Grizzly Bear Attack - Bram and the Brown Bear

After Bram Schaffer had an unlucky run-in with a brown bear, his chances of surviving the night were looking slim. A torrential storm wasn't going to make things any easier. Would his extraordinary bravery be enough to win the day? Watch here: ~~ Rocket Money - Let Rocket Money help you find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitor your spending, and lower your bills—join at https://RocketMoney.com/CLAW LMNT - Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT's most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at your vanity URL—LMNT Lemonade Iced Tea uses full black tea extract and electrolytes for steady energy without the crash. Mint Mobile - Get Mint Mobile's 3-month 5GB plan for $45 upfront ($15/mo.) as a new customer at https://mintmobile.com/TOOTH; taxes and fees extra. Miracle Made - 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. Veracity - For up to 65% off your order, head to https://VeracityHealth.co and use code TOOTH. ~~ 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.

• 0:12Jeff Larson?

  Hello everyone. Welcome to Tooth and Claw Podcast. We are a podcast primarily about animals and animal encounters, animal attacks. We have a wildlife biologist who emphasized in bears. And his name is Wes Larson.

• 0:32Jeff Larson?

  Oh, a little uncertainty there. We weren't positive if he graduated or not.

• 0:38Wes Larson?

  Emphasized is where I had some uncertainty.

• 0:41Jeff Larson?

  Not sure if he's a wildlife, technically a wildlife biologist, right?

• 0:45Wes Larson?

  I've shown you my degree. That, that one's been put to bed.

• 0:48Jeff Larson?

  Well, AI.

• 0:49Wes Larson?

  Forged. We had Tom, we had Tom on the podcast, my mentor. And it's not like he was like, who the hell are you?

• 0:56Mike Smith?

  Deep fake.

• 0:57Wes Larson?

  Sure. Yeah. You know, you can't really believe anything these days. So yeah, I, I guess there can be a shred of doubt out there still.

• 1:05Jeff Larson?

  Exactly. Yeah. And my name is Jeff Larson. I'm Wes's younger brother and I'm also almost a wildlife biologist. And then we have.

• 1:19Wes Larson?

  Actually fake.

• 1:22Jeff Larson?

  I almost am.

• 1:24Wes Larson?

  Uh, no, but that's okay.

• 1:26Jeff Larson?

  And then we have Mike Smith, who claims to like dogs, but if you press him on it, the only dog he's ever liked is his family's dog.

• 1:35Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:36Jeff Larson?

  His late family dog. So.

• 1:38Mike Smith?

  All my family's dogs I've liked. Everyone else's dogs. Uh, yeah. Get out of here with that.

• 1:43Wes Larson?

  I kind of agree with the dog thing, Mike. There's like plenty of people's dogs that I like, but they always kind of get annoying to me pretty quickly. I think you kind of just grow to understand your own dog and like your own dog.

• 1:57Jeff Larson?

  But see, now that I have a dog, I'm just saying hi to every dog I see.

• 2:01Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I think it makes you appreciate dogs more, but I also now I, when I picture having any other dog, but my dog, it feels annoying to me.

• 2:11Jeff Larson?

  But yeah, that's probably because Shanks.

• 2:13Wes Larson?

  No, I like Shanks. Uh, but Shanks is a lot.

• 2:19Jeff Larson?

  Every single semi on the way to Montana with Mike. So I don't blame Mike too much about Shanks.

• 2:26Mike Smith?

  Have you heard from my lawyer yet, Jeff?

• 2:29Jeff Larson?

  Wait.

• 2:30Wes Larson?

  Hearing loss.

• 2:30Mike Smith?

  I bit my hand real hard.

• 2:32Jeff Larson?

  A question for you guys, though. I want to know if I peed my pants and if possibly Bill peed his pants or not.

• 2:41Wes Larson?

  Uh, when?

• 2:42Jeff Larson?

  On my, I just went to New Mexico. I traveled around with my favorite business partner Danielle from National Park After Dark.

• 2:51Wes Larson?

  Making deals.

• 2:52Jeff Larson?

  And we were just doing business. Um, but on the way there, I stopped at a Navajo Casino and gambled a little.

• 3:01Wes Larson?

  Of course.

• 3:01Jeff Larson?

  And I would go up, go down, go up, go down. And then I end up winning a couple hundred bucks. I'm feeling really happy. And I'm like, you know, I got two more hours on the road. I'm going to go to the bathroom. Number two, right?

• 3:18Wes Larson?

  Mm hmm. Wow. Yeah.

• 3:19Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. So I go and I flush and everything seems fine. I pull my pants up and my entire left butt down to like my left ankle is soaking wet.

• 3:34Jeff Larson?

  And I'm so confused because I'm like looking at the floor. I'm looking at the toilet. I'm like, where did all this water come from? I start rubbing it and smelling it. I can't smell anything. So then I'm just confused and I call um, our producer Bill and I tell him about it and he's like, yeah, that's happened to me before too. And I don't know what it is. I think just floors wet. And then I call our cousin Brent and he's like, yeah, that's happened to me too. Every once in a while I'll pee through the tiny crack between the seat and the bowl. While I'm like pooping at a public toilet.

• 4:16Wes Larson?

  Notice that.

• 4:18Jeff Larson?

  I'm like, that has to be what happened. I must've just peed through that tiny crack. And I'm just going to say that's what Bill did too.

• 4:26Wes Larson?

  Huh. Maybe your water broke.

• 4:28Jeff Larson?

  So does that count as peeing my pants if I peed on my pants and then put them on?

• 4:33Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah. I think so.

• 4:35Mike Smith?

  I don't think so, actually. I think you're safe. Because you made it, you made it to the toilet. You, you did everything you could. It's not your fault. Your penis is so small. It points out that way.

• 4:51Jeff Larson?

  I was happy for like a total of 20 minutes.

• 4:56Mike Smith?

  Oh, that's great. Yeah, sorry about that.

• 4:59Wes Larson?

  That has yet to happen to me. I think I would have like thought that my pants had gotten in some something on the floor.

• 5:05Jeff Larson?

  It's these pants.

• 5:07Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Oh, are they still covered in it? Have you washed them?

• 5:14Wes Larson?

  I think I've had that happen before in the crack. And no, but I instantly was like, oh shit and like readjusted. It wasn't like I like peed my whole pee and then was like, oh man, how did that happen?

• 5:29Jeff Larson?

  Well, I did the same thing, except where I said, oh shit, it's because I was pooping.

• 5:34Mike Smith?

  Okay, it's never happened to me before.

• 5:36Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 5:36Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, dude, we don't all have hogs.

• 5:42Mike Smith?

  I've been, uh, what's it jelking? That works.

• 5:48Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 5:50Wes Larson?

  I got a quick correction corner.

• 5:52Jeff Larson?

  Listeners, let us know if I peed my pants or not.

• 5:55Wes Larson?

  Yeah, if this has happened to you, please send this story.

• 6:00Wes Larson?

  And yeah, let us know in the comments. Did Jeff pee his pants or not? Uh, all right. Quick correction corner. On the brown recluse episode, I've I failed to mention that they also live in Missouri. A few people called that out.

• 6:14Jeff Larson?

  Missouri.

• 6:15Wes Larson?

  That was Missouri. I forgot to um, to say that. So they do, they do definitely live in Missouri. You know, guys, there's a lot of facts that go into these episodes and every once in a while, we're just gonna miss something or mess something up. But we try to do our best, so.

• 6:31Jeff Larson?

  None of us are professionals.

• 6:33Wes Larson?

  Uh, I am. I am a professional wildlife biologist, but I I'm not a brown recluse expert. That's for sure. So there's been a lot about grizzlies in the news lately. Uh, next week, we're going to talk about some of these recent attacks that happened, you know, in the last few weeks. We're going to go over some of the fallout from those attacks, uh, which has been unfortunate. But in the meantime, I wanted to do a grizzly story as a primer, just in case you guys forgot what a grizzly is.

• 7:04Wes Larson?

  So today we're going to go over a story that I'd never heard of before I started looking for a good story. And I kept thinking about it after I heard the basic details. So I decided to save the one that I was kind of circling. For another episode and tell this one today. And a big part of that reason. Why I was thinking about this one so much is it really reminded me of the bear attack scene from the revenant. And not like necessarily the true life bear attack on Hugh Glass, but the revenant movie attack.

• 7:36Jeff Larson?

  The DiCaprio one.

• 7:37Wes Larson?

  The DiCaprio one. Yeah. The good one.

• 7:41Jeff Larson?

  That one's bad.

• 7:44Wes Larson?

  It's just more boring. I feel like, uh, one of the questions I get asked the most as a bear biologist is. Whether or not that scene was accurate, like whether or not it was a good bear attack scene. And, uh, after we go through this episode, you're going to see that it actually is a pretty. Accurate scene in a movie as far as bear attacks are concerned. All right.

• 8:07Jeff Larson?

  All right.

• 8:08Wes Larson?

  The main source I had for this one was actually a TV program called I Shouldn't Be Alive. That's not how I first found it. I found some online articles, a few other things, but that was the one that had the most kind of, um, filled in narrative. So I used it quite a bit.

• 8:23Jeff Larson?

  I feel that way sometimes.

• 8:25Mike Smith?

  You feel like you could be a live subject of an episode?

• 8:29Wes Larson?

  Just a really sad episode.

• 8:33Jeff Larson?

  I gotta watch that.

• 8:34Mike Smith?

  I, today I felt like maybe I was going to be on that episode because I was at the rec center and a stranger asked me for a ride. And there was a brief moment where I was like, I don't know. This is where things happen. I did. I gave him a ride down to the train station. It's like,

• 8:50Wes Larson?

  Oh, he's riding trains too.

• 8:52Mike Smith?

  He's riding train. He's, he could be anyone from anywhere kind of thing. And then I, I kind of weighed the possibility of maybe no longer being alive. And I was like, yeah, it doesn't sound that bad.

• 9:02Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about that this week too.

• 9:05Mike Smith?

  I've done a little bit of everything. I'm ready. You know, it's not like I want to go, but it's,

• 9:09Wes Larson?

  It's, yeah, we don't need to get into this, but this story takes place in a place called Horseshoe Mountain. Uh, it's a tall mountain that is found just west of Cook City, Montana, and just north of Yellowstone National Park. And our faithful listeners will probably know the name Cook City because we did the Soda Bu uh, campsite bear attack, uh, about that, that attack. And then also I took that, uh, that video of that grizzly chasing the moose in Cook City. So it's a really interesting place.

• 9:41Mike Smith?

  Our more astute listeners will know horseshoes from Lucky Charms too.

• 9:46Wes Larson?

  Yeah, exactly. And they, the horseshoe never leaves. That one's always in there.

• 9:51Mike Smith?

  It's a constant, a mainstay.

• 9:53Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 9:54Jeff Larson?

  And there are no soda too.

• 9:55Wes Larson?

  Um, sometimes when I eat Lucky Charms, I try to eat all the oats first and the horseshoe really is like the, the sleeper oat. That's a hard one to not eat when you're trying to just eat oats.

• 10:07Mike Smith?

  Oh, really? You think it blends in a little too well?

• 10:10Wes Larson?

