#1716 - 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] Do you eight meet, tobacco?

[4] We're up in the moment.

[5] Oh.

[6] Well, I was just telling the story the other day.

[7] When I was in...

[8] I was just telling the story.

[9] We had a bunch of the guys I work with, and this other dude, Jared Outlaw, who were all big dip guys.

[10] We were having a conversation about dip.

[11] Is Jared the flip -flop Flesher?

[12] No, no, no. No, that's Seth.

[13] That's a guy named Seth.

[14] A lot of the guys I used to work with, or not, a lot of the guys that work with did and do, you know, they're horrible tobacco addicts.

[15] Dip.

[16] Yeah.

[17] Because they're all workers, so they don't smoke because it keeps their hands free.

[18] But I was explaining to them my version, and I feel like it traces to when I was in fifth grade, we had to make agricultural maps of the United States of America.

[19] and you had to glue the product so you get to South Dakota and you glue like a little corn kernel right I remember those yeah put some wheat you know yeah and for whatever reason like for Virginia we had tobacco and someone had brought in I can't remember what it was like must have been loose leaf or plug and me and my buddy I don't know if this dude remembers it's me and my buddy Stanley Johnson eight we took it out in the playground and ate something Dude, I was I was I hallucinated twice as a child Once on Once when I had to get a root canal Um And once when we ate that tobacco I mean I was I was no I was hallucinating What were you seeing?

[20] I can't remember My mom had to come get me She had to come fetch me from school How old were you?

[21] A fifth grade Oh wow Unbelievably sick When I was in I guess it was uh seventh grade six or seventh grade i really got into tom sawyer tom sawyer and huckleberry fin i read all those books and uh they were always chewing tobacco so i bought something and uh i tried it and i got very sick just like drool pouring out of my mouth you know like you get that that drool me yeah yeah that set me off from chewing tobacco i don't know so you were a mark twain fan oh yeah yeah do you have you had your kids read mark twain um no i haven't no no no no No, I would, though.

[22] It's a conversation starter.

[23] It certainly is.

[24] Yeah, I mean, when you find out about, I mean, I don't know how into history they are, but when you just get into the, just the history of people and the history of people in the United States, and those books are fascinating books in that regard.

[25] You know, Mark Twain is, like, widely regarded as the first stand -up comedian.

[26] Oh, I'd buy that.

[27] Yeah, because he used to read his books that were humorous in front of people.

[28] oh and and people think that that kind of started out the idea of stand -up comedy yeah he was quick -witted too yeah that's good uh and then there's the name mark twain which i learned from you what it meant yeah we covered us all the time yeah it's uh should i share yeah sure share for so well recently there's been some controversy introduced into this but mark twain was had worked as a riverboat pilot on the mississippi um so he had a very informed perspective for all his characters a river boat required 12 feet of water you know the big paddle wheel river boats required 12 feet of water for safe passage so there would be a guy up on the front of the boat who'd have a rope with a weight on the end and every fathom a fathom is a nautical turn for six feet he'd have a knot tied in the rope every fathom and he'd throw the weight out the weight hits the bottom and you see how deep the water is so Mark Twain is second Mark Which is 12 feet 12 feet So he describes like You're going through the fog or in the dark And there's some guy up front going Mark Twain Some other guy We recently Someone sent into us Because we were discussing this on our podcast And a guy sent us in this book I can't remember who the hell wrote the book But he was saying the real thing is Mark Twain When he was out I think when he was out visiting one of the silver mines In Nevada maybe he took to go into a bar and the bar would log how many drinks you had on a chalkboard okay so it's like your tab in this book this guy was saying what happened was Twain whose name was whose birth name was Samuel Clemens Twain would come in and order two drinks by saying Mark Twain meaning put me down for two marks.

[29] So Twain would, Twain means two?

[30] I'll start throwing that around.

[31] Yeah, I've never heard that used as two.

[32] Have you ever heard anybody use it as two?

[33] Is that like a forgotten terminology?

[34] I don't know, I bet James's looking it up right now.

[35] Here it goes.

[36] That second one came out, that rumor came out.

[37] I guess he was still alive, so I guess he responded to it according to this article.

[38] What did he say?

[39] Is the numb to plume of captain?

[40] Isaiah Sellers, who used to write River News for the New Orleans, McCain, and he died in 1963, and he could no longer, he no longer needed that signature.

[41] 1863.

[42] So Twain sold it from Twain, from Captain Isaiah Sellers.

[43] He said, I laid violent hands upon it without asking permission of the proprietor's remains.

[44] That is the history of the nom de plur I bear.

[45] So he stole it.

[46] Interesting.

[47] He no longer needed it, because the guy was dead.

[48] So he took it from a dead guy If you die I'm going to be like My name is Joe Rogan Interesting Interesting So I wanted to tell you I had a legitimate real life mountain line encounter Oh A big one A huge one I saw a real huge mountain line up close It was about 30 yards away We were in a truck And we were driving It was right by a creek And on the other side of the creek There was a tree And underneath that tree Was a fucking giant Yeah Yeah The guy I was with, my friend Colton, he saw it first.

[49] He goes, holy shit, look at that cat.

[50] Look at the size of that mountain line.

[51] We stopped the truck, and I see the eyes glowing, because it's about 7 p .m. It's just starting to get dark, and I get the binoes out, and I got him like, close up, big old pumpkin head, giant paws.

[52] Terrified, staring at us.

[53] Well, just staring at the truck.

[54] Yeah.

[55] We knew that there was things inside the truck, I'm sure, moving, but enormous.

[56] That's cool.

[57] because I told you I'd seen one before but it was small.

[58] The one I'd seen before was like 60, 70 pounds or like a dog size.

[59] This thing was fucking giant.

[60] That's great.

[61] It was terrifying.

[62] See, if you've had two sightings, that's a lot.

[63] They're few and far between, man. Yeah, this was the first time I saw one clearly.

[64] Like, not moving, stationary, looking right at us.

[65] The whole encounter lasted 30 seconds.

[66] It was like a real view of one.

[67] like a holy shit it was so big man that's good it had enormous forearms that was the crazy I was looking at its arms it's standing there like big ass paws and this giant fucking head who all I was thinking is like if I wasn't in this truck if I was out on the road if I was out walking and I saw that thing from that close it scared the shit out of your little bit oh my god oh my god in Utah you can get a tag for them over -the -counter spot and stock for 50 bucks.

[68] Yeah?

[69] Yeah, it's hard to get a tag with hounds.

[70] Oh, it is?

[71] Yeah.

[72] Oh, okay.

[73] Yeah, it's draw.

[74] It takes a while.

[75] Yeah, I think they, even the states that, um, the states that, like, Washington used to have a hound season, and they lost it to the animal rights activists, um, but they still maintain their, their, uh, regular hunting season.

[76] Texas treats them like coyotes.

[77] Yeah.

[78] You just whack them.

[79] There's a happy middle ground.

[80] Yeah.

[81] I think that I think the states that manage them as a I think the states that manage them as a big game animal around the right track you know Yeah the states that don't do anything about them Like California Then you get a case like a couple weeks ago A five -year -old kid got bitten by a mountain line In Calabasas His mom had a punch the thing in the face And you know Kids in the hospital You think bit his fucking head Yeah it was weird 90 pound cat Two summers ago Well you don't I might have talked about this.

[82] Two summers ago, Oregon, Washington had its first mountain lion fatality in state history in the same summer.

[83] Oregon had its first mountain lion fatality in like 98 years.

[84] Yeah.

[85] In the same summer.

[86] And how were they managed up there?

[87] Like I said, Washington used to have, they had a hound season, but you can still just get a tag.

[88] I was communicating with a guy who was developing a mountain lion hunting strategy that's pretty ingenious.

[89] he goes out the same way he goes out the same way a hound hunter will go out when there's a fresh snow he'd go out and drive roads drive logging roads whatever and cut a track but instead of setting his dogs out on the track he'll just start tracking the lion just walking yep and every time he gets to like a good piece of bedding cover like a grown -up clear cut or a canyon he gets to a good piece of bedding cover he stops and turns his predator call around.

[90] Oh, Jesus.

[91] And calls.

[92] And he was writing us in saying how he's been trying it.

[93] I'm like, that's pretty genius idea, really.

[94] Explain to people what a predator call.

[95] Oh, so you can, a predator caller is a pretty broad term.

[96] It just, you can do it, a mouth -blown predator call, which mimics the sound typically of a dying animal.

[97] So, so the most, if you just went into a sporting goods store and walked up to a shelf and bought a mouth -blown predator call it would probably mimic the sound of a dying rabbit.

[98] You can get like jack rabbit, cottontail rabbit, and it's just a horrific sound.

[99] It's like, whee, whee, whee, you know.

[100] Then they have electronic callers that have these massive libraries.

[101] So I have an electronic caller.

[102] I think my, I have a lucky duck electronic caller, and it's got a library of dozens and dozens of sounds so it's like you can have it play um woodpeckers in distress i mean anything imagine oh yeah it's like house cat noises which is attractive to urban coyotes you play a vast yeah vast library of sounds um so he would go and turn a predator call around and a lot of times um like fawn distress calls um it's just like loud excitable noises that are attractive to predators um and eventually he wrote in that he he said he sat down turned his collar on and you know i actually say turned his call around i don't know if he's using an electronic like a battery powered caller or a mouth -blown call but either way he said you know within a minute there's the line and you got him did you see the guy who was uh trying to scare a mount line off he's tell him get the fuck out of here fuck you he's got a glock pointed at it and then he shoots it uh -uh You didn't see that?

[103] No. Nor did I see something that's floating around of a dude with a machete killing one off his dog.

[104] Oh, my God.

[105] I haven't seen that one.

[106] Well, we were going to publish it.

[107] We were going to publish it on our website because it hadn't been widely distributed.

[108] Is it brutal?

[109] I guess it's just too much.

[110] I never saw it.

[111] I was away.

[112] I just came back and heard that we had decided not to do it because it's just like, yeah.

[113] And you didn't immediately watch it?

[114] I still haven't gotten around to watch it.

[115] Wow.

[116] Your willpower is better than mine.

[117] Yeah, so one of my colleagues, Spencer, he's got to, he and I share an appreciation for those kind of sorted videos.

[118] And, yeah, I got to ask him for it.

[119] Watch this, because this is pretty crazy.

[120] Oh, look at it.

[121] I mean.

[122] You get back.

[123] Back.

[124] He's practicing a lot of restraint.

[125] Yeah.

[126] No. Oh.

[127] I just had to shoot this mountain line.

[128] They pounced at me and I popped it in the fucking face.

[129] Hmm.

[130] Holy shit.

[131] That's wild.

[132] I mean, that is close.

[133] What do you think that is?

[134] Ten yards?

[135] If that?

[136] It's close.

[137] Oh, my God.

[138] Yeah.

[139] See, he'll report himself probably and they'll do like an investigation.

[140] Holy shit.

[141] And he'll definitely.

[142] Oh, he'll get off for sure.

[143] Look how close.

[144] Go back to that.

[145] Look how close that is.

[146] That's amazing, man. That's not even 10 yards.

[147] I mean, that might be fucking five yards.

[148] No, it's, yeah, feet.

[149] You know, Yanni had a...

[150] That's a big one, too.

[151] Look how big that thing is.

[152] See, I disagree.

[153] You don't think that's 90 pounds?

[154] 100 pounds?

[155] Oh, yeah, okay, yeah.

[156] It's not big, like, the one I saw was like a buck 60.

[157] Yonis had several of them come into his turkey call this year.

[158] Oh.

[159] Yeah, I had a three pack come in.

[160] Jesus.

[161] A female two of her kits came into the turkey call.

[162] What did you do?

[163] You don't know what he did.

[164] He didn't freak out.

[165] he kind of I think he shued him off or started talking to him oh Jesus yeah because he was calling to a turkey and the the lines were kind of coming from behind off to his right side and he's not certain whether they were going to pass by his right shoulder on the way to the real turkey or if they were going to him what else is funny that just happened noon this spring he shoots he has this on video he shoots a turkey well he has the lines on video too they're not on his he's got him on his Instagram but he shoots a turkey and all of a sudden I mean no soon as that turkey get hit that a coyote has it and is running away trying to grab it wow or since they run away trying to like rassel the turkey so did you shoot the coyote no but he's just standing there and the coyote was because you know they'll come into the turkey sounds so shoots the turkey, the coyote comes out, and then the coyote doesn't run off until he kind of goes at it to spook it.

[166] But it stayed right there, like while he shot the turkey.

[167] They are so fucking bold those things.

[168] Yeah.

[169] They're so clever, too.

[170] They come in, one of my buddies, Seth, I think they called in three coyotes, turkey hunting in one day this spring.

[171] I've had, black bears, bobcats, sorry, a black bear, a bobcat, coyotes come in to turkey calls, but I have never had the lion thing, but I got a few friends that have done lions, and I feel that that is like the greatest, that's a good achievement.

[172] Did you, were you the one who told me the story about turkey hunting where you, you heard something behind you and it was a bear?

[173] Yeah, yeah, I heard it exhale.

[174] I didn't know it was there until it exhaled in my ear.

[175] How far away?

[176] I mean, inches.

[177] Me to you.

[178] Oh, Jesus.

[179] No, I'm not joking, man. Like, exhaled in my ear.

[180] It was like he got there and couldn't figure out what was going on.

[181] I all of a sudden hear him go, and I turn, and just, yeah.

[182] Ooh, how big was he?

[183] I don't know.

[184] I honestly didn't get.

[185] It was so, like, freaky.

[186] Disconcerting, and he was gone so fast.

[187] But, yeah, I wouldn't be able to say.

[188] I think that all these people that vote against mountain line hunting and have this perception of mountain lines need to be around one.

[189] They need to experience that just to understand that those things need to be managed or they will kill your kids.

[190] Like, you really need to see it.

[191] I don't know that they, I mean, it's so seldom that they do.

[192] No, it's not going to happen.

[193] No. Like, it's not a realistic adventure.

[194] I think that, I just think, yeah, in my view, if they're well managed, in my view, like, they should just, they need to be managed as a renewable resource.

[195] Right.

[196] But see, that term, renewable.

[197] What's what the shooting star?

[198] This guy, it just came with the setup.

[199] Well, we bought these star panels.

[200] They have the option for a shooting star.

[201] We thought it'd be cool.

[202] Oh, yeah.

[203] One shot over the death.

[204] But the look that people get when they're not sure what's going on.

[205] You know, Twain was born in the year of Haley's Comet and died when the Haley's Comet came back and he predicted that he would die.

[206] Whoa.

[207] He came with the Comet and left with the Comet.

[208] Back to Mount.

[209] That term renewable resources.

[210] Like, that's a good term.

[211] Like, you use that term as a hunter and as a conservationist.

[212] But most people, the problem is, like, the people that vote, right?

[213] A good example is British Columbia, right?

[214] Yeah.

[215] Because British Columbia bans grizzly hunting because they think grizzly hunting is trophy hunting.

[216] Meanwhile, they're, like, overrun with grizzlies.

[217] They have a lot of grizzlies.

[218] And they would manage them by controlling their population and would, you know, it would keep people from getting attacked.

[219] It would keep livestock from getting attacked.

[220] And the encounters were frequent.

[221] Like my friend Mike lives up there.

[222] And he's like, there is no shortage of grizzly bears.

[223] Like, they're all over the place up here.

[224] He goes, and now what they've done is they've stopped people from management.

[225] them because the people in the cities who never have any encounters with them whatsoever think that it's unsightly to hunt them.

[226] Yeah.

[227] But they allow black bear hunting because black bear seems to be something that people actually do eat.

[228] But then you can't gut them because if you gut them, they're worried that people are shooting them just for their gallbladders.

[229] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[230] So it's wild.

[231] Yeah, for a long time you couldn't have a gallbladder in your possession.

[232] Isn't that crazy?

[233] You couldn't even use your own bear's gallbladder.

[234] But here's the problem that I see.

[235] If you, okay, ducks don't kill people, generally.

[236] I'm sure someone somewhere.

[237] Oh, you know I was reading the other day?

[238] This state has more animal deaths, more by far and away.

[239] Texas has more people killed by animals than any other state.

[240] Well, there's more tigers in captivity in Texas than in all.

[241] all the wild of the world.

[242] You know, it winds up being dogs.

[243] Dogs kill people here?

[244] Are the number one.

[245] Really?

[246] Yeah, dogs.

[247] Domestic, like, feral dogs, domestic dogs?

[248] Feral dogs.

[249] Yeah, dogs kill, so, like, Texas, yeah, like, North Dakota and Rhode Island had, like, zero animal deaths, very low populations, because one's, because one's small and one, because one's barely, you know, has a very low population density of humans, and one's just small enough to not have that many citizens.

[250] But, yeah, Texas, number one, California's a distance.

[251] in second, wild pigs, dogs, rattlesnakes.

[252] But here's the thing.

[253] Ducks don't kill people.

[254] Far, you know, generally.

[255] If someone, if you're going to go around and determine what we should be allowed to hunt based on what might kill you if we don't hunt it, I would be worried about the future of duck hunting.

[256] Well, no, I wouldn't say that.

[257] So I just, I'm more inclined to be like, if you have, like, just in my desire to make And my desire to sort of bracket things, I would say if you have sustainable, harvestable populations of wildlife and you have a public interest in exploiting that wildlife and it can be exploited without long -term detriment to the species, that should be allowed.

[258] That's very reasonable.

[259] But ducks are on menus and restaurants.

[260] Grizzly bears are not.

[261] The difference is people don't think of grisly.

[262] grizzly bears is something that you would eat.

[263] That's correct.

[264] Ducks are at, you know, Peking ducts, common dish.

[265] Ducks are in a lot of restaurants.

[266] No, I was very sad.

[267] I was very sad to see what happened in BC, and I think it's emotionally charged.

[268] I think you're seeing the same thing.

[269] You know, you see routinely the same thing around wolves.

[270] I just, just this morning, someone shared an article.

[271] Montana just rewrote some of their wolf hunting rules and expanded some areas, and they used to have, outside of Yellowstone National Park.

[272] They had hunting districts.

[273] They had these very strict quotas.

[274] They liberalized wolf hunting in Montana because we have a lot of wolves.

[275] And there's a pack of in Yellowstone's Lamar Valley, there's a pack of 24 wolves.

[276] And three of those wolves this year have been killed outside the park.

[277] So now you can expect renewed calls for the park's jurisdiction.

[278] Diction to extend further away from the edges of the park in order to protect that, because people routinely call them Yellowstone's wolves rather than Montana's wolves.

[279] Yeah, that is an interesting situation, right, because you have this park that everyone visits.

[280] And, you know, I went there, and I took a selfie with the elk that are hanging out in front of a Pepsi machine because it's so bizarre.

[281] Did you get a bunch of social media backlash?

[282] No, I didn't put it up.

[283] No, I just took it, just took the picture because I just thought it was so strange.

[284] We're all just standing there and there's elk just lying down on the ground.

[285] Yeah, completely habituated humans.

[286] Yeah.

[287] They've done a great job of restoring natural predators to the landscape, but they overlooked one, which is the human predator.

[288] So you had, I don't know, 9 ,000 years at a minimum.

[289] This is just based on direct archaeological evidence.

[290] You have 9 ,000 years of human hunters on the landscape.

[291] Yellowstone National Park, the last hundred years notwithstanding.

[292] We've gone through great effort to restore natural predators that ecosystem.

[293] Not humans.

[294] Not that one.

[295] Not that we don't have a very heavy hand in Yellowstone.

[296] I mean, humans have an enormously heavy hand in Yellowstone.

[297] What I used to, what I wanted to do when I retired, I used to want a campaign, this is not going to make a hell of sense to people, but I wanted a campaign to make Hunter's orange laws standardized around the country.

[298] not like not with a federal law but just get all states on board yeah because like in some states you have to have 400 inches of blaze orange when you're hunting with a firearm some states it's like 500 inches of blaze orange some states is no blaze orange orange Wyoming you got to have an orange hat I was going to be like I was going to dedicate my life to making it be that all states adopted the Wyoming rule only hat orange hat you think that's enough yeah I do if you want to wear more wear more is so orange Does that work if you have colorblindness?

