Avian Air Force: Pigeons at War

Here's another previously exclusive subscriber episode we're releasing to the public! Not because of its high quality, but Mike needed to feel included again. Speaking of Mike, in this episode he is here to talk about pigeon war hero, so he does. Jeff is here to talk about Star Wars, and he does. Wes is here to do a Disturbed impression. He does one. ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social: Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds 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.

• 0:00Wes Larson?

  If you've spent much time in the West, you know that every ski town has a brand that the locals are going to wear before the rest of the country catches on. In Jackson Hole, that brand is Stio. Stio is designed and tested in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, right at the base of the Tetons, by locals who ski, bike, climb, and fish there every day. I've spent a lot of time in Jackson Hole. I know that they deal with a lot of different weather there, a lot of different things. And so Stio really has to hold up in a ton of different environments. And they've been at it since 2011. Fifteen years in, it's the real gear that locals live in. It's made for the whole mountain day, beyond the summit, the first chair, the school run, dinner out, the dog walk when it's cold outside. It's just made for every moment of mountain life.

• 0:44Wes Larson?

  And those are people that are living through Wyoming winters, so they really know warm. The Hometown Down Jacket is 800 fill down, but it feels more like your favorite hoodie than it does a puffy. And for me, I am really excited about the Men's Furnos Max Insulated Jacket. I'm constantly looking for a jacket that just ticks all the boxes, and this one really does. It's stretchy, it's breathable, it looks great, it keeps me super warm. It's just amazing. I just absolutely love this jacket. So ski season's almost here. Gear up now the way that the locals do. Go to stio.com/tooth for 20% off your order. That's S-T-I-O dot com slash tooth. Stio dot com slash tooth. Stio, designed and tested in Jackson Hole.

• 1:29Mike Smith?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Tooth and Claw. Just a quick producer's note from me, Mike, real quick. So some observant listeners have realized that this is something of a repeat. This is actually a subscriber exclusive episode for a long time. And the three of us were kind of stuck. Stuck's the wrong word, but we were in India, not a lot of connection, none of our recording gear, and we realized we needed to put something out. So we selected this one. We all had a really good time with it. I guess if you like it, this is the kind of content you can expect from our subscriber feed. So either Patreon or the Grizz Club, both of those feeds will have exactly the same content, and we never want to change that. But yeah, we just wanted to clue everyone in who might have recognized that this is something they may have heard before. And as always, we try to make good to our subscribers when we do this.

• 2:14Mike Smith?

  We just didn't again, have time or the equipment, but we're gonna be pushing some more content over to our subscriber feeds to make it up to them. We don't like doing this typically. But yeah, if you're a subscriber, expect something new and fun and cool in its place soon. And for the rest of y'all, we hope you enjoy it. I've been talking too much. Let's get to the episode. Let's go.

• 2:46Mike Smith?

  Disturbed. That's a good band. Wahahaha. That was really good.

• 2:52Wes Larson?

  Can we start with that?

• 2:53Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I wouldn't have it any other way.

• 2:56Jeff Larson?

  Podcast. Uh, thank you for that, Wes.

• 2:59Wes Larson?

  What's that guy's name? Darren something?

• 3:01Mike Smith?

  Uh, he's got like a really nice bald head and big lip piercings.

• 3:05Wes Larson?

  When he has like a really, he has, when he talks, he has like a crooner voice.

• 3:10Jeff Larson?

  What makes it nice bald head? Just like no bumps or anything?

• 3:13Mike Smith?

  It's shiny. I don't, I don't think I would have a very good one. I think I'd probably have like a mole or two. His is like pristine.

• 3:19Jeff Larson?

  Who has the shiniest head?

• 3:21Wes Larson?

  Maybe him.

• 3:22Jeff Larson?

  Doc Rivers.

• 3:23Wes Larson?

  Oh, you're right.

• 3:24Mike Smith?

  He's got, he's got.

• 3:25Jeff Larson?

  He's never completely bald.

• 3:26Mike Smith?

  MJ, Michael Jordan had a good bald head.

• 3:29Wes Larson?

  He did.

• 3:30Mike Smith?

  Yul Brynner.

• 3:31Wes Larson?

  Oh, he's famous for having a beautiful bald head.

• 3:33Mike Smith?

  Yeah, we'll be talking about him later on this episode.

• 3:36Wes Larson?

  Perfect. Double Yule. I love that.

• 3:41Jeff Larson?

  Me and Mike just went to Seattle. Yeah. To kind of scope it out, see if we maybe want to move there.

• 3:46Wes Larson?

  What'd you think?

• 3:47Jeff Larson?

  It's cool.

• 3:48Mike Smith?

  Too many.

• 3:48Jeff Larson?

  I don't like downtown.

• 3:50Mike Smith?

  Too many people clipping fingernails in your face?

• 3:52Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, downtown, there's a lot of pee and poop, which I actually knew there would be, but I think I just had to experience it to be like, I don't really like pee and poop everywhere.

• 4:02Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 4:03Jeff Larson?

  You know?

• 4:04Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 4:04Jeff Larson?

  I thought I might.

• 4:05Mike Smith?

  I think that's fair. Should have had that one nailed down before, but after we spent some time in the city, the city is really cool. I thought like the skyline is pretty.

• 4:14Jeff Larson?

  Great food.

• 4:14Mike Smith?

  Cool architecture.

• 4:15Wes Larson?

  Did you like all that gum?

• 4:17Mike Smith?

  The gum.

• 4:18Jeff Larson?

  No, I wanted to avoid it and we just stumbled onto it. I was so mad.

• 4:22Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it was not great, but after we spent a couple of days in the city and then we went north up to kind of my old stomping grounds when I used to live in Bellingham. Not that far north, but kind of reminded me why that was my favorite part of the country.

• 4:36Wes Larson?

  It is gorgeous.

• 4:37Mike Smith?

  Absolutely amazing.

• 4:39Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that coastal rainforest. Yeah.

• 4:41Jeff Larson?

  I'd also been looking at a bit nicer places and pitching the idea to Mike that we'd be roommates again. Get some more like milkshake and lasagna content, you know?

• 4:52Mike Smith?

  Got it, yeah.

• 4:53Jeff Larson?

  And he's like pre mad at me for maybe getting a pet that he might have to take care of one day.

• 5:00Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I was, I was there for part of that.

• 5:02Jeff Larson?

  He's like mad at me though.

• 5:03Wes Larson?

  I think you guys, you guys were looking at a place here in, in Missoula that had a bunch of land.

• 5:09Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 5:09Wes Larson?

  And Jeff was like, I'd have to get some animals and Mike's like, I'm out.

• 5:12Jeff Larson?

  I'm one hundred percent out. You'll ask me one day to take care of them.

• 5:17Mike Smith?

  I think I.

• 5:18Jeff Larson?

  And I was like, yeah, I probably will one day ask you to.

• 5:21Mike Smith?

  And I'm mad about it. The thing is, I'm always mad. That's my secret.

• 5:25Wes Larson?

  The thing that I've learned. With, yeah, with me and Jesse, we had the same arrangement, kind of, that I didn't want to get horse land because I didn't want to take care of horses.

• 5:37Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 5:37Wes Larson?

  And she was like, I promise I'll never make you take care of my horses.

• 5:40Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 5:41Wes Larson?

  But now sometimes.

• 5:43Jeff Larson?

  You'll have to sometimes.

• 5:44Wes Larson?

  But sometimes it's like the thought of being able to have time to myself is so attractive that I'm like, yes, I will take care of the horses.

• 5:52Mike Smith?

  That's a worth exchange.

• 5:52Wes Larson?

  I will happily do the horses, you know? So I think the same thing would happen to you where if Jeff was like, I'm gonna leave for a couple of weeks, you'd be like, whatever.

• 6:01Jeff Larson?

  You're outdoors with something to do.

• 6:02Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 6:03Mike Smith?

  Here's the problem with that scenario though.

• 6:05Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 6:06Mike Smith?

  I assume you and Jesse, uh.

• 6:09Wes Larson?

  Have sex.

• 6:09Mike Smith?

  Right. Jeff and I don't. Well, I don't get that benefit.

• 6:12Jeff Larson?

  I mean.

• 6:13Mike Smith?

  We could.

• 6:14Wes Larson?

  That's a mutual, that's a mutual benefit. I don't think that really comes into play in this scenario.

• 6:20Jeff Larson?

  I also like started just looking on Zillow at the most expensive places in Seattle and being like, maybe we could pull this.

• 6:29Mike Smith?

  It's like, it'll only be sixteen thousand dollars a month. And I was like.

• 6:32Wes Larson?

  Surprised by that.

• 6:34Mike Smith?

  I don't even think we ought not to sleep with each other, Jeff.

• 6:37Jeff Larson?

  Needs a break from me, honestly.

• 6:39Mike Smith?

  It would introduce a weird dynamic into the podcast.

• 6:42Wes Larson?

  It's been almost a month together.

• 6:44Jeff Larson?

  But what's that called with, when it's just friends, it's friends with benefits? Yeah, I could just do that.

• 6:50Mike Smith?

  Right, but then I think we'd each individually need to also sleep with Wes, so we're all on equal footing.

• 6:55Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, that gets a little weird with me though.

• 6:57Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I'm out.

• 6:59Mike Smith?

  There we go, decided. Thanks for making that decision for us.

• 7:03Jeff Larson?

  Susan Claude, just so everyone knows.

• 7:05Wes Larson?

  We're not sleeping together.

• 7:07Mike Smith?

  This is all platonic, forever.

• 7:11Jeff Larson?

  Speaking of platonic, Mike?

• 7:14Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 7:14Jeff Larson?

  You got an episode for us?

• 7:16Mike Smith?

  I do.

• 7:16Wes Larson?

  Do you think we had any listeners that are like, will they, won't they?

• 7:19Mike Smith?

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:20Jeff Larson?

  They're like, they're like done listening now?

• 7:26Mike Smith?

  There's got to, so rule thirty four, you know, like if it exists, there's porn of it.

• 7:31Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:32Mike Smith?

  There's gotta be some like fan fiction or something of us.

• 7:35Wes Larson?

  Don't make that.

• 7:36Jeff Larson?

  There's no, there's no way that like our mom Cindy Larson hasn't had the thought, are Jeff and Mike gay together?

• 7:44Mike Smith?

  Oh, for sure.

• 7:44Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 7:45Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Is there, yeah, recently is this morning.

• 7:48Wes Larson?

  What's that? Rule thirty four? Is that what it's called?

• 7:52Jeff Larson?

  Everything. Name something, anything.

• 7:55Wes Larson?

  JBL speaker.

• 7:57Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, there's.

• 7:57Mike Smith?

  Oh, yeah, that's like, they're shaped perfectly for all kinds of activities.

• 8:01Wes Larson?

  First thing I looked at. Um, I guess, have you guys ever heard of, um, I think it's called TTD, time to dick?

• 8:08Mike Smith?

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:09Wes Larson?

  Which is like when there's a new technology, how long it takes for it to be used for porn?

• 8:15Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 8:15Wes Larson?

  Anyway.

• 8:16Mike Smith?

  Not the most standard of measurements. They don't teach that one in schools.

• 8:20Wes Larson?

  School.

• 8:21Mike Smith?

  Well, they kind of do. They don't.

• 8:23Wes Larson?

  They don't.

• 8:23Mike Smith?

  We teach each other. That's a weird way to, we don't teach each other anything. Okay, so I do have an episode, Jeff. Thanks for asking. So, speaking of school, were you guys ever note passers? Did you pass notes in school? Really?

• 8:37Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 8:38Mike Smith?

  What's, you got any like?

• 8:39Wes Larson?

  I think I was like probably in a generation where that was still like a big deal, you know, because we didn't have phones and stuff when I was in school. I never got in trouble for doing it, but a lot of my classmates did. But yeah, I don't know. I can't remember anything.

• 8:55Jeff Larson?

  I got passed a note in Spanish class once from like one of the hot girls in school. And it was like pretty sexual and I did not know how to respond at all. Like I was just sitting there giggling.

• 9:08Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 9:12Mike Smith?

  Uh, that's tough because then the teacher sees you giggling like, would you like to share with the class?

• 9:17Wes Larson?

  Jeff, why'd you drive it, draw this?

• 9:19Mike Smith?

  Oh, it was a drawing. Okay. Yeah. My favorite note I ever got passed. My friend who is an artist, passed me the most photorealistic picture of a hand flipping me off.

• 9:29Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:30Mike Smith?

  And I really just, I got a kick out of that one. A teacher never saw it. Should have shown it to her.

• 9:34Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I can't think of any specifically.

• 9:37Mike Smith?

  Well, the, the animal I'm covering today would have been real good at passing notes in class. Wes, do you have any guesses?

• 9:43Wes Larson?

  Uh, I'm, I do have some guesses, but it's because I have extra context.

• 9:51Mike Smith?

  Do you know who's good at passing messages is R2D2?

• 9:54Wes Larson?

  You think? Just, yeah, he is.

• 9:56Mike Smith?

  Yeah. You just put like a little chip in there.

• 9:58Jeff Larson?

  I feel like he had that hologram in him and it's really hard to get out.

• 10:02Mike Smith?

  Yeah, but you wouldn't expect.

• 10:04Jeff Larson?

  It was his top secret one.

• 10:05Mike Smith?

  Yeah. And plus he crash landed in the desert.

• 10:07Wes Larson?

  That little dude plays a little too close to the chest sometimes too.

• 10:11Mike Smith?

  He does.

• 10:12Wes Larson?

  I've been, I've been like on a bit of a Star Wars kick lately. And there's so many times where he almost dies or like gets blown up or something when he's carrying very important information.

• 10:23Jeff Larson?

  Do you think they kind of give the drones, drones, droids too much personality? And then Anakin will just like shut one off and it's just gone?

• 10:33Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 10:33Mike Smith?

  It is a little weird.

• 10:35Wes Larson?

  When it's just like. Oh, this is a character that we love and they just like put him in a closet for a year.

• 10:42Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 10:42Jeff Larson?

  Mike, I'm guessing pigeons.

• 10:44Mike Smith?

