This Past Weekend with Theo Von - Arctic Biologist Seth Beaudreault ｜ This Past Weekend #221

00:00:00.580 Today's guest is an Arctic biologist who has come down directly from the great white north

00:00:08.220 to let us know exactly what's going on and to answer some questions we have about, well, all sorts of stuff.

00:00:15.720 We're going to get into nature. We're going to get into the depths of the cold and Alaska.

00:00:20.640 Today's guest is Mr. Seth Boudreaux.

00:00:30.000 So, do you just come from Alaska?

00:00:41.080 Right now, coming from Costa Rica back up to Alaska.

00:00:44.740 I just went down to see my lady and spent some time at my place, kind of in the middle of the work season.

00:00:50.020 Okay.

00:00:50.320 So, basically five months a year in Alaska, May through September, studying migratory birds and wildlife,

00:00:56.580 and then the rest of the year I'm down in Costa Rica.

00:01:00.000 And, yeah, because you sent me a picture one time of lunch, I guess it was, and it was some iguana claws.

00:01:08.980 You guys had a batch of iguana.

00:01:10.920 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:01:12.080 And I was like, dang, bro.

00:01:14.140 Yeah, my lady's dad traps them in the yard and cooks them up, and it's not that great.

00:01:20.740 Yeah.

00:01:21.240 Yeah, if you're in a tight spot, some iguana will get you through.

00:01:24.020 Well, yeah, it looked, when I looked at them, and we'll have Nick put the picture up, too, but they looked, I'd have thought you'd have eaten a different part of the iguana.

00:01:36.700 I'd never really considered, really, the claw.

00:01:39.020 Yeah, it was kind of all chopped up in there, but they're mostly bones, so it probably looked like a pot full of claws.

00:01:44.900 Yeah, that's what it looked like.

00:01:46.360 Yeah.

00:01:46.600 But when you cook them up, how do you even cook those?

00:01:51.920 I think he cooked them in a pressure cooker with, like, a chopped tomato and some garlic and onion, maybe, some chicken bouillon.

00:01:59.960 Pretty simple.

00:02:00.680 It's just kind of, you can cook it the same way you cook chicken.

00:02:03.280 Yeah.

00:02:03.560 But it's, like, it's not that great.

00:02:05.720 Is it, like, an island treat, kind of?

00:02:07.240 Is it pretty common there in Costa Rica?

00:02:09.180 No.

00:02:09.700 I think a lot of rural people eat it occasionally, but a lot of people think it's gross and definitely don't eat it, too.

00:02:18.260 Oh, yeah, it's kind of interesting.

00:02:19.700 Like, it's almost like, when I was growing up, people would eat a lot of, like, hogshead cheese and stuff.

00:02:24.860 Yeah.

00:02:26.300 You know, where my sister lived, they cooked cracklings a lot of times, where they'll just, you know, take a bunch of fat and put it in a pot.

00:02:31.920 That's the best.

00:02:32.600 Yeah.

00:02:33.040 At the beginning, you're like, where's the meat, you know?

00:02:35.680 And then by the end, you're just, like.

00:02:37.620 Left with these pieces of fried leather.

00:02:39.300 Oh, and they look, yeah, and they're just so dang tasty, really, and airy.

00:02:42.880 They're almost just, it's almost like, they're almost like cotton candy, like the inverse of cotton candy.

00:02:47.920 Definitely, yeah.

00:02:48.800 Cracklings.

00:02:49.180 Pretty far on the other end of the spectrum.

00:02:51.520 So, when you go up to, when you go to Alaska, what part of Alaska are you in?

00:02:57.140 In the Arctic, so north of the Brooks Range.

00:02:59.560 I'm at a science station.

00:03:00.660 Can you pull that up, Nick, the Brooks Range, so we can see that?

00:03:03.640 I just want to have an idea where you are.

00:03:05.620 Yeah.

00:03:06.260 About 370 miles north of Fairbanks.

00:03:09.560 Yeah, and I don't even know where Fairbanks is, dude.

00:03:12.040 How far from Phoenix is what I want to know.

00:03:14.560 Give me an idea.

00:03:15.160 The state looks like this, you know.

00:03:17.540 These are the Aleutian Islands.

00:03:19.180 Okay.

00:03:19.440 Fairbanks kind of right in the middle, and I'm up towards the top there.

00:03:22.740 Okay.

00:03:23.820 Yeah.

00:03:24.280 So, I'm above, north of that mountain range.

00:03:26.240 Oh, wow.

00:03:27.740 So, that's called the North Slope up there.

00:03:30.020 That's where there's a lot of oil business going on, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

00:03:36.240 So, it's, I mean, you are up there.

00:03:39.060 Yeah.

00:03:39.380 It's about a 10-hour drive to get up to where I work.

00:03:42.280 And if you go off the top, say you get to the top of Alaska, and you take a boat north, what do you hit?

00:03:47.980 The North Pole?

00:03:48.880 Eventually, some ice.

00:03:50.260 Really?

00:03:50.560 Yeah.

00:03:51.380 And you can't really access the coast there without paying for a permit from the oil company to go on a tour.

00:03:58.740 You can go on, like, an hour-long tour where you get to dip your toes in the Arctic Ocean, but they don't want people messing around up there.

00:04:06.420 So, you can't just access it on your own.

00:04:08.560 They kind of own the whole north coastline there.

00:04:11.460 So, it's private property?

00:04:13.760 Yeah.

00:04:14.260 Yeah.

00:04:14.700 There's a town called Dead Horse up there.

00:04:16.440 It's not really much of a town.

00:04:17.500 It's, like, an industrial outpost where everything's made of metal, and there's just testosterone in the air.

00:04:23.460 Dang.

00:04:23.820 It's a rough place. 0.75

00:04:24.720 It's ugly.

00:04:26.260 But you can see some cool birds up there, spectacle eiters and phalaropes and king eiters and stuff.

00:04:33.300 It's pretty cool.

00:04:34.080 Now, are those birds that are only there?

00:04:37.040 Spectacle eiters, yeah, are real Arctic specialists.

00:04:40.060 They didn't even really know where they spent the winter until pretty recently.

00:04:43.920 The whole population goes to, like, an opening in the ice out in the Bering Sea, I think.

00:04:49.360 How do you say it?

00:04:50.420 Spectacled eiter?

00:04:51.040 Spectacled eiter.

00:04:52.100 E-I-D-E-R. 0.98

00:04:54.920 And when you're up there, like, how close are you getting to these birds?

00:04:57.720 Like, what are you doing?

00:04:58.520 Too close.

00:04:59.140 Uh, my job, I'm a naturalist, uh, for the science station up there, and so every day I'm out there just trying to document what's happening with wildlife, when the bird species arrive to the area, when they leave in the fall, and then other wildlife.

00:05:14.320 You know, there's bears and wolves and wolverines and stuff up there, so I'm just out there spending time trying to see what's going on and document it, um, just for posterity, basically.

00:05:23.300 Oh, wow, that's a beautiful bird, yeah.

00:05:25.380 Yeah, so it's a sea duck, and they just breed, um, on the coasts in grassy ponds and then spend the winter out among the sea ice and openings.

00:05:36.220 Can you get a picture of the head again, Nick?

00:05:40.760 Look at that thing. 0.92

00:05:41.740 Wow.

00:05:43.020 Yeah, what, and so what is that, coming off the back, it almost looks like gills up there by its head, is that?

00:05:48.340 Or what is that, it's just feathering?

00:05:49.540 Just, yeah, just weird feathers.

00:05:52.080 And can you have one of these at the house, or these more, these are?

00:05:54.760 These, you gotta get some special permits for that, yeah, they don't, they don't take kindly.

00:05:58.860 I think it's a threatened species, probably.

00:06:01.860 Wow.

00:06:02.020 There's just not that many of them, and they breed in really specific areas.

00:06:06.360 And can you watch them fight, or they don't fight?

00:06:08.480 What do they do, are they?

00:06:09.260 They seem pretty docile to me, they're just kind of sitting around on the water, minding their own business.

00:06:14.500 Yeah.

00:06:14.580 It's, you know, Arctic summer is really short, and so the birds kind of have to get there and get on with it, get the breeding done, and then get the hell out of there.

00:06:22.220 So, and that's when a lot of them do breeding, is in the summertime?

00:06:25.540 Yeah, pretty much only then.

00:06:26.940 So, we have like 110 species of birds we've observed in the area that are coming from the lower 48 states, Central America, South America, even all the way down to Antarctica.

00:06:38.560 Wow.

00:06:38.740 Some of them spend the winter down there.

00:06:40.360 So, birds kind of just come, like everybody's kind of popping in, huh?

00:06:43.240 Yeah, yeah.

00:06:43.980 Who's kind of the randiest group, you know, because sometimes you're like on a plane to Vegas, and you've got different groups.

00:06:49.180 You've got a couple of German guys, you know, you've got one guy making his own cocaine in the backseat. 1.00

00:06:54.540 You know, you've got a bunch of Italians just, you know, drinking DECA 200. 1.00

00:06:59.800 You've got guys really, what kind of group gets up there and just really just turns it out?

00:07:04.160 Well, there's a bird called the blue throat that is mostly a Eurasian bird, and the population just barely extends over into Alaska.

00:07:12.580 So, you have, if you want to see them in the United States, you have to go up there.

00:07:16.420 And they, yeah, look at that.

00:07:18.560 They sing bird karaoke.

00:07:20.220 They do, like, imitations of other bird species, and they'll do this repertoire that goes on for, they can imitate up to, like, 25 species of other birds.

00:07:29.460 But you hear, so you hear it, you hear them singing all this stuff, but it sounds a little off, like karaoke, where you're like, I don't think that's really the white-crowned sparrow, and it's that guy.

00:07:38.700 Oh, and so they're just kind of, they're like impersonators on those.

00:07:42.900 Yeah, yeah, totally.

00:07:43.840 And, yeah, the females seem to get a kick out of the male with the biggest repertoire.

00:07:48.120 And, oh, wow.

00:07:51.180 That's pretty cool, huh?

00:07:52.460 Yeah, it's cool.

00:07:53.800 So, bird watchers.

00:07:54.540 That bird's, like, going to be like, I'm going to go up there.

00:07:57.460 Now, can they, will they tempt other females from other species to come on over with, since they're using different people's songs? 1.00

00:08:04.040 I haven't seen them tempt females, but other species will definitely get agitated if they hear another bird singing their song, because they, when birds sing, they're basically advertising their territory.

00:08:15.000 So, they sing on the edges of their territory, and then the bird with the next territory over will hear it, and he'll kind of establish his border.

00:08:22.700 So, they suddenly hear their own song in a place where they thought they had their territory staked out.

00:08:28.100 Some of them definitely respond aggressively.

00:08:30.800 So, it's, so when a bird, like, sings, it's always to let people know that this is my territory?

00:08:37.820 That, and I'm available.

00:08:39.760 So, they're singing to let the females know that they've got this pad, and they're ready to roll. 1.00

00:08:44.860 Oh, okay.

00:08:45.640 Yeah.

00:08:46.040 So, I've got a comfortable place here.

00:08:47.380 I've got a little spot at the Days Inn or whatever.

00:08:49.540 Yeah.

00:08:49.980 Got me a little spot at the Hampton Inn.

00:08:51.800 Got it for the summer.

00:08:52.660 Oh, wow.

00:08:53.280 Got to get out.

00:08:54.220 Yeah.

00:08:55.100 So, those are the only two reasons.

00:08:56.640 If you hear a bird, they're letting somebody know about their territory, or they are letting females know that they're available.

00:09:02.760 Yeah, pretty much, yeah.

00:09:04.000 And do, is it just male birds that sing, or female birds also sing?

00:09:08.260 Mostly just male birds sing, and females do little calls that they use to keep in touch with each other, and to warn each other of predators and stuff. 0.98

00:09:17.120 Yeah, I'm waiting for this one bitch to text me back right now, dude. 1.00

00:09:20.920 It's only been two weeks, so she's probably busy, you know, traveling or something. 0.98

00:09:28.800 How cold, so when you get up to Alaska, man, how cold is it, like, because people think of Alaska, and, you know, like, a lot of people, you think of, like, gold gold.

00:09:38.260 And, you know, and that sort of thing, you think of it being cold.

00:09:41.500 Is there a level where it doesn't matter that it's cold anymore, that you can't even, like, we can't even really feel a difference between, say, you know, 20 degrees below and, like, 80 degrees below?

00:09:51.740 20 degrees below is not bad at all.

00:09:54.880 When you get down to 40, I think 50 below is the lowest I've experienced.

00:09:58.800 Then you're just in pain.

00:10:00.400 You just don't want to be outside at all.

00:10:02.620 And, yeah, so down to minus 20, it's very dry up there, at least in Fairbanks, and so you can still go skiing and stuff and have an all right time.

00:10:14.600 But when it gets colder than that, like, you can feel a breeze coming underneath the bottom of your cabin door just because the temperature difference is so great that the air is just, like, blowing in, trying to equal it out.

00:10:28.200 So, wait, explain that to me.

00:10:29.300 Like, I don't know what you're saying exactly.

00:10:32.020 When there's differences in temperature, the air, wind is basically air moving from one place to another, right?

00:10:39.440 Okay.

00:10:39.680 That's kind of a ridiculously simple way to describe wind.

00:10:41.840 Yeah, I get it.

00:10:42.940 I think we all understand that.

00:10:44.980 Now we do.

00:10:47.440 But, like, when there's a big difference inside and outside, the air is trying to equalize to normal it out.

00:10:54.580 Okay.

00:10:54.840 So you have these, like, 10-inch thick walls of a cabin or even the doors usually have several inches of insulation.

00:11:02.280 But just at the bottom, the only space where there's a little bit of air, it's just blowing in like your pants will go like this in the wind if you're standing near the door.