[299] I have no idea.

[300] It's interesting, right?

[301] I wonder what that means.

[302] I don't even know what they see.

[303] But let me tell what I'm going to do now when I retire.

[304] No, I'll get back.

[305] Are you going to retire?

[306] You're not going to retire.

[307] No, but when I do retire, I'm going to campaign.

[308] I'm going to campaign.

[309] I'm going to make it my life's work to have Yellowstone National Park turned into a wilderness area.

[310] Really?

[311] Yeah.

[312] All the infrastructure.

[313] I'm going to fight hard.

[314] I need a slogan for it that's as catchy as make America great again.

[315] But isn't the problem that those animals are.

[316] so habituated.

[317] They're so used to humans that it's almost like it would take a long time.

[318] You remember when it'd take about a year.

[319] Yeah, in one year?

[320] And then they figure it out.

[321] Yeah.

[322] Like, I don't want to mess up travel.

[323] So the highways that cut through there would stay open, but most of the infrastructure would go.

[324] Wildlife management would go to the states of Wyoming and Montana and it would become a wilderness area.

[325] And then it's very, it's like that's a great designation because in a wilderness area it would enjoy great protections than it has as a national park how so non -moor wilderness area federally designated wilderness is non -motorized oh I see but wouldn't that cut down on tourist dollars oh yeah we'd learn that we had to figure something else out listen weed's going legal in Montana is it yeah so there's a bunch of money is I'll figure that I have I got you know when I retire I'll get all the details sorted out but I just think it's time to like restore the human Predator.

[326] When I first went up to my mind.

[327] It was time to do what's right on that landscape and protect it.

[328] That's an interesting way of looking at it.

[329] So protect it from vehicles too, because that is an issue in that area, right?

[330] Yeah, just quiet, just mellow things out, quiet things down, and restore the human predator.

[331] I just got to think of a sweet slogan.

[332] It's such a massive place for tourist dollars.

[333] I mean, so many people visit Yellowstone every year just to look at the animals and occasionally get knocked through the air by a buffalo.

[334] Those bison videos where people get too close Those are fucking hilarious Because they happen every year People go flying through the air And flip and land on their head To return to Hunter's Orange Yeah You had a question about Hunter's Orange About being colorblind Yeah I don't know but The white tail hunter Oh here it is Can deer see an orange Well that's deer Yeah Listen here's the thing God bless you Jamie But lot's been written about what deer see it's a speculation you know because their eyeballs functioned very different so what they see and how they respond to it but uh interestingly um mark canyon who's a very avid white tail hunter uh he can't blood trail because he can't see blood yeah because of colorblind issues oh wow Yeah, that's crazy What if he has Like, what if he uses like a black light?

[335] I might be messing with his dad No, I think it is him that can't Yeah, he's got to know he's got to use various tricks or bring someone in, but he can't like Clearly pick up blood Huh And as in uh in blood trailing for me now that my eyeballs are going bad short range Do you use glasses?

[336] Reading glasses But when you blood trail?

[337] I hadn't thought of it I just because it gets it my eyes get worse every day now like not every day but I mean it's like it's it's noticeable do you take any this year blood trailing I was getting I I had a younger person with me the flip flop flasher Seth and he was spotting 10 drops to my one and I realize it's like I'm used to looking for blood up close too much and I got a I got to back up or get my damn glasses on because it's getting harder to blood trail have you take any supplements for your eyes like there's like no because it's only right now I know I'm ready to do anything, man. It's only right now becoming a thing for me where I'm starting, it's starting to, I don't like it.

[338] But we've been talking about it for a couple of years.

[339] I know, but now.

[340] Now it's a real issue.

[341] Listen, you see this?

[342] Yeah.

[343] What's that?

[344] Oh, you got glasses in the back of your fucking case for your phone.

[345] Yeah.

[346] It's not bad.

[347] Well, I was in, let me see them glasses.

[348] I hit a point where I couldn't order in a dark restaurant and I had and my friend let me those so I could order.

[349] These are hilarious.

[350] Dude, those are great.

[351] You look cool in those too.

[352] Do it?

[353] And I had to use his to order, and then I used his to order a set of those.

[354] These look like you've had Vaseline on your fingers, and you've just been, like, trying to polish them.

[355] I haven't cleaned them yet.

[356] Oh, yeah, but anyways, blood trailing's getting hard.

[357] Hunter's orange, I think, is, you know, I think it's a good idea.

[358] Some states don't require it at all.

[359] The state we're sitting in right now doesn't have a Hunter's Orange law.

[360] Right.

[361] Did you hear about that?

[362] The guy who got shot, archery hunter, got shot by a muzzleloader?

[363] hunter in Colorado this year this year yeah I haven't heard that I know what happens every year I hadn't heard that yeah I mean you just gotta wonder how the fuck does a person think a person is an animal I mean how does that ever happen not only that he thought he was an animal and he thought he was aiming at its lungs yeah it's crazy yeah I mean I think the archery hunter was in full camo and this guy My friend Robert Abernathy got shot turkey hunting Really?

[364] Yeah I know a handful people have all been shot turkey I know one guy's been shot turkey hunting twice In the same Jesus Christ In the same spot Did he have like Was he using some fan in front of him or something like that He was doing what he was doing what's a tab He was doing something that's pretty taboo Which is he was mimicking the sound of a gobbler he was mimic the so when you're hunting turkeys in the spring you have to kill males right and usually make a sound of a female to draw a male in well he um you can really you know it can be effective to mimic the sound of a male it's like a challenge a challenge right so um you'll appreciate like cow calling at elk but a little bugling at elk and get him get his blood boiling he was was, had pulled all out of the stops and started mimicking the sound of a male and got shot.

[365] Then he's hunting the same spot years later, mimics the sound of a male, gets shot by a different guy.

[366] Jesus Christ.

[367] And very different attitudes at these two different people.

[368] The one guy that shot him wanted to fight with him and blame it on him.

[369] The other guy that shot him felt so bad that he quit hunting and he had to befriend.

[370] him and make him comfortable to go hunting again.

[371] So one person took an adversarial approach to the man he shot, and one person was deeply repentant to the point where he gave up the discipline.

[372] I was watching a video yesterday of a woman who rear -ended this guy in a Lamborghini and then got out and started screaming and yelling at him that he hit her car.

[373] And the guy was laugh.

[374] Did you see that video?

[375] They show the video from the gas station.

[376] The guy's like, what the fuck are you talking?

[377] And then she gets mad at him for being white.

[378] But she's white.

[379] Isn't she white?

[380] Kind of white?

[381] I don't know.

[382] She looked white.

[383] But, I mean, it's like a literal crazy person.

[384] Like maybe just trying to make up an excuse for why she was in a car accident.

[385] But she mean, clearly takes a turn, slams into this guy's car.

[386] The guy pulls over to the gas station.

[387] She gets out and knocks on his door.

[388] You hit my fucking car and screaming and yelling on them.

[389] People are nuts.

[390] Like, you shoot a person?

[391] You should definitely fucking apologize because you didn't even look.

[392] I mean, did you think that guy was a turkey?

[393] The guy that got shot twice.

[394] his name's Preston Pittman.

[395] What was the story with the first one?

[396] So that was a good friend of mine, Robert.

[397] Who shot him?

[398] No, no, no. Oh, the guy that got shot twice?

[399] Yeah.

[400] Who shot him the first time they wanted to fight him?

[401] I don't know a lot of details about the guy that wanted to fight.

[402] But that's a crazy person.

[403] The guy shot him and then got mad at him for making a gobble.

[404] But he didn't even look.

[405] That's what's so crazy.

[406] It's all movement.

[407] Listen, man. You know, how bad did he?

[408] get shot 20 gauge I can't remember but yeah he got bad penetrated his skin he got bad like in his skin my friend Robert got shot he was saying to me he was saying we were talking about what size shot like what size shotgun pellets you used to hunt turkeys Robert Abernathy was saying to me how he's like man I can't remember what size it was there's like a large pellet maybe twos or something and he said you shouldn't be able to use the Those things hurt.

[409] I'm like, what do you mean those things hurt?

[410] He goes, that's what I got shot with.

[411] He was hunting, and he was sitting there listening for a gobbler, and he, there was a stump in front of him.

[412] And he said that he lifted his foot up and put his foot on the stump.

[413] And all of a sudden, bam!

[414] Someone shoot him in the foot?

[415] Yeah.

[416] And in conversation with the man that shot his leg, the man said to him, when you lifted your foot up.

[417] on that stump it looked like a gobbler going into full strut oh my god that guy's blinder than you no listen man i'm only blind up close it's just yeah so god it's just so crazy that people just pull the trigger on a movement yeah i you know i can't listen i like i i definitely can't condone it but you kind of i don't i don't condone it um i i i don't condone it when I hear something like that though to be honest with you one of my first I have twin feelings um one of condemnation of the individual and one of like some level of you know like a level of sympathy didn't one of your friends get shot through the backpack by a rifle hunter yeah what happened there he was uh deer hunting in Washington got shot through his backpack that guy got in trouble the guy to shot him through his backpack got in trouble he fucking shed um Jesus Christ yeah I probably told him my dad got shot in the foot not on it he just got shot in the foot rabbi hunting but that was an accident right that wasn't a mistake and identity that was just a guy thumbing with the hammer on his shotgun and shot him to the foot well you know what you know what you and I were talking about but you said you wanted to talk about it now yeah is the COVID in deer.

[418] Yeah, the deer are testing positive for COVID.

[419] And they don't really understand why, right?

[420] Isn't that correct?

[421] No, and they, I mean, they've done hundreds of deer in multiple states.

[422] I think it was Michigan had the highest, like 68 percent of the deer they checked, and they checked, you know, over a hundred of them.

[423] Isn't that incredible?

[424] Because that's more than any population of humans.

[425] Like at any point in time, what's the population of humans that test positive for COVID?

[426] I mean, it can't be more than a few percent.

[427] They're positive for the antibodies.

[428] No, I mean, positive for the antibodies.

[429] Oh, but not positive for COVID.

[430] Not positive.

[431] And they don't know that it has any, they don't know that it has any effect on them.

[432] So when I first heard that, an biologist, a wildlife biologist in Arizona named James Heffelfinger sent me some information about that.

[433] When I first heard it, I was like, yeah, man, but maybe that, Maybe, you know, maybe it's something that was always there, but you weren't looking for it, or there's a false marker.

[434] And he wrote back with a bunch of information on it, and they had all these serums that they've banked from over the years.

[435] Serums, meaning you like blood samples?

[436] They have, like, banked blood samples from deer, probably just for this sort of thing, right?

[437] Right.

[438] And when they go back, pre -COVID, and look at all these deer samples, it's not there.

[439] And now it's there That's so fascinating We're laughing that it all comes I was joking that It's either like a really good hunter Who gets very close to deer That's one theory Probably not right I had a theory that it comes from Doug Duren's urine Did he have COVID?

[440] Buckman juice I don't think he's had it But I know that his urine is very attractive to deer But he hasn't had COVID So that doesn't work Yeah, and I thought maybe it came from Doug.

[441] My whole thing.

[442] He lives in, he's like a deer man. He's around deer all the time.

[443] But I don't really, I don't get it.

[444] Another, and I have no way to know him, another thing I could picture.

[445] I don't know that this is true.

[446] If I was in charge of examining this, a thing that I would be curious to look at would be captive servants.

[447] Which are in very close proximity to people.

[448] which is also how they spread CWD.

[449] Yeah, CWD can be spread that way.

[450] They just had another deer farm that shipped, you know, a hundred and some CWD positive deer around the country.

[451] You could see that that would be a case where you had captive deer in very close proximity to humans, and then those deer are rubbing noses through the fence with wild deer.

[452] Like, that would be a thing I would look at.

[453] I have no idea.

[454] Yeah, that makes sense.

[455] Or just, I don't know, man. You walk out, you're in the sun.

[456] the suburbs somewhere where you got deer hanging out in your yard like deer hang out in my yard yeah and you walk out to your car in the morning and sneeze and some freaking deer walks by i don't know yeah but that's highly unlikely it sure seems like it outside uh contamination of people people getting covid outside is almost unheard of yeah and it shows up in like zoo animals close proximity to humans does it shows up in like fur farms like all the mink they had to destroy in norway close proximity to humans i heard tigers like in the the zoo.

[457] They've caught tigers in the zoo.

[458] My whole family got COVID and I was I was curious to see how my dog would react like whether he would get it because you know I didn't like shy away from him like a lot of times I watch TV and he like on the couch and he likes to hop up on the couch and cuddle so like while I was home all day sick with COVID he just hopped up with me and hung out with me so I'm like should I be fucking petting him like this like oh yeah I'm like he seems all right We had that argument where when I had COVID, I was out in our guest house quarantining.

[459] I was gone when I got it and got home.

[460] And before I went in to see my family, I just went to this, we have a little guest house.

[461] I went out there and eventually got my test back and had COVID.

[462] And I let the dog in.

[463] Oh, and then into the house, too.

[464] And then we had to like do all the, my wife's like, I don't know, what happens now?

[465] Like, does the dog supposed to quarantine?

[466] I think the dog should quarantine probably.

[467] We didn't quarantine the dog.

[468] I was the last one in my family to get it, so I wasn't worried about them getting it because they already had antibodies.

[469] But I'm like, what about the dog?

[470] But I'm like, I think he's probably already had it.

[471] I don't want to test him because I don't want to put him through a fucking blood test, you know?

[472] No, it's funny about dogs.

[473] The weirdest thing about quarantining with it, at first, man, my kids are upset.

[474] They're crying, you know, like very confused.

[475] Oh, because you can't come in the house?

[476] Oh, yeah, I'm out in the garage.

[477] And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, wow.

[478] Because then you, you know, if you come up to me, then you're not supposed to go to school, and, like, I'm going to go out there, and they're, like, upset, and they're bringing, they're making art work for me and bringing me food.

[479] And after a few days, they're just like, the fuck's that guy.

[480] They got used to it.

[481] It's just, it was like I ceased to exist after a few days.

[482] Wow.

[483] Kids adapt.

[484] That's funny.

[485] That's funny.

[486] Oh, yeah, man. It was like, they forgot all about me. I was out there, I was out there, you know, taking a few, taking naps and stuff like that.

[487] It is interesting about the zoo animals, because the zoo animals may be close proximity, but all of it outside, and then also no real, like, physical contact with zoo animals.

[488] What are you talking about no physical contact with zoo animals?

[489] Like tigers?

[490] Oh.

[491] I've read the tigers had gotten it.

[492] Like, big cat.

[493] See if you could find that.

[494] I'm pretty sure that's what I read, that these tigers had gotten the zoo unless maybe they had to handle the tiger.

[495] If you're talking about 15, if the new, not the new.

[496] There's this sort of like weird rule of thumb that, you know, the rule of thumb, like 15 minutes, six feet.

[497] Yeah, it's nonsense.

[498] Nine lions and tigers that the national zoo are being treated for COVID.

[499] So through the fence or cage or whatever.

[500] Wow, that's a couple weeks ago.

[501] Of course they're spending that amount of time.

[502] You know what at my kid's school?

[503] You know what they do?

[504] It's really interesting.

[505] You know the whole like 15 minutes, six feet thing?

[506] Mm -hmm.

[507] They limit their, my boy, my older boy.

[508] They limit his lunchtime to 15 minutes.

[509] Oh, well, that doesn't make any sense.

[510] Because then they're like, yeah, no one's, no one's going to, how could they?

[511] But that's, with the Delta variant, which is the predominant variant now, that's not real.

[512] Because now it's like 30 seconds.

[513] Yeah, he likes to shoot the breeze with his bodies too, so it's hard for him to get his lunch eating.

[514] That's silly.

[515] You know, it's remember when we were kids who had chicken pox, you'd go over your friend's house so you could get chicken pox.

[516] Like if he had chicken pox, everybody would go and get chicken pox, let's get it over with.

[517] Now we're scared of something that doesn't even harm kids.

[518] Zookeepers first noticed last week that the animals were displaying symptoms including decreased energy and appetite and coughing and sneezing.

[519] The animals are now being treated with anti -inflammatories, anti -nause medication, antibiotics, the latter of which is intended to address a likely secondary bacterial pneumonia.

[520] I didn't even do any of that stuff.

[521] No, that's pretty crazy, though, that it's presumptive positive?

[522] Oh, interesting.

[523] Tested presumptive?

[524] Interesting.

[525] Maybe they don't have an actual animal COVID test or something.

[526] I don't know what that means.

[527] That's a good point.

[528] Good catch, Jamie.

[529] You know, when the pandemic started, when shit really hit the fan, I was in Baja with my family.

[530] And I got back and I called my friend Chester Floyd.

[531] And I said, this is the most prophetic thing anybody said about COVID to me. I said, Chester, man, what do you think about all this that's going on?

[532] And Chester said, man, I think a lot of people got a lot of opinions.

[533] And holy shit.

[534] Holy shit, was he right?

[535] Dude, he was out to something.

[536] Oh, my God.

[537] You know, I wonder how much, like, if you could get a gauge of the overall anxiety of the world, how much it decreased yesterday when Facebook was down.

[538] Mm. You know, if there was like a, like a, you know how you go by those trails and it has like, here's your fire warning for the day.

[539] Yeah.

[540] You know, and it has like all these different colors.

[541] It was like an anxiety meter.

[542] And you could go by and see.

[543] like, what was it like with no Facebook?

[544] I bet that's, and Instagram, both.

[545] You know, I bet that shit would be pretty light.

[546] Twitter's still up, which is probably like 50 % of the anxiety is Twitter, but 50 % of it might be Facebook.

[547] It might, yeah, it's probably good.

[548] And it's funny that, that.

[549] Social media anxiety.

[550] You know, I use social media as a, as a, you know, I use it for work and have fun with it.

[551] But, yeah, it blows my mind that for a long time, it, it, you know, it blows my mind that for a long time, it would be that you were supposed to regard those individuals responsible for social media platforms but you're supposed to regard them as these heroes was like oh the Arab Spring you know what I mean it was like you know bringing the world you know together yeah it's like holy shit dude well the algorithms what changed is algorithms you know if you watch the the social dilemma the documentary the social dilemma yeah yeah that guy Tristan Harris has been on the podcast and sort of explained a lot of it to us.

[552] And, you know, he's going to come back on again.

[553] We're going to talk to him some more about it because it's very disturbing because what they've done with these algorithms and they knew what was happening while they were doing it is they've accentuated arguments.

[554] They accentuated all the division between people and that it's kind of like an unstoppable domino effect.

[555] And it seems like at this point in time, there's a clear division in our country that didn't exist in 2007.

[556] If you go back to the invention of the first iPhone and the, you know, when social media started coming about, like, if you go from there to now, the change is palpable.

[557] Like, it's very, very real.

[558] And then when you add in the anxiety of a pandemic and real adversity, which is what people have encountered over the last 18 months, now it's through the roof.

[559] Now people are like literally fucking insane.

[560] It's like they're unrecognizable.

[561] I hear that, but, you know, I know YouTube's not a social media platform, but I'll always.

[562] I had a rare moment of just nothing going on this morning because I woke up in a hotel and I wasn't at work or messing with my kids.

[563] And so I was just dicking around on YouTube.

[564] I was kind of pleasantly surprised to be like that YouTube understands that I like to watch Norm McDonald videos and I like to watch stuff about catching bobcats.

[565] Yeah, that's true.

[566] It's like they really, their algorithm.

[567] Yeah, they're not trying to, they weren't trying to search.

[568] me something that's going to make me mad.

[569] But see, that's because you're healthy.

[570] See, this is the thing about it.

[571] Like, people think that they do it because they want to make you mad.

[572] It's not.

[573] They do whatever you're interested in.

[574] Like, my friend Ari, he did this experiment.

[575] We went on YouTube and only looked at puppy videos.

[576] And all it would show them is videos of puppies.

[577] Like, every time they went on YouTube, it's puppies.

