This Past Weekend with Theo Von - #610

00:00:00.280 Today's guest is a renowned outdoorsman.

00:00:03.920 He's a hunter. He's a survivalist.

00:00:06.040 He has his own show, Meat Eater, on Netflix as well as his podcast.

00:00:11.620 I had a great time learning about some of the beautiful and brutal aspects of our world.

00:00:16.700 Today's guest is Mr. Steve Rinella.

00:00:30.000 Oh, you're having a little, huh?

00:00:40.820 You having a little bit of that?

00:00:43.040 I'm familiar with that product.

00:00:45.080 Oh, hell yeah, brother.

00:00:46.640 We just gave something to an Amish kid the other day.

00:00:49.280 Never had it, huh?

00:00:50.440 Did he like it?

00:00:51.600 What, Celsius?

00:00:53.100 I mean, when you gave it to him, did he dig it?

00:00:54.580 I mean, he definitely couldn't bend his arms for a couple minutes.

00:01:00.000 It hit him hard.

00:01:00.700 Because of why?

00:01:01.740 I mean, brother.

00:01:02.520 Just unfamiliar.

00:01:03.460 I think, yeah.

00:01:04.260 Something like something, you know.

00:01:05.900 You put that brain petrol that is Celsius into a damn Amish.

00:01:09.840 Mm-hmm.

00:01:10.820 You know?

00:01:11.540 He might want to plug in something in.

00:01:12.960 I mean, he might.

00:01:13.840 I thought he's going to get down.

00:01:14.580 He's going to put his finger in that.

00:01:15.720 He wants to find out what it's all about.

00:01:17.100 He's going to put his finger in that socket, man.

00:01:19.360 Yeah, I thought he did.

00:01:20.600 I thought he's going to get court-martialed right there or something.

00:01:23.000 I didn't know what was going to happen.

00:01:24.000 What was the circumstances that you were hanging out with the Amish guy?

00:01:26.920 We finally got a hold of one.

00:01:28.180 You're seeking some woodwork?

00:01:28.640 Oh, okay.

00:01:29.260 Yeah.

00:01:30.000 Yeah, we finally got a hold of one.

00:01:31.480 We've been trying to not capture an Amish or whatever.

00:01:33.940 I don't know what the terminology is.

00:01:35.500 But we've been trying to wrangle one.

00:01:38.600 Because you can't get a hold of them.

00:01:40.260 You know?

00:01:40.440 You can put messages out there.

00:01:41.580 You can do a message in a bottle or shit.

00:01:43.040 They don't reply to a lot of that.

00:01:44.560 And so finally, we had a guy who was on Rum Springer.

00:01:47.540 Yep.

00:01:47.940 He was on their kind of like spring break for the Amish.

00:01:52.460 And he came to a comedy show.

00:01:55.260 There he is right there.

00:01:57.420 While on Rum Springer.

00:01:58.660 He looks young for Rum Springer.

00:02:00.000 He's young.

00:02:01.220 He got out there and he brought me this hat too.

00:02:04.420 And he came.

00:02:05.280 Great, great kid though.

00:02:06.800 We learned so much about it.

00:02:07.820 But he'd never seen so many things.

00:02:09.400 It was unbelievable.

00:02:10.680 But he never had a hit of Celsius when we got it in him.

00:02:13.640 Hmm.

00:02:14.400 So we'll see.

00:02:18.260 Now he's got his Rum Springer document.

00:02:20.580 Oh, yeah.

00:02:21.540 But it might make it difficult for him to integrate back in.

00:02:24.000 Oh, I'm sure, dude.

00:02:25.440 Yeah.

00:02:25.800 Because people.

00:02:26.400 Well, maybe they won't.

00:02:27.320 Maybe his community won't know.

00:02:29.360 Yeah.

00:02:29.600 I don't.

00:02:29.880 I mean, yeah.

00:02:30.320 That's a good point.

00:02:30.880 I don't even know.

00:02:31.220 It'd be a good honesty test.

00:02:33.660 If they know, you'll know they violated.

00:02:36.000 How did they know?

00:02:36.740 Yeah.

00:02:37.320 Yeah.

00:02:37.680 It's a good point, actually.

00:02:38.740 So we're helping out.

00:02:40.540 Yeah.

00:02:40.900 But it was just interesting to get to talk to somebody who'd lived like a, you know, it's

00:02:44.140 a total different life than the average American, probably.

00:02:47.080 Are you making a show right now?

00:02:48.220 Or is this pre, are we pre-making the show?

00:02:50.020 Oh, this can be the show.

00:02:51.040 Yeah.

00:02:51.200 I mean, we can start into it.

00:02:52.180 Sorry.

00:02:52.760 Oh, no, I don't care.

00:02:53.940 And so that's one type of person who kind of has their own like way of living.

00:02:57.720 Yep.

00:02:58.000 And you're another type of person who has had a unique life and has like.

00:03:01.480 Good, good, good transition.

00:03:03.660 Was it?

00:03:04.140 Yeah.

00:03:04.600 Oh, damn.

00:03:06.800 I thought it was going to be, I think, I don't know what's going to happen.

00:03:10.220 But, um, no, you have a show on Netflix called Meat Eater and you guys are in your, you guys

00:03:16.880 are.

00:03:17.520 We made a lot.

00:03:18.140 We, we, we, we got, I got a 13th season of the show coming out.

00:03:21.380 We've made many, many, many episodes over the years.

00:03:23.740 Yeah.

00:03:24.180 And they, they appear in a lot of different places.

00:03:26.660 Yep.

00:03:26.980 We've seen some of them on YouTube.

00:03:28.760 Um, I've gotten to enjoy some of them.

00:03:30.600 So thank you so much, man.

00:03:31.660 It's definitely exciting to watch.

00:03:32.780 It's really beautifully shot to you guys' show.

00:03:34.960 You went turkey hunting with Mike Waddell.

00:03:36.520 I heard.

00:03:37.300 Oh yeah, I did.

00:03:38.980 Yeah.

00:03:39.340 I went down there.

00:03:40.220 And it was fun, but it's like, I don't know.

00:03:44.020 Some of the tur, it's like, they just seem like an unwell bird.

00:03:49.320 What do you mean?

00:03:50.840 Turkeys.

00:03:51.620 Unwell in what way?

00:03:52.840 They just don't seem like they're like a top, like, I don't want to say like they on it.

00:04:00.640 Like, I don't want to say uneducated.

00:04:01.920 They just seem like they, like they got picked last for gym kind of.

00:04:07.440 Dude, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

00:04:08.900 Really?

00:04:09.640 Oh yeah.

00:04:10.280 About a turkey?

00:04:11.300 Yeah.

00:04:11.540 If you look at a turkey, it doesn't seem like they, like they can't do, they just are.

00:04:16.240 Yeah.

00:04:16.600 They just, I don't know.

00:04:17.400 They weren't doing a lot.

00:04:19.160 Dude, it's a big ass bird.

00:04:20.480 His head changes colors from red to white to blue.

00:04:23.540 He tastes good.

00:04:24.960 Yeah.

00:04:25.140 He's basically the Toby Keith of turkeys.

00:04:26.800 Walk around the woods making insane noises.

00:04:29.580 Yeah.

00:04:30.160 But I mean, like he, it's an omnivore.

00:04:33.420 It can eat all kinds of, it can eat all kinds of stuff.

00:04:37.020 Okay.

00:04:38.080 Well, now you're selling me on it.

00:04:39.780 Yeah.

00:04:40.040 I mean, like, name a better bird.

00:04:45.140 It's like, you could be, oh, a bald eagle.

00:04:46.940 He eats a bunch of rotten fish from the side, like a turkey.

00:04:50.560 That's America's bird, dude.

00:04:52.940 Are you familiar with a gentleman named Ben Franklin?

00:04:55.860 Yeah.

00:04:56.380 Okay.

00:04:58.180 Do you know that Franklin didn't like the bald eagle as a national bird?

00:05:02.360 Because it was a scavenger.

00:05:04.340 And he threw out some, it's debated how honest to you, it's debated if he was trying to be

00:05:10.100 a smart ass or not.

00:05:11.520 Ben Franklin said, America ought to go with the wild turkey because at least it's a vain

00:05:16.880 bird.

00:05:17.640 What does vain bird mean?

00:05:18.960 It's beautiful.

00:05:20.160 He puffs his feather.

00:05:20.980 The male puffs his feathers all out.

00:05:24.520 Yeah.

00:05:24.780 He's got a snood.

00:05:26.660 He's got like a, imagine like a pecker on your, laid across your face.

00:05:32.180 Okay.

00:05:32.740 That changes all the time.

00:05:34.060 It gets erect.

00:05:35.220 Wait.

00:05:35.560 It goes limp.

00:05:36.240 Turkey has that?

00:05:37.780 Yeah, dude.

00:05:39.460 It's like, to just like come in and like start disparaging a turkey right off the top

00:05:43.600 of the bat.

00:05:44.340 You don't know me.

00:05:45.660 I'm just, okay.

00:05:46.700 I'm just saying.

00:05:47.220 It's like very, it's like, it's disrespectful.

00:05:49.040 That is a, that is a, that is the, that is the best, that's the best bird in our, in

00:05:53.200 our country.

00:05:54.440 Okay.

00:05:54.900 Well, look, I didn't, no one's ever, first of all, lobbied for this animal in front of

00:05:59.200 me.

00:05:59.380 Well, Franklin.

00:06:00.740 Well, not in front of you.

00:06:01.500 Yeah.

00:06:01.640 Yeah.

00:06:01.780 Yeah.

00:06:01.900 Yeah.

00:06:02.040 Right.

00:06:02.320 I didn't know.

00:06:02.660 I didn't, I didn't know him personally.

00:06:04.460 Yeah.

00:06:04.740 Yeah.

00:06:05.660 And you don't know how old I am.

00:06:06.920 Maybe I was there, but no, Waddell did not.

00:06:09.820 Waddell was just like, we're killing these MFers and he used some slurs.

00:06:13.360 I'll say that straight up.

00:06:14.440 He used a couple of slurs and I was like, I don't think those are for birds or animalia

00:06:18.320 even.

00:06:19.020 But he was like, I think I, uh, I think I just had a unique, um, angle into it.

00:06:24.960 Tell me more about that nose wiener that they got or that nose called a snood.

00:06:28.960 Okay.

00:06:29.520 Bring it up.

00:06:30.420 They got, see, you get into Turkey anatomy, man.

00:06:33.740 They got a lot going on for them.

00:06:35.460 They got a snood.

00:06:36.400 There's not many birds that have like basically a, uh, so they have a cloaca like birds have

00:06:41.620 a cloaca, like called a, like a uni hole, all their actions, defecating, taking a leak.

00:06:48.640 Well, when they defecate and take a leak, it's kind of a single deal.

00:06:50.980 Okay.

00:06:51.900 I'll do that.

00:06:52.380 They have sex through the uni hole.

00:06:53.680 Well, when they shit, you can tell a male from a female by the shape of its shit.

00:07:00.780 Wow.

00:07:01.400 A male throws a J shake hooked shit.

00:07:04.180 So there's not many birds.

00:07:05.480 You can sex his shit.

00:07:08.020 Yeah.

00:07:09.360 He's got a snood.

00:07:10.620 They got spurs sometimes an inch and a quarter long for fighting.

00:07:15.360 Oh yeah.

00:07:15.920 You ever been to a cock fight?

00:07:16.960 Mm-hmm.

00:07:18.020 Okay.

00:07:18.380 They got spurs.

00:07:19.480 Look at that.

00:07:20.820 Some of those spurs are so big.

00:07:22.260 You can hang the turkey by the spur on a branch.

00:07:25.840 That's called a limb hanger.

00:07:27.000 That means he's huge.

00:07:28.480 Mm.

00:07:29.080 Some got to, they got like pull up the beard, pull up the beard, pull up the beard.

00:07:34.360 They got a beard, which is actually a feather.

00:07:36.560 Look at that.

00:07:37.300 Hold on.

00:07:37.640 Let me see it.

00:07:38.080 When he's big, when that, when that gets so big that it drags on the ground, you know

00:07:42.760 what you call them?

00:07:43.360 A rope dragger.

00:07:45.280 Oh yeah.

00:07:45.880 So you got limb hangers, rope draggers.

00:07:49.380 Yeah.

00:07:50.180 Like, it's just, you kind of.

00:07:53.240 Okay.

00:07:53.820 I could, you know, I could walk out of this room right now.

00:07:57.640 Okay.

00:07:58.640 And it'd be like, you know what I mean?

00:08:00.020 Yeah.

00:08:00.580 But I'm not going to do that.

00:08:01.520 Well, first of all.

00:08:02.300 Yeah.

00:08:02.480 Because you talk bad about the America's bird.

00:08:04.840 I appreciate that.

00:08:05.840 And look, I'm glad that I'm not going to get up and storm out, dude.

00:08:10.660 You might.

00:08:11.520 Yeah.

00:08:12.220 But look, you won't storm out without teaching me something.

00:08:15.080 I'll say that.

00:08:15.920 And I didn't know any of that.

00:08:17.700 Turkeys are great.

00:08:18.460 Yeah.

00:08:19.220 Their head changes from red, white to blue.

00:08:20.980 It's kind of like they knew that they were going to be America's bird.

00:08:24.660 Oh yeah.

00:08:25.220 They're the fucking Trace Adkins of birds.

00:08:27.600 When they get real excited.

00:08:28.760 Like when you see, when he's coming in and his head gets that whitish color to it, he is

00:08:34.000 fired up.

00:08:35.720 Okay.

00:08:36.100 So what does that mean when their head changes to different colors?

00:08:38.820 Look at this guy.

00:08:40.200 He's really white, like blue and white.

00:08:42.120 He's torn between some feelings.

00:08:43.840 Yeah.

00:08:44.080 Blue and white.

00:08:45.020 He's, he's in, he's like blue and white.

00:08:48.520 He's coming in.

00:08:49.920 You hunt them in the spring during the breeding season.

00:08:52.320 Okay.

00:08:52.720 Blue and white.

00:08:53.500 He's coming in and he's, he's, he's thinking, he's thinking about ass.

00:08:59.160 Okay.

00:08:59.580 So he's looking for sex, but Waddell had us.

00:09:02.160 We were in the off seat.

00:09:03.020 They were in the locker room and we went to chase them.

00:09:04.940 They were not even on the field.

00:09:06.040 They were fucking back there, you know, getting a physical there.

00:09:09.360 I mean, we were in some, I was like, should we even, yeah.

00:09:12.940 Some of them had their towels around their necks.

00:09:14.760 They were sitting there texting their wives.

00:09:16.180 Like it was, there was the off season.

00:09:17.580 If he's coming in, like he's coming in, you see a blue head.

00:09:21.840 Okay.

00:09:23.640 And then all of a sudden, you know, and he's coming in, he's all puffed out.

00:09:26.760 And they did another thing.

00:09:28.800 So I know, I'm sorry.

00:09:29.920 Well, they got, so they got the big, you heard the big gobble.

00:09:33.640 Yes.

00:09:34.180 All right.

00:09:34.680 If you're, if you're telling a turkey hunting story and you get to the part of the story

00:09:39.680 where like picture you're telling a story that has a gun in it.

00:09:41.980 Okay.

00:09:42.380 And we get to the part of the story where the gun goes off.

00:09:45.800 You go like, and I heard bang.

00:09:48.080 Right.

00:09:48.400 It's not what it sounds like.

00:09:49.420 Right.

00:09:49.900 But you go back.

00:09:50.580 And then, yeah, a friend of mine's Latvian.

00:09:52.560 And when they hear, when they get to a part of a story where the gun goes off, they say,

00:09:56.020 blouch.

00:09:56.840 Okay.

00:09:57.540 So if you're telling a turkey story and he gobbles, it's hard to make the gobble noise.

00:10:02.660 So in a story, you'd go, pow, pow.

00:10:06.360 Yeah.

00:10:06.580 But it's like, but if you, when he's coming in, like if he's coming in and he thinks he's

00:10:13.100 coming into a hen, you're making a hen noise.

00:10:16.280 Yeah.

00:10:16.680 Yeah.

00:10:16.860 So the noise that the man that, that, um, like Michael Waddell was making and he makes

00:10:20.840 that noise really well.

00:10:21.740 Oh yeah.

00:10:22.160 He's, he's the best of the best.

00:10:23.920 Oh yeah.

00:10:24.760 I mean, he was calling a couple of fucking, but I mean, even some busty chicks from the

00:10:28.740 gas station.

00:10:29.560 He was like a competitive.

00:10:30.600 Yeah.

00:10:31.040 Yeah.

00:10:31.440 So he's making a hen noise.

00:10:32.680 And what's, what's.

00:10:33.300 Oh dude, people were, dudes were coming out of the closet when he was doing it.

00:10:35.940 I mean, he'll fucking, he'll call, he'll, he'll get you, he'll get people go.

00:10:39.100 Oh, he's very good.

00:10:39.880 And what, what, like what would happen in, what would happen in the natural setting there

00:10:43.620 is the gobbler is just cruising.

00:10:47.100 Okay.

00:10:47.420 And the gobbler is that big male Turkey.

00:10:48.840 He's a big male Turkey.

00:10:49.480 He's cruising.

00:10:49.880 Um, and chicks are supposed to hear him and like, he doesn't, he, he's kind of got his

00:10:54.960 little route and they're supposed to kind of come into him.

00:10:57.320 So he's on the highway going down the highway and they're kind of coming on the ramps.

00:11:02.440 Okay.

00:11:02.580 The on ramps to catch him.

00:11:03.920 Oh, so what you're trying to do is you're trying to get him to be like, well, I'm going

00:11:09.040 to go over there and have a C like that's not normally what I would do, but what is going

00:11:14.460 on over there?

00:11:15.140 I need to go out of my way now to go have a C what's happening.

00:11:19.020 If when he's coming, you see like a blue head and he's coming and he's going like this.

00:11:24.140 You can't hear it.

00:11:25.100 Like if you hear it, he's in range.

00:11:26.460 He's going, here's what it sounds like.

00:11:29.320 He's going, he's doing two things.

00:11:34.380 He's spitting.

00:11:35.420 Okay.

00:11:36.020 He's making a noise.

00:11:37.440 We always goof on it and go like, but it's like, he's making a noise with his mouth.

00:11:42.040 Okay.

00:11:42.440 And he's taking his wings and on the ground.

00:11:46.680 Okay.

00:11:47.180 And that is the, that is like extremely exciting noise to hear.

00:11:51.420 So the first part is with their actual, they do it with their mouth.

00:11:54.080 And the second part, they do it with their wings on the ground.

00:11:56.040 And he's drumming.

00:11:57.440 Wow.

00:11:57.800 So it's a real mating call.

00:11:59.120 Yeah.

00:11:59.340 Like he'll, you'll hear him.

00:12:00.360 Like you'll hear him.

00:12:01.020 He's kind of like making, he's like doing a vocalization.

00:12:03.380 And he's doing a vocalization, but like he's got his, his wings.

00:12:08.840 You'll, you'll hear on the ground.

00:12:10.560 Okay.

00:12:10.960 And you'll even see, you'll sometimes be going down a sandy trail or something.

