Ep 605 - Arctic Cannibalism (feat. Buddy Levy)

Support the D. A. W. G. Z. @ patreon.com/MSsecretpod Support Buddy @ https://www.buddylevy.com/index.html Read His Books!! Go See Matt Live @ mattmccusker.com/dates Go See Shane Live @ shanemgillis.com Go See Lemaire Lee Live @ https://lemairelee.fun/ Go See Shawn Gardini Live if you want @ https://www.shawngardini.com/live yo0o. Hello everybody. We got the legend Buddy Levy at the podiums for you this week. Buddy wrote 'Conquistador' and 'River of Darkness' two books that Matt's been podding about on the patreon. His latest book is 'Realm of Ice and Sky'. Check out the books. Check out the paytch. Please enjoy. God Bless. Visit ONNIT.com and lock in with Alpha BRAIN†. Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/DRENCHED and use code DRENCHED and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Wow, wow, Wes.

• 0:02Matt McCusker?

  All right, we're live. We're live. Buddy Levy, thank you for coming. It's Levy or Levy?

• 0:06Speaker 00

  It's Levy.

• 0:07Matt McCusker?

  Levy. Hell, yeah, I got it right. Thank you for coming.

• 0:10Speaker 00

  Hey, my pleasure.

• 0:11Matt McCusker?

  I've been, I've been using your books to fuel the Patreon and, uh, well, thank you for that.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  I appreciate it, man.

• 0:18Matt McCusker?

  Dude, it's been, I, I mean, I guess we do have a symbiosis going here, but it's really, dude, they're, they're, uh, first of all, I thought like, you know, I read the books and I'm like, man, this historian really is a good writer. I would like read and I'm like, this guy can really kind of, uh, really turn a good sentence. And then I, I learned you, you studied as a creative writer.

• 0:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's true. I, um, I actually published my first story when I was 14 years old. And it was a, it was a bird hunting story about, uh, me, you know, killing a chuckle partridge, which no one knows about. Um, but, um, you know, once I saw my byline for the first time, I was, you know, cause I grew up in this, uh, in the shadow of Ernest Hemingway in Ketchum, Idaho. And I was like, um, I just like telling stories, you know? And, uh, it was, it was, so I, I wasn't ever good at anything else. Ended up being an English major. So I just followed that path, you know, from the time I was a kid.

• 1:10Matt McCusker?

  Well, that's why I really liked the books. And I was talking to you before we came in here. I was like, how did I, I don't know how I heard about the book. I was like, maybe it was from someone I follow. It might've just been like a random search. I genuinely don't remember. I do think it's from the Josh Reads Books thing, but I forget. Um, that was conquistador, but that was the thing. I was reading it and I'm like, man, this, this history book is like, it's just focused on the narrative itself rather than just like, it's just, I get drowned in facts, reading history where I'm like, dude, just tell me the story. Tell me the story. And then, and then what you do is what's nice is you give the occasional historical zinger where it's like, actually this thing was that. And it's like, okay, it's kind of cool to know.

• 1:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:48Matt McCusker?

  I gotta say, it was, I gotta, I gotta tip the hat first and foremost. It was, the books are great.

• 1:52Speaker 00

  Well, and I've really enjoyed listening to you guys, um, make things like, uh, human ritual sacrifice and smallpox funny, you know?

• 2:02Speaker 00

  That's, uh, you know, cause when I'm writing it, I'm thinking, you know, this isn't really comedy.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  You guys crush it.

• 2:08Matt McCusker?

  I, there is something very funny about, you know, we're talking obviously about the, the Aztec, uh, the conquistador thing, but there is something just that thought was funny about never meeting a certain type of people before, cause the way they like brought them into their temples, like yo, this is cool. Check this out. And it would just be like a, a dead dog with his skull crushed in and like a dead kid they're eating. And you'd be like, what the fuck? What is this? And they're like, well, you don't think this is cool? Like, we think this is cool. And they're like, no. That's terrible. That's the worst thing you can do. Like, no, this is like the coolest thing you can do. And then the civilizations clashed. So it is funny to be like, yeah, I want to show you something very important to me. We were eating teenagers and you're like, no.

• 2:49Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. And when I write these books too, it's always like, people are like, you know, um, why do you focus so much on this, this darkness, all this stuff, you know? Um, and I'm like, well, I just, I like to see, um, as you say, you know, different cultures coming together and also, um, what happens to people when they're on the edge of survival? Like how are they going to contend with this new world or this new place? Um, and it really intrigues me to see what, you know, to what degree people, especially back then, you know, like we're able to figure it out and just, um, and move on, you know?

• 3:26Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, it's pretty, uh, it, it is pretty wild because it's like, especially the, the food thing and all that, like in conquistador and all those books, like these guys are going on these missions and like, yeah, you only have so much food and they run out. And now it's like, we gotta drum up food in a place we've never been to.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  Right.

• 3:42Matt McCusker?

  So that, that I kinda, yeah, just like you have to, every time you want to eat, you have to raid basically a village or just be like, try to be cool.

• 3:49Speaker 00

  Right. Yeah, that's the thing. Um, or, or have slaves. It's, you know, very helpful.

• 3:54Matt McCusker?

  That also blew my mind in terms of the, uh, conquistador. Hey Nate, don't fucking laugh. We're talking about a different time period and they were handy. You can't deny having 2,000 slaves would be handy to get food, Nate. We're talking history, right? I don't agree with it personally, but if I needed food and I had either zero or 2,000, I'd be like, I can get food, whatever, anyway.

• 4:16Speaker 00

  And by the way. I used to sugarcoat it, you know, when I was writing it, I would be like, they had 2,000 porters and and women who were making Cortillas and my friend, this writer friend, she goes, yeah, those are called sex slaves. And I'm like, well, no, they were like bearers and porters. She's like, those were slaves. They took them.

• 4:37Matt McCusker?

  She's right. That was the sheer volume. This is what shocked me because it would be like, you know, I think Cortez landed with what like 600 guys.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:45Matt McCusker?

  And like 2,000 slaves. Was that true?

• 4:48Speaker 00

  Well, he didn't come with very many slaves. He did bring one that had smallpox, which was useful for him.

• 4:54Matt McCusker?

  That guy, yeah.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:55Matt McCusker?

  But some reason I thought Cortez had a start out with a lot. Maybe I'm thinking of someone else.

• 4:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, what he ended up doing, Cortez ended up like recruiting these ancillary villages, like the Totonic's and the Talascan's. And he then did deals and said, can I use your guys to go get this major leader? Who you call Moktechoma, right?

• 5:16Matt McCusker?

  Moktechoma. I could have sworn Cortez rolled up. They had, they had their porters.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, but they got those from the villages that they subsume, subsume as they first arrived.

• 5:31Matt McCusker?

  So he didn't roll. It was then, I'm thinking of the Pizarros and

• 5:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:35Matt McCusker?

  That guy set out with a party with like 2,000 slaves.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  Yeah. But you know, at any rate, like they couldn't have done it alone. And even then they were often outnumbered significantly, you know?

• 5:48Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  But they just figured out ways to manipulate, terrorize.

• 5:54Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. Well, there was that story from the, and I'm going to actually talk about this later today, but there was a story from the Gonzalo, his last stand. Or when he's like fighting that Spanish Civil War, he's fighting another Spaniard and it was actually hit Gonzalo slave. Who ran out and chopped the guy's head off. And just carried it around town like, yeah, we got it. And he had to be like, bro, why don't do that to a fellow Spaniard? The hell are you doing? He was dancing in the end zone on the guy. But yeah, it's just very, yeah, it was like the war was to stop slavery in South America and the dude slave cut the guy's head off. Who was trying to stop slavery. Yeah, it was pretty funny. He was like, nah, fuck that dude. Gonzalo's anyway, but yeah, it was definitely a complicated time for sure. Complicated time, but that is.

• 6:40Matt McCusker?

  It is so brutal though, because you are trying to get the story, but you like at every turn, it is completely, like you were saying, you're rolling around with, you know, quote unquote, three women who make tortillas for 600 guys. They're obviously sex slaves. The guys, some of the fucking guys were probably sex slaves. You know what I mean? It's gotta be somewhat prison rules.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Well, it gets lonely out on the trail.

• 7:08Matt McCusker?

  But, but yeah, I just gotta say, the, uh, the books are, they're nice because it is just, it's the story. It's like the thing that happened based on all the historical record, which how, how like, is that boring researching that? Like how, how do you get through that? Because I feel like I would kind of go crazy.

• 7:25Speaker 00

  That's a great question. Um, no, you know, when I, I love the research part of it.

• 7:31Speaker 00

  And I, it's like two components to it for me. There's the actual sitting there and reading everything that's ever been written, or to the extent that I can, everything that's ever been written about the particular subject. So that then I know the story and then I start writing. But then I also, you know, I always go to the place that I'm going to write about and do an expedition of my own, so I can make it as real and seem, um, like even though I'm casting myself back maybe 500 years, um, to try to be on the ground and in the environment that I'm writing about, so that I can feel the sense of the place and the see the flora and fauna. And we can maybe talk about some of those, um, expeditions that I've done. But, you know,

• 8:12Speaker 00

  it's, for me, it's fun to immerse in that. It's kind of like doing like a mini, uh, a master's degree or a PhD for every book, you know, and it actually leaves a frickin' mark, you know? I mean, I'm on my 10th book and, um, every time it's a huge divot out of my brain, you know, because I log in for. You know, maybe six or eight months of just reading and then I'll go on my expedition where I'm gonna go. And then I sit my ass down and spend maybe six months to a year, depending, just writing the book. And so, but I always find the reading part, the research part really inspiring because, you know,

• 8:53Speaker 00

  I'm going back to these original texts and they've got, you know, journals and diaries. And in the case of the Spaniards, you know, they had these scribes that were there just to record the events. And then, so you, you get these first N-letters that they're writing back home. And so you really get transported to these places and to the minds of the people who were there. And then, of course, you have to balance out to what extent like they're lying.

