#610 - Steven Rinella

Steven Rinella is an outdoorsman, conservationist, and writer. Check out the new season of his show “MeatEater” as well as “The MeatEater Podcast” available on all platforms. Steven joins Theo to talk about how humans have coexisted with animals throughout history, what goes into doing the craziest bird calls, and why hunters are doing more than anyone to promote conservation in America. Steven Rinella: https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella/ ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ Blue Chew: Go to http://bluechew.com to get your first month of BlueChew FREE with promo code THEO! Rocket Money: Go to http://rocketmoney.com/theo to cancel your unwanted subscriptions. Oracle: Head to https://www.oracle.com/theo to try OCI for free with zero commitment. Tecovas: Go to http://tecovas.com/theo to get 10% off when you sign up for email and texts. Perplexity AI: Ask anything at https://pplx.ai/theo and download their new web browser Comet at https://comet.perplexity.ai/ ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [email protected] Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Trevyn https://www.instagram.com/trevyn.s/ Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Theo Von?

  You ever realize that you spent your entire morning thinking about lunch? It's 9 a.m. and somehow I'm already in negotiations with myself about how I'm gonna spend $20 on a sandwich at noon. And then I eat it, or you eat it, or somebody eats it, and then an hour later, you're just standing in the kitchen worrying about what you'll do for dinner. And that's one reason why I've been into Huell. The Black Edition Powder is a complete meal you have instead of food, not a shake on top of food. Their powder starts at less than $3 per meal, has 40 grams of protein, and mixes with water or milk in about 30 seconds. I like Huell's shakes because they're clean and it's quick.

• 0:41Theo Von?

  I just want to make sure I have everything I need to keep going the way I want to keep going in a healthy manner. So with Huell, basically, lunch went from a daily logistical problem to a thing I can solve in about 30 seconds. Make healthy eating simple. New customers get an exclusive offer of 15% off online with my code WEEKEND at huell.com/weekend. That's H-U-E-L dot com slash weekend. Thank you to Huell for partnering and supporting our show. Today's guest is a renowned outdoorsman. He's a hunter, he's a survivalist. He has his own show, Meat Eater, on Netflix, as well as his podcast.

• 1:25Theo Von?

  I had a great time learning about some of the beautiful and brutal aspects of our world. Today's guest is Mr. Steve Ranella.

• 1:52Theo Von?

  Oh, you're having a little, huh? You having a little bit of that? I'm familiar with that product. Oh, hell, yeah, brother. We just gave something to an Amish kid the other day. Never had it, huh? Did you like it? What, Celsius? I mean, when you gave it to him, did he dig it? I mean, he definitely, he couldn't, he couldn't bend his arms for a couple of minutes. It hit him hard. Because of why? I mean, brother. Just unfamiliar. I think, yeah, something like, something, you know, you put that brain petrol that is Celsius into a damn Amish.

• 2:24Theo Von?

  You know?

• 2:24Speaker 01

  He might want to plug in something in.

• 2:26Theo Von?

  I mean, he might. I thought he was gonna get that.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  He's gonna put his finger in that. He wants to find out what it's all about. He's gonna put his finger in that sock.

• 2:32Theo Von?

  Yeah, I, I, I thought he did. I thought he was gonna get court martialed right there or something. I didn't know what was gonna happen.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  What was the circumstances? You were hanging out with the Amish guy?

• 2:40Theo Von?

  We finally got a hold of one.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Seeking some woodwork? Oh, okay.

• 2:42Theo Von?

  Yeah, no, no. Yeah, we finally got a hold of one. We've been trying to not capture an Amish or whatever. I don't know what the terminology is, but we've been trying to, um, wrangle one, I guess, because you can't get a hold of them. You know, you can put messages out there. You can do message in a bottle or shit. They don't reply to a lot of that. And so finally, we had a guy who was on Rumspringer.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:01Theo Von?

  He was on their kind of like, um, it's like spring break for the Amish and, uh, and he came to a comedy show. There he is right there. And, um.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  While on Rumspringer. He looks young for Rumspringer.

• 3:13Theo Von?

  He's young. He got out there and he brought me this hat, too. And he came. Great, great kid, though. We learned so much about it, but he'd never seen so many things. It was unbelievable. But he never had to hit a Celsius when we got it in him.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 3:27Theo Von?

  So.

• 3:30Theo Von?

  We'll see.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Now he's got his Rumspringer document.

• 3:33Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  But it might make it difficult for him to integrate back in.

• 3:37Theo Von?

  Oh, I'm sure, dude.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, because people, well, maybe they won't. Maybe his community won't know.

• 3:42Theo Von?

  Yeah, I don't. I mean, yeah, that's a good point. I don't even know.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  It'd be a good, it'd be a good honesty test. If they know, you'll know they violated.

• 3:49Theo Von?

  How do they know? Yeah.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:51Theo Von?

  It's a good point, actually. So we're helping out.

• 3:54Theo Von?

  Yeah, but it was just interesting to get to talk to somebody who'd lived like, uh, you know, it's a total different life than, than the average American, probably.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Are you making a show right now? Or is this pre, are we pre-making the show?

• 4:03Theo Von?

  Oh, this can be the show? Yeah, I mean, we can start into it. Sorry.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I don't care.

• 4:07Theo Von?

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

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:11Theo Von?

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

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Good, good, good transition.

• 4:17Theo Von?

  Was it?

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:17Theo Von?

  Oh, damn. Um, I thought it was gonna be, I think, I don't know what's gonna happen, but, um, no, you have a show on Netflix called Meat Eater.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:28Theo Von?

  And you guys are in your, you guys are.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  We made a lot. We've been, we've been, we, we got, I got a 13th season of the show coming out. We've made many, many, many episodes over the years. Yeah. And they, they appear in a lot of different places.

• 4:39Theo Von?

  Mm-hmm. Yep, we've seen some of them on YouTube. Um, I've gotten to enjoy some of them. So thank you so much, man. It's definitely exciting to watch. It's really beautifully shot, too, you guys' show.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  You went turkey hunting with Mike Waddell, I heard.

• 4:50Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, I did. Yeah, I went down there and it was fun, but it's like, I don't know, some of the tur- it's like, they just seem like an unwell bird.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 5:03Theo Von?

  Turkeys.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Unwell in what way?

• 5:06Theo Von?

  They just don't seem like they're like a to- like, I don't want to say like they on it like, I don't want to say uneducated. They just seem like they, like they got picked last for gym kinda.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Dude, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, man.

• 5:22Theo Von?

  Really?

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. About a turkey?

• 5:24Theo Von?

  Yeah. If you look at a turkey, it seemed like they like, they can't do, they just are, yeah, they just, I don't know. They weren't doing a lot.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  Dude, it's a big ass bird. His head changes colors from red to white to blue. He tastes good.

• 5:38Theo Von?

  Yeah, he's basically the Toby Keith of turkeys.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  They fucking walk around the woods making insane noises.

• 5:43Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  But I mean, like he, it's an omnivore. It can eat all kinds of, it can eat all kinds of stuff.

• 5:50Theo Von?

  Okay. Well, now you're selling me on it. Yeah.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  I mean, like, what, like,

• 5:55Theo Von?

  What, what else?

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Name a better, name a better bird. It's like, you could be, oh, a bald eagle. He eats a bunch of rotten fish from the side like, like a turkey. That's America's bird, dude. Are you familiar with a gentleman named Ben Franklin?

• 6:09Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Okay. Do you know that Franklin didn't like the bald eagle as a national bird because it was a scavenger? And he threw out some, it's debated how honest you, it's ba- it's debated if he was trying to be a smart ass or not. Ben Franklin said, America ought to go with the wild turkey because at least it's a vain bird.

• 6:30Theo Von?

  Hmm. What does vain bird mean?

• 6:32Speaker 01

  It's beautiful. He puffs his feather, the, the male puffs his feathers all out.

• 6:37Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  He's got a snood. He's got like a, imagine like a pecker on your, laid across your face.

• 6:45Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  That changes all the time. It gets erect. It goes limp.

• 6:49Theo Von?

  Turkey has that?

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude. It's like to just, to like come in and like start disparaging a turkey right off the top of the bat. You don't know me.

• 6:59Theo Von?

  I'm just, okay, I'm just saying.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  It's like very, it's like, uh, it's disrespectful. That is a, that is a, that is the best, that's the best bird in our, in our country.

• 7:07Theo Von?

  Okay. Well, look, I didn't, no one's ever, first of all, lobbied for this animal in front of me.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Well, Franklin.

• 7:14Theo Von?

  Well,

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Not in front of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:15Theo Von?

  Right.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  I didn't know, I didn't, I didn't know him personally.

• 7:19Theo Von?

  And you don't know how old I am. Maybe I was there.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  I'm with you.

• 7:21Theo Von?

  But no, Waddell did not. Waddell was just like, we're killing these MFers and he used some slurs. I'll say that straight up. He used a couple of slurs and I was like, I don't think those are for birds or animalia even. But he was like, I think I, uh, I think I just had a unique, um, angle into it. Tell me more about that nose weiner that they got or that nose.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Called a snood.

• 7:42Theo Von?

  Okay, bring it up.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  They got, see, you get into turkey anatomy, man. They got a lot going on for them. They got a snood. There's not many birds that have like basically a, uh, so they have a cloaca, like birds have a cloaca like called a uni-hole. All their actions, defecating, taking a leak. Well, when they defecate and take a leak is kind of a single deal.

• 8:04Theo Von?

  Okay, I'll do that.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  They have sex through the uni-hole. When they shit, you can tell a male from a female by the shape of its shit.

• 8:14Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  A male throws a J-shaped hooked shit. So there's not many birds you can sex his shit.

• 8:21Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  He's got a snood. They got spurs, sometimes an inch and a quarter long for fighting.

• 8:28Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  You ever been to a cockfight?

• 8:30Theo Von?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Okay, they got spurs. Look at that. Some of those spurs are so big you can hang the turkey by the spur on a branch. That's called a limb hanger. That means he's huge.

• 8:41Theo Von?

  Hmm.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Some got a, they got like, pull up the beard. Pull up the beard.

• 8:46Theo Von?

  Pull up the beard.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  They got a beard, which is actually a feather. Look at that.

• 8:50Theo Von?

  Hold on, let me see it.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  When he's big, when that, when that gets so big that it drags on the ground, you know what you call them? Rope dragger.

• 8:58Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  So you got limb hangers, rope draggers. Yeah, it, like, it's just, you're kind of.

• 9:06Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  I couldn't, you know, I could walk out of this room right now and it'd be like, you know what I mean?

• 9:13Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  But I'm not gonna do that.

• 9:14Theo Von?

  Well, first of all.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you talk bad about the America's bird.

• 9:18Theo Von?

  I appreciate that. And look.

• 9:21Theo Von?

  I'm glad that I know.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna get up and storm out, dude.

• 9:23Theo Von?

  Ah, you might.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:25Theo Von?

  But look, you won't storm out without teaching me something. I'll say that. And I didn't know any of that.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Turkeys are great.

• 9:31Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Their head changes from red, white to blue. It's kinda like they knew that they were gonna be America's bird.

• 9:38Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah. They're the fucking Trace Atkins of, of birds.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  When they get real excited, like when you see, when he's coming in and his head gets that whitish color to it.

• 9:45Theo Von?

  Uh huh.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  He is fired up.

• 9:49Theo Von?

  Okay, so what does that mean? When their head changes to different colors?

• 9:51Speaker 01

  You want blue.

• 9:52Theo Von?

  Look at this guy. He's really.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Blue and white, like, blue and white.

• 9:55Theo Von?

  He's torn between some feelings.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, blue and white, he's, he's in. He's like, blue and white, he's coming in. You hunt them in the spring during the breeding season.

• 10:05Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  Blue and white, he's coming in and he's, he's, he's thinking, he's thinking about ass.

• 10:12Theo Von?

  Okay, so he's looking for sex, but.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:14Theo Von?

  Oh, Waddell had us, we were in the off season, they were in the locker room and we went to chase them. They were not even on the field. They were fucking back there.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:21Theo Von?

  Getting, uh, physical there. I mean, we were in some, I was like, should we even, yeah, some of them had their towels around their necks. They were sitting there texting their wives. Like, it was the off season.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  If he's coming in like, he's coming in, you see a blue head.

• 10:35Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  And then all of a sudden, you know what? And he's coming in, he's all puffed out and they, another thing, so.

• 10:42Theo Von?

  I know, I'm sorry.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Well, they got, so they got the big, you heard the big gobble.

• 10:46Theo Von?

  Yes.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Alright. If you're, if you're telling a turkey hunting story.

• 10:50Theo Von?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  And you get to the part of the story where, like, picture you telling a story that has a gun in it.

• 10:55Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  And we get to the part of the story where the gun goes off, you go like, and I heard bang, right? Some of it sounds like.

• 11:02Theo Von?

  Right.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  But you go bang.

• 11:03Theo Von?

  And then.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, a friend of mine's Latvian and when they hear, when they get to a part of a story where the gun goes off, they say, bouch.

• 11:10Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  So if you're telling a turkey story and he gobbles, it's hard to make the gobble noise. So in a story, you'd go.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's like.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  But if you, when he's coming in, like if he's coming in and he thinks he's coming into a hen, you're making a hen noise.

• 11:29Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah. So the noise that the man that, that, um, like Michael Waddell was making and he makes that noise really well.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. He's, he's the best of the best.

• 11:37Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, he was calling a couple of fucking bu- I mean, even some busty chicks from the gas station.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  He was like a competitive. Yeah. So he's making a hen noise and what's, what's.

• 11:46Theo Von?

  Oh dude, people were, dudes were coming out of the closet when he was doing it. I mean, he'll fuck and he'll call, he'll, he'll get you, he'll get people going.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  Oh, he's very good. And what, what, like what would happen in, what would happen in the natural setting there is the gobbler is just cruising.

• 12:00Theo Von?

  Okay. And the gobbler is that big male turkey.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  He's a big male turkey. He's cruising and chicks are supposed to hear him. And like, he doesn't, he, he's kind of got his little route and they're supposed to kind of come into him. So he's on the highway, going down the highway and they're kind of coming on the ramps.

• 12:15Theo Von?

  Okay. The on ramps.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  To catch him.

• 12:17Theo Von?

  Oh, oh, so it's kind of like.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  What you're trying to do is you're trying to get him to be like, well, I'm going to go over there and have a see like, that's not normally what I would do, but what is going on over there? I need to go out of my way now to go have a see. What's happening? If, when he's coming, you see like a blue head and he's coming and he's going like this. You, you can't hear it. Like if you hear it, he's in range. He's going. Here's what it sounds like.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  He's doing two things. He's spitting.

• 12:48Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 12:49Speaker 01

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

• 12:55Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  And he's taking his wings and

• 12:59Speaker 01

  on the ground.

• 13:00Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  And that is the, that is like extremely exciting noise to hear.

• 13:04Theo Von?

  So the first part is with their actual, they do it with their mouth and the second part, they do it with their wings on the ground?

• 13:09Speaker 01

  And he's drumming.

• 13:10Theo Von?

  Wow. So it's a real mating call.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like you'll, you'll hear him like, you'll hear him. He's kind of like making, he's like doing a vocalization. He's doing a vocalization, but like he's got his, his wings. You'll, you'll hear on the ground.

