Summer of the Bear and More Recent Animal News Stories, Plus a Conversation with Gianmarco Soresi

The guys begin by sharing some of the most head-turning, eyebrow-raising, and jaw-slackening animal news stories to hit the news over the past 6 or so weeks. They are then joined by comedian and all-around animal enjoyer Gianmarco Soresi to talk about... a little bit of everything is how we'll say it. Watch this episode on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYn4wBdQG7g&t=3743s ~ Dose: Ready to give your liver the support it deserves? Head to https://dosedaily.co/TOOTH or enter TOOTH to get 35% off your first subscription. Smalls: For a limited time, get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life, when you head to https://Smalls.com/TOOTH. Mint Mobil: Get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month at https://mintmobile.com/tooth. LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT's most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/tooth Miracle Brand: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/TOOTH and use code TOOTH to claim your free 3 piece towel set and save over 40% off. ~ To advertise on the show, contact us! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/c/toothandclawpodcast ~~ 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?

  Hey everyone, it's Wes. Uh, two quick things before this episode, one that I'm really excited about. Uh, a while ago, we were contacted by this really cool record label, Born Losers. They have some great like punk bands and post-punk bands and lots of cool bands on their label. But they had a really good idea for us. You see, for a long time, our first episode hasn't been available anywhere. And that's because when we recorded it, I made some big mistakes, things that I was embarrassed about. So we pulled it and we haven't given it anywhere else ever since then. And this company had the idea of releasing our first episode, but in vinyl form, something that people could tangibly own, listen to if you have a record player. It'll also come with an MP3 download in case you don't have a record player, but kind of a collector's way to have

• 0:44Wes Larson?

  the first ever episode of Tooth and Claw. So that is coming out soon. It comes complete with the whole story of what happened, what I didn't like about, uh, the episode, some fixes that we inserted. It's really fun. I really enjoyed re-listening to it and I think you guys are gonna love it. So look out for that real soon. It's gonna be coming out September 30th. We're gonna be posting the links everywhere. The second thing, we have a really fun guest on this episode. He's great. We had a really fun conversation with him. But I just wanna say, we try to typically keep our episodes kind of PG 13. This one might stray a little bit more into R-rated territory. So just keep that in mind if you have young listeners with you

• 1:25Wes Larson?

  or if you're my mom. All right. With no further ado, here's the episode.

• 1:44Jeff Larson?

  Hello, everyone. Welcome to Tooth and Claw Podcast. We have, what, what was it? Hold on, actually, Wes. We have the wildest podcaster, Wes Larson with us. And that's not my words, Wes.

• 2:01Wes Larson?

  Not my words either.

• 2:02Jeff Larson?

  Reviews. Whose words are those?

• 2:04Wes Larson?

  That's Dave Tatch, who I stood up like three times before I finally met with him to write that article. So he, wow, yeah, very,

• 2:13Mike Smith?

  Patient with you.

• 2:14Wes Larson?

  Patient. Yeah. Yeah. That was a fun article. I'm glad, I'm glad they wrote it. Uh, yeah. World's wildest podcaster, I guess.

• 2:22Mike Smith?

  I was a little disappointed though, like great article. I really could have used a couple paragraphs on your stint as a Dior model, honestly.

• 2:30Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, nothing about that.

• 2:32Mike Smith?

  Was there nothing? There's nothing, right? Unless I'm mistaken.

• 2:34Wes Larson?

  I just answered, I just answered just questions and that didn't come up. So I, yeah, that's not something I just throw.

• 2:40Jeff Larson?

  He's a listener.

• 2:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 2:42Mike Smith?

  Well, he chose the right guy. If he interviewed me, that would have been, I don't know, like,

• 2:46Jeff Larson?

  Less interesting.

• 2:47Mike Smith?

  Easiest assignment of his life. You know, like eight words long.

• 2:51Jeff Larson?

  What do you think they would have said? The most disinterested podcaster?

• 2:56Wes Larson?

  Most reluctant podcaster.

• 2:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 3:00Jeff Larson?

  Well, we have a real fun second half to this episode that we can, I mean, maybe the intro will have that too, but, Gian Marcos.

• 3:13Wes Larson?

  John Marco. So they see.

• 3:15Jeff Larson?

  Really, really great comedian. It's really funny story of how we even came in contact with him, which is just like, we thought he listened to us and he doesn't, but you'll hear that in the interview. But anyways, uh, really fun. Second half to this, to a comedian, all three of us like a lot. So make sure to skip ahead right now. Listen to that first, then come back and listen to this.

• 3:42Wes Larson?

  Or just listen to it chronologically, however you want. Get through this sludge of this to get to that part. But yeah, it was really fun. We're really excited. For you guys to hear that conversation, cause he's a funny dude. I've been a big fan of his for a while now and kinda we, you know, it was a big get for us. So we're excited to show you guys that interview. And before that, we're gonna talk about some news stories from the past six weeks.

• 4:09Jeff Larson?

  I liked how he casually was like, you know, you guys should have Anthony Jeselnik on.

• 4:16Wes Larson?

  Right.

• 4:16Jeff Larson?

  It's like, dude, you shouldn't be on with us.

• 4:20Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 4:23Wes Larson?

  You know who we should have on? Tom Cruise.

• 4:25Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 4:27Mike Smith?

  It's like when Larry King was talking to that player on that show, Community, and he was talking about like, flying private, like having a private jet. And he's like, I'm a voice on DuckTales, dude. Grossly exaggerate how popular we are, but thanks, John Marco.

• 4:42Wes Larson?

  DuckTales guy. Uh, all right. So we're gonna go over some news stories from the last six weeks or so. Uh, we got some doozies. It's been a doozy of a summer when it comes to, uh, to animal attacks all over the world. So we have some fun ones to talk about. Who wants to go first?

• 4:58Jeff Larson?

  And some not so fun.

• 5:00Wes Larson?

  Not some, also some sad ones. Yeah.

• 5:02Jeff Larson?

  I'd say more not very fun.

• 5:05Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I'd say most of them are very fun. You're right.

• 5:07Mike Smith?

  I have two fun ones.

• 5:08Wes Larson?

  There are a couple of fun ones.

• 5:10Mike Smith?

  I'll be the fun guy.

• 5:11Wes Larson?

  Let's start with one of your fun ones and end with one of your fun ones, Mike, to start off on a nice note and end on.

• 5:17Jeff Larson?

  Mike sandwich.

• 5:18Wes Larson?

  Everyone wants that out there anyways.

• 5:20Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Nice cream filling, if you know what I mean.

• 5:24Jeff Larson?

  Don't do that.

• 5:25Mike Smith?

  Just how white I am.

• 5:27Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 5:27Mike Smith?

  Okay. So I, this first one I'm talking about, I'm calling it knock it octopus.

• 5:33Wes Larson?

  Sure.

• 5:34Jeff Larson?

  Knock it octopus.

• 5:35Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 5:35Jeff Larson?

  So it's mainly the off is doing a lot of work in that pun, right?

• 5:40Wes Larson?

  Some heavy lifting. It makes sense. It's good work. It's a B plus. Yeah.

• 5:44Mike Smith?

  Okay, sure. So I got this story from ndtv.com and a few other sources. Honestly, I got most of it just from the video that's been kinda going crazy on social media, but I got some more details to share, cause I thought this is a really fun one to talk about. In fact, I wanna start with something, I'll do something a little unorthodox here. Do you guys know that, uh, octopus brains, their neurons extend out down through their tentacles? So like their whole body is kinda just like a big brain.

• 6:13Jeff Larson?

  Isn't that humans too?

• 6:16Mike Smith?

  Is that true?

• 6:16Jeff Larson?

  Like to move your fingers, it's your brain telling.

• 6:20Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's not your brain though. It's your brain telling you to do that.

• 6:23Jeff Larson?

  It's tentacles thinking independently of the brain.

• 6:27Mike Smith?

  They're like independently like moving and able to like think, I guess. That's just what I,

• 6:32Wes Larson?

  That's cool.

• 6:32Mike Smith?

  It's a fun little fact that I learned.

• 6:34Wes Larson?

  Yeah, like our nervous system extends throughout our bodies, but our brain doesn't extend throughout our bodies.

• 6:38Jeff Larson?

  Technically, we have more tentacles than an octopus, if you count toes and fingers.

• 6:44Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 6:44Mike Smith?

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:45Wes Larson?

  Sure.

• 6:46Mike Smith?

  Octopus overrated in the tentacle department, maybe?

• 6:50Jeff Larson?

  I'm just kinda figuring that out. Yeah.

• 6:53Wes Larson?

  I don't count those as tentacles at all, but well, if you do count them, I agree.

• 6:58Mike Smith?

  Agree to disagree then. So we're talking about a little incident here that happened off the coast of the Philippines here, Wes. Do you agree with that?

• 7:06Wes Larson?

  I do agree with that. Yeah. Sure.

• 7:10Mike Smith?

  This guy's, his name is Jesser Cervantes. He was off the coast in his little dinghy, fishing. He reeled in an octopus, which I don't know, like, I'm not sure if you're disappointed or you keep those if you're a fisherman. I just don't really know what the MO is there, but somehow he got it close enough to his head where it reached out and wrapped around his face. And it like, it literally looked like a face hugger from the alien movies, you know, where it like clasps around his full head. And it's got like, what do you call that? Like the undercarriage of the octopus? Do you call that part?

• 7:45Wes Larson?

  Sure. It's ventral side. Yeah.

• 7:48Mike Smith?

  Sure. It was just clasped perfectly around his mouth and his nose. So a struggle began where he kept ripping off tentacles, like one, two tentacles at a time. But I guess maybe to your, to discredit your theory, Jeff, it had enough tentacles to like, keep wrapping back around fast enough that he wasn't able to tear off the octopus fast enough. And it started being like, it started suffocating him. Yeah. Cause it was like covering perfectly his mouth and his nose. And, uh,

• 8:18Jeff Larson?

  I was just watching physical 100 Mexico and there's like a luchador and they had stair climber. But he like couldn't breathe through his mask. So I assume he has to wear his mask while he's doing it.

• 8:34Jeff Larson?

  So I assume it's kinda the same as a luchador on a stair climber.

• 8:39Mike Smith?

  Yeah, um, but anyway, sorry. No, it just, it reminded me of like, you know, when you have a whole armful of newly dried laundry and you drop a sock and you scoop down to pick up the sock, but another one falls off. So you're like, kind of just repeatedly picking up socks off the ground.

• 8:56Jeff Larson?

  The tentacles.

• 8:56Mike Smith?

  The video really reminded me of the tentacles. We're just like, nope, nope, nope. Just like kept wrapping around his head. It's really funny, but I mean, it started to get serious enough that uh Cervantes, he reached over and grabbed this thick bamboo stem and started like whacking it off his face. You know, he like grabbed the octopus by the head and stretched it out and started like whapping it with the bamboo. And I guess where you'd like describe the octopus neck would be? Um, 11 times he got him 11 full solid strikes.

• 9:28Jeff Larson?

  He whacked it off 11 times.

• 9:30Mike Smith?

  He whacked it off 11 times in a row.

• 9:32Jeff Larson?

  Track of that.

• 9:34Mike Smith?

  Great refractory.

• 9:35Jeff Larson?

  Like was he counting it out?

• 9:37Mike Smith?

  I counted it.

• 9:38Jeff Larson?

  Oh, it's a video. It's a video.

• 9:40Mike Smith?

  Yeah, the video, the video, I counted it. Uh, I did the science here. That did enough just to loosen its grip enough that he was able to rip off the octopus, dump it back into the ocean. And he made this really funny noise when he finally, it was a noise that you would make when you, you weren't really ever in life threatening situation, but you were just like, what the heck was just happening there? He's like, whoo.

• 10:02Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 10:03Mike Smith?

  And then the video cuts out. It was really great. Um, anyway, I just thought it was like one of those moments in wildlife where it's, they're so unpredictable and that's like the fun of nature where I just had never really considered an octopus having an encounter with a human quite like that. And they just always find a way to surprise me. But then again, I don't know. You know, I'm not.

• 10:25Jeff Larson?

  There's a few out there like that.

• 10:25Mike Smith?

  Lusting after these videos.

• 10:27Jeff Larson?

  Like there's a few videos of of spear fishermen and stuff, having a really hard time getting octopus off of their faces. And they like can take your goggles off and stuff too. They like, I don't know. You should just use one single finger per tentacle to take it off, right Wes?

• 10:44Mike Smith?

  One single finger per tentacle. You'd only need eight.

• 10:48Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:48Mike Smith?

  You'd only be using eight of your tentacles.

• 10:51Jeff Larson?

  Cause he's probably using his entire hand on one tentacle and then another tentacle. That's only two. So if you could just have each of your fingers go for those tentacles. Yeah. I don't think my fingers would work that way, Jeff. I think that's the problem because they're not tentacles. They're fingers. Hmm. Good counter. Jeff, you want to go next? Uh, wow. Yes. Okay. I'll just start out with uh coyotes be wilding. I got two little stories here. Just a little bit ago, there is a mom in Arizona in the Phoenix area flying a kite with her daughter. And you know, just a nice day flying kites, fun.

• 11:32Jeff Larson?

  One time Wes, I had a Lion King kite and it flew so high, I ran out of string. This is the best kite and gone because all the string came out. I thought I was about to get blamed for something else, but I'm glad that wasn't me. Yeah. No. Yeah. But anyways, so they coming back, I think they still have their kite. I don't think they ran out of string from what I read. And um, the mom's just walking. She looks back to her daughter yelling and a coyote's nipping at her daughter's heels. Which a four year old daughter, you're pretty scared. You don't want coyote's mouths that close to your four year old daughter, right?

• 12:15Jeff Larson?

  So she runs up to help and starts just kind of like hitting at the coyote, takes off her flip flop and smacks it in the head. Like a Latina. I was gonna say like a. Cholo.