00:12:13.880 And you'll see the wing drags and you can tell that one's been cutting it out there.

00:12:16.820 And they do this little dance.

00:12:17.720 Oh, wow.

00:12:18.560 Oh, yes.

00:12:19.240 Dude, it's the best thing in the world.

00:12:20.200 But if he's coming in and all of a sudden his head turns red, his head turns red and lifts

00:12:24.360 up.

00:12:25.100 And if he goes, games up.

00:12:28.680 Oh, he knows, he knows that you, he knows that he knows that it's not good.

00:12:32.680 Like when you hear that noise, he's on his way out, but what's the problem?

00:12:36.940 Wait, when you hear what noise is on the way at that?

00:12:38.400 When he putts.

00:12:39.320 Oh, when he putts.

00:12:39.940 His head goes boom, red lifts up and putts.

00:12:42.840 He's gone, but they don't do anything too quick, but that's his way of saying like, I

00:12:47.220 don't like it.

00:12:48.360 Wow.

00:12:48.740 This isn't about ladies anymore.

00:12:50.840 Oh, it's about dudes being secretive, pretending they're women.

00:12:54.420 No, they're like an absolutely fascinating bird.

00:12:56.900 You know, I took, uh, years ago, like you've been, uh, you know, you know, Rogan.

00:13:02.760 I took turkey hunting with him years ago and he wound up being kind of underwhelmed by

00:13:07.060 turkeys.

00:13:08.460 There might be something like, uh, like some kind of like offshoot of being a comedian

00:13:15.620 is that you can't appreciate turkeys.

00:13:18.840 Well, I think there's.

00:13:19.860 Do you think that there might be something to that?

00:13:20.960 That's a good question.

00:13:21.800 I think, um, oh, I remember watching this and you had Brian Callen too, which was, that's

00:13:25.980 hilarious.

00:13:26.500 Oh yeah.

00:13:26.760 They didn't appreciate turkeys.

00:13:28.240 Drove me.

00:13:29.560 Yeah.

00:13:30.160 I know.

00:13:30.900 Turkey people do not like it.

00:13:32.500 If you do not like Turk talking to being, um, thinking about turkeys, you just said something

00:13:37.460 bad about my three kids.

00:13:38.800 I've been like, yeah, I see that.

00:13:41.880 I'm like, yeah, that's fair.

00:13:43.580 But like with the turkey deal.

00:13:44.900 No, right.

00:13:45.740 It's baked.

00:13:46.240 Yeah.

00:13:46.820 Turkey's baked into American history.

00:13:48.420 I didn't know that much about turkeys.

00:13:49.800 I think if I knew some of this and maybe I didn't even, I didn't ask enough stuff, you

00:13:54.040 know, I think if I'd have asked more stuff and I'd have known a little bit more of like

00:13:57.400 the lower, I think I probably would have been more hyped about it.

00:14:00.180 Yeah.

00:14:00.420 Can I hear you with one more lower bit?

00:14:01.980 Yeah, sure.

00:14:02.820 So when, at the time of like when Europeans arrived in North America, uh, there were turkeys,

00:14:13.680 they think there may be turkeys in like 34 States.

00:14:17.620 And then they were extirpated from many of those States cause they were good to eat.

00:14:20.920 Everybody wanted to eat them.

00:14:21.820 People to hunt them at night, shoot them out of the trees.

00:14:24.040 That night.

00:14:24.600 Oh, it was a popular food item.

00:14:26.500 Yeah.

00:14:26.980 And they nearly wiped them out and it got to where there's only turkeys hiding out and

00:14:30.420 like the deepest patches of swamps up in the highest mountain woods, you know, hiding

00:14:34.960 out here and there.

00:14:36.220 And it got bad.

00:14:37.480 Right.

00:14:38.080 There was only a couple of States where you're allowed to hunt them anymore.

00:14:40.080 And then they started putting them back out there.

00:14:44.020 You can hunt turkeys.

00:14:45.100 Uh, you can hunt turkeys now in 49 States.

00:14:48.240 Wow.

00:14:48.540 You can hunt turkeys now in more States than had turkeys.

00:14:50.980 A cost to that of the bird is that people now take the bird for granted.

00:14:57.640 Like from a PR standpoint, I was talking about eagles earlier from a PR standpoint, eagles

00:15:02.820 are kind of everywhere.

00:15:03.740 Now there's still people who will see an eagle and they'll be like, Oh my God, an eagle.

00:15:07.940 They're like, but dude, you know, we have a little shack in Alaska and you might see 13

00:15:11.460 eagles in one tree.

00:15:12.380 Yeah.

00:15:12.940 So from a PR standpoint, they have a little bit of, they, they like, you risk overexposure

00:15:17.580 as a bird.

00:15:19.260 Turkeys are so everywhere now that now we have like town turkeys.

00:15:24.220 But there's wandering around like stray animals.

00:15:25.940 And so the mystique, it like, it costs them some of their mystique.

00:15:30.580 Ah.

00:15:31.280 And then people will get a sense from town turkeys, which aren't hunted.

00:15:34.720 They'll get a sense of that a turkey is whatever, that he's not cautious, that he's not careful.

00:15:39.540 Right.

00:15:40.060 Right.

00:15:40.280 That'll just use any crosswalk or whatever.

00:15:41.960 Yeah.

00:15:42.580 So a lot of times when people disparage the turkey, they're referring to some town turkey,

00:15:47.900 but they don't know what a turkey who's out there busting ass in the woods with people

00:15:53.020 trying to kill him and coyotes trying to kill him and bobcats trying to kill him and red

00:15:56.940 fox trying to kill him and possums eating their eggs and skunks eating their eggs and raccoons

00:16:00.660 eating their eggs, great horned owls blasting them out of trees and they survived through all

00:16:05.240 that.

00:16:05.460 So when I think of a turkey, I'm thinking of a persecuted turkey.

00:16:08.640 Some people are thinking of a town turkey.

00:16:10.320 Yeah.

00:16:10.580 It's just different.

00:16:12.400 Yeah.

00:16:12.780 I think I was probably thinking of like, yeah, I mean, there's a turkey right there.

00:16:15.920 It's almost.

00:16:16.740 Town turkey.

00:16:17.380 Yeah.

00:16:17.640 Catching a bus to work or whatever.

00:16:19.260 I mean, that's fucking unbelievable.

00:16:21.060 That's what's going on.

00:16:22.360 Yeah.

00:16:22.540 But no, I didn't, I didn't know.

00:16:24.260 I mean, I think that gives me like definitely a different appreciation for them.

00:16:27.420 I didn't know they had so much baked in, like they're, they're such a thermometer of like

00:16:31.120 sexual activity and so many like little ratings are relevant right on them and the way that

00:16:36.220 they operate and the sounds that they make.

00:16:37.920 They're a dynamic bird.

00:16:39.200 And when, and that I'll agree to a hundred percent, man.

00:16:42.200 So all like, here's another thing about them.

00:16:44.720 Can I hit you with one more?

00:16:45.620 Yeah.

00:16:45.900 Most of the domestic animals that we utilize.

00:16:50.380 Okay.

00:16:50.780 When, when you go, when you go into a store and you see what's for sale down there for

00:16:54.980 domestic meats, you know, whether you buy, you buy weird shit, like you buy lamb, goat,

00:17:00.760 pork, beef.

00:17:04.380 Okay.

00:17:05.480 That's all, that all winds up being like Eurasian species of Eurasian origin that became

00:17:12.160 domesticated.

00:17:13.020 And when you say Eurasian, what are you talking about?

00:17:14.480 You're talking about animals, animals that are indigenous animals that are endemic to

00:17:18.680 Europe and Asia became like the domestics that we know today.

00:17:22.460 Wow.

00:17:23.060 So when you see like a horse, that's a Eurasian creature.

00:17:26.600 Cattle came from a thing called the oryx.

00:17:28.800 Okay.

00:17:29.740 Goats came from other continents.

00:17:33.120 It's sheep, other continents.

00:17:35.280 The Turkey is uniquely North American.

00:17:38.880 Really?

00:17:39.160 Okay.

00:17:39.320 So when the Spanish came, they took turkeys, they drew turkeys from Mesoamerica, brought

00:17:46.400 them back to Europe and turned them into like the white looking butterball turkeys through

00:17:50.260 selective breeding, and then brought those turkeys back to the new world.

00:17:53.700 But it's like the new world's contribution.

00:17:57.620 It's North America's contribution to the domesticated species that we know in

00:18:03.100 love today.

00:18:03.760 Got it.

00:18:04.120 So if you go into a meat market and you're like, they got all the normal shit laid out,

00:18:09.600 Turkey is one that you're like, that's origin is here.

00:18:13.160 It's a new world creature.

00:18:14.600 Because the new world didn't produce, the new world didn't produce domestics.

00:18:20.600 Like they didn't, we haven't like effectively domesticated new world animals, but the turkey

00:18:26.300 is an exception.

00:18:28.260 Wow.

00:18:28.680 So that really is kind of our national animal, huh?

00:18:30.800 Oh yeah, dude.

00:18:31.600 You think it's our most national animal, not just bird?

00:18:36.520 I can't answer that.

00:18:37.440 I haven't thought about that before.

00:18:38.740 Yeah.

00:18:40.240 Damn, dude.

00:18:41.140 No, thanks, bro.

00:18:42.140 Yeah.

00:18:42.280 I think it's interesting.

00:18:43.140 Like you had to learn about that kind of stuff.

00:18:44.560 When I was growing up and stuff, I didn't have like a lot of influence, like in that kind

00:18:47.420 world, you know, like the wildlife world.

00:18:50.060 Yeah.

00:18:50.300 I think hunting or something.

00:18:51.540 I mean, the first thing, I mean, I saw a buddy of mine get shot by a couple of brothers

00:18:54.880 at Mardi Gras once.

00:18:55.880 That was like the, my intro to hunting, you know, like, and I was like, oh shit.

00:18:59.000 Did he live or die?

00:18:59.820 Huh?

00:19:00.020 He lived.

00:19:00.960 Yeah.

00:19:01.160 Where did he get hit?

00:19:01.900 He got hit in the back kind of right here.

00:19:03.400 Just a stray bullet.

00:19:05.460 Yeah.

00:19:05.740 Yeah.

00:19:05.820 It looked like a, like aimed at him or he just caught a bullet aimed at him.

00:19:09.760 Oh, I got it.

00:19:10.340 Yeah.

00:19:10.620 Or like semi aimed, I guess.

00:19:12.040 Yeah.

00:19:12.420 I mean, the guy looked like he didn't know what he was doing that much, but he was shooting.

00:19:15.240 Yeah.

00:19:15.400 So, um, that's, you know, I said, I wanted to ask you a question.

00:19:17.560 I wanted to ask like, how many years did you spend growing up in Louisiana?

00:19:21.040 When I was, I was reading up on your background a little bit and you spent time in Illinois,

00:19:24.500 but also in Louisiana.

00:19:25.560 Yeah.

00:19:25.800 I spent time in Louisiana until I think I was maybe 21 or 22.

00:19:29.820 And, um, but yeah, we'd go up to Illinois in the, in the, uh, in the summers and fish.

00:19:34.300 We did a ton of fishing and we would do a good bit of fishing in Louisiana, but, um, I just

00:19:38.440 never really got into hunting.

00:19:39.460 The first time I ever went hunting was with Michael Waddell.

00:19:41.760 Oh, okay.

00:19:42.380 Yeah.

00:19:42.540 What I wanted with Louisiana, have you, that was the last state I ever went to.

00:19:49.360 And I mean like went to, went to was Louisiana.

00:19:52.140 Have you, did you switch, did you switch to Gulf of America?

00:19:57.000 No.

00:19:57.660 You didn't switch.

00:19:58.540 No, I would be, well, I want to see how it pans out first because Mexico bring it up.

00:20:05.200 Let's get a look at that big puddle, brother, because what I'm trying to see is where is

00:20:10.440 most of the land around it?

00:20:13.460 Well, shit all over the place.

00:20:14.740 Northern South America.

00:20:16.040 I think you do a year for each area.

00:20:19.780 Like maybe you do like everybody gets a year and then you look back and see how good that

00:20:24.760 year was.

00:20:25.400 You do like, and then they get it.

00:20:27.640 You know what I'm saying?

00:20:28.160 You get one year to operate that MFR and then you see who really owns that bitch.

00:20:33.460 That's to me, that's like a fair way to do it.

00:20:36.000 Um, the, yeah, the reason I was asked about it is we, once I found out about Louisiana,

00:20:40.800 we filmed a couple, we filmed a number of episodes down there.

00:20:43.260 I started going there with friends cause we spearfished the oil rigs.

00:20:47.020 And, uh, and so right when all that shit was heating up, okay.

00:20:54.580 We're like cutting an episode about that was filmed out in the Gulf.

00:20:59.140 And between the time I wrote the VO and the time we recorded the VO, all this

00:21:05.940 shit hit the fan.

00:21:07.140 Okay.

00:21:08.320 So I'm sitting there and in my, in my script, it's Gulf of Mexico, but then it switches.

00:21:15.780 So we're in the studio and I'm talking to my colleagues and we're trying to decide what

00:21:21.140 way we roll on it.

00:21:22.140 We tried doing like a joke.

00:21:23.560 We tried doing like the Gulf of, uh, you know, but then we're thought that's like a

00:21:28.600 dated joke.

00:21:29.400 And in the end, after careful contemplation, I was like, I can't switch.

00:21:34.660 Yeah.

00:21:34.900 Like I'm old, you know, I'm, I'm half a century old.

00:21:37.620 Yeah.

00:21:38.340 It's just, it's maybe I'll leave it to the youngers, but, um, for me, I, I, I can't

00:21:43.980 like, I can't do it.

00:21:44.880 I can't switch.

00:21:45.700 Yeah.

00:21:46.140 It just seemed kind of like, I think you got to figure out who's going to earn it.

00:21:50.340 I think you got to find some way, maybe there's a competition each year.

00:21:54.240 And then between Mexico and America and some of the other countries, those are smaller

00:21:58.220 countries that are touching it.

00:21:59.240 I think like Cuba, um, they ain't going to be the Gulf of Cuba.

00:22:03.000 Yeah.

00:22:03.220 They're probably, yeah.

00:22:03.840 They probably wouldn't let that happen, but I think you have a competition each year and

00:22:07.840 whoever wins it, they get to name it.

00:22:09.300 Maybe it's a soccer game or something.

00:22:10.580 And whoever wins it, they get it for the year contest.

00:22:12.940 Yeah.

00:22:13.300 That's kind of fucking dope actually.

00:22:14.780 Like a soccer tournament isn't really applicable.

00:22:17.320 Well, I think it's applicable, Steven.

00:22:19.180 And what I'm going to tell you is this brother.

00:22:20.860 That's as far as I got with that.

00:22:22.200 But, um, I think it's, um, I think the soccer would be fun cause a lot of people love soccer.

00:22:26.400 That's what I'm thinking, you know?

00:22:27.600 But yeah, maybe it's a fishing rodeo.

00:22:29.440 I think then, then there aren't, they automatically going to kick our ass.

00:22:32.680 I don't know.

00:22:33.480 I was trying to think of something we'd win better.

00:22:36.080 Maybe it's a, and this would actually be, this is actually a great idea.

00:22:38.940 I think it's 10 events.

00:22:41.320 It's Mexico and America.

00:22:42.940 Yes.

00:22:43.620 Like of all the shit, man.

00:22:45.100 Yeah.

00:22:45.820 Swimming in there, hunting on the edge of it.

00:22:48.800 I wonder if we could get.

00:22:50.440 Spear fishing it.

00:22:51.460 Spear fishing and just fucking somebody singing near the edge and seeing if officials swim up.

00:22:57.220 That's fishing.

00:22:58.640 Um, you know, I was going to tell you about these.

00:22:59.900 I told your producer this, uh, guys I work with were buying these Celsius.

00:23:05.500 And I didn't know that I didn't, hadn't, I didn't really read the, what was on there.

00:23:10.120 So I was drinking them all the damn time.

00:23:11.580 Like they were, I was drinking them like, like, uh, like seltzers and I was having a

00:23:14.880 hard time sleeping.

00:23:16.400 And someone pointed out, they're like, well shit, you've been drinking those stupid things

00:23:20.260 all day.

00:23:20.640 And I was, I was like, I thought I was drinking LaCroix or something.

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00:25:56.480 Dude, let's listen real quick to Michael Waddell play that.

00:25:59.280 Yeah, he's good.

00:26:00.340 Let's listen to him.

00:26:01.200 He's going to make some turkey noises?

00:26:02.840 Yeah.

00:26:03.120 I think that's a good idea.

00:26:04.120 I like him, man.

00:26:04.880 He's a fun guy.

00:26:05.440 Oh, he's so great, dude.

00:26:06.600 I get to spend, we go to a summer camp together every year with him and his family, and it's fucking hilarious.

00:26:13.260 I would say volume control and going from soft to aggressive, if that's the way you want to call it, or louder, is important to find in a diaphragm.

00:26:30.280 If you get those tones and you can control that, it don't have to sound perfect.

00:26:35.860 But my opinion on turkey calling, rhythm is more important than specifically the sound of it.

00:26:45.740 That's what I've been saying.

00:26:48.080 That's what I've been saying.

00:26:49.280 Dude, I think one thing that would be cool, I wonder if he could put together almost like a animal call orchestra,

00:26:53.960 where it was like you had this sort of like an orchestra pit, and somebody was like the conductor, and they had all the animal calls.

00:27:01.160 That's a good idea.

00:27:02.000 It'd be kind of neat.

00:27:02.920 We got, I was hip on this idea for a while.

00:27:05.480 We didn't take it as far as I wanted to, but what I wanted to do is I got a directional, we bought a directional mic,

00:27:13.500 and I wanted to build a catalog of, I didn't know what I was, I never thought about what I was going to do with it.

00:27:18.140 We actually bought the damn thing.

00:27:19.520 I wanted to build a catalog of animal noises.

00:27:23.420 Yeah.

00:27:24.800 So we picked up different noises and then kind of abandoned it, I think, because I didn't know what,

00:27:29.460 we hadn't really decided what we were going to do with them.

00:27:31.720 I could think of something.

00:27:32.440 I just wanted them.

00:27:33.500 Oh, yeah.

00:27:34.400 Like a great catalog of animal noises that people wouldn't know.

00:27:37.920 You could do a couple things with them that come into my mind.

00:27:40.740 One of them is you could.

00:27:42.540 The orchestra.

00:27:43.480 Yeah, create, have that.

00:27:44.720 A second one is people that are deceased, put a special headset on them.

00:27:49.860 It guarantees it'll play for 30 years or whatever.

00:27:52.640 They get to have that.

00:27:54.020 All the best animals of the world on the way out.

00:27:57.400 A third idea, I think it could be neat, would be if you created, oh, this would be cool.

00:28:04.360 You create one of those things.

00:28:06.100 I shouldn't say it'd be cool.

00:28:07.260 Who knows?

00:28:07.700 It might be horrible.

00:28:08.220 I don't think it's that great.

00:28:10.240 I'm going to say it.

00:28:11.260 What it is, is it's like one of those white noise machines, but it's all the fucking animals, dude.

