Stuff You Should Know - Selects: How Snake Handlers Work

Episode Date: May 8, 2021

Snake handling ranges from professional snake milkers for antivenin to religious handlers who tend to get bitten and sometimes die from it. Either way, it can be a dangerous business. Learn all about snake handling in this classic episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, it's me Josh. And for this week's SYSK Selects, I've chosen how snake handlers work. It's a really truly fascinating episode that you might have overlooked. And yeah, we talk a lot about Christian snake handling, but we also talk about people who handle snakes for fun,

or because it's their job. There's a lot of people who handle snakes, weirdly. So kick back and enjoy this episode from May of 2016, how snake handlers work. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chup Bryant and there's Jerry over there. And my hair is now a fourth character. Chuck laughed at my hair everybody. Well if my beard can be the fourth character, your hair could be the fifth. Oh, oh really? Yeah, we need, actually Jerry's got great hair. She does have nice hair. Stylish salt and pepper.

Amy Goodman level tasteful salt and pepper. I'm not sure what that means. Amy Goodman from Democracy Now, very tasteful salt and pepper hair. Oh really? Maybe that's the thing. It is, clearly. Between Jerry and Amy Goodman, it's the thing. That beats shoe polish black. You know, like trickling down your forehead. Yeah. But which makes you happy, you know? Well, sure. If you don't... Whatever makes you feel good. Yeah, I should get some of that beer blackener and comb it into my beard and come in with like that jet black beard. And Clyde Drexler will show up at your house, urge you on. What? Clyde Drexler? Isn't he in the ads? Yeah. Really? Former Portland Trailblazer, great.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's Clyde Drexler. Oh wow. I think. I'm gonna have to check this out. It's him and who was the one, I think Keith Hernandez. I was gonna say the one that Kramer spit on or that got spit on Kramer. Yeah, Keith Hernandez. I think it's Keith Hernandez and Clyde Drexler in the Just For Men commercial. Gotcha. Well, there's our freed package of Just For Men coming our way now, which we should say, thanks again, again, to Crown Royal. Man, you say you like Crown Royal, they send you some, you say you drank it and they send you more. I know, it's pretty awesome. I'm brushing my teeth with this stuff now. My lifestyle has improved for the better. Pretty neat. Thank you, dudes. So, I was just discussing before we

record it, I said it's gonna be hard to record a show on snake handling. And I'm talking about the religious aspect of it without sort of, I'm like, I fear for their safety. And I want to say you people are crazy. A lot of people do. But we have a longstanding tradition of like to each their own. I just, you know, I hate seeing people die from doing something completely preventable. Yeah, you definitely do. But handling rattlesnakes and kissing them on the face. From what I've seen of this or from what I've researched, I've not actually seen somebody handle snakes in person. No. But from what I've researched, the people who handle snakes are doing it through total and complete faith. I know. And there's, even if you did judge them, I think it

kind of rolls off their back quite a bit. So it's not so much judgment. It's just like judgment. No, it's not. I'm telling you, this is my opinion. And I'm judging your opinion. Oh, that's what you meant by it's judgment. No, no. Okay. No, it's not judgment. I just, I hate seeing people get hurt. No, I know. And die. Have you ever seen somebody handle snakes? No. You had a religious upbringing. Well, yeah, this is rare, though. This is, yeah, it is Appalachian, uh, foothills stuff. Yeah, I know. But I mean, like we're Atlanta, we're in Georgia. I didn't know if you ever took like a field trip or something like that. No, that's not, you have no idea how church works to you. I thought there were a lot of field trips.

No, I gotcha. In fact, you don't go to other churches. You're not supposed to do that. Oh, really? Yeah, you stay at your own church. You don't go on field trips to other churches. Aren't there like interfaith banquets and stuff like that? No. Yeah, we had a field day. Right. With all the churches in the county. Right. No, I suppose other churches get together with, I suppose some get together with other churches, but that wasn't my experience. It's typically frowned on in New York. You just keep it in house. Although we would go to the big youth conferences where it was all sorts of youth groups together. That's a field trip. Yeah. I'll just kids thrown in the big gymnasiums struggling to fight their hormonal urges.

