Rattlesnake Bite - The Dangerous Games Cults Play

In 1977, attorney and journalist Paul Morantz investigated a drug rehabilitation institution and found himself on the receiving end of the wrath of a cult. ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social: Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:13Jeff Larson?

  Hello everyone, welcome to Tooth and Claw Podcast. We have our wildlife biologist, bear expert Wes Larson.

• 0:21Mike Smith?

  Hello.

• 0:22Jeff Larson?

  He's just sitting there.

• 0:23Mike Smith?

  Just sitting here in my studio.

• 0:25Jeff Larson?

  And then we got Mike Smith, co-host.

• 0:27Wes Larson?

  Co-host extraordinaire.

• 0:28Mike Smith?

  Thank you.

• 0:29Jeff Larson?

  Co-host.

• 0:30Mike Smith?

  Thanks for having me.

• 0:30Jeff Larson?

  He's just sitting there. And then I'm Jeff Larson, Wes's little brother. I'm just sitting here. And we are Tooth and Claw Podcast.

• 0:38Wes Larson?

  Just sitting here. That should be our tagline.

• 0:41Jeff Larson?

  We just sit here.

• 0:42Wes Larson?

  Yeah, talking sometimes.

• 0:44Mike Smith?

  Less a tagline than like a goal for me.

• 0:46Wes Larson?

  Something funny that happened to me this morning. This happened more times than I think happens to most people. I was just like sitting, putting some final touches on, on this episode. And I hear Jessie kind of scream. And I was like, what's up? And she says, oh, a flea just fell out of my head. And that's not uncommon at my house. And it's not that we live in like destitution or whatever the word is, but it's just, animals get fleas.

• 1:16Mike Smith?

  So it's not uncommon that a flea will fall off of Jessie's head?

• 1:22Wes Larson?

  Yeah. She just like, all of a sudden, one just like fell onto her notebook. Not just Jessie. I've had my, my fair share of fleas too.

• 1:29Mike Smith?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:30Wes Larson?

  Yeah. But it always is kind of discouraging. It's like, oh shit, now I gotta go comb through my hair and look for fleas again.

• 1:37Jeff Larson?

  What's so bad about fleas? Is it just like the gross part of it?

• 1:41Wes Larson?

  They're, they bite and it's really itchy. They drink a little bit of your blood and it, there does not. And they suck for animals too. They're really hard to get rid of once you've got them. So we got fleas.

• 1:52Mike Smith?

  You should gather them all up and sell them in a little flea market. I think that's what those are, right?

• 1:58Wes Larson?

  Or do a flea circus.

• 1:59Mike Smith?

  Where you sell your fleas.

• 2:00Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Can't they like do chase?

• 2:01Wes Larson?

  A flea trapeze? Yeah. Just talk to Dr. Hammond or Richard Hammond. Was that his name?

• 2:06Jeff Larson?

  Doesn't sound.

• 2:07Wes Larson?

  No, Richard Attenborough. What was his first name?

• 2:10Jeff Larson?

  Doctor.

• 2:11Wes Larson?

  Yeah. His were fake.

• 2:12Jeff Larson?

  It doesn't sound that hard to get them out if they just fell out.

• 2:16Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 2:18Mike Smith?

  That one's got butter fingers.

• 2:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah, they just lay lots of little eggs and stuff. They're annoying. That's farm life, I guess.

• 2:24Mike Smith?

  Ooh, you could use those eggs too, just like you use your chicken eggs.

• 2:28Wes Larson?

  Yeah, cook up flea eggs in the morning.

• 2:30Mike Smith?

  Sell them.

• 2:31Wes Larson?

  How do you like your flea eggs? Over easy.

• 2:34Mike Smith?

  I like big ones.

• 2:36Wes Larson?

  Well, shut up, you guys.

• 2:38Mike Smith?

  Alright.

• 2:38Wes Larson?

  Will you guys shut up for once?

• 2:40Mike Smith?

  Thought you'd never ask.

• 2:41Wes Larson?

  We've got a long story today, so would you just shut up, Jeff? You especially. Alright. Today's story is one that's been on my list for a long time. It's one that I've been thinking about since I first heard about it. And it's very different from our typical stories in that the animal plays a very small part in it, but it's a very important role. And the rest of the story is really crazy. Anyways, since I first heard about this story, I've been thinking about it. It's got a real true crime angle to it. It's about a cult, which I think people are very interested in cults. And there is a wildlife angle to it too. So, we're gonna get into it. You guys ready?

• 3:23Mike Smith?

  Let's go.

• 3:24Wes Larson?

  Uh, my main sources were an article in LA Magazine that was written by Hillel Aaron, an Oxygen article by Ted Quarterman, Oxygen True Crime, and HBO series The Synanon Fix: Did the Cure Become the Cult? There was also a lot of other articles and YouTube videos that I watched, but those three were my main sources for this story.

• 3:46Mike Smith?

  Is Syn- what's Synanon? I'm not familiar with that one.

• 3:49Wes Larson?

  We're gonna get into it.

• 3:49Mike Smith?

  Oh, okay. Sounds a little like QAnon. Now I'm excited.

• 3:53Wes Larson?

  It's similar, yeah. Alright, Paul Morantz was stressed out, to say the least. Every shadow in his house was hiding an assassin. Every footstep outside might be the last noise he would ever hear. And there's a good reason for his paranoia. Morantz was a lawyer that had made himself an enemy to one of the most successful and one of the most dangerous cults in American history.

• 4:16Mike Smith?

  Oh, wow.

• 4:17Wes Larson?

  He knew that they wanted him dead and recently he had bought a shotgun. He had been making a habit out of checking his car for car bombs before starting it up. And he had told all his neighbors in Pacific Palisades, California, to be on the lookout for anyone suspicious.

• 4:32Mike Smith?

  That's not a bad habit to be in. I should start incorporating that into-

• 4:35Wes Larson?

  Just checking for car bombs.

• 4:36Mike Smith?

  Just in case. You can't ever be sure.

• 4:39Wes Larson?

  But on the evening of October 11th, 1977, Morance had decided to give himself a night off from worrying. The Dodgers were in game one of the World Series. All he wanted to do was relax and watch the game at home. Yeah, I don't like me-

• 4:54Jeff Larson?

  The cult probably knows though. He's like, during the Dodgers game, that's what-

• 4:59Wes Larson?

  They might have. What he didn't know is that cult members had visited his house earlier that day, and their plot to end his life was already in motion. A living, breathing, slithering assassin had been left at Morance's house. One that had perfected its lethality over millions of years and was waiting for him silently in his mailbox.

• 5:19Jeff Larson?

  Oh man.

• 5:20Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 5:21Jeff Larson?

  A leopard.

• 5:23Wes Larson?

  Slithering in his mailbox.

• 5:25Jeff Larson?

  You don't think they could slither?

• 5:26Wes Larson?

  Uh, yeah, sure. There's only really one. Well, I guess, do worms slither? Cause it's gotta be a snake, right?

• 5:33Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 5:34Wes Larson?

  It would be very surprising to open your mailbox and have a leopard jump out. That would be... All right.

• 5:42Mike Smith?

  Like, what's it doing slithering? That's not how they move. That would be surprising.

• 5:47Wes Larson?

  We're gonna hop in our time machine. We're gonna head back to March 22nd, 1913, in Toledo, Ohio. We're in the hospital where baby Charles Diedrich is just starting to crown out of his mom's vagina as she screams through the pain of the contractions.

• 6:02Mike Smith?

  You don't have to put it that way.

• 6:04Wes Larson?

  All right, maybe we went back a little too far. Uh, let's skip ahead four years.

• 6:09Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 6:10Jeff Larson?

  That's when they should have got him.

• 6:13Wes Larson?

  Yeah, true.

• 6:14Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 6:15Wes Larson?

  Instead of baby Hitler.

• 6:16Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 6:18Wes Larson?

  We could have done it, but we're skipping ahead four years.

• 6:21Jeff Larson?

  Do you have to just choose one baby?

• 6:25Mike Smith?

  You got time of one baby.

• 6:27Wes Larson?

  You get access to a time machine and they're like, okay. You get to kill one baby.

• 6:33Mike Smith?

  Do you think baby Hitler's parents let him get into like, cause you know, when you're little, your parents get you doing finger painting? Do you think his finger painting sucked too?

• 6:42Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 6:43Jeff Larson?

  And they were parents. He's solid.

• 6:45Wes Larson?

  Art's not in your future. Yeah, but it was, it was boring. It was just like realism and not that good. Anyway.

• 6:51Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 6:51Wes Larson?

  Everyone's a critic. Yeah. Let's leave our baby Hitler talk and we're skipping ahead four years. So in 1917, Chuck Diedrich is now four years old and his alcoholic father has just died in a car accident. Which you know, in 1917, you really have to try to die in a car accident. I feel like cars probably only went 15 miles per hour back then. His mom turns to religion to try and help raise her young son. And he's brought up a devout Roman Catholic, but at age 14, he reads H G Wells, History of the World. And it immediately turns him into an atheist and he also starts drinking. Alcoholism would prove to be a lifelong battle for him. He was a college dropout. He couldn't hold a job.

• 7:35Wes Larson?

  At age 29, meningitis would claim part of the bone on the left side of his face. And by age 40, he'd be on his way to his second divorce, both of them being caused by his alcoholism. But it was that year when he was turning 40 that he would attend his first AA meeting. And he was an instant celebrity at these meetings. And that was because he had a knack for storytelling and his ability to go on these long, interesting monologues at the podium. So he'd go to these meetings, he would start talking, everyone would be enthralled. And he would even go from like one AA chapter meeting to like another. He would skip around, kind of like the guy in Fight Club.

• 8:11Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, Fight Club, yeah.

• 8:12Wes Larson?

  His love for being the center of attention kept him going back to these meetings, even though he didn't believe in the higher power message of AA. In 1957, he had been sober for one year and he enrolled in a study at UCLA that was looking at LSD as a cure for alcoholism. So that always goes really well, right? We've learned that in history that these guys that they tested LSD on always ended up being super normal afterward.

• 8:38Mike Smith?

  Yeah. The old MKUltra.

• 8:41Wes Larson?

  Ted Kaczynski, MKUltra, yeah. Taking LSD in the study changed his life. It turned him into a new person, one that was full of confidence, so much so that he viewed himself as a type of god. He credits it with being the most important single experience of his life. Now, not long after this LSD experience, he stopped going to AA meetings, but he'd become so popular at these meetings that some of the other members of AA would show up at his house to catch up and talk with him. And Diedrich was also really into philosophy and psychology, and these meetings would turn into kind of sermons from him, where he would preach to these AA participants about the philosophy that had been reading, about his experiences, and they would have

• 9:21Wes Larson?

  these really intense group therapy sessions together. Over time, drug addicts started coming to these therapy sessions as well, mostly heroin addicts, and Diedrich really liked the sessions with these addicts because it could be a lot harder on them. He basically viewed them as if they were children, and he would talk to them as if he were their dad. And it was during that time that one of the participants in these sermons mixed up the words "symposium," "anonymous," and maybe something else, and this term "synanon" was born. So this organization, this kind of nascent group, was starting to be called Synanon. It's just kind of a weird amalgamation of a few different words.

• 10:03Mike Smith?

  What time are we around again?

• 10:05Wes Larson?

  This is in the late 50s.

• 10:06Mike Smith?

  Late 50s, okay.

• 10:07Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 10:08Mike Smith?

  Interesting.

• 10:09Wes Larson?

  So word of these meetings starts growing, and more and more people start showing up. And Chuck Diedrich moves the group to San Diego, he gets a storefront, and quickly they become too big for the storefront, and people kind of get word of what's going on and they push him out. So he ends up renting an abandoned military building on the beach at Santa Monica. And during those early years, he established Synanon as a nonprofit, but still got complaints about him treating people without a license or a permit, even spent some time in jail because keeps kind of treating these addicts, saying that he has a treatment for them, even though he's not licensed at all to do that.