  Yeah, pigeons. But wait, I had one more question. I just cause Wes, you'll be able to answer this for me, maybe. So at the end of the third prequel movie or somewhere along the way, C three PO gets his memory erased, right?

• 10:59Wes Larson?

  That's the sequels.

• 11:00Mike Smith?

  Oh, that's sequels, is it?

• 11:02Wes Larson?

  Well, they do that in the sequels. Maybe they do it in the prequels.

• 11:04Mike Smith?

  I'm just saying that R two D two and maybe C three PO, they know a lot of things that would have been really helpful for like Luke to know.

• 11:11Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 11:12Mike Smith?

  In the original run.

• 11:13Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 11:14Mike Smith?

  Why doesn't, why don't? Yeah, why don't they?

• 11:17Wes Larson?

  Like, why doesn't C three PO grab him and say?

• 11:18Jeff Larson?

  I think he gets his memory erased.

• 11:20Wes Larson?

  Your father made me.

• 11:22Jeff Larson?

  He gets a droid as his head.

• 11:24Mike Smith?

  Like your dad literally made me. His mom, well, you don't want to know what happened to his mom.

• 11:28Wes Larson?

  Yeah, like avoid him. He's Darth Vader.

• 11:32Jeff Larson?

  Or like, the Jedi are kind of bad, dude, like.

• 11:36Mike Smith?

  They are, they are.

• 11:38Jeff Larson?

  Your grandma, they just left him as a, they just left her as a slave.

• 11:42Mike Smith?

  Right. So messenger pigeons.

• 11:44Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 11:45Mike Smith?

  Before we get into our attack story.

• 11:47Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 11:48Mike Smith?

  Uh, I don't want to give people the wrong impression of the animal we're talking about today. It's a cool animal. I think a lot of people are down on pigeons generally. Pigeons and doves are kind of like seen as a scourge, rats with wings they're often called.

• 11:59Jeff Larson?

  I thought you meant down like in a good way.

• 12:02Mike Smith?

  Oh, no, that would have been, I'm not cool enough to say things like that. I'm a little too white.

• 12:08Jeff Larson?

  I think they're down on them both ways.

• 12:11Mike Smith?

  I think there is a group of people who are super stoked about. In fact, we know, like there are celebrities who are like super into pigeons.

• 12:18Wes Larson?

  In the early days of Facebook, I started a group called Pigeons Are People Too. And it was all just about how we should appreciate pigeons more, but it didn't go very far.

• 12:28Mike Smith?

  They are pretty.

• 12:29Wes Larson?

  I was bored.

• 12:29Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Still there?

• 12:31Wes Larson?

  I don't, it might be. Yeah.

• 12:33Jeff Larson?

  You might reject it before this gets out.

• 12:36Mike Smith?

  Well, anyway, before we got into that attack, the pigeon attack, I wanted to talk a little bit about the different roles that specifically pigeons have played during wartime throughout history. And different birds, really. So like, you know, canaries, they're used in mines to detect gases, but they were also employed during World War One for like detecting mustard gas, mustard bombs and stuff in trench warfare. Apparently parrots were placed around and on the Eiffel Tower to detect and warn of approaching enemy aircraft.

• 13:06Jeff Larson?

  Interesting.

• 13:06Mike Smith?

  And seagulls, I don't know if like, I don't know if employed is quite the right term, but sailors used seagulls to kind of monitor the waters for approaching submarines and like underwater mine activity. So it's not, I don't think they like trained the seagulls, but they used the seagulls.

• 13:23Jeff Larson?

  Right. Did they give them currency?

• 13:26Mike Smith?

  Not really.

• 13:28Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, they weren't employed then.

• 13:29Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I guess that's the wrong word. Conscripted, enslaved, maybe even.

• 13:34Jeff Larson?

  I don't, yeah, I think just looking for seagulls. Food as currency in bird world.

• 13:40Mike Smith?

  I, yeah. Seeds.

• 13:42Jeff Larson?

  Sure. I think you could.

• 13:44Mike Smith?

  But it's the pigeon who's proven to be the most, at least the most used and useful during times of war for humanity.

• 13:52Jeff Larson?

  Tell us why.

• 13:53Mike Smith?

  So during World War One specifically, more than a hundred thousand carrier pigeons were put to work, sent off with communications tied to their legs, you know, I don't, you guys probably know how that works. And they delivered their messages with a 95% accuracy rate, like a success rate.

• 14:11Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 14:12Mike Smith?

  By the time the war ended, 32 carrier pigeons received the Dickens Medal. You know, you know, the Dickens Medal. Yeah.

• 14:19Jeff Larson?

  I mean, I know it because you spoiled it right before the episode.

• 14:23Mike Smith?

  I was just too excited about the Dickens Medal. I needed to tell someone. And that's like a little bronze medallion that's awarded to animals, I think specifically during times of war for a quote conspicuous gallantry or devotion to duty while serving in military conflict.

• 14:38Jeff Larson?

  While we were waiting for you to get here, mom and dad just kept asking Mike about the episode he's doing right now and kept telling him all the everything. I was just like, dude, I need to like, listen to this fresh.

• 14:51Mike Smith?

  You could have left the room. I don't know. No one was making you listen to me. Uh, maybe the most famous messenger pigeon of all was a pigeon named Cher ami, which is French for dear friend. On October 3rd in 1918, World War I, US Major Charles White Whittlesley, we just don't have the same last names.

• 15:11Wes Larson?

  White Whittlesley?

• 15:12Mike Smith?

  White Whittlesley.

• 15:13Jeff Larson?

  We should have the same.

• 15:14Mike Smith?

  I know. It's weird. You just don't hear.

• 15:16Wes Larson?

  Your name is Mike Smith.

• 15:17Mike Smith?

  I know. Yeah. Smith is so, ah, why? Please. So, US Major Charles White Whittlesley found himself trapped behind enemy lines without food or ammunition. Down to just 194 of his original 550 troops and with human messengers failing at every attempted communications run, Whittlesley sent out Cher ami, who survived being shot through the breast and leg, but made it to her destination where a rescue party was organized to go and ultimately save Whittlesley and his men.

• 15:49Wes Larson?

  Wow.

• 15:50Mike Smith?

  Man, she, this bird got shot, a pigeon, you know, this isn't like.

• 15:54Wes Larson?

  You'd think that would be enough to like finish a pigeon.

• 15:57Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 15:57Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 15:58Jeff Larson?

  Well, I don't know. I've watched a lot of movies. Vin Diesel does that. Forrest Gump does that.

• 16:03Wes Larson?

  Get shot?

• 16:04Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Get shot and doesn't stop.

• 16:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 16:06Mike Smith?

  The guys.

• 16:07Wes Larson?

  Got stung by something. No, he didn't get shot.

• 16:09Jeff Larson?

  He got bit. Oh yeah. Stung in the butt.

• 16:11Mike Smith?

  In the butt. Yeah.

• 16:12Wes Larson?

  Or maybe bit. Yeah.

• 16:13Mike Smith?

  1917, didn't someone, well, one of the guys died. Did the other guy get shot? I forget.

• 16:19Wes Larson?

  Probably.

• 16:20Jeff Larson?

  You think he got stabbed?

• 16:21Wes Larson?

  They're just shooting metal balls back then though, too, probably.

• 16:24Mike Smith?

  They had flying like five miles an hour.

• 16:26Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 16:27Mike Smith?

  Bullets were less effective.

• 16:30Jeff Larson?

  I, it's impressive, but I'm just saying I've seen it.

• 16:32Mike Smith?

  Sure. No, I, I get it. Cher ami is not all that.

• 16:36Wes Larson?

  I think he is.

• 16:37Mike Smith?

  She.

• 16:38Wes Larson?

  Or she, sorry.

• 16:39Mike Smith?

  So in all, Cher ami delivered 12 key misses during the Battle of Verdun and was awarded the French Quat de Guerre with Palm. I don't know. It's a weird mix of English and French there.

• 16:49Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 16:50Mike Smith?

  Quat de Guerre with Palm Medal, as well as a gold medal from the Organized Bodies of American Racing Pigeon Fancyers.

• 16:58Jeff Larson?

  I just love giving animals awards.

• 17:01Mike Smith?

  It's the best.

• 17:03Jeff Larson?

  Have no idea what's going on. Like the horse, when they win the Kentucky Derby is just like,

• 17:08Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 17:08Jeff Larson?

  Got like flowers and stuff on it. It's just has no idea.

• 17:13Mike Smith?

  It doesn't know it just ran a race. Although I think some people believe they do kind of are competitive, but they're just like, what is happening right now?

• 17:20Wes Larson?

  What was the group that gave?

• 17:22Mike Smith?

  Why is everyone wearing hats?

• 17:23Wes Larson?

  They gave her the gold medal?

• 17:24Mike Smith?

  Um, the American-

• 17:27Jeff Larson?

  Pigeon, that's a bad-

• 17:29Mike Smith?

  Organized Bodies of American Racing Pigeon Fancyers.

• 17:33Wes Larson?

  I hope that's still a group. We should join in if it is.

• 17:36Mike Smith?

  I will, I'm ready.

• 17:37Jeff Larson?

  People just like clapping for this bird trying to like flutter out of its cage as they're giving it like one of the biggest awards.

• 17:44Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 17:46Wes Larson?

  It's just dragging its head.

• 17:48Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it's like still like human sized metal. Uh, that's great.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes, para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro, para los que están lejos, los que no vende lejos y los que no vende cerca, para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos, para los que piensan y los que hacen, para los que nos mostraron el camino, Coca-Cola, para todos, compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.

• 18:23Mike Smith?

  Uh, where were we? So, the wounds that Jeremy sustained from being shot in the breast, leg, and eyeball eventually led to her passing.

• 18:31Jeff Larson?

  He didn't tell us that.

• 18:32Mike Smith?

  I know, there's, there's, those, I just gave like very brief highlights, but she went through a lot.

• 18:37Wes Larson?

  Were they shooting these pigeons with like a tiny gun, like a pigeon gun?

• 18:40Mike Smith?

  Germans.

• 18:41Jeff Larson?

  Eyeball shots.

• 18:42Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 18:44Mike Smith?

  Freaking the Axis. I don't know if the Allies ever shot birds.

• 18:47Jeff Larson?

  It's a giant pigeon.

• 18:49Mike Smith?

  I'd like to believe we didn't. Probably did. I don't know. The wound she sustained from being shot in the breast, leg, and eyeball eventually led to her passing, and she has since been on display at the Smithsonian. So she's got, she's got one leg. I think the medal she was awarded is still kinda like by her and stuff. Yeah, her, yeah, taxidermized corpse, I guess.

• 19:10Wes Larson?

  Were the Germans that bad in World War I? Were they just kinda like another, they're just kinda doing their thing and we're doing our thing?

• 19:15Mike Smith?

  I think some, I'm gonna say s- some of them were pretty bad.

• 19:20Wes Larson?

  Okay. Some of us were probably pretty bad.

• 19:23Mike Smith?

  Yeah, sure. I don't know. War time-

• 19:25Wes Larson?

  I feel like World War II is where they really hit their stride in being very evil though.

• 19:29Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 19:29Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 19:30Mike Smith?

  That's true.

• 19:30Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 19:31Mike Smith?

  So during the next world war, which was?

• 19:34Wes Larson?

  World War- Two?

• 19:37Mike Smith?

  Yeah. You got it. World War II. And that-

• 19:44Mike Smith?

  Oh, Wordle should start like a-

• 19:46Jeff Larson?

  You can't just point at me. I wasn't ready.

• 19:49Mike Smith?

  Okay. Wordle War is a free marketing ploy for Wordle out there. I'm just saying. Another messenger pigeon during World War II named G.I. Joe, which I don't know when G.I. Joe was first started. So it's either like a very cool and creative name or like you didn't try very hard on that.

• 20:07Jeff Larson?

  I like it either way.

• 20:08Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's good either way. But G.I. Joe saved a thousand soldiers from friendly fire in World War II, also earning himself the Dickin Medal. Of course, when he managed to fly 20 miles in 20 minutes, think about that, 20 miles in 20 minutes, this bird flew to relay a message to save an entire village from what would have been a catastrophic-

• 20:28Jeff Larson?

  That's really fast.

• 20:29Mike Smith?

  Yeah, a mile a minute.

• 20:31Jeff Larson?

  What, that's 60 miles an hour?

• 20:32Mike Smith?

  Right, exactly.

• 20:33Jeff Larson?

  A hundred kilometers an hour. So it's got some strong wind probably helping him.

• 20:39Mike Smith?

  Maybe, but these birds are pretty quick, it turns out.

• 20:42Wes Larson?

  Who do you think would earn the Dickin Medal if you guys lived together?

• 20:46Mike Smith?

  Are you asking who's like the bottom and who's the top?

• 20:50Wes Larson?

  Nevermind.

• 20:50Mike Smith?

  I don't know.

• 20:51Wes Larson?

  Don't want to think about that.

• 20:53Mike Smith?

  Uh, anyway, G.I. Joe flew 20 miles in 20 minutes to relay a message to save an entire village from what would have been a catastrophic friendly fire airstrike just seconds before the bombers took flight. So basically, an allied force of military men took a village, but the bombers on an airbase kind of far away still thought the Germans were occupying this village. And so they sent the bird and they're like, actually, it's us here. Don't bomb us. And just seconds before those planes took off, the bird, G.I. Joe-

• 21:24Wes Larson?

  Wow.

• 21:24Mike Smith?

  -delivered that message.

• 21:25Wes Larson?

  That's amazing.

• 21:26Mike Smith?

  That's great. Many stories exist of similar acts of bravery from birds, some telling of pigeons. This is crazy. Some of these stories tell of pigeons who, even though they were too injured to still fly, would just like walk across the ground back to their roost.

• 21:41Jeff Larson?

  Really?

• 21:41Mike Smith?

  Like across a battlefield. They just walk.

• 21:43Jeff Larson?

  Like shot in the wing and they just walk?

• 21:45Mike Smith?

  Yeah, they'd limp across the ground or something. It's crazy. So that Dickin Medal must have been, the birds must have really been into that, yeah, getting that award. It's a pretty, it's fine. It's like a little bronze medallion.

• 21:57Jeff Larson?

  Bronze?