• 9:19Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  Or, or padding the story for different political reasons. And so you're doing a bunch of sifting and deciding on which you believe. And, you know, history to me is pretty dynamic and malleable. It's not like this set thing. It depends on, you know, they say history was written by the victors.

• 9:40Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 9:41Speaker 00

  But I love it. I love that part.

• 9:42Matt McCusker?

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• 11:00Matt McCusker?

  So yes, and in terms of the expeditions, is that, is that like, I get it, you do it for, to like, get a sense of the place, but like, is that also just to kind of get your own adventure thing going where you're like, you know, because that's kind of, because you've, you've done now, you've done the Amazon.

• 11:15Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 11:16Matt McCusker?

  Did you climb the hills and everything?

• 11:17Speaker 00

  Uh, well, I hiked over the Andes.

• 11:19Matt McCusker?

  Dang.

• 11:20Speaker 00

  So yeah, I started in, I try to, for, for a river of darkness and conquistador, I try to follow the route of the conquistadors. As precisely as possible, you know, using maps now in modern day context, it's a little different because you know, there's more people there now. But, um, you know, for the Amazon, yeah, I started in Quito. Did some, uh, went on partly on horseback, partly on a bus, and then I trekked down to the headwaters of the Coca River. And then went for like three weeks in a dugout canoe with two guides and, uh, just me and two other people. And floated down the river in a dugout canoe, sleeping in the rainforest in hammocks.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  It was, it was one of the coolest adventures.

• 12:08Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. What was it? I, I do want to go there one time, but what was it like being there and you know?

• 12:13Speaker 00

  Oh my God. It's quite remarkable. I mean, to put it in context, I spent like, I think two to three weeks, um, including the Andes part. And by the time I finished, which was in Iquitos, Peru,

• 12:28Speaker 00

  that's just where the Maranon meets the Amazon. And so there's 20, I went 400 miles and there's 2,300 miles more to go to the Atlantic, you know?

• 12:38Matt McCusker?

  And that, you know, to give context, I had to look this up. That is like driving from New York City all the way to basically, I think like Idaho.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  Hey, it's so far.

• 12:46Matt McCusker?

  So far.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  And, you know, but it's cool because once you get out there, it's still, I mean, I floated through this Yasuni National Park and there's so that, you know, it's like one of the most biodiverse places in the world. And then you're just like, you get into this river rhythm where, you know, you float for hours and everything starts to look the same because, you know, you're shrouded on each side by these giant seba trees. And, you know, you have to wear like knee-high rubber boots because there's ant colonies. I mean, there's so many critters that can, you know, mess you up, vampire bats and that.

• 13:23Matt McCusker?

  Did you see any vampire bats?

• 13:24Speaker 00

  I did. And I saw, you know, the thing is, I don't know if you remember in River of Darkness, where the vampire bats are pretty intense. They, they come onto you at night and, and they have these like canine incisor teeth and they, so they, they pierce the skin and then they have this anticoagulant enzyme in their saliva. So it is lick at the wound. All, all night.

• 13:47Matt McCusker?

  And just keep bleeding.

• 13:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, you just keep bleeding. But I was, I was cheating a little because I had a, I had a hammock that had mosquito netting. So, you know, the other, my guides were just like sleeping in hammocks just out there. But, you know, there's so many, there's like spiders the size of your fist and.

• 14:05Matt McCusker?

  What were some of the craziest things you saw in terms of animals?

• 14:09Speaker 00

  Oh my God. Well, so I, this is kind of bizarre.

• 14:14Speaker 00

  You know, I wanted to, uh, when, when you're in the, when in Rome, I guess, or when in the Amazon, I decided to, to go on an ayahuasca trip, you know? So I didn't decide to.

• 14:24Matt McCusker?

  Did you do it classically? Did you have it boofed? Remember, remember they say they like siphoned it up their butts back in the day?

• 14:29Speaker 00

  I did not go for the animal style, but.

• 14:31Matt McCusker?

  That's kind of sick. They did that though.

• 14:32Speaker 00

  I know. Well, I mean, it gets there. It's, it's mainlining ayahuasca. Yeah. I know this guy, my guide, Jose Xingong Wu, cool dude, man. He, he was like, I'm gonna go get the bark and you want to try ayahuasca? And I was like, sure.

• 14:45Matt McCusker?

  Oh, it was just your river?

• 14:46Speaker 00

  He was my guide. He knew all the birds and, and, uh, he was like, you know, when you're here, you, you know, if you guys, whoever wants to try it, you know? And, uh, there were only these three people, um, and the two guides. And so I said, yeah, I'll give it a shot. I mean, I grew, I grew up dabbling a little in, uh,

• 15:02Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 15:03Speaker 00

  in some of these, uh, hallucinogens. And, uh, and so, uh, so I had read about, and I thought like, I was hoping for this amazing, spiritual journey and supposedly if it really takes right, you're going to have this vision quest and, and meet your spirit animal.

• 15:21Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 00

  So as we had been going through the, yeah, Sunday National Park, I had seen a pink dolphin, which is a freshwater dolphin. They're like a little four foot long, really cute. So I, I'm, the ayahuasca is coming on and I'm having these hallucinations and I keep seeing this pink dolphin. And I'm like, wait a minute. So my wife's spirit animal is a dolphin. And I'm like, I was expecting like a sea wolf, you know, these giant wolves with like web paws or a fricking kraken or something. And I, I get a pink dolphin from my spirit animal. Yeah.

• 15:55Matt McCusker?

  A four foot stuffed animal.

• 15:57Speaker 00

  You know, I mean, it was not, it wasn't what I had hoped for.

• 16:01Matt McCusker?

  You didn't drink enough. You should have drank, but give me four more cups.

• 16:04Speaker 00

  Smann Jose.

• 16:05Matt McCusker?

  So, so yeah, how was that? Was it like, did you have a super strong dose? Or did you feel like it was like a mild dose?

• 16:11Speaker 00

  I, I wished, I had wished for, I was wishing for more. Yeah.

• 16:14Matt McCusker?

  Whoa.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  Just to transform that dolphin into something useful, you know?

• 16:18Matt McCusker?

  At least giving fangs.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  Kill. Yeah. But I have also read, I'm glad actually that it didn't take fully because I've, I've seen some stuff and heard that, you know, people come out of that. Changed.

• 16:31Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah. It's like, from what I've heard, I've never done it, but I've heard like the full dose is like you're puking.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:38Matt McCusker?

  Shitting.

• 16:38Speaker 00

  I felt, I just hurled a little.

• 16:40Matt McCusker?

  Okay.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  Early on.

• 16:42Speaker 02

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• 16:45Matt McCusker?

  Nice.

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• 16:47Matt McCusker?

  I love Quince. I'll be, I'll be honest. They sent me the stuff and I, their boxers, they use like cotton, like regular materials, not a lot of polyesters, natural fibers. I'm a, I'm a big fan.

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• 17:23Matt McCusker?

  It's pretty crazy.

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• 17:48Speaker 00

  Um, you know, the other thing we did, which was kind of insane. I mean, really, because that, you know, I was like, they took us out. We were on this one big lake. Um, that was like off. I mean, the whole thing is so massive that it was actually part of the river, but it was slow moving. It seemed like a lake. And he's like, you want to go catch, my guy said, you want to go catch piranhas? And I'm like, sure, I'm a, I'm an angler.

• 18:10Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  Through fishing. And I go, what do you use? And he's like, hot dogs. And so we go out there, we got a little stick and we're dangling for piranha, right? And then he said afterwards, he's like, you want to go swimming? And I'm like, well, fuck, they're carnivores, man. Like, are we gonna, so we swam with, in the same vicinity of these piranhas, you know? And it was like, you're just sketched a bit. Cause like alone, they're not, they're like, I mean, their jaws are serious, but they're, they're not big. But you get a couple hundred piratas and you're bleeding and then you know you're it's just like the movies.

• 18:45Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, they can they can munch you pretty quick.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  But they jumped in first and showed me and I was like, okay, I'm not going to whip out here, you know, I'm gonna.

• 18:51Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I'd be so when I hear every time I hear about people swimming in the Amazon, I'm like, it's terrifying because there's there's like manatees in there.

• 18:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, the manatee, you know, they're chill.

• 19:01Matt McCusker?

  True.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  I mean, I could have seen the manatee as my spirit animal too.

• 19:06Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, something, yeah.

• 19:07Speaker 00

  Just the sea cow is what they're called. They're just like go on the bottom and graze the grass. They're just like sluggish.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  So anyway.

• 19:17Matt McCusker?