  It blends in. It looks like an oat. Yeah. All right. Well, there's a reason this mountain is called Horseshoe Mountain. It wraps around a lake in the shape of a horseshoe and there's a wide bowl beneath this mountain with some big expanses of meadow. And it's a great place to find a lot of the wildlife that calls the greater Yellowstone ecosystem home. So you can find black and grizzly bears there. You can find mountain lions, bobcat, lynx, wolverine, wolves, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, deer, moose and elk. So it's pretty much, uh, squirrels. Yeah. Red squirrel are there. There's actually a flying squirrel that you can find there. It's pretty much a fully intact ecosystem with all the critters that have existed there for millennia,

• 10:52Wes Larson?

  just not in the numbers that we would have found them even 50 years ago, but they're all there still. We haven't extirpated any of them yet. So in September of nineteen ninety-five Bram S. Mike Bram S.

• 11:07Mike Smith?

  The composer?

• 11:08Wes Larson?

  No Bram Schaffer is the name of our, our person. He's with his father Dennis, his brother and some family friends and they're on Horseshoe Mountain. And they're looking for one of those animals I listed specifically. They were out hunting elk. It was the last day of muzzleloader season. And while they had been hunting for about a week, so far, none of them had shot a single elk. Sounds like a Larson hunting trip.

• 11:36Mike Smith?

  Is muzzle loading, is that just hunting season?

• 11:39Wes Larson?

  No, so muzzleloaders are, we're gonna go into it a little bit more, but it's a gun that you like, put black powder into and then put a cartridge in. And then like it's a one shotgun. So it's trickier, but they're very high caliber usually. And you just have to be much pickier about your shot.

• 11:58Jeff Larson?

  You get like a longer hunting season with them.

• 12:01Wes Larson?

  There's a, there's a specific season just for muzzleloaders and it's usually kind of concurrent with archery season. And the difference too is with muzzle loading, you're allowed to like call the animals in. You're allowed to use calls and whatnot, kind of like archery.

• 12:15Mike Smith?

  Oh, weird. That's weird to consider that there's different rules of engagement.

• 12:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's kind of fair chase is, is what that's considered because with the high powered rifle with the scope. It's not fair to be able to call them in too, because you're never gonna miss and you're gonna have multiple shots.

• 12:32Mike Smith?

  What if you're using like a cannon?

• 12:35Wes Larson?

  Uh, then I bet you could probably, you probably could call them in.

• 12:39Mike Smith?

  Use every tool at your disposal to make it a little easier.

• 12:42Wes Larson?

  This is kind of like a small cannon.

• 12:44Jeff Larson?

  You can't use a elk call if you're using a cannon, I don't think.

• 12:49Wes Larson?

  It'd be pretty hard to kill an elk with a cannon.

• 12:52Mike Smith?

  I'd be shocked. I think so, right?

• 12:55Wes Larson?

  Like by the time you light the thing, it's gonna know you're there and run off.

• 12:58Mike Smith?

  Yeah, you have to like crank it to like, yeah, aim it up and down and stuff.

• 13:03Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 13:04Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 13:05Wes Larson?

  I guess if there's like a herd.

• 13:06Jeff Larson?

  Explode like they normally do in shows.

• 13:10Wes Larson?

  You could just lobby balls out into it.

• 13:13Mike Smith?

  You don't really have to worry about like which part you hit. So yeah, like you don't need a headshot.

• 13:18Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 13:19Mike Smith?

  Well.

• 13:21Wes Larson?

  For Bram, this hunting trip was a special one. He was 18, he had recently graduated high school, and he was preparing to take the next steps in his life. For all he knew, those steps might take him far away from Montana, and both he and his dad Dennis felt like this might be like a one last hunt kind of thing before Bram entered adulthood and a new era in his life. And you guys are both fans of action movies, right?

• 13:48Mike Smith?

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:49Jeff Larson?

  Yes.

• 13:50Wes Larson?

  So if there's ever a character on an action movie that says something like, oh, this is the last day on the job before retirement.

• 13:56Mike Smith?

  Death flag.

• 13:57Wes Larson?

  Or like, we're gonna go on one last trip, or whatever, what always happens to them?

• 14:02Jeff Larson?

  Bad stuff.

• 14:03Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's not good. I'm actually gonna share my screen here really quick and play one of my all time favorite.

• 14:10Jeff Larson?

  It always tricks me, too. I'm always like, ah, this guy's not gonna be in the movie. He's gonna go retire. That's nice.

• 14:17Wes Larson?

  This is one of my favorite clips from The Simpsons ever.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  Hey, McBane, you keep eating them hot links, you're never gonna make it to a pension.

• 14:28Speaker 04

  Come on, live a little, Scully.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  No, thank you. Got me a future, partner. I'm two days away from retirement. My daughter's graduating from college.

• 14:35Speaker 04

  Little Susie's going up.

• 14:37Speaker 03

  And as soon as we nail Mendoza, my old lady and I are gonna sail around the world like we always wanted. We just christened the boat. Oh, yes, sir. Everything's gonna be just perfect.

• 14:54Wes Larson?

  All right. Anyway, it's kind of that that tired old thing of like, it's your one last day or whatever, something really bad is gonna happen. And in this story, it actually does. Something that I've really been noticing in my life is that it has gotten a lot easier to spend money without really even realizing it. My phone just automatically fills in all my credit card information. It's just very simple to sign up for things and spend money. And for me, it's led to some overspending in some categories where I really didn't need to spend any extra money. And that's why I really like Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that can give you a really clear picture of your financials, how you're spending your money, your subscriptions, and a lot of other

• 15:39Wes Larson?

  things. They have just a single dashboard that just lets you see your checking, your savings, your loans, your investments, and you can set budgets and goals. You can get personalized insights and regular reports, and you can even receive real-time alerts for large transactions, upcoming bills, refunds, and low balances. You guys know that I have a tendency to get scammed sometimes, and it's really important to me that I have someone else monitoring my spending, unexpected transactions, and that's why I just absolutely love Rocket Money. Anytime there's an expense that maybe was unpredicted or higher than normal, Rocket Money lets me know. So Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps

• 16:20Wes Larson?

  you find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at rocketmoney.com/claw. That's rocketmoney.com/claw. Rocketmoney.com/claw. So Bram is from a little place called Brodus, Montana. It's a tiny little town out in eastern Montana, and they, you know, had made this unforgivable mistake of taunting the universe by saying, "One last trip," and unfortunately, it's not going to end well. All right, so we talked a little bit about muzzleloaders, but basically, any gun that you load from

• 17:01Wes Larson?

  the muzzle and you use black powder is going to be a muzzleloader. And modern muzzleloaders are often much more dependable, quicker to load, more accurate, higher caliber, and use different bullets than like traditional muzzleloaders. So I think when people picture a muzzleloader, they think of like, you know, the Revolutionary War. The Patriot. Yeah, exactly, where you're like, you know, cramming this ball, and it takes forever, and you have a little pouch of powder. And it is still similar to that, but the technology has come a ways to where it's still muzzleloading, but it is quicker and more accurate than it used to be. Okay, so while the hunting really isn't going well for this group, it's still something that this family loves doing together regardless of the outcome.

• 17:46Wes Larson?

  It's a time to bond, to have fun, to leave a lot of the cares of the world behind. And because a lot of these more modern worries get left in home, the men also had to take on some much more primal worries. And Bram, who again was born out in Brodus, it's hundreds of miles from the nearest grizzly bear. It's only really on these hunting trips to the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem that him and his family really had to start thinking about bear safety. And they're definitely thinking about it on this day in September 1995 because they know they're in some of the best grizzly bear habitat in the Lower 48, and they're hunting during a time of the year that's especially risky.

• 18:28Wes Larson?

  So, a little bit of this is going to be repetitive from other episodes, but we've talked a lot about grizzly bears and grizzly bear biology. But one thing that I think a lot of people still don't get about grizzly bears is just how adaptable they are when it comes to food. I think there's this common perception when you talk about brown bears or grizzly bears that the main thing they eat is fish and berries. Like, people just kind of tend to think, you know, that's what they're eating.

• 18:54Jeff Larson?

  They always forget about honey.

• 18:56Wes Larson?

  Yeah, they forget about honey, exactly. But depending on where you find a bear, especially these interior grizzlies, like the ones we have in Montana, they're not going to have these amazingly dependable salmon runs right before denning season. So they sometimes have to rely on harder to find and less predictable sources of food. And they really do ramp it up in the fall when they're packing on weight for denning. Do you guys remember what that period is called? When they're trying to put on as much weight as possible?

• 19:29Jeff Larson?

  Hyprophasia?

• 19:30Wes Larson?

  Hyprophasia.

• 19:31Mike Smith?

  Oh, man.

• 19:32Wes Larson?

  Jeff.

• 19:32Mike Smith?

  That's a point for Jeff, right?

• 19:34Wes Larson?

  It is.

• 19:34Mike Smith?

  Yeah. He's winning.

• 19:36Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Hyprophasia throughout the year in the Greater Yellowstone, grizzly bears are going to be taking advantage of a bunch of these different food sources. But especially in the fall, they're going to be packing on as many calories as possible. So kind of how like some of their major boones in the Yellowstone ecosystem are right when they come out of hibernation in the early spring, late winter. Often, one of the first things they'll go for are winter killed carcasses. So like bison or elk or anything that may have died over the winter. The bears will go to those carcasses and start eating them. Next, they're going to turn to like grasses, roots, other vegetation that's coming up in the early spring. That that grass, when it first starts growing, the tips of it are like so high in nutrients

• 20:21Wes Larson?

  that bears are really looking for like early growth grass. Then later in the spring, they're going to be looking for elk calves. Then as it gets longer and longer, berries, grasses, roots, forbs, other vegetation in the summer. Maybe army cutworm moths and white bark pine nuts in the late summer. And then in the fall, just absolutely whatever they can find.

• 20:44Mike Smith?

  So they kind of turn into child predators in a sense.

• 20:47Wes Larson?

  Because they're killing elk calves. Yeah.

• 20:51Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 20:51Wes Larson?

  That's. They're really good at catching them, too. They eat a lot of elk calves in Yellowstone.

• 20:56Mike Smith?

  It's tough.

• 20:58Wes Larson?

  Yeah, but you could say that, I guess. But fall is really like fourth quarter where they have to run the score up as much as possible before entering the den. That's the sports analogy. So you guys can finally understand what I'm talking about.

• 21:11Mike Smith?

  Bad sportsmanship. The Elks are probably complaining to the Rangers like, come on.

• 21:17Jeff Larson?

  Eating, they don't need to eat all that.

• 21:19Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it's like, yeah, when a basketball player hits a layup, a wide open layup at the end of a game.

• 21:25Jeff Larson?

  Fighting. Gotta fight them.

• 21:27Mike Smith?

  You gotta fight.

• 21:28Wes Larson?

  Jeff, we've talked about this before, but when hunters are out hunting and they're successful, what's pretty much the first thing they do after shooting and killing an animal like an elk?

• 21:40Jeff Larson?

  Um, probably say, hey, I think I got him.

• 21:46Wes Larson?

  Yeah, like the first action they do, what's the first task they have to do after they've killed an elk?

• 21:53Jeff Larson?

  Oh, uh, they gut them. They pull out their guts and intestines so that the meat doesn't go bad.