• 12:28Jeff Larson?

  But she's able to pick up her four year old, but as she's doing that, the coyote latches onto her face, bites her face. Onto the woman's face to the four year old's face? The woman's face. Huh. So uh, she had to get rabies tested. She had to go to the hospital, get stitched up. Uh, is the first coyote attack in the Phoenix, in Arizona, actually since 2023. And. It's not that long. Yeah, there was no, there's, well, in Arizona it is, but not super.

• 13:04Mike Smith?

  I don't know. It's like when you see like this burger place has been open since 2018. You're like, all right, right.

• 13:09Jeff Larson?

  It's crazy how many of those advertised when they opened and it's like, that's after LeBron James went to the NBA, you know?

• 13:21Mike Smith?

  Is that the measurement? You have to, you can't advertise when you open.

• 13:25Jeff Larson?

  Ninety-three.

• 13:27Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 13:27Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 13:28Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 13:28Jeff Larson?

  All right. And then another one is just a funny little West Hollywood. There's no rules out there. Gavin Newsom. Oh my God.

• 13:37Mike Smith?

  Crazy.

• 13:38Jeff Larson?

  This guy. But people are just living wherever they want to, and that goes with coyotes too. So there's a whole West Hollywood condo that's just coyotes and all the like, people around this condo that's being built would like walk by and see coyotes every day. And it's just a really funny image in the video because like it's just these condos in West Hollywood and there's these coyote heads popping out all over the place. They're unfinished. It's like open on the front and there's just coyotes everywhere. I saw that video. Yeah. The skeleton of the condo. But yeah, so they locals ended up calling pest control,

• 14:21Jeff Larson?

  but it was a ethical pest control. So it took them three weeks to get the coyotes out and there's a mom, a dad and uh three cubs. And they just use like a bunch of reflectors and like things to make the coyotes not feel as comfortable being in there. But there is just like kind of funny, but there's just a lot of LA. And I appreciate it. There's a lot of LA laws protecting even stuff like this. If you have wildlife in your area, it's pretty protected. So yeah. It's a weird amount of LA wildlife. Like people that live in LA are like seeing mountain lions, coyotes, black bears, raccoons, all sorts of stuff. Yeah. So it's kind of a wild place, actually.

• 15:07Jeff Larson?

  If I was about to get shot, I would say just not in the head or the heart. But I feel like my liver would be like, are you freaking serious dude? You know how hard I'm working all the time? You know how healthy I make you and you're just not even gonna mention me? So now I'm going to say not in the head, heart or liver, because the liver's doing a lot of work that we don't recognize. We're all trying to feel healthy, but here's what most people miss, your liver health. It affects literally everything. Your energy, digestion, how your skin looks, even your metabolism. It's time to give livers the credit they deserve. Dose for your liver is a clinically backed liver health supplement. It isn't just another capsule or powder. Dose is a liquid supplement.

• 15:50Jeff Larson?

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• 16:34Jeff Larson?

  That's D O S E D A I L Y dot C O slash tooth for 35% off your first month's subscription.

• 16:46Jeff Larson?

  All right. Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about black bears. We have had, I think a record number of people sending us stories about black bears this summer. And there honestly have been a lot of conflicts. Earlier in the year, I think I talked a little bit about how we might be having kind of a summer of the shark thing going on. But actually I don't think that's the case anymore. I do think this is a pretty banner year for black bear conflicts across the West especially. Uh, so I wanted to talk about a few of them and specifically, we're going to start in Colorado. So Kathleen Baron was camping near South Fort, Colorado on September 11th.

• 17:25Jeff Larson?

  When she heard something, she hears something outside of her tent. Jeff, it wasn't two planes.

• 17:35Jeff Larson?

  I was waiting for you to make that joke. So I made it for you. Uh. I was trying to work one in. I couldn't, I couldn't get there. So I like. Yeah. She's no slouch though, when it comes to camping. She's camped all over the world. She has a number of different run ins with potentially dangerous wildlife, including a jaguar in Guatemala, a moose somewhere else. So she's really not necessarily panicking when she hears this commotion outside of her tent. She thinks it might just be something like a skunk that's investigating the campfire ring or maybe even just. Scary. Yeah. No. Yeah. It's kind of, but it's not the same kind of scary. Or maybe even just a tree branch that fell nearby. She's not sure. So what she does, and this was smart, her car is parked right there. So she, she grabs her keys

• 18:18Jeff Larson?

  and she hits her fob a few times so that her car lights would come on and the horn would honk. And she's assuming that's probably going to be enough to scare off what other critters out there. She's satisfied that it does. So she falls back asleep. But then she started awake not long after when the tent comes crashing down around her and she could. Freaky fast speed? Uh.

• 18:40Mike Smith?

  Did an airplane hit it?

• 18:44Wes Larson?

  She could feel the pressure of a heavy animal on top of her. She instinctively raises her arm to block her face. And this attacker, which was a black bear, bites down through the tent wall and onto her forearm. She hears a growl.

• 18:58Jeff Larson?

  Through the tent.

• 18:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah, at this point, she still doesn't know what's attacking her, so she thinks maybe it was a wolf. Because she didn't know that bears could growl. And she starts hitting this animal with her other arm. And it releases its grip. So she grabs her keys and a handgun, uh, which she had in her tent and she.

• 19:18Mike Smith?

  Two things you need in a rattlesnake bite, right?

• 19:20Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Hand grenade and your keys.

• 19:26Wes Larson?

  Finds her way out of the tent and chambers around, but she can't see this animal anywhere. Uh, and pardon, I'm just gonna excuse myself right now. I'm fighting a cold that I caught in Brazil, so if I sound a little snorgly today, it's just what it is.

• 19:39Jeff Larson?

  Well, you're losing.

• 19:41Wes Larson?

  I'm losing that fight. Yep. Uh, she managed to get to her car, but her forearm is just like screaming in pain. And she looks down and she sees just a few puncture wounds and she's like, man, this is, I shouldn't be feeling this much pain. But she said verbatim, it felt like a motherfucking elephant was sitting on it. So she gets to a hotel. Yeah, we all know how that feels, right? Uh, she gets to a hotel where she calls the authorities. And then she goes to the emergency room to get her wounds treated. And then next day, a wildlife official would show her the claw marks, the tracks, the hair, all the other things that confirmed there was actually a bear that had attacked her, not a wolf. So Colorado has had a record year for bear conflict.

• 20:26Wes Larson?

  Uh, they've had 10 incidents where people have been injured or killed, including a woman who was attacked in her home in Estes Park and injured by a black bear. And in response to this large amount of conflict, almost 300 black bears have been euthanized in the state this year. And a number of them have been translocated as well. And that's about three times their typical average for euthanizations on black bears.

• 20:49Jeff Larson?

  That's a really interesting attack where she never sees it at all. You know, where it just is completely through the tent.

• 20:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 20:59Jeff Larson?

  You never know. Like, that's a really interesting one.

• 21:03Wes Larson?

  Colorado isn't the only state having black bear issues, though. In mid-August, an elderly man living on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico was killed when a black bear broke into his house while he's home alone. This man's name was Benjamin Halona. He was 67 and he was recovering from a recent seizure. And because of that, he had some mobility issues. This bear had broken into the home when his stepson was out, um, running some errands. And the stepson, stepson came home to the bear inside the house. So he comes in, he sees the bear and he barricades himself behind a bunch of stuff and calls for help, like calls the police and also calls some family members. When those family members show up, the bear's still there, they honk their horn, they yell.

• 21:46Wes Larson?

  The bear runs away and it's shot not long after by a policeman. But the really sad part about this story, this is a sad one. These family members go in the house and they find this scene where this, this 67-year-old man has been eaten by this black bear. Um, and killed, tragically killed and, um, can't imagine, you know, like having that in your head for the rest of your life and everything. It's, it's terrible. This was actually the first fatal black bear attack in New Mexico since 2001. The other one before that was like a hundred years ago. So this really isn't common at all for the whole country and especially for New Mexico. So I did just want to take a second because we've gotten a lot of people asking about this

• 22:27Wes Larson?

  because there really is a lot of black bear activity and conflict this summer. Why this is all going on? We talked about this in Japan last year that there's this, you know, rash of incidents. And I think in Japan, people are still struggling to kind of figure out what's happening over there. And I think over here, there seems to be a little bit more of a consensus. And you guys have a guess for what might be causing these black bears to take these kind of risks and act this way?

• 22:57Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. There's that book called Zoo where all the animals get this thing in their brain that causes like extreme aggression.

• 23:07Mike Smith?

  That was my guess too.

• 23:08Wes Larson?

  Yeah, the book Zoo.

• 23:10Jeff Larson?

  The trees release.

• 23:12Wes Larson?

  Oh, like the happening.

• 23:12Jeff Larson?

  That chemically, chemically changes their brains.

• 23:16Wes Larson?

  Okay. I don't think that's what they think, but that's an interesting theory.

• 23:21Mike Smith?

  Uh, is that like a drought causing a shortage of food?

• 23:25Wes Larson?

  That's the main theory that's being floated around is that the West is experiencing a historical drought.

• 23:30Jeff Larson?

  Opposite of trees.

• 23:32Wes Larson?

  Yeah, opposite. Uh, especially states like Colorado, New Mexico, which are being hit really hard by this drought. And the thing to remember, we've talked about this a lot. Black bears in the fall, like in August, their body kicks into hyperphagia. So their body is telling them, you need to eat a lot more than you typically do. They go from putting on like, you know, eating something around six to 8,000 calories a day to trying to get upwards of 20,000 calories a day. So it's this huge kick up in their metabolism where they're just trying to eat as much as they possibly can. And often in the fall is when they have their best opportunities for that. So in some of these places, they're getting like acorns, they're getting berries,

• 24:15Wes Larson?

  they're getting all these different things in the fall that really help them pack on weight. And if those things fail because of a drought, the bear has to take, you know, new opportunities. And that might make it prone to take a little bit more risk into its behavior, which would be going into places where there's humans, eating human food, even going into homes. And I do kind of think that's what we're seeing is just a response to drought.

• 24:42Jeff Larson?

  This is a tough one for Mike because his like, what would Jeff and Mike do? He always says, I just would stay home, you know?

• 24:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 24:53Jeff Larson?

  It's like, I wanna work.

• 24:54Wes Larson?

  Break into his house.

• 24:55Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 24:55Mike Smith?

  Do that anymore. Right?

• 24:57Wes Larson?

  That is a uniquely scary proposition, though, like having a bear come into your house.

• 25:02Jeff Larson?

  It's like, yeah, it's not where you think a bear is gonna get you.

• 25:05Wes Larson?

  No.

• 25:06Jeff Larson?

  Maybe 4,000 years ago, but not now.

• 25:10Wes Larson?

  Not now.

• 25:10Jeff Larson?

  Not with how we got homes now.

• 25:12Wes Larson?

  So just a quick refresher, if you live in a place that's experiencing a higher, higher than average amount of bear encounters and conflict, remember the most important things are securing any attractants to bears. So if you have trash, if you have bird feeders, beehives, chicken coops, anything that might bring a bear into your yard, make sure that it's bear-proof. And then next is just also, again, we, we hit this a lot on the show, have a deterrent. If you go hiking, if you go anywhere where you might run into a bear, have some bear spray with you. And the other thing I'm gonna start saying because of Tom's paper is if you're with your dog, keep your dog on, on a leash. Because a dog can really introduce some weird variables when it comes to black bear encounters. And we've seen that a lot this summer.

• 25:57Mike Smith?

  That's a fact. That's a fact, Wes.

• 26:01Wes Larson?

  Yep.

• 26:01Jeff Larson?

  What's the, what's the fact?

• 26:04Mike Smith?

  Um, uh, something about Tom's paper. Sounds factual to me.

• 26:09Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I, you know.

• 26:11Mike Smith?

  It sounds like there are facts on that paper.

• 26:13Wes Larson?

  The science is, is there to help, help people come to, come to accept things as facts, I guess.

• 26:18Mike Smith?

  Go ahead and let Tom know to fax that paper over to me. I'd like to read it.

• 26:23Wes Larson?

  Now we're introducing new words.

• 26:24Mike Smith?

  So you said that the woman's arm, the wound on her arm was quote screaming.

• 26:31Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 26:32Mike Smith?

  That sounds annoying, right?

• 26:34Wes Larson?

  I don't think it was actually making any noise. It just hurt really bad.

• 26:39Mike Smith?

  That would be kind of nice, though, if like, if something, the more something hurt, the louder it like literally screamed.

• 26:45Wes Larson?

  Would it be nice? Like, wouldn't you just know that it hurts?

• 26:49Mike Smith?

  I don't know, like sometimes when your dad's like, I don't believe you, go to school, your leg isn't broken. It's, but if it's screaming, you wouldn't have.

• 26:57Wes Larson?

  Do you guys ever, ever fantasize about like someone being able to inhabit your body for like a few hours so that they can see like how you feel? You know, like my ear problem, I can't explain it to people and it's so annoying to me that I just wish someone could like be in my body for a few hours. So that afterward I can be like, isn't that just the worst, you know? And then I also wonder if someone wouldn't just be like, man, you need to take better care of yourself. Like I couldn't breathe, you know?

• 27:28Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's a troubling proposition.

• 27:31Wes Larson?

  Yeah, or maybe they'd be like, wow, you're doing great. I, you know, you know.

• 27:34Mike Smith?

  You know that, you know, the monologue when Vin Diesel is talking about how his dad got in that wreck and he was screaming, he was like, but when I blacked out, people told me it was me that was screaming. Do you think maybe that's what that woman was like, but it was her wound that was screaming and not her?

• 27:49Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I think that's exactly what it was. Yeah. All right, that's my story. Stories. I got more, but not right now.

