#442 - Steven Rinella

[0] Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

[1] The Joe Rogan Experience.

[2] Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

[3] Some pigs are going to die this weekend, Steve Renella.

[4] That's right.

[5] I'm 90 shots in.

[6] My shoulders made out of fucking hamburger right now from all the impacts.

[7] Unless someone think we're talking about police, man. We're talking about Seuss Scraffa.

[8] Yeah, I thought about posting a photo of the targets that I shot saying some pigs are going to die, but I didn't think that that would be.

[9] No. That could be problematic.

[10] Yep.

[11] Sue Scroffa.

[12] I'm glad you're here this week.

[13] The Eurasian wild boar.

[14] You know, it's interesting, man. All pigs in North America, so domestic, the kind of in your bacon, feral ones, wild ones.

[15] It's all one species.

[16] Yeah, you told me that.

[17] As much as there's different, they recognize them all as one species.

[18] There's some old world, like, in Africa, there's some other members of the pig family.

[19] And Havillina or not, Havelina are a peccary.

[20] So, like, when you hear Havelina or people talk about pigs in Arizona, they're often talking about a peckery.

[21] But, yeah, all the pigs.

[22] So Charlotte, well, that was the spider.

[23] Wilbur.

[24] From Wilbur to Hoggzilla is Sue Scraffa.

[25] That's so strange.

[26] I didn't know that until you told me when we were in Wisconsin.

[27] It doesn't seem right.

[28] No, there's all these varieties.

[29] You know, it's like, well, you know, but all that they roll all the dogs under.

[30] I mean, you think that pigs look, you think that Wilbert are like, you know, like a, like a, the classic, well, they don't really exist.

[31] The classic pink hairless farm pig, I mean, he doesn't look as different from what we'd call a Russian boar, which is a variety.

[32] He doesn't look as different as a chihuahua does from a mastiff.

[33] Yeah.

[34] But they would discuss those as being what canis domestic.

[35] What is, well, I don't know.

[36] What is weird about the common dog is that they all emanate from wolves.

[37] of them yeah that's so strange that's wild that you take a wolf and turn into an english bulldog like how the fuck did that take but i don't know those boys and you you might have read this this those boys in russia that were taking silver foxes and just like selecting for behavior and stuff they could move those things so fast really they moved move the traits you mean yeah they were just yeah i i can't remember the details and and if i did tell you the details you'd look it up and then call me and tell me where I was wrong but so I learned not to get too detailed with you but they could move dogs really fast selecting for color behavioral characteristics it was amazing just in a few generations you know wow I I mean they're very malleable I've always wondered how I mean I think it's a massive mystery isn't it how dogs were initially created out of wolves I mean you hear so many so much contradictory stuff like at a point in time I because I've always kind of followed this a little bit and and I've written about I learned a lot about dogs I probably mentioned this to you before I wrote a piece about eating dogs in Vietnam and so I had this kind of little summation in this article about the history of dogs and it went through the fact checking process at outside magazine which is very rigorous like if you say my mom is my mom they'll call your mom and like make sure it's your mom and um I had all these things that I kind of like assumed were just true you know and this fact checker's like that's like that's in fact not true so i had to relearn my understanding of dogs at the time they were saying oh you know it seems that dogs originated in china and you know like the oldest trace of dogs is there since then i feel like i've read that you know they definitely the first americans definitely brought we're traveling with dogs brought them down in the new world but here there seems to have been some intro aggression from the gray wolf so they picked up some other characteristics from other things along the way even though the guys that came through the bearing lamb bridge were not packing with them a dog that looked wolf like they're probably packing with them a dog that was decidedly domestic dog like wow so they had already gone it had already gone through some you know it had already gone through some transformations they weren't just traveling wolf dogs they were traveling with a dog that had been under selective pressure for you know 15 ,000 years I mean because I remember once I'm saying oh the domestic dog seems to go back 30 ,000 years.

[38] The domestic dog seems to go back 50 ,000 years.

[39] But people arrived here was debated, but sometime between maybe 15, 20 ,000 years ago.

[40] And when they showed up, they had a dog that was not a wolf.

[41] But then there was introgression from wolves.

[42] But this seems to be like a really hot topic and people are always digging into this because genetics is changing everything we understand.

[43] Like things that we used to think were related are not related.

[44] Things we think were not related are in fact related.

[45] You know, we talked that I like the whole mule deer thing.

[46] Like, that mule deer seemed to be a very new species, you know, since the Pleistocene.

[47] Really?

[48] Yeah, there's not a, they haven't been around long.

[49] It was like a hybridization event between black tail deer and white tail deer created the mule deer.

[50] It's like our newest big game species.

[51] And it's probably, we'll be one that doesn't last long.

[52] You know, it'll be like in the long term, you might look at mule deer and see them as this blip.

[53] Really?

[54] Yeah, just like, I mean, they're so susceptible to being out -competed.

[55] They're very habitat fragmentation is hard on them And they haven't been here long I mean on their hand white -tailed deer have been here Millions of years They're like they thrive They're super adaptable They can eat anything, live anywhere They're like amazingly Capable of surviving on this continent And mule deer are like this new thing It's a bummer like my favorite animal I like the sun You know and the sun's only going to last four billion more years It's going to burn out But I think I like the sun I like mule deer a lot too And it seems like I mean, despite a lot of people's best efforts to prevent it from happening, it seems like mule deer are vulnerable.

[56] It seems like they're slowly starting to die off, too.

[57] There was an article about the numbers dropping and their habitat dropping and being diminished and they're being pushed out.

[58] Yeah, and some things are hard to explain, you know.

[59] But White Tales, they've always lived in the southeast, and White Tails seem to periodically expand out.

[60] And then for climatic reasons, retract.

[61] But they kind of keep that, like, ancestral homeland.

[62] I'm talking in very long term, but ancestral homeland in the southeast.

[63] But at one time, White Tails made it all the way across the country.

[64] And some climatic conditions or something happened, and the population retracted, but it left this remnant population in California on the Pacific coast.

[65] And then there was a massive genetic barrier, you know, like if you took a bunch of dogs and separated them and put, you know, some dogs in South America and some dogs in North America and came back and checked on them in a long time.

[66] They're going to have gone in a little different direction.

[67] and that became the black tail and then at a time the black tail seems to have extended its range eastward the white tail deer extended its range back westward and there was a hybridization event where male black tails were breeding with female white tails and producing like this hybrid mule deer there was a habitat retraction again and black tails retracted back to the coast and white tails retracted back the other way and you had to spawned this thing we call mule deer.

[68] How do they follow that?

[69] How do they know that this is...

[70] It was all this guy Valerius Geist, who's like the most interesting biologist.

[71] He's a guy out of Calgary.

[72] And Valerius Geist has kind of like done so much work on big game.

[73] He's kind of like the mulee.

[74] He's like, people are like, oh, he's the mule deer guy.

[75] He's the elk guy.

[76] He's the buffalo guy.

[77] And he came up with a lot of interesting theories.

[78] Like some stuff we talked about in the past where Valius guys came up with this idea that what happens the species when they colonized land that had been vacated by glaciers.

[79] You know, and there's like certain things that go on.

[80] And got he was into founder effect you know where imagine like one way we got different as people is imagine that just like four people um struck off you know across the oceans in a homemade craft and landed there and you had a male and a female and they spawn a new that you know they successfully breed and create a new population but let's say they both just happened to be 6, 7, you know, and 300 pounds, you have like this thing like the founder effect where a small little population can carry traits and characteristics that are maybe not totally, not a complete example of where they came from.

[81] And so you have like a radical deviation when they spread out.

[82] Wow.

[83] So he got into this stuff with animals and like, and why do animals seem to change?

[84] Like when the bison arrived in North America, why did it all of a sudden have a six foot horn span?

[85] and then shrank very rapidly.

[86] So he got into a lot of these ideas, and he also did a lot of genetic work.

[87] You know, like mitochondrial DNA so they can track female descent.

[88] You should have him on sometime.

[89] Yeah.

[90] You know, he'd be the coolest guy to have on in the world, actually, Valerius guys.

[91] Yeah.

[92] Where's you live?

[93] Could I come listen?

[94] Yeah.

[95] I'll just listen at home like most people, right?

[96] Well, you could just come in.

[97] You could come in.

[98] I'm sure you'd have questions.

[99] Yeah.

[100] You could just sit there and drink coffee.

[101] Okay.

[102] And I'll be like...

[103] Sounds perfect.

[104] I was like, no, explain this to me, Mr. Geis?

[105] Yeah, he's a great guy.

[106] So, anyways, he got in a lot of stuff with deer.

[107] And I bring it all this up because we're looking at your fine specimen.

[108] You're fine four -by -four muley sitting here on the best.

[109] It would never happen if it wasn't for you.

[110] Boom, boom.

[111] I was watching this thing that was talking about deer on television.

[112] They were talking about the difference in the size of the bodies of deer from the far north, like Alberta in Canada to the far south, like in Mexico.

[113] And the further you go south, the animals tend to be smaller.

[114] And they tend to be smaller -bodied.

[115] Yeah, it's the Prince.

[116] Maybe you got, it's the Prince, Alan is the Burger Principle?

[117] It's got a name.

[118] Damn.

[119] It was a name for that principle.

[120] And it would be that if you look like, take the extreme like White Tails, like the biggest, like, guys dream would go on to Alberta to hunt White Tails because white tails are huge.

[121] They're like 400 pounds, right?

[122] They're enormous.

[123] They get big, yeah.

[124] That's crazy.

[125] That's an elk.

[126] I mean, 400 is huge, but, you know, you get deer.

[127] it pushed it up then you go down to the florida keys that's a white tail you know those things are 70 80 pounds wow so there's this principle the burger bergman it's got a name my brother he told me what the name of it is and but some species seem to be a little bit exempt they say that mule deer don't do that quite as much you know you get some really big mule deer in other areas they're not they're not as tied to it but just like a general principle and what they speculate it has to do with is heat retention so You have more, like, you, way more than me. I have more surface area per unit of mass than you have.

[128] So if you're a really big deer, and if you're in the north, the thing you're trying to do is retain body heat.

[129] And the animals, like, people shed body heat by just exposing parts.

[130] Like when deer lay down, they lay down with their legs tucked in them.

[131] Because you look on the inside of a deer's leg, very thin hair, very thin hair under the tail, right?

[132] And when they're laying down, if it's cold, they're protecting those areas that have thin hair.

[133] So a big animal has less surface area.

[134] So he's less capable of shedding heat and more capable of retaining heat.

[135] A small, wiry animal has greater surface there and he's able to shed heat.

[136] So one of the things you look at mule deer, like mule deer further south will have, tend to have bigger ears.

[137] because a great way to shed heat is through your ears.

[138] So they'll have thinner hair on their ears, bigger ears.

[139] If you think about a radical version of it, just imagine, like, the woolly mammoth, okay?

[140] The woolly mammoth is more closely related to the African elephant than he is to the Macedon.

[141] So you had, in North America, at the tail end of the Pleistocene, you had mammoths and Mammoths.

[142] And mammoths were not very close related to Mascadons.

[143] They're pretty close related to African elephants.

[144] Mammoths lived in the north.

[145] They have, like, essentially, no ear.

[146] They have just a very small ear.

[147] You look at African elephants have those giant freaking ears because they can funnel a lot of blood through those ears and shed a lot of heat.

[148] It's like you shed a lot of heat through your fingers, you know, and your ears, how they get so cold so fast because you're able to, you know, you push a lot of blood into those areas and it's cooling off in the air.

[149] So that's one reason, that's like a theory of, if it is, I think it might be the Bergman principle.

[150] Bergman's rule?

[151] Nice work.

[152] Bergman's rule would have one explanation for it.

[153] I don't know if you'd ever really know the absolute truth, but an explanation for it's heat retention and heat dissipation.

[154] That's fascinating.

[155] So the stuff that's on the northern extreme of its range, where it's budding up against, like, the thing that puts the throttle on its existence is cold, he will tend to get bigger.

[156] In mammals, you know, he'll tend to get bigger.

[157] But then there's all these other deviations, like, why do, you know, like how you get these huge reptiles on islands, you know what I mean?

[158] Yeah.

[159] And then on islands, you tend to have dwarfing, like that wrangle island off Siberia, had these little mini -mammoth.

[160] you know yeah so there's all these other factors like i don't even know i don't even know why it's like that with islands but i know with with latitude that you get that and i've also read i think i even read from maybe as valerius geist was writing about how mule deer seemed to not be quite is uh that they seem to defy bergman's rule a little bit more than some other species do probably because they're a hybrid i have no idea that's fascinating the island dwarfism is a weird thing it's bizarre how it doesn't apply to lizards those yeah they get like Yeah, like those things get huge and other things get small.

[161] You know, another thing about weird thing about mule deer, and this kind of fits here because we're in California.

[162] You know, obviously I -5.

[163] So for black -tailed deer are very, very similar to mule deer.

[164] Columbia blacktail.

[165] So in California, you have Columbia blacktail.

[166] Washington, Oregon, you have Columbia blacktail.

[167] Eventually you get up to the north of just north on the coast.

[168] You get to the BC, Alaska, border, and they start calling them sick of blacktail.

[169] Sick of black tails, man, you look at them.

[170] It's like they almost look like a white tail, but they're a blacktail deer.

[171] The Columbia blacktail resembles much more a mule deer For record keeping Purposes The divider between the range of the Columbia mule deer I'm sorry The divider between the range of the Colombian blacktail And the muleer is I -5 Really?

[172] So if that somebody jumps the road He is For record -keeping purposes He goes from being a Columbia blacktail To a muleer So when you look like All the record book Columbia blacktails you know, are shot along the left side of I -5 on a northward direction because they're just like so, you know, they're much bigger than anywhere else, but they've got to divide it somewhere so they divide it like that.

[173] So in one thing's life, you could jump back and forth.

[174] They're not even recognized as distinct.

[175] If you look at the Latin name form, you know, the scientific name for them, like taxonomists don't recognize the difference, but we all do it.

[176] Like you look at me, like, that's not a freaking mule here, man. I can tell by looking, but it's just these morphological differences, these things you see but they're not really betrayed in the you know in the genetics that's fascinating man that's it's it's so interesting trying to track the the history of these animals and that somebody actually did that and figured out yeah and it changes all time yeah that used to like that's funny thing is like my old man he used to reject so much this stuff because it would change he'd like well they used to say this so don't believe any of it like well they were saying the best understanding and now this is the you know it's not static subject to change but it's frustrating for people I'm glad you're on this week because this is a week that's pretty controversial in the news this story about this black rhino that they auctioned off a hunt for this is some fascinating shit to me because fill me in do you know the story I only know I know no more than what you said I've been at a thing all week oh you are at the shot show yeah so I haven't even yeah There's a, they auctioned off a hunt for a black rhino.

[177] The winner paid $350 ,000 to shoot this rhino.

[178] There's only like X amount of thousand of them left in the world.

[179] And people are going fucking bananas.

[180] Can I guess that they're using that $350 ,000 to put up enforcement?

[181] Yes.

[182] For conservation.

[183] They generated over a million dollars in the auction.

[184] Really?

[185] Allegedly.

[186] Yeah.

[187] and what they're saying is that this rhino had to go anyway because this rhino was an old non -breeder and he was very aggressive and he was trying to kill the younger males and because it's an extinct or because it's an endangered species this was an animal that they were going to have to do something about anyway and really yeah they would have either had to i guess put him in animal prison or they were going to have to fucking shoot him so they decided to auction off they have this very specific animal that they've targeted this old non -breeding man and the guy who auction, who won the auction is now in fear of his life.

[188] I mean, the press has he gone and done it yet?

[189] No, not yet.

[190] He lives in Dallas, or just outside of Dallas.

[191] How did I know if I was going to pick what town he lived in?

[192] Well, I was going to ask you about that, too, because Texas is a fucking strange place, man. You know, a way different wildlife model.

[193] Yes.

[194] Since being introduced to hunting by you, I've become.

[195] I'm pretty obsessed and I read about it all the time and I'm trying to sort out all the different philosophies and try to figure out why people think what they think but what I'm most fascinated by in Texas is these wild game farms this is a really weird thing they do where they'll they I saw some online that were like fucking 70 acres and they have a high fence and people are pretending that they're hunting in these things yeah they'll sometimes set the animal out on the day it's it's crazy i mean it's but it's something of but let's come back around that but i want to talk from him about the i i the the the the rhino thing there are versions of that here and we can talk about i can talk in a much more educated way or you're a much more knowledgeable fashion about versions of that that occur here in the u .s but after like i've never been to africa i haven't hunted in africa i have ill like ill -informed opinions about what goes on in Africa, but I recognize when it comes to stuff like this, it's, there are so many contradictions that are hard to deal with, and it's really difficult for people to get their heads wrapped around, why a guy, you know, I don't know, not knowing the person, I can't say that the person is saying who's like, oh, I would just as happily give you the money to help save rhinos, but if this one has to go anyways, I suppose I'll come and get it.

[196] You know, I don't really know what his motivations are.

[197] His motivations are not that.

[198] He's a part of a big game trophy hunting group.

[199] Yeah.

[200] He's not going to be able to bring it back into the U .S. probably.

[201] I don't know.

[202] I don't know.

[203] I don't know what he was trying to do.

[204] I don't know what he's planning to do.

[205] I don't know.

[206] But I know I've been reading all these articles with the interview the guy.

[207] He's afraid of his life.

[208] I mean, they're talking about skinning his children alive.

[209] Is that right?

[210] Oh, it's fucking, you know, animal rights people get pretty crazy.

[211] Can I tell you about a parallel, like a parallel thing that goes on in the U .S.?

[212] Because I just can't speak.

[213] to it there.

[214] Like, I don't even know who is it owned?

[215] The rhino?

[216] I mean, is it on a, is it like on...

[217] It's on a conservation.

[218] It's on a concession.

[219] Well, what they're doing is they have like, you know, X amount of thousands of them.

[220] And they need money in order to maintain the property and enforce it.

[221] That's a good question.

[222] I don't know.

[223] Yeah.

[224] Let me tell you about a parallel thing that happens in the U .S. if you're interested.

[225] Yes.

[226] Okay.

[227] In the U .S. we have, we abide by the basic notion.

[228] This is like generally true in the U .S. Wildlife belongs to people, okay?

[229] So, if you have, let's take an imaginary elk, and this imaginary elk is on Yelso National Park.

[230] And one day, the elk jumps a fence and lands on national forest in Montana.

[231] He jumps another fence, and he's on state forest in Montana.

[232] And he jumps another fence, and he's on a big ranch in Montana.

[233] Throughout that animal's day, he has always been U .S. he's always belonged to the people okay when he's in montana he's belonged to like the state of montana's in charge for his management so we have this idea in a rough sense we have this idea that we maintain here that wildlife is held in the public trust an individual can control access to his lands for hunting but the animal belongs to the state you don't get to make decisions necessarily about the things that are on your property um and that's been something that like that Americans and particularly like American hunters have always been proud of.

[234] We have this like North American model of wildlife conservation.

[235] We always talk about which is this idea of like public trust wildlife and that we manage it in long term things because people have a vested interest in having more and more animals around for whatever purpose, viewing, hunting, etc. One of the things they do though, and so you take an animal like the bighorn sheep and the bighorn sheep at a time was pretty nearly wiped out.

[236] I mean, they were hurt and they were never hurting as bad as black rhinos are, but they were.

[237] were hurting really bad.

[238] And as we got them restored, we started having limited numbers of tags.

[239] He might have a mountain range, and every year they determine that we can kill one sheep out of that range.

[240] And people will, and I do this every year, people will apply for a lottery that's conducted by the state.

[241] And you put your name in the hat, you pay a fee.

[242] They, you know, put all the names in there, draw one out and be like, Dave draws a tag.

[243] And this generates a whole bunch of money they use it for tranquilizing sheep that you can helicopter them to new areas and restore the species and all the funding comes from this kind of stuff one thing they realized a great way to make money is if you can get that up let's say you can kill five out of that mountain range they might wind up going we're going to do you know we'll do four through the lottery which is for everyone like the common man's pool but we're going to take one and auction it off every year the one the big horn sheep tag they auctioned in Montana it goes for $200, $300 ,000, $400 ,000 every year.

[244] I think recently went for $380 or $4.

[245] I mean, it's always up there.

[246] I don't think it's broke and a half million, but it goes up because if you go in Montana and you go hunt six, if you go hunt the Missouri breaks, all the record book, big horns come out of there, okay?