• 13:23Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  And you'll even see, you'll sometimes be going down a sandy trail or something. You'll see the wing drags and you can tell that one's been cutting it out there and they do this little dance. Oh, yeah. Dude, it's the best thing in the world. But if he's coming in and all of a sudden his head turns red, his head turns red and lifts up and if he goes. Games up.

• 13:42Theo Von?

  Oh, he knows.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  He knows that you, he knows that, he knows that it's not good. Like, when you hear that noise, he's on his way out. But what's the prop?

• 13:50Theo Von?

  Wait, when you hear what noise on the way up that?

• 13:51Speaker 01

  When he puts.

• 13:52Theo Von?

  Oh, when he puts.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  His head goes boom, red lifts up and puts. He's gone, but they don't do anything too quick. But that's his way of saying like, I don't like it.

• 14:01Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  This isn't about ladies anymore.

• 14:04Theo Von?

  Oh, it's about dudes being secretive.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 14:06Theo Von?

  Pretending they're women.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  No, they're like absolutely fascinating bird. You know, I took, uh.

• 14:11Theo Von?

  Wow. Yeah, I didn't know, man.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Years ago, like you've been, you know, you know, Rogan.

• 14:15Theo Von?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  I turkey hunted with him years ago and he wound up being kind of underwhelmed by turkeys. There might be something like, uh,

• 14:25Speaker 01

  like some kind of like offshoot of being a comedian is that you can't appreciate turkeys?

• 14:32Theo Von?

  Well, I think there's.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  You think that there might be something to that?

• 14:34Theo Von?

  That's a good question. I think, um, oh, I remember watching this. He had Brian Callen too, which was, that's hilarious.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. They didn't appreciate turkeys. Drove me, yeah.

• 14:43Theo Von?

  I know turkey people do not like it. If you do not like Turk, talking, being, thinking about turkeys.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  No, if you just said something bad about my three kids, I'd be like, I see that.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  I'm like, yeah, that's fair. But like with the turkey deal, no.

• 14:58Theo Von?

  Right. It's baked. Yeah. Turkey's baked into American history. I didn't know that much about turkeys. I think if I knew some of this and maybe I didn't, I didn't ask enough stuff, you know? I think if I'd have asked more stuff and I'd have known a little bit more of like the lore, I think I probably would have been more hyped about it.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Can I have the one more lore bit?

• 15:15Theo Von?

  Yeah, sure.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  So

• 15:19Speaker 01

  when, at the time of, like when Europeans arrived in North America.

• 15:23Theo Von?

  Mm hmm.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  There were turkeys, they, they think there may be turkeys in like 34 states. And then they were extirpated from many of those states because they were good to eat. Everybody wanted to eat them, people to hunt them at night, shoot them out of the trees at night. It was a popular food item.

• 15:39Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  And they nearly wiped them out and it got to where there's only turkeys hiding out in like the deepest patches of swamps. Up in the highest mountain woods, you know, hiding out here and there. And it got bad, right? There was only a couple of states where you're allowed to hunt them anymore. And then they started putting them back out there. You can hunt turkeys and, uh, you can hunt turkeys now in 49 states.

• 16:01Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  You can hunt turkeys now in more states than had turkeys.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  A cost to that of the bird is that people now take the bird for granted. Like from a PR standpoint, I was talking about eagles earlier. From a PR standpoint, eagles are kind of everywhere now. There's still people that'll see an eagle and they'll be like, oh my God, an eagle. They're like, dude, you know, we have a little shack in Alaska and you might see 13 eagles in one tree.

• 16:25Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  So from a PR standpoint, they have a little bit of, they like, you risk overexposure as a bird. Turkeys are so everywhere now that now we have like town turkeys.

• 16:37Theo Von?

  But there's wandering around like stray animals.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  So the mystique, it like, it costs them some of their mystique.

• 16:43Theo Von?

  Ah.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  And then people will get a sense from town turkeys, which aren't hunted. They'll get a sense of that a turkey is whatever, that he's not cautious, that he's not careful. Right?

• 16:53Theo Von?

  Right. That he'll just use any crosswalk or whatever.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. So a lot of times when people disparage the turkey, they're referring to some town turkey. But they don't know what a turkey, he's out there busting ass in the woods.

• 17:05Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  With people trying to kill him and coyotes trying to kill him and bobcats trying to kill him and red fox trying to kill him and possums eating their eggs and skunks eating their eggs and raccoons eating their eggs. Grey horned owls blasting them out of trees and they survive through all that. So when I think of a turkey, I'm thinking of a persecuted turkey. Some people are thinking of a town turkey.

• 17:23Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  It's just different.

• 17:25Theo Von?

  Yeah. I think I was probably thinking of like, yeah, I mean, there's a turkey right there. It's almost.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Town turkey.

• 17:30Theo Von?

  Yeah. Catching a bus to work or whatever. I mean, that's fucking unbelievable that that's what's going on. But no, I didn't, I didn't know. I mean, I think that gives me like definitely a different appreciation for them. I didn't know they had so much baked in, like there, there's such a thermometer of like sexual activity. And so many like little ratings are relevant right on them and, and the way that they operate and the sounds that they make.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  They're a dynamic bird.

• 17:53Theo Von?

  And that I'll agree to a hundred percent, man.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  So all like, here's another thing about them. Can I hit you with one more?

• 17:58Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Most of the domestic animals that we utilize, okay, when, when you go, when you go into a store and you see what's for sale down there for domestic meats. You know, whether you buy, you can even buy weird shit like you buy lamb, goat, pork. Beef, okay? That's all, that all winds up being like Eurasian, species of Eurasian origin that became domesticated.

• 18:26Theo Von?

  And when you say Eurasian, what are you talking about? You're talking about animals?

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Animals that are indigenous, animals that are endemic to Europe and Asia, became like the domestics that we know today.

• 18:35Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  So when you see like a horse, that's a Eurasian creature. Um, cattle came from a thing called the oryx, okay? Goats came from other continents, sheep, other continents. The turkey is uniquely North American.

• 18:51Theo Von?

  Really?

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Okay, so when the Spanish came, they took turkeys. They drew turkeys from Mesoamerica, brought them back to Europe and turned them into like the white looking butterball turkeys through selective breeding, and then brought those turkeys back to the New World. But it's like the New World's contribution, it's North America's contribution to the domesticated species that we know and love today.

• 19:17Theo Von?

  Got it.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  So if you go into a meat market and you're like, they got all the normal shit laid out, turkey is one that you're like, that, that's origin is here. It's a, it's a New World creature, because the New World didn't produce, the New World didn't produce domestics. Like they didn't, we haven't like effectively domesticated New World animals, but the turkey's an exception.

• 19:40Theo Von?

  Hmm. Wow, so that really is kind of our national animal, huh?

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, dude.

• 19:44Theo Von?

  You think it's our most national animal, not just bird?

• 19:49Speaker 01

  I can't answer that. I haven't thought about that before.

• 19:52Theo Von?

  Yeah. Damn dude. No, thanks, bro. Yeah, I think it's interesting, like, yeah, to learn about that kind of stuff. I, when I was growing up and stuff, I didn't have like a lot of influence, like in that kind of world, you know?

• 20:01Speaker 01

  Like wild, the wildlife world?

• 20:03Theo Von?

  Yeah, I think hunting or something, I mean, the first thing, I mean, I saw a buddy of mine get shot by a couple of brothers at Mardi Gras once. That was like my intro to hunting, you know, like, and I was like, oh shit.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Did he live or die?

• 20:13Theo Von?

  Huh? He lived. Yeah.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Where did he get hit?

• 20:15Theo Von?

  He got hit in the back, kinda right here.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Just a stray bullet?

• 20:17Theo Von?

  Um, yeah, it looked like a.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Like aimed at him or he just caught a bullet?

• 20:22Theo Von?

  Aimed at him.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Oh, I got it.

• 20:23Theo Von?

  Yeah, or like semi aimed, I guess, yeah. I mean, the guy that looked like he didn't know what he was doing that much, but he was shooting.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's, you know, I said, I wanted to ask you a question. I wanted to add, like, how many years did you spend growing up in Louisiana? When I was, I was reading up on your background a little bit and you spent time in Illinois, but also in Louisiana.

• 20:38Theo Von?

  Yeah, I spent time in Louisiana until I think I was maybe 21 or 22. And, um, but yeah, we go up to Illinois in the, in the, uh, in the summers and fish. We did a ton of fishing. And we do a good bit of fishing in Louisiana, but, um, I just never really got into hunting. The first time I ever went hunting was with Michael Waddell.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 20:55Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  What I wanted, with Louisiana, have you?

• 21:00Speaker 01

  That was the last state I ever went to. And I mean, like, went to, went to, was Louisiana. Have you, did you switch? Did you switch to Gulf of America?

• 21:10Theo Von?

  No.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  You didn't switch?

• 21:11Theo Von?

  No, I would be, I wanna see how it pans out first. Cause Mexico, bring it up. Let's get a look at that big puddle, brother, because what I'm trying to see is where is most of the land around it?

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Well, shit all over the place. Northern, South America.

• 21:30Theo Von?

  I think you do a year for each area, like maybe you do, like, everybody gets a year? And then you look back and see how good that year was. You do like, and then they get it. You know what I'm saying? You get one year to operate that MAFR and then you see who really owns that bitch. That's, to me, that's like a fair way to do it. Um.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, the reason I was asked about it is we, once I found out about Louisiana, we filmed a couple, we filmed a number of episodes down there. I started going there with friends because we spearfished the oil rigs.

• 21:59Theo Von?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  And, uh, and so, right when all that shit was heating up.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Okay. We're like cutting an episode about that was filmed out in the Gulf. And between the time I wrote the VO and the time we recorded the VO. All this shit hit the fan. Okay. So I'm sitting there and in my, in my script, it's Gulf of Mexico. But then it switches. So we're in the studio and I'm talking to my colleagues and we're trying to decide what way we roll on it. We tried doing like a joke. We tried doing like the Gulf of, uh, you know. But then we thought that's like a dated joke. And in the end, after careful contemplation, I was like, I, I can't switch.

• 22:47Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Like I'm old, you know, I'm, I'm half a century old.

• 22:51Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  It's just, it's maybe I'll leave it to the youngers, but um, for me, I, I can't like, I can't do it. I can't switch.

• 22:59Theo Von?

  Yeah. It just seemed kind of like, I, I think you gotta figure out who's gonna earn it. I think you gotta find some way. Maybe there's a competition each year and then between Mexico and America and some of the other countries, those are smaller countries that are touching it. I think like Cuba.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  They ain't gonna be the Gulf of Cuba though.

• 23:16Theo Von?

  Yeah, they're probably, yeah, they probably wouldn't let that happen. But I think you have a competition each year and whoever wins it, they get to name it. Maybe it's a soccer game or something and whoever wins it, they get it for their year.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Contest.

• 23:26Theo Von?

  Yeah, that's kind of fucking dope, actually.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Like a soccer tournament isn't really applicable.

• 23:30Theo Von?

  Well, I think it's applicable, Stephen. And what I'm going to tell you is this, brother, that's as far as I got with that. But um, I think it's, um, I think the soccer would be fun because a lot of people love soccer. That's what I'm thinking, you know? But yeah, maybe it's a fishing rodeo.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  But I think then, then there aren't they automatically going to kick our ass?

• 23:46Theo Von?

  I don't know.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  I was trying to think of something we'd win better.

• 23:49Theo Von?

  Maybe it's a, and this would actually be, this is actually a great idea. I think it's 10 events. It's Mexico and America. Yes.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Look at all the shit, man.

• 23:58Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Swimming in there, hunting on the edge of it.

• 24:02Theo Von?

  I wonder if we could get.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Spearfishing it.

• 24:04Theo Von?

  Spearfishing and just fucking somebody singing near the edge and seeing if a fish will swim up. That's fishing.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Um, you know, I was gonna tell you about these. I told your producer this. Guys I work with were buying these Celsius's. And I didn't know that I didn't hadn't, I didn't really read the, what was on there. So I was drinking them all damn time. Like they were, I was drinking them like, like, uh, like seltzers. And I was having a hard time sleeping. And someone pointed out, he's like, well, shit, you've been drinking those stupid things all day. And I was, I was like, I thought I was drinking La Croix's or something.

• 24:36Theo Von?

  It is good. I know that.

• 24:39Theo Von?

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• 25:24Theo Von?

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• 26:05Theo Von?

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• 26:46Theo Von?

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• 27:10Theo Von?

  Dude, let's listen to real quick to Michael Waddell play that.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's good.

• 27:13Theo Von?

  Let's listen to him.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  He's gonna make some turkey noises? Yeah, I think that's a good idea. I like him, man. He's a fun guy.

• 27:18Theo Von?

  Oh, he's so great, dude. I get to spend, uh, we go to a summer camp together every year with him and his family and it's fucking hilarious.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  I would say volume control and going from soft to aggressive, if that's the way you want to call it, or louder. It's important to find a diaphragm. If you get those tones and you can control that, it don't have to sound perfect. My opinion on turkey calling, rhythm is more important than specifically the sound of it.

• 27:59Theo Von?

  That's what I've been saying. That's what I've been saying. Dude, I think one thing that would be cool, I wonder if he could put together almost like a animal call orchestra where it was like, you had this sort of like, like an orchestra pit and he, and somebody was like the conductor and they had all the animal calls.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  That's a good idea.

• 28:15Theo Von?

  It'd be kinda neat.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  We got, I was hip on this idea for a while. We didn't take it as far as I wanted to, but what I wanted to do is I got a directional, we bought a directional mic.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  And I wanted to build a catalog of, I didn't know what I was, I never thought about what I was gonna do with it. We actually bought the damn thing. I wanted to build a catalog of animal.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Noises.

• 28:36Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Um, so we picked up different noises and then kind of abandoned, I think, cause I didn't know what, we didn't, I hadn't really decided what we were gonna do with them.

• 28:45Theo Von?

  I could think of something.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  I just wanted them.

• 28:46Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Like a great catalog of animal noises that people wouldn't know.

• 28:51Theo Von?

  You could do a couple of things with them that come into my mind. One of them is you could.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  The orchestra.

• 28:55Theo Von?

  The orchestra. Yeah. Create to have that. A second one is people that are deceased. Put a special headset on them. It guarantees it'll play for 30 years or whatever. They get to have that. All the best animals of the world on the way out. A third idea, I think it could be neat would be if you created, oh, this would be cool. You create one of those things. I shouldn't say it'd be cool. Who knows? Might be horrible. I don't think it's that great. I'm gonna say it. What it is, is it's like one of those white noise machines, but it's all the fucking animals, dude. And Steve Rinella's fucking, she's come sleep with Steve, it's called.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  That sounds like a great thing, man. I gotta check my wife on that shit.

• 29:38Theo Von?

  Oh, no. Every now and then, every now and then, in the distance of the animals, you hear Steve's wife be like, it better just be you in there. But that's what, it's a special machine and it's all, and then every now and then you can go to different regions of the world and hear them. You go to Africa.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Sleep with me in Africa.

• 29:55Theo Von?

  Yeah, sleep with.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Sleep with me in Asia or whatever.

• 29:57Theo Von?