• 22:00Wes Larson?

  Yeah, they feel dress them. So basically they're taking out all the internal organs of the elk, the guts, they're leaving it behind. And it's important because if you leave the guts and organs in the dead animal, like Jeff just said, it can spoil the meat. And it's a lot of extra weight that you don't want to be carrying when you're packing that animal out.

• 22:20Wes Larson?

  So a bunch of piles of guts and organs all over the landscape is a pretty nice little bonus for grizzly bears. We've talked about this a bit before, but for grizzly bears, for ravens, for coyotes, for wolves, for anything that's going to try and survive a winter. This is a really nice bonus, so much so that research has shown that grizzly bears will actually travel to popular hunting areas in the fall. Because they know they're going to be able to find these gut piles. And sometimes that does put them into conflict with hunters themselves.

• 22:51Jeff Larson?

  Wow.

• 22:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Uh, when I was working that job with 399, uh, we kind of knew that she was going to go toward this one mountain because it's so popular for hunting. And she would go there to get elk piles or elk gut piles in the past. And sure enough, that's where she went. Um, and she was looking for gut piles. So there are bears that this is like part of their annual strategy now is eating these gut piles. So Bram and these other men had been hunting all week. They hadn't gotten anything. On their last day of hunting, they decided to hike up near the top of the mountain and then spread out in this wide line. Each of them would hunt alone while walking down to predetermined location. So it's going to increase their chances of at least one of them getting into some elk.

• 23:36Wes Larson?

  And Bram was really excited for the chance to kind of hunt alone for a little bit, be alone with his thoughts and his rifle. And as they split up, uh, the men do notice.

• 23:46Jeff Larson?

  What you have to do with muskets too, is form a line.

• 23:50Wes Larson?

  Form a line, yeah, yeah. What's that called? That type of warfare?

• 23:55Mike Smith?

  Uh, bad.

• 23:57Wes Larson?

  Can't remember. Yeah. Just like, you don't want to be in front warfare.

• 24:01Mike Smith?

  I think depending like if you were out hunting with like Dick Cheney, I'd also like those moments where I was alone.

• 24:07Wes Larson?

  Yes, where you're not in eyesight.

• 24:11Mike Smith?

  They're get blasted.

• 24:12Wes Larson?

  Shoot you anyway.

• 24:16Wes Larson?

  So Bram's actually like at the end of this line of men and he is up over a crest of a mountain, like a ridge. So he's out of sight of these other hunters, but right before they split up, they did notice that there are darkening clouds on the horizon that they, uh, there might be a big storm approaching. So it's just something, you know, that they notice as they're about to start hunting.

• 24:41Wes Larson?

  So Bram enters a patch of dense brush and forest and he's now more than a few hundred yards away from the rest of these hunters. And he can no longer hear any voices or sounds of his family and friends. In fact, he isn't hearing anything. He's not hearing birds. He's not hearing insects. The forest feels completely and eerily quiet and still. And he remembers thinking that it was the kind of quiet that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Kind of like something is near or watching you. And I understand that feeling. I think we've all had that before. Um, and we're right. In this case Bram was right to suspect that something scary was nearby. But just so everyone knows, if you're worried about grizzlies,

• 25:24Wes Larson?

  the worst thing is if you hear a lot of birds, specifically one bird in particular. Uh, do you guys know what bird that is?

• 25:34Wes Larson?

  Ravens. If you're walking through grizzly country and you hear a lot of ravens, is very likely there's something dead nearby. And then somewhat likely there's a grizzly bear nearby too. So ravens are something you want to listen for if you're hiking grizzly country. And I'm not talking about like one or two calling. I mean, like a lot of them in one spot.

• 25:55Mike Smith?

  Why is that?

• 25:57Wes Larson?

  Cause they're scavengers. So they'll go down on the carcass and then when the bear is on the carcass, the ravens will go up into the trees and nearby and wait their turn. And they're often calling a lot and like pretty agitated because they want to continue feeding, but they can't because the bear is on the carcass. So, um, I, that's the thing that spooks me out the most is if I'm hiking alone and there's suddenly a bunch of ravens around, I'm going to go a different direction. Like I would not keep going that direction.

• 26:25Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 26:26Jeff Larson?

  So you're saying since there's no birds, he can assume he's safe.

• 26:31Wes Larson?

  I'm not saying that because he's not, um, but I'm saying that stillness isn't usually uh, a good sign that there's something else out there. Like often when there is a big predator, a lot of the other animals are going to be making some sort of call of like a warning call to let you know, there's something there. And it's not to let you know, but it's to let other members of their species know generally. You know, I don't mean, I shouldn't say that. I don't know why they do it, but they'll do a warning call. I shouldn't say like the reasons they're doing it because I'm not exactly sure.

• 27:01Mike Smith?

  No, I remember when we were in India at the tiger, we were looking for tigers. That's what they use the sound cues from other animals to track where the tigers were at in the park, which I thought was really a cool kind of tracking tactic.

• 27:15Wes Larson?

  And that happens in our forest too, like a red squirrel that's just chittering away really loud. Like if you walk through the forest, you'll notice squirrels doing that to you. They'll do it to bears and other predators too. That's, that's something you pay attention to. But for Bram, there were no sounds as he steps into the small clearing and walks right in between a female grizzly fill it feeding on an elk carcass and her cub on the other side of the clearing.

• 27:40Jeff Larson?

  Shoot.

• 27:41Wes Larson?

  So this is really.

• 27:42Mike Smith?

  Where the ravens at? What the heck?

• 27:44Wes Larson?

  I know I needed some ravens.

• 27:46Mike Smith?

  I'm confused.

• 27:47Wes Larson?

  This is really up there when it comes to bad situations with grizzly bears. Cub defense and carcass defense are two of the leading factors when it comes to attacks. And Bram is between a bear and her cub while she's feeding on a carcass. So it's a really, really bad situation.

• 28:05Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 28:06Wes Larson?

  Uh, it's one where you would expect the bear to charge rather than run away. And sure enough, this bear charges at Bram. So he yells at the bear in the hopes that maybe the noise would cause her to break off her charge or maybe run by him. But this bear had made up her mind and she slams into Bram, knocking him off his feet and onto the ground. She rips into his hunting vest and his clothing with her claws and then bites into the top of his head and her long canines are dragging across the bone of his skull and tearing his scalp partway free. Which they love doing that, you know? We've, we've heard that before. These bears love scalping people.

• 28:45Mike Smith?

  Imagine the sound a raven would be making if a bear was doing that to them.

• 28:48Wes Larson?

  Probably the same sound that they make for just about every... Ravens make some really cool sounds sometimes, though, too.

• 28:54Mike Smith?

  I like ravens.

• 28:56Jeff Larson?

  I wonder if that's where indigenous people learned scalping.

• 29:01Wes Larson?

  From bears?

• 29:02Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 29:03Mike Smith?

  Oh, interesting.

• 29:04Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 29:05Jeff Larson?

  They were very in tune with nature.

• 29:07Mike Smith?

  Yeah, for sure. That's an interesting thought.

• 29:10Wes Larson?

  Thanks.

• 29:11Mike Smith?

  Yeah, you're welcome.

• 29:13Wes Larson?

  So the initial ferocity of this tack is really intense. The bear's biting into him. It's scratching him. He's on the ground. It's tearing up his down jacket. It's tearing up his vest. And then suddenly it stops. And Bram's flat on his back. And the bear pretty much puts her head on his stomach and starts huffing and snorting. So I don't fault Bram for what he did next, because this is 1995. A lot of bear messaging was still being developed and really hadn't made its way into the public yet. But what was probably happening here is that this bear had felt like she had sufficiently neutralized this particular threat. And she's just making sure that he's no longer a threat. She's sniffing, she's huffing.

• 29:58Wes Larson?

  And then as soon as she realizes...

• 29:59Jeff Larson?

  Sounds like she's listening for a heartbeat.

• 30:01Wes Larson?

  Yeah, she might be listening for a heartbeat. We can't say, we don't know. But that's probably what she was doing here, was just, you know, trying to decide if she had neutralized him. And had she decided she did, she'd probably gather her cub and leave. So in my opinion, in that...

• 30:20Jeff Larson?

  Leave her carcass.

• 30:21Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I mean, if, if she thought he was a threat, I think she would probably just get out of there.

• 30:27Wes Larson?

  In my opinion, and it's just that, it's my opinion, I think had Bram decided to stay still a bit longer in this moment, there's a good chance that this encounter ends here.

• 30:39Wes Larson?

  But that's not what he decided to do. Bram was really mad, uh, and his temper was about to get the better of him in a pretty severe way. So he pulls his arm back and he punches this bear in the nose. And then he throws another punch with his other arm, the old one, two.

• 30:56Mike Smith?

  Wow.

• 30:57Wes Larson?

  And the bear catches that hand in her mouth and bites right through it.

• 31:01Mike Smith?

  Dude.

• 31:02Wes Larson?

  He screams. He decides he needs to change strategies and his mind goes to his gun. Um, he looks around and he realizes that this bear is actually sitting on top of his rifle. And when he tries to pull it out from under her, she bites into his legs and starts whipping him through the air. Like what?

• 31:21Mike Smith?

  Truck.

• 31:22Wes Larson?

  Like, no, no, like a puppy with a sock or a dog with a doll.

• 31:27Mike Smith?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:28Wes Larson?

  Um, it does, you know, I watched my dog whip a toy around the other day and it does kind of look like what bears do. With something they're mad at.

• 31:36Mike Smith?

  A ribbon dancer.

• 31:37Wes Larson?

  A ribbon dancer.

• 31:38Mike Smith?

  Andre three thousand with a Polaroid picture.

• 31:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that was a good one. Yeah. Okay. Well, as this bear whipped him back and forth, the muscle and flesh tore from his right thigh and separated from the bone. Bram didn't feel any pain because adrenaline's coursing through his body. The bear throws him down and walks a short distance away and then watches Bram as he's laying still on the ground. Again, probably just waiting to see if there's going to be any movement or any more threat. And Bram does move again. Uh, his gun is pretty close, so kind of like in The Revenant, he slowly stretches out his arm to grab his rifle. Aims it at this bear and she charges in again.

• 32:22Mike Smith?

  But yeah, that is very much like The Revenant.

• 32:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah, where just every time he moves, she comes back in. Um. But the difference here is that Bram fired and in a combo of probably what was both skill and luck. He drops this bear with a single shot.

• 32:37Mike Smith?

  Wow.

• 32:37Wes Larson?

  Kills her dead in her tracks. Yeah. And the wind starts to blow and now it's starting to rain pretty hard.

• 32:45Wes Larson?

  So a mile and a half away Bram's dad Dennis and his brother are just getting back to camp. And they immediately noticed that Bram isn't there. Dennis starts asking around, no one's seen Bram. And he knows that something is wrong, or that maybe Bram had gotten an elk. They talk like Bram's a cowboy. They talk about how tough and like physically fit he was. So for him not to be there, it's either a really good thing or a really bad thing. But they don't remember hearing any rifle shots. Apparently they didn't hear his shot as he killed the bear. So they don't think that he'd gotten an elk and Dennis is getting really worried. So he and his other son and some of their friends decide to head back up onto the mountain

• 33:27Wes Larson?

  in this cold driving rain and storm. There's lightning. It's like a whole big storm.