[247] Like the biggest big horns, the biggest Rocky Mountain big horns come out of the brakes.

[248] So guys will pay a ton for the, what they call the governor's tag in Montana.

[249] And it raises a ton of money and it does a ton of good.

[250] Good, but some people feel, I see both sides of this argument, some people feel like that bit of money is not worth the damage you're doing by upsetting this idea of democratically owned and administered wildlife.

[251] Like most guys will put in their entire life for a big horn sheet tag and they'll pay the fee every year and they have no chance.

[252] I've been putting in for that tag for 14 years.

[253] I've accumulated, they started a bonus point system 12 years, ago.

[254] And a bonus point system means that every year you put in the next year, you get a, every year you put in without being successful, you get a point in a square year points.

[255] So next year, my name will go in the hat 144 times.

[256] If you did it for your first year, your name will go in the hat one time.

[257] Even with my name in the hat 144 times, I don't think I'm even up to having a 1 % chance of drawing a big horn sheep tag.

[258] Wow.

[259] So meanwhile, a guy can come in and he makes a bunch of money.

[260] One guy that buys lately made a lot of money selling sandwich.

[261] he comes in and he's like I'll be buying one of those and I'll buy it next year and people are like oh that money is so useful and it is other people are like dude this is not the country we live in because we're still we're still kind of hurting from the idea of where we came from in Europe which is like the Robin Hood model you got to be rich to hunt a lot of people don't know that the Robin Hood was actually based on hunting it wasn't based on stealing money from the rich and giving to the poor it was based on the poor weren't allowed to hunt.

[262] Yeah, he would go out and hunt the king's animals.

[263] And he used to, I mean, even at the time when our ancestors were like first coming over, you know, they could kill you for hunting.

[264] They could kill you for hunting.

[265] I'm like, you had to be rich to hunt.

[266] So when guys like, you think of like the story of Daniel Boone, man, he came out and he's like, geez, his relatives came from England.

[267] He comes over here, he's like, man, this whole freaking country, I go hunt wherever I want.

[268] So people really fell in love with that idea of freedom and, you know, that you could kind of roam around and the animals were there free for the taken.

[269] And now we're a little bit upsetting this model.

[270] But other people who are on the other side of this say they have, but the money's so helpful.

[271] And if it wasn't for big chunks of money like that, we wouldn't have recovered the big horn sheep as effectively as we've recovered the big horn sheep.

[272] And it's not cheap, you know.

[273] Three or $400 ,000 for a tag is incredible.

[274] Yeah, type in Montana governor's tag.

[275] You'll see what it went for last time.

[276] And do they sometimes fail?

[277] I mean, they must.

[278] They must.

[279] I heard a story where the guys that, the guys that, buy it once you spend that kind of money you want to rule out uncertainty and you know that you can picture the area right yeah you know all that stuff we floated through yeah we saw a lot when a guy will buy the when a guy will buy the governor's tag he'll usually hire some guys or he'll hire some guys to go spend a couple months they'll put together a dossier on the animals that are in the area yeah man oh my god that's ridiculous they scout when they find one they stay on it there's guys that just specialize in this business look at that $480 ,000 bid the record for 2013 oh my god 480 ,000 so many paid for the tag look at those dudes going to war yeah his sack is kind of tucked up to the left he can't really appreciate it yeah we uh we showed that video the other day of you uh talking about wanting to eat it so it's valuable to people it's a ton of money not the sack no no not the sack no but it really makes people mad yes there's a story and i don't even know this true i heard it from enough people that tend to think it's true.

[280] So these guys will go out and they'll get guys out there.

[281] They find a tanker, you know, they want a ram that scored.

[282] That's got over 200 inches of horn or more.

[283] And they find one they don't let it out of their eyes, right?

[284] They stay on it, stay on it, stay on it.

[285] And eventually the guy comes out and they go, there he is, that's the one you want.

[286] There's a rumor a few years ago, this guy had done this and he'd spend all this money.

[287] I heard, I'm just telling you unsubstantiated stuff.

[288] I'm not even telling you, I'm not telling you what year or his name, because I don't because I don't want to say that and be wrong about what a high roller buys this thing pays a figure rumored to be around 30 grand to have some guy find check this out it comes down to it and the guys like third one from the front third one from the front they go down on the gully get mixed around and he shoots and it goes or it's the wrong one oh no yeah but that rumor has it that that he that this gentleman later bought another one and went out and got a bought another one went out and got a big fatty so he might have spent 500, 600 grand.

[289] Yeah.

[290] I, and man, I see, like, it tears me up because, like, everything in life, it's so complicated.

[291] I see both sides of it.

[292] Like, I love our system.

[293] I love the idea that wildlife is public trust.

[294] And I think that the, like, there's no other way to explain the success of the richness of animals and the richest of wilderness habitats we have in this country when you look at how many people live here, how wealthy we are, like all the technology, like some of the other countries that would be sitting where we're at have destroyed their wildlife you know but we have a very in place like a very intact system and we've done a fantastic job and i think that one of the ways to explain the fantastic job we've done is that we've really held true to this idea that wildlife belongs to us and when you do damage to it you're doing damage to this idea of you know an american treasure you're you're damaging other people's interests you know um so yeah man it's complicated so that's my long way of answering the rhino thing i'm i bet you anything it is extremely complicated and that there is emotion battling logic i'm amazed that it's cheaper to kill a fucking rhino than it is a big horn sheep that is mine it is amazing that's by a hundred grand plus that's crazy that's amazing what's the ivory worth not worth that I don't think they have ivory.

[295] They have horns.

[296] Their horn is made out of hair.

[297] A rhino has a...

[298] No, black rhino's got a...

[299] No, oh, rhino horn's not ivory, but it's valuable.

[300] Yeah, but it's not ivory.

[301] No, it's valuable because they're idiots, because people think that it makes your dick hard.

[302] Like, I guess they haven't heard about Viagra wherever the fuck they're trying out rhino horn.

[303] I went to, I went to the other day.

[304] I mean, just like, three days ago, I saw the act, the current head of the U .S. I went to see the current head of the U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service speak about some issues that we'll be facing this year.

[305] And the U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service is getting really involved in the rhino trade.

[306] When they talk about all the money they're spending, you know, they're spending money in enforcement.

[307] They're spending money on trying to battle the source, like that you might somehow convince people that they don't want it.

[308] You know, all the things you would do.

[309] I remember, like, think about the millions and millions of dollars they're talking about throwing around.

[310] I remember being like, too bad you can't just go find any guy who wants to go get one.

[311] You'd give him more money than he's ever going to make hunting them.

[312] Yeah.

[313] But the world doesn't work that way because some other dude.

[314] It would be like, but I remember thinking like you would make every rhino portrait really wealthy.

[315] Yeah.

[316] And they'd just be like, okay, cool.

[317] I'll quit.

[318] Yeah, but it wouldn't work.

[319] And other people would come on, well, I'm going to be a rhino portrait too.

[320] No, I know.

[321] But I remember just thinking if those guys could only know the amount of it.

[322] Because you know they're not.

[323] Like, no matter what, like that business, I don't, like, the guys that are actually out there with firearms.

[324] You can imagine.

[325] The guy that's out on the ground, hunting rhinos, being chased by people who have pretty much a license to, in some cases, kill them.

[326] Like I don't think that guy is a rich man He's making someone wealthy But there's no way that guy is rich Not only that, it's just such a bizarre thing The idea of shooting this giant, majestic, endangered animal Just for its horn They're not eating them They're not doing anything else with them They're just shooting them and taking their horns And there's no real medicinal value It's not like the rhino Maybe one thing of the rhino horn Had this incredible anti -aging property And it turned you into a young person again well you know they'd probably fucking kill every rhino they could find but it doesn't do anything it doesn't really do anything but it's just but it's just it's probably i mean it's it's an issue of poverty yeah and not that that justifies but i'm saying like i don't even know the guys that are out poaching rhinos they might not even have any idea who it is that they might have like some vague awareness about the properties but i don't know if they believe in the properties as well yeah i'm a little bit ignorant about who's actually wanting these rhino horns what i've heard it's an eight Asian thing.

[327] But it seems to be one of the most bizarre misunderstandings and miscommunications ever.

[328] In this day and age, with all the information that's available, especially because it's always about penises.

[329] It's always about guys getting a wrecked penis.

[330] It is a phallus.

[331] It's got to be just that it's a nice phallus.

[332] But they grind it up for medicine, apparently.

[333] It's so strange.

[334] I mean, it's an amazing animal.

[335] When you look at a rhino, to me, I mean, it's one of the...

[336] closest things when you mean look like a triceratops or a stegosaurus or something like that and you look at a rhino it's like one of the closest things to that ancient time you look at this big fucking giant armored animal it's a strange strange animal you know and the idea that people are killing it to make their dick hard it's just so bizarre and and it's but no they're killing it to make money yeah right and people are buying it to get their dick hard yeah and it's not even working you know it's It's just so strange.

[337] We should have, we should make a public service announcement right now.

[338] We'll have them drop leaflets over China.

[339] It doesn't work.

[340] Just bags full of Iagra.

[341] Drop them with parachutes.

[342] Just, just launch them.

[343] Yeah, isn't it amazing, like in that way that there's stuff not like, no, dude, this really does work.

[344] I mean, like, to the point where it could cause trouble for you.

[345] Like, try this.

[346] But we have to go to a doctor because your dick won't go down.

[347] It works on everybody, too.

[348] It works on dying people.

[349] You chew up a Viagra and you have a zombie dick in your parents scratching at your zipper.

[350] No, it's basically, you think that there would be, you think that the pharmaceutical industry would, or not the farm, what's, what's the word?

[351] The, like the aphrodisiac?

[352] Yeah, I guess.

[353] What is the term for, like, no, I'm saying, what is the term for like, uh, something that, like you're looking, you want to eat Asian horn or, or, or you want to eat.

[354] Yeah, that the aphrodisiac market for men would.

[355] You know, the dick -hardening market for men would evaporate now that there are pharmaceuticals.

[356] They're specifically tailored for that and are clinically proven to work.

[357] Well, that's how, you know, that's how the American troops get information about the Taliban from the Afghani warlords is Viagra's, a number one method of payment.

[358] Really?

[359] Yeah, because these guys, a lot of these warlords, you know, they're living like the same way they lived back when Alexander the Great was run in Afghanistan.

[360] Afghanistan has Kabul and then mountains and mountains filled with villages and extremely primitive locations and you know they're living old school and sometimes there's a guy who's a warlord who's got 20 wives and his dick doesn't work anymore and you know they come along and they go look we got guns he's like I got guns look and we got women I got 20 wives and I can't even fuck them oh listen check this out and give them this bottle of pills and this guy's like listen these Taliban fox I never liked them they're hiding over there those guys are over there how many more pills you got man they fucking give these guys cases cases of viagra they tell them everything they can't stop talking yeah you've heard a big mac diplomacy that's the way viagra diplomacy that that actually works i'm 40 years old the month you ready to get in on the viagra is that we're trying to tell me no i'm just saying what you're trying to say um back to this this rhino thing talking about um yeah i just can't i can't i can't like i just my head wants to blow up because I just I see all sides of it I do but that's beautiful I think that's important the part I don't see the part I do not see though for me is I don't like I would never like I don't have that desire to hunt one of those but so much of that kind thing is and it's hard for people that don't hunt to understand so much that kind of stuff comes from context you know like you develop over time a deep context with an animal and for me that familiarity and the hours you spend the hours you log watching it understanding it reading about it studying it for me develops into something like produces a great desire to hunt the animal once i get to know it an animal that i don't know well i don't have any desire i don't have that much desire to hunt for it but when i watch them and watch them and watch them like like big horn sheep when i moved to montana when i was born in michigan i moved to montana i didn't go out there being like, man, I cannot wait to hunt big horn sheep.

[361] But after spending years and years and years out, you know, glassing for deer, glassing for elk, glassing for bears, I'm like, Big Horn, Big Horn, Big Horn.

[362] And I really got to where I love to watch Big Horns.

[363] I liked everything about big horns.

[364] And in time, I was like, man, I would someday love to have an opportunity to go hunt a big horn.

[365] And it was born from that.

[366] So when I say that I have no desire to hunt, or Ryan, I'll be like, it's just like, it would be to me like hunting Martians.

[367] Like, I just don't have any, you know, familiarity with it.

[368] It just doesn't, like, culturally, I haven't read about it my whole life.

[369] I haven't, like, when I go and look at calendars, like, hunters love wildlife calendars, and it's like all the stuff we like to hunt.

[370] You know, you don't grow up looking at, like, the rhino page on a hunting calendar.

[371] It's just I just have no context with it.

[372] And this gentleman that bought this thing, I don't know.

[373] I don't know.

[374] I just don't know anything about him.

[375] I'd love to talk to him.

[376] He probably doesn't want to come on your podcast.

[377] Yeah, I don't think he wants to.

[378] But he's, his name is Corey Knowlton.

[379] and he's got a private security detail following around all the time now he's giving this interview this interview with CNN he's talking about the people have threatened his kids because he has people threatening to kill him right now that I have to talk to the FBI and have my private security keep my children from being skinned alive and shot at a little hyperbole a lot of people are just talking shit I'm not going to kill your fucking kids man they're not murderers but people get angry when they hear about someone hunting something as a trophy and absolutely i think that there's a big distinction between you want to hunt a big horn cheap because you you follow it and you study it and because but you eat the fucking sheep yeah that's that's a difference man there's something creepy about wanting to shoot something just so you could stuff it and put it in your room yeah it's complicated it's complicated it is that that it's like it would feel very if i did shoot the rhino i would eat them there's no way I wouldn't eat them are they edible they must be oh yeah I'm sure they eat elephants I know that you shoot an elephant and the they like that friends of mine that have hunted in friends of mine that have hunted in Alaska or sorry friends of mine that hunted in Africa um kind of marvel at the rapidity with which like like how how quickly the animals get hauled off and consume they said it's like not a lot of waste you know then there's some animals that you look at and you think they'd be really good and they're not very popular, and other animals that you'd look at and you wouldn't think would be that great, and they're really popular as table fare.

[380] I don't know what the reputation of rhino is.

[381] But elephants popular is table.

[382] People like the elephant a lot.

[383] My problem with the elephants is...

[384] My understanding.

[385] They're intelligent.

[386] That bothers me. Yeah?

[387] Intelligent animals, it bothers me. I have no desire to hunt one, but again, I have no context.

[388] Yeah, exactly.

[389] And I don't really understand...

[390] For me to go, like, for me to go hunt something, I also have to know that it's sound, that it's in a safe...

[391] position and one of the nice thing about living in the u .s i mean there's some exceptions to this but generally in the u .s like if you want to be if you want to be ethical about your hunting practices in the u .s you can generally look to the guidance of your state fishing game agency i mean a state fish and game agency can't get away with i mean theoretically can't get away with and practically can't get away with running a species into the ground you know it would be big trouble for them so generally if you if you're looking and you realize is that there's a, you know, there's a population of big horns, and there's some, and there's a hunting season form right now, it's, it's okay.

[392] I mean, it really is okay.

[393] If they're finding a decline in that thing, they're going to curb it or cut it out all together and wait until it's growing again.

[394] And then you can also look at their long -term goal of, you know, where they want animals, how many animals I think the area can support.

[395] So it's easy in the U .S. because this stuff is watched so much.

[396] Obviously, again, coming from a guy doesn't spend any time in Africa, I know that in Africa, like, money talks in a way that it doesn't necessarily hear when it comes to small issues like wildlife.

[397] You can buy your way into things that maybe you don't have any real ethical business doing, you know.

[398] And in the U .S. is just easier to kind of, there's a lot more information at our fingertips.

[399] So for me, when I go hunting, I can really kind of read up and understand a lot about what I'm going after, where it's at, what the management goals are, what risks the animal has.

[400] is hunting it, you know, productive and helpful right now?

[401] Is it potentially detrimental to the species?

[402] And you can make your decisions.

[403] It is amazing how good a job the Department of Fish and Game or what is the actual group.

[404] What are they called?

[405] Well, there's a state.

[406] So you have U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is a federal thing.

[407] And so they have a hand in, they have a hand in managing migratory waterfowl.

[408] But most things are managed by it.

[409] So every state has a, you know, you kind of like just in general terms, you'd call them fishing game but it's like in michigan it's the michigan department of natural resources in montana's montana um department of fish wildlife and parks but just as a euphemism versus fishing game so you know every state the de it's department of environmental conservation in new york so every state has a different name but it's a state department that sets hunting and fishing regulations and on these state departments would be big boards and it'll be the people that set it will be various figures, different stakeholders, so you'd have like representatives from the hunting community, representatives who are outside of the hunting community, will all come together and come to some level of cohesion and in some level of, you know, they'll find a happy middle ground when they set their quotas.

[410] And they often, I mean, they meet every year to determine what can be done and not done.

[411] And they can control harvest a number of ways by issuing tags, shortening seasons, lengthening seasons.

[412] You can, if you want to slow down a harvest, you might move the season away from the rut, you know, if you want to pick up a harvest, kill females.

[413] You know, if you want to, if you want to bring a population down because of various factors like agricultural interests, auto insurers, you know, generally want, like generally want deer numbers lower.

[414] Agricultural interests generally want deer numbers lower.

[415] Landscape people often want deer numbers lower.

[416] So what kind of factor like their concerns and you got the concerns of people who want, hunters want more deer, they want to see more deer around.

[417] And you figure all this out and there's all these management tools to try to find a way you know to tweak things another thing is predator control if you're if you have a population that's really hurting um you go in there and do predator control in that area and sometimes you can bring you know you can bring some animals back from the brink it's possible to lose isolated populations like it's possible to have a mountain range and you get a you spend few hundred thousand dollars a million dollars whatever moving some big horns in there and you find that you're just getting hammered by lions and you're going to lose all the sheep and lose your whole investment you might go in there and hit those lions a little bit you know save them so there's so many tools at their disposal but you know in general in general there are exceptions in general i think that i'm always amazed at how well the state fishing game agencies do yeah that's what i was going to say it's probably one of the most efficient government agencies ever they're good and you know what the other thing about them is is they don't get a lot of hard funding.

[418] There's not many agencies that like get so much of their funding from license sales.

[419] So firearms taxes.

[420] That's why there's a lot of conservation money out there right now because the gun businesses have been blown up.

[421] As people feel that their gun rights are under attack, they've been buying so many firearms and puts money in the, you know, the Pittman Robertson, finally thing is called.

[422] That goes to conservation stuff.

[423] There's excise taxes on firearms, excise taxes on ammunition, excise taxes on sporting goods, all your license fees, every guy who ever hunts ducks or migratory birds has to buy a federal waterfall stamp, state waterfowl stamp, all this money plows in and creates money for conservation work, research.

[424] And so these agencies are in large measure, some more than others, are self -sustaining, you know.

[425] That's really the funny things.

[426] I know that you get annoyed by PETA as much as I do.

[427] It's like, they're not spending the money on doing this stuff that hunters are.

[428] Like hunters are bankrolling so much of wildlife research and wildlife conservation.

[429] And it's not just stuff that benefits the animals were after, you know?

[430] My problem with groups like Pito or the Animal Liberation Organization, the people that want to fucking save lobsters and rescue them from restaurants and throw them back into the ocean, there's a lot of knee -jerk reactionary nonsense.

[431] It's not based on the actual science of understanding the population of these animals.

[432] That's what drives me crazy.

[433] When people start getting angry, at people hunting wolves.

[434] Like, this is a perfect example.

[435] They've opened up wolf season now in a bunch of different places.

[436] And the reason being is that people's livestock are getting decimated.

[437] Elk populations are getting destroyed.

[438] I mean, they have to move in to control it.

[439] But to a lot of animal rights people, all they see is bloodthirsty maniacs that want to kill beautiful wolves.

[440] And they don't understand that, first of all, A, these wolves have been reintroduced to a lot of these areas.

[441] And then, B, like, we're supposed to be the stewards of the land.

[442] We're supposed to be the intelligent people that understand the numbers and there something has to be done about it this isn't something that people have decided i'd like to kill a wolf yeah let's make it legal now they're going hey we've got an issue what are you going to do let's all meet let's compare data let's see what we got yeah yeah you get this idea like oh they've just one day decided to go and and do it and it's i'm sure you have on one level you have individuals who absolutely like a guy opens up his regulation book he's like well i can buy a wolf tag this year that individual does not really need Here, that individual does not really need to understand.