  Yeah. Sleep with me in Alabama and every now and then there's just some country dude and he's like, oh, something's, I'm gonna go fuck one of these things or whatever. You're like, whoa, whoa, buddy. But it's just like a unique way to fall asleep at night.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Are you hip to the, are you hip to the app Merlin?

• 30:17Theo Von?

  I've not even heard of it.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, you should check it out. Um, I've had people that designed the app on.

• 30:25Theo Von?

  On your podcast?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. So.

• 30:27Theo Von?

  Is your podcast called Meat Eaters 2?

• 30:28Speaker 01

  It's called the Meat Eater Podcast.

• 30:29Theo Von?

  Meat Eater Podcast.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  So when you're out in your art, your yard and you hear birds off in the distance, anywhere, and you open it up, it just listens and tells you what birds.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Tells you what, it is a phenomenal app. The reason I bring that up is it's what's, what is harmful to people's uh, self-esteem is when you're turkey hunting.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  And you're making, you're mimicking the noises. So we'll open up Merlin.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  And be like, oh, is it picking you up or not, bro?

• 31:08Theo Von?

  Hmm.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Is it, is it throwing, is it saying there's a turkey over there? Is there, is there not saying there's a turkey over there?

• 31:14Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 31:14Speaker 01

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

• 31:23Theo Von?

  Really?

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:24Theo Von?

  Like, you mean those? What is it?

• 31:27Speaker 01

  They go like.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  They gotta roll.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you do it loud as shit.

• 31:34Theo Von?

  Okay, hold on, just give me a second.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  So anyways, they, they, yeah, like.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not good at it. Southerners are good at it. It's a very southern thing. Like, yeah, there's like Yankees that can do it, but they're not gonna do it like a southerner.

• 31:49Theo Von?

  The barred owl, pull it up. I just wanna get a gander at it. Sorry, you had it up.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, pull up Clay Newcomb. Say Clay Newcomb barred owl. Or unless you wanna hear the real thing.

• 31:56Theo Von?

  No, I wanna start with this man.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Well, he's a southerner.

• 32:01Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, he is.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  Oh, this is me and Clay.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  You see Clay and the birds, right? Anyhow.

• 32:30Theo Von?

  Definitely, dude. You gotta stay in school, brother.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  What's, what's, what is fun is to open up Merlin.

• 32:36Theo Von?

  And see who's got it.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  And then get off a ways.

• 32:38Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  And so one of my buddies, who is a Yankee, he's a northerner. Buddy Seth, like, he's a real good owl caller.

• 32:45Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  And it started realize, when he realized that Merlin, like, when he realized that Merlin wasn't picking him up, wasn't putting him down as a barred owl. He like, had like, an emotional crisis. And started redoing his shit and working on his shit until Merlin, he had to change his stuff until he could figure out why Merlin wasn't grabbing him.

• 33:05Theo Von?

  Look, all I'm telling you is that motherfucker ain't registering on Merlin. That's all. Look, I'm gonna shoot you straight. That's crazy. It's also crazy to be, I actually, now this, I really understand wanting to be this animal. And my, my.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  Being an owl.

• 33:19Theo Von?

  Yeah, wanting to really get into their head. And we had, I've had a little bit of owl, actually. My sister's husband cooked two owls during Thanksgiving.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Well, he might wanna keep, he might wanna keep that more secret.

• 33:33Theo Von?

  Yeah, I don't know if he did it. He'd, I mean, I haven't seen him in a long time. That's what I'll tell you. But he, uh, it's not a lot of meat, I'll tell you that. It's kind of like, like you see those women in Little House on the Prairie, a lot of skirts, not a lot of meat under there, you know?

• 33:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, that's a good way to put it.

• 33:53Theo Von?

  You think it's gonna be Philadelphia under there, but it's a little more Arizona when you get under there.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  See, I'd tell you a good story my father told me, but I don't, I mean, he's dead, so they're not gonna do anything bad. I will tell it. I don't know why my father did this.

• 34:03Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  I don't know why my father did this. But it talks about that, like, a lot of skirt, not much.

• 34:08Theo Von?

  Not much meat, yeah.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  So, obviously, my, my father was from another time. My dad was born in nineteen, he had me when he was old. He was born in the Great Depression.

• 34:18Theo Von?

  Oh, wow, like nineteen ten?

• 34:20Speaker 01

  No, not that late. He, he, he was a World War II veteran.

• 34:24Theo Von?

  Oh, wow.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  Anyhow.

• 34:25Theo Von?

  Thank you, Mr. Rinella, for your service.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  He tells a story about sitting deer hunting with his bow and some, oh, there he is on the right there. He tells a story about sitting deer hunting with his bow and deciding to shoot an owl with his bow. And he says he does, and he like, feels like he hits the owl. I can't account for why he would decide to do this. This is not something I would do. I don't condone it. Shoots the owl and like, hits it dead center. But he said the owl doesn't even change tune.

• 34:59Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Cause he realized just it's all feathers.

• 35:02Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah. It's all brassiere, baby. No tit.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  That was his only owl hunting story. And he didn't, the owl escaped unharmed.

• 35:11Theo Von?

  Look at these motherfuckers, bro. What are we doing? What are we doing, dude?

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, there you go.

• 35:17Theo Von?

  If you don't think all of the, the world is a psy-op, look at this MF'er, homie. Look at this thing right here.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  You know, uh, you wanna know a current controversy about the barred owl?

• 35:29Theo Von?

  I'd love to.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  The noise that Clay was just making there and the owls are making? Okay, do you remember back to, do you remember back to the kind of culture war issue around spotted owls? Like logging in the Pacific Northwest and, and the spotted owl?

• 35:45Theo Von?

  Well, I think they were tearing down their habitats, right?

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Exactly. And then the spotted owl became, this happens to animals now and then. Where a spotted owl stopped being an owl.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  And kind of became like a cultural emblem.

• 35:59Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah. Like when they put them on Frontier Airlines, like on their wing?

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. It'd be like, like, like wolves occupy this now. Like, there's wolves as flesh and blood creatures. And then there's sort of the symbolism of the wolf.

• 36:11Theo Von?

  Right.

• 36:11Speaker 01

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

• 36:17Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Meaning there yet loggers in the Pacific Northwest trying to produce harvest, you know, harvest timber products. But there's this owl they're trying, this endangered species, this owl that they're trying to protect. So the owl becomes this kind of like proxy symbol for whether we should cut trees or not.

• 36:33Theo Von?

  I remember even in Dumb and Dumber, they had the Ben went to the bank where they were raising money for the spotted owl.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Exactly. Okay. So it became like a cultural thing. Bard owls are one of those species like Canada geese, whitetail deer, crows that do really well, that they benefit off people. Right? Like, the more people there are in more places, the more beneficial it is to that owl. That owl does well in disturbed ecosystems. They like people. They'll hang out above your house. They'll hunt in your yard. Like, we don't bother them. Other things hate people. But this thing that's gradually happening is barred owls, which were historically more in the eastern US.

• 37:14Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Are colonizing the spotted owl's range.

• 37:20Theo Von?

  Ooh.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  And displacing spotted owls. So there's this big push. And there was even federal money. I don't know where it stands right now. I think the current administration was rolling it back. There was a push where they were going to go kill, right there. They were going to cull 470,000 barred owls in the Pacific Northwest.

• 37:39Theo Von?

  To keep them from migrating?

• 37:40Speaker 01

  To try to save.

• 37:42Theo Von?

  The spotted owl.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  The spotted owl.

• 37:44Theo Von?

  Fuck.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  And I think they might have pulled that money. I'm not sure.

• 37:47Theo Von?

  Oh.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  But just a little like, you know, like wildlife politic, like there's always wildlife politics brewing, you know?

• 37:54Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  And so there's this kind of thing, like, does it make sense, you know, that you ask the question? And it's not like people are moving them in trucks. They're moving on their own. So if, like, if this bird is getting there on his own.

• 38:07Theo Von?

  Nature.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's getting there on his own, under his own wing. Spreading across is that, can you really call it that that's like

• 38:16Theo Von?

  Colonization.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Bad, or is it just that it's natural? Like throughout your 45 years of life, raccoons have gone north and west throughout your 45 years of life. Opossums have gone north and west. Bard owls have gone west, all on their own. It's human in that they're sort of like our crop fields, our clearings, our developments don't bother them and they're beneficial to them.

• 38:41Theo Von?

  Right. So we don't have an effect really on it.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. So like it's happening and they're talking about, you know, dusting off that many, uh, you know, dusting off that many owls and, um, I don't know.

• 38:53Theo Von?

  I mean, that's interesting. Yeah. It's like, how much do you want to mess up with, what mother nature is doing? You know, it says right here, yes, funding for the barred owl removal initiative was recently pulled in July 2025. The Trump administration terminated three critical federal grants totaling about 1.1 million, which were essential for launching the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Planet coal barred owls across California, Oregon, and Washington. Who was going to do that? Were they just going to send some, how would they go about that? Do you think?

• 39:19Speaker 01

  I, I applied for one of those gigs one time. They were doing, uh, I just thought it was kind of interesting. There's another animal that lives that is in more places than it was historically, the mountain goat. And there was this project one time to, to, they were trying to get mountain goats out of Olympic, um, was it, no, no, no, not of Olympic National Park. I can't remember.

• 39:41Theo Von?

  Pull up a mountain goat.

• 39:43Speaker 01

  It's a great animal.

• 39:45Theo Von?

  Now you do not see a lot of these around here.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no. But they were looking for teams of people to go do this, uh, mountain goat coal.

• 39:51Theo Von?

  Of course they were.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  And so we made a, we made like a team.

• 39:54Theo Von?

  Get professional wrestlers, dude.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  We made a team to, we made a team to do the mountain goat coal and our team was not selected because a part of the thing was you, they wanted you to keep your mouth shut. And I think that they looked and they're like, this guy's not gonna keep his mouth shut about that shit. He's like a fucking writer. So they're like, I think they saw through me. And I, and I had, I had a crack commando team put together.

• 40:16Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  But didn't get the nod.

• 40:18Theo Von?

  Oh.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Cause I think that they could see that like, like, let's say you're a writer and you're trying to get in the military. They're like, yeah, I got a feeling.

• 40:25Theo Von?

  This guy's gonna.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  This ain't patriotism. Do you know what I'm saying? So I didn't get the, I didn't get the job.

• 40:30Theo Von?

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

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 40:34Theo Von?

  You guys should have got the chance, brother. That'd be a great movie.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  I had a crack commando team put together.

• 40:39Theo Von?

  Really? Who'd you get on? Did you get any diversity on it? How do you attack?

• 40:42Speaker 01

  No, I didn't do, no, this was before that.

• 40:44Theo Von?

  Was it D E I?

• 40:44Speaker 01

  No, this was before that.

• 40:46Theo Von?

  You didn't do all that? Yeah.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  No, you know, now that I review it in my mind, it was decidedly, it was decidedly, it was, it was a, it was a

• 40:53Speaker 01

  group of guys that you could mistake for me.

• 40:55Theo Von?

  No, okay.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  That was my mountain goat team.

• 40:59Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  They're gonna do the same, like, they're fixing to do the same thing in Grand Teton.

• 41:04Theo Von?

  In the Grand Teton National Park?

• 41:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, because mountain goats are, mountain goats are largely in the coastal ranges historically.

• 41:10Theo Von?

  God, they're beautiful, aren't they?

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. So you got like, like Idaho, Colorado, Utah. They all have non-native mountain goat populations.

• 41:17Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  South Dakota has a non-native mountain goat population.

• 41:20Theo Von?

  And when you say non-native, that means that they just ended up there? They weren't naturally from there?

• 41:24Speaker 01

  They were drove in.

• 41:26Theo Von?

  Ah.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  They were drove in. They were brought in. You wouldn't believe, like, if you're interested in animals, man, you wouldn't believe how much humans have reshuffled the deck.

• 41:37Theo Von?

  Of how animals exist?

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Of where they're like, of distribution of animals.

• 41:41Theo Von?

  In the world or mostly in America?

• 41:43Speaker 01

  World too. Yeah. We have a, like, our country hosts African species in certain, I mean, totally wild feral animals. We have African species running around in our country. We have Asiatic species running around in our country.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  We've just completely reshuffled the deck. Like I was saying, like at, you know, historically, there was turkeys in 34 states. You can hunt turkeys in every state but Alaska now.

• 42:05Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Like, we're all, we like, we've been very good at moving it around. And we used to have the ambition of moving it all around. Now we have the ambition of trying to put it back the way we found it.

• 42:15Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  But for a while, the ambition was to like, I want more of the merrier.

• 42:18Theo Von?

  Spread it everywhere.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  And they just cut shit loose just to see what would happen.

• 42:21Theo Von?

  Fuck.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, all the time, man. Just move it around, see what happens.

• 42:26Theo Von?

  That's bonkers, man. Where is Grand Teton National Park?

• 42:29Speaker 01

  It's ba, it's, I shouldn't say ba, it's basically Yellowstone National Park.

• 42:32Theo Von?

  Do you have a place in America that you feel, um, has the strongest connection to nature? Kind of to just pivot a little bit, like, do you, like, where you feel like the most, like, innately connected? Is that a weird question, kinda?

• 42:47Speaker 01

  No, it's not a weird question.

• 42:48Theo Von?

  Cause I know that like, some of the natives had like the Black Hills and stuff like that in the Dakotas. Like, they had places where they felt like extremely connected to nature.

• 42:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. You mean like, like places that had a, that, that had a spiritual?

• 42:59Theo Von?

  Like an aura or something to them?

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 43:01Theo Von?

  I just wondered if it was-

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't pretend, uh,

• 43:06Speaker 01

  I can't, like, I don't know what that felt like. I don't know what that looked like. Um, I have things that mean a lot. I have places that mean a lot to me. Um, I have places that mean a lot to me from a standpoint of personal experiences that have happened in certain places. I had a place for a long time, I told, like, I told my kids. I was like, man, if I die, like, I had originally said, if I die, I want, um, I was like, this is gonna be hard to pull off. But like, in a perfect world, I would have my body, like, dumped there.

• 43:35Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  Just hidden away somewhere to be eaten and my bones strewn about by

• 43:42Speaker 01

  bears.

• 43:43Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  Like, I thought that seemed like a cool idea.

• 43:46Theo Von?