[578] Yeah.

[579] But when you get into the comments, that's when you find out the YouTube is a social media platform.

[580] Yeah.

[581] Because, you know, well, also, not just that, but creeps have used comments.

[582] Like, they've gone to certain websites, and this is like how they've caught people for, like, sex trafficking.

[583] And there was a bunch of these weird fucking kid videos.

[584] I don't know if you know aware of these.

[585] They don't understand what was going on.

[586] They don't know how these things were made or why they were made.

[587] But there was a bunch of kid -friendly -looking videos.

[588] So it would be like Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse, but then they would get drunk and like fall down and bust their head open.

[589] It was really weird.

[590] But these videos would show up in like if a kid was looking at cartoons and if you're one of those parents that just like gives your kid an iPad and just go ahead.

[591] Your kid would watch normal cartoon videos and then all of a sudden in the feed because of the algorithm, it was like Spider -Man was a bunch of them.

[592] Here's a, for instance, screenshot.

[593] This was like Elsa Gate stuff.

[594] Oh, yeah.

[595] I'm not sure on this online.

[596] It's just for you guys to see.

[597] Yeah, Elsa Gate was one where Elsa from Frozen, there was a ton of these videos where kids were looking up Elsa videos.

[598] So because they were looking up Elsa videos, all these other videos that were also Elsa videos showed up in them.

[599] And apparently what was going on was like inside the comments, am I wrong about this?

[600] inside the comments there was like people who got arrested for doing yeah that's where I don't know I won't I'm not going to say that didn't happen I don't know yeah there are FBI investigation yeah they got crossed over into like the pedophile yeah so pedos using code words and stuff yeah they were using these comments like they would meet up on certain videos and they would communicate inside the comments of those videos with code And that's how they got away with communicating publicly about certain things.

[601] And I don't know if they were child porn or whatever, what they were involved with.

[602] But I remember there was a lot of people that got in trouble for that.

[603] And then YouTube's trying to figure out, like, what are these videos?

[604] And who the fuck is making these?

[605] Yeah.

[606] Because there was...

[607] And what's the motivation?

[608] They don't know.

[609] Like, the theme was weird.

[610] Like, we watched a bunch of them one day.

[611] The theme was weird.

[612] Like, it was always the same thing.

[613] Like, they seemed kind of normal.

[614] And then the cartoon characters would get drunk.

[615] And they would always, like, wind up getting busted in the head with a bottle and blood everywhere.

[616] And you're like, what the fuck?

[617] So it goes from being like, yeah, weird shit.

[618] You'll let your kid just cut loose on YouTube, do you?

[619] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Luckily, one of my kids, all she likes to watch on YouTube is, like, there's a girl named Sniper Wolf, who's very funny.

[620] And she does, like, these reaction videos to stuff, but it's very G -rated.

[621] And she loves watching her.

[622] And, you know, there's, you know, but I keep an eye on what they're doing.

[623] I don't allow them to just start going crazy.

[624] Yeah.

[625] Because it's just, you just, you know, you never know.

[626] I mean, one day you just stumble upon an ISIS beheading video.

[627] Yeah.

[628] And now you have, you know, your kids fucking waking you up in the middle of like crying and screaming because they can't get this image out of their head.

[629] It's terrifying.

[630] It is.

[631] To be on the other side of it, too, because when you're young, all you want to do is throw off the chains.

[632] Oh, yeah.

[633] And then all of a sudden you're like in the position of putting the chains on.

[634] Yeah, you got to, it's like how much freedom.

[635] do you give them like how much do you talk to them about stuff how much do you let them figure the stuff out on their own you know it's uh it's tricky and it's a weird world because it didn't exist previous like it's not like we're dealing with something that we went through when we were children there was no google when we were children there was no you know live leak you ever go on live leak no i know i know about it but you know horrible videos you can watch a lot of car accidents and animal attacks and just wild shit that's not oh no i have been on that except yeah i have I have stumbled into that.

[636] But that didn't exist.

[637] When I was a kid, if you wanted to watch something fucked up, you had a plan for it.

[638] Like when we wanted to watch faces of death, somebody had to get the video.

[639] One of our friends had to watch the door.

[640] So, like, we were in the basement.

[641] One of the friends had to watch the door.

[642] Make sure the parents didn't come down.

[643] And then we put it on the VCR and we were ready.

[644] Like if someone came down, you'd pop that fucking tape out and hide it.

[645] These kids today, all they have to do is just have a phone.

[646] you know and a lot of times kids are 11 and 12 they have phones and 12 year olds with a phone I mean they're gonna start Googling people fucking people getting killed they're gonna see the most crazy shit have you seen this your friends are gonna say have you seen that and then you're gonna look on your phone there's there's no way to stop it there's no way to stop it kids have wild fucking workarounds for for like little restrictions my sneaky little fucking kid you know what she did she a screen recorded um my wife when my wife went and put in a password for her screen time yeah nice move very nice move she handed her phone over to my wife my wife goes in and puts a password in for her screen time so she can only get an hour's worth of screen time a day and then my wife checks she's like how fuck you have four hours of screen time like what's going on here so she and then she figured out that the really the little monster yeah did you guys have public access when you're going on My public access TV.

[647] I used to see some of the shit.

[648] That's my first exposure to faces of death was after 10 o 'clock.

[649] They could show whatever the fuck they wanted for whatever reason.

[650] Really?

[651] Not blatant porn, but porn.

[652] Really?

[653] I saw, that's what the Bud Dyer video of him shooting himself in the face.

[654] You saw that on TV?

[655] To the 21 Guns Salute when I was going to bed and I was when I was like 10 years old.

[656] What?

[657] Yeah.

[658] Huh.

[659] No way.

[660] And then this guy ended up, I was talking with some of my friends when I was back at home in my reunion.

[661] This guy was, we all knew about them when we were like 12, 13 years old, had a show, painted up like an insane clown posse type character and would have like blood, girls, vaginas, lips, all sorts of wild shit.

[662] Really?

[663] And it was just like the government was putting it on technically because of public access.

[664] So in public access, there's no restrictions like there are with the...

[665] That's I was asking.

[666] I don't, you guys didn't have, that's like what Wayne's World was.

[667] That's my only thing I knew growing up was like, Wayne's World on the S &M.

[668] was a public access show, but then we actually had public access, and that's where wild shit was happening after 10 o 'clock.

[669] I had a friend of mine who had a public access show.

[670] My friend Larry Rapucci, who was a stand -up comic in, I think it was Larry's show, but he was a stand -up comic in Boston.

[671] We all did a public access show when we were, like, struggling comedians.

[672] You did it too?

[673] Yeah, I wore a dress.

[674] I wore a dress and a wig, and I was like, we had like a dating show.

[675] This is the wild guy that I would, this is from the 90s, I think.

[676] I found it on YouTube, it still exists.

[677] It's like very David Lynchian, man. So it's just so weird to watch now.

[678] Damon Zex.

[679] Oh, so he would, that's him on the right and him on TV?

[680] Oh, so he really planned this out.

[681] This was some weird shit.

[682] Wow.

[683] Again, he's doing coke, the tampons.

[684] It's all, like, again, I was a kid when I was seeing this stuff.

[685] Wow.

[686] So, like, to me, it's not that strange.

[687] Looks like Robert Smith from the cure, man. Someone found him, I don't know.

[688] I'm sure he's like on Facebook or he's probably doing this stuff still.

[689] Let's find him.

[690] Well, he's going to find him.

[691] find out now.

[692] Oh, Jesus.

[693] Christ.

[694] Wow, yeah.

[695] So he got away with this.

[696] This was all on...

[697] Yeah, but he wasn't even the only one.

[698] There was a clown called, like, Angstow, the clown that was, like, I'm sure Red Band knows about this stuff, because he was a little bit older than me in the same area.

[699] It's probably why he was probably watching the same show.

[700] Where are you brought up?

[701] This is why, it might make sense now.

[702] Where are you brought up?

[703] Columbus, Ohio.

[704] Huh.

[705] Weird.

[706] There's, I mean, this, and then looking back into some of the stuff that was happening there, it kind of makes a little bit of sense, but if this isn't, wasn't going on everywhere, that's sort of like strange to me. I never saw it was.

[707] I never saw it in Boston, but I might have been out of the loop.

[708] It might have existed.

[709] I just wasn't aware of it.

[710] But I thought the regulations were across the board if you were broadcasting.

[711] I didn't think that public access was different.

[712] Is it because it's local?

[713] Maybe.

[714] And then there's like free speech laws that we're getting into.

[715] Again, I was a kid, so I have no idea.

[716] I was just, I was excited to see it.

[717] I just, I haven't, it's not, it won't be available until spring.

[718] But for the last couple of years, I've been working on a. a book, you know, like, this is the thing I thought I'd never do.

[719] I used to be annoyed by people who thought about their kids before I had kids, but I have a book that I just finished called Outdoor Kids Inside World.

[720] It's about, you know, kids in nature, raising kids.

[721] And yeah, man, if you'd ask me, dude, like 10 years ago, I'd been like, no way I would do something like that.

[722] But it's just harrowing, man. It's like scary.

[723] What is scary?

[724] Having kids.

[725] Oh, okay.

[726] Yeah.

[727] Yeah, worried about them and just like what, yeah, and like trying to guide their Yeah, guide their experience, you know, and for me, I don't know.

[728] Yeah, I've found that, um, that, that, you know, exposure to nature, experiences of nature, understanding nature is like, winds up being an avenue of approach that I have with them that works for both of us because it's like a common language, you know?

[729] Yeah.

[730] But yeah, man, it's, it's terrifying.

[731] And then the feeling of hypocrisy that you get of things that meant that when you were young, things that meant a lot to you and felt very authentic to you, like freedom, freedom to consume what media you wanted, freedom to talk to who you wanted to talk to, freedom to go where you wanted to go, that later you're in a position where you're denying some, Someone's something that you really wanted in an honest way when you were young.

[732] Yeah.

[733] I had a conversation with Jonathan.

[734] It's a push and pull, man. Jonathan Hate about that.

[735] You know, he talks about the concept of free -range kids.

[736] He lets his children wander.

[737] It was Jonathan Hate, right?

[738] It was, right?

[739] The coddling of the American mind.

[740] He lets his kids wander around New York City.

[741] Like, he lets his kids walk home from New York City.

[742] And, you know, he's talking about one time.

[743] his kid got a little lost and they were really, really scared.

[744] You know, it was like they were trying to find him, and it's like a terrifying feeling.

[745] But that ultimately the development that the child receives from being able to navigate the world on their own is very valuable, but there's a risk.

[746] And so you like have to weigh this risk versus reward.

[747] And the opposite of that is people do helicopter parent.

[748] And we know how that turns out, right?

[749] that's not good when you overly coddle your kid and your your kid is not exposed to any sort of diversity or any sort of danger or any sort of adventure or any sort of independence that it can be stifling and then it takes a long time for the child to develop outside of that parental environment once they become free there like there's different kinds of kids right there's kids that grow up in bad neighborhoods with very little parental guidance and they're 18 and then there's kids who grow up completely coddled and completely protected and insulated and they're 18 and then they run into each other totally different life experiences yeah and I was the former you know I was the kid that didn't have a lot of guidance when I was a kid and I was a kind of a lock key latch key kid that's I'm glad you just used that word yeah it's common word right common phrase apparently it's not no I grew up that word yeah latch key I was commenting on how my wife in her early years was a latch key kid and she's like I haven't heard that word in a long time I'm like that used to be a word dude like latch key kid yeah you got a key you got a key and you get you came home and no one was home you know when I was 12 years old yeah just I mean it wasn't like five days ago someone was pointing out to me that that word doesn't get used anymore yeah well kids don't I mean it's like kind of a different thing you don't really see 12 year old kids walking home with a key and opening up their front door anymore I mean I think about my children and how young they are and I can't imagine them doing that but I did that and I think that the independence that comes from being a kid who walks home from school by yourself and opens your door by yourself and you know and then my parents didn't come home till you know whatever it was they worked till five and then they were home I was out I would go places no one knew where the fuck I was there was no phones there's no cell phones you know I could leave a little post -it note or something like that it's it's been interesting to watch um as a parent the way that you the different parents find what dangerous things they're comfortable with um friends of mine like my friend kelly lives in new york right and she'll talk about and we have similar mindsets um about exposing kids the risk and her kids will take the subway right or whatever home and to me where where I live and having not had kids that age in the city, like, I can't picture what she's getting at.

[750] You know what I mean?

[751] I go like, wow, that seems just kind of like crazy.

[752] Yeah.

[753] How old are the kids?

[754] You're responsible.

[755] I'm trying to think how.

[756] 14 and 9 or 10, somewhere in there.

[757] And I don't know, they've been at it for a while.

[758] But either way, like, things that some people would regard, things that people from the outside would regard is like hard to picture.

[759] You know, you had sort of, but at the same time, I expose my kids to, like, danger that I have decided is, like, an okay danger to court.

[760] I'll expose them to being, you know, they can be around grizzly bears.

[761] They can be unescorted in areas that have a lot of mountain lions and bears.

[762] We take small boats out in the very big water.

[763] We do all kinds of things, but it's like things that I've decided are good risk, healthy risk.

[764] Have you been around a grizzly with your kid?

[765] Yeah.

[766] My older, my boy, I have.

[767] Yeah.

[768] We're at.

[769] In Alaska.

[770] Yeah.

[771] And then a lot of other, and then, you know, a lot of very up close exposure to black bears.

[772] Very up close.

[773] Yeah.

[774] And living in a lot of town.

[775] And then I see that, like at our fish shack in Alaska, it's like a daily occurrence.

[776] But I see that and I'm thinking, man, I love being able to expose my kids to like this and to have them be not jumpy people.

[777] you know but then other than i see that that i hear that they were at their friends on youtube like unfettered youtube access and i'm like oh my god oh my god right they're going to believe in kuhana you know yeah it's just like we all find our ways to be you know we all find our ways that like try to find some way to be comfortable and try to find some way to not be overdoing something or underdoing something well i think kids for sure need some form of adversity to work through.

[778] And I think sports are really great for that for kids.

[779] You need to learn how to lose.

[780] But man, I know some stunted people that played a lot of sports.

[781] Yeah, it's not, yeah, it's not a 100 % guarantee.

[782] But it is a guarantee that if you've never encountered any loss at all, you're fucked.

[783] Any challenge.

[784] Yeah, no challenge at all, no adversity at all, you know, and then dependent upon the kind of parenting that you received.

[785] I mean, it's not that it's a deal breaker.

[786] Like, you have to have sports in your life or you'd never be good at things.

[787] I think you have to have difficult things that you're attempting to do.

[788] You know, I think that's really beneficial for kids and for adults.

[789] I mean, I think that's a key part of my life is lessons learned through adversity and trying new things is a very important part of that because it forces you to really be a beginner.

[790] One of the things I found, like, in martial arts, like when you would get, like, guys who are like world champion kickboxes and they start entering into MMA, they're really good at, one aspect of fighting, which is like kickboxing.

[791] And then they would have to learn wrestling and jujitsu.

[792] They didn't like it because the wrestling and jujitsu, the problem was they were getting fucked up a lot.

[793] They were losing.

[794] So they're used to being like dominant and then all of a sudden they're losing.

[795] Or they've been for years good at something.

[796] Now they suck at some part of it.

[797] Exactly.

[798] So they would avoid that aspect of it.

[799] So their development as a mixed martial artist was always limited.

[800] They always get to a certain level and they could never pass that because they never really develop the skills required to excel in the overall thing there was always like this hole in their game they'd never go live in that they'd never allow themselves to go live in that loser space right yeah but that's so fucking it's that's where all the lessons are that the bad feelings where all the less are it's like someone who's never experienced heartache right and then they experience and like oh it's like death it's like you lose a part of your life And, you know, I remember the first time I got my heart broken when I was like, I guess I was like 17 or 18, I couldn't believe how bad I felt.

[801] I was like, God, this is the worst feeling ever.

[802] Do you ever go look her up on Facebook or anything?

[803] No. But if I did, I don't know.

[804] But, you know, I'm sure I'd be over it.

[805] But the point is, like, you have to experience that to know.

[806] And then I think, like, how am I going to live without this girl in my life?

[807] And then, you know, years later, I'm like, how would I have lived if I kept that girl in my life?

[808] Oh, my God, it would have been horrendous.

[809] I've such a hard time picture you being heartbroken.

[810] Oh, it was heartbroken.

[811] Yeah, when I was 18, yeah.

[812] I know this isn't a parenting show, but a friend of mine, he's in a turn.

[813] A friend of mine who's an attorney, and he deals with, deals a lot with, like, what do you call it, custody, child custody stuff?

[814] We were talking about all these, like, you know, theories about what kids need and how to do it.

[815] and he said man i only know one thing that really fucks up kids he says is when they know that no one gives a shit about him he's like yeah yeah that's the thing that that's in my view that's what does it yeah you know that's the hardest when you when you see um foster kids you know that are that don't have love they don't have a family they don't have real parents or maybe even worse they know their parents are out there but their parents don't give a fuck about them and someone else is raising them.

[816] Oh, it's damaging.

[817] Oh, it's so devastating.

[818] And it's like, how do you fix that ever?

[819] How do you, how do you, I think once a child has gone through a really bad emotional development and childhood development, it's like so difficult to somehow or another get out of that space and become like a normal person, become a person who's balanced and who just gets their shit together.

[820] It's so fucking hard.

[821] I mean, you can't imagine the emotional pain that some of these children go through.

[822] It's so fucking devastating.

[823] And we do this thing.

[824] We get Christmas gifts for these foster kids.

[825] And the thing about it is, though, you get, like, this sheet of paper where you get, like, a rundown of these kids in their life.

[826] And you're like, oh, fucking Christ.

[827] It's so hard.

[828] Well, then you make a selection of gifts?

[829] Yeah.

[830] That's nice to you do that.

[831] It's nice, but it's so hard because you want to just adopt them all.

[832] You want to just go and, you know, my wife's not having that.

[833] But, I mean, like, I'm that way with dogs.

[834] Like, I can't go to the pound.

[835] If I go to the pound, I'll have 100 dogs.

[836] I can't do a kid.

[837] I'm that guy.

[838] I fucking love dogs.

[839] I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to go home.

[840] I like that you call it the pound.

[841] I still call it the pound.

[842] Isn't it still the pound?

[843] No one knows.

[844] Like Lachkey kids, there's a whole generation of people that don't use that word.

[845] No, no, no. It's the dog.

[846] dog bound man that's what snoop dog calls it it's uh i don't know man it's it's not fair life's not fair you know it's that's a that's an important lesson too like people want fair in this world it's that's not a real thing you know there's not fair in looks there's not fair in intelligence there's not fair in the way you were raised and sometimes not fair is beneficial because sometimes when you get a shitty hand of cards, you develop adversity and determination that a person who's been coddled doesn't have.

[847] And that allows you to excel wildly beyond anything that they're capable of.

[848] Which is a hard thing for me as a parent because all of my favorite friends are fucked up.

[849] Like they all had fucked up childhoods and it made for the most interesting people.

[850] But, you know, they've horrific.

[851] Like my friend Joey Dia is one of my favorite people that's ever lived found his mom dead on the floor of the kitchen when he was 13 high on acid hmm yeah I don't want that to happen to my kid you know no one wants that to happen their kid but that that was his existence that's who you gravitate toward oh oh yeah I grab I gravitate toward people who had like pretty scrappy upbringing yeah they're more fun reliable yes yeah reliable also they have a thing that you like to use a term they have a lot of girl yeah but I bet you'd look and you'd find that they were deeply loved but scrappy yes and well Joey's a perfect example of that because he's a deeply loving person he's like if you're in his inner circle you know you're loved like he calls you he tells you he loves you he's very affectionate very loving you know because it's valuable to him yeah knows what it means to not be there you know to not have someone there for you Yeah.

[852] It's a tricky thing, man. It's like with all things in life, there's a balance that can be achieved.

[853] But sometimes through in balance, you develop spectacular abilities.