• 21:58Mike Smith?

  Yeah, not even like silver or gold or-

• 22:01Jeff Larson?

  It's like when Anakin falls into lava and gets his like legs burned off and he still crawls out of there.

• 22:09Mike Smith?

  It is kinda like that, yeah.

• 22:11Wes Larson?

  Kind of. He kinda crawls out of there. He crawls out just enough to where he's still lights on fire.

• 22:18Mike Smith?

  I'm gonna, here's the-

• 22:19Jeff Larson?

  That's a bad example.

• 22:20Mike Smith?

  Here's the pigeon attack I promised earlier. You guys ready?

• 22:23Wes Larson?

  Finally. Do you want me to say what's happening?

• 22:27Wes Larson?

  He got bonked by a pigeon.

• 22:29Jeff Larson?

  I mean, for a pigeon, I think that's as much as it could do to a person.

• 22:34Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 22:34Jeff Larson?

  Just full speed flies into a-

• 22:36Wes Larson?

  A bald man.

• 22:37Jeff Larson?

  A beefy man's head.

• 22:39Wes Larson?

  I'm just gonna say it. Not a great bald.

• 22:42Mike Smith?

  No.

• 22:43Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 22:43Mike Smith?

  Not, no Yule Brenner.

• 22:44Wes Larson?

  No. And just gets nailed in the side of the head by a pigeon. Then he scratches his head quite a bit.

• 22:49Mike Smith?

  He scratches it for like a minute. Probably in a, like, a melange of confusion.

• 22:55Jeff Larson?

  Well, he actually kinda goes on with his day pretty quickly, dude.

• 22:59Wes Larson?

  I like that he doesn't try and like throw something at the pigeon or run at it or something. He just kinda looks at it and then wanders off.

• 23:06Mike Smith?

  He's got a cool this guy, not the bird. He's got a cool beard.

• 23:10Jeff Larson?

  So that's your pigeon attack?

• 23:12Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it's the pigeon attack.

• 23:13Jeff Larson?

  Way to keep it tooth and claw.

• 23:16Mike Smith?

  I tried my hardest to find a way to make that happen. Oh, here's the dick and metal if you guys were curious.

• 23:21Wes Larson?

  Yes, I am curious.

• 23:23Jeff Larson?

  Just one bonk.

• 23:25Wes Larson?

  I like the colors.

• 23:26Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I like the ribbon, the metal, yeah. Just like a little, you pin it on a military man's chest kinda metal looking thing.

• 23:33Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 23:33Mike Smith?

  You like that, Jeff?

• 23:34Wes Larson?

  So wait, is that, is that a pigeon specific metal? Or can anyone get that?

• 23:38Mike Smith?

  Any animal during time of war.

• 23:40Jeff Larson?

  Animal, so war horse probably.

• 23:42Wes Larson?

  But not humans.

• 23:43Mike Smith?

  Yeah, not humans. Humans are, they don't qualify.

• 23:46Jeff Larson?

  That bear?

• 23:47Wes Larson?

  Wojtek?

• 23:48Mike Smith?

  Wojtek? Wojtek.

• 23:50Wes Larson?

  I don't know how you say it, yeah.

• 23:51Mike Smith?

  Me neither. So you saw that attack. You still like pigeons? You like pigeons still, right?

• 23:56Wes Larson?

  I do.

• 23:56Mike Smith?

  Even after that display of violence?

• 23:58Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 23:59Jeff Larson?

  We saw a big, what do you call it? Flock?

• 24:02Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 24:02Jeff Larson?

  We saw a big like flock of them at Pike's Market in Seattle, and they were all calling in sync, like humming kind of in sync. And it was really soothing to me, actually.

• 24:13Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 24:14Jeff Larson?

  Maybe put in a pigeon.

• 24:15Wes Larson?

  Just like normal city pigeons, rock pigeons.

• 24:21Mike Smith?

  Yeah, wrong pigeons.

• 24:22Jeff Larson?

  You know, I don't know. I'm not like a bird guy.

• 24:26Wes Larson?

  I think they, I think they're rock doves.

• 24:28Mike Smith?

  We're gonna get into a lot of information about them.

• 24:30Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 24:31Mike Smith?

  But you're right. So I want to get into a little bit about the history of the pigeon. And this is all from an article written by Arilin Prim, and it was published on Mental Floss. Really interesting article, but it tells the story of how pigeons become what they are, the way we know them to be today. Kinda. I'm gonna take kind of a roundabout way to tell this story. So when Charles Darwin set out on what would be his revolutionary expedition, he had no idea how important the pigeon was about to become in the formation of his radical new theories, which was, Jeff, what were his theories that are radical?

• 25:05Jeff Larson?

  That were from primate, humans are primate.

• 25:07Wes Larson?

  Evolution, right. Natural selection.

• 25:11Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it's not that radical. He had done like a backflip or something. That'd be rad.

• 25:15Jeff Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:16Wes Larson?

  Jeff's right. That's the part that people really were like, whoa.

• 25:19Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's radical.

• 25:20Jeff Larson?

  You said radical, so that went for the big, the big one.

• 25:24Mike Smith?

  Right. So while he was on the Galapagos Islands, he grew interested in the similarities and the differences that he observed in mocking birds and finches. When Darwin returned home to England, he found a way to test his theories using the pigeon, or more specifically, he used fancy pigeons.

• 25:42Wes Larson?

  Ooh.

• 25:42Mike Smith?

  That's what they were called, which makes me want a fancy version of every animal out there.

• 25:45Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 25:47Mike Smith?

  We don't have like fancy tigers.

• 25:49Jeff Larson?

  Fancy grizzly bear.

• 25:51Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Fancy, fancy pigeon basically refers just to like any domesticized.

• 25:56Jeff Larson?

  Fancy earthworm.

• 25:58Wes Larson?

  Domesticated.

• 25:58Mike Smith?

  Domesticated.

• 25:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 25:59Mike Smith?

  Fancy earthworm.

• 26:00Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 26:01Mike Smith?

  Tie itself in like a little, like pretty bow.

• 26:03Wes Larson?

  I was thinking too.

• 26:05Mike Smith?

  So by crossbreeding the many species of fancy pigeon, Darwin showed that they all arose from just one wild species, the rock dove. Doves and pigeons, same, same like group, family, whatever word is.

• 26:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah, same family. They're not the same thing.

• 26:21Mike Smith?

  They're not the same, like, yeah, right. But they are, I just kind of find it weird that people don't super get into pigeons, but they're fine with. Doves.

• 26:30Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's because doves have this like connotation of being like peace and beautiful and like white and

• 26:36Mike Smith?

  Soap.

• 26:37Jeff Larson?

  Well, I don't think doves really spread diseases quite like pigeons.

• 26:41Mike Smith?

  Well, we'll get into that too, just a little bit, but you're right. That is something that does alter the way we perceive pigeons. But long before Darwin went to, uh, I don't know why I put it this way. Long before Darwin went to town breeding pigeons.

• 26:57Jeff Larson?

  That's how you wrote it?

• 26:58Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 26:58Wes Larson?

  It's a weird way to put it.

• 26:59Mike Smith?

  The rock doves of Mesopotamia and Sumer flocked to the fields of the people who started settling there. And that's kind of like, what do they call it? The cradle of human civilization, uh, because these birds, these rock doves found it was really easy to find a bunch of seeds to peck at and eat. So it was kind of like a symbiotic relationship that they were developing because in turn the humans had a new source of easily obtained protein. They would find these like young, they call them squabs, which are basically like fat hatchlings that were just really plump and full of nutrients. And we're just like an easy source of food for these early settlers to get their hands on. And pigeons actually quickly became the predominant source of bird meat in the Middle East and Europe, and that would continue for thousands of years.

• 27:44Wes Larson?

  Interesting.

• 27:45Mike Smith?

  But their domestication led to more than just discovering just a new source of food. People realized that pigeons have a strong homing instinct, are typically peaceful, but will strongly protect their nest when threatened, and are relatively intelligent compared to other birds that they were dealing with. So their simple but inspiring behavior struck a chord with humankind and they became a significant part of life, especially when humans found a way to breed them to serve as messengers, which was happening as far back as ancient Phoenicia. So like seven to eight hundred B.C. They became such an important part of human civilization that they're found represented prominently in all kinds of religions. You know, we have like Noah sending out the dove or whatever, returning with a palm or the olive branch or whatever.

• 28:29Mike Smith?

  Yeah, they're just all over the place in iconography, symbology. Somewhere along the way though, pigeon enthusiasts noticed how pliable.

• 28:37Jeff Larson?

  Only examples of a dove?

• 28:39Wes Larson?

  But they're kind of like, he's saying like.

• 28:41Mike Smith?

  That's the only one I wrote down.

• 28:42Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 28:43Mike Smith?

  They exist in other.

• 28:45Jeff Larson?

  Just like exists all through things. Here's a dove.

• 28:48Mike Smith?

  Okay, hold on.

• 28:50Wes Larson?

  But even like what Mike was saying is even the one that we constantly call pigeon is a dove in some places. Rock doves.

• 28:57Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 28:58Wes Larson?

  So it's kind of, they're kind of like interchangeable in a lot of ways.

• 29:00Jeff Larson?

  All right.

• 29:01Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 29:01Mike Smith?

  Pigeon religion is a punk band from Arizona. It's a good, I'm not going to look that up anymore, Jeff.

• 29:07Wes Larson?

  Dove is just like a softer name too. I think it's like pigeon sounds kind of like a little cockney boy is saying it or something. But dove is like very, it's beautiful sounding.

• 29:16Mike Smith?

  When I think of doves, I think of white, pretty.

• 29:19Jeff Larson?

  Chocolate.

• 29:20Mike Smith?

  Oh, yeah. I always think of soap. I think of the soap before the chocolate. But anyway.

• 29:26Wes Larson?

  I think of the chocolate first.

• 29:28Mike Smith?

  Somewhere along the way, pigeon enthusiasts noticed how pliable many of their physical traits could be through breeding. So back in the 1500s, Italian natural historian Ulysses Al Drevandi documented groups of pigeons bred specifically for their looks that likely existed as far back as the late medieval period. And a 16th century Mughal, Muggle?

• 29:47Wes Larson?

  Mogul.

• 29:48Mike Smith?

  Mogul?

• 29:49Wes Larson?

  M O G U L?

• 29:50Mike Smith?

  There's a M U G H A L.

• 29:52Wes Larson?

  Oh, I don't know.

• 29:53Mike Smith?

  It's probably a different spelling of what you're thinking.

• 29:55Wes Larson?

  I don't know.

• 29:56Mike Smith?

  Akbar the Great, he had a flock of 10,000 pigeons that would just follow him everywhere he went.

• 30:01Wes Larson?

  That's cool.

• 30:02Mike Smith?

  Which is pretty sweet. If you could pick like a group of animals to have at your beck and call.

• 30:07Wes Larson?

  It wouldn't be pigeons.

• 30:07Mike Smith?

  It wouldn't be pigeons. But it's kind of an outsider's choice.

• 30:11Jeff Larson?

  Realistic one.

• 30:12Mike Smith?

  Right. 10,000 of them? That'd be sweet.

• 30:14Wes Larson?

  That's a lot.

• 30:15Mike Smith?

  Yeah. I would rather have that than like 10,000 dogs.

• 30:18Wes Larson?

  It'd be cool too.

• 30:18Jeff Larson?

  The homeless guy in Seattle had that. He had so many pigeons around him.

• 30:22Mike Smith?

  Laurence Fishburne in John Wick.

• 30:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah. It'd be cool if you could like raise his arms too and they all take off.

• 30:27Jeff Larson?

  Like get them all trained in sync.

• 30:30Mike Smith?

  Riled up, man.

• 30:31Wes Larson?

  That would be cool.

• 30:32Mike Smith?

  In sync.

• 30:33Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 30:34Wes Larson?

  You could have them poop on one thing and just cover it in poop.

• 30:37Mike Smith?

  Right. That would be cool. By the early 1900s, fancy pigeons, quote, "became a wildly popular and affordable hobby for basically every class of citizen." They'd cost about 10 pence each, which I guess back then was really affordable. I don't know what the conversion rate was.

• 30:53Jeff Larson?

  Inflation.

• 30:53Mike Smith?

  Pence. I don't think they use pences anymore.

• 30:56Jeff Larson?

  Six pence, none the richer.

• 30:58Mike Smith?

  None the richer, yep. "The more serious breeders found a way to officially compete against each other, and bird shows have been a thing basically long as dog shows have been. So just make a really pretty bird, see if yours is the prettiest."

• 31:14Mike Smith?

  I think that's how, I don't know. I don't know how else it would work.

• 31:17Jeff Larson?

  I bet you they gotta like step on, you know, they'd make them step off on you and stuff.

• 31:22Mike Smith?

  Yeah, maybe go through like the agility course.

• 31:25Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. But you can't fly.

• 31:27Mike Smith?

  No flying allowed, yeah.

• 31:30Mike Smith?

  So in addition to the competitive fancy pigeon scene, the homing pigeon world is just as alive and well, especially in China. So basically, it's the sport of choice for a portion of China's wealthiest citizens, and flocks of the best racers can be valued at around like a hundred million dollars. And even just like single individual champion pigeons have sold for over $300,000.

• 31:54Jeff Larson?

  That's crazy. That is really crazy.

• 31:57Mike Smith?

  We're all just looking for ways to spend our money.

• 31:59Jeff Larson?

  It's so weird, like the economies out there.

• 32:01Mike Smith?

  It's, yeah.

• 32:02Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 32:03Mike Smith?

  But it's not just China where high-profile people, pigeon fans, exist. You guys can probably guess at least one, like, celebrity pigeon fan, right?

• 32:13Jeff Larson?

  Uh, yeah, Mike Tyson.

• 32:14Mike Smith?

  Mike Tyson, that's our guy.

• 32:16Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 32:16Mike Smith?

  You know.

• 32:17Jeff Larson?

  I mean, I don't know. I think Jake Paul might be able to get it, though.

• 32:21Mike Smith?

  Yeah, but Jake Paul has no relation to pigeons, as far as I'm aware.

• 32:25Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 32:25Mike Smith?

  And that's not, that does not fall within...