00:28:16.680 And it's Steve Rinella's fucking, come sleep with Steve, it's called.

00:28:21.200 That's a great thing, man.

00:28:22.440 I check my wife on that shit.

00:28:23.740 I know every now and then, every now and then in the distance of the animals, you hear Steve's wife be like, it better just be you in there.

00:28:32.380 But that's what, it's a special machine and it's all, and then every now and then you can go to different regions of the world and hear them.

00:28:39.880 You can go to Africa.

00:28:41.100 You can sleep with me in Africa.

00:28:42.580 Yeah.

00:28:42.900 Sleep with me in Asia or whatever.

00:28:44.220 Yeah, sleep with me in Alabama and every now and then there's just some country dude.

00:28:48.160 And he's like, oh, something's, I'm going to go fuck one of these things or whatever.

00:28:52.140 You're like, whoa, whoa, buddy.

00:28:54.180 But it's just like a unique way to fall asleep at night.

00:28:58.240 Are you hip to the, are you hip to the app Merlin?

00:29:04.240 I've not even heard of it.

00:29:05.320 Yeah.

00:29:05.640 You should check it out.

00:29:08.500 I've had people that design the app on.

00:29:11.820 On your podcast?

00:29:12.920 Yeah.

00:29:13.040 Is your podcast called Meat Eaters 2?

00:29:15.260 It's called the Meat Eater Podcast.

00:29:16.720 Meat Eater Podcast.

00:29:17.280 So when you're out in your yard and you hear birds off in the distance, anywhere, and you open it up, it just listens and tells you what birds, it's a phenomenal app.

00:29:32.660 The reason I bring that up is what is harmful to people's self-esteem is when you're turkey hunting and you're making, you're mimicking the noises.

00:29:46.900 So we'll open up Merlin and be like, is it picking you up or not, bro?

00:29:55.960 Is it, is it throwing, is it saying there's a turkey over there or is it not saying there's a turkey over there?

00:30:00.760 Yeah.

00:30:01.020 Like I got friends that are very, that put enormous amounts of energy into learning how to mimic the call of a barred owl.

00:30:09.780 Really?

00:30:10.620 Yeah.

00:30:11.080 Like you mean those, what is it?

00:30:13.700 Yeah.

00:30:14.040 They go like, I got to roll.

00:30:17.960 Yeah, but you do it loud as shit.

00:30:21.560 Okay.

00:30:21.900 Well, just give me a second.

00:30:23.100 So anyways, they, they, yeah, like, yeah, I'm not good at it.

00:30:27.840 Southerners are good at it.

00:30:30.300 It's a very Southern thing.

00:30:32.340 Like there's like Yankees that can do it, but they're not going to do it like a Southerner.

00:30:35.700 The barred owl.

00:30:36.540 Pull it up.

00:30:36.940 I just want to get a gander at it.

00:30:37.960 Sorry you had it up.

00:30:38.820 Yeah.

00:30:39.020 Pull up Clay Newcomb.

00:30:40.160 Say Clay Newcomb barred owl.

00:30:42.160 Or unless you want to hear the real thing.

00:30:43.520 No, I want to start with this man.

00:30:45.080 Well, he's a Southerner.

00:30:48.260 Oh, yeah, he is.

00:30:56.100 Oh, this is me and Clay.

00:31:13.040 You see Clay and the birds, right?

00:31:16.160 Anyhow.

00:31:16.880 Definitely, dude.

00:31:17.500 You got to stay in school, brother.

00:31:19.320 What's, what's the, what is fun is to open up Merlin and see who's got it and then get

00:31:24.620 off a ways.

00:31:25.560 Yeah.

00:31:25.920 And so one of my buddies who is a Yankee, he's a Northerner, buddy Seth, like he's a real

00:31:31.320 good owl caller.

00:31:32.300 Yeah.

00:31:32.620 And it started realizing, when he realized that Merlin wasn't picking him up, wasn't putting

00:31:40.600 him down as a barred owl.

00:31:41.900 He like, he had like, he had like an emotional crisis and started redoing his shit and working

00:31:47.140 on his shit until Merlin, he had to change his stuff until he could figure out why Merlin

00:31:51.300 wasn't grabbing him.

00:31:52.320 Look, all I'm telling you is that motherfucker ain't registering on Merlin.

00:31:55.560 That's all.

00:31:56.160 Look, I'm going to shoot you straight.

00:31:57.900 That's crazy.

00:31:58.740 It's also crazy to be, I actually, now this, I really understand wanting to be this animal

00:32:04.180 and my, my.

00:32:05.280 Being an owl.

00:32:06.220 Yeah.

00:32:06.700 Wanting to really get into their head.

00:32:08.380 And we had, I've had a little bit of owl actually.

00:32:10.880 My sister's husband cooked two owls during Thanksgiving.

00:32:15.500 Well, he might want to keep, he might want to keep that more secret.

00:32:20.440 Yeah.

00:32:21.000 I don't know if he did it.

00:32:22.480 He, I mean, I haven't seen him in a long time.

00:32:26.840 That's what I'll tell you, but he, uh, it's not a lot of meat.

00:32:30.060 I'll tell you that.

00:32:32.460 It's kind of like the, like you see those women in little house on the prairie, a lot

00:32:35.460 of skirts, not a lot of meat under there.

00:32:37.340 You know, you think it's going to be Philadelphia under there, but it's a little more Arizona

00:32:42.540 when you get under there.

00:32:43.520 See, I'd tell you a good story.

00:32:44.960 My father told me, but I don't, I mean, he's dead.

00:32:47.040 So they're not going to do anything bad.

00:32:48.120 I will tell it.

00:32:48.840 I don't know why my father did this.

00:32:50.640 Okay.

00:32:51.040 I don't know why my father did this, but in talks about that, like a lot of skirt, not

00:32:54.360 much, not much meat.

00:32:56.080 Yeah.

00:32:56.340 So obviously my, my father was from another time.

00:33:01.500 My dad was born in 19.

00:33:02.720 He had me when he was old.

00:33:03.480 He was born in the great depression.

00:33:05.540 Oh, wow.

00:33:06.000 Like 1910.

00:33:07.140 No, not that late.

00:33:08.620 He, he, he was a world war II veteran.

00:33:10.940 Oh, wow.

00:33:11.540 Anyhow.

00:33:12.240 Thank you, Mr. Rinella for your service.

00:33:13.680 He tells a story about sitting deer hunting with his bow and some, Oh, there he is on

00:33:19.960 the right there.

00:33:20.560 Oh, he tells a story about sitting deer hunting with his bow and deciding to shoot owl with

00:33:31.160 his bow.

00:33:31.900 And he says he does.

00:33:33.280 And he like, it feels like he hits the owl.

00:33:35.660 I can't account for why he would decide to do this.

00:33:37.820 It's not something I would do.

00:33:38.800 I don't condone it.

00:33:40.700 Shoots the owl and like hits it dead center.

00:33:44.520 But he said the owl doesn't even change tune.

00:33:46.640 Wow.

00:33:47.200 Cause he realized just, it's all feathers.

00:33:49.320 Yeah.

00:33:50.060 Yeah.

00:33:51.180 It's all brassiere, baby.

00:33:52.900 No tit.

00:33:53.600 That was his only owl hunting story.

00:33:55.280 God.

00:33:55.600 And he didn't, the owl escaped unharmed.

00:33:57.960 Yeah.

00:33:58.160 I mean, look at these motherfuckers, bro.

00:33:59.640 What are we doing?

00:34:01.060 What are we doing, dude?

00:34:02.600 Oh yeah, there you go.

00:34:03.760 If you don't think all of the world is a psyop, look at this MF-er, homie.

00:34:09.980 Look at this thing right here.

00:34:12.120 You know, do you want to know a current controversy about the barred owl?

00:34:15.420 Mm-hmm.

00:34:15.880 I'd love to.

00:34:16.560 So the noise that Clay was just making there and the owls were making.

00:34:19.700 Okay.

00:34:20.040 Do you remember back to, do you remember back to the kind of culture war issue around spotted

00:34:26.860 owls, like logging in the Pacific Northwest and the spotted owl?

00:34:31.960 Well, I think they were tearing down their habitats, right?

00:34:34.060 Exactly.

00:34:34.620 And then the spotted owl became, this happens to animals now and then, where a spotted owl

00:34:39.680 owl stopped being an owl and kind of became like a cultural emblem.

00:34:45.900 Oh yeah.

00:34:46.100 Like when they put them on frontier airlines, like on their wing.

00:34:48.600 Yeah, sure.

00:34:49.240 It'd be like, like, like wolves occupy this now.

00:34:51.620 Like there's wolves as flesh and blood creatures.

00:34:54.580 And then there's sort of the symbolism of the wolf.

00:34:57.620 Right.

00:34:57.960 So the spotted owl became a symbolism of land use, you know, like land use controversy.

00:35:04.680 Okay.

00:35:04.900 Meaning there, you got loggers in the Pacific Northwest trying to produce, you know, harvest

00:35:09.420 timber products.

00:35:10.820 But there's this owl, they're trying, this endangered species, this owl that they're trying

00:35:15.700 to protect.

00:35:16.320 So the owl becomes this kind of like proxy symbol for whether we should cut trees or not.

00:35:20.700 I remember even in Dumb and Dumber, they had the, they went to the banquet where they

00:35:23.560 were raising money for the spotted owl.

00:35:25.540 Yeah, exactly.

00:35:25.900 So it became like a cultural thing.

00:35:28.780 Barred owls are one of those species like Canada geese, white-tailed deer, crows that

00:35:34.140 do really well, that, that, that they benefit off people.

00:35:38.440 Right.

00:35:39.020 Like the more people there are in more places, the more beneficial it is to that owl.

00:35:45.160 That owl does well in disturbed ecosystems.

00:35:47.640 They're, they, they like people.

00:35:49.200 They'll hang out above your house.

00:35:50.540 They'll hunt in your yard.

00:35:51.840 Like we don't bother them.

00:35:53.540 Other things hate people.

00:35:54.820 But this thing that's gradually happening is barred owls, which were historically more

00:36:00.460 in the Eastern U S are colonizing the, the spotted owls range and displacing spotted

00:36:08.720 owls.

00:36:09.140 So there's this big push and there was even federal money.

00:36:13.080 I don't know where it stands right now.

00:36:14.060 I think the current administration was rolling it back.

00:36:16.500 There was a push where they were going to go kill right there.

00:36:20.040 They were going to call 470,000 barred owls in the Pacific Northwest.

00:36:25.820 To keep them from migrating.

00:36:27.000 To, to try to save.

00:36:28.780 The spotted owl.

00:36:29.840 The spotted owl.

00:36:31.160 Fuck.

00:36:31.560 And I think they might've pulled that money.

00:36:33.460 I'm not sure.

00:36:34.540 Oh, but, um, just a little like, you know, like wildlife politics, like there's always

00:36:39.880 wildlife politics brewing, you know?

00:36:41.660 Yeah.

00:36:42.160 And so there's this kind of thing, like, does it make sense?

00:36:44.840 You know, that you asked the question and it's not like people are moving them in trucks.

00:36:48.620 They're moving on their own.

00:36:49.980 So if, like, if this bird is getting there on his own nature, yeah, he's getting there

00:36:55.600 on his own, under his own wing, spreading across, is that, can you really call it that

00:37:02.820 that's like colonization or, or is it just that it's natural?

00:37:06.060 Like throughout your 45 years of life, raccoons have gone North and West throughout your 45

00:37:12.460 years of life.

00:37:13.840 Opossums have gone North and West.

00:37:16.280 Barred owls have gone West all on their own.

00:37:21.140 It's human in that they're sort of like our crop fields, our clearings, our developments

00:37:26.440 don't bother them, but they're beneficial to them.

00:37:28.720 Right.

00:37:28.940 So we don't have an effect really on it.

00:37:30.580 Yeah.

00:37:30.840 So we're like, it's happening and they're talking about, you know, dusting off that many, uh,

00:37:35.960 you know, dusting off that many owls.

00:37:37.820 And, um, I don't know.

00:37:39.680 I mean, that's interesting.

00:37:41.040 Yeah.

00:37:41.180 It's like, how much do you want to mess up with what mother nature is doing?

00:37:44.240 You know, it says right here, yes, funding for the barred owl removal initiative was

00:37:48.480 recently pulled in July, 2025.

00:37:50.180 The Trump administration terminated three critical federal grants, totaling about 1.1 million,

00:37:55.120 which were essential for launching the U S fish and wildlife services planet coal barred

00:37:59.440 owls across California, Oregon, and Washington.

00:38:01.320 Who was going to do that?

00:38:02.500 Were they just going to send some, how would they go about that?

00:38:05.360 Do you think?

00:38:05.840 I applied for one of those gigs one time they were doing, uh, I just thought it was kind

00:38:10.500 of interesting.

00:38:11.100 There's another animal that lives that is in more places than it was historically the

00:38:15.780 mountain goat.

00:38:17.000 And there was this project one time to, to, they were trying to get mountain goats out

00:38:22.140 of Olympic, um, was it?

00:38:24.360 No, no, no, no.

00:38:25.020 Not of Olympic national park.

00:38:26.740 I can't remember.

00:38:27.780 Pull up a mountain goat.

00:38:29.580 It's a great animal.

00:38:31.400 Now you do not see a lot of these around here.

00:38:33.600 No, no, no, no, no.

00:38:34.340 But they were looking for teams of people to go do this, uh, mountain goat.

00:38:37.760 And so we made a, we made like a team, professional wrestlers, dude, we made a team to, we made

00:38:44.180 a team to do the mountain goat coal and our team was not selected.

00:38:47.900 Cause a part of the thing was you're, they wanted you to keep your mouth shut.

00:38:51.580 And I think that they looked and they were like, this guy's not going to keep his mouth

00:38:54.440 shut about that shit.

00:38:55.380 He's like a fucking writer.

00:38:56.840 So they're like, I think they saw through me and I, and I had a, I had a crack commando

00:39:02.000 team put together, but didn't get the nod.

00:39:04.900 Cause I think that they could see that like, like, let's say you're a writer and you're

00:39:08.520 trying to get in the military.

00:39:09.760 They're like, yeah, I got a feeling this guy's going to, this ain't patriotism.

00:39:13.880 Do you know what I'm saying?

00:39:14.720 So I didn't get the, I didn't get the job.

00:39:16.880 It's almost like Armageddon where that team gets chosen to go save the world or whatever.

00:39:21.380 You guys should have got the chance, brother.

00:39:23.380 That'd be a great move.

00:39:24.300 I had a crack commando team put together.

00:39:26.260 Really?

00:39:26.660 Who'd you get on?

00:39:27.260 You get any diversity on it?

00:39:28.460 How do you attack?

00:39:28.940 No, I didn't do.

00:39:29.660 No, this was before that.

00:39:30.860 Was it DEI?

00:39:31.520 No, this was before that.

00:39:33.020 Now that I review it in my mind.

00:39:34.660 And it was decidedly, it was decidedly, it was a, it was a, a group of guys that you

00:39:41.500 could mistake for me.

00:39:42.640 Okay.

00:39:44.460 That was my mountain goat team.

00:39:46.680 They're going to do the same, like they're fixing to do the same thing in Grand Teton.

00:39:50.960 In the Grand Teton National Park?

00:39:52.460 Yeah.

00:39:52.600 Because mountain goats are, mountain goats are largely in the coastal ranges historically.

00:39:56.700 God, they're beautiful.

00:39:57.500 Aren't they?

00:39:57.900 Oh yeah.

00:39:58.140 So you got like, like Idaho, Colorado, Utah.

00:40:01.140 Utah, um, they all have non-native mountain goat population.

00:40:04.520 Oh yeah.

00:40:04.920 South Dakota has a non-native mountain goat population.

00:40:07.600 And when you say non-native, that means that they just ended up there.

00:40:10.300 They weren't naturally from there.

00:40:11.600 They were drove in.

00:40:12.800 Ah.

00:40:13.340 They were drove in.

00:40:14.560 They were brought in.

00:40:15.960 You wouldn't believe, like if you're interested in animals, man, you wouldn't believe how much

00:40:20.580 humans have reshuffled the deck of how animals exist, of where they're like, of distribution

00:40:27.560 of animals in the world or mostly in America world to know we have a lot like our country

00:40:33.400 hosts African species in certain, but I mean, totally wild, feral animals.

00:40:37.400 We have African species running around in our country.

00:40:39.960 We have Asiatic species running around in our country.

00:40:43.140 Um, we've just completely reshuffled the deck.

00:40:46.180 Like I was saying, like at, you know, historically there was turkeys in 34 states.

00:40:49.960 You can hunt turkeys in every state, but Alaska now.

00:40:52.520 Wow.

00:40:53.000 Like we're all, we like, we've been very good at moving it around and we used to have

00:40:57.120 the ambition of moving it all around.

00:40:58.940 Now we have the ambition of trying to put it back the way we found it.

00:41:02.100 Yeah.

00:41:02.440 But for a while, the ambition was to like, I don't know, more the merrier.

00:41:05.440 Spread it everywhere.

00:41:06.060 And they just cut shit loose just to see what would happen.

00:41:08.700 Fuck.

00:41:09.240 Yeah.

00:41:09.600 All the time, man.

00:41:10.880 Just move it around.

00:41:11.980 See what happens.

00:41:13.080 That's bonkers, man.

00:41:14.460 Where is Grand Teton National Park?

00:41:16.220 It's basically, it's not, I shouldn't say, it's basically Yellowstone National Park.

00:41:19.140 Do you have a place in America that you feel has the strongest connection to nature?

00:41:25.340 Kind of to just pivot a little bit.

00:41:26.760 Like, do you, like, where you feel like the most like innately connected?

00:41:32.360 Is that a weird question kind of?

00:41:33.840 No, it's not a weird question.

00:41:35.020 Because I know that like some of the natives had like the Black Hills and stuff like that

00:41:38.040 in the Dakotas.

00:41:38.660 Like they had places where they felt like extremely connected to nature.

00:41:41.940 Yeah, you mean like, like places that had a, that, that had a spiritual.

00:41:46.560 Like an aura or something to them?

00:41:47.840 Yeah, sure.

00:41:48.500 I just wondered if it was.

00:41:49.240 Yeah, I can't pretend to, I can't, like, I don't know what that felt like.

00:41:55.420 I don't know what that looked like.

00:41:56.920 I have things that mean a lot.

00:41:58.460 I have places that mean a lot to me.

00:42:00.220 Um, I have places that mean a lot to me from a standpoint of personal experiences that have

00:42:04.680 happened in certain places.

00:42:05.660 I had a place for a long time.

00:42:06.900 I told, like I told my kids, I was like, man, if I die, like I had originally said, if

00:42:13.080 I die, I want, um, I was like, this is going to be hard to pull off, but like in a perfect

00:42:19.000 world, I would have my body like dumped there.

00:42:22.500 Oh yeah.

00:42:23.140 Just hidden away somewhere to be eaten and my bones strewn about by bears.

00:42:30.020 Yeah.

00:42:30.560 Like I thought that seemed like a cool idea.

00:42:32.700 It is kind of neat.

00:42:33.620 Yeah.