[854] You know, like some of the greatest fighters like Mike Tyson is a great example, right?

[855] Literally didn't experience any love in his life until he was like 13 years old.

[856] And he was adopted by this guy, Custamato, who just happened to be one of the great boxing trainers in history.

[857] And through this.

[858] guy's mentoring and also through hypnosis, the guy hypnotized him to be this like assassin inside the ring, like he got his love through destroying people.

[859] And obviously that worked out really well.

[860] I mean, you don't have a Mike Tyson.

[861] You don't make a Mike Tyson if birthdays are all, you know, on time and everyone's buying you a nice Christmas gift and you never run into bullies at school and like you don't get a Mike Tyson.

[862] But everybody works.

[863] Worship Mike Tyson.

[864] Like when we were kids and Mike Tyson fought, Jesus, that was a big deal, you know?

[865] Like when I was, I guess I was in my early 20s when Mike Tyson was in his prime, holy shit was that a big deal.

[866] When you watch a Tyson fight, I mean, everybody knew when Tyson was fighting.

[867] It was like you were going to see a public execution.

[868] Yeah.

[869] You don't get, you don't create a person like that unless things go badly.

[870] My kids have to pack their own lunches and their own snacks, you know, so they'd be self.

[871] sufficient and every morning my wife basically makes them dissemble it in her presence so she can check oh that's funny what are they trying to smuggle in not just like you're talking about you know being like I don't just you know that's how you make a Mike Tyson like I don't know if I don't know if we're going to wind up with any Mike Tyson no if you want to be you know you don't really want to raise a Mike Tyson really not that Mike's a bad guy he's a great guy But he's a great guy because he figured his way through all that shit and became this guy.

[872] But that's, you know.

[873] Yeah, there are, yeah, there are definitely celebrated individuals who adversity, like, adversity now and then creates these, like, spectacular people.

[874] Could also break them, though.

[875] Yeah, and I think that to go into it planning on, if you went into it thinking you were going to manipulate that system to produce a spectacular.

[876] child it would be like ripe for backfiring it's johnny cash a boy named sue oh yeah yeah there's a whole damn song about it yeah i mean it's like i knew i wasn't gonna be around so i named you sue that's right i'm trying to get all like uh yeah he already yeah johnny cash already thought all that yeah he figured it out i mean it's fucking hilarious song but it's it's it's very tricky it's very difficult but i think uh your friend that pointed out that the worst thing that can happen is a kid that doesn't feel loved that's true And I think that's probably where, you know, a lot of cycle paths come from, unfortunately.

[877] You know, that's old expression, hurt people, hurt people.

[878] Hmm.

[879] You know?

[880] Hadn't heard that.

[881] You never heard that one?

[882] No. Hurt people, hurt people?

[883] No. That's pretty common.

[884] That's more common than latchkey kid, I thought.

[885] What is it like raising kids in Montana?

[886] I mean, you're in this, I mean, it's really cool because you're in this, like, super rural environment, you know, a lot.

[887] You know, you're in this area where.

[888] you're in a nice town but you're also surrounded by this like gorgeous landscape of mountains and wildlife yeah it's a pretty fucking cool place no i think it it works well um having like having that having that level of immediacy to be able to take them out to experience things that that like we care about you know yeah um yeah like we we did a family walk on sunday and he went and caught grasshoppers you know so we could throw them in the creek and watch fish get them watch fish get them you know stuff like that and fish a lot and hunt mushrooms and we camp a lot in the summer I like it man I'm gone a lot for work so I try to have it I travel a lot so I try to have like very when I'm home I try to have to be very like try to keep it impactful that's cool and try not to be lazy yeah And I'm not lazy, but I make sure to not be lazy.

[889] And I make sure to like, really, they were just out doing stuff, doing stuff, doing stuff.

[890] Right, right.

[891] And make that a thing for them so they get accustomed to it.

[892] Yeah, like there's always a plan, always going, doing something, always a plan.

[893] I mean, it can be relentless for people around, and I've had people lobby complaints about that system of living.

[894] But that's how I like to run the program.

[895] well for what you do and you know for the company meat eater and for first light like there's no better place for you to live i mean montana's just an amazing place yeah i enjoy it run a company like your company you know that makes Netflix shows and videos and writes books and you know it's like it's a kid and be better yeah it's a good and then you have a we have a very good network of folks there um yeah it's It's great, man. And then Bozeman, you know, where I live, it's, it's, it's a big, it's big, you know, it's bigger than where I grew up, right?

[896] How many people is Bozeman?

[897] Oh, man. Like 300 ,000, 400 ,000?

[898] No, it's not.

[899] I mean, because there's, like, the town and there's the sort of like greater valley area.

[900] I don't know where it's at.

[901] Jamie find out of the lickety split.

[902] For like in the town, in the town, 70 or something like that in the town?

[903] Yeah, maybe I'm way off.

[904] But then the greater area.

[905] I'd have to look up.

[906] I could be totally wrong.

[907] What's the greater area?

[908] Like two?

[909] All told?

[910] 200 ,000?

[911] Yeah.

[912] Well, I don't know.

[913] Let's find out.

[914] Yeah, find out for me, will you?

[915] Either way, it's a...

[916] Yeah.

[917] Yeah.

[918] Much bigger.

[919] Much bigger in where I grew up.

[920] Yeah.

[921] But still very small, you know?

[922] Like, people kind of know you.

[923] Um, there's a story I, like, haven't had it a couple times where, um, well, it's just so small.

[924] You feel observed.

[925] Yeah.

[926] You're observed.

[927] Well, I feel like that in Austin.

[928] You feel observed here?

[929] I'd fucking bet you do.

[930] Much different than Los Angeles.

[931] There's also, uh, and they're much more, uh, accustomed to famous people in Los Angeles.

[932] It's not a big deal.

[933] Mm -hmm.

[934] You know, here it's, uh, it's, uh, it's more.

[935] of like hey there's that fucking guy you know it's like they make a thing about it where it's like in l .A it's just normal to see ben afflick or whatever the fuck yeah yeah you feel observed i got this years ago i got this i did some ads for Subaru and got this car for free like the way it worked like for some reason it was it was it was these like branded history things okay so i got to pick like 13 things around the country that I thought were interesting and one was like, did this thing about this guy that there's this mountain range in a town and a pass and a national forest all named after this dude and all that's really known about him is he got killed by a grizzly bear.

[936] Is that Bridger?

[937] No, his name is Lulu or Lolo.

[938] Oh.

[939] So there's the town of Lolo, there's Lolo Creek, there's Lolo Pass, there's Lolo National Forest, and all they know is there's like a dude that lived on a tributary to that creek, and you got killed by a grizzly.

[940] That's like really all known about the guy.

[941] Anyways, I did a thing about where they think he might have been buried.

[942] And it did all these other things.

[943] It was like this thing, it appeared on it.

[944] It was like these like ads that were on History Channel.

[945] And I would go and check out whatever, something that was interesting, but there'd be like these driving shots, right?

[946] Where you like drive there in a Subaru.

[947] So the way that stuff works is you have to buy the car.

[948] just for insurance purposes like you you buy the car from them and like invoice them for the car purchase oh okay I don't know how common this is but anyways I got to keep when it was all said and done I got the car so we're gonna sell it but my wife started to drive it and now we've had this thing since we've had this car since 2009 they're bulletproof yeah my wife drives in my wife's like very when it comes to vehicles and stuff like has no she's very pragmatic Joey Diaz drives nothing but Subaru forever.

[949] She'd be like, why would you buy a car if you got a car for free?

[950] Yeah, is this your little ads?

[951] Oh, yeah.

[952] You young, fresh -faced Steve Renella.

[953] Look at you.

[954] It was like four.

[955] Who's the guy with the hat?

[956] He was a guy who wrote a magazine profile on that he hunts for old denim.

[957] So this is 2007?

[958] Look how young are.

[959] No, no, 2009, maybe.

[960] Fine.

[961] I saw some old homestead cabins down here.

[962] I can't leave any stone unturned I have to check it So yeah that dude would I wrote a piece I did that one because I wrote a piece about that guy he would go I'm going to get back to this thing about this car but this is interesting so you know the earthquake in San Francisco and the big fire whatever the hell you hear that happened late 1800s what was that earthquake that destroyed San Francisco Levi's Levi's lost their own catalog they lost their own library of their clothes they made so like Levi's Denham 1906 They made In that fire Levi's lost their sort of history Okay Wow So Levi's knows they made clothing That they know from advertisements That they have no physical representation of Wow So I wrote a piece about these dudes That would start they would go hunting around In mine shafts and stuff And find Old -ass denim And the coolest thing to find was you would find a very old pre -1906 pair of Levi's and these things that sell for like $30 ,000, $40, $50 ,000 to collectors.

[963] They're all these like buckle back jeans.

[964] They had buckles in the back, a couple buckles in the back, and that's how you'd cinch them up.

[965] So like if you found, yeah.

[966] So collectors are called them buckle backs.

[967] Yeah, there you go.

[968] So this dude.

[969] So was this before they figured out a belt?

[970] Yeah, just how they used to tie them, man, like buckle backs.

[971] So this dude, he got into that vintage denim stuff, but he also would find old, old clothes and sell them to collectors, sell them to people making films, looking for period clothing.

[972] And I went and I drove around with him in Nevada and wrote a profile on him.

[973] I think it was called like the Brotherhood of the very, expensive pants it was when I was a writer for outside wow look at that yeah you know the coolest thing I found in the week I spent with him was a pair plugging up a there's a cap there's an old run cabin on a ranch and it had two chimneys and at some point in time someone had moved his woodstow from one end of the cabin to the other and plugged the old chimney hole with a pair of jeans wow and And we go in there.

[974] So he'll go in and like, he'd like strike a deal with ranchers.

[975] He'd be like, listen, man, I'm going to.

[976] And a lot of times they'd be like, he's like, I'm going to look around and all in your old buildings and stuff.

[977] And I find something.

[978] I'll buy it from me. They'd be like, bullshit, get out of here.

[979] And just to turn him on, he would all of a sudden look and whatever he could see, he would look and give him an insane price for nonsense just to butter him up.

[980] Really?

[981] Oh, yeah.

[982] Like how much is, like, it's like, we went to this guy and this guy had just junk everywhere.

[983] and it was like, he had a lot of junk and it'd also be like, there's the old cabin where Grandpa lived, there's the old run -down house where my mom and dad lived, and here's my house, and everything was exactly, they just would move across the property and build a new structure and leave the old ones in place.

[984] So he's dying to get in here and look around.

[985] And this guy had a T -shirt, like his, this guy's had an outdoor spigot that was dripping for whatever he's tied like a T -shirt around it to prevent, to deflect the drip, you know, or whatever, to prevent a row or not anything there i have no idea but a t -shirt tied around a drippy thing he and he goes like that t -shirt for instance and gave him like 25 bucks for the t -shirt no desire to have the t -shirt but he just had to grab so he had to point to something so let the guy know that he was he's got a real possible windfall here yeah and then the guy's like oh damn son let's have a look and he'd be in there buying saddle blankets and boots hats anything the jeans that plugged up the hole so we're on this place and he went I was with it man he went through all the channels and like talked to the ranch manager got hold of the rancher the ranchers like have a look let me know what you find goes in there and pulls out this had to be a very old I can't remember what kind it wasn't it was like some other kind of gene it wasn't old Levi pulled out a set of pants that had been plugging that chimney up since early 1900s and you know the sun like how how often does the sun shine down a chimney?

[986] Straight Yeah, like not very often Yeah Okay, so I don't know Like there's like three feet of pipe above these pants And we're it looked like tie -dye because that part that was up just being exposed to the rain and whatever limited amount of sunshine ever shined straight down that chimney He'd like bleach those pants white But he pulled those pants out in there they were and they find stuff like people used to make log homes and chink You know chinking between the logs Shirts and pants and shit really?

[987] Oh yeah he's got a whole damn placeful that stuff had i haven't talked to him in a long time and all that stuff is very valuable if because he like he his place was called carpe denim and he he people knew to go to him so he would have designers okay like clothing designers would want to go to his warehouse full of all this crazy old shitty found to get inspiration wow look at all that stuff to get inspiration for you You know, like, whatever, like Dickies, Carhart, whatever, like different designers would go and look around his stuff to get inspiration for it.

[988] Jamie, send me this guy's Instagram page.

[989] It's original Indian jeans.

[990] Yeah, that's him.

[991] Original Indiana jeans, sorry.

[992] Britt Eaton.

[993] I think all those old jeans were made out of hemp.

[994] I think before the 1930s, before hemp became a problem when they made marijuana.

[995] illegal, then you have like a stamp to grow hemp, and then it become phased out with the cotton gin.

[996] You know, well, the decorticator actually was what brought it back.

[997] I think that was in the 1930s.

[998] But all before that, canvas itself came from cannabis.

[999] Like canvas was actually made with hemp.

[1000] Like even like the Mona Lisa was painted on hemp.

[1001] It's a far more durable fabric.

[1002] And if you like, if we had hemp jeans, they would be so much more durable.

[1003] It's a weird cloth.

[1004] Have you ever fucked around with hemp as a cloth?

[1005] I bet he'd be able to tell you a lot about it.

[1006] I bet he would.

[1007] It's the fibers are really insane.

[1008] I had a friend of mine.

[1009] My friend Todd McCormick used to grow marijuana.

[1010] It was like one of the first guys ever to be arrested for it when they had medical marijuana, but they were still charging people federally because it was medical in California.

[1011] But when you would go to jail, you would realize once you went to court that you couldn't bring up medical marijuana because you were in a federal trial and the federal trials, they wouldn't even recognize it.

[1012] You were just a drug dealer to them.

[1013] And he was like, oh my God, like this is a crazy racket.

[1014] Like I'm getting railroaded here because you couldn't even say, no, I was growing it for medical purposes in the state where it's legal medically.

[1015] So he had a stalk of this stuff and you would pick it up and it would be hard like oak.

[1016] but light like balsa wood.

[1017] It was the wildest shit.

[1018] Like, you'd realize, like, there's nothing like that fiber on earth.

[1019] And when you take that fiber and break it down, the paper, like, they would make hemp paper.

[1020] And it's crazy.

[1021] Like, you can't tear it.

[1022] But it feels like paper.

[1023] It's so superior.

[1024] Hemp clothing is insanely durable.

[1025] Like, so much more durable than cotton.

[1026] Yeah, than all the hemp rope.

[1027] I'm not familiar with, I'm familiar with in the pioneer and frontier days, used to hemp for rope and other fabrics.

[1028] Parachutes.

[1029] Yeah, like the parachute that George Herbert Walker Bush parachute to safety with in World War II.

[1030] That was made out of hemp.

[1031] Yeah.

[1032] They used to make all the parachutes made out of hemp.

[1033] This is far more durable than cotton.

[1034] Look at this car.

[1035] Subaru.

[1036] And all of a sudden one day, where our offices, like my wife, my wife drives a car, and also somewhere offices is all these bumper stickers that say like Ronella drives a Subaru on people's cars, but not my car.

[1037] And so it's like someone like observing, you know, someone in this area, like observing what my wife drives and like printing a bumper sticker.

[1038] Just like weird.

[1039] That's weird.

[1040] Yeah, like small town stuff, you know.

[1041] But they had to choir around.

[1042] It was some dude that worked at, it was some event, like it was like these dudes that worked at Sitka.

[1043] And then eventually found out which one of them did it.

[1044] He'd like try to get a job with us.

[1045] And that was like his like vengeance thing, which is like bizarre, man. You feel just observed.

[1046] He tried to get a job with you and he couldn't get a job.

[1047] So then he made a bumper sticker that said the kind of car you drive.

[1048] Yeah.

[1049] And pasted it on people's cars in our parking lot, but not my car.

[1050] Whoa.

[1051] Thank God you didn't hire that guy.

[1052] Well, it just winds up.

[1053] It's just weird, man. That is a problem with hiring people, right?

[1054] Like you never know.

[1055] No, just like, so there is like an observed quality, but I, but, you know, I mean, I hate to be negative, I mean, I have so many wonderful, wonderful friends and it's a great, beautiful, great place to live, but there's, yeah, there's like a good with the bad.

[1056] Yeah, yeah, you're going to get both.

[1057] Yeah.

[1058] Yeah, it's just, yeah, and when people get rejected, I mean, imagine being a woman, you know, experiencing, like, some guy tries to hit on you.

[1059] and you reject them and then this guy's stalking your social media and sending you evil letters and that's a very common thing.

[1060] I'm sure for guys too.

[1061] Yeah.

[1062] It's horrible.

[1063] People are fucking crazy.

[1064] A good percentage of them.

[1065] One out of 100, out of their fucking mind.

[1066] You run into them, you zig when you should have zagged, boom.

[1067] You got a problem.

[1068] And you've got to be real careful.

[1069] You've got to have a good filtering system to keep those people out of your life.

[1070] And I would imagine when you have an organization, like yours where you have a lot of employees there's a lot of people there yeah meat eater man we have a hundred people that work for us because we have you know we have an apparel company so first light is underneath meat eater it's in meat eater yeah so you keep it and catch them they stay there and they're in catch them I mean we have a we have a ton of you know a ton of overlap but no they have a person to catch them that runs that program and they have a bunch of people um Phelps game calls they're in Washington you you guys are a part of that too yeah yeah so Jason he's been on our podcast a bunch he's been we just we're filming with him he sent me one of his new bugle tubes it has the built in the built in thing yeah yeah pretty nice dude I'm telling you what man I have never he wants to go with you real bad um you'd love that dude he's like his whole family's been loggers for a million year he's the first one to not be a logger and um in western washington you know and he started i was like trained as an engineer but started out making game calls and he's just an incredible guy but i hunted with him this year and i've never seen you know i've been like i used think yani was like i used think yanni was like god when it came to elk calling and yani hunts with phelps and yon he's like dude i'm like i felt like an idiot like a child well he is a real wizard i mean i've heard videos of him online oh my god that guy's amazing he'd be like no that bull's gonna come and look over right here That thing that he made is so good that I had my daughter, my 11 -year -old make a bugle call.

[1071] It was pretty fucking good.

[1072] I'm seeing if I could find it because I filmed it because I just thought it'd be hilarious.

[1073] Oh, her ripping on it?

[1074] See her first ever attempt.

[1075] Yeah, Phelps is great.

[1076] He's a good, dude.

[1077] He lives there, and then we have another company that's with us called FHF.

[1078] They make like the, you know, vinyl harnesses and all kinds of.

[1079] Oh, you guys are with them too?

[1080] Yeah, yeah.

[1081] Jesus.

[1082] Yeah.

[1083] And they're in Belgrade, Montana.

[1084] You guys are like the Facebook of the outdoor.

[1085] He just keep gobbling up all the competitors.

[1086] Well, no. Yeah, the government needs to step in and break you guys up.

[1087] Ph .F. Gear was built.

[1088] FHF Gear was built by a police officer.

[1089] Paul Lewis still runs FHF Gear.

[1090] They do.

[1091] It's all -American made.

[1092] He's still in there.

[1093] I have one of those.

[1094] They're very good.

[1095] His wife, Jen Lewis, they work together.

[1096] Phelps is still at Phelps game calls Me and him are doing a project where We've been filming this where we went to Kansas And we cut down a black walnut tree And there's probably a thousand turkey calls Hiding in that black walnut And we're doing a thing about turning that black walnut tree Into a thousand turkey calls Oh, that's pretty cool That'll be cool I'm trying to find this video and I'm not going to Oh your daughter ripping on the metal bugle too?

[1097] because it's funny, because it's not bad for like a first ever attempt at blowing a bugle tube for a child.

[1098] Yeah, pretty fucking good.

[1099] Phelps, he, uh, he holds the patent on aluminum bugle tubes.

[1100] Yeah, it sounds great.

[1101] It's interesting that everybody else was making them out of plastic and then he figured out there's a different sound.

[1102] Oh, it's different.

[1103] Yeah.

[1104] Um, so yeah, he's there.

[1105] And then, and then we have our, our, our media, You know, kind of like the media end of our business is based out of Bowles.