• 10:46Mike Smith?

  What was he doing that was illegal? Do you know?

• 10:49Wes Larson?

  Uh, you have to be like registered as a treatment center to do that sort of thing.

• 10:54Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 10:55Jeff Larson?

  To talk to him?

• 10:57Wes Larson?

  Yeah, but he, he was like, we'll get into that, but he essentially was running this like a business.

• 11:02Jeff Larson?

  He was marketing himself as like, come to me, I'm God.

• 11:07Wes Larson?

  Yeah, exactly. And it, it gets, it gets pretty crazy. So we'll get into it. It keeps growing and it's actually kind of revolutionary at the beginning, especially because up until that time, drug addicts were typically just thrown in prison or a mental institution and they never really got better. But Synanon was actually one of the first rehab centers that focused on treating the psychology of drug addiction. And it was actually working pretty well. And the core tactic that they used was something called the game. So the Synanon game is like their main tactic.

• 11:39Mike Smith?

  I saw that movie.

• 11:40Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's not the movie, but that is a great movie. This is created by Diedrich and the game was essentially getting a bunch of addicts together in a circle. And then they would vocally call each other out on their dishonesties, their hypocrisies and their secrets. Basically they could air out any bad feelings for each other in the most upfront and heavy handed ways possible. And it would devolve into these huge shouting matches full of verbal abuse that were often followed by a large emotional release. So it's just like brutal honesty and verbal abuse. They could like say anything they wanted. And I, yeah, Jeff, I feel like you'd like playing the game.

• 12:20Jeff Larson?

  Put it all on the tape.

• 12:21Wes Larson?

  Each other. Yep. And Jeff, you're, you're a very honest person. I think, I don't know. I, I think they take it way too far, but the crazy thing.

• 12:29Jeff Larson?

  No, I, I have that where I just, I don't know.

• 12:33Wes Larson?

  You say what's on your chest.

• 12:35Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, should we just do it right now?

• 12:39Mike Smith?

  Start yelling?

• 12:40Wes Larson?

  Nope. I would not like the game.

• 12:42Jeff Larson?

  You've really lately.

• 12:47Jeff Larson?

  You've been talking way too much about bears on the podcast.

• 12:51Wes Larson?

  I'll shut up. I'll stop talking about bears. That's my promise. I would just immediately fold. I'd be like, you're right. I'm sorry.

• 12:57Mike Smith?

  Yep.

• 12:57Wes Larson?

  Okay. The crazy thing about this is it actually kind of worked. There were a lot of people.

• 13:02Jeff Larson?

  You'd be like, no, you do that.

• 13:07Wes Larson?

  There are a lot of people from the early days of Synanon that credit the organization with curing their addiction and saving their lives. One of those people was Betty Coleman. Betty was a black woman who'd been both a heroin addict and a sex worker, but found herself drawn to Synanon. At the meeting, she was impressed by the feeling of racial equality, and the game sessions helped her to feel activated and ready to kick her habits. She spent more and more time at the centers, and a romantic relationship developed between her and Chuck Diedrich. And they ended up getting married. I will just say, like, a quick aside. Synanon was really good with, like, diversity and racial equality.

• 13:46Wes Larson?

  Everyone was welcomed equally. There wasn't any kind of preconceptions about race or background or anything. So I will.

• 13:54Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I like Syna- Syna Bun.

• 13:57Wes Larson?

  Yeah. So far, yeah, so far it sounds great. If you've spent much time in the West, you know that every ski town has a brand that the locals are gonna wear before the rest of the country catches on. In Jackson Hole, that brand is Steel. Steel is designed and tested in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, right at the base of the Tetons by locals who ski, bike, climb, and fish there every day. I've spent a lot of time in Jackson Hole. I know that they deal with a lot of different weather there, a lot of different things. And so Steel really has to hold up in a ton of different environments. And they've been at it since 2011. Fifteen years in, it's the real gear that locals live in.

• 14:36Wes Larson?

  It's made for the whole mountain day, beyond the summit, the first chair, the school run, dinner out, the dog walk when it's cold outside. It's just made for every moment of mountain life. And those are people that are living through Wyoming winters, so they really know warm. The hometown down jacket is 800 fill down, but it feels more like your favorite hoodie than it does a puffy. And for me, I am really excited about the men's Furnos Max Insulated Jacket. I'm constantly looking for a jacket that just ticks all the boxes and this one really does. It's stretchy, it's breathable, it looks great, it keeps me super warm. It's just amazing. I just absolutely love this jacket. So ski season's almost here. Gear up now the way that the locals do.

• 15:18Wes Larson?

  Go to stio.com/tooth for 20% off your order. That's S-T-I-O dot com slash tooth. stio.com slash tooth. Stio, designed and tested in Jackson Hole.

• 15:31Mike Smith?

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• 15:52Wes Larson?

  Which one?

• 15:52Mike Smith?

  All Night Long, dude. Featured in Miami Vice, episode one, season one.

• 15:57Wes Larson?

  They're talking about sleeping.

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• 16:44Mike Smith?

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• 17:03Wes Larson?

  So Chuck and Betty had just gotten married. Synanon starts getting kind of famous around this time. Actors, authors, politicians, musicians, all sorts of famous people were openly touting the organization and their success in helping people kick addiction and creating a really fun community. That's the other thing that I can't really overstate is that the thing that was really making people stick in Synanon was that they were surrounded by like-minded people. They would have really fun parties. It just seemed like a really interesting community. And do you know anything about the early 60s, especially pretty much all the 60s? Community was something that had started to become really important to people that kind of saw themselves as counterculture.

• 17:46Wes Larson?

  So that's kind of what's going on here in the late 60s.

• 17:50Jeff Larson?

  Well, it's really important for kicking like a drug addiction too.

• 17:54Wes Larson?

  Totally.

• 17:55Jeff Larson?

  Especially something like as hard as heroin. You need an alternative that is enjoyable, you know? You need something else to do that can like take up time.

• 18:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 18:06Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 18:07Wes Larson?

  Yeah, and they, I mean, they would have.

• 18:08Mike Smith?

  Screaming at your friends.

• 18:09Wes Larson?

  They would pretty much.

• 18:10Mike Smith?

  About what you don't like about them. That sounds like a great way to kick a habit.

• 18:14Wes Larson?

  They would live at these centers. Yeah, it's not like they were just like going to it for a few hours a day. They would live at the houses. They were like fully integrated into Synanon society. Jeff, you're fully integrated into Cinnabon society.

• 18:31Jeff Larson?

  I can't kick it.

• 18:32Wes Larson?

  You can't kick it.

• 18:33Mike Smith?

  Whatever dude, I bought Cinnabon in, where were we? Ecuador? You wouldn't even eat any.

• 18:38Wes Larson?

  Wasn't the same.

• 18:39Jeff Larson?

  You got so mad at me for eating your food. I'm never gonna ask to eat your food again.

• 18:45Wes Larson?

  All right. All right, in the late 60s, there were well over a thousand members in Synanon. They were receiving millions of dollars in donations each year. They owned over $7 million in real estate and Chuck Diedrich had created a whole marketing arm of the organization. They would sell Synanon branded merch to different businesses. They ran some gas stations. They were starting to make a lot of money and Diedrich was feeling more and more powerful. It was around this time that new.

• 19:11Jeff Larson?

  They ran gas stations?

• 19:12Wes Larson?

  Yeah. They had like gas stations.

• 19:14Jeff Larson?

  I guess you have like the employees, you might as well start looking at things they can do.

• 19:18Wes Larson?

  Yeah, he was a bit of an entrepreneur and he was always kind of thinking of new ways to make money, which is a common thing for cult leaders. It was around this time that newcomers, both male and female, were starting to shave their heads when they entered the organization. It's kind of like a punishment and a rite of passage all rolled into one. And there was also a lot of people who would wear overalls almost every day. And that's because that's what Diedrich wore. And he was kind of both a father figure and a religious leader to these people by this point. So when you see photos of Synanon from this time, almost everyone has a shaved head. And it's, it's pretty interesting. They starting, they're starting to look much more culty by now. By this point, most people still agreed that Synanon was pretty great overall,

• 20:02Wes Larson?

  seemed to be making a real difference for the addicts that were becoming involved. Uh, most people would be in the program for two years, often living full time in a Synanon house. And they wouldn't be allowed to leave the program for those two years. And then they would graduate and go back out into the world. But in the late sixties, things started to change a little bit. First of all, Diedrich now saw the organization as more of a religion than anything else. And he decided that you don't graduate from a religion. So why are people graduating from Synanon? So people were no longer allowed to graduate. Once you were in Synanon, you were in for life.

• 20:38Jeff Larson?

  Oh.

• 20:39Wes Larson?

  He also started accepting a lot of people that weren't addicts, but wanted to be part of this community. And he called those people lifestyleers. They were a lot different than like the normal addict people. They got to have a lot more freedoms. And they were usually the ones that were kind of running things and punishing the addicts and yelling at them and whatnot. There were a lot of different Synanon centers by this point. And Diedrich installed speakers around the centers that would broadcast his speeches pretty much 24/7. And sometimes he would speak to people live through a private radio frequency.

• 21:14Jeff Larson?

  It's not very fun anymore.

• 21:16Wes Larson?

  It's starting to become less fun, but people are still really into it.

• 21:18Jeff Larson?

  I don't like this speaker 24/7 thing at all.

• 21:22Wes Larson?

  Yeah. He also started training some of the members in martial arts and basic military training.

• 21:27Jeff Larson?

  Oh, I'm back.

• 21:28Wes Larson?

  Yeah. You hear martial arts and you're in.

• 21:33Wes Larson?

  He created a Synanon fighting force called the Imperial Marines. They were tasked with protecting Synanon from outsiders, but at least in the beginning, it kinda seemed like they didn't have much to do. He did spend like $300,000 on guns. Jeff, you're a gun guy. You would love to see that.

• 21:49Jeff Larson?

  I mean, if I know martial arts, I probably wouldn't need the gun, to be honest with you.

• 21:53Wes Larson?

  Yeah, your hands are weapons then.

• 21:56Jeff Larson?

  If they have guns, I'll just take the gun from them.

• 21:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I think they called their specific type of martial arts like "sindo" or something. It was pretty silly. That's so cool. Do they have a boat? Why were they Marines? Do you know? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, are Marines like, are Marines, are they associated with the water?

• 22:18Mike Smith?

  They're naval, yeah. It's like, yeah.

• 22:22Jeff Larson?

  The name Marine was?

• 22:24Wes Larson?

  I know, but I thought Marine was like, I thought the Marines were a whole different thing than the name.

• 22:28Mike Smith?

  I mean, they're a different branch in the Navy, but they're like, part, I don't know exactly how it works, but they're associated closely with the Navy.

• 22:35Jeff Larson?

  They'll like snorkel into the zone if they have to.

• 22:40Wes Larson?

  Love snorkeling, don't they?

• 22:41Mike Smith?

  You think they'll snorkel into like war zones?

• 22:45Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 22:47Wes Larson?

  Yeah, dude, frogmen. Isn't that what they call them?

• 22:51Mike Smith?

  I thought that was French people.

• 22:52Wes Larson?

  No, dude, they love being called frogmen when they're snorkeling around in their little black jumpsuits. They're so cute. All right. In the 70s, even though Synanon didn't have the correct licenses or permits for group care, judges and probation officers started to assign at-risk youth to Synanon centers against their will. Yeah. This is kind of, Synanon is often seen as the start of the troubled teen industry. Like what Brent went to, our cousin Brent, and all these different people get sent to. This is kind of... The pattern for all of those places.

• 23:26Mike Smith?

  Wow.

• 23:27Wes Larson?

  Because kids would get sent there and there was no oversight over anything. They would be put through boot camp like training and they would be almost consistently physically abused by Synanon leaders.

• 23:39Jeff Larson?

  They had to dig holes as deep as their shovels, like longwise and widthwise.

