We almost die every day.
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Goooooooood Mythic'l Morning!
Mythical. Can't you enunciate a little bit?
I'm just excited 'cause it's Monday!
This episode is brought to you by Orabrush. 90% of bad breath comes from
a dirty tongue. I don't know where the other 10% comes from but we can help you
with 90%, and that's pretty good. Stop complaining. Get one.
- Gastrointestinal issues. - Oh.
Pick one up at CVS, Walmart, or Orabrush.com.
Thanks for joining us. It's a fresh start to a new week.
- Yeah. - (inhales) I wouldn't say that it smells
- fresh in here. - (laughs) Yeah. Don't say "fresh"
(inhales) and then sniff in here. I mean, there's a few guys working in a very small
space every single day. It doesn't smell fresh.
Hopefully it smells better where you are, no matter what time of day it is.
We need to, like, bake bread every morning, you know?
It's a mythical morning... yeah, we've got time for that, Rhett.
Or at least get one of those plugins that smells like baked bread.
Somebody send us one of those. We got a PO box!
Yeah, write that down and then follow through with it, people.
Goals, you know? Making yourself... valuable to yourself and to us by giving
us bread? Let's talk about something more meaningful than that.
- Okay. - Over the Christmas break-- I know it's
been a few weeks now-- but this has been lingering in my mind. I've been wanting
to share it with you guys and now is the time.
- Today is the day. - I was at my dad's house.
We were watching 60 Minutes. I even think it was a rerun of the episode then, but it
was this guy... have you heard of him? Alex Honnold.
- Andy Rooney, yeah. - No, he's deceased, Rhett.
Too soon? He was very old, though. I think you can make jokes about it.
No, Alex Honnold, a free solo climber. This is a guy who climbs mountains with
nothing but tennis shoes... he probably wears underwear, shirts, and shorts, but--
- Climber's underwear! - (laughs)
They're kinda like a thong, but, you know, whatever.
And chalk. And he might have a water bottle. But this guy uses none of those
ropes and pulleys and a partner and a belaying system. None of that! This guy
just walks up to a mountain and then just starts climbing it like I walk up to
- stairs and climb 'em. It is amazing! - Do you carry chalk when you go up stairs?
- No! - Then it's pretty similar.
- Why do you ask? - Because he carries chalk, you said.
- Does he do paintings? - Link's in the description so you can
watch the 60 Minutes episode and there's a 22-minute documentary on this guy.
You gotta watch it. It's amazing. As you watch it, this is what will happen:
You'll realize that, at any moment, with any slight mistake, this guy could die!
He could just fall off the side of a mountain! We're talking thousands of
feet in the air. You know the feeling you get when you go to the edge of a cliff and
- it's just like-- - When you're going up stairs? Yes.
Focus, Rhett. When you go to the edge of a cliff and look over, and it's like you're--
I don't do it. I'm deathly afraid of heights. I'm also six-foot-seven, which
- I realize doesn't make sense, but... - Your stomach just kind of falls,
- you know what I'm talking about? - Oh yeah. You can't... you're like,
whoah, the ground can't be big enough right now, you know?
- Right. - My stance can't be wide enough right now.
It's totally discombobulating. I was feeling that just watching this guy climb
- on the side of a mountain. - While on your couch.
Now, here's the amazing thing: This guy free-soloed Half Dome. I'm talking 2,000
feet. Get this, he had to hike two hours just to get to the base of Half Dome.
Well, two hours, I could do that. I could hike two hours.
And then he just started climbing Half Dome. And in less than three hours,
- he was at the top. - (Rhett) I couldn't do that.
(Link) With nothing but a water bottle and some chalk, probably underwear, T-shirt,
- shorts, and climbing shoes. - This guy's a man.
This guy is amazing. The key is that you can't get afraid. They start talking about
it in the episode. They're like, if you start to panic, you're already dead
because your body will... your diaphragm will stop your breathing.
- 'Cause you'll panic. - This is like a... I've been to Yosemite.
- I'm panicking right now! - It's like a sheer face! What is he
- holding onto? It's a sheer face of rock! - When you talked about Wild China in
a previous Good Mythical Morning, and you had this reaction of your self worth kinda
went down, because you were just (slurs) on the couch, like, "Oh, he's just
- climbing Half Dome." - Just like that.
(normally) I think I had a similar thing, but I started to justify my own experience
and say, you know what? It occurred to me. There are plenty of things that I do every
day that maybe someone from a hundred years ago, if they traveled in time, they
could see me doing and they would have the same reaction to me that I had to
watching Alex Honnold. You get where I'm going with this, Rhett?
- Maybe not stairs. - Like a vehicle. I've always thought
- about, like, a car. - Yeah.
You're in a car and it's essentially like you're on two couches surrounded by metal
just careening down a road at 80 miles an hour, or however fast you go. That's crazy!
If you were to take person from the past...
- It's crazy. - If you were to take a caveman and put
him in a situation, he'd be like (caveman voice) "Oh my goodness, aagh!"
- (normally) I don't know... - (caveman voice) Me die! Me dying!
(caveman voice) Where we going? Aaagh! (normally) The caveman would be so
- frightened of the car if he were in it. - He'd probably start biting himself.