• 32:27Jeff Larson?

  I'm a Jake Paul guy.

• 32:28Mike Smith?

  Jake Paul does not fall within the purview of the episode.

• 32:32Jeff Larson?

  Mike Tyson kills him.

• 32:34Mike Smith?

  I wonder that's that's really interesting to me.

• 32:36Jeff Larson?

  He got hospitalized from his

• 32:39Mike Smith?

  Airplane flight.

• 32:41Jeff Larson?

  The place.

• 32:42Wes Larson?

  Who, Mike Tyson?

• 32:43Mike Smith?

  Yeah, Tyson's.

• 32:45Jeff Larson?

  Not a great sign.

• 32:46Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I still just hope.

• 32:48Mike Smith?

  We're hoping.

• 32:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 32:49Mike Smith?

  So Mike Tyson, he bred pigeons since he was a boy. Nikola Tesla, who is known to prefer his pigeon partners to other humans and whose favorite was a white female about whom he once said, quote, "I loved that pigeon. I loved her as a man loves a woman and she loved me." So maybe he doesn't understand how men and women love each other. Or he was getting up to some really weird experiments in those hotel rooms. No, not Elon, that Nikola, like the actual Tesla guy. Not the guy who just yells at people on Twitter.

• 33:21Wes Larson?

  And pays other people to invent things.

• 33:23Mike Smith?

  Or X, I guess I should say.

• 33:24Wes Larson?

  No, you should say Twitter.

• 33:25Mike Smith?

  Continuing with the quote, "That pigeon was the joy of my life. If she needed me, nothing else mattered. As long as I had her, there was purpose in my life."

• 33:35Wes Larson?

  Geez.

• 33:35Mike Smith?

  Reportedly, when this pigeon died, he was inconsolable. And some even kind of blame it like the end of his

• 33:42Jeff Larson?

  Genius.

• 33:44Mike Smith?

  Scientific prime.

• 33:46Jeff Larson?

  Maybe it's like a Ratatouille situation.

• 33:48Mike Smith?

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:49Jeff Larson?

  Where like the pigeon had all the ideas.

• 33:55Mike Smith?

  Oh, man.

• 33:56Wes Larson?

  To me, it sounds like maybe he was

• 33:57Mike Smith?

  That pigeon. He had, it's weird. He was a little too in it. Yul Brynner, he was like, I told you he'd come back. Yul Brynner had a flock of racing pigeons and he would go up in helicopters and like be up there with them and watch them fly around, which is kind of cool.

• 34:12Wes Larson?

  That is cool.

• 34:13Mike Smith?

  Uh, Queen Victoria loved them. Pablo Picasso liked them so much that he named his daughter Paloma, which is Spanish for pigeon. Interesting, right?

• 34:23Jeff Larson?

  That's a good name, Paloma.

• 34:24Wes Larson?

  I like that name.

• 34:25Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 34:25Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 34:25Jeff Larson?

  Maybe we'd like pigeons more if we called them Palomas.

• 34:28Mike Smith?

  Palomas, maybe, yeah.

• 34:30Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 34:30Mike Smith?

  Charles Darwin, on the other hand, never quite learned to love them, at least maybe not in the same way as Tesla.

• 34:38Mike Smith?

  But he did, he did care for them very.

• 34:41Jeff Larson?

  He never got that special one.

• 34:43Mike Smith?

  No, he never met the right one. You know.

• 34:47Jeff Larson?

  They, I mean, Tessa only loved one. It's not like he loved all pigeons.

• 34:51Mike Smith?

  Exactly. Yeah. So Darwin never encountered that.

• 34:55Wes Larson?

  His pigeon soulmate.

• 34:56Mike Smith?

  Yeah, the pigeon soulmate. But he loved, he bred them and he cared for them because they were like super important to his, the formation of his theories that would later become his manuscript on the origin of species.

• 35:08Jeff Larson?

  They're like a good way to show evolution?

• 35:11Mike Smith?

  Yeah. So he, he, his experimentation was just like breeding fancy pigeons to kind of like see how.

• 35:18Wes Larson?

  Cause I think, I think like for him, he went, you know, when he went to the Galapagos, he had the like formations of those ideas.

• 35:25Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 35:26Wes Larson?

  But observing something in the wild like that takes a lot of time and you have to capture wild birds and it's a lot. So once he had the ideas, he could go home and then actually do it in like an experiment with pigeons and could speed it up.

• 35:39Mike Smith?

  Right. And it was kind of perfect, right time, right place, because at that time was kind of like the, I don't know if you can call it a pigeon boom in England, but they were very available, very affordable. He was just, you know, cranking them out.

• 35:52Wes Larson?

  We've talked about this a little bit. It's like human induced evolution where we can breed specific things into animals and we can do it very quickly.

• 36:00Jeff Larson?

  Like look at a side by side of a wolf and a pug.

• 36:03Wes Larson?

  Exactly. Yeah. Or like the fox experiment in Russia that we've talked about a bunch of times. It can, yeah, we can make things happen pretty quick.

• 36:10Mike Smith?

  Or that experiment where you put baking soda in a volcano?

• 36:13Wes Larson?

  Just like that.

• 36:15Mike Smith?

  There's all kinds of experiments out there.

• 36:18Wes Larson?

  Are kids still doing that?

• 36:19Jeff Larson?

  You gotta put the food coloring into that.

• 36:22Mike Smith?

  Yeah, red. If you're like trying to be accurate, but you don't have to.

• 36:25Jeff Larson?

  Black's kinda cool though, too.

• 36:27Mike Smith?

  Black's cool. I think I did green when I did mine.

• 36:29Wes Larson?

  Green. Yeah.

• 36:30Jeff Larson?

  That's dumb.

• 36:32Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 36:32Mike Smith?

  What?

• 36:33Wes Larson?

  I was a dumb little kid.

• 36:35Speaker 03

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes, para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro, para los que están lejos, los que no vende lejos y los que no vende cerca, para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos, para los que piensan y los que hacen, para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola, para todos.

• 37:02Wes Larson?

  Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de Usted.

• 37:05Mike Smith?

  Okay, so if you don't mind, we'll move on to some pigeon facts.

• 37:08Wes Larson?

  Let's do it.

• 37:09Mike Smith?

  You wanna just do that real quick? So, one thing to get out of the way is that pigeon is actually a pretty imprecise word for these birds. Pigeons and doves are members of the Columba day family of birds, a group that includes over 300 species. So like pigeon is used as a catch-all, which you know, call a duck a duck. I don't care, even if it's a Mandarin or a wood.

• 37:31Jeff Larson?

  Okay, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 37:33Mike Smith?

  No one's challenging you on that. Okay, well, do you know this? They can find their way back to the nest from 1300 miles away.

• 37:42Wes Larson?

  That's crazy.

• 37:43Mike Smith?

  Uh, you guys probably didn't need me to tell you that, though.

• 37:46Wes Larson?

  That's pretty wild, though, when you think about it.

• 37:48Jeff Larson?

  I needed that.

• 37:49Wes Larson?

  Like, that's here to like Mexico, pretty much.

• 37:52Mike Smith?

  I know, yeah. So what they would do, so the experiment was these scientists would put them in an uncovered cage or something, they'd drive them out, they'd even like spin the cage around, you know, like to confuse them a little. They're not confused. They just find their way back somehow, and it's not fully understood yet, but like magnetic fields, maybe.

• 38:11Jeff Larson?

  You can't even find your way to my parents' house still, and we've been here like 80 times.

• 38:18Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's true. I think I didn't have problems once I was like three streets away, which is, we're getting better. Jeff had a GPS up, like actively up in Seattle, and he, holy cow.

• 38:31Jeff Larson?

  I missed a lot of turns and my GPS was just going like, you know, when it just goes insane? And you're inside a building and it's telling you to do like a million different things? And I was going the right way.

• 38:44Mike Smith?

  Yeah, eventually it gave up and it was just like, proceed to route. And it's like, what does that mean? We are beyond help. Uh, anyway, so sports fans in ancient Greece are said to have used trained pigeons to carry the results of ancient Olympics around. And again, were used as messengers during the wars between Greek city-states.

• 39:02Jeff Larson?

  Like just to let everyone know like, hey, we won.

• 39:04Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Here's who won the gold medal. Uh, Themistocles, hey, cool. Uh, Genghis Khan also spoke with his allies and enemies through pigeons too. That's not a super long time ago, but uh, it's just kinda cool.

• 39:16Jeff Larson?

  Genghis Khan?

• 39:16Mike Smith?

  It's like 1,280. Which, you know, relative to the ancient Olympics.

• 39:21Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 39:21Mike Smith?

  But this, I'm just saying it's been happening all over for a long time.

• 39:24Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 39:25Mike Smith?

  I guess is what I was trying to illustrate there. You guys probably don't need me to tell you this one.

• 39:30Jeff Larson?

  I'm sure we do.

• 39:32Mike Smith?

  They can be trained to be art critics.

• 39:35Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 39:35Mike Smith?

  You probably need that, right? Okay, so Japanese psychologist Shigeru Watanabe and two colleagues earned an Ig Nobel Prize in 1995 for training pigeons to recognize the paintings of Monet and Picasso and to distinguish between the two painters. The pigeons were even able to use their knowledge of Impressionism and Cubism to identify paintings of other artists in those movements. In 2009, these same guys, I think, ran a similar experiment where they taught his pigeons to, well, they showed these pigeons the art from like third graders, like elementary schoolers. And they taught them which pieces of art got good grades at school and which ones got bad.

• 40:17Mike Smith?

  And eventually these pigeons could kind of determine like which picture would get a good grade and which would get a bad.

• 40:24Jeff Larson?

  If we ever get like a review from a pigeon saying, I interrupt too much, I'm gonna freaking lose it, dude.

• 40:31Mike Smith?

  That seems unlikely, but I'll keep that in mind.

• 40:35Jeff Larson?

  I mean, they're critics, you know?

• 40:37Mike Smith?

  That's true, but for art, like the visual, a visual medium.

• 40:40Jeff Larson?

  This isn't art, we're not making that.

• 40:42Mike Smith?

  This is, yeah, this is, if it is, it's very lowbrow.

• 40:46Jeff Larson?

  Tesla having sex with a pigeon, this is not art.

• 40:50Mike Smith?

  Yeah, but where else are you gonna get that?

• 40:51Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, that's.

• 40:52Mike Smith?

  So here's something you guys probably don't need me to tell you. Uh, they can recognize themselves. Not a common thing in animals, right?

• 41:00Wes Larson?

  That's very uncommon.

• 41:01Mike Smith?

  What can do that besides humans?

• 41:03Wes Larson?

  Apes. I don't know what else.

• 41:04Jeff Larson?

  I kind of feel like dogs have figured it out a little bit.

• 41:08Wes Larson?

  I don't know. I know the thing with dogs. Yeah, probably. Dogs, the really cool thing about them is they see us as part of their social circle. And there's like no other animal that does that. But yeah, I don't know. They probably can. You're right. Who knows?

• 41:22Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 41:22Wes Larson?

  Probably a dog expert.

• 41:23Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 41:24Mike Smith?

  So, yeah, we got it.

• 41:26Jeff Larson?

  I'm sure some like the dumber dogs don't.

• 41:29Mike Smith?

  That they, when they see a mirror, they just freak out.

• 41:32Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 41:33Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 41:33Jeff Larson?

  We got so many mirrors, you kind of gotta be like, yeah, okay. Yeah, that's not a real dog.

• 41:38Wes Larson?

  Yeah. You think so? Like after.

• 41:42Jeff Larson?

  They don't just think another dog lived.

• 41:45Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 41:45Jeff Larson?

  With them that they only can see when they walk past like one corner of the room.

• 41:50Mike Smith?

  It's like a, a dog that perfectly blocks them from going forward.

• 41:55Mike Smith?

  Uh, I don't know, dogs.

• 41:56Wes Larson?

  Can be.

• 41:57Mike Smith?

  Some are smart.

• 41:58Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 41:58Mike Smith?

  But none of them are that smart.

• 42:00Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 42:00Mike Smith?

  You know, we always say things like, oh, wow, pigs, intelligent creatures. And it's like, why? Cause they can smell a mushroom.

• 42:07Wes Larson?

  Right.

• 42:07Mike Smith?

  Good job, pig.

• 42:10Jeff Larson?

  Heard sheep.

• 42:11Mike Smith?

  The truffle, sheep.

• 42:12Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Meanwhile, pigeons are art critics. And winning the dickin medal.

• 42:17Mike Smith?

  Dickin.

• 42:18Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, pigeons are smart.

• 42:19Mike Smith?

  Right. Relatively. Uh, so pigeons are able to identify them, uh, pictures of themselves. So when they see pictures of themselves, it's not even just like a mirror thing. They're also able to differentiate between photos of different humans.

• 42:32Jeff Larson?

  Weird.

• 42:33Mike Smith?

  Weird, huh?

• 42:34Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 42:34Mike Smith?

  So tell me if you guys didn't need me to tell you this. So they're not as prolific a disease spreader as we kind of commonly believe. They do and they can, but it's rarely, the diseases that they carry are not very transferable to humans.

• 42:51Jeff Larson?

  COVID?

• 42:51Wes Larson?

  I did know that.

• 42:52Jeff Larson?

  Ever hear that?

• 42:53Mike Smith?

  Uh, so you didn't need to me to tell you that.

• 42:55Wes Larson?

  I didn't.

• 42:55Mike Smith?

  COVID, I have heard of that.

• 42:57Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 42:57Wes Larson?

  Not from pigeons.

• 42:58Mike Smith?

  Not from pigeons.

• 42:59Jeff Larson?

  Can you rule them out?

• 43:00Wes Larson?

  Uh, yeah.

• 43:01Mike Smith?

  I will.

• 43:01Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 43:03Mike Smith?

  So despite the social perception as dirty and disease ridden pigeons are actually fairly clean and there's very little evidence to suggest that they are significant transmitters of diseases, at least to humans. They do nest in their own poo, which I don't think is super normal. From what I gathered for birds to like just take dumps in their nest and sit in it. Yeah. But again, those diseases aren't very transferable.

• 43:25Wes Larson?

  There's some birds that do that, though.