00:11:11.520 Because the air is coming in.

00:11:13.180 And it's so much colder outside than it is inside if you have it, you know, 60 inside that it just creates wind just trying to.

00:11:20.860 Rush that close to each other.

00:11:22.440 Yeah, yeah.

00:11:22.660 Wow.

00:11:24.080 It's pretty fascinating.

00:11:24.820 I get up there in early May, and that's when it's still winter a little bit.

00:11:29.680 There's usually a few feet of snow on the ground, but it's already full daylight, so I don't see the sunset until September.

00:11:40.100 So the sun's up the whole time you get there when you get there from May.

00:11:42.520 Yep.

00:11:42.980 Yeah, which, yeah, as I get older, it gets harder to be used to that.

00:11:47.260 Like, we have blackout curtains, you know, to try to make it dark in my room and stuff, but you can't keep it out the light a little bit.

00:11:55.240 So, yeah, it's kind of still winter a little bit in early May, and that's when the birds start to arrive to the area.

00:12:01.880 So I'm out there all day, like, just visiting the same types of habitat and trying to keep track of when each species arrives to the area.

00:12:08.800 Like a concierge almost.

00:12:10.140 Yeah, just trying to help them get settled in.

00:12:12.540 And so you do that for years and years and years, and then you have a nice record of exactly what was happening, you know, in any given year.

00:12:21.680 And you can track changes over time, and that's kind of how the good kinds of science work, where you're just—

00:12:28.280 There's people studying really specific stuff up there about carbon release into the atmosphere and all that,

00:12:34.200 but I'm just studying very basic, like, what are the animals doing?

00:12:37.880 Right.

00:12:37.960 And I really love that because I've just always been more of a generalist where I like being outside and just paying attention to stuff

00:12:44.760 rather than have my nose in the tundra sniffing gases or whatever they're doing.

00:12:49.460 Yeah, yeah.

00:12:50.200 Yeah.

00:12:50.540 Yeah, you're not as much of a corporate hunter.

00:12:52.960 Right, yeah.

00:12:53.640 Yeah.

00:12:55.120 Freelance.

00:12:55.800 Yeah.

00:12:56.100 Yeah.

00:12:56.600 When they—when you start to see, like, different patterns from birds, like, is there a time when you, like, really start to get scared?

00:13:04.660 Like, is there one species that you really start to pay attention to?

00:13:07.960 Yeah, there's a couple times that birds have frightened me a little bit.

00:13:12.540 There's a bird called the long-tailed jaeger that—it's a seabird, basically.

00:13:18.320 It's kind of like a gullish, ternish type of bird, but they're a predatory seabird.

00:13:22.820 Mm-hmm.

00:13:23.640 And they only come inland to breed on tundra.

00:13:27.440 Yeah, that one.

00:13:28.060 Um, so they eat voles and lemmings and stuff, and when there aren't a lot of lemmings or voles around, those populations kind of crash occasionally, and when there's not any round, they'll just form groups of, like, 40 and just maraud around.

00:13:43.680 And one time I saw a group of 40 just coming over a hill, and there was kind of a thundercloud in the distance, and I was like—I didn't know that they did that yet.

00:13:50.960 It's like, why are these 40 birds coming at me?

00:13:53.640 It was pretty gnarly.

00:13:54.520 Yeah.

00:13:54.940 Or you thought maybe they teamed up when we're coming to get you?

00:13:56.760 I thought there was a tsunami coming or something.

00:13:59.040 Oh, wow.

00:13:59.580 Yeah, you just—you spend enough time out there, you see weird things like that that most people, you know, don't know happen.

00:14:07.040 Yeah, how—I mean, animals are so in tune with Mother Nature, they're almost like—it's almost like they're, like, working for Mother Nature or something.

00:14:16.160 Yeah, I guess.

00:14:18.180 Or, like, you could get clues from them, you know?

00:14:20.040 Yeah, yeah, definitely.

00:14:20.880 I learn a lot about us from watching them, and I think that's one of the great things about doing that kind of work,

00:14:27.240 is just being out there and having the opportunity to be away from all the other noise that's going on

00:14:32.600 and just watch other things and have time to think.

00:14:36.720 And, yeah, I've been doing it for 17 years now, so, like, ever since I've been an adult.

00:14:43.900 And is it a lifestyle that you think you could get—that you would want to go away from,

00:14:47.920 or do you start to, like, look forward—I mean, do you really just look forward to that time up there?

00:14:52.100 Oh, yeah.

00:14:52.520 Yeah, I mean, I'm away from my girlfriend, fiancé, for those five months,

00:14:57.940 which is why I go down and visit in the middle of that for 10 days, so it's really great to see her.

00:15:03.340 And that's a cost, you know?

00:15:04.780 Like, it's definitely an alternative lifestyle, and a lot of couples, I don't think, could pull it off,

00:15:10.160 long-distance relationship, but we've been going nearly six years now, and it's working really great.

00:15:14.740 I would love it, man.

00:15:17.940 Oh, can't see you for four months.

00:15:22.200 Still love you, though.

00:15:25.460 For me, it would be great.

00:15:27.340 I mean, yeah, it would just be—I think it's almost something I'm going to have to have in my life.

00:15:32.660 I'm trying to think of, like, something that I think about, like, how quiet does it get?

00:15:37.380 It must get extremely quiet, huh?

00:15:39.120 It gets so quiet that you can hear your own heartbeat, like, in your ears.

00:15:43.740 Yeah, where there's no other sound, especially when there's no wind or anything.

00:15:48.780 And you don't—yeah, being here, I'm in the belly of the beast here.

00:15:52.560 Yeah, especially L.A.

00:15:53.720 Yeah, oh, my God, flying in.

00:15:56.700 Everybody else seems to think it's fine, but I'm looking out there like, this is so wrong.

00:16:02.340 Now, when you say that, is it just, like, the amount of people, the amount of, like, goings-on in one space,

00:16:07.780 like, the lack of space, what?

00:16:09.420 Yeah, that just humans living so out of balance with nature and just everything that's here,

00:16:16.540 we depend on someone else somewhere else making and doing, you know?

00:16:20.520 Like, it's kind of weird.

00:16:22.700 Yeah.

00:16:23.440 And I don't think it's good for us, really.

00:16:26.380 Like, having watched animals for so long, you kind of realize, like, we are just another animal.

00:16:34.000 We are an ape.

00:16:34.780 We're not special.

00:16:35.600 We're not even domesticated.

00:16:38.180 Like, we're as wild as we ever were.

00:16:39.760 We just have changed our habitat a lot, you know, to suit us.

00:16:43.720 But it comes at such a great cost that when you're outside of this stuff and have the peace and time to kind of get out of it,

00:16:53.360 and then you come back to it, it's pretty shocking.

00:16:55.800 Wow.

00:16:56.140 Yeah.

00:16:56.840 But it's like, you know, if you're in a bad relationship and your buddy could come up and tell you why you shouldn't get out of it?

00:17:05.240 Yeah.

00:17:05.580 You can listen and it makes logical sense maybe, but you come up with excuses for why you're just not going to do it yet.

00:17:11.860 And then years later, when you do, you look back and you're like, what the hell was I thinking?

00:17:16.020 Yeah.

00:17:16.520 That's what's going on?

00:17:17.520 Yeah.

00:17:17.860 Just because I had that chance to be outside of this human civilization, kind of.

00:17:24.260 And so you get a different perspective, I think.

00:17:26.640 But I can't expect to make people understand that in the same way that when you're in a bad relationship, like, someone could explain something perfectly.

00:17:35.320 You can't see it.

00:17:35.840 Yeah.

00:17:36.340 Yeah.

00:17:37.160 Yeah, it's hard to see something when you're in it.

00:17:38.940 Yeah.

00:17:39.540 So it's nice to, like, down in Costa Rica, you know, I'm living in a tiny little village.

00:17:45.760 It's 200 people, and there's no other gringos around except for a couple of families of Mennonites. 1.00

00:17:53.480 Oh, yeah.

00:17:54.160 Yeah.

00:17:54.580 They're wild, huh?

00:17:55.360 They're baking over there.

00:17:56.700 Yeah.

00:17:56.940 They've got a little bakery, and they're pretty interesting.

00:18:01.280 They called, I got a Facebook message from someone I didn't know the other day saying, the Mennonites want you to call them.

00:18:08.220 Gang, bro.

00:18:08.840 And I'm like, what do the Mennonites need me for?

00:18:11.360 Dude.

00:18:12.460 And it was a bird identification question.

00:18:14.560 I saw a bird that wasn't in the book, and I'm like, yeah, it's a southern left wing.

00:18:17.820 Getting ready for Thanksgiving over there with those minnows, man.

00:18:21.520 Yeah.

00:18:21.640 That's beautiful.

00:18:22.220 And they're pretty self-sufficient, those cultures, aren't they?

00:18:24.520 Like Mennonites and Amish? 0.99

00:18:26.260 In a way, yeah.

00:18:27.260 The Mennonites are kind of weird where they use cell phones. 0.99

00:18:30.860 They don't use the internet, but they'll use cell phones.

00:18:33.540 They use motors.

00:18:34.460 They're not like the Amish in that sense.

00:18:36.200 They're really nice, but you feel a little weird around them because the women are covered, you know, from head to toe. 1.00

00:18:44.040 And I kissed an older Mennonite lady on the cheek by accident because that's a custom in Costa Rica when you say goodbye to someone.

00:18:52.280 Yeah, yeah.

00:18:52.840 And as I got closer, I kind of realized, like, she doesn't want this to happen, but I'm in too deep.

00:18:57.580 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:18:58.940 That's a lot of Gianni and Nick sexual history.

00:19:02.880 Yeah.

00:19:04.120 Yeah.

00:19:04.440 A lot of that going on in here.

00:19:05.860 But, yeah, so being in these quiet places, it's great when people visit.

00:19:10.180 Like, I've got a lot of good buddies I grew up with who have come down to the place in Costa Rica.

00:19:13.920 Just to hang out in Alaska?

00:19:14.940 Oh, to Costa Rica.

00:19:15.600 Few have come up to Alaska, but I don't get that much time off up there.

00:19:19.240 So, yeah, my seven months a year off is down in Costa Rica, and that's where people come visit and can kind of, like, I think they, before they visit, they imagine me laying in a hammock on the beach drinking Imperial or something.

00:19:31.580 Yeah, yeah.

00:19:32.120 When they come down and see we're living in, like, a really small rural agricultural village, we're growing coffee.

00:19:38.080 So you've got to do a lot of stuff.

00:19:39.060 There's a lot of action.

00:19:39.680 Yeah, which is, that's kind of the best way we can be is just doing work that's meaningful to you, to people around you.

00:19:50.840 Yeah, I can imagine the exchange, the human exchange you get by helping others or being part of a small community.

00:19:55.620 Yeah, yeah.

00:19:56.500 That's how we're evolved to be, you know.

00:19:58.500 Like, we're supposed to be living in tribal groups of, you know, up to 100 or 150, and then we've gotten so far away from that that I don't think,

00:20:09.760 we can see our way back.

00:20:11.240 But do you think there could be a correction that happens that brings us back?

00:20:14.620 Like, sometimes I feel like that's the thing that I wonder. 0.92

00:20:16.640 Like, does Mother Nature finally be like, oh, right, enough of this Sims bullshit, you know? 0.98

00:20:21.600 Yeah. 1.00

00:20:21.920 We're about to tighten up the shit, you know? 1.00

00:20:24.020 I think it's unavoidable. 1.00

00:20:25.200 It happens to every other species on Earth.

00:20:27.980 Every other species' population goes up and down and up and down.

00:20:31.180 Really?

00:20:31.480 Yeah, I mean, like, lynx and snowshoe hares, their populations kind of follow each other.

00:20:36.600 As the hare population gets high, the lynx start producing more kittens and then start eating all the hares and start dying off,

00:20:44.760 and then the lynx have to die off.

00:20:46.380 Everything else goes like that.

00:20:47.720 And if you look at a graph of the human population, since, like, 1700, we've just gone.

00:20:53.460 I mean, climbing.

00:20:54.300 And we've done it by, you know, like, advances in agriculture and medicine and everything,

00:20:59.680 which some of them are great, but we can't keep going forever.

00:21:04.680 Yeah, like, how sustainable is it?

00:21:06.280 It's not at all. 0.98

00:21:07.260 So, that's hard to watch happening, like, and that no one gives a shit, you know? 0.91

00:21:14.000 Like, I'm lucky the time I've had to be out in the wild and get that perspective, 0.96

00:21:19.500 but it makes it harder to be in the civilized world because no one else, like, knows what the hell I'm talking about.

00:21:27.020 Right.

00:21:27.800 Oh, yeah, you start to look like an alien.

00:21:29.720 Yeah, yeah.

00:21:30.200 You start to seem like something that's, it starts to seem like you're the odd man out.

00:21:34.200 Right, exactly.

00:21:34.920 Or when really it's kind of the other way.

00:21:36.940 I mean, I think especially in America, we don't notice that there's more, like, rural living in a lot of other cultures.

00:21:44.280 Yeah.

00:21:44.580 We don't realize that, like, in the whole globe that there's tons of it going on.

00:21:49.160 Yeah.

00:21:49.780 Yeah, like, when people are talking about how we're going to have smart cars driving everybody around here,

00:21:55.340 the rest of the world has no idea that's even being discussed.

00:21:58.480 Right.

00:21:58.920 Except for in big cities, maybe, but, like, yeah.

00:22:02.060 Yeah, it's funny, I go to Illinois, like, in the summer, and they have a small town up there,

00:22:06.320 and they don't even get 4G.

00:22:08.440 Like, it's 3G is what you get on your phone.

00:22:11.120 So it's like, if you want to watch a video, dude, you got to drive with your buddy, you know, 19 minutes, you know,

00:22:17.200 and park outside the McDonald's to catch enough freaking phone heat.