[1106] We have content contributors.

[1107] Like, you know, you've had Clay Newcomb on.

[1108] Yeah.

[1109] He's in Arkansas.

[1110] He's a fucking interesting guy.

[1111] Oh, yeah.

[1112] Daniel Pruitt is here and she's in Texas.

[1113] Mark Kenyons, what is she do?

[1114] She's just a content contributor with us.

[1115] She has a brand that she built up called Wild and Hole and does.

[1116] Is that a podcast as well?

[1117] No, she doesn't do a podcast.

[1118] But she does a lot of hunting and fishing stuff, but a lot of colonel.

[1119] stuff that's that's her particular area of interest so she's there and we work very you know she works with us we work very close so she's in houston mark canyons out in michigan so we have people all over content contributors but we're based there in montana do you ever feel like you get spread thin with all that stuff like i know you have a lot of podcasts under the media umbrella and there's a lot of there's just a lot of stuff do i feel spread thin does it like does it feel the company like do you ever feel like it's difficult to keep track of everything and make sure that the quality is up to standard or that I haven't I haven't felt that because I haven't felt that because I feel that primarily it's been able to sort of like let me speak to it in the way of what I'm involved with okay I mean I'm involved in everything I have awareness of what goes on but I have you know I'd be lying if I didn't say that I have like a team of people that I work with on producing things that are like my primary day -to -day responsibility being that we just launched season like just a week ago I think we launched five new episodes on Netflix right season nine so that's our half season 10 part A just went live on Netflix so like I'm heavily involved in making that we do a lot of books I'm heavily involved in our book projects I'm heavily involved in certain stuff by having a team of people around that I work really close to you with it's just like you're able to like greatly amplify what you put out I'm able to do more and I had and that means a lot to me because I had spent my life up until we started a company I'd spent my life a lot of just as one writer and it takes a couple years to write a book you know and so I would my output was constrained by just like what was one person capable of doing when I wrote my Buffalo book I researched it for two years and then spent nine months writing the book.

[1120] And I wasn't doing much else then.

[1121] Now I'm able to do a bunch of projects and have stuff going out.

[1122] So there's a cost, there's some cost to it, but mostly I view it as a tremendous amount of gain to be able to do all those things.

[1123] In terms of getting into, you know, in terms of getting into working with brands that we love, so far it's been people that, like the companies we work with are people that, first, Light, for instance, was one of the first sponsors we ever had for our show.

[1124] Vortex optics and First Light were so the first two people that ever got behind our show.

[1125] I knew Phelps for a long time.

[1126] I've been wearing FHF, vinyl harness.

[1127] I mean, I remember like my late friend Eric Kern turned to me on to FHF stuff like a bazillion years ago when Paul was just stitching away in his basement or whatever, you know?

[1128] So to have it be that those relationships matured and we kind of like came together under one company, it all seems like very natural to me it all seems like just things growing and getting better so I have never felt like too spread thin and then we have I mean like I said we have a lot of people that kind of know what they're doing I have to be pretty careful to I've had to learn to know what I don't know you know I had to learn what I don't know and to not and to give people like things faith to do the things they do.

[1129] Right.

[1130] So I don't know how to do.

[1131] Become like a manager.

[1132] Yeah.

[1133] Man, I'm such a bad manager, man. That became clear through the pandemic and stuff.

[1134] But no, I can't manage.

[1135] I can't really manage people.

[1136] I mean, I can.

[1137] Why is that?

[1138] Why can't I manage people?

[1139] Because that's kind of hard to explain.

[1140] I only have one way.

[1141] Like, that's a good question.

[1142] I don't.

[1143] I don't think I have developed multiple ways to interact with people.

[1144] Huh.

[1145] I sort of have like one way in which I can interact.

[1146] Like I have one way in which I can interact with people.

[1147] In what way?

[1148] What do you mean by that?

[1149] Obviously you have a different way you interact with your kids and you do with your wife.

[1150] Okay.

[1151] That's fair.

[1152] When dealing with people in my age bracket, I can't step into a. role like i can't step into a position of being able to uh not have it be very close and very personal i think a large thing is that you you've met some of the people i work with some of the people we spend an enormous amount of time together we travel together we're like sleep intense together we're together all the time um it's that i just i can only interact in the way that I've learned to interact with my peers through since I was a kid.

[1153] And I, and in that proximity, like, I can't be that I'm going down to work and I need to put like my, my work way on.

[1154] I think that I probably over, like I probably share too much information.

[1155] I probably don't conceal my annoyance.

[1156] I probably have very, like I have high expectations.

[1157] Yeah, I don't know.

[1158] And when I see people who are like actual people managers, they have a more calculated approach.

[1159] And my approach, I guess, is very emotional.

[1160] Or more authentic.

[1161] The problem with those calculated people managers is they probably cut loose somewhere and some, you know, they probably put it on a dress and get a bunch of hookers or do something, something nutty where they, like, that's a thing about CEOs, right?

[1162] They're the ones who always like to go to Dominatrix and get kicked in the balls.

[1163] Because they're being so calculated all the time.

[1164] Yeah, it's like they're, they're so wrapped up in this thing that they're doing.

[1165] Like you're, if you're a person and you're running a company, you're essentially performing all day long, right?

[1166] Because you can only be a certain amount of yourself.

[1167] Like most people like to tell jokes that are maybe inappropriate or use language that's maybe inappropriate or say things that everybody's thinking, but you really shouldn't say.

[1168] Yeah.

[1169] They like to do that occasionally.

[1170] Well, if you're a CEO of some major company, that would come with enormous financial consequences.

[1171] you know like um as some of them have found on this very show yes yes well that was nothing he just smoked a little weed he made the money back the next day the company went down like six percent went up nine percent the next day but everybody wants to talk about the six percent it went down the first one wants to talk about the nine percent yeah nine percent the net everybody's like look it's a fucking giant company it's going to go great but like uh i was reading about uh someone from bezos's blue origin company right just got fired for something it's like you you you're the way you're allowed to behave if you're a big wig in some sort of a large corporation is very narrow.

[1172] There's a very narrow, acceptable way that you're allowed to behave and you're scrutinized extremely closely.

[1173] So if you want to be that guy that makes all this money and gets all this stock and has all this responsibility, you also have to behave in a way that's kind of unnatural.

[1174] It's not just that you're not allowed to do anything's inappropriate, but you have to have a very measured and unemotional tone.

[1175] You have to be, like, very conscious of how people are going to perceive or even distort what you're saying, you know, look at it and take it out of context or, I mean, it's a, it's got to be an incredibly pressure -filled thing to do when you're doing that every day, eight -plus, I mean, no CEO really works eight hours a day, right?

[1176] you're working 9, 10, 12, whatever the fuck it is.

[1177] They've got to do that every day.

[1178] I mean, that's, that's, that's, how many of them die of heart attacks?

[1179] How many of them die of cancer?

[1180] How many of them, like, the pressure gets to be too much and they, they can't take it?

[1181] Yeah.

[1182] Probably better the way you behave.

[1183] Maybe so, yeah, and maybe so my terminology is not wrong.

[1184] I'm interested in, I'm interested in, in, to me the word leadership feels a lot different than the word management.

[1185] Hmm.

[1186] Yeah.

[1187] Yeah.

[1188] Well, leadership through example is, uh, is always, uh, an interesting thing because it's like there's certain people that you admire and the way they, they live their life, like their show, like Jocco Willink is a great example, right?

[1189] He, he shows leadership through example, like the way he lives his life, like very disciplined, very fair, very smart, very open -minded and objective.

[1190] He doesn't have any weaknesses in his like social game, but also, you know just like a real like a prime example of discipline you know and through that you go well that's a leader you know you see yeah i got you yeah yeah i wind up um in in in working with people i wind up having a lot of love for people that will shovel shit uh that have that grew up and know what that's all about right um that that probably more than any other thing means a lot to me like someone who will jump in and like shovel shit when it needs to happen uh i like like people who will take a bullet for what they're working on um who can articulate their perspective on something but no one to no one to give in yeah but can can fight just to the right moment right and they're not doing it for the fun of it yeah but then in the end it's like okay now we got to move we got to go well haven't been on your show a few times i've always admired the amount of work that's involved like for the cameraman um and uh the the the folks that are running the show behind the scenes sound all that stuff because those guys are there 24 hours a day.

[1191] Like if you're on a trip and that trip is a seven -day trip in the back country, it's not like you're doing an eight -hour -a -day job.

[1192] It is a 24 -hour -day experience.

[1193] And your responsibilities, obviously work -wise, are from the time you start hunting to the time you're done hunting.

[1194] And that is like from dark until dusk.

[1195] You get up when it's dark and you don't end hunting.

[1196] Unless you're successful, until it's dusk, you're filming the entire time.

[1197] So these folks are working long hours.

[1198] And then there's no hotel to go to.

[1199] The hotel is a fucking thin foam thing that's over rocks.

[1200] And then you lay your sleeping bag over that and you're sleeping and oftentimes you're freezing your dick off.

[1201] Like when we were in Montana the first time, first time I ever went with you, I was like, wow, this is a job.

[1202] like imagine this job where your job is all day there's no there's no like I'm punching in I'm punching out there's none of that the job is constant yeah it's all day it's a very unusual job because if you looked at like the hours that those guys work it's it's hard to quantify because you're kind of working when you're fucking sleeping on a rock yeah that's not just it's all the time yeah and I in that management thing I guess some I have to remind myself to think like they're at work Yes, because I'm more like, we're just in it.

[1203] Yeah, we're in it and you have to be in it.

[1204] But then I'm like, holy shit, these dudes are at work.

[1205] Why in the world would they do that?

[1206] It's not like any other jobs.

[1207] Like, say, if you're filming a television show, an adventure show, right?

[1208] And you're filming an adventure show, and you know, you're looking at, you know, mushrooms, specimens in the woods.

[1209] You know, you're going to have a shooting schedule.

[1210] Mm -hmm.

[1211] Like at 8 a .m., we're going to have breakfast at 9 .30.

[1212] You know, Paul's going to go out.

[1213] and examine all these different mushrooms and show everybody.

[1214] And then we're going to have dinner at 6 p .m. And then, you know, we're going to wrap it up for the day.

[1215] And then we're going to start up.

[1216] And there's none of that with you guys.

[1217] You guys are out there.

[1218] Plus, you might be seven, eight miles from camp.

[1219] And then you've got to huff all the way back with fucking headlights on in the middle of the night.

[1220] And then you're looking at your watch.

[1221] Like, Jesus Christ, we've got to be awake in seven hours.

[1222] You know, and you haven't even eaten yet.

[1223] And then you eat.

[1224] And then you crash.

[1225] And then it's like, all right, everybody up.

[1226] It's five.

[1227] Like, fuck.

[1228] Yeah, we have a lot of what we would call death marches.

[1229] And when they were trying to define what a death march is, and Yanni feels that it's not a death march until there's a fight that breaks out.

[1230] The people are arguing?

[1231] About what way to go.

[1232] Oh, that's funny.

[1233] Yeah.

[1234] Yeah, no, I love it, man. You develop very, you know, intimate relationships with people, man. Yeah.

[1235] You develop intimate relationships with people.

[1236] and it's hard and for that professionalism and all that it's doing that you know months for months to being together all the time in whatever like in tents or in a rental house and in cars and just like ugh right you you you you can't stay you can't stay buttoned up quite like maybe how you're supposed to.

[1237] Right.

[1238] Like if you were a CEO.

[1239] It's a different kind of experience.

[1240] And it's also an experience that I think is really lost in translation in all of hunting media.

[1241] I think you do the very best at sort of, well, first of all, your show is fantastic because of your narration and because of the, the, you have a very clear love of, of, you have a very clear love of, of, you know, of.

[1242] the wilderness and of animals and of the experience of hunting but it's hard to encapsulate a seven -day really rigorous experience into an hour -long show and it's lost to people that don't experience like to me who's done it with you I can watch one of your shows and I go man I wish I was there the whole time where I would really get a sense of like how hard it was to find the bulls and then you hear them in the distance and then you got to walk three miles through this valley and try to get to this other ridge and then you glass them up and then they're already gone because they caught your wind and there's so much the seesaw ride of the experience of trying to navigate your way through the woods and hunt and then and then the wild thrill of it being successful or the failure all those things are you know the the worst thing that's ever happened to hunting I think is hunting show and that not yours but a lot of them there you know there's like shitty music and bad writing and it's like it's all about the kill and to people that don't have any experience doing that they're watching and it's sort of encapsulated into this very brief moment of people laughing and hooting and hollering because they shot a deer like why is why are you happy like people don't understand it like what what is happening here like why are you happy yeah because yeah you feel the experience hasn't been, hasn't, like, teed that up.

[1243] Yeah, it's, you're missing everything.

[1244] You know, it's like if all of romance was, uh, boiled down to an orgasm, it's like, Jesus, there's so much more to human experiences and relationships.

[1245] There's so much more to, there's like, it's like everything else.

[1246] Like, there's so much more to, like, if you only, if you, you see a fight and you know, uh, like that this guy punches that guy and that guy falls down.

[1247] If that's all you see, if you're just like a highlight of a knockout, you're missing so much.

[1248] And the struggle and the people that are in the camp with them, they're the only ones to really know.

[1249] Like a people, if someone is in a camp, you know, with, you know, Roy Jones Jr. in his prime, they see all the training leading up to the fight and then the fight.

[1250] Those are the people that get the real experience.

[1251] And I feel like no one gets the real experience of hunting until you do it.

[1252] And it's one of the reasons why it's so misrepresented and misunderstood in the general public.

[1253] And the people that don't hunt, in our culture, hunting has gotten this very bizarre bad rap.

[1254] And even amongst people who eat meat.

[1255] And I think a lot of it is because of that.

[1256] I think your organization and what you've done with meat eater, with your writing, particularly with your show, is the best thing that's ever happened to hunt.

[1257] in the modern era because it explains it and displays it in a well thought out intelligent way that's filled with emotion and it's filled with introspective thought and and articulate discussion and in a way that people get a chance to see oh this isn't maybe I had the wrong impression of what this is you know we uh we made many of our episodes that were they were 22 minutes long and we still on you know on sportsman channel outdoor channel um 22 minutes that that third when you watch a half hour show you're watching 22 minutes of stuff yeah it's and it's and you know traditionally we would produce it in a four -act structure so you had an enormous amount of constraint of how you put this thing together um premiering episodes on netflix you're not held to that you don't you're not held with like the act structure you can kind of make them their own natural length but we had a lot of training early on and making that happened and that was the that's where the the skill of the editors is how do you take hours how do you take maybe I don't know 100 hours of stuff and compress it down in 22 minutes in some way that was true to the experience there's stuff you don't show there's stuff you do show but yeah it's it's tight it's 22 minutes it's hard to it's hard to capture it I think the key in doing it is that um i'd always i made the show with a lot of people who were like very key and you know mo right you know mo you know nick brigden like people early on that were like very involved in making the show what it was making these people these weren't hunters they were people who were very interested in story you know they were very interested in sort of like the rhythm of a story how a story got captured how a story got laid out and so They weren't coming from a lifetime of watching hunting media.

[1258] They were coming from a lifetime of how do you do this thing, which is take people on an emotional, like create an emotional journey for someone doing something.

[1259] And they applied that skill set with me who had a level of subject matter expertise and had my own understanding of narrative that I developed as a writer.

[1260] But like come in and apply that universal storytelling principles.

[1261] to this thing that other people might have felt was beneath them but they had the generosity of spirit in those early days they had the generosity of the spirit to take this thing and see some kind of beauty in it and help develop it into a thing where they were like applying their expertise to it then kind of the only time has ever been done before I don't think before you anybody had ever done it that way I mean, and for context, like Mo Fallon went on to direct parts unknown, Bordane.

[1262] He was an assistant to the film director, Michael Mann.

[1263] Yeah.

[1264] I mean, the dude went, I mean, you know, he was like, brilliant, brilliant guy.

[1265] Like, making, you know, he went to Africa and worked on Ali.

[1266] Yeah.

[1267] Like, yeah.

[1268] Yeah, incredibly interesting person in his own right.

[1269] And for him to, and then eventually became a hunter, which is interesting too, right.

[1270] through doing your show.

[1271] What's funny about some of the guys that come on to work on the show is they wind up having, they might not have hunted, but they wind up having quite an education.

[1272] Yeah.

[1273] And they get where they have, you know, well -earned opinions.

[1274] And they're good at spot and stuff.

[1275] And they've got to develop where, you know, Mo's modest, right?

[1276] So he'd be the last guy that would ever be like, he wouldn't call himself a thing but Mo's been exposed to during those years that he worked with us you know Mo was exposed to kind of like more action than most people that hunter ever going to be exposed to he's just exposed an enormous amount and processed it in an interesting way when you see the the landscape of like hunting media like have you seen the level of it come up since meat eater?

[1277] I mean you guys it was like 2012 you came around it's like been about nine years yeah we just this our 10th year our 10th season um i've seen enormous changes and uh and it's hard to it's hard to untangle um what like you know the the impacts of digital media right because during that time we were we were undergoing all the stuff with like distribution channels changed so much and you had sort of the gatekeepers melted away you have people producing a lot of stuff like our company we do a lot of direct -to - YouTube series you know so you're able to have you're able to put material out so people that wanted to make good material might before they they hadn't fallen into they didn't like line up with what what people felt should be broadcast yeah and now they're able to put out what they want to make so it's hard to like it's hard to untangle what might have happened in in outdoor media from what is just happening in media with the ability of like of with the ability of creative individuals to come out to come out make a thing and then have the thing be seen by other people without it needing to be something that someone decided on yeah and we're seeing that you know you're seeing that in all aspects of everything but so have I seen big changes in hunting media absolutely because even in our own ability to put out material i've seen enormous changes um we do tons more and we're able to do stuff without having someone say that it's okay to do it yeah that's such an important point because uh without that point i mean without that ability podcast would have never existed and it's all that no one would have ever let you do something like this yeah you're going to gone and you wouldn't have gone and pitched it and had someone say yeah but I do a lot's changed I think that they're you know the the celebration of the culinary aspects of hunting and fishing absolutely they're far more represented now than they were 10 years yeah I mean I never saw it you just saw the kill the first time I ever saw anybody cooking was on your show and you know the first time ever cooked any kind of wild game myself was on your show yeah when we were when we shot that mule deer in Montana when I'm very like I never would so much has been done like you can't you can't come in and ever claim to have you can't claim to have invented anything because there's so much stuff out there but yeah there's a there's a mix there's a mix of things covered that we cover a sort of recipe or a formula of things that hadn't been covered quite the way we cover them.

[1278] Is there an issue now with YouTube where I know they have new guidelines for hunting where you're not allowed to show the kill?

[1279] You're not allowed to show like the impact of a bullet or of an arrow.

[1280] And I don't think you're allowed to show any kind of suffering.

[1281] And you may not be able to show butchering.

[1282] I'm not sure about that.

[1283] That has not been the thing that we've encountered.

[1284] There's a new thing about demonetization.

[1285] Have you seen these new rules?

[1286] See if you could Google this.

[1287] You might not even be aware of it because I think it's very recent.

[1288] As a matter of fact, I think it came out last week.

[1289] Oh, well, then that might be something that will come.

[1290] If that's a demonetization issue, I haven't been.

[1291] Yeah.

[1292] Well, you know, YouTube has been very heavy -handed with this concept of demonetization.

[1293] And it's sort of a way of encouraging self -censorship.

[1294] Sure.

[1295] And we found that out in a weird way when we stopped doing, when we were moving from from YouTube to Spotify, all of a sudden, all of our shows that used to be demonetized were no longer demonetized.

[1296] But maybe 25 % of our shows would be demonetized on YouTube.

[1297] 25 % of them would not be eligible for any sort of income.

[1298] That all changed as soon as we went over to Spotify, then 100 % of the shows got monetized.

[1299] Upon closer inspection, the YouTube ad -friendly content guidelines was found that in July of 2021, the policy was updated to make it clear that footage of animals in distress induced by human intervention may not run ads.