Going, you believe what? Right. So no, I've never done it. I didn't ask if you'd done it. I never witnessed it. I've never been anywhere near it. Okay. Although I have a strange feeling, Chuck, that it's possible we've both been near it just from living in Georgia all these years. You think? Without knowing it. Because yeah, people who handle snakes, religiously, it's actually called holiness serpent handling. Is that correct? Yeah, they'd say serpent instead of snake. Yeah. And it has to be a venomous snake to be considered a serpent. Yes. But for holiness serpent handling until 2014, it was, they kept a pretty tight lid on it for many, many decades. Who did the handlers? Yeah, the people who

who who practice this as part of their religious beliefs. Yeah. And I think still even most of them are pretty media shy. You'll see the occasional interview when someone dies. Yeah. They'll go knocking on the doors and they'll give an interview to explain like why they do what they do. But of course, it was that TV show, which really, I mean, you know, you're clearly not media shy if you're doing a reality show. No, it was called Snake Salvation. And sorry, not 2014, but 2013. It was on Nat Geo. And it was all about snake handling for religious reasons. And one of the main guys on the show ended up dying. He didn't die on the show, but he died the next year from a rattlesnake bite. Oh, after it went off the air? Yeah, it was only on for one season.

But his name was Pastor Jamie Coots. And he and another guy named, I believe, Steven Amblin are are they are holiness serpent handlers who believe in kind of bringing it out of the shadows and into the Christian mainstream. Good luck. Yeah. If you're if you're at all interested in that concept, you should read even on to death. It was in the Chattanooga Free Press. It's a pretty good examination of that whole movement and those guys in particular. I guess we should talk a little bit about other kinds of snake handling first, though. Yeah, because when you see snake handling, I'm sure when people saw this, the title of this episode, they just assumed we're talking strictly about religious snake handling. Yeah. No, like other people handle snakes as well.

Like professionals, non religious settings. Yeah, it's true. They're called herpetologists or some of them are. These are actually people who study snakes and amphibians reptiles. And we talked about them on our snake show. And I think we dispelled a lot of rumors, not rumors, but myths on the snake show, which come into play when handling snakes, namely that they aren't out to kill you. Yeah. But we'll get to that later. Yeah. But people display snakes. Well, there's a few different categories of people who handle snakes. There's people who display them like you drive through Florida. You might see it like a snake and gator farm, right, where they do snake shows. And there's a really famous guy we'll talk about a little more in depth named Bill Haas. Oh, yeah.

Who was like the man when it comes to that. Let's see. Yeah. And then there are there are people, there are snake milkers. Of course, there's veterinarians who care for your snakes. Yeah, which I mean, they have to handle snakes. Yeah. There's also rescue and recovery people who come get a snake in my basement. Right. A guy will show up and most likely he's professionally trained. At the very least, you would hope that he has a tremendous amount of experience in handling snakes. Yeah. And they will show up and you'll say, how much does it cost to get the snake out of my basement? And they'll say, how much you got? Exactly. I'd like to see your last three bank account statement, please.

And in those cases, they will probably, you'll probably see what's called an extension tool. If you've ever seen those tongs or those long, they call it a snake hook, sort of a a long metal, not a prod, because you're not prodding. It's like a senior adult use it to grab cans off of the high shelves in their homes. A grabber? Yeah, it's like that. Sort of. I haven't seen them that actually flex and grab, do they? Yeah. Okay. If you get some money, you're going to spend it on that. The ones I've seen are just have a flat, you know, it's a long pole and then it has like an L shaped, you know, at a right angle flat piece coming off that they pin the snake with. Right. I've read this thing about handling snakes safely