• 27:59Jeff Larson?

  Are you done with bears? Did you see that guy in Canada got killed by a grizzly?

• 28:04Wes Larson?

  There's, there's a lot of grizzly stories too, like Russia's having a rash of, of brown bear attacks. There's a guy in Canada, there's a few in Alaska, a few in, I think you're gonna talk about Montana, right?

• 28:15Jeff Larson?

  No.

• 28:16Wes Larson?

  Or no, there's a few in Montana, like there's been a lot of stories.

• 28:19Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, there's two, a bow hunter and a dog walker or something.

• 28:23Wes Larson?

  I, I'll just say, this is the time of year that I think people should be the most cautious. Especially if you're hunting, like if you're going out and you're trying to be as quiet as possible, make sure you have a deterrent. If I'm a bow hunter in somewhere like Montana or Canada or Alaska, I'd carry two cans of bear spray plus like a sidearm. Go to your bear spray first and then use your, your sidearm if you have to.

• 28:47Mike Smith?

  I only have two arms, dude. What are you saying?

• 28:50Wes Larson?

  I just, you know, it, like, why not?

• 28:53Jeff Larson?

  One of them screaming.

• 28:55Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 28:55Mike Smith?

  One of them, but I have five tentacles at the end of one of my arms, so maybe I could.

• 29:01Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 29:02Jeff Larson?

  So you think if we went in your body for like a couple hours, we'd just be like, oh my God, that's terrible.

• 29:08Wes Larson?

  I don't know. I don't think so. I think, I think I'm in okay shape. I think my ears, you would be like, oh man, your ear thing sucks. I really do. I think you would be like, how do you deal with that? And I would just say, I gotten used to it over time. But I think outside of that, you probably wouldn't. But who knows? That's what I want to know.

• 29:26Jeff Larson?

  I got some guy's heart in my ankle and I feel like he can kinda feel how I'm doing. And you know, he takes over.

• 29:34Wes Larson?

  In your ankle?

• 29:36Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, like a cadaver. They put his heart in my ankle, a part, a little piece of it to connect the ligament.

• 29:43Wes Larson?

  When I did my gum grafts, they offered to do cadaver ones and I didn't like that idea of having like someone else's gums in my mouth.

• 29:51Jeff Larson?

  Well, make up your mind. Do you want someone else in your body or not?

• 29:55Wes Larson?

  I want someone else to have in my body for a couple hours so that they can understand.

• 30:01Mike Smith?

  That cadaver's like, oh my gosh, that guy's ear. Holy cow.

• 30:05Wes Larson?

  I don't feel like this is a weird thing. Like, wouldn't it be nice just to know if like something that you've gotten used to is actually like not.

• 30:12Jeff Larson?

  No, I've had that thought because I have my like chronic like back pain.

• 30:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 30:19Mike Smith?

  I think that every time I dunked a basketball, I'd be like, oh, I wish everyone could feel the euphoria.

• 30:25Jeff Larson?

  The reverse.

• 30:26Wes Larson?

  I would love. That'd be the first thing I'd do if I got in your body is go dunk. That's all I would do.

• 30:31Mike Smith?

  Maybe try something like physically dangerous that you don't want to risk your own body in. But like, yeah, let's give this a try. Let's just see if I can do a backflip.

• 30:40Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Hey, if either of you, if either of you go in my body, I can't do a backflip. I can't do that. Don't try and do it in my body.

• 30:47Jeff Larson?

  Your technique.

• 30:48Mike Smith?

  Maybe it's a mental thing.

• 30:49Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 30:50Wes Larson?

  I could do one off a diving board, but I can't just do like a standing backflip.

• 30:55Wes Larson?

  Boy, do I love my cat. I was just in Brazil. I got to see some Jaguars and the whole time I was looking at him, I was just thinking about my cat back home and how much I missed him and how important he is to me. And that's why we give him Smalls. Smalls is fresh cat food that's in protein packed recipes made with preservative free, 100% human grade ingredients you'd find in your fridge and it's delivered right to your door. There's a lot of benefits to giving your cat Smalls human grade food. More protein means more fuel, sustained energy, stronger bones, toned muscles. The food is digestible, so less junk is coming out the other end. Means your cat's gonna have less stinky poop, which is a big deal if you've ever owned a cat. A litter box can really make your house smell

• 31:39Wes Larson?

  terrible. So less stinky poop is a huge benefit. And the best part is you don't just have to take my word for it. Forbes ranks Smalls the best overall cat food and it's easy to find testimonials from thousands of other satisfied cat owners. After switching to Smalls, 88% of cat owners reported overall health improvements. And the best part is you can try Smalls risk free. They'll refund you if your cat won't eat their food. So stop serving your little carnivore a bowl of processed shortcuts. For a limited time, because you're a Tooth and Claw listener, get 60% off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com/tooth. That's 60% off your first

• 32:18Wes Larson?

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• 32:26Jeff Larson?

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• 33:09Jeff Larson?

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• 33:52Jeff Larson?

  device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com.

• 33:57Wes Larson?

  All right, who's next?

• 33:59Jeff Larson?

  Uh, do you have, you have just two, Mike?

• 34:03Mike Smith?

  It's hard to tell with Jeff because it's like, it could be Jeff telling his story, but it could be that guy and his ankle.

• 34:09Jeff Larson?

  Do you have two, Mike? I have, I'm just seeing if Mike's gonna go.

• 34:12Mike Smith?

  I thought we were doing a Mike witch.

• 34:14Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 34:14Jeff Larson?

  Well, that's why I didn't know if you had two or three is why I was asking.

• 34:18Mike Smith?

  Oh, sorry. Yeah, I've got two. Good question.

• 34:22Jeff Larson?

  Thanks.

• 34:23Mike Smith?

  You're a good interviewer.

• 34:27Jeff Larson?

  All right. So there's a beaver attack. Did you know that?

• 34:31Wes Larson?

  Yes, I did.

• 34:33Jeff Larson?

  You did? Both of you? It is kind of a unique one though, because we've covered some beaver attacks and normally they'll cut down a tree while you're in a pond or.

• 34:44Mike Smith?

  That branch that hit that girl in Wes's story.

• 34:48Jeff Larson?

  In Maryland, a 13 year old on July 26th, he was just swimming around in some water, looking for fish, right? Snorkeling around. And his name's Dominic. He's swimming in like a whole designated area and it's called Hunting Creek Lake. Probably feels pretty secure, right? Like when you're in a lake, by 13, you're kind of like, all right, there's no sharks in here. I'm gonna be all right. When you're younger than 13, you think anything could be in there.

• 35:20Wes Larson?

  That's the break even.

• 35:21Mike Smith?

  Unless you just watched the movie Jaws, then you think a shark is in.

• 35:24Jeff Larson?

  Or Lake Placid.

• 35:25Mike Smith?

  Literally any body of water.

• 35:27Jeff Larson?

  Then you think there's piranhas.

• 35:29Wes Larson?

  Crocodiles. Lake Placid's crocodiles.

• 35:32Jeff Larson?

  Well, this was a beaver and it comes out from the deep water. But here's the thing that was really unique about it is it clamped onto his chest.

• 35:42Wes Larson?

  Huh.

• 35:43Jeff Larson?

  So it didn't get his limbs. Yeah, it bites straight into his chest. Yeah. And then it starts shaking its head like a dog. So Dominic's like, he's a wrestler. He, he's a pretty like strong little 13 year old and starts like fighting it and trying to pry it off. His family comes, starts trying to help him. And it takes him a little bit. It starts biting his hand as he's like trying to pry it off. So now his hand and his chest is injured and they're able to finally get it off. It's a four foot adult beaver. And then he's rushed to a hospital because they're afraid that he might have punctured the lung

• 36:26Jeff Larson?

  in his chest because it went so deep into him.

• 36:30Mike Smith?

  Dude.

• 36:30Jeff Larson?

  But turned out that it didn't. Oh, and his finger might have to be amputated from it biting his hand.

• 36:37Mike Smith?

  So nine tentacles for that guy.

• 36:38Jeff Larson?

  I guess though, that was in July, so probably is or not by now. I don't think they fought. But yeah, the family credited his wrestling background for him to be able to fight off this beaver. Pretty cool though, you know?

• 36:53Wes Larson?

  That's why you should do wrestling, kids. You never know when you might get, have to get a beaver off.

• 36:58Mike Smith?

  Oh, don't say it like that.

• 37:01Wes Larson?

  That's how he said it. I can't believe neither of you didn't catch that.

• 37:07Jeff Larson?

  The beaver was caught and euthanized and did test positive for rabies too.

• 37:12Mike Smith?

  Oh, oh, man. That'd be, it seems like that'd be extra bad if you got a rabies bite and it hit like a major organ inside of your body. That seems like it'd be extra.

• 37:24Jeff Larson?

  Get into your system faster.

• 37:26Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 37:26Wes Larson?

  I don't know if that's the case.

• 37:28Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. No, that's a fact.

• 37:30Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 37:31Mike Smith?

  Gig of rabies, Wes.

• 37:33Jeff Larson?

  Here, I'll just do my other one too, real quick, if you want, since that's pretty short. Yeah.

• 37:37Mike Smith?

  Hell yeah, Jeff.

• 37:38Jeff Larson?

  Similar to my last.

• 37:39Mike Smith?

  Freaking on a roll, bruh.

• 37:42Jeff Larson?

  Well, speaking of rolls, what animal rolls when they attack?

• 37:46Wes Larson?

  Armadillos.

• 37:48Jeff Larson?

  Gators.

• 37:49Wes Larson?

  Gators.

• 37:50Jeff Larson?

  Gator roll.

• 37:51Wes Larson?

  Death roll. Yeah.

• 37:52Jeff Larson?

  So another, another woman's arms in Florida, because I think I talked about that last time. But Wes, imagine.

• 38:00Wes Larson?

  How many tentacles is that? Is that six tentacles or five tentacles?

• 38:06Mike Smith?

  Six.

• 38:07Wes Larson?

  Its own tentacle?

• 38:09Mike Smith?

  I think so.

• 38:10Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 38:12Jeff Larson?

  Wes, I'm glad you didn't say one, five, or six, though. You are at least giving me credit.

• 38:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah, no, I'm in.

• 38:22Jeff Larson?

  So you're sitting on a boat with your dad. Imagine that.

• 38:26Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it sounds nice.

• 38:27Jeff Larson?

  Okay. You're trying to catch some fish and you start hearing some screaming. So you look over and you see some paddleboarders and they're being rapidly approached by an alligator. So you see this alligator head, headed straight at these paddleboarders and they're screaming. All right. Now choose your own adventure with these choices. Number one, do you finish eating your lunch and then go help? Because you're eating lunch with your dad too. Sorry.

• 38:56Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 38:57Jeff Larson?

  Number two, do you get the hell out of there? Number three, do you swallow the food in your mouth and then stop eating lunch after your last bite and then go help? Number four, do you spit the food that's in your mouth out and just immediately go help?

• 39:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I think I'm four. I'm spinning it out. I bet like, I don't think there's a huge difference between three and four. Like swallowing doesn't take long. So.

• 39:26Mike Smith?

  I'm doing a mix of three and four.

• 39:28Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I'm not gonna hold it against him if they.

• 39:30Jeff Larson?

  You're not gonna take another bite, yeah?

• 39:31Mike Smith?

  No extra bite, but I'm finishing the bite as I run towards trying to.

• 39:35Wes Larson?

  You don't wanna choke.

• 39:36Jeff Larson?

  Well, you're in a boat.

• 39:37Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 39:38Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 39:38Wes Larson?

  Before I paddle.

• 39:39Mike Smith?

  Run, I guess.

• 39:40Jeff Larson?

  You're gonna run?

• 39:42Mike Smith?

  Sure. The however many steps I can run on a boat.

• 39:44Wes Larson?

  Are you a basilisk lizard, Mike? I don't think so.

• 39:48Mike Smith?

  I think you guys can probably intuit kind of what I was trying to mean there. As I like get up in attempt to help.

• 39:56Jeff Larson?

  No, I mean, I honestly didn't think you remembered that you were in a boat is why I said that.

• 40:01Mike Smith?

  Yeah, you're right. I was trying. I was getting defensive because I didn't.

• 40:05Jeff Larson?

  Okay, well, John Gamich and his father, that was them. They're eating their lunch when this happens, right? Uh, on August eighth, they see this happening and they start heading over as fast as they possibly can, but they don't get there before this alligator does. This alligator goes up to him. This woman starts like hitting it with its her paddle because she's on a paddleboard. But um, one way or another, she's also like trying to keep its mouth closed and it ends up biting her arm pretty badly.

• 40:43Jeff Larson?

  Maybe doing some rolls. Um, and she surfaces for air. The boat gets there, the alligator leaves. But she ended up having to get her arm amputated from the elbow down.

• 40:56Mike Smith?

  Geez. Oh, man.

• 40:58Jeff Larson?

  And it was in like really actually, you think of Florida alligators, you think of kind of like swamps, Everglades. Isn't one of their springs where everything's like crystal clear water, right? So like, it's kind of scary because you could see it happening for a long time, but not like do anything about it.

• 41:18Wes Larson?

  That's something that when I like, when I've been to Florida, I helped with some different wildlife projects down there and something that really stuck with me that one of these alligator researchers told me is that you have to treat any body of water outside of like swimming pools, of course, in Florida, as if there could be an alligator in it. Like you just kind of have to assume that it's possible. Yeah.

• 41:39Jeff Larson?

  Not the ocean.

• 41:40Wes Larson?

  I mean, they can. Yeah, I wouldn't worry in the ocean, but they're, you know, they're full of sharks down there in Florida, too.

• 41:46Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Um, well, it's so hot, though. You gotta get in the water.

• 41:51Wes Larson?

  You gotta swim. Yep.

• 41:53Jeff Larson?