00:42:33.860 There's, there's a number, um, there's a number of people that, um, crazy horse, his friends

00:42:42.700 took his body and put it somewhere.

00:42:44.480 They don't, they don't know where it is.

00:42:45.640 Really?

00:42:46.320 Uh, has anybody gone to look for it?

00:42:48.140 Edward Abbey, the writer.

00:42:49.760 Edward Abbey.

00:42:50.500 So crazy horse, they hid his body.

00:42:52.200 His friends took his body.

00:42:53.760 He was killed in Nebraska.

00:42:55.200 They took his body and put it in a crevice somewhere.

00:42:57.180 They don't know where it is.

00:42:58.240 And no one's found it yet?

00:42:59.540 Ed Abbey's body was out.

00:43:01.600 Ed Abbey from, uh.

00:43:03.320 You know, you ever hear of Monkey Ranch Gang?

00:43:05.100 He wrote Monkey Ranch Gang.

00:43:06.700 Not from, uh.

00:43:07.680 Desert Solitaire.

00:43:09.300 He was an, he was an environmental.

00:43:10.560 Not the odd couple, huh?

00:43:12.120 No, no, no.

00:43:12.620 He was an environmental warrior.

00:43:14.380 You should read up on Ed Abbey.

00:43:15.460 Ed Abbey?

00:43:16.280 Yeah.

00:43:16.780 He's a, he's like a, he's a big figure in defending the desert.

00:43:22.200 Um, in a novelist.

00:43:24.920 Anyways, his friends took him and they dumped him.

00:43:27.220 And they didn't tell anybody where?

00:43:28.480 Uh-uh, won't tell anybody where.

00:43:29.700 That's cool.

00:43:30.340 That sounds like the way to go.

00:43:31.340 So I wanted to have that kind of, I wanted to have a program like that.

00:43:34.020 And that, where I wanted it was a spot that had, was a place that had like, that I had

00:43:39.000 a deep, uh, what to me passes as a sort of spiritual connection to that place.

00:43:45.020 Then there's places I just like because, uh, there's like, I like, I love being in Alaska.

00:43:51.720 I spent a month or so in Alaska.

00:43:53.120 It's kind of throughout different times of the year.

00:43:55.120 I spent a month or so in Alaska every year.

00:43:56.860 I love Alaska.

00:43:58.060 What I like about Alaska is it's, uh, um, you know, it, it, it's a big place, but there's

00:44:04.720 a lot of places where you can just kind of picture what time was along.

00:44:08.960 Like you can kind of picture what things were a long time ago.

00:44:11.960 Got it.

00:44:12.520 Yeah.

00:44:12.660 So it's like, cause a thing that if you've, as a, as an outdoorsman, as someone that likes

00:44:18.100 nature, um, oftentimes you find yourself trying to imagine, like trying to imagine a long

00:44:25.880 time ago.

00:44:26.380 Right.

00:44:27.140 There's, there's something like, there's some kind of continuity thing.

00:44:31.160 Um, you know, people have been out on the landscape, living, hunting and fishing and

00:44:35.000 living off the land for, since the beginning of human time.

00:44:37.980 And so naturally your mind goes to like, what, how did other people experience this?

00:44:44.600 Like how did, uh, what, what was the experience of other people doing these activities in these

00:44:48.100 places throughout time?

00:44:49.220 Yeah.

00:44:49.620 So I like spots where you can kind of picture it, right?

00:44:53.300 It's still, you can picture it.

00:44:54.420 And there's a lot of places in Alaska, you can go there and be like, you can feel it.

00:44:58.440 Oh yeah.

00:44:59.260 Do you know what I mean?

00:44:59.500 You can feel it.

00:45:00.140 Yeah.

00:45:00.740 Um, like it feels so untouched by some, like just a lot of other bullshit energy and stuff.

00:45:06.020 Yeah.

00:45:06.320 And it winds up being like, you can imagine, like you could go, there's places you go

00:45:09.800 and you can imagine like, man, some dude standing here 10, not 10, let's do whatever.

00:45:14.860 Some dude standing here 7,000 years ago, be held like however he perceived it, whatever

00:45:20.740 his ideas of God were, you know, whatever his allegiances were, he, this is kind of what

00:45:25.660 it looked like.

00:45:26.080 Right.

00:45:26.320 You know, it's what it looked like.

00:45:27.440 And those places mean a lot to me to be able to be like, man, like you could stand here,

00:45:33.200 you know, at all these points in time and be like, it's just, you can just imagine it.

00:45:37.640 It makes this continuity similar because a thing that I'm very interested in is, uh, and

00:45:42.700 professionally and personally very interested in like the experiences of, of, of, of other

00:45:48.220 people who, who had aspects of a lifestyle that I live today.

00:45:52.040 Like I'm always fascinated by that.

00:45:54.200 That's why I could give a shit about Antarctica.

00:45:55.520 Cause there's no human history there.

00:45:57.180 Right.

00:45:57.900 So that's a cool thing about Alaska.

00:46:00.680 My brother's a fisheries biologist in Alaska.

00:46:03.000 And he had a really interesting point that he made to me.

00:46:04.900 He's like, if you think about the concert, like conservation efforts, environmental efforts

00:46:09.400 in the lower 48, we are in like someday what we're doing might be regarded as a recovery

00:46:16.780 phase where we're trying to like fix things.

00:46:20.420 We're, we, we broke a lot of things late 1800s, early 1900s for decades, you know, we broke

00:46:26.300 stuff.

00:46:27.120 And so for the most part now, when someone talks about conservation, oftentimes it's like

00:46:32.100 fixing broken shit, bringing the Turkey back, fixing broken shit.

00:46:35.680 Right.

00:46:36.260 Right.

00:46:37.360 Cleaning up rivers, cleaning up.

00:46:38.760 Yeah.

00:46:38.920 It's a lot.

00:46:39.420 Like we're like, we, we broke a bunch of shit.

00:46:40.760 Like we built a bunch of dams in the Pacific Northwest and killed all these salmon runs.

00:46:43.880 Now we're trying to fix all the shit we broke.

00:46:45.800 And so for most of like most conservation work is oftentimes like fixing shit that we fucked up.

00:46:50.420 He was saying his work in Alaska, he's been in Alaska forever.

00:46:54.520 His work in Alaska at times is like, they're still doing, they're still trying to describe

00:47:00.800 what's there.

00:47:03.180 Meaning there are salmon runs.

00:47:05.300 They'll go look at salmon runs.

00:47:06.640 People know there's salmon there.

00:47:07.760 They've been fishing for thousands of years, but no one's ever went and sort of like scientifically

00:47:11.840 described the salmon run.

00:47:14.300 There are rivers where no one's gone and scientifically described what lives in the river.

00:47:19.680 Got it.

00:47:20.200 Right.

00:47:20.420 So they're still in a, they're still in a phase of just trying to like write down what's there.

00:47:24.980 Yeah.

00:47:26.020 And we're in a phase of just trying to fix all of our broken shit.

00:47:28.900 Right.

00:47:29.280 So in that way, Alaska is cool.

00:47:30.800 Right.

00:47:31.100 Cause it's still like in such an early process of being affected by humans.

00:47:34.740 Yeah.

00:47:34.900 And if we play our cards, right.

00:47:36.280 Then we'll, what we learned here, we won't have to go through the same thing.

00:47:39.100 Yeah.

00:47:39.200 If we play our cards, right.

00:47:41.060 When someone talks about building a big dam, you know, on the Yukon or whatever, you, you

00:47:45.660 might look and be like, man, we were spending a lot of it down, down in the, what they call

00:47:50.580 in Alaska, what they call the outside and the outside, we're spending a lot of time and

00:47:54.200 energy trying to fix all the shit we broke by doing that.

00:47:57.060 Just so heads up as you think about your plans.

00:48:01.060 Hey guys, do you have a part of, um, I know you've traveled extension.

00:48:04.900 Do you have a place that you feel like is like, is the most dangerous for people to

00:48:08.360 go?

00:48:09.920 Is that really a fair question?

00:48:11.420 I mean, I guess every place is dangerous depending on what your behaviors are.

00:48:14.940 Yeah.

00:48:15.960 There's, it's, this is something I think about and talk about a fair bit.

00:48:20.360 There's a lot of like, there's places where there's a high level of perceived danger.

00:48:24.540 Okay.

00:48:25.680 I think I always try to point out if my wife thinks I'm doing like my wife often thinks

00:48:29.120 I'm putting a lot of risk on my kids or doing too much, too risky a shit with my kids.

00:48:34.440 Because they're going to try to do it or you're taking them with you.

00:48:37.080 No, that I'm going to hurt them or drown them or whatever, you know?

00:48:39.020 Oh yeah.

00:48:39.820 Like she's always afraid I'm going to, something like that, that I, my recklessness will lead

00:48:44.360 to my kids getting messed up.

00:48:45.520 Right.

00:48:45.720 Why do they need safety gear for Christmas every year if you're not trying to do something

00:48:49.300 bad to them, Steve?

00:48:50.840 Oh, there's one of my little kids.

00:48:52.260 No, that's not my little kid.

00:48:53.140 That's my friend's kid.

00:48:54.500 Yeah.

00:48:54.720 If you don't even know whose kid it is.

00:48:56.140 That's my kid.

00:48:57.480 Okay.

00:48:58.380 Well, she's 12 now.

00:48:59.620 Daddy's future hunting buddy.

00:49:00.860 She has much, she has much more hair now.

00:49:04.440 I believe that.

00:49:05.400 I'm just saying the shirt is lobbying for a certain type of behavior in the future.

00:49:09.080 She is my hunting buddy now, dude.

00:49:10.480 Oh, that's awesome.

00:49:11.300 Yeah.

00:49:11.620 We don't show pictures of our kids much anymore, but they're at all really, except my older

00:49:15.600 one.

00:49:15.880 Anyhow, what the hell was I talking about?

00:49:17.060 Oh, she's always afraid I'm going to drown them or whatever.

00:49:20.280 Oh yeah.

00:49:21.080 Reasonably so.

00:49:22.100 But, but I'm always like, man, the most important, like the most dangerous thing, this is me,

00:49:25.900 like you're my wife and I'm me.

00:49:27.140 All right.

00:49:27.760 The most dangerous thing that's going to happen is us driving to the airport.

00:49:31.540 Sure.

00:49:31.920 Steve, look, sign the papers.

00:49:35.900 Okay.

00:49:36.480 Sign the papers and you can do whatever you want.

00:49:38.320 Okay.

00:49:38.540 That's what my attorney said.

00:49:39.760 It's sorry.

00:49:40.740 I was trying to role play a little, but that was good rope.

00:49:44.080 You'd have to have more time with her, you know?

00:49:45.880 Yeah.

00:49:46.080 I should have also went into it a little bit at all.

00:49:48.680 All right.

00:49:48.820 Let's try it again.

00:49:49.420 She just didn't meet her.

00:49:50.460 Let's try it.

00:49:50.880 But she brings, she brings up, so there's like high levels of perceived danger, but

00:49:54.720 like, but then there's like reality, meaning driving down, driving down a highway is hazardous.

00:50:00.880 Yeah.

00:50:01.220 Like highway travels, hazardous flying in single engine.

00:50:03.780 We do a lot of flying in single engine aircraft.

00:50:05.540 That's hazardous.

00:50:06.280 Flying in single engine aircraft is like a legitimate occupational hazard, but where people's

00:50:14.020 minds go, people's minds go, people's minds go to getting attacked by wild animals.

00:50:21.820 Because you, people don't want to, like, they're not thinking about that you're going

00:50:25.700 to go in, like when you go into a remote environment, um, uh, exposure.

00:50:31.480 Dehydration.

00:50:33.480 Dehydration.

00:50:34.320 Yeah.

00:50:34.700 Exposure is like far more dangerous than wild animals, but it's not falling into a hole.

00:50:39.300 Sure.

00:50:39.660 It's not fun to think about.

00:50:41.240 Right.

00:50:41.380 Right.

00:50:41.540 It doesn't, it doesn't occupy any, there's no intellectual energy.

00:50:45.140 You can't put like intellectual or emotional energy into you thinking about exposure.

00:50:49.620 It doesn't have the same PR.

00:50:50.660 Instead, you're like, well, shit, there's wild animals lurking in the bushes.

00:50:54.580 Right.

00:50:55.200 And so people are afraid of things.

00:50:57.320 Um, let's see, I can feel like I'm, I'm not, I seem like I'm hacking out my, my wife.

00:51:02.960 I love her.

00:51:03.660 My wife carries pepper spray.

00:51:04.860 My wife will sometimes carry pepper spray.

00:51:07.080 Of course.

00:51:08.500 Because there's black bears around.

00:51:09.940 Oh yeah.

00:51:11.040 I've been in some neighborhoods, but you, anyone in this country, most people in the major cities

00:51:16.720 of this country, they're all within a 40 to hour drive of a black bear.

00:51:21.020 Right.

00:51:21.260 You're much closer to black bears right now.

00:51:23.540 Yeah.

00:51:24.100 Okay.

00:51:24.500 But you're not sitting here with pepper spray.

00:51:26.800 Oh, so why, when you go walk, like why, when you, why does she feel I'm like, you know,

00:51:32.440 like you have black bears that come into the outskirts of New York, right?

00:51:38.220 New Jersey has the densest black bear population in the country.

00:51:42.200 Yes.

00:51:42.680 And the densest human population in the country.

00:51:44.920 New Jersey does.

00:51:45.320 Yeah.

00:51:45.540 So like they don't all, when they're golfing, they don't carry pepper spray.

00:51:48.880 Right.

00:51:49.040 It's not like you see Trump out there with pepper spray.

00:51:51.220 Why does she, why does my wife want to have pepper spray for black bears?

00:51:55.420 Like black bears don't matter.

00:51:56.700 They're not dangerous, but they're perceived as dangerous.

00:51:59.000 And certain environments make people feel like now they're in danger, but golfers in

00:52:03.160 New Jersey aren't, were carrying pepper spray.

00:52:05.340 Right.

00:52:05.660 Though they have probably have bears.

00:52:07.360 If you're golfing in some semi-rural New Jersey environment, you're within hundreds of yards

00:52:13.240 of bears.

00:52:13.940 Right.

00:52:14.400 But they're not giving their energy to thinking about bears, but you put someone at like a

00:52:18.180 trailhead in the woods and all of a sudden they got bears on their mind.

00:52:21.840 Yeah.

00:52:22.800 So dangerous would be like, I spent, I spent a month in Africa this summer and we saw a

00:52:29.000 black mamba, a snake called, you know, that's the most, that's the deadliest snake.

00:52:34.540 Like they just kill you when they get you.

00:52:36.480 The guy we were with said, you'll never see one.

00:52:38.260 Then we saw one.

00:52:39.260 So all we talked about was black mambas.

00:52:41.480 Yeah.

00:52:41.800 He didn't bite anybody.

00:52:42.900 Right.

00:52:43.300 But all of a sudden, like anytime I sat down, once I saw that son of a bitch, I saw a puff

00:52:47.800 adder, a black mamba and a cobra.

00:52:49.640 Damn.

00:52:50.200 Okay.

00:52:50.700 What is a puff adder?

00:52:52.260 Oh, he's a bad mother licker, man.

00:52:54.700 Pull up, pull up how he gets around.

00:52:56.600 Pull up how he gets around.

00:52:58.500 A puff adder?

00:52:59.340 Yeah.

00:52:59.480 Watch how he gets around.

00:53:00.740 You think of a snake doing a serpentine movement?

00:53:03.140 For sure.

00:53:03.720 Well, check his ass out.

00:53:04.920 Pull up, pull up him getting around.

00:53:06.820 Oh shit.

00:53:07.520 He just wiggles along like a, like a centipede.

00:53:10.520 Shorty Bay got that fucking, he not even.

00:53:12.300 Look at that.

00:53:12.680 No, he don't need to do.

00:53:13.700 He doesn't even need a footprint.

00:53:14.520 He don't need to.

00:53:15.500 Oh.

00:53:17.020 So.

00:53:17.520 That's what you call cutting corners right there.

00:53:18.780 That's the kind of employee that I need.

00:53:20.560 Dude.

00:53:20.760 That dude just, he's got little, his scales just walk, man.

00:53:24.280 Yeah.

00:53:24.580 That's crazy.

00:53:25.320 I don't know if this is true.

00:53:26.740 You want to hear something they told me about that thing?

00:53:28.700 Yeah.

00:53:28.840 This Kenyan dude told me.

00:53:29.780 He told me that.

00:53:32.080 I don't know if this is true, but it's just a great, it's a wonderful detail.

00:53:34.820 He told me that puff adder, he strikes so fast.

00:53:38.160 We just caught one crossing the road and got out and messed with it a little bit.

00:53:40.880 Not up close, but distant messed with it.

00:53:43.100 That puff adder strikes so fast.

00:53:44.980 This guy was telling me this could be total lore.

00:53:46.940 Don't even look it up because I don't want you to refute it because it's too cool.

00:53:49.660 He says that he can hit a balloon twice.

00:53:51.780 He can hit a balloon twice before it pops, which I don't even know what that means, but

00:53:56.460 doesn't it sound cool?

00:53:57.380 It sounds.

00:53:58.100 You know, like you can fight, fight before the balloon deflates.

00:54:01.080 I don't know.

00:54:01.760 Oh yeah.

00:54:02.360 So he's got, he's got a bad venom.

00:54:04.320 So anyways, we see one of these, we see a black mamba who can cruise around with half

00:54:10.520 of his length up in the air.

00:54:13.300 If he's seven foot, his head, when he's cruising through the woods, when he's pissed, his head's

00:54:18.400 at your navel.

00:54:19.480 Damn.

00:54:20.900 He's a bad, bad, bad dude.

00:54:25.080 Well, he's got some calves on him.

00:54:29.440 That's what's amazing to me.

00:54:30.980 You know, why do Indian people love fucking with these things?

00:54:33.700 And Kill Bill, it's a black mamba that kills, uh, that kills, uh, Michael Madsen's character.

00:54:38.720 Is it really?

00:54:39.200 Yeah, it's a black mamba.

00:54:39.760 Anyhow, so we see this, we see these different critters running around and then you're not

00:54:44.820 going to get killed by a snake.

00:54:45.820 It's just like, like, it doesn't happen.

00:54:47.280 Right.

00:54:47.460 But it feels like it's going to happen.

00:54:48.740 But all of a sudden, instead of me thinking like, oh, I might get like a, some amoeba

00:54:53.080 from drinking the water or like who knows, or a mosquito born pathogen.

00:54:57.740 All that's out the window.

00:54:59.320 Instead, everywhere I look, all of us, me and my other guys I was with, we didn't take a

00:55:04.300 step do without being like, cause all of a sudden in our head was the perceived danger.

00:55:10.220 Meanwhile, you're with all these people that are born and raised there.

00:55:12.660 None of them's dead.

00:55:13.500 Right.

00:55:14.700 Yeah.

00:55:15.060 They're doing fine.

00:55:15.900 Some of them have some emotional issues or whatever, but they're doing overall, they're

00:55:18.780 well, they're not all dead from snakes.

00:55:20.720 It's just, that's where as humans, like that's where the head, your head goes to like, whatever

00:55:28.380 said the best advertising and probably whatever's most recently been seen, those sorts of things.