[1300] Naturally, the hunting and killing of animals fall within the new guideline, meaning that hunting content, as we know, it can no longer be used to make money on YouTube.

[1301] The exact policy reads as follows, you can turn on ads for this content, hunting content where there is no. depiction of graphic animal injuries or prolonged suffering, hunting videos where the moment of kill or injury is indiscernible and no focal footage of how this dead animal is processed for trophy or food purposes.

[1302] Hmm.

[1303] Which is crazy.

[1304] Well, it says why they don't go into much detail, it seems clear that any impact shots or footage of an animal after it's been shot is no longer acceptable to make ad revenue.

[1305] So the thing is like how far, this is from bowhunting .com.

[1306] Yeah, I don't know because I was watching, I really don't.

[1307] I can't comment on it.

[1308] I don't know how it's being interpreted.

[1309] I was watching things this morning, not our own material, but I was watching things this morning that were monetized that would not conform.

[1310] Here's where they might not have put that in effect, but here's where it gets squirrely.

[1311] We've seen things that were not monetized, meaning the people who created them do not get money but there's still ads on them oh yeah so is that that's real right yeah correct where things were not monetized like they're serving ads on their platform but they're not sharing exactly whereas like the creators don't get money but there was an ad on it hasn't that been a complaint that people have levied before I don't necessarily think that's happened to us but I do believe that has been a complaint that people said hey my video is demonetized but it still has an ad on it.

[1312] Oh, I see what you're saying.

[1313] That's real, right?

[1314] I'm sure it is?

[1315] Let's Google that, just to be sure.

[1316] And in fairness to YouTube, I mean, I always say this, and it's an important point.

[1317] YouTube is managing at scale in an impossible volume.

[1318] The amount of people that are uploading videos to YouTube on a daily basis, to even hire people that are supposed to watch all that shit as it's being made is impossible.

[1319] Yeah.

[1320] There's no way you could do it.

[1321] You have hundreds of hours, hundreds and hundreds of hours of content uploaded every minute.

[1322] Yeah.

[1323] I mean, just imagine assigning someone to listen to this fucking show to watch every episode, three fucking hours.

[1324] This motherfucker, he takes up half my day.

[1325] Yeah, part of the thing of having a media company, you know, is where we put a lot of focus is I'm very interested in, I'm very interested in a broad.

[1326] Distribution.

[1327] Yeah, here it is right here.

[1328] YouTube will put ads on non -partner videos but won't pay the creators.

[1329] Yeah, YouTube said an update to his terms of services this week that it has the right to monetize all content on its platform.

[1330] As such, it said it will start putting ads on videos from channels not in the YouTube partner program, which shares ad revenue with creators.

[1331] So, yeah, that's it.

[1332] That's what Facebook does, though.

[1333] I mean, did for 15 years or whatever it was for a long time.

[1334] Well, that was the crazy thing about YouTube, right?

[1335] Was that YouTube, you know, a remarkable fair move decided to share revenue with the people that are creating content, encouraging people to create content.

[1336] Yeah.

[1337] Because I feel like if they didn't do that, people would still have created content.

[1338] Like, they really didn't have to do that.

[1339] Yeah.

[1340] And I remember when they first started doing it, when we first started making money, we were like, you can make money?

[1341] Yeah, we had a podcast episode the other day with an early YouTuber, a dude named Jared Outlaw, like an early YouTuber.

[1342] And he talked a lot about that being a major transition.

[1343] point and like as an early YouTuber it was when monetization became possible that it just really transformed the YouTube community and he was he like identified as a YouTuber but in with media a thing that I remain very interesting is this like diversification of distribution because you are so vulnerable yes all the time yeah um we we publish with Random House we produce podcasts that we distribute as free material with podcasts but then we just you know we just recently released a very high grade audio original thing through Random House and it was not even we released a book that never had a book version so is our project Campfire stories released it with them do stuff on social release material through traditional we still work with Sportsman Channel right everywhere all the time so that you don't feel like someone's going to unplug you all of a sudden.

[1344] Yeah.

[1345] Yeah, we were in this situation before the Spotify deal where I was very nervous because we would have controversial discussions.

[1346] You know, discussions on controversial subjects.

[1347] Yeah.

[1348] And subjects that where you would get removed, even if what you were saying was correct.

[1349] Like a perfect example is the lab leak theory.

[1350] Like the lab leak theory for COVID -19.

[1351] Oh yeah, you used to be, yeah.

[1352] You used to be a nut job for thinking that that was plausible.

[1353] Exactly.

[1354] But I had people on the podcast in April of 2020 saying that.

[1355] And I was labeled a dangerous conspiracy theorist by like these different left -wing media platforms that had decided that there was only one narrative, despite the fact that I had evolutionary biologists that were explaining in detail why when you study these viruses, it appears they've been manipulated.

[1356] I remember it being very naughty.

[1357] Very naughty.

[1358] Very naughty to think that a place that's.

[1359] Studies, coronaviruses, would have it be that someone would catch a coronavirus.

[1360] It's hilarious, right?

[1361] I mean, very, yeah.

[1362] And the fact that it broke out, it broke out in the very exact town and the exact neighborhood where this fucking level four lab was.

[1363] But that was part of the problem with having a president like Trump, who is so fucking polarizing that anything that he agreed with, people immediately disagreed with it.

[1364] Yeah.

[1365] I mean, he could have agreed with some.

[1366] of the most amazing inventions in the history of the world, you'd be a racist if you agreed with them because of the fact that Trump was a proponent of them, that he was promoting them.

[1367] So I recognized.

[1368] I always fantasized about a quiet version of Trump.

[1369] Yeah.

[1370] Oh, like someone who wasn't bombastic.

[1371] Yeah, you would have, many policies, he could have pursued many policies, or let me put it this way, Obama could have sold many of his policies.

[1372] And people It would have been like, oh, yeah, it makes sense.

[1373] Oh, yeah, for sure, yeah.

[1374] Well, in fact, he did, particularly the stuff about the border.

[1375] When people talk about how Trump was so horrific in his border, like there's speeches where Obama is talking about how we can't have porous borders, and we have to protect our borders.

[1376] And people are like, oh, yeah, it makes a total sense.

[1377] Yeah, this is outrageous today.

[1378] But no, he could, it would have been interesting to pursue many of his policy positions in a way where he would come and be like, you know, I see both sides, but, you know, after careful consideration.

[1379] Well, it's hard, right, because the guy's entire.

[1380] career he had this one persona this fuck you pay me I'm the man you know you're fired you like he was always like Rosie's gross he always had like Rosie O'Donnell's disgusting person like he would like insult people openly and that was part of his thing and he did it while he was president which was wild it was wild to see like a president sitting president talking about a woman he had sex with and calling her horse face like I remember seeing that on Twitter going This is crazy.

[1381] He's not changing at all.

[1382] But that's what got him to the dance.

[1383] But that's what got people excited about him.

[1384] Oh, he's real.

[1385] He's PC.

[1386] But it also really fucking polarized the people that were in opposition to him.

[1387] And so because of that, everybody kind of lost their mind.

[1388] And it became where you couldn't even discuss things with actual experts that were experts in the field that you were discussing people that had no education in it whatsoever.

[1389] were deciding that these subjects were off limits and now would be demonetized.

[1390] And I saw that comment.

[1391] I was like, that's a real problem for me because I'm not going to change how I do this show.

[1392] I'm going to, I'm, I can't.

[1393] There's no reason.

[1394] I wouldn't do it.

[1395] I wouldn't enjoy it.

[1396] I'd hate myself.

[1397] If there was subjects that were taboo that I found profoundly interesting and I didn't discuss them because I thought I would be demonetized, I would be fucked.

[1398] I would be like, why am I doing this then?

[1399] Why don't I quit?

[1400] Because I want it to be just like, if you and I were having a conversation, if we We were sitting across a fucking dinner table or we're hanging out at your house and we just start talking about stuff and it's interesting.

[1401] I want to just talk about it.

[1402] I just want the cameras to be on it so other people can be in on the conversation.

[1403] But I'm not going to change how I do this.

[1404] I'm never going to change how I do this.

[1405] So we were in this situation where I was like, okay, well, should we start putting stuff on, we put stuff on Vimeo for quite a while.

[1406] I'm like, should I start expanding and looking for other online video platforms?

[1407] Would that water us down?

[1408] Would that help us?

[1409] And then I started thinking about all these other social media platforms.

[1410] Maybe I should join them and start posting them.

[1411] But a lot of them are like you get labeled a right -wing kook if you're on these.

[1412] And, you know, all these QAnon folks on there.

[1413] And, you know, it's so it's one of those things where we're in such a strange time when it comes to media.

[1414] Because everybody is sort of making the rules up as they go along.

[1415] And the amount of censorship that these companies are allowed to, they're allowed to, they're allowed to, employ with no real regulations in terms of like, you know, the First Amendment or...

[1416] They're privately held companies.

[1417] I know they are, but they're so big that they're not really...

[1418] It's not simple anymore.

[1419] Like, Twitter is responsible for an enormous portion of the world's discourse.

[1420] And to say that that's just a private company, then these people that run this private company, like, who are they?

[1421] Like, they're the arbiters of information.

[1422] They're the people that are allowed to decide based on their own policies, which is based on their own ideologies, what is and is not acceptable.

[1423] But you're one of the country's biggest media personalities.

[1424] How odd.

[1425] Well, I'm just telling you, I don't know if you don't know this.

[1426] You are.

[1427] That's what I heard.

[1428] Okay.

[1429] Are you willing to have someone come to you and say that you need to be more fair to everyone because you have outsized influence?

[1430] It's the opposite.

[1431] I would like want other people to be able to talk freely the way I'm able to talk freely.

[1432] I wouldn't want to restrict their ability to do a podcast just because I'm doing a podcast.

[1433] Yeah, that's good one.

[1434] Yeah.

[1435] If I have an opinion on things, I think, I always think that the answer, and I've been wrong before, and if I'm wrong, I always try to correct myself if I find out that I'm wrong.

[1436] I'm not one that tries to bury like an incorrect statement.

[1437] I will try to expose it and try to explain how I was incorrect.

[1438] I don't think anybody would trust you if you don't do that, especially when you're doing something like this where, you know, we don't talk before this.

[1439] This is one subject that we did talk about before this.

[1440] The deer.

[1441] The deer thing.

[1442] No, you told me not talking about it.

[1443] The deer having COVID.

[1444] I was like, let's not hold that.

[1445] Let's talk about it on the podcast because I knew it was interesting.

[1446] Deer having COVID.

[1447] But we don't have like a set agenda.

[1448] So when you don't have a set agenda, there's oftentimes you're going to come across things and thank God Jamie's the best one -handed Googler in the business.

[1449] I don't know what the fuck we're going to talk about while we're talking about.

[1450] That's part of the the fun of the show is that it is just a conversation.

[1451] As soon as I micromanage that and change, it's like it's going to lose whatever appeal it has to me because the appeal it has to me is like to be able to have conversations.

[1452] I want everybody to be able to do that.

[1453] The problem with people that have rigid ideologies that also have the power to decide what people can and can't do is that you get situations like the lab leak hypothesis where they're wrong and they're banning people and they're censoring people and it goes on for months and months and months and it destroys people's faith in free expression.

[1454] It destroys the ability to have conversations about the subject that are important because you have to say, well, why do you believe that this leak hypothesis is probable?

[1455] And then you have an evolutionary biologist or a virologist or an epidemiologist and they start explaining things or debating it in a way that it seems like it's not possible.

[1456] And you can't have those conversations if someone has an ideological opposition to an idea based on a person who's a proponent of that idea like Donald Trump, saying it's the Chinese virus, and then all of a sudden, everybody says, well, if you discuss it, having leaked from a lab that you're a racist.

[1457] And then, you know, you've got to be able to figure out what's right and what's wrong.

[1458] The only way is through discussion.

[1459] The only way.

[1460] It's the only way.

[1461] You can't have a person who decides you can no longer talk about this subject, because this subject, project has detrimental effects on X, Y, or Z. Well, it says who?

[1462] Because some people would say it doesn't.

[1463] And some people would say, well, X, Y, and Z are problematic because you can't have that discussion.

[1464] So they're these sacred topics that you can never really get an understanding of it.

[1465] And then they're like a religion.

[1466] Like, what are they now?

[1467] You're not allowed to take the Lord's name in vain.

[1468] You're not allowed to talk about the Wuhan Clinic.

[1469] Like, what are we doing?

[1470] Like, are we talking or are we under this weird censorship?

[1471] of these people that really don't have any expertise in the subject at hand.

[1472] You can have expertise in every subject.

[1473] So as soon as you have people that are ideologically opposed to certain discussions, you've got a real problem with free speech.

[1474] And I think that an argument can be made with all these social media platforms, that they're so fucking big now that they can influence so much of the world's discussions that we have to figure out where we stand in terms of free.

[1475] expression.

[1476] Because if you say to a person, you can't talk on Twitter because you don't believe in that a man can be a woman.

[1477] That's a good example, right?

[1478] Because that's one of the things that gets you banned from Twitter.

[1479] If you don't believe a man can be a woman, you know, like a trans woman, or if you use some, this is one that you get banned from, if you decide to become stevena Ronella, and I keep calling you Steve, a little old Steve Renella, Like, I'm dead naming you.

[1480] It's called dead naming.

[1481] Hmm.

[1482] And that's a ban for life.

[1483] I hadn't heard that word.

[1484] You get banned for life.

[1485] Really?

[1486] This is crazy.

[1487] Because, like, that's your name.

[1488] Yeah, yeah.

[1489] Right?

[1490] It's been your name for 40 plus years.

[1491] Why can't I call you that anymore?

[1492] That's so offensive.

[1493] But I can call you a cunt.

[1494] I can call you a dope.

[1495] I can call you a stupid piece of shit and that's fine.

[1496] But if I call you by your old name, I'm dead naming you.

[1497] Well, now we're in a weird ideological thing, right?

[1498] Because we've decided this is a protected class of people and that you can't even have this offensive discussion about this protected class of people.

[1499] So you've set up almost like this religious barricade to free expression about this one very, in your ideas, sensitive subject.

[1500] That's nonsense.

[1501] That's a crazy way to dictate how people can and can't talk.

[1502] And you develop this, you know, you're going to have these people that are going to say things in behind closed doors and be terrified that other people are listening.

[1503] And that's, that shouldn't be that way on the internet.

[1504] Especially when you're dealing with you.

[1505] with, you know, I mean, fuck most of the people on Twitter, they're not even using their name.

[1506] They have some fake name in their profile.

[1507] Yeah, to challenge orthodoxy, you either have to get really good, if you're going to challenge orthodoxy, you have to be so good that you can do it in a way that you don't, like, set off the alarms.

[1508] Certain comedians are able to do it.

[1509] Yeah.

[1510] Yeah, it's...

[1511] Comedians are probably the best trained to do it.

[1512] Yeah.

[1513] You can wiggle your way, but it has to have, like, an impact.

[1514] But oftentimes, like, people will take what you're doing out of context.

[1515] Oh, yeah.

[1516] Because you know, for sure.

[1517] Yeah.

[1518] I see that happen to, I see that happen to comedians.

[1519] I think, like, a lot of comedians, I've even brought this up that I think that you do this.

[1520] Whether you mean to or not, there's a, you build a sort of balance in it.

[1521] And what makes it okay to laugh about stuff is you're willing to laugh about yourself and you're willing to laugh about your own opinions.

[1522] Oh, I mean.

[1523] You're willing to laugh about your own history.

[1524] Okay.

[1525] that gives people some room to play.

[1526] But when you strip out certain portions, you can make someone look terrible.

[1527] Sure, out of context, in quotes, in an article.

[1528] Yeah.

[1529] I have a whole bit about it about some of the stuff that happened to me during the election with Bernie Sanders because it was so hilarious to read these articles where they're taking jokes and they're just taking a small snippet of a bit.

[1530] Yeah, I saw some of that material.

[1531] Hilarious.

[1532] Yeah.

[1533] This is a problem with, a lot of discourse in today's society because people are being they're they're being dishonest in doing that they're being dishonest and if you can't reply to that somehow you're you're banned from Twitter or you're banned from YouTube or you're banned from Facebooks or something like this comes up and you have no recourse there's no way you can defend yourself like that to me is a real issue because I've seen so many people mischaracterized misquoted taking out a contest Or even lied about like I've had fucking CNN say I'm taking horse dewormer I've seen that when I've got ivermectin prescribed by a doctor that's meant for humans and a medication that actually won the Nobel Prize for its use in humans and CNN lies about it and they do it on purpose and they know what they're doing so it's like if you if you can't defend yourself or there's no where you can say the truth like what are we doing like What are we doing?

[1534] Do we have just sanctioned bodies that are allowed to manipulate reality for their own financial benefit or to promote whatever narrative that they think is either beneficial or sanctioned?

[1535] Like, is that free speech?

[1536] That's not free speech.

[1537] So if you can't defend yourself on Twitter, if you can't defend yourself on Facebook or YouTube, if you don't have a podcast, those are your options.

[1538] And if they remove you from one of those options or all those options, like, that's one of the crazy things that the White House press secretary said is that if you get removed from any social media platform for misinformation, you should be removed from all of them.

[1539] Well, what about if you're right?

[1540] That's what she said, which is so crazy.

[1541] That's not your position.

[1542] Okay, your position is to be saying what the president will do or won't do.

[1543] What is the policy?

[1544] Answer the reporter's questions.

[1545] Your job is not to dictate what social media companies do or don't do in terms of misinformation.

[1546] And to even think that this is your place to manipulate or suggest is fucking chaos.

[1547] It's crazy.

[1548] It's crazy that we're in a position where a person would say something like that.

[1549] We should ban more people for misinformation.

[1550] Well, define misinformation because you give a lot of it yourself.

[1551] Like the fucking White House press secretary is responsible for the occasional misinformation.

[1552] Yeah.

[1553] Like what happens there?

[1554] Should you be banned?

[1555] Because that seems like, you know, if we're going to hold everybody to the same standard, we should be really clear about this.

[1556] Like, what does that mean when you say misinformation?

[1557] If someone fact checks you and they find you to be in error and you do not correct it publicly, what are we supposed to do about that?

[1558] Should you be banned from being a White House press secretary?

[1559] Should you be banned from being able to speak on social media because you've been proven to be incorrect, possibly willfully?

[1560] I think we need free expression.

[1561] We need free expression to sort it all out.

[1562] And it's very convenient for people to just want to silence people who say things that they don't like or say things they think are inappropriate.

[1563] It's not healthy.

[1564] The only way we figure out what's right is you let everybody talk and it's messy and it's complicated and a lot of times people say things you don't like.

[1565] But that's how you sort out what's how you feel about things.

[1566] It takes a long time.

[1567] It takes a long time to gather up a true opinion on a subject.

[1568] And one of the only real ways is to get a view of it from all sides.

[1569] And in history, We typically, after a period of 50 years or so, look back and condemn any occasion where we have suppressed dissenting views.

[1570] Yeah, I think we're going to do that here too.

[1571] Blacklisting people, you know, from the Red Scare.

[1572] Yep.

[1573] Issues that came around civil liberties for certain minority groups during World War II.

[1574] This just winds up being like a theme, and later we'll look and be like, yeah, you know.

[1575] Yeah.

[1576] That was a minute.

[1577] We got a little carried away.

[1578] there.

[1579] People after the terror, it hasn't been 50 years by any stretch, it's been 20 years, people after the terror attacks at 9 -11 who question certain orthodoxy about what we should do militarily, right?

[1580] We're putting a certain place and now it's like we're dusting off and kind of like re -looking at these early whistleblowers.

[1581] Yeah, you know, it'll be interesting to see how the history of this stuff gets written, particularly around questions around like when you dare question COVID orthodoxy.

[1582] I've been, you know, I've been, I've had it.

[1583] I got the vaccine.

[1584] I was kind of misled because I thought the government was going to try to take my brain over.

[1585] But I wanted to get in the ring.

[1586] I wanted to get in the ring with them and fight it out, but nothing happened, you know.