00:22:20.660 So it's like, those people aren't even worried about, and it's more like an agricultural environment in that area.

00:22:27.340 Yeah.

00:22:28.040 But they're not worried about it.

00:22:29.520 Everybody else looks down on them, you know?

00:22:31.500 Yeah.

00:22:31.900 Like, they produce the food we eat.

00:22:34.360 They do all the stuff that we kind of try to get away from having to do ourselves.

00:22:39.560 Yeah.

00:22:39.940 And then we look down on them.

00:22:41.580 It's so wrong.

00:22:42.720 It is crazy.

00:22:43.540 I mean, especially, like, a lot of, like, media and stuff these days.

00:22:45.980 Yeah.

00:22:46.260 Because, you know, I mean, even Alaska, I'm sure.

00:22:48.700 I mean, CNN hates anything that's white, it seems like.

00:22:51.720 So I'm surprised that they even, I'm surprised they're not Alaska deniers.

00:22:56.700 But, yeah, it is.

00:22:59.380 I guess it's like, I mean, you have such an interesting insight into that because you get to see what,

00:23:04.280 it's like you're almost living in two different realms.

00:23:06.780 Totally, yeah, yeah.

00:23:08.140 And just occasionally passing through this one and just being like, what the hell is going on, you know?

00:23:12.900 Wow.

00:23:13.140 Because your layovers are here on your way back to Costa Rica.

00:23:17.780 Basically, between these two kind of remote areas, I pass through places like this.

00:23:23.140 And so I'm away for long enough where things have changed since I last came through, and I can see them.

00:23:28.440 And most of them are alarming.

00:23:30.180 Wow.

00:23:30.800 Like, the Uber drive over here is scarier than any bear encounter I've ever had.

00:23:34.960 Right, yeah.

00:23:37.340 I agree.

00:23:38.300 That's a good call.

00:23:39.200 I mean, like, it's way more dangerous being on a highway here than being up there.

00:23:44.900 And now, so do you just, you must notice so many just like small, like, do you notice that you are alarmed at a personal level?

00:23:51.520 Or do you notice that you are alarmed at a natch, at a level of like, you know, tension in your body or things like that,

00:23:59.140 that from being in the city, like on the Uber drive, for example?

00:24:03.000 Yeah, both, for sure.

00:24:04.620 Like, I definitely feel way more in danger just because we're supposed to know everybody that we interact with.

00:24:11.800 That's how our brains have been for hundreds of thousands of years.

00:24:14.420 Right.

00:24:14.920 So to be in a place where I've got a couple buddies I grew up with that I visit when I'm here, other than that, everybody's a stranger.

00:24:23.620 Yeah, it is kind of wild to think of how many strangers you run across and run past.

00:24:29.060 Yeah.

00:24:30.040 So, and like, people are great generally, but you just, I think, evolutionarily, in the back of your mind, you're not at ease, or at least I'm not, you know?

00:24:39.080 Yeah.

00:24:39.360 And I think, you know, we're an ape, but we're obviously super adaptable, so most people have adapted to deal with that pretty fine.

00:24:49.160 And, yeah, not me.

00:24:51.080 Do you feel like we're definitely apes?

00:24:52.880 You have no doubt about it?

00:24:54.160 No doubt, yeah.

00:24:55.140 Anybody who thinks we're not just hasn't thought about it enough, I think.

00:24:59.600 But don't you think, man, you got to think, if we're an ape, like, I've never looked at an ape, like, for example, I've never been to the zoo and been like, you know, miss the old place, you know?

00:25:11.280 Like, nowhere in my body does that reflect, and I'm not saying, I think maybe we might be monkeys that God created, you know?

00:25:18.900 Like, I think maybe, I mean, do you think we're really an ape?

00:25:24.620 Have you ever smelled your armpit, like, after a nice hike?

00:25:28.680 Yeah, a little bit when I was younger, you know?

00:25:31.760 I mean, I get the hang of it now, kind of, but, oh.

00:25:36.300 Yeah, I mean, like, you watch how we behave in groups and.

00:25:40.860 Very much like apes?

00:25:42.600 Exactly, as apes.

00:25:43.600 Like, it's a miracle any time we act above an ape, I think.

00:25:48.420 It's a miracle.

00:25:49.440 Yeah.

00:25:49.980 And it doesn't happen that often. 0.97

00:25:51.900 Oh, I am, the more that I, I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and then I'll go around to different places, then I'm like, damn. 0.95

00:25:59.260 It's really hard to keep doing this. 0.97

00:26:00.920 Yeah, yeah.

00:26:01.780 You know, people, like, we will constantly let each other down.

00:26:04.880 Yeah, yeah, it's terrible.

00:26:06.000 But that's because there's so many of us so crowded in that we don't mean anything to each other.

00:26:12.660 Right, yeah, that's a, and that's a great statement.

00:26:14.540 That's exactly what I feel like here all the time.

00:26:16.220 Yeah.

00:26:16.520 So when you're in a small community where you're kind of interdependent, that's how we're programmed to function.

00:26:23.340 Like, in a group of apes, non-human apes or human apes, like, everybody's supposed to have a role.

00:26:30.940 Yeah.

00:26:31.220 And everybody kind of does something that contributes to the group every day.

00:26:35.340 So in larger cities, you're going to have a lot of people that they don't, they may have a role, but they're, it's not as prominent, or it's not as defined, or maybe they can't find their role.

00:26:47.620 Yeah, it's, yeah.

00:26:48.680 And so you probably didn't create a lot of depression, I would bet.

00:26:51.420 Exactly, yeah.

00:26:52.160 So it's not surprising to me at all how much depression there is and how people are so disconnected.

00:26:58.500 It's totally logical.

00:27:00.460 Right.

00:27:00.760 You know.

00:27:01.600 Because we're in, no, I like thinking about this, this is interesting.

00:27:04.260 Yeah, because in cities, it's so funny, when I go home or I go someplace else, even when I go to other places in the U.S. even, I just feel somewhat, the second I leave here, I feel so much more relaxed.

00:27:13.860 Yeah?

00:27:14.520 Yeah, man.

00:27:15.260 It just, I just feel better.

00:27:17.100 Yeah.

00:27:17.520 You know, I just feel like, yeah, I don't know.

00:27:21.080 I just don't feel like, I have to just, I feel like I have to fight so hard here to just be a person, you know?

00:27:27.680 Yeah, you do.

00:27:28.320 And it's just taxing.

00:27:29.880 Yeah.

00:27:30.160 After a while.

00:27:30.940 It's real frenetic here.

00:27:32.620 There's no quiet, there's no darkness at night, there's all the light pollution, like it's so against how we're, how we spent so much time being, just in this recent fraction of modern times, is the only time we've gotten.

00:27:47.360 That we're like this.

00:27:48.200 Yeah.

00:27:48.500 Yeah, it's gotten so fast, too.

00:27:50.020 Yeah.

00:27:50.460 What do you think are going to be some of the side effects of some of this that we're going

00:27:53.560 to see?

00:27:53.780 I mean, obviously we're seeing a lot of them now with like depression.

00:27:56.060 Yeah.

00:27:56.320 You know, people not feeling like they fit into the world, which makes sense.

00:27:59.880 Yeah.

00:27:59.960 It's like, how could you feel like you fit in when there's so many people all clogged together

00:28:04.380 and our genetics haven't really caught up to this new way of living?

00:28:09.420 Yeah.

00:28:09.680 Yeah, I don't know, man.

00:28:13.480 That's the thing is I have no answer for it.

00:28:16.440 Even after all this time, it still boggles my mind.

00:28:19.760 And I see no way out of it other than just each person trying to do good things where they

00:28:27.400 can, on a scale that they can see the results of, you know?

00:28:31.900 Oh, yeah.

00:28:32.240 You know, so like these, we always think of these problems as big global issues, but they're

00:28:38.400 local issues.

00:28:39.620 Right.

00:28:39.800 Just piled on top of each other and they're all results of individual people's decisions,

00:28:44.920 you know?

00:28:45.080 Yeah.

00:28:45.560 So like, you can't.

00:28:47.960 Yeah, I think that way all the time.

00:28:48.820 Yeah.

00:28:49.180 You can't solve a big global issue.

00:28:51.140 You can just see work that needs to be done, do it, and hope that you live to see the results

00:28:57.160 or that your kids do or something, but even that, we're, being an ape, we're not programmed

00:29:03.680 to think that far.

00:29:05.020 Possibly be an ape.

00:29:05.700 Yeah, yeah.

00:29:06.500 It's still a fair debate.

00:29:07.900 I mean, it's just like, here's the thing, dude, I've never seen an ape and been like,

00:29:11.420 oh, yeah, you know?

00:29:13.020 Really?

00:29:13.780 My buddy.

00:29:14.580 Really? 1.00

00:29:15.000 Fuck no, dude. 1.00

00:29:17.420 Fuck no, I haven't. 1.00

00:29:18.520 You gotta go to the zoo again, man. 1.00

00:29:21.160 Bro, I've been over there, man.

00:29:22.680 I've been over there.

00:29:23.560 But I've never seen an ape, yeah, not once have I looked at an ape and been like, oh,

00:29:28.460 man, yeah.

00:29:29.660 Wonder what the boys are up to. 1.00

00:29:31.880 Fuck no, man. 1.00

00:29:33.880 I'm not saying that it's not a possibility, but you're out in nature, you're out in the 1.00

00:29:43.480 expanse of probably some of the most beautiful places you could probably see.

00:29:46.740 Is that true, or is it just disgusting?

00:29:48.620 No. 0.97

00:29:48.760 Is it barren up there, and is it miserable? 1.00

00:29:51.500 It's both.

00:29:52.500 Okay.

00:29:52.920 Yeah.

00:29:53.180 Like, the mosquitoes in Alaska in the summertime, I don't know if you know, but it's insane.

00:29:58.040 Oh, yeah.

00:29:58.460 Like, you have to wear-

00:29:59.080 And that's not a racial slur, he's talking about the actual animal.

00:30:02.640 Yeah.

00:30:02.980 You have to wear headnets and stuff.

00:30:04.880 Really?

00:30:05.220 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:30:06.600 But there's no humidity, right?

00:30:09.180 It's pretty dry, but with all the snow melt, that melts in the spring, and the mosquitoes have

00:30:15.580 laid their eggs in those areas, and they kind of start hatching out.

00:30:19.160 But there's videos that have been shot up where I work, where you will not believe the amount

00:30:23.260 of mosquitoes.

00:30:24.580 So-

00:30:25.060 Oh, you got to go to Jefferson Parish, dude, in Louisiana, bro.

00:30:27.520 Uh-huh.

00:30:27.580 They have debt.

00:30:28.520 I mean, we'd go toe-to-toe with you.

00:30:30.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:30:30.120 They should have a contest, yeah.

00:30:31.060 Yeah.

00:30:31.180 Where we bring our mosquitoes, and you bring yours, and we watch them fight or something

00:30:36.380 over there in Reno.

00:30:37.080 Then they hybridize.

00:30:38.300 Yeah.

00:30:38.600 Look at that.

00:30:38.800 Oh, you have it.

00:30:39.360 Wow.

00:30:42.520 Oh, my God. 0.99

00:30:45.800 This looks like a big orgy or something. 0.99

00:30:47.740 It is, yeah. 0.98

00:30:48.960 Yeah.

00:30:49.960 But so, like-

00:30:50.800 But, well, hold on a second, because there's two things I'm thinking.

00:30:56.140 One, are mosquitoes like little bitty birds?

00:30:58.020 I know they're insects, but are they similar to birds or not?

00:31:00.200 They fly, and some people say it's the Alaska State bird, you know, some bumper stickers

00:31:05.140 with that on.

00:31:05.700 Okay.

00:31:06.080 So, that's evidence, right?

00:31:07.020 But as far as, like, genetically, and like, are they similar?

00:31:11.680 Not really.

00:31:13.820 No.

00:31:14.680 Okay.

00:31:16.960 Kind of buzzkill a little.

00:31:18.580 Yeah.

00:31:19.020 Literally.

00:31:19.260 No pun intended.

00:31:20.260 Yeah.

00:31:20.800 Yeah.

00:31:21.640 Wow.

00:31:22.280 Nick, what is it?

00:31:23.680 Spicy there today.

00:31:25.620 No pun intended on the buzzkill, man.

00:31:27.580 Yeah.

00:31:27.680 That's good.

00:31:28.340 Yeah.

00:31:28.520 And some, I repeated it, because some of our listeners still didn't get it.

00:31:32.280 That's the only reason.

00:31:33.060 And I don't think if I fully got it.

00:31:35.200 But that's a, it's a fair point.

00:31:37.620 Like, there's great beauty up there.

00:31:39.820 It's magnificent, Lancey.

00:31:40.720 But wouldn't that beauty make you think, like, okay, there's a higher power.

00:31:43.780 There's something creating.

00:31:45.000 I mean, yeah, there's something, there's something bigger going on.

00:31:47.620 There's something creating all this.

00:31:49.220 Yeah.

00:31:49.560 I don't know.

00:31:50.220 I just, with that question, I always just end up saying, I don't know, and I don't know

00:31:54.680 if it even matters, like, here we are.

00:31:57.400 Right.

00:31:57.960 Right.

00:31:58.320 It's a good point.

00:31:58.940 Yeah.

00:31:59.140 Like, basing your whole existence on that seems kind of intense.

00:32:02.820 Yeah.

00:32:03.140 I'm thinking that you know which one of the many thousands of answers is the right one.

00:32:07.440 It's kind of weird.

00:32:08.000 But do you, but when you're in some of those spaces and it's so natural and it's so quiet

00:32:15.280 and you have the ability to even hear your own heartbeat, like, it must be, like, almost

00:32:20.380 like a really intense meditation that goes on at, like, a core level or at, like, a level

00:32:24.340 of even your cells that you can't even really fathom, probably a level of, like, peacefulness

00:32:29.620 and stuff.