[443] It's nice if he does, but he doesn't need to understand the full picture because that individual is a tool being used by managing agencies.

[444] They're like, we need to get rid of some wolves.

[445] We could bring back the days where we have, like, you know, government agents going out and gun inform, or we could open it up and have people actually pay money to go out and have the opportunity to try to do what we need to do anyways, you know?

[446] So the guy that goes out, I can't always speak to every guy that.

[447] that goes out and hunts the wolves.

[448] I can't speak to his motivations.

[449] I don't know.

[450] But they're servicing a greater good in that they're being used as a tool that winds up being an economic driver, which kind of like points to the efficiency of wildlife management.

[451] It's like you could hire the job out, which in some cases it does because there are, you know, we do have government travers to do some wolf control.

[452] But it's kind of nice that you can wind up turn, like rather than you're paying someone to go out and do it, you can have people pay for the opportunity to go out and do what we know needs to be done.

[453] And in these cases, We're going to have to lower wolf numbers.

[454] No one's arguing, not that no one is.

[455] No one's arguing for like a new extirpation of the wolf.

[456] That would be in the worst interests of the managing agencies.

[457] The last thing Wyoming would want now, like they get the wolf delisted.

[458] People are suing to stop the delisting.

[459] Wyoming gets the wolf delisted.

[460] They go into control.

[461] No one in Wyoming in the government would like to see wolves wiped out and put back on the endangered species list.

[462] it'd be the worst thing that could possibly happen for them.

[463] There's no interest to, like, extirpate them.

[464] You know, no one's arguing for extirpation.

[465] It's just bringing them into control because we are puppeteers, you know.

[466] I mean, there's a lot of people living here and you're, you're, like, really balancing a lot of interests, you know.

[467] And so, again, it's like, like so much in life, you really have to take, before it jump into the stuff, the emotional stuff, you really have to take the time to look at this stuff.

[468] It's a long, complicated issue.

[469] It's long.

[470] There's a lot of factors.

[471] And we haven't even gotten into ballistics.

[472] Ballistics?

[473] No, I was trying to explain to you all the different calibers.

[474] Oh, Jesus Christ.

[475] No, I was saying, it's like the whole world of, yeah, it's, that's kind of why I love all this stuff, man. It's like chess or something.

[476] Well, there's new things to learn, that's for sure.

[477] You know, before, long before I ever even thought about hunting, I would see a beautiful deer.

[478] And I'd be like, why would anybody kill that?

[479] It's so cool to look at.

[480] And then you see a few people hit them with cars.

[481] And one time I was driving home, I was doing a gig in upstate New York.

[482] And I had to drive home like 30 miles an hour at the most because fucking deer were everywhere.

[483] It was madness.

[484] It was in the middle of the summer.

[485] And I have never seen more.

[486] I don't think I'd ever seen more than like two deer in my whole life until this day.

[487] And then I'm driving home from this gig and it was fucking madness.

[488] It was upstate New York.

[489] Was it November?

[490] I want to say it was the summer, but it was so long ago, I don't really know.

[491] They were out and about fucking madness, just jumping in front of the car, left and right.

[492] You see them on the side of the highway.

[493] And you see one get plastered by a truck and it opens up.

[494] You're like, that thing's made of meat.

[495] I had no idea.

[496] They were exploding.

[497] I mean, I saw at least four of them that had exploded and wrecked cars.

[498] And it was one of the craziest things I'd ever seen in my life.

[499] I don't know why there's so many of them in this one particular area of upstairs.

[500] state new york but it was a really an infestation yeah people are so whacked out too like some of those areas in the northeast or you know there's so many deer and they're kind of like well maybe we can hire snipers to go out at night and shoot them or we'll give them uh you know put up the deer on birth control yeah meanwhile like all these dudes being like i got a great i know the perfect way open up you know suburban urban bow hunt people pay to come out and do it's like no we'd rather pay i think i remember reading this one thing that come out i don't know it was By the time they did this deer, this town one lowered its deer population was all said done.

[501] They had, like, a thousand or more dollars into each deer they got rid of.

[502] Well, it's going on right now, you know, in the Hamptons.

[503] Yeah.

[504] Do you know what's going on in the Hamptons?

[505] Massive overpopulation of deer, so they're hiring snipers.

[506] They're going to put suppressors on these guns and go in the middle of the night.

[507] They're going to hunt at night so that people don't have to experience it or freak out, and they're going to shoot these fucking deer because there's so many of them.

[508] And then the other argument was, let's get them on birth control.

[509] They're going to spend $350 ,000.

[510] Give them an implant.

[511] Give fucking deer birth control.

[512] Like, what are you talking about?

[513] There was a TV show about this.

[514] Well, it's all to prevent the harrowing experience that might happen to someone should they wake up in the morning and realize and see a deer run into their yard and tip over because they had an arrow in it.

[515] And as much upsetting as that would be, it's so much better to go out and just at night, quietly, snip them off, you know?

[516] There was a video.

[517] Clean it all up.

[518] There's a video of this happening in some other country.

[519] They showed these...

[520] That was a joke.

[521] That video, the lions released to deal with the deer population.

[522] That was like the onion.

[523] Was it?

[524] Was it?

[525] Jamie's Googling shit.

[526] Yeah, it's the onion, you fuck.

[527] It was one of those fake onions.

[528] There's a bunch of onions now fake onion.

[529] You know, the onion, if you don't know, is a parody website.

[530] There's a bunch of fake ones that aren't nearly as good at, like, being obvious.

[531] But they're so fake, did they say the onion on them?

[532] No, no, no. Oh, okay.

[533] No, they're just, like, national blah, blah, blah report, but they're bullshit.

[534] They're bullshit.

[535] Like, one of them had a report of the day that Colorado legalized marijuana, 37 people died of an overdose.

[536] Oh, yeah.

[537] And I can't tell you how many people sent me that.

[538] I'm like, marijuana is not toxic, you dummies.

[539] Like, you'd literally have to smoke 1 ,500 pounds of marijuana in 30 minutes to die.

[540] It's not killing anybody.

[541] Stop.

[542] But these people, you know, they read this online and they think it's true.

[543] There's been a gang of those.

[544] Yeah, has anyone ever died?

[545] If you've ever heard, no one ever dies for marijuana.

[546] It's not possible.

[547] You kidding.

[548] You physically wouldn't be able to smoke enough to kill yourself.

[549] The LD50, like we've, we actually were talking about LD 50s of things.

[550] That means lethal dose at 50 % lethal dose of 50 % of.

[551] Oh, I got you.

[552] I've heard that term.

[553] You know, because my brother works in, his work involves a little bit, not the use of, but the understanding of herbicides and pesticides.

[554] I feel like he talks about LD 50s on pesticides, yeah.

[555] Yeah, marijuana is so high, it's insane.

[556] But there's a lot of things that have really low LD50s.

[557] Ecstasy, for instance.

[558] Like, if you take, I think it's 10 or 15 times the effective dose of MDMA, you're dead.

[559] Yeah.

[560] If you eat 10 ounces of salt, if you're a 200 -pound man, you eat 10 ounces of salt, you're a goner.

[561] Is that right?

[562] Yeah, that's not much.

[563] But think of how upset your body gets when you're snorkeling or something, and you get a couple gulps?

[564] Oh, yeah.

[565] Just you start retching.

[566] Yeah, that's a salt.

[567] water that's a miserable family well it's also uh if you want to you know if you have like some sort of a bowel issue and you want to clean out the old pipes a little bit of um take some epsom salts and some water just a couple of tablespoons garlet and shove it down the pipe and it'll be like a broken fire is that right oh my goodness it's it's it's unbelievable it's very effective i used to wash when i was i got this job when i was 13 washing dishes at a summer camp i was washing dishes for campers that were older than I was and there's a cook there I don't want to say David S I'll say and one day he was drank iced tea and I put a bunch of salt in his iced tea to mess with him so he'd sip it and be like salt and he'd spit it out as retribution he comes up behind me and kind of puts me in a lock and grabs my forehead and tips my head back and fills my mouth with poured salt Yeah Wow Gave me some sores Made me throw up That's dangerous Yeah He probably didn't know That you could die David S That fuck Where are you Dave Dave Dave S I'll tell you The name of the camp Camp Pendalouan Oh where's that at West Michigan Is it still open Yeah I have no idea I don't know why it wouldn't be Camps are fucking Little They're little like Breeding grounds For criminals When I was a kid I went to Boy Scout camp For two weeks It was just a bunch to inner city kids from Boston alone in the woods with very little very little guide like lord of the flies it was dangerous man it was I by three days in I was there for two weeks by three days in I realized like this is fucking dangerous you have to keep your eyes open in the middle of the night because it was dark as shit and kids were getting up in the middle of the night and tying kids to their beds and then leaving them in the woods like dragging them out while they were sleeping you know they would wake up screaming alone in the dark like in the woods No, there's no predators or anything in New Hampshire, but it was fucking...

[568] No, it still brings out the ruthlessness of youngsters.

[569] Yeah, so there was all these activities.

[570] I just hid and went fishing every day.

[571] So you were in the Boy Scouts?

[572] Yeah, I got up in the morning and just said, fuck all your fucking plans, I'm going fishing.

[573] I just took my fishing rod and vanished, and they didn't care.

[574] As long as I was back at the end of the day, they didn't even know I was gone.

[575] Like, no one knew.

[576] I did the archery things, and then I went and fished, and that's it.

[577] I remember, you know, I work at, I'm on the mass edit outside of magazine, and they were telling me that the most letter, the most letter -generating article they ever ran was an article that was deemed to be critical of the Boy Scouts, because there had been another, there had been a number of catastrophes that had happened to Boy Scouts that scout camp.

[578] Like a handful of things, there was a lightning strike.

[579] There was a drowning incident.

[580] and some more things in there.

[581] It kind of ran this article like, is your kid safe at Boy Scout camp?

[582] And it really riled the organization up.

[583] I think they were telling me it won't be the number one letter -generating thing ever.

[584] Well, they don't want to face the reality of the situation.

[585] It's not 100 % safe.

[586] If you're going camping, it's not 100 % safe.

[587] Most likely you're going to be fine.

[588] Statistically, you're probably going to be fine.

[589] But when you've got a bunch of inner city kids and they have fucking bows and arrows and pocket knives and they're wandering through the woods and there's only like three counselors there was like 30 fucking kids and three people watching us there was a lot of shit going on man you know they tried to wake they they grabbed me in the middle of the night but I woke up and I screamed and I jumped out of bed and they let me go and then you know there's just a bunch of little inner city thugs and I was young I was probably like at the time maybe 12 maybe 13 somewhere along but there was other kids that were like 16 and 17 and they were the ones that were doing shit and they were you know there were the Eagle Scouts They were older fucking weirdos That had done this many times They had been camping three or four years in a row And they were looking forward to it They were the war they were the warlords man They covered your clothes With clothes with toothpaste Toothcase doesn't come out of your clothes Try washing toothpaste out of your fucking clothes I dribble I dribble I got my tooth I have like you know Vertical toothpaste They would fucking squirt it all over people's clothes And mash them together and throw it back And you pull your clothes out And they're covered with toothpe it was brutal Just a bunch of little criminals alone in the woods with very little supervision.

[590] My old man was involved, was real heavily involved in Boy Scouts for a while, and I think he'd become an Eagle Scout.

[591] And I joined Cub Scouts as a kid, but the problem, the way it was, is, like, my dad was always doing such interesting stuff, and it would take us to do such interesting stuff.

[592] It'd be like, you know, whatever Wednesday and there was a Cub Scout meeting, and you could go do, like, nice things.

[593] You know, like, if you didn't have a dad, it'd be great stuff, you know?

[594] But on one hand, like, I could go over, and we could do, like, not tying and stuff like that or i could go out deer hunting my dad so like he always like would kind of trump you know you could do like the way cool stuff so i never got involved in it but it was it was great for him because he was born like an inner city kid you know and didn't like that he was born inner city kid and wanted to somehow be out in the woods and for him it was a perfect avenue into it but then for me it was like uh you know you couldn't do his cool stuff doing that as i could hang out with you know my dad and his friends and his kids so i never got really involved in it.

[595] When I was in high school, I don't remember the kid's name, but someone wrote a really cool article.

[596] One of the kids in my school about Boy Scouts, about the problem with the whole the code of the Boy Scouts, because one of them was keeping your thoughts clean.

[597] Was that right?

[598] Yeah.

[599] I forget the exact.

[600] Let's put up a Boy Scout code.

[601] So you get to thinking about something and you're like, man, I shouldn't be thinking about that.

[602] That was the idea.

[603] That never works.

[604] well this guy was the guy who wrote this I remember reading this as I was a high school student and this guy's got a really good fucking point the point was like what do you give a fuck what I think like why are you trying to control my thoughts like I'm not hurting anybody I might think something crazy and deviant but I'm not doing it as long as I'm not doing it or why I'm supposed to keep my thoughts pure maybe it's fun for me to entertain ridiculous thoughts but isn't that I know because that's kind of like what self -control is like self -control doesn't speak to that thought the ideas you entertain.

[605] Self -control speaks to or it's like you get an email and you're like I'm gonna write a really mean email back but and then you it's so fun to imagine what you're saying to mean email you're like I'm gonna put it up.

[606] The tomorrow you like write a regular email and that is like supposed to be like adult behavior.

[607] Exactly you know yeah control yeah well you know someone's an asshole controlling your actions you see someone who's an asshole in the car and you want to pull them out of the car and beat him to death but you don't you don't do anything you just go yeah and you drive down and you're like yeah I would I would pull his fingernails out I'd sew his eyes open and throw salt on them and make him stare at the sun I never go there I just go to bone breaking right away snap someone's arm they don't want to fight back yeah trustworthy loyal helpful friendly courteous kind obedient cheerful thrifty brave clean reverent a scout is reverent towards God he is faithful in his religious duties he respects the belief of others yeah here's the big one clean a scout keeps his body and mind fit and clean that was the one that this guy had a problem with i i remember reading that and going yeah the fucking boy scouts are silly his kid's right but that's not what the fucking scouts were wasn't when i was when you were in here well i was i went to my branch was uh in um jamaica plane which is not a very nice part of boston's got become more gentrified now yeah but in the early late 70s 19 I guess it was 80, 1979 or 80 when I was in it.

[608] It was fucking creeps.

[609] What pushed you to get involved in it?

[610] I mean, what was your, like, you wanted to get out?

[611] No, I mean, I liked fishing, and I liked outdoor stuff.

[612] I was always into doing stuff from the outdoors, and I did a lot of fishing.

[613] I was always fishing.

[614] So it was like a good avenue, perceived as a good avenue to get out and...

[615] I just thought it would be fun, something to do.

[616] I'd love to be an Eagle Scout.

[617] I thought it'd be a cool thing to be an Eagle Scout, you know?

[618] But then once I got in...

[619] I was cool with the Scouts until we went camping, and then I was like, get the fuck out of here.

[620] I was done.

[621] You got terrorized.

[622] I was so sad, too.

[623] I miss my parents so bad.

[624] I remember the first time I'd ever been away for like two weeks by myself, a bunch of fucking criminals in the woods.

[625] I came home while I was so happy.

[626] I can't even imagine now, man. I used to get homesick when I was a kid.

[627] I get the opposite of homesick now, you know what I mean?

[628] But yeah, I used to get homesick as a kid.

[629] Well, do you find, like, I find, I travel so much that when I'm home for a couple weeks, I'm like, okay already.

[630] What's next?

[631] I try not to be that, you know, I try not to you.

[632] But yeah, you get used to a certain momentum.

[633] I mean, you know, and you get home for a while, and my wife will sometimes point out, she's like, you haven't even been home a week, and I can tell you, you know.

[634] Well, I don't get, the one way I don't get that way is with my kids.

[635] Like, I never want to leave my kids.

[636] And whenever I go, like, anywhere, like on vacation, the thing that, or on a trip to work, the thing that always gets me is, I hate leaving my kids.

[637] I don't, I don't like leaving them.

[638] But my wife, I'm fucking, I don't mind leaving her at all.

[639] I love her, but I think it's good.

[640] I think it's good to get the fuck away from people, but just not little kids.

[641] But if it was just me and my wife, I'd be fucking vacationing, I mean, I'd be working.

[642] I'd say vacation.

[643] This was a wrong term.

[644] It's going places.

[645] It makes me appreciate her more.

[646] It makes me appreciate my friends more, too.

[647] I think there's a balance.

[648] And I think when you're around someone all the time, you don't appreciate them as much as when you go away, you miss them, and then you come back.

[649] I feel that's true for me. Yeah.

[650] I got to watch what I say because I can't imagine.

[651] I'm trying to picture my wife's going to listen.

[652] She's busy all the time, you know, but I never know if she might get a free minute.

[653] Someone might tell her about it.

[654] That's the real problem.

[655] The little tattletails, one of those little bitches she goes to the gym with.

[656] I just want to say, though, I love my wife.

[657] I love my wife, too.

[658] So much.

[659] If my wife's listening, you're my favorite person ever.

[660] Yeah, but just like I think that, you know, like there's a balance, you know.

[661] And part of the balance is appreciating things when you're not there.

[662] You know, when you're gone, you appreciate them.

[663] You know what?

[664] You know, my wife was annoyed with me recently.

[665] I discovered this Waylon Jennings song called Freedom to Stay.

[666] And it's like this dude, the narrator, Whalen.

[667] And, you know, begins where he's got his backpack and he ties his bandana on, you know, and he goes to the door and his woman's sleeping.

[668] And he's going to go off and roam around, you know, and be a vagrant.

[669] And he realizes that everything he wants is here.

[670] and the refrain is kind of like you gave me the freedom to go my own way which gave me the freedom to stay where he's like...

[671] And she got annoyed at you?

[672] No, because I keep singing it to her and telling her how it's our song, you know.

[673] She liberated me from my desire to be a wander.

[674] Oh, that's funny.

[675] Well, you know, you live a very strange life for someone to be married to you.

[676] I mean, you're constantly gone away hunting.

[677] Yeah, I'm going a lot.

[678] And you also are gone in places where you don't get any cell phone service.

[679] You're like, you're in the fucking mountains.

[680] You're off in Alaska.

[681] You're in New Zealand.

[682] You're in these places where, you know, you're gone.

[683] And you come back with this dead animal in a cooler.

[684] Yeah.

[685] My wife always asks, like, where were you?

[686] Who had gone?

[687] Who was with you?

[688] Did you get anything?

[689] And she usually likes to ask after I get back.

[690] It's like she often doesn't ask when I'm going.

[691] When I get back, she likes to know those things.

[692] My three -year -old wants to know what I kapowed.

[693] and if we're going to eat it now you guys want us to know that yeah yeah I get I have I mean I have like a very nice existence you know I get to spend a lot of time going to fantastic places and doing cool stuff it's a very unusual life for a hunter that you managed to figure out how to make a living doing that I know because I used to think I would make a living like I thought I'd make a living doing that I was going to make a living I knew I was going to make a a living hunting when i was a kid i wanted to be a professional hunter so i tried i trapped for a long time and got you know sold for got really involved like really heavily involved in trapping and you know took lessons and trapping read everything about trapping i was going to be a professional trapper the fur prices were so low when i quit trapping that was just like wasn't going to happen and then i hit on this idea that i would write about um that i'd write about that kind of stuff instead and so it was like writing was kind of my plan b but yeah i thought that i would just live about, you know, like when I was a kid, I had this dream or this fantasy that I would just live out in the woods and never talk to anybody and hunt, you know, and now I kind of, like, make my living, like, communicating.

[694] It was supposed to be the thing.

[695] The one thing I wasn't in my plan was, I wasn't going to communicate.

[696] Well, that's really funny because you're good at it, you know, and the fact that the writing is, uh, there was a sort of, you know, it came about in order to make it so that you can make a living hunting.

[697] Yeah.

[698] You're really good writer, man. And meat eater is a great book.

[699] Yeah, I enjoy it.

[700] I remember when I was in 10th grade, I had just English teacher, Mr. Heaton, and I had written an essay, I'd written like a comparison contrast paper about Melville and Faulkner or something.

[701] I can't remember what.

[702] And for the English class, and he said, I'm going to submit your essay to a writing contest.

[703] And I forbade him from doing it.

[704] I can't even imagine why, but I told him, like, I wasn't going to do that.

[705] I don't want to be in the contest.

