Speaker 1: Hey, San Francisco, we're coming back to see you. Yes,
Speaker 1: our second year in a row. We're gonna be going
Speaker 1: to s F Sketch Fest. What I like to think,
Speaker 1: it's the premier comedy festival in the United States, probably
Speaker 1: well in the world, you think, so, yeah, what about Beijing? Nope,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a close second, but a second. Well,
Speaker 1: we love San Francisco, we love performing there. Everyone is
Speaker 1: always so kind to us. And by San Francisco we
Speaker 1: mean the entire Bay area of course. Yeah. So we
Speaker 1: will be there doing our thing for one time only
Speaker 1: show on Sunday, January at one pm. Yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: rare Sunday afternoon. We're like the NFL of podcasters. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: That's that's what I've always thought. So all you have
Speaker 1: to do is go to the SF Sketch Fest site,
Speaker 1: look at the old calendar, and there are tons of
Speaker 1: great people performing. Oh yeah, So I suggest like just
Speaker 1: doubling down and getting tickets all kinds of good shows
Speaker 1: for sure, and hurry up and get tickets to ours
Speaker 1: because they've only been on sale for a week or
Speaker 1: so and they're already half sold out. That's right, So
Speaker 1: please hurry San Francisco. Please hurry. Welcome to Stuff You
Speaker 1: should know it's from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, and it's just us chickens here in Studio
Speaker 1: one A. Yeah, the blockhead is gone. Yeah, Jerry the blackhead.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. She's not a blockhead. She's a meat hit.
Speaker 1: She is a meat head. This is fun. What else
Speaker 1: is she here? We can say whatever we want. She'll
Speaker 1: never hear this, that's true. Two things I've noticed today.
Speaker 1: We're both wearing blue hoodies. Oh yeah, yours is uh
Speaker 1: a recreation of the great sweater that Danny wore in
Speaker 1: The Shining Uh, which I think I've told you you
Speaker 1: love Lee Unk of Pixar owns that real sweat her.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah you did tell me that. Yeah, Like, if
Speaker 1: you're like, you know, you got the sweatshirt version. He
Speaker 1: owns the sweater. It's the real thing. But unless he's
Speaker 1: the same size as like a little four or five
Speaker 1: six year old boy, he put it on his own kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's probably why he had a kids madness right well
Speaker 1: to model the sweater. Yeah, yeah, uh and I'm wearing
Speaker 1: my high school sweatshirt Dan Raiders. Yeah. Dan. The other
Speaker 1: thing I noticed is that got new glasses or a
Speaker 1: new prescription. My eyes were clearly getting worse, and you're
Speaker 1: fuzzy to me, but my papers are clear. Oh and
Speaker 1: I should have gotten the bifocals, Like he said, vocals, Gramps,
Speaker 1: I've been doing a lot of this definitely doesn't aid
Speaker 1: you at all, chuck his pull his glasses down his nose,
Speaker 1: and then looked over him. Well, when you're at home
Speaker 1: and let's say you got the TV on but you're
Speaker 1: working on your laptop, it's it's troublesome. Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard of that? Um? I can't remember what. It's called
Speaker 1: progressive lenses. No, it's like a type of basically training
Speaker 1: your eyes to get better by denying them corrective lenses. Well,
Speaker 1: I did that for forty three years and it didn't work. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, or maybe it did work. Your eyes would
Speaker 1: have been way worse had you not done that. Here's
Speaker 1: what I know. I know that two weeks ago, like
Speaker 1: I never wore my previous glasses prescription because it didn't
Speaker 1: look like they were doing anything. Um, but things were
Speaker 1: getting harder to read. So I went back three years
Speaker 1: later and they were like, oh, yeah, things have changed. Um,
Speaker 1: but I was reading two weeks ago. I was just
Speaker 1: sort of holding it back a little more maybe. But
Speaker 1: now when I put these on, it's like someone turned
Speaker 1: on the lights. I was like, holy cow, that's so clear.
Speaker 1: But it's something changed in just the last few weeks. No,
Speaker 1: I think I would just I was just used to
Speaker 1: getting by on as clearly as I could, because once
Speaker 1: I put these on. I just couldn't believe the difference.
Speaker 1: It's good for you for doing something, Yeah, but now
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta weird glasses all the time, or
Speaker 1: not all the time. But when I read, you remind
Speaker 1: me exactly of how I felt in fourth grade when
Speaker 1: I got glasses. They came in and they were like, okay,
Speaker 1: everybody's doing the eye test, and of course you just
Speaker 1: think it's cursory, like a lice check or something like that, right,
Speaker 1: and you went stood in the corner, and then the
Speaker 1: nurse or whoever it was just like, you need glasses.
Speaker 1: I was like, what, You're insane, woman, I think, is
Speaker 1: what I said. But it was a man, right, and
Speaker 1: so that's all they knew. I proved myself insane. Um
Speaker 1: yeah right, so uh, I ended up with glasses and
Speaker 1: I remember feeling like, oh man, I'm shackle for the
Speaker 1: rest of my life. Yeah, that's a tough age. I
Speaker 1: don't know if glasses still had the same stigma on
Speaker 1: young kids, but when we were kids, it was definitely
Speaker 1: like four eyes and all that. Yeah, there was a
Speaker 1: bit of it. So I showed them. I went out
Speaker 1: and got the most Elton Johnny glasses I could find.
Speaker 1: They were clear, with like a thin blue like wire
Speaker 1: running through the frames. They were pretty awesome. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: so human block Yeah, so, Chuck, have you ever seen
Speaker 1: the human blockhead trick? I should not call it a trick,
Speaker 1: just stunt. You're right, I have like in person. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: I went to a Gym Rose circus once and that
Speaker 1: they had a blockhead that when I went. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if they still do. Was it Ryan Stock? I
Speaker 1: don't think so. This is a long time ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he seems a little young to have been in the
Speaker 1: original Gym Rose show. Yeah, I mean this was in
Speaker 1: like was it at Lallapalooza. Maybe because that was in
Speaker 1: the first the first part of the first Lallapaluza. They
Speaker 1: were part of that. Yea, how was that that show?