00:32:30.180 Yeah.

00:32:30.520 Do you, does that make you feel, like, what insight do you get to, is there, like, something

00:32:38.120 bigger going on here or is there, do you feel, like, a part of something bigger or do you

00:32:43.720 just feel, like, really small?

00:32:46.480 Does it?

00:32:47.560 You definitely feel more part of the big picture, but you also feel small because you are a tiny

00:32:55.280 part of a giant picture.

00:32:56.840 Right.

00:32:56.980 You know?

00:32:57.920 So.

00:32:58.200 Because especially if you're studying nature and stuff like that, you're really, I mean,

00:33:01.800 you're right there on the food chain.

00:33:02.980 I mean, you're basically.

00:33:04.080 Yeah.

00:33:04.360 You know.

00:33:05.200 And, yeah, I've been charged by bears.

00:33:06.780 You're polished in the food chain, really.

00:33:08.320 Yeah.

00:33:09.240 I've been charged by bears, muskox. 1.00

00:33:11.580 I had an incident with a swan, you know.

00:33:14.800 Now, what do you mean when you say you had an incident with a swan? 1.00

00:33:17.300 I mean, I've had, I've had, I mean, I've had a couple, I had some fucking shit go off 0.98

00:33:22.040 in Oregon one time, but, you know, I was trying to jog in these. 0.99

00:33:26.160 Dude, when some of those animals group up, they get real violent.

00:33:28.500 They do, yeah.

00:33:29.280 It's like Antifa almost or something.

00:33:30.840 Yeah.

00:33:31.120 Yeah.

00:33:31.420 You know?

00:33:32.420 Yeah.

00:33:33.500 Yeah.

00:33:33.860 They definitely find strength in numbers.

00:33:37.460 And you really, you went toe to toe with a swan up there?

00:33:40.740 I went hand to neck with a swan.

00:33:42.800 You killed it? 0.99

00:33:43.600 Yeah. 0.98

00:33:44.160 Yeah.

00:33:44.380 I choked it out. 1.00

00:33:45.480 Damn, boy. 1.00

00:33:46.640 That's what I'm saying, dude. 1.00

00:33:47.900 Poirier over Khabib, bro. 0.96

00:33:49.360 That's what I'm going with right there.

00:33:51.160 It nearly got the best of me, though.

00:33:52.800 Did it really?

00:33:52.960 They're like this tall, yeah.

00:33:55.960 And the wings are probably more than six feet across.

00:33:58.820 Oh, yeah.

00:33:59.400 And, yeah.

00:34:00.400 Jesus.

00:34:01.120 Yeah.

00:34:01.600 So, and what do they do?

00:34:02.780 How do they come in?

00:34:03.540 Like, what's their attack?

00:34:04.400 They're mostly body work.

00:34:06.680 Is it really?

00:34:07.360 Yeah. 0.99

00:34:10.260 Bro, how is that not a fucking sport? 0.99

00:34:13.400 There have been so many, dude, I remember they used to have this group in a, you know, 0.97

00:34:16.440 I use this term, I don't know, loosely or however I use it, but they used to have a group that

00:34:20.700 would come through our college in town called, it was fag fist fights, right? 0.99

00:34:24.600 And it was gay men that would fist fight each other in a boxing ring. 0.99

00:34:28.140 And you'd pay for it at the bar. 0.83

00:34:29.480 You'd pay $6 or something, and you got a beer, and you got to watch these guys go at it.

00:34:33.280 And, but I would pay anything to watch, you know, a biologist and a four and a half foot

00:34:42.900 swan.

00:34:44.460 Figuring things out.

00:34:45.420 Go toe to toe, dude.

00:34:46.680 Yeah.

00:34:47.340 What's something, so a lot of, do they strike at you?

00:34:49.680 What do they do?

00:34:50.160 Do they nip at you with the beak? 0.98

00:34:52.060 Yeah, I got it by the neck right away, so it couldn't get me with the beak, but it was

00:34:57.200 hissing at me.

00:34:58.000 Nick wants to bet on this.

00:34:59.640 Nick loves to bet on fights.

00:35:01.020 And the fact that it went to the body first, that's always the best strategy.

00:35:04.460 Yeah, yeah, I was taken aback.

00:35:07.180 But, yeah, so I had it by the neck, and it was beating me with its wings. 0.93

00:35:11.260 Wow.

00:35:11.440 And it's kind of disorienting.

00:35:13.040 Now, that's a good term, disorienting.

00:35:14.740 So does it feel, like, painful, or does it feel, like, scary?

00:35:17.560 Kind of scary, just because I thought, you know, I had shot it once, and that was the

00:35:22.880 last bullet we had.

00:35:24.260 Where'd you shoot it? 0.96

00:35:25.020 You just shoot it point blank, or how'd you shoot it?

00:35:26.580 No, it was in the, it was in the back.

00:35:29.700 Jesus Christ, dude.

00:35:31.020 Like, The Coward of Jesse James.

00:35:32.500 Have you seen that movie? 1.00

00:35:34.860 Man, sorry to call you out, dude, but damn, bro. 0.98

00:35:37.200 I know, but dude, we had no more food, and we had another week to go out there, so what 0.98

00:35:42.080 are you going to do?

00:35:42.820 Look, man, I feel you.

00:35:45.020 What is it?

00:35:45.380 Oh, The Assassination of Jeffy James. 0.98

00:35:47.200 By the coward Robert Ford. 0.97

00:35:48.440 Yeah. 0.99

00:35:48.920 Yeah, I know.

00:35:49.460 I'm not proud.

00:35:50.320 I'm not proud. 1.00

00:35:51.080 Damn. 1.00

00:35:52.560 You shot him in the back. 1.00

00:35:55.640 It was trying to get away, but...

00:35:58.020 So your food was that vital at that point?

00:35:59.960 Yeah.

00:36:00.280 I mean, we had this guy, this pilot was supposed to fly over, drop off two dry bags full of

00:36:06.020 food, and he was supposed to get 100 feet off the water, but because of the weather, he

00:36:10.860 was 500 feet up, so these dry bags hit the water, exploded.

00:36:14.260 Denzel Washington right there.

00:36:15.800 Yeah.

00:36:16.000 I've seen that.

00:36:16.560 So all we could salvage, we ran out into the river and we're trying to grab what we

00:36:20.960 could, but it was going away pretty quickly.

00:36:23.000 We got a small bottle of whiskey that the pilot had included for us just to be nice.

00:36:27.960 Wow.

00:36:28.520 And a couple fruit cups, I think.

00:36:31.080 And so that's your rations for what, the next week?

00:36:35.260 It would have been, yeah, yeah.

00:36:36.720 A week and a half, I think. 1.00

00:36:38.280 So now you're like, damn. 0.99

00:36:40.240 Yeah, we were in trouble. 0.99

00:36:41.020 So, and we were, you know, probably a couple hundred miles outside of Fairbanks, I think.

00:36:46.860 So there's no getting out of there, and we're up a tiny little river where you have to float

00:36:51.660 all the way down to get to a place where a plane, a float plane can come get you.

00:36:56.120 And so, yeah, we just had to start hunting grouse and geese and ducks and whatever there

00:37:01.320 was, but we had a limited, we weren't planning on hunting.

00:37:04.520 We have guns for bear protection, so we didn't have that many bullets, you know?

00:37:08.680 Yeah.

00:37:09.000 So you had to, did you guys miss a couple times, or did you?

00:37:13.400 No, no, we were pretty good. 0.85

00:37:15.360 And is it a pistol, you walking right up on them and shooting them in the back, or is 0.93

00:37:18.660 it you shooting from far away? 0.97

00:37:19.720 No, it was a shotgun.

00:37:20.100 Okay.

00:37:20.520 Yeah.

00:37:22.020 Jesus, man.

00:37:23.380 Yeah, and we were in.

00:37:24.480 That kind of makes me sad a little.

00:37:25.960 Yeah.

00:37:26.420 Some grouse out there chilling, dude, you know?

00:37:28.860 Maybe having a cigarette or just relaxing.

00:37:30.960 Yeah, looking at the foliage. 0.99

00:37:34.480 Yeah, thinking about owning land one day, and you fucking just come up and blow them in the 0.99

00:37:38.500 back. 0.99

00:37:39.460 They're, grouse aren't that smart, like, yeah, I've hunted them before, and they'll

00:37:43.100 get into a tree, and they don't realize that they don't blend in with the tree.

00:37:47.180 They blend it in when they're on the ground, but then they're in a tree, and you can see

00:37:50.980 they're.

00:37:51.100 Pretending like they're blending?

00:37:51.720 They think they still blend in, and they're like, I see you, man.

00:37:54.760 That's the story of my life, I feel like.

00:37:57.520 They think they're all slick looking at you.

00:38:00.460 Yeah.

00:38:01.320 Now, what about the fox, man?

00:38:02.700 We had a fox in school when I was young, and somebody stole it, right?

00:38:05.880 Uh-huh.

00:38:06.140 And I knew it was going to happen.

00:38:08.480 But what about the fox?

00:38:11.300 Are they out there still?

00:38:12.340 Yeah, there's red foxes up there, the occasional arctic fox.

00:38:15.880 Wow, that's good to hear, man.

00:38:17.100 They're cool to see.

00:38:18.500 You watch them hunting voles through the snow in the spring, and they're walking along on

00:38:23.820 top of the snow, and then they'll cock their head and kind of triangulate the sound.

00:38:28.480 They're hearing the vole moving under the snow.

00:38:30.480 Then they pop up into the air and dive into the snow, and probably six times out of ten,

00:38:36.200 they come up with the vole.

00:38:37.660 It's like Iwo Jima, dude.

00:38:38.720 Have you guys seen that D-Day or whatever?

00:38:43.620 That's insane, man.

00:38:44.600 Is that one of the most unique hunting techniques that you see out there?

00:38:47.820 Definitely, yeah.

00:38:48.680 Yeah, that's one of the few species I've actually got to see hunting.

00:38:52.220 Even all this time up there, I've seen wolves chasing a caribou once.

00:38:56.960 Wow, look at that fox.

00:38:58.260 And they're good jumpers, huh?

00:38:59.600 Yeah.

00:39:01.140 People don't realize that.

00:39:02.440 They're like the Greg Luganus of the animal kingdom.

00:39:05.460 Look at that.

00:39:06.480 So they hear the rodent under the snow, and then they get that lift and just hit them.

00:39:12.780 Yeah. 1.00

00:39:13.240 Damn. 1.00

00:39:13.960 Yeah. 0.99

00:39:14.960 They triangulate the location, and then I don't know how.

00:39:18.480 They do that math in their head, huh?

00:39:20.120 Yeah.

00:39:20.480 Shut it down.

00:39:20.920 A little light technology.

00:39:22.220 Wow.

00:39:24.040 It's pretty wild.

00:39:25.400 Now, what are some of the larger animals that you'll see up there in the area that you're in?

00:39:28.400 Grizzly bears, the occasional moose, muskox, caribou.

00:39:33.160 Those are the big ones.

00:39:33.980 Which ones are the most friendly do you find to humans?

00:39:37.680 Or even maybe overall?

00:39:39.720 Can animals do?

00:39:41.120 Some of them can seem friendly.

00:39:42.200 Like a dog can seem real friendly.

00:39:43.560 Yeah.

00:39:43.840 You know, are any of those larger animals you see up there friendly?

00:39:48.120 Caribou aren't unfriendly.

00:39:51.440 You can trick them to come closer to you by putting your arms up, and it kind of looks like a pair of antlers.

00:39:56.880 And either their eyesight's not that good, or they're not that bright, but they'll start walking towards you wondering if they're going to fight you or try to copulate.

00:40:06.500 Oh, yeah.

00:40:06.860 It's like a drunk uncle almost, I feel like.

00:40:08.740 That's what I say, like a little, you know?

00:40:11.140 Yeah.

00:40:12.720 So, caribou, you can kind of get near.

00:40:14.860 Yeah.

00:40:15.500 Muskox, you can get near.

00:40:16.720 They don't know what's going on.

00:40:18.260 They're just eating vegetation and staying put pretty much.

00:40:22.600 They don't move a lot.

00:40:24.320 Do you get a sense of what the Ice Age was like and stuff when you're up there?

00:40:32.720 Yeah.

00:40:32.820 Do you start to get a sense of, wow, what people have gone through over history and stuff like that?

00:40:37.580 Yeah, you'll find not only fossils from 300 million years ago of coral and stuff when it used to be under the ocean up there.

00:40:46.340 Yeah.

00:40:47.540 But then you'll also very rarely find artifacts from native folks from 10,000 years ago or whatever.

00:40:54.020 I found a little spearhead sitting on top of this little knoll.

00:40:58.660 I went up there because it looked like a good viewpoint, and I'm sitting there looking for animals and stuff, and then I see sitting next to me this spear point.

00:41:06.180 So, someone else thought it was a good viewpoint also 10,000 years ago.

00:41:10.440 No one else went up there since.

00:41:12.140 Wow.

00:41:12.620 Yeah.

00:41:13.040 That's crazy.

00:41:14.100 Yeah.

00:41:15.360 So, yeah, it's amazing knowing that people.

00:41:18.080 It's so human.

00:41:18.720 Something like that is very human.

00:41:19.860 Yeah.

00:41:19.960 I bet it.

00:41:21.020 Yeah.

00:41:21.380 I would feel so like, wow, like I'm a part of something.

00:41:25.140 Yeah.

00:41:25.460 Very long.

00:41:26.440 Yeah.

00:41:27.260 And then you go back to the station and eat raviolis.

00:41:30.340 Yeah.

00:41:30.460 And you lose a connection.