00:55:32.800 So when you say like the most dangerous place, like to an outsider, the Tanzanian bush felt

00:55:41.080 dangerous for a reason that's probably not true.

00:55:43.820 Right.

00:55:44.080 It felt dangerous because one day we saw a black mama and then, you know, the Tasmanian

00:55:48.740 devil too.

00:55:49.980 Well, he doesn't live there, but sure.

00:55:51.820 Yeah.

00:55:53.700 Yeah.

00:55:54.360 Tasmanian tiger.

00:55:55.380 Right.

00:55:55.700 Yeah.

00:55:55.860 Tasmanian devils.

00:55:56.700 Yep.

00:55:56.880 I'm thinking of Tanzania, I think, or something.

00:55:58.760 I don't know what I'm thinking.

00:55:59.320 Oh, no, no, no.

00:55:59.780 You're right.

00:56:00.220 Yeah.

00:56:00.400 But no, um, Tanzania and, uh, the Tasmanian, that's the, the island of Tasmania.

00:56:07.280 Yeah.

00:56:07.560 You know, Tanzania comes from 10, uh, comes from Zanzibar combining with Tanganyika.

00:56:15.780 Oh yeah.

00:56:16.440 When those two countries came together, they were called Tanzania.

00:56:19.060 So Tanganyika doesn't exist anymore.

00:56:20.740 It's now Tanzania.

00:56:22.000 Tanganyika doesn't.

00:56:23.220 Zanzibar does.

00:56:24.060 But Zanzibar archipelago was rolled into Tanganyika to become Tanzania.

00:56:29.660 I'm a subject matter expert.

00:56:30.840 I spent a month there.

00:56:31.640 Did you really?

00:56:32.080 A lot of women will go to Zanzibar to meet men, kind of African men.

00:56:37.200 A lot of women in their forties and fifties.

00:56:39.360 Is that true?

00:56:39.960 Yeah.

00:56:40.760 That's what I know about the migration or whatever it's called.

00:56:43.540 But I, uh, or it's for, I don't want to say it's for sex, but I think people say it is.

00:56:48.120 I don't think that you're going there for that.

00:56:49.600 It's pretty buttoned up there.

00:56:50.920 Is it?

00:56:51.300 It's pretty buttoned up.

00:56:51.880 No, I don't think it's like illegal.

00:56:53.380 I think it's, they go there and it's sort of a popular space for a courting of those,

00:56:59.360 of, um, African men and women who are kind of divorcees.

00:57:04.500 Really?

00:57:04.960 Yeah.

00:57:05.860 Yeah.

00:57:06.140 Yeah.

00:57:06.460 Cause my buddy went there and he was like, dude, it's not for me.

00:57:09.800 It wasn't for him.

00:57:10.820 See, my subject matter expertise is crumbling, but I'll point out I was only there one week.

00:57:14.980 Yeah.

00:57:15.480 So I only absorb so much.

00:57:16.840 And you don't fit either one of the parties that were, that are mating there.

00:57:20.100 So I think I brought my own mate with me, man.

00:57:22.620 Oh, there you go then.

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00:59:42.700 I'll say this, dude.

00:59:46.440 I remember the first time that I saw a snake.

00:59:48.380 It makes me think of what, like, my perception and everything was.

00:59:50.780 Like, we were walking.

00:59:52.260 I was with my grandparents.

00:59:53.920 We were walking, and suddenly I just kind of felt something on my, like, I had some just

00:59:58.520 boots.

00:59:59.020 We were just fishing.

00:59:59.720 And something had wrapped around my leg like that.

01:00:03.940 And it was a snake.

01:00:05.520 Really?

01:00:05.900 Yeah.

01:00:06.440 And I was like, oh, my God.

01:00:07.960 I couldn't move.

01:00:08.820 I was so scared.

01:00:09.660 I'd never seen a snake outside.

01:00:11.540 And, you know, you'd heard about snakes.

01:00:13.880 And, I mean, it had just fucking wrapped around, just like it was like, my leg was a stripper

01:00:18.060 pole.

01:00:18.440 And this thing had just came to just fucking.

01:00:21.140 Grind on you.

01:00:21.820 Just straight out of hell to grind on me, you know?

01:00:24.720 And my grandmother looked at it, and she's like, she goes, I remember, she's like, did

01:00:28.880 you summon that?

01:00:29.860 She asked me.

01:00:31.080 Because my grandmother was out of her fucking mind.

01:00:35.200 And that's when I knew that it was just going to be a long life right there.

01:00:39.560 I was like, you think.

01:00:40.460 And I looked in her eyes, and she thinks I fucking, a child that she barely ever even

01:00:46.240 welcomes into town.

01:00:47.320 Well, she finally takes you to catch some bullheads in the fucking Spoon River out here.

01:00:53.320 And you summoned a serpent.

01:00:54.940 She thinks I'm the fucking Jimmy Baker of fucking fanged lizards.

01:01:00.100 Do you remember what kind of snake it was?

01:01:01.920 I want to say it was a water moccasin, but that may have just been the lure of me growing

01:01:06.260 up in Louisiana.

01:01:07.140 Because I don't know if they had those in Illinois or not, you know?

01:01:10.300 No, I don't believe they do.

01:01:11.520 But I worked on a farm in Louisiana, and at lunch break, we would always just walk around

01:01:15.700 if they had a boat that was turned over, we'd flip it over, and there'd be a water moccasin

01:01:19.100 under it every single time, dude.

01:01:20.780 Yeah, that's a cool snake.

01:01:23.120 There is a...

01:01:23.820 They were scary, though.

01:01:25.060 There's an idea, and I kind of buy it, that from an evolutionary standpoint, we carry this

01:01:35.400 sort of like this...

01:01:37.800 I want to preface this by saying I'm not a geneticist.

01:01:40.640 Okay.

01:01:41.120 We carry...

01:01:41.800 Despite your impressions, I'm not a geneticist, but that we carry with us this innate, let's

01:01:52.220 say this sort of genetic marker or whatever, this innate fear of serpents.

01:01:58.260 Yes.

01:01:59.400 Do you know what I'm saying?

01:01:59.940 Like, it does you well, it does you well to be like, standoff.

01:02:06.820 You follow me?

01:02:08.020 100%.

01:02:08.380 Yeah.

01:02:08.840 Oh, dude, I think anybody would be creeped out.

01:02:11.220 There's nothing...

01:02:12.180 Yeah, there's something so...

01:02:13.900 Why are we so scared of snakes?

01:02:15.240 Do you know?

01:02:15.780 I want to look...

01:02:16.300 Let's look that up a little bit.

01:02:17.120 There's a bunch of venomous snakes.

01:02:18.840 There's a...

01:02:19.380 But it feels, dude, when you see...

01:02:21.380 Oh, they're not right, man.

01:02:23.160 And it feels so foreign.

01:02:24.980 Oh, I will say this.

01:02:25.740 We interviewed this blind girl one time, right?

01:02:28.400 And we're just learning about what it's like to be blind and some of the different stuff.

01:02:33.380 And she talked a lot about animals and getting to spend time with animals and the feelings

01:02:37.160 you get.

01:02:37.800 And she says that she doesn't get any feeling from a snake.

01:02:42.500 Like, there's no energy that she gets.

01:02:44.380 Really?

01:02:44.780 And that's when I was like, dude, if a snake...

01:02:47.180 Yeah, Tanya Milochevic.

01:02:49.760 That's when I knew if a blind don't even like a snake, I don't like a snake.

01:02:54.140 Yeah.

01:02:54.880 That's a great idea to interview someone where you can just get right in.

01:02:57.520 Because then you can ask all the questions you would be not...

01:02:59.640 You'd ask all the questions.

01:03:01.620 Do you remember Howard Stern?

01:03:03.320 Mm-hmm.

01:03:03.900 He used to have a show where he'd have a panel of black guys that white dudes could ask questions

01:03:08.200 to.

01:03:08.540 Oh, that's great.

01:03:09.600 You know?

01:03:10.060 All like...

01:03:10.620 Like, it was like...

01:03:11.660 I can't remember what he called it.

01:03:12.900 It was like, ask a black man.

01:03:14.840 Yeah.

01:03:15.880 And now that...

01:03:16.640 Yeah.

01:03:17.320 It was called Ask a Black Guy?

01:03:18.700 I can't remember what the shtick was, but he would just have dudes volunteer to come in.

01:03:22.120 No, that's what we mean.

01:03:22.820 And then you're like, idiotic white guys could be like, hey, you know?

01:03:25.800 Yeah.

01:03:26.400 Hey.

01:03:28.300 So it's an interesting interview format to be able to have a person come and say, like,

01:03:32.380 I will now entertain all your dumbass questions that you wonder but don't ask.

01:03:36.840 Yeah.

01:03:37.520 And that are like...

01:03:38.780 That I get sick of, but I'm going to sit here and indulge you for an hour.

01:03:42.980 And you can be like, well, what do you see?

01:03:44.680 Yeah.

01:03:45.340 You know?

01:03:45.660 Yeah.

01:03:46.220 She said that a lot of it was like memorizing patterns.

01:03:49.140 Like, when you're going somewhere, like, the more you go there, the easier it is.

01:03:52.880 Like, she said a lot of times it felt like she was playing like a video game in her head.

01:03:56.680 Like, just remembering, like, almost as if you're, like, controlling somebody through

01:04:00.200 a video game.

01:04:01.080 That that's kind of how she would, like, guide herself.

01:04:04.880 I thought it was pretty interesting.

01:04:06.080 I should do it again soon.

01:04:07.380 No, that's a really good interview deal.

01:04:09.340 Because she probably, like, generally going about her life, probably can't stand, you

01:04:14.640 know, people staring at her, wondering shit, asking her the same dumb shit over.

01:04:18.800 Yeah.

01:04:18.920 So to be like, yeah, I'm just going to sit here and just do it.

01:04:20.760 Yeah, it was great.

01:04:21.540 But hit me with it.

01:04:22.120 Hit me with it.

01:04:22.760 Have you ever taken a blind person on one of your hunts before?

01:04:25.560 I know you...

01:04:25.720 No, man, but it's a thing.

01:04:27.040 It's a thing.

01:04:27.620 And I've had a blind hunter on my podcast one time.

01:04:31.020 Wow.

01:04:31.740 To talk about what the experience was.

01:04:34.260 And, yeah, I had a blind person on.

01:04:36.720 And what do they, because they're just, I mean, they got to feel like there's no chance

01:04:41.460 when they shoot, right?

01:04:42.760 You know, they had people help.

01:04:45.840 We had a, you know what I'm dicking up?

01:04:49.820 I actually just told you something that's not true.

01:04:52.640 Because we were gonna, we one time had a paralyzed, we had a paralyzed, we were going

01:04:58.420 to have a blind hunter.

01:05:00.380 We didn't, or I don't think we did.

01:05:02.120 We had a fully paralyzed hunter who had to hunt with, like, an automation thing.

01:05:06.980 Took a lot of assistance from his friends.

01:05:09.040 But he had been a hunter, had an accident, and then paralyzed from the neck down, developed

01:05:15.800 a way that he could continue hunting with the help of his friends.

01:05:19.620 Wow.

01:05:20.220 That's pretty cool.

01:05:21.020 With a mouth control apparatus.

01:05:22.900 But it took a ton of assistance.

01:05:24.360 That's who he had on.

01:05:25.440 But a point I was gonna make about that innate fear of snakes is if you could do time machine

01:05:31.020 shit, okay?

01:05:32.400 And you talking time travel?

01:05:34.980 I'm gonna.

01:05:35.740 Okay.

01:05:37.580 This would be, like, a really good question to have.

01:05:40.860 Okay.

01:05:41.220 The good use of, if you had, like, one pass, one time pass.

01:05:46.820 Here's a thing that would be on my list of shit I would be curious about.

01:05:50.160 When human, like, after the sort of African diaspora and humans started colonizing the

01:05:59.660 whole world, right, the people that came, the people that became the first Americans

01:06:07.400 came in from Alaska.

01:06:11.700 You always hear about the Bering Land Bridge, right?

01:06:13.240 The land bridge is the size of Texas.

01:06:14.920 It wasn't like a bridge.

01:06:15.680 It was like a land mass.

01:06:16.620 Like, people colonizing the new world would have been born and died on the Bering Land

01:06:22.700 Bridge without thinking that they were going anywhere.

01:06:25.180 They were just living their lives.

01:06:26.320 Got it.

01:06:26.800 And slowly spread down.

01:06:27.920 And those were, like, Inuits, like, kind of natives?

01:06:31.060 They became natives.

01:06:32.380 Right.

01:06:32.680 The people that became the Inuits, by our understanding, the people that became the Inuits came much

01:06:37.060 later.

01:06:37.460 Got it.

01:06:37.800 Okay.

01:06:38.040 They came from Japan and the Aleutians and whatnot.

01:06:40.320 But these, like, Siberians came into the new world.

01:06:44.300 So, by this point, you have hundreds of generations, hundreds of generations of people had lived

01:06:51.480 in a snake-free environment because they'd lived in the Arctic.

01:06:55.220 Ooh.

01:06:56.440 Hundreds of generations.

01:06:58.100 And then they slowly, generation to generation to generation, they slowly moved down the North

01:07:07.520 American continent.

01:07:08.840 There's two theories that, like, Alaska, you know, they don't have a snake, right?

01:07:12.640 There's two theories.

01:07:13.400 There's one that they came through the mid-continent and maybe emerged down around Edmonton, Alberta,

01:07:18.620 onto the Great Plains.

01:07:19.540 That was a fashionable idea for a long time.

01:07:21.860 The currently fashionable idea is they came down the coast.

01:07:25.340 Okay?

01:07:26.220 So, now you've had, you have hundreds of generations of people that would never have seen or experienced

01:07:32.260 a snake.

01:07:33.060 Yeah.

01:07:33.760 And you got snakes down there just waiting.

01:07:35.220 But all of a sudden, they spread southward.

01:07:36.980 Yeah.

01:07:37.520 And at some point, one of those sons of bitches is out just, right?

01:07:42.280 Fuck!

01:07:42.880 He's out cruising around, doing his deal, and there's one laying there.

01:07:47.200 That happened.

01:07:47.660 Like, that happened.

01:07:49.300 That happened.

01:07:50.380 If you could take your time machine and go see that guy, see that snake, did he go, fuck,

01:07:59.960 or did he jump down and grab it?

01:08:03.140 That was some good time machine shit right there.

01:08:06.420 Wow.

01:08:06.600 I'll say this.

01:08:07.120 If he was with someone else when it happened, you have to cut that person's throat immediately,

01:08:11.360 I think.

01:08:12.120 Because you would think they have something to do with this.

01:08:14.900 Like, they're in on it.

01:08:16.460 Like, that's what I would do.

01:08:17.720 You're like, who the fuck?

01:08:19.380 Who summoned this?

01:08:20.200 Yes.

01:08:20.780 Yeah.

01:08:21.160 Like, yeah.

01:08:21.840 Your distant ancestor summoned that snake.

01:08:25.460 Yeah, you would think it was like other, I don't know.

01:08:28.000 But you'd probably seen fish, but I don't know.

01:08:31.040 Do you just get that energy?

01:08:32.960 Yeah.

01:08:33.140 Like, then you would be able to answer the question.

01:08:35.280 That's the way, the one way to be able to answer the question.

01:08:38.060 Do humans have some baked-in shit?

01:08:40.520 Mm-hmm.

01:08:42.020 Or is it not that?

01:08:44.740 Right.

01:08:45.540 Yeah, you'd have to go all the way back.

01:08:46.900 There's probably another way, too.

01:08:47.980 You could take a child at birth, buy one.

01:08:50.340 Mm-hmm.

01:08:51.420 Sequester it somewhere.

01:08:52.960 Well, they do that all the time.

01:08:53.800 There's Indian babies playing with snake.

01:08:55.680 Yeah.

01:08:56.000 But take one and sequester it so it doesn't get any information from any human beings.

01:08:59.400 Oh, yeah.

01:08:59.700 Let it become an old person and throw a snake in that room.

01:09:03.140 Do they jump back?

01:09:05.520 That'd be easier and less expensive than time travel, but it wouldn't be as authentic.

01:09:09.380 And you'd run into, like, you'd run into legal problems.

01:09:13.380 And if they've been alive so long, are they going to not care anymore?

01:09:18.180 Like, I don't get enough.

01:09:18.920 Because you damaged them psychologically and stuff by locking them up in that room and shit.

01:09:22.260 You know?

01:09:22.720 Yeah, they're like, I don't give a fuck if they're something to a snake.

01:09:25.340 Because then the detractors would be like, yeah, but he was so destroyed psychologically that this is not telling us anything.

01:09:33.060 Right.

01:09:34.020 Yeah, I think you're just fucking with a person you victimized of this whimsical scientific study.

01:09:41.960 Oh, yeah.

01:09:42.620 I think at that point, you're really looking at the Elizabeth Smart of Reptiles kind of vibes, you know?

01:09:48.220 And I don't think that's what we want.

01:09:49.360 No, it is going to be a time travel problem.

01:09:51.060 Yeah, we'll go time travel.

01:09:54.240 Let's talk about a topic that some people think is kind of controversial.

01:09:57.760 Like, you see a lot of people who will post photos with, like, big game, right?

01:10:03.060 They go and kill, like, a woolly, not a woolly mammoth or whatever, but like a...

01:10:07.360 A deer.

01:10:07.900 A big, huge deer.

01:10:08.980 Big old turkey.

01:10:09.880 Yeah, huge turkey.

01:10:10.760 Rope dragon limb hanger.

01:10:11.600 Yes, rope dragon limb hanger.

01:10:13.880 You know, one that's just singing, you know, one in an Allen Iverson jersey.

01:10:17.460 You know what I'm saying?

01:10:17.840 Like, a real fucking boss out there.

01:10:19.700 I'm following.

01:10:19.940 I'm following.

01:10:20.460 Now...

01:10:20.780 I'm getting excited.

01:10:21.860 But then I...

01:10:23.020 And they put a picture of it up.

01:10:24.440 Right.

01:10:24.760 Or some of the...

01:10:25.320 Let's say it's a deer.

01:10:26.020 Some with eyelashes.

01:10:27.080 Okay.

01:10:27.440 Okay.

01:10:27.840 Okay.

01:10:28.240 Because that's what...

01:10:29.840 Or lions and stuff like that.

01:10:31.360 Yeah, it's got an eyelash.

01:10:32.660 It's going to...

01:10:33.740 It's emotional for people.

01:10:35.780 Okay.

01:10:36.180 So that's fair.

01:10:37.140 So yeah, I think I just want to know about some of that.

01:10:38.960 But then also you hear that people put up these, like, that some of these animals, they're

01:10:43.040 going to die in the places that they're in.

01:10:44.920 And so for conservation that they kind of sell off kind of tags or lottery for...

01:10:50.460 So anyway, take me into some of that world, kind of, if you don't mind.

01:10:54.980 Well, I thought you were going to get into the ethics of you posing with a dead animal

01:10:59.020 in a picture, but you're talking about, like, the sort of the conservation font, like, the

01:11:03.480 kind of...