  It is kinda neat.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's, there's a number, um,

• 43:50Speaker 01

  there's a number of people that, um-

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Crazy Horse, his friends took his body and put it somewhere. They don't know where it is. Really? Has anybody gone to look for it? Edward Abbey, the writer. Edward Abbey. So Crazy Horse, they hid his body? His friends took his body. He was killed in Nebraska. They took his body and put it in a crevice somewhere. They don't know where it is. And no one's found it yet? Ed Abbey's body was out. Ed Abbey from, uh? You know, you ever hear Monkey Ranch Gang? He wrote Monkey Ranch Gang. Not from, uh? Desert Solitaire. He was an, he was an environmental- Not the Odd Couple, huh? No, no, no. He was an environmental warrior. You should read up on- Ed Abbey? Yeah. He's a, he's like a, he's a big figure in defending the desert.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  In a novelist. Anyways, his friends took him and they dumped him. And they don't tell anybody where? Uh-uh. Won't tell anybody where. That's cool. That sounds like the way to go. So I wanted to have that kind of, I wanted to have a program like that. And that, where I wanted it was a spot that had, was a place that had like, that I had a deep, uh,

• 44:55Speaker 01

  what to me passes as a sort of spiritual connection to that place. Then there's places I just like because, uh, there's like, I like, I love being in Alaska. I spent a month or so in Alaska. It's kind of throughout different times of the year. I spend a month or so in Alaska every year. I love Alaska. What I like about Alaska is it's a,

• 45:15Speaker 01

  you know, it, it's a big place, but there's a lot of places where you can just kind of picture what time was a long, like you can kind of picture what things were a long time ago. Got it. Yeah. So it's like, cause a thing that if you've, as a, as an outdoorsman, as someone that likes nature, oftentimes you find yourself trying to imagine, like trying to imagine a long time ago. Right. There's, there's something like, there's some kind of continuity thing. Um, you know, people have been out on the landscape, living, hunting and fishing and living off the land for, since the beginning of human time. And so naturally your mind goes to- Like what, how did other people experience this?

• 45:57Speaker 01

  Like, how did, what, what was the experience of other people doing these activities in these places throughout time?

• 46:02Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  So I like spots where you can kind of picture it. Right? It's still, you can picture it. And there's a lot of places in Alaska, you can go there and be like, you can feel it.

• 46:11Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Do you know what I mean? You can feel it.

• 46:13Theo Von?

  Yeah. Like, it feels so untouched by so many, like, just a lot of other bullshit energy and stuff?

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it winds up being like, you can imagine, like, you could go, there's places you go and you can imagine, like, man, some dude's staying in here, 10, not 10, let, let, some dude, whatever, some dude staying here 7,000 years ago, beheld, like, however he perceived it, whatever his ideas of God were, you know, whatever his allegiances were, this is kind of what it looked like.

• 46:39Theo Von?

  Right.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  You know, it's what it looked like. And those places mean a lot to me to be able to be like, man, like, you could stand here, you know, at, at all these points in time and be like, it's just, you can just imagine it. It makes this continuity similar because a thing that I'm very interested in is, uh, professionally and personally, very interested in like the experiences of, of, of, of other people who, who had aspects of a lifestyle that, that I live today. Like, I'm always fascinated by that. That's why I could give a shit about Antarctica because there's no human history there.

• 47:10Theo Von?

  Hmm.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Right? So that's the cool thing about Alaska. My brother's a fisheries biologist in Alaska, and he had a really interesting point that he made to me. He's like, if, if you think about the concert, like, conservation efforts, environmental efforts in the lower 48, we are in, like, someday what we're doing might be regarded as a recovery phase. We're, we're trying to like fix things. We, we, we broke a lot of things, late 1800s, early 1900s, for decades, you know, we broke stuff. And so for the most part now, when someone talks about conservation, oftentimes it's like fixing broken shit, bringing the turkey back, fixing broken shit.

• 47:49Theo Von?

  Right.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Right?

• 47:50Theo Von?

  Cleaning up rivers, cleaning up, yeah, it's a lot of like-

• 47:52Speaker 01

  We're like, we, we broke a bunch of shit, like, we built a bunch of dams in the Pacific Northwest and killed all these salmon runs. Now we're trying to fix all the shit we broke. And so for most, like, most conservation work is oftentimes like fixing shit that we fucked up.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  He was saying his work in Alaska, he's been in Alaska forever. His work in Alaska at times is like, they're still doing, they're still trying to describe what's there. Meaning there are salmon runs. They'll go look at salmon runs. People know there's salmon there. They've been fishing for thousands of years. But no one's ever went and sort of like scientifically described the salmon run. There are rivers where no one's gone and scientifically described what lives in the river.

• 48:32Theo Von?

  Got it.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Right? So they're still in, they're still in a phase of just trying to like, write down what's there.

• 48:38Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 48:39Speaker 01

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

• 48:42Theo Von?

  Right.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  So in that way, Alaska is cool.

• 48:44Theo Von?

  Right. Cause it's still like in such an early process of being affected by humans.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. And if we play our cards right.

• 48:49Theo Von?

  Then what we learned here, we won't have to go through the same thing.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. If we play our cards right, uh, when someone talks about building a big dam, you know, on the Yukon or whatever, you, you might look and be like, man, uh, we were spending a lot of it down, down in what they call in Alaska, what they call the outside. And the outside, we're spending a lot of time and energy trying to fix all the shit we broke by doing that, just so heads up. As you think about.

• 49:13Theo Von?

  Right.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Your plans.

• 49:14Theo Von?

  Just, hey guys, do you have a part of, um, I know you've traveled extensively. Do you have a place that you feel like is like, is the most dangerous for people to go? Is that really a fair question? I mean, I guess every place is dangerous depending on what your behaviors are.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, there, there's, it's, this is something I think about and talk about a fair bit. There's a lot of like, there's places where there's a high level of perceived danger.

• 49:37Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  The thing I always try to point out, if my wife thinks I'm doing, like my wife often thinks I'm putting a lot of risk on my kids or doing too much, too risky a shit with my kids.

• 49:47Theo Von?

  Because they're going to try to do it?

• 49:49Speaker 01

  Or you're taking them with you? That I'm going to hurt them or drown them or whatever, you know?

• 49:52Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Like she's always afraid I'm going to something like that I, my recklessness will lead to my kids getting messed up.

• 49:58Theo Von?

  Right. Why do they need safety gear for Christmas every year if you're not trying to do something bad to them, Steve?

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Oh, there's one of my little kids. No, that's not my little kid. That's my friend's kid.

• 50:07Theo Von?

  Yeah, if you don't even know whose kid it is.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  That's my kid.

• 50:10Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Well, she's 12 now.

• 50:12Theo Von?

  Daddy's future hunting buddy.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  She has much, she has much more hair now.

• 50:18Theo Von?

  I believe that. I'm just saying this shirt is lobbying for a certain type of behavior in the future.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  She is my hunting buddy now, dude.

• 50:23Theo Von?

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  We, yeah, we don't show pictures of our kids much anymore, but uh, they're all really, except my older one. Anyhow, what the hell is that talking about? Oh, she's always afraid I'm gonna drown them or whatever.

• 50:33Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Reasonably so, but, but I'm always like, man, the most important, like, or the most dangerous thing, this is me, like, you're my wife, not me.

• 50:40Theo Von?

  All right.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  The most dangerous thing that's gonna happen is us driving to the airport.

• 50:44Theo Von?

  Sure, Steve. Look, sign the papers.

• 50:49Theo Von?

  Okay, sign the papers and you can do whatever you want. Okay, that's what my attorney said.

• 50:53Speaker 01

  It's uh.

• 50:53Theo Von?

  Sorry, I was trying to role play a little, but um.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  That was good rope. You, you, you'd have to have more time with her, you know?

• 50:59Theo Von?

  Yeah, I should have also went into it a little bit more.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  At all, dude.

• 51:02Theo Von?

  All right, let's try it again.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  She just didn't meet her.

• 51:03Theo Von?

  Let's try it again.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  But she brings, she brings up, so there's like high levels of perceived danger, but like, but then there's like reality, meaning driving down, driving down a highway is hazardous.

• 51:14Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Like, like highway travel is hazardous. Flying in single eng, we do a lot of flying in single-engine aircraft.

• 51:18Theo Von?

  That's hazardous.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Flying in single-engine aircraft is like a legitimate occupational hazard. But where people's minds go, people's minds go to getting attacked by wild animals.

• 51:34Theo Von?

  Right.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  Because you, the, people don't wanna, like, they're not thinking about that you're gonna go in, like, when you go into a remote environment, um,

• 51:44Speaker 01

  exposure.

• 51:46Theo Von?

  Dehydration?

• 51:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, exposure is like far more dangerous than wild animals, but it's not.

• 51:51Theo Von?

  Falling into a hole?

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Sure. It's not fun to think about.

• 51:54Theo Von?

  Right, right.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  It doesn't, it doesn't occupy any, there's no intellectual energy. You can't put like intellectual or emotional energy into you thinking about exposure.

• 52:02Theo Von?

  It doesn't have the same PR.

• 52:03Speaker 01

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

• 52:07Theo Von?

  Right.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  And so people are afraid of things, um. See, I feel like I'm, I seem like I'm hacking out my, my wife. I love her. My wife carries pepper spray. My wife will sometimes carry pepper spray. Of course. Because there's black bears around. Mm hmm. Oh, yeah. I've been in some neighborhoods. But you, anyone in this country, most people in the major cities of this country, they're all within a forty to hour drive of a black bear. Right. You're much closer to black bears right now. Yeah. Okay. But you're not sitting here with pepper spray. Oh, I see what you're saying. So why would you go walk? Like, why when you, why does she feel, I'm like, you know, like, you have black bears that come into the outskirts of New York. Mm hmm.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Right? New Jersey has the densest black bear population in the country. Yes. And the densest human population in the country. Jersey does? Yeah. So like, they don't all, when they're golfing, they don't carry pepper spray. Right. It's not like you see Trump out there with pepper spray in a fucking pocket full of- Why does she, why does my wife want to have pepper spray? Yeah. For black bears. Like, black bears don't matter. They're not dangerous, but they're perceived as dangerous. And certain environments make people feel like now they're in danger, but golfers in New Jersey aren't, were carrying pepper spray. Right. Though they have, probably have bears, if you're golfing in, in some semi-rural New Jersey environment, you're within hundreds of yards of bears. Right. But they're not giving their energy to thinking about bears. But you put someone at like a trailhead in the woods, and all of a sudden they got bears on their mind. Yeah.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  So dangerous would be like, I, I spent, I spent a month in Africa this summer and we saw a black mamba. A snake called, you know, that's the most, that's the deadliest snake, like, they just kill you when they get you. The guy we were with, so you'll never see one. Then we saw one. So all we talked about was black mambas. Yeah. He didn't bite anybody. Right. But all of a sudden, like, anytime I sat down, once I saw that son of a bitch, I saw a puff adder, a black mamba, and a cobra. Damn. Okay? What is a puff adder? Oh, he's a bad mother licker, man. Pull up, pull up how he gets around. Pull up how he gets around. A puff adder? Yeah. Watch how he gets around. You think of a snake doing a serpentine movement? For sure. Well, check his ass out. Pull up, pull up him getting around. Oh, shit.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  He just wiggles along like a, like a centipede. Shawty Bay got that fucking, he not even- Look at that. No, he don't need to do- He doesn't even leave a footprint. He don't need to- Oh. So

• 54:30Theo Von?

  That's what you call cutting corners right there. That's the kind of employee that I need.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Dude, that dude just, he's got little, his scales just walked, man. Yeah.

• 54:37Theo Von?

  That's crazy.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  I don't know if this is true. You want to hear something they told me about that thing? This Kenyan dude told me, he told me that.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  I don't know if this is true, but it's just a great, it's a wonderful detail. He told me that puff adder is so, he strikes so fast. We just caught one crossing the road and got out and messed with it a little bit, not up close, but distant messed with it. That puff adder strikes so fast, this guy was telling me this could be total lore. Don't even look it up because I don't want you to refute it because it's too cool. He says that he can hit a balloon twice, he can hit a balloon twice before it pops.

• 55:08Speaker 01

  Which I don't even know what that means, but does it sound cool?

• 55:10Theo Von?

  It sounds

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Fop, you know, like he can flop flop.

• 55:12Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Before the balloon deflates. I don't know.

• 55:15Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  So he's got, he's got a bad venom. So anyways, we see one of these, we see a, a, a, um, black mamba who can cruise around with half of his length up in the air. If he's seven foot, his head, when he's cruising through the woods, when he's pissed, his head's at your navel.

• 55:32Theo Von?

  Damn.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  He's a bad, bad, bad dude.

• 55:38Theo Von?

  Well, he's got some calves on him.

• 55:42Theo Von?

  That's what's amazing to me.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  You know,

• 55:44Theo Von?

  Why do Indian people love fucking with these things?

• 55:47Speaker 01

  And Kill Bill, it's a black mamba that kills, uh, that kills, uh, Michael Madsen's character.

• 55:52Theo Von?

  Is it really?

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a black mamba. Anyhow, so we see this, we see these different critters running around and then like, you're not gonna get killed by a snake. It just like, like it doesn't happen.

• 56:00Theo Von?

  Right, but it feels like it's gonna happen.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  But all of a sudden, instead of me thinking like, oh, I might get like a, some amoeba from drinking the water or like, who knows? Or a mosquito borne pathogen.

• 56:11Theo Von?

  Oh, that's out the window.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  Instead, everywhere I look, all of us, me and my other guys I was with, we didn't take a step, dude, without being like, because all of a sudden in our head was the perceived danger.

• 56:22Theo Von?

  Hmm.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Meanwhile, you're with all these people that were born and raised there. None of them's dead.

• 56:26Theo Von?

  Right. Yeah, they're doing fine. Some of them have some emotional issues or whatever, but they're doing, overall they're well.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  They're not all dead from snakes. It's just, that's where as humans. Like that's where the head, your, your head goes to like.

• 56:41Theo Von?

  Whatever's had the best advertising and probably whatever's most recently been seen, those sorts of things.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So when you say like the most dangerous place, like to an outsider, the Tanzanian bush felt dangerous for a reason that's probably not true.

• 56:57Theo Von?

  Right.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  It felt dangerous because one day we saw a black mama. And then.

• 57:01Theo Von?

  Or the Tasmanian devil too.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Well, he doesn't live there for sure.

• 57:05Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 57:07Theo Von?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Tasmanian tiger, Tasmanian devils, yeah.

• 57:10Theo Von?

  I'm thinking of Tanzania, I think, or something. I don't know what I'm thinking.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, no, you're right. Yeah. But no, um Tanzania and uh the Tasmanian, that's the na- the island of Tasmania.

• 57:20Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  Tanzania comes from Tan- uh comes from Zanzibar combining with Tangenika.

• 57:29Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  When those two countries came together, they were called Tanzania.

• 57:32Theo Von?

  So Tangenika doesn't exist anymore. It's now Tanzania.

• 57:35Speaker 01

  Tangenika doesn't. Zanzibar does, but Zan- the Zanzibar archipelago was rolled into Tangenika to become Tanzania. I'm subject matter expert. I spent a month there.

• 57:44Theo Von?

  Did you really? A lot of women will go to Zanzibar to meet men, kind of African men, a lot of women in their 40s and 50s.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  Is that true?

• 57:53Theo Von?

  Yeah. That's what I know about the migration or whatever it's called. But I uh, or it's for, I don't want to say it's for sex, but I think it, people say it is.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  I don't think that you're going there for that. It's pretty buttoned up there.

• 58:04Theo Von?

  Is it?

• 58:04Speaker 01

  It's pretty buttoned up.

• 58:05Theo Von?

  No, I don't think it's like illegal. I think it's they go there and it's sort of a popular space for courting of those of um African men and women who are kind of divorcees.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  Really?

• 58:18Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah. Cause my buddy went there and he was like, dude, it's not for me. It wasn't for him.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  See, my subject matter expertise is crumbling, but I'll point out, I was only there one week.

• 58:28Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 58:28Speaker 01

  So I only absorbed so much.