Speaker 1: There you go? Maybe that's where it was. Maybe so well,
Speaker 1: I've never seen a human blockhead, so I mean I
Speaker 1: was aware of it. I'm sure I'd seen like references
Speaker 1: to it in cartoons or whatever. But I went online
Speaker 1: because I noticed as I was researching this, I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I feel like fainting for some reason. I was like,
Speaker 1: this really makes me fainty, and I went online and
Speaker 1: just exposed myself to it, and uh, it was Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't actually faint, but it's something. Well, we should
Speaker 1: go ahead and say, then, a human blockhead is a person,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into the history of it where that
Speaker 1: name came comes from. But it's a person, a performer
Speaker 1: who inserts a nail or a camping steak or a drill,
Speaker 1: paris scissors, what something sharp that would make your stomach
Speaker 1: turn if you saw it jammed in a person's nose
Speaker 1: all the way and they do just that. And the
Speaker 1: reason I corrected myself earlier I called it a trick.
Speaker 1: It's not a trick. The person who performs the human blockhead,
Speaker 1: or who is a human blockhead, um would correct me
Speaker 1: and say no, no, this is a stunt. A trick
Speaker 1: suggests that there's some sort of illusion, there's some sort
Speaker 1: of deception or stage magic going on. This is a
Speaker 1: stunt because it's exactly what you think it is. There's
Speaker 1: a nail going into the person's skull. Yeah. And if
Speaker 1: you don't know and you go to one of these,
Speaker 1: you probably think it's a trick. It's a fake nail.
Speaker 1: It's a collapsible or a telescoping nail or something. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe some sort of a slide of hand, like the
Speaker 1: old trick where you just turned to the side and
Speaker 1: act like you're pulling something out of your mouth, you
Speaker 1: know that old bit. Yeah, I finally figured that one
Speaker 1: out in my twenties. Uh, thanks to your glasses probably,
Speaker 1: um so to the uninitiated, it's uh. People probably leave
Speaker 1: these performances sometimes saying, well, you know, of course that
Speaker 1: wasn't real. There's no way, right, it's true, right, that's
Speaker 1: that's what you think. In the performers they play on that, right,
Speaker 1: it's part of the whole thing. But it's actually legitimately
Speaker 1: the nail is not fake, and it it actually is
Speaker 1: going into the person's head. But the further misconception is that, okay,
Speaker 1: if it is going in the person's head, that it's
Speaker 1: being driven into their skull, their bone um, either through
Speaker 1: a new hole that they're making because they're crazy, or
Speaker 1: an established hole that they have like um that they're
Speaker 1: they've used time and time again. Like uh, an ear
Speaker 1: piercing that it's healed over. Not the case. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was about to say the body doesn't need any new holes,
Speaker 1: but I forgot about piercing. That you need piercing. But
Speaker 1: that's the only thing I can think of where you
Speaker 1: would want a new hole that's legitimate, right, Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Some doctors could want new holes for you,
Speaker 1: depending like if you got a colostomate or a tricky otomy.
Speaker 1: It didn't even think about that medical reasons. Or stellarc
Speaker 1: put an ear on his arm. I was thinking about him.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you remember that guy's name. Yeah he
Speaker 1: was if he didn't listen. Years ago we talked about him.
Speaker 1: He was a performance artist who put he molded in
Speaker 1: and grafted a ear look alike onto his arm, survived
Speaker 1: some terrible infections that was bluetooth compatible, so he could
Speaker 1: literally hear through it. Right, I mean you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. He yeah, he's probably not literally hear through it,
Speaker 1: but it had like a bluetooth mic in the ear,
Speaker 1: and then he had like a head phone in his
Speaker 1: own ear, So yeah, he could hear what was going
Speaker 1: in there. With assistance of technology, he should hear through it. Well,
Speaker 1: he's a performance arts what do you expect? But that
Speaker 1: technically wasn't a hole though. No, it was just a
Speaker 1: fake ear on his arm. No, it was a real ear.
Speaker 1: Was it? A really? Whose was it? It was like
Speaker 1: a cloned ear grafted onto his arm. It was basically
Speaker 1: the cutting edge of performance art at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder what he's doing now. I gotta look that
Speaker 1: cat up. He's sitting around on people's couch, is going like, hey,
Speaker 1: remember that time I grafted in here on my arm?
Speaker 1: That was pretty great? Huh? And he says, hey talked
Speaker 1: to the forearm and they say still ark. We never
Speaker 1: get tired of that, Joe. Um So should we talk
Speaker 1: about the history first or the mechanism? Let's do history.
Speaker 1: I love this guy. Well, by guy I know you're
Speaker 1: talking about because there can be only one Mr Melvin Burkhardt,
Speaker 1: who passed away fifteen years ago in two thousand one,
Speaker 1: at the age of ninety four years old. He's born
Speaker 1: in Atlanta uh in seven, grew up in New Orleans mainly,
Speaker 1: and quit school at an early age and became a
Speaker 1: well we worked a couple of odd jobs, worked for
Speaker 1: Western Union, but then found his calling as a sideshow performer,
Speaker 1: which we've covered on the show. Yeah, along with other
Speaker 1: circus arts. Yeah, you you've got it for circus arts.
Speaker 1: I think just about every circus art one we've ever
Speaker 1: done is your pick? Was it? But man, we have
Speaker 1: an extensive library of circus arts. Yes, swort, swallowing, lion taming,
Speaker 1: lion taming, fire eating, fire eating. Do we have firewalking? No?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. All right, look for that one soon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for real or tight rope backs. We had a circus
Speaker 1: families we did. He's exhausted this, I don't know, man, firewalking?
Speaker 1: We should do the the wheel. We talked about it,
Speaker 1: the wheel with the motorcycles in it. What's it called?