[706] But he sent it anyways, and that won second place.

[707] And when I got this letter that I had to go to this award, ceremony it mentioned the cash prize and i was super excited it was supposed to be 250 bucks or something we go down there and the gal that won the event was at this place called the fronthal center in muskegon michigan michigan the gal that won goes up and gets a check and then i go up and they give me a thesaurus and i was just like bummed so i thought i got 250 bucks and i was like visibly bummed and mr heathen had come the award ceremony with me and he said um he said something i'll never forget he's like you know there's far more than 250 dollars worth of words in that book you know that was kind of my genesis as a writer was the idea that the book is worth 250 bucks no he meant like that if you can capture no no not his point i mean like you thought you were going to get 250 bucks no they just changed or the budget wasn't what it was or i mean i never had a satisfactory answer the why i didn't get 250 bucks but i went there wanting my check can come out with this book i still have that thesaurus you know do you really yeah oh that's funny yeah i keep it in my um box of like special stuff how did you wind up doing the wild within that was that was how i found out about you you were on a show on the travel channel it was called the wild within it was an interesting show the first episode ever watched you were um going to take the same route that lewis and clark took and you shot a moose and turned it into a boat made a bull boat out of a buffalo yeah was a buffalo that's what it was yeah yeah you shot it with a musket too right i mean Do you want, like, the show business story about how I did?

[708] What made you decide to be on TV?

[709] Like, what did it?

[710] I would periodically, like, as a writer, I would periodically get called by producers and developers about stuff I had written.

[711] Or they would kind of summon you, you know?

[712] Like, you might get a phone call or you get an email, not a phone call, an email through a magazine or whatever, and realize that some guy at History Channel wants you to come down.

[713] And what they do is they're desk -bound individuals.

[714] and they're obligated to go into these meetings, you know, and have, like, some ideas.

[715] And so when they're putting together their portfolio of ideas, they would like to go contact writers or people who are out doing interesting stuff in the hinterlands, you know, and come in and kind of report about what's exciting at the time.

[716] And I'd gone to a number of these meetings over the years about stories I had written.

[717] And every time you get the email, you're like, oh, my God, I'm going to be on TV.

[718] And it would never work out.

[719] But eventually I signed a development agreement after I wrote my first book.

[720] The book, Scavenger's Guide to Oak Cuisine, which I just got the rights back to.

[721] That book sells, like, there's so few of those books out there, they sell on Amazon for, like, $130.

[722] Really?

[723] And I just, like, Miramax or Weinstein Company, just gave me my rights back.

[724] Wow.

[725] In a move that would benefit them in no way whatsoever, just like out of the goodness of their hearts, like, gave me the rights to my book back.

[726] Why did they do that?

[727] You don't know?

[728] As much as people like to talk about Harvey Weinstein being like the worst guy on the planet I don't know that I know that his company just gave me my book's rights back Didn't even try to get money out of me just gave him to me I've never heard he's the worst guy on the planet I'm people tell you horror stories you know I've never heard any horror stories no but I don't have any There's a great book or a great documentary detailing a horror story that he dealt with Oh, is that right?

[729] Yeah it's called Overnight oh have you seen that's a great movie It's a fucking great movie.

[730] Yeah, and that guy was to blame in that thing, but...

[731] Fuck, yeah.

[732] Yeah, that guy, like, the cover of it is him, like, holding the camera to his head.

[733] Like, yeah, that's a phenomenal movie.

[734] If you don't know, if you haven't seen it, it's about the producer, writer, whatever, of, um...

[735] What's that fucking shoot him up?

[736] Yeah, Boondock Saints.

[737] Yeah.

[738] Terrible fucking movie, by the way.

[739] Don't you dare tell me that's good.

[740] No, I won't.

[741] People have, not you.

[742] I mean, whoever you are out there, you fucking freaks that like that, people have told me that's good and then I watched it and I was like I made it 20 minutes in I was like this is a piece of shit yeah terrible movie I didn't know anything I watched it after the documentary I was like I watched it like mad I go see this movie but it only validates the you know it validates the movie yeah well you know what it came out of it came out of pulp fiction there's this whole breed of this genre that came out of pulp fiction but what they don't understand pulp fiction is a fucking genius movie from a genius movie maker I mean, Quentin Tarantino is a bad motherfucker.

[743] Dude, when I went to see that movie, it felt like, like, like, something came down from the heavens and touched my forehead.

[744] I had never seen anything like it.

[745] I didn't know anything about, like, cool movies, man. I was blown away.

[746] But it's so complex, and there's so many layers to it, and the timeline switched around.

[747] I mean, it's a genius work of film.

[748] And then this fucking dummy came along and decided to make this shoot him up, and there's going to be, why, fuck you, fucking.

[749] fucking fuck fuck and bang bang bang and it's just it's an assault on your intelligence it's shit and i just thought it was a piece of shit and then i watched this documentary on the guy who made it i was like oh and being out here it's a great job i don't know anything about the guy that made that movie it's a great job in that movie yeah well i mean the people who made it like the guy who ever made overnight like it was just a phenomenal job well the guys who made it were the guys who were involved with him in the beginning oh really yeah they were documenting this this rise to fame.

[750] They were supposed to be documenting this guy who worked at a bar.

[751] Harvey Weinstein signs him to this gigantic deal and buys the bar and they're going to own the bar together and make giant movies together.

[752] They just were convinced that this guy was brilliant.

[753] And meanwhile, he's like saying like anti -Semitic stuff and like, yeah.

[754] He's just ego.

[755] The documentary is about ego.

[756] And if you're a person who's like planning on any sort of a career and show business, I think it's a must watch.

[757] Because I've seen those people.

[758] I've never met him, but I've seen a hundred guys like him that didn't make it.

[759] I've met a hundred of those guys that were convinced that they're the baddest motherfuckers.

[760] His fucking towns, never seen anybody like us before.

[761] We're going to fucking run this town.

[762] I've met those guys.

[763] I've met so many of them.

[764] And acting and the film business breeds them somehow or another.

[765] The idea of acting, first of all, is responsible for a lot of disproportionate egos.

[766] egos that are not based on anything realistic that is based on your ability to pretend and then not even based on you being really good at pretending sometimes but you being famous for pretending and these people just because the cameras on them and people pay attention to them have these enormous insane egos I've seen it on sitcom sets I've seen it in movies I've seen the actors I've seen the madness like the reality of life escapes them They are insulated from it completely And they live in this world where The cameras on them And they have this idea that because the cameras on them They must be special So because they're special But there's no ego check There's no I understand You know like to get To put it in the honey terms Like say if you're going to go after A very difficult animal to track Okay Let's say if you're going to go after Himalayan tar You're gonna fucking climb through the mountains It's an incredibly difficult task It takes a long time to get there You might not see one for days When you finally do see one This mule deer This skull that's on the table It's a perfect example You and I hiked around for days We walked seven hours a day We worked our asses off man It's a hall So when that thing actually When I actually shot it and it dropped And then we brought it back It was like wow like we did it we did something whereas if if that thing was in a pen okay and I walked up and shot it in the face I would have zero feeling of accomplishment well acting is a lot like shooting an animal in the face it's a lot like shooting a penned up animal in the face like you're not really some special person you're just someone who's crazy so you're good at pretending because you don't really have a self -identity so your self -identity can be manipulated in you know or your your personality can manipulate it in a in a This has what you're saying has validity because you do it.

[767] You act.

[768] I have.

[769] I have acted.

[770] I avoid it for that very reason.

[771] Because I feel like those people are sick.

[772] I feel like there's something about that occupation where you pretend to be like, you know how many people I've met that like they play tough guys in movies so they think they're tough guys?

[773] They're fucking crazy.

[774] I've met so many of them.

[775] It's it's a sick way to make a living.

[776] Some people pull it off and they become really sensitive.

[777] city people like Henry Winkler the Fawns.

[778] Yeah.

[779] One of the nicest fucking guys I've ever met.

[780] I'll tell you, I've heard that from multiple people.

[781] He's a sweetheart.

[782] I've heard that from multiple people.

[783] I've heard that from multiple people.

[784] Wrote a book about it.

[785] I've never met an idiot on the river.

[786] That was his book?

[787] Yeah.

[788] I've heard of it.

[789] No, I've heard from multiple people what, like a, like how surprised people are.

[790] What a great guy.

[791] You talk to him, you would have no idea.

[792] And he played a tough guy.

[793] He could turn on and turn off electric appliances by punching the wall.

[794] If that don't go guy too which is really I mean I'm a short guy but he's tiny I mean it's weird you know like this guy was like this tough guy on this show like how did that ever work yeah he would walk in to a bathroom and bang the wall and would run out of the bathroom and he would talk to pinky tuscadero in there he was good at it he was good at it too I mean but you know I've met my point is I've met a lot of really nice actors it's not a broad sweeping generalization but I think that the occupation itself is it's so unchecked like stand -up comedy for for instance, is very checked.

[795] Like, if you're a funny comedian, the reason why you're a funny comedian, you have to write the comedy, you have to perform it, you bomb, you reassess, you go back to the drawing board, you have to figure out how to do it.

[796] Once you actually get to doing it, there's a certain amount of humility, like after 10 years of doing it that almost all comedians possess.

[797] When you talk to them about comedy, even if they're really good at, they'll never tell you, like, I'm a bad motherfucker, I'm the baddest motherfucker they're ever going on stage.

[798] They never...

[799] Because you live a flop in such an immediate way, man. Yeah, you die.

[800] You fucking, you eat shit up there.

[801] It happens so often.

[802] You crushes your ego.

[803] I can imagine it's like, you're just watching it happen.

[804] It's like a movie like you make it.

[805] There's all this excitement and something later.

[806] It doesn't do well.

[807] You're like up there going like, this is not going well.

[808] I've never done it, but I can just imagine how humiliating it must be.

[809] The way I described it is like sucking a thousand dicks in front of your mother.

[810] It's actually probably worse than that because there's somewhere out there There's someone that would like to suck a thousand dicks in front of his mother.

[811] Nobody wants to bomb on stage.

[812] It's just a horrible crushing human.

[813] But along the way, one of the things that you learn is to be really good at comedy, you have to lose all of your sense of self -importance.

[814] You have to lose all of that, pretending you're something special.

[815] Like, you're not something special.

[816] You're just a person.

[817] And the best way to do comedy is almost to be non -existent.

[818] Like, when you write and when you perform, there's almost no you in there unless it's a self -deprecating aspect of it like you're you're pointing out things that are silly about you or pointing out ridiculous ideas that you might have had in your head at one point in time but other than that like when you're performing you're never thinking man i'm up here and i'm killing you don't think of that at all like you're almost like a passenger in this weird ride that you put together yeah i got you and you all you know is that you kind of know how to do it and all you know is that you kind of have to keep at it in order to continue to do it and then it's It's really fun to do, but the moment you start taking it serious or attributing it all of the success of it to you being super special and amazing and unique, you fucking suck.

[819] But we're after - But your comedy suffers.

[820] Oh, it goes terribly wrong.

[821] Yeah, because people know that.

[822] They don't want to laugh at you.

[823] Part of laughing at you is like you have to be like in the moment of what you're doing.

[824] And if you're in the moment of what you're doing, the last thing you're going to be thinking about is how awesome you are.

[825] Like that doesn't come up.

[826] Whereas an actor, like, you can pretend that there's something really special about you.

[827] Like, when that ready, action.

[828] And then you do this role and you play this guy.

[829] It's all pretend.

[830] It's all bullshit.

[831] So the checking aspect, the being, the ego check and the creative process, the tuning in.

[832] It's not existing.

[833] But you're treated probably around you.

[834] You treat with a certain amount of deference, too, that you're not going to get doing stand -up.

[835] Exactly.

[836] They're treated like, but we're treated like shit.

[837] The comedians like, well, you know, people like you if you're good.

[838] and they appreciate the...

[839] But no one like takes it seriously as an art form.

[840] Yeah.

[841] Which is one of the reasons why plagiarism was always so a huge problem with comedy whereas it was treated with, you know, if you think about plagiarism and literature, there's lawsuits and people's careers are real.

[842] Oh yeah, like you'll be disrespected.

[843] Music, massive lawsuits.

[844] I mean, people have lost millions of dollars just for a riff.

[845] Like, one of my favorite examples is there's a great song by the Verve Bitter Sweet Symphony.

[846] I don't know that song.

[847] But that riff is stolen from...

[848] the rolling stones so because of that those guys made nothing they didn't make anything i didn't know that yeah they had to give it all away i still like that song it's great song well the lyrics are great it's interesting but there's no doubt about it that riff comes from the rolling stones what stones tune oh do you know you know this a little bit i think maybe forgot i'm going to see you on january 31st oh yeah yeah yeah oh cool is that sold out yet should we talk about yeah no it's sold out it's been sold time by the rolling that's all right the last time yeah i will after i saw you last time when i went to see you in new jersey we were driving home with my wife was saying to me she's like my face hurts from laughing at heart oh that's and i wanted to write a thing i wanted to write a thing like the i wanted to write i envisioned writing something called like the only happy comedian because you like you seem like i don't understand comedy doll but you got to think we you come at it from a position of strength some way.

[849] Like, so much stuff is funny because it's like from a place of self -loathing like, so many comedians do like a self -loathing thing.

[850] And it might not be real, but it's like it's kind of like, it's just where it spawns from.

[851] It's like self -hatred and I'm so pathetic, you know what I mean?

[852] It's like funny that you build a whole act.

[853] You can build a whole act and like come, like you're at a position of strength.

[854] I don't know if you ever think of it that way.

[855] But like you're up there, like you seem, like when you're up there you seem somehow like in control and, you know, like a a word you like, in control and powerful but still funny.

[856] And it's a weird contradiction because from stand -up we get to thinking like it's just like yo my wife don't like me no one likes me I'm awful I can't do anything well people have always said that you know you have to be nebishi or fat or weird to be a comedian like I was told that so much that I was insecure about my body when I first started doing comedy that's kind of what I'm saying you could be like no I'm fine yeah like if I wasn't doing this I'd be fine I'd be doing something else the thing about comedy is that there's no rules there's no rules i mean there's there's there's there's sort of laws to it but there's no rules you know there's there's laws and some of the laws are that it has to be funny to you and that you you have to learn it and that everybody's different like there's mitch headberg who is like uh you familiar mich oh yeah man i got a good i got a good michadberg story yeah well we'll get in that one of my all -time favorites but then there's also sam kinnison two completely different styles of comedy two of my all -time favorite comedians there's it's all based on what is the world through your eyes and what what i find funny it it's funny coming out of me it's coming out of my my mind but if you gave my act to demetri martin you probably wouldn't be able to pull it off you know the more violent physical aggressive aspects of my act it wouldn't work you know it works because it's funny to me it's obviously funny to me yeah and i'm being honest like when when i talk about the things that i think are funny it's because i've thought about it These are things that I honestly find amusing.

[857] I'm not lying.

[858] But you don't sit around and think, like, what would be something funny I could say?

[859] Never.

[860] What I do is...

[861] It jumps in your head, and you're like, I will convert this now into my comedy.

[862] Well, it's taken a long time.

[863] I would say there's stages of comedy.

[864] The first stage is you're absolutely terrified, and all you're trying to do is get a laugh in any way, shape, or form.

[865] And I think of jokes in that stage as tools.

[866] All you're trying to do is get by.

[867] You do, like, usually in the beginning, like, when you're an open mic comedian, you've got five minutes on stage.

[868] And those five minutes are fucking harrowing, a ride through hell.

[869] And when it's over, you're like, whew, I got a couple of laughs.

[870] All right, good.

[871] I didn't die.

[872] And then occasionally you will die.

[873] And then you'll think about quitting.

[874] And many, many times I thought about quitting.

[875] I was like, fuck, I can't do this anymore.

[876] It's too devastating.

[877] You can't handle getting beat up like that.

[878] You're in, the punishment that your self -esteem takes when you bomb on stage is almost overwhelming.

[879] Like, for some people, I've seen guys bomb and never recover.

[880] I've seen them like their act diminishes Like they had some potential There was something there And then I've seen like one night Where the fucking wheels come off And then they never they never recover Is that right It's almost like a beating that a fighter takes I've seen fighters take beatings And not even just the physical punishment of it But the confidence Destruction of it Yeah They never are the same guy again They never become that carefree cocky guy again It just goes away And with that So does their fighting career I've seen that happen with comedians as well.

[881] So the beginning is just tools.

[882] And then once you do that, then somewhere along the line, you go, okay, I'm pretty confident that I have some tools.

[883] Now, what do I think is funny?

[884] What would I laugh at?

[885] This is what's funny to me. And then you come up with stuff that's funny to you.

[886] And then there's a stage three that comedians may or may not ever even get into.

[887] And that is, how do you make your ideas funny?

[888] Ideas like philosophy.

[889] Like, how do you have a point of view and figure out a way to impart that point of view on people like for me there's a thing I'm doing and just so just so unclear when you're talking about you're talking about moving away from just like jokes yes like what does this do it's this ha ha ha ha me like taking like philosophies or trying to figure out a way to get an idea and to turn that idea into comedy trying to maybe maybe a controversial idea maybe an idea that you think is important maybe just a thought because there's a way to introduce an idea into someone's brain Give me an example of an idea.

[890] Well, can you pull one?

[891] I mean, can you throw one out?

[892] It's hard to do.

[893] This is what I was going to say.

[894] Like, say, like, if you go on stage and say, uh, say if you're a Republican and you're on stage and you start going off about, uh, you know, gay marriage or this or that, and you just give a speech.

[895] Yeah.

[896] If I'm in the audience and I have an opposing point of view, I, I go, well, fuck you.

[897] I don't like your opinion.

[898] I, I think that's wrong.

[899] And I think people should be able to do this.

[900] But if you go on stage and say something that makes me laugh.

[901] Yeah.

[902] Even if I don't agree with you, even if I don't agree with you, if you make me laugh, I have to at least consider your idea.

[903] I have to at least, you've introduced, like, here's a perfect example.

[904] I had a guy who came out to me who was a Christian, and I used to do this bit about Noah's Ark, that if you told Noah and the Ark to an eight -year -old retarded boy, he's going to have some questions.

[905] So I had this whole bit about, you know, someone sitting down with this young retarded boy telling him the story of Noah's Ark. Yeah, yeah.

[906] And it was just, it was a really long bit.

[907] It was like, and this guy came up to me and goes, I got to tell you, man, look, I'm a Christian and you started talking about Noah's Ark. And I started getting offended.

[908] And he goes, but two or three minutes into that fucking bit, I was laughing so goddamn hard.

[909] I started thinking, what the fuck?

[910] How is that a real story?

[911] And he started laughing.

[912] He goes, I just want to say, congratulations.

[913] You made me laugh at something that's completely opposed to my own beliefs.

[914] Yeah, yeah.

[915] This is a video where a guy came up to me after.

[916] a show in Georgia.

[917] Here, play this, because this is kind of funny.

[918] This guy told me he found Noah's Ark on a mountain.

[919] So I actually look for a documenter that'll, you know, check it out and say, okay.

[920] And we actually fund expeditions to back up what somebody claimed.

[921] I'm going to tell you, the shots I'll show you, well, kind of blow your mind.

[922] But our job's not to say what it is.

[923] Right.

[924] Our jobs just confirm what they found.

[925] So I think you...

[926] So you really...

[927] I'm confused, though.

[928] You really believe that it's Noah's Ark?

[929] Alright, well, let me take...

[930] Let me tell you what I'm out.

[931] Okay, first of all, they did find a boat -shaped object in the mountains of air rat that's 515 feet long.

[932] That should be enough for all the animals.

[933] About 515 feet?

[934] Yeah.

[935] For about 100 million species?

[936] That seems right.

[937] Well, I don't know.

[938] Okay, it's about 550.

[939] How long as they keep the hippos off?

[940] Yeah.

[941] Can you even get some hippos on a 550 feet?

[942] Anyway, if you saw the shots, how many, just the things that were found, it's a cool thing.

[943] At the very least, you might be able to use some more material.

[944] Isn't it possible that maybe it's just a boat?

[945] Yeah, could make...

[946] Well, why would anybody assume that that boat would make any, there would be any connection in history to do a crazy story about a dude who got all the animals to come on his boat because God talked to him, told him, was going to rain, and he was going to drown everybody because everybody wasn't paying attention.

[947] You just think about all that stuff.

[948] Oh, I think it makes sense.

[949] How could that be Noah's art?