• 58:30Theo Von?

  And you don't fit either one of the parties that were, that are mating there. So I think.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  I brought my own mate with me, man.

• 58:35Theo Von?

  Oh, there you go then. You ever realize that you spent your entire morning thinking about lunch? It's 9 a.m. and somehow I'm already in negotiations with myself about how I'm gonna spend $20 on a sandwich at noon. And then I eat it or you eat it or who, somebody eats it. And then an hour later, you're just standing in the kitchen worrying about what you'll do for. Dinner. And that's one reason why I've been into Huell. The Black Edition Powder is a complete meal you have instead of food, not a shake on top of food. Their powder starts at less than $3 per meal, has 40 grams of protein, and mixes with water or milk in about 30 seconds. I like Huell's shakes because they're clean and it's quick.

• 59:20Theo Von?

  Sometimes it may, I just, I would just want to make sure I have everything I need to keep going the way I want to keep going in a healthy manner. So with Huell, basically lunch went from a daily logistical problem to a thing I can solve in about 30 seconds. Make healthy eating simple. New customers get an exclusive offer of 15% off online with my code WEEKEND at huell.com/weekend. That's H-U-E-L dot com slash weekend. Thank you to Huell for partnering and supporting our show. Look, we know that a lot of fellas enter the room weener first, baby. Weiner first, baby. That shark fin, baby.

• 1:00:06Theo Von?

  That's how I am, baby. And BlueChew is now available to put that, put the, put the, the, the, put the in your body, in your shark fin, boy.

• 1:00:23Theo Von?

  Look out, it's landing on the beach. BlueChew, it's a cheat code for your crotch. Stronger, harder, longer, lasting. Like someone gave your downstairs a pep talk and a gym membership, and now you're upstairs. Guys, it's not just about performance, though. This is about legacy, or third legacy, you know? And we've got a special deal for our listeners, as always. Get your first month of BlueChew free. Just use promo code Theo at checkout and pay $5 for shipping, that's it. Join BlueChew's mission to upgrade humanity one thrust at a time. Head to BlueChew.com for details and safety info. And big thanks to BlueChew for sponsoring the podcast.

• 1:01:06Theo Von?

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• 1:01:50Theo Von?

  with members saving up to $740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to rocketmoney.com/theo today. That's rocketmoney.com/theo. Rocketmoney.com/theo. I'll say this dude, I remember the first time that I saw a snake, it makes me think of what like my perception and everything was like, we were walking, I was with my grandparents, we're walking and suddenly I just kind of felt something on my, like I had some just boots where there's fishing, and something wrapped around my leg like that, and it was a snake. Really?

• 1:02:35Theo Von?

  Yeah, and I was like, oh my god, I couldn't move, I was so scared, I'd never seen a snake outside, you know, you'd heard about snakes, and I mean, it had just fucking wrapped around, just like it was like, like my leg was a stripper pole and this thing had just came to just fucking Grind on you. Just straight out of hell to grind on me, you know? And my grandmother looked at it, and she's like, she goes, I remember, she's like, did you summon that? She asked me, because my grandmother was out of her fucking mind. And that's when I knew that it was just gonna be a long life, right there. I was like, you think, and I looked in her eyes and I was, she thinks I fucking, a child that she barely ever even welcomes into town.

• 1:03:18Theo Von?

  She finally takes you to catch some bullheads in the fucking Spoon River out here. And you summoned a serpent. Fucking Jimmy Baker of fucking, uh, of Fang Lizards.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  Kind of snake it was?

• 1:03:31Theo Von?

  Um, I wanna say it was, I wanna say it was a water moxen, but that may have just been the lore of me growing up in Louisiana. Cause I don't know if they have those in Illinois or not, you know?

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  No, I don't believe they do.

• 1:03:41Theo Von?

  But I worked on a farm in Louisiana and at lunch break, we would always just walk around. If they had a boat that was turned over, we'd flip it over and there'd be a water moxen under it every single time, dude.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's, that's a cool snake. There is a.

• 1:03:53Theo Von?

  They were scary though.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  There's like, there's an idea and I kinda buy it that, um,

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  from, from like a evolutionary standpoint, or we, we carry this sort of like this. I wanna preface this by saying I'm not a geneticist.

• 1:04:10Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  We care, uh, despite, despite your impressions, I'm not a geneticist, but, uh, that we carry with us, this innate, let's say this sort of genetic marker, whatever, this innate fear of serpents.

• 1:04:27Theo Von?

  Yes.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  Do you know what I'm saying? Like, like it does you well. It, it, it does you well to be like standoff. You follow me?

• 1:04:37Theo Von?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:38Theo Von?

  Oh dude, I think anybody would be creeped out. There's nothing, yeah, there's something so, why are we so scared of snakes? Do you know? I wanna look, let's look that up a little bit.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  Snakes. There's a.

• 1:04:49Theo Von?

  But it feels dude, when you see.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  They're not right, man.

• 1:04:52Theo Von?

  And it feels so foreign. Oh, I will say this, we interviewed this blind girl one time, right? And we're just learning about what it's like to be blind and some of like the different stuff. And she talked a lot about animals and like getting to spend time with the animals and the feelings you get. And she says that she doesn't get any feeling from a snake. Like there's no energy that she gets.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:05:14Theo Von?

  And that's when I was like, dude, if a snake, yeah, Tanya Milo, Milochevic. That's when I knew if a blind don't even like a snake, I don't like a snake.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great idea to interview someone where you can just get right in because then you can ask all the questions you would be not, you'd ask all the questions. Do you remember, remember Howard Stern?

• 1:05:33Theo Von?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  He used to have a show where he'd have a panel of black guys that white dudes could ask questions to.

• 1:05:38Theo Von?

  Oh, that's great.

• 1:05:39Speaker 01

  You know, all like, like it was like, I can't remember what he called it. It was like, Ask a Black Man.

• 1:05:44Theo Von?

  Yeah. And now that, yeah. It was called Ask a Black?

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  I can't remember what the shtick was, but you just have dudes volunteer to come in.

• 1:05:51Theo Von?

  That's what we need.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  You like idiotic white guys could be like, hey, you know?

• 1:05:55Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  So it's an interesting interview format to be able to have a person come and say like, I will now entertain all your dumb ass questions that you wonder, but don't ask.

• 1:06:06Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  And that, that are like, that I get sick of, but I'm going to sit here and indulge you for an hour. And you can be like, well, what do you see?

• 1:06:14Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:06:15Theo Von?

  Yeah. She said that a lot of it was like memorizing patterns, like when you're going somewhere, like the more you go there, the easier it is like, um, she said a lot of times it felt like she was playing like a video game in her head, like just remembering like, almost as if you're like controlling somebody through a video game, that that's kind of how she would, um,

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:06:33Theo Von?

  Like guide herself. I thought it was pretty interesting. I should do it again soon.

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  No, that's a really good, that's a really good interview deal because, because she probably like generally going about her life, probably can't stand, you know, people staring at her, wondering shit, asking her the same dumb shit over.

• 1:06:48Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  Be like, I'm just going to sit here and just do it.

• 1:06:50Theo Von?

  Yeah, it was great.

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  Hit me with it. Hit me with it.

• 1:06:52Theo Von?

  Have you ever had, taken a blind person on one of your hunts before? I know.

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  No, man, but it's a thing. It's a thing. And I've, and I've had, I had a blind hunter on my podcast one time.

• 1:07:00Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  Um, to talk about what the experience was and, uh, yeah, I had a blind person on.

• 1:07:06Theo Von?

  And what is that? Cause they're just, I mean, they got to feel like there's no chance when they shoot, right?

• 1:07:12Speaker 01

  You know, they had people help. We, we had a, uh, you know what I'm, you know what I'm dicking up? I actually just told you something that's not true. Cause we were gonna, we one time had a paralyzed, we had a paralyzed. We were gonna have a blind hunter. Uh huh. We didn't, or I don't think we did. We had a fully paralyzed hunter who had to hunt with like an automation thing. Wow. Took a lot of assistance from his friends. But he had been a hunter. Had an accident and then paralyzed from the neck down, developed a way that he could continue hunting with the help of his friends. Wow, that's pretty cool. With a mouth control apparatus, but it took a ton of assistance. That's who he had on.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  Well, a point I was gonna make about that innate fear of snakes is if you could do time machine shit, okay? Mm hmm. And you talking time travel? I'm gonna. Okay.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  This would be like a really good question to have. Okay. The good use of, if you had like one pass, one time pass, um, here's a thing that would be on my list of shit I would be curious about.

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  When hu- like, after the sort of African diaspora and humans started colonizing the whole world, right?

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  The people that came, the people that became the first Americans and came in from Alaska. You guys hear about the Bering Land Bridge, right? The land bridge is the size of Texas. It wasn't like a bridge. It was like a land mass. Like people, people colonizing the new world would have been born and died on the Bering Land Bridge without thinking that they were going anywhere. They were just living their lives. Got it. And slowly spread down. And those like Inuits, like a, like kind of natives? They became native. Right. Well, who, the people that became the Inuits, by our understanding, the people that became the Inuits came much later. Got it. Okay. They came from the Japan and the Aleutians and whatnot, but they, these like Siberians came into the new world. So by this point, you have hundreds of generations, hundreds

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  of generations of people had lived in a snake-free environment because they'd lived in the Arctic. Ooh. Hundreds of generations. And then they're, they're, they slowly, generation to generation to generation, they slowly moved down.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  The North American continent. There's two theories that like Alaska, you know, they don't have a snake, right? There's two theories. There's one that they came through the mid-continent and maybe emerged down around Edmonton, Alberta, onto the Great Plains. That was a fashionable idea for a long time. The currently fashionable idea is they came down the coast. Okay, so now you've had, you have hundreds of generations of people that would never have seen or experienced a snake.

• 1:10:02Theo Von?

  Yeah, and you got snakes down there.

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  But all of a sudden, they spread southward.

• 1:10:06Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  And at some point, one of those sons of bitches is out just, right?

• 1:10:11Theo Von?

  Fuck.

• 1:10:12Speaker 01

  He's out cruising around, doing his deal, and there's one laying there. That hap- like, that happened. That happened. If you could take your time machine and go see that guy, see that snake, did he go, fuck? Or did he jump down and grab it? That was some good time machine shit right there.

• 1:10:36Theo Von?

  Wow, say this, if he was with someone else when it happened, you have to cut that person's throat immediately, I think, because you would think they have something to do with this, like, they're in on it. Like, that's what I would do. You're like, who the fuck?

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  Who summoned this?

• 1:10:49Theo Von?

  Yes.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:50Theo Von?

  Like, yeah.

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  You're distant ancestors, summon that snake.

• 1:10:55Theo Von?

  Yeah, you would think it was like other wor- I don't know, but you'd probably seen fish, but I don't know. Do you just get that energy?

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, then you would be able to answer the question. That's the way, the one way to be able to answer the question, do humans have some baked in shit? Or is it not that?

• 1:11:14Theo Von?

  Right. Yeah, you'd have to go all the way back.

• 1:11:16Speaker 01

  There's probably another way, too. You could take a child at birth, buy one, sequester it somewhere.

• 1:11:22Theo Von?

  Well, they do that all the time. There's Indian babies playing with snake.

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, but take one and sequester it so it doesn't get any information from any human beings.

• 1:11:29Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  Let it become an old person and throw a snake in that room.

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  Do they jump back?

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  That'd be easier and less expensive than time travel, but it wouldn't be as authentic and you'd run into like, you'd run into legal.

• 1:11:43Theo Von?

  And if they, if they've been alive so long, are they going to not care anymore? Like, I don't give a-

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  You've damaged them psychologically and stuff by locking them up in that room and shit, you know?

• 1:11:52Theo Von?

  They're like, I don't give a fuck if it's something to snake.

• 1:11:55Speaker 01

  The detractors would be like, yeah, but he was so destroyed psychologically that this is not telling us anything.

• 1:12:02Theo Von?

  Right. Yeah, I think-

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  You're just fucking with a, with a-

• 1:12:06Theo Von?

  With a, with a, um-

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, a person you victimized-

• 1:12:09Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  Of this whimsical scientific study.

• 1:12:11Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah. I think at that point, you're really looking at the Elizabeth Smart of reptiles kind of vibes, you know? And I don't think that's what we want.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  No, it is gonna be a time travel problem.

• 1:12:20Theo Von?

  Yeah, we'll go time travel. Um, uh, uh, well, let's talk about a topic that some people think is kind of controversial, like,

• 1:12:29Theo Von?

  you see a lot of people who will post photos with like big game, right? They go and kill like a woolly, not a woolly mammoth or whatever, but like a-

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  A deer.

• 1:12:37Theo Von?

  A big, huge deer.

• 1:12:38Speaker 01

  Big old turkey.

• 1:12:39Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  Rope dragon limb hanger.

• 1:12:41Theo Von?

  Yes, rope dragon limb hanger, you know, one that's just singing, you know, one in an Allen Iverson jersey, you know what I'm saying? Like a real fucking boss out there.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  I'm following, I'm following.

• 1:12:50Theo Von?

  Now-

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  I'm getting excited.

• 1:12:51Theo Von?

  But then, I have a-

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  And they put a picture of it up.

• 1:12:54Theo Von?

  Right, are there, or some of the-

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  Let's say it's a deer, something with eyelashes.

• 1:12:56Theo Von?

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 1:12:57Speaker 01

  Cause that's what, that's what-

• 1:12:59Theo Von?

  Or lions and stuff like that.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's got an eyelash, it's gonna, it, it, it, it's emotional for people.

• 1:13:05Theo Von?

  Okay, so that's fair. So, yeah, I think I just want to know about some of that, but then also you hear that people put up these like, that some of these animals, they're going to die in the places that they're in, and so for conservation that they kind of sell off, kind of tags or lottery for, so anyway, take me into some of that world, kind of, if, if, if you don't mind.

• 1:13:24Speaker 01

  Well, I thought you were gonna get into the ethics of that you, of you posing with a dead animal in a picture, but you're talking about like the sort of the conservation font, like the kind of-

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  There's a perceived conflict or like a incongruity

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  around the notion that how can you help a species?

• 1:13:46Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  By hunting it, right? How do you help a species by hunting it? Wouldn't that be like that? That would appear to people to be quite illogical, right? How does killing it help it?

• 1:13:57Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  Is that, is that?

• 1:13:58Theo Von?

  Yeah, I think that's fair. That really kind of boils it down. Yeah.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  It's a phenomenal question. I can see why it puzzles people. But you can point to case after case after case of ways in which it has worked. We began our conversation around turkeys.

• 1:14:16Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  There's a, there's a saying that I like quite a bit. It's not mine, but it's a success has many fathers.

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  But failure is a bastard's child. Okay.