  That's awesome.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was. It was really informative. And you know what I'm usually trying to do when I'm going on these journeys is I bring all the primary texts that I can carry. And so I'm reading about the expedition that I'm writing about and then I'm kind of living my own one and sort of putting it together like what this place would have been like. And the you know, there are all sorts of things like in the Amazon, for instance, the sounds, you know, in the evening, there's like thousands of different insects and weird like night insects where the fricking, you know, their head pops up and it goes around like with iridescent blinking lights and it's just wild, you know, and there's, you

• 20:03Speaker 00

  know, there's, there's Panthers and the thing that's got me a little nervy is I'm not scared of snakes, but you know, the Amazon has the largest, the anaconda, right? So, you know, even if you're in a four feet up in a tree in a hammock, you're thinking for a 30 foot anaconda, it's not a really big reach for them to.

• 20:25Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, they can slither up a tree.

• 20:26Speaker 00

  Come constrict you to death. So like.

• 20:30Matt McCusker?

  What do you do? I guess you gotta yell and they cut it off or whatever?

• 20:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you know, you don't really want to be running into an anaconda, but there's a guy named Paul Rosoli who lives in the rainforest and that dude is badass. And so he like intentionally goes out and finds them and catches them and wrestles with them and stuff, you know? So if you know what you're doing, which I didn't, I mean, I was just trusting my guy.

• 20:54Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. I mean, what do you, how do you, what, what like skill can you have to like wrestle? What do you got to know to do?

• 20:59Speaker 00

  You need like the croc hunter mentality, you know?

• 21:03Matt McCusker?

  I know if it's like quicksand, if you like, I know if you like lay on your belly and quicksand, it's better for you.

• 21:07Speaker 00

  Spread out.

• 21:08Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I guess anaconda, I would try to poke its eyes.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. And there's all sorts of poisonous animals, creatures, you know? The weirdest thing is that there are these like, you know, well, and also kaimin, you know, which are not as gnarly as like an Australian saltwater croc, but we, we went out evening spotlighting for kaimin. They're like an alligator.

• 21:27Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  And, or they are an alligator.

• 21:29Matt McCusker?

  They're smaller, they're, how big are they?

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, they can get pretty big, but these, the ones we were messing with were just like four feet, but even then it's dark and you're like, I don't, do you, not my normal course of life to be grabbing alligators, you know, and messing with them. Even though I was born in New Orleans, I should be more burly about gators.

• 21:50Matt McCusker?

  They can, can't they jump like out of the water?

• 21:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:53Matt McCusker?

  They might kind of leap up and snag you.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. So that was, and you know, it's just like the stuff that it's the unknown to me. So you're, you're like sleeping in this hammock and then you hear all this stuff like the howler monkeys who make this really wild lion-like husky roar sound. And, you know, just being out in that environment is so intoxicating for me.

• 22:17Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 22:17Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 22:18Matt McCusker?

  So, and you, and you recently went to the Arctic, right?

• 22:21Speaker 00

  I did.

• 22:21Matt McCusker?

  That was surprising. Like what the hell, I've never, that's one place I've never even thought to go.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. I went from the jungle to the great north, the ice, you know?

• 22:29Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 22:30Speaker 00

  And I've actually now I'm on my fourth Arctic book and.

• 22:33Matt McCusker?

  So you like the Arctic?

• 22:34Speaker 00

  I really do. I like the, again, well, you know, there's so, so many elements to it, like, but I was going to say that on my most recent book, I, I wrote about the first people who tried to fly blimps to the North Pole, like back in the early 1900s. And when I first read that, I'm like, huh, we're gonna, we're gonna take a 200 foot. Balloon, inflate it with like 270,000 cubic feet of flammable hydrogen, stick a friggin', you know, Johnson 40 outboard motor on it. What could possibly go wrong? You know, that thing's gonna blow up.

• 23:14Matt McCusker?

  How'd they make it out?

• 23:15Speaker 00

  Well, there's some really great stories of, and that's just my third Arctic book. You know, there, there, there were crashes on the ice and, and people having to survive for months on end on floating sea ice, big bergs. And, you know, Matt, incredible, well, this, that book is called Realm of Ice and Sky, and it set off the largest Arctic rescue in history. But the cool, the funny part about going to those places is, so I went, went to this place called Svalbard, which is 600 miles north of northern Norway. It's still in Norway, but it's halfway between the northern, the Norwegian north coast and the North Pole. So it's like, it's the most northern inhabited place on earth.

• 24:00Speaker 00

  And I had, I had met, I had previously met this woman in Greenland, and which is actually before we owned it and had a golf course there, but you know, what are you gonna do? This was 20 years ago.

• 24:15Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:15Speaker 00

  And she got me really turned on to the Arctic and Arctic explorers and stuff. And so I ended up meeting up with Ingrid, my friend, and, and went to Svalbard.

• 24:27Speaker 00

  Bizarre thing, when I, before I left to go to Svalbard, I read this story and I was like, because I wanted to camp and I wanted to get the feeling of what, you know, at least to a degree of what it was like for these people to sleep in the cold and on the ice. And it turns out that there's only one campground that you can stay in Svalbard. And it's, yeah, like during COVID, a guy, this Dutch man, whose job was to put an electric fence around this campground. He was there with all, this is like one of the great tragic ironies, man. He was there, all the fencing equipment was lying there at the campsite, camp area. And

• 25:08Speaker 00

  The day before he was gonna install the fence, he got mauled to death by a polar bear.

• 25:13Matt McCusker?

  No.

• 25:13Speaker 00

  So in Svalbard, the polar bear is protected. There's signs all over the outskirts of the town that just have a picture of a polar bear. And then it says like, beyond this, you know, you're kind of on your own.

• 25:25Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:25Speaker 00

  And so, you know, you can imagine the first few nights sleeping there, electric fence or no, if you've ever watched videos of polar bears, like, they're to step right over that thing or break through it, you know, they're incredibly savage.

• 25:38Matt McCusker?

  I, for some reason, I thought they were, I just, I think I've only ever seen them in like Coca-Cola commercials. So I like, didn't even knew they, I didn't know they ate people. I thought they were pretty chill.

• 25:46Speaker 00

  Oh, Lord.

• 25:46Matt McCusker?

  They're pretty vicious.

• 25:48Speaker 00

  They are, I mean, I, you know.

• 25:49Matt McCusker?

  Well, there you go. Learn something every day. I thought they were honestly like chill bears. I swear to God. You said they ate them. I was like, that sounds unlike polar bears.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  Yes. So there were some fitful nights in the campsite.

• 26:00Matt McCusker?

  Wait, so they never finished the electric fence after the guy got mugged?

• 26:03Speaker 00

  They did, but man, the thing is this high. Like, it just wasn't gonna do it. But, you know, after a few nights, you're like, I mean, you know, you hear the tent flaps rustling and stuff, and you're like, all sketched out. Plus, at that far north in the summer, which is when I was there, the midnight sun is, there's no darkness. So, you know, you're kind of not sleeping anyway. And then, you know, you hear anything.

• 26:25Matt McCusker?

  What are the people like who live there? I always wonder those places where like, it's light 24 hours a day. Do they get like the total darkness too?

• 26:32Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:33Matt McCusker?

  So what are the people like there? Are they like completely weird or like? I feel like you'd be really weird if you like, didn't have a natural daylight.

• 26:40Speaker 00

  They're hardy folk, man. Like, cause six, you know, half the year, it's nearly dark.

• 26:46Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 26:46Speaker 00

  And so, but there's northern lights. There's the aurora borealis and stuff. So, you know, they cruise around on dog sled and with snow machines in the winter. And in the summer, it has like, you know, a three day growing season. Yeah, they do some quick harvesting. But no, it's just so, it's never really that warm. You know, I was there in June and it snowed and, um, yeah, it's a, it's a harsh, I really, you end up appreciating the kind of people who are carving out a life there. I mean, Svalbard itself is very organized. It has a lot of tourism, you know, big.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  Tour ships come in, but also you can go on guided expeditions and go sea kayaking among the icebergs and the glaciers, which I did and it's so, so rad. I love that place.

• 27:33Matt McCusker?

  Really? I've never, that's, I gotta, I gotta think about that. Cause every time I hear about like North Pole, all that Arctic exploration, I'm like, count me out, man. I don't know why. I just, is it, isn't it just like snow as far as you can see or like?

• 27:44Speaker 00

  Well, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of mountains too. And having grown up in the mountains, I'm drawn to that. So, you know, huge, and it comes from sea level. So you've got these massive peaks jutting up and fjords. It's kind of like you picture Norway, but farther north and, and stays icy and cold and windswept for more of the year. So.

• 28:06Matt McCusker?

  So here's the question, cause it's like, if you're on an expedition, you're, would you prefer dying the death of someone dying in the Amazon or in the Arctic?

• 28:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a good one. Um, you know, I've, I've read and written about both kinds of death, right? I, there's something appealing in a way about like the, the cold. If you were just going to get hypothermia and freeze to death,

• 28:31Speaker 00

  that would be okay. Cause you just sort of like go to sleep and, you know, lie there and let it happen, as they say. But, uh, you know, if you go the other route, um, you know, in the jungle, you get like dengue fever or something. That would, would not be fun. Or, you know, you're bitten by some snake that gives you paralysis first. So yeah, I'm going to take the north, except I will say that when I was in Greenland, um, we went out on a boat with a, I was actually writing about a blind adventurer named Eric Weinmeier, who's the first blind man to summit Mount Everest and kayak down the entire length of the Grand Canyon.