• 43:27Mike Smith?

  Yeah. I'm not saying it's unheard of.

• 43:29Wes Larson?

  I could be wrong here too, but from what I understand, like with disease transmission, usually when we get a disease from like a bird or a bat or some animal that we're like pretty distant from evolutionarily speaking, there has to be an intermediary animal.

• 43:45Jeff Larson?

  Tesla.

• 43:46Wes Larson?

  Yeah, Tesla. Exactly. Tesla can get diseases from pigeons, have venereal diseases. But like, like, for example, like with COVID, they think maybe it originated in a bat, but that that bat maybe give it gave it to like a pig or a pangolin or something like that.

• 44:01Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 44:01Wes Larson?

  Before a human got it. And so when people are worried about getting a disease directly from an animal like a pigeon, usually that's not possible. There's not, we're not close enough for us to get the zoonotic, whatever.

• 44:15Mike Smith?

  Right. Exactly. I always kind of liked the idea of pangolins being involved in, you know, a small dawn downfall for humanity.

• 44:23Wes Larson?

  I think they've kind of ruled them out at this point.

• 44:25Jeff Larson?

  I kind of just gone on the lab creation thing for.

• 44:30Mike Smith?

  Oh, you're a.

• 44:31Jeff Larson?

  The most sense to me.

• 44:32Mike Smith?

  From COVID. Sure. I don't know.

• 44:34Wes Larson?

  Red pilled.

• 44:36Mike Smith?

  Is that a red pill thing? I don't even know at this point. I can't keep track of it all.

• 44:40Jeff Larson?

  Well, we've covered every base now, at least. No one can get too mad at us.

• 44:45Mike Smith?

  Right. Yeah.

• 44:47Mike Smith?

  We, yeah.

• 44:48Jeff Larson?

  Except for the not, Mike, maybe say it's not real.

• 44:52Mike Smith?

  Uh, I don't, yeah. Fauci, that guy. Quack.

• 44:57Mike Smith?

  So they're not native to the United States. It's kind of like a squirrel situation. Of course, they were brought over by settlers for practical purposes like food and sending messages and stuff. But mostly people just really liked them. And they're like, we gotta have these birds with us. So they brought them over. So wild rock doves, they're the ancestor of our modern day current pigeons. They live on sea cliffs and mountainsides, which is kind of why they're so like readily adaptable to living on sky rise, like high skyscrapers and cities and stuff.

• 45:31Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 45:31Mike Smith?

  Uh, just cause it's like, that's what they would be doing on a cliff. It's just like high up somewhere, you know?

• 45:35Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 45:36Mike Smith?

  It's kind of cool.

• 45:36Jeff Larson?

  What do you think the birds were like in America before we brought in all this stuff?

• 45:41Mike Smith?

  Uh, just like a lot more plentiful. Well, that's actually like an interesting one is passenger pigeons. We had flocks of billions of passenger pigeons.

• 45:50Jeff Larson?

  In America?

• 45:50Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 45:51Jeff Larson?

  Before native ones?

• 45:53Mike Smith?

  Yeah, like the early settlers would talk about, this was a native species of pigeon to the US. And they would talk about flocks of passenger pigeons like so big that they would lot out the sun. And we eliminated them. Western settlers.

• 46:05Jeff Larson?

  Oh, really?

• 46:06Mike Smith?

  Just shooting them, killed the passenger pigeon and went extinct.

• 46:09Jeff Larson?

  Wow.

• 46:10Mike Smith?

  And it was actually an early lesson in conservation because people thought this was a bird that was endless, like totally infinite. And then they, in a matter of a few decades, eliminated them.

• 46:19Jeff Larson?

  Wow.

• 46:20Mike Smith?

  But yeah, I don't, I don't know. I don't think, I don't know if pigeons really, I'm not sure. I'd have to look into it if they really like affected our native bird life that much. Because they mostly have sit in cities for the most part. But yeah, I don't know. Just a lot more birds. Well, here's another fact. Uh, that you guys didn't.

• 46:38Jeff Larson?

  Don't.

• 46:38Mike Smith?

  Need me to tell you? So pigeons produce fake milk. Milk production is kind of in the wheelhouse of mammals, really genuine milk. Uh, it's a mammal thing, mammalions. But pigeons and doves, along with some other species of birds, I don't want to talk about those ones. We're not talking about those. Those birds, they can wait their turn. They feed their young with something similar. It's a whitish liquid filled with nutrients, fats, antioxidants, and healthy proteins called crop milk. Both male and female pigeons create the milk, which is sweet. I always kind of wish I had some milk going on, you know?

• 47:14Jeff Larson?

  Crop milk.

• 47:15Mike Smith?

  And they store it in their esophagus temporarily and newly hatched pigeons drink crop milk until they're weaned off after four weeks or so after they're born. You guys know, you've heard about like tumbling, rolling pigeons, tumbling pigeons. They like fly around, they just do flips all over the place. These guys are sweet. I actually, that's one I didn't think I had to tell you guys about. Turns out I did. Some pigeons developed what scientists think is a strategy for evading predators. So when they're flying around, they'll just tumble. They'll do like a flip or roll over. It's really cool. The National Birmingham Roller Club puts on an annual World Cup competition where flocks will be sent out and they'll just, they're doing hella flips all over the place.

• 47:53Jeff Larson?

  That's cool.

• 47:54Mike Smith?

  And it kind of looks like in, you know, the old game duck hunt, when you shoot a duck, they just kind of like fall straight down and start flopping around. It kind of looks like that.

• 48:02Jeff Larson?

  Is it more like a Jackie Chan, very planned and like looks good? Or is it more like a Jar Jar Binks just being clumsy and avoiding things?

• 48:10Mike Smith?

  It's a Binks. It's a Binks. To my eye at least. I'm sure like to pigeon enthusiasts are like, wow, beautiful roll form there. But to me, it kind of looks like they have a seizure midair and they're just like flapping around real quick and then they start flying again.

• 48:24Jeff Larson?

  Either way, Jar Jar Binks is cool. Jackie Chan is cool.

• 48:29Mike Smith?

  Right. They're cool in their own ways. One study suggests that given the right conditions, they're as good at identifying cancer as doctors. Wes, you could have used this, a pigeon not too long ago with your lump.

• 48:40Wes Larson?

  I'm okay.

• 48:42Mike Smith?

  Yeah, right. So at the University of California Davis Medical Center, they put 16 pigeons in a room with magnified biopsies of potential breast cancer. If the pigeons correctly identified them as either benign or malignant, they were given a treat. Once trained, the pigeon's average diagnostic accuracy reached an impressive 85%. But when a flock sourcing approach was taken in which the most common answer among all the subjects was used, it went up to 99%.

• 49:09Wes Larson?

  Wow.

• 49:09Mike Smith?

  Which, you know, like, it sounds impressive, but it's kind of just like, it is impressive.

• 49:14Wes Larson?

  That is impressive.

• 49:14Mike Smith?

  It's really impressive, but it's not like you can have a pigeon in a doctor's office, like, that person has cancer, kind of thing.

• 49:21Wes Larson?

  Right. We have other ways to do that now.

• 49:23Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 49:23Wes Larson?

  But that is impressive.

• 49:24Mike Smith?

  It is.

• 49:25Wes Larson?

  That a bird can like, say what's malignant and what's not.

• 49:28Mike Smith?

  And they use like novel images. It wasn't just like memorization or whatever that would be called for these birds.

• 49:33Wes Larson?

  Imagine.

• 49:33Mike Smith?

  A new picture and the birds would be able to correctly identify.

• 49:36Jeff Larson?

  10 years of school to like be, get that job and pigeons just take your job.

• 49:41Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 49:42Wes Larson?

  Go down oncology school and.

• 49:45Mike Smith?

  If we can put a metal on a pigeon, we could put a stethoscope on a pigeon.

• 49:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 49:49Mike Smith?

  That's all I'm saying.

• 49:49Jeff Larson?

  I've seen that. I don't know where.

• 49:52Mike Smith?

  Really?

• 49:52Jeff Larson?

  But I've seen the stethis, like a cartoon or something.

• 49:57Wes Larson?

  I'm not gonna deny it.

• 49:58Mike Smith?

  Yeah. It doesn't sound crazy to me.

• 50:01Wes Larson?

  No.

• 50:01Mike Smith?

  I'm gonna skip this stuff. That shit's boring as hell. If I skip that though, that's the end of the episode.

• 50:06Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 50:07Mike Smith?

  We're doing it. We're skipping it. Let's go to.

• 50:10Jeff Larson?

  Why do you give us a category about Norm MacDonald? We just talked about it.

• 50:14Mike Smith?

  Well, we're going to categories right now and we didn't. We all said our favorite comedian is Norm MacDonald.

• 50:20Jeff Larson?

  And then what joke? He asked what joke?

• 50:22Wes Larson?

  It's alright. I got something fresh.

• 50:24Mike Smith?

  We got, you can make it interesting.

• 50:26Jeff Larson?

  I'm just wondering why that's a category.

• 50:28Mike Smith?

  Because I love Norm. We all do.

• 50:30Jeff Larson?

  You never talked about it.

• 50:31Mike Smith?

  Why would you ever want to stop talking about?

• 50:33Jeff Larson?

  I just thought you'd bring him up in the episode.

• 50:34Mike Smith?

  First category, what's your favorite Norm MacDonald clip on YouTube?

• 50:38Wes Larson?

  He plays a pigeon in something.

• 50:39Mike Smith?

  That's right. Yeah. Mike Tyson's like Mystery Friends or whatever.

• 50:42Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 50:43Mike Smith?

  Yeah. That's why, I guess that's probably why I thought of this category in the first place.

• 50:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah, there you go.

• 50:50Mike Smith?

  Brought a full circle.

• 50:50Wes Larson?

  Did you want me to go?

• 50:51Mike Smith?

  I'd love for you to go.

• 50:52Wes Larson?

  All right. I, my favorite one is his reading of his Man Great ads for his podcast or whatever it was.

• 50:59Jeff Larson?

  I wish we could do that sometimes. It's like.

• 51:02Wes Larson?

  There's a YouTube ad of it or a YouTube video of it and it's like him reading for Man Great, which is like a barbecue thing for men.

• 51:10Jeff Larson?

  This is only sponsor and he just made fun of them relentlessly.

• 51:15Wes Larson?

  It's so funny though. It kills me. And it's like a, it's a compilation of him reading for them for like a few different people.

• 51:22Jeff Larson?

  Compilations are great. Like his OJ one.

• 51:24Wes Larson?

  It's so funny. So that's probably mine.

• 51:26Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 51:27Jeff Larson?

  Uh, yeah, I'm not doing a favorite because I just did that.

• 51:31Wes Larson?

  My. A lot of story.

• 51:33Jeff Larson?

  No, uh, one I just watched that was funny to me was the Comedy Central roast of Bob Saget.

• 51:40Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:40Jeff Larson?

  And he just like, I think he just thinks roasts are stupid in general and he just couldn't take it seriously and he bombed on purpose.

• 51:48Wes Larson?

  Right.

• 51:49Mike Smith?

  For like eight minutes.

• 51:50Wes Larson?

  It's so impressive.

• 51:52Jeff Larson?

  People say that he has nothing on his head, but he does. A hat.

• 51:57Wes Larson?

  It was like, he got his jokes from like a 1930s book of jokes that his dad gave him when his dad found out he was a comedian. It was like, the most innocent dumb joke.

• 52:08Jeff Larson?

  Two people were just dying and everyone else is just like uncomfortably like chuckling.

• 52:14Wes Larson?

  Was losing.

• 52:14Mike Smith?

  Yeah, so funny to me. Uh, I'm gonna go with the Albert Fish story. The guy was a real jerk. Basically sets up to that punchline. It's the best.

• 52:23Wes Larson?

  Can I do a quick honorable mention?

• 52:24Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 52:25Wes Larson?

  That I just thought of.

• 52:25Mike Smith?

  For sure.

• 52:26Wes Larson?

  There was like the YouTube Awards early in the days of YouTube and he was one of the hosts of it. And he's interviewing The Lonely Island, which is Andy Samberg, Yorma and Akiva. And he asked them this question about like how they got started and they tell the whole story of like how they started The Lonely Island and everything. And Norm's like, wow, I wish I had a time machine. And one of them's like, so you could be there when we started? And he's like, no, so I could go back and not ask you that question. And the way he delivers it is so funny.

• 52:57Jeff Larson?

  Asked them be before too, if they would like use a time machine to kill Hitler.

• 53:02Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 53:03Jeff Larson?

  It's just like some award show.

• 53:06Wes Larson?

  Well, and then he's like, he's like, maybe you'd get caught up in his eyes and like start to believe in. And Jenny Slate's a host and she's like, we need to switch the topic.

• 53:15Mike Smith?

  Unreal. And I think at the start of the interview is like, you guys are the Lonely Island, huh? Well, I call you Andy Samberg and the two other guys. This is like so mean, but so funny. No, no, like Norm was allowed to do like, say anything.

• 53:30Wes Larson?

  He was.

• 53:31Mike Smith?

  He's the best. So next category, what's your favorite and your least favorite trophy that they hand out for sports or Oscars or whatever, anything? Trophies.

• 53:41Wes Larson?

  Or medals.

• 53:42Mike Smith?

  Or medals. Yeah. Any, any kind of award plaques even if you want. Yeah, go for it.

• 53:47Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 53:48Mike Smith?

  If you're ready.

• 53:48Wes Larson?

  Okay. Uh, I picked the Presidential Medal of Freedom because I feel like they just like give it to whoever. And they especially give it to themselves a lot. I feel like Barack Obama gave it to Joe Biden and Joe Biden will probably like give it to Barack Obama. And they like gave it to Nancy Pelosi and stuff. And for me, I was looking through the list of people they've given it to, Orrin Hatch. Like it just kind of, it just seems kind of like a circle jerk to me.

• 54:17Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 54:17Wes Larson?

  And there are people that truly like are heroes. They get it. That is amazing, but I think it gets diluted.

• 54:24Mike Smith?

  But does it look like?

• 54:25Wes Larson?

  It's like, it's got all these like spying.

• 54:27Mike Smith?