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  The success in restoring the wild turkey. Many people claim parentage of that success. And there was many people that attributed efforts to that success, all these different, like wherever state you live in your state has a fishing game agency. Okay. I'll point out that your state's fishing game agency gets the bulk of its funding from people buying hunting and fishing licenses. That's how we fund the agencies that take care of wildlife in the states. So does that. But when they were restoring the wild turkey from nearly being wiped off the continent. Okay, the, the main player, the main player that was involved in that nationally

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  is an organization that happens to have their annual convention in Nashville called the National Wild Turkey Federation. Okay. The National Wild Turkey Federation was kind of a through line of the efforts to restore turkeys to North America, to recover the wild turkey, to put the wild turkey back on the ground and all the places where it had been wiped out. The National Wild Turkey Federation is a hunting organization. Okay. So if you went and looked and you said, here's these guys that put enormous amounts of expertise, scientific expertise, enormous amounts of funding, enormous amounts of physical, physical effort into restoring the wild turkey.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  To where they exceed historic levels. Is it fair to go like, you just did that so you could hunt turkeys? You'd be like, guilty as charged, right? Guilty as charged. Right? Um, there are other kids, like turkeys are so widely available now. But is that a bad thing? It's not a bad thing. Saying it's not, but it's not always even that way. Because for instance, if you look at, there's, there's an organization called the Wild Sheep Foundation. It's an American-based conservation organization that works to restore, recover, protect wild sheep species. Okay. Desert big horns, Rocky Mountain big horns, doll sheep, stone sheep. Okay. They work on behalf of wild sheep.

• 1:16:42Speaker 01

  I have been hunting my whole life. I apply every year to get a bighorn sheep tag in a half dozen states every year. I have never drawn a bighorn sheep tag. I have never hunted bighorn sheep. It is likely, it is likely that I will die. Okay. Right. There's a likelihood I will die and have never had the opportunity to hunt a bighorn sheep. Yet, on occasion, I do things to support the Wild Sheep Foundation. So what am I guilty of? Like, I aspire to hunt a bighorn sheep.

• 1:17:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. I recognize them as like an integral part of the Western landscape. I wanted to see more of them around. I'm a hunter. I would hunt one if I could. I probably can't, but I want to see them back in their place. There are many, many conservation organizations, the most impactful, like wildlife conservation organizations that do real work on the ground. I'm not talking about lobbying bullshit. Okay. I'm not talking about like. You know, I'm talking about like the, the kind of work where you're like putting effort on the ground, you're putting animals on the ground, you're proving habitat on the ground, right? You're helping migratory animals, whatever. That shit comes from hunters. That shit comes from hunting based organizations.

• 1:18:06Theo Von?

  You're saying that most-

• 1:18:06Speaker 01

  In this country.

• 1:18:07Theo Von?

  Most of the wildlife and the preservation of wildlife here comes from hunters.

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  That's like, we fund it, we do the groundwork, people that come out of that world of hunting, move into conservation, there are like environmental orgs, there are lobbying orgs, there are orgs that work in all these different ways that aren't, but like they're really effective on the ground stuff comes from hunters and anglers.

• 1:18:27Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:18:28Speaker 01

  It's just like, this isn't like-

• 1:18:29Theo Von?

  It makes sense.

• 1:18:30Speaker 01

  This is like, this is settled science. I mean, this isn't me giving you some spin, I'm not giving you like a, a novel way to look at something. It's just like, it's just the reality.

• 1:18:38Theo Von?

  Well, yeah, I, I mean-

• 1:18:39Speaker 01

  Like your fishing game agency, what, what state do you, it doesn't matter what the hell you answer me, you're a resident of Tennessee, your fishing game agency gets the bulk of its funding, so your fishing game agency handles like, disease work, access work, enforcement of game laws, they get their money from hunting and fishing licenses, the bulk of it. Or they get money from excise taxes on sporting goods, equipment, guns, ammo, whatever. It's just like, we pay for it. Like, you know, there's guys that are, there's people that want to deny that reality, but like I said, it's like, it's settled science. It's, you, you can't debate the, the nuts and bolts of it. So this plays out in other ways that draw a lot of attention, like something like, let's, let's talk about Tanzania for a minute.

• 1:19:23Speaker 01

  Totally different system than what we have in America, but in Tanzania, the most effective way that they're able to, the, the most effective way that they're able to protect large tracts of wilderness habitat is drawing revenue from them by allowing hunting to occur on those places.

• 1:19:42Theo Von?

  Got it.

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  It's like productive for them. It's either that or it's slash and burn agriculture. So it's like, you're able to go into an area and, and by having people like Westerners, Europeans, Americans, whatever, come there to have an experience of going there and hunting and paying a big amount of money to hunt there, warrants them being able to set aside large chunks of ground, the government, and monetize it.

• 1:20:05Speaker 01

  And monitor it and then pay for anti poaching efforts and other things that that protect it. You might, you might look at it and hate it. You might look at it and be like, I don't think that humans have a right to harm animals. And like, I'm not going to argue that perspective. So you might look at it and be like, it sucks that that has to be true. And I'll be like, okay, it's fine. Maybe in your opinion, it sucks that that has to be true. But what I can't debate with you is, does it have to be true? It's just true.

• 1:20:33Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:33Speaker 01

  You know, you might hate that that's the way, but that's the way it is.

• 1:20:36Theo Von?

  But that's the way it is. Did humans always eat animals, do you think?

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, since they could.

• 1:20:43Theo Von?

  It'd be hard not to, I think. If you saw, I'm trying to think if I went back in time, that would be cool, too. You go back, some guy.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  The first dude eat meat. You'd have to go back some far ass. You'd have to go back.

• 1:20:56Theo Von?

  That's fine. We can go back that far.

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  There's an idea that like, there's, there's a, in anthropology, there's a debate about what time, at what point in time that you have behaviorally and anatomically modern humans. This is, this is not, we're getting way outside of biblical understanding, but we're talking about like, from the non biblical science world.

• 1:21:16Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  Okay, so, so a stepping outside of like, like the biblical confines and going into like purely scientific world. Some people think that you could have grabbed a dude 75,000 years ago, put him in, grabbed him at birth, and he could have, he could learn to fly an airplane. He could go to college, do well, blend in. You'd see him going down the street and wouldn't think anything of it.

• 1:21:41Theo Von?

  Yeah, be a pie cap or whatever.

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Absolutely. That was a hunting, that was a hunting consumer of large quantities of animal flesh. That was.

• 1:21:56Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:56Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:21:57Theo Von?

  So there's no doubt at that time period that people were really snacking on animals.

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And then there's this other idea, and you know how you, you wind up liking the ideas that, that confirm your own.

• 1:22:06Theo Von?

  For sure.

• 1:22:07Speaker 01

  There's this other idea that the great.

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  In a scientific understanding that when we had, when humans had this kind of Renaissance, like, like, um, we seem to have suddenly kind of figured a bunch of shit out. And some people correlate that to us becoming predominantly to eating huge amounts of animal flesh, so efficient and so full of energy. That was our intellectual Renaissance. Like, that's when humans became bright and developed, like, religion and organizational structure and language and all that is when we discovered meat eating.

• 1:22:43Theo Von?

  Right, because we had enough energy not only to satiate our bodies, but then also for the rest of us to maybe flourish some because we finally had a new source that was really replenishing us constantly.

• 1:22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were broken from, we were broken from a cycle of needing to eat low-grade, low, low, low, low-grade, low-calorie food all the time.

• 1:23:02Theo Von?

  Yeah. Right, so then you're constantly just sitting there snacking, whereas otherwise, you can have a nice meal, then you sit back and kick it and think of something creative.

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  Like, deer is on this really strict schedule of, like, eating a bunch of low-grade food, sitting, ruminating, eating, you know?

• 1:23:15Theo Von?

  Deer's always like-

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  So there's this idea, yeah, that's the idea that, like, and of course, I like it because it reinforces, like, that's what I like to eat, deer meat and stuff. So when I hear that, I'm like, fuck, yeah, bro, that's right.

• 1:23:27Theo Von?

  That's the truth.

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  Because we just like the stuff that-

• 1:23:30Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, we want to support our own ideas and causes, our own truths. What about, uh, pull up, like, Neanderthal, what was that called? Like, a man that was 75,000 years ago, was that Neanderthals?

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  Well, it would have been, it would have been Homo sapiens.

• 1:23:44Theo Von?

  Oh, god. That must have been-

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  Well, no, it'd been like, they would have been, have you ever had your, have you ever done, like, a, um, you know, the late 23andMe organization?

• 1:23:56Theo Von?

  I've done 23andMe, yeah, they sold all my fucking information to this Japanese company.

• 1:24:00Speaker 01

  I went and deleted mine.

• 1:24:01Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  Just the other day.

• 1:24:03Theo Von?

  My shit, I'm getting-

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  You can still delete your shit.

• 1:24:05Theo Von?

  Really? I'm getting a bunch of-

• 1:24:07Speaker 01

  Because I would go, I would say, like, hey, I want to buy his shit, see what he's got going on. And I, you know, so I had mine deleted, you can have deleted.

• 1:24:12Theo Von?

  I'm getting emails from, like, you're related to this guy, you know? And it's like, fucking Japanese guy, like, this motherfucker?

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  Hey, they recently solved-

• 1:24:19Theo Von?

  They're lying.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  Where I live, they recently solved a 30-year-old murder case-

• 1:24:24Theo Von?

  Uh-uh.

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  From, because so many people doing 23andMe, filling up these, these, filling up databases.

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  And so all of a sudden now, all of a sudden now they're like, all of a sudden now they're like, hey, we got a little ping, a little ping on the map. Yeah. Of like a family that seems, cause they had a biological specimen. We're gonna solve all those old crimes. They had a biological specimen, right? And so just from people willfully going and doing this kind of work, all of a sudden you start popping all these like markers. And then you gotta, you gotta buy a hair, a sperm or whatever. Oh, yeah. And all of a sudden you're able to be like, well, it's not him, but there's some dudes a lot like him. Fuck. That live in this town. Let's go have a look around that town. When you do it, they tell you what percent Neanderthal you are. Yeah. Yeah. I was lower than average Neanderthal.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  Huh. Did it upset you? Uh.

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  No, I wasn't surprised. I just don't like, I don't have that vibe, you know? I remember, I feel like, I feel like Joe was telling me, Rogan was telling me that he was high up. I could see that kinda. I could definitely see that. I swear, I hope I'm not making that up. I swear he told me that he was higher than average. I don't think he would deny that at all. He's definitely like a Neanderthal guy that got struck by some fucking cool ass lightning. I could be, I swear that's what he was saying. But anyways, I was lower than normal. But the point being, oh yeah, there he goes. More than regular people. Fifty seven percent more Neanderthal. Yeah. That's classic, dude. So, you know, an understanding is that, um, you know, they were,

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  here's a weird deal. I, I, I wrote this one time and one, I wrote this in the, in a forward to one of my cookbooks. I was writing it, you could have been like, at a certain time, you could have been in Spain. Okay. Okay. You could have been in, in, in Spain. You could have been in the Iberian Peninsula. You could have been in northern Israel and see a campfire.

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  Often burning in the distance. And you would have had to have asked yourself, what kind of, what kind of human is that? Do you follow me?

• 1:26:37Theo Von?

  Like you, you mean you would have had to been like, what race or class or something like that?

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  What kind? What species of human?

• 1:26:44Theo Von?

  Oh, like, is that a somebody who's like, kind of like?

• 1:26:46Speaker 01

  Is it Neanderthal dudes?

• 1:26:47Theo Von?

  Somebody's a little more monkey?

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Is it like Neanderthal dudes? Is it like, like the same way that we, we're talking about?

• 1:26:53Theo Von?

  Somebody eating a mu- somebody eating a banana, somebody who has a sandals at least on?

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  Eating one of me?

• 1:26:58Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:58Speaker 01

  Like the same way you got like whitetail deer and mu- like where I live, we have whitetail deer and mule deer. They're so similar. Like it takes, I don't want to say a trained eye to tell them apart, but you know, someone from another country would look and it might take them a few days for like, oh, they're different.

• 1:27:11Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:12Speaker 01

  They're just gonna see and be like, whatever, you know, deer, deer. But at a time, it'd be that, at a time, it'd be that you'd be like, oh no, there's the one kind of human. And there's these other kinds of humans.

• 1:27:24Theo Von?

  Like fuck, that guy's about 2,000 years back.

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they don't, they don't mix or they get together or they kidnap each other, whatever the hell they got going on.

• 1:27:31Theo Von?

  Bad breath, all that.

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. But, uh, when you see that you're like Joe having that like as high as 57% more Neanderthals because it's, it's like, it's, it's, you know, we under deer ass, I don't know, was it like an act of passion?

• 1:27:46Theo Von?

  That made you evolve?

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  No, I'm saying that, that drove humans and Neanderthals to interbreed. Was it coercion?

• 1:27:53Theo Von?

  Oh, you think they're separate beings? You think there's one more advance in the?

• 1:27:57Speaker 01

  Neanderthals, Neanderthals were far more successful species than we are. Like Neanderthals were in Europe far longer than our ancestors were in Europe.

• 1:28:10Theo Von?

  But aren't Neanderthals our ancestors though?

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  No, I wouldn't, you can't really, I wouldn't really, yes, in that it seems like direct human ancestors. Like, like Homo sapien.

• 1:28:21Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:22Speaker 01

  Okay. It seems like at times they were able to have viable offspring. That at times Neander- Neanderthal people that were in Europe far longer, they were in Europe long, long, hundreds of thousands of years before modern humans made the scene.

• 1:28:37Theo Von?

  Got it.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  And because of everyone having a little bit of introgression from Neanderthals.

• 1:28:45Speaker 01

  This is not my field to study. I'm just, I'm just a curious onlooker.

• 1:28:48Theo Von?

  Let's take a look right here. Ancient human species, including Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans. Denisovans and others did interbreed as they encountered one another during the middle and upper Paleolithic periods, leaving detectable genetic legacies in modern populations. Dude, I didn't even know this. I thought, have you seen that chart where it's one man like that?

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  That's a deceptive chart.

• 1:29:11Theo Von?

  He has a briefcase and then he has Nikes on or whatever?

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a deceptive chart.

• 1:29:15Theo Von?

  Dude, that's fucking, I can't even believe that.

• 1:29:17Speaker 01

  This is one of the main things I talk about with my kids.

• 1:29:20Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:29:20Speaker 01

  Trying to explain. They're like, they're like, what do you mean we came from monkeys? I'm like, it's the, that's not, don't look at it that way.

• 1:29:25Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:29:27Theo Von?

  Oh, what I want to start talking about my next hour comedy is about the middle monkeys. Like, why don't you ever see that middle monkey? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, you'll see a monkey and then you'll see a dude, you know, who's a mechanic, right? But you never see that middle motherfucker. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:29:40Speaker 01

  What happened to them all?

• 1:29:41Theo Von?

  The dude who's just scratching under one arm, wrenching the other, fucking just, they don't know how work to register because he's just like woo woo, you know, but he can change a tire and a fucking, just with his lips. You know what I'm saying? You don't see that chimp, that chimp man, that middle man. So I'm just amazed.

• 1:29:57Speaker 01

  They're locked away somewhere.

• 1:29:58Theo Von?

  Yeah. But dude, I never thought that you'd be sitting there and you'd be like, oh shit.

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. You'd be like, oh.

• 1:30:03Theo Von?

  You and your buddy like, dog, let's go, let's go, let's go do a lap, right?

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  We better go figure out who, what kind of dudes it is. But the fact that they, the fact that they inter, the fact that they interbred.

• 1:30:14Theo Von?

  Why didn't they tell us this?