[950] It's good.

[951] Well, listen, no, no. You don't actually have wood there anymore.

[952] Well, whatever it is, even if it's a boat.

[953] Even if it was a solid boat, it's still just a boat.

[954] Unless you found, like, camel shit right next to rhino shit.

[955] Well, actually, we do have samples of that.

[956] You have camel shit?

[957] We've taken core samples and found different species of animals of remains.

[958] We've got 12.

[959] No, they didn't.

[960] We've got 12 anchors, again, should be about enough for hundreds and millions of animals.

[961] There was probably more than that, but what do you do when you find this on a 6 ,000 -foot peak in the hills?

[962] But at the very least, I could just show you what they found.

[963] Well, without a doubt, this Earth has over, you know, the last thousands of thousands of years, we've gone through some pretty huge cataclysm of dependence.

[964] I mean, they know for a fact that at one point in time where Montana is right now, that's where all the megalons were.

[965] They find megalon fossils, that gigantic shark, those huge seeds, they find them in the mountains of Montana.

[966] And that's 600 million years ago.

[967] So they know that, no matter what, there's some crazy shit that's happened to this planet, without a doubt.

[968] So it's very conceivable that at one point in time, there was a huge flood in that region.

[969] And that's why there's a boat stuck up there.

[970] It's very possible.

[971] It is pretty possible, but I can confirm we do have something that matches dead nuts to what the story is.

[972] I love that.

[973] I use that term dead nuts.

[974] Yeah, yeah, you do.

[975] is the original one.

[976] Yeah, that's one of the oldest ones that we know of, but it's a cool coincidence.

[977] Yeah, well, I think, seriously, I think what the story of Noah's Ark is, what it really is all about, is that at one point in time, I think there was a huge disaster, and I think it's probably happened more than once, where, like, meteors hit, or, you know, shifting in the fore, ice caps, or something huge, where it's just, like, it kills, like, 90 % of people, and the people that are remaining, they have a story, and the story of a great disaster and some people got away, and those stories, the story of the great disaster, and some person by the way, over time, that person becomes the great hero, the Savior, and they talk about around the campfire, and his legend grows.

[978] And when you have a story that's told in oral tradition for over 1 ,000 years for it's ever written in ancient Hebrew, and to this day, they only know three out of four words in ancient Hebrew.

[979] To this day, 25 % of all the words are totally, they have no idea what it means.

[980] And in ancient Hebrew, there was no numbers.

[981] So letters also doubled as numbers.

[982] So you lose all the numeric value that's important in the text, like the word God and the word love.

[983] They have the same numeric value, and that's very important for sentencing.

[984] And when that was translated into Latin, it was translated to Greek, they lost all of that shit.

[985] And that's all these stories.

[986] It's a story.

[987] There's thousands of years of people bullshitting around a campfire to the original text being indecipherable to what they have today.

[988] How could anybody think that's real?

[989] You would have to be fucking crazy to think that that really happened.

[990] The God talked to one guy and got all the animals from all over the world and put him on a boat.

[991] That makes zero sense.

[992] When you know people are liars, you know people are weak.

[993] You know, even most religious people are completely full of shit.

[994] And if after all that, you think that that story's real.

[995] That's insane.

[996] When you actually see the evidence about a vote.

[997] Well, that guy obviously didn't listen.

[998] Or, you know, the ideas didn't get into his head.

[999] But he was so kind about it.

[1000] Kind?

[1001] He never threatened you.

[1002] He didn't want to kill you.

[1003] you or anything?

[1004] Well, I can't.

[1005] Well, I don't think he was religious.

[1006] He was a documentarian.

[1007] He believed that he had found Noah's Ark. Yeah, that was probably not the best example.

[1008] One thing, but when he, but one thing the bones, they can't, they better not be there.

[1009] They didn't find.

[1010] Because they only had two of each, so if they died, well, that could have been the unicorn's bone.

[1011] Yeah, if that's true, right?

[1012] If they died, then what the fuck?

[1013] Unless they bred before they died.

[1014] That could have been.

[1015] It feels a long time.

[1016] But I'll tell you one thing, though, you were kind of getting at this like the way the guy came up to you and he said like you were offending me but it was funny the thing i struggle with like you talk to really liberal people and you're like yeah rush you know russ limbaugh is funny sometimes it's it makes them so mad and they're talking to really conservative people would be like you know john stewie's you know you can't get mad they get real mad at you like they can't imagine but i remember like when you were doing part of your act you're talking about when people get really mad at comedians for saying something controversial and you kind of you mentioned like how come no one's mad at johnny cash for shooting a man just to watch him die.

[1017] Yeah, that didn't really happen.

[1018] That's a big, that's the important thing.

[1019] Johnny Cash didn't really shoot a man in Reno.

[1020] That didn't really happen.

[1021] This is, well, that's, the thing about comedy is it's an easy target.

[1022] And for people that are looking to be offended, which is like a lot of bloggers and people looking to find something to be outraged about, they'll point to comedy because comedy is a soft target.

[1023] You know, a lot of comedians will say fuck that.

[1024] There's an art form.

[1025] Yeah, no one's always wanting to kill novelists.

[1026] No. Unless you're Solomon Rush.

[1027] a long time ago.

[1028] People aren't always going to kill novelists.

[1029] There's the cartoonist that got stabbed in Holland.

[1030] Yeah.

[1031] Muslims.

[1032] People go after Muslim.

[1033] That guy was killed, right?

[1034] Yeah, yeah, he was murdered, yeah.

[1035] He's just a cartoonist, you know?

[1036] Yeah, it's like the soft target of comedy is the idea that there's like this real subtlety to language, and there's a subtlety to sarcasm and being facetious, and you know when someone's being sarcastic, but if you just see it written down on paper, you can for just for purposes of being morally outraged you can pretend that you don't know that it's sarcastic and you can pretend that this is just a horrible statement and people have got in trouble for that many many many times especially when you take something like on Twitter like in a text form and you try to pretend that that's a statement and you try to pretend that oh this is just someone who's you know this is an asshole this is a person who's just a really evil mean person no no this is a person who's fucking around Like, there's an art form to saying fucked up things that you don't really mean.

[1037] Yeah.

[1038] Like, you can say something fucked up, and I know that you're not serious, so I'll start laughing, and then we'll go, that's so wrong.

[1039] But we know it's funny because it's not a statement.

[1040] Yeah, I don't know.

[1041] I know exactly what I mean.

[1042] But there's, like, this PC police thing going on now where a bunch of people who, and most of the time when you pay attention to those people, because I find it fascinating, and I try to consider myself to be a student of human nature.

[1043] and one of the things that I find about these people that complain so much about all these different things, and then they find this moral outrage or find one thing to harp on over and over again is they're usually extremely troubled personally.

[1044] They usually, like, they're overwhelming issues, like they're morbidly obese or they're, you know, socially inept, or there's something wrong with them that's causing them to find this soft target and then lash out constantly at this soft target.

[1045] And then also if you look at like what they do, a lot of people, what they do is like they'll, what they're trying to do is stop someone from hurting someone's feelings.

[1046] And they're trying to say that what you're doing is mean and you're hurting someone's feelings.

[1047] So what I'm going to do is hurt your feelings in the most vicious and cruel way possible, you know, with these blogs and the writing.

[1048] And I'm going to do to you what you're somehow or another doing.

[1049] So I'm going to be a complete total hypocrite.

[1050] But I have a license.

[1051] I have this license of moral outrage.

[1052] I have this moral high ground that I'm going to stand on, so I'm going to attack.

[1053] And I'm going to write this vicious, snarky column about a comedian.

[1054] And the idea is that they're trying to write the wrongs and trying to be the savior of what's good in the world.

[1055] But that's not the case.

[1056] What they're doing is just being an asshole because they feel like they have a license to be an asshole.

[1057] because they can take what you said and put it on paper and say, look, in quotes, Tracy Morgan said, if his son was gay, he'd stab him, in quotes.

[1058] So, fuck Tracy Morgan.

[1059] But Tracy Morgan's a ridiculous person.

[1060] Like, his whole act is a bunch of shit that he doesn't mean.

[1061] Yeah.

[1062] It's a bunch of crazy things that have never happened, and he says a bunch of crazy things because that's his style of comedy.

[1063] Like Mitch Hedberg's style of comedy is to say really preposterous things that other people wouldn't, like my favorite Mitch Hedberg joke, is somebody asked me if I wanted a frozen banana.

[1064] I said no, but I want a regular banana later, so yes.

[1065] Yeah.

[1066] You know, anybody else says that?

[1067] It's a terrible joke.

[1068] But if he says it, it's really funny.

[1069] That's his style.

[1070] Tracy Morgan's style is, my son was gay.

[1071] I stabbed that little nigger.

[1072] He doesn't really mean that.

[1073] That's not a statement.

[1074] He's not writing that down.

[1075] He didn't carve it in stone and bring it down from the top of a hill.

[1076] It's his art for him.

[1077] But what's more upsetting than the people who are so volatile and do get so mad about stuff is the thing that politicians do, which is to feign that response.

[1078] Yes.

[1079] Like you get politicians, you know, you look at their career, they vacillated wildly between all these positions.

[1080] But they love to get up and act like to act like the morally outraged guy.

[1081] Yes.

[1082] By something that would, you know, like when you look in his eye, you don't care at all about that.

[1083] like feigning the guy who is that way.

[1084] And that's more of saying than someone who really is mad about something.

[1085] Yeah.

[1086] Well, sometimes people are mad about something and it's just a perspective issue.

[1087] They just lack perspective or they lack, a lot of, there's a lack of social intelligence, you know, and there's also a lack of having nuanced friends.

[1088] Having friends that have good senses of humor, people that joke around about things, or say mean things.

[1089] Like, some of my favorite people, like Jim Norton is one of my favorite comedians and is my favorite guy on the radio because he says, ridiculous evil mean shit all the time but he doesn't mean it he'll laugh after he says it yeah but he's really smart about how he does it and he takes a tremendous amount of grief because of it because people will try to point out some of the things that he says and then you know and accuse him of being you know homophobic or this one of the least homophobic guys you'll ever meet in fact he will talk openly about how many experiences he's had with trannies he's had like all these transsexual experiences he's a pervert complete total pervert but he's like He owns it.

[1090] And he takes grief because it's a soft target.

[1091] Because, you know, you can point to, look, they're looking for someone to say outrageous shit so they can be angry.

[1092] So who more likely to say outrageous shit than someone who says outrageous shit for a living?

[1093] And some of the times they say outrageous shit and it doesn't work.

[1094] You know, it's not funny.

[1095] But Patrice O 'Neill had a great point about that, the late great Patrice O 'Neill.

[1096] who's that he's a really funny comedian who died um he he's one of my favorite guys to talk about controversial points because he always had a unique way of looking at it but his his point was always that like when someone says something and they're trying to be funny and it misses and it's fucked up that comes from the same place as someone trying to say something funny and it hits and it's really funny and you laugh like just because they miss you know with this attempt doesn't mean they're like an evil mean person they just fail Yeah, that's a good point.

[1097] You know, they're not trying to hurt someone's feelings.

[1098] They're trying to get a laugh.

[1099] And that's what comedy is.

[1100] There's a real art to that.

[1101] But, yeah, you're right.

[1102] I mean, that's a complicated idea.

[1103] It's very complicated.

[1104] Well, you know my friend Joey Diaz.

[1105] Did he open up for me?

[1106] Yeah, yeah.

[1107] Love that fucking guy.

[1108] No, man, funny.

[1109] He's hilarious.

[1110] The funniest guy I've ever met in my life.

[1111] But he has this joke about transvestites.

[1112] He goes, I love transvestites.

[1113] They cook, they clean.

[1114] You can beat on him every once in a while The cops come, who's gonna believe?

[1115] Me or some dude with a wig and a black eye Okay, look, Joey Diaz has never punched a transvestite He's never, he's never had a transvestite over his house With a wig and had him cooking and cleaning That's, it's not true, it's a joke Like, you could say that's a violence against transsexuals joke Or a violence against transvestite's joke But it's not, it's not promoting violence against anybody It's a joke, it's a fucked up thing that he's saying And you know it's really, That's a good joke.

[1116] It's a great joke.

[1117] It's one of my favorite jokes of all time.

[1118] But you got to understand what it actually is.

[1119] What it actually is is just, it's just like Johnny Cash pretending he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

[1120] It's exactly the same thing.

[1121] But I wish, is it Patrice O 'Neill?

[1122] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1123] Is he?

[1124] Yes, yeah.

[1125] I wish he was here because there's some, it's like, you've been in a situation where someone said something that they wanted to be funny.

[1126] Yes.

[1127] Let's say someone makes a crack about gays, and it flops.

[1128] A way that it can flop is if they're so transparent that you see in them for a minute, and you're like, wow, that really comes from a place of deep hatred.

[1129] Yes, yes, yes.

[1130] And it's not funny because in that, I got a glimpse into that, you know.

[1131] Yes.

[1132] If you make a gay joke, I know.

[1133] From, I don't know why, from your demeanor, whatever it is, I know that you're not at home, you know, wishing you could go out and kill gay people.

[1134] Right.

[1135] How do I know that?

[1136] It allows you to explore like a funny idea, you know, but sometimes someone will say something like, man, this person really has a problem with black people who are in a power of position.

[1137] It's like you see it.

[1138] It's intent.

[1139] The intent becomes transparent.

[1140] when someone is a kind person and someone's just pointing out hypocrisy like I have this bit making fun of Morrissey Morrissey is the lead singer of the Smith's Dude but how soon is now is a rock solid song But I know you're Morrissey bit And I laughed at it Yeah I should I was like the Noah guy Because I could have come up to you And said you know what I like how soon as now With that shit about Morrissey was funny He makes good music He does make good music But his idea that You know all You know war is created by heterosexuals.

[1141] It's not only not supported by history, but it's ridiculous.

[1142] But the point is like when I talk about that on stage, I make a big point out of the fact that I want to make sure that like, I don't want anybody to think that I have any problem with gay people.

[1143] But I also don't want any gay people to just take random jabs at the giant mass of straight people and say we're responsible for all the wars.

[1144] It's fucking, it's all ridiculous.

[1145] And if you can't make...

[1146] The Peru was the 10 % of the wars were the response were came at, you know, where the gays were responsible for 10 % of the wars and it would upset the theory.

[1147] Well, all you'd have to do is look at history, like the Spartans, all the gay Athenians, the Romans, all the gay sex they had.

[1148] I think for a long time...

[1149] Those are fighting bastards there.

[1150] Alexander the Great's one of the greatest conquerors ever.

[1151] He's gay as fuck.

[1152] You know, I think that one of the things about people that are in a group is they always want to assume that this is the good group to be in.

[1153] You know, and the idea that all guys, gay people are cool is ridiculous because people are people there's a huge range of how people can behave you know whether it's gay people or straight people like there's a there's a bit i'm i do about uh i used to work out at this gay gym and these gay dudes used to hit on me all the time at this uh used to work out a gold's gym on cole street and because it was so gay that because you were there it was assumed you must be gay well they were just you're a man it's like if you're a guy and you go to a gym and there's a hot lesbian working out there, you know, are you gonna just, dudes are gonna take a shot.

[1154] Yeah, they're gonna try to find out how lesbian is you.

[1155] Yeah, no, I got you.

[1156] And the idea that gay guys are immune from sexual harassment, they're not gonna sexually harass you because they're from this marginalized group, so they would be different.

[1157] They would be kinder and sweeter and more and more.

[1158] Bullshit!

[1159] They're dudes with dicks.

[1160] They'll spike your drink just like a straight guy will spike you.

[1161] your drink.

[1162] A gay guy will spike your drink.

[1163] Of course, there's got to be gay guys out there that was spiked your drink.

[1164] Fuck yeah.

[1165] Yeah, yeah, I'm with you.

[1166] Gay guys would roof you, just like a straight guy would rue for you.

[1167] The idea that someone is really super cool just because they're gay is ridiculous.

[1168] It's just like the idea of someone being super cool because they're black.

[1169] You know, like marginalized groups have a little bit of leeway with a lot of like knee -jerk, reactionary bleeding heart liberals, which is why a guy like Al Sharpton is allowed to be on television.

[1170] Al Sharpton is a con man and an idiot, but yet he represents black people on television because no one wants to say anything about him because he's black.

[1171] Because if you pick on Al Sharpton, you're picking on marginalized people and you are there for a racist because he represents brown people.

[1172] Look at his skin.

[1173] He's a brown guy.

[1174] He's allowed to say, but meanwhile, if you follow his career, I mean, the guy made his living off of like the Tijuana Brawy thing where there was a fake rape where he, you know, he came out and had this gigantic protest and it turns out, this woman, Tawanna Brawley, was never really raped in the first place.

[1175] She made it all up.

[1176] Yeah.

[1177] And he was the champion of all this.

[1178] It was, you know, attacking white people and attacking white America and the racist establishment that has allowed this to happen.

[1179] Actually, not really.

[1180] You're kind of a con man. You know, and what you're doing is you're taking advantage of a weakness in the system.

[1181] I just had occasion.

[1182] I'm not going to go into how I happen.

[1183] I had occasion where I just read the first and last chapter of Al Sharpton's most recent book.

[1184] No, like the second or third chapter in the last chapter.

[1185] I read the second or third chapter and it like kind of changed I kind of I really changed my opinion about him for a minute and from I was like that's really like it like he had an interesting point about something and expressed it really well and he kind of talked about his an evolution he went through on an idea like a flip he explained what would be in politics a flip flop he did a big flip flop and kind of went walk through how a public figure does a flip flop and it was good then read the last chapter and I just went back to being like oh you are It was funny because I'm reading that book I don't remember I don't mind no no never mind I'm sitting there reading that book and a guy comes up to me and this guy looks like a yachtsman like he looks like a guy that own a yacht and he comes out to me and he goes Sharpton I had a meeting with El Sharpton one time he came in in a chauffered car and he was wearing a gold Rolex presidential watch.

[1186] And the first thing he tells me is how he survives on a $10 ,000 salary.

[1187] And then the guy left, walked down the street, and that was the end of his story.

[1188] That was his Sharpton story.

[1189] He's what they call a race pimp.

[1190] I think that's the best way to describe him.

[1191] Him and, you know, Jesse Jackson has made a lucrative business out of going to businesses and saying, you don't have enough diversity in your businesses.

[1192] Hire me as a consultant.

[1193] He steps in as a consultant and gets an exorbitant amount of money to try to teach them how to hire black people in their businesses.

[1194] If they don't do it, he's going to protest them.

[1195] And that's the insinuation behind all of it.

[1196] And it's the only reason why it exists is because there has been racism.

[1197] The reason why it exists is because black people have been marginalized.

[1198] The evil things have taken place and then 200 years ago, black people were slaves.

[1199] All those things are absolutely true.

[1200] So there's this, this, you know, this reality to what they're saying.

[1201] that there is racism, there is inequality.

[1202] So there's someone who's coming along is capitalizing on that problem.

[1203] But it's not, there's no Martin Luther King's level.

[1204] I was like, at my house the other day, my wife was playing a Martin Luther King speech because Martin Luther King Day is Monday and my daughter's like, who's Martin Luther King?

[1205] So my wife is playing this speech for our five -year -old.

[1206] Was it the Promise Land speech?

[1207] Yes, yes, yes.

[1208] My God.

[1209] What a speech.

[1210] God damn, what a speech.

[1211] Man, it's like, I remember the first, a teacher played that for us once.

[1212] It's an amazing, especially when you hear, like, what happened, I mean, before he was assassinated.

[1213] Yeah.

[1214] And so powerful.

[1215] He predicts it.

[1216] Yeah.

[1217] Yeah.

[1218] Well, he knew it was coming.

[1219] I mean, I was an incredible speech, man. Unbelievable.

[1220] Well, not just incredibly written, incredibly performed.

[1221] And while we were watching, I was like, there's no one like this anymore.

[1222] Like, where is this guy?

[1223] Where's this guy that represents the black community?

[1224] A guy who is making, like, these incredible points.

[1225] and is saying something that's so moving.

[1226] And then you look in the audience and it's so mixed.

[1227] There's white people next to black people.

[1228] And such an incredible time in our culture where people realized that there was these inequalities and there was this ground swell of movement to try to make the world equal and behind it or the figurehead of it is this incredibly powerful, incredibly intelligent guy who's probably one of the greatest public speakers of all time.

[1229] Yeah, like an orator.