  It's like a.

• 54:28Wes Larson?

  It's like a star with like a bunch of little.

• 54:31Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 54:31Wes Larson?

  Lights coming off or not lights, like um, spires coming off of it. I don't know how to say it, but I think it's diluted and if, yeah, anyway.

• 54:39Mike Smith?

  What's your least favorite? That's your favorite?

• 54:41Wes Larson?

  Oh, it's got eagles all around it.

• 54:42Jeff Larson?

  That's his least favorite.

• 54:43Wes Larson?

  That was least favorite. Was I supposed to do favorite?

• 54:45Mike Smith?

  And favorite.

• 54:45Wes Larson?

  Oh, my favorite's probably the Stanley Cup.

• 54:47Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's the obvious.

• 54:48Wes Larson?

  It's just cool. And it's cool that like only someone that's wanted is allowed to touch it.

• 54:52Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 54:52Wes Larson?

  I, I just really like.

• 54:53Mike Smith?

  I love that they all get to spend the day with it too.

• 54:55Jeff Larson?

  Don't follow that one that much.

• 54:57Wes Larson?

  Well, they used to be that way at least.

• 55:00Jeff Larson?

  But yeah.

• 55:01Mike Smith?

  They like, they'll take it out to bars and stuff and everyone will be drinking out of it. It's great. I love it.

• 55:06Jeff Larson?

  All right. I kind of just have some that I wanted to talk about.

• 55:09Mike Smith?

  I was hoping they would.

• 55:12Jeff Larson?

  I mean, my favorite's the new NBA clutch award.

• 55:15Mike Smith?

  Dude, come on.

• 55:16Jeff Larson?

  Clutch is important, Mike.

• 55:20Mike Smith?

  It's not even real.

• 55:21Jeff Larson?

  My least favorite like award ever given out is the Warriors first championship. And they gave the finals MVP to Andre Iguodala for playing defense on LeBron James, who averaged thirty five points a game. And Steph Curry was on the team and won the championship. That was just stupid.

• 55:40Mike Smith?

  Andre is a good defender.

• 55:42Jeff Larson?

  The funniest one to me is the first Star Wars where they like save everyone and they just like give him a medal.

• 55:51Mike Smith?

  But Chewie doesn't get one.

• 55:52Jeff Larson?

  Doesn't get one. And then he like make up for it later, but they shouldn't have, I don't think.

• 55:57Mike Smith?

  It's a weird little like one of the sequels.

• 55:59Jeff Larson?

  They like give him a medal, yeah. It's just such a funny thing to me, like they destroyed the Death Star in the very end. They like give him the same medal that kids get at the end of a soccer season.

• 56:12Mike Smith?

  It's like a little ceremony.

• 56:15Jeff Larson?

  Like Chewie doesn't like, how did Chewie not earn one?

• 56:18Mike Smith?

  I will say though, out of in all of Star Wars, the yellow jacket that Luke is wearing at that ceremony is my single favorite piece of clothing anyone ever wears in those movies.

• 56:28Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 56:28Mike Smith?

  It's so, it's like the Michael Jackson, like thriller jacket, but yellow and cool.

• 56:33Wes Larson?

  It's like something from the seventies that creeped into those movies.

• 56:37Jeff Larson?

  I also wanna shout myself out.

• 56:40Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 56:41Jeff Larson?

  Shout myself out?

• 56:42Mike Smith?

  Yeah, sure. I think that's.

• 56:44Jeff Larson?

  It sounded weird to me, but yeah. I'll have to even ask Cindy about this afterwards to make sure I have my story right. But like, I was in scouts as a little kid and the older scouts had built a go kart out of wood. And then like, there was this event at this really steep hill and they were all too scared to like go in it. And like, they just put me in it and I was like way too young and I ended up like winning first place. I have a little trophy for that.

• 57:14Mike Smith?

  Nice.

• 57:15Jeff Larson?

  So that's my favorite personal trophy.

• 57:17Mike Smith?

  You have that trophy still?

• 57:18Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 57:18Wes Larson?

  I just thought of my actual answer.

• 57:20Mike Smith?

  Let's go.

• 57:21Wes Larson?

  So when we were kids, we would play this, we would made up this game called Kitchen Racketball.

• 57:26Mike Smith?

  Where we would just like hit a racquetball on the floor in the kitchen.

• 57:30Jeff Larson?

  You get one bounce.

• 57:30Mike Smith?

  You get one bounce and we built a trophy for it and it was like important whoever was holding the trophy. And Jeff was quite a bit younger, so he never really got to hold that trophy. It never had like his picture on it. So Jeff built his own trophy for PlayStation two. And it's just like a Dixie cup with a marble glued on top of it.

• 57:51Jeff Larson?

  That's the racquetball one.

• 57:53Mike Smith?

  No, that's the PlayStation.

• 57:54Jeff Larson?

  No, it's up on the shelf. I can show you. Mine's made of wood.

• 57:57Mike Smith?

  That's right. It's like a wooden one.

• 57:59Jeff Larson?

  With like me in a hot.

• 58:00Mike Smith?

  And it's like a picture of Jeff cut in half with like a picture of this like blonde.

• 58:05Jeff Larson?

  That was mom's help.

• 58:07Mike Smith?

  And it's like.

• 58:07Jeff Larson?

  From a magazine.

• 58:08Mike Smith?

  Yeah. And it just says PlayStation two winner on it. It's so good.

• 58:12Jeff Larson?

  That's what I had to go through just to get my brothers try to play with me once.

• 58:17Mike Smith?

  Yeah. We still did. It was just like his own. Yeah, it was his own metal.

• 58:22Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 58:24Mike Smith?

  You weren't fun to play kitchen racquetball with. That reminds me, me and my friends used to put on Smash Brothers tournaments and we went and got like an old bowling trophy at a thrift store and hacked off the top. And then we spray painted like a little Mario statue, gold, pasted on top of the trophy and handed that out to the winner of the tournaments. That was great. I only won it once. I'm pretty good at that game too. You are good at that. That tells you the kind of circles I was running in. Yeah. You know, gamers. Yeah, you kill, you kill me in that game. Yeah, I kill you literally in the game. Yeah. My least favorite, I think, is the World Cup, like the actual trophy. The trophy? The World Cup is like the coolest event and it's like I get as excited for it as just about anything.

• 59:05Mike Smith?

  But the actual trophy, I think, is pretty underwhelming. It's a little small. It kind of looks like molten and misshapen to me. But I guess I haven't really ever like gotten a really close look at it.

• 59:15Jeff Larson?

  How would you change it?

• 59:16Mike Smith?

  Uh, make it bigger, make it a little smoother.

• 59:19Jeff Larson?

  How big?

• 59:19Mike Smith?

  Four times bigger. Cause it's kind of like, I don't know. It's like a pitcher.

• 59:23Jeff Larson?

  It'd be cool to have like even the Stanley Cup, one guy can hold it up. It's hard.

• 59:28Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 59:28Jeff Larson?

  It'd be cool to have one that like you need the team to be able to lift it up.

• 59:33Mike Smith?

  Have you seen the trophy?

• 59:34Jeff Larson?

  Like you give yourself a hernias within the trophy celebration.

• 59:38Mike Smith?

  Yeah, you would at least. Um, there's a huge trophy. I think you win in like the Abu Dhabi golf tournament or something. And it's like huge. It's like a massive pitcher. There's a picture of Rory McIlroy like. Hoisting it up, he has to lean back, put his weight into it. I think my favorite might be just because of the novelty, uh, the green jacket. I think that's a really, I like, I just kinda like the idea of being able to wear your trophy.

• 1:00:04Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:05Mike Smith?

  It's a golf tournament for any of you.

• 1:00:07Wes Larson?

  Me and my buddy, when we play mini golf, we had a captain's hat that whoever won the last game got to have the captain's hat.

• 1:00:13Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Jeff and I used to do that with the buffalo hat.

• 1:00:16Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:17Mike Smith?

  We gotta find that thing again.

• 1:00:18Jeff Larson?

  I think I have it.

• 1:00:19Wes Larson?

  We should have some kind of trophy for our VR mini golf.

• 1:00:23Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:23Wes Larson?

  Competitions.

• 1:00:24Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Jeff Larson?

  Virtual trophy.

• 1:00:26Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:26Speaker 03

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes, para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro, para los que están lejos, los que no vende lejos y los que no vende cerca, para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos, para los que piensan y los que hacen, para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.

• 1:00:56Mike Smith?

  Okay, your favorite pop culture moment involving pigeons, no matter how big or small a part that they play in it. Jeff, you got one?

• 1:01:04Jeff Larson?

  Uh, yeah. So, wait, go to Wes because I-

• 1:01:09Mike Smith?

  I'll go first. Wes has been going on-

• 1:01:10Jeff Larson?

  Or wait, I have it. Hold on.

• 1:01:12Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 1:01:13Jeff Larson?

  So, I mean, my first one where I really like got into pigeon culture, I think, and understood it was the wire, where like the little kids are trying to catch a pigeon and he's explaining how much it's worth and everything. That was like my first, oh, people like use pigeons for like money still and stuff.

• 1:01:30Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:30Jeff Larson?

  Uh, also just, what's the dude's, the leopard guy in One Piece?

• 1:01:35Mike Smith?

  Oh, uh, Lucci?

• 1:01:36Jeff Larson?

  Lucci, his, his shoulder pigeon is great.

• 1:01:39Mike Smith?

  Shouldn't, I should have thought of that one. That one's good. He's got a little top hat on.

• 1:01:43Jeff Larson?

  Like a tuxedo.

• 1:01:44Mike Smith?

  And it talks for him for the first time. Wes?

• 1:01:48Wes Larson?

  We've already named both of mine. I was gonna either do John Wick or my number one is Mike Tyson. There's that meme of him saying now kiss. And it's like him holding the two pigeons close to each other.

• 1:01:59Jeff Larson?

  Mike Tyson memes a good answer.

• 1:02:01Wes Larson?

  Yeah, but I think when I first saw a video of him with his pigeons, it was very endearing to me. Cause I think I grew up in, you know, and all of us, like, we grew up in a time where Mike Tyson went from like being kind of this hero to also being like really villainized after the Evander Holyfield thing, which

• 1:02:18Mike Smith?

  And other things.

• 1:02:18Wes Larson?

  Like he probably, yeah.

• 1:02:19Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:19Jeff Larson?

  He's done some bad things to women.

• 1:02:22Wes Larson?

  Right.

• 1:02:22Jeff Larson?

  Let's just put that out.

• 1:02:23Wes Larson?

  I was getting to that too. Like, and then he had his like domestic assault and all that. And so I think for me, seeing him with the pigeons was kind of this humanizing thing.

• 1:02:33Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:33Wes Larson?

  Even though he's a very complicated individual.

• 1:02:35Jeff Larson?

  That's why I hope Jake Paul kicks his ass.

• 1:02:38Wes Larson?

  I don't, I bet he's not great to women either.

• 1:02:41Mike Smith?

  Okay, I'll just, yeah, let you make that claim. I'm doing the, the James Bond pigeon that does the double take when the car drives out of the water. I think it's Moonraker.

• 1:02:52Jeff Larson?

  I don't remember that.

• 1:02:54Mike Smith?

  James Bond.

• 1:02:56Mike Smith?

  There's like a close up of a pigeon that just can't believe what it's seeing when the car comes out of the water. That's a, that's an all time.

• 1:03:03Jeff Larson?

  Cause it's like what a human would do, but they just have a pigeon doing it.

• 1:03:07Mike Smith?

  I, and I think what it was is they had footage of a pigeon turning its head and they just like reversed and then forwarded the footage again to make it look like it was doing a double take. Or maybe it actually was.

• 1:03:18Jeff Larson?

  They could have got one. They can make them judge art. They can make it do a double take.

• 1:03:23Wes Larson?

  They need to go back to making those movies a little goofy.

• 1:03:26Mike Smith?

  I know. Yeah.

• 1:03:28Jeff Larson?

  Pigeon Lady and Home Alone Two.

• 1:03:30Mike Smith?

  Pigeon Lady and Home Alone Two.

• 1:03:32Wes Larson?

  Forgot about her. I never really liked that movie or that part.

• 1:03:36Mike Smith?

  Do you know why I don't really care for the Austin Powers movies? Austin Powers is because GoldenEye already made fun of James Bond in a way that wasn't just like slapping you across the face with a joke. GoldenEye was like perfect to me because it was so stupid and it knew it, but Austin Powers is just kinda like lost all the subtlety.

• 1:03:54Wes Larson?

  I liked Austin Powers.

• 1:03:55Mike Smith?

  Yeah. I know, that's an unpopular opinion.

• 1:03:57Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:58Mike Smith?

  I know, but okay. Favorite?

• 1:03:59Jeff Larson?

  Ace Ventura, who got a good pigeon.

• 1:04:02Mike Smith?

  That's true. Yeah. Anymore?

• 1:04:04Wes Larson?

  I'm good.

• 1:04:05Jeff Larson?

  SpongeBob maybe?

• 1:04:06Wes Larson?

  There was a animated pigeon in a movie. I want to say it was like Bolt or one of those dog movies. There was a funny pigeon. I remember. I was like, wow, the pigeon in this is really holding this movie together.

• 1:04:18Mike Smith?

  Bolt.

• 1:04:18Wes Larson?

  I can't remember.

• 1:04:19Mike Smith?

  When's the last time anyone talked about Bolt?

• 1:04:21Wes Larson?

  I don't know. I don't even know if that's it. But it was an animated movie. It's a funny pigeon.

• 1:04:26Mike Smith?

  Okay, next category. Favorite important messenger or message delivered in pop culture?

• 1:04:32Jeff Larson?

  I'll go first.

• 1:04:32Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 1:04:33Jeff Larson?

  The first guy to do a marathon. I love it.

• 1:04:36Mike Smith?

  That's awesome.

• 1:04:36Jeff Larson?

  It's like my favorite story where like, he ran, what is it, twenty six point two miles?

• 1:04:42Mike Smith?

  Four?

• 1:04:42Jeff Larson?

  No, I got it right.

• 1:04:43Mike Smith?

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:04:44Jeff Larson?

