's where I get to meditate. That can be really helpful in setting up a practice. But to answer the question more directly because I've been all over I there's like always the simple answer, then there's the inspiring, but yes, you could absolutely meditate on the couch and you know, I often do you know, like that's in a finished the morning coffee or tea and I say, Okay, I've got some time and I just sort of settle in and I, I just practice there. But I think it gets a little chaotic if for example, we do have kids and they're running around and they want to play with us or whatever version.

Nick VinZant 14:26

You mentioned, you've been teaching for a long time, what generally, what generally do you find holds people back?

Lodro Rinzler 14:36

self doubt, is probably a good one. I mean, not a good one. But you know, it's a big one that many of us struggle with that there is some sense of disheartened meant once we get going like, as I mentioned before, something must be wrong with me if I still have thoughts. I thought I should be able to sit down, maybe even press something behind the ear and then all of a sudden like the mind shuts off like a computer shutting down. or something. And I should just be without thoughts. And because I'm sitting here and everyone else's looks so still, they must be completely absorbed in the breath. And I'm sitting here freaking out about it, because I'm not very good at it. And they get very disheartened very quickly. Or, they do it a few times because they actually listen to a conversation like ours, and they're like, Alright, I'll give it two weeks, I'll try it. And then two weeks roll around, and they're like, I'm still myself. Like, there's some sense of like deep self aggression for so many of us. And the sense of doubt that I'm talking about it's not like a, you know, a doubt like, Oh, I doubt I look like an orange. You know, it's a sense of this insidious. I mentioned the inner narrator before my friend, in a co author of one of my books, how to love yourself and sometimes other people. Megan Watterson. She has a great phrase in there, which is our inner bitch radio set little voice, it's like, oh, my god, you're a little jerk. Why are you like this? What? Why didn't you prepare better for both? Well, it's just that constant, like, Oh, you know, that self flagellation that so many people do, like really deep, painful voice that is constantly undermining us. That's the same voice that says, Oh, I can never meditate. Meditation does help us turn that voice down. Or not buy into that voice. So much, I should say. But we sort of have to do a little bit to get there. And so it's, you know, the thing that holds us back from a consistent practice is also the thing that we learned to work with once we started a practice, which is why it's actually really helpful to come full circle to work with a meditation teacher on a regular basis to have someone that you either connect with in classes or one on one or any number of things that might establish relationships that when these sorts of thoughts come up, or when we get disheartened. And say I want to leave the practice, I don't want to do it any more, that we could come back to some sense of support. And I feel like that's, it's not like we need to find, you know, the wise person on the top of the mountain, we just need to find someone who's a little bit ahead of us on the path and who's been doing it for a little bit longer. So that they they can be like, yeah, I've been there. I know exactly what that's like. And here's how I worked with it.

Nick VinZant 17:13

Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions?

Lodro Rinzler 17:17

Sure.

Nick VinZant 17:18

What if I meditate, and I just find out that my life kind of sucks. And I don't want to meditate anymore? What should I do?

Lodro Rinzler 17:27

Yeah, it's a great question. So I mean, if you find out that your life sucks, then you probably want to make some changes in your life. So if we talk about becoming familiar with we go back to that phrase from however long ago, the sense of Okay, I'm getting familiar with what's going on with me. And natural discernment starts to arise out of our meditation, what aspects of my life Do I want to cultivate more of which ones might I want to cut out or, you know, at least cut down on? So if we're saying, Oh, my gosh, that friend, they're such a jerk. And we come back to the breath. Oh, he saw their friend, you know, what a jerk. And come back to the breath. At some point in my, you know, weeks of meditation, I might say, Hmm, maybe I don't want to spend as much time as I do with those people. It doesn't feel good to me. Right? It's like, even for the most dense of us, such as myself, we start to say, Oh, that's a choice I can make in my life, I can make a better choice. So we start to realize that some parts of our life are not so great, that we say, Okay, good. Now I have that information. Where do I want to direct my time and energy, and we can actually make, we can actually make good changes in our life. So I think that would be great. If you discovered, you know, here's some aspects of my life that I really don't like. And here's some ones I really do want to spend more time on. Turns out that I've got, you know, this group of friends that really inspire me, and I always feel like I have meaningful conversations with them. Maybe I spent more time with them can go both ways.

Nick VinZant 18:45

Ah, this person says, I tried to meditate, but I just fall asleep. Is that bad? Or is that okay?