00:41:31.800 You're like, man, I'm a part of it.

00:41:32.760 Yeah.

00:41:33.840 You cut that microwave on and it really kind of shuts down those inner beacons, huh?

00:41:38.700 Yeah.

00:41:39.100 Yeah, I guess it's like, it's hard to not be stuck sometimes, though, in this society

00:41:44.780 that we're in, though.

00:41:45.420 That's the thing.

00:41:46.200 Do you blame humans?

00:41:47.340 Do you blame businesses?

00:41:48.980 Do you blame, is there any blame?

00:41:51.360 Is it just the, like, where we are kind of like, and this isn't everyone.

00:41:55.480 Obviously, this is more cities than rural areas.

00:41:57.560 Yeah, I think it's the natural tendency for most animals to try to make their situation

00:42:03.260 easier, not necessarily better, or maybe in a certain definition, but easier.

00:42:09.620 Like, if a dog gets unlimited food, they might just eat themselves into obesity, right?

00:42:15.840 Yeah.

00:42:16.560 And it's not good for them, but they might, if they could articulate their thoughts, they

00:42:21.340 might be like, well, it's all this food.

00:42:22.640 It'd be good if I ate it.

00:42:23.800 You know, maybe there won't be later.

00:42:24.980 So, I think every little incremental change along the way has seemed like a benefit to

00:42:32.820 us, and it has been in a sense, but there are always unforeseen effects that come off

00:42:38.280 of it that you can't predict, and by the time they're really prevalent, you're already

00:42:43.780 too far used to the thing that you can't really think about going back, you know what

00:42:48.360 I mean?

00:42:48.720 Ah, yeah.

00:42:49.760 Yeah, if you get used to, like, doing Halloween and they tell you no.

00:42:53.420 Yeah, exactly.

00:42:54.220 Dude, you're going to be, you're still going to be, you'll lay on the porch forever, you

00:42:57.520 know, just expecting candy.

00:42:58.600 Yeah, yeah.

00:42:59.260 Yeah.

00:43:00.180 Yeah.

00:43:00.700 So, that's the hardest thing is, like.

00:43:03.100 I can totally see that, and it's really interesting because then even as humans, we have the addictive

00:43:07.460 personality.

00:43:08.280 Yeah, totally.

00:43:08.800 We have the ability, the easy ability to, like, that sugar lizard that just gets with,

00:43:12.840 you know, just grasp the easiest first thing.

00:43:15.320 Yeah, yeah.

00:43:16.000 It's like you really have to fight that instinct these days in order to get to a more natural

00:43:22.180 state of yourself.

00:43:23.980 Yeah.

00:43:24.680 And most people aren't interested in that at all, like, would never spend five minutes

00:43:29.040 even thinking about it.

00:43:30.220 Right.

00:43:30.840 Isn't that baffling sometimes?

00:43:32.300 It is, yeah.

00:43:33.300 Because I think a lot of times that we're all on this struggle where we're trying to,

00:43:37.220 we're trying, we're trying our best, you know?

00:43:39.560 Yeah.

00:43:39.660 We know that some of the stuff you're saying, we get it, we can feel it, you know?

00:43:42.940 We know that I'm taking these easy way outs here and there, and I know it's not benefiting

00:43:47.300 me at, like, a level inside of me.

00:43:50.280 But, but then you see some people and you're like, oh, they don't, they don't stand a chance.

00:43:55.620 Yeah.

00:43:56.160 Not this, maybe their next generation or two might, but whoever this person is, you know,

00:44:01.260 I've seen some people wandering around a gas station sometime, like, oh, this dude,

00:44:04.680 you know, he'll stay in here forever, dude.

00:44:06.460 He's going to eat one of those hot dogs.

00:44:07.760 Yeah, bro.

00:44:08.540 He's going to eat 100 of them.

00:44:10.560 You know, this dude will be in here forever.

00:44:12.280 Yeah.

00:44:12.660 You know, this dude will lay on the grill after a while.

00:44:15.440 Thinking it's a tanning booth?

00:44:16.600 Oh, he's going to change his name to Frank.

00:44:18.040 Yeah, it'll just never end, bro.

00:44:19.460 This dude will feed himself to his own family.

00:44:21.120 Like, you know what I'm saying?

00:44:22.000 Like, it's just, you meet people that are like, and it's not their fault, really.

00:44:25.500 It's just maybe where they are genetically.

00:44:27.320 Yeah.

00:44:27.700 It's like, oh, they're.

00:44:28.720 Or it's the culture where if everybody's doing this one thing, it's so hard to go against the grain.

00:44:33.500 And that's the biggest part of the trouble is that the way I talk about things, a lot of people say, like, what, do you want to go back to the 1700s?

00:44:45.100 No.

00:44:45.660 Like, there were good things we gave up along the way that we shouldn't have given up.

00:44:49.540 Like, the great things we've come up with in medicine.

00:44:51.880 Yeah, like witchcraft, I think, bro, to be honest with you.

00:44:54.740 Yeah, probably better.

00:44:55.360 Yeah, sorry.

00:44:56.260 I don't know why I keep looking at these guys.

00:44:57.680 They're not laughing at any of my jokes either.

00:44:59.360 I'm joking.

00:44:59.940 You're doing a good job.

00:45:00.780 Gianni's not.

00:45:01.760 Yeah, it's true.

00:45:03.500 We've created a real totalitarian environment that we're not very proud of sometimes.

00:45:09.760 But so isn't it crazy to think then that, like, we're, it's like survival of what will be the fittest then moving forward?

00:45:21.680 Is it people that are able to realize that, like, not to give in to all the comforts that are able to have some awareness?

00:45:32.180 Yeah.

00:45:32.620 Or what is the next survival of the fittest?

00:45:34.120 Because survival of the fittest used to be it was the strongest.

00:45:36.580 Yeah.

00:45:36.980 Right?

00:45:37.400 And it was often sometimes the craftiest, too.

00:45:39.600 Yeah, definitely.

00:45:40.020 But you had to also, like, you had to align yourself with somebody that was strength because you would need that support.

00:45:45.940 But now I'm wondering what it's becoming in our society, in America anyway.

00:45:51.140 Yeah.

00:45:51.400 I feel like we're adapted to get the next generation going, but not really anything beyond that, which logically we shouldn't be programmed to think that far into the future.

00:46:01.840 Because every other animal just tries to get the next generation out, and then they've done their part, you know. 0.99

00:46:09.680 Forget what the hell I was, where I was going with that.

00:46:11.920 That's fine.

00:46:12.720 Happens to me in the middle of every sentence, dude.

00:46:14.940 Imagine running into a room to tell people something and they're forgetting what it was.

00:46:18.360 Just looking excited.

00:46:19.380 Well, that's how I feel every single sentence.

00:46:21.140 It's like, dang, dude, this is going to be good.

00:46:23.640 And then you're just standing there with a murder weapon in your hand. 1.00

00:46:27.380 You're like, fuck, man. 1.00

00:46:28.700 I need a preposition. 1.00

00:46:30.260 You know?

00:46:30.900 It gets a little alarming.

00:46:33.260 What do you guys got over here?

00:46:35.380 Nick, Gianni, what's going on?

00:46:37.400 When you're up in Alaska away from people that long, and then you come back, do you find it hard to communicate with people?

00:46:44.840 A little bit, yeah.

00:46:46.020 I think because I work alone most of the time up there, and I have my thoughts, you know, on tumble dry up top, yeah, it can be weird trying to articulate these kind of ideas, I guess. 0.99

00:46:58.880 And do people seem stupid? 0.99

00:47:03.960 That's a good question. 1.00

00:47:05.080 Yeah, do people seem stupid? 0.99

00:47:05.940 When you come back to us, like when you come back to like, you know? 0.99

00:47:09.180 No, like it's not stupid at all because you guys are well adapted to your situation here, you know?

00:47:16.340 Like maybe not long term as a species, but everybody's just kind of doing what they got to do, you know?

00:47:23.780 And L.A. is a short term environment.

00:47:25.500 It has, it must, I feel like it screams that.

00:47:27.980 Yeah, definitely.

00:47:28.600 Like people are here passing through to get enough to get to the next whatever they would rather be doing or an environment that would be more comfortable.

00:47:35.580 Yeah.

00:47:35.600 It's really a, almost for all, for the entire world, this is almost just like an airport, it feels like.

00:47:41.500 It is, yeah.

00:47:42.520 You know, it even never ends.

00:47:43.600 It feels like we're still in just like a very far terminal of the airport right here.

00:47:47.300 We're a podcast.

00:47:48.300 And even when I'm at my apartment, it feels like that.

00:47:50.660 I'm like, man, I'll just never leave the airport.

00:47:52.720 Yeah.

00:47:53.140 You know, it just never ends here.

00:47:54.560 What is amazing about L.A. is how quickly you can get way away from here.

00:47:59.860 Like the hike I went on yesterday with my buddy up in the San Gabriel Mountains, I guess.

00:48:05.920 Is it Eagle Rock or something?

00:48:07.060 It was Dawson Saddle up to Thoop Peak, I think. 0.99

00:48:12.040 Damn. 0.97

00:48:12.880 Which is up at like 9,000 something hundred feet. 0.99

00:48:15.620 It's gorgeous up there.

00:48:16.680 And we maybe passed 10 people on the trail in four or five hours.

00:48:21.220 And to you, that was busy.

00:48:22.620 It was, yeah.

00:48:23.320 It's like this place is bumper to bumper.

00:48:27.220 But you can get up to that peak and look.

00:48:29.700 You can have a 360 view of everything way out to, I don't know if it's Palmdale, where

00:48:34.780 it's just flat desert out that way.

00:48:37.280 I've been to Eagle Rock or something out there before.

00:48:39.920 It was about an hour and 40 minute drive to get out there.

00:48:43.760 But it was gorgeous.

00:48:45.380 Was there a chairlift that if you wanted to, like it was around there in that area?

00:48:48.540 We passed some chairlifts.

00:48:49.920 Yeah.

00:48:50.260 I think I've been up that hike before.

00:48:51.900 It was absolutely amazing.

00:48:52.800 Yeah.

00:48:53.320 And you can see L.A. and downtown in the distance in the smog.

00:48:56.660 And it's just like all of that is happening down there.

00:48:59.880 I know.

00:49:00.100 And nobody's up here.

00:49:01.940 It's crazy, huh?

00:49:02.900 Yeah.

00:49:03.160 Some cool birds.

00:49:03.860 Some dirty bird species up there.

00:49:05.460 Pygmy nuthatch. 0.99

00:49:06.640 Really?

00:49:07.260 Bush tit.

00:49:08.100 Oh, dude. 1.00

00:49:09.360 I'll show you some fucking bush tits right over here off the 101. 1.00

00:49:13.780 Williamson sapsucker. 1.00

00:49:15.040 Mixing some.

00:49:15.840 Definitely not on the work computers, though.

00:49:18.760 That's the rules we have going on around here, bro.

00:49:23.200 National Geographic.

00:49:25.220 Oh, dude.

00:49:25.880 I remember jerking off back in the day to National Geographic, you know? 0.90

00:49:29.240 There's a dark tit near a fire. 0.78

00:49:31.360 It was no wonder I ended up like I did.

00:49:33.860 That's a beautiful bird, isn't it?

00:49:35.440 Yeah.

00:49:36.120 Wow, that's beautiful.

00:49:37.520 Yeah.

00:49:37.840 Do you think, like, do you get a sense when you're up there by other animals that they

00:49:43.840 know that you're a human?

00:49:44.980 Do they know, like, do they think that you're like an anomaly or like an abnormality, do you

00:49:49.820 think, like?

00:49:50.500 It is kind of weird because, yeah, they're not evolved to know what we are.

00:49:55.220 I guess, you know, native people have been there for 10,000 years, so maybe that's enough 0.75

00:49:59.740 for some of them.

00:50:00.500 Most of them run away like they seem to understand that whatever you are, it's probably not good.

00:50:04.820 But I've had birds laying on my head, you know?

00:50:09.000 Oh, that's cool.

00:50:09.860 Yeah.

00:50:10.100 So there's some animals that seem to see you as, like, something to land on, I guess.

00:50:14.840 Do you find that animals are still, like, curious about it?

00:50:17.400 Like, do you find that they're curious a little bit?

00:50:19.260 Like, what are animals like, kind of?

00:50:21.100 They're mostly just minding their own business and trying not to get eaten by something.

00:50:27.500 You know, like, you ever watch a bird eating?

00:50:30.160 They're just looking up every two seconds.

00:50:32.360 Like, they'll take a bite and then look up, and they just can't relax.

00:50:36.020 Yeah.

00:50:36.540 That's hectic.

00:50:37.040 So I feel bad for them.

00:50:38.660 Yeah.

00:50:38.800 And then the migration, you know, like, they migrate using the celestial sky, so they orient

00:50:45.780 themselves to the stars and migrate that way.

00:50:48.840 Really?

00:50:49.220 Yeah.

00:50:49.700 So they operate totally, their migration patterns, they base those after looking at the stars

00:50:54.660 and seeing what's going on?

00:50:55.440 They know where the North Star is, and they orient based on that.

00:51:00.340 So they have these kind of, like, tracks in their genetics, basically.

00:51:04.680 Some of them have it in there, and some of them learn it.

00:51:07.720 But that's, it's sad, because, like, all these cities and all this light pollution totally

00:51:13.820 disorients them.

00:51:15.180 Yeah. 0.77

00:51:15.520 You got a couple of sparrows jerking off outside of Detroit for no reason.

00:51:19.420 Yeah.

00:51:19.720 They got to move it along.

00:51:21.500 But, like...

00:51:21.840 But, no, I could totally imagine that.

00:51:23.200 Yeah, like, how we're damaging, like, how we're, like, we don't even realize the effects

00:51:28.140 that we're having.