Speaker 1: The something of death? Wheel of death? No globe of death.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe he's a globe of death. Clunky clunky ride right? Um?
Speaker 1: All right? So back to Mr Brookhart. He started performing inside.
Speaker 1: He did so he was. He kind of fell into performing.
Speaker 1: He used to go to the theater a lot. And
Speaker 1: one day when he was I think fourteen or fifteen
Speaker 1: or something, Uh, he jumped to his feet when the
Speaker 1: people on stage ask for volunteers to come on stage,
Speaker 1: and I guess he tripped or fell. I don't, I
Speaker 1: didn't know if it was purposeful or not, and drove
Speaker 1: a nail through his for her right, and everyone's just
Speaker 1: laughed and laughed. Um, he did get some last not
Speaker 1: for the nail yet, that came later, but um, he
Speaker 1: was invited back for the next show, and within a
Speaker 1: day or two he found himself with a contract to
Speaker 1: do an amateur performance. So he started um performing at
Speaker 1: a very early age. And and um, his his thing
Speaker 1: initially was and I think throughout his career he was
Speaker 1: what was called a talker, a master of ceremonies at
Speaker 1: a side show. Yeah, uh, you might call him a
Speaker 1: barker or something like that. But um, they were the
Speaker 1: ones who kept the show going. They introduced the new
Speaker 1: side show performers as they came on and went off,
Speaker 1: And he did his own act in between the other acts,
Speaker 1: and part of his act ended up being the uh
Speaker 1: the nail, the human blockhead trick, among a bunch of
Speaker 1: other stuff. Yeah. So one of these quotes that I
Speaker 1: got his New York Times obituary and um, which are
Speaker 1: always great, but one of the quotes from one of
Speaker 1: his counterparts, and Coney Allen was so funny. He said,
Speaker 1: this was from Dick Zigon. Uh, he's a side show guy,
Speaker 1: and he said, anybody can insert objects in their nasal passage,
Speaker 1: their nasal passage, but Melvin's patter and comedy made it
Speaker 1: an act. And then the other guy. It's two great quotes.
Speaker 1: Todd Robbins, as a magician, uh, who was also a
Speaker 1: blockhead at times, says, anyone who has ever hammered a
Speaker 1: nail into his nose it was a large debt to
Speaker 1: Melvin Burkhart. Yeah, there's a little bit of tongue in
Speaker 1: cheek in that oh bit that I'm sure Burkhart would
Speaker 1: have appreciated. Um. That Todd Robbins guy actually has traced
Speaker 1: it back um to the Joddu Wallas, basically the Indian
Speaker 1: the Hindu performers, street performers, UM. And they apparently did
Speaker 1: a human blockhead trick long ago. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was just totally coincidental that Melvin Burkhardt stumbled
Speaker 1: upon it himself, or if he had heard about it
Speaker 1: or seen it himself. But at any rate, as far
Speaker 1: as it goes in the West and the modern conception
Speaker 1: of the human blockhead, Melvin Burkhart was the guy who
Speaker 1: invented it. Yeah, I'm sure they're probably people in India
Speaker 1: scoffing at that notion. But he was soon discovered by
Speaker 1: none other than um Mr Ripley himself, and he took
Speaker 1: him on to his auditorium in Manhattan, had him performing,
Speaker 1: and supposedly is the one who came up with the
Speaker 1: name human blockhead for this act. Man that Robert Ripley,
Speaker 1: he coined a lot of stuff. I don't get it, though,
Speaker 1: I still don't get why blockhead this is. It's a
Speaker 1: dumb name. I would have called it, like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what I would have called it. Give me ten minutes, though,
Speaker 1: and I'll think of about Okay, shout it out when
Speaker 1: you got it all right? Well, I mean, like you
Speaker 1: can hammer nails into a block of wood. I guess
Speaker 1: so is that what? It's a stupid name, But without
Speaker 1: it we wouldn't have the Lucy from peanuts favorite Um
Speaker 1: put down. Remember she called everybody a blockhead? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: what about the human pincushion. That's not quite right, though
Speaker 1: it's okay. It's actually a lot more accurate. But at
Speaker 1: think there are other human pin cushions, aren't there people
Speaker 1: who do? That would be very confusing. I'm the pin cushion. No,
Speaker 1: I'm the pin cushion. You're a blockhead? Um? So he uh,
Speaker 1: he actually ended up And this is where this story
Speaker 1: ties into Flee circuses. Actually, uh at Hubert's Museum on
Speaker 1: Fort Street, which I believe is where the Hecklers had
Speaker 1: their Um Flee circus for decades and where the where
Speaker 1: it appeared in Easy Rider. That's right, Yeah, that's right. Uh.
Speaker 1: Boy's all coming together, isn't it really? Uh? And he
Speaker 1: was what was known as um like some people are.
Speaker 1: You know, when we did our side show podcasts, a
Speaker 1: lot of people were born with physical deformities. If they
Speaker 1: would um, some people say we're exploited. Other people say championed.
Speaker 1: But he was not that. He was what was known
Speaker 1: as a working act. So he just had some talent
Speaker 1: and fortitude to do some of these things. He wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily born with any strange nasal passage, although he does
Speaker 1: say he was a boxer and broke his nose such
Speaker 1: that they removed nasal bones that he thinks created this
Speaker 1: passage to um inserting a nail into your sinus cavity. Um,
Speaker 1: But it is, it exists in everyone, Okay, So that
Speaker 1: to me is a great place to put a break.
Speaker 1: All right, you're ready, Yes, here we go. All right, Chuck,
Speaker 1: you may mention that, um, Melvin Burkhard was a boxer, right,
Speaker 1: So apparently during his boxing career, he was getting some
Speaker 1: bone that had been shattered in his face removed around
Speaker 1: his nose, around his nasal cavity, and the story goes
Speaker 1: that he noticed that the doctors were having a really
Speaker 1: easy time sticking like a scalpel or pincers or all
Speaker 1: sorts of little medical instruments in his nose. Rubber Chicken.