• 23:45Wes Larson?

  And there's venomous lizards. Everywhere. No, but they would like get the shit kicked out of them all the time, like really intense physical abuse. It wasn't this like happy-go-lucky place for them. It was really intense. And there was even like kind of an underground railroad to get people out of these Synanon centers, kids.

• 24:06Mike Smith?

  Oh, like that one Elon Musk is trying to build?

• 24:09Wes Larson?

  No, it's not like Hyperloop or whatever.

• 24:12Mike Smith?

  Imagine how fast you could get them out with the Hyperloop though.

• 24:15Wes Larson?

  Probably not that fast.

• 24:17Jeff Larson?

  Still be there, yeah.

• 24:20Wes Larson?

  You know, high-speed rail exists, people. We don't need to take people in Teslas one at a time.

• 24:26Mike Smith?

  Nah, Hyperloop sounds cooler.

• 24:29Wes Larson?

  So these kids would escape and they'd report this abuse to adults, but it often fell on deaf ears because they were already these kids that people saw as like delinquent. So, anyway, Diedrick started charging members a lot of money each month to be part of the group. And when the IRS started looking into Synanon in 1974, he was able to officially change the designation of the group to a religion, which meant he could escape paying taxes to the government.

• 24:56Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 24:57Jeff Larson?

  Oh, that's sick. We gotta do that with Tooth.

• 24:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah, should we be coming up with a religion? Tooth and Colt, dude, Tooth and Colt.

• 25:05Wes Larson?

  The organization was now making roughly eight million dollars a year and they owned over 20 million dollars in real estate, including some sprawling compounds that Diedrick kind of saw as the future of the organization. So it was during this time in the seventies that Synanon really started swinging from a quirky community of addicts that found peace in brutal honesty to a paranoid and hostile cult that saw Diedrick as their savior. And some big changes started happening. One of those changes was that members were no longer allowed to have children because Diedrick thought the world was overpopulated. My guess is that he was probably just like annoyed by some of their kids and was like, too many kids. You guys can't have them anymore.

• 25:47Jeff Larson?

  I don't know. He's kinda right. The world was overpopulated back then.

• 25:53Wes Larson?

  This wasn't a hard rule, meaning you wouldn't necessarily get kicked out of Synanon for having a kid. But there were definitely more than a few women in the organization that were coerced into having abortions. But surprisingly, the onus for making sure this reproductive control happened ultimately fell on the men. And that's surprising because usually when you're talking about reproductive control in any kind of situation, it's usually it's placed on women's shoulders, but Synanon really put that on the men. By 1977, all men over the age of 18 that had been in Synanon for over five years were required to have a vasectomy and vasectomies were often performed collectively in what Synanon called clipping parties.

• 26:37Wes Larson?

  Should we, should we do one of those after this? Should we have a little clipping party, the three of us?

• 26:42Mike Smith?

  No, I wanna, just in case things change, I wanna reserve the right to sire a child.

• 26:48Wes Larson?

  I guess I'll have a solo clipping party then.

• 26:53Wes Larson?

  For some of the men in the group, this was a step too far. One of those men was Phil Ritter. He did not want to be forced to get a vasectomy. This was like not the cult that he had signed up for. And he went and talked to the police about what was happening at Synanon. Somehow, a Synanon lawyer got word of him snitching and they wouldn't let him back into Synanon housing where his wife and his daughter were living. Around the same time, Diedrich's wife Betty passed away from lung cancer at the age of 55. And the cult really went off the rails when she died. One of the first things that happened was that Chuck pretty much held a tryout for his new wife. He picked a 31-year-old out of the six finalists and he was 64 years old at the time.

• 27:37Wes Larson?

  Not long after, he said that marriage.

• 27:39Mike Smith?

  That's not that. I mean, Leo would have gone younger.

• 27:42Wes Larson?

  Younger. I, I think he was wrong, especially because he had, there's a total like.

• 27:48Mike Smith?

  Power imbalance.

• 27:49Wes Larson?

  A power, yeah, a power imbalance. Dynamic.

• 27:51Jeff Larson?

  I'd wanna like see how she won the spot before I like make any judgment. Like if she just blew him away in the sack race competition, it's like how do you choose someone else?

• 28:03Mike Smith?

  Interesting work. She ran like a four, three, 40 or something?

• 28:07Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 28:07Mike Smith?

  I, yeah, and a 31-year-old is an adult.

• 28:11Wes Larson?

  So yeah, there's, there's worse examples, but it does feel a little icky that that's who he decided on. Anyway, they did. I do think they stayed together for the rest of his life.

• 28:22Mike Smith?

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• 29:03Mike Smith?

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• 29:44Wes Larson?

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• 30:26Wes Larson?

  style, even in the hard to find sizes. And if you sleep hot, they use Glaciotex covers, copper infused foams, and temperature regulating materials to help keep you cool and comfortable all night long. Me and Jesse actually had a really, really nice mattress prior to this, and it was hard for me to give it up because I just didn't think that Brooklyn Bedding could possibly be better. And it is. I'm really happy. I'll never look back. I just love my mattress. So go to brooklinbedding.com, use our promo code TOOTH at checkout to get 30% off sitewide during the Black Friday sale exclusively with our code. That's brooklinbedding.com and promo code TOOTH for 30% off sitewide. Let them know that we sent you in the survey

• 31:08Wes Larson?

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• 31:13Jeff Larson?

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• 31:43Wes Larson?

  Yeah, we've tried to tell you over and over again, those clips aren't real.

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• 32:54Wes Larson?

  But a crazy thing was not long after he got married, he said that marriage should no longer be permanent and that married couples should all be divorced and start forming three-year love contracts with people within Synanon rather than lifetime marriages. The next day, hundreds of couples filed for divorce. One of those people was Phil Ritter's wife. So Phil Ritter was the one that was kicked out of Synanon.

• 33:17Jeff Larson?

  Oh shit.

• 33:17Wes Larson?

  He wasn't allowed to see her or his daughter.

• 33:20Jeff Larson?

  Owned.

• 33:21Wes Larson?

  He is getting owned by this cult. Ultimately, he filed a legal motion to be able to see her more.

• 33:27Mike Smith?

  Got that vasectomy. It's not that.

• 33:30Wes Larson?

  He already had a daughter.

• 33:31Mike Smith?

  Seriously.

• 33:33Wes Larson?

  He's like, wait, three-year love contracts? I want back in.

• 33:38Wes Larson?

  So he filed a legal motion to be able to see her more. And it turns out that legal action was really the thing that Chuck Diedrick hated the most and was afraid of. So not long after filing this motion, Phil Ritter was walking home one day when two men with shaved heads and wooden mallets approached him in the street. They beat him without saying a single word and left him bleeding in the street with a fractured skull. This would be just one of 18 attacks that would be linked to Synanon and the Imperial Marines.

• 34:08Jeff Larson?

  Damn.

• 34:08Wes Larson?

  Synanon is now making a lot of money through members themselves who would pay monthly dues, sometimes up to a thousand dollars a month in the seventies, which was a lot of money. So they were really focused on recruiting or receiving new members by whatever means necessary. Edwin was in over his head. His wife Frances had been having psychotic episodes and he was simply not qualified to handle them as they'd been getting progressively worse. In June of 1977, he could tell she was on the verge of another breakdown and he had made plans to take her to a treatment center after he got home from work. In the meantime, he told her to go to a clinic in Venice Beach for a tranquilizer to tide her over until they went to the treatment center that afternoon.

• 34:51Wes Larson?

  But when Ed got home from work, Frances was gone. She'd gone to the clinic and while she was there, a nurse had recommended she try Synanon for treatment and had pointed her in the direction of a nearby Synanon center. When she arrived at the center in a nearly psychotic state, the Synanon people took her in, immediately shaved her head and started breaking her down through repeated sessions of the game. They locked her in a Synanon apartment and she had no control over when she was allowed to leave.

• 35:19Mike Smith?

  Whoa.

• 35:20Wes Larson?

  Ed figured out what had happened. He went to the center and demanded her release and he was told that he was not allowed to see his wife and that she did not want to see him. The next day, she was put on a bus and transferred to another Synanon facility north of San Francisco. So they pretty much like just kidnapped this woman.

• 35:37Mike Smith?

  Yeah, so she had no link to this organization at all before showing up that day.

• 35:43Wes Larson?

  She just showed up for treatment and they like shaved her head and threw her in prison, essentially, and broke her down verbally.

• 35:49Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's probably illegal, right?

• 35:51Wes Larson?

  Yes, this is illegal.

• 35:53Mike Smith?

  That's one of those things where...

• 35:55Wes Larson?

  Well, kind of, we're gonna get into that.

• 35:57Mike Smith?

  Wow, I'm really interested to hear how that might not be illegal.

• 36:01Wes Larson?

  It's right, it's right now, actually. So Ed figured out what had happened. He went to the center, he demanded a release, this new center, and they again said no. So he talked to the police and he was told there was nothing they could do because she was an adult that had willingly checked herself into the shelter. So even though it's like she's psychotic, the police are just like, no, you know, she's an adult woman, she can do whatever she wants, which I, you know, I wonder how that would hold up in court these days.

• 36:30Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, it's interesting. I feel like you need to talk to her to be like, do you want to be there?

• 36:35Wes Larson?

  Right.

• 36:36Jeff Larson?

  You know?

• 36:37Wes Larson?

  Right, and like at this point, she probably doesn't want to be there.

• 36:39Jeff Larson?

  Right.

• 36:40Wes Larson?

  But they had told her that her husband had shown up and said that he wanted nothing to do with her anymore and that she should start paperwork for a divorce. And Ed had, yeah, Ed had traveled there and he's again told that he can't see her and that she wants nothing to do with them. So he's desperate. He starts reaching out to anyone that might be able to help him, including politicians and lawyers. And one of those lawyers happened to be Paul Morantz, and he was exactly the right person for Ed to find. Morantz had built a career helping people that had been coerced and controlled against their will. And when he heard Ed and Frances's story, he immediately knew that he had found a new purpose and that purpose was taking down

• 37:20Wes Larson?

  Synanon. He calmly told Ed on the phone, "I'll get her back. I promise I'll get her back." Morantz did a tiny bit of research into Synanon and quickly realized that they didn't have any of the licenses, permits, or oversight required of a treatment care center. And he knew that he had to act fast to get Frances out. What he didn't know was that Frances had already entered into full-blown psychosis at this point, and Synanon was actually pretty ready to get rid of her as well. So, they arranged for, they arranged for her release conditional on Ed and Frances signing a waiver of liability for Synanon. So essentially, they said, "We'll let her out. She can go back to Ed, but you guys have to say this wasn't our fault." And Morantz was a really sneaky lawyer,

• 38:03Wes Larson?

  as you know, as they tend to be, their sneaks. And, but in a good way, this time. He managed to write up a contract that left a loophole for the winds to be able to prosecute Synanon. So when Frances was released, they almost immediately launched their suit and they won. Synanon had to pay this couple $300,000 in damages. This is 1977, that's big money. For Diedrich, Chuck Diedrich, the public embarrassment was much worse than the payout, and Paul Morantz immediately became enemy number one for Synanon.

• 38:35Jeff Larson?

  Those guys with the sticks are gonna get him, maybe?

• 38:38Wes Larson?

  Yeah, those skinheads with mallets. Diedrich would rant and rave to his Imperial Marines about how Morantz was going to end Synanon and he needed to go. A lot of those rants would actually be recorded and would serve as valuable evidence in future court cases against Synanon. In one of them, he was recorded saying, and you guys are gonna love this, this is what he said, "It's scary. Don't mess with us. You can get killed dead. Physically dead."

• 39:04Mike Smith?

  Whoa. Pretty intense.

• 39:07Wes Larson?

  That is, yeah.

• 39:09Mike Smith?

  Well, yeah, at least it's not like a spiritual death. Cause that's like the ultimate kinda.

• 39:14Wes Larson?