00:51:28.660 Not at all.

00:51:29.340 Yeah, because most people never would have a reason to stop and think about it.

00:51:33.840 Like, the Twin Tower Memorial in New York, they have these two pillars of light that they

00:51:40.100 put up around that time, I think, in late September.

00:51:43.180 And that's right during bird migration.

00:51:45.120 And there's videos of literally hundreds and thousands of birds flying around and around

00:51:50.460 and around and falling to their death.

00:51:53.120 And if they see a certain number of birds up there in the lights, they'll shut them off

00:51:56.960 for a half an hour.

00:51:58.360 But just that alone is killing probably thousands of birds a year.

00:52:03.480 So that's just, that's the kind of...

00:52:05.340 That's a perfect example.

00:52:06.800 Yeah.

00:52:06.920 A perfect example.

00:52:07.460 Like, we're doing something that we feel like, humans are doing something that we feel

00:52:10.340 like, is honoring, you know, others, that it's, you know, it's out of love and, you

00:52:15.540 know, support.

00:52:16.400 Yeah. 0.99

00:52:16.620 And then, even in that space, we're killing thousands of fucking birds every year. 0.99

00:52:21.600 It's a pile on the ground. 0.99

00:52:22.700 We're just trying to get to Florida, yeah.

00:52:24.460 Some guy's shoveling him into the ditch in the morning.

00:52:27.000 Oh, sure.

00:52:28.860 But that's the thing, yeah.

00:52:30.140 There's always unforeseen...

00:52:31.340 Such an example, yeah.

00:52:32.560 Always unforeseen costs.

00:52:33.940 And I think any time you can ask yourself, what is the cost of what I'm doing or what

00:52:39.500 I'm participating in, you find, you go further down the line and you realize things that you

00:52:45.560 never would have figured out from the get-go and that nobody really talks about.

00:52:49.800 You know, it's interesting.

00:52:50.720 We try and think about that even sometimes just here with podcasts, like, trying not to

00:52:53.680 sell, like, bad products to people or, like...

00:52:56.040 Yeah, that's great.

00:52:56.640 You know, we're trying, like, you know, I'm trying to think of what else...

00:53:00.280 Yeah, I mean, I think we try to affect the things that are close to us.

00:53:03.940 But, yeah, it's interesting.

00:53:06.140 It's like, as you...

00:53:08.120 It's so weird.

00:53:09.060 It's like you grow up, or I grew up anyway, I guess, like, you end up working in a business

00:53:14.740 or in society, and it's kind of built where it's like you want to, you know, achieve things

00:53:22.860 or achieve your goals.

00:53:24.740 And with those, it's almost like you don't even realize the side effects that are going

00:53:28.560 on or even the chain that we're a part of.

00:53:31.680 Like, the whole system we're a part of isn't even...

00:53:34.600 It's not working, like, very, like, copacetically with nature all the time.

00:53:38.420 Because we don't have to see the effects of anything we do now.

00:53:41.760 Like, everything happens somewhere else.

00:53:43.700 Somebody else is doing everything to produce the things that we use and depend on.

00:53:48.740 So, back when we were in hunter-gatherer groups, we saw the effects of everything you did.

00:53:54.000 Right, right in front of you.

00:53:54.820 Yeah, you couldn't eat everything there was because then there was nothing left.

00:53:58.600 Right.

00:53:58.760 Here, we just kind of pretend that there's an endless supply of everything, and we create

00:54:04.860 so much destruction with people like...

00:54:08.740 Jesus Christ.

00:54:10.160 And nature.

00:54:11.120 Gianni.

00:54:12.420 Sorry.

00:54:13.300 But no, you're...

00:54:13.940 Yeah, it's sad.

00:54:14.760 I mean, it's almost...

00:54:16.160 Does it get sad a little bit?

00:54:17.560 It's totally sad, and that's one of the hardest things, is, like, feeling so at odds with the

00:54:23.440 rest of how most of society works, and kind of feeling like it really shouldn't be like

00:54:28.440 this, but you've got to play the game a little bit, but...

00:54:32.420 Right, you have to play...

00:54:33.360 Yeah, you have to play the game some.

00:54:35.280 You have to meet people where they are.

00:54:36.680 You have to...

00:54:37.560 Like, do you look at society as, like...

00:54:40.240 Is it hard not to look at society as, like, oh, well, they're bad people?

00:54:43.160 These people that we are bad?

00:54:44.760 It's hard to not think that.

00:54:46.440 And that would just be an emotional, frustrated reaction, you know?

00:54:50.420 But I know everybody is in the situation they're in, and if I was in a different situation,

00:54:55.080 I would be...

00:54:56.640 I would have, you know, less freedom to make choices, too.

00:54:59.940 Yeah.

00:55:00.480 And less time to think about it.

00:55:02.200 So...

00:55:03.340 But that's why, like, where we live down south, that small village where everybody knows everybody,

00:55:10.460 and you kind of help your neighbors out, you trade bananas and oranges and stuff.

00:55:15.540 Yeah, teamwork.

00:55:16.440 Yeah.

00:55:17.160 We grow coffee, and we drink our own coffee, you know?

00:55:21.380 It's nice to just, when you can do something for yourself, do it.

00:55:24.560 Because it hits this kind of instinctual feeling we have where that was a part of our genetics, you know?

00:55:32.700 To be...

00:55:33.700 Yeah, yeah.

00:55:34.620 Do you feel like we're far from that if we really tapped into it?

00:55:37.520 I don't know if we are.

00:55:38.360 If we are already too far beyond that, or...

00:55:43.040 Right.

00:55:43.360 Like, have we already become too much of, like, you know, zombies, you know?

00:55:47.300 I think so.

00:55:48.180 Like, I think every other species gets knocked back down by starvation, predation, or disease,

00:55:56.100 right?

00:55:56.460 Every single other thing.

00:55:58.220 And we keep pushing those things off, but we can't do it forever.

00:56:02.720 Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

00:56:04.240 Yeah.

00:56:04.960 I'm ready for it, man.

00:56:06.040 I'm ready for it, yeah.

00:56:07.240 Like, if I die in, like, a big, you know, thing that's crazy, it's like a, you know,

00:56:12.360 a war for food or something, at least it's gonna be exciting.

00:56:15.420 Yeah.

00:56:15.840 It's gonna be a good couple hours of television, you know?

00:56:18.120 Yeah.

00:56:18.520 It's gonna be...

00:56:19.040 Maybe somebody will be filming it.

00:56:20.560 Yeah, somebody will be filming it.

00:56:22.340 And even if they're not, what an exciting...

00:56:24.340 Like, sometimes I think about that, like, imagine being in, like, a real shootout or

00:56:27.460 a real, like, you know, like, you see a Leonardo DiCaprio fight that bear in the remnants

00:56:32.100 or whatever.

00:56:32.900 Yeah.

00:56:33.180 That was very realistic, by the way.

00:56:35.440 Yeah.

00:56:35.900 And it's like, how great...

00:56:38.140 Like, even...

00:56:38.940 It's almost, like, just to feel that alive for a minute.

00:56:42.200 Yeah, yeah.

00:56:43.040 You know, I was talking the other day to this UFC fighter, and he was telling me, like, I've

00:56:48.580 seen a picture of him, he'd lost a fighter, he'd come in second.

00:56:52.240 And I was like, man, but you still look like you had, like, gone through something.

00:56:56.880 And he's like, man, it's crazy.

00:56:57.900 He's like, every fight you go through, it's like you come out...

00:56:59.960 Even if you don't get the outcome you want, he's like, you come out the other side, there's

00:57:04.420 a...

00:57:04.860 You have new revelations about yourself, like, at a level that you didn't even really know.

00:57:08.660 Yeah, yeah.

00:57:09.420 And that kind of stuff just...

00:57:10.860 Man, it's so enviable than, like, sometimes just beating this drum out here.

00:57:15.880 Not that our lives are bad or anything.

00:57:17.500 Obviously, you know, like, you know, it's comfortable, for sure.

00:57:22.460 But is it...

00:57:23.820 I often wonder if I'm being...

00:57:25.800 If I'm very much rewarded at, like, a level inside of me that is almost like a light that's

00:57:32.220 getting dimmer and dimmer over time, because we just keep throwing these, like, blankets

00:57:36.560 on it, you know?

00:57:37.400 Yeah.

00:57:37.820 I think you do good things, you know, for the single moms and stuff like that. 0.99

00:57:43.220 Oh.

00:57:43.480 So...

00:57:43.720 You've definitely had an eye for seeing things that you can do that are good and do them.

00:57:49.020 Right.

00:57:50.180 Well, that's nice of you to say that, man.

00:57:53.180 You know, and I'm lucky I got, you know, Nick and Johnny, everybody's super, you know, we

00:57:57.340 all kind of...

00:57:59.060 You know, Nick and I have similar backgrounds in some of that.

00:58:01.340 And, yeah, but I think even just hearing you say that, like, you know, touch the things

00:58:06.080 that we can that are close to us.

00:58:07.720 Yeah.

00:58:07.820 Because I notice...

00:58:08.500 I do notice that I don't like about myself.

00:58:10.420 When I start saying, oh, we all need to be like this, it's like when...

00:58:13.440 That's when we get preachy and then we just get disconnected.

00:58:15.900 Yeah.

00:58:16.300 Exactly.

00:58:16.580 It's so disconnecting.

00:58:17.520 It's like, yeah, if we're going to solve...

00:58:20.000 People always point at the government.

00:58:21.500 Like, if we're going to...

00:58:22.100 The government's just us.

00:58:23.200 Yeah.

00:58:23.460 They're people that we show us.

00:58:25.720 And they're just humans.

00:58:26.860 It's like, if something's going to be different, we have to make it.

00:58:29.840 We have to do it.

00:58:30.680 Yeah.

00:58:31.060 It reflects what we said we wanted, basically.

00:58:35.640 Yeah.

00:58:36.000 So the problem is always down at the individual level.

00:58:39.380 Yeah.

00:58:40.380 But it's kind of nice.

00:58:41.300 It falls back on us in the end.

00:58:42.860 Yeah, totally.

00:58:43.620 If all these cities burn or if there's an electric outage and we're never able to get

00:58:48.520 it back up or something, you know, like, immediately, you really quickly are going to be...

00:58:53.860 Like, your brain is going to be asking yourself, who am I?

00:58:57.200 Like, it's going to be a quick turn.

00:58:59.460 Yeah.

00:58:59.780 Who are you?

00:59:00.640 And what can you do?

00:59:01.660 And what can you do?

00:59:02.500 Yeah.

00:59:02.840 You can't do anything that's necessary.

00:59:04.900 I'm going to Joe Rogan's, bro.

00:59:06.040 Hopefully, dude.

00:59:06.740 That's where I'll be, bro. 0.84

00:59:08.460 I'll be back there to skin him bison for him. 1.00

00:59:11.000 That's it, bro. 0.74

00:59:14.040 Yeah.

00:59:16.080 If something does go down, like the power, you're right.

00:59:19.900 Can you imagine how quickly it would be complete chaos?

00:59:23.900 In an hour.

00:59:24.280 Nobody knows how to grow anything.

00:59:25.960 Nobody knows how to fix anything.

00:59:27.980 The water suddenly doesn't come to your apartment.

00:59:31.240 Nobody knows how to live like that.

00:59:32.920 Yeah.

00:59:33.380 So, it's not going to be good.

00:59:36.940 And I'm not going to survive it either.

00:59:38.860 Like, I can grow some things, but not enough to... 0.99

00:59:42.060 But, dude, you could fucking, bro, let's be honest, you could rear naked choke a swan. 0.99

00:59:45.760 If I can find one, yeah. 0.99

00:59:47.760 You could have fucking twice the chance we are. 0.98

00:59:50.640 Me and Nick are eating Gianni. 0.99

00:59:52.180 Yeah.

00:59:54.040 So, he's built pretty well, dude. 0.99

00:59:55.740 You can see his ass in the movie Ma, if you ever want to see that movie. 0.99

00:59:59.000 It's a pretty decent movie. 0.99

01:00:00.560 But, yeah, dude, for no reason in the middle of the movie they make Gianni get naked.

01:00:05.480 I actually have a question.

01:00:09.040 So, I feel like a lot of people all the time are like, oh, well, where do I start?

01:00:12.800 There's so much, like, I feel like I'm so behind.

01:00:15.300 Like, what's something that someone could start doing, like, every day?

01:00:18.880 Like, somebody could do something where they could further themselves to help the environment instead of just destroying it?

01:00:23.980 Well, I think the Amish, like, you wouldn't want to live like the Amish, right? 1.00

01:00:29.720 I don't know, dude.

01:00:30.780 I like not having a lot of choices, bro.

01:00:32.620 Yeah.

01:00:33.060 I like limited choices, dude.

01:00:34.240 That's a great point.

01:00:35.500 Yeah.

01:00:35.740 Humans do best when their choices are limited, I think.

01:00:39.040 That's great to hear, actually.

01:00:40.060 And if you have every new technology that comes out, the Amish asks themselves, what is this going to do to our community? 0.98

01:00:49.500 And they usually come to a conclusion that they shouldn't accept this new technology.

01:00:54.340 Wow.

01:00:54.920 And we should do a lot more of that on the individual level.

01:00:58.240 But I realize how hard it is.

01:01:00.540 Like, I kept off from getting a smartphone for a bunch of years longer than most people.

01:01:05.220 But then I got one, and I spent too much time on it.

01:01:08.600 And we're so easily falling into those holes, you know?

01:01:14.600 So, people need to spend time outside.

01:01:18.740 Like, people need to get away from light pollution and noise pollution and just get to a quiet place and sit there and think a little bit, you know?

01:01:27.020 Like, so many of our politicians and stuff who are making big decisions that affect everybody, most of them have never been to a wilderness area.