• 29:12Matt McCusker?

  How the hell did he do that?

• 29:14Speaker 00

  Well, he had, he had help. He had a guide. Um, but amazing. I mean, he's a transformative human.

• 29:19Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 29:20Speaker 00

  But I was following him in Greenland on this adventure race and where it's just like a week of different, really hard, um, sports. And part of it included like boating for like a day or two, all around this southern Greenland. And I, we were following him in this boat and I get it, I get in the boat with this seal fisherman dude, um, or seal hunter, I guess. And, you know, I said, when we got in the boat, I said, like, Where are the life jackets, you know, and he, he looked at me and he kinda smiled, dude, Greenlandic Inuit dude, and he's like, um, we don't have them. And I go, why? Cause I mean, I'm gonna get off. And he goes, no, no. Uh, if we fall in the water, we don't want it to take that long to die.

• 30:05Matt McCusker?

  Oh.

• 30:06Speaker 00

  And I'm like, that makes a lot of sense.

• 30:07Matt McCusker?

  Cause it's so cold, basically.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  Cause if you're just like floating along, you know, then it will take 10 minutes. Whereas if you just bob and then sink.

• 30:15Matt McCusker?

  How, how cold is this water?

• 30:17Speaker 00

  Oh, frick, man. Cause salt water can keep it

• 30:19Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Below free, you know, it's like, bergs are floating around the top. I mean, it's literally three minutes. You, without a dry suit, you'd die.

• 30:28Matt McCusker?

  You would die.

• 30:28Speaker 00

  So you're going in this boat, hoping like everything goes well, you know, like, I don't really trust the dude, but.

• 30:36Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. So he was basically, if you fall in, we're dead anyway. So like.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  Right. So it seems like you don't really.

• 30:40Matt McCusker?

  What size craft are you guys on?

• 30:42Speaker 00

  This boat was like a, a 20 foot outboard.

• 30:46Matt McCusker?

  Okay.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  But we were following the people who were actually kayaking in rubber rafts, you know, so they, they were more imperiled than we were.

• 30:52Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. So, but they had the wet suits, which I guess they won't even preserve you for not that long.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  A while. The good, really good dry suits, you'd stay alive for, till somebody came and, if they came and got you.

• 31:02Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Speaker 00

  But you know, of course that made me realize, again, I'm thinking, I'm trying to think about the stories that I'm telling and the people I'm writing about. And like, they had none of that, you know, no Gore-Tex, no dry suits. And they're out there in like, native, in, in the north, you know, like the, the, the Scandinavians and the, some of these northern peoples are the ones who invented like skin, seal skin kayaks, right? So they are expert in paddling these things, you know?

• 31:28Matt McCusker?

  What is a seal skin kayak?

• 31:30Speaker 00

  So basically, if you see it, you know, the plastic kayaks that you see out on the river here.

• 31:33Matt McCusker?

  Oh.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  But they build them with like, um, wooden frames and, and sometimes bone, because in a lot of these places in the far north, there's no trees.

• 31:42Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 31:43Speaker 00

  And then they, uh, they put the outsides are like stretched seal skin, or sometimes walrus. Uh, and so they are really, they're watertight. Um, and you know, they're the ones who invented the whole, the, the older kayaks actually look pretty much the design. Lines have stayed similar, you know, where there's a little cockpit and you're sitting down, but you're so low on the water, you know? It's, it's in any wind and waves and shit, it's just terrifying. Like, I don't want to be in there.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  That's crazy, dude.

• 32:10Matt McCusker?

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• 32:30Matt McCusker?

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• 33:21Matt McCusker?

  Well, it's funny, too, the guys who explored that place, because like, you know, again, going back to the Amazon, it's like, okay, check it out. Like, here's like a kind of a useful place, but like the thing for the North Pole, it's like, you get there, you're like, yeah, it's a ton of snow. It's like, okay.

• 33:35Speaker 00

  It's an open polar sea, like, there's nothing there. But what was really intriguing to me-

• 33:39Matt McCusker?

  I was trying to reg on the North Pole, but it's like-

• 33:40Speaker 00

  Was that, you know, they didn't, um, they, they didn't know. Like, so where the people that I was writing about up until, and even including the dirigible airship journeys, in like the 1880s, uh, there was just a giant blank white spot on the map.

• 33:59Matt McCusker?

  I was about to say, what did they think was up there? Was there any like tales of what they thought might be there?

• 34:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, and some really confused tales that actually ended up like not helping people because they, they, there was this theory that-

• 34:12Speaker 00

  There was a ring of ice around this kind of warm temperate zone. So they thought that it was like open sea there. And so a lot of times when the the Brits and some of the other, I mean, the the Norwegians went there or tried to go there, like, the theory was, OK, we're going to break through this ice barrier. And then it's like warm. I don't know why they believe that exactly.

• 34:40Matt McCusker?

  Could be, did you ever get into hollow earth theory? Could just, there are people who think at the top of the North Pole, like it hollows out and you can kind of go in. Yeah, just jump in, teleport right to China.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  See at the bottom.

• 34:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, where it's also ice and frozen.

• 34:54Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, so they found out there was not the fabled oasis in the middle of all the ice.

• 34:59Speaker 00

  Right, and a lot of times the early expeditions went with not enough gear and warm clothes because they thought they were going to end up in these more temperate places. And they should have figured it out by noting what the indigenous people were wearing.

• 35:15Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, sure.

• 35:16Speaker 00

  You know, they're like totally bundled up with fricking caribou.

• 35:19Matt McCusker?

  How how high up do indigenous people go up to, are they on the North Pole?

• 35:23Speaker 00

  Well, nobody lives at the North Pole, but they they they live, La Sallebar is the most northern place. But on the northern coast of Greenland, there are still Etah native populations, people who are still carving out a life up there and living in traditional way with, you know, seal hunting and, I mean, there's there's like whales and beluga and, you know.

• 35:46Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I think.

• 35:46Speaker 00

  They're hardy.

• 35:48Matt McCusker?

  I I would imagine, I think, which am I going to call it, the igloozer? I read about, I was in a like a kids museum with my kids and apparently they like retain heat like insane, like snow retains heat.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 35:58Matt McCusker?

  Unbelievably so.

• 35:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, one of the things that's in in writing about these expeditions, you know, I marvel at the endurance of these, you know, the explorers because in many, in some cases, they were smart enough to take along indigenous guides and hunters. And, you know, they they would slog for like 12 hours across the snow and ice, get to the end of the day. Build an igloo in like 45 minutes and then you have like a seal blubber lantern at one end and you're tucked into this igloo and there's and these guys are you know taking not only writing down where they've gone what the coordinates were writing letters

• 36:41Speaker 00

  home you know and recording in their journals and diaries everything that's happened including what the weather was like but you know they're doing that after after just trekking for a day or something and the other thing that most people don't realize is that they're especially in the north it's not not the case in the south pole but these they're giant flows of ice that's breaking up and they move tremendously so you could be in your igloo and all of a sudden you and you hear this crashing crap you know heaving sounds and and shattering and now the ice is breaking up underneath your igloo and so they like scan you kind of need to sleep with your boots on or your

• 37:26Matt McCusker?

  Oh dude that's what you're saying it's just a frozen sea

• 37:28Speaker 00

  Right and then and so it'll shatter and then you have to get out of there and like regroup somewhere over here and you know you're yelling at each other in the darkness and it's just gnarly

• 37:39Matt McCusker?

  Oh that sounds awful that really does sound terrible that's uh it's not you're not pitching me on the north pole what's up with the south pole

• 37:46Speaker 00

  Yeah well the south pole is different it's more of a landmass that has frozen sea too but what I've always found funny is that you know because not not a lot of people know about the Arctic and the Antarctic so they'll they'll I'll tell them I'm writing about the Arctic and they say the only thing they know is Shackleton which is one of the the most famous explorers right and they're like oh so like Shackleton right and I said well yeah it's like Shackleton except on his journey everyone lived and I only write about stories where half the people died at least

• 38:19Matt McCusker?

  And Shackleton was Antarctic

• 38:21Speaker 00

  Yeah it's still it's an amazing story

• 38:23Matt McCusker?

  Personally if I was talking Arctic and someone came at me with Antarctic I probably wouldn't even respond I'd be like yeah okay dude

• 38:29Speaker 00

  I know what you mean

• 38:31Speaker 00

  But I haven't been there. That's the one on my bucket list of, uh, I've been on every continent except Antarctica. And so that's, that's next.

• 38:40Matt McCusker?

  So in North Pole, like the North Pole, is that like a military base? Or like, what is there?

• 38:44Speaker 00

  No, it's just, it's just a, a spot on the map.

• 38:48Matt McCusker?

  What?

• 38:49Speaker 00

  Still. Um, so what they, what they did discover was that there, there had been a theory that there was a, another continental landmass there. So, you know, maybe we, maybe there's, um, reserves of something oil. Maybe we can, you know, and there it was contested, uh, by a number of countries. So what they did figure out in the book that I wrote, Realm of Ice and Sky, they fly over it in a blimp and are able to take pictures and, and confirm that there's no landmass there. That is just a giant expanse of, of moving ice.

• 39:22Matt McCusker?

  Okay. And then I'm trying to like picture it. So if you fly to the North Pole and then just keep going straight.