  It's worse.

• 39:15Jeff Larson?

  Kill your spirit, eh?

• 39:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah, he's not to that point yet, but maybe, maybe someday.

• 39:22Jeff Larson?

  Emotionally dead, that's probably the best option.

• 39:25Wes Larson?

  Yeah, we're all there already, you know? And when it seemed like Paul Morantz might be contacting other disgruntled members of Synanon to represent them in legal battles, Diedrich launched into action. He had two Imperial Marines that he trusted with this task of eliminating Morantz. One was 20-year-old Lance Kenton, son of a famous jazz musician that had pretty much been raised in Synanon. The other was Joseph Musico, a former addict and Vietnam vet that would boast about wearing a necklace of human ears while he was in the war. So, not a, not a great guy, probably. So first Diedrich told them to look into hiring an assassin to kill Morantz. But the high price tag of getting an assassin, which was like 10 grand, I think is what they found, was too much for Diedrich.

• 40:10Wes Larson?

  He didn't want to pay that much. So he assigned the assassination to these two men, Lance Kenton and Joseph Musico.

• 40:17Jeff Larson?

  I don't know.

• 40:18Wes Larson?

  Go ahead, sorry.

• 40:19Jeff Larson?

  We're on the same wavelength, that thing.

• 40:20Wes Larson?

  I want you to do it then.

• 40:21Jeff Larson?

  If you're making that much money, you got, 10,000's not even a lot for an assassin.

• 40:28Wes Larson?

  No.

• 40:28Jeff Larson?

  That's something you want a good person for.

• 40:31Wes Larson?

  Yeah, you want to overpay.

• 40:33Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, there's like things you can skimp out on a bit. Assassins, I would recommend getting a pretty quality.

• 40:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah, like spending all the money.

• 40:43Mike Smith?

  You see in the Star Wars prequels, what a bad assassin, like it just doesn't work. They do a bad job and they end up killing the emperor eventually.

• 40:52Jeff Larson?

  They probably would like talk about it afterwards and brag about it. The bad assassin would. Good assassin, you never hear from him again.

• 41:00Wes Larson?

  Chucking some worms into their room that are gonna kill them.

• 41:03Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 41:06Wes Larson?

  Never trust worms to do an assassin's job. That's what I was always told.

• 41:10Mike Smith?

  That's rule number one as an assassin.

• 41:12Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Anyway, I think he just kind of saw them as free labor and probably didn't value their lives very much. So he just said, why don't you two handle this? They had some time to discuss ways they might be able to kill Morants without implicating themselves and ways that would also send a strong message to Sinan on enemies. And during that discussion, Lance told Joseph that he was good with snakes.

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• 42:05Wes Larson?

  You guys know I love my cat. Me and Toad, we're bros. We just, I love watching a movie late at night. He comes and lays on my chest and just purrs into my ear. He's just a wonderful ray of sunshine in my life. I love him. So for me, it's really important that he gets the best quality food possible because I know that's going to extend his life. It's going to make him happier, too. Pets don't deserve just to eat like processed cardboard kibble all the time. They deserve really good food. And for me, that food is Smalls. Smalls cat food is protein-packed recipes made with preservative-free ingredients that you would find in your fridge and it's delivered right to your door. Cats.com actually named Smalls their best overall cat food, which is pretty impressive.

• 42:50Wes Larson?

  That's cats.com that we're talking about here, guys. Yeah, so cats themselves have made their voice heard. They have. Toad has definitely made his voice hurt. He loves Smalls. They sent us a package of a bunch of their different varieties of cat food and he really likes them all. And they even gave us this cool little, it almost looks like a chalice that he can eat out. So, you know, he's our little king that's eating out of his little chalice.

• 43:12Mike Smith?

  I want a chalice to eat out of. That's cool. I'll order some.

• 43:17Wes Larson?

  The thing for me that's so important is they have fresh protein packed meals. After switching to Smalls, 88% of cat owners reported overall health improvements, which is a big deal. And they're so confident that your cat will love their product that you can try it risk free. It means they'll refund you if your cat won't eat their food. Since making the switch to Smalls, I do feel like Toad has been happier. He's been more excited to eat his meals, has more balanced energy, and just kind of seems like his litter box is a little less stinky too, which is always a big plus.

• 43:47Mike Smith?

  Whoa, nice job, Toad.

• 43:49Wes Larson?

  For a limited time only, because you are a Tooth and Claw listener, you can get 35% off Smalls plus an additional 50% off your first order by using our code TOOTH. That's an additional 50% off when you head to Smalls.com and use promo code TOOTH. Again, that's promo code TOOTH for an additional 50% off your first order plus free shipping at Smalls.com. All right, back to Paul Morantz.

• 44:14Jeff Larson?

  You can't just like not use snakes then.

• 44:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah, he's like, okay, so you want to use snakes? Is that what you're saying?

• 44:21Jeff Larson?

  He's like, I guess.

• 44:21Wes Larson?

  No, no, no, no. It's not what I'm saying, but.

• 44:24Jeff Larson?

  I mean, we could use a gun.

• 44:25Wes Larson?

  If we wanted to.

• 44:26Jeff Larson?

  I am good with snakes.

• 44:29Mike Smith?

  It is like the Star Wars assassin then.

• 44:31Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it is. It's very similar. All right, back to Paul Morantz. He's in his house settling in to watch game one of the World Series, Yankees versus Dodgers.

• 44:42Mike Smith?

  The Dodgers. Oh, my gosh.

• 44:45Wes Larson?

  He knew how dangerous Chuck Diedrich was. He knew that there was probably people planning to kill him, but he also needed to maintain his sanity. And for once, he was just gonna relax, watch some baseball, not think about Synanon. As he walked into his living room to turn on his TV, Paul could see something in the mailbox. The slit, it was kind of a, like a mailbox slit on his living room wall, kind of interesting mailbox. His glasses weren't on, but through the grate of the mailbox, he could see what looked like a large package that he thought might be a scarf or something long in his mailbox. So he reaches his hand in to open it up.

• 45:23Mike Smith?

  Wait, so like, it was the length of a scarf?

• 45:28Wes Larson?

  He, it just looked like something in there that was long and a package. So you thought like-

• 45:33Jeff Larson?

  Be a crazy way to say scarf. Like, not to fold them up at all.

• 45:38Wes Larson?

  Not wrapped in anything. What it was, was a four and a half foot long, southern Pacific rattlesnake that had been stuffed into this mailbox.

• 45:48Jeff Larson?

  Whoa.

• 45:49Wes Larson?

  Very stressed out and also injured. The men that had caught it, left it here in the dark, had also removed its rattles with a knife. It was in pure defense mode. Its tail was vibrating silently, as Paul Morantz opened the mailbox and light fell on the snake's face. Paul had just started to reach into the mailbox when the rattlesnake shot forward and sank its fangs into his hand, just below his left thumb. The pain was instant, and he felt as though his hand had been caught in a powerful vice. Pulled his hand back with the snake still attached, and it fell from the mailbox and plopped onto the floor. Paul immediately realized what had happened, and his first thought was, oh no, this isn't how they're gonna get me.

• 46:32Wes Larson?

  And then he ran out his back door and started screaming for help. In those screams, he added, "It's Synanon. Synanon got me."

• 46:40Jeff Larson?

  It'd be crazy if he didn't realize what had happened immediately.

• 46:44Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 46:44Jeff Larson?

  If he is still just like, "Where's, where's the scarf?"

• 46:49Wes Larson?

  It's like, "I'll just push past this rattlesnake to get my new scarf."

• 46:56Wes Larson?

  His neighbors would call an ambulance. One neighbor would enter his house and cut the head off the snake, which was still coiled up on his living room floor. Another neighbor would put a tourniquet on Morantz's arm and wait with him while the paramedics arrived. Which, you're not supposed to do with rattlesnakes, but, you know, they, they actually credit this guy with saving him. I don't know if that's true or not. All right, we're gonna do some quick biology. It's a longer story today, so we're not gonna do a ton. And a lot of this is similar to our other rattlesnake species we've covered. But there are some really cool, unique things about this particular species of rattlesnake. Southern Pacific rattlesnakes look a lot like a traditional rattlesnake, like the rattlesnake you'd picture in your head when someone says rattlesnake. They have a diamond-like

• 47:39Wes Larson?

  pattern down their back, tan or brownish-gray coloration. They can also sometimes look a little bit green, and they don't have the black and white stripes on their tails like western diamondbacks do. If you ever see those black and white stripes, you're looking at a diamondback species of rattlesnake, I think. Actually, I shouldn't say that. There might be others that have that. Southern Pacific rattlesnakes are one of the more common species of snake in Southern California, and they're really the only rattlesnake that you'll find right in Los Angeles. There's only one photo of the snake that bit Morantz, and I had read somewhere that it was a western diamondback. I was excited to talk about them because I know how dangerous they can be. But I sent the photo to a snake expert friend

• 48:20Wes Larson?

  of mine, Ian, shout out Ian, and he told me that it was a southern Pacific rattlesnake, which secretly I had suspected it was because I knew it was in Los Angeles. And I was a little bit disappointed, but then Ian told me that they have a crazy venom cocktail, and that it might be the number one snake in the US that he wouldn't want to get bit by, which I thought was interesting. So I had a look into their venom, and it is really interesting. One of the most interesting things about this snake is the way that their venom varies across habitats and elevations that they're found in. So you can take the exact same snake, and if you're in the desert, say Joshua Tree, like this is, it's likely that the snake that Clara Jessup was bit by, who we interviewed, it's likely that it was

• 49:02Wes Larson?

  a southern Pacific rattlesnake, like you can find them in Joshua Tree. If you drive a couple hours to Idlewild, California, which is much higher, you're in like 6,000 or 7,000 feet elevation, their venom can be very, very different. So these lower elevation ones often have hemotoxic and myotoxic venom, which is very typical rattlesnakes. That's the venom that's gonna break down red blood cells, attack tissue. You it's it's typical rattlesnake venom. You see the necrosis and stuff, but it's not attacking your nervous system the same way. But then the ones in the higher elevation have neurotoxic venom, which actually disrupts nerve signals to muscles and is tends to be much more dangerous. It might not hurt as much, but it's like very dangerous venom.

• 49:47Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, you want your muscles talking to each other.

• 49:49Wes Larson?

  You do. Yeah, you need those nerves talking to muscles. And that's interesting because this is the exact same species of rattlesnake. But depending on the elevation that they live on, their venom can vary greatly. And that's really fascinating to me. That's not typical in snakes.

• 50:05Jeff Larson?

  Probably like the prey that they.

• 50:07Wes Larson?

  That's exactly what it is. Good job, Jeff. They think that these higher elevation ones have to kill their prey a little bit quicker because there's often more like escape terrain for them.

• 50:17Jeff Larson?

  Well, moose or high elevation.

• 50:19Wes Larson?

  They're not killing moose. Yeah. But they do think it's probably an evolution based on the type of prey that they're killing. Some of the potential symptoms of a bite from a southern Pacific rattlesnake include the following. Burning pain at the bite site, skin discoloration, the skin can change blue to black, blistering of the skin, swelling at the bite that slowly grows, bleeding from the wound, sensation of a metallic taste in the mouth, salivation, twitching of the eye in the mouth, tingling sensation.

• 50:52Mike Smith?

  That sounds good.

• 50:53Wes Larson?

  Salivation. You get saved. You also get to go to heaven.

• 50:57Mike Smith?

  I'd take a bite.

• 50:59Wes Larson?

  I would too.

• 51:00Mike Smith?

  Free ticket.

• 51:02Wes Larson?

  Chills and sweating, anxiety, breathing difficulties, nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain, blurred vision, death of tissue or necrosis, low blood pressure.

• 51:12Mike Smith?

  Physical death of tissue or?

• 51:14Wes Larson?

  Physical death, not emotional death or spiritual death.

• 51:18Mike Smith?

  That's bad.

• 51:19Wes Larson?