01:01:36.680 Like, they don't even know what it is to be a human animal.

01:01:40.240 They just know, like, what it is to be living in modern society and think that that's how everything has to be, you know?

01:01:46.260 Yeah.

01:01:47.720 Yeah, and we, and it's so funny even hearing, like, it's making me think, like, we think that so much.

01:01:52.540 Like, even just being in L.A. for a while, you start to think that everybody's similar to you, that everybody's like you.

01:01:57.420 Yeah, which probably makes you have some desire to be different, which makes a lot of people act freakishly, probably.

01:02:06.960 Yeah, I don't know, man.

01:02:08.140 Maybe not.

01:02:08.800 Maybe.

01:02:09.240 I mean, you might be right.

01:02:10.040 I couldn't, I was listening to you, but I couldn't process what you were saying.

01:02:12.760 Okay. 0.95

01:02:13.220 And that's probably my, it's, you know, sometimes it's fucking, you know, sometimes I go offline, man, and that's it. 0.62

01:02:19.800 There's nothing I can do, dude. 0.66

01:02:20.960 Sometimes I'm looking at stuff, I don't really know what's going on.

01:02:22.960 Yeah.

01:02:23.500 You know?

01:02:24.140 But you can also, like.

01:02:25.580 But, you know, here's what I was thinking about.

01:02:26.800 But it's not our fault as humans.

01:02:28.140 It's like, we're just humans.

01:02:29.380 Right.

01:02:29.660 Like, if you're just born into an environment, like, it's nobody's fault.

01:02:33.800 Right, yeah, exactly.

01:02:35.480 So.

01:02:36.100 It's just like, I guess, what type of life do we want to know?

01:02:40.300 Or what type of, yeah, what can, like, what type of life do we want to live?

01:02:44.880 What do we want to know?

01:02:46.000 You know?

01:02:46.900 What do we want to see, like, the capabilities in ourselves?

01:02:50.900 Yeah.

01:02:51.080 Some cultures, especially, are very happy with just, like, comfort.

01:02:54.680 And, you know, and then I think there's some people, or not cultures, but some people, they

01:02:58.620 just want more.

01:02:59.480 They want something different.

01:03:00.460 Yeah.

01:03:01.660 When things are available, it's hard to deny yourself taking them.

01:03:06.960 Yeah.

01:03:07.140 You know?

01:03:07.980 And so.

01:03:08.540 Oh, yeah.

01:03:08.940 That's the British, dude.

01:03:10.400 You know?

01:03:11.020 Yeah.

01:03:11.900 So we get blamed for slavery, but they really did it.

01:03:14.040 Yeah.

01:03:14.220 But, yeah, it's so true.

01:03:17.460 Yeah.

01:03:17.540 It's like, when things, and it's like, I wonder if that's just the story of humans, how we're

01:03:21.180 supposed to be.

01:03:21.940 It's like.

01:03:22.440 Probably, yeah.

01:03:23.260 I'm open to that, too.

01:03:23.360 It's like a fallacy.

01:03:24.520 You know?

01:03:24.780 It's just like.

01:03:25.720 It's natural.

01:03:26.660 Right.

01:03:27.000 What we're doing is natural.

01:03:28.420 And even a bird, you set a nice little thing of bread over two, you know, two branches from 0.98

01:03:33.040 a bird, that guy's going to fucking be over there. 0.98

01:03:35.040 Yeah, yeah. 0.98

01:03:36.080 So once birds get these little, you know.

01:03:38.200 Yeah.

01:03:38.780 They get a smart beak. 1.00

01:03:40.920 It's a fucking rap. 0.99

01:03:43.160 A coyote ate my fiance's sandals the other day, and I was kind of surprised. 1.00

01:03:50.060 That's a fucking sexy kind of little. 0.99

01:03:52.340 I was kind of surprised that a coyote had the spare time to be doing that kind of stuff. 0.99

01:03:56.940 Yeah.

01:03:57.360 Like, shouldn't they be out finding something to eat?

01:03:59.420 Dude, I'm telling you, it's hitting everybody.

01:04:00.780 Yeah.

01:04:01.320 It is, yeah.

01:04:02.080 It's creature comforts, man.

01:04:03.360 You're going to see a coyote in sandals like a whole once or an hour.

01:04:08.120 Yeah.

01:04:08.520 It's interesting.

01:04:09.400 Yeah.

01:04:09.920 So when do you go back?

01:04:10.960 When do you go back into the Great White North? 0.95

01:04:13.680 Man, you're so far up there.

01:04:15.180 Yeah.

01:04:15.720 You're so far up there.

01:04:17.020 Yeah.

01:04:17.240 You're close to Asia. 0.64

01:04:18.800 Yeah.

01:04:19.080 People don't even realize, if we get to the north of Alaska, you're almost, you're pretty

01:04:23.220 much practically Japanese.

01:04:24.780 A little bit, yeah.

01:04:25.760 I've been to one of the Alaskan islands where you can see Russia.

01:04:28.940 It's like 35 miles away, and you just see this icy cliff.

01:04:31.820 Mm-hmm.

01:04:32.440 And the native folks said that they used to go back and forth, because the Siberian

01:04:37.500 UPICs speak the same language as the ones on the Alaska side.

01:04:40.980 Wow.

01:04:41.060 They used to trade ladies back and forth and stuff, and now they can't anymore.

01:04:46.800 And yeah, so it's a crazy environment.

01:04:49.720 It's mostly treeless up that far north.

01:04:53.200 It's north of the tree line.

01:04:54.640 And so you can see really great distances, and yeah, it's incredible.

01:05:00.580 It comes alive in June.

01:05:02.160 All the little plants start growing a little bit and flowering.

01:05:04.920 The birds are all breeding.

01:05:06.960 Bears are fattening up.

01:05:08.140 And then by late August, it starts snowing again, and everything dies.

01:05:11.920 And then September, it starts getting covered in snow again.

01:05:15.720 So it's really a life cycle.

01:05:17.020 You see a real life cycle.

01:05:18.140 Yeah, very condensed into a short period of time.

01:05:21.740 Wow.

01:05:22.260 And yeah, so once the migratory birds take off, then I basically follow them down to Costa Rica

01:05:29.160 and get there and see them passing through.

01:05:32.080 So it's kind of a migratory lifestyle.

01:05:35.120 You ever seen one of the same birds?

01:05:37.820 Yeah.

01:05:38.340 Well, I haven't seen one up there and then seen the same individual down there, but I

01:05:43.640 have seen birds return that have gone on migration and come back to the same exact places.

01:05:50.160 So, because I've done bird research in Costa Rica, and you band them.

01:05:54.700 You put little colored leg bands on them.

01:05:56.160 I've seen it on the internet.

01:05:56.860 They put a little sock or something.

01:05:57.920 Yeah.

01:05:58.380 And so, yeah, we studied golden-winged warblers, and they winter in Central America and breed

01:06:05.560 up in northern U.S. and Canada.

01:06:08.500 So they fly all the way there, navigating by the stars, and then it's past the breeding

01:06:14.120 season, don't get eaten by anything, reproduce, and fly all the way back to the same patches

01:06:19.120 of forest.

01:06:20.220 And it's a little nine-gram bird.

01:06:22.500 Do you think it's just like coming home?

01:06:24.540 It's just like humans?

01:06:25.300 Do you think it's some of that same type of thing?

01:06:26.820 Like you want to go home sometimes?

01:06:28.320 Or is it just more of like a natural thing that they have to go right back to the same

01:06:36.840 spot?

01:06:37.160 Like, is there a reason for it?

01:06:38.380 They have territories, so they'll come back to the same spot and defend a territory, even

01:06:44.680 on the wintering grounds.

01:06:46.160 Some of them pretty aggressively.

01:06:49.060 But... 0.98

01:06:49.660 And do they have gay birds, too, or not? 0.98

01:06:51.520 Be honest with me. 0.98

01:06:52.360 Um, yeah.

01:06:54.760 I mean, ducks especially, uh, are...

01:06:59.440 Oh, yeah, in the park all the time.

01:07:01.040 Yeah, and penguins.

01:07:02.360 Penguins are terrible.

01:07:04.080 I would be. 0.75

01:07:04.640 If I was a penguin, I would be.

01:07:05.980 You're out there, dude.

01:07:07.000 It's a tough life, dude.

01:07:08.720 You, yeah, you show up to shore and there's two million of them.

01:07:12.240 Yeah.

01:07:13.380 Dude, you'll plan it, you know, you'll plan a route in anybody that's freaking, you know,

01:07:17.320 willing at that point.

01:07:18.840 Got a pulse or not.

01:07:19.800 Yeah, I worked, uh, in Antarctica as well, so I've, I've done...

01:07:25.820 And that's the North Pole, really?

01:07:26.860 Uh, the Antarctic.

01:07:28.360 The South Pole?

01:07:29.080 Yeah.

01:07:29.940 Hmm.

01:07:30.520 Yeah.

01:07:30.820 I worked on a sail ship, uh, a hundred-year-old Dutch tall ship, um, that took people down to

01:07:37.440 the Antarctic Peninsula from Argentina and back.

01:07:41.180 And, uh, and, and once we did a trip all the way over to South Africa from South America

01:07:46.180 via Antarctica, visited Tristan da Kuna, which is the most remote inhabited island in the

01:07:52.100 whole world.

01:07:52.720 Wow.

01:07:53.200 It's like 400 inbred people living on this volcano in the middle of the Atlantic. 1.00

01:07:57.200 Oh, yeah, dude, yeah.

01:07:58.600 400 people, only six last names.

01:08:01.040 Oh, that's beautiful, man.

01:08:02.080 Yeah, pretty cool.

01:08:03.080 And what do they seem like at a certain point?

01:08:04.880 Do they seem really, like, in tune with what's going on?

01:08:07.080 Or are they just, like, five-armed and just, you know, hoping for the best?

01:08:10.680 It's pretty weird.

01:08:11.900 They weren't even on a monetary system until 1960.

01:08:15.080 So they were just bartering and stuff.

01:08:17.800 And every family has, like, a couple of sheep and a cow and a certain size piece of land

01:08:22.120 on the side of this volcano.

01:08:25.080 Wow.

01:08:25.640 They were nice people, but you could tell that after being there a couple days, they're

01:08:29.400 kind of ready for you to get out of there.

01:08:31.240 Oh, really?

01:08:31.700 Yeah.

01:08:31.900 Because you kind of, what, you upset the flow a little bit?

01:08:35.020 Yeah, just, maybe just because, like we were talking about, you're supposed to know everybody

01:08:40.120 in your immediate sphere.

01:08:42.160 And then you have this ship sailing up and a bunch of scruffy people from Holland and 1.00

01:08:49.340 stuff coming up and taking pictures of everything.

01:08:52.240 I don't know.

01:08:52.620 It's probably a little off-putting.

01:08:54.560 Yeah, I could imagine.

01:08:55.500 I'd like to go over there and we could do a group trip.

01:08:58.500 You know?

01:08:59.480 Do a work trip.

01:09:01.220 Yeah.

01:09:01.820 You have to sail there or take a boat there.

01:09:04.700 Like, there's no other way to get there because it's too far for any...

01:09:08.740 And when you pull up, like, what are these people doing?

01:09:10.900 I mean, they're all, I mean, like you said, it's very tribal, huh?

01:09:13.960 It's not really tribal.

01:09:15.740 Like, they're...

01:09:16.740 They're all one group.

01:09:18.360 Yeah.

01:09:18.860 Yeah.

01:09:19.200 But they're, it's not native people. 0.77

01:09:21.580 That's the weird thing.

01:09:22.420 They're all descended from sealers and whalers who shipwrecked there.

01:09:26.000 So there's Italian descent, English descent.

01:09:29.080 They have this kind of weird British accent.

01:09:31.860 It's really weird.

01:09:33.660 And it's...

01:09:34.100 So chicks are not, to be honest. 0.50

01:09:35.460 I didn't see anybody like that.

01:09:37.520 Yeah.

01:09:38.400 Dang.

01:09:40.640 My last question for you are, this is my last thing I want to think about that everybody,

01:09:44.200 you know, it's obviously a big topic, always global warming, you know?

01:09:47.040 Like, do you...

01:09:49.100 What are your thoughts, man?

01:09:50.620 Do you feel like we are ruining things?

01:09:52.360 Do you feel like that it's just the flow of things that, you know, that there's a cycle?

01:09:58.600 Like, what's some of your vibe from being up there on some of the front lines of just

01:10:03.080 seeing what's happening?

01:10:04.080 Yeah.

01:10:04.380 Where I work, there's a lot of people studying climate change.

01:10:08.780 And yeah, it's very clear that it's happening.

01:10:11.220 And of course, it's because of us, like, at least to a certain extent, like, the amount

01:10:16.760 of people on the earth burning things and using up resources, like, there's no way that

01:10:22.660 that wouldn't affect things.

01:10:24.260 So, but to me, that's kind of like, it's a big concern, but even if we fix that, we'd

01:10:31.680 still not be really getting anywhere as far as I'm concerned.

01:10:37.480 And do you see, like, a lot of the people that are up there doing research and that kind

01:10:40.720 of stuff, do you trust all the research that they're doing?

01:10:42.600 Like, sometimes it just seems like, I mean, people these days, especially, you can create

01:10:46.700 any belief you want.

01:10:49.940 And I'm not denying climate or anything like that.

01:10:52.360 I'm saying, like, but, you know, people can create anything they want.

01:10:55.860 Everybody has the technology to create any story that they want to.

01:10:59.980 Do you see some of that?

01:11:01.360 Like, some of it seems, like, kind of motivated, like, in, like, negative ways?

01:11:04.820 Or do you feel like it's honest, just research, like, people want to know what's going on?

01:11:08.700 I think the research is pretty honest, trying to document what's going on.

01:11:12.620 But you definitely see people studying things that they know they'll be able to get funding

01:11:18.300 for.