• 39:29Speaker 00

  Well, these guys ended up in, they, they crash landed in Teller, Alaska. Well, it depends on, uh, what direction you go, but like, well, the cool thing is, once you go, once you pass the North Pole, every direction leads south. You know, it's like, no matter if you turned around or which in one case they did, they turned around and then went back to Svalbard. That, that didn't work. They crashed.

• 39:53Matt McCusker?

  Damn.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  But yeah, it's, um, yeah, these stories I love because, you know, once they're out there, then something usually invariably terrible happens.

• 40:04Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah. It's really, it is. I, I do like that when you're reading all of a sudden, it's like they're about to die. They're like literally on the verge of death the entire time.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  Right. How are we not going to die?

• 40:14Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was bugging out on the poison and it's a different thing, but the poison arrows in, uh, River Darkness was like, I couldn't stop thinking about them. Just one little scratch from a poison arrow. And it's just like a 24 hour shivering horrible death.

• 40:27Speaker 00

  And your arm turns black and falls off, right? And it's like, yeah, uh, don't, you know, duck and stay under those manatee shields, you know?

• 40:35Matt McCusker?

  Dude, that shit sucks. Guys, this episode is brought to you by On It. Ever feel like your brain is on, but nobody's home? Hmm. Spend 10 to 15 seconds sharing a quick, relatable and funny story from your own life about a time. How about this, guys? I'll be honest, I uh, I do dumb stuff all the time. Uh, this is for AlphaBrain, by the way. I, they sent it to me, so I've been taking it. I fucking like it. I swear to God. I figured I would like, let me just try it out. Let me see, you know, let me see what's up, what it's all about. I like it, dude. It feels like it's a nice, uh, it's caffeine free, first of all. That's why I never took it, because I'm like, I don't need any god darn caffeine. Um, but yeah, I don't know. I think it, I looked it up. It, I don't know. I don't know if I, if it's like you can say what it does, but apparently just like boosts your dopamine or like pushes dopamine

• 41:20Matt McCusker?

  into your brain. Give it a try. Give it a try. I, I like it. And um, yeah, it gets, it gets me charged, man. I take it. It's a very, and here's the thing too. I'm very, uh, I'm very prone to just taking stuff and being like, oh, I think it's working. But I gave it to my brother. I, I guinea pigged my brother Swim, who's no stranger to chemicals and chemical compounds, who has a heartier constitution than me. And he even was like, bro, this stuff's got me kind of, it's got me moving and grooving. So, hey, look, we did it with, that's science right there. Did a fucking study on myself and my brother and Spud, and we were all were like, damn, this shit fucking rips. So get it yourself. Try it out. Try it out. All right. AlphaBrain is a daily supplement with science-backed ingredients like L-theanine, designed to support memory and focus so you can lock

• 42:02Matt McCusker?

  in, tune out distractions and stay sharp. Visit onnit.com and shop AlphaBrain to unlock your next level. That's O-N-N-I-T dot com. And yeah, I, I literally take it every day now. I like it. Go ahead, Sean, you have to plug a show?

• 42:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, thank you.

• 42:18Matt McCusker?

  Of course.

• 42:19Speaker 04

  Hello.

• 42:20Matt McCusker?

  It's what we do it for.

• 42:23Speaker 04

  Hello, everybody. This is Sean. I just wanted to let you know one last time that I'll be in Salt Lake City this weekend, Friday and Saturday with Nate Marshall, March 27th and 28th. Tickets are at sean guardini.com. Please come. There are plenty of tickets available to these shows. So many tickets. And we'll be at the Houston Riot Fest the week after that, April 3rd and 4th. And then Noctis is after that at the Creek in the Cave. So please come. Tickets at sean guardini.com or lemarilee.fun and Shane M. Gillis.com too.

• 42:59Matt McCusker?

  The link.

• 43:00Speaker 04

  Thank you, guys. Thank you, Matt.

• 43:02Matt McCusker?

  Of course, guys. Um, oh, man, this leg of the tour is winding down on April 10th. I'll be in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Fitzgerald Theater. Home. It's all good. What you guys need?

• 43:14Speaker 04

  I was just, my red light was on when you were reading it.

• 43:17Matt McCusker?

  Oh, you're fine. Ain't no big thing. Just getting the audio out to the people.

• 43:21Speaker 04

  Sorry.

• 43:22Matt McCusker?

  Um, also, 4/11, the next day after I leave Minnesota, I'm going to Des Moines, Iowa. Uh, Hoyt Sherman Place, whatever. I'll be there at 4/11. So Iowa, Minnesota, I have shows there. Let's go. Let's finish this out strong, guys. What do you say? And then also, motherfucking Phoenix, man, Celebrity Theater. Guys, come on, it's in the round. It's a cool place. Don't embarrass me. Oh, yeah, Gardenia will be there. Fucking, it's gonna be a blast. And by the way, I come alive in the round, if I'm being honest. I've done the round with Shane. I love it. So please, guys, please, please, please. Um, otherwise, I'm, I'll literally, I'll just pay to get feet, seat fillers and all. I don't fucking care. I'm gonna have a good show in the round, one way or the other. Guy, and I'll pay them to laugh at me, too.

• 44:07Matt McCusker?

  That's 4/17. Guys, 4/18, I'll be in Tucson, Arizona. And, uh, yeah, let's, let's get it going. Also, uh, I'll be in Toronto. We have two shows in Toronto. Both of them are, one of them's definitely sold out. The second one's dang near sold out. So might add a third, I don't know. Uh, Riviera Theater, Chicago. Yeah, let's go get that. I think that's gonna sell out, guys. That's in April. Um, there's been a rumor about adding a possible, if that sells out, an 11 o'clock show at Zany's. Secret show. We'll see. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see.

• 44:36Speaker 04

  Ian's going to see the.

• 44:38Matt McCusker?

  Oh, nice.

• 44:38Speaker 04

  Shout out.

• 44:39Matt McCusker?

  Fuck, yeah. But yeah, guys, go to mattmccusker.com. That, that took way too long. Just, uh, six shows left before I chill for the summer.

• 44:46Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 44:49Speaker 00

  The Amazonians? Oh, this is a good question. Oh.

• 44:52Matt McCusker?

  Oh, yeah. The, oh, yeah. Okay. Bringing up the fabled Amazon warriors.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Oh, the women.

• 44:56Matt McCusker?

  The women.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  Oh, I thought, because everybody who lives there is considered an Amazonian now, but

• 45:01Matt McCusker?

  True.

• 45:02Speaker 00

  Uh, there's different tribes. So, yeah, the, the Amazon women, that's an interesting and perplexing myth and story.

• 45:13Speaker 00

  I didn't meet any. I was looking for them.

• 45:15Matt McCusker?

  The warriors. You're talking about the warriors.

• 45:17Speaker 00

  The Amazon women warriors, yeah.

• 45:18Matt McCusker?

  But they had their breasts in the jungle, whereas the Greek, the Greek, that's where the term comes from, right? They're Greek women who would, would they like strap their breasts down or whatever?

• 45:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:27Matt McCusker?

  Tie them down so they could shoot the arrow.

• 45:29Speaker 00

  But what I loved about that story in the Black Sea is that they, and this persists too in the Amazon Basin, is that they would take men, mate with them.

• 45:40Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I know.

• 45:40Speaker 00

  And then like, tell them to fuck off, and then they just have the women on the island that were like, we're using you as, you know, you're just pro creators, man.

• 45:49Matt McCusker?

  It's fantasy. It's a collective male fantasy. Get out of here. We're done with you.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  Done with you.

• 45:56Matt McCusker?

  Go do shit in the jungle with your friends. I have no use for you right now.

• 45:59Speaker 00

  Go hunt.

• 45:59Matt McCusker?

  Well, that was the question. That was kind of what I was thinking about just yesterday. I was, I was reading it and, uh, so you have the, you know, because the conquistadors had the fabled myth of El Dorado, the, you know, the, the kingdom, kingdom of gold and all this stuff. And that was kind of the, the myth. That was like a myth that was driving them. But like, why would, I think you might have just answered the question, but why would these Amazonian people all make up a myth of like powerful female warriors?

• 46:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 46:24Matt McCusker?

  Obviously, I mean, there, there's the sexual thing of them like abducting you from your village and taking you to have sex with you or whatever and dropping you back off. But it's like, it is just a weird collective myth to have all these people in the jungle form of like powerful women warriors.

• 46:36Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 46:37Matt McCusker?

  Especially back then. Now I'd be like, yeah, I get it. My people would do that. But like, back then in the fucking 1500s, like, why, why would they all do that? And like all agree that was a thing?

• 46:45Speaker 00

  Well, and also it, it, you know, since it has persisted for hundreds of years, um, I mean, I love the fact that this is where mythology, um, becomes, you kind of wonder, like, is there a kernel of truth to this? Because, you know, with modern technology, wouldn't we have found them? But I have to say, in the Amazon, I mean, when I came, when I did my journey and came out, um, And landed in Iquitos, Peru. There, there was an article in the paper, uh, or, you know, online. And it had images of, you may have seen them, like they're uncontacted tribes still. And they're like painted orange and, you know, helicopters or whatever, small planes are flying over to check them out.

• 47:28Speaker 00

  And they're just standing there with spears going, you know, land, please do.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  See how that goes Navy SEAL. But, but, uh, you know, they.

• 47:41Matt McCusker?

  I mean, I think they would do all right with their guns and shit.