  Feeling faint or dizzy, weakness and malaise, bleeding disorder, blood and urine, bleeding from recent wounds, mucosal bleeding, anemia, acute kidney injury or kidney failure and intense neurological symptoms. So pretty bad. There's a lot like pretty much everything that can happen to you can happen with this rattlesnake bite.

• 51:41Mike Smith?

  Having a cute little kidney injury doesn't sound too bad, just like a nice little cute one.

• 51:47Wes Larson?

  Acute Tacoma.

• 51:50Wes Larson?

  Tiny bit more biology here. Southern Pacific rattlesnakes don't have a huge range, or they're only found in Southern California, Northern Baja, Mexico. But it's really impressive how much variation there is in that small range. Aside from the venom variation that we just talked about, there's some really interesting behavioral variations. For example, the Southern Pacific rattlesnakes on Catalina Island attempted to bite people five times more than their mainland counterparts in a study. And they delivered more than two times the venom on those bites. So just these ones on the island, for whatever reason, are much more aggressive and deliver a lot more venom. And it's really interesting to see that kind of variation among individuals of a species of rattlesnake.

• 52:33Wes Larson?

  And it makes sense to me now why it would be a really scary one to get bitten by, because you really don't know what kind of symptoms you're gonna have, how much venom was injected, and that makes treatment really difficult, too. Some of the antivenoms on the market that are used for the hemotoxic variety won't work very well on the neurotoxic ones. So it's kind of a Russian roulette kind of snake. You need to know like what type of Southern Pacific rattlesnake you were bitten by, which is kind of crazy.

• 53:00Jeff Larson?

  That is interesting.

• 53:02Wes Larson?

  A quick aside here, too. In the past, I've really vacillated between saying like anti-venom, anti-venine. I've recently learned that there's multiple accepted ways to say that. I like anti-venom the most, so we're just gonna stick to that from here on out. Great, okay. At least I am. I don't care what you guys do.

• 53:20Jeff Larson?

  Dude, you sounded like such a dork when you were doing the anti-venine.

• 53:24Wes Larson?

  I know, I hated saying it that way.

• 53:26Mike Smith?

  Venine.

• 53:28Wes Larson?

  I wish you guys would have used the game on me at that point and told me how stupid I was being. All right, so a neighbor had-

• 53:36Jeff Larson?

  I tried, dude. You were like, no, you say it that way.

• 53:41Wes Larson?

  I'm such a dick. Man, this is working.

• 53:43Mike Smith?

  Classic Wes.

• 53:44Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I feel an emotional release. I should join, send on. Uh, Morantz would spend six days in the hospital in an intensive care unit. During that time, there was a media firestorm about the attempted assassination and the dangerous Synanon cult. This is when the, the messaging around Synanon really started to change. It was the biggest error that Diedrich would ever make, and it would ultimately lead to the downfall of Synanon. A neighbor had seen the van stop at Morantz's house and had gotten a plate number. Didn't take the police very long to connect the plate to Synanon and to Lance Canton and Joseph Musico. Both men were arrested and placed into custody. And about a month later, Diedrich was also arrested.

• 54:27Wes Larson?

  When police arrived at his residence, he was so drunk that he couldn't talk, which is kind of ironic. Based on like, this whole thing was based around him getting rid of his alcoholism.

• 54:38Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 54:38Wes Larson?

  In the ensuing court cases, Morantz ended up taking pity on all three of these men. Both Canton and Musico pled no contest to attempted murder and received one year jail sentences with three years probation. Morantz knew the amount of brainwashing they'd both endured, and he felt as though a lifetime in prison wouldn't be fair. Diedrich was in really poor health, and Morantz again didn't feel like prison was the best option for Diedrich. So they offered him a deal. He pled no contest to conspiracy to commit.

• 55:07Jeff Larson?

  Go to his own camp.

• 55:09Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 55:09Jeff Larson?

  As like a attendee.

• 55:11Wes Larson?

  Just get the game nonstop. Uh, no, he pled no contest to conspiracy to commit murder. He got five years probation and a $5,000 fine. But the biggest part of this deal was that Diedrich was no longer allowed to associate with Synanon for the rest of his life. So he got it pretty easy, honestly.

• 55:29Mike Smith?

  What did the snake get?

• 55:31Wes Larson?

  The snake got death, unfortunately.

• 55:33Mike Smith?

  Snake was. That's right.

• 55:34Wes Larson?

  A real victim.

• 55:36Mike Smith?

  Had the snake lived, how many years do you think that snake would get?

• 55:40Wes Larson?

  I think the snake would have been let off, but the snake probably would have died without its rattle.

• 55:44Jeff Larson?

  It'd be insane if the guy was like, yeah, go easy on those three, but that snake.

• 55:49Mike Smith?

  The snake.

• 55:51Jeff Larson?

  He's got a pen.

• 55:51Mike Smith?

  Put him away for life.

• 55:53Wes Larson?

  Yeah, in the seventies, that might have happened, or the eighties, I guess, is when this was all happening now.

• 55:58Mike Smith?

  Tough for whoever has to be the cellmate, though, of that snake.

• 56:01Wes Larson?

  To that snake.

• 56:02Jeff Larson?

  I wouldn't mind that.

• 56:04Mike Smith?

  Then you'd get bit?

• 56:05Wes Larson?

  You're terrified of rattlesnakes.

• 56:07Mike Smith?

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:07Jeff Larson?

  I'm terrified of a cellmate?

• 56:10Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 56:11Mike Smith?

  You'd rather just have a regular cellmate than a snake?

• 56:14Jeff Larson?

  Just put it in a corner.

• 56:15Wes Larson?

  Snake than a regular cellmate.

• 56:17Mike Smith?

  Oh, no way, dude. Are you kidding me?

• 56:19Wes Larson?

  Like, you'd have to talk to your cellmate all the time. You'd hate it.

• 56:22Mike Smith?

  I would get bit by the snake and die. Well, maybe that is a better alternative. Let me think about it.

• 56:30Wes Larson?

  I don't know. Sometimes jail seems kinda nice. You can just, like, sit and read and watch TV.

• 56:34Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 56:35Wes Larson?

  Workout.

• 56:35Mike Smith?

  I've been really thinking about committing some crimes over in Sweden. They sound, their, their prison system sounds pretty sick.

• 56:41Jeff Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:41Wes Larson?

  It's better than life here.

• 56:42Jeff Larson?

  That's my, that's my, like, backup plan to two.

• 56:45Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 56:46Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Crime in Sweden. I like it. Uh, the cult quickly fell apart without Diedrich at the helm. They lost their tax-exempt status in 1982 and were required to pay 17 million in back taxes, which meant financial ruin for Synanon. Today, all of the chapters in the US have been long closed, but there apparently still is a functioning Synanon Center in Germany. Those Germans.

• 57:10Mike Smith?

  Whoa.

• 57:10Wes Larson?

  They just can't. They can't give up anything, can they?

• 57:14Mike Smith?

  Yeah, there are a few things they've left, by the way, so.

• 57:17Wes Larson?

  Nope.

• 57:17Mike Smith?

  There is not, Mike.

• 57:18Jeff Larson?

  I think, I think we should. I like the shaving heads part.

• 57:22Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 57:25Mike Smith?

  I think we ought to reboot Synanon over here in the US. It sounded like it started off pretty well.

• 57:30Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 57:31Mike Smith?

  Bring it back, you know? We're always rebooting old properties.

• 57:34Wes Larson?

  I will say, it's, I think you can really judge these things by what they, what they birthed. And it seems like Synanon did help start rehab centers. Like, it was like one of the first rehab centers and some good came out of it from that. But also this terrible troubled teen industry also was, like, birthed from Synanon, which has just been so destructive to, to so many people. So, I don't know.

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• 58:28Wes Larson?

  Well, you guys just heard me talk about how much I love my cat and you know that I love my dog too. I sure love Polly. We lost Bryce last year and getting a new dog has just really reinvigorated both me and Jesse. She's such a joy to be around and we want her to live as long as possible. And for me, a big part of that is making sure that we're feeding her the best food possible. Healthier food means a happier pup, more energy, shinier coats, better poops and more excitement at mealtime. And that's why I really like Ollie. Ollie has fresh nutrition and five drool-worthy flavors. Even the pickiest dogs like Ollie, it's made in US kitchens with the highest quality, human-grade ingredients. Contains no fillers, no preservatives, just real food. And they have some great recipes, guys.

• 59:14Wes Larson?

  Fresh beef with sweet potatoes? I'd eat that right now.

• 59:17Mike Smith?

  Whoa.

• 59:18Wes Larson?

  Fresh turkey with blueberries? Never had that combo myself, but it sounds great. What do you guys think?

• 59:24Mike Smith?

  Sounds...

• 59:25Wes Larson?

  Turkey and blueberries?

• 59:26Jeff Larson?

  As a dog, I'd eat it.

• 59:28Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:30Mike Smith?

  Sounds like I know what I'm eating for Thanksgiving this year.

• 59:33Wes Larson?

  Yep, you guys are getting some turkey and blueberries, Ollie's.

• 59:36Mike Smith?

  Thanks, Ollie.

• 59:37Wes Larson?

  It's really easy to sign up.

• 59:38Jeff Larson?

  But that's gotta be super expensive.

• 59:40Wes Larson?

  It's not. You just sign up, you introduce them to your pup, you fill out their 30-second quiz. You get a welcome kit with two weeks' worth of meals and you can customize your plan. They offer different meal plans to choose from and you can really target it toward your specific dog. It's the only fresh dog food that comes with unlimited routine health screenings. So you can get your pup's health on track to living their healthiest, happiest life. Jeff, you said it might be expensive. But it's not, especially for our listeners. Head to Ollie.com/Tooth, tell them all about your dog, use code TOOTH to get 60% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today.

• 1:00:21Wes Larson?

  Plus, they offer a happiness guarantee on the first box. So if you're not completely satisfied, you'll get your money back. That's O-L-L-I-E.com/Tooth and enter code TOOTH to get 60% off your first box. Alright, so Diedrich died in 1997, a few years short of his 84th birthday. Morantz would continue to focus on cults and coercive organizations for the rest of his career. He wrote several books. He did have health problems for the rest of his life, including a blood disease that doctors believed was an artifact from the snake envenomation.

• 1:00:56Jeff Larson?

  Wow.

• 1:00:57Wes Larson?

  In his later years, he would say that he would eventually set the record for dying from the longest murder ever. In October 2022, he proved himself right when he passed away at the age of 77 from existing health conditions that the rattlesnake bite may have played a part in.

• 1:01:13Jeff Larson?

  Ah, that's crazy.

• 1:01:16Mike Smith?

  I mean, by that logic, the only way you don't prove quote unquote is if you never die.

• 1:01:21Jeff Larson?

  Mike, let's let him have this.

• 1:01:22Mike Smith?

  Okay, well, you got it. You got him right.

• 1:01:25Jeff Larson?

  No, but not necessarily. Like if he died in a car crash or something.

• 1:01:29Mike Smith?

  That's true. Yeah.

• 1:01:31Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Or does he, yeah.

• 1:01:33Wes Larson?

  If he was like shot in the face, you couldn't say, you know, I think the rattlesnake finally got him.

• 1:01:38Mike Smith?

  Played a part, could have, maybe.

• 1:01:40Jeff Larson?

  Could have survived had he not been bit that once.

• 1:01:43Wes Larson?

  I, that's the end of the story, but for me, this one was really interesting because I had never really heard of Synanon. But meanwhile, there had been like movies made about it. There's this whole HBO documentary series. It's like one of the more influential cults that ever existed in the US. It really changed a lot. And there were a lot of people that were heavily affected by this cult. So it's really interesting to me.

• 1:02:07Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it's fascinating.

• 1:02:09Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, no, there's, I didn't really know any of that, so, but it sounds like it's a pretty big deal. That's crazy how bad those assassins were.

• 1:02:21Wes Larson?

  Yeah, kinda good in a way, but also like.