for like just normal people or people who are starting out in the rescue and recovery business. Sure. And you can use just about anything. The key is extension. You want to put distance between you and the snake. Yeah. And I want to say as a legal disclaimer, I'm not at all advising anybody to handle a snake. Nope. But what I read was that you want to put as much distance as possible. So if you have a garden tool and a long one, use that. Yeah. But you also would want to use, let's say you have a hoe, you would want to turn your hoe upside down and use these, just the wooden end to manipulate the snake because you don't want to hurt the snake. You just want to get rid of it. Right. Yeah. I relocated a snake from my backyard a couple of years ago. What did

you use? I used my hands. Oh my God. It wasn't big. It was, but it wasn't small. So how did you describe this interaction? I was cutting the grass and I saw the snake. It was about a foot long. Did you positively identify it as non-lethal or non-venomous? Yeah. It was pretty, yeah. It was definitely not. Well, actually, it had the markings where it could have been a copper head. Okay. It wasn't just like a green snake. Right. So you took a shot of whiskey and approached it? I approached it and I did use an implement to pin it, but I can't remember what I used. It was something blunt and soft. It wasn't an ax head because like you said, it wasn't a cinder block that you dropped. No. What did I use? It was, I can't remember. Let's just say like a wooden

paddle. Okay. It might have been a piece of wood actually. I got to. And then I did, like I saw on the TV shows, I grabbed it behind the, you know, right behind its head, got a good hold of it and picked it up. Not bad. And it wrapped around my wrist and I went, and then I ran across the street like Pee Wee Herman and threw it in the wood. I didn't throw it. I laid it down in the woods. You shot put it into the woods. And it was great. I think it was a successful catch and release. It sounds like it. You weren't bitten. Yeah. And I don't, I'm 99% sure I didn't hurt the snake. Good. Yeah. That sounds pretty successful. Yeah. What I was reading in this one article was that you, most snakes, if you just approach them calmly and

I guess smoothly is a good way to put it. Sure. Don't lunge at the snake. Right. And also don't be like, Oh my God, when we go ahead, right? Just kind of come at the snake and pick it up. Like it's just a stick in your yard. It's probably not going to strike you supposedly according to this website of which I have no affiliation whatsoever. Yeah. And I'm not, my story, please do not take that as a, that was probably pretty dumb for me to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And even if it's non, I didn't want it. I don't want to get bitten by a snake. I don't care if it's venomous or not. Right. One of my biggest fears is seeing a snake attach its mouth to my body. Right. It frightens me. Well, I have to say also this site put pretty

plainly, do not ever touch a snake that you haven't positively identified as non venomous. Because yeah, I mean, if you, you could have easily been bitten and lost your hand or died or whatever. Well, no, I couldn't get the hospital pretty quickly. Okay. Yeah. I mean, if you're, you know, anti-venom works, apparently a hundred percent of the time. Yeah. If it's gotten to in a timely manner. Yes. And for the pedants out there, we will say anti-venom and anti-venom because both are acceptable. Yes, they are. All right. So Chuck, let's take a break right here. Huh? Sounds good. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life.

Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in

and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay. Did I say how far a snake can strike? No, do you know? This is what I've got. From the same place that said, just go smoothly and casually up to a snake. Introduce yourself.

It says that any snake greater than four feet can typically strike about one-third to one-half the distance of its body length. That's a good rule of thumb. Yeah. A snake between one and three feet can strike about one-half to two-thirds its body length. And then a snake underfoot can usually strike about its whole body length. Okay. I would take all those numbers and double them. That's probably a good idea. Just to be safe. Yeah. But of course, I'm the guy who picked up maybe a copperhead. Right. Man, that is scary stuff. You do the same thing. You don't want to pay a guy.