  But yeah, anyways, uh, she, by all accounts, she's in very good spirits for everything that happened. The boat did everything they could. Put a tourniquet on her right when they got there and like they credit them for getting there so quickly and helping her for helping save her life. Um, and they were able to catch this gator. What's a big gator, Wes?

• 42:14Wes Larson?

  A big gator, like anything over 12 feet to me is a really big gator.

• 42:18Jeff Larson?

  Not really big gator. When did you say it's a big gator?

• 42:21Wes Larson?

  Uh, eight feet and bigger.

• 42:24Jeff Larson?

  Okay, this one was nine foot. So.

• 42:27Wes Larson?

  It's a big gator.

• 42:27Jeff Larson?

  Wait, nine foot and some inches.

• 42:29Wes Larson?

  If it can bite off a woman's arm, it's a big gator.

• 42:32Jeff Larson?

  Nine foot, eight inches.

• 42:34Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 42:35Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, well, it didn't bite off her arm. They amputated.

• 42:40Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 42:40Mike Smith?

  There you go.

• 42:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, I think it gets credit.

• 42:44Jeff Larson?

  I mean, a beaver was only four, four feet and it, they amputated his finger. Sure.

• 42:52Mike Smith?

  You don't see beavers that big all that often in my experience.

• 42:56Jeff Larson?

  No. With the tail?

• 42:58Mike Smith?

  I, yeah. Well, I rarely see beavers to begin with, I guess, is the big.

• 43:05Mike Smith?

  Twice in my life.

• 43:06Jeff Larson?

  Really?

• 43:07Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 43:08Jeff Larson?

  You've only ever seen two beavers?

• 43:11Mike Smith?

  I think so, yeah. And I'm just, we're not doing any euphemisms here. I'm being dead serious. I just don't see beavers. I don't know even where to go.

• 43:19Wes Larson?

  Uh.

• 43:20Jeff Larson?

  Did you hear that conversation?

• 43:22Wes Larson?

  Yeah, Mike's only seen two beavers and he wasn't even euphemizing, but that's true, too.

• 43:29Mike Smith?

  Uh, that's a fact.

• 43:31Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 43:32Mike Smith?

  Fax me over your beaver pics. I'd like to see some more.

• 43:35Wes Larson?

  Picks. All right. Okay. Well, you guys remember that movie Arachnophobia?

• 43:42Jeff Larson?

  No.

• 43:43Wes Larson?

  Huh. Well, the rest of this question isn't gonna really be easy to ask then. Well, there's a part of that movie, and I think it's the creepiest part of the whole movie. Where you follow the spider. It's a very dangerous spider in this.

• 43:56Jeff Larson?

  Oh, I know what this is.

• 43:57Wes Larson?

  And you see it crawl into someone's helmet and it's a.

• 44:01Jeff Larson?

  This is Josh Allen when he was giving his interview and the spider crawled up next to him.

• 44:06Wes Larson?

  That is pretty funny. Uh, no, but you see that scene and, and it's a really hard scene to watch because then you see the kid pick up his helmet and go play football and the spider bites him. And.

• 44:17Jeff Larson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay.

• 44:18Wes Larson?

  Uh, well, that actually recently happened in Arkansas, but with another venomous creature. But luckily it didn't have the same outcome. A Mammel High School student on the football team was doing warmups in early August. When he felt something weird in his helmet, it felt like part of it was moving around independently. He'd been practicing in this helmet for over an hour when he felt this movement. So he probably was like kind of trying to shake it off, but then he decided he should take it off. Take it over to the assistant coach to have him look at it. Luckily, the assistant coach took him seriously. Because he pulls off the helmet, he gives it a good look, and when he pulls back some of the padding, he sees the head of a small cottonmouth snake.

• 45:02Mike Smith?

  Oh, I thought you were gonna say an octopus.

• 45:04Wes Larson?

  No.

• 45:05Mike Smith?

  Tentacle. Cause it was moving independently.

• 45:07Jeff Larson?

  The snake was in his padding of his helmet.

• 45:10Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 45:11Mike Smith?

  That's kind of like a tentacle, right?

• 45:13Wes Larson?

  Yeah, cottonmouths are like their whole body is a tentacle, I guess. They're one tentacle. They're also often called water moccasins, but this is a venomous snake. It's a snake that a lot of people in the South especially are pretty afraid of. And it, this was pretty shocking to everyone, especially because this kid had been wearing the helmet for an hour. And they had some law enforcement there. They put the helmet in a bucket of water and there's a video of this. And they just wait for the snake to come slithering out and then they grabbed it with like a, like a grabber, one of those like mechanical grabbers, you know?

• 45:45Jeff Larson?

  The T-Rex thing.

• 45:47Wes Larson?

  Yeah, like the T-Rex thing. It's not a good way to treat a snake. It's not very, um, I wouldn't ever recommend those for snakes because they can really hurt them. But in this situation, I understand they're just trying to get it out of there.

• 45:58Jeff Larson?

  Well, I mean, it's safer there than in a helmet. Have you seen the new studies?

• 46:03Wes Larson?

  The helmets are bad.

• 46:04Jeff Larson?

  There's concussions. That snake probably has a concussion.

• 46:08Wes Larson?

  Is that why everyone's wearing those big dorky helmets now? Yeah.

• 46:12Mike Smith?

  Yeah. So more snakes can fit in them.

• 46:15Jeff Larson?

  Do you think, do you think that snake has CTE, Wes? Did it say?

• 46:20Wes Larson?

  Probably after they grabbed it with this hook. Uh, luckily this kid didn't get bit. But while cottonmouth bites are rarely fatal, they do have a cytotoxic venom that basically destroys tissue. So bites can lead to a lot of tissue death and um, in some cases even amputations. And it would suck to have your head amputated.

• 46:41Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, it's probably not very common to get bit on the top of the head either.

• 46:46Wes Larson?

  Right. And if the doctor was like, we're gonna have to amputate.

• 46:49Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 46:49Wes Larson?

  That would suck. Um.

• 46:51Jeff Larson?

  Good point.

• 46:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Anyway, at some point we'll maybe do a water moccasin story. People, this is a snake that can be pretty defensive. So I think people have a higher than average fear of water moccasins and they really, you don't need to be afraid of them. Respect them, give them their distance. They have a defensive display when they're trying to get away, but they're just trying to get away.

• 47:13Mike Smith?

  What's that look like?

• 47:14Wes Larson?

  They'll open their mouth and they have kind of a white interior to their mouth and it's kind of, it's, it's intimidating looking. It's, it can be an intimidating looking snake. But um, they're just trying to get away.

• 47:26Mike Smith?

  Hmm. I didn't know that.

• 47:28Wes Larson?

  All right. I also have a, another story that I named and Mike, I gave you a B plus. You're about to give me lower than that, I think. Okay. This one's called you otter be careful when you're in the water.

• 47:42Mike Smith?

  A plus.

• 47:44Wes Larson?

  A plus?

• 47:46Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 47:46Wes Larson?

  No, that doesn't deserve an A plus. We've done otter, otter B before, I think.

• 47:51Mike Smith?

  Yeah, well, that was an A plus, too.

• 47:53Wes Larson?

  Okay. Well, when I hear the words animal attack in Tahoe, I immediately think black bear because Tahoe has a serious problem. When it comes with bears that are food conditioned. But this month, a woman was attacked while swimming in Lake Tahoe. And the animal responsible was also an animal that's famously used to describe a type of gay man in the gay scene, an otter.

• 48:16Jeff Larson?

  Is that true?

• 48:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah, otters and bears.

• 48:18Mike Smith?

  I gave it an A plus.

• 48:19Wes Larson?

  Wow. An otter's kind of like a twinkie bear, right? Like kind of like a skinnier like, yeah. Okay. So this woman, uh, Lynette Bellen, she's a Reno resident. Mike, you love Reno.

• 48:32Mike Smith?

  It's my place.

• 48:33Wes Larson?

  Travels to Lake Tahoe, often a couple of times a week to relax in the beautiful surroundings of the mountain lake. And if you've been to Tahoe, it really is a beautiful place. She's a certified swim instructor and part of her ritual at the lake is to take a swim in the chilly water. And that's exactly what she was doing on the morning of August 30th. When suddenly she felt something grab her leg and pull her underwater. And the force of this pull was so strong, she thought it was a person that was pulling her under. And she was incredibly shocked to turn and see a river otter that was mounting another attack and swimming at her rapidly.

• 49:07Jeff Larson?

  Wow.

• 49:08Wes Larson?

  She describes this attack as all teeth and claws. And in a matter of five minutes, the otter rips the goggles off her face, bites her, scratches her on her temple, cheek and nose, bites her arm, and then absolutely tears up her feet, her foot with its teeth. When she finally manages to swim away from this otter, she climbs out on some rocks and walks back to her car, just covered in blood. And along the way, someone saw her bleeding and they called authorities or emergency services or something who met her at her car. She takes a video and she really is covered in a lot of bites and scratches and blood. And she ends up needing 38 stitches to close these wounds.

• 49:45Jeff Larson?

  Boy.

• 49:46Wes Larson?

  She handles it pretty well, but I do think a big loss for her was that she kind of lost her sanctuary, like her swims in Tahoe.

• 49:53Jeff Larson?

  Makes it scary.

• 49:55Wes Larson?

  Yeah, they were so important to her and so relaxing. And now this memory of the otter attack is probably always going to be there. But she did say it's not going to stop her from swimming. And wildlife officials in the area, they can't remember any history of otter attacks. And while they're rarely sighted in the lake, they do live in that area. And they can be defensive little critters, especially if they have young around. So that's my best guess here. I think that this otter probably had some babies nearby and thought that Lynette was a potential threat. Because I do think they tested for rabies and I'm, I'm pretty sure, I'm not sure though, actually about that. But um, this to me, sounds like an otter that's defending like a den somewhere nearby. But who knows?

• 50:38Jeff Larson?

  Well, she's really lucky.

• 50:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I otter study some more about them.

• 50:43Mike Smith?

  If you don't say bruh after that, I don't know when you will.

• 50:46Wes Larson?

  Bruh, that's probably what she said. All right, I'm done. Mike?

• 50:51Jeff Larson?

  You're supposed to, you're supposed to say, why is she lucky?

• 50:54Wes Larson?

  Why is she lucky?

• 50:55Mike Smith?

  Why is she lucky, Jeff?

• 50:56Jeff Larson?

  Because it wasn't a bear. Like Wes was saying, it might be. If that was a bear for five minutes.

• 51:03Mike Smith?

  Yeah, classic Jeff. So humorous. You think if Shai Halud had rabies, where would they cut? Because you need the head, right? To test it. Where would they cut it? You can't really tell where his head starts, right?

• 51:16Wes Larson?

  Do, oh, they do need the head, don't they? Yeah, Shai Halud all head. Is Shai Halud a tentacle?

• 51:23Mike Smith?

  That's the real question.

• 51:24Wes Larson?

  Jeff?

• 51:26Jeff Larson?

  No, Mike took the wind out of my sails.

• 51:28Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah, Mike, my gosh.

• 51:31Wes Larson?

  All right, Mike, let's have the other piece of bread of this Mike witch.

• 51:36Mike Smith?

  Okay, so you guys heard probably a new cat just dropped. The new cat dropped down in Bolivia.

• 51:42Wes Larson?

  First one in a hundred years. Yeah.

• 51:45Mike Smith?

  It's amazing.

• 51:46Jeff Larson?

  I thought it was like the first one ever.

• 51:48Wes Larson?

  The first new cat ever?

• 51:50Jeff Larson?

  Oh, I thought you were saying the first time they'd seen that cat in a hundred years.

• 51:56Wes Larson?

  No, I get what you're saying. No, this is the first newly discovered cat in like a hundred years.

• 52:01Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 52:02Mike Smith?

  So I got most of this info from National Geographic and Scientific American. But um, so deep in the Bolivian cloud jungle, if I have that right, Yungas is what it was called. Uh, right where the Andes meet the Amazon bacon.

• 52:18Wes Larson?

  Bacon.

• 52:18Mike Smith?

  That's not what I meant to say. It's not the word. Oh, brother. Uh, Bay, Amazon Basin.

• 52:25Wes Larson?

  Pack it in.

• 52:26Mike Smith?

  There's a little cat that until a few days ago, had yet to be at least formally identified and documented. It actually, I mean, the people who were living in the area, of course, they knew about this cat for, I don't know, for however long they've been there. Um, there have been sightings, but I guess no real scientist. I don't even know if that's the right way to say that. But like, no official documentation or identification had been made about this new cat.

• 52:54Wes Larson?

  I think, I think like part of it too, is it looks a lot like a margay or an unsula. Like it's very, it really looks a lot like some of the other small spotted cats that you could find in Bolivia.

• 53:05Mike Smith?

  Yeah. So a guy came in with one to this little wildlife reserve. And one of the researchers there was just like, that doesn't really match up with any of our pre-existing data on other cat species. And they did like a series of pretty intensive genetic testing and found out that this was just a brand new species of cat, basically, uh, diverged from tiger cat species. They estimate about 1.5 million years ago is when this specific branch took off on its own for this till, I'm going to get this word right. This is important.

• 53:40Jeff Larson?

  Till. If there's a restaurant.

• 53:42Mike Smith?

  Till Caio?

• 53:43Jeff Larson?

  There's a restaurant that said like, since 1.5 million years ago, that'd be good.

• 53:49Mike Smith?

  That would be, I would go there.

• 53:52Wes Larson?

  Has been around long enough.

• 53:55Mike Smith?

  It's just like plates of bark, bark and raw meat.

• 54:00Wes Larson?

  Rocks.

• 54:01Mike Smith?