[1230] yeah just i have a dream and you see him say it and you just like god damn it just gives you goosebumps and then you see jesse jackson you can't understand a fucking word he says he's mumbling through shit eating shrimp cocktails flying in private jets he's like this is what's left this is what's left of these guys there's no guy like that you know i i i'm not a fan of obama um i'm you know i was a fan of obama the candidate of the idea of obama but obama in office i'm not a fan of i'm not a fan of most of what he's done.

[1231] I'm not a fan of the whole NSA thing, the spying on people, the use of drones, there's so many things, it's almost too much to mention.

[1232] But one of the things that makes me so disappointed in him is his lack of anything that he's ever said that's inspirational.

[1233] The speech that he could have given, like the speeches that Kennedy gave, you know, Kennedy gave some fucking speeches that made you change your idea of what's possible for the future of this country.

[1234] But I don't get any of that from Obama.

[1235] I don't get any of that from get these nonsense.

[1236] But it's funny because being a performer is really, I mean, like being a performer is what launched into where he is.

[1237] Sure.

[1238] Exactly.

[1239] Yeah.

[1240] It was like because of that speech at the convention.

[1241] Oh yeah.

[1242] Well, you know, that and just the idea of who he was.

[1243] I mean, we were coming from.

[1244] Yeah, it's an amazing narrative, you know, but the, but one of the earliest criticisms was it's performance, it's performance, you know.

[1245] But I mean, but all speeches are, I mean, they're performances.

[1246] It's hard not like when you go look, like, if you look at Hitler giving a speech, it's hard not even fathom how it would ever be that, that, He's not just a lunatic.

[1247] You know what I mean?

[1248] You look and go, how would it not be just like transparently lunatic?

[1249] But at the time, it was like, he would give these amazing performances that would get people stirred up and, you know?

[1250] It's hard to grasp the context of Hitler because I don't speak German.

[1251] If I spoke German, maybe I could understand, Oh, like all the maniacal, everything.

[1252] Yeah, it's so intense and so crazy, but the, um, the, the Obama speech is like, there's like, there's nothing.

[1253] Hold, can we back up?

[1254] Please don't think I was doing the old Like Hitler Obama thing No, I didn't think you were doing that at all I just thought you were talking about powerful orators Yeah, no, made me nervous for a minute Yeah, that's a touchy subject, right?

[1255] You know, you're a Nazi Steve Rinella, Nazi Front cover of whatever magazine Yeah, I think we have a serious lack Of these powerful inspirational characters These people that go on TV and or give speeches, would they really, like, have vision to them?

[1256] Yeah.

[1257] I mean, Obama had some of that as a candidate, but as a president, it's almost like he looks so tired.

[1258] When I see him on TV, he looks so goddamn tired.

[1259] And I remember when he was running, like we had Bush and Cheney and we were in war and we were in a war that most people didn't support and it was very confusing and it was coming out that the pretense of this war was incorrect and there wasn't really any weapons of mass destruction and all these lives and devastation And then people were looking into Halliburton and the connection of Cheney.

[1260] It felt evil.

[1261] It felt like we were trapped with these evil old white dudes.

[1262] And here comes along this guy who's, you know, single mother.

[1263] He comes from a single mother and he's half black.

[1264] And he's so intelligent, so well read and so well spoken.

[1265] And we thought this was going to be the change.

[1266] This is going to be the big shift.

[1267] Yeah.

[1268] And it didn't turn out to be that at all.

[1269] It turned out to be just kind of more of the same.

[1270] But no more inspiration.

[1271] All that inspiration shit's gone.

[1272] I mean, he was so vibrant as a candidate.

[1273] And as a president, I can't remember a single time that he's ever, like, addressed the nation where I was like, that's a bad motherfucker.

[1274] Like, there's something there.

[1275] Like, that guy, he's saying something that really gets people excited.

[1276] It's been, you know, it's been so divisive.

[1277] But I always think, like, when I look at things that, like, things that happen to, there's things that happens to candidates, you know, and I think it has so much to do with money.

[1278] Like, we get these figures, you know, going into the, primaries you get you know you get these figures that have these you know they buck the trends and and mavericks when i say mavericks i'm not like trying i'm not referring strictly to mccane but you get these people that come in and they're going to like upset the status quo but then you have to play the politics game and you owe so much stuff for money and then you pay those debts and it's like corrupting and i think a similar thing happens to people often in office i think that like i can't imagine what it must be to be present and i say this talking about George W. Bush and Obama.

[1279] I can't imagine what you're present and someone comes in every morning and runs through the list of threats and you hear it and hear it and hear it and it's like threats, threats, threats, threats.

[1280] I, the paranoia that must exist, you know, I think it has to be really taxing on people.

[1281] No doubt.

[1282] And every decision you make.

[1283] And it's like, yeah, it's going to be it will be your legacy.

[1284] And you're like, and you're, it's got to be wrenching to just have to make those decisions all the time.

[1285] They look, I mean, guys come out of office looking so rough.

[1286] Yeah, it's probably like, but then no one wants, you never have a guy do one term.

[1287] Real popular.

[1288] And he's like, you know what?

[1289] Fuck this.

[1290] I'm not doing it.

[1291] Yeah.

[1292] There's something like, it's so intoxicating to be president.

[1293] Do you think that's it?

[1294] I think they, you know, probably don't let them, you know.

[1295] They probably, you know, they probably, you know, look, man, we have a fucking.

[1296] deal.

[1297] We got you into this mess.

[1298] Wouldn't it be funny, though, but well, since George Washington, they say he could have won again, and he left.

[1299] He only had one term?

[1300] No, but he was going to, people were like, do three.

[1301] They wanted him to keep rolling, and he stepped down, and I think he might have been the last guy that wouldn't have been like, I'll, damn, I'll take another one.

[1302] Bloomberg took another one.

[1303] Jimmy Carter is one of the few guys that was president that would really love to sit down with and have a private conversation because he seems to be like a true humanitarian.

[1304] And he seems to be at all the people that were ever president, the guy who caused probably the least amount of loss of lives and the least amount of war and heartbreak seems to be Jimmy Carter.

[1305] You know, he seemed like a truly like a kind man who wound up in this weird situation where he was the president of the United States.

[1306] And he's like, he wound up in a weird situation out in the desert.

[1307] Oh, the hostage situation?

[1308] Yeah, I mean, yeah.

[1309] Oh, well, that's a crazy situation where the fucking hostages were released as soon as Reagan got into office.

[1310] And like, what kind of fucking weird deal did you guys make?

[1311] Did you guys keep those people hostage for political gain?

[1312] That's one of the most disgusting possibilities in the history of power in the presidency.

[1313] That doesn't make any sense.

[1314] No, I understand what you know what I mean.

[1315] It's like the idea that that's a possibility, that they might have kept those people and use them as a political ploy.

[1316] It's pretty gross.

[1317] It's bad.

[1318] But probably did happen.

[1319] I don't know, man. Like you said, who the fuck knows what it's like.

[1320] like once you get into office, who has any idea?

[1321] I just don't think there should be a president.

[1322] I think the idea of having this one alpha chimp running the whole show is so fucking archaic.

[1323] It probably works when there's 50 of us.

[1324] You want to go parliament?

[1325] I don't know what I want to go.

[1326] I want to go internet.

[1327] I think we need to go high of mind.

[1328] It should be like those shows where people vote from home.

[1329] Like every issue is always up on this thing.

[1330] It's like everybody at home is constantly voting on every issue.

[1331] The president should attack, not attack.

[1332] Well, I just think the idea of having one person or a figurehead that pretends to be the one person that runs a show is just so archaic.

[1333] Well, yeah, but we have a system of checks and balances, man. Allegedly.

[1334] If you look, if you look at the wild vacillations that some countries go through, okay, Venezuela.

[1335] I mean, you rattle them off all day long.

[1336] People get frustrated with how slowly things happen in the U .S. That's the story.

[1337] The gridlock, nothing gets done, it's all idiots.

[1338] If you look at the gradual way, one might argue that all that gridlock and all that mayhem and things being so stagnant somehow works to our benefit from preventing wild swings.

[1339] Oh, this, lower that.

[1340] Right.

[1341] You know, we get like, you know, like a really serious communist.

[1342] Then we go from that to a real serious anarchist.

[1343] Then we like realize that doesn't work.

[1344] So we go to a, you know.

[1345] some wild -ass dictator I feel that kind of like just kind of these mild undulations when taken when you view it from a historic perspective I think these mild undulations that we go through in politics are to our benefit I'm like I'm a little bit pro gridlock that's interesting because just if it was just like so fast I feel that we'd make we'd have more stumbles than we have I think but I'm like I'm kind of like generally like an optimist you know I'm a general optimist too I just think there's too many people I think there's too many people too many interests too much money too many different directions The money thing is really true Like this dude That just got the mayor in New York I want to go back to my show business story too At some point And I want to tell my Mitch Hadberg story But and I want to talk about hunting pigs tomorrow How are we on time We're fine Okay so Man lost my Oh yeah so the guy The guy just got elected mayor in New York I mean he's not in there a day And he's like, okay, no more, we're not going to have any more horses pulling carriages around in Central Park.

[1346] Really?

[1347] Yeah, right off the bat.

[1348] It's like, are you telling me, you, you're now running the biggest city.

[1349] The one that, like, terrorists drool about, you know, the one that's, like, balancing all these, like, ethnic groups and tensions.

[1350] And the one thing that's on your mind when you come in is that horses are pulling carriages in Central Park and is, mean how could that possibly it has to be that some dude wrote that guy check you know and he's like here's a deal i'm going to give you this check but i don't want them damn horses in that park because there's no other way to explain it and it's like and it shows kind of this like weird ignorance and arrogance where if you talk to anyone who's involved in livestock theft and in livestock issues we have like a we don't have a horse theft we don't have a not enough horse problem we have there's too many horses like there's no since the closure of horse slaughter plants There's like, people are dumping horses.

[1351] Farmers will wake up and be like, wow, there's a bunch of horses out in that place.

[1352] Because there's just no way to get rid of excess horses.

[1353] You have all these horses that are unwanted, horses that are starving, horses that aren't being treated properly.

[1354] And you've got these, like, gainfully employed horses that are fed, stable, care for, veterinarian treatment.

[1355] And the guy would be like, the one thing we need is unemployed horses.

[1356] It has to be about some weird money thing.

[1357] Or it could be he's just a bleeding heart liberal.

[1358] He doesn't look at it.

[1359] You think so?

[1360] You think it's just a money thing?

[1361] I mean, I don't know.

[1362] Tell me what the fuck happened with the large drink thing?

[1363] How did that ever take place?

[1364] That was Bloomberg, right?

[1365] Yeah, but it won't have not happening.

[1366] Did it really?

[1367] Thank God.

[1368] That's ridiculous.

[1369] No, they never banned Big Pop.

[1370] Jesus Christ, that drove me nuts.

[1371] The idea that you couldn't get a big gulp or a giant drinking in a movie theater.

[1372] Some comedian was doing something.

[1373] He was doing like a thing where he was like, you're supposed to complete the sentence.

[1374] Like, it's so hot, you know?

[1375] And one of them was, it's so hot.

[1376] Bloomberg had to go over to Jersey to get a big gulp.

[1377] but the nanny state stuff i hate it like i hate the like the all they like telling people what's doing not to do for your health i hate it but you have like i could also picture like how frustrating because you'd be like you know it's like if you look at like a guy who smokes a ton of cigarettes i'm one hand like it's not you know why right and you kind of you got to be big you got to be a big enough of a man to walk away and be like okay you know or riding a motorcycle without a helmet i'm kind of like why but then i just send like you gotta be like a big enough person in some weird way be like okay you go ahead and push on and i'm gonna try to not want to like control your life well there's gonna be people look at you and go dude you can't talk about cigarettes or motorcycles you got charged by a fucking moose yep all right i saw it i saw you get hit by a moose i watched it five times no that was you describing it was harrowing but watching it was way crazy when that fucking thing got up and started running towards you even though i knew you were okay i met you after the fact that was like oh he's dead he's fucking dead no we met yeah we met well before but that that's that was you know if you don't enough tv like that was what i did was so stupid that you'd want on one hand it was so dumb what i didn't i'll tell i'll tell what i did in a minute but what i did was so stupid that you'd want to then hide how stupid you were and not have it be on tv right but on their hand like but it's compelling tv like a guy getting run over by a moose is interesting you know so it's your thing of like your ego where and now i'll tell what happened we were calling you know ryan callan yeah i love ryan what a great guy we were calling moose and when you call moose that's excellent but pinch your go like pinch your nostrils that's the cow yeah that's a cow that's a cow saying i am coming into estrus and party calling is a fact like moose calling is effective right before the rut right before the breeding season because bulls know what's going to happen like the cows are going to want to be bred and I'm going to breed them but the cows haven't really like got rolling yet so it's just all anticipation if they were actually all doing it and the cows are really an estrus and the bull's like with a cow that's an estrus he's going to be less likely to come to one calling you know it's all a timing issue you got to catch him right before yeah like he wants it You're the first, he's like, there she is.

[1378] First cow to come in to ask us.

[1379] I'm going to go get her.

[1380] So we're out, Ryan's mimicking the noise of a bull.

[1381] I'm sorry, mimicking the noise of a cow.

[1382] And what inspired him to begin doing that was we heard a bull and a bull makes a noise like this.

[1383] A bull will go, mm, mm. So that's all you heard.

[1384] It's like a suggestion.

[1385] You don't even hear it, you feel it.

[1386] It's a suggestion of a noise.

[1387] It's like, mm. And you kind of, everybody's like, what was that?

[1388] But it just, it's very hard to determine where it was, not where.

[1389] it's hard to turn how far away and we heard that and then we debated for a long time whether we'd heard it or not we're like no i know i heard a bull i heard a bull then it actually started to thunder a little bit off in the distance which made it even more confusing because it was like was it thunder or was it that you know noise so ryan starts trying to lure the bull to us this is up in british columbia he starts trying to lure the bull to us by roaming around making cow calls and he goes away from the bull and I stay put hoping that the bull will come and he's going to want to see her before he gets too close so by Ryan staying about 75 yards further away the bull might hang up in the vicinity to where I'm at while he's trying to get a visual lock on the cow to make sure everything looks safe and we keep calling and calling and then I started thinking I was going crazy I never heard the bull in the first place so we start going in the direction eventually we start moving moving in the direction where we think the bull is, and sure enough, I see some brush clashing, and he's in there rubbing his antlers on some brush, and Ryan starts calm.

[1390] And now we're in his zone enough where he's coming to investigate, and he's coming in, mm, mm, and he kind of comes at me, and I do, like, a really stupid thing where I take what you'd call a brisket shot.

[1391] And a brisket shot on a deer or a wild pig is devastating.

[1392] You know, you're coming in, like, the sternum, and it, you know, it is devastating to the animal, a small animal.

[1393] But on a moose is just so much.

[1394] You know, it's like layers of bricks and stuff or like basically the front of him made him.

[1395] And he goes down and I go running over there.

[1396] And sure enough, he gets up and starts running.

[1397] And I'm worried, like the last thing you want to do is chase a moose.

[1398] But I'm worried that maybe he's not bleeding enough.

[1399] So I start running after him.

[1400] And I get up there and I catch up to him when he's laying down again.

[1401] And I go to shoot him in the neck and click.

[1402] Like I had messed up my rifle.

[1403] and hadn't chambered around so it clicks and that bull got up and just turned and like came and boom knock me over like coming at you like you know head down horns down like a bull you know head down horns and he punched me in the ass of one of his antler times and i thought it punctured me so i ran away and callahan shoots the moose down and i keep reaching around to feel where he had popped me so hard in the ass and knocked me over and my hand keeps coming back bloody so i'm trying to feel where he put a hole in me and i'm thinking they like he'd like punch the whole through my waiters and into my into my ass tissue and um but then i realized that like i got blood all over and because he had i'd hit him in the brisket so when he ran me over he like smeared a lot of that blood on the back of my clothes so that was the blood i was feeling scared to hell on me and and you saw that like it wasn't a few days before that i got got charged by a grizzly bear yeah it was a harrowing trip and you're talking about people smoking cigarettes and riding motorcycles with no helmets that moose deal was probably the closest um you know you like you fantasize about bad stuff happening you from big animals you know like you can get mauled by bear whatever and like what really gets you is little teen things like i've been like my hospital stuff has been you know like serious issues been giardia so drinking bad water and Lyme disease by getting, you know, bit by a little teeny bugs that are infected with bacteria.

[1404] And that's, like, my real source of trouble.

[1405] But when I'm laying in bed and I'm not thinking about microbes.

[1406] I'm thinking about big giant animals coming to get me, you know, and that one came and knocked me. In the minute, like, it's mixed emotions.

[1407] As soon as it happens, I'm like, that was the stupidest thing I ever did, I can't believe that.

[1408] I'm so dumb.

[1409] And then concurrent with that is a thought of, like, I am so happy that that happened.

[1410] That was an amazing thing, you know?

[1411] And now, dude, as stupid as it was, now sitting there, I'm like, I love that that happened.

[1412] Because you're okay.

[1413] It's pretty terrifying.

[1414] Looking at it now, I wouldn't even be disappointed had he punched a hole in my butt.

[1415] As long as you lived.

[1416] Yeah.

[1417] But what if he hit your sack?

[1418] What if a horn?

[1419] I mean, think about that.

[1420] I already got two kids.

[1421] You're cool with a hole in the sack from a loose horn?

[1422] Half the days my wife is like, go down and get a bad sack to me. half days, she's like, no, wait, because we want my another one.

[1423] I'll just, Ben, you know what, I'm just a dead issue now.

[1424] Moose.

[1425] Crushed my.

[1426] Moose killed my sack.

[1427] I'm a eunuch.

[1428] Wow.

[1429] That would be harsh.

[1430] It was fun, man. I mean, I love that.

[1431] Like, you know, you'll appreciate this because I was reading this book about human history called Lone Survivor.

[1432] Not lone survivor.

[1433] That's the seal story.

[1434] Yeah.

[1435] It's something like Lone Survivors.

[1436] It's by a geneticist, a British geneticist.

[1437] What the hell's name?

[1438] Anyways, something like that.

[1439] Soul survivors?

[1440] I don't know.

[1441] He talks about the suite of injuries that are common to Neanderthal skeletons.

[1442] I told you about this?

[1443] No. So, like, every time they dig up in Neanderthal, skeleton in the mouths of caves and stuff, like, one, you find that they've been cut, like their bone, they've been butchered.

[1444] So they die, and their buddies would, presumably their buddies or Crow Magnum would have a tendency to go eat them.

[1445] And they also find all these, like, fractured bones.

[1446] Like, busted bones, fractured skulls, fractured vertebra.

[1447] Lone survivors.

[1448] And he's talking about this in this book, and these guys kind of got wondering, like, why do they have this type of injury?

[1449] And eventually some doctor looks at the, you know, like the injuries that are common in Neanderthals.

[1450] And he says, you know where I see that is rodeo riders?

[1451] And it's like the things that happen to people who are, like, mixing it up with big critters.

[1452] and the theory that this guy puts forward not the guy that wrote it was it pull it up again what was his name again Chris Stringer yeah so Chris I don't think Chris Stringer floats that but he talks about a guy who floats this idea that uh that they had a confrontational hunting style that Neanderthals did that they were in there you know tearing it up and Crow Magnens had a little bit more of a but stay back you know stay back and get them at a better time well Neanderthals are way close sir, to the rest of the animals than we are.

[1453] I mean, they had, they were five feet tall, 200 plus pounds, big thick fucking bones.

[1454] You know what else he says?

[1455] They didn't have a lot of sexual dimorphism.

[1456] The males and females were much more similar.

[1457] Really?

[1458] Well, they probably had to be.

[1459] Females were in there hunting more.

[1460] Probably had to be survived.

[1461] Yeah, they weren't like, just structurally the females were similar.

[1462] And so having that little running with that moose was kind of, I felt like a little bit, in a positive way I felt a little bit like maybe like there was like a Neanderthal experience.