Speaker 1: Henny Youngman was his doctor. Just look him up, everybody, uh.
Speaker 1: And he was like, well, jeez, if these guys can
Speaker 1: put the stuff in my nose, I'll bet I could too,
Speaker 1: And if I combine it with my pattern comedy, I
Speaker 1: could really make a good show of this. And apparently
Speaker 1: that's where he was inspired to do the human blockhead trick.
Speaker 1: I can make fifty a week. So he had something
Speaker 1: like a dozen pieces of bone removed from his nasal
Speaker 1: cavity area from his skull for medical reasons right speak
Speaker 1: from his boxing career. Um, so he apparently had a
Speaker 1: larger than normal nasal cavity as a result. Well that
Speaker 1: makes sense. But it's like what you said. Everybody has
Speaker 1: a hole in their face and it can be exploited
Speaker 1: to do the human blockhead trick. We have a lot
Speaker 1: of holes in our face. So let's talk about the
Speaker 1: holes in our face. Right, Chuck, just put his glasses on.
Speaker 1: I'm tired of looking over you and feeling like I'm seventies?
Speaker 1: So how do I look without? Like? I gotta get
Speaker 1: a picture of this? How do you look when I'm
Speaker 1: looking at you through the glasses. Without the glasses? You
Speaker 1: look great? How do I look with the glasses on?
Speaker 1: Not so great? Larger and fuzzy. So look at me
Speaker 1: over the clare you go wow. Alright, we'll put that
Speaker 1: up on Instagram. Alright, the holes in our face? Um,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the skull. The skull while it appears
Speaker 1: as if it's just one big solid bowling ball with
Speaker 1: a face on the front of it. Right, Um, it
Speaker 1: is not. It is twenty two bones and all. And
Speaker 1: if you look, if you've ever seen a human skull,
Speaker 1: you can see this because they have sutures where it's
Speaker 1: joined together. It's a big patchwork of of goodness, protective goodness.
Speaker 1: And for the most part, when you look at someone's
Speaker 1: face and you say, hey, high cheekbones, prominent chin, um,
Speaker 1: look at the size of those teeth and how pointy
Speaker 1: they are, that's crazy. These are these are actually like
Speaker 1: features of either the bone themselves, are the bone underneath
Speaker 1: the skin. That's your facial features. Right. But there's one
Speaker 1: very prominent exception to this rule, um, and that's your nose.
Speaker 1: Your nose is not the result of uh protrusion of
Speaker 1: bone with skin stretched over it. Most of your nose
Speaker 1: is made of cartilage, right, So there's actually very little
Speaker 1: bone involved in your skin. Just on the bridge or
Speaker 1: with your nose. Just on the bridge of the nose,
Speaker 1: that's right, Okay, So beneath the bridge of the nose, everybody,
Speaker 1: I want you to to take your anger, put it between
Speaker 1: your eyes and then just pressed down. That's the bridge
Speaker 1: of your nose, not too hard, Not that hard, okay,
Speaker 1: and then just go slides, start to slide a little
Speaker 1: further down. That is not bone any longer, that's cartilage.
Speaker 1: And behind that cartilage, friends, there's a big old hole
Speaker 1: in the center of your face. Have you ever had
Speaker 1: your nose broken? Let me just knock on with like
Speaker 1: fifty times. No. Have you ever been punched in the nose? Yes,
Speaker 1: but didn't break it? No, Okay, I've never had my
Speaker 1: nose broken. I've never been punched. Knock on wood at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: uh no, never been in a fight. That's great, it is,
Speaker 1: but I kind of feel like I should get in
Speaker 1: a fist fight. That There's this thing called bars, and
Speaker 1: if you go out at certain times, you can get
Speaker 1: into a fight pretty easy. I was always the guy
Speaker 1: that was breaking up like like, oh, guys, like it
Speaker 1: would be much more fun if we all just kept
Speaker 1: drinking and not get in a fight like that. That
Speaker 1: there's nothing that will ruin a night more than a
Speaker 1: bar fight. It's all over bar fight suck. Yeah, across
Speaker 1: the board. Plus, I never always had a very strong
Speaker 1: inclination to not get punched in the face. I think
Speaker 1: that's a sensible inclining. So I was, well, not really.
Speaker 1: You know, you see how some people act and some
Speaker 1: people some dudes love to fight, some ladies love to fight.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, I could go out looking for it. Sure,
Speaker 1: I don't know that that's to be admired or celebrated
Speaker 1: in anything anyway. It's the worst those people like. And
Speaker 1: when I lived in Arizona that short year, I picked
Speaker 1: up just you know, friends at my restaurant, and one
Speaker 1: of the friends of the dude that worked there was
Speaker 1: one of the most uncomfortable people to hang out with
Speaker 1: have ever experienced. He was always looking to get in
Speaker 1: a fight every where we went, and it just I
Speaker 1: was so fraught with anxiety, you know, tons of anger inside.
Speaker 1: And is it just don't you wonder stuff like that
Speaker 1: is hormonal, Like that guy's hormones are tuned a little
Speaker 1: out of I bet you there's a lot of factors
Speaker 1: hormones upbringing anger from childhood. But all I know is
Speaker 1: is that I was like, I felt like I was
Speaker 1: gonna have a heart attack every time I was near
Speaker 1: this dude. So I was just waiting for the inevitable
Speaker 1: fits fight. Wouldn't it be need If that guy listens
Speaker 1: listening right now, knows who you're talking about. And it's
Speaker 1: just started sobbing uncontrollably, like he's just had a breakthrough.
Speaker 1: Would be great because you mentioned his childhood. He's not listening.
Speaker 1: I'm can guarantee you that. So um oh yeah the nose,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, so cartilage, the nose is easy to break,
Speaker 1: is kind of where I was getting. But technically you're
Speaker 1: not really breaking yet really because it's cartilage. I guess
Speaker 1: you can break cartilage. Don't listen to me. So. Um.