  Rocks. So the fun detail about it being called the Tel Kyo, they asked the locals what this cat was named because they, they knew that the locals were familiar with this cat. And no one really had a good answer. They're just like, yeah, that's what my grandpa called it. So it's just, I'm sure there's some kind of etymological root you can trace this thing back to somehow, but it's just kind of a made up word for a new cat that we're just learning about. I think this was September 16th or 17th that this story broke wide. So, I mean, that was like yesterday. And all of a sudden, we have a new cat. And that's really, really fun to me.

• 54:42Wes Larson?

  It's fun just to think that there are still things out there, like big things that we haven't discovered, like Bigfoot, you know?

• 54:49Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 54:50Mike Smith?

  Could be. Keeps the dream alive.

• 54:52Jeff Larson?

  That would.

• 54:52Wes Larson?

  That's my biggest argument against.

• 54:54Jeff Larson?

  The egg we would have on our face.

• 54:56Wes Larson?

  Oh, man.

• 54:58Mike Smith?

  Not me. I believe.

• 55:00Jeff Larson?

  I hope he's not real, honestly. Just because I would be so wrong.

• 55:04Wes Larson?

  You'd have so much egg on your face. It'd be like that octopus, just egg.

• 55:09Mike Smith?

  You wouldn't even be able to breathe.

• 55:11Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 55:14Wes Larson?

  All right. Well, should we invite in our special guest and go to categories?

• 55:19Wes Larson?

  All right, let's do it.

• 55:22Jeff Larson?

  I used to always like an energy drink before I went fly fishing or played a sport, or if I was going to play a round of golf. But it's been really easy and beneficial to switch that over to Element's new iced tea flavor with a little bit of caffeine, which is super helpful because I used to have a huge crash afterwards and now I don't. Actually, I went golfing two days ago and I forgot my water bottle in the golf cart. And I was getting upset because it still had Element iced tea in there and it tasted so good that I was upset that I left it there. And then I realized, hey, that was kind of an expensive water bottle that that was in. Maybe that's what I should be worried about. But nope, I want that iced tea element. I've stopped giving that one away because it's just one of my favorites

• 56:06Jeff Larson?

  and I'm holding on to it dearly. Because as I've told you, I'm now the most popular person at my entire apartment complex. And it's all because I give people Element each month. But don't take my word for it. Actually, you should. But also it's trusted by Stanford neuroscientists, functional nutritionists, and professional athletes across the NFL, NBA, NHL, and CrossFit. Also, it's world-class customer service. So no question asked refunds. Try Element and see how you feel. If for any reason you're not satisfied, Element's customer service team will take care of you. So get a free eight-count sample pack of Element's

• 56:44Jeff Larson?

  most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at drinklmnt.com/tooth. Find your favorite flavor or share it with a friend.

• 56:56Wes Larson?

  You know, life has gotten really busy for me lately, and it has become more and more important to me that I sleep really well. And for me, temperature in my bedroom can really make or break my sleep. And that's why we switched to Miracle Made Sheets. They're inspired by NASA technology. They use silver infused temperature regulating fabric to help you sleep perfectly all night long. That doesn't totally make sense to me. But what does make sense to me is how well they work. It just, if it's hot in there, they make me cooler. If it's cool in there, they make me a little warmer. And because of the antibacterial silver technology, they also stay cleaner and fresher up to three times longer than regular sheets.

• 57:37Wes Larson?

  That means fewer odors, fewer wash cycles, way less laundry. So it keeps them cleaner and we don't have to do laundry quite as much. Plus, they feel great. I hate like scratchy sheets or sheets that just don't feel soft enough. And these ones feel like the sheets you'd find at a five-star hotel, but without that really steep price tag. They're smooth, they're breathable, ridiculously comfortable. So go to trymiracle.com/tooth to try Miracle Made Sheets today. You'll save over 40%. And when you use promo code TOOTH, you'll get an extra 20% off plus a free three-piece towel set. They make an amazing gift. And with a 30-day money-back guarantee, there's no risk. That's trymiracle.com/tooth, code

• 58:21Wes Larson?

  TOOTH at checkout. And thanks to Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. All right, so we will go into our categories and we are here with a special guest today. We're talking with John Marco Saresi, who is a comedian and host of the Downside Podcast. Did I say your name right, John Marco?

• 58:40Speaker 03

  It was, it was, it was so good. I hesitate to give any notes, but Saresi, like crazy.

• 58:46Wes Larson?

  Saresi, Saresi. Okay, I got it. All right. All right, well, uh, you know, we're excited to have you on. I've followed you for a long time. I really enjoy all your stuff.

• 58:57Speaker 03

  Thanks.

• 58:58Wes Larson?

  Kind of reached out to you on a whim and you said yes, which was very generous of you.

• 59:02Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, had you heard of us at all?

• 59:04Speaker 03

  I, no, no offense. I just, I listen to many politics newsy podcasts, but I was immediately drawn to it because I have a great reverence for, for animals. I do a lot of animal experience things when I'm on the road and I've been all over the world. So, so I've been able to meet all sorts of animals I never thought I'd see. And I also am terrified of animals too. So it really fits both my things.

• 59:30Jeff Larson?

  It was, it was just funny from our end because it's like our manager told us that you were following us and we are, we were fans of you. So we like checked right away and you weren't. And we were like, well, let's reach out anyways.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  That's so funny. I do follow a number of animal accounts. I, I stopped following like, you know, those like nature is metal. You know, I'm, yeah, like some of that, it's, it's too triggering for my existential angst.

• 1:00:00Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I did see, I saw you try to watch the movie obsession the other day and you had a hard time with that. So I, I can imagine nature is metal isn't right up your alley either.

• 1:00:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, people were not happy with my, my reactions to the movie. It wasn't even a reaction. I said, I was scared going to sleep. That the woman would murder me. And they said, the guy's actually the villain. And I said, that may be, that may be so. But I'm not scared of him when I'm going to bed. Like you understand.

• 1:00:27Jeff Larson?

  If he makes a wish, you should be scared. He makes a wish about you in some regard.

• 1:00:33Speaker 03

  You're right. That, that would have been the more appropriate. I should have, I should have, I should have gone to bed going, I'm scared of the patriarchy. I understand the point of the movie. I do. I really do. But I'm scared of the woman who smashes your head with a brick.

• 1:00:46Jeff Larson?

  We actually, we had the nature is metal guy on the podcast and talked to him about it and just, yeah, it was interesting. Because he's had what, like three of our videos on his site now.

• 1:00:59Speaker 03

  I mean, it's, it's, it's just, it's, that's, that's the beauty and horror of, of nature is that you can't civilize it. And that's what that, you know, I, I was, I was thinking, I was getting ready for this and I was thinking about, I went to the, the sphere in Las Vegas. And I saw, it's so cool. I, I watched whatever they're like, it's called a postmark, a postcard to earth. It's about global warming and stuff. But you know, they do this incredible nature landscape with all these lions and tigers. And I was like, where's the cock and balls? There wasn't any genitals on these animals. And you know, cause it was like created, it was like, you know, like a CGI, whatever.

• 1:01:39Speaker 03

  And it's just one of those things I go, you, it doesn't work. It doesn't, it especially magnified like that.

• 1:01:46Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that, that was like an Aronofsky thing, right? Aronofsky is all about the, the junk, right?

• 1:01:52Speaker 03

  I, I hope so. I hope so. If you have animals, that's part of it. And I think every Pokemon should have an anus. And I, we'll see if it still thrives. But, but like, that's part of the thing.

• 1:02:03Wes Larson?

  They have to. I mean, it's part of, yeah. All right.

• 1:02:07Jeff Larson?

  Well, what was the one, the movie, the like live action cats, right? Wasn't that the whole thing?

• 1:02:13Speaker 03

  Again, genitalless cats.

• 1:02:15Jeff Larson?

  You love that.

• 1:02:16Speaker 03

  James Corden, James Corden should have had something going on down there. There's nothing.

• 1:02:22Wes Larson?

  All right. Well, I have, I have some questions lined up for you, John Marco.

• 1:02:26Speaker 03

  Cool.

• 1:02:26Wes Larson?

  And we're excited to ask them to you, especially now knowing that you have an appreciation for wildlife. I think you'll be able to answer some of these. But the first one, and this is something we ask all of our guests, is what is your favorite wild animal and why?

• 1:02:41Speaker 03

  I think my favorite wild animal, there's going to be some crossover with some of these, these questions. Cause some of the favorite things I'm also the most scared of. But, but I, I think, I think, uh, and I've never seen them live, but a, a bonobo.

• 1:02:58Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:58Speaker 03

  I find bonobos very funny. And I, I can't, I think it's just like, it's so close to being human that you really just can connect to a lot of things. I just got to see snow monkeys in Japan. I don't know if that's, I don't know what the correct term is, but like, yeah. But I, I love, I, I, I really do. At the end of the day, I just go, you're seeing a lot of our impulses, uh, without society to govern them. And you just are witnessing, they're, they're people. They're people. If I think about it too, you know, and so I'd rather see them in the wild than in, than in the zoo.

• 1:03:36Wes Larson?

  Well, bonobos are like the, they're like chimpanzees, but instead of ripping each other's faces off, they're like scissoring and stuff. Like that's their whole thing is they're like into having sex with each other. Yeah.

• 1:03:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. And they're all, they're all into it. They're all like happy. They're all seeming to have a good time. And, and so, yeah, I do, I, I would really, really want to see them in, in the wild. I think I've only seen, you know, at zoos.

• 1:04:01Mike Smith?

  We gotta get those macaques in the sphere. What is it? The like 4DX where it's like you incorporate, like spray you with stuff? What, what's this theater? They like spray you with stuff?

• 1:04:11Wes Larson?

  That's, that's the 4D. Yeah.

• 1:04:13Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Wes Larson?

  What would you, what would you want to be sprayed with? Warm water?

• 1:04:16Mike Smith?

  Well, the hot, the hot spring water, right? Cause they're.

• 1:04:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 1:04:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:22Wes Larson?

  All right. Well, that leads right into our next question then pretty well, I think. Uh, what's the biggest animal you think you could personally take in a no weapons fight?

• 1:04:31Speaker 03

  I don't want to be arrogant here. Like I'm not, I'm certainly not a guy like I could do this. I think the thing that I'm like, I would love, I would love to try is those, now I've seen some kangaroos. I saw some kangaroos this year in Australia. I fed some kangaroos, but these are not the kind of kangaroos I'm talking about. I wanted, I want to fight the ones where like they look like they bench.

• 1:04:54Wes Larson?

  The ripped ones.

• 1:04:55Speaker 03

  The ripped ones. And they like, you're like, that is a human bicep, whatever your arm, whatever the physiology like that is.

• 1:05:03Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  And I, I, I saw that famous video where the guy punches one to get his dog back. So I think I could, I think it would be a really close fight, but I feel proud of myself for defeating it.

• 1:05:17Wes Larson?

  It's a good answer. There's precedent. Yeah.

• 1:05:20Mike Smith?

  IMDb has you listed. It says you're six foot four.

• 1:05:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:05:25Mike Smith?

  Is that true?

• 1:05:25Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:05:26Mike Smith?

  Okay. So you got reach on these kangaroos then?

• 1:05:28Speaker 03

  Cause they have, do they have short, they have kind of shorter arms?

• 1:05:30Mike Smith?

  Short arms.

• 1:05:31Jeff Larson?

  Well, that's what's tricky though, is they'll balance on their tail and like double kick you. So you're like, you know, you got your hands up, but they're going to get you.

• 1:05:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. So I, I really, but that's the thing. It's like a boss move where it's like a, like a final boss of video game. You wait for the big kick. They go back to do it. If you avoid that, if you get hit by that, you're done. But if you avoid it, then you go and boom, boom, boom. And then you reset.

• 1:05:57Mike Smith?

  Dodger.

• 1:05:58Speaker 03

  And then you just do that until their health bar is fully depleted.

• 1:06:01Wes Larson?

  That's a good answer. I like it.

• 1:06:03Mike Smith?

  Easy.

• 1:06:03Wes Larson?

  I think there's precedent, you know, that guy punching it in the face and getting his dog away. I would say he won that fight.

• 1:06:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:11Wes Larson?

  And yeah, I agree with Mike with six, four reach, you could probably win.

• 1:06:15Speaker 03

  I don't think they, like, I don't think they're going to see the fights. I think they would retreat. At least what I've seen of kangaroos. Like I don't think they expect to get hit back. Like when that kangaroo got punched, he was like, whoa, what? What the hell dude? I was just trying to eat this delicious dog. I would have given you some.

• 1:06:37Wes Larson?

  Have you seen that article? And it turned out to be a hoax, but there's an MMA fighter that said he was going to fight a chimpanzee.

• 1:06:43Speaker 03

  Oh, was it? I just saw that. So it wasn't real.

• 1:06:46Wes Larson?

  It's not real. Um.

• 1:06:48Speaker 03

  That's too bad.

• 1:06:48Wes Larson?

  But do you think he could have done it?

• 1:06:49Jeff Larson?

  I kind of feel like it's too bad too. And it's like, I shouldn't as like a conservationist, but it's like, he like, he donated a bunch of money to chimpanzees. I'm like, no, I wanted to see what was going to happen.

• 1:07:02Wes Larson?

  They got to sacrifice one. There's a certain amount of money you can donate while they'll let you fight one.

• 1:07:07Speaker 03

  Because don't they, don't they like, they instinctively, they go like face and genitals like right away?

• 1:07:14Wes Larson?

  Yeah, they're, they're the worst.

• 1:07:16Speaker 03

  Yeah. But that's the thing is like human, like even a UFC fighter with whatever lack of morality it entails to be that as a profession. There's no way that an televised event, the first thing you're going to do is rip off a chimpanzee's penis. Like no one's, no one's going to root for you. No, no political party is going to get behind that. No one's going to be excited for that moment. They will be horrified. And that's the way to win. That's the way to win.

• 1:07:44Wes Larson?