[1587] What do you mean?

[1588] Oh, just, I'm making a joke about the different people's concerns about the vaccine, and I got the vaccine, and I felt like nothing happened to me. Oh, some people thought it had mind control agents?

[1589] Yeah, I've heard all.

[1590] I've heard all manner of things.

[1591] I've heard magnets.

[1592] I've seen people, there's hours and hours on YouTube, or at least there were, of people putting magnets on their injection site, and they think that somehow I know there's like a chip in there.

[1593] To draw it back out?

[1594] No, no, they think there's a chip in there, like the magnet sticks.

[1595] Oh, not even try that.

[1596] I mean, I don't know why it sticks.

[1597] I mean, I don't know if it's bullshit.

[1598] I don't know if they're making things up.

[1599] Yeah, my point, I guess my primary point around that is that I have, through this I have been on many sides of issues and have largely tried to just like roll through it and not have people tell me what to do right so and looking at travel restrictions I'm like oh I want to avoid travel restrictions even though I already had COVID I'm like I'm gonna go get the vaccine because I don't want to have any kind of travel restriction which one did you get Moderna did you have any side effects because that's the strongest one no yeah for a couple hours I felt a little weird How many months was it between your infection with COVID and then getting the shot?

[1600] I think I got it as soon as, I think you had to wait.

[1601] I think I got it as soon as I could.

[1602] So like three months or something?

[1603] Yeah, whatever they told you.

[1604] Yeah.

[1605] I was concerned about, like I said, I was concerned about travel restrictions.

[1606] And I just was kind of like going along with the program.

[1607] And did you get two shots or did you get one?

[1608] Two shots?

[1609] Whatever distance apart.

[1610] Yeah.

[1611] And nothing really had.

[1612] I didn't really get that.

[1613] I got sleepy when I had COVID.

[1614] I got achy when I had the vaccine.

[1615] But, you know, I've held all these different opinions, like deep frustration.

[1616] I went from being that right away.

[1617] I was like, oh, it's just a thing we're going to have to live with.

[1618] Everyone will wind up getting it.

[1619] Then I got, like, really hopeful that maybe it'll somehow go away and everybody get vaccinated and it'll go away.

[1620] Then the vaccine came out and people I know that got vaccinated, got COVID.

[1621] Then I was back to thinking that everybody's just going to wind up getting it.

[1622] So I have sat on so many sides.

[1623] Like I've sat on every possible side of this thing.

[1624] Yeah.

[1625] And at this point now, I just, you get to a point where you, it's kind of like throw my hands up in the air, and it's becomes, and as I've thrown my hands up in the air about like not understanding it, losing faith that anybody really understands it right now, it's been now difficult for me to see people getting punished for challenging the orthodoxy when everything has changed so much.

[1626] It's like, how could any person sit right now and act like you have like the authoritative view?

[1627] on what's going to happen.

[1628] And this is coming from someone who's played along with the program every step of the way and when I come out on the other side of it, I have like a deep skepticism and not that I feel that there's a, I don't feel that there's like some grand master plan.

[1629] I just have a deep skepticism of anyone coming and being so positive about something that they're going to punish someone for having some different view.

[1630] I think at this point it's like pretty fair for people to sit and hash out what they think's going on.

[1631] In terms of where you're getting at with just like the social media climate and how it has been used in that way to sort of like punish dissenting voices or exclude dissenting voices, I think that I have perhaps an unusual perspective on it because for my entire career, I've dealt with a set of ideas that are inherently controversial.

[1632] I'm a firearm owner.

[1633] um i support second amendment rights all my material involves guns we kill animals and eat them right uh these things all existed like this set of ideas and set of interests that i had existed pre social media so as social media came to be a thing i've always lived within the context of how do i take things that are that are um that that the people that that whole distribution channels are probably going to have a semi -adversarial view of and how do I find a way to keep dealing with the ideas I want to deal with and distribute the ideas and distribute the imagery and distribute the content that I want to make in a way that conforms to their views so that I can keep doing it.

[1634] So I feel like I've always like a little bit of been like a you know like a spy kind of like living in this other world in some way like I'm used to feeling like someone's going to come and take my shit away from me you know yeah I see what I'm like when we you know when we first started to run shows on Netflix I even told I couldn't even get excited about it I was like that shit won't be there a day it won't be there a day I remember having this conversation with you because it was like one star you guys had like one star because back during the star days people were attacking your show because it was the first show that Netflix had that showed actual hunting.

[1635] I wanted to talk to you about that.

[1636] How did that come about?

[1637] Like, what was the conversation?

[1638] Because that's a brave move for them to decide to take something that's traditionally been on the sportsman's channel with the outdoor network and then to put it on Netflix.

[1639] We worked with a company that handled distribution.

[1640] And this is years ago now.

[1641] We worked at the company that handled international distribution and the company that handled international distribution had some connections in Netflix and Netflix purchased what was called a second window were they hesitant at all?

[1642] Did you have conversations about content or anything?

[1643] They may have been hesitant but they didn't tell us anything about the hesitancy.

[1644] In fact I have never and this is after years I have never had a discussion over there that even alludes to it interesting yeah and you saw their response when when people were getting up in arms about that cuties thing but that was crazy right like that was the degree to it there's a thing like the degree to which you stand by producers and the degree to which you stand by your ideas it just hasn't been it hasn't been a thing but i assumed i wake up i used to wake up every day thinking that oh there's no way we're going to be able to stay on instagram there's no way we're going to be able to be on youtube there's no way we're going to be on twitter and then at the same time that I'm like worrying about that we have you know our material gets outward validation from we're on you know a large streaming service we publish with random house so we have certain people who are very very intimate with our material being okay with it and distributing it and allowing us to monetize it at the same time feeling like someone at any minute is just going to like drop it out because we use firearms you know the funniest thing is through all this it's like you'd imagine we get attacked from the right more than the left really oh far yeah always like I mean we get attacked from the left and the right but we get attacked from the right more than we get attacked you know I think it's kind of like I think that that a lot of what we do makes people uneasy that there's sort of a new like there's this kind of like new emerging thing that has maybe disrupted some traditional that has disrupted some traditional monopoly they held on certain audiences it would be that somehow even though everything we make virtually everything we make has firearms in it every show we put out his firearms in it is that you don't love firearms enough which is just like it's always confusing to me so when I mean we get attacked from the left like we get attack from the left some it'll always be like a little bit of a it'll always feel very nuanced when you're attacked from the left but we get a lot of heat most of the heat we get would be from the right wow I would have never expected that yeah be that you um like you do something it's like you're too woke you're not woke enough you uh you know it'd be like you glorify guns but then the louder voice be like but they don't glorify them enough really oh dude all the time it's crazy but I think it's because I think it's from being, you know, it's from getting to a position where people, you know, there's some people that probably feel like a little left out.

[1645] Yeah, that's probably it.

[1646] You know, they feel a little left out, and it's like a little bit like, I had a guy explain that to me. It was really interesting.

[1647] He said, you have to be careful because you give off the impression that you're having a party inside of a walled garden.

[1648] And he said, on the outside are like well fuck those people and that's he goes you're getting a lot of hate in that way where people misconstrue you purposefully they do it on purpose because they they don't like the feeling that they're not invited to this thing and some of them might even be your peers yeah wow I never thought of it that way he goes you have to be like you have to reach out to those people and try to like try to welcome them oh and then they'll but I don't want to reach out want they already been an asshole yeah I feel like you could find it I've looked at another thing where I've seen um in my life where I've seen that that um that a that a Christian might be deeply troubled by a Mormon okay and they might be very fixated on the threat of Mormonism and you'd be like man I feel like you'd be worried about devil worshipers yeah like that to me seems like who like I would have a I'd be after the devil worshippers yeah yeah yeah but they're like no I'm after this thing that's a little bit different than me you know yeah and it's such a crowded confused world and and when you kind of like survey the enemies when you sort of find that um you know you find that that uh the people that are a little bit like it'd be like if during world war two we had decided to go and uh like you know bomb england because they weren't like totally on board with our plan rather than staying focused on the freaking germans you know and so i think that a lot of that like a lot of that heat is coming from people who you know they're looking and like you're a lot like us but maybe you're a little bit different maybe and it also could be that you're getting all these accolades that they're not and so then they try to find reasons why you suck yeah sure there's a lot of that oh yeah plenty of them plenty of reasons why yeah it's uh it's interesting and that's one of the more interesting things about social media right it's like a lot of the things that if people have said sort of behind closed doors now they're said in sort of an open forum you know and it's it just shows you how petty and also like a lack of emotional development that some intelligent people have like they're they can be accomplished and intelligent and successful and they still act like fucking babies like they're still this is like why do you care like if there's a show and you don't think they glorify guns enough and you're angry at them like are you do you have enough shit in your own life to focus on Like, why are you focusing on that?

[1649] It's usually because, you know, you're probably at least a little jealous.

[1650] Unless you've done something egregious, like you've actually campaigned against Second Amendment rights, which of course, I know you'd never do, but if you did, like then they'd be like, well, this is crazy, this fucking show, they use guns and then they campaign against guns so hypocritical.

[1651] But that's not the case.

[1652] No. No. So for you saying that you're getting a lot of hate from the right, that means there's a lot of dummies on the right.

[1653] that's what I think yeah you know I I do wonder about it and again it's uh you get like you you experience this all the time you get in trouble for having and talking about getting in trouble from the right and the left you get in trouble for having conversations of certain people yeah you know we had a um we had a native american historian and activist named taylor keen in our podcast so um he said some things that people view as controversial around um like you around things like picking up a arrowhead picking an arrowhead up off the ground or the land back movement right so uh people are pissed yeah they're pissed that you know he said the things he said yeah you do with this all the time yeah um Tucker carlson came on the show and people are then mad about that you talk to him yeah they're mad you we had um you platformed yeah we had a woman named Rue Mappon from Outdoor Afro.

[1654] So she talked about her experience as a black woman in the outdoors, right?

[1655] Great conversation.

[1656] People get really pissed.

[1657] They're just mad that she came on.

[1658] And she said, not only in talking to her, Rue pointed out to me that people are going to be mad at her for talking to me. Yeah.

[1659] After we got the recording, she's like, you know, you're going to get in trouble for talking to me. And you know what's funny?

[1660] And you'll never, I don't realize this.

[1661] I'll get a bunch of shit from coming and talking to you guys.

[1662] it was an interesting conversation.

[1663] I enjoyed it a lot.

[1664] But the right, they get, as much as people on the right right now are against cancel culture.

[1665] You know?

[1666] And I'm glad they are.

[1667] They seem like oftentimes, representations of that perspective seem to be guilty.

[1668] like they seem to be guilty of their own crime by being very eager to restrict certain voices that don't conform to them and I do try I do try to like invite a variety of voices okay and and and and and represent like kind of opinions that I think are interesting and not every opinion that comes on in my materials necessarily my opinion But I try to do it And it just makes people mad Because people want you to be their thing Yeah Yeah I experienced that with Evan Hafer from Black Rifle Coffee You know he was experiencing some Weird cancel culture shit from the right Sure Online and I was like what the fuck is going on I called him I go come on the podcast I go we got to talk about this because this is so ridiculous Like this is these are the people that have been rallying against this For the four years that Trump was in office And rallying against this with a year that Biden's been in office or less than a year.

[1669] Now they're doing it.

[1670] They're doing it.

[1671] They're doing the same thing.

[1672] It's almost like, well, they get to do it.

[1673] We'll do it too.

[1674] And it didn't make any sense.

[1675] No, they weren't going after the devil worshippers.

[1676] No, no, they were going after people that were very similar to them.

[1677] But also, wildly successful.

[1678] That's part of the problem.

[1679] Like Black Rifle Coffee is a wildly successful organization.

[1680] I watched that with great interest.

[1681] I'm friends with Evan We have a hunt together Coming up I watch the great interest And be like how Like how Yeah like the friendly fire incidents Yeah How is anyone justifying that Yeah It's nonsense We're fighting We're fighting people We're definitely that In this country Yeah Well people love to talk shit too And you know And they get caught up In petty bickering Do you know what, though, I got to say this, man. All the divisiveness, it's like the thing that blows my mind, though, is when I go about my daily existence, if I didn't know it wasn't all going on from the news and social media and stuff, when I go about my daily existence and just the interactions I have with people.

[1682] Yeah.

[1683] Fuck, I would never know what was happening.

[1684] Yeah.

[1685] How is that possible?

[1686] Because that environment is.

[1687] I just think that like, oh, you know, hey.

[1688] Because the environment of social media is a terrible environment for human communication.

[1689] The environment when you're going about your daily business is normal.

[1690] You're talking to people.

[1691] And most of the time, like sometimes people have like a weird opinion to someone.

[1692] Then they talk to him like, oh, he's a good guy.

[1693] Yeah.

[1694] Like, this happened to me a couple of days ago.

[1695] Someone told me that there's this business thing that I'm doing and like this guy is a real problem.

[1696] He's just, he's very full of himself.

[1697] You're not going to enjoy it.

[1698] I'm like, wow, shit.

[1699] Okay, well, I'm just going to put my best foot forward and see what happens.

[1700] I meet the guy, and he's wonderful.

[1701] He's friendly.

[1702] He's nice.

[1703] And then I'm like, oh, maybe that other person was a fucking pain in the ass.

[1704] And they met this guy, or maybe that guy had a cold that day.

[1705] I mean, I don't know when he met that other person, maybe who the fuck knows what it is?

[1706] Like, people are different on different days for different reasons.

[1707] But I had it in my head, but then I met him, and he was great.

[1708] Had a great time.

[1709] So, something about human interaction when you're together, the way we're supposed to, look at each other in the eye, have a conversation, be close to each other, like physically in the room with each other.

[1710] That's how humans are meant to communicate.

[1711] When we're communicating anonymously through text messages or arguing about things on Facebook and these fucking long, verbose passages, like, it's not normal.

[1712] It's not a normal way where you get to just fucking expand upon something for parables.

[1713] after paragraph where no one says well that's fucking wrong and that's not true or that's not what I said and this is not what I meant and you're changing this and taking this out of context people people get more angry with each other when you don't get to respond when someone says something and you're like you're like well that's not me fuck you and then they it's designed in a way that is not compatible with human emotions with normal human interactions with social cues and reading each other's like like Louis Sika had a bit about this once about kids and kids doing things online that kids like to be mean online because it's like it's like fun and they don't feel anything like if some kid is in front of you and they say something mean then the other kid feels bad and starts crying they go oh well that doesn't feel good yeah but they say it online they're like oh fuck him hey you fat fuck and they say it and then no they don't feel anything because there's no one there but the impact on the other person is real it's a terrible way to communicate and this is the way that a lot of ideas get discussed a lot of people are communicating that way and as detailed by these documentaries like the social dilemma and you know these different books that have been written about this problem and that woman who just testified which is kind of crazy right the day the woman's testifying about the problems with Facebook is the day Facebook goes down.

[1714] And there's a lot of conspiracies about that, right?

[1715] But that this is an issue.

[1716] It's an issue that they're aware of inside the company and that they chose profit over rectifying this issue.

[1717] They're like, well, this is what we do, though.

[1718] They're like, we're making a lot of money doing this.

[1719] You know, and I think that in the wild, when people are just running into each other, we're still just people.

[1720] isn't there maybe I'm wrong about this but isn't the inception of that app like what they were fixing to make was they're fixing to make a way you vote people up and down I think it was just a dating app wasn't Facebook originally a dating app to vote yes to who you wanted to be like yeah yeah there were other apps around the same time where you would find someone hot and you click yeah they're hot and they'd get like ranked higher so it's like yeah maybe it hasn't drifted too far maybe yeah well the thing about Facebook is I think when they do their prognosis on the future it skews so old like it's young people are dropping off of the use of Facebook pretty radically and they see if that's true pretty sure that's true I read something about it today but I was only like gave it a cursory examination but I think what they're saying is that Facebook is kind of doomed and so they're in this sort of desperate, even though they're making billions and billions of dollars.

[1721] Yeah, you could see the end in sight with your age thing.

[1722] Yeah, whereas TikTok is the opposite.

[1723] Scales very low.

[1724] Like, my fucking kids are into TikTok.

[1725] A lot of people, young folks, are into TikTok.

[1726] You know, Instagram is kind of like the middle ground.

[1727] Twitter is where people go to throw shit at each other.

[1728] Yeah.

[1729] Here it is.

[1730] Facebook misled investors about shrinking user base.

[1731] Complaint to SEC, Facebook, handling of duplicate accounts was extensive fraud.

[1732] So what is it saying about user base?

[1733] Facebook is leading investors about shrinking teen and young adult user bases and about the actual number of Facebook users.

[1734] Former employee, Francis Haugin, alleged a whistleblower complaint Facebook stock valuation is based almost entirely on predictions of future advertising revenue.

[1735] The company cites evidence showing that Facebook has for years past and ongoing violated U .S. securities laws by making material misrepresentations and omissions in statements to investors and prospective investors, including through filings with the SEC, testimony to Congress, online statements, and media stories.

[1736] Facebook has misrepresented core metrics to investors and advertisers, including the amount of content produced on its platform.

[1737] What does it say about single users, accounts, old people, where's it say?

[1738] Fraud against...

[1739] Oh, here it is.

[1740] failed to disclose internal data showing a contraction of the user base in important demographics, including American teenagers and young adults.

[1741] The company is also hidden to the extent of which content production per user has been in long -term decline.

[1742] The complaint said, but obviously these are allegations from a whistleblower.

[1743] We don't know if they're true.

[1744] That's a good little bit of news thing there.

[1745] You put that in the end?

[1746] Yeah, you got to.

[1747] Because who the fuck knows?

[1748] She might be crazy.

[1749] And apparently she's donated a lot of money to AOC and like some heavy -duty left -wing.

[1750] And she was, like, upset that if you are a young woman, this is a very good complaint, a valid complaint, that if you're a young woman, Facebook won't, if you have issues with anorexia, Facebook will send you anorexia content your way, which may exacerbate someone's predilection towards anorexia, which is fucking terrifying.

[1751] They're the people that get it the worst, apparently, is young girls.

[1752] Young girls get social media.

[1753] They get the impact of social media worse than anybody.

[1754] According to Jonathan Haidt in the coddling of the American mind, you talked about that, that higher suicide rates, self -harm, all that stuff, the bullying, online bullying.

[1755] Young girls are the victims of that more than that.

[1756] Yeah, I read a statistic that of teenage girls.

[1757] I can't remember, like a pretty staggering majority of teenage girls go to sleep at night.

[1758] with some level of anxiety about social media.

[1759] Yeah.

[1760] I can only imagine.

[1761] But, you know, our kids now, they don't, they're not on social media, and they don't read the news, so they don't know that everybody hates everybody now.

[1762] And when they see someone coming down on the road, they wave.

[1763] And their head is like, this guy's probably not bad.

[1764] Let's go talk to that guy.

[1765] Well, that was, like they were saying.

[1766] They're totally cool with everybody, you know.

[1767] And no one's really let them down yet.

[1768] The amount of things that Facebook has influence on, having owned.

[1769] Have they own WhatsApp, they own Instagram, they own Facebook, and this gigantic multimedia empire.

[1770] I mean, it's enormous.

[1771] There was an argument.

[1772] But you have to, in some way you have to sit and acknowledge that they made a thing.

[1773] They made a thing that's useful.

[1774] And for me, as a content producer, me as a media personality, I'm able to use the tools they made and reach people that I otherwise wouldn't make.

[1775] Yep.

[1776] So it's like I can't, I have, I can't be like unbridled in my hatred when, but I didn't come up with the thing.

[1777] Right.

[1778] Someone else came up with it.

[1779] And it's very useful.

[1780] Yep.

[1781] Yeah.

[1782] There's a real good argument there.

[1783] But there's also an argument that it needs some sort of regulation.

[1784] Because in other countries, they've used it to have people murdered, to lie about, to overthrow governments.

[1785] They've used it to put out political rivals have put out false information completely unchecked.

[1786] It's led people to kill people and overthrow.

[1787] Sure, but you could make the same condemnation of our First Amendment rights.