• 47:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, they probably would. But for me, the point was like, well, okay, if there are, if there remain uncontacted tribes.

• 47:50Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 47:50Speaker 00

  Even in, you know, I was down there in 2008. Um, they're still today are uncontacted tribes.

• 47:57Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 47:58Speaker 00

  And so it's so vast and of course, you know, it's being imperiled by logging and farming and all this stuff. But there's still, it's so vast that there's, if there are pockets of people that have lived the same way for thousands of years. And, and then there's myths about these particular female tribes that are warriors and don't want to be messed with. To me, there's a, I have to believe that it's possible.

• 48:23Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. Well, the guy in the book saw them, he fought them. So it was like, they were, they were paler, they were like lighter skinned, tall women that had a bunch of like short guys there bossing around.

• 48:35Speaker 00

  Oh yeah. I love that. And if you don't, and if you, if you puss out, they're fucking killing you. Yeah.

• 48:40Matt McCusker?

  That holds, that still holds to this day.

• 48:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:43Matt McCusker?

  How do I tell you about, you better keep fighting them.

• 48:47Matt McCusker?

  Yep. I might have an Amazonian in my house. I'm the last Amazonian.

• 48:53Matt McCusker?

  Why don't you pick up your shirt off the floor?

• 48:55Speaker 00

  Don't back down.

• 48:58Matt McCusker?

  No, that, uh, yeah, it was, and it's just such a funny thing. Cause you hear, you know, they were like, while they're floating around the river. It's like, there's these tales of Amazon women warriors and you're like, you know, you're like, okay, it's just like a fable. Then they actually battled them and you're like, what the fuck was that all about?

• 49:11Speaker 00

  And killed a couple.

• 49:12Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. Yeah. They killed almost all of them. That was shocking. You didn't take one of them prisoner.

• 49:16Speaker 00

  I know, it was silly, you know, because if you look back to what Cortez did, and you know, there's also, there's albinos that come into camp one time.

• 49:24Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that was a weird one, too. Tall albinos.

• 49:26Speaker 00

  Tall albino dudes. You know, they may have been pituitary giants or something, which.

• 49:31Matt McCusker?

  What is a pituitary? What is that?

• 49:33Speaker 00

  Well, like you grow really fast and it, and you're usually they're marked by having a really big head. Actually, I played rugby for seven years and one of our, one of our best players in the scrum was a pituitary giant. So he was like huge, like Andre the Giant.

• 49:51Matt McCusker?

  Yes, yeah, yeah. So your glands just produce.

• 49:53Speaker 00

  Good to have on your rugby team.

• 49:55Matt McCusker?

  I would imagine, yeah. Giant. I mean, that was, they had like medieval battle and everything. It's fucking awesome.

• 49:59Speaker 00

  And he had, you were like, oh, he talked like that.

• 50:03Matt McCusker?

  I'd be pissed if he didn't, honestly. If I had a giant with a soft voice, I'd be like, it's bullshit.

• 50:07Speaker 00

  Howdy. But Cortez had the wherewithal to like snag some of these, you know, specimens and take them home to England, or pardon me, to Spain.

• 50:20Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:21Speaker 00

  And he would be like, I want to show the king what is here. And so there were like dwarfs and albinos and some of them, he, you know, absconded with, put them on a ship and sent them with the, you know, with the royal fifth of gold that they were required to send back.

• 50:37Matt McCusker?

  That's crazy.

• 50:38Speaker 00

  And was like, check them out. Like this place is rad, you know?

• 50:41Matt McCusker?

  It's crazy to just send up, just a bunch of treasure than like essentially like an old freak show. He's just hitting with like, he was like, you open a chest and like dudes, midgets pop out, you're like, whoa, the hell's this?

• 50:52Speaker 00

  But in fairness to Oriana, he didn't have like, you know, he was just trying not to die and get down the river. So he didn't have the capacity to.

• 51:01Matt McCusker?

  For sure.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  Put them in the boat. He was trying to feed his own men.

• 51:03Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, true.

• 51:04Speaker 00

  Cortez was like, okay, we're going to put these guys on ships and send them back and show what I'm taking over.

• 51:10Matt McCusker?

  The worst story of all, I think, from River of Darkness is when they landed in that village and it was just women there and they took over the village and just all just slept with these ladies. Raped him, obviously. Let's be, let's not, let's be frank about it. Guys, then they're all their husbands came home from a trip to just see these like, people they've never seen before, all with their wives in their huts. And it was just like, dude, that's the most insane thing you could possibly imagine.

• 51:38Speaker 00

  I know.

• 51:38Matt McCusker?

  Everyone goes out to work, you come home and everyone's wife is now being detained by like a strange being.

• 51:44Speaker 00

  I spend my whole day at the turtle farm and come home to this.

• 51:53Matt McCusker?

  Really been farming turtles all day.

• 51:58Matt McCusker?

  It's so funny.

• 52:00Speaker 00

  I was chuck.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  I was chuckling too at where you guys were talking about how they named everything, you know? And the one place they you call, you know, you read it in the part three or whatever. And it's like, it was like,

• 52:14Speaker 00

  place of the of the burn people. And I was thinking, well, you should have been called the place where we burned people, you know, like, they didn't want to name it what it really was.

• 52:25Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I also love when he called it, we had like that Gonzalo Bizarro had a bad march and it was named the worst march ever through the jungle. Literally, that was a literal term.

• 52:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:34Matt McCusker?

  This was the worst march ever through the jungle.

• 52:38Speaker 00

  Okay, there've been a lot of bad ones. This one, worst.

• 52:41Matt McCusker?

  Worst ever.

• 52:43Speaker 00

  Well, it is pretty bad when he gets back and he's like literally in, you know, skins and barefoot, you know, the fact that any of those guys.

• 52:52Matt McCusker?

  The worst, the worst is them. I didn't know you could do this with a horse. You cut it open, drink the blood as needed, and then you pack it full of mud. It's just like a walking, it's just like a food truck. You just kind of walk, you would cut slivers, cook a sliver of it, eat it and just let it keep walking as you're eating it. It was like, oh.

• 53:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was grim. I was listening to it a little bit on the plane. And I'm like, God, I forgot about that, you know, it's just what people will do. And, you know, I have to say, there wasn't much cannibalism in the conquistador tales, but in if you really, if you like cannibalism, as you get to the, as you get to the, the Arctic stuff.

• 53:28Matt McCusker?

  Lot of cannibalism.

• 53:29Speaker 00

  A lot of cannibalism.

• 53:30Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that was the, because that's the, that's the funny thing too, because I, you know, whenever I'm like, I'll like organize notes for things and I'll use like, you know, Grok or Claude. And they're always like, by the way, they didn't sustain themselves on cannibalism. It was for ceremonies. It's like, okay, dude, they're still eating. Like, don't like, nice it up. Like, it was church. Okay. But so that Arctic was like, they need it to munch guys. That was like sustained. That was like sustaining.

• 53:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. And you know, you're talking about a different, um, like the idea was that the explorers coming from, from Europe and North America were like, you know, it was taboo. Um, in different cultures, it's less, less so, you know?

• 54:07Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 54:09Speaker 00

  And it does beg the question. I'm, I've been asked that at book readings. Like, would you eat, uh, human flesh?

• 54:14Matt McCusker?

  It's always one guy at a book reading.

• 54:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:16Matt McCusker?

  Would you ever eat a person?

• 54:19Matt McCusker?

  Mr. Levy, would you eat a person? Would you eat me if I died?

• 54:22Speaker 00

  Your face.

• 54:24Speaker 00

  I'm gonna, I mean.

• 54:25Matt McCusker?

  What do you say to that when someone asks you that?

• 54:27Speaker 00

  I say, would you?

• 54:30Matt McCusker?

  Touche.

• 54:31Speaker 00

  I mean, it depends on how, if it was your fucking homie, you know, like.

• 54:36Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, true.

• 54:36Speaker 00

  How well do you know them?

• 54:37Matt McCusker?

  True.

• 54:38Speaker 00

  You know?

• 54:38Matt McCusker?

  Is it a guy or a girl?

• 54:39Speaker 00

  Right.

• 54:40Matt McCusker?

  I would eat a guy personally.

• 54:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:43Matt McCusker?

  I would, personally.

• 54:46Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 54:47Matt McCusker?

  Unless it was a powerful warrior, I would eat a powerful warrior.

• 54:51Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, I think at a certain point, um, I would.

• 54:56Matt McCusker?

  You, yeah, obviously if you get hungry enough, yeah, for sure.

• 54:59Speaker 00

  You know, you're delirious with hunger and it's like, it's meat.

• 55:01Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 55:02Speaker 00

  If I were a vegan, I would say no.

• 55:04Matt McCusker?

  I, I have a cupboard full of like cereal and all this stuff and I'll be not hungry. And I don't want to eat the cereal and I'll eat the cereal. If I was starving to death, I would totally eat a person.

• 55:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:14Matt McCusker?

  Like, no, not even, not a question.

• 55:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:17Matt McCusker?

  Sorry. Sorry.

• 55:19Speaker 00

  But so then.

• 55:20Matt McCusker?

  I literally would eat every person, everyone here. I think you guys are great, but if I got hungry enough, I would eat you.

• 55:26Speaker 00

  It gets kind of grim.

• 55:26Matt McCusker?

  I'll try.