• 33:33Jeff Larson?

  Think of how fit that bear must have been to catch his punch if he's a fit cowboy.

• 33:39Wes Larson?

  Yeah. She didn't catch that bullet very well though.

• 33:42Jeff Larson?

  It seems like she did.

• 33:44Mike Smith?

  Caught it a little too well, maybe. Maybe she thought they were playing fetch.

• 33:49Wes Larson?

  That's really sad. I can't joke about this, but uh, all right. So back up on the mountain Bram's surveying the damage that this bear had done to him. His face is covered in blood from his scalp that had been torn partially away. And there's also feathers in all of this blood and wounds and whatnot from his down jacket. So he kinda looks like he's been tarred and feathered, but the tar is blood. Think about that, Mike. The tar is blood.

• 34:16Mike Smith?

  That is metal AF.

• 34:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah, pretty cool, right? Blood tar? That's a good metal name.

• 34:21Mike Smith?

  Put that on the cover of your next album.

• 34:25Jeff Larson?

  Blood and feathered.

• 34:27Wes Larson?

  Oh, blood and feathered. I like that. That's good. All right. So he knew he'd been bitten and torn up a bit, but he hadn't really discovered anything too major until he tried to stand up and finally saw his right thigh. It's gonna be a little gross, everyone. So just be ready for it. The muscle and skin was hanging down like a big torn flap. And he could see all the way into the cavity where this muscle and skin had been. And he could see his femoral artery was exposed. Luckily not torn, but exposed. And he could see it pulsing as the blood was pumping through it. He described the overall appearance of his leg looking like slabs of meat were hanging off of it.

• 35:10Wes Larson?

  He really didn't like the look of his leg. So in the pouring rain, he pulls this flayed skin and meat back up and pushes it into the hole where it had been torn out of.

• 35:20Jeff Larson?

  What?

• 35:21Wes Larson?

  And then he takes his hunter's orange vest and ties it around this wound to try and hold everything together.

• 35:26Jeff Larson?

  I mean, I guess that makes sense.

• 35:28Wes Larson?

  It does. But like you wouldn't want to be walking back with like a bunch of like skin and meat dangling off of your leg.

• 35:36Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 35:37Wes Larson?

  But still, that's like, that's pretty tough.

• 35:39Jeff Larson?

  Like where do you want him to put it?

• 35:41Mike Smith?

  A little baggy.

• 35:43Wes Larson?

  But he's feeling some pretty intense pain now. And again, he's a cowboy from Brodus. So he probably is a tough guy to be feeling like this amount of pain. You know, it's a lot.

• 35:53Jeff Larson?

  That's not nothing.

• 35:55Wes Larson?

  It's not nothing.

• 35:57Wes Larson?

  So he shoots three shots into the air, which is the universal sign among hunters that someone's in trouble. And then he sits and waited. And I think, I think he must have had a pistol with him too, for him to shoot these three shots. One of the things I read hinted at him having a pistol. But.

• 36:15Jeff Larson?

  To muzzle load it would be funny.

• 36:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 36:17Mike Smith?

  Takes like 45 minutes.

• 36:21Wes Larson?

  They just keep listening for another one. But yeah, so he does these three shots. He sits and waits. He's yelling for help, but the wind and the rain of this storm are completely drowning out his cries and pretty much every noise that he can make. Meanwhile, his dad and his brother and these other hunters have been searching for a while. The storm is getting really bad. His dad wants to keep going, but the storm is so bad that some of the other people in this search party are saying, hey, if we keep doing this, we're really putting ourselves at risk too. It's getting really cold. So they decide that they have to go back to camp. And Dennis, his dad, would spend the whole night just kind of pacing around crying and worrying about his son up on the mountain.

• 37:09Wes Larson?

  Like a lot of people out there, I have a pretty complicated relationship with caffeine. I find that I have to use it to wake up in the morning, but it really just doesn't feel the way that I would love it to feel. I feel like I'm still tired and I just can crash really easily if I drink too much. And caffeine doesn't actually give you energy. It just mutes the signal that tells you you're tired. Underneath that fatigue is still building, you just can't hear it. And when it wears off, it all comes back at once, and that's that crash. Tea actually works differently. The caffeine comes bundled with L-theanine and polyphenols, the way it exists in a plant. That's what gives you a noticeably steadier feeling. There's less spike and less drop. And that's why I'm really happy

• 37:52Wes Larson?

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• 38:34Wes Larson?

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• 38:58Jeff Larson?

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• 40:18Wes Larson?

  So Bram is starting to feel like help might not be coming that night and that he's either gonna bleed out or die from hypothermia before the morning. So he decides that he's gonna have to do his best to get up and walk.

• 40:31Wes Larson?

  As he gets up, he realizes that his right leg is completely useless. So he tries to use his rifle as a makeshift crutch. And he's just kind of going really slow, falling a lot, wasting a ton of energy, probably a lot of blood. And he's getting really angry again, like his temper is really flaring. He's super mad and it's kind of helping him fight the pain. He said that it was like one of the key things in him not giving up was how angry he was about the situation he was in.

• 41:04Mike Smith?

  I think that's so cool, like not scared or sad, just angry.

• 41:08Wes Larson?

  It's like a very cowboy thing.

• 41:09Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Wes Larson?

  It is. Like, how the hell did this happen to me?

• 41:12Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 41:15Wes Larson?

  Goddamn bear.

• 41:18Wes Larson?

  Whoa, same exact time. But there were actually two other people on the mountain that day, actually more than that, but two others that we're going to talk about right now. Bruce Pisecchi and his son Bryce, who are from Lakeside, Montana, had also been hunting on the last day of muzzle load season, muzzleloader season on the mountain. And they had also gotten a little turned around in this storm. They'd been seeing tons of bear sign all day. So when I say sign, I mean like tracks, scat, scratches on trees. And they saw so much that they decided, we can't keep going. We're going to call it and go back to camp. But as they're going back, the storm kicks up, they can't find the trail.

• 42:01Wes Larson?

  And when they finally do find their trail, they're soaked, they're exhausted, and they sit down to take a quick break. These bear tracks and scat and everything are still really very much on their minds while they're taking this break. And Bruce is worried that their muzzleloaders are getting so wet in this storm that they might not work properly.

• 42:20Jeff Larson?

  Does they have to load black powder into them?

• 42:23Wes Larson?

  Yeah. So on a whim, he tells his son like, hey, let's try shooting one of our rifles to see if it'll work because we might be depending on these if we do run into a bear. And so they do that. And the sound echoes through the storm, through the woods, and Bram just manages to hear it where he's lying a few hundred yards away. And he immediately fires his rifle in response.

• 42:49Jeff Larson?

  Old fashioned shootout.

• 42:51Wes Larson?

  Yeah, sure. Bruce and Bryce hear this other rifle shot. And then they could faintly hear Bram's voice yelling for help through the wind and the rain and the dark. And then they hear him say that he had been attacked by a bear. And as they really nervously approached the source of this voice, they're like very bear, you know, paranoid at this point. They finally get close enough to Bram and he tells them immediately that the bear was dead and that he needed a lot of help. Shock is starting to set in for him. He's shaking uncontrollably. The colors leaving his face. These two men aren't like, they're not doctors, but they do their best to survey his injuries.

• 43:34Wes Larson?

  Bruce would later go on to say that a whole section of his thigh was folded down. They do some meager first aid and then they realize they need to get him off the mountain and down to safety. So Bruce does the only thing he can think of and he picks Bram up on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. And slowly does his best to work his way down the mountain. While Bryce is carrying all their gear and their guns. And this isn't like, this is an 18 year old like cowboy, you know, this is. Uh, he's like a bigger kid. This isn't an easy thing for this man to do. And it's pouring rain too. So that would be like incredibly hard to carry someone on your shoulders.

• 44:14Jeff Larson?

  And if you slip, like that guy has a. Big gaping injury that you're gonna like make him scream.

• 44:21Wes Larson?

  Yeah, you might get dirty in it.

• 44:22Jeff Larson?

  Bram, he's already so mad, you're gonna make him even more mad.

• 44:26Wes Larson?

  Don't make him mad. You won't like him when he's angry.

• 44:30Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, just look at the bear.

• 44:32Wes Larson?

  So it's not easy and Bruce would make it a short distance, then his strength would give out. And he would set Bram down. And then mentally force himself to get a second wind and keep going. Because he knew Bram was gonna die if they didn't get him warm soon. He said he could literally feel the life of the boy on his back ebbing out of him. As they were making their way down the mountain. And it started getting to where he could only take him about 50 yards at a time. Before needing to take a break. Um, but he refused to give up. He continued lifting Bram up onto his shoulders and trudging through the rain, the mud. The slippery vegetation. Uh, he drew his pistol to fire three shots in the air. And then he said a prayer and he asked God for strength.

• 45:16Wes Larson?

  And he says that when he picked Bram back up, he felt stronger. And more determined and he didn't feel tired anymore.

• 45:23Jeff Larson?

  Wow.

• 45:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah, he credits God with that.

• 45:26Jeff Larson?

  Sure.

• 45:27Wes Larson?

  Bram's now going in.

• 45:28Jeff Larson?

  Who do you think Sam gave credit to when he carried Frodo up the mountain?

• 45:33Wes Larson?

  Uh.

• 45:35Jeff Larson?

  He's a gaffer, right? It's gotta be his old gaffer.

• 45:38Wes Larson?

  Eru, uh, their, their high deity. Yeah, it's probably his old gaffer. Yeah. Uh, so Bram's now going in and he's going in and out of consciousness. He is really fading, but they're still just trudging through the storm. They walk a ways further and when they look up, they see something that just makes them feel so much better. It's flashlights heading toward them in the rain. Some nearby hunters in another group had heard those last distress shots that Bruce had fired. And when they heard the three shots in a row, they knew someone was in trouble and they decided to hike up the mountain in the rain to help. And one of those hunters, Andy Wolfe, was a medical doctor that had specialized training in shock drama.

• 46:22Mike Smith?

  No way.

• 46:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah. So he immediately took stock of Bram's wounds. Uh, and when he reached his hand into the cavity in his thigh, he could feel his pulsing femoral artery. And he immediately had the thought that Bram was either going to die there on the mountain or he was going to lose his leg. He was sure one of those two things was going to happen.

• 46:44Wes Larson?

  But they get him down the mountain. They get him into a tent. They start warming him up. They do everything they can to dress his wounds, to stabilize him. And some of the other hunters in their group ride their horses through the storm to get to a phone to call for help. It had been about four hours since Bram had been attacked. The men are able to call for a helicopter, but it wasn't able to land on this mountain in the storm. So it had to wait in Gardner for the weather to clear. So it's a really harrowing night and they have to keep Bram conscious. Uh, the doctor notices that he has some gas gangrene that's starting to appear on his wounds, which is something that can kill you pretty quickly. But finally at daybreak, they all hear the sound of the rotor blades cutting through the air and the helicopter landing nearby.

• 47:30Wes Larson?

  And Bram is loaded in and flown to a hospital first in Mammoth and then to Billings.

• 47:36Wes Larson?