  I think we have a political party that would get behind that right now.

• 1:07:49Mike Smith?

  And put it on the front lawn, I think.

• 1:07:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah, they would probably be into that.

• 1:07:56Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that's a good point. And they have weapons. I mean, I, I still pick the chimpanzee. Jeff, who, I'm curious.

• 1:08:02Jeff Larson?

  I think I'd, so my whole thing is I have said on the record, I think I have like a 3% chance against a chimpanzee. Just because I'm about like three times more weight than they have, right? Like the, an adult chimpanzee is like 50 pounds.

• 1:08:21Wes Larson?

  They're bigger than that.

• 1:08:22Speaker 03

  Oh, I didn't realize that.

• 1:08:23Jeff Larson?

  They can be bigger, but they also can be 50 pounds.

• 1:08:27Wes Larson?

  80 to 120 for the males. Yeah.

• 1:08:30Speaker 03

  Okay. What's like, what's like a big?

• 1:08:32Jeff Larson?

  Fighting a female.

• 1:08:33Speaker 03

  Oh, I see.

• 1:08:36Wes Larson?

  Travis, that chimp that ripped that one lady's face off in 2008.

• 1:08:40Jeff Larson?

  I'm not beating Travis.

• 1:08:41Wes Larson?

  He was like 200 pounds. He was a big chimpanzee.

• 1:08:44Jeff Larson?

  I'm saying if it's like an 80 pound chimpanzee, I have a 3% chance. I'm sure. And people think it's insane that I say that. People are like, you are delusional. I'm like, I think I'm gonna lose.

• 1:08:57Wes Larson?

  By people, he means me. Yeah. All right. Well, on that note, John Marco, if you, you said that you are intimidated by some animals. So what animal do you think is the most intimidating animal out there? I don't want to say scary because we don't want to make people afraid of animals, but as far as intimidation.

• 1:09:14Jeff Larson?

  What keeps you up at night? Once you watch a video of them?

• 1:09:17Wes Larson?

  Besides the obsession girl.

• 1:09:20Speaker 03

  I mean, I think there's no greater moment captured in a documentary than, uh, uh, oh God, what's the famous director?

• 1:09:28Mike Smith?

  Grizzly man.

• 1:09:29Speaker 03

  For Grizzly.

• 1:09:30Mike Smith?

  Werner Herzog. Yeah.

• 1:09:31Speaker 03

  And I think of Werner Herzog listening and then going like, don't ever listen to this tape. And to me, those, those big grizzly bears, like, like it just seems, just the weight of them. I, I remember seeing one in, in, uh, it wasn't the wild, but they have like these shoulder muscle or one big muscle on their back where you're like, it's gigantic. And I just think they tear you apart. They would tear your shoulder off. And I, thinking about Werner Herzog, and I'd be thinking about Werner Herzog as it was happening. That'd be my last thought. It's like, oh, I hope no one's taping this.

• 1:10:10Jeff Larson?

  Have you ever like gone to see him in the wild, grizzlies?

• 1:10:14Speaker 03

  Werner Herzog.

• 1:10:17Speaker 03

  I've never seen them in the wild. I went to something in, I think it was Vancouver and there were, it was like, you know, a very, very big outdoor zoo like thing. And so I did see, I saw just how big, just how big it was.

• 1:10:32Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. No, that's a really good answer. Like you know, boss.

• 1:10:35Wes Larson?

  I'm a bear biologist. I work with them and I am still intimidated by them. Like they are an impressive intimidating animal. So I think it's a good pick.

• 1:10:44Speaker 03

  I, so it's, is it correct? So a black bear, you make yourself big?

• 1:10:51Wes Larson?

  You're opening up a real, real Pandora's box.

• 1:10:53Jeff Larson?

  That's good though. That is good.

• 1:10:55Speaker 03

  Can I say, they do not talk enough in schools about how to survive animal attacks. They taught me, they, they're teaching me fucking Latin and I'm like, I can't say, I see a bear go, like I, I need to know what to do.

• 1:11:11Wes Larson?

  No, you're right. With black bears, you want to be aggressive. You want to be dominating. You want to make sure the bear knows you're in charge of that.

• 1:11:18Mike Smith?

  Do you think black bears are like, seems like there's a real BDSM kind of thing? Cause you want to dominate. They like to be dominated is what you're saying?

• 1:11:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, with black bears, you want to peg them right at the gate, right away.

• 1:11:31Mike Smith?

  That'll get them.

• 1:11:32Speaker 03

  So brown bears though, you, you, you play dead?

• 1:11:35Wes Larson?

  No, I mean, that's, that's what you do. If you, if you're being mauled by a brown bear and you have no other way out of that situation, then you can play dead and just hope that it's a defensive attack and it's going to leave you alone. But, um, what you want is a deterrent. You need like a bear spray or, or if you're really good with a firearm, maybe a firearm. But we recommend bear spray. And if you see a brown bear, you want to group up slowly back away and get your bear spray ready. And if it comes at you, use your bear spray.

• 1:12:05Speaker 03

  Just right in the eyes.

• 1:12:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah. And yeah, kind of in front of you, creating a cloud in front of you that it has to pass through to get to you.

• 1:12:11Jeff Larson?

  It's not like mace where you gotta be accurate. It's a huge like of spray. So it's not like you gotta aim at their eyes.

• 1:12:22Speaker 03

  Is your, are your eyes gonna sting too?

• 1:12:24Wes Larson?

  A little bit. It's okay. It's better than getting mauled by a grizzly bear.

• 1:12:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. And then the same thing. It's, it's a, the, the polar bear, what is it?

• 1:12:31Wes Larson?

  The good night thing. Yeah. We don't, we don't, we don't subscribe to that rule here. I, I did seven years of polar bear research and they, they're a curious bear. But they usually don't want to mess with us. So, yeah.

• 1:12:44Speaker 03

  Wow. A lot of misinformation out there. I'm sure you know, I'm sure.

• 1:12:46Wes Larson?

  That's what, that's the whole purpose of the show that you're guessing on.

• 1:12:50Mike Smith?

  What, what year in elementary school do you think we should start running kids through this though? It's like ABC is today, tomorrow, the dangers of getting ripped apart by a bear kind of thing or?

• 1:12:59Speaker 03

  I guess the age that animals would find them delicious. So right away, right away. I think children's books, all these children books being like, look at the cute, the Lion King, like you know, every children's book should be a survival guide.

• 1:13:12Wes Larson?

  We went in Montana, we had that in elementary school. Like we had a group come to our school called Bear Aware. And we learned bear safety in elementary school. So it was like, that was part of our curriculum.

• 1:13:24Jeff Larson?

  How to play dead.

• 1:13:25Wes Larson?

  Yeah, this was outdated information, but yeah.

• 1:13:29Mike Smith?

  Know how to survive a nuke, but not a bear attack. We, we got that in school.

• 1:13:35Wes Larson?

  We have a category.

• 1:13:36Jeff Larson?

  How do you survive a nuke?

• 1:13:38Mike Smith?

  You hide under the desk, dude. You get under the desk, you're safe. It's like every, every, yeah, play dead.

• 1:13:44Wes Larson?

  That's the fourth verse.

• 1:13:46Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 1:13:46Wes Larson?

  That's the fourth verse of that rhyme. If it's a nuke, get under your desk. We have an, we have a category called let's argue where we bring up a topic that's possibly controversial. And we sometimes argue and sometimes we don't. And today I know you, um, are a Sopranos fan, John Marco.

• 1:14:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:05Wes Larson?

  And so the topic that I came up with is, is Tony Soprano hot? And we're going to argue about whether or not Tony Soprano is hot.

• 1:14:14Speaker 03

  Sure, sure.

• 1:14:16Wes Larson?

  Cause I am a big, I, you know, I'm a, I'm a straight dude, but I think Tony Soprano is hot. And when I watched that show, I was just like, there is something about this guy. There's an, an energy that emanates off of him and he's a hot dude.

• 1:14:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think he's very hot and I think it's an important role model because I, I'm 38 and I grew up like in the Abercrombie and Fitch, era. And it was, you know, it's so easy as a kid to be like, to be hot is to be jacked. To be hot is to look like Mark Wahlberg. And he shows like, oh, guys can be hot in, in very fat ways. And like, there is just, like, there is a swagger, there is an intensity, there is a charm. There is so many things going on. He's absolutely, absolutely hot. I would, I would much rather if I was like competing at a party and trying to hook up with, with, and it was like, it was me or, uh,

• 1:15:15Speaker 03

  ooh, I mean, Ryan Gosling's pretty tough. Let's go Mark Wahlberg. Mark Wahlberg, me, whatever party this is, that somehow, it's James Gandolfini, me and Mark Wahlberg hitting on the same woman. I, I'm putting my money on James Gandolfini.

• 1:15:32Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I'm right there with you.

• 1:15:34Jeff Larson?

  That's a good way to think of it.

• 1:15:35Wes Larson?

  Jeff and Mike.

• 1:15:36Jeff Larson?

  You think though, in the Sopranos, like part of it's just the people he surrounds himself with too, makes him look better?

• 1:15:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, it wasn't a cast of lookers. You know, like it wasn't.

• 1:15:48Jeff Larson?

  You got Polly next to him.

• 1:15:50Wes Larson?

  Yeah, fair enough. I will say by the last season too, when he's like, you can hear him just being,

• 1:15:58Wes Larson?

  it kind of decreases the hotness a little bit.

• 1:16:00Mike Smith?

  You can like taste him through the screen. I will say in the, the therapy sessions with Peter Bogdanovich, he, there's just something vulnerable enough where my heart opens. My heart's like, I'm open for business.

• 1:16:12Jeff Larson?

  Fix him.

• 1:16:13Mike Smith?

  But like, as soon as I imagine like getting physical with him, I just like,

• 1:16:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, you don't have to go that far.

• 1:16:20Mike Smith?

  Perspiration is just gnarly, you know?

• 1:16:22Speaker 03

  I know, but it would never be like, he'd give you a bottle of wine first, some pasta. You'd be in such a good headspace. Some gaba ghul.

• 1:16:33Wes Larson?

  All right. Well, I'm glad that was your answer because I feel like I've brought that up before and gotten shot down pretty quick by these two.

• 1:16:39Mike Smith?

  I just, yeah, I don't know. I'll stick to my guns. I'm going to argue against it. I think he's a, I think morally reprehensible is what I'm going to say. I don't care.

• 1:16:48Jeff Larson?

  Oh, I see. Yeah. I, I think he's physically attractive, but his personality ruins.

• 1:16:58Wes Larson?

  All right. Well, this was our news episode. So we, we talk about a lot of news stories that happened the last six weeks. And often those stories involve some kind of video or viral video. And so we're curious if you have a favorite viral video involving an animal or an animal attack.

• 1:17:15Speaker 03

  My favorite animal viral video I think about all the time. It's, uh, I, first of all, just as a category, uh, school trips to the zoo. And, and the teachers not knowing how to handle what's going on in, in the cage. And there's a one, and it's, I, I think it's a chimpanzee, or it's some kind of monkey. And, uh, it picks up a frog, and it starts, uh, fucking the frog. It, it starts using the frog as like a fleshlight of sorts. And you've never seen this video?

• 1:17:50Wes Larson?

  No.

• 1:17:51Speaker 03

  Oh, this, I thought this was like a classic. I thought you'd be like, guys, this is the 20th time someone's brought that one up.

• 1:17:56Wes Larson?

  No.

• 1:17:58Speaker 03

  No, it is, it is, it is incredible. It is, it is just astounding. And then, and then if I remember correctly, he throws the frog away, doesn't even say like, you know, goodnight.

• 1:18:08Wes Larson?

  No pillow talk.

• 1:18:09Speaker 03

  No pillow talk. And I just-

• 1:18:12Wes Larson?

  Smokes a cigarette afterward.

• 1:18:14Speaker 03

  It's, it's just like, it's one of the few revenges an animal can have for like, us trying to package their existence for entertainment.

• 1:18:23Wes Larson?

  It's like, oh, you want a show? I'll give you a show.

• 1:18:26Jeff Larson?

  Well, like, you know, the chimpanzee maybe is just like, it doesn't know, like, he probably thought the kids would be interested in seeing that. I, you know, he's like, here's all this kids watching me, I better do, figure out something to do, you know?

• 1:18:44Speaker 03

  I, I'm sure you guys talk about it, but I, I really do wonder what AI is gonna do to the animal video category, because it's, it's so many fake videos right out the gate of, of animals. And, you know, it's animals and babies. The babies one, I'm like, guys, you know, I, people aren't, aren't like cynical enough to be like, do you understand how, why this is so bad? But the animal ones, it's like, they're everywhere. They're everywhere. And some of them are so crazy, you would hope people realize, you know, it's like an elephant, a hippo farting and it's blown away.

• 1:19:20Jeff Larson?

  One of the crazy ones that people really believed was, in one of the floods, there was like a sloth picking a dog out of the water. And people are like, oh, this sloth's a hero. But it's tough, because a lot of times it is based in truth, too. Like, there's a snow leopard who attacked a snowboarder taking a selfie of, of the snow leopard, you know?

• 1:19:43Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:19:44Jeff Larson?

  And then they made an AI video of it, like, pouncing at her. So it's like, the story's real. So then people, it's easier to believe this AI video of it pouncing at her, you know?

• 1:19:56Speaker 03

  It's, it's, we're, it's, it's, I don't know. It's just because I feel like all the videos are gonna be like, be sweet, and they're gonna be like Disney versions and fake versions of nature. And I don't know, may, maybe it'll make it like everything else, like, well, you gotta see it in person to like, really get excited. But it sucks. It really sucks to see something and then find out it was fake. You start, you know, shakes your nature of reality.

• 1:20:19Wes Larson?