Probably I would do with this site. What this site was saying was made a lot of sense to me. It's like, take a garbage can, tip it over on its side, take a shovel, use the wooden end of it, the handle, and just kind of get it into the can. Turn it over, put something on top of the can, and then call somebody. Or you could take the can to the woods or something like that. That's probably what I should have done in retrospect. I was feeling brave. It was those shots of whiskey. I've watched enough Nature TV. I know how this is done. So the last thing that I think we didn't mention is snake milkers. Oh, yeah. Which snake venom is very valuable. One gram, what you do is you freeze dry it into a

powder after you get the liquid and you sell it to research labs. Big money. Yeah. One gram, a freeze-dried venom from an exotic snake can go up to five grand, but it might take 100 milkings to get that much. Yeah. So do the math. Yeah. Is it worth it? Yes. Especially if you love hanging out with snakes. And it's a legit job. You can make $2,500 a month or more as a snake milker. Easily, depending on how many snakes you have. That's right. So there are a lot of people that handle snakes, but all of them, well, I should say all of the people who professionally handle snakes have a rule of thumb, which is don't get hurt. Don't be stupid. Sure. Because there are two ways that snakes can typically get you. Venomous snakes obviously inject venom,

and that's why people milk snakes is to get that venom so that they can create anti-venom. So that your life can be saved if you end up getting bit by a snake, right? Yes. And venom is pretty nasty stuff. I think we did one on like, what's the most poisonous animal in the world? That sounds familiar. Yeah. And we talked a lot about venom, but it's worth revisiting. Basically, depending on the venom that you're injected with, it can cause tissue damage wherever it's spread. Yeah. And by tissue damage, I mean just completely wipe out your tissue. And if that is blood vessels, your blood vessels bleed and you start bleeding internally. If it's your liver or your heart, those things start bleeding internally and end up shutting down. You can have

multi-system, multi-organ failure, paralysis, respiratory distress, all sorts of horrible stuff. Yeah. If it's on a limb or digit, you might lose that even if you get the anti-venom at the time. Exactly. Because it's so thoroughly destroys the tissue, right? That's right. And it causes a lot of pain too. Like I was reading about the Texas Coral Snake. It actually has this molecule that opens the gates to your pain receptors and just holds them open so that you're just feeling excruciating, unremitting pain. So it's bad stuff. Yeah. So you don't want to get bitten by a snake. You also don't want to mess around with constrictors either because they will mess you up as well. Yeah. They will, I guess, wrap around you and then

suffocate you. Yeah. Break your back. Stop your heart. It's big enough, sure. Bad news. Bad news. So snakes can be dangerous is the point. Yes. But again, not to feed into that anti-snake propaganda. We're not trying to start a whacking day. No. So getting back to the milkers. Oh, yes. Sorry. They are what's called free handlers. You would think like they should just wear anti-snake gloves, but you need to really feel the snake. I read an interview with a guy that milked snakes for a living and he was like, no, you got to feel with your skin the snakes are really fast and you have to react and adjust to every little movement they make. And even wearing a glove, even a thin glove, I think glove wouldn't help anyway,

but a chainmail glove or Kevlar glove, you wouldn't be able to feel what's going on anyway. Right. Plus you may accidentally crush the snake's head. They're not exactly made of Kevlar themselves. That's true. So when you're milking a snake, when you're free handling it, you basically want to hold it the way you did behind the head, right? Yeah. Where the jaws meet using your thumb and forefinger. Yes, that is correct. And that does two things. It keeps the head from turning on you and it puts your fingers on the and your thumb on those venom glands, which is what they, you know, they just kind of massage it. You can also use electric stimulation, electrical stimulation, but the traditional way

is to just just give a little squeeze and it'll milk those little glands. Right. But first, before you start squeezing, you want to basically take the fangs, the front fangs. Oh yeah, you're not just like spraying it around the room. Into your hand. I miss that part. You put their fangs through a membrane that's pulled over a jar and then the venom just pumps out of the fangs into the jar. Yeah, it's really neat looking. It is pretty remarkable looking. It is. Man. Agreed. And they recommend that if you are milking, if you're a professional milker, you should have a little buddy with you. Oh yeah. Okay, something goes wrong. It's not a solo job. Really? Anytime you're handling a snake, there should be more than one person. I agree.