  So his father and his brother and their friends start searching the next morning, but they're intercepted by some of the men who had helped Bram get through the night. And they then get quickly off of Horseshoe Mountain and go to Billings to find Bram at the hospital. He would end up spending 18 days in this hospital and doctors were able to save his leg. But they warned him that his life would be very different now. And then he would probably never be able to ride a horse again.

• 48:04Mike Smith?

  Uh oh. No, that's like the worst thing, right? For him.

• 48:10Wes Larson?

  For anyone. But within two months, he was on a horse again. And Bram, in some, some of his interviews, said that the encounter never really stopped him from doing things that he wanted to do in his life.

• 48:22Jeff Larson?

  Doctors didn't know how tough he is.

• 48:24Wes Larson?

  Nope.

• 48:24Mike Smith?

  Why?

• 48:25Wes Larson?

  He said, that ain't nothing.

• 48:26Mike Smith?

  That's a weird thing to tell someone, though. It doesn't seem like riding a horse would be that prohibitive of an activity.

• 48:32Jeff Larson?

  You've never had a doctor tell you that?

• 48:36Mike Smith?

  I'm trying to think now.

• 48:37Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 48:37Mike Smith?

  Maybe I.

• 48:39Wes Larson?

  I will say like.

• 48:40Mike Smith?

  Just wasn't listening.

• 48:42Wes Larson?

  Riding a horse, you, you use some weird muscles that you never think you would use.

• 48:47Mike Smith?

  I'm sure you do, but like people with prosthetics and stuff can ride horses. You know, maybe you're not like at a full gallop or like in the equestrian games or whatever, but.

• 48:56Wes Larson?

  It is kind of a weird thing to say, like, you're never going to be able to do again.

• 49:00Mike Smith?

  I don't know. Yeah, I could. I'm ignorant on that though, so I could be totally wrong.

• 49:03Wes Larson?

  Well, the doctor was totally wrong because he was riding a horse in less than two months.

• 49:07Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Quick turn.

• 49:09Wes Larson?

  Doctor just says that to everyone.

• 49:11Jeff Larson?

  He's probably the janitor or something, just looking.

• 49:16Wes Larson?

  Oh, you're never riding a horse again. They just say that to everyone in Billings in the hospital. So the reason this one reminds me of the Revenant, we kind of talked about this, it's very close. Like, he's out hunting alone, he gets hit by a bear with a cub. You know, there's this initial struggle that's bad, but not that bad. But then, you know, further movement, once the bear has kind of neutralized him, leads to more punishment. And then in, in Bram's case, he actually is able to kill the bear. Well, I guess in the Revenant, he kills it too, doesn't he? They fall down the cliff together. He does kill it, but not after it mauls him some, some more first. Yeah. So it's actually really close to the same thing.

• 49:57Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's kind of amazingly close.

• 49:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah. So pretty cool.

• 50:01Mike Smith?

  That's amazing. Yeah.

• 50:02Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 50:03Mike Smith?

  Crazy story of result. I like the anger. I'm gonna try that.

• 50:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 50:06Mike Smith?

  Yeah, if I ever get attacked by a bear.

• 50:08Jeff Larson?

  We should add that into like the what, what to do if you're attacked by a bear.

• 50:14Wes Larson?

  Really mad. Yeah. That's how Mike's gonna get through episodes.

• 50:19Mike Smith?

  That's, uh, that's, I'm like the Hulk. That's my secret. I'm always mad.

• 50:25Mike Smith?

  What does life look like for the bear cub after this situation? Is it doomed?

• 50:31Wes Larson?

  Really depends on what year of cub it was. So this is September. So say it was a cub that was born that year. There's a chance it survives, like a fairly decent chance even. The hard thing is gonna be it like finding a den and making it through the winter. But there is a chance. I shouldn't say decent, but there's a chance. If it was a cub, like a two-year-old cub, um, or one and a half or whatever the next September would have been. It's pretty likely that it, well, it's decent chance then that it makes it through the winter. That cub can probably, yeah, survive.

• 51:09Mike Smith?

  And they stay.

• 51:09Wes Larson?

  Been weaned.

• 51:10Mike Smith?

  How long are they with their, the mother bear? It's about two years, right?

• 51:14Wes Larson?

  Their moms about two and a half years.

• 51:16Mike Smith?

  Okay, so, yeah, it could have been close to maybe being separated from the parent anyway.

• 51:21Wes Larson?

  Yeah, there's been, there's been some research on bear cubs and like abandoned bear cubs. And they're a little bit more resilient than we thought they were. Like they often, you know, if they can make it through these kind of like big things like hibernation and whatnot, then they can do okay.

• 51:39Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 51:40Wes Larson?

  But a lot of them still get killed too. But it's not like a death sentence like you might expect is what I'm trying to say. Okay, um, let's do outies for this one. Who wants to go first?

• 51:54Jeff Larson?

  I'll give it seven.

• 51:56Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 51:57Jeff Larson?

  Seven ouchies. Pretty, pretty bad in the moment.

• 52:02Jeff Larson?

  Had to put his leg back in. That counts for a lot. And then tie it and then had to wait a long time for the helicopter. No sand in it and kept the leg and rode a horse again.

• 52:18Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 52:19Mike Smith?

  He did ride a horse again. Yeah. Would it have been like an eight without that, you think?

• 52:25Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, uh huh, or a nine.

• 52:28Wes Larson?

  There was a really good photo of his like wound in one of these after they had grafted it and like done everything and it's like almost his whole thigh that had been ripped out. It's pretty crazy how much it got.

• 52:41Jeff Larson?

  And he scalped, I forgot about that.

• 52:43Mike Smith?

  Yeah. The one, I think I was gonna go with a seven as well. The one thing, I guess I shouldn't ever try to diminish how bad these experiences are. Like, it's not really, um, my prerogative.

• 52:57Wes Larson?

  Let's know what we're doing.

• 52:58Mike Smith?

  But it was like a

• 52:59Wes Larson?

  We're just having a little fun.

• 53:00Mike Smith?

  Relatively a fast, um, you know, like the attack happened and it's not like he had to wait like 18 hours and ride back on a bumpy boat like some of our attack victims.

• 53:11Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 53:11Mike Smith?

  But the scalping in the leg and all that stuff. I'll go seven. Seven feels right.

• 53:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I'm gonna agree with seven. I, it didn't seem to have the psychological torment on him that it does some people too. Where it just like completely altered the rest of the trajectory of his life. You know, I might even go six. He got, he had the really bad leg wound. He spent 18 days in the hospital. But, uh,

• 53:37Jeff Larson?

  He probably had a really bad headache.

• 53:40Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I'm sure he had a bad headache. No, seven feels right. I'll stick with seven. Seven's all around.

• 53:46Jeff Larson?

  Headache.

• 53:47Wes Larson?

  Yeah, cuz the headache, you swayed me with the headache. All right.

• 53:52Jeff Larson?

  And just for everyone listening, obviously it's a 10 out of 10 in every person's life. But we're just doing the most extreme animal attack cases. So we're rating 10 out of 10 ouchies on a tooth and claw scale from one to 10.

• 54:13Wes Larson?

  Right. Like for me, the 10 I always think of is Cynthia Dussel Bacon, getting her arms chewed off by the bear.

• 54:21Wes Larson?

  Yeah, and a zero is like

• 54:22Jeff Larson?

  And I think I gave that one like an eight.

• 54:25Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I don't, yeah, I don't think you, well, no, you don't like when they get sand in their

• 54:29Mike Smith?

  The sand in the wound.

• 54:32Wes Larson?

  It's coarse.

• 54:33Mike Smith?

  Rough. Yeah. Gets everywhere.

• 54:36Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 54:39Mike Smith?

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• 55:22Mike Smith?

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• 55:52Jeff Larson?

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• 56:35Jeff Larson?

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• 57:18Jeff Larson?

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• 57:39Wes Larson?

  Should we get into our categories?

• 57:41Mike Smith?

  Yes, please.

• 57:42Wes Larson?

  Okay. It very much felt like the storm in this story was kind of a character, an important part of the story. So I asked you guys what your favorite media is where the weather is a main character.

• 57:56Jeff Larson?

  Because the storm in this story is the main character.

• 58:00Wes Larson?

  Uh, I don't know if it's the main character, but our main character.

• 58:03Jeff Larson?

  He got all wet.

• 58:05Wes Larson?

  Sure. And what I mean by that is like, the weather plays a big part in the feeling or the experience of the movie or book or TV show or whatever.

• 58:16Jeff Larson?

  I chose Twister, just a movie about twisters.

• 58:20Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's like literally what the movie's about.

• 58:23Jeff Larson?

  It made me wanna see a twister my whole life.

• 58:25Mike Smith?

  Yeah, me too. Twins.

• 58:28Wes Larson?

  Twins.

• 58:29Jeff Larson?

  Twins.

• 58:30Mike Smith?

  We are twins. Have you seen Twisters? I still haven't seen the new one.

• 58:34Jeff Larson?

  Oh, yeah. I thought it was fun.

• 58:35Mike Smith?

  Yeah?

• 58:36Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 58:36Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 58:37Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. That hot guy's in it?

• 58:39Mike Smith?

  Glenn.

• 58:40Jeff Larson?

  That's kinda not hot, but also is pretty hot. But then if you look at him too long, you're like, is he hot?

• 58:47Wes Larson?

  Capybara or whatever they say he looks like.

• 58:51Jeff Larson?

  He does look like a capybara. A hot one.

• 58:55Wes Larson?

  Yeah, he's he's got a certain charm to him. He was in that movie that I love. Everybody wants some. It's the first thing I ever saw him in and he was my favorite character in that. So I have a soft spot for him.

• 59:06Jeff Larson?

  We both liked Chad or yeah Chad Powers.

• 59:10Wes Larson?

  I love Chad Powers.

• 59:11Jeff Larson?

  And it's like that was we were not expecting to like Chad Powers.

• 59:15Wes Larson?

  No, he was great in that. I loved that show. Yeah. Mike, what do you? What do you want to pick?

• 59:22Mike Smith?

  I'm gonna go with, and this is a little far removed from even like a secondary or tertiary character, but the Titans in the animated Hercules movie.

• 59:32Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:33Mike Smith?

  I love those. Man, with the big ice titan and then like the magma one, the tornado one. This is like by far my favorite part of that movie when all the stars align and they get like released from their prison. I think it's so cool.

• 59:45Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I like that one.

• 59:46Mike Smith?

  And then they're going the wrong way and Hades has to tell him to go the other. It's so funny, Wes.

• 59:52Wes Larson?

  They were a little too easy to defeat, I feel like.

• 59:55Mike Smith?

  It's true. Yeah, pretty anticlimactic, but on their march towards Mount Olympus, I was getting hyped.

• 1:00:00Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:01Mike Smith?

  Oh, I was getting, I was sweating. I have to stand up every time.

• 1:00:05Wes Larson?

  Have you ever seen that Tarsim Singh Hercules story? It's called, um, it's really a crazy movie. Mickey Rourke is in it. The Immortals? Immortals. I think it's called.

• 1:00:17Mike Smith?

  Oh, with Henry Cavill? Oh, yeah. I love that movie.

• 1:00:21Wes Larson?

  Mickey Rourke is in that. I totally forgot. He's the bad guy. Yeah, he's like the the villain.

• 1:00:26Mike Smith?