01:11:18.740 Right, so you have to, yeah, you almost have to, you have to plan ahead, because you want

01:11:22.980 to get the funding.

01:11:23.840 Yeah.

01:11:24.160 Because, yeah, even if your idea is too obtuse sometimes, though it could be more helpful,

01:11:28.600 a government agency or something, they're not going to get the funding for that.

01:11:31.340 Exactly.

01:11:31.760 It's going to sound crazy to them.

01:11:32.840 Yeah.

01:11:33.240 Wow.

01:11:34.540 But it's a, yeah, it's a great place.

01:11:36.380 And there's up to 150 people there during the peak of the summer.

01:11:41.300 There's only about three people there during the winter most of the time.

01:11:45.320 Just three people losing it.

01:11:47.300 And a little bit of murder every now and then, or what's that?

01:11:51.040 No, there's never been any real, that's the thing, is like, I don't know, we look back

01:11:56.060 at hunter-gatherer people, or small groups of people, and think that it was all violence

01:11:59.600 all the time.

01:12:00.640 It really wasn't, like, it was occasional skirmishes with neighboring groups and stuff,

01:12:04.840 but, like, it wasn't that bad.

01:12:07.860 Yeah.

01:12:07.960 There was high infant mortality, but if you made it through that, you generally lived

01:12:12.000 a pretty normal lifespan.

01:12:14.840 Yeah, babies die, especially if you've got an open fire going on, dude.

01:12:17.760 I know, yeah.

01:12:18.320 Babies are risky.

01:12:19.400 And they would let them crawl into it.

01:12:21.580 It's crazy, just to see what the gods wanted.

01:12:23.400 Yeah, or just to let the strong survive.

01:12:25.820 That's crazy.

01:12:26.480 It's just different value.

01:12:27.820 It's like one of those Tony Robbins things.

01:12:30.000 It's just different value systems, you know, that we can't imagine taking part in, but

01:12:35.000 if we were born there, we'd think it's totally normal.

01:12:37.700 Right.

01:12:38.180 Yeah.

01:12:38.760 You know what's sad?

01:12:39.420 I almost feel like a little bit, not embarrassed, I guess, talking to you a little bit, but

01:12:43.200 like, I almost feel a little ashamed of our own existence a little bit.

01:12:46.860 Not from you as a person, but just, like, thinking about that, because you never think

01:12:52.400 about it, you know, like you never really, I don't know, or I don't anyway, a lot of

01:12:58.680 people might, and I wish I did more.

01:13:00.260 And I think you actually reached out to me originally saying, hey, man, you should go

01:13:02.800 on some hikes, you should, I think that's how we kind of crossed paths, is that right?

01:13:08.760 Yeah, I called in with a swan call.

01:13:12.520 Oh, that's right.

01:13:13.880 Okay.

01:13:14.500 Yeah.

01:13:14.700 Because then I know we've communicated every email, you've sent me some very beautiful

01:13:17.300 pictures, and we're going to put some of those up throughout the episode.

01:13:19.460 But, and like, just kind of filling me in, like, every now and then I'll get a, you know,

01:13:24.200 like, an email just letting me know what's going on.

01:13:28.240 A pot full of iguana meat.

01:13:29.460 With some crazy birds, yeah.

01:13:31.160 I'm like, okay. 0.99

01:13:32.180 And I'll tell somebody next to me, and they don't give a fuck, bro. 0.99

01:13:34.520 Right, yeah. 0.99

01:13:35.600 They do not care.

01:13:37.220 But, yeah.

01:13:39.180 Yeah, you shouldn't feel embarrassed or anything, like, I know I...

01:13:42.880 I guess I feel ashamed a little bit as a human, there's a little bit of that that starts

01:13:45.800 up.

01:13:45.940 Yeah, well, that's good.

01:13:46.900 I think we should all have a little bit of that, because we, at the expense, or what

01:13:52.340 we demand for our, like, standard of living creates a lot of destruction.

01:13:57.700 So, we should be ashamed of it.

01:13:59.380 We should be aware.

01:14:00.420 We should do some work to become aware of our effects on the world, because just to be

01:14:06.240 a good neighbor to other things, you know?

01:14:08.160 Yeah.

01:14:08.720 That would be nice.

01:14:09.560 But, I know it sounds preachy, and I know that most people are just getting up and having

01:14:15.500 to work and not, don't have the time to think about that stuff, but...

01:14:18.540 It sounds hopeful, though, also, I think, in a little bit.

01:14:20.920 I think, I don't think it sounds preachy.

01:14:22.620 I don't think you sound preachy at all.

01:14:24.040 I think it sounds, like, studied and hopeful, you know?

01:14:30.440 I'm not hopeful.

01:14:31.560 Right.

01:14:32.000 At all.

01:14:32.640 Maybe I want you to be.

01:14:33.640 I wish, man.

01:14:34.780 Yeah. 1.00

01:14:35.200 Damn, bro. 0.99

01:14:36.200 Just when you fly into LAX, man, like, you look down at that. 0.99

01:14:39.640 I'm not asking you to have hope around here, okay?

01:14:42.340 But, no, I, look, it's, like, especially here, like, you know, everybody, people here

01:14:46.320 look down, they have no empathy for, like, people in other parts of, like, especially

01:14:49.300 America, smaller towns, where people are, like, what do they do?

01:14:52.620 All they're doing is, like, having a, trying to have a good life, be loving more to their

01:14:57.220 neighbor, and not get overwhelmed with things that don't, kind of, make their spirit feel

01:15:02.040 good.

01:15:02.380 Yeah, yeah.

01:15:03.340 They're more into, you have more people that can hunt, more people that can grow.

01:15:07.000 Yeah, I agree, man.

01:15:08.640 I mean, that kind of stuff makes me furious.

01:15:10.520 Yeah.

01:15:11.000 It's hard when there's some parts of rural living that aren't good, you know?

01:15:15.400 Like, there's the massive opioid addiction issues, but I think that stems from them being

01:15:22.840 dismissed by everybody else.

01:15:25.000 Oh, yeah.

01:15:25.500 And industries, like, coal coming in and taking all the money away and leaving people

01:15:29.820 sick and stuff.

01:15:30.840 Yeah.

01:15:31.280 So, it's not surprising at all.

01:15:33.700 Yeah, it's not surprising at all when people feel, like, left out.

01:15:36.780 Yeah.

01:15:37.460 And it's happening in the village in Costa Rica, too, where everybody's being raised to think

01:15:42.580 if you get out of this village, you're a success.

01:15:46.140 If you get a college degree, it doesn't matter what you end up doing, or if you never see your

01:15:50.660 family again, that's a success.

01:15:52.680 And we kind of did that in this country, too.

01:15:54.420 Yeah.

01:15:55.360 And people are separated from their families, and it's happening down there, and it's kind

01:16:01.560 of like a...

01:16:02.640 I think some of that could change, though.

01:16:04.320 Yeah.

01:16:04.820 I think some of that could really start to change.

01:16:06.500 I hope so.

01:16:06.720 I believe that because I think people are starting to realize that there's just such a...

01:16:11.180 There's such a...

01:16:13.360 With not certain parts of America, like LA used to control, like, what would happen in

01:16:17.680 Hollywood and the media and that sort of thing, and it's going away now.

01:16:21.340 So, I think a lot of people who are dreamers or who want to be creators, I think a lot of

01:16:27.060 these people are hopefully going to start to want to build up the places that they're

01:16:29.900 from or the places that they live.

01:16:31.520 Because there's such a bottleneck here.

01:16:33.400 Yeah.

01:16:33.520 There's such a bottleneck in certain places that a lot of the best creativity never gets

01:16:37.200 to be seen.

01:16:37.920 Yeah.

01:16:38.240 Even though if it were spread out a little bit more, it would really flourish.

01:16:41.640 Yeah.

01:16:41.840 Did you have any people believing really wild things where you grew up, like rural superstitions

01:16:50.080 or anything?

01:16:50.760 Oh, yeah.

01:16:50.920 Yeah.

01:16:51.900 We have a woman we're friends with down in the village who...

01:16:55.460 Where?

01:16:55.680 Down in Costa Rica?

01:16:56.520 Yeah.

01:16:56.940 So, 40 years ago when she was pregnant, they had an outhouse out in the backyard and she had

01:17:02.860 to go to the bathroom at night.

01:17:05.260 And she didn't feel like...

01:17:06.120 Women, huh? 1.00

01:17:07.220 Sorry.

01:17:08.300 She didn't feel like walking all the way to the outhouse, so she just went behind the house.

01:17:11.980 Oh, yeah.

01:17:12.420 Men.

01:17:13.160 Yeah, that's men.

01:17:14.400 Yeah.

01:17:14.680 When she looked down after she peed, there was a Ferdilance pit viper coiled up right 0.93

01:17:20.640 there.

01:17:21.320 And she said, it didn't bite me.

01:17:24.140 And she always prefaces this kind of stuff with, I know you're not going to believe me,

01:17:27.440 but it didn't bite me because the urine of pregnant women is electrified. 0.67

01:17:31.760 Wow.

01:17:32.220 So, she thinks a snake was sitting there like just...

01:17:35.420 Scared?

01:17:36.220 No, electrocuted.

01:17:37.960 I could see that.

01:17:38.820 Yeah?

01:17:39.100 I could see...

01:17:39.640 Yeah.

01:17:40.300 Oh, yeah.

01:17:40.780 Dude, if something pissed on me that was pregnant, dude, I'd take the afternoon off. 1.00

01:17:46.160 Easily, man.

01:17:46.860 Yeah, I'd probably enjoy the warm rain sensation.

01:17:49.980 I mean, I'd just take the afternoon off, man.

01:17:52.540 I mean, that's really as dark arts as you can get.

01:17:55.080 Yeah.

01:17:55.700 Dude, you have to come back and let us know what's going on out there, you know?

01:17:58.600 Any warning signs, you know, of like any real huge flare-ups.

01:18:01.820 But I certainly appreciate you coming, Seth, and just talking to us about, you know, what

01:18:06.740 it's like by the North Pole up by Alaska and like...

01:18:10.140 And they never built a Santa or anything like that up there, right?

01:18:12.400 Yeah, actually, south of Fairbanks, there's a town called North Pole, where they have a

01:18:17.840 giant Santa statue and a sad little reindeer in a pen.

01:18:21.460 And you can go sit on Santa's lap and stuff.

01:18:24.100 It's a little dark art-ish.

01:18:25.520 Yeah.

01:18:25.820 And they're also, it seems like they're trying to make a statement with the reindeer in the

01:18:28.100 pen, are they?

01:18:28.620 Or no?

01:18:28.940 Or is it just...

01:18:29.780 It's a real reindeer?

01:18:31.560 It's real, but it's not a real good one.

01:18:33.980 It's looking pretty sad.

01:18:35.340 Wow, look, there's like 30 reindeer left.

01:18:39.300 Yeah.

01:18:40.220 But that's, you know when you see animals in the zoo and they're walking in circles and

01:18:45.640 stuff?

01:18:46.620 I kind of draw a parallel between that and human society.

01:18:51.340 Like, they have food, they have shelter, so in a sense you think they're fine.

01:18:56.540 Right.

01:18:56.900 But why are they walking in circles?

01:18:58.820 Like, same with us.

01:18:59.680 Like, we're safe generally, we've got food, don't have to worry about all that much.

01:19:05.080 Why are people so unhappy?

01:19:07.060 Yeah.

01:19:07.420 Because there's something that Tiger, who walks around the cage all day long, is missing.

01:19:12.680 Yeah.

01:19:13.040 Same for us.

01:19:13.800 Mm.

01:19:15.100 I like that.

01:19:16.180 It's a good thought, man.

01:19:18.100 We got to break out of the zoo.

01:19:19.780 Yeah.

01:19:20.340 But we also have to, yeah, we have to break out of the zoo.

01:19:22.480 We just have to do it. 0.98

01:19:23.440 We got to take enough food with us so we don't have to fucking choke a stork out. 1.00

01:19:27.260 You know? 0.97

01:19:27.460 But yeah, I agree with you, man.

01:19:30.580 Thanks for coming, man, and hanging out.

01:19:31.960 Thanks for having us.

01:19:32.380 I really appreciate it, man.

01:19:33.260 It's great to meet you in person.

01:19:35.860 Yeah.

01:19:36.200 Yeah.

01:19:36.340 Likewise.

01:19:37.460 Now I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.

01:19:43.900 I must be cornerstone.

01:19:49.040 Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind I found.

01:19:54.520 I can feel it in my bones, but it's going to take a little time for me to set that parking brake and let myself unwind.

01:20:10.280 Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song I will sing it just for you

01:20:32.280 Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite, and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner.

01:20:57.620 The answer may shock you.

01:20:59.940 Sometimes I'll interview my friends.

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01:21:03.680 And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head.

01:21:06.620 You have three new voice messages.

01:21:09.600 A lot of people are talking about Kite Club.

01:21:12.520 I've been talking about Kite Club for so long, longer than anybody else.

01:21:16.860 So great.

01:21:18.180 Aye, sueya.

01:21:19.840 Easy deal. 1.00

01:21:21.140 Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker. 1.00

01:21:25.120 Do you know what I mean? 0.99

01:21:25.680 Hi, I'll take a quarter pounder with cheese and a McFlurry.

01:21:30.200 Sorry, sir, but our ice cream machine is broken.

01:21:32.280 Oh, no.

01:21:34.560 I think Tom Hanks just butt-dialed me.

01:21:37.000 Anyway, first rule of Kite Club is, tell everyone about Kite Club.

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01:21:51.180 And yes, don't worry, my Brad Pitt impression will get better.

This Past Weekend with Theo Von - August 08, 2019

Arctic Biologist Seth Beaudreault ｜ This Past Weekend #221

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