Lodro Rinzler 18:53

I always joke that there is an ancient Buddhist remedy for anyone who finds himself consistently falling asleep in meditation. And it's really easy. And that remedy is to get more sleep. kicking a dead horse here, but like, if that's what you discover, and meditation, that's what you learn about yourself. Yeah, that's good information for you to have because probably you are exhausted, and you don't, you're probably not taking great care of the body. And maybe you do need to get more sleep, or maybe you need to prioritize rest and other ways as well. Like, actually, you know, taking long walks and not always being on screens, or whatever it is for you that might feel more relaxing. So that when we do go to bed, we have deep sleep, and finding that's actually a really big issue for many people in the pandemic. They're having trouble asleep. They're finding like, Oh, you know, I'm staring at this screen all day and I'm staring at that screen all night and then they get into bed. And there's all these worries, I never actually take any time to talk to anyone about them. And I've just stayed up and I feel wired and you know, I've been exhausted during the day and I Up all night. And I think if that is the case for this person or anyone out there, I think we really do need to do some deep body relaxation. And we always start meditation classes with, at least to me, work that I do with actually getting into the body and getting to know the body. When we get in bed, that's time that we might want to sleep. When we meditate, there's actually time that we're trying to be wakeful. That's the time that we might move into a sense of relaxation, where we are present and relaxed. The goal is to be relaxed and open and wakeful, to be present to what's currently going on so that we can become more present to what's going on in the rest of our life. But here, we find that we're like toppling over. In addition to getting more sleep, there are some things I would recommend one would be to do some simple stretching so that we get into the body early, even before we do the short body scan. Another would be to drink some water or some, you know, some green tea, something that isn't like going to like wire us but something that does wake up in the body a little bit, there are certain things that we can do. And even in the posture itself, like sometimes we find that people like slouched over a lot. And this, you know, that's actually not helpful in terms of rousing the energy in the body. So even lifting up through the top of the head, and elongating the spine can bring about some sense of energy, keeping the shoulders slightly back, keeping the palms down on the thighs. These actually make us feel a little bit more uplifted, even though we're also feeling relax. So that's sort of the less snarky answer. But I do suspect for anyone who consistently as far as the meditation, that they might need to look at their sleep cycle and whether they are getting the rest of the need, particularly as I mentioned, in this pandemic,

Nick VinZant 21:45

there are many different kinds of motivation or motivation, meditation, I mean, is one kind superior to the other, in your opinion.

Lodro Rinzler 21:53

It's a great question. And I'm going to be diplomatic. I mean, obviously, I've got a preference, but I come from a Buddhist tradition. So I'm gonna be like everyone should be doing mindfulness, mindfulness of the breath is a great place to start. Part of that is because it is so easy, so simple, the technique, right, we take an uplifted and relaxed posture, we connect to the body breathing, when we get distracted, we come back to the breath, you Those are the three steps, you just learned them. Congratulations, you can go meditate, which is a little bit different than some other traditions where we might need to go through a weekend retreat to receive a mantra, which is, you know, a particular phrase that we would repeat, where we need to create a particular situation that were listened to pleasant sound, or we, you know, focus on emotions and emotions are often very ephemeral and very difficult to focus on for somebody who's brand new to it until it's self worth. So I have a preference, but at the same time, it's a little bit like asking me is asking you a guitar player. what's what's the best musical instrument? The guitar player is probably gonna say guitar, same thing.

Nick VinZant 22:52

What inspired you to write the write your new book, take back your mind?

Lodro Rinzler 22:56

Yeah, so the new book, take back your mind Buddhist advice for anxious times? And it's, I mean, the short answer is anxious times. It's like the last part of the title. Right? Right, that we live in these ridiculous anxious times. Now, I grew up with anxiety, even though I started meditating when I was six, but like this was, you know, there was a lot of issues that came up from my life, different forms of anxiety that arose deep losses in my life that really pulled the rug out from under me. And even though I was a meditation meditator, and even a meditation teacher, I realized that I needed to also work with my mind, in all the post meditation hours to actually start to, like rewire around anxiety rewire around my response to the ways that I would hold myself back. And the more I started doing that work, the more I started noticing how many other people around me were also struggling in the same way. And this is a lot of what we work with in meditation, which is getting comfortable with not knowing, and uncertainty and discomfort. And like, for the first not the first time, but for maybe the first time in my life. It's not personal anxiety of like, oh, here's what I'm going through, or even interpersonal, like, you and your friend are having an issue. It's a societal anxiety. Like there's, even though we live in different places, the idea of when I say lockdown someone, you know, living in Australia, understand what I mean. And we're at a time where I just feel like anxiety is reaching all time high and yet, no one's talking about it. It's like this. He wouldn't be like, well, the second pandemic is blank, but it is like it's something that so many of us are suffering from.