• 1:02:24Jeff Larson?

  Like it worked, but it's also like, you gotta know that a rattlesnake isn't necessarily gonna kill someone.

• 1:02:31Wes Larson?

  Right. It's a very like low probability tactic, but it almost, it almost worked.

• 1:02:39Jeff Larson?

  But then like to do it when like the neighbors can see your van and like.

• 1:02:44Mike Smith?

  Bad work, real bad work by them.

• 1:02:47Wes Larson?

  They were sloppy.

• 1:02:48Mike Smith?

  It was kinda surprising to me and maybe it shouldn't have been. Do you think it's impressive that the snake even bit him at all?

• 1:02:56Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:56Mike Smith?

  Because that, that was like, there's no good way to know that the snake's even gonna go for it, you know?

• 1:03:01Wes Larson?

  I think when you aggravate a rattlesnake to that level, like you stuff it in a mailbox, you cut its tail off. They probably like shook it around in a bag before they put it in. It's much more likely to bite. It's in a very like defensive mindset. But I think more impressive than anything is like thinking that it would actually make contact.

• 1:03:20Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:20Wes Larson?

  Because you would assume like maybe he would open the mailbox and be like, oh shit, you know, and knock it bit by the snake. But the fact that it worked as well as it did, I actually thought was kind of impressive.

• 1:03:30Mike Smith?

  Really?

• 1:03:31Jeff Larson?

  There's a little bit of blame on him for just opening the package when he feels like his life is threatened, you know?

• 1:03:38Wes Larson?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:03:39Jeff Larson?

  I just feel like, you know, a gun, they have guns at the compound.

• 1:03:45Wes Larson?

  Yeah, three hundred dollars worth of guns. Let's get a rattlesnake. I do, I think the two, the thing too, that they probably didn't understand is how low probability it is that it actually kills him. We've talked about this before. I think in, just in California, every year, there's hundreds of people that get bitten by rattlesnakes. And they usually don't have any deaths, like not that many people die from rattlesnakes. I think it's between three and five people a year. And the entire United States die from rattlesnake envenomation. So it's really not a lot. It's a pretty low percentage. And even in the seventies, it was pretty low because they had already developed some of these antivenoms that, that worked pretty well. So, yeah. If you're gonna kill someone, don't use a rattlesnake.

• 1:04:29Jeff Larson?

  How many people in California die from guns every year?

• 1:04:33Wes Larson?

  A lot more than rattlesnakes, a lot. So yeah, guns definitely higher probability.

• 1:04:39Jeff Larson?

  Even like a snake gun that, just like a gun that shoots the rattlesnake would be better.

• 1:04:43Wes Larson?

  Now we're talking. That's what that guy says, like, hey, I'm good with snakes.

• 1:04:48Jeff Larson?

  The other guy's like, I'm good with guns. It's like, oh, good idea.

• 1:04:54Wes Larson?

  All right. Well, do you guys have any other questions about Synanon, Southern Pacific rattlesnakes, Paul Morantz, anything before we go to our categories?

• 1:05:02Mike Smith?

  How are they doing? Are they doing all right, these snakes?

• 1:05:05Wes Larson?

  Uh, yeah, we're gonna get to that in conservation, but I can just do it now. Their least concern. Their main threats are from habitat loss and just human intervention. People don't like snakes and they'll often kill snakes. So all rattlesnake populations in the US are declining, but this is one that has a pretty healthy population. One thing that's kind of a silver lining for them is that they often do pretty well on the fringes of human society because we tend to attract rodents. People, we're not good at disposing of our waste, which brings rodents in, and that's what they like to eat. So sometimes we can benefit them in that way, but we're ultimately hurting them by killing them directly and destroying their habitat.

• 1:05:48Mike Smith?

  Is losing a rattle a pretty big deal for them? Is it like a death sentence almost or what?

• 1:05:54Wes Larson?

  It's not a death sentence in that their rattle is purely defensive. Like they use their rattle to discourage predators. And for rattlesnakes, their main predators are coyotes, birds of prey, road runners will kill them. But they don't have like a ton of natural predators, especially once they're older. So it's not a death sentence. It doesn't affect their ability to get prey or anything.

• 1:06:19Jeff Larson?

  Kind, there's, there's like species, or there's groups of rattlesnakes that have evolved to like lose their rattle or have smaller rattles. And I kind of feel like they're gonna move that way with like evolution. Just because now that when humans hear the rattle, they like kill rattlesnakes a lot of the time. So I feel like the snakes that rattle less are gonna be the ones that produce the most offspring.

• 1:06:43Mike Smith?

  You're like Chuck Darwin, dude.

• 1:06:46Wes Larson?

  That's an interesting concept. It's human induced evolution and that does happen. We've talked about it a little bit, like pheasants that fly are being selected against because they're the ones that get shot. So pheasants are starting to run a lot more than they used to. And that could happen with rattlesnakes. You're right, Jeff. It's very, it's an interesting thing to think about.

• 1:07:05Mike Smith?

  That's by that logic, you think penguins are going to start flying because the ones that don't are the ones that are getting eaten.

• 1:07:11Wes Larson?

  But I don't think they could change to do that. They probably wish they could. It sucked to be born a bird and then realize you can't fly.

• 1:07:20Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that'd be tough. It's like Elsa, Elsa and Frozen. Her parents like, don't use those sweet magic powers. It's bad.

• 1:07:28Wes Larson?

  Just dream powers.

• 1:07:30Jeff Larson?

  Stay in your room your entire life. I think that's a good, that's a good idea.

• 1:07:35Wes Larson?

  Yeah, she makes like one snowball and they lose their minds. All right, let's get onto our categories. They're very cult focused today. I asked you guys your best or favorite cult in pop culture history or real life? You can pick a real cult or a fake cult.

• 1:07:54Jeff Larson?

  I like in The Office, just this line that Creed has where he's like, he's talking about cults and he says, "You make a lot more money as a leader, but it's a lot more fun as a follower." I just always think of that line when I think of cults.

• 1:08:09Wes Larson?

  All right. So your answer is Creed's line from The Office. Okay.

• 1:08:14Mike Smith?

  Uh, I'm going with Los Illuminados from Resident Evil 4. I think it's a pretty cool cult. They're just like zombie parasite people controlled by Sadler and uh, they play bingo. You know, there's the bingo. Where's everyone going bingo? That's the, that's the funny line everyone thinks about.

• 1:08:30Wes Larson?

  That's my, that's definitely my favorite of the Resident Evil games. That's the only one I played start to finish. It's a good one.

• 1:08:36Mike Smith?

  It's great.

• 1:08:36Wes Larson?

  I picked the real life one. I picked Heaven's Gate. Do you guys remember Heaven's Gate?

• 1:08:40Mike Smith?

  Yeah, the Nikes dude.

• 1:08:42Wes Larson?

  Sweet. They pretty much believed that there was like extraterrestrial life and.

• 1:08:47Jeff Larson?

  Are they the Kool-Aid ones?

• 1:08:49Wes Larson?

  No, that we're going to talk about them too, but Heaven's Gate, when the Hail Bop Comet arrived in the, in the nineties. They all killed themselves thinking that there was a UFO behind the comet. And that when they died, they would like be taken up into that UFO. And they dressed in like the same outfit with the same Nikes. And they all had five dollars and three quarters in their pocket. And it was like, kind of a joke. It was just a really wonky, interesting, weird cult.

• 1:09:19Mike Smith?

  Man.

• 1:09:19Wes Larson?

  And it was like thirty something people that committed suicide when the comet passed. It was, it was a strange one.

• 1:09:26Mike Smith?

  It's crazy. Real crazy. Is that how you pronounce that comet's name? I've always been confused because I always called, called it Haley bop.

• 1:09:34Wes Larson?

  I thought it was hail bop, but I'm not sure.

• 1:09:36Mike Smith?

  Hal. Hal bop, okay.

• 1:09:38Wes Larson?

  Let's say you guys start a cult. What are three rules you're gonna have? And what's your outfit gonna be?

• 1:09:44Mike Smith?

  Hmm, so I thought about this a lot. And I've been, I've been eating a lot of Mike and Ike's, the, the mega mix box. But the stupid thing is that I only like one of the flavors out of the ten.

• 1:09:54Wes Larson?

  It's so dumb.

• 1:09:56Mike Smith?

  The watermelon, it's so good and they don't sell it, it doesn't come in any other box. And don't come at me with the sour watermelon box. It's not the same. So the cult is there's only ten of us and each of us are devoting ourselves to one of the flavors. Uh, only people named, named either Mike or Ike can join. Or any variation of the name.

• 1:10:16Wes Larson?

  You can have a lot of Mikes.

• 1:10:17Mike Smith?

  Like Miguel or Michaela, like anything close enough. Because we don't, I don't want to be too excludes, exclusionary. I, yeah, Ike, Dwight D Eisenhower could have joined. So the rules are you have to be either named Mike or Ike. Everyone has to buy one box a day. And then we divvy up all the flavors and trade because we're only allowed to eat the one flavor that we like, you know? So I get all the watermelons, everyone gives the watermelons to me, et cetera, et cetera. And then we use the empty cardboard boxes because you can give them back to recycling companies and they'll give you money for them. I think it's like sixty dollars per ton of cardboard. And we're gonna be going through a lot of cardboard. So we're gonna make a lot of money. And we're gonna use that money to like lobby government officials and legislators to, I don't know, various Mike and Ike related causes.

• 1:11:02Mike Smith?

  And then the bonus rule is if you chew with your mouth open, you immediately are sentenced to death.

• 1:11:08Wes Larson?

  I like that. That's a good rule. I'll join your cult.

• 1:11:10Mike Smith?

  Great.

• 1:11:11Wes Larson?

  You can. I get watermelon.

• 1:11:13Mike Smith?

  No, please.

• 1:11:14Wes Larson?

  Your name is Wes.

• 1:11:16Mike Smith?

  Oh, that's right.

• 1:11:17Wes Larson?

  Forgot about that. Changed my name to Ike.

• 1:11:19Mike Smith?

  Jeff, what's your cult?

• 1:11:21Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, so I kinda took some inspiration from the Davidians, Davidians?

• 1:11:27Mike Smith?

  Branch Davidians.

• 1:11:28Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, Branch Davidians.

• 1:11:30Mike Smith?

  Gun guy, you're a gun guy.

• 1:11:32Jeff Larson?

  To me too, like cults, a lot of being in a cult is about sex, especially as like the cult leader. So if I'm the cult leader, there's a lot of sex motivation. But I liked how he did it, where it's like, he, he has to have sex with every woman in his cult, but he can't enjoy it. If he starts enjoying it, he has to stop. So it's simply just like, you know, I have to do this. It's like, it's like a, it's like an obligation.

• 1:12:00Mike Smith?

  Yeah, oh, man.

• 1:12:02Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, can't enjoy it.

• 1:12:05Mike Smith?

  You're gonna need that hymns subscription.

• 1:12:09Jeff Larson?

  We'll, we'll have, our whole like motto is save the sharks. So then like, it's a good, it's a good thing to care about. And also when people start getting mad at us for having a cult, we can be like, well, we're trying to save sharks. And they'll be like, oh, that is good, you know? That's like a public image type of thing, like people can't get, go too hard on us.

• 1:12:29Mike Smith?

  Good PR.

• 1:12:30Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Yeah. And then we'll watch the Lord of the Rings Extended once a week.

• 1:12:36Mike Smith?

  Wow, once a week.

• 1:12:38Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:38Mike Smith?

  It's a lot.

• 1:12:39Jeff Larson?

  And, uh, I mean, there's nothing else to do. And I think we'll dress kinda as furries, but like, not the full costume. Like, I wanna see people still, but then whatever animal you choose to dress as, and you can change it, you have to like have sex as if, in the way that animal would have sex. When you do have sex.

• 1:13:02Mike Smith?

  So lots of doggy style sex in this cult.

• 1:13:05Jeff Larson?