  As it, like, I, as a wildlife biologist, like, I can't tell you how many animal videos get sent to me on a daily basis. And now, a good percentage of them are AI. And I have to constantly just be like, that's AI, that's AI. But it's getting to the point where it's getting pretty hard to tell. Like, even for me, which ones are AI. So it sucks.

• 1:20:39Speaker 03

  I think in a weird way, like, old videos will be like, you know, it's almost like how physical media, like, showed you a time from before things were fucked up. Like, old media will be like, this was before video was ruined. And, and there'll be museums where you can watch that chimpanzee fuck the frog.

• 1:20:56Jeff Larson?

  It's real.

• 1:20:56Speaker 03

  We're telling our grandkids.

• 1:20:58Wes Larson?

  We know that's real. That's real, kids. You guys don't know what you're missing. Uh, John Marco, I know you, um, enjoy a musical. And have some background in musicals. So last night, I put a bunch of names into a random generator. And I pulled out three names. And I want you to tell me, who of these three people you think would make the best musical about their life? So first person is Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter. Second person is Osama bin Laden. And the third person happened to be, uh, the recently departed Charlie Kirk.

• 1:21:38Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:21:38Wes Larson?

  So of those three people, who would you most want to make a musical about? And bonus points if you can name it.

• 1:21:45Speaker 03

  Uh, man, that is, those are all really good ones. I mean, Osama bin Laden would, would definitely be, there'd be the big nine 11 o'clock number. And I think that's exciting.

• 1:22:00Jeff Larson?

  I feel like they kinda just did that, that movies that just came out called The Musical, where it's like the kids play.

• 1:22:07Speaker 03

  Oh, is, I didn't see, is it about Osama bin Laden?

• 1:22:10Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, it's like Rob Lowe, but it's about like nine 11. It's, I keep seeing clips for it. And it's really funny.

• 1:22:18Speaker 03

  There is a nine 11, it's themed, not themed, it's a nine 11 musical about like, all these planes that it's called, uh, Come Far Away, Come From Home, where all these planes that were in the air, they like, went to one particular island, like during nine 11, because they were like-

• 1:22:33Jeff Larson?

  Epstein.

• 1:22:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, it was Epstein Island. That, they, they did kind of a fusion of the two. There's another great musical for sure. I mean, God.

• 1:22:41Jeff Larson?

  I didn't mean to interrupt you. Keep, keep running through the other ones.

• 1:22:45Speaker 03

  Epstein, you could just use the same cast from Annie. So I would say, I mean, Steve Irwin sounds exciting to me because I like the moment of like, the animals being kinda like, fun. And then when they, when one kills Steve Irwin, it becomes like, suddenly, the puppets become scary. And you start seeing the teeth. And you start, you start seeing like, the, the other side of nature. And, uh, I think there would be a-

• 1:23:12Wes Larson?

  There's just this stingray, like, hanging out in the back that's always just like, you know, fuck this guy.

• 1:23:16Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, and then I think that would be, honestly, like, what I think I like about the Steve Irwin one is the first act of Steve Irwin, and it ends with him dying. And then it, you know, the, the animals flutter away, and there's like, Steve's son. Because I do think like, the, the beauty of that story, is Steve's son is like, very cool. And, and also, an incredible dancer. I saw him on, uh, uh,

• 1:23:47Jeff Larson?

  Dancing with the Stars.

• 1:23:49Speaker 03

  Dancing with the Stars. And it was like, wait, I'm confused. Are you a dancer? This is insane. So I think like, the, the, the animals being revealed to being like, oh my God, this is actually sad and scary, to seeing him kind of take his father's name.

• 1:24:05Jeff Larson?

  And he, he plays his dad in the musical. That'd be-

• 1:24:09Speaker 03

  Plays his dad.

• 1:24:10Wes Larson?

  Oh, he does like a nutty professor type of thing.

• 1:24:12Speaker 03

  I'm sure he'd love to portray his father's gruesome death at the hands of a, but this time, a Disney-inspired puppet stingray. I'm sure he'd really love that.

• 1:24:22Mike Smith?

  I can't, I can't get the image out of my brain now, though, of Osama's just like center stage solo, and then a bunch of Al Qaeda just do like a Bob Fosse shuffle from off the side of the stage, like, back in him. Oh, man, we gotta make this happen.

• 1:24:36Speaker 03

  I mean, of course, these are all good. And I do think Erica Kirk would be a Tony Award-winning, I mean, just one of the great female roles of all time.

• 1:24:45Jeff Larson?

  See, I don't think she's a very good actor.

• 1:24:50Speaker 03

  Sure. Sure. I mean, she would be willing, believe you me, she would be willing to play herself in that. TPUSA finally gets their Broadway credit. It'll be very exciting.

• 1:25:03Wes Larson?

  All right. Well, what are we naming this? Oh, go ahead, Jeff.

• 1:25:05Jeff Larson?

  Well, I wanted, I might sidetrack.

• 1:25:08Wes Larson?

  You can, no, you can sidetrack. Go for it.

• 1:25:10Jeff Larson?

  But me and Mike just did an episode, without Wes, actually. So you weigh in too, Wes. But, uh, John Marco, what would you, what do you think is like, the most famous actual animal that's ever lived? Because the stingray that killed Steve Irwin is up there, I think.

• 1:25:28Speaker 03

  Sure. I mean, I think people put so much around Harambe, for sure.

• 1:25:33Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:34Speaker 03

  Like, that definitely was a big, there's, there's, there's Lassie, there's like, but we don't know, Lassie could have been a bunch of different dogs. So I don't think that counts.

• 1:25:43Jeff Larson?

  Like, a hundred years from now, are they talking about any of those?

• 1:25:48Speaker 03

  Though, that's really, that's a really good-

• 1:25:50Mike Smith?

  We moved Flipper on ahead of Harambe, I think. And that was a real mistake.

• 1:25:56Mike Smith?

  We have a lot of regrets this all went down, but.

• 1:25:59Wes Larson?

  I feel like, do cartoon characters count in this?

• 1:26:04Jeff Larson?

  No.

• 1:26:04Speaker 03

  I think it's gotta be a real, like, one real.

• 1:26:07Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:26:07Speaker 03

  One real animal.

• 1:26:09Wes Larson?

  A real animal. Yeah. Who did you guys settle on? Was it Tilikum?

• 1:26:13Jeff Larson?

  I did Tilikum because it's the only orca who's ever killed a person. So I think a hundred years from now, that sticks, you know?

• 1:26:20Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:21Speaker 03

  I think the, the, are they called coconut crabs that ate Amelia Earhart?

• 1:26:26Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Oh, that's a good pick.

• 1:26:29Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 1:26:29Mike Smith?

  Oh, digging deep for that one. Nice.

• 1:26:31Speaker 03

  Or the dingo, the dingo that ate the baby?

• 1:26:34Wes Larson?

  Oh, we did that episode. Yeah.

• 1:26:36Speaker 03

  That's another big one.

• 1:26:37Jeff Larson?

  That's a good pick.

• 1:26:38Speaker 03

  You know who you should have on, uh, is you should try to get Anthony Jeselnik. Like, I mean, talk about, like, someone who loves animal. I mean, cause like animal deaths, they freak me out. And he loved, you know, his, I'm sure you know, his infamous shark party. And, uh, uh, I, he did the podcast. He was talking about, uh, when he kind of stopped believing in God early on, but he talked about, uh, Jonah and the whale. And I, I said, I said, I think the reason he hated it so much was that it was a story where a man was eaten by an animal and then got to survive. And that was his going, oh, that's not real. That was the moment.

• 1:27:15Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Yeah. We just did an episode on that even, on Jonah and the whale. So yeah, this sounds like a perfect, a perfect guest. Yeah, I, I kind of, I think my knee jerk is Smokey the bear. Cause it's based on a real bear and like, he's all over.

• 1:27:32Speaker 03

  It's based on a real bear?

• 1:27:34Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:34Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, in New Mexico.

• 1:27:36Speaker 03

  That did what?

• 1:27:37Wes Larson?

  Survived a forest fire.

• 1:27:39Speaker 03

  Oh, he survived a forest fire?

• 1:27:40Wes Larson?

  Yeah. So they like, used him as a mascot. Yeah, Jeff's been to his grave.

• 1:27:46Jeff Larson?

  I don't know though. Moby Dick's bigger than Smokey.

• 1:27:49Wes Larson?

  Oh, that's a good one. Yeah.

• 1:27:51Jeff Larson?

  But you gotta think that this.

• 1:27:52Wes Larson?

  That wasn't a real whale. That's not a real whale though. They based it on a real story, but yeah.

• 1:27:57Jeff Larson?

  Well, like, I wish Tillamook was actually Shamu because Shamu's like.

• 1:28:03Mike Smith?

  But she loves her ice cream, but sure.

• 1:28:06Wes Larson?

  You don't even remember his name. That can't be your answer. Yeah. All right. Well, I'll have to think more on it. Um, John Marco, have you ever personally had a scary run in with an animal?

• 1:28:17Speaker 03

  I was trying to think of this. I mean, I have a fear of cats. And I just, I was scratched when I was like a very little kid by my stepdad's cat. So it had a lot of like, you know, metaphorical weight too. And, uh, I, I just. I had a cat at my dad's house and they would do that thing where like, she would wait by a hallway. You had to walk down. And just wait for you to walk. You had to walk and she knew it. And she'd wait for you to cross it and then would go and scratch you. So for me, that was this weird experience in my home of sudden danger.

• 1:28:56Speaker 03

  That I, I had, I needed to go through to get to my bedroom. And I, so for me, that's, that's the scariest encounter I've had. Was, was with a cat.

• 1:29:05Wes Larson?

  House cat.

• 1:29:06Speaker 03

  With a house cat. That's the closest I've come to ten.

• 1:29:10Wes Larson?

  We'll take it. Yep. I like it. Uh, animal you would most want to see in the wild? You could see any animal out there.

• 1:29:16Speaker 03

  I mean, I've, I've been lucky. I've seen it. I've seen a lot. I really think doing a shark cage would.

• 1:29:27Speaker 03

  I would have to feel so goddamn sure that we're safe, but like, I can't think of anything that would, that would really make me feel.

• 1:29:36Jeff Larson?

  I think once you got into the cage, you'd feel pretty safe, honestly. Like when we did it, our mom was fine. Everyone, like it's not, but yeah.

• 1:29:46Wes Larson?

  And they were great whites. I mean.

• 1:29:48Jeff Larson?

  It is intimidating still to like.

• 1:29:50Speaker 03

  Do they, do they like run at the cage? Like, were they like?

• 1:29:53Wes Larson?

  Not with us.

• 1:29:54Mike Smith?

  They circled around it. It's really cool though.

• 1:29:57Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I think, I think with sharks specifically, people often don't realize. Once they're in the water, just how beautiful that animal actually is and how that fear kind of melts away. And you realize you're not looking at a scary animal. You're looking at like one of the most beautiful animals on the planet. And you still feel that fear, but like for me, I walk away from a shark experience always just like absolutely in love with sharks.

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• 1:31:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that would be, that would be incredible. That and then honestly, a, a, a more tame one would be horses. I, cause my dad had horses. I've seen horses, but horses in the wild to me is such a surreal thing. And like, what do they do on their own? And I really would like to see wild horses.

• 1:32:11Wes Larson?

  Pretty much the same shit they do in a house.

• 1:32:13Speaker 03

  Pretty much.

• 1:32:16Wes Larson?

  Like eat grass and do nothing. Uh, cool. All right. Uh, let's see here. What animal do you think best represents your general vibe?

• 1:32:28Speaker 03

  I think, uh, a meerkat. Meerkat feels like, just like the twitchy, very stressed and then hide, hide, hide, hide, hide, hide. And then pop up and then hide again. So, cause you know, when, when you, if you do enough acting classes, at some point you do. An animal exercise. And it, there's varying degrees, how seriously people take the animal exercise. I took it deathly seriously. And I, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and I did, I did a meerkat. And so lots of, just in my living room alone. My poor father.

• 1:33:03Jeff Larson?

  You still got some meerkat in you. Like that doesn't just go away.

• 1:33:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got some meerkat in me.

• 1:33:09Mike Smith?

  Like Austin Butler is still kind of embodies Elvis now?

• 1:33:14Speaker 03

  I think like, I don't know how much acting I'll do in, in my life still, but, but a lot of the great performances, like if you talk to those actors. Like Jim Carrey, when he did, uh, Ace Ventura, like he, I think he based it off like a cockatoo or whatever, like just the movements. If you really want to create a dynamic, you know, and you wanted to feel like ring true somehow. It's like, look no further than, than a real animal.

• 1:33:38Wes Larson?

  That's great. I think that's a perfect answer. I was gonna have you assign animals to us too, but I don't think you know us well enough yet. If you want to give it a shot, you can, but it feels like a bit of a stretch.

• 1:33:48Speaker 03

  I, I, I, I fear I would, I would offend. I'd say, uh, Jeffrey is a sardine.

• 1:33:58Speaker 03

  I don't know. I was just talking shit. What animals? Do you guys have your like gut answers?

• 1:34:03Wes Larson?

  I don't know. Yeah. That's why I'm always curious to see what people would say, but.

• 1:34:08Mike Smith?

  Maybe we can all be sardines. So.

• 1:34:09Wes Larson?

  Yeah, well, I'll be just three sardines packed into a little thing of kibbert bits or whatever they put them in.

• 1:34:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:34:15Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I like that. All right. Uh, we know you did a big tour not too long ago. I think that's around when we started talking to you. And I'm curious, we've done a lot of traveling over the last couple of years. What country that you went to on that tour were you most surprised by?

• 1:34:32Speaker 03

  I mean, God, I mean, India was was was the most like, oh, my God, I don't. There's a whole world out there that I do not understand. And like,

• 1:34:43Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:44Speaker 03

  I was there. It was so quick. I was in Mumbai for four days and then Bangalore for one. And um, I I mean, I love the cows that were outside the Hindu temples that you got to feed. And they also were like different cows than the cows I'm familiar with.

