Podcast Episode 27 – Vim & Vigor (Annotated)

Hi, I’m Craig The Intern, and they make me transcribe these every week. Everything’s going great so far! How’s your health?

The Lowdown:
Since BunnyEars.com is all about health and well-being, it’s about time we had a podcast on the topic, and it kicks off as Matt and Mack drink a shot and toast each other’s health.

Matt’s friends are all having problems sleeping, and Mack gets up about five times every night, which is apparently bad for you because you don’t get a REM state going. Both need noise to fall asleep, and for Mack it’s usually a YouTube video longer than 20 minutes. It was at one point books on tape through headphones when his girlfriend didn’t like the noise, but he nearly choked himself on the cord. Shoutout to Bill Bryson, whose A Short History of Nearly Everything is 28 hours or so unabridged. Matt leaves podcasts running all night, but if he has trouble falling asleep he mentally designs theme parks. Mack plays Halo in his head, and apparently makes pew-pew-pew sounds in his sleep as a result.

Matt talks about disturbing dreams, which his therapist deftly pegged to his falling asleep to true crime podcasts. Mack has recently had his stomach scoped and a colonoscopy, and two ulcers were found. He’s now been told to smoke and drink less; it seems everything that can cause ulcers is a thing that he does. Neither of our hosts has ever broken a bone, though Matt did knock out his two front teeth once, falling on his face after huffing computer cleaner. His excuse was that he tripped while playing Game Boy, which everyone believed. Maybe because they wanted to.

Mack talks about having toxoplasmosis when he was 20 – a single-celled blood parasite that he received from undercooked lamb, which took two months to get better from, and the medications were worse than the illness. Matt’s equivalent was having alcohol poisoning when he was 15. Mack backs off a bit on the “no broken bones” thing when he suspects he may have broken his toe. They talk about all the sports they played, and still marvel they haven’t broken more. Matt has had concussions, however.

An account of Matt bear-hugging a mascot who turned out to be a scared 14 year-old girl leads into discussions of mascot costumes and how theme park performers sometimes have fans inside their suits. Also, it turns out horror maze performers get graded on a scare quota, and Matt says he’d find Elmo pretty scary in a horror maze.

Mack brings the conversation back to concussions, which he says he deserved every time, like one time he tried to do a legdrop from a ladder, and bounced off the mattress onto his head. Matt recalls taking bumps and feeling like he had strep the next day, and Mack expresses a fondness for moonsaults into the pool, one of which busted his head open.

Mental health is the next topic. Mack hasn’t been to therapy since he was very young, but occasionally self-medicated with Xanax. Matt was on Ritalin at age 4, and added a bunch of antidepressants in his teen years, which he then weaned off of completely. They agree that life sucks, which is why so many people are on antidepressants.

Time for a new segment where we guess what’s in Mack’s backpack! [SPOILER: a statue of Jesus teaching karate.]

Back to talking about Matt’s school days. He was the most disruptive kid that ever existed in the history of the world, an ultimately realized school was not the right environment for him. Neither he nor Mack went to college, and they have this cool podcast now, so…

At what age do you realize your health matters and being unhealthy isn’t cute? Both the guys say your thirties are the beginning of it. They compare weird aches and wrinkles, and how they tapered off a two-pack-a-day smoking habit, and do vaping now. But Matt will only do the flavor designed to mimic Newport cigarettes. Neither are big drinkers; Matt because he has had alcohol poisoning five times. They think it’s fun to abstain.

Yoga is something Matt loves now, and he does it in a sauna. It’s the only thing that calms his hyper nature down because it’s a really hard workout. Though the occasional celebrity or porn star in his class is sometimes distracting, he admits. He also hikes, and makes it more fun by pretending werewolves are chasing him. Mack describes a Rocky IV-style DIY workout he does. Matt again sing the praises of abstaining from things because it feels mature. Neither likes doing risky stuff like kayaking and skiing, but we understand Stewart P. Miller of Columbus, Ohio feels differently.

The conversation detours into the idea of dying at home, and Whitney Houston and Prince come up. Mack takes the opportunity to squash the heavy drug rumors about himself, but he does tell a funny story about the time he actually saw crack in person, when his pal “Laef” bought a rock of it from their weed dealer and carried it around in his backpack for two years.

We close with a warning to see the doctor and get checked up, because Mack had to recover from twisted vertebrae and two ulcers. Matt compares him to Brock Lesnar, but mixes up trichinosis with diverticulitis. Everyone needs a balance in life, and super-healthy lifestyles suck and are really hard. But do something healthy, and also get colonoscopies.

The first listener voicemail at the end is Stew complaining.

The Highlights:

12:33-15:00 Matt’s huffing whippits and fainting and messing up his face adventure.

20:48-21:32 Matt tries to hug a mascot; chaos ensues

22:49-25:00 Mack gets a concussion from a backyard wrestling move.

54:00-55:40 How Mack has seen crack, in a story that’s not whack.

The Links:

-The audio book of Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything is free with a trial subscription to Audible.

-Here’s where you can find Hot Yoga classes in Los Angeles.

–Brock Lesnar is a professional wrestler and MMA fighter whose career was briefly sidelined due to diverticulitis, which is a build-up of skin pouches along the colon. Trichinosis is an infection caused by parasites often found in undercooked pork. Mack’s toxoplasmosis is closer to the latter.

-Crack is bad. Pee-wee Herman says so:

Contact The Guys!

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @bunnyearspod
Instagram: @bunnyearspodcast
Telephone: 845-EZE-HOAX

Mack
Twitter @IncredibleCulk
Instagram: Culkamania

Matt Cohen
Twitter: @Cameltoad
Instagram: @Cameltoad

Image: Flickr/diggboston/em>