  I mean, the sharks, you could, Mike did the eagle ray where you bite the side. If you dress as an eagle ray, you bite them on the side, you know?

• 1:13:14Mike Smith?

  Can you change animals that you dress up as, or are you locked in?

• 1:13:17Jeff Larson?

  Preying mantis, like women can choose a praying mantis.

• 1:13:21Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 1:13:21Jeff Larson?

  And just lop the head off afterwards.

• 1:13:23Mike Smith?

  I'd like to see him try.

• 1:13:24Jeff Larson?

  Or eat, eat the head?

• 1:13:26Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:27Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:27Mike Smith?

  They'd get like one bite into my head and I would put a stop to it.

• 1:13:32Wes Larson?

  All right, my cult, uh, my rules are everyone has to be completely quiet for five hours in the middle of the day. That just sounds nice to me.

• 1:13:41Mike Smith?

  Sign me up. I don't care what the rest of the rules are.

• 1:13:44Wes Larson?

  Uh, we all stockpile Easter candy to eat it year round because it's the best candy and I'd just love to be in a cult where that's what you do. And then to be a member, you have to see 10 new animals each year, which is pretty easy to be honest. Like birds, you can see 10 new birds pretty easily. Uh, our outfit is gonna be robes. I think I'm always the most comfortable just in a robe. Every once in a while you get flashed by someone, so.

• 1:14:09Mike Smith?

  So wait, what's the, what's, what's the upside of this? Like, what's the goal of the cult for you? Just seeing new birds?

• 1:14:16Wes Larson?

  Just having some peace and quiet for five hours every day.

• 1:14:19Mike Smith?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:20Wes Larson?

  Yeah, there's not a big upside.

• 1:14:21Mike Smith?

  There's not a whole lot of sinister.

• 1:14:23Wes Larson?

  No.

• 1:14:24Mike Smith?

  Angles going on there.

• 1:14:25Wes Larson?

  I might be the only person in this cult. I'm pretty much doing all these things already. Aside from the quiet time, so. All right. Our next one is which real life cult would you be most likely to join?

• 1:14:39Mike Smith?

  Oh, this is real life cult. I didn't.

• 1:14:41Wes Larson?

  You can do, you can do a fake one if you want. That's fine.

• 1:14:43Mike Smith?

  Hmm. Well, my fake one was there's a, there's always a bad team in the Pokemon games that's like trying to steal Pikachu or whatever. In one of them, I forget which one it was, but their whole idea was to take people's Pokemon and set them back into the wild and like free them, which I think is pretty, a pretty good thing. Instead of just making them fight each other all the time. I think that's probably, they were in the right.

• 1:15:08Wes Larson?

  Much more ethical.

• 1:15:09Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:11Wes Larson?

  Yeah. All right.

• 1:15:12Jeff Larson?

  You go, Wes.

• 1:15:13Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I said I was gonna mention this one, but Jonestown, the People's Temple, Jim Jones, he incorporated like Christianity, socialism and communism into the People's Temple, which was kind of, that's kind of been my track as I've gone through life. Uh, and I, I like, they were really big on racial equality. They moved to Guyana, which Guyana is a beautiful country. Um, he really loses. Me when they get to the drinking, the purple drink and all committing suicide. But you know, if I'm feeling it, if I'm feeling the vibes of racial equality and love and everything, maybe I'll drink it.

• 1:15:51Mike Smith?

  There's a give and a take, you know?

• 1:15:53Wes Larson?

  That one's crazy. When you think about it, nine hundred people like drank the purple drink and died. That's insane and not just so many people.

• 1:16:03Mike Smith?

  Like children and stuff.

• 1:16:04Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:05Mike Smith?

  It's gnarly.

• 1:16:06Wes Larson?

  And they like killed a congressman and stuff.

• 1:16:09Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:10Wes Larson?

  That one's wild.

• 1:16:10Jeff Larson?

  You must have been saying some true stuff to get every like all of them to do it, you know?

• 1:16:16Mike Smith?

  Right. Yeah. I'm sure a lot of people.

• 1:16:18Wes Larson?

  It was against their will, but.

• 1:16:20Jeff Larson?

  You think?

• 1:16:21Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I would imagine.

• 1:16:23Wes Larson?

  Yeah, nine hundred. Yeah.

• 1:16:25Jeff Larson?

  To make like a good quote, you gotta make it really hard to leave too. That's why.

• 1:16:29Mike Smith?

  Guyana, Guyana is hard to leave.

• 1:16:31Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:32Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:33Jeff Larson?

  I I just made up my own that was I I was very sexually motivated in all of this.

• 1:16:41Mike Smith?

  Sure.

• 1:16:41Jeff Larson?

  So I just had a cult of all women where I'm like the one guy that joins.

• 1:16:46Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:48Jeff Larson?

  It kinda sounds bad, actually.

• 1:16:50Wes Larson?

  I'm pretty sure Jared Leto started one of those cults.

• 1:16:54Mike Smith?

  How'd you come up with that? That's crazy. That's really inventive.

• 1:17:02Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, that's a bad one. You know what? An alien cult would be the most fun, I think.

• 1:17:07Mike Smith?

  Leaving whole hog and aliens.

• 1:17:10Jeff Larson?

  Or like the start of Scientology. That's like, it's just like the start of some of these religious cults where it's just like every day. Like if you're really committed to it and you're just like, wait, we all watched a movie in a volcano? Learning that would be crazy.

• 1:17:28Mike Smith?

  Learning that and still deciding that like, no, this is, this is good still. I still want to be a part of this. Yeah.

• 1:17:35Wes Larson?

  Yeah. All right. Should we do some listener questions or I think we're doing some nice advice would suffice. Is that right, Jeff?

• 1:17:43Jeff Larson?

  Uh, yeah, I got a few.

• 1:17:45Wes Larson?

  Okay, I'm never giving up on that title.

• 1:17:47Mike Smith?

  Should never give up.

• 1:17:50Mike Smith?

  We should rebrand and spin it off into its own show.

• 1:17:53Jeff Larson?

  Okay, and if you guys have listener stories, are we ever gonna do that again?

• 1:17:59Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:59Jeff Larson?

  Tooth and tails?

• 1:18:00Mike Smith?

  We're gonna do that for our Mother's Day episode this year, too.

• 1:18:04Jeff Larson?

  All right, yeah, write it in, write in for advice, general advice, or if you have a good wildlife encounter story to [email protected].

• 1:18:16Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:16Jeff Larson?

  Okay, so this is from Jennifer, and it's actually the second part of what she wrote in, but I liked it a lot, the thought of it. So, P.S. I just listened to the episode with the snake falling from a hawk and landing on an innocent bystander below. I instantly remember my friend who had an Osprey drop a live fish onto their deck one afternoon. It's quite large, and the sound of it landing on the deck drew them outside to find the fish alive, and I assume very confused. They ended up eating the fish. I wish I had pictures to send y'all. This occurred on the Chesapeake eastern shore in Maryland.

• 1:18:56Jeff Larson?

  So, I guess my question, or I guess what it is, is just like, what would you do if there's just a huge live fish on your deck all of a sudden?

• 1:19:05Mike Smith?

  It's definitely not advice.

• 1:19:08Jeff Larson?

  Well, we're giving advice right now. I don't know what you want out of this.

• 1:19:13Mike Smith?

  I would put it in a bathtub full of water.

• 1:19:16Jeff Larson?

  Would you?

• 1:19:16Mike Smith?

  I think I would, yeah. Until, like, that's at least step one, because we're gonna be thinking about where we go from there. I actually think eating it's not that bad, because that's like, what are you always, you're always talking about, like, sustainably catching seafood, right, Wes?

• 1:19:30Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:31Mike Smith?

  I think that's about as sustainable as it gets.

• 1:19:33Jeff Larson?

  Is that locally caught?

• 1:19:35Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:36Wes Larson?

  Locally sourced, caught sustainably.

• 1:19:38Mike Smith?

  So, no issues eating it from there.

• 1:19:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I'm impressed that they ate it. Like, I think that's admirable, because I don't think- I think for me, that would feel like a tainted fish at that point. I don't think I would want to eat a fish that an osprey dropped on my deck, but it's impressive that they ate it. So no advice for me. I think 10 out of 10.

• 1:19:59Jeff Larson?

  What do you mean no advice?

• 1:20:01Wes Larson?

  I think they did a great job in what they did.

• 1:20:03Jeff Larson?

  Okay, well, what would you do if one dropped a fish on your deck?

• 1:20:08Wes Larson?

  I would probably just hope that it would come down and take its fish again.

• 1:20:13Jeff Larson?

  Oh, you just leave it out for the osprey to?

• 1:20:16Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:16Jeff Larson?

  You'd just let the fish drown?

• 1:20:21Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I guess. It wouldn't take long and I just feel like that osprey deserves its meal that it caught. So I'd probably just let nature take its course.

• 1:20:31Mike Smith?

  I don't know if it deserves it. It dropped it at the goal line, you know? You're so close. You gotta keep your your talons on that. Eye on the prize. I should, we should give advice to the osprey, I think is what this question is about, right?

• 1:20:44Wes Larson?

  Be better at catching fish.

• 1:20:46Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 1:20:48Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, hold on to Butterfingers. You gotta, you gotta to get some like wide receiver gloves or something if you're that osprey.

• 1:20:56Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:58Jeff Larson?

  All right. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think I would have ate it, but may, now that I've heard that story, I might, but like, if it had happened without hearing that, yeah, I'd probably kill the fish and then just leave it out there.

• 1:21:13Jeff Larson?

  All right. Next one is from Lauren, an undergrad student studying wildlife ecology at Michigan Technical University. And this one's just kind of advice for Wes to give the state of Michigan.

• 1:21:28Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:21:29Jeff Larson?

  Wildlife. So recently, there have been two cougar cubs spotted in Untogan County in western part of the Upper Peninsula for the first time in over 100 years. There have been cougar sightings before the cubs have been reported, but the DNR reported that they've all been transient males. So like, there's never been cubs found in that section over this past 100 years, right? The mother of the cubs has not been. Found and it doesn't sound like the cubs have been found since they were spotted in March either. I assume that the mother was probably killed and the cubs believed to be around seven to nine months old. And without their mother, it's not likely that they will survive either.

• 1:22:11Jeff Larson?

  I just wanted to get your thoughts on this. What do you think it means for cougars in Michigan? Do you think that there should be protections or repopulation efforts for cougars now that there's been confirmed breeding female? Do you think there could possibly be more breeding females in the area?

• 1:22:27Wes Larson?

  Right. So I'm supposed to give advice to Michigan?

• 1:22:32Jeff Larson?

  If you're hell bent on it being advice, I'm sorry.

• 1:22:35Mike Smith?

  I mean, that is the category.

• 1:22:37Wes Larson?

  I know, but it's like, I'm just, okay, just really quick for people.

• 1:22:41Jeff Larson?

  I thought it'd be interesting to hear your input on what this listener wrote in.

• 1:22:46Wes Larson?

  I agree. This feels like a listener question to me. And I do think when you people write into.

• 1:22:51Jeff Larson?

  But like the questions are too small on the Instagram, you know?

• 1:22:55Wes Larson?

  When people write into the mailbag though, or advice, it can be something that they need advice from us about. But I'm happy to answer this question for now. I think, I personally think you have to often rally a lot of resources, time, energy and money to provide new protections for a species that's been extirpated before. And you want to do that when you know that that animal has like established in that area. To me, just seeing two cubs, probably, I think it would maybe be a little preemptive to put all that effort behind it at that point.

• 1:23:34Wes Larson?

  But I think it's when you start having those discussions, when you start really thinking about whether or not you need to start a mountain lion program or a cougar program. But the other thing I don't totally agree with is that it's very likely that that mom was still around when they saw these cubs and she just wasn't in view. Sometimes mountain lions will stash their cubs somewhere when they go to hunt and they'll leave them alone for hours at a time. So I don't think it's like a given that she's dead and she might be raising those cubs. And if they do continue to see female mountain lions in that area, then yeah, I think it's a great idea to start a program to protect them.