01:11:05.020 There's a perceived conflict or, like, an incongruity around the notion that how can

01:11:14.820 you help a species by hunting it, right?

01:11:19.140 How do you help a species by hunting it?

01:11:21.900 Wouldn't that be, like, that would appear to people to be quite illogical, right?

01:11:26.320 How does killing it help it?

01:11:27.920 Right.

01:11:28.040 Is that...

01:11:29.040 Yeah, I think that's fair.

01:11:29.900 That really kind of boils it down.

01:11:31.100 Yeah.

01:11:31.300 Yeah.

01:11:33.200 It's a phenomenal question.

01:11:34.700 I can see why it puzzles people.

01:11:37.360 But you can point to case after case after case of ways in which it has worked.

01:11:43.720 We began our conversation around turkeys.

01:11:46.460 Okay.

01:11:48.740 There's a saying that I like quite a bit.

01:11:52.640 It's not mine, but it's, success has many fathers.

01:11:57.120 Yeah.

01:11:58.040 But failure is a bastard's child.

01:12:02.700 Okay.

01:12:04.400 The success in restoring the wild turkey, many people claim parentage of that success.

01:12:13.480 And there was many people that attributed efforts to that success.

01:12:16.640 All these different...

01:12:17.700 Whoever state you live in, your state has a fish and game agency, okay?

01:12:21.040 I'll point out that your state's fish and game agency gets the bulk of its funding from people buying hunting and fishing licenses.

01:12:28.480 That's how we fund the agencies that take care of wildlife in the states.

01:12:32.100 So there's that.

01:12:33.480 Mm-hmm.

01:12:34.340 But when they were restoring the wild turkey from nearly being wiped off the continent, okay, the main player that was involved in that nationally is an organization that happens to have their annual convention in Nashville called the National Wild Turkey Federation.

01:12:52.720 The National Wild Turkey Federation was kind of a through line of the efforts to restore turkeys to North America, to recover the wild turkey, to put the wild turkey back on the ground and all the places where it had been wiped out.

01:13:07.800 But the National Wild Turkey Federation is a hunting organization, okay?

01:13:14.640 Mm-hmm.

01:13:14.940 So if you went and looked and you said, here's these guys that put enormous amounts of expertise, scientific expertise, enormous amounts of funding, enormous amounts of physical effort into restoring the wild turkey to where they exceed historic levels, is it fair to go like, you just did that so you could hunt turkeys?

01:13:35.660 They'd be like, guilty as charged, right?

01:13:40.820 Guilty as charged.

01:13:41.980 Right.

01:13:44.020 There are other, because like turkeys are so widely available now.

01:13:46.640 But is that a bad thing?

01:13:47.620 It's not a bad thing.

01:13:48.040 No, that's what I'm saying.

01:13:48.400 It's not, but it's not always even that way because, for instance, if you look at, there's an organization called the Wild Sheep Foundation.

01:13:55.820 It's an American-based conservation organization that works to restore, recover, protect wild sheep species, okay?

01:14:04.980 Desert bighorns, Rocky Mountain bighorns, doll sheep, stone sheep, okay?

01:14:09.200 They work on behalf of wild sheep.

01:14:12.400 I have been hunting my whole life.

01:14:15.340 I apply every year to get a bighorn sheep tag in a half dozen states every year.

01:14:24.020 I have never drawn a bighorn sheep tag.

01:14:27.360 I have never hunted bighorn sheep.

01:14:30.100 It is likely, it is likely that I will die, okay?

01:14:35.100 Right.

01:14:35.640 There's a likelihood I will die and have never had the opportunity to hunt a bighorn sheep.

01:14:42.300 Yet, on occasion, I do things to support the Wild Sheep Foundation.

01:14:49.460 So, what am I guilty of?

01:14:54.360 Like, I aspire to hunt a bighorn sheep.

01:14:57.160 Yeah.

01:14:58.080 I recognize them as, like, an integral part of the Western landscape.

01:15:02.600 I want to see more of them around.

01:15:04.340 I'm a hunter.

01:15:04.980 I would hunt one if I could.

01:15:06.220 I probably can't, but I want to see them back in their place.

01:15:09.900 There are many, many conservation organizations.

01:15:13.020 The most impactful, like, wildlife conservation organizations that do real work on the ground.

01:15:17.780 I'm not talking about lobbying bullshit, okay?

01:15:19.660 I'm not talking about, like, you know, I'm talking about, like, the kind of work where you're, like, putting effort on the ground.

01:15:26.280 You're putting animals on the ground.

01:15:27.440 You're proving habitat on the ground, right?

01:15:29.320 You're helping migratory animals, whatever.

01:15:31.580 That shit comes from hunters.

01:15:33.360 That shit comes from hunting-based organizations.

01:15:36.160 So, you're saying that most-

01:15:37.180 In this country.

01:15:37.700 Most of the wildlife and the preservation of wildlife here comes from hunters.

01:15:41.180 That's, like, we fund it.

01:15:43.360 We do the ground work.

01:15:44.700 People that come out of that world of hunting move into conservation.

01:15:47.620 There are, like, environmental orgs.

01:15:49.260 There are lobbying orgs.

01:15:50.480 There are orgs that work in all these different ways that aren't.

01:15:52.780 But, like, they're really effective on-the-ground stuff comes from hunters and anglers.

01:15:57.700 Wow.

01:15:58.540 It's just, like, this isn't, like, this is, like, this is settled science.

01:16:01.840 I mean, this isn't me giving you some spin.

01:16:04.080 I'm not giving you, like, a novel way to look at something.

01:16:07.060 It's just, like, it's just the reality.

01:16:09.280 Well, yeah, I mean, you don't-

01:16:10.280 But your fish and game agency, what state do you rep?

01:16:12.560 It doesn't matter what the hell you answer me.

01:16:14.180 You're a resident of Tennessee.

01:16:15.460 Your fish and game agency gets the bulk of its funding.

01:16:19.000 So, your fish and game agency handles, like, disease work, access work, enforcement of game laws.

01:16:24.900 They get their money from hunting and fishing licenses.

01:16:26.880 Yeah.

01:16:26.940 The bulk of it.

01:16:28.200 Or they get money from excise taxes on sporting goods, equipment, guns, ammo, whatever.

01:16:33.940 It's just, like, we pay for it.

01:16:36.320 You know, there's guys that are, there's people that want to deny that reality.

01:16:40.940 But, like I said, it's, like, it's settled science.

01:16:43.100 You can't debate the nuts and bolts of it.

01:16:45.380 So, this plays out in other ways that draw a lot of attention.

01:16:49.260 Like, something like, let's talk about Tanzania for a minute.

01:16:53.500 Totally different system than what we have in America.

01:16:55.440 But in Tanzania, the most effective way that they're able to, the most effective way that they're able to protect large tracts of wilderness habitat is drawing revenue from them by allowing hunting to occur on those places.

01:17:12.920 Got it.

01:17:13.740 It's, like, productive for them.

01:17:15.100 It's either that or slash and burn agriculture.

01:17:17.800 So, it's, like, you're able to go into an area and by having people, like, Westerners, Europeans, Americans, whatever, come there to have an experience of going there and hunting and paying a big amount of money to hunt there, warrants them being able to set aside large chunks of ground, the government, and monetize it, and monitor it, and then pay for anti-poaching efforts and other things that protect it.

01:17:42.480 Like, you might look at it and hate it.

01:17:44.780 You might look at it and be, like, I don't think that humans have a right to harm animals.

01:17:48.680 And, like, I'm not going to argue that perspective.

01:17:50.900 So, you might look at it and be, like, it sucks that that has to be true.

01:17:54.860 And I'll be, like, okay, it's fine.

01:17:56.980 Maybe, in your opinion, it sucks that that has to be true.

01:17:59.660 But what I can't debate with you is does it have to be true?

01:18:02.620 It's just true.

01:18:03.600 Yeah.

01:18:04.260 You know, you might hate that that's the way, but that's the way it is.

01:18:07.140 But that's the way it is.

01:18:08.780 Did humans always eat animals, do you think?

01:18:12.020 Yeah, since they could.

01:18:13.580 It would be hard not to, I think.

01:18:14.920 I'm trying to think if I went back in time.

01:18:16.740 That would be cool, too.

01:18:18.140 You go back, some guy.

01:18:20.480 The first dude to eat meat.

01:18:21.760 You'd have to go back some far ass.

01:18:24.020 You'd have to go back.

01:18:26.220 That's fine.

01:18:26.860 We can go back that far.

01:18:27.700 There's an idea that, like, in anthropology there's a debate about at what point in time did you have behaviorally and anatomically modern humans.

01:18:37.880 This is not, we're getting way outside of biblical understanding, but we're talking about, like, from the non-biblical science world.

01:18:46.660 Okay.

01:18:47.140 Okay, so stepping outside of, like, the biblical confines and going into, like, purely scientific world.

01:18:55.280 Some people think that you could have grabbed a dude 75,000 years ago, put him in, grabbed him at birth, and he could learn to fly an airplane.

01:19:06.080 He could go to college, do well, blend in.

01:19:09.540 You'd see him going down the street and wouldn't think anything of it.

01:19:11.520 Yeah.

01:19:11.840 Be a pie cap or whatever.

01:19:14.580 Absolutely.

01:19:16.480 Absolutely.

01:19:17.660 That was a hunting, that was a hunting consumer of large quantities of animal flesh.

01:19:25.200 That was.

01:19:26.500 Yeah.

01:19:26.980 So.

01:19:27.520 So there's no doubt at that time period that people were really snacking on animals.

01:19:31.240 Oh, yeah.

01:19:31.500 And then there's this other idea, and you know how you wind up liking the ideas that confirm your own.

01:19:36.380 For sure.

01:19:37.340 There's this other idea that the great, a scientific understanding that when we had, when humans had this kind of renaissance, like,

01:19:48.540 like, um, we seem to have suddenly kind of figured a bunch of shit out.

01:19:53.980 And some people correlate that to us becoming predominantly, uh, to eating huge amounts of animal flesh.

01:20:01.480 It's so efficient and so full of energy.

01:20:03.720 That was our intellectual renaissance.

01:20:05.560 Like, that, that's when humans became bright and developed, like, religion and organizational structure and language and all that is when we discovered meat eating.

01:20:13.660 Right, because we had enough energy not only to satiate our bodies, but then also for the rest of us to maybe flourish some because we finally had, uh, a new source that was really, uh, replenishing us constantly.

01:20:24.800 Yeah, we were broken, we were broken from, we were broken from a cycle of needing to eat low grade, low, low, low, low grade, low calorie food all the time.

01:20:32.440 Yeah.

01:20:33.260 Right, so then you're constantly just sitting there snacking, whereas otherwise you can have a nice meal, then you can sit back and kick it and think of something creative.

01:20:40.160 Like, deer is on this really strict schedule of, like, eating a bunch of low grade food, sitting, ruminating, eating, you know, so.

01:20:46.840 Deer's always look like.

01:20:47.680 So there's this idea, yeah, that's the idea that, like, and, and of course I like it because it reinforces, like, that, that's what I like to eat, deer meat and stuff.

01:20:55.280 So when I hear that, I'm like, fuck yeah, bro, that's right.

01:20:58.200 That's the truth.

01:20:58.640 Because we just like the stuff that.

01:21:00.440 Oh, yeah, we want to support our own ideas and causes, or our own truths.

01:21:04.500 Yeah.

01:21:04.700 What about, uh, pull up, like, Neanderthal, what was that called?

01:21:07.800 Like, a man that was 75,000 years ago.

01:21:09.740 Was that Neanderthals?

01:21:11.820 Well, it would have been, it would have been Homo Sapien.

01:21:15.220 Oh, God.

01:21:17.240 That must have been.

01:21:18.480 Well, no, it'd been like, they would have been.

01:21:21.040 Oh.

01:21:21.540 Did you, have you ever had your, have you ever done like a, um, you know, the late 23andMe organization?

01:21:26.880 I've done 23andMe.

01:21:27.640 Yeah, they sold all my fucking information to this Japanese company.

01:21:30.360 I went and deleted mine.

01:21:31.460 Oh, yeah.

01:21:32.180 Just the other day.

01:21:33.300 My shit, I'm getting.

01:21:34.100 You can still delete your shit.

01:21:35.120 Really?

01:21:35.600 Yeah.

01:21:35.800 I'm getting a bunch.

01:21:36.540 Because I would go, I would say like, hey, I want to buy his shit and see what he's got

01:21:39.300 going on.

01:21:40.280 And I, you know, so I had mine deleted.

01:21:41.860 You can have it deleted.

01:21:42.680 I'm getting emails from like, you're related to this guy, you know?

01:21:46.060 And it's like a fucking Japanese guy.

01:21:47.860 I'm like, this motherfucker?

01:21:49.080 Hey, they recently solved.

01:21:50.140 They're lying.

01:21:50.640 And where I live, they recently solved a 30 year old murder case from, because so many

01:21:57.200 people doing 23andMe filling up these, these filling up databases.

01:22:02.340 And so all of a sudden now, also now they're like, also now they're like, hey, we got a

01:22:06.880 little ping, a little ping on the map of like a family that seems, because they had a biological

01:22:14.940 specimen.

01:22:16.260 We're going to solve all those old crimes.

01:22:18.020 They had a biological specimen, right?

01:22:20.180 And so just from people willfully going and doing this kind of work, all of a sudden you

01:22:25.760 start popping all these like markers and then you got to, you got to buy a hair, a sperm

01:22:31.420 or whatever.

01:22:32.160 Oh yeah.

01:22:32.680 And all of a sudden you're able to be like, well, it's not him, but there's some, some

01:22:35.840 dudes a lot like him that live in this town.

01:22:39.320 I'd be, let's go have a look around that town.

01:22:41.580 When you do it, they tell you what percent Neanderthal you are.

01:22:44.720 Yeah.

01:22:45.200 Yeah.

01:22:45.500 I was lower than average Neanderthal.

01:22:48.100 Huh?

01:22:48.740 Did it upset you?

01:22:50.620 Uh, no, I wasn't surprised.

01:22:54.300 I just don't like, I don't have that vibe.

01:22:55.880 You know, I remember, uh, I feel like, I feel like Joe was telling me, Rogan was telling

01:23:00.380 me that he was high up.

01:23:02.080 I could see that kind of, I could definitely see that.

01:23:06.540 I swear.

01:23:06.980 I hope I'm not making that up.

01:23:08.540 I swear.

01:23:08.920 He told me that he was higher than that.

01:23:09.600 Oh, I think it's totally, I don't think he would deny that at all.

01:23:12.840 He's definitely like a Neanderthal guy that got struck by some fucking cool ass lightning.

01:23:17.160 I could be, I swear that's what he was saying.

01:23:19.260 But anyways, I was lower than normal.

01:23:20.420 But the point being, oh yeah, there he goes.

01:23:22.800 More than regular people.

01:23:24.520 57% more Neanderthal.

01:23:26.620 Yeah.

01:23:27.740 That's classic, dude.

01:23:29.000 So, you know, an understanding is that, um, you know, they were, here's a weird deal.

01:23:35.000 I wrote this one time and when I wrote this in the, in a forward to one of my cookbooks,

01:23:39.000 I was writing it.

01:23:41.080 You could have been like at a certain time, you could have been in Spain.

01:23:44.060 Okay.

01:23:44.580 Okay.

01:23:44.940 You could have been in Spain.

01:23:47.020 You could have been the Iberian Peninsula.

01:23:48.980 You could have been in Northern Israel and see a campfire.

01:23:53.800 Often burning in the distance.

01:23:56.600 And you would have had to have asked yourself, what kind of, what kind of human is that?

01:24:06.460 Do you follow me?

01:24:07.560 Like you, you mean you would have had to be like what race or class or something like that?

01:24:11.800 What kind?

01:24:13.200 What species of human?

01:24:14.820 Oh, like, is that a, somebody who's like kind of like Neanderthal dudes?

01:24:18.280 Somebody's a little more monkey.

01:24:19.480 Yeah.

01:24:19.720 Is it like Neanderthal dudes?

01:24:21.220 Is it like, like the same way that we were talking about somebody eating a month, somebody

01:24:24.900 eating a banana, somebody who has a sandals at least on eating one of me.

01:24:28.340 Yeah.

01:24:28.780 Like the same way you got like white tail deer and me, like where I live, we have white

01:24:31.980 tail deer and me, they're so similar.

01:24:33.940 Like it takes, I don't want to say a trained eye to tell them apart, but you know, someone

01:24:37.480 from another country would look and it might take them a few days for like, oh, they're

01:24:41.640 different.

01:24:42.260 Yeah.

01:24:42.500 They're just gonna see and be like, whatever, you know, deer, deer.

01:24:45.060 But at a time it'd be that, at a time it'd be that you'd be like, oh no, there's the

01:24:50.980 one kind of human and there's these other kinds of humans.

01:24:54.980 Like, fuck that guy's about 2000 years back.

01:24:57.320 Yeah.

01:24:57.420 And they don't, they don't mix or they get together or they kidnap each other, whatever

01:25:00.960 the hell they got going on.

01:25:01.800 They still have bad breath, all that.

01:25:02.860 Yeah.

01:25:03.120 But, uh, when you see that you're like Joe having that, like as high as 57% more Neanderthals

01:25:09.760 because it's, it's like, it's, it's, you know, we under dearest, I don't know.

01:25:14.880 Was it like an act of passion that made you evolve?

01:25:18.220 No, I'm saying that, that drove humans and Neanderthals to interbreed.

01:25:22.620 Was it coercion?

01:25:24.140 Oh, you think there are separate beings or you think there's one more advance in the

01:25:27.900 Neanderthals, Neanderthals were far more successful species than we are.

01:25:33.160 Like Neanderthals were in Europe far longer than our ancestors were in Europe.

01:25:40.380 But aren't Neanderthals our ancestors though?

01:25:43.200 No, I wouldn't.

01:25:44.100 You can't really, I wouldn't really.

01:25:46.180 Yes.

01:25:46.740 And that it seems like direct human ancestors, like homo sapien.

01:25:52.280 Yeah.

01:25:52.840 Okay.

01:25:53.100 It seems like at times they were able to have viable offspring that at times Neander,

01:25:58.620 Neanderthal people that were in Europe far longer, they were in Europe long, long,

01:26:03.160 hundreds of thousands of years before modern humans made the scene.

01:26:08.220 Got it.

01:26:08.880 And because of everyone having a little bit of introgression from Neanderthals, this is

01:26:15.720 not my field of study.

01:26:16.680 I'm just saying, I'm just a curious onlooker.

01:26:18.460 Let's take a look right here.

01:26:19.300 Ancient human species, including homo sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and others did interbreed

01:26:26.900 as they encountered one another during the middle and upper paleolithic periods, leaving

01:26:30.960 detectable genetic legacies in modern populations.

01:26:34.540 Dude, I didn't even know this.

01:26:36.340 I thought, have you seen that chart where it's one man like that?

01:26:40.260 That's a deceptive chart.

01:26:41.460 He has a briefcase and then he has Nikes on or whatever.

01:26:44.320 That's a deceptive chart.

01:26:45.680 Dude, that's fucking, I can't even believe that.