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  Well, I think that, well, you might've missed that part.

• 1:30:17Theo Von?

  Oh, I wouldn't know that.

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  Let me get to my point though. The fact that they interbred.

• 1:30:22Theo Von?

  Unreal.

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  Leads to this question of was it a roma, was it a romantic bot bonding? Was it like a romantic, right? Was it something that was like under coercion?

• 1:30:33Theo Von?

  It was coercion.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  Do you know what I mean?

• 1:30:36Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  Like, was it like a, like a sort of like conquerors? Choice kinda shit.

• 1:30:42Theo Von?

  Yeah, it was like when those guys that were.

• 1:30:43Speaker 01

  That they would like meet and, and, and over like, like the Capulets and, you know, from like Romeo and Juliet's family.

• 1:30:51Theo Von?

  No, Stephen, it was not like that.

• 1:30:53Speaker 01

  And come together despite the family condemnations and, and produce offspring.

• 1:30:57Theo Von?

  No, it was like when those nurses that don't treat people well at those hospitals take advantage of them. That's what I think it was.

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  I do wonder. That'd be another good time machine burner up right there.

• 1:31:06Theo Von?

  You just go back and it's a, but here's the tough thing. If a person who was more mentally advanced, hypothetically a homo sapien, if they tried to, if they tried to like, oh, here's just a Neanderthal. Let's get a little bit of love, you know?

• 1:31:22Speaker 01

  Cause they're easy to trick.

• 1:31:23Theo Von?

  Right. But they're not easy to fucking just pin down and make love to, I bet.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  You gotta trick them.

• 1:31:28Theo Von?

  But even if you trick.

• 1:31:29Speaker 01

  With some shells and stuff.

• 1:31:30Theo Von?

  Right. Even if you trick them with a little wind chime or something, get their attention. I bet you can't, you're gonna have to, how quick can you make love and still enjoy it and get away from them? I, I, I wouldn't. That's not a risk I'm taking.

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  No, it's time machine questions.

• 1:31:44Theo Von?

  I'm not, that's not a risk. I'm someone that hasn't brushed their hair in 70,000 years. I'm gonna try to fuck them. I'm out.

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  You know what I wanna put out a call to? You don't mind me doing a call for a guest I'm trying, I've been trying to find on your show.

• 1:31:57Theo Von?

  No, like a turkey call or whatever?

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  So it's like, I'm like using your, I'm using like your audience to find someone that I might not find on my own.

• 1:32:05Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  What I've been trying to do for years is I've been trying to find a really, really good,

• 1:32:14Speaker 01

  a really good Neanderthal. You can say Neanderthal or tall. You sound a little bit smarter. I understand. My understanding is you sound a little better to say Neanderthal. It's a valley in Germany.

• 1:32:25Theo Von?

  It is?

• 1:32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:26Theo Von?

  It's a valley in Germany?

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you sound a little more, like I'm more likely to get a good guest by saying Neanderthal. Cause they're like, this dude knows the shit. I wanna find a really good Neanderthal behavioralist.

• 1:32:38Theo Von?

  Hard R in that Neanderthal too.

• 1:32:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, Neanderthal researcher to come on the show and talk about what they know. But it can't be just like a writer who spent a month researching. It's cause our audience doesn't like those kinds.

• 1:32:51Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:32:52Speaker 01

  It's gotta be someone that like, it's gotta be someone that lives and breathes. It can't be like an interloper.

• 1:32:58Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  Like I need like a legit. A verbose, animated, Neanderthal researcher.

• 1:33:04Theo Von?

  I don't want some halfway house. I want a fucking trap house that people have been shooting up in for 50 years with information about motherfuckers who would just like, who could digest a stone if they need to.

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, like that, like a really good Neanderthal person to come on the show and you just reach out to us. I want to interview you.

• 1:33:22Theo Von?

  Okay, there you go, guys. For Steve, they would like that. And here's what I would-

• 1:33:25Speaker 01

  Do you have a lot of Neanderthal researchers on that listen to the show?

• 1:33:29Theo Von?

  I mean, I bet we have some consumers who would rank high on a Neander scale or whatever. But I'll say this, I want somebody who has a high amount on their 23andMe, an extreme-

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  No, I don't want, they don't need to have that. Or you want-

• 1:33:43Theo Von?

  That's what I want.

• 1:33:43Speaker 01

  The highest.

• 1:33:44Theo Von?

  I want somebody who's 80%-

• 1:33:46Speaker 01

  That'd be a good idea, dude.

• 1:33:47Theo Von?

  80% Neanderthal.

• 1:33:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but find the highest guy.

• 1:33:50Theo Von?

  And when I get them, I'm just gonna send them over to you too, Steve, because I think you would do well and because you might be able to notice some patterns that they have or behaviors that they have.

• 1:33:58Speaker 01

  Who, if, whatever, I had low, who is the highest?

• 1:34:03Theo Von?

  Who's the highest? Somebody has to have the highest Neanderthal amount.

• 1:34:06Speaker 01

  I know that there is a, I was reading a book, I read a lot of anthropology books. I can't remember if it was the Seven Daughters of Eve. I was reading a book about human history. And in it, they were pointing to some controversy around this question.

• 1:34:28Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  It's not always, people don't always look upon this, this is not something that everybody likes to talk about.

• 1:34:37Theo Von?

  Really?

• 1:34:38Speaker 01

  Where you see, like, as much as I'd be, whatever, proud of it or whatever, there are places, there are places in the world where these geneticists see-

• 1:34:48Theo Von?

  More N-tals?

• 1:34:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, more Neanderthal in certain areas. And it's a sensitive subject. It winds up being a sensitive subject. So you might wind up having not only a fascinating show, but you might have a show that courts a certain level of controversy.

• 1:35:01Theo Von?

  I like that.

• 1:35:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. But what I've found, because I, because I am interested in this subject, I've found that there's a sort of trend in academics to, that we're, there's a trend in academics of being that we're like rebranding Neanderthals.

• 1:35:18Speaker 01

  So it winds up being like, oh, they had art. Oh, they like wore jewelry. Oh, they were freedivers.

• 1:35:26Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  They, do you know what I mean? Like every, like.

• 1:35:30Theo Von?

  Why do you think we're doing that? Do you think?

• 1:35:31Speaker 01

  I don't know why. It's like, cause there's this, there's used to be this idea that there were these like thuggish brutes.

• 1:35:37Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:35:38Speaker 01

  You know, but there's like, when you look, when you, if you kind of follow Neanderthal news, like I do.

• 1:35:44Theo Von?

  Twitter feed.

• 1:35:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's like a theme of, of this kind of like, this delight, like this kind of delighted realization about how come, like how complex their culture was, how complex their society was. It'd be like, like you, you don't find like, man, it turns out they were dumber than we thought.

• 1:36:02Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  That's not like a news story. It would be like, oh, they appreciated the finer things in life.

• 1:36:08Theo Von?

  Well, it's like the branding, it's like even when it goes back to like, you were talking about the bald eagle. It's like just that PR, that spin. I wonder if they're.

• 1:36:14Speaker 01

  They have a very, very good PR agency.

• 1:36:17Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:36:17Speaker 01

  Neanderthals right now, or I have a good one on retainer. And they're getting a lot of good ink about that they liked art and movies, you know? And it's like, it's like they're just getting cooler, they're getting cooler.

• 1:36:28Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah. They, they love stand by me. You're like, that's insane, dude.

• 1:36:34Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, dude. Start paying attention to Neanderthal news and you'll see what I'm talking about. When I get my guest on, he'll tell you all about it.

• 1:36:39Theo Von?

  Oh, I love that.

• 1:36:40Speaker 01

  I'll send you the episode.

• 1:36:41Theo Von?

  I love that you're gonna have that, man. Dude, listening to, dude, what would be better? Listening to.

• 1:36:47Speaker 01

  Of course, I could talk about humans all day long, bro. But you know, so.

• 1:36:50Theo Von?

  Listening to two Neanderthals talk about themselves, they wouldn't know a lot. But they would try pretty hard.

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:57Theo Von?

  That could be us, dude. That's awesome. That's really awesome, dude. People tell you look like Harry Connick Jr. Sometimes?

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  No, I've gotten, uh, I used to get Kevin Bacon.

• 1:37:09Theo Von?

  That's who it is, dude.

• 1:37:10Speaker 01

  I used to get a dude from the, a dude from, remember the show where they would like do all the, the crazy stunts to each other?

• 1:37:17Theo Von?

  Oh, uh.

• 1:37:19Speaker 01

  Johnny Knoxville.

• 1:37:21Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah. Johnny Knoxville, I could see that some.

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  I would get that. What else would I get?

• 1:37:26Theo Von?

  Those are good, those are good ones.

• 1:37:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't see that one too clear. Cause I don't never get, I never do clever shit with my hair.

• 1:37:33Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah, Johnny's hair is always kind of stylish and stuff.

• 1:37:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think that Kevin Bacon, like, he doesn't get too clever with his hair.

• 1:37:40Theo Von?

  I saw that.

• 1:37:41Speaker 01

  He was kicking ass when I was a kid in the movie Making Business, man, you know?

• 1:37:45Theo Von?

  Oh, he's such a talented guy. I saw the guy who was in Fight Club the other night.

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  Brad Pitt?

• 1:37:52Theo Von?

  Nope. I saw Edward Norton the other night.

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:37:56Theo Von?

  With some friends. It was like at a little restaurant. And I was like, is that Edward Norton? And it was him.

• 1:38:04Speaker 01

  I don't look like him.

• 1:38:05Theo Von?

  No, you don't. I'd love to look like him, Edward Norton. I'm trying to think. If you had to look like a woman, who do you think you'd look like?

• 1:38:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know. There's one out there.

• 1:38:16Theo Von?

  No, I'm sure, but look, if you, we get to pick, that's why we're in this conversation, dude. I didn't want to talk about it. But let's talk about it. What I'm saying is, if you got to look like a woman, who would you look like? It's kind of a good question.

• 1:38:28Theo Von?

  Trying to think who I could see you as.

• 1:38:29Speaker 01

  I'm not even like, like equipped, man. I can't really think of what you're getting, I mean, like.

• 1:38:33Theo Von?

  You're not getting at anything.

• 1:38:34Speaker 01

  If I was a woman, what woman would I want to look like? Or if I had to be a dude that looked like a woman?

• 1:38:40Theo Von?

  What are you talking about?

• 1:38:41Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:38:42Theo Von?

  I'm not talking about some fucking chop shop aftermarket woman. I'm talking about some, I'm talking about a certified bone in woman. Like you're woman from the jump.

• 1:38:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, but what I'm getting at is, there's two ways of looking at it. You're saying that I remain a dude, I remain a guy.

• 1:38:58Theo Von?

  No.

• 1:38:59Speaker 01

  Oh, I become a woman.

• 1:39:01Theo Von?

  No.

• 1:39:01Speaker 01

  What, what woman do I?

• 1:39:03Theo Von?

  You're a woman from the start. Say somebody.

• 1:39:06Speaker 01

  Oh, like going back, I was born a woman.

• 1:39:08Theo Von?

  Yes.

• 1:39:09Speaker 01

  And then I wanted to pick which of these women I wanted to look like.

• 1:39:11Theo Von?

  Right, like which woman would you be good at? Which woman would you be, I wonder? It's a great question, actually. I'm trying to think who you would be.

• 1:39:18Theo Von?

  Let me think about it for just a second.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  Think, man. For some reason, the name Naomi Watts keeps coming to my head, but I don't know why. It's just popping in my head.

• 1:39:25Theo Von?

  Little pervert.

• 1:39:26Speaker 01

  I know, it's just popping in my head. I don't mean it to.

• 1:39:28Theo Von?

  Bring her up. Oh, yeah.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  It just popped in my head. I don't want to be held to it. It popped in my head.

• 1:39:34Theo Von?

  Dude, it's not a bad choice. She's great. Naomi Watts, huh? I like that.

• 1:39:41Speaker 01

  It just popped in my head. I don't know.

• 1:39:42Theo Von?

  Thousand Watts.

• 1:39:43Speaker 01

  I look exactly like that anyways.

• 1:39:44Theo Von?

  I'm in, dude. Oh.

• 1:39:46Speaker 01

  Look, I look, that's what I look like.

• 1:39:47Theo Von?

  Yeah, that's why, dude, there were some cuties in our neighborhood, and that's why people started doing Peep and Tom and. I'll tell you this, if you grew up around busted women, nobody's getting that stepstool out. You know that shit.

• 1:40:00Speaker 01

  There we are, right there.

• 1:40:02Theo Von?

  There's you and Joe right there.

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:40:04Theo Von?

  No, that's not.

• 1:40:05Speaker 01

  I'd be more like, it'd have to be one of those dudes and Naomi Watts.

• 1:40:11Theo Von?

  Neither one of those is us. I saw, what were you talking about? I saw something. You were talking about going on a safari in Africa. Oh, did you notice this? So.

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  I did do that, but yeah, but either way.

• 1:40:22Theo Von?

  I noticed that like.

• 1:40:23Speaker 01

  That's what I was talking about, the snakes and shit. Yeah.

• 1:40:25Theo Von?

  When I went to Africa, right? So I went there like a couple of times for some different safaris and stuff like that. I felt like some of the people, when you look in their eyes there, it goes further back in time. Does that make any sense to you at all?

• 1:40:38Speaker 01

  I think that it may have, but I believe that that would be your.

• 1:40:43Theo Von?

  Perception of that?

• 1:40:43Speaker 01

  That'd be your perception.

• 1:40:44Theo Von?

  Right. Dude, I talked to this one guy and I was like, this guy, he's just goddamn just, just back through. I mean, it just felt like it went back to the like, just to where the fingers of existence first snapped right there at the damn sound. You've gone hunting in Africa?

• 1:41:04Speaker 01

  I did for the first time ever this summer.

• 1:41:06Theo Von?

  You did? Did you enjoy it? Were you?

• 1:41:09Speaker 01

  I, I, I, I.

• 1:41:11Theo Von?

  Were you?

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  Life-changing experience.

• 1:41:14Theo Von?

  Like in what way?

• 1:41:16Speaker 01

  I hadn't been to that, I hadn't been to that continent. It wasn't like the going hunting there was life-changing, but one of the things I like about hunting is it immerses you and it immerses you in a situation and immerses you in an environment in a deeper way than you would be immersed otherwise. Cause you're doing something very like, very ancient and base, you know? So it, it wasn't the experience of being there hunting, but just the, I hadn't been, that was like, I hadn't visited that continent. And so I got to go to a couple of places. And it was just, it just scrambled up my head about, you know, when you see different ways of living, you know? So in that way, it was, it was profound. To me, it was profound.

• 1:41:56Theo Von?

  Did you guys visit some like innate cultures there and stuff like that?

• 1:42:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, like some very, yeah, like some really ancient cultures. I spent a little bit of time in this place called Messiah Land. Met dudes, met Messiah dudes that are herders, you know, they'll live in, they'll live in structures they make themselves from native material and herd cattle and been herding cattle since, you know, from our perspective, since the beginning of time on this place.

• 1:42:20Theo Von?

  Did it feel like traveling back in time?