  Yeah, okay. No, I've I've always liked that movie.

• 1:00:29Wes Larson?

  Cool.

• 1:00:29Mike Smith?

  It's great.

• 1:00:30Wes Larson?

  Um, all right. I picked Fargo. I think the movie Fargo, just the cold blowing wind and snow, that entire movie. Every time they step outside, it just seems so terrible and uncomfortable that it just gives the whole movie this feeling of kind of like claustrophobia and dread. And I think that wouldn't, that movie would feel very different if it was like sunny in Miami. So I think the weather is a big factor there. It also wouldn't be called Fargo.

• 1:01:02Mike Smith?

  All right.

• 1:01:05Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:01:05Mike Smith?

  Isn't that kind of like weird that it is called Fargo? Because I don't think the movie takes place. Isn't it like in Minnesota?

• 1:01:12Wes Larson?

  Most of it takes place in Minnesota, but I think the murder takes place in Fargo. Something happens in Fargo. Yeah. All right. Your favorite Simpsons side character, because I played that clip of McBane. I'm curious to know your favorite side character. I'm gonna let you guys define what you see as a side character. For me, people like Mr. Burns, or even like Mo, aren't really side characters. They're still like main cast. Yeah. So I'll give you mine, so that you guys can kind of know where I was looking. I picked Troy McClure.

• 1:01:45Wes Larson?

  He, every time he shows up in any episode, it ends up being like the funniest 20 to 30 seconds of that episode, in my opinion. He's the movie star. And maybe one of my favorite moments in all of Simpsons is when there's like, the educational movie about eating meat, and he's the host of it. It is so funny. I love Troy McClure. Phil Hartman was the goat for Simpsons.

• 1:02:11Mike Smith?

  The perfect voice for it.

• 1:02:12Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:13Mike Smith?

  I went, I'm going with Kent Brockman.

• 1:02:16Wes Larson?

  Good pick.

• 1:02:16Mike Smith?

  I, there's something about like, the parody of news anchors and news, like, the weekly, the Norm MacDonald, anytime anyone's doing like, satire of news and newscasters, just works so well for me. I think he's the funniest.

• 1:02:32Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I love Kent Brockman.

• 1:02:33Mike Smith?

  Just like, a straight face delivery of like, I've said it before, I'll say it again, democracy does not work.

• 1:02:42Wes Larson?

  There's that one where, they, everyone thinks Homer's a sexual predator, and they get like, heat, heat infrared to look into his house. And they're, they're like, right now Homer Simpson is basting in his own juices. And they're like, looking at a turkey in the oven.

• 1:02:59Mike Smith?

  So funny.

• 1:03:00Wes Larson?

  Delivery's so good. Jeff?

• 1:03:03Jeff Larson?

  Edgar Chief Wiggum.

• 1:03:05Wes Larson?

  It's another great pick. Yeah. Great. Perfect show for the first, you know, or seasons like two through 10, two through nine. Okay. Uh, we're going to do a quick where Mike and Jeff paying attention. There's only going to be three questions and then there's a bonus one if it's a tie. Who wants to go first?

• 1:03:23Mike Smith?

  I wish all police were like Chief Wiggum.

• 1:03:26Wes Larson?

  Just totally inept and kind of like

• 1:03:28Mike Smith?

  bumbling and like good natured and like well meaning, but just totally incompetent. Yeah.

• 1:03:35Wes Larson?

  Well, maybe not always. Yeah, not all of them, but yeah. All right. Uh, who wants to go first?

• 1:03:43Jeff Larson?

  I think I normally choose you choose.

• 1:03:45Wes Larson?

  Okay, I'll go first. All right.

• 1:03:48Jeff Larson?

  Wow, big boy wants a ball.

• 1:03:50Wes Larson?

  What is the universal sign for distress among hunters?

• 1:03:58Mike Smith?

  Uh, three bullets in the air. Yes, three shots into the air.

• 1:04:03Wes Larson?

  Whatever.

• 1:04:04Mike Smith?

  Correct.

• 1:04:04Wes Larson?

  Who cares?

• 1:04:06Mike Smith?

  Jeff, give me on the semantics. I don't care. That's zero points then. No points.

• 1:04:10Wes Larson?

  No, you got it. You got it. You got it. It, when you said three bullets at first, I was like, no. And then you said in the air and that was perfect. You nailed it. Jeff.

• 1:04:20Jeff Larson?

  Because you could throw three bullets, Mike.

• 1:04:22Wes Larson?

  Yeah. What town did I use as a reference for where Horseshoe Mountain is located?

• 1:04:30Jeff Larson?

  Cook, Cook City.

• 1:04:33Wes Larson?

  Cook City. Correct. One to one. Wow.

• 1:04:35Jeff Larson?

  I said cook twice. Does that still count?

• 1:04:38Wes Larson?

  Cook Cook City. Sure. I am still counting it. Mike, in which year did this story take place?

• 1:04:45Mike Smith?

  95.

• 1:04:46Wes Larson?

  95.

• 1:04:47Mike Smith?

  B C, right? 95, 80.

• 1:04:50Wes Larson?

  It'd be two nerd A J P.

• 1:04:53Mike Smith?

  Shoot, zero points. I don't have any points yet.

• 1:04:57Wes Larson?

  Jeff?

• 1:04:59Wes Larson?

  What is the name of the species of moth that a lot of grizzlies feed on in the late summer in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem?

• 1:05:08Jeff Larson?

  Uh, I don't know. White moth.

• 1:05:10Wes Larson?

  Mike, do you have a steal?

• 1:05:12Mike Smith?

  I can get close. I'm almost certainly not going to get it exactly right. It's like the army cutworm moth or something.

• 1:05:19Wes Larson?

  That's exactly right.

• 1:05:20Mike Smith?

  Is it really?

• 1:05:21Wes Larson?

  Yes.

• 1:05:21Mike Smith?

  Those three words in that order?

• 1:05:23Wes Larson?

  Army cutworm moth.

• 1:05:25Mike Smith?

  Yep.

• 1:05:25Wes Larson?

  Correct.

• 1:05:26Mike Smith?

  Look at me go.

• 1:05:27Wes Larson?

  All right. So it's three, one. Jeff, you're gonna have to get both of these to win. Mike, what town in Montana was Bram from?

• 1:05:37Mike Smith?

  Shoot, it's Bryce, Bruce, Bram, and BR. It's another BR word.

• 1:05:44Mike Smith?

  Bro- Bro- Broderick, Brody.

• 1:05:48Wes Larson?

  Incorrect.

• 1:05:49Mike Smith?

  Shoot, what is it?

• 1:05:51Wes Larson?

  It's. Mike was very close.

• 1:05:54Jeff Larson?

  I know. I know it's.

• 1:05:56Wes Larson?

  Just giving him hints because it's more interesting if Jeff gets it.

• 1:06:00Jeff Larson?

  Bro. Brosey.

• 1:06:03Mike Smith?

  Brofuck Mountain.

• 1:06:05Wes Larson?

  Brodus. B-R-O-A-D-U-S. Brodus. I think I'm saying it right. Uh, Jeff, just for kicks, um, which state in the lower, no, no, sorry. Yeah. Which state in the lower 48 has the highest number of grizzly bears?

• 1:06:22Jeff Larson?

  Montana.

• 1:06:24Wes Larson?

  Montana. Correct. All right. Mike, you won that round. We didn't put anything on the line. This one was just for bragging rights.

• 1:06:32Mike Smith?

  Good game, Jeff.

• 1:06:33Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:06:34Jeff Larson?

  Don't brag about it.

• 1:06:35Mike Smith?

  I promise you I won't.

• 1:06:38Wes Larson?

  All right. Quickly, I wanted to ask you guys something you recommend from this week. Anything out there that you recommend?

• 1:06:45Jeff Larson?

  You didn't say from this week, though.

• 1:06:48Wes Larson?

  This week. Sorry. Something you recommend this week.

• 1:06:50Jeff Larson?

  Because I did have.

• 1:06:51Wes Larson?

  From this week.

• 1:06:52Jeff Larson?

  I had Jim Carrey, The Mask.

• 1:06:54Wes Larson?

  That's fine.

• 1:06:55Jeff Larson?

  But I haven't seen that since I was a kid.

• 1:06:58Wes Larson?

  It's okay. That can be your answer.

• 1:07:00Jeff Larson?

  So I don't know. I don't know if it's still good. So I'll say, let's just say. No reason, but I think it'd be nice to have a hot girlfriend.

• 1:07:13Mike Smith?

  Wow.

• 1:07:14Jeff Larson?

  You know? Yeah. So I recommend having a hot girlfriend because I think that'd be really fun and nice.

• 1:07:20Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I'll give that a try.

• 1:07:21Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 1:07:22Mike Smith?

  Cool. Thanks for the tip.

• 1:07:24Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:25Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I never thought about it that way.

• 1:07:27Wes Larson?

  You're still talking about the mask, right?

• 1:07:30Mike Smith?

  Okay, yeah, maybe I'll just watch the mask. Um, yeah, I haven't had a sloppy joe since I was probably eight years old. And then I was walking through the grocery store I frequent, uh, and they just had like a display with sloppy joe materials all over the place. And I was like, you know what? Let's go for it. So three days ago, I got sloppy joe stuff and made some. And I was like, you know what? Maybe not every day, but every once in a while sloppy joe is gonna really hit. And then two days later, I went to my dad's place and he's like, yo, I made sloppy joe. So it's like, no way. So for two out of three days, for the first time in probably like 30 years, I had sloppy joes.

• 1:08:11Mike Smith?

  And I'm just like, I take it as a sign, a higher power is telling me to consume more sloppy. And I recommend it. They're pretty good. You know, they're not gonna change your life, but let's go sloppy joe.

• 1:08:21Jeff Larson?

  Insane is I had that happen earlier this year for like the first time I think I've ever made sloppy joe.

• 1:08:28Mike Smith?

  Really?

• 1:08:29Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I even put cheese on it. It's delicious.

• 1:08:32Mike Smith?

  They're super good, right?

• 1:08:34Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:34Mike Smith?

  Oh, so easy too.

• 1:08:36Wes Larson?

  There definitely was a period of my life where they were like in the rotation. Like I was gonna get a sloppy joe every once in a while.

• 1:08:42Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:43Wes Larson?

  Served to me.

• 1:08:44Jeff Larson?

  I feel like growing up hamburger helper kinda like took its, it's like space for a bit.

• 1:08:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah, they probably make a sloppy joe mix. All right. Uh, mine that I'm gonna recommend, and I've been a little bit annoying even about recommending this one, is the show Widows Bay. Uh, it's on Apple TV, but it's a horror comedy. It's about this mayor who's like struggling to kind of. Convinced the residents of his town that supernatural stuff isn't happening when it's obviously happening. And I find that generally horror comedies either lean too far into horror or too far into comedy. And this one just like hits it perfect. Like the horror is genuinely scary and good. And the comedy is is genuinely funny and really well acted and done. And it's been

• 1:09:38Wes Larson?

  probably since Andor that I've liked to show this much. I just absolutely love it. I'm waiting for each new episode every week with like bated breath. Just really, really, really enjoying it. So check it out.

• 1:09:51Mike Smith?

  I will.

• 1:09:52Jeff Larson?