01:26:47.900 This is one of the main things I talk about with my kids.

01:26:50.400 Wow.

01:26:50.860 Trying to explain.

01:26:51.340 They're like, what do you mean we came from monkeys?

01:26:53.480 I'm like, don't look at it that way.

01:26:56.180 Yeah.

01:26:56.960 So, oh, what I want to start talking about my next hour comedy is about the middle monkeys.

01:27:00.540 Like, why don't you ever see that middle monkey?

01:27:02.060 Like, you know what I'm saying?

01:27:02.620 Like, you'll see a monkey and then you'll see a dude, you know, who's a mechanic, right?

01:27:08.320 But you never see that middle motherfucker.

01:27:10.340 You know what I'm saying?

01:27:10.840 What happened to them all?

01:27:11.840 The dude who's just scratching under one arm, wrenching the other.

01:27:15.880 Fucking just, they don't know how it would work to register because he's just like, whoop,

01:27:19.060 whoop, you know, but he can change a tire and a fucking, just with his lips.

01:27:22.840 You know what I'm saying?

01:27:23.360 And you don't see that chimp, that chimp man, that middle man.

01:27:26.680 So I'm just amazed.

01:27:27.860 They're locked away somewhere.

01:27:29.100 Yeah.

01:27:29.420 But dude, I never thought that you'd be sitting there and you'd be like, oh shit.

01:27:33.000 Oh yeah, you'd be like, uh-oh.

01:27:33.960 You and your buddy, like, dog, let's go, let's go, let's go do a lab, right?

01:27:36.620 Yeah, we better go figure out who, what kind of dudes it is.

01:27:39.780 But the fact that they, the fact that they, the fact that they enter, the fact that they

01:27:43.720 interbred.

01:27:43.980 Why didn't they tell us this?

01:27:45.260 Well, I think that, well, you might've missed that part.

01:27:47.880 Oh, I wouldn't know that.

01:27:49.500 Let me get to my point though.

01:27:50.980 The fact that they interbred.

01:27:52.640 Unreal.

01:27:53.360 It leads to this question of, was it a romantic bonding?

01:27:58.580 Was it like a romantic, right?

01:28:01.300 Was it something that was like under coercion?

01:28:04.280 It was coercion.

01:28:05.420 Do you know what I mean?

01:28:06.400 Yeah.

01:28:06.800 Like, was it like a, like a sort of like conqueror's choice kind of shit?

01:28:12.340 Yeah.

01:28:12.560 It was like when those guys that worked.

01:28:14.000 Do you know what I mean?

01:28:14.320 It wasn't that they would like meet in, in, in over like, like the Capulets and, you

01:28:19.700 know, from like a Romeo and Juliet's family.

01:28:22.260 No, Steven, it was not like that.

01:28:23.320 They'd meet and come together despite family condemnations and produce offspring.

01:28:28.200 No, it was like when those nurses that don't treat people well at those hospitals take advantage

01:28:32.400 of them.

01:28:32.780 That's what I think it was.

01:28:33.680 I do wonder.

01:28:34.520 That'd be another good time machine burner up right there.

01:28:37.100 You just go back and it's a, but here's the tough thing.

01:28:40.340 If a person who was more mentally advanced, hypothetically a homo sapien, if they tried

01:28:46.560 to, if they tried to like, oh, here's this a Neanderthal, let's get a little bit of love,

01:28:51.800 you know, but they're easy to trick, right?

01:28:54.160 Yeah.

01:28:54.460 But they're not easy to fucking just pin down and make love to, I bet.

01:28:58.060 You got to trick them, but even if you trick shells and stuff, right?

01:29:01.520 Even if you trick them with a little wind chime or something, get their attention.

01:29:05.980 I bet you can't, you're going to have to, how quick can you make love and still enjoy

01:29:10.580 it and get away from them?

01:29:11.640 I, I wouldn't, that's not a risk I'm taking.

01:29:13.800 No, it's time machine questions.

01:29:15.160 I'm not, that's not a risk.

01:29:16.120 I'm someone that hasn't brushed their hair in 70,000 years.

01:29:19.000 I'm going to try to fuck them.

01:29:20.180 I'm out.

01:29:20.640 You know what I want to put out a call to, you don't mind me doing a call for a guest.

01:29:25.600 I'm trying, I've been trying to find your show, but I want to find them.

01:29:28.660 So it's like, I'm like using your, I'm using like your audience to find someone that I might

01:29:34.580 not find on my own.

01:29:35.720 Okay.

01:29:36.400 What I've been trying to do for years is I've been trying to find a really, really good,

01:29:42.180 um, a really good Neanderthal.

01:29:47.480 You can say Neanderthal or tall.

01:29:49.120 You sound a little bit smarter.

01:29:50.200 I understand.

01:29:50.720 My understanding is you sound a little better to say Neanderthal.

01:29:53.800 It's a valley in Germany.

01:29:55.240 It is.

01:29:55.960 Yeah.

01:29:56.300 It's a valley in Germany.

01:29:57.160 And you sound a little more like I'm more likely to get a good guest by saying Neanderthal

01:30:02.540 because they're like, this dude knows his shit.

01:30:04.420 I want to find a really good Neanderthal behavioralist.

01:30:09.220 Hard R in that Neanderthal too.

01:30:10.920 A Neanderthal researcher to come on the show and talk about what they know, but it can't

01:30:16.420 be just like a writer who spent a month researching.

01:30:19.960 It's because our audience doesn't like those kinds.

01:30:22.280 Right.

01:30:22.540 It's got to be someone that like, it's got to be someone that lives and breathes.

01:30:26.760 It can't be like an interloper.

01:30:28.360 Yeah.

01:30:28.580 Like I need like a legit, a verbose, animated Neanderthal researcher.

01:30:34.520 I don't want some halfway house.

01:30:35.680 I want a fucking trap house that people have been shooting up in for 50 years with information

01:30:39.660 about motherfuckers who would just like, who could digest a stone if they need to.

01:30:44.080 Yeah.

01:30:44.240 Like that, like a really good Neanderthal person to come on the show and you just reach out

01:30:51.040 to us and I want to interview you.

01:30:52.880 Okay.

01:30:53.260 There you go guys for Steve.

01:30:54.620 They would like that.

01:30:55.440 And here's what I would have a lot of Neanderthal researchers on that listen to the show.

01:30:59.180 I mean, I bet we have some consumers who would rank high on a Neanderthal scale or whatever,

01:31:05.200 but I'll say this.

01:31:06.300 I want somebody who has a high amount on their 23andMe, an extreme.

01:31:11.180 I don't want, they don't need to have that.

01:31:12.740 I know what you want.

01:31:13.320 That's what I want.

01:31:13.920 I want somebody who's 80%, 80% Neanderthal.

01:31:18.940 Yeah.

01:31:19.240 Find the highest guy.

01:31:20.820 And when I get them, I'm just going to send them over to you too, Steve, because I think

01:31:24.080 you would do well.

01:31:24.980 And because you might be able to notice some patterns that they have or behaviors.

01:31:28.840 Yeah.

01:31:29.140 Who, if whatever I had low, who was the highest?

01:31:33.980 Who's the highest?

01:31:34.420 Somebody has to have the highest Neanderthal amount.

01:31:36.620 I know that there is a, I was reading a book.

01:31:39.660 Um, I read a lot of anthropology books.

01:31:44.700 I can't remember if it was the seven daughters of Eve.

01:31:48.000 I was reading a book about human history and in it, they were pointing to some controversy

01:31:55.360 around this question.

01:31:58.640 Okay.

01:31:58.960 Um, it's not always, uh, people don't always look upon this.

01:32:04.500 Uh, this is not something that everybody likes to talk about.

01:32:07.720 Really?

01:32:08.240 Where you see, like, as much as I'd be whatever, proud of it or whatever, there are places,

01:32:14.700 there are places in the world where these geneticists see.

01:32:18.700 More N-tals?

01:32:20.020 Yeah.

01:32:20.460 More Neanderthal in certain areas.

01:32:22.540 And it's, it's a sensitive subject.

01:32:24.660 It winds up being a sensitive subject.

01:32:26.080 So you might wind up having not only a fascinating show, but you might have a show that courts a

01:32:30.880 certain level of controversy.

01:32:32.320 I like that.

01:32:32.940 But what I've found, cause I, cause I am interested in this subject.

01:32:36.800 I've found that there's a sort of trend in academics to that were, there's a trend in

01:32:43.720 academics of being that we're like rebranding Neanderthals.

01:32:48.760 So it wants to be like, Oh, they had art.

01:32:52.400 Oh, they like wore jewelry.

01:32:55.240 Um, Oh, they were free divers.

01:32:57.100 Right.

01:32:57.320 Um, they, do you know what I mean?

01:32:59.820 Like every, like, why do you think we're doing that?

01:33:01.800 Do you think that?

01:33:02.280 I don't know why it's like, cause there's this, there used to be this idea that there

01:33:05.020 were these like thuggish brutes.

01:33:07.860 Right.

01:33:08.380 Do you know?

01:33:08.700 But there's like, when you look, when you, if you kind of follow Neanderthal news, like

01:33:13.220 I do, there's a theme.

01:33:14.420 They have a fucking Twitter feed.

01:33:15.500 Yeah.

01:33:15.780 There's like a theme of, of this kind of like this delight, like this kind of delighted

01:33:21.660 realization about how come, like how complex their culture was, how complex their society

01:33:27.800 was.

01:33:28.400 It'd be like, like, you don't find like, man, it turns out they were dumber than we thought.

01:33:33.160 Right.

01:33:33.500 That's not like a news story.

01:33:34.700 It would be like, Oh, they appreciated the finer things in life.

01:33:38.780 Well, it's like the branding.

01:33:39.440 It's like, even when it goes back to like, you were talking about the bald eagle, it's like

01:33:42.100 just that PR that span.

01:33:43.900 And I wonder if they have a very, very good PR agency, Neanderthals right now, or I have

01:33:49.520 a good one on retainer and they're getting a lot of good ink about that.

01:33:53.860 They liked art and movies, you know, and it's like, they're just getting cooler.

01:33:58.120 They're getting cooler.

01:33:59.240 Oh yeah.

01:33:59.820 They love stand by me.

01:34:01.560 You're like, that's insane.

01:34:04.280 I'm telling you, dude, start paying attention to Neanderthal news and you'll see what I'm

01:34:07.980 talking about.

01:34:08.300 When I get my guest on, he'll tell you all about it.

01:34:10.220 Oh, I love that.

01:34:10.920 I'll send you the episode.

01:34:11.920 I love that.

01:34:12.340 You're going to have that, man.

01:34:14.420 Dude, listening to, dude, what would be better?

01:34:17.220 Yeah, of course, I could talk about humans all day long, bro.

01:34:19.860 You know what I'm saying?

01:34:20.820 Listening to two Neanderthals talk about themselves, they wouldn't know a lot, but they would try

01:34:25.580 pretty hard.

01:34:26.440 Yeah.

01:34:27.220 That could be us, dude.

01:34:28.500 That's awesome.

01:34:29.580 That's a good point.

01:34:30.060 That's really awesome, dude.

01:34:32.420 People tell you you look like Harry Connick Jr. sometimes?

01:34:34.400 No, I've gotten, I used to get Kevin Bacon.

01:34:39.780 That's who it is, dude.

01:34:40.440 I used to get a dude from the, a dude from, remember the show where they would like do

01:34:44.520 all the crazy stunts to each other?

01:34:48.180 Oh, uh, Johnny Knoxville.

01:34:51.460 Oh yeah.

01:34:52.360 Johnny Knoxville.

01:34:52.980 I could see that some.

01:34:53.840 I would get that.

01:34:55.400 What else would I get?

01:34:56.320 Those are good.

01:34:56.880 Those are good ones.

01:34:58.080 Yeah.

01:34:58.220 I don't see that one too clear.

01:35:00.320 Cause I don't never get, I never do clever shit with my hair.

01:35:04.080 Yeah.

01:35:04.440 Yeah.

01:35:04.620 Johnny's hair is always kind of stylish and stuff.

01:35:06.740 Yeah.

01:35:07.300 So I think that Kevin Bacon, like he doesn't get too clever with his hair.

01:35:10.940 I saw that.

01:35:12.120 He was kicking ass when I was a kid in the movie making business, man, you know?

01:35:15.320 Oh, he's such a talented guy.

01:35:17.740 I saw the guy who was in fight club the other night.

01:35:22.020 Brad Pitt.

01:35:22.960 Nope.

01:35:24.200 I saw Edward Norton the other night.

01:35:26.100 Oh.

01:35:26.680 With some friends.

01:35:27.320 It was like at our little restaurant.

01:35:28.880 Hmm.

01:35:29.740 And I was like, is that Edward Norton?

01:35:32.000 And it was him.

01:35:32.980 I don't look like him.

01:35:36.040 No, you don't.

01:35:38.040 I'd love to look like him.

01:35:39.280 Edward Norton.

01:35:40.480 I'm trying to think if you had to look like a woman, who do you think you'd look like?

01:35:43.580 That's a great question.

01:35:44.580 I don't know.

01:35:45.280 There's one out there.

01:35:46.800 No, I'm sure.

01:35:47.520 But look, if you, we get to pick, that's why we're in this conversation, dude.

01:35:50.260 I didn't want to talk about it, but let's talk about it.

01:35:52.660 What I'm saying is if you got to look like a woman, who would you look like?

01:35:55.520 It's kind of a good question.

01:35:58.480 Trying to think who I could see you as.

01:36:00.080 I'm not even like, like equipped, man.

01:36:01.960 I can't really think of what you're getting.

01:36:03.580 I mean, like if I was a woman, what woman would I want to look like?

01:36:07.380 Or if I had to be a dude that looked like a woman?

01:36:09.760 No, no, dude.

01:36:10.600 What are you talking about?

01:36:11.680 I don't know.

01:36:12.420 I'm not talking about some fucking chop shop aftermarket woman.

01:36:16.540 I'm talking about some, I'm talking about a certified bone in woman.

01:36:21.500 Like you're a woman from the jump.

01:36:23.540 Yeah.

01:36:23.720 But what I'm getting at is there's two ways of looking at it.

01:36:25.960 You're saying that I remain a dude, I remain a guy.

01:36:29.020 No.

01:36:30.020 Oh, I become a woman.

01:36:31.680 No.

01:36:32.160 What, what woman do I want to look like?

01:36:33.640 You're a woman from the start.

01:36:35.700 Say somebody.

01:36:36.540 Oh, like going back.

01:36:37.640 I was born a woman.

01:36:39.080 Yes.

01:36:39.400 And then I wanted to pick which of these women I wanted to look like.

01:36:41.700 Right.

01:36:41.820 Like which woman would you be good at?

01:36:43.340 Which woman would you be?

01:36:44.300 I wonder.

01:36:44.920 It's a great question, actually.

01:36:46.240 I'm trying to think who you would be.

01:36:47.200 Let me think about it for just a second.

01:36:49.380 I'm trying to think, man.

01:36:50.660 For some reason, the name Naomi Watts keeps coming to my head, but I don't know why.

01:36:54.240 It's just popping in my head.

01:36:55.720 Little pervert.

01:36:56.540 I know.

01:36:56.940 It's just popping in my head.

01:36:57.820 I don't mean it to.

01:36:58.560 Bring her up.

01:36:59.780 Oh, yeah.

01:37:00.500 It just popped in my head.

01:37:02.660 I don't want to be held to it.

01:37:03.880 It popped in my head.

01:37:05.180 Dude, it's not a bad choice.

01:37:06.900 She's great.

01:37:09.040 Naomi Watts.

01:37:10.220 I like that.

01:37:11.120 It just popped in my head.

01:37:12.220 A thousand Watts.

01:37:13.120 Yeah, I look exactly like that anyway.

01:37:14.880 I'm in, dude.

01:37:15.860 Oh.

01:37:16.020 Look, that's what I look like.

01:37:17.980 Yeah, that's why, dude, there were some cuties in our neighborhood, and that's why people

01:37:21.100 started doing peep and timing.

01:37:23.060 I'll tell you this.

01:37:24.420 If you grew up around busted women, nobody's getting that step stool out.

01:37:29.080 You know that shit.

01:37:30.860 Oh, there we are right there.

01:37:32.920 There's you and Joe right there.

01:37:34.520 No.

01:37:35.220 No, that's not.

01:37:36.060 I'd be more like, man.

01:37:37.120 That's my nose on the left.

01:37:37.460 I'd be like, if you'd have to be one of those dudes and Naomi Watts.

01:37:40.580 Oh, yeah.

01:37:41.280 Neither one of those is us.

01:37:43.920 I saw, what were you talking about?

01:37:45.820 I saw something you were talking about going on a safari in Africa.

01:37:48.660 Oh, did you notice this?

01:37:50.020 So.

01:37:50.360 I did do that, but yeah.

01:37:51.980 But either way.

01:37:52.700 I noticed that, like.

01:37:53.620 That's what I was talking about, the snakes and shit.

01:37:55.920 Yeah.

01:37:56.280 When I went to Africa, right?

01:37:57.800 So I went there, like, a couple times for some different safaris and stuff like that.

01:38:01.520 I felt like some of the people, when you look in their eyes there, it goes further back

01:38:05.540 in time.

01:38:06.100 Does that make any sense to you at all?

01:38:08.420 I think that it may have, but I believe that that would be your.

01:38:13.580 Perception of that?

01:38:14.180 That would be your perception.

01:38:15.340 Right.

01:38:16.280 Yeah.

01:38:16.740 Dude, I talked to this one guy and I was like, this guy, he's just got damn just, just back

01:38:24.400 through.

01:38:24.700 I mean, it just felt like it went back to the, like, just to where the fingers of existence

01:38:29.980 first snapped right there at the damn sound.

01:38:32.600 Mm-hmm.

01:38:33.260 You've gone hunting in Africa?

01:38:35.020 I did for the first time ever this summer.

01:38:37.160 You did?

01:38:37.820 Mm-hmm.

01:38:38.040 Did you enjoy it?

01:38:38.900 Were you?

01:38:39.560 Well, I, I, I, I.

01:38:41.900 Were you?

01:38:42.380 Life-changing experience.

01:38:44.380 Like, in what way?

01:38:46.460 I hadn't been to that, I hadn't been to that continent.

01:38:49.460 It wasn't like the going hunting there was life-changing, but one of the things I like

01:38:53.360 about hunting is it immerses you and it immerses you in a situation and immerses you in an environment

01:38:58.980 in a deeper way than you would be immersed otherwise.

01:39:01.540 Mm-hmm.

01:39:03.160 Because you're doing something very, like, very ancient and base, you know?

01:39:06.760 So, it, it wasn't the experience of being there hunting, but just the, I hadn't been,

01:39:11.460 I, that was like, I hadn't visited that continent.

01:39:13.780 And so, I got to go to a couple places and it was just, it was, it just scrambled up my head

01:39:19.480 about, you know, when you see different ways of living, you know?

01:39:23.640 So, in that way, it was, it was profound.

01:39:25.980 To me, it was profound.

01:39:27.340 Did you guys visit some, like, innate cultures there and stuff like that?

01:39:30.420 Yeah, like, some very, yeah, like, some really ancient cultures.