[1463] But the Neanderthal thing is weird man because they find out like all these things that we used to think they didn't do it was like evidence that they that once they came into contact with Crow Magnin it was like they started picking up some of the things that they were into like there's evidence that suggests that like at the that they had been around for you know hundreds of thousands of years and all of a sudden dudes show up like we show up and all of a sudden they kind of got interested in decoration a little bit got interested in art a little bit I mean it's a thing you know that they had seen they were somehow interacting with us and were kind of like stealing our makes sense stealing our groove a little bit well you mean you think about all the things that we use guns computers this table we didn't build any of this shit oh yeah yeah we figured it out from other really smart humans yeah you adopt and so they were kind of like came into somehow it was going on and there was some intro aggression he talks a lot about that in that book that there was there were he argues and other people argue that this isn't the case that the argument there is that there was certainly some intro aggression yeah i've heard that and i've also heard that it's it's it's it's it's it's a confusion and that what it really is is common ancestry yeah yeah i've heard all that so i'm not like i'm not definitely i'm you know when it comes to that kind of stuff i'm not the guy like you do the same like i'm saying what some people say right you know i mean and some people say that and it's an interesting idea and and all that stuff changes so fast i always hate to be like this is what it was you know but you're talking about you know what What is the most recent version of Neanderthals of 100 ,000 years?

[1464] No, they went, they went out 30, 35?

[1465] 35?

[1466] How the fuck could anybody know what the hell exactly happened 35 ,000 years ago?

[1467] It's too far.

[1468] He explains how, he explains what they know so far.

[1469] Well, yeah, he explains how the people that have an opinion on it came to form their opinion.

[1470] Right.

[1471] That makes sense.

[1472] You know.

[1473] Yeah.

[1474] But for sure, I know, look, I know men, and I know that if men lived at the Anerthals, somebody would have fucked one.

[1475] Oh, yeah.

[1476] I know dudes They would do it Even if it was sort of like An act of aggression Like you look at conquering forces You know On one hand they're coming into Conquer the people Because they despise them But like dudes Conquering dudes Will often find themselves You know Like history's full Those examples Like a conquering army That's coming out To get like the worst people On the planet All they want to do is annihilate them But they also kind of want Have sex with them You know Did you ever see There's a one I think he was an Australian Anthropologist Very fringe guy But he had this really funny take on Neanderthals that they were these super predators and that we hunted them into extinction.

[1477] Yeah.

[1478] Because he proposes that they didn't look like people at all.

[1479] They looked like gorillas.

[1480] That crow magnin hunted them.

[1481] Yes.

[1482] Yes.

[1483] Did you ever see that?

[1484] No, but I don't know if I've seen that guy's ideas, but I've seen the idea that that's the case.

[1485] And what people point to is that they always find butcher marks, not always, but it's very common to find butcher marks on those bones and also find where they crack the heads open and presumably to get the brain out.

[1486] Yeah, I wish I could remember killing Neanderthals.

[1487] I forget what the...

[1488] It'd be like if you shot a Yeti now, or not a Yeti, if you shot Sasquatch, people would be pissed.

[1489] Oh, yeah.

[1490] You know?

[1491] Yeah.

[1492] But I bet you that Crow Magnin and Neanderthal weren't as different.

[1493] There might not have been as many differences between those two as there would be between us and a Sasquatch if you haven't run into one.

[1494] Pull up them and us.

[1495] Pull up some images.

[1496] The book's called Them and Us, and his proposal was the eye sockets were much larger, the features are more simian, the bone structure is much closer to lower primates than ours, and that we're just assuming we anthropomorphize these animals and assume they had white skin like us and hair like us.

[1497] But he gives them black skin like a gorilla and decides that they were these really intelligent predators that hunted us down.

[1498] and we hunt it's widely discredited yeah but it's this is look at this is the images oh that's what you think they look like yeah that looks like something you'd have in your studio yeah exactly yeah like a yetty or something this is his crazy idea i mean most likely horse shit but really kind of fascinating fun horse shit though yeah we don't have any soft tissue from these fucking guys we don't really know what the hell was going on we don't have their skin we can't compare the the color and texture we don't really know i think the picture will become more clear Eventually.

[1499] I mean, because they get such sophisticated ways of looking at stuff.

[1500] Well, there was that one misinterpreted idea that I think a Harvard geneticist was saying that one day it could be possible, and there may be an ethical consideration that we would have to ask a woman if she would be willing to give birth to Neanderthal baby.

[1501] And then it became, you know, distributed.

[1502] Harvard geneticist wants women to give birth to Neanderthal, looking for volunteers.

[1503] And, like, they're going to place a Neanderthal baby in your body.

[1504] You know, that's not exactly what they're saying.

[1505] But, like, this is what they think they thought is in.

[1506] You would get so many women that would do it.

[1507] Fuck, yeah, for sure.

[1508] Just to become famous.

[1509] Look at what they think that things might have looked like.

[1510] Well, show back at back.

[1511] Well, there's some footage of one.

[1512] Yeah.

[1513] Well, the idea is that, you know, we think that they looked like people.

[1514] But he kind of goes out of a way to give him a real sinister appearance, though.

[1515] Well, look at the bone structure.

[1516] The differences in the bone structure.

[1517] Nah, yeah.

[1518] Thicker.

[1519] And, yeah, he makes them look like monsters in a movie with little tiny dicks.

[1520] Interesting.

[1521] How come they have little dicks?

[1522] I would think that thing would have a giant dick Whatever Why am I thinking about Neanderthal dicks Tell me about your Mitch Hedberg story You know, the more I think about I'm going to try to tell it real quick Because it's not that great of a story But I had this girlfriend Who had this Fellowship she got in San Jose California And so I was back and forth between Montana And San Jose all the time And there's always this marquee Above this comedy house Oh, you told me this story I don't think you told them The podcast also go ahead There's this marquee above the comedy house And they kept saying, like, Mitch Hedberg, you know, March or Mitch Hedbert, whatever.

[1523] And it was always in the back of my head, like, man, I'll get my ticket.

[1524] Got to get my ticket.

[1525] And one day it says, like, we'll miss you, Mitch.

[1526] I'm like, son of a bitch, I thought it was coming up, you know.

[1527] And I thought I like that it meant like he came and performed and went home, you know.

[1528] And I ran up to the window being like, but why did you guys have it on your marquee that he's coming to March when he's already.

[1529] And she said, no, man, he died this morning.

[1530] Yeah.

[1531] It's kind of a weird.

[1532] It's not a great story.

[1533] It feels that way to me There's the thing right there That was all over the country Oh it was?

[1534] Yeah they did those everywhere They did though I think they did one at the laugh factory The marquee of the laugh factory as well Yeah man do it was funny One of my all -time favorites And clean too Clean comedian Yeah funny Yeah Have you gone on to listen to the comedian The storyteller Jerry Clower Then I'm always asking you to listen to?

[1535] Yeah I did I've listened to him You don't like it It's funny It's all about putting it in the context He's a funny guy yeah no in the context i don't know why i thought oh i thought that just because yeah mitch headberg like you could actually listen to mitch hadberg with your kid and your grandma yeah yeah yeah he swears in the last one the most most recent one he does it says quite a few fucks yeah but i mean like the sexual yeah yeah he's yeah he's using them you know stone it's stoner humor yeah he's a he was a brilliant guy who really unique comedian but to bring it all around but i want you to bring it around i want you bring around the pigs well that's what we're doing this weekend man i'm fired up like i told you i I shot 30 rounds today, 60 yesterday, and then 300 fucking arrows the day before us.

[1536] My right arm is so useless right now.

[1537] I can't remember the last time my right shoulder was just sore.

[1538] It's good that you're shooting them.

[1539] I mean, that's a lot of shooting.

[1540] Yeah.

[1541] I mean, it's not a lot of shooting for, like, guys that are really into shooting, but it's a lot of shooting.

[1542] For a 300.

[1543] It's good to get, no, I mean, to, like, to, like, get that level of proficiency.

[1544] I mean, just from repetition, you learn how to do stuff through repetition.

[1545] I'm not, you know, I'm a big believer in preparation.

[1546] I don't believe and I like one of the things that I learned when I was young when I was competing when I was fighting when I wasn't in that good of shape I was really fucking nervous but when I was in really good shape and I was really well trained my nerves were considerably less yeah and I think that that's with everything you gotta be fully prepared so yeah guys I know like the guys I know the best the hunting there I saw about you go out and you like have to it has to be you know you're gonna you know because if things get hard and things get bad and things aren't going your way if you've already been going into it like you didn't know what was going to happen it allows you to more quickly jump into that it didn't happen right like if you go into like it has to happen it will happen it has to happen then when things are like sake you've you're still pursuing that narrative you know well it will happen when we were in montana you kept saying we're going to get one you kept saying that we're going to get a deer you kept saying that we're going to get a deer like you said that many times i feel like what what we're doing this weekend isn't going to be you know like hunting wild pigs is I mean there's gonna there's gonna be I think there's gonna be a lot of pigs I mean this place Tihon Tijan Tahan Tijuana T T J O N Tijuana Ranch yeah I think has I gather they have like quite a bit of a pig population enough to the point where you know people go out there and you can go out there and like you know do a guided pig hunt and they do this throughout the year so if there was none there it wouldn't be that way right and oftentimes when i've hunted pigs i found it you know it is like there's so much more fecund you know like a deer go and a deer never use that word in my life what does that word mean fecund they have a lot of babies oh so like a like a like you take a like another animal native animal around here and be like but you know black tail deer does it have to do with the premise is it fuck does it start with fuck no fecundity fcccccc un d so like fecundity is you know good at making babies.

[1547] It seems like the root as fuck.

[1548] Deer.

[1549] Someone's lying.

[1550] You know, deer's going to have one or two a year.

[1551] Right.

[1552] That pig's going to, a female pig's going to keep kicking off litters of, you know, six, ten, several times a year.

[1553] What a powerful animal, too.

[1554] If they're, I mean, they're really, they're really something.

[1555] I mean, they've gotten, they've through our, you know, through, I'm trying to put together an idea.

[1556] It's not actually that complicated.

[1557] Thanks to us, and in spite of us, at the same time, they've managed to get everywhere.

[1558] You know, like, oftentimes we just do it.

[1559] Like, we thought it was a good idea for a long time to go put pigs everywhere.

[1560] Now we're like, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to put pigs everywhere.

[1561] And, you know, there's not a lot we're doing to stop them.

[1562] That's not the case here.

[1563] Like, in California, they're treated more like a game animal.

[1564] You know, the number, like, when people travel, more people travel to California to hunt wild pigs than hunt anything else.

[1565] Really?

[1566] And they just don't seem to really cause the level of damage and hysteria that they do in some other areas.

[1567] Like in certain areas in the southeast and the Gulf Coast area, I mean, there's pigs at a point where it's just is really hard on agricultural interests, and it's like kind of inexplicable how they seem to be there for so long and explode into some level.

[1568] But in California, it's just been, there's some pigs around, and people generally appreciate them.

[1569] I used to hunt pigs at, not used to, I still do, but I have a friend who's got some, her family has some cattle ranches up around Sacramento.

[1570] And he's kind of got this a little bit like, yeah, you know, sometimes I get too many, and I need to get rid of some, but then we'll get a dry year, and they'll all go away anyway, and I'd like it if you went out and shot some, and if you see one, shoot one for me, and they kind of are causing me a little bit of problems, and you can tell you has this conflicted relationship about him.

[1571] But I put it to him one day, I said, Glenn, if you could shake a magic wand and all the wild pigs would be gone, would you shake it?

[1572] No. You know?

[1573] So he even admitted, like, they're a hassle.

[1574] He doesn't want a lot of them around, but he would never want to see them all gone, you know?

[1575] And it feels kind of like the relate, it's a great generalization.

[1576] It's a huge generalization.

[1577] But I feel like that's kind of been the relationship.

[1578] Here's a lot of hunters.

[1579] I get all kinds of emails from guys living California.

[1580] And they're like, they went out pig hunting six times.

[1581] never even saw a pig, you know, hunting on public ground.

[1582] And these guys are wishing there was more of them.

[1583] And in other parts of the country, you got government agencies paying real money to try to wipe them out because they cause such a problem with native species and agricultural interests.

[1584] You know, but here it's just a different vibe in California.

[1585] Have you seen the pig man Ted Doogit footage?

[1586] I've seen clips of it.

[1587] I haven't seen it.

[1588] I mean, I know so much about it.

[1589] I mean, I have a show on that network, you know.

[1590] Yeah.

[1591] They shoot, for folks who are just listening, don't know what we're talking about.

[1592] They have, Pig Man has a couple of episodes called A Porcolipse, where they shoot pigs out of helicopters.

[1593] Lots of them.

[1594] He shot one with a bow and arrow out of a helicopter.

[1595] Did he kill it?

[1596] Yeah.

[1597] I saw that.

[1598] Yeah.

[1599] I mean, I knew that it happened, but I didn't know if it came to be that he got it and got it.

[1600] We had to aim way high because the downdraft of the blades.

[1601] Shove the arrow down.

[1602] Shove the arrow down, so he had to judge it.

[1603] Yeah.

[1604] I heard, recently I heard that they're in a situation, they're going to be like paying people by the hour to kill pigs.

[1605] Yeah, I would imagine.

[1606] I mean, they have millions of pigs in Texas, apparently.

[1607] Well, they have a lot of farmland in Texas, too.

[1608] Yeah.

[1609] But they're, uh...

[1610] It's like, it's a weird thing about it.

[1611] The endangered, like, not the endangered species.

[1612] A weird thing about stuff like pigs and how, you know, just so, I don't know, I'm sure your viewers are somewhat up.

[1613] speed on this but wild pigs are not from north we don't have wild pigs are not native of north america people brought wild pigs to north america early on in the pioneer days or during the contact years they brought pigs to north america from your their native in eurasia brought them here as a food source and they would keep some in pens and other people would have a practice where you'd go in an area and you'd just kind of turn pigs out they wouldn't scatter too far they'd fatten themselves on acorns and masts and grubs and various things and when you want them when you could take your rifle out and find a couple and shoot them and it was a way to produce meat where it wasn't you weren't needing to provide it with all of its feet it was just a very sturdy animal that could fatten itself on land and inevitably these pigs would get away so we've had wild pigs here about as long as we have have had Europeans here another version happened later where people brought them in as a game species.

[1614] When they would bring them as a game species, they would bring them in from, you know, like Siberia and other areas where you still had the original stock.

[1615] So the original Sue Scroffa was like what we call the Eurasian wild boar.

[1616] They had been bringing in domestic versions that had been bred off the Eurasian wild boar.

[1617] And then people brought directly in the wild boar.

[1618] Now, if you look for a parallel with cattle, like the ancestral cattle is an animal we now called the oryx.

[1619] but the orcs went extinct.

[1620] So we lost the wild version, but retained the domestic version.

[1621] With pigs, we had the domestic version that we humans created over long, long, tens of thousands of years, coexisting with the wild version.

[1622] So people brought wild ones.

[1623] They brought some to New Hampshire in the late 1800s, early 1900s.

[1624] They brought some to California around that time and kind of put them out on the land as a thing to hunt.

[1625] And in time, we now have populations that are of domestic stock.

[1626] We have populations that are of Eurasian stock, so they look like a real souped up European wild boar.

[1627] And we have populations that are various hybrids, so they demonstrate different degrees of it.

[1628] And they've been around a long time, and in some areas, there's way too many.

[1629] The trouble with some, like, one troublesome thing that happens to me, and again, it's as complicated to shooting rhinos to save rhinos, is that we've always had, we've had over the last, you know, 150 years we've been developed.

[1630] like this set of ethics like what's an acceptable what are acceptable practices to use when hunting and we made a general determination that certain things aren't acceptable like you know we don't jacklight deer like you can't use spotlights to go out and shoot deer at night we've built up these rules because we have ideas about what's sporting okay what's the elements of fair chase also what leads to too much harvest so if you make it too easy to go get animals then you're going to have shorter seasons you're going to have fewer available tags you know and so they kind of balance technology to sort of make it that you're going to have whatever success rate like a lot of elk hunts only 10 % of the hunters that participate in the elk hunt are successful um 90 % are unsuccessful because we have rules in place that make it difficult to do to hunt there's so many pigs now in some places that we're like discarding a lot of the we're have to in dealing with that speed because we're discarding a lot of the notions that we've held deer like you would never go out in a helicopter and shoot deer just would never be legal it would be frowned on by everybody in the hunting community but with pigs it's like an exception because it's a non -native animal that we want to get rid of and so it really is like it becomes kind of a cloudy issue like we're doing these like big game hunting practices that we worked hard to get rid of in order to save north american wildlife from the pits where we had driven it in the early 1900s and now like all the these like ethical practices are not really applicable to this animal so you see some things and see some things happen and like your initial reaction is to be like oh man it's just like ugly you know it's ugly but it's a really complicated situation there's a ton of pigs causing a ton of economic damage and it's really putting a herd on people and it's putting a herd on native species too you know like we lose like Hawaii lost ground nesting birds many species of wild ground nesting birds because of pigs and rats introduce species you know ate the eggs yeah and pigs are really hard there's like you know rare bird preserves in florida where the number one problem they have in those preserves is pigs eat all the eggs wow because these are ground nesting birds and and pigs just vacuum them up so you bring like kind of these like practices that strike someone who grew up in the in the american hunting tradition and it's like oh man you know i've even engaged in some things like i've done to pigs i've done things the wild pigs that i wouldn't do to any other animal.

[1631] Like what?

[1632] I mean, like running, you know, running with dogs and kill them in knives and digging them out of holes and chasing them into little fenced enclosures and killing them in there.

[1633] And, you know, it's like, it's, they're a legitimate, honest problem.

[1634] Your last show that I watched last night, actually, you had a pig, it was a whole head -to -hoof pig -cooking, wild pig -cooking special.

[1635] It was a really fun special.

[1636] Very interesting.

[1637] Yeah.

[1638] education you want to hear the story of that pig but yeah the pig had his balls removed yeah so this is crazy i've gone down to florida hunting turkeys and we have the american there's like multiple subspecies of the american turkey so we have it's all one species but there's subspecies or varieties you have like the eastern wild turkey and in most of the east the osceola turkey which lives in the south half of the florida peninsula then you have the rio grande turkey the miriams turkey in northern Mexico, southern Arizona, and if you're like a turkey geek, you might want to try to eventually get all, have the experience of hunting all turkey subspecies.

[1639] I had kind of accidentally got four of them, and I realized that I wanted to go to South Florida and have a chance to hunt Osceola's.

[1640] So went down to hunt Osceola's down in the swamps down there, and we're down there, and we're down there, we run to these guys who hunt pigs with hounds.

[1641] What they're set up is, this guy has a big cattle ranch, and it borders a rare bird preserve.

[1642] And, and The preserve, you can't even walk around.

[1643] Most of the preserve is closed to any human visitation at all.

[1644] You can't even take a walk to there.

[1645] But they have a guy who's like a full -time pig hunter in there.

[1646] He goes around and kills pigs as a way to try to protect these rare bird species to give them nesting opportunities.

[1647] The rancher who likes to hunt wild hogs goes and he usually kind of hunts along his border with the preserve because the pigs will come out of the swamps in the preserve and come up and hunt and root around on his land.

[1648] in the cover of night and then retreat back into the preserve where they're relatively safe and hide out.

[1649] So what he realized is he went through and put this fence in and put trap doors, one -way doors in his fence, so that pigs could leave the preserve and enter his fence, but then they couldn't get back out.

[1650] It was like a fish trap door.

[1651] So now and then if he gets the itching to go pig hunting, he'll go out at four in the morning and make sure all the doors are shut, like closes the doors up so the pigs can't get back through the other way.

[1652] And then he knows they're probably somewhere on his ranch.

[1653] And when he starts chasing one of his hounds, they won't be able to make it back into their safety in the preserve.

[1654] And when he goes out, if he gets a boar, like an old boar that's got his nuts intact, he knows it's not going to be a great eating bore.

[1655] Because they just, they run themselves right.

[1656] You know, they're not like, they don't have a lot of fat.

[1657] They're full of hormones.

[1658] They're certainly edible, but not as good eating.

[1659] So what he'll do is he'll do.

[1660] do something that benefits everyone, he will castrate that hog and turn it out.

[1661] Because now that hog cannot contribute to the population.

[1662] He's not a viable breeding member of the population.

[1663] And if he catches them again, he'll have what's called a barred hog.

[1664] Barrel.

[1665] What hell is that word?

[1666] Barrow hog?

[1667] Bard hog, which is a castrated hog.

[1668] So like a steers a castrated, you know, a steers a castrated male, cow, castrated bull, and a barred hog.

[1669] is castrated.

[1670] So we went out one night and caught a big boar with his nuts intact, castrated him and turned him out so that he could, as this guy put it, it would take his mind off ass and put it on the grass.