Speaker 1: What you've also got in that in your face up
Speaker 1: front of that skull is um, all kinds of spaces. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are these little hollow places called sinuses. You got
Speaker 1: your eye sockets of course. Uh. And then you're the
Speaker 1: old reliable foreman magnum, which is where the brain stem
Speaker 1: exits the skull. That really has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: this episode, It doesn't. This is just sort of a
Speaker 1: breakdown of what's going on in your face, Tracy. By
Speaker 1: the way, this is a Tracy Wilson joint. Sure, um,
Speaker 1: And she's just trying to prove her point that there's
Speaker 1: lots of holes in the skull. That's right. The only
Speaker 1: holes that matter for a blockhead are the nostrils, and
Speaker 1: I would say the nasal cavity, right, And the nasal
Speaker 1: cavity is that whole in your skull, in the front
Speaker 1: of your skull where your nose goes, and um, that
Speaker 1: leads all the way back to your throat actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is very important actually for other acts that we'll
Speaker 1: talk about. Yeah, So the the area where it terminates
Speaker 1: at the throat is called the naso farynx. And all
Speaker 1: of this is just wide open. You can stick whatever
Speaker 1: you want in there, um, please don't, and you can
Speaker 1: do it without nailing, without hammering, without anything like that.
Speaker 1: You can just slide it in. Right. Physically speaking, we'll
Speaker 1: get into how all the reasons why that's very difficult,
Speaker 1: but just physiologically speaking, there's a big old hole in
Speaker 1: the front of your face. There's a lot of empty
Speaker 1: space behind it, going all the way back to your throat,
Speaker 1: and so the human blockhead takes advantage of this this
Speaker 1: um uh, these holes. Right. But it wouldn't be so
Speaker 1: great if you could just look at somebody and say, hey,
Speaker 1: that's well, it's great. You're just sliding a nail into
Speaker 1: a hole in an open passage. That doesn't do anything.
Speaker 1: The trick. The illusion is based on the natural formation
Speaker 1: of our nose and our nostrils, which appear to go upward,
Speaker 1: which is not the case. Actually, if you pull your
Speaker 1: nose back and look into a mirror, you see that
Speaker 1: the hole is behind him, not above them, right, And
Speaker 1: that's the whole illusion. Yeah, Like you feel like when
Speaker 1: you blow your nose, that snot is coming down from
Speaker 1: like the top of your head, and that's not the case. Now,
Speaker 1: it's coming from the back, that's right. It's the ceiling
Speaker 1: is just about even with the top of the nose
Speaker 1: right below your eyes, the ceiling of the nasal cavity, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: not the ceiling of your your bedroom. Uh. In the
Speaker 1: floor of the nasal cavity is about level with what's
Speaker 1: known as the L R cartilage a L A R,
Speaker 1: which is where the nostrils are, right, that's the bottom
Speaker 1: of your your nostrils. Yeah. So when you see it,
Speaker 1: like you said, when you see the trick, the fact
Speaker 1: that it's not going up and it's just going straight in,
Speaker 1: it makes people go, oh my god, what is going on.
Speaker 1: He's driven his nail right into the bone of his skull.
Speaker 1: That's what it looks like. That's right. And by the way,
Speaker 1: if you want a good a good view of all
Speaker 1: this looks like I stumbled upon a horrific photo of
Speaker 1: somebody who's nostrils. I guess there this the cartilage that
Speaker 1: separates their nostrils into two. Yeah, there's got to be
Speaker 1: a name for that. Right, it's gone, and the whole
Speaker 1: nose is the skin of the nose is being pulled
Speaker 1: back so you can see the skull behind it. So
Speaker 1: if you wanted to just type in all our cartilage
Speaker 1: and Google search image searching, you will. You'll be as
Speaker 1: unhappy as I am for having seen it's gonna go,
Speaker 1: rather than do you want to see it? Nah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty crazy now, that's all right, Okay, I'll look at
Speaker 1: it later because I know i'll I want to. I'll
Speaker 1: be lying in bed tonight thinking of it. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna do it. I'm not doing it. H So to
Speaker 1: finish up, though, in the cavity it is not just
Speaker 1: a smooth straight thing either. They have um. They're these
Speaker 1: grooves called conka c U N c h A E
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say um on the walls and they hold
Speaker 1: onto the moisture when you exhale and that's gonna keep
Speaker 1: everything nice and lubricated, which is what you want in there,
Speaker 1: thanks to the mucus membrane that lines all these surfaces
Speaker 1: and keeps everything nice. And I'm not gonna say the
Speaker 1: M word, but nice and moist. Yeah, everybody hates that word,
Speaker 1: huh and not everyone, but there's science behind it. Okay there.
Speaker 1: I can't remember a post an article for mental phlaws.
Speaker 1: Apparently there's some science behind White people don't like that
Speaker 1: word nice. So when you're doing the human blockhead trick,
Speaker 1: I should change that when you're when you're seeing a
Speaker 1: professional do the human blockhead trick. Um, what they're doing
Speaker 1: is they're they're sliding the nail. Let's just stick with
Speaker 1: the nail. The nail into their nasal cavity. They want
Speaker 1: to usually hug the alar cartilage the floor of their
Speaker 1: nasal cavity, try to avoid the concat. Isn't that way
Speaker 1: you decided? That's pronounced? And then they're pushing it all
Speaker 1: the way back into their naso pharynx. Right, You've got
Speaker 1: about six eight inches of space to deal with from
Speaker 1: that much from your nostril back to the naso pharynx. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and Uh, they the human blockhead to make it so
Speaker 1: it's not just sliding a nail into your nose, which
Speaker 1: is gross, but that's pretty playground. Ee. They will take
Speaker 1: a hammer and they will hold onto the nail very tightly,
Speaker 1: and they will make it look like they're hammering the
Speaker 1: nail into their skull. Right, and there's the sound of
Speaker 1: the hammer against the nail and it sounds really painful.