  I will say too, just for sports corner real quick.

• 1:09:56Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:56Jeff Larson?

  Danielle's as uninterested in sports as anyone I know. And like even she had to like be like, wow, Winny Yama is an insane looking person to play basketball. It's pretty fun to watch him in the game.

• 1:10:14Wes Larson?

  Yeah. He's yeah, he's my favorite player right now. I really like him.

• 1:10:19Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Great series happening. OKC versus San Antonio is pretty outrageous.

• 1:10:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah, double overtime last night.

• 1:10:26Mike Smith?

  Yeah, living up to all of its promises so far.

• 1:10:29Wes Larson?

  All right. So Dennis Bram's dad had to quit looking for him when they were on the mountain, even though he really didn't want to quit. So I wanted to ask you guys something that you had to quit that you really didn't want to quit.

• 1:10:43Wes Larson?

  You know, I'll go first on this one.

• 1:10:45Mike Smith?

  Oxys.

• 1:10:46Wes Larson?

  No, no.

• 1:10:48Jeff Larson?

  Is my dark answer, but that was hard to quit.

• 1:10:51Wes Larson?

  Yeah, there's a reason that people get addicted to them.

• 1:10:55Mike Smith?

  Yum yum.

• 1:10:57Wes Larson?

  My answer is like kind of a little bit deeper on this one. But organized religion. Oh. Was like something that I really didn't want to stop doing because I think it gave me a lot of like purpose and like kind of confidence about life, you know, that is like such a nice security blanket to have when you believe in something, you know, really strongly, you kind of just feel like you're on the right track and you're know what's gonna happen to you. And yeah, it was like a hard thing to give up, but I just felt like I had to. So organized religion is my answer. Yeah.

• 1:11:36Mike Smith?

  I want to be a part of a disorganized religion.

• 1:11:38Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:39Mike Smith?

  You know?

• 1:11:40Wes Larson?

  I, yeah, that's kind of what I feel like I'm in now, where I just kind of like have disorganized thoughts about religion.

• 1:11:46Mike Smith?

  There's no rules here at Tooth and Cult. We're not very organized.

• 1:11:50Jeff Larson?

  Well, going off that one, I had recess when I was a kid. I hated when I had to go inside from recess.

• 1:11:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:59Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. But I think I agree with Wes a lot too, but not as hard as leaving recess.

• 1:12:07Mike Smith?

  Recession is way harder.

• 1:12:10Mike Smith?

  Like you had to leave recess every day. Wes only had to leave church once.

• 1:12:14Jeff Larson?

  Three times a day in elementary school.

• 1:12:16Mike Smith?

  Yeah. You had three recesses?

• 1:12:19Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, fifteen minutes lunch and then another fifteen minute recess.

• 1:12:24Wes Larson?

  Wow. Yeah, we had three recesses too.

• 1:12:27Mike Smith?

  I'm trying to remember.

• 1:12:27Wes Larson?

  I guess me and Jeff went to the same schools, so.

• 1:12:30Mike Smith?

  Hmm.

• 1:12:30Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:31Mike Smith?

  I am picking, uh, going to bed at a reasonable, well, so I'm giving up going to bed when my body naturally wants to, which is around like three or four AM. I've been that way my whole life and it just causes problems, you know, like there's just too many things, you know, with like friends and family and work, of course, like it's just not reasonable.

• 1:12:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:53Jeff Larson?

  What was the thing where I had to order a pizza to your house?

• 1:13:00Jeff Larson?

  We just didn't post it. Yeah.

• 1:13:02Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:02Wes Larson?

  He did post it. Mike did everything right, but it was that and to to defend Mike, it was a Spotify issue.

• 1:13:09Mike Smith?

  Spotify messaged me with like a personalized apology about it, which is really surprising, but yeah.

• 1:13:16Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:16Mike Smith?

  It made me feel a little vindicated though, so I appreciate it.

• 1:13:18Wes Larson?

  Yeah, but when the shit hit the fan with that one, he was just like gone.

• 1:13:23Mike Smith?

  Out, out till like four thirty PM.

• 1:13:28Jeff Larson?

  The pizza thing was genius. Yeah. I I ordered one that I thought would taste good at least. And then just in the instructions I put, knock and ring the doorbell a million times.

• 1:13:41Mike Smith?

  So good. But like, I have to be careful. I I have to be paying attention because like if I'm not keyed in on a clock, I'm just up till four or five AM, no problem, you know?

• 1:13:52Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:53Mike Smith?

  Don't start feeling sleepy till around then.

• 1:13:55Wes Larson?

  You know, something that I uh this just kind of piggybacking off of that where you're not looking at a clock that often. And I know everyone in modern times says this, but like something I'm trying to quit a lot more is just like being on my phone. Because I've just watched that documentary, The Crash. Have you guys seen that one?

• 1:14:13Mike Smith?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:14:13Wes Larson?

  It's about this girl who like, it's not Crash. It's a documentary called The Crash. It's about this like eighteen year old or seventeen year old girl.

• 1:14:21Jeff Larson?

  Jason Statham's heart stops if he doesn't have it.

• 1:14:24Wes Larson?

  That's crank crank.

• 1:14:26Mike Smith?

  Jeff. Crash is even worse somehow.

• 1:14:28Wes Larson?

  This this documentary is about this girl who like probably on purpose runs her car into a brick wall with two friends inside and kills them. And they're like Gen Z kids and there's so many videos of them like out having fun, but it's just everyone has a camera on them at all times. Like they're never not recording their lives. And it made me feel really sad because it was like I thought about all the fun times I had growing up that were just like, you know, they're just in my memory and and that's kind of beautiful. They're not like on camera. And uh, yeah, it made me feel like I need to be on my phone a lot less. So anyway.

• 1:15:09Wes Larson?

  All right. Uh, let's do a couple of quick listener questions from Patreon and then we will wrap this up. So I have a few here. Michelle says, if you were a type of pasta, what would you be?

• 1:15:23Mike Smith?

  Michelle Obama, right?

• 1:15:24Wes Larson?

  It's gotta be.

• 1:15:25Mike Smith?

  Yeah, this is straight from Michelle Obama, our ex first lady.

• 1:15:31Wes Larson?

  I think I'd be spaghetti. I just think spaghetti is like well rounded and and a nice pasta. So I think.

• 1:15:36Mike Smith?

  But you're only one noodle though, right?

• 1:15:38Wes Larson?

  Just one spaghetti noodle. It'd be that two mile long one.

• 1:15:44Jeff Larson?

  You'd never pee on your own pants?

• 1:15:47Wes Larson?

  That's my answer. Spaghetti.

• 1:15:48Jeff Larson?

  Spaghetti.

• 1:15:50Wes Larson?

  What are you guys? What are you picking for your pasta?

• 1:15:52Mike Smith?

  It'd be a shell.

• 1:15:55Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I'll be orzo.

• 1:15:56Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:15:57Mike Smith?

  Oh, wow. Why?

• 1:15:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah, just a little tiny.

• 1:16:01Jeff Larson?

  Crazy, right?

• 1:16:02Mike Smith?

  Why do you say that?

• 1:16:04Jeff Larson?

  Uh, because there's so much of it in that one dish.

• 1:16:09Wes Larson?

  You're just one orzo though.

• 1:16:10Jeff Larson?

  If I'm just one spaghetti. I'm a lot to handle. I'm chaotic. I'm all over everything.

• 1:16:17Wes Larson?

  This one's from Yash. Yash says a genie grants you any wish and as many as you want.

• 1:16:23Jeff Larson?

  Hold on. Why do you say a shell? It's pasta.

• 1:16:27Mike Smith?

  I like the ocean.

• 1:16:28Wes Larson?

  Cause he likes being in a shell.

• 1:16:30Mike Smith?

  The water is nice. Feels right.

• 1:16:32Jeff Larson?

  I like that.

• 1:16:33Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I'm there. There's no indignation over your answer. I just wanted, I was just curious. My best friend says something I don't fully understand. I'm like, wow, I really want to pick my.

• 1:16:42Jeff Larson?

  You guys took the obvious ones.

• 1:16:46Wes Larson?

  Mine doesn't really have a good reason behind it. I just like spaghetti. So I answered this the worst.

• 1:16:52Jeff Larson?

  You want to be a two mile long spaghetti noodle because you've always been short and you wish you would.

• 1:16:59Wes Larson?

  All right. Well, speaking of always been short, Yash says a genie grants you any wish and as many as you want, but you grow four inches every time you make one. The only rule is that no wish can affect your height.

• 1:17:11Jeff Larson?

  Extra wishes.

• 1:17:11Wes Larson?

  And you will grow four inches with each wish, no matter what, no way around it. How many wishes would you make? And then I, you know, I want to say concurrently, what if you shrink four inches too? How many would you make?

• 1:17:24Mike Smith?

  Probably one both way. I feel like one wish is all I would need to like, I don't know, because you don't want to get too reliant on.

• 1:17:30Jeff Larson?

  Because you wish for more wishes.

• 1:17:32Mike Smith?

  Well, you have as many as you.

• 1:17:33Wes Larson?

  You have as many as you want. You don't.

• 1:17:34Mike Smith?

  If you wasted your, that'd be a terrible, that's just the worst answer.

• 1:17:39Jeff Larson?

  Wait, you have as many as you want?

• 1:17:42Mike Smith?

  Yes.

• 1:17:42Wes Larson?

  That's what it said.

• 1:17:43Mike Smith?

  So you can make as many wishes as you want.

• 1:17:45Wes Larson?

  But you grow four inches every time.

• 1:17:49Jeff Larson?

  So I he would be like, yeah, you still get that.

• 1:17:53Mike Smith?

  Uh huh. But you would grow four inches.

• 1:17:54Wes Larson?

  Grow.

• 1:17:57Wes Larson?

  You wasted a wish. I'm I'm gonna say I would do two if it's grow. One if it's shrink cuz that that put me at five, four, and I'm feeling pretty short at five, four, not no, no, like, no, no shots fired against my five, four kings out there, but I I don't.

• 1:18:15Jeff Larson?

  Don't worry, they're all there. I wish they're like, I'm not getting short.

• 1:18:20Wes Larson?

  Yeah, but I mean, I would want one wish at least.

• 1:18:24Mike Smith?

  I feel like I'd go like three or four wishes in the shrinking because then you can be like a you can be a hobbit double when they're filming another Lord of the Rings movie.

• 1:18:33Wes Larson?

  Yeah, you know, that's true.

• 1:18:34Jeff Larson?

  I would go like six wishes shorter. And then my last one would be, I want to grow three feet.

• 1:18:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah, you could just wish until you're like, like microscopic. That'd be fun.

• 1:18:47Jeff Larson?

  Well, wouldn't you cease to exist cuz you'd lose four inches every time?

• 1:18:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah, but you. Yeah, that's true. So you just you can't like four inches is as small as you can be. Has to be cool though, still.

• 1:19:04Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 1:19:06Wes Larson?

  You'd have to be careful about snakes if you're four inches. Uh, all right, next.

• 1:19:12Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I just asked for like mystique's ability to shape shift into any one.

• 1:19:18Wes Larson?

  No, you can't. You can't change your height no matter what. That was one of the conditions.

• 1:19:22Jeff Larson?

  That's.