01:39:33.140 I, I spent a little bit of time in this place called Maasai Land and met dudes, met Maasai

01:39:38.300 dudes that are herders, you know?

01:39:39.720 You know, they'll live in, they'll live in structures they make themselves from native

01:39:43.100 material and herd cattle and been herding cattle since, you know, from our perspective, since

01:39:49.060 the beginning of time on this place.

01:39:50.940 Did it feel like traveling back in time a little bit?

01:39:52.400 Yeah, it did for me, for sure.

01:39:53.620 Wow.

01:39:53.700 Just, just like those glimpses into, like, those glimpses into, into cultures that have,

01:39:58.600 those glimpses into cultures that have, have remained relative to our own that have

01:40:06.420 remained very constant.

01:40:07.460 Okay, so, like, that was, that was, yeah, here's some photos of Maasai folks.

01:40:14.160 That was very eye-opening.

01:40:15.960 The dark Amish right there.

01:40:17.380 Being out, they're herders, you know, they're like, um.

01:40:20.760 Beautiful.

01:40:21.660 Oh, it's, dude, stunning.

01:40:25.000 Stunning.

01:40:25.680 Do you think they have such a different relationship with existence than we do?

01:40:29.380 Yes.

01:40:30.260 Yeah, me too.

01:40:31.120 Oh, yeah, like, they send their, they send, like, the kids bust their ass.

01:40:35.340 They'll spend, they'll send little kids out, like, when, when they'll send their kids out

01:40:38.480 to watch the goat herds, man, those kids don't drink water and eat until they come home at

01:40:43.220 night.

01:40:43.720 They, they raise them to be tough, tough, tough.

01:40:46.120 You kick it more as a grown-up.

01:40:48.820 Like, kids will work real hard, you know, and as you get older, you get, you kind of get

01:40:52.900 more of, like, you get to kick it a little bit more.

01:40:54.900 But when you're a kid, you bust ass.

01:40:57.420 That was fascinating.

01:40:58.540 A lot about it was fascinating.

01:41:00.060 And I also liked, like, the animals.

01:41:02.580 A thing that I've been, there's a thing that I've, like, lamented in, in, in, in conversations

01:41:09.260 with my friends, in my writing, and all kinds of things.

01:41:12.260 I often, I spend a lot of time thinking about studying, talking about writing about Ice Age

01:41:20.080 America, so our continent, what it was like in the, at the, the, the Pleistocene, Holocene

01:41:25.900 trans, transition.

01:41:27.060 So, like, humans that were here during the tail end of the Ice Age, the first people that

01:41:31.380 came here, what was their, what were their lives like?

01:41:33.480 Um, and they lived amongst this, this great abundance and diversity of wildlife that we

01:41:39.200 don't have now.

01:41:39.940 Yeah.

01:41:40.200 Mammoths, Mastodon, short-faced bears, right?

01:41:42.180 All, all this kind of shit.

01:41:43.380 They had a, they had a, they had a giant, like, a beaver that was the size of a black bear.

01:41:48.340 There was an American lion.

01:41:50.840 Fuck, man.

01:41:51.700 There was, like, multiple, multiple, oh, we don't have shit.

01:41:55.760 So, going there, like, that was the one continent, that was the one continent where all the big

01:42:02.040 shit didn't vanish.

01:42:03.160 We got fucking Bichons.

01:42:04.080 Yeah.

01:42:04.720 That's the, Africa's the one continent where humans and all this megafauna.

01:42:11.260 Never changed?

01:42:12.560 They, for whatever reason, it's the one continent where all the big shit didn't vanish.

01:42:17.060 So, you still have that great diversity of wildlife.

01:42:20.260 So, you can sit in the U.S., like, if you're a guy like me, who's really interested in history,

01:42:25.180 you can sit in the U.S. and lament that our elephants are gone.

01:42:31.020 Like, we don't have, like, 9, 10, 11, 12, 20 species of ungulates running around at any

01:42:38.520 given time.

01:42:39.420 Antelopes.

01:42:40.060 Yeah, like, whatever.

01:42:40.900 But you go to Africa, you're like, oh, that's what they were talking about.

01:42:45.760 Like, the ice age.

01:42:47.560 Yeah, like, the ice age is alive and well.

01:42:49.580 Like, there is an elephant.

01:42:50.640 There's a hippo.

01:42:51.560 There's stuff that weighs thousands of pounds.

01:42:53.580 Like, thousands of pounds.

01:42:55.400 There's stuff that weighs tons, you know?

01:42:57.740 And so, it didn't, what happened everywhere else didn't happen there.

01:43:02.340 So, that was to go, like, oh, it's not gone.

01:43:05.860 It's somewhere else.

01:43:06.740 But you can go and be like, this is what it would be like.

01:43:08.840 I wrote down a list.

01:43:10.020 I kept a list on my notes function in my phone.

01:43:12.360 I kept a list of, like, large mammals.

01:43:14.880 Large mammals species that we encountered.

01:43:17.440 And I can't remember, man.

01:43:18.440 By the time we were done, we had, like, 27.

01:43:20.320 I could pull out my phone and show you.

01:43:22.360 Maybe I have it.

01:43:23.240 Anyways, I had, like, 27 large mammal species that I personally laid eyes on.

01:43:28.540 Wow.

01:43:29.360 That's cool.

01:43:30.000 And that would be, like, that's the shit we're talking about, like, in Ice Age America.

01:43:34.580 And so, life-changing in those kind of ways.

01:43:37.480 Yeah.

01:43:37.800 You know?

01:43:38.060 I wonder if you had a brain scan whenever you see those types of things, right?

01:43:40.980 As a human, I wonder if there's a different reaction that happens in your brain as opposed

01:43:45.320 to when you see different animals.

01:43:46.600 Like, does it take us back to a part of us that, like, knew those animals well or knew

01:43:50.980 that they existed?

01:43:52.020 Like, I wonder.

01:43:52.380 There's a theory about that, that, like, why do, that, you know, when you take babies

01:43:57.600 and make a mobile, the animal things?

01:44:01.080 There's this kind of, it seems to me to be kind of a cockamamie theory, but there's

01:44:03.920 this idea that, and this is kind of like ancestral Africa thing, that those animals resonate

01:44:10.800 with babies.

01:44:12.300 Because it's drawing back to some deep, deep memory.

01:44:17.460 Oh, the animals that are on a mobile?

01:44:19.280 Of African megafauna.

01:44:20.480 Oh, yeah.

01:44:20.940 I don't buy that shit.

01:44:21.500 It's always a giraffe.

01:44:22.520 I don't buy that shit.

01:44:23.520 But, like, I think it's, like I said, I think it's a little goofy.

01:44:25.980 But there is that idea.

01:44:26.840 Yeah, you think Bluey resonates with, you know what I'm saying?

01:44:28.980 That's crazy.

01:44:29.580 You think Thomas the Train resonates, like, from prehistoria or whatever?

01:44:34.700 Yeah, well, it's just an idea.

01:44:36.220 But there is a thing that is, that I do think about when I think about animals and deep

01:44:39.640 history and shit that's gone, is as bummed as you can get, as bummed as you can get

01:44:45.240 about animals that used to be around that aren't anymore, like the way little kids trip

01:44:48.260 out about dinosaurs being gone, as bummed as you might get about all that, the biggest

01:44:52.720 animal to ever live, the largest animal to ever live on the face of the earth is here

01:44:59.860 right now.

01:45:01.860 And it is a blue whale?

01:45:03.240 Yeah.

01:45:03.640 Biggest animal to ever live on the face of the earth.

01:45:05.220 So when little kids are like, golly, those dinosaurs, it's like, the biggest animal to

01:45:12.140 ever live is here.

01:45:13.280 Yeah, that's the DMX.

01:45:14.380 If you put your effort into it, you go see the biggest animal that ever lived on the face

01:45:17.840 of the earth.

01:45:19.060 Dude, that is crazy.

01:45:20.200 And it gives you hope that if he wants, he'll bring those other ones back, that they can

01:45:24.720 do it with science if they can do it.

01:45:26.340 Dude, it's going to happen soon.

01:45:28.260 Yeah, I disagree, but that's a different time.

01:45:30.120 Really?

01:45:30.380 That's a different, yeah.

01:45:30.780 We'll talk about that another time, though.

01:45:32.880 But dude, one thing, I will say this, I went on a safari, and were there, right?

01:45:36.120 So the guy, it was like an ambusselli or somewhere, I think we were in, maybe in Kenya.

01:45:40.460 And the guy took us-

01:45:42.280 But you're on a photo safari.

01:45:43.780 Yeah, we were just like in, yeah, we didn't get, we got out, but only near the place we

01:45:49.840 were staying.

01:45:50.600 Got it.

01:45:50.960 Otherwise, we were just kind of in-

01:45:53.120 Cruising in trucks.

01:45:53.920 Cruising in trucks, yeah.

01:45:54.680 Oh, there was a pride alliance that kind of came around us at one point, and they were

01:45:59.980 just laying down.

01:46:00.900 Like, they weren't bothering us or anything.

01:46:02.240 And the guy is like, do not stand up in here.

01:46:06.100 Everybody just stay.

01:46:07.880 I'm going to start the engine up in a little bit.

01:46:09.540 I'm just going to back out of here.

01:46:11.880 And they were like, someone were like six or seven feet away.

01:46:14.180 Like, it was definitely pretty gnarly.

01:46:16.100 It was probably like seven or eight of them.

01:46:18.340 And this one woman's fucking phone goes off, right?

01:46:22.200 And it was a, like a, it was like an iCarly ringtone or something.

01:46:26.860 It was like some-

01:46:27.860 I don't know what that means.

01:46:28.660 It was some TV, some children's show in the world.

01:46:32.080 It was just like, fuck, we're going to die.

01:46:35.960 And she immediately kind of, just like, I don't know.

01:46:39.120 It's just funny that-

01:46:39.800 But you thought it would have startled the cat, and the cat might have done something.

01:46:42.700 Oh, for sure.

01:46:43.980 The guy just said, do not make any sharp moves.

01:46:46.420 Do not stand up.

01:46:47.580 And this lady's camera, like, phone went off, and she kind of went like that.

01:46:50.880 And then the guy just turned around.

01:46:53.100 But it's just like, in a moment's notice, like, you can be wiped out because of ignorant, human ignorance, you know, human error.

01:47:02.100 Again, it takes up psychological space.

01:47:04.700 Big old cats.

01:47:05.980 Yeah.

01:47:06.640 Yeah.

01:47:07.740 But, man, yeah, I appreciate you coming and talking, man.

01:47:10.640 This was a lot of fun.

01:47:11.620 Oh, I enjoyed it.

01:47:12.420 Yeah.

01:47:12.900 It was a lot of fun, man.

01:47:13.840 I got to come over there and go on one of your journeys sometimes if you guys-

01:47:17.920 Well, I'll take you out to do something.

01:47:19.160 Yeah, do you guys go in Montana?

01:47:21.120 Yeah, that's where I live, yeah.

01:47:22.300 It is?

01:47:22.680 Yeah.

01:47:23.300 Dude, I love to fish.

01:47:24.900 What do you like to catch?

01:47:27.600 Catfish.

01:47:28.360 You like catfishing?

01:47:29.160 I like catfish, but I'm willing to catch other fish as well.

01:47:32.140 What's the kind of fish you'd most like to catch?

01:47:34.420 I would like to catch probably one of those big, long trout.

01:47:38.560 Big, long trout.

01:47:39.560 Like the ones you see in that Brad Pitt and his brother caught, remember?

01:47:42.320 Sure.

01:47:43.440 Those.

01:47:44.980 Those are awesome, dude.

01:47:45.980 We can arrange that, man.

01:47:47.920 I would be honored to take you out fishing.

01:47:49.980 I'm going to be in Montana in the beginning of, I think, the first week of October.

01:47:53.960 I don't know if you're going to be over there or not.

01:47:55.860 Yeah, I might be.

01:47:57.040 What are you doing there?

01:47:58.160 I'm supposed to go to some seminar kind of thing or something.

01:48:01.060 Seminar?

01:48:01.860 Yeah.

01:48:02.240 I don't know what it's for.

01:48:02.940 On Neanderthals?

01:48:03.680 I wish I would so, dude.

01:48:05.420 If it is, and I can bring somebody-

01:48:07.320 Yeah, please, ask around.

01:48:08.980 I'm going to be like, hey, look, if it is, I'll make sure to do some recon for you.

01:48:14.300 Please, yeah, I'd appreciate it.

01:48:15.620 No, yeah, it'll be fun.

01:48:17.120 It'd be fun, dude, to go fish.

01:48:18.420 You know, I think, yeah, like-

01:48:19.340 Do you ever do, have you ever done a float?

01:48:21.120 Like, you want to float down a river and catch trout?

01:48:23.000 I've never done that before.

01:48:24.120 Oh.

01:48:24.420 Yeah.

01:48:24.900 I've done, I've done, whatever the one, not the fucking, like, I've done fly fishing.

01:48:32.440 Oh.

01:48:32.760 Yeah.

01:48:33.580 I've done fly fishing, yeah.

01:48:36.340 You've done fly fishing.

01:48:37.360 Yeah.

01:48:37.460 You like that?

01:48:37.920 I did like it.

01:48:38.580 It was cool, man.

01:48:39.400 I only got to do it one time, but I think-

01:48:41.840 Do you like the water?

01:48:43.340 Have you ever, you never spearfished?

01:48:45.500 I've never spearfished.

01:48:47.140 Okay.

01:48:47.480 But I love to fish, though.

01:48:49.500 Well, I would be honored to take you fishing, man.

01:48:51.740 That'd be fun.

01:48:52.580 Cool.

01:48:53.060 All right, we'll do it.

01:48:53.780 Yeah.

01:48:54.380 That'd be great.

01:48:54.980 It'd be awesome, man.

01:48:55.780 Thanks for all your contributions to just helping people learn about the outdoors and the history

01:49:01.040 of the outdoors.

01:49:01.500 I know you have a book out that's, or it might be your newest book about when people

01:49:06.860 are looking for beaver pellets and stuff across North America.

01:49:09.720 Yeah, so I-

01:49:11.100 It's about mountain men, right?

01:49:12.200 Yeah, I have a new, there's a new meat eater season coming out.

01:49:15.840 And then we have, I've been working on these things, these meat eaters, American history

01:49:21.280 series.

01:49:21.760 We did one on the long hunters.

01:49:24.900 So like Daniel Boone was a fan.

01:49:26.720 He used to hunt this country.

01:49:28.360 Daniel in the deerskin trade.

01:49:29.980 So the late colonial deerskin trade did one on the mountain men, the beaver trade.

01:49:34.980 And then our new one coming out now is called the hide hunters.

01:49:38.420 And it's about the people that wiped out the last 15 million buffalo off the Great Plains

01:49:44.040 at the end of the Civil War.

01:49:45.440 Fuck.

01:49:46.320 Yeah.

01:49:46.600 So it's these things about the mark, it's about market hunting history.

01:49:51.140 That's, that's, that's, that's pre-sale.

01:49:54.360 It's not, that's available.

01:49:56.520 That's available for pre-sale right now.

01:49:58.540 But we just finished that, the hide hunters.

01:50:00.680 So the meat eaters, American history series.

01:50:02.680 That, that's a lot of the shit we taught, like, like what you and I have been talking

01:50:07.000 about.

01:50:07.560 It's a lot of, that's kind of a home for a lot of that information.

01:50:13.320 Cool.

01:50:13.740 Yeah.

01:50:13.960 Like a lot of like human history.

01:50:16.260 Yeah.

01:50:16.740 Wild, like how resources get exploited, overexploited, recovered.

01:50:21.560 Those, those, those series, they're audio originals.

01:50:25.500 Right.

01:50:26.560 I do print books too, but those are like audio, they're audio stories.

01:50:29.800 Like I, we, that, that me and a researcher, we like put them together.

01:50:33.340 I narrate them.

01:50:34.500 Um, and they kind of tell that story of America through like American history, American movement

01:50:41.320 through these kind of like keystone wildlife species that supported a lot of industry and

01:50:47.300 economic activity at different times.

01:50:48.960 Cause for a long time, that's what American economies were driven by was leather.

01:50:53.540 Yeah.

01:50:54.340 Fur and leather.

01:50:55.080 Wow.

01:50:55.580 Yeah.

01:50:55.760 Is it interesting to see that like hunting has like taken away species?

01:51:00.900 Like, I mean, it's kind of takes them away and puts them back.

01:51:03.480 I know.

01:51:04.580 Yeah.

01:51:05.540 Dude, we've done, we like speaking collectively hunters, um, as much as I hesitate to speak

01:51:13.740 collectively, like the practice of hunting has done a lot of damage and has done a lot

01:51:20.020 of recovery.

01:51:21.200 We've righted like we collectively, historically hunters have done a lot in the last century,

01:51:28.120 done an extraordinary amount in the last century to write the wrongs of our fathers.

01:51:33.740 Yeah.

01:51:34.500 Well, I think it does feel like in the end, like the general feeling of a lot of hunters,

01:51:38.880 it's not just about going out and killing something.

01:51:40.920 It's about having a relationship, uh, with nature.

01:51:44.880 Yeah.

01:51:45.480 Anyone who's serious about it, that's what drives it.

01:51:47.700 Yeah.

01:51:47.900 That desire, like if you just have a desire to go out and kill something, it doesn't last

01:51:51.360 long.

01:51:51.760 Yeah.

01:51:52.120 You can fucking do that in Memphis.

01:51:53.660 It doesn't last.

01:51:55.000 Um, Steve, Steve vanilla.

01:51:56.800 Thank you so much, dude.

01:51:57.800 And thanks for putting up with me today.

01:51:59.300 And, uh, I appreciate it.

01:52:00.600 I appreciate the opportunity.

01:52:01.420 I look forward to us going fishing together.

01:52:02.840 That'd be a great time.

01:52:03.380 It was fun.

01:52:03.740 I got a bunch of friends going to be jealous.

01:52:05.400 Really?

01:52:06.060 Shit.

01:52:06.340 I might bring one of them.

01:52:07.560 Bring one of them.

01:52:07.920 Very good friend of mine, Seth.

01:52:09.040 He's a huge fan of yours.

01:52:10.420 Oh, really?

01:52:10.820 He was shitting his pants when I told him I was coming on your show.

01:52:12.880 Oh, that's cool, dude.

01:52:13.980 Yeah.

01:52:14.380 Bring, dude, yeah.

01:52:14.920 Maybe he'll fish with us.

01:52:15.980 Oh, yeah.

01:52:16.460 If he wants to come, that would be great.

01:52:17.300 He doesn't, he won't say anything weird.

01:52:18.680 He probably won't say much at all.

01:52:20.120 It already seems weird, but it's okay, man.

01:52:24.540 Uh, it would be an honor, man.

01:52:26.080 Thank you so much.

01:52:26.700 I appreciate it, Steve.

01:52:27.680 Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.

01:52:33.680 I must be cornerstone.

01:52:38.780 Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind.

01:52:43.600 I found I can feel it in my bones, but it's gonna tell you.

This Past Weekend with Theo Von - September 15, 2025

#610 - Steven Rinella

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