• 55:27Speaker 00

  It gets kind of grim because then it becomes a question of, okay, if they're already dead.

• 55:32Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 55:33Speaker 00

  Like, let's say they starve to death and then they don't have. Uh, and they're, which happens in a couple of my books where, you know, they're, they're. They're dead already. They starved. So.

• 55:45Matt McCusker?

  Bad eating.

• 55:45Speaker 00

  You're looking around. Okay. Not a lot. You know, we've already gone out hunting and we haven't found anything. And there's a guy.

• 55:51Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, starving, skinny bones.

• 55:54Speaker 00

  Are we gonna, are we gonna do it? And versus you're gonna, you know, kill someone to eat them, which is a different.

• 56:01Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 56:02Speaker 00

  Thing for me. Well, this went dark.

• 56:04Matt McCusker?

  No, that's no, I, I hear what you're saying, because if someone starves to death, and you gotta split up your friend with all your other friends to eat them. But it's like, there isn't a lot of meat on them.

• 56:13Speaker 00

  Right.

• 56:14Matt McCusker?

  Next person starts lagging, like, we can just eat this guy now and get a better meal out of it.

• 56:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then in some cases, what happens is like, they start looking around. This happens in, in that book, actually, or in Labyrinth Vice. So one guy, you know, everybody else is like emaciated, sort of Walking Dead situation on the ice. And, and then you've got like, one guy who's like, 200 pounds, it looks like he's just come from CrossFit, you know? And they're like, what the fuck is up with him? Like, what, why is he so, you know, burly? And they realize, well, he's been going off to the, the tidal crack where they've been throwing the dead people and like feeding at night, you know?

• 56:54Speaker 00

  Feeding at the tidal crack.

• 56:56Matt McCusker?

  Jacked and ripped.

• 56:57Speaker 00

  And that guy, it doesn't go well for him.

• 56:59Matt McCusker?

  So it was, he kind of gave himself away by being like, man, I'm just different. I'm just built different. It's crazy.

• 57:05Speaker 00

  It's genetics.

• 57:06Matt McCusker?

  So he was just sneaking off at nighttime and just frying up the guys and.

• 57:09Speaker 00

  Yes. And then, but, but the commander, this was an army expedition, and the commander figures it out. Adolphus Greeley, and he's like, I don't, I don't, I hate giving stuff away, but whatever.

• 57:20Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that's so funny.

• 57:21Speaker 00

  He ends up going, okay, he catches him stealing food. And then he says, okay, we're gonna take three guys out there and Henry, that's his name, Henry's gotta go, because he's eating what little food we have left. And so they do a thing where.

• 57:37Matt McCusker?

  Oh, he was munching the food reserves.

• 57:39Speaker 00

  After, and, and dead.

• 57:40Matt McCusker?

  And the people.

• 57:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so then he's like, we, you know, we'll all die if Henry keeps eating everything. So they have an execution. And they just like, go out there and, you know.

• 57:51Matt McCusker?

  I gotta say, that's not very fat positive of them. I bet he was hungry.

• 57:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And Henry was body shaming people too.

• 58:00Matt McCusker?

  That's fair. Damn. So he was.

• 58:02Speaker 00

  So they executed him, but you know, they wanted to not know who, who did it. So they greedily put like blanks in two of the guns and then a live round in the other one.

• 58:10Matt McCusker?

  And all fired.

• 58:11Speaker 00

  They all fired on him and.

• 58:13Matt McCusker?

  Dang.

• 58:13Speaker 00

  Then, then they had to report it to the, if they, you know, they met some survived. So then they had to like, write a report of like, yeah, we took out Henry.

• 58:23Matt McCusker?

  Made a kill him.

• 58:24Speaker 00

  Sorry.

• 58:25Matt McCusker?

  That's what you get, man. You can't be doing that on the expedition.

• 58:27Speaker 00

  No, it's bad form, bad team player.

• 58:30Matt McCusker?

  That's a terrible, that's a terrible team player. Thinks it's all about himself.

• 58:34Speaker 00

  There's no I in team, Henry.

• 58:38Matt McCusker?

  Dang, that's awesome. So what is like, so out of all the expeditions you've done, what are they? You've done the Amazon, Arctic.

• 58:47Speaker 00

  Well, also I went to Borneo. Um, this was, uh, I think I mentioned you, I had followed these crazy,

• 58:57Speaker 00

  multi-sport adventure racers around the world for about seven years. And, um, this was run by Mark Burnett, the guy who created Survivor, The Apprentice. Um, and so I was doing some research and I was, I was a journalist then, writing about these sports. Um, and the first, one of the ones I went to was in Borneo, which is, you know, northern Malaysia islands. And that was super intense because, and it was actually during this race where Mark Burnett found the island that was the first Survivor island where the first competition happened, however many, like 112 seasons of Survivor ago, or whatever it's been. Um, and so we, this was really incredible. We were, we were following these racers around and we were in boats, uh, motorboats, but we would sleep on islands,

• 59:43Speaker 00

  right? And I had heard my friend is trying to freak me out. He's like, yeah, well, Borneo, that's where the head hunters are, right?

• 59:49Matt McCusker?

  So I thought, yeah.

• 59:50Speaker 00

  Really? Uh, and he, he's like, well, they're, they're south. They're south of where you're going to be, you know? And I'm like, oh, good. And he said, but you know, Borneo has like some of the most, uh, toxic snakes in the world. And also, um, so at one point I'm on this island, um, and we were like waiting to go to the next island and we camped out there, right? This is, couldn't have a hammock there because of no trees. And so. I had heard about this sea krait, K R A I T, which is like one of the most toxic snakes in the world, right? And if it bites you, I think you have like hours to live.

• 1:00:29Matt McCusker?

  Really?

• 1:00:30Speaker 00

  So we're like, get to this island. It was beautiful. We're all setting up camp in this one guy. We had this MacGyver dude named Brito. He's British and his nickname was Brito, which isn't that clever, but that's just what we called him. But Brito, it turns out, was really scared of snakes, right? So we had seen a couple. They're water snakes. So it's freaky because we had to anchor out like it's shallow. We anchored like 200, 300 yards from the island. And then you couldn't get into shore because it would break, you know?

• 1:01:00Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:01Speaker 00

  Fuck up the boat. So we're like carrying all our crap through the water, seeing occasional slithers going, god damn. And so when we got to shore, Brito was like, buddy, I'm fucking so scared of snakes. And I'm like, okay, well, you know, it's just a day away from them. But we ended up like, so in the middle of the night, so I set up my tent. And in the middle of the night, I feel something like next to me and the dude is spooning me, you know? And listen, I'm okay with spooning, you know? But the guy, I'm like, Brito, what the fuck are you doing? He's like, I can't take it. I can't be out there. And then I showed him, I go, well, it's not going to help you that much in here. My tent had like a little hole in the corner and I'm like, the sea krait's going to come right. Because they look for warmth too, you know?

• 1:01:46Speaker 00

  And I'm like.

• 1:01:47Matt McCusker?

  But they're water snakes, right?

• 1:01:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're water snake, but they can come on land. They're amphibious.

• 1:01:54Speaker 00

  It's not a good.

• 1:01:55Matt McCusker?

  It's also like, don't be next to me. We're going to, you know?

• 1:01:58Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:01:58Matt McCusker?

  She'd be like, I'm afraid of snakes too, bro. Back up, man. Get off of God's fucking butt, dude.

• 1:02:04Speaker 00

  Get your snake away from me, but.

• 1:02:08Speaker 00

  But and then I went the next day I go I go like.

• 1:02:12Matt McCusker?

  I think he made it all up to get close to you honestly.

• 1:02:14Speaker 00

  He probably did.

• 1:02:15Matt McCusker?

  Help me buddy.

• 1:02:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, so the next day I went out and to take a leak and I'm like, I see the movement in the scrub, you know, and I'm like, what the is that? And it was like, it was a, it turns out to, it was a a monitor lizard, which are next to the Komodo dragon, the monitor lizard, the second largest reptile in the world. I mean, there's like from me to these guys, you know?

• 1:02:38Matt McCusker?

  Damn.

• 1:02:39Speaker 00

  And it's like a Shetland pony elongated sized lizard, you know, and you're like, and they're kind of gnarly too. I mean, you know, if you don't spook them or something, you're good, but like, it all just makes you nervous, you know?

• 1:02:54Matt McCusker?

  It's technically a dinosaur, a lizard the size of a Shetland pony, that's a dino.

• 1:02:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, and you're out there and it's Jurassic Park situation and, you know, you're just trying to, you're just trying to make a living.

• 1:03:03Matt McCusker?

  That's fucking terrible. And then how, so you're just on that island for a day?

• 1:03:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, and then we were like, went off to the next, I mean, it was like a 10 or 12 day long race. And we also had to crawl through, they had this really cool section of the race where they had to, there are these bat caves that are really famous and they're, they're huge. You go through these, like you crawl through these tunnels to get inside the big cavern and they're massive. And then there's these bat caves that actually are the, the local population, they harvest these birds, they're kind of like a swallow, they're called swifts. They, they harvest, there's a, they go up on these like vine ladders to harvest the eggs from these swift birds. It's like a medicinal aphrodisiac situation.

• 1:03:49Matt McCusker?

  What?

• 1:03:50Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:03:50Matt McCusker?

  Every, every single place has their like, I swear, like give you, this is like the tree bark liquor or whatever.