Speaker 1: Where really you can just take the thing and slide
Speaker 1: it in, easy peasy. Yeah, that's called stagecraft. Right. So
Speaker 1: all of this sounds extremely easy, and in a sense
Speaker 1: it is. But there are a lot of obstacles to
Speaker 1: performing this trick successfully, and we'll talk about those right
Speaker 1: after this. So I don't think we should go any
Speaker 1: further without a serious c o A message. It seems obvious,
Speaker 1: but do not try to stick a nail in your
Speaker 1: nose because Josh and Chuck said it was possible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really good. Um, the human anatomy, the anatomy of
Speaker 1: a of a face and a skull, makes it possible.
Speaker 1: We advise no one to ever try this unless you
Speaker 1: want to get into the circus arts legitimately and want
Speaker 1: to take the steps to like really learn how to
Speaker 1: do this right. I actually ran across this um theory
Speaker 1: eleven dot com forum. The novice was asking how to
Speaker 1: do this, and this guy named William Draven replied, and
Speaker 1: I thought he had a pretty good c o a himself.
Speaker 1: He said, like, UM, if you do want to do this,
Speaker 1: in no way advocate um learning from reading text on
Speaker 1: the internet or even watching videos. Go find somebody who
Speaker 1: is who has successfully performed this trick numerous times and
Speaker 1: then learned from them directly. Don't learn from guys like us.
Speaker 1: Don't learn from reading William Draven's comments on the internet.
Speaker 1: Don't don't read it from anybody. Go find somebody who
Speaker 1: knows this trick and and learn it from them. And
Speaker 1: where do you find that person? There? The guy in
Speaker 1: the corner of the bar with the nail in there? Now,
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy, right, or they live in a town
Speaker 1: called Winter or something in Florida. Um And I did, look,
Speaker 1: we keep saying, dudes. I did try and find to
Speaker 1: see if there are any women out there who did this.
Speaker 1: I didn't find any, but I'm sure they're sure they're
Speaker 1: They're supposedly more than a hundred human blockheads around the world.
Speaker 1: Go find one of them. I'm sure some women do this.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's just not a prominent Google search to
Speaker 1: type in, you know, woman blockhead. I'm sure they also.
Speaker 1: I think every single time I've ever said guys, I've
Speaker 1: I've meant it as a gender neutral Yeah. Yeah, so. Um.
Speaker 1: One thing Tracy points out is that all noses are different. Uh,
Speaker 1: and sometimes to reach your nasal cavity, you might the
Speaker 1: lower edge of your nostril might be in the way.
Speaker 1: So you know, sometimes it might just glide right in
Speaker 1: and you look the same. But sometimes it will, like
Speaker 1: if you do it right, you know, your nose will
Speaker 1: stick up like, you know, like your snout will stick
Speaker 1: out like a pig because the nails holding it up.
Speaker 1: Other noses, it might just look normal except for the
Speaker 1: fact that there's a nail through it. Um. A lot
Speaker 1: of people who do this, most people, I should say,
Speaker 1: who do it practice initially with Q tip. That's probably smart,
Speaker 1: right yeah, um, yeah, you want to practice with a
Speaker 1: que tip. And one reason why you want to practice
Speaker 1: with a Q tip is number one. It's I would
Speaker 1: guess it'd be harder to injure yourself with a Q tip.
Speaker 1: I'm sure, although I'm sure it's still be quite easy, sure, um.
Speaker 1: And then that Q tips are kind of fuzzy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so one of the hardest things to overcome doing
Speaker 1: the human blockhead trick their stunt is overcoming the sneezing reflex.
Speaker 1: That's the biggest one. I mean, there's all sorts of
Speaker 1: other problems, like if you use something that's not clean, um,
Speaker 1: you set yourself up for sinus infection because you're sticking
Speaker 1: foreign objects back there around your scinus is. Um, you
Speaker 1: can damage the very soft mucous memories and tissue that
Speaker 1: are around that line your nose and nasal cavity and
Speaker 1: your scinuses and your nasal farynx. But one of the
Speaker 1: one of the biggest challenges is overcoming the sneezing reflects,
Speaker 1: which can combine all this stuff, all these dangers and
Speaker 1: then increase some tenfold. Yeah. If you're trying to stick
Speaker 1: a nail in your head in the early stages and
Speaker 1: you sneeze that, you know sneezing can be a very
Speaker 1: violent reaction. So let's talk about sneezing real quick, all right,
Speaker 1: All right, So Tracy went to the trouble of outlining
Speaker 1: how a sneeze works right, it's pretty neat. So you've
Speaker 1: got a sneez has a reef. What's called a reflex arc.
Speaker 1: Any kind of reflex, as far as the human body
Speaker 1: is concerned, consists of a reflex arc, and it's made
Speaker 1: up of a receptor. In this case, Um, we've got
Speaker 1: nerve endings in our noses. Those are the receptors, and
Speaker 1: they're the things that say, you know, I just snorted
Speaker 1: pepper up my nose yea, or this house is dusty
Speaker 1: or whatever might cause you uh you know, animal dand
Speaker 1: or whatever. Hops in beer for me. Oh yeah. So
Speaker 1: like if you literally smell like an I p A.
Speaker 1: I don't even have to smell it. I can just
Speaker 1: just drinking it, just like one good sneeze and then
Speaker 1: you're fine. Yeah wow, hops gets me Hops and peppermint
Speaker 1: huh yeah. Um, So you've got you've got the stimulus
Speaker 1: against the receptor. The receptors got the the sensory nerve
Speaker 1: leading up to the integration center of your brain that
Speaker 1: the whatever center integrates all of this information for that
Speaker 1: particular reflex. Uh, your motor nerve which says, hey, go
Speaker 1: do this, and then it's called an effector in the
Speaker 1: case of sneezing and effector is the process the physical
Speaker 1: process of sneezing? Right? Yeah, which you know everyone everyone sneezes.
Speaker 1: Let's get real. You know what was interesting to me, Chuck,
Speaker 1: is you know when you're researching yawning, you yawn when
Speaker 1: you research itching, did you sneeze? You scratch, didn't sneeze?