[1671] And then we stayed out, caught another pig, and this one had at some point in time, they didn't even know if they had it or another guy had done it.

[1672] This one had been castrated.

[1673] You didn't even know it.

[1674] It was totally healed up.

[1675] But he had been castrated, and those guys were like, that'll be a good one to eat.

[1676] so we killed that hog and kept it for food and we ate that thing from from honest to God we ate its skin as pork rinds took its intestines out and flushed the intestines and stripped them made our own sausage casings liver heart ate his nose and head cheese ate his feet like ate every part of that hog yeah the head cheese I got actually the one thing I got left is one of the good parts I got one back leg frozen to my friend I got one hand I didn't know what head cheese was.

[1677] I didn't know.

[1678] Barrow hog.

[1679] That's the word I'm looking for.

[1680] Barrel?

[1681] Barrow hog.

[1682] Well, let's look it up.

[1683] Here, a castrated hog.

[1684] I've even written the word.

[1685] I wrote a thing about this.

[1686] What is a castrated pig called?

[1687] Barred barrel.

[1688] Barrow hog.

[1689] B -A -R -R -O -W.

[1690] Barrow -Hog.

[1691] Barrow.

[1692] Okay.

[1693] Barrow.

[1694] Yeah.

[1695] B -R -R -O -W.

[1696] Yeah, and these guys love to hunt, and they love to eat.

[1697] pigs.

[1698] It's a good little system they got.

[1699] The head cheese was so weird.

[1700] I never, I'd heard that name before.

[1701] Word, the description, I didn't know what it was.

[1702] It's like a gelatin.

[1703] Yep.

[1704] I made head cheese with the first, the first wild pig I ever killed was in California.

[1705] I went out to hunt wild pigs, and I had never laid eyes on a wild pig, and I don't want to shoot the first wild pig I saw.

[1706] So I went out one day without my rifle just to see some wild pigs, and the next day I went out and got one, and I want it making head cheese with it, where it's not, it's not, it doesn't make a cheese but it's like gelatinous so yeah a lot of the cuts like when you butcher an animal a lot of the cuts that are um chewy or you know that don't really make great steak they're not that way because they have a lot of connective tissue you know and fatty deposits whatever they have stuff that like turns into collagen when you cook it like turns in like a gelatin when you cook it so a head's full of that stuff and the bones have it and so you simmer that head for a long long time and eventually you can pick off all the meat and a lot of the gristle and connective tissue and stuff turns into like a gelatin -like substance.

[1707] You can make real gelatin that way.

[1708] And now we just have a packet where you pour a powder out and mix of the water and makes gelatin.

[1709] But old -style gelatin and natural gelatin would be just derived from as an animal byproduct.

[1710] So you take all the meat that you pluck off the same way, you know, like hog, jowl, if you ever had that.

[1711] You take the tongue out and chop the tongue up.

[1712] Then there's all this other at root at when it's warm, it's liquid, but it sets up as gelatin.

[1713] And it's just all bound together with natural gelatin.

[1714] that you've derived by slow cooking the pig's head.

[1715] So it's like little bits of pig meat bound up in an aspicor bound up in gelatin.

[1716] And then, of course, you season it and flavor it with all kinds of good stuff to eat.

[1717] And then when it sets up, when it's chilled, you can pour it out like a, it looks almost like a fruit cake.

[1718] You know, it pours out in a mold and then you slice it and it's not cheese.

[1719] It looked great.

[1720] It looked great.

[1721] Because my buddy that makes it, this guy, Matt, one of the cheese.

[1722] Yeah, my buddy that makes it.

[1723] This guy, Matt, wine garden a chef I hang out with he puts all this amazing stuff to eat in there and you can put like colorful things and like citrusy flavors and it's beautiful it looks great one of the things I really love about your show is that that you occasionally do show like recipes and how to cook but also that you butcher the animals there you cut quarter the animals gut them you do all that on the show you don't shy away from that you see wild stuff on the show that you don't see on other stuff no we have a trip it's like it's amazing how much liberty like how much liberty we have like how much the network lets us get away with is it because it's on the sportsman's channel because you can yeah there's another there's another channel that shows hunting shows they won't let the people have bloody hands what show is that my understanding is not a show there's a network I've heard that that yeah there's another hunting network I've heard that it's protocol on other hunting networks you're not supposed to have bloody hands like you won't see them gut animals that's ridiculous because they think that it would make people turned off by hunting it's like how you think people get turned off by hunting by seeing people eat what they hunt is beyond me. But sportsman channel is really cool because they let us do stuff and it works the advantage because people are like you know what I get it man you know it's like you're showing like a thing that most people are hiding from but it's a reality that meat goes through a metamorphosis you know to get there and it's sometimes gory so we yeah we get the show all that and I love it but I don't think of it as just like gratuitous no it's like it's instructional really yes yeah that's how I feel I don't I don't feel it's gratuitous at all but i think i like watching you like when you uh ate that moose i like watch you guys cut it up and then eat it yeah dude that meat was like unbelievable man we had that marrow crack the marrow bones open it looked delicious it looked ridiculous unbelievable like that meat was so tender and good and you know and you get into the thing where you guys when you're on tv you know you watch like morning shows and they have a cooking segment the host is i was like oh it's so good oh it's so good you know sometimes i cook stuff on the show it's not good and i just try to be like that's not good like coyote yeah i was like you know it's not that great because i want it to be that when something is good i feel like i want people to believe me and that was good it's just a phenomenal moose man looked unbelievably delicious elk's widely regarded as like if you went and surveyed people who've tasted a wide variety of meats elk is the one that people would be like it's the best one where we're going tihon has elk on it tully elk yeah you know you got like roosevelt elk Rocky Mount of these different subspecies elk There's a very rare one in California Not rare but yeah rare and a very small range That was almost wiped out It's back now because you have like Big chunks of property like that Where they can find you know Find some refuge and people are working to Maintain them provide habitat for them So it's kind of a cool spot you'll go there and see a elk That most people haven't seen I hope we run into one Because it's like a two the tuley elk you know Do you feel like the moose was right up there with elk It was I'm not joking It was one of the best Pieces of meat I've eaten And to eat meat In the field You know We age meat Because it tenderizes You know And we're eating meat Like fresh meat Like fresh meat There's like an iron Kind of thing to it It just doesn't quite taste like aged meat I like that But when we were in Wisconsin Man You were cooking those steaks And it was phenomenal though Yeah So sometimes But sometimes it's pretty tough Like my brother My brother My brother lives in Alaska He kills moose every year Like The guy like Kills Moose eats moose all year he's a moose snob like he won't hunt a lot of stuff he's like he likes to hunt moose and doll sheep because moose is good but he puts a moose in his freezer because just because he doesn't have a hanging you know he doesn't have a locker where he can dry age his meat he'll kill a moose and typically because of weather and bugs and other issues he comes home and right away processes his moose and puts in his freezer and he don't usually touch that thing for six months because it will slowly age like meat will tenderize in your freezer over time so when he He calculates his year out.

[1724] He knows he's going to kill a moose in September.

[1725] He doesn't plan on having the one he killed before be gone in September.

[1726] He plans on having the one he killed before be gone.

[1727] You know, it's staggered.

[1728] So the one that he kills, he lets it slowly age in his freezer, and it will tenderize in your freezer over time.

[1729] And then he starts in on the new one.

[1730] So when he kills a moose, he's still eating the moose from the year before.

[1731] That seems so weird because the way you ate that moose, it didn't seem like it needed anything at all.

[1732] Because it was an exceptional animal.

[1733] Oh.

[1734] So that's unusual.

[1735] It's, yeah, those animals, like most animals, especially males and bowls, like most animals, not most, animals benefit, like ungulates benefit from aging.

[1736] No one age, you don't age wild pigs.

[1737] You don't age black bears.

[1738] A lot of critters you do age.

[1739] Deer, elk, moose, at all benefits.

[1740] Those animals all benefit from aging.

[1741] There's natural, you know, there's natural enzymes or whatever that the process is well understood.

[1742] I don't understand totally well, but it's well understood.

[1743] that you hang it and there's like a natural decay you know i'll put ducks like if i kill a duck i'll gut the duck if i have like a wife or if i have a girlfriend or whoever doesn't want it or when i had i'm what i'm trying to say forget out i'll gut the duck and put in the fridge now i might need to put it in a paper bag because someone might not want to see the duck every time they open the fridge but i'll roll it up in a paper bag so we're going to still breathe and i'll put in my fridge and i'll leave it in there a long time i might leave it in there 10 days and that meat gets to where you could scrape it away with your thumb you know the inside the gutting is where you've gutted the bird might start to even smell a little off but the meat is getting just perfect you know it increased the flavor enhances it gets more tender it's just like aging you know so why was that move so good then I don't know just what it was eating just good I've had I mean we had it we had a great piece off we're eating like kind of like the most tender part of the rear leg, but there's just a great animal.

[1744] There's so much variability.

[1745] Like, that's one thing about being a wild game chef.

[1746] I don't know, I'm a wild game cook.

[1747] I think chef sounds a little more formal, but I'm a wild game cook.

[1748] And one thing about being a wild game cook that's more challenging than being a regular cook is you're dealing with so much variability.

[1749] Like, you get some great chef and he can do some amazing thing because he's got a purveyor, you know, and when he buys a pig, it's like the pig ate this for 72 days, and then we had ate this for 14 days, and then we killed it on this day and chilled it at this temperature for these many days.

[1750] And, you know, and every time he buys a pig, the pig comes in his kitchen or his restaurant, and he knows, he just know what it's going to be like, you know.

[1751] Animals, you don't know what kind of there's age issues and what kind of trip they've been on, just all kinds of variability.

[1752] So you learn how to kind of control that and sort of bring the ingredients into line because some animals are good and some animals aren't.

[1753] I shot a mule deer one time that was just, it was just disgusting to eat the thing and then you get another mule deer and it's like that is so good that one was delicious that's what I'm saying man and then some you know it's like you don't know what they've been up to or there's just a lot of mystery with it but that moose was a phenomenal moose I've also had my buddy he was my buddy we had a falling out he's hunting this guy he killed the moose he brought the meat over I thought he'd killed the Loch Ness sea monster it was like I'd never see anything like it just funky and nasty He had a cow tag.

[1754] See, one thing about shooting males on antlered game is you can get an idea of age.

[1755] The antlers betray the age.

[1756] There's a growth pattern they go through.

[1757] Like, if you see a forky deer or a spike horn deer, it's like, that's a one and a half.

[1758] Your old deer is going to be great eating.

[1759] When you're shooting antlerless, the clues are much more subtle.

[1760] What a guy looked at the tooth, so he had a cow moose tag.

[1761] He went on and got a cow moose.

[1762] He later had someone look at the teeth, and they estimated that thing to be 20 years old.

[1763] Oh, my God.

[1764] And it was like you couldn't really chew it.

[1765] So it was an old lady.

[1766] It tasted like a sea monster.

[1767] Do you know what I mean?

[1768] Because it's really hard to tell.

[1769] There's guys that really know their business.

[1770] Like, you know, Doug Dern in Wisconsin, Doug Dern can look at a dough, I'll tell you how old it is.

[1771] Yeah.

[1772] He's looked at so many damn deer.

[1773] He's looked at so many deer that live on his place that he just knows, like, what their groove is, you know?

[1774] Isn't it a weird sort of a symbiotic relationship that those deer have to farmers?

[1775] Like, it's almost not really a wild animal.

[1776] No, Canada geese.

[1777] crows white -tailed deer love people yeah when we were at Doug's place I mean first of all what a fucking great guy he is I love Doug man he's one of the best he's one of the best and I love this place like a big I don't say this about many people I don't throw this around lately but I was like he's a big hearted guy do you know what I mean and I don't like it's not something I really think of when I'm describing other individuals yeah no I'm so glad you introduced me to him he's awesome And it was so cool Me and Brian Callan staying at his place and he let us do that and film the show there and God damn there's a lot of deer up there too Jesus Christ I mean we didn't see a lot of big bucks but god damn we saw a lot of deer And you I told you about this I think or he did when he was a kid if you saw a deer track you ran home and told your parents Wow There were no freaking deer around Well they've they've fucking grown in population We saw 16 the first day Right We saw about 16 deer at least but I mean he'll yeah I mean it's just that's like a real deary spot but they do have that that's the perfect word they have a symbiotic relationship white tail deer have really are one of the winners when it comes to development issues and then our like our good friend the mule deer which is a more to me like it's a more romantic kind of thing mule deer and some people would be like oh yeah but we have mule deer in my yard all the time and I know but generally they have they don't do as well they don't do as well with with fratialia.

[1778] They don't do it as well with kind of the stress, you know.

[1779] They have some things they like to eat, and they're kind of wed to those things they like to eat.

[1780] And whitetails are like, oh, yeah, mow that down, I'll eat corn, you know.

[1781] They're just like they're always going to find something.

[1782] And that place is just like a deer culture down there.

[1783] Well, there's a lot of places like that in this country.

[1784] Oh, yeah, a lot of farmlands, right?

[1785] Like Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, a lot of farmland, a lot of crazy white -tail deer.

[1786] Yeah, you got way, way, way more white -tail deer than you had at the time of European contact.

[1787] Way more, right?

[1788] Yeah.

[1789] That's nuts.

[1790] But still, if every dude in America went out and shot a deer, we'd be running like a 200 million deer deficit.

[1791] Really?

[1792] Oh, yeah.

[1793] Wow.

[1794] So when people say to me, like, so you think everyone should go out and shoot their own meat?

[1795] I'm like, well, we really couldn't.

[1796] We'd run out of critters.

[1797] It's like it's going to always be like a fringe activity.

[1798] I think it's always going to be a fringe activity anyway as long as society keeps going the way it is.

[1799] Oh, no, I'm not worried about it.

[1800] I don't stay up.

[1801] One of my, like, goals, not a goal, but a thing I'd like to see happen is rather that, I mean, We could definitely have more hunters and I think we need more just to have political clout to defend our lifestyle.

[1802] But I also would like to see the people who have no interest in hunting come to record, like through understanding kind of the mechanics of wildlife, start to recognize it as that hunting is legitimate, useful practice and not the opposite.

[1803] I think people that pay attention do see that.

[1804] I think for the most part, the real issue is that most people have this sort of periphery view of it.

[1805] They don't really look at it.

[1806] They don't get in there and try to understand, okay, what is hunting?

[1807] What's going on with it?

[1808] I know, like I said, my own personal transformation from looking at deer, like, why would you kill that beautiful animal?

[1809] To, oh, you have to kill them.

[1810] Oh, okay, I get it.

[1811] You know, it's understanding what's going, oh, well, that actually keeps the population.

[1812] It's like, well, if you don't do that, they run out of food.

[1813] Well, then there's, you know, the massive strain on the resources.

[1814] And there's, well, there's no predators.

[1815] Yeah, and wild fluctuations.

[1816] I didn't get it.

[1817] I had to look into it.

[1818] But when you do look into it, the only people that don't get it are the people that don't want to.

[1819] Whether it's for moral, political, whatever reasons, whatever bias you have coming into it, if you look at it objectively, I don't see how you could, I don't see how you could not get it.

[1820] No, I think anyone who looks at wildlife politics in a way that's like immersive and you have to come to understand it, you go ask someone who runs a wildlife agency, like a state wildlife agency or federal wildlife agency, and ask them what their job would be like without having a. hunting as a tool and you know it gives it would make them shutter because you just you know it's so much it's going to be very difficult to maintain the kind of the portfolio of different species we have at the levels we have you're going to have to be you'd have to be open to having really wild fluctuations having cycles of disease and things that aren't as pretty and also why like why deny ourselves access to a renewable resource yeah that generates so much revenue you know it generates economic activity it's self -sustaining it helps pay for itself and it's fun people don't want to say that for whatever reason you don't want to say killing animals is fun it seems like it's a mean thing to say yeah i love hunting man it's fun i always tell that it's it's not that it's not you're not being mean it's not it's it's an exciting activity that speaks to your dna i always tell people i wouldn't because i heart like i'll talk about the food element of it i wouldn't hunt if it wasn't for the food i wouldn't hunt if it wasn't for the fun.

[1821] Yeah.

[1822] You know what I mean?

[1823] It's both.

[1824] It's exciting.

[1825] And you could watch the meat eater online now.

[1826] Finally.

[1827] You can pay for them.

[1828] For the longest time, you can only get them on DVD.

[1829] But now if you go to meeteater .vh .com or go to themeatheater .com.

[1830] You can get them.

[1831] They're selling them as a bundle.

[1832] And volume four is the bundle that the two -part episode with me and Brian Callan in Montana.

[1833] I should say Brian Callan and I. And if you use the code word Rogan.

[1834] No, no. You shouldn't say that.

[1835] Why is that?

[1836] Just picture that you're saying it without Callan.

[1837] What would you say?

[1838] Brian Callan and I?

[1839] No, picture you're saying it.

[1840] You wouldn't say it features I. Brian Callan and me?

[1841] I would say Brian Callan and me, though.

[1842] Yeah, picture what you'd say without the other guy there.

[1843] Right, right, right, right.

[1844] You would say me. But you would say him first, right?

[1845] Yeah, but I'm talking about the me, I think.

[1846] Okay, okay.

[1847] I meant, I was just saying the, I was just trying to put him first.

[1848] Oh, you were worried about the sequence, not the pronoun.

[1849] Yes, yes.

[1850] Not the pronoun use.

[1851] Yeah, you're correct, though.

[1852] Me is the right way to say it.

[1853] I fuck that up all the time.

[1854] I don't even pay attention to it.

[1855] I know the rule, but I don't care about it.

[1856] I ain't concerned with it.

[1857] You ain't.

[1858] Volume 4.

[1859] Use the code word, Rogan.

[1860] Get them all, though.

[1861] It's a great fucking show.

[1862] It's not just a great hunting show.

[1863] It's a great show.

[1864] You know, I was saying it to my wife the other day where I was watching.

[1865] I was like, this show, it's almost like, I want more people to see it.

[1866] I wish more people would see it because it would open their eyes as to your approach.

[1867] It's a more intelligent philosophy behind.

[1868] Like, you see all these.

[1869] hunting show.

[1870] It's like, well, I'll tell you what.

[1871] There's a big book.

[1872] Came out of that wood.

[1873] I'll tell you what.

[1874] We shot him with that gun.

[1875] I tell you what.

[1876] You don't have any of that stupid shit in it.

[1877] It's interesting.

[1878] It's fascinating.

[1879] You're a well -read introspective guy, and I love the narration on it, too.

[1880] It's a great fucking show.

[1881] Thank you, man. I like it.

[1882] I would watch that show if I wasn't in it.

[1883] I would watch it.

[1884] I do watch it.

[1885] It's a great fucking show.

[1886] One of my favorite shows ever.

[1887] In my inbox right now, is the first cut of the initial pass on the Wisconsin hunt.

[1888] Really?

[1889] Oh, awesome.

[1890] We had a good time, Wisconsin.

[1891] That was a lot of fucking fun.

[1892] We've talked about that someday.

[1893] Yes, we'll talk about that before it comes out.

[1894] Meetor .vhX .tv.

[1895] And again, use the code word Rogan, and you'll save five bucks.

[1896] And volume four is the one with Brian Callan and me. All right.

[1897] You nailed it.

[1898] Audible .com.

[1899] Thank you to Audible .com.

[1900] Go there.

[1901] Download some cool shit.

[1902] Go to audible .com forward slash Joe.

[1903] Get yourself a free audio book and 30 free days of audible service.

[1904] And thanks also to Onit .com.

[1905] That's O N -N -N -I -T.

[1906] Use the code word Rogan and save 10 % off any supplements.

[1907] We will be back.

[1908] We have a very full week next week.

[1909] A lot of shit going on.

[1910] Oh boy.

[1911] I got Neil Brennan, John Hackleman, and Peter Schiff, the The Economist is going to be here on Wednesday.

[1912] That should be interesting.

[1913] What is the economist?

[1914] He was an expert on the economy.

[1915] John Hackleman, trainer of many, many great fighters, including one of the greatest ever in Chuck Liddell, and Neil Brennan, our pal, stand -up comedian, and co -creator of the Chappelle Show.

[1916] All right, folks, we love you, and Steve Rinell and I are going to go bring home to bacon.

[1917] Literally.

[1918] See you soon.

[1919] Big kiss.

[1920] Bye.