• 1:03:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:58Matt McCusker?

  Every single civilization has their own like boner medication.

• 1:04:01Speaker 00

  You gotta have it.

• 1:04:01Matt McCusker?

  You do. Hey, I turned 40 this year. I'm in the thick of it, bro. I'm like. It's finally come for me.

• 1:04:07Speaker 00

  But so, yeah, then you're crawling. It was kinda nasty. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not against bats or anything, but like when you're, and you guys, I know Congress, you got bats. But you have to crawl through like tunnels of bat guano, like, you know, centuries of bats shitting there to get into the cavern place. And then as part of the race, the racers had to go through there and then climb up this huge, like a scarpment and then like rappel down the other side, right? So, you know, you're just coming out of there going, did I pick the wrong gig? Like I'm covered in bat shit, you know, which.

• 1:04:44Matt McCusker?

  Oh, it's not good.

• 1:04:45Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:04:45Matt McCusker?

  Can you get, it's like, it's like bird, I know bird shit, you can get really sick.

• 1:04:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, you back on, you don't wanna eat it.

• 1:04:51Matt McCusker?

  True.

• 1:04:52Speaker 00

  But no, it has, you can get sick.

• 1:04:55Matt McCusker?

  Well, cause the bird, the bird shit, what happens is it dries and then you hit something and it goes up in the air. And then as soon as you breathe it in, it becomes that like when it gets wet, that's when it kinda messes you up. Like, yeah, like whatever, I think moisture activates. This could have just been, I was working with my dad, we were doing the thing with pigeon shit. He might've been making this all up. But he was just like, moisture activates the germs and bird shit.

• 1:05:15Speaker 00

  It's like the hon2 virus. You know, don't be snorting that.

• 1:05:20Matt McCusker?

  That's pretty cool though. So what do you, what do you have, what do you have like cooking up? What's your, what's your next?

• 1:05:26Speaker 00

  Well, I'm doing a, I'm doing a fourth Arctic book, cause I am the master of the Arctic.

• 1:05:30Matt McCusker?

  You are the master of the Arctic.

• 1:05:32Speaker 00

  Uh, as it turns out.

• 1:05:33Matt McCusker?

  Antarctic, I'm claiming Antarctic. I'm gonna go to the Antarctic.

• 1:05:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:36Matt McCusker?

  I'm gonna beat you to it.

• 1:05:37Speaker 00

  Well, my editor, I'm, I'm actually, this is avoidance behavior right here, cause I'm, I am working on a new book and it's, it's about, so you may have heard of John Franklin, who, this Franklin expedition that went off and the two boats, ships got stuck in the ice and then, uh, he never came home. He had 120, well, did you, have you guys heard about the terror? Uh, it's an AMC show called The Terror. That was a huge deal. But anyway, these two ships got stuck in the ice and then nobody came home. And so his wife, Lady Jane Franklin, sent for like 20 years, sent expeditions to go try to find them and then half of those people died. Um, but those two ships were recently found in like 2017.

• 1:06:15Speaker 00

  In 2014, because of Inuit oral history, they said, we saw, you know, their ancestors said, we saw these boats where they went down and they they ended up using submersibles to go find both those ships and it it helped solve the problem or the questions about what happened and in fact cannibalism occurred.

• 1:06:35Matt McCusker?

  Of course.

• 1:06:35Speaker 00

  Hundred twenty nine men perished. But that's not what my book's about.

• 1:06:40Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah, true.

• 1:06:41Speaker 00

  My book's about the first Franklin.

• 1:06:43Matt McCusker?

  You're giving it away. What the hell?

• 1:06:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, is about the first Franklin expedition in northern Canada, which is an overland journey in like 5,000 miles on foot and canoes with Dunay, Yellowknife indigenous people. It was during the time of the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest fur traders, right? And so it's 1819 and it's just this incredible ordeal where they're trying to figure out where the Northwest Passage is. In fact, almost all this stuff was related to finding the Northwest Passage, these Arctic, many of the Arctic tales. And it's just an incredible ordeal.

• 1:07:19Matt McCusker?

  Then what was, what's the Northwest Passage?

• 1:07:22Speaker 00

  They were trying to find a sea route. Instead of having to go all the way around to Asia, you could, you could go quicker from Europe through, through, through the circuitous, all these islands north of Canada.

• 1:07:32Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:32Speaker 00

  But it's really hard to navigate and half the time it's frozen and not navigable. And so it took centuries to figure out that it's not practical.

• 1:07:43Matt McCusker?

  You just can't do it.

• 1:07:44Speaker 00

  Many people, I mean, with, with global warming, it's becoming open longer. I mean, if you believe in global warming. But you know, it, it's, it's still not, it's too circuitous to get through quickly and it doesn't really solve the problem. But it took them a long time and many lives to come to this realization.

• 1:08:04Matt McCusker?

  Sucks. A lot of those guys too, I've noticed when they, whenever, whenever someone has like a successful voyage and they try to do the second one, it never works out. Besides, I feel like Christopher Columbus is the only guy who kind of like, I don't even know what happened to him ultimately.

• 1:08:16Speaker 00

  He gets, yeah, like where their journeys improve.

• 1:08:19Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, he just kind of just, I, I, I don't know if this is true. I, I was talking to somebody months ago about Christopher Columbus, who was a history teacher. And he was saying that Christopher Columbus, when he first got to, what was it, like Hispaniola or wherever? There were the people there, I forget the name of them. They were like, you know, he famously was like the super docile, blah, blah. Apparently he would just like hop on their back and make them piggyback him around the island, which is so disrespectful. He'd be like, I'm tired and just piggyback.

• 1:08:47Speaker 00

  You know what?

• 1:08:48Matt McCusker?

  They would just carry him around.

• 1:08:49Speaker 00

  You look fit.

• 1:08:52Matt McCusker?

  That's disrespectful. I thought that was crazy. Out of all, I mean, there's obviously all of them did a lot of terrible things, but that would just. If a grown man was like, all right, come on, let me hop up, let me hop on you real quick. I'd be like, it's fucking bullshit.

• 1:09:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:08Matt McCusker?

  But he, he made it. He was the only guy. I feel like he did. I mean, I'm sure there are others, but he had like multiple successful expeditions, right?

• 1:09:15Speaker 00

  Yes. Yeah.

• 1:09:16Matt McCusker?

  He was all over the place.

• 1:09:17Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, but you're right. They, they tend to end poorly. I mean, even in the case of Oriana and River of Darkness, like you, he thought like what he learned going down the river would have helped. And then the return voyage was disastrous.

• 1:09:29Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:30Speaker 00

  Well, plus you can't figure out, um, where you're going, you know, like because of the mouth is so wide. One of the staggering facts that I, I, I wrote it, I, I'm going to have to confirm this after we are done here, if it's actually true. That there's an island at the mouth that's the size of Switzerland.

• 1:09:47Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah. That's insane.

• 1:09:49Speaker 00

  Can we, why don't you look that up?

• 1:09:50Matt McCusker?

  I think, I think, I think that is.

• 1:09:52Speaker 00

  It'll probably quote me.

• 1:09:53Matt McCusker?

  No, I, I swear to God, I think that's the case.

• 1:09:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it's, it's, so imagine Oriana arriving back there with his child bride, you know, um, and.

• 1:10:01Matt McCusker?

  He did bring a child bride on the return voyage, which is crazy.

• 1:10:04Speaker 00

  And they're like, we're going back up and we're going to mostly visit the places that were nice to us.

• 1:10:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. Maraho Island.

• 1:10:12Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that's insane. And it, I forgot about that. And then he survives it and then brings a child bride, honeymoons, the child bride.

• 1:10:21Speaker 00

  Great honeymoon. You'll love it.

• 1:10:23Matt McCusker?

  Crazy. Dies in front of her.

• 1:10:25Speaker 00

  Brazil's nice this time of year.

• 1:10:30Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. I, I do like learning about those little like, um, those weird like waterways, like the Boca de Serpiente and the Boca de Dragón, where they gotta like navigate these weird rocky channels with like wetlands through. Where was that? Like the Trinidadian coast?

• 1:10:45Speaker 00

  Yeah. Mangrove swamps and everything.

• 1:10:47Matt McCusker?

  Fucking sucks.

• 1:10:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean.

• 1:10:49Matt McCusker?

  That would suck so bad. Especially just to learn where you're at and like, oh, where the place we're in is called the mouth of the dragon. I'd be like, fuck. Fuck.

• 1:10:57Speaker 00

  I wonder why they call it that.

• 1:11:01Matt McCusker?

  Well, buddy, this is great. Thank you so much. Um, is there anything else you have or anything you'd like people to know or any of that stuff? Talking business?

• 1:11:10Speaker 00

  No, man, just I really appreciate being here.

• 1:11:12Matt McCusker?

  Show customer.

• 1:11:13Speaker 00

  It's, it's been a blast and, uh, I'm going to keep writing these things until I'm, um, weak and infirm and need to feed on a friend.

• 1:11:21Matt McCusker?

  There you go.

• 1:11:24Matt McCusker?

  Well, thank you so much.

• 1:11:25Speaker 00

  My pleasure, man.

• 1:11:26Matt McCusker?

  See you, buddy.

• 1:11:27Speaker 00

  Take care.

• 1:11:28Matt McCusker?

  Watch new episodes of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast on Spotify. Do it.