• 1:42:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it did for me, for sure. Just, just like those glimpses into like, those glimpses into, into cultures that have, those glimpses into cultures that have, have remained relative to our own that have remained very constant. Okay, so like that was, that was, yeah, here's some photos of Messiah folks. That was very eye opening.

• 1:42:45Theo Von?

  The dark Amish right there.

• 1:42:47Speaker 01

  Being out, they're herders, you know, they're like, um.

• 1:42:50Theo Von?

  Beautiful.

• 1:42:51Speaker 01

  Oh, dude, stunning, stunning.

• 1:42:55Theo Von?

  Do you think they have such a different relationship with existence than we do?

• 1:42:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:42:59Theo Von?

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:43:00Speaker 01

  Oh, hundred, yeah, like, they send their, they, they send, like, the kids bust their ass. They'll spend, they'll send little kids out, like, when, when they'll send their kids out to watch the goat herds, man, those kids don't drink water and eat till they come home at night. They, they raise them to be tough, tough, tough. You kick it more as a grown up. Like, kids will work real hard, you know, and as you get older, you get, you kind of get more of like, you get to kick it a little bit more. But when you're a kid, you bust ass. That was fascinating. A lot about it was fascinating. And I also liked, like, the animals. A thing that I've been, there's a thing that I've like lamented in, in, in conversations with my friends and my writing and all kinds of things.

• 1:43:41Speaker 01

  I've, I often, I spend a lot of time thinking about studying, talking about writing about Ice Age America. So our continent, what it was like in the, at the Pleistocene, Holocene trans, transition. So like, humans that were here during the tail end of the Ice Age, the first people that came here, what was their, what were their lives like? And they lived amongst this, this great abundance and diversity of wildlife that we don't have now. Mammoths, mastodon, short-faced bears, right? All, all this kind of shit. They had a, they had a, they had a giant, like a beaver that was the size of a black bear. There was an American lion.

• 1:44:20Theo Von?

  Fuck, man.

• 1:44:21Speaker 01

  There was like multiple, multiple. We don't have shit. So going there, like that was the one continent. That was the one continent where all the big shit didn't vanish.

• 1:44:32Theo Von?

  We got fucking B-shawns.

• 1:44:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the Africa is the one continent where humans and all this megafauna.

• 1:44:41Theo Von?

  Never changed?

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  They, for whatever reason, it's the one continent where all the big shit didn't vanish. So you still have that great diversity of wildlife. So you can sit in the US, like if you're a guy like me, who's a really interested in history, you can sit in the US and lament that our elephants are gone. Like, we don't have like nine, 10, 11, 12, 20 species of ungulates running around at any given time.

• 1:45:08Theo Von?

  Antelopes.

• 1:45:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, like whatever, but you go to Africa, you're like, oh, that's what they were talking about. Like, the Ice Age, yeah, you're like, the Ice Age is alive and well. Like, there is an elephant, there's a hippo, there's stuff that weighs thousands of pounds, like thousands of pounds, there's stuff that weighs tons, you know? And so it didn't, what happened everywhere else didn't happen there. So that was to go like, oh, it's not gone, it's somewhere else. But you can go and be like, this is what it would be like. I wrote down a list, I kept a list on my notes function in my phone. I kept a list of like large mammals, large mammals, species that we encountered. And I can't remember, man, by the time we were done, we had like 27, I could pull out my phone and show you. Maybe I have it.

• 1:45:52Speaker 01

  Anyways, I had like 27 large mammal species that I personally laid eyes on.

• 1:45:58Theo Von?

  Wow, that's cool.

• 1:45:59Speaker 01

  And that would be like, that's the shit we're talking about, like in Ice Age America. And so life changing in those kind of ways.

• 1:46:07Theo Von?

  Yeah, you know, I wonder if you had a brain scan whenever you see those types of things, right? As a human, I wonder if there's a different reaction that happens in your brain as opposed to when you see different animals? Like, does it take us back to a part of us that like knew those animals well or knew that they existed? Like, I wonder.

• 1:46:22Speaker 01

  There's a theory about that, that like, why do the, you know, when you take babies and make a mobile, the animal things, there's this, it seems to me kind of a cockamamie theory, but there's this idea that, and this is kind of like ancestral Africa thing, that, that those animals resonate with babies. Cause it's drawing back to some deep, deep.

• 1:46:46Speaker 01

  Memory.

• 1:46:47Theo Von?

  Oh, the animals that are on a mobile.

• 1:46:49Speaker 01

  African megafauna.

• 1:46:50Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:46:50Speaker 01

  I don't buy that shit.

• 1:46:51Theo Von?

  It's always a giraffe.

• 1:46:52Speaker 01

  I don't buy that shit, but I like, I, I think it's like I said, I think it's a little goofy, but there is that idea.

• 1:46:56Theo Von?

  Bluey resonates with, you know what I'm saying? That's crazy. You think Thomas the Train resonates like from prehistoria or whatever?

• 1:47:04Speaker 01

  Well, it's just, it's just an idea, but there is a thing that is that I do think about when I think about animals in deep history and shit that's gone. Is um, as bummed as you can get, as bummed as you can get about animals that used to be around that aren't anymore. Like the way little kids trip out about dinosaurs being gone, as bummed as you might get about all that. The biggest animal to ever live, the largest animal to ever live on the face of the earth is here right now.

• 1:47:31Theo Von?

  And it is a blue whale?

• 1:47:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, biggest animal to ever live on the face of the earth. So when little kids are like, golly, those dinosaurs, it's like.

• 1:47:40Theo Von?

  The big boss is still here.

• 1:47:41Speaker 01

  Biggest animal to ever live is here.

• 1:47:42Theo Von?

  Yeah, that's the DMX of fucking animals.

• 1:47:44Speaker 01

  If you put your effort into it, you go see the biggest animal that ever lived on the face of the earth.

• 1:47:48Theo Von?

  Dude, that is crazy. And it gives you hope that that, that if he wants, he'll bring those other ones back. That they can do it with science if they can do it. Dude, it's gonna happen soon.

• 1:47:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, I disagree, but that's a different time.

• 1:47:59Theo Von?

  Really? We'll talk about that another time though. But dude, one thing, I will say this, I went on a safari and were they all right? So the guy, it was like an Amboseli or somewhere. I think we were in, maybe in Kenya. And the guy took.

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  You're on a photo safari.

• 1:48:13Theo Von?

  Yeah, we were just like in, yeah, we didn't get, we got out, but only near the um, place we were staying.

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:20Theo Von?

  Otherwise we were just kind of in uh.

• 1:48:22Speaker 01

  Cruising in trucks.

• 1:48:23Theo Von?

  Cruising in trucks, yeah. Oh, there was a pride alliance that kind of came around us at one point and they were just laying down, like they weren't bothering us or anything. And the guy is like, do not stand up in here. Everybody just stay. I'm gonna start the engine up in a little bit. I'm just gonna back out of here. And they were like someone like six or seven feet away like it was definitely pretty gnarly. It's probably like seven or eight of them. And this one woman's fucking phone goes off, right? And it was a like a It was like a iCarly ringtone or something. It was like some

• 1:48:57Speaker 01

  I don't know what that means.

• 1:48:58Theo Von?

  It was some TV, some children's stuff. In the world. It was just like Fuck, we were gonna die. And she immediately kind of just like, I don't know. It's just funny that

• 1:49:09Speaker 01

  You thought it would have startled the cat and the cat might have done something.

• 1:49:12Theo Von?

  Oh, for sure. The guy just said, do not make any sharp moves. Do not stand up. And this lady's ring camera like phone went off and she kind of went like that and the guy just turned around. But it's just like In a moment's notice, like you can be wiped out because of ignorant Human ignorance, you know, human error. So.

• 1:49:31Speaker 01

  Again, it takes up psychological space. Big old cats.

• 1:49:35Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:37Theo Von?

  But man, uh, yeah, I appreciate you coming and talking, man. This is a lot of fun.

• 1:49:41Speaker 01

  Oh, I enjoyed it.

• 1:49:42Theo Von?

  Yeah, it was a lot of fun, man. I gotta um Come over there and go on one of your journeys sometimes if you guys

• 1:49:47Speaker 01

  I'll take you out to do something.

• 1:49:49Theo Von?

  Yeah, do you guys go in Montana?

• 1:49:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's where I live, yeah.

• 1:49:52Theo Von?

  It is?

• 1:49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:53Theo Von?

  Dude, I love to fish.

• 1:49:54Speaker 01

  What do you like to catch?

• 1:49:56Theo Von?

  Hmm, catfish?

• 1:49:58Speaker 01

  You like catfishing?

• 1:49:58Theo Von?

  I like catfish, but I would be well, I'm willing to catch other fish as well.

• 1:50:01Speaker 01

  What's the kind of fish you'd most like to catch?

• 1:50:04Theo Von?

  I would like to catch probably one of those big, long trout.

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  Big, long trout?

• 1:50:09Theo Von?

  Like the ones you see in uh, that Brad Pitt and his brother caught, remember?

• 1:50:12Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:50:13Theo Von?

  Those. Those are awesome, dude.

• 1:50:16Speaker 01

  We can arrange that, man. I would be, I would be honored to take you out fishing.

• 1:50:19Theo Von?

  I'll be, I'm gonna be in Montana at the beginning of uh, at the uh, I think the first week of October. I don't know if you're gonna be over there or not.

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  Hmm, I'm probably, yeah, I might be. What are you doing there?

• 1:50:27Theo Von?

  I'm supposed to go to some like seminar kind of thing or something?

• 1:50:30Speaker 01

  Seminar?

• 1:50:31Theo Von?

  Yeah, I don't know what it's for.

• 1:50:32Speaker 01

  Neonatals?

• 1:50:33Theo Von?

  I wish, dude, if it is. And I, and I can bring somebody

• 1:50:37Speaker 01

  Can you, yeah, please, ask around.

• 1:50:38Theo Von?

  I'm gonna be like, I'll be like, hey, look. If there, if it is, I'll make sure to do some recon for you.

• 1:50:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd appreciate it. Um, no, I would, yeah, it'll be fun.

• 1:50:46Theo Von?

  It'd be fun, dude, to go fish. You know, I think, yeah, like

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  Do you want to, do you ever do, have you ever done a float? Like you wanna float down a river and catch trout?

• 1:50:52Theo Von?

  I've never done that before. Yeah. I've done, I've done a Whatever the one, not the fucking Like, uh, I've done fly fishing.

• 1:51:02Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:51:02Theo Von?

  Yeah. I've done fly fishing, yeah.

• 1:51:06Speaker 01

  You've done fly fishing. Do you like that?

• 1:51:07Theo Von?

  I did like it. It was cool, man. I'd only, I only got to do it one time, but I think.

• 1:51:11Speaker 01

  Do you like, do you like, do you like the water? Have you ever, you never spearfished?

• 1:51:15Theo Von?

  I've never spearfished. I love to fish, though.

• 1:51:19Speaker 01

  Well, I would, I would be honored to take you fishing, man. That'd be fun.

• 1:51:22Theo Von?

  Cool.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  All right, we'll do it.

• 1:51:23Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:24Speaker 01

  That'd be great.

• 1:51:24Theo Von?

  It'd be awesome, man. Thanks for all your contributions to just helping people learn about the outdoors and the history of the outdoors. I know you have a book out that's, or it might be your newest book about when people are looking for beaver pellets and stuff across North America.

• 1:51:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I.

• 1:51:40Theo Von?

  It's about mountain men, right?

• 1:51:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have a new, there's a new Meat Eater season coming out and then we have, I've been working on these things. These Meat Eaters American History Series. We did one on the long hunters. So like Daniel Boone was a fan, he used to hunt this country, Daniel, and the deer skin trade. So the late colonial deer skin trade. Did one on the mountain men, the beaver trade. And then our new one coming out now is called The Hide Hunters and it's about the people that wiped out the last 15 million buffalo off the Great Plains at the end of the Civil War. You know, so it's these things about the mark, it's about market hunting history. That's, that's, that's, that's pre-sale.

• 1:52:24Speaker 01

  It's not, that's available, that's available for pre-sale right now, but we just finished that, The Hide Hunters. So the Meat Eaters American History Series. That, that's a lot of the shit we taught, like, like what you and I have been talking about. It's a lot of, that's kind of a home for a lot of that information.

• 1:52:42Theo Von?

  Cool.

• 1:52:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, like a lot of like human history.

• 1:52:45Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:46Speaker 01

  Wildly, like how resources get exploited, over-exploited, recovered. Those, those, those series, they're audio originals, right? I do print books too, but those are like audio, they're audio stories. Like I, we, that, that me and a researcher, we like put them together. I narrate them and they kind of tell that story of America. Through like American history, American movement, through these kind of like Keystone wildlife species that supported a lot of industry and economic activity at different times. Cause for a long time, that's what American economies were driven by was leather.

• 1:53:23Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:23Speaker 01

  Fur and leather.

• 1:53:24Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:53:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:25Theo Von?

  Is it interesting to see that like hunting has like taken away species? Like, I mean, it's kind of.

• 1:53:31Speaker 01

  Take some away and put some back.

• 1:53:33Theo Von?

  I know.

• 1:53:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, we've done, we like speaking collectively hunters.

• 1:53:42Speaker 01

  As much as I hesitate to speak collectively, like the practice of hunting has done a lot of damage and has done a lot of recovery. We've righted, like we collectively, historically, hunters have done a lot in the last century, done an extraordinary amount in the last century to right the wrongs of our fathers. Yeah.

• 1:54:04Theo Von?

  Well, I think it does feel like in the end, like the general feeling of a lot of hunters, it's not just about going out and killing something. It's about having a relationship with nature. Yeah.

• 1:54:15Speaker 01

  Anyone who's serious about it, that's what drives it.

• 1:54:17Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:17Speaker 01

  That desire, like if you just have a desire to go out and kill something, it doesn't last long.

• 1:54:21Theo Von?

  Yeah, you can fucking do that in Memphis.

• 1:54:23Speaker 01

  Doesn't last.

• 1:54:24Theo Von?

  Um, Steve, Steve Rinaldo, thank you so much, dude. And thanks for putting up with me today. And, uh,

• 1:54:29Speaker 01

  I appreciate it. I appreciate the opportunity. I look forward to us going fishing together. That'd be a great time.

• 1:54:33Theo Von?

  It was fun.

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  I got a bunch of friends gonna be jealous.

• 1:54:35Theo Von?

  Really?

• 1:54:35Speaker 01

  Shit, I might bring one of them.

• 1:54:37Theo Von?

  Bring one.

• 1:54:37Speaker 01

  Very good friend of mine, Seth, he's a huge fan of yours.

• 1:54:40Theo Von?

  Oh, really?

• 1:54:40Speaker 01

  He was shitting his pants when I told him I was coming on your show.

• 1:54:42Theo Von?

  Oh, that's cool, dude. Yeah, bring, dude, yeah.

• 1:54:44Speaker 01

  Maybe he'll fish with us.

• 1:54:45Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah. If he wants to come, that would be great.

• 1:54:47Speaker 01

  He won't say anything weird. He probably won't say much at all.

• 1:54:49Theo Von?

  It already seems weird. But it's okay, man. Uh, it would be an honor, man. Thank you so much. I appreciate it, Steve.

• 1:55:24Speaker 03

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