Nick VinZant 24:37

Final question. What is the best advice you've ever given somebody? What is the best advice you've ever received?

Lodro Rinzler 24:44

Gosh, what an interesting question. I don't give him really good advice. You know, for all of my, it's, I don't mean to be self deprecating here. But for all of my years of teaching meditation, all I do is essentially share what I've learned. from teachers who were generous and taught me, so it's not like I came up with any of it. You know, whatever I share with people, it's something that actually comes from centuries and centuries of people who knew I learned, I learned with someone who currently is alive and to learn with someone, and they learn with someone, and they learn with someone all the way back for 1000s of years. So I feel like a lot of the advice I give, I'll just say maybe more recently around the book of in xiety, is to realize that we could actually make a choice around anxiety and working with our mind that we don't have to live in an HST. There's an analogy, an analogy in Buddhism, that you're in the woods, and out of nowhere, an arrow comes and hits you in the arm. And the thing we ought to do probably is to take that arrow out and tend to our healing. And yet many of us in that moment, when we feel wounded when we feel like oh, there's pain or stress or anxiety and stress in our life, we say, Ah, you know what, this is so typical, like, this is such a thing that would happen to me on a day like today, no one else gets hit in the arm by arrows. It's just me, like, this is no such a thing. I bet this was a you know, who showed me a bit it was that person who I don't like this is so typical them. And we just keep telling ourselves story upon story upon story. And that is holding us in that state of pain. And that is known as the secondary. So this is the two arrow analogy, first arrow, there's pain that comes up. As part of life, there are stressful situations that happen to all of us. The second arrow is the stories that we then read to ourselves to reify, that state of pain, to hold ourselves in that state of stress. And so I suppose the quote unquote, best advice I might be able to give around this particular book is we don't have to do the secondary, that we don't have to hold ourselves in that state of, well, what if this happens? What if that happens, we can actually retrain the mind to do something else to actually become more present. So that's the advice. And then the best advice that I have ever received? It's such a good question. I wish I could give a more thoughtful answer and give you the actual best advice. But the answer that comes to my mind, the first one that pops up, good advice that I have received was, my last book was on the topic of heartbreak. It was called Love Hurts Buddha's advice for the heartbroken. And I get more emails about that book than any other book, maybe not surprisingly, because that's another thing where people really feel like, no one knows my pain. No one's ever been through this before. And then they pick up a book like that. And they're like, Oh, this person, sort of highlighting all the things that happened when I have a broken heart. So it's very sweet actually, to be in touch with with readers about these books. I enjoyed that tremendously. But the, in that there was there's a lot of stories, my own heartbreak, and the learning and unlearning that I had to do, particularly in my 20s. And there is a moment where everything really fell apart for me that I had lost my job, my best friend died, and my fiance had broken up with me. And I called a friend, friend who coincidentally just had a baby yesterday. And I said to him, Brett, I need you to tell me that I'm going to love again, because I actually don't believe that's gonna happen. I think this was it. And he said, Listen, I know that you will love again, because that's in your nature. That's who you are. And I don't know if it will be a long term romantic situation that turns into marriage, I don't know if it will be other situations where people come and go in your life, I don't know if it will be lots of friends and family. But I know that you will lead a life marked by love. And that was so meaningful to me at that moment, in that deep, like state of despair. And when people reach out, there's literally, there's a chapter in the book where I tell the story and say, if you feel this way, send me your phone number. And I'll tell you the same thing. So I find myself calling people a couple times a week. This book came out five years ago, it's still a couple times a week, except for the people internationally who I have to I'm like, I'm sorry, but I'm just gonna email you back. That's okay. But I deliver the same message which is, you know, even these devastating heartbreaking emotions that we go through are impermanent, they're subject to impermanence, just like everything else, and that, ultimately, we do heal and the pain paid to some degree. And we do love again, that's not a low draft. And that's a human thing we all do. So that was beautiful advice I received and I'm happy now to be passing on to others.

Nick VinZant 29:41

I want to thank lodro so much for joining us. If you want to connect with him. We have a link to him on our social media accounts, or Profoundly Pointless on Instagram and Twitter. And we have also included his information in the episode description. Okay, now let's go ahead and bring in a man who's great at fun himself but in a completely different way. JOHN jaw? What does internal you think of you?

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