  And to go warn like his city about people who were about to attack and then he died.

• 1:04:50Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:50Jeff Larson?

  And now everyone's like, I can do that without dying. Look at me.

• 1:04:58Jeff Larson?

  Just funny to me. They chose the exact number. Someone died.

• 1:05:01Mike Smith?

  I know.

• 1:05:02Jeff Larson?

  Just like mocking him every time you run a marathon.

• 1:05:06Mike Smith?

  Memory lasts.

• 1:05:07Jeff Larson?

  I did one.

• 1:05:08Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 1:05:09Wes Larson?

  You want me to go?

• 1:05:10Mike Smith?

  Sure.

• 1:05:10Wes Larson?

  I picked the movie Castaway. So Tom Hanks delivering that final package, the fact that that's kind of what like gave him strength and courage and like made him kind of, it was like his goal was to deliver that package and that's kind of what kept him, you know, sane, I guess.

• 1:05:27Jeff Larson?

  The GPS walkie talkie.

• 1:05:28Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:30Jeff Larson?

  The GPS satellite phone.

• 1:05:32Wes Larson?

  And I like, I personally liked that they never really let us know what, they never let us know what it was.

• 1:05:37Mike Smith?

  I was wondering what that could be.

• 1:05:39Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:39Mike Smith?

  That would like really throw a wrench in his plans to get involved.

• 1:05:43Wes Larson?

  For sure.

• 1:05:43Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:44Wes Larson?

  But I do, I liked that part of that movie. It's a great movie.

• 1:05:47Mike Smith?

  Yeah. I'm going with the movie Clue. I don't know if you guys have seen Tim Curry.

• 1:05:51Wes Larson?

  I've never seen it.

• 1:05:51Mike Smith?

  It's the best. It's one of my favorite movies, but there's a part with the singing telegram person. It's like a really high tension moment. Everyone's wondering who's killing who in this house. And someone orders a singing telegram and she starts singing and she just gets shot immediately and they close the door and like, that's the end of it.

• 1:06:08Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:08Mike Smith?

  It's so funny to me.

• 1:06:10Wes Larson?

  Okay, favorite flip or spin move in honor of the tumbling pigeons. You have a good flip, Jeff?

• 1:06:15Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I mean, I've done a lot of prequel talk on this one, but it's gotta be the Obi-Wan versus Anakin star lightsaber fight. Where Anakin just does ten somersaults in the air.

• 1:06:27Wes Larson?

  Gets cut in half.

• 1:06:28Jeff Larson?

  Barrel rolls more. No, not the one, the one when they're fighting in like the control room. He does like ten barrel rolls in a row really fast. I also undisputed. What's the dude's name in that?

• 1:06:42Wes Larson?

  Uh, oh, shoot, the guy that kicks.

• 1:06:45Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, there's a guy who like is an action hero. Like if you're really into action, you know who he is.

• 1:06:51Wes Larson?

  B minus, Lister.

• 1:06:53Jeff Larson?

  But he'll like do this move where he does a backflip and kicks him in the face while he's backflipping.

• 1:06:59Wes Larson?

  That's pretty cool.

• 1:06:59Jeff Larson?

  And it never, Scott Atkins, and it never like hits him that hard, but it's always really cool.

• 1:07:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:08Wes Larson?

  He'll do like a quadruple spin kick and it's like.

• 1:07:11Jeff Larson?

  I also just want to shout out the touchdown celebrations when people can do a backflip and full pads. I'm always like, that's cool.

• 1:07:18Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I always, I've been rewatching the prequels. I'm just thinking about this since you brought them up again. And it's really unclear what the Jedis are like capable of doing.

• 1:07:29Jeff Larson?

  Very.

• 1:07:30Wes Larson?

  Cause they'll do stuff like that where they just do like eight barrel rolls in a row. But then those like little plasma doors that cut off Qui-Gon from Obi-Wan and then Darth Maul kills him. Why didn't he just like shoot through those?

• 1:07:42Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, like sprint super fast like they did at the beginning of the movie.

• 1:07:45Wes Larson?

  Or like when they try and grab their lightsaber and you see it kind of like move a little and then suddenly it shoots over. It's like, I don't know.

• 1:07:52Jeff Larson?

  Could really use that a little more effectively throughout the movies. Uh, I agree. It's the very start of the prequels too. They just like space jump out of the frame.

• 1:08:03Wes Larson?

  Right.

• 1:08:04Jeff Larson?

  And it's just like that? They can't do that. I saw that.

• 1:08:07Wes Larson?

  They're just like all of a sudden there's a little blur and they're gone. Why doesn't Anakin do that again?

• 1:08:11Jeff Larson?

  Why doesn't Luke do that?

• 1:08:13Wes Larson?

  Mustafar when he gets like chopped down by Obi-Wan Kenobi, just jump like 500 feet in the air.

• 1:08:17Jeff Larson?

  Right.

• 1:08:18Wes Larson?

  You wouldn't die or get turned into Darth Vader, whatever.

• 1:08:20Jeff Larson?

  Stupid.

• 1:08:21Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I have been enjoying them.

• 1:08:23Mike Smith?

  Um, so I gotta give a shout out to one of the funniest moments in One Piece up on the arc in Skypiea when Usopp does like a front flip face plant into the railing of.

• 1:08:34Jeff Larson?

  He has it like all planned out and then over calculates. Just like hits his face.

• 1:08:40Mike Smith?

  But the one I can't stop thinking about is an old Bengals receiver. His name is Jerome.

• 1:08:44Jeff Larson?

  I was gonna bring this one up.

• 1:08:45Mike Smith?

  It's so freaking cool. He catches maybe like a 10 yard cross route or something from Andy Dalton. And he's about 20 yards away from the end zone and he sprints up and does like the craziest front flip over a defender and lands on his feet in the end zone.

• 1:09:00Jeff Larson?

  It's the coolest flip.

• 1:09:02Mike Smith?

  It's amazing.

• 1:09:03Jeff Larson?

  So glad you said that.

• 1:09:05Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it's great.

• 1:09:06Wes Larson?

  I think I kind of like misunderstood this a little bit. I just picked my favorite like flip that people do.

• 1:09:12Mike Smith?

  Sure.

• 1:09:13Wes Larson?

  Um, and for me, it's boring. My answer's boring. It's just a gainer and it's probably because I've never been able to do one. But whenever anyone does one in front of me, I'm always like, wow, that looked really cool. And so I just think gainers are really cool.

• 1:09:26Jeff Larson?

  You got me to do a crazy gainer.

• 1:09:29Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:29Jeff Larson?

  Just off of that, uh, John's Root Cliff.

• 1:09:33Mike Smith?

  Uh huh.

• 1:09:33Jeff Larson?

  What? It's like 30 feet?

• 1:09:34Mike Smith?

  Yeah, probably.

• 1:09:35Jeff Larson?

  But we're like standing up there and Mike's like, you want to do a gainer? I was like, I don't know if I can.

• 1:09:39Mike Smith?

  He's never done one before.

• 1:09:40Jeff Larson?

  Just waiting for it.

• 1:09:42Mike Smith?

  This is great.

• 1:09:43Jeff Larson?

  I did.

• 1:09:43Mike Smith?

  We did it. Yeah. Uh, that's.

• 1:09:45Jeff Larson?

  You don't have a pop culture gainer?

• 1:09:47Wes Larson?

  Um, no.

• 1:09:49Jeff Larson?

  I remember there's like some short church film where the guy's just like training and he's like doing sprints and he just threw a gainer in it. It's like, wow.

• 1:10:03Mike Smith?

  The casual gainer. All right, cool.

• 1:10:06Wes Larson?

  Sure. A pop culture one is, um, what's her Carrie Strug or whatever? The gymnast.

• 1:10:13Mike Smith?

  Atlanta Games?

• 1:10:14Wes Larson?

  Yeah, she like does the, the pommel horse or whatever it is and lands on her broken ankle, but still lands perfectly.

• 1:10:20Jeff Larson?

  It's good. That's a good one.

• 1:10:21Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:21Mike Smith?

  USA wins.

• 1:10:22Wes Larson?

  That was like for me, the, the biggest Olympic moment of my lifetime.

• 1:10:25Mike Smith?

  Really?

• 1:10:26Wes Larson?

  I loved it. Yeah.

• 1:10:27Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:27Wes Larson?

  It was amazing.

• 1:10:28Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's a great pick. I'm glad you thought of that one. Uh, that's it for categories. Do we have listener questions?

• 1:10:33Wes Larson?

  I got a couple of questions here. The first one's from Shawna. Shawna says, hey, fellas, I know how much you guys like poop. All right.

• 1:10:39Mike Smith?

  Sure.

• 1:10:40Jeff Larson?

  Not anymore. Not now that I was in downtown Seattle and out on poop.

• 1:10:44Wes Larson?

  Uh, yeah, I would say I've always been pretty

• 1:10:48Mike Smith?

  Anti.

• 1:10:49Wes Larson?

  Neutral.

• 1:10:50Mike Smith?

  I appreciate it.

• 1:10:51Wes Larson?

  Sure.

• 1:10:52Mike Smith?

  When I

• 1:10:53Jeff Larson?

  You love poop so much, you won't even let it out of your body. You sit on your foot.

• 1:10:58Wes Larson?

  Not anymore.

• 1:11:00Mike Smith?

  You're a poo hoarder.

• 1:11:02Wes Larson?

  All right. Hey, fellows. I know how much you guys like poop. My husband is conducting a survey on whether you are a looker or no looker when you finish wiping after taking a poop. Which are you guys?

• 1:11:14Jeff Larson?

  No looking is insane.

• 1:11:15Wes Larson?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:11:16Jeff Larson?

  Like you guys see how healthy you are and stuff and like.

• 1:11:19Wes Larson?

  I check out my poops and I also, you want to make sure you're clean too. So you gotta check the toilet paper as well.

• 1:11:24Jeff Larson?

  Like people don't look at the toilet paper?

• 1:11:26Wes Larson?

  I don't know. I imagine not.

• 1:11:28Mike Smith?

  That's crazy to me. I don't li- I don't look at the poo as much as I look at the paper.

• 1:11:33Jeff Larson?

  You have to look at the paper.

• 1:11:34Mike Smith?

  You have to. That's crazy to not, or else.

• 1:11:36Jeff Larson?

  Unless you have like a bidet.

• 1:11:37Wes Larson?

  I'm a bidet guy now, but you still look.

• 1:11:40Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:40Wes Larson?

  But it's like satisfying because you're like, wow, I'm like.

• 1:11:45Wes Larson?

  I just need to like dry off.

• 1:11:46Mike Smith?

  Yeah, but I don't, I don't look at the poo.

• 1:11:49Wes Larson?

  You don't look at your poop?

• 1:11:50Mike Smith?

  I look at the paper.

• 1:11:51Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:11:51Mike Smith?

  And sometimes I'll catch like.

• 1:11:52Wes Larson?

  You don't look at your own poop?

• 1:11:53Mike Smith?

  No.

• 1:11:54Wes Larson?

  I feel like you have to go out of your way to like avoid.

• 1:11:57Mike Smith?

  Yeah, well, that's the thing. I don't like, I don't turn around with a specific intent of looking at the poo. I'm like, is the paper good? We're good.

• 1:12:03Jeff Larson?

  I'll take it a step farther. I like probably look at it for five, 10 seconds before I flush it.

• 1:12:10Mike Smith?

  Whoa, okay. I'm not judging. I'm just like.

• 1:12:13Jeff Larson?

  And then I watch it flush to make sure that.

• 1:12:15Mike Smith?

  Maybe I'm missing out.

• 1:12:16Jeff Larson?

  No, the poops don't get flushed.

• 1:12:18Wes Larson?

  Shauna's husband's getting some interesting data points. This is from Donnie. Hey, guys, now that I'm finally caught up, I know this question hasn't been asked yet. If you could have the ability to be a star athlete for any sport, which sport would you choose and who would you play for?

• 1:12:34Jeff Larson?

  I mean, I'm going in, I'm going Ferrari driver, F1.

• 1:12:38Wes Larson?

  That's my exact answer. Scootery of Ferrari.

• 1:12:41Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:41Wes Larson?

  And I'm F1 and I'm their number, I'm their, their first driver.

• 1:12:45Jeff Larson?

  I'll be their second. I'll back you.

• 1:12:46Wes Larson?

  All right, thanks.

• 1:12:48Mike Smith?

  I think I'd be an ace pitcher on the Padres, lead them to their first World Series.

• 1:12:52Jeff Larson?

  Tommy Johns.

• 1:12:53Mike Smith?

  I think you only have to play, I guess I'm supposing that I'm not going to be dealing with injuries, but maybe that's crazy to think.

• 1:13:00Jeff Larson?

  And every pitcher gets Tommy Johns.

• 1:13:02Mike Smith?

  That's true.

• 1:13:03Wes Larson?

  What's Tommy Johns?

• 1:13:04Mike Smith?

  It's like an elbow.

• 1:13:05Jeff Larson?

  It's like a pitcher's specific surgery.

• 1:13:09Mike Smith?

  Yeah, but they get paid a lot. They play like once a week, maybe.

• 1:13:12Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, he's kind of mess around a lot, I think.

• 1:13:15Mike Smith?

  And they're not like such huge celebrities that they can't go outside. I feel like even the best pitchers can kind of be anonymous still in public, and that's important to me.

• 1:13:24Wes Larson?

  Um, let's see here. All right. This one's from Jasmine. Jasmine says, hello. Hello, Jasmine. I have a question. I was walking, I was watching, not walking, Naked and Afraid, and someone on there said you can eat bear scat and that it actually contains a lot of vitamins from all the berries that they eat. I tried Googling it, but didn't get a straight answer. I'm super curious. Do you guys know anything about this? Can you eat animal scat in survival situations? Uh, I wouldn't recommend it. You, you probably could, especially bears. You could probably eat their scat. You're not going to get much out of it. If anything, like everything that, that has come out of their scat is stuff that their body didn't want to process, you know? So like all they're getting is like the husks

• 1:14:08Wes Larson?

  from those berries and like the fiber and stuff. And you're putting, you're making your body then process it too, and you might get sick as well. So to me, that sounds like terrible advice. And

• 1:14:19Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:20Wes Larson?