• 1:24:09Jeff Larson?

  Thanks for that advice.

• 1:24:11Wes Larson?

  You're welcome.

• 1:24:14Wes Larson?

  Now Michigan knows what to do.

• 1:24:16Jeff Larson?

  James, James asks, this one, their leg is probably healed by now, but we can still give them some advice. I have a broken leg and I was wondering if there's any good anime or just general TV shows to binge until I get better.

• 1:24:31Wes Larson?

  I'll turn it over to you guys first.

• 1:24:34Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, you know what show I think, a show that I think is really good is You on Netflix.

• 1:24:41Wes Larson?

  Really?

• 1:24:41Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I, I, I think it's like a fun rewatch and a fun binge.

• 1:24:48Wes Larson?

  I feel like the first two seasons were fun and then it got really bad.

• 1:24:51Jeff Larson?

  I didn't say got good. I was just saying, I think it's a good show. I thought, I feel like they've done well every season. The third one went a little crazy, but I was like, you can't keep doing just, I don't know.

• 1:25:04Wes Larson?

  Alright, yeah.

• 1:25:05Mike Smith?

  For me, when I'm recovering from something, I want kind of like a low stakes episodic. Or something I'm really, really familiar with. So I don't have to be like totally locked in if I'm drifting in and out of sleep or whatever. So like the Twilight Zone, just small little vignettes of, you don't really have to be super locked into it. They're always just like fun concepts, but you don't have to like follow a storyline from episode to episode, season to season. So I would recommend something either you're really, really familiar with and know that you like. Yeah, I, I just, I think the Twilight Zones are really just kind of a fun, almost borderline campy sometimes. Just a, a nice thing to recover to.

• 1:25:42Wes Larson?

  I got two recommendations quickly. I've really enjoyed the recent series Common Side Effects. It was created by Mike Judge and the animators behind Scavengers Reign, which was one of my all time favorite series. And then I really love Andor. I think Andor might be my favorite Star Wars story ever. So I know season two just started. I haven't started it yet, but um, I recommend both of those very emphatically. That's that Common Side Effects. Sounds interesting.

• 1:26:13Jeff Larson?

  Haven't heard of it.

• 1:26:14Wes Larson?

  Mike and Jeff to watch that for months, but they're never, I've, I've overdone it. They're not gonna do it at this point.

• 1:26:20Mike Smith?

  Yeah, we'll never like it as much as you want us to.

• 1:26:23Wes Larson?

  You won't. It's true. I need to just, I'm never gonna bring it up again to you two, but everyone else I will. I think you must have like drunk texted me the other night when you were like, so.

• 1:26:34Wes Larson?

  Maybe time to watch side effects, common side effect? No, it was funny.

• 1:26:39Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:40Jeff Larson?

  All right, here's one from Elizabeth. Looking for your advice on a family heirloom. My great grandfather was a furrier.

• 1:26:50Jeff Larson?

  What's that? What's the difference of that and a furry?

• 1:26:53Wes Larson?

  Uh, a furrier? Hold up. It's someone that's even more furry than just a regular furry.

• 1:26:59Jeff Larson?

  Well, I can just tell you. The family still has a real leopard fur coat from his shop that's hanging on my uncle's closet. So it's someone who deals with animal fur. None of us are interested in wearing it and none of us would ever want to kill a leopard for any reason, especially to make it into a dumb coat. So the question is, what would you do with this item? What would be respectful and ethical?

• 1:27:26Wes Larson?

  It's a great question. I think personally, the leopard's already dead. It's a family heirloom. If you want to keep it, I don't think you have to feel bad about keeping it. I don't think, you know, our ideals and ethics and everything have changed over time. And I think if that's something that is important to you or reminds you of your family, that's okay. I don't, I don't know if I'd like wear it out on the town, but like to keep it as a family heirloom, I don't think you need to feel any ethical hangups over that. But if you do feel weird about keeping it, you could give it to a museum or I'm sure there's like a natural history museum somewhere that would take it or like a

• 1:28:03Jeff Larson?

  You think?

• 1:28:04Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I do.

• 1:28:05Jeff Larson?

  Like a coat?

• 1:28:06Wes Larson?

  The Bean Museum in Utah, they take any kind of old taxidermy that people want to surrender. And they then like license it out to different museums and stuff. And if, if it doesn't get licensed, it just sits in a warehouse. But um, someone might want to display it somewhere, you know, even like a fashion museum or something.

• 1:28:27Mike Smith?

  Yeah, maybe, maybe you could repurpose it as something else, like take apart the coat aspect and just have like a, I don't know what you would do with it from there, but I imagine a museum could do something like that as well, but.

• 1:28:40Wes Larson?

  I don't think there's anything wrong with keeping it though. I really don't.

• 1:28:42Mike Smith?

  Sure.

• 1:28:42Wes Larson?

  I think as long as you're Not like wearing it and telling people, look how much I love my leopard skin coat, you know, I think it's okay.

• 1:28:50Jeff Larson?

  I feel like it's a hard one, though, because it is like, I don't know, I don't think I'd want to display it or wear it. Because like if someone goes into your house and just sees like a leopard skin up on your wall. It'd be like every time I would feel obligated to be like, yeah, I didn't kill that and make it into a coat, just so you know. You know, I don't really know what I would do with it. And I feel like a museum, it's not like that rare of to have leopard skin. And people use leopard skin in a lot cooler ways. So I feel like the museum, unless it's like here, feel what a leopard would feel like. Maybe a zoo could do that. I don't know.

• 1:29:28Wes Larson?

  So what are you saying? Like dispose of it?

• 1:29:32Jeff Larson?

  I'm saying it's a hard one. Yeah, just give it to Goodwill.

• 1:29:35Wes Larson?

  I think, I think like, I wouldn't do that. I think like the main, the main thing that my advice would be is that. I don't think they have to feel bad about it, regardless of what they do with it, unless they're like using it in a way that would encourage other people to like have fur. But I think if they want to just keep it, or if they want to put it in a closet or whatever, it doesn't really matter, but.

• 1:30:00Jeff Larson?

  But I'm just trying to hash out, like, what would you do with it?

• 1:30:03Wes Larson?

  I would keep it. I would just like have it in a storage closet. And I think it would be a, an interesting knick knack that I had for my grandpa.

• 1:30:11Jeff Larson?

  I think I'd do that too. Just have it, I'd keep it, but probably not display it. And then just like, hey, you want to see this leopard coat? My grandpa hat.

• 1:30:22Wes Larson?

  Right. That was.

• 1:30:22Jeff Larson?

  Maybe like, if we started a cult, you could like make someone wear it and then shoot them with like a BB gun while they're wearing the leopard coat. And they have to like act like a leopard, you know?

• 1:30:33Wes Larson?

  We did that with you once, Jeff.

• 1:30:36Jeff Larson?

  Bison, right?

• 1:30:37Wes Larson?

  Yeah, the bison hat. Okay, we did conservation already, least concerned, they're doing okay. But all rattlesnake populations are on the decline. Uh, just for people out there, a quick refresher on some safety and how you should treat these animals. These are very. Important animals to the ecosystems they're found in. They do a lot of rodent control for us. They're amazing animals that are beautiful, that have evolved a defense mechanism that's literally a warning for us. I mean, they they tell you to back off before they bite you generally. So they deserve our respect. They deserve our admiration. And if you do encounter rattlesnake, obviously, like, give it plenty of space.

• 1:31:20Wes Larson?

  If you happen to get bit, what are the two things that you need? The first two things you should look for?

• 1:31:25Jeff Larson?

  Cell phone and keys.

• 1:31:27Wes Larson?

  Yes. Call the emergency center closest to you. Tell them you've been bit by a rattlesnake. And then get yourself there as quickly as possible. Anything else you do is window dressing, like.

• 1:31:37Jeff Larson?

  And pick up the snake and bring it to the people so they can identify.

• 1:31:41Wes Larson?

  You should not do that, but if you do have time to take a photo of it, that's also smart so they can identify the species. But really, what you want to do is just get to help as soon as possible. You want to get as much antivenom as you need. Make sure that you advocate for yourself. Because sometimes doctors really just don't have a lot of experience with these animals. And you need to make sure that you're telling them what you know about them. So that's basically it. Anything else you hear about how to treat a snake bite is just kind of not that important.

• 1:32:11Jeff Larson?

  What about how to take down a cult?

• 1:32:14Wes Larson?

  A cult? Yeah, just be a really intrepid, hardworking lawyer, I guess.

• 1:32:19Jeff Larson?

  Don't open packages without shaking them first.

• 1:32:23Wes Larson?

  If you see like, if a package shows up, that's like a 12 foot long poster, like, it looks kind of like a wrapping paper tube, don't open it.

• 1:32:32Jeff Larson?

  It might have a snake in it. Can the rattlesnake like make a noise without its rattle?

• 1:32:37Wes Larson?

  Yeah, even just their tail shaking can make a little noise and they can hiss.

• 1:32:42Jeff Larson?

  They can hiss?

• 1:32:43Wes Larson?

  Yeah, they definitely can make. Sometimes they like really hiss when they get into their coil position. It's pretty intimidating. Uh, I was gonna say one more thing. Oh yeah. So the other thing too, just if you get bit is to be as calm as possible. So, okay. Last thing, our claw rating for the Southern Pacific rattlesnake. I'll go first. I'll go quickly. Nine out of 10 for me.

• 1:33:04Mike Smith?

  I love rattlesnakes. Every time I see a rattlesnake, I get really excited. I think they're incredible animals. And I just never get tired of seeing them in the wild. So nine out of 10.

• 1:33:15Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I'll probably give it 10 out of 10.

• 1:33:17Mike Smith?

  Wow.

• 1:33:18Jeff Larson?

  I just rattlesnakes are top five snake. I don't know exactly what species I'd put in the 10 spot, but like to me, rattlesnakes are pretty similar. I like them all around the same level, you know? And yeah, I just think they're awesome. I think they're cool.

• 1:33:37Mike Smith?

  Nice. I think they're cool too.

• 1:33:39Jeff Larson?

  A hundred or no, probably like 58 overall.

• 1:33:44Mike Smith?

  Hmm. Okay. Yeah, I'll give them an eight. I just, I didn't really know this specific species of rattlesnake existed till today. I love all snakes. I think they're all cool rattlesnakes especially, but maybe that'll grow as I grow more familiar with them.

• 1:33:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah. If you see a rattlesnake in Los Angeles or San Diego, it's very likely it's this species.

• 1:34:06Jeff Larson?

  Cool. I saw one in Malibu once, so it's probably.

• 1:34:08Wes Larson?

  It was the Southern Pacific.

• 1:34:10Mike Smith?

  There you go, dude. Nice. Was it cool?

• 1:34:12Jeff Larson?

  It's big.

• 1:34:13Wes Larson?

  10 out of 10. All right. Thanks everyone for listening. Uh, we appreciate all your questions, all your kind words, everything you guys do to support us. Thanks especially to our subscribers. Uh, you truly keep us going and we love you so much.

• 1:34:29Mike Smith?

  Thank you.

• 1:34:30Jeff Larson?

  Funny. The one that we saw is on like a walk with a girl and we both saw it and we both knew there's rattlesnake. She like lived there and would see him sometimes. And then we saw it and we like thought like, that's probably a rattlesnake and we had space to go around it. And we were walking around it and then it like coiled up and rattled and I jumped so high. And then I like already knew what it was and like there's just sitting like it wasn't like a huge threat, but once it rattled, it's still like scared me so bad.

• 1:35:05Mike Smith?

  When they rattle, you know, they mean business.

• 1:35:07Wes Larson?

  Well, they're, yeah, it's business time.

• 1:35:09Mike Smith?

  All right. See you guys.

• 1:35:10Jeff Larson?

  Love you guys.

• 1:35:11Mike Smith?

  Bye.