Speaker 1: I thought the same thing. Really, I wonder if I'm
Speaker 1: gonna start sneezing, and I did not. It's not suggestible,
Speaker 1: totally reactive thing. So when you sneeze, you know your
Speaker 1: you might start off with your eyes watering. Uh, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna secrete some fluid from your nasal passage. And
Speaker 1: then there's an abrupt like pre sneeze breath that you
Speaker 1: draw in from your diaphragm. Um, I don't think that
Speaker 1: has a name. Let's just call it the pre SNEeSe
Speaker 1: breath breath. I think we just coined it. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then and then you're I fram in muscles in your
Speaker 1: chest contract really quickly, and the air leaves that nose
Speaker 1: and mouth really quickly. Um. Do you have a sneeze
Speaker 1: pattern or is it random? Um? No, I'm sure I
Speaker 1: follow a pattern almost always sneezing. Threes is your three, yes,
Speaker 1: but I mean it depends, like I seriously will sneeze
Speaker 1: eight or nine times if you're drinking a poppy beer. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm almost always three. And when it's not, it's it
Speaker 1: stands out to me as being unique or incomplete. So yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes or sometimes I'll sneeze later and think like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's the third, which is silly. It's like celebrity deaths.
Speaker 1: I wonder about. I meant to look that up though,
Speaker 1: wonder if there's any science to that sneezing patterns. There's
Speaker 1: just science to everything, science and magic. Um. So you
Speaker 1: can put off a sneeze. You've probably done that before.
Speaker 1: That tickling sensation just goes away. Those are to me
Speaker 1: the incomplete things because you felt like or I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, so close and I clearly needed to sneeze,
Speaker 1: but you didn't. If your body doesn't sneeze and it
Speaker 1: it warded itself off. Yeah. And so the point of
Speaker 1: all the sneezing talk is that part of mastering the
Speaker 1: human blockhead stunt is reducing your sneeze reflex and apparently
Speaker 1: it can be done just by exposing yourself to a
Speaker 1: sneeze reflex, over and over and over again. So you
Speaker 1: just stick that que tip in there. You sneeze, You
Speaker 1: do it again, you sneeze, You do it again, you sneeze.
Speaker 1: You go eat a TV dinner and take a little
Speaker 1: break because it's tough and you're mad. You're really mad,
Speaker 1: get really fixed off, and then you come back, and
Speaker 1: then you do it again, and then eventually a few
Speaker 1: days later, a few weeks later, you've lost all your friends,
Speaker 1: but you don't sneeze when you stick something up your nose. Victory. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also saw that if you, uh, if you are
Speaker 1: a human blockhead, you want to basically scrub down any
Speaker 1: new stunt nail that you've got with this with steel
Speaker 1: wool and then soaking in rubbing alcohol for a while
Speaker 1: to prevent sinus infections. I'm picturing like a Carnie thriller
Speaker 1: where someone creeps in and like switches out the nail
Speaker 1: some pathogen. No I'm dead. Uh So, Like I said,
Speaker 1: there are over a hundred people doing this around the world. Supposedly.
Speaker 1: Um Ryan Stock, who you mentioned earlier, has become pretty
Speaker 1: famous because he's been on I think he had a
Speaker 1: TV show of his own He was definitely an America's
Speaker 1: got talent. Yeah, and he does all sorts of things.
Speaker 1: He and his wife, Oh she in on the act.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she's definitely part of an Amberlin So, like
Speaker 1: I said, he does all kinds of things. But um,
Speaker 1: one of his most notable tricks is a spin on
Speaker 1: this called the human meat head where just look it
Speaker 1: up Ryan Stock. He puts a meat hook. Remember how
Speaker 1: he set it was connected to the throw. He will
Speaker 1: go all the way through his nose, out of his
Speaker 1: mouth with the end of the hook, and then he'll
Speaker 1: pull stuff around. He actually pulled the almost the pound car.
Speaker 1: He hels the world's record as being the only person
Speaker 1: that ever doing You gotta hear this the title of
Speaker 1: this world record. He has a world record for the
Speaker 1: heaviest vehicle pulled using a hook through the nasal cavity
Speaker 1: and out of the mouth point three five pound car.
Speaker 1: No idea, how much that isn't killograms? Uh? I remember
Speaker 1: my brother he ate something when he was the first
Speaker 1: time I realized that was all connected. He laughed a
Speaker 1: lot when eating hamburger and coughed hamburger through his nose
Speaker 1: or milk through the nose. When you made your friend laugh.
Speaker 1: That was always That's a classic, man. You just were
Speaker 1: triumphant the rest of the day. I actually have found
Speaker 1: if I'm jogging, like I always chew gum and I
Speaker 1: like break the gum slowly into small pieces and I
Speaker 1: eventually like eat it or whatever. But if there's like
Speaker 1: a few moments where like there there's a small piece
Speaker 1: of gum separated from the rest of the gum, and
Speaker 1: I've noticed every once in a while, I don't know
Speaker 1: what sets it off, but I'll just snot it out,
Speaker 1: like it'll shoot up my throat and then on my nose.
Speaker 1: And this sapped more than what I don't you're either
Speaker 1: not jogging, right, you're not chewing gum, right, there's something
Speaker 1: there's a breakdown here. I don't think you're supposed to
Speaker 1: do that. It's true, weird. Does it hurt? No, it's
Speaker 1: just surprising, Like, sure, it's the gum. What do you
Speaker 1: mean it's like pieces of brain. Did you ever hear
Speaker 1: about the woman who had like a running nose for
Speaker 1: twenty years and she finally went to the doctor and
Speaker 1: they're like, that's cerebro spinal fluid. Your brain is leaking
Speaker 1: out of your nose. Was she okay? I guess, I
Speaker 1: mean she lived with it for decades. That's crazy. Um.