Do they do that? Self-mutilation? I don't think so. Caveman didn't-- maybe they did.
- He'd be panicking. - Cavemen would not like cars. Cavemen
would be afraid of cars. First of all, they'd be afraid when they saw them
on the streets, but then when you put 'em in one, they would soil themselves.
That makes me feel a little bit better. You know, I can't free-solo Half Dome.
- I can't climb stairs. - But I can drive... you can drive a car.
I'll tell you. Honestly, I can climb stairs pretty well, but I can't tell you
the number of times that I've fallen down stairs.
It is dangerous, especially when you don't have on the right underwear and you're not
- carrying your chalk. - Thank goodness in our house now, we
don't have stairs, but in my previous homes I would have stairs, and at least
once a week-- ask my wife-- she would be in the kitchen doing something or watching
- television with the kids... - Here comes Link! (thumping noises)
- (laughs) - You would hear this (thumping noises)
and it would be me, my heels sliding down the stairs.
You realize you're gonna get old one day, like Andy Rooney, and then at that point...
- Ranch house. - You going ranch?
- I'm going ranch. I'm already there! - You're gonna stay ranch.
- I live in a ranch house? - I wouldn't call it a ranch.
- It's definitely one story. - I'm curious. Leave a comment--
You need a miniature horse to justify it being called a ranch.
With this new perspective, you can also feel better about yourself. What do you do
every day that is death-defying, and you're so cool under the pressure?
Okay, so we basically have anesthetized ourselves to travel in general, because...
flight! Think about it. I've never seen a caveman on a flight, but I have seen a
child on a flight, 'cause I have flown with my own children. I remember the
first time my kids were old enough to kind of realize what was going on, it's like...
- First of all, they were amazed. - Yeah.
You don't see a business man looking out the window going,
(high pitched) "We're flying!" (normally) like my kids were doing, you know?
If you saw that you would be worried about the dude.
Not even the first time. I know when both of our kids were on the same flight, they
were rows apart and they would turn around and look over the seat and be like,
(high pitched) "You see we're in the air!"
- (laughs) Yeah, yeah. So it's exciting. - (caveman voice) Me die! Me die!
But the reason it was so exciting to the children, and it would be exciting and
death-defying and scary to a caveman, is because it's crazy when you really think
about it. You're getting in this big metal contraption that doesn't look like it
should ever leave the ground. And then it's getting up to several hundred miles
per hour, leaving the ground, and then flying at an altitude so high that if you
were to stick your finger out the window at that moment, it would freeze off.
- You know, some people-- - And you wouldn't be able to breathe.
It's all about perspective, is what we're saying. You can be just as death-defying
as free-soloer Alex Honnold. But, you know, I've heard the saying,
(gruffly) "Everybody's got faith because they get behind the wheel of a car and
they have faith that the other person's not gonna cross the center line."
(gruffly) Do they talk like this when they give that advice?
Yeah, they do that. (Southern preacher voice) Or I could go totally into preacher
mode and say, "You know, they could cross the center line at any moment."
(Southern preacher voice) You don't wanna cross the center line of life.
That's right. And you have to have faith that, when you get on that road, that
they're not gonna cross the center line, and if they do, you'd better be lookin'.
You'd better be lookin' so you can swerve.
- (laughs) - (normally) I don't know if that's the
application, but perhaps there is a faith element to all of this.
To me, I think that the application is... it isn't necessarily to say, "I am like a
free solo climber, but it's just to recognize the danger that is all
around us. Be thankful for life. When you go from point A to point B in a car...
or by horseback, but especially in a car, when you get to your destination, you
should be like, "I'm thankful. I am alive. I just traveled on two couches in a big
- metal contraption... - Be thankful.
- very very fast, and I'm alive." - And think more awesome of yourself.
You talk about automobiles and travel, just quickly I will say, shoutout to moms
out there. Being a parent is freaking death-defying! Christy was changing
Lando's diaper and he stood up the other day and jumped and hit her in the jaw and
- we thought her jaw was broken! - That's a tough little kid.
You know? And that's an almost near-death experience. Or an almost my-jaw-was-broken
by-a-toddler experience. That's close, right?
So whether it's cars, flight, or toddlers, there's a lot of dangerous things out
there, people. Be thankful that you're alive, 'cause you could be squashed like a
bug at any second.
Let's spin the wheel and figure out how we're gonna end this episode.
(Southern preacher voice) I just spun the wheel, all right. The wheel has been spun.
- (laughs) Sounds a little bit like Elvis. - Now, what does the wheel say?
- What does the wheel say to you? - I told you it was gonna be payback time.
- Link frog Rhett. - (normally) Aw yeah.
(Southern preacher voice) I'm gonna frog ya. Imma frog ya like a preacher would.
Now, Imma make this, Imma make this right here, and in North Carolina they call this
charley horse a frog. And if you watched the previous episode, you've seen this
before, people.
- Ooooooh! - That's right. And don't you forget it.
Don't you forget it. Don't you forget it. See you tomorrow.
It's dangerous around here.
[Captioned by Caitrin: GMM Captioning Team]