• 1:19:24Wes Larson?

  It was a condition.

• 1:19:25Mike Smith?

  Yeah, you gotta.

• 1:19:26Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 1:19:26Mike Smith?

  You missed a lot of those conditions.

• 1:19:29Wes Larson?

  This one's from Margaret. We've talked a lot about bears and bear spray, but I'm not sure I remember hearing about when to actually use it. Is there an optimal distance you'd want to deploy your bear spray when charged? And does that chart or does that change based on the brand of spray? And do you have a preferred brand? I'd always wear it either use it too soon or too late in the heat of the moment. So most bear spray is rated for about thirty feet.

• 1:19:53Wes Larson?

  So for me, I would spray it a little bit before the bear is at thirty feet. And that is because the, the thing you're trying to do with spray is put it in between you and the bear. So when you spray it, you're not necessarily like, like hoping to hit the bear in the face. If you do get in the face, great, you know, it's going to work really well. But if you can put that cloud of bear spray into the air in between you and the bear, it has to then pass through that to get to you. And so it's not bad to spray it a little early because the bear is still going to hit it. It's aerosolized, it hangs in the air for a little bit. I sprayed mine once on accident and then walked back through where I had sprayed it like five, six minutes later and it still like choked me out.

• 1:20:39Wes Larson?

  So it stays in the air for a while. So I would spray it about forty feet, probably is where I would start spraying with a charging bear.

• 1:20:48Mike Smith?

  Just as long as I have the opportunity to ask a follow up. So yeah, I've heard you say, I think when you discharge it, that the can is basically useless. That's it for that one, right? Like you don't want to keep that around for like a potential next time.

• 1:21:02Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:02Mike Smith?

  So would you just waste all of the contents? Just spray it until there's nothing left in there?

• 1:21:07Wes Larson?

  I would, so like when I say you don't want to use it again, I mean, you don't want to like put it in your closet and use it like three months down the line.

• 1:21:14Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 1:21:14Wes Larson?

  But you get about seven seconds of spray in a can. So if I sprayed it, you know, for three seconds and the bear ran off, I one hundred percent am keeping that can on me until I'm like to my car or whatever, until I'm out of that situation. Cause the bear could come back and you're going to want those other seconds.

• 1:21:31Mike Smith?

  Sure. Okay.

• 1:21:32Wes Larson?

  So that's the main thing, but I, yeah. So for me, as far as like, if there's a spray brand that I recommend, right now they're pretty much all the same. Uh, I actually am working on one to kind of change that a little bit. So we'll see when that comes out, but um, I, there's not one that I prefer over the others. It's not, it's not going to be really different in that regard, but um, we'll get into that once it's out. So yeah, I don't, I don't like prefer one over the other.

• 1:22:01Jeff Larson?

  Have you heard what Joe Rogan thinks of bear spray?

• 1:22:05Wes Larson?

  Uh, I doubt he likes it.

• 1:22:08Jeff Larson?

  I haven't really heard.

• 1:22:10Wes Larson?

  Uh, yeah, I think he's kind of a gun guy. I think he's mostly.

• 1:22:13Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 1:22:14Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:15Mike Smith?

  You're just introducing, just throwing that grenade out into the world there, Jeff?

• 1:22:21Mike Smith?

  Would, uh, bear spray have a Scoville rating? It probably would, right? Cause it's, it's capsaicin based, right?

• 1:22:29Wes Larson?

  Capsaicin, yeah.

• 1:22:31Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Probably a billion.

• 1:22:32Wes Larson?

  And people, like something that people get kind of confused about too, is it's not like the bear's eating it and it's hot. It's getting into like its mucus membranes. Uh, because it's, it's suspended in oil and in the air. So it's getting in its eyes and its nasal passages. It's inhaling it. It's, it's really, really nasty stuff.

• 1:22:52Jeff Larson?

  Would it hurt the bear more from one feet away?

• 1:22:56Wes Larson?

  Uh, it probably wouldn't be as effective from one feet away. And the bear's probably still gonna get you.

• 1:23:04Jeff Larson?

  But it would hurt more.

• 1:23:05Wes Larson?

  Um, I don't think so. No.

• 1:23:13Wes Larson?

  Maybe in the long run, because you're putting it all on its face, but I don't think it would stop it quite as quick. All right. This one's from Trey, T R E S. Question for all three of you. Wes recently said that human life is more valuable than leopards. I feel like that's a little out of context, but it's true.

• 1:23:33Wes Larson?

  But leopards deserve to exist. How many people would leopards have to kill per year? Before you would start to agree with eradicating all leopards? Assume that as long as one leopard remains, that this number of people will be killed.

• 1:23:47Jeff Larson?

  Huh.

• 1:23:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's a good question.

• 1:23:49Mike Smith?

  It'd be a lot.

• 1:23:51Wes Larson?

  It, this feels like kind of a trap. Like a hard one. It is kind of a trap to answer because we're talking about like parts of the world where we don't live.

• 1:24:01Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 1:24:01Wes Larson?

  So I'm gonna say like a mountain lion in the U S instead. And I feel like it's a little bit less prickly. Or, you know, whatever that way. And I would say that if they killed per year. Fifty.

• 1:24:20Wes Larson?

  No, 150,000 people a year. I would be like, we gotta get rid of mountain lions.

• 1:24:26Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:26Wes Larson?

  That's a lot.

• 1:24:27Mike Smith?

  Well, how many people do snakes kill every year?

• 1:24:30Wes Larson?

  That's why I stopped when I started to say 50,000.

• 1:24:33Mike Smith?

  Yeah, and like, I wouldn't.

• 1:24:35Wes Larson?

  Snakes belong, yeah.

• 1:24:36Mike Smith?

  Right. I would never have for a moment thought like, we should get rid of all snakes. So like, that number's gonna have to be huge.

• 1:24:42Wes Larson?

  Yeah, you're right. It's probably bigger than 150,000.

• 1:24:45Mike Smith?

  But again, that it happens in parts of the world that just don't concern me. So like, yeah, I don't know.

• 1:24:51Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:52Jeff Larson?

  Well, you guys have heard my take, though, that I think leopard lives are more valuable than humans.

• 1:24:58Wes Larson?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:24:59Jeff Larson?

  More.

• 1:25:00Wes Larson?

  One. Yeah.

• 1:25:01Jeff Larson?

  No, it's less, or it's.

• 1:25:03Mike Smith?

  Less than one?

• 1:25:05Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, it's like.

• 1:25:07Wes Larson?

  Millions, millions and millions of people, and you're still not killing leopards.

• 1:25:13Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, billions.

• 1:25:14Wes Larson?

  Well, you have to have a number. What's your number? Where you're finally like, okay, this isn't worth saving this leopard. Leopards. He's getting out his calculator.

• 1:25:26Jeff Larson?

  Um, 8.3 billion.

• 1:25:29Wes Larson?

  Okay, okay. Yeah, just letting everyone on earth die before he kills a single leopard. All right, respect. Okay, uh, great question.

• 1:25:39Jeff Larson?

  Kill all the leopards.

• 1:25:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:42Jeff Larson?

  Right?

• 1:25:42Wes Larson?

  But there could just be one, and they're still gonna kill that many people. So yeah, all the leopards. Quick one from Mary here. Are any of you going to buy the Minus Tirith Lego set?

• 1:25:54Mike Smith?

  Oh, shoot.

• 1:25:55Wes Larson?

  Uh, uh, cool, $650 or whatever it is.

• 1:25:58Mike Smith?

  Oh, well, then, yeah, no.

• 1:26:01Wes Larson?

  It is the most tempted I've ever been to buying a big Lego set, but I don't really have a space for it. So no, I'm not gonna buy it.

• 1:26:09Jeff Larson?

  Whole shed.

• 1:26:10Wes Larson?

  Yeah, yeah, my sheds, my shed's pretty cozy already.

• 1:26:14Jeff Larson?

  You don't even park in your garage.

• 1:26:15Wes Larson?

  I do park in my garage. I just didn't when you guys were here.

• 1:26:19Jeff Larson?

  I'm tempted. I asked Danielle, actually, two days ago to buy me La Baratie Lego set.

• 1:26:27Mike Smith?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:26:27Jeff Larson?

  And she declined pretty immediately.

• 1:26:31Mike Smith?

  How much was, how much is that one? I'd be more tempted to get that one, I think, actually.

• 1:26:36Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, it made me want it more. At first I was kind of joking and now I'm like, I think I want more.

• 1:26:41Mike Smith?

  I'll get it for you. Yeah, I'll show you, I'll show Danielle what, what it means to be a good, I don't know, a good partner.

• 1:26:49Jeff Larson?

  The only problem is I really hate instructions.

• 1:26:53Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I would like to see you put that together.

• 1:26:55Jeff Larson?

  I might just like, do it like when I buy anything and just try to put it together without reading.

• 1:27:02Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it'd be interesting. All right. Well, that's it for questions. That's it for the episode. Thank you, everyone, for listening.

• 1:27:12Wes Larson?

  What was our last Patreon episode? It was Mike's and it was about, oh, yeah, it was about the Pope and his elephant. It was a really fun episode about a really strange little section of history where a Pope in the 1500s had an elephant. Really fun episode. Jeff had to leave.

• 1:27:30Jeff Larson?

  I scared the cleaner of my hair being so bad.

• 1:27:37Wes Larson?

  I loved it when he came in to, you just said, I'm recording.

• 1:27:40Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:42Jeff Larson?

  Well, he gave a look like, what the hell's going on?

• 1:27:45Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:46Mike Smith?

  That's funny. Did you finish listening to the episode, though, Jeff?

• 1:27:51Jeff Larson?

  This is code work.

• 1:27:52Mike Smith?

  Yes or no question. I, listen, no judgment, I'm just curious.

• 1:27:57Jeff Larson?

  No, I haven't.

• 1:27:58Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 1:27:58Jeff Larson?

  What happened?

• 1:27:59Wes Larson?

  That elephant's [BLEEP] and then he [BLEEP]. Oh, then we shouldn't put that in, we gotta cut that.

• 1:28:05Mike Smith?

  Cut that.

• 1:28:06Jeff Larson?

  Just bleep it, just go bleep.

• 1:28:09Wes Larson?

  Anyway, if you're interested in that, check out our Patreon. We really have been happy with the relationship we have with Patreon, so we're trying to push people there. And it's $10 a month and you're going to get access to our whole backlog of bonus content.

• 1:28:25Jeff Larson?

  We try to force people there.

• 1:28:27Wes Larson?

  Yeah, we are forcing people to do that.

• 1:28:29Jeff Larson?

  Well, leave cliffhanger at three-part episodes. We'll, we can't come on a trip if you're not a subscriber.

• 1:28:39Jeff Larson?

  Uh, what else do we make?

• 1:28:40Wes Larson?

  There's a lot of benefits to being a subscriber.

• 1:28:42Mike Smith?

  You can't be in our Discord server.

• 1:28:44Jeff Larson?

  We gotta listen to our ads.

• 1:28:46Mike Smith?

  I have to listen to those ads, man.

• 1:28:48Wes Larson?

  Alright, well, thanks everyone, and we will talk to you soon. Love ya.

• 1:28:53Mike Smith?

  See ya.

• 1:28:54Jeff Larson?

  Love ya.