  A lot of the stuff on Naked and Afraid, you shouldn't listen to.

• 1:14:23Jeff Larson?

  Just don't eat poop, I, I would say, you know?

• 1:14:26Wes Larson?

  Like, I think if you were just starving and you like needed to eat something just for the sensation of eating something, then maybe like a really berry-heavy bear scat could be okay.

• 1:14:37Jeff Larson?

  Eat the berries there.

• 1:14:38Wes Larson?

  Yeah, but yeah, exactly. If there's bear scat with berries in it around, then there's also berries around. So find those berries. Okay.

• 1:14:45Mike Smith?

  Good question, though.

• 1:14:46Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:47Jeff Larson?

  What animal poop would you be most willing to eat?

• 1:14:52Wes Larson?

  Um.

• 1:14:53Jeff Larson?

  For survival?

• 1:14:54Wes Larson?

  For survival?

• 1:14:55Mike Smith?

  Don't koalas eat their mom's poo?

• 1:14:57Wes Larson?

  Maybe.

• 1:14:57Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, but you get chlamydia then.

• 1:14:59Wes Larson?

  Oh, shoot. From eating poop?

• 1:15:01Mike Smith?

  Is that how that works?

• 1:15:03Wes Larson?

  I don't know. I, I mean, for survival, I think that's like a, those are kind of two questions. Cause for survival, I'd want to eat something that it just like passed through.

• 1:15:12Jeff Larson?

  Herbert war's poop probably, right?

• 1:15:14Wes Larson?

  That would be like the cleanest and the less gross. But like, when you think about when bears are eating tons of salmon, they don't even process all of it. So there's probably still some good nutrition in that.

• 1:15:24Jeff Larson?

  Hmm.

• 1:15:25Wes Larson?

  But it would be disgusting poop.

• 1:15:27Jeff Larson?

  I would want to eat deer poop just because it's like bite sized.

• 1:15:30Mike Smith?

  Like milk duds.

• 1:15:32Wes Larson?

  Or like panda poop is just like pure bamboo.

• 1:15:34Mike Smith?

  Isn't there a rodent or something somewhere in Africa? They use it in coffee. They use it for coffee beans or something?

• 1:15:41Jeff Larson?

  Borneo, they were saying they.

• 1:15:42Mike Smith?

  Is that Borneo?

• 1:15:43Jeff Larson?

  Use something, some poop for coffee.

• 1:15:45Wes Larson?

  I think it was the bird spit.

• 1:15:48Jeff Larson?

  Right? Hmm, maybe you're right.

• 1:15:50Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:50Mike Smith?

  There's also some animals poo out.

• 1:15:53Jeff Larson?

  The bird spit was for like glue or something.

• 1:15:55Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah. Make bird nest soup out of it.

• 1:15:57Mike Smith?

  Which animal has the cube poo? Cause that might be fun, just novelty wise.

• 1:16:01Wes Larson?

  Wombat.

• 1:16:02Mike Smith?

  Wombat.

• 1:16:02Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:03Mike Smith?

  There you go.

• 1:16:03Jeff Larson?

  They were using poop for coffee.

• 1:16:05Wes Larson?

  We've talked a lot about poop in these listener questions. Uh, all right. What do you think the N, or this one's from Liz? What do you guys think the NHL should name its new team in SLC?

• 1:16:16Jeff Larson?

  I've actually thought about this a lot.

• 1:16:18Mike Smith?

  What's that have to do with poo?

• 1:16:20Wes Larson?

  It doesn't. This is a pooless question.

• 1:16:22Jeff Larson?

  Obviously sad they can't just keep the name coyotes. I think that works well.

• 1:16:26Wes Larson?

  Great name. Yeah. And we have, Salt Lake has coyotes.

• 1:16:30Jeff Larson?

  Kinda. I've never seen them in the city.

• 1:16:31Wes Larson?

  I've seen them there. Especially up behind the university. I've seen them.

• 1:16:36Jeff Larson?

  Oh.

• 1:16:36Mike Smith?

  Smoking.

• 1:16:38Jeff Larson?

  I would say arches.

• 1:16:39Wes Larson?

  Arch.

• 1:16:39Jeff Larson?

  And I think you put the logo as delicate arch with like a hockey net in the arch.

• 1:16:45Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:16:46Jeff Larson?

  And it looks like a hockey goal.

• 1:16:48Mike Smith?

  I'm going with Yeti, Utah Yeti, kind of rolls off the tongue. It'd be a fun mascot. It's kind of goofy, but it works. Snowy themed.

• 1:16:56Wes Larson?

  I haven't really put any thought into this, so I don't really know. Maybe crickets.

• 1:17:01Mike Smith?

  Oh.

• 1:17:01Wes Larson?

  The Utah crickets.

• 1:17:02Mike Smith?

  Sure. That'd be unique.

• 1:17:05Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:06Mike Smith?

  I don't hate it.

• 1:17:06Wes Larson?

  And feeds into Mormon lore of like the cricket saving them.

• 1:17:10Mike Smith?

  True.

• 1:17:10Wes Larson?

  Or not the sequel saving them.

• 1:17:12Mike Smith?

  The sequel saving them from the crickets.

• 1:17:13Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:13Mike Smith?

  The crickets are the scourge.

• 1:17:15Wes Larson?

  Crickets are bad, but I like that.

• 1:17:17Jeff Larson?

  Well, they're kind of like back right now, too.

• 1:17:20Wes Larson?

  Crickets?

• 1:17:21Jeff Larson?

  Like, they're called Mormon crickets.

• 1:17:22Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:23Jeff Larson?

  But they've like, it's more Nevada, but they've kind of taken over some cities.

• 1:17:29Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:29Jeff Larson?

  It's crazy.

• 1:17:30Wes Larson?

  Well, maybe they're sinning again.

• 1:17:32Jeff Larson?

  It's scary.

• 1:17:33Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:33Jeff Larson?

  That's a scary team name. I like it.

• 1:17:36Mike Smith?

  There was a list that they released recently with like 20 finalist names.

• 1:17:41Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I didn't, none of them really stuck out too hard.

• 1:17:45Mike Smith?

  Utah Blast.

• 1:17:47Wes Larson?

  There's like Swarm.

• 1:17:49Mike Smith?

  Utah Glaciers.

• 1:17:50Jeff Larson?

  From the owner.

• 1:17:51Mike Smith?

  Glaciers is bad.

• 1:17:53Wes Larson?

  Just slow moving.

• 1:17:54Mike Smith?

  Utah Ice.

• 1:17:55Wes Larson?

  Yeah, these are all bad. These are stupid.

• 1:17:57Mike Smith?

  I'm not even gonna read them anymore. These are all bad.

• 1:17:59Wes Larson?

  Okay, I got one more. We may have answered this one before. It's from Elias.

• 1:18:04Jeff Larson?

  Utah Handcart.

• 1:18:06Mike Smith?

  That'd be, oh.

• 1:18:07Wes Larson?

  Elias says, hey, guys, I'm a member of the Tooth and Claw Patreon. Thank you. And I have a question for you guys. What is all y'all's favorite musicals?

• 1:18:15Mike Smith?

  Oh, Singing in the Rain by Country Mile.

• 1:18:19Wes Larson?

  Do we count Disney films as musicals?

• 1:18:21Mike Smith?

  I think we can, if that's what you need to go with.

• 1:18:23Wes Larson?

  Then I would, I would say Jungle Book.

• 1:18:26Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I would say Lion King in that case. I'm trying to think though, I, I actually, it's not my favorite, I don't think. But I really enjoyed the newest Les Mis.

• 1:18:36Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:18:36Mike Smith?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:18:36Jeff Larson?

  Because I somehow had never like heard the story. So I think people who like, were big Les Mis fans, didn't love it as much. Because it's like, yeah, I've heard this already a million times. But for me, it's like my first experience with it. So I was like pretty into it.

• 1:18:53Mike Smith?

  Yeah, songs are great. I love that musical.

• 1:18:55Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:56Mike Smith?

  Sound of Music, love that one.

• 1:18:57Wes Larson?

  I like Sound of Music. I never got too into musicals, but like, I always enjoy them when I watch them.

• 1:19:03Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:03Wes Larson?

  You know, I do think they're fun.

• 1:19:04Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 1:19:05Wes Larson?

  But if I'm being honest, it would be like one of the Disney cartoons that has a lot of songs in it.

• 1:19:10Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:10Wes Larson?

  All right. Okay, that's it for today's patron questions. Thanks, guys. Good questions. We're a little bit behind on patron messages between like Borneo and some other travel. It's just been hard to keep up. That's mostly on me, so I'm sorry, but we will get to them. We promise.

• 1:19:26Jeff Larson?

  Keep them coming.

• 1:19:27Wes Larson?

  Yep, keep them coming. Yep.

• 1:19:29Mike Smith?

  We'll help you out.

• 1:19:29Wes Larson?

  Don't let that discourage you.

• 1:19:30Mike Smith?

  We'll, we'll help you out, Wes. Share the load.

• 1:19:32Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's all right.

• 1:19:34Jeff Larson?

  The load, Mr. Frodo.

• 1:19:37Mike Smith?

  It's so easy to say that too, because you look like Frodo.

• 1:19:40Wes Larson?

  Like, kind of.

• 1:19:41Mike Smith?

  And Jeff kinda looks like Sam.

• 1:19:42Jeff Larson?

  Maybe if we need to, I'll just give them my wildlife biology perspective.

• 1:19:48Wes Larson?

  We don't need that.

• 1:19:50Mike Smith?

  Just with the huge caveat that...

• 1:19:53Wes Larson?

  You'll do that regardless.

• 1:19:55Jeff Larson?

  Because we all have like, it comes from tooth and claw, right?

• 1:19:58Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:58Jeff Larson?

  So I could just put, hey, this is Wes.

• 1:20:01Mike Smith?

  No, you can't do that.

• 1:20:04Jeff Larson?

  Hey, this is Wes. Actually, you don't need to worry about bears in that area.

• 1:20:08Wes Larson?

  Just do whatever you want.

• 1:20:10Mike Smith?

  Eat that, eat that bear poo. Don't worry about it.

• 1:20:14Wes Larson?

  Thanks, Mike. Good episode. That was fun.

• 1:20:16Mike Smith?

  Great.

• 1:20:17Jeff Larson?

  Thanks, Mike. I like the part about the pigeons.

• 1:20:20Mike Smith?

  Same.

• 1:20:20Wes Larson?

  I will say, a quick thing that I've been wanting to say this whole episode, I think pigeons are beautiful. And I think when you get a good look at like even the common rock pigeon, the iridescence and the pretty feathers on their necks and their backs are just amazing. And then there's some wild species of pigeon that are just unreal pretty. Like, look up the Nikobar pigeon right now.

• 1:20:40Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:41Wes Larson?

  That's a beautiful pigeon.

• 1:20:43Jeff Larson?

  More or less beautiful than the average bird?

• 1:20:46Wes Larson?

  I think they're more, but I think we're so used to them that we see them as less. But I think if you were to, if an alien came down and you put a lineup of birds, the pigeons not last for them. Like, it's somewhere in the middle.

• 1:20:58Mike Smith?

  I think so too.

• 1:20:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:59Mike Smith?

  Yeah. The Nikobar, I saw pictures of those doing research.

• 1:21:02Jeff Larson?

  We should do like how much we like them.

• 1:21:04Mike Smith?

  Oh, yeah, let's do that.

• 1:21:05Wes Larson?

  Claw rating for pigeons.

• 1:21:06Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Pigeon, I'm, I mean... I'm going to four.

• 1:21:10Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:11Jeff Larson?

  And I'll rank them three thousand, three hundred, one.

• 1:21:16Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 1:21:16Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:21:17Mike Smith?

  I'm gonna go with five. They are exactly like, if there was ever an animal I am ambivalent towards, it would be pigeon. I learned a lot of really cool stuff about them. I like those tumbling ones, but it's like, they are the quintessential, they exist animal for me.

• 1:21:32Wes Larson?

  Yeah. And that's the same reason I'm gonna give him like, a four as well. Because I'm totally ambivalent. They don't register for me when I see him. When I think about him, though, like, all the stuff they can do, the homing, how beautiful they can be, all of that stuff, then I'm like, wow, pigeons are amazing. But I don't think about that that often. So I'm gonna give him a four as well.

• 1:21:54Jeff Larson?

  And like with mine, like a caveat on it is, I think only one or in two are like animals I kind of dislike.

• 1:22:03Wes Larson?

  Right.

• 1:22:03Jeff Larson?

  So like a four is still an animal I like.

• 1:22:06Wes Larson?

  Okay. I like them too, but they're unremarkable when I just see them on a day to day basis.

• 1:22:10Mike Smith?

  For me, a four is like, I'm slightly more negative than possible.

• 1:22:14Jeff Larson?

  That makes more sense in my scale.

• 1:22:16Wes Larson?

  But if that were my scale, then they'd be a five.

• 1:22:18Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 1:22:19Jeff Larson?

  If that's my scale, yeah, I'd go, well, but then like, if that's my scale, just no animals are ever gonna be below a five, really. So that doesn't make sense.

• 1:22:31Mike Smith?

  Worms.

• 1:22:32Jeff Larson?

  But like, I, my scale's gonna be different. I'm leaving it at a four.

• 1:22:37Mike Smith?

  No, that's fine. Yeah.

• 1:22:38Wes Larson?

  All right. Thanks, Mike.

• 1:22:39Mike Smith?

  Sure.

• 1:22:40Wes Larson?

  We'll see you guys.

• 1:22:40Mike Smith?

  Thanks, Wes.

• 1:22:41Wes Larson?

  Thanks, patrons.

• 1:22:42Mike Smith?

  Jeff.

• 1:22:42Wes Larson?

  And.

• 1:22:43Mike Smith?

  Thank you.

• 1:22:43Wes Larson?

  Grizz Club.

• 1:22:44Jeff Larson?

  You're welcome.

• 1:22:44Mike Smith?

  Thanks.

• 1:22:45Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:46Mike Smith?

  Everyone. Except for the bad guys. I don't like those.

• 1:22:49Wes Larson?

  See ya.