[1788] You could.

[1789] You could say like it's people use their First Amendment privileges and it creates riots.

[1790] They use their First Amendment privileges and it radicalizes people.

[1791] It's just gotten too far.

[1792] It's too much now.

[1793] It's too much influence, right?

[1794] The idea is that, first of all, Facebook comes on phones in a lot of countries.

[1795] Like, in a lot of countries, they make deals with cellular providers so that, like, if you buy a phone.

[1796] It was like when U -2 was able to put that album on all those iPhones.

[1797] Yeah, remember how mad people got?

[1798] That was probably the worst thing that U -2 ever did.

[1799] Oh, dude, that thing still, like, you can't, yeah, like, now and then, when I turn my truck on it, somehow, like, finds that album still.

[1800] Like, what?

[1801] Stop that.

[1802] When the Bluetooth sings up and just randomly play it.

[1803] a song yeah that's not on my fucking playlist yeah that was a well boy what a fucking bad PR move that was yeah I mean look these conversations are interesting and the you're right there's no like definitive yes or no good or bad because they're new they're really new discussions they you know there hasn't been a hundred years of social media influence where we get to have an understanding of what kind of impact this has on our society yeah and I still feel like I'm like a mouse in someone's kitchen, man, like that I'm able to be in there doing my shit and haven't been found out yet thrown out.

[1804] I get it too, especially with your line of business.

[1805] And then when you see these new regulations that YouTube's putting out and you realize like, oh, well, this might be a real fucking problem.

[1806] Oh, yeah.

[1807] When I look at people who their livelihood is built, strictly around YouTube, it feels, like my God, does it feel vulnerable to me?

[1808] Unless you're on there showing like how to make, you know, crochet or like make bead bracelets and shit, I don't know.

[1809] Are you doing those videos like Sniperwolf does where you're reacting to things?

[1810] Like, oh my God, did you see that?

[1811] Oh my God.

[1812] Like, she's funny and she's silly.

[1813] It's G -rated.

[1814] Yeah, so maybe you're not.

[1815] Yeah, but I think there's a lot of people that I look and I'm like, man, you being in the, you being what you're into.

[1816] Yeah.

[1817] And that you're only doing it there.

[1818] Yeah.

[1819] I'd have a hard time resting at night.

[1820] I would feel like someone like the man was coming for you.

[1821] That influenced my decision to leave and go to Spotify for sure.

[1822] I didn't trust anybody.

[1823] I didn't trust.

[1824] I didn't even trust Apple.

[1825] I didn't trust the, because I knew that there were certain episodes.

[1826] Like when Alex Jones came on my podcast once, the ratings went down.

[1827] Like there was no update in the ratings for like a week.

[1828] When I tell you it was my biggest podcast.

[1829] at that point in time.

[1830] I think eventually Elon Musk became bigger and a few other ones became bigger.

[1831] But at that time, when Alex came on for episode 9 -11, it was not just the biggest, but it was the biggest by far.

[1832] But that wasn't reflected.

[1833] Not only was it not, but reflected.

[1834] There was no ratings.

[1835] The rating stopped.

[1836] And then when it came back, that episode was ranked like, you know, number five or six or something like that, where other episodes where I knew what the downloads were, were number two or one.

[1837] I'm like, how?

[1838] How is that?

[1839] Well, they're doing some shenanigans.

[1840] They didn't want that episode.

[1841] I think somebody, I don't know if it's true.

[1842] I might be wrong.

[1843] But I think somewhere, someone didn't want that episode to be number one.

[1844] Because the numbers were crazy.

[1845] It was like 16, 18 million downloads.

[1846] It was nuts.

[1847] And it was because it was a wild, chaotic, you know, alcohol and marijuana -fueled conspiracy ride with a maniac.

[1848] Yeah.

[1849] Well, at a certain level of influence, you know that people do, at a certain level of influence there are people that are able to pay detailed attention to very specific things I'm sure like I wouldn't be shocked to hear that that your show drew some special level of attention the same way that there were people at Twitter assigned to Trump's tweets for sure yeah and then all the other you could write insane stuff that would never get discovered yeah But at a point, you're like someone is forced to pay attention.

[1850] It had gotten to the point where the show was always number one.

[1851] So the episodes were always number one.

[1852] So if it was always number one and then he came on and it was number one, that became a problem.

[1853] And then it was the numbers were so high.

[1854] You know, it was, it was an interesting moment.

[1855] But it was also like, I mean, they were great.

[1856] They never really, they never censored me. They never told me what to do or what not to do.

[1857] No episodes ever got taken down.

[1858] I mean, Apple is essentially they're just an aggregator, right?

[1859] You're saying Apple never took your episodes down?

[1860] Never, never once, never censored anything, never gave me a hard time, never gave any sort of criticism or anything.

[1861] They were great.

[1862] But they did a weird thing where they never really got involved financially in podcasts.

[1863] And I think it's a tremendous business mistake, tremendous business.

[1864] Well, they're trying to rectify that now in a way.

[1865] It won't be so, maybe so great for producers.

[1866] Yeah, what are they trying to do now?

[1867] Oh, just like move away from, move away from applying that it's just like a random distributor.

[1868] Like if they were to do some kind of paywall situation, what it would do to download numbers?

[1869] It's hard to get people to pay.

[1870] There's too much shit that's out there for free.

[1871] You know, there's so much good content today.

[1872] There's a million podcast, a million.

[1873] I mean, if you go back to the day where, Friends was the number one show in the country, or Seinfeld was the number one show in the country.

[1874] How many fucking shows were there?

[1875] Was there 20?

[1876] I mean, how many fucking shows were there?

[1877] How many show, what's like number one?

[1878] I mean, what is in prime time?

[1879] I mean, Jesus Christ, you have seven days a week and you have three hours every night or whatever prime time is.

[1880] And out of all those shows, that's not a lot.

[1881] You know, we got 50 shows.

[1882] And then you got, you know, cable networks, which don't, you know, really get the same kind of numbers back.

[1883] then and then you have a show that's number one all these things are sanctioned everything is on a network everything is on a network that's broadcast through the government's pipes everything is all like censored and there's advertising that's inserted and this is a wild west of content where anyone can have something and anyone can put and a lot of them are good so if you have a million shows, which is really what there is right now, for someone to come along and say, I want you to pay, good fucking luck, good fucking luck.

[1884] I mean, even if you have a really good show, even if you have the best show, like if this show, if I did that with, I'm not saying my show is the best show, but if I did, it's, it's very highly rated, right?

[1885] If I decided to make people pay for it, I would lose almost everybody.

[1886] Do you think so?

[1887] Yeah, yeah, I think so unless I was the victim of some sort of censorship and I was a martyr and then I put it on my website and I had everybody download it from there and you know make sort of some sort of a contribution and you know that's the only way we can keep it a lot then then you could get people to realize like fuck the man man and they would probably jump in what is this there's two million two million podcasts wow I'm wrong I'm wrong by a million As of 2021, there's over 2 million podcasts and more than 48 million podcast episodes.

[1888] Holy shit.

[1889] This is pretty startling growth considering there was just over 500 ,000 active podcasts from just three years ago in 2018.

[1890] That's what's nuts.

[1891] These podcast statistics are completely in line with the fact that podcasts are slowly going mainstream.

[1892] Bitch, that's mainstream.

[1893] That is mainstream.

[1894] That is not slowly going mainstream.

[1895] In fact, it's estimated that 78 % of the...

[1896] the U .S. population is now aware of what a podcast is are from 64 % in 2008.

[1897] They're slow playing this because the reality is 75 % of the listening.

[1898] There's a lot of people listening to the podcast.

[1899] We regularly get episodes at 10, 11 million downloads.

[1900] It's normal.

[1901] It's like the number of people that are tuning in to shows is crazy.

[1902] It's crazy.

[1903] But it's still just a tiny piece of the population.

[1904] You know, you're going worldwide.

[1905] There's 330, whatever the fuck, million people there are in this country.

[1906] And then worldwide, you're dealing with $8 billion.

[1907] Really, $11 million is just like a tiny little drop in the bucket.

[1908] Do you imagine you'll be doing a podcast in 10 years if you had to guess?

[1909] I don't think like that.

[1910] I never thought I would be doing this 10 years ago.

[1911] I'm inviting you to think like that.

[1912] Yeah, I don't know.

[1913] I'm wondering.

[1914] I don't know why not because I do enjoy it.

[1915] When I stop enjoying it, you know, I mean, I don't want to mention any names, but there's certain people that do shows where people feel like they're phoned in it.

[1916] If anybody ever really feels like I'm phoning it in, I'll stop.

[1917] Yeah.

[1918] If I feel like I'm phoning it in, I'll definitely stop.

[1919] Or I'll stop phoning it in.

[1920] But I don't think I'm ever going to stop wanting to have conversations with people.

[1921] Yeah.

[1922] Like, if I can have you and you and I just talk, I always want to talk to you.

[1923] You're an interesting dude.

[1924] If we get a camera on us and other people can get in on it and they enjoy it, like there's someone out there on a treadmill right now, enjoying the shit out of this.

[1925] That's what I like that.

[1926] I like it.

[1927] You're providing something that people actually enjoy.

[1928] Yeah.

[1929] As long as it's enjoyable to me, I think it'll still be enjoyable to other people because enthusiasm, like genuine enthusiasm is contagious, you know, and I find that if I watch someone that's cooking on TV or someone that's making things or someone that's talking about something they're passionate about, even I have zero interest in it.

[1930] If it's a genuine enthusiasm, which is why when I do this show, I don't do it based on famous people.

[1931] I don't do it.

[1932] I don't try to get people that I know we'll get big ratings.

[1933] There's a zero consideration of that.

[1934] I've always appreciated that about you.

[1935] Oh, thank you.

[1936] Yeah, because I'm only a little teeny bit famous about it.

[1937] Come on.

[1938] Well, I'm always interested in talking to you.

[1939] My interest is in my interest.

[1940] You know, so if I don't, and I've had, that was one of the interesting conversations in the beginning with Netflix.

[1941] Like, who are they going to be the episodes?

[1942] Who's going to be the first week?

[1943] Like, what are the big names for the first week.

[1944] I'm like, there's not, that's not happening.

[1945] There's not going to be any of that.

[1946] There's not going to be any of that.

[1947] We're going to try to set it up and make, I don't think like that.

[1948] And because I don't think like that, it stays, I hate the word organic, but it stays organic.

[1949] Because it's just, I like talking to people.

[1950] I like talking to interesting people.

[1951] And as long as I think they're interesting, I want to talk to them, whether it's a fucking author that no one's ever heard of, that has some book that's interesting or a photographer that covers wars or, you know, whatever, whatever, a comic that no one ever heard.

[1952] out, but I think they're talented.

[1953] That's what I want to do.

[1954] So I'm going to keep doing it.

[1955] As long as I keep, I mean, maybe it won't be interesting to other people or maybe way less people find it interesting because the medium will have shifted and it have moved on.

[1956] But I didn't do it in the beginning ever thinking it would be the number one podcast in the world.

[1957] I did it thinking like, oh, it'd be good to get high with my friends and talk shit.

[1958] You know, and here we are.

[1959] What are we?

[1960] 1 ,000, something?

[1961] 1717.

[1962] Really?

[1963] I think I've told you this every time I've been on your show but you know Helen Cho Yes Very well The first time I ever heard the word Someone say podcast Was Helen Cho in reference to you Yeah I could take you And show you where she was sitting I think that was 2011 when we met right I was like a what She's like just just listen You just don't just go I was like what is that You know Probably said something about how it sounds like a stupid idea I don't know whatever Yeah, it's funny.

[1964] You were in it.

[1965] Early.

[1966] Early.

[1967] Yeah, 2009.

[1968] And I wouldn't have gotten into it without your encouragement.

[1969] I knew you should get into it right away.

[1970] The first time we ever did one, I'm like, wow, that guy's interesting.

[1971] Because I enjoyed your show The Wild Within before you ever did Meat Eat Eater.

[1972] I remember watching you make a fucking boat out of some moose skin and going down a river and the whole deal.

[1973] And I was like, wow.

[1974] I go, this is a fucking cool little show and interesting kind of stuff.

[1975] subjects and and before you had ever taken me hunting i'd always had this fascination with hunting i'd always watch like ted nujit spirit of the wild and watch a bunch of these hunting shows because i would be like but that's probably the best way to eat to get the meat yourself that way you really understand where it's coming from versus this weird sort of separation between you and the act of the animal dying where you don't really understand what you're doing you're just eating meat you know one of the two times i thought my career was over was uh when my when that wild within show on travel channel didn't take off what's the other time well my first book didn't take off hmm the buffalo book no no my first book was called scavenger's guide to oak oh that's right but that book's still in print man yeah no in the end in the end no but when it came out it didn't um i had all the i had tons of media around it just no one bought the damn book man i thought i was over you know there's like this i don't know if he actually said there's this thing that's always attributed to woody allen man maybe he said it I don't know, like, something to the effect of, like, his movies are always good enough that they let him make another one.

[1976] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1977] And I felt for a minute that my book hadn't done good enough to get to make another one, but then someone took a bet on me again, and I was able to make a book, a successful book.

[1978] But, yeah, that doing that while was an untravel channel, dude, we were, it was, we, they ordered eight episodes.

[1979] They ran them all.

[1980] But we were, I mean, we just wrapped the eighth episode, okay?

[1981] I mean, I was in the, we were like getting in a car to go to the airport from the location where we were filming in West Texas.

[1982] And I got a call that they were not, it was effectively canceled even though they ran the sum through.

[1983] And I, and I thought that somehow, I thought that somehow, I thought that somehow.

[1984] like you were done.

[1985] You were done.

[1986] It could have been.

[1987] But in that year, too, um, you still had to jump through all the, the hoops.

[1988] Yeah.

[1989] And I was just, didn't realize, like emerging into a thing where, like you said, like the Wild West or, or you're in the open ocean or whatever to hell.

[1990] Like I was just emerging into a place where like the time lined up to, that, didn't need to be you could still do things yeah you can still do things otherwise like i don't know a decade earlier 20 years earlier something you'd have to go crawl and do a hole man yeah well i was a part of tv that decade earlier when you had to get cast on a sitcom or you know fear factor i had to get cast on that and that's the only way people got to know who you were you had to do something else you had to do something i could never even believe that those dudes i was kind of shocked and the guy bought that show.

[1991] How come?

[1992] Because he came in, he came from an unexpected background, didn't last long, bought some shows, none of them took off.

[1993] We didn't know what, we had no idea what that show was about.

[1994] It was kind of a mess.

[1995] It was fun, it was kind of a mess.

[1996] And then, like, when that was over and we started making meat eater, I was like, I had learned enough from that while with NBS to, like, understand very well what I wanted to make.

[1997] Yeah.

[1998] And it was going to be extremely, stripped down and it was going to be like and I was going to have a very high like a a you know very high level of influence over everything that happened well I remember I learned enough to know that I remember a conflict that you talked to me about where they tried to release an animal so that you could shoot it like they wanted to guarantee that you got a moose so they were oh yeah well that yeah it was a conversation or someone we were talking about we were talking about how much time it takes remember it was early on before we started to film and this i'm not gonna name who it was but this producer said um i was like well you know you just don't know you had it takes time and all this and he's like that's why there's animal wranglers and your show is the opposite of that now because some of your best episodes are unsuccessful episodes yeah one of my favorite ones are the one that you're talking about your dad there's no music and you're on the top of a mountain just discussing things it was like yeah sky island solitaire some play on edward abbey's desert solitaire uh yeah man I used to be worried sick about those ones but those are some of the best ones yeah they were some of the best ones and it's also we call them skunkers yeah but there's some of the most realistic too because that's really what happens that's part of the thing you know it's one of the reasons why it's so interesting because it's difficult and that's like I said earlier I think that's one of the things it's hardest to convey when you're just seeing a success and the success is always towards the end it's like it's all like you expect it like a movie you want the good guy the good guy's going to win he's James Bond he's going to survive you know and sometimes no I feel like I should get all circumspect about media right now but I don't know it's you know media reflects the culture at a certain point in its ability to express itself and the culture is shifted its ability to express itself radically because the internet you know this podcast is a great example of that there's nothing could have existed like this 20 years ago your podcast is another great example of that like you found your niche in that stream you know you caught that wave and you know you wrote it out like perfect timing like from the wild within the meat eater to podcasting to the meat eater empire now it's all internet based all influenced all you know all of it with these different streams of distribution it's fascinating oh yeah uh my oldest boy my wife said the other day that he was saying that he hopes meat eater sticks around long enough for him to get involved and we had a good laugh about it's great but i was like oh man i don't know buddy i bet it will you might need to i bet it will yeah i just i i keep encouraging him to join the military really for discipline just you know yeah something i think i think i have i have a guilty con i was very close.

[1999] My dad served I was very, very close to going in the military and I feel like I've had I have a guilty conscience and this thing happened to me where years ago I was invited by someone to go down to give a talk at Fort Bragg as a third special forces group was in Fort Bragg and I went down to give a talk and and it was interesting because I call him Kids are not kids.

[2000] They're all guys in the, about a decade younger than I was, 30, early 30s.

[2001] And sitting there in front of these guys talking to them, and these are people that had come out of high school.

[2002] They came out of high school post 9 -11 and went into the military, did all their training, became Green Brays, and had spent their entire adult life, either training for or in Afghanistan.

[2003] in Iraq since they were 18.

[2004] Wow.

[2005] And one of these guys at one point he opens up the Fort Bragg phone book, like an actual physical phone book.

[2006] If we got to talk and he opens it up and he's like, goes to the divorce attorney section in that phone book and just pages and page, you know what I mean?

[2007] And you realize just the enormous um like the enormous cost and the enormous sacrifice and uh yeah i've always felt like i was so close and didn't do it it's always bugged me like i feel little like like chicken shit that i didn't do it and i feel like other people had to do like a thing that that uh didn't happen for me and so yeah maybe in some way i want you know i i i i i I would like him to go set the record straight for the family.

[2008] But my old man, he was one of the biggest voices against, he didn't understand why would you enlist when there's no war.

[2009] What are you going to do?

[2010] That was his take on it.

[2011] Because he enlisted during the war.

[2012] Right, right.

[2013] He's like, well, if there's a war, you enlist.

[2014] But, I mean, if there's no war, I mean, what are you going to do down there?

[2015] And I just listened, I listened to him, you know?

[2016] But yeah, man, I don't know.

[2017] I mean, he's a little kid.

[2018] I'm not going to lean on him too hard about it, but I feel like he would be setting things back right again.

[2019] But do you feel like you're worried that you might want him to do something that maybe he wouldn't do otherwise because you didn't do it and you feel guilty?

[2020] He's young.

[2021] He's of age where I could kind of say.

[2022] I mean, if he was 17, I'd probably handle this conversation differently.

[2023] Mm -hmm.

[2024] You know, if he was 17 and going for it, then, you know, but when he says like what he's going to do or whatever for whatever reason my my instinct is to encourage him to go into service let's talk figure it out figure it out in a few years maybe he'll wind up with you I gotta wrap this up yeah for sure I gotta get out of here it's always a pleasure tell everybody where they could find meat eater it's the meat eater .com because you guys still haven't bought meat eater dot com oh dude it's such a long weird story man no the meat eater dot com is a great place to go I'm on Instagram at Steve Murnella If you go to You know Wherever you could buy books Go to Apple Books or whatever And get the American Buffalo Audio version Because you finally do the Yeah I do that But mainly right now Go and Mainly right now go get Meteor's Campfire stories Close calls And then also We're doing a fundraiser right now at the meteor .com where we're doing a fundraiser for our land access initiative where we raise money to improve and enhance places where you're hunting fish and we've got a big auction going on right now we've got a signed guitar from Luke Combs we got all the kinds of like a raccoon hide antelope skull and stuff all used on the episodes all up for auction you can buy Janus Pateles's first pheasant tail knives all kinds of stuff and we're going to use all that for our land access initiative All right Awesome All right beautiful Thank you Thank you Bye everybody