Speaker 1: And there's this other guy that I want to mention too,
Speaker 1: the faith healer. Oh yeah, John of God. And this
Speaker 1: made me want to do I'd love to do a
Speaker 1: show on faith healing period and a show on psychic
Speaker 1: surgery like those are definitely on the list now. Um.
Speaker 1: But he is a famous Brazilian faith healer who um,
Speaker 1: I mean he's he's big, like if he's he's way
Speaker 1: more famous than I thought he was because I hadn't
Speaker 1: heard of him. But he's a big time and um,
Speaker 1: he does these. He has a couple of kind of operations, uh,
Speaker 1: one visible and one invisible. And one of the visible
Speaker 1: ones is he sticks forceps up the nose of people
Speaker 1: and to supposedly heal them of certain things. And apparently
Speaker 1: he was exposed by the great James Randy, Um, the
Speaker 1: amazing Randy who we talked about, the great legendary skeptic
Speaker 1: old sour Puss what's that his name? Did ever see
Speaker 1: the documentary? No? I haven't yet. It's really good. There's
Speaker 1: a great documentary called um an Honest Liar about the
Speaker 1: amazing Randy. He's just so interesting. But he he I
Speaker 1: think ABC or CBS or someone got him involved. Yeah,
Speaker 1: ABC TV to expose uh John of God. And he said, well,
Speaker 1: for sure one of the things. I mean, he's exposed
Speaker 1: psychic surgeons before, but he said, this force ups up
Speaker 1: the nose thing. There's nothing more than the blockhead trick,
Speaker 1: and that's all he's doing. Fraud. We'll do a human
Speaker 1: or no, a psychic surgery one. For sure. That sounds
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. I remember seeing that when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: I thought it was like the real deal. That apparently
Speaker 1: Andy Kaufman like went to psychic surgeon and then figured
Speaker 1: out the scam. So sad, so says Milosh Foreman. At
Speaker 1: least yeah, he's like chickens in the hand. I see it. Uh,
Speaker 1: you got anything else? I do not. If you want
Speaker 1: to know more about human blockheads, you can type those
Speaker 1: in the search part how stuff works dot com. You
Speaker 1: can search human blockhead online. There's at least one good
Speaker 1: Melvin Burkhart performance on YouTube. Don't forget to look up
Speaker 1: all our cartilage, um Ryan Stock and also shout out
Speaker 1: to um Zen Arts l A for their article on
Speaker 1: blockheads that was helpful. As well. Since I said all that,
Speaker 1: it's time friends for listener mail. So Chuck, I guess
Speaker 1: this is the last one of the year. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we should say before we do mail. Um, Happy New Year, everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: be safe. We want to see everyone in and um
Speaker 1: we kind of said it in the Christmas episode. But
Speaker 1: thanks for everything over the years. Yeah for real, it
Speaker 1: means a lot to us. And uh we we just
Speaker 1: can't wait to get things going again. And by your calendar,
Speaker 1: just a couple of days by your Earth calendar. And
Speaker 1: also on a personal note, happy birthday too, my darling wife.
Speaker 1: You me, Happy birthday? You me? Okay, Well it's time
Speaker 1: for listening mail. Huh. I'm gonna call this uh banning
Speaker 1: advertising the kids. We heard from a lot of people
Speaker 1: on this. It's a hot topic. Hey guys live in
Speaker 1: Northern Virginia. Just listen to your show on advertising for children.
Speaker 1: I want to relate an relay and experience we had
Speaker 1: with our eighteen then eighteen month old daughter. We're on
Speaker 1: vacation with her in Florida. Had a day with nothing
Speaker 1: on our to do list, so we decided to take
Speaker 1: a drive to Walt Disney World. We also found a
Speaker 1: bag full of cash in our club compartment. My husband
Speaker 1: was was hesitant about going because of her young age
Speaker 1: and the fact that she had zero exposure to Disney
Speaker 1: at this point. I persuaded him by saying she would
Speaker 1: enjoy the parades and the characters, even if she didn't
Speaker 1: know who they were. Literally, only television she had ever
Speaker 1: seen at that point was educational programming on PBS Kids,
Speaker 1: and that was even minimal. So as we turned onto
Speaker 1: the road trying to make our way to the Magic Kingdom,
Speaker 1: there was a water tower in the distance decorated like
Speaker 1: Mickey Mouse, ears and all, and my daughter immediately shouted, look,
Speaker 1: it's Mickey Mouse. But they were like, yeah, how do
Speaker 1: you know that? Uh. My husband and I were both
Speaker 1: completely surprised. We could not believe that our daughter had
Speaker 1: been indoctrinated into recognizing that brand at only eighteen months,
Speaker 1: especially since we hadn't taught her that. Most likely she
Speaker 1: was shown a toy or a book at daycare. Uh.
Speaker 1: It is not that we were against that Disney or anything, obviously,
Speaker 1: because we were taking her there. It's just very shocking
Speaker 1: to see your young child parrot that information. This could
Speaker 1: also be evidence of reincarnation well, at least what if
Speaker 1: it was like a billboard and she's like, look, it's
Speaker 1: a new Gangrich that would be cause for alarm. I
Speaker 1: know this advertising is everywhere and it's nearly impossible to avoid,
Speaker 1: and just hope we can eventually teach her to not
Speaker 1: be fooled and use critical thinking to make decisions rather
Speaker 1: than her emotions. Thanks for all you do to make
Speaker 1: my long commute so much more enjoyable. That is from Stacy,
Speaker 1: And she says, my daughter now is nearly five and
Speaker 1: gets annoyed by commercials, so she pauses television until she
Speaker 1: can fast forward through them all one point for technology. Nice. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Stacy. We appreciate that. It's a cool story.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys had a good time at Disney World. Um,
Speaker 1: and uh, that's it right. Well, if you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, like Stacy did, you can
Speaker 1: tweet to us at josh um Clark or s Y
Speaker 1: s K podcast. You can hang out with Chuck on
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant or Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash Stuff You should Know, send us an
Speaker 1: email to Stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: and has always joined us at our home on the web,
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff workst