• 1:35:04Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:05Speaker 03

  And I mean, India was just like, it was, it's it's, I mean, it's overwhelming as hell. And it's like, you know, the the the levels. I thought New York is like where you witness kind of all levels of human society, kind of all at once interacting. India, it's like the range is even wider.

• 1:35:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:25Speaker 03

  And it's it's chaos. It's it's crazy to, I don't know how it functions, because it's just, I don't know how we drove anywhere. The streets, the streets, they feel like open roads sometimes. And um, food was incredible. So yeah, India is definitely. That that was that was the most like, I've never experienced anything like this. But I really want to go back to India.

• 1:35:49Wes Larson?

  India, India has some of the best wildlife safaris in the world, too. If you get back, really want it. Like the tiger parks, you go see wild tigers, wild like leopards sometimes. It's, we love India.

• 1:36:01Jeff Larson?

  We saw like a bear, a leopard, and a tiger all in.

• 1:36:05Wes Larson?

  And a snow leopard on a different day, yeah.

• 1:36:07Speaker 03

  I would have to like, because whenever I go on these tours, like, obviously, I get scared. And like, like, for example, what happened to that Game of Thrones editor that got eaten by a lion? There was some like Emmy award winning editor, that was the news was like, you know, no one knew their name, but it was like, they went on a safari tour. And a lion ate them. And I guess it's like, you want the story to be like, they didn't listen. They they they stood up when they weren't supposed to stand. But like,

• 1:36:37Wes Larson?

  It's usually something like that.

• 1:36:39Speaker 03

  I'm probably gonna write you, next time I have a tour, I'll be like, hey, sorry to bother. Can you tell me, is this tour safe? Is this one of the safe tours?

• 1:36:45Jeff Larson?

  We'll just come with you.

• 1:36:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:36:47Wes Larson?

  Yeah, we're pretty good. Yeah, there's usually pretty good signs on like, what's safe and ethical. And we're happy to be consultants for you on that.

• 1:36:56Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:36:57Wes Larson?

  But usually, if you're on like a safari and something like that happens to you, it was probably either like a really janky safari, or you did something to trigger that animal.

• 1:37:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:37:08Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:09Jeff Larson?

  I saw one the other day of like, is in the Masai Mara in Africa, and they're watching like the great migration, where they go through the river of crocodiles and like, all the zebras start getting eaten, you know? And the guy in the safari vehicle just like, didn't stop the car and drove it into the river of like crocodiles.

• 1:37:33Wes Larson?

  What?

• 1:37:34Jeff Larson?

  And everyone had to jump out. It's crazy. So yeah, maybe you should be scared. Maybe us telling you, don't be scared is wrong.

• 1:37:44Wes Larson?

  That's part of the excitement, though, right, is not knowing what could possibly happen. Yeah. Uh, all right. Well, we do typically have this category in our news episode, too. Uh, craziest news story you saw this week. Doesn't have to be animal related. It can be anything. Jeff and Mike, if you guys want to answer this one, too, you should. Um, just any crazy story you saw this week in the news, which there's one every day.

• 1:38:09Speaker 03

  Um, I mean, it's it's, I guess right now, it's all the AI stuff. It's it's hard to like, narrow it down to one story. I just think it's crazy to be like, whatever the guy, whatever the people, they're like, yeah, there's a 10% chance. Uh, all all humanity could be wiped out in the next 10 years. Because it's like, I don't understand how that's not considered like a threat. Like, if I said right now, and I'm not saying this, but if I said like, there's a 10% chance I'm gonna kill Jeffrey, Wes and Mike this week. Like, that that'd be like, oh, well, I'm gonna call the police. Because that's a threat that you just made. But for some reason, if I were to say like, there's a 10% chance I'm gonna kill everyone

• 1:38:52Speaker 03

  in the next week, people are like, all right, let's interview them on NPR. Like, let's see what they have to say. Like, that's crazy. That is a threat. That's a threat.

• 1:39:02Wes Larson?

  And they're like, maybe we should scale back a little bit. Maybe we should slow this down just a touch. And it's like, maybe we should slow it down all the way. Like, maybe this should just be something we put a cork in.

• 1:39:13Jeff Larson?

  All the AI executives are like, yeah, well, there should be more monitoring on this.

• 1:39:19Wes Larson?

  You guys are doing it. Yeah.

• 1:39:22Speaker 03

  And then and then it just, it's, you start getting so confused, because then some people are like, no, this is actually a tactic to get the government to set regulations so other AI companies can't compete. And it's just like, I'm like, well, we gotta get some rules involved here. Because like, if you're gonna say that, if you're gonna say there's a chance world's gonna end and we're building it, you, well, it's time to go to a courtroom and we all need to talk as a society. We need to all have a group chat once a week, check in what's going on. Because you can't, you can't just say that. You can't just say that and then move on and then go to the grocery store.

• 1:39:56Wes Larson?

  I watched a video that was kind of highlighting how that would look if AI were to destroy the world, like if AI were to kill everyone. And there's some pretty big like jumps. No, it wasn't Terminator two or Terminator. Uh, there's like a jump in logic, though, where it said like, and then AI will create a cult that will be so like, like attractive that everyone will follow it. And it was like, feels like a bit of a stretch, but yeah, sure.

• 1:40:25Jeff Larson?

  I've dismissed that before, and I was proven wrong. So yeah, with a certain person.

• 1:40:32Wes Larson?

  Fair enough. Jeff and Mike, you guys have answers for that one? I didn't prep you, so if you don't, it's fine.

• 1:40:37Jeff Larson?

  I thought it was kind of crazy, just the whole

• 1:40:42Jeff Larson?

  Ed Sheeran and Macklemore stuff, where it's like, Rob Kraft, it's like these billionaires make the taxpayers pay for their stadiums, but then it's like they have full control over it afterwards. And it's like, either it belongs to the public or build your own stadium is where I'm at, you know?

• 1:41:01Wes Larson?

  I also, the craziest thing about that story for me is like, thinking in 2026, how hard I'm writing for Macklemore.

• 1:41:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:41:11Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:12Wes Larson?

  Like, try to listen to him again.

• 1:41:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think I think Ed Sheeran could get all that goodwill back if whatever he does his next show, he wears that big fake nose Macklemore wore like 12 years ago. And then said Free Palestine for the stage in that outfit. I think we'd all go, okay, okay, okay.

• 1:41:32Jeff Larson?

  I mean, my real one was I saw a guy in Florida who had a zoo where all he had was a raccoon, and he's charging people $5. They thought they were seeing all these animals, but it ended up being a fricking AI fake story.

• 1:41:46Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:41:47Jeff Larson?

  Kind of goes with John Marcos more.

• 1:41:51Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Uh, all right. Well, our last category, and this is based off of a longstanding feud in the show, but we ask it to all our guests. Do you think cake and ice cream is one dessert or two?

• 1:42:08Speaker 03

  I think, uh, it really depends on the cake. I think if if it's like a really dry cake without like real icing, like if it's if it's more like a solid situation, the ice cream functions as the frosting, and then it's it's one. I think if it's a cake with like real frosting, where you have the the the base of the bread, and you have the sweet of the thing, then the ice cream's the second dessert.

• 1:42:35Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:42:36Jeff Larson?

  So if you're like a prison guard on death row, and the prisoner is like, for my dessert, I want cake and ice cream, you'd be like, you gotta choose one or the other.

• 1:42:46Speaker 03

  I'm gonna say that's gonna be a dry ass cake.

• 1:42:48Jeff Larson?

  Unless how much frosting is on it?

• 1:42:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:42:53Wes Larson?

  That's a good answer. I like it.

• 1:42:55Speaker 03

  Uh, I'll say, I'll say, I mean, just, you know, I've done a lot of animal experiences. I think I think the most over, I did the Kwakas in in Australia, and that one, it was, yeah, it's fun. They dance. It's a long way to go for that. You're not allowed to pet them. I want to be able to feed. And I was feeding them and like, an Australian walked by, I was like, you're not supposed to do that. And I was like, oh, my God. Like, I think to them, it was as if you went to New York and you started feeding the rats on the subway. And uh, yeah.

• 1:43:31Wes Larson?

  It might be bad for the Kwakas, too. Like, you, maybe they're not supposed to eat human food.

• 1:43:36Speaker 03

  But he looked happy to me. He looked happy the whole time.

• 1:43:39Wes Larson?

  They probably loved it, yeah. Uh, but, uh, yeah, I like that. So that's the one you wouldn't recommend is the Kwakia.

• 1:43:46Speaker 03

  That's the one like, like, just, you don't have to have to. It's a long trip. It's a long boat ride. You're gonna get sick on that boat ride. Uh, so I don't, I mean, go see the Kwakia, go see it once. But like, it's fine.

• 1:44:00Jeff Larson?

  All right. It's only worth it if you pet them, is that what?

• 1:44:03Speaker 03

  Yes, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. And then my dream, the dream one I haven't done yet is is swimming with dolphins. That that is, that's really on my bucket list.

• 1:44:12Wes Larson?

  I did that in the Bahamas, and it was incredible. But they're wild dolphins. That was, that's the thing I would encourage you is if you do swim with dolphins, make sure they're just completely wild, not in any pens, not like, you know, being held against their will.

• 1:44:27Speaker 03

  And they're chill. The dolphins are chill, because I've heard, I've heard some allegations.

• 1:44:31Wes Larson?

  There are some allegations out there. I didn't see any of that. But um,

• 1:44:34Mike Smith?

  I don't think you're their type.

• 1:44:36Wes Larson?

  Our dolphins, yeah, that's, I was a little hurt that I, you know, but no.

• 1:44:40Speaker 03

  There was one guy, there was one guy who had sex with with dolphins, right?

• 1:44:45Wes Larson?

  It was a woman. A woman researcher.

• 1:44:48Speaker 03

  What's what's the tooth and claw stance on on bestiality? Is it more nuanced than?

• 1:44:52Wes Larson?

  No, it's not that nuanced. It's pretty black and white.

• 1:44:54Jeff Larson?

  Follow Cash Patel on that.

• 1:44:57Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:44:59Wes Larson?

  You can be an FBI agent.

• 1:45:00Jeff Larson?

  For crazy news stories.

• 1:45:01Speaker 03

  Can I ask, I mean, listen, this is too harsh for for the listeners, but what if you're, if you're the bottom, though, is that different? Is that?

• 1:45:11Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, it is different.

• 1:45:12Speaker 03

  If you present yourself and the animal of their own volition is doing it. I understand if it's the other way. I understand, we, you know, but if you are just.

• 1:45:24Speaker 03

  There.

• 1:45:24Mike Smith?

  Like, how flirty are you being?

• 1:45:26Jeff Larson?

  Well, I feel like the other way, if you're not the bottom, it's like impossible to really know if there's consent from the animal.

• 1:45:34Speaker 03

  Agreed.

• 1:45:35Jeff Larson?

  But if you're the bottom, it's like, well, at least I know the animal wanted this.

• 1:45:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:45:41Wes Larson?

  I would, I would argue that it's better, but still not, not kosher, in my opinion. But that's just one man's opinion, you know?

• 1:45:48Speaker 03

  No, it's only not kosher if it's a pig doing it. I think it's okay if it's.

• 1:45:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah, if it's something halal, then yeah. No, I, uh, I personally think no, but, you know? That's just me. I'm just one guy.

• 1:46:01Speaker 03

  Cause I was in, I went to Hamburg, Germany when I was younger and I went to, you know, a sex store.

• 1:46:06Jeff Larson?

  Story go.

• 1:46:07Speaker 03

  I went to like a sex, like a sex shop as you do when you're like 21 and, uh, like, like sex toys or whatever. And there was a whole shelf of bestiality DVDs.

• 1:46:18Wes Larson?

  Geez.

• 1:46:19Speaker 03

  And it was, cause I think wherever I was, it was legal. It was not like hidden. It wasn't in a back room. And it was, uh, I, I talked about, I, it was one of those things where like seeing it, it was like a feeling of like, this is not what God intended.

• 1:46:35Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:46:36Speaker 03

  Like, like of, of all the things in my life where I was like, I think God, I think, I think, I don't, I don't, believe in a creator, but if there is one, he's like, this is not.

• 1:46:45Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:45Speaker 03

  This was not what I wanted.

• 1:46:46Wes Larson?

  Guys.

• 1:46:47Speaker 03

  Like honestly seeing it, you're like, I get why God made Eve. Cause God was like, this is Adam. This is gross.

• 1:46:55Mike Smith?

  Does make you think what Adam was doing in that garden with all those animals?

• 1:46:58Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I, you know, I'm going to back up a little bit and say, I think we're pretty squarely anti, you know? There's no, there's no real black and white there for us.

• 1:47:05Speaker 03

  Either way, but if we're going to rank, bottom is not as bad as top.

• 1:47:09Wes Larson?

  I will agree with that. Yeah.

• 1:47:13Wes Larson?

  Uh, all right, everyone. Well, if you want to hear more of John Marco, check out the downside, uh, podcast.

• 1:47:20Jeff Larson?

  Yes, please.

• 1:47:21Wes Larson?

  Also.

• 1:47:22Mike Smith?

  Or just listen to this episode again.

• 1:47:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah, just re-listen to this. You can get his, you can get his, uh, his take on bestiality again and, uh, and Tony Soprano, all in one shot.

• 1:47:36Speaker 03

  Thanks, guys.

• 1:47:37Wes Larson?

  Thanks, John Marco. We really appreciate it.

• 1:47:39Speaker 03

  Peace.

• 1:47:39Mike Smith?

  Thanks, man.

• 1:47:40Wes Larson?

  We'll see ya.