Well, you know, I didn't, I should have called Emily outside. Yep. But she wouldn't have let me pick up the snake. I had to keep it quiet. I think I walked up to her and was like, look at this. Yeah. If I'm not mistaken. And they say for constrictors, they have a little handy chart as well for at least one person for every five feet of snake unless it's an anaconda or reticulated python in case, in that case, you want every three feet of snake. Right. Because those are very heavy snakes. Yeah. Females can get up to like 200 pounds, which is 90 kilograms. I saw the jackass bit the other day again, where I think it might have been in the sequel where they put a it's a python or anaconda and one of those pits of little red balls that kids jump in.

And they, you know, Johnny Knoxville and the gang get in there. And this thing bites, this huge thing bites Johnny Knoxville like two or three times. Wow. And things got the head the size of a baseball. It sounds like a jackass bit. Hey, hey, the Lance Bangs. Yeah. Speaking of jackass. Yeah. He was one of the filmmakers behind that. And we had dinner with him in Portland. Very pleasant dinner. So hello, Lance, if you're out there listening. I can't believe that they did that anyway. It was, it was, and he kept getting back in. He kept getting bit. He's bleeding and he keeps getting back in. I don't know why this isn't ringing a bell. I'm sure I've seen jackass too a bunch of times. Well, you know, plus Chuck, you also want somebody

around any time you're handling a snake, whether it's a python or a venomous snake or any snake, really, because you want somebody to call 911 if something goes wrong. You want somebody to be able to drive you to the hospital if something goes wrong. Yeah. Or if a python is trying to get around you, they can keep the tail from fully wrapping around. There's a lot of stuff that an extra person can do. And things go really horribly awry when that doesn't happen. There was actually a very famous case not too many years ago of a Venezuelan zookeeper. I think it was Venezuela, wasn't it? I don't remember. Who was, I think, a grad student working as a zookeeper. And he or she went into a, I guess, a python's cage, a 10-foot Burmese python cage alone during

the night shift. Boy. And they found the... What for? Probably just to get something or to give it some food, just something. I'm sure it was something mundane and totally not worth losing your life over. Yeah. And they found the person the next morning, like half swallowed by the python. Oh, my Lord. So you always want somebody around. Yeah. Well, should we get into the religious snake handling? Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, you said it, dude. It's called Holiness Serpent Handling. Yeah. And we actually, you might think like, oh, they've done this for millennia. No. Or at least since the 17, 1800s. No. Nope. We have a definitive start date. 1910 in Tennessee, the Dolly Pond Church of God in Birchwood. There was a preacher named George

Hensley. And the legend is that he was having a faith crisis and was reading Mark from the Bible, 1618. Thou shalt take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. Oh, that was a good Appalachian preacher. And so he supposedly turned and saw a snake there and said, I'm going to take this quite literally. The Bible says to take up snakes, so I'm going to pick it up. And he picked it up and the snake didn't bite him. And he said, well, there goes my crisis of faith. That's right. And apparently George Hensley didn't start out a preacher. He started out an alcoholic who had trouble keeping work. And once this happened to him, he found his religious calling and became a preacher in the Pentecostal tradition.

And he actually helped establish this separate group that's kind of within the Pentecostal religion. But the Church of God of signs following is essentially the sect that he helped found. Yeah, these are subsets of subsets, subsets of Christianity. Yeah. And so Hensley's whole philosophy was you read the Bible plainly is how he put it, which means if it says you pick up snakes, you pick up snakes. It's God's command to you. Right. If it says you can drink any deadly thing and it will not harm you, you're supposed to do that. Right. All churches are independent. So you decide whether women can wear pants or not at your church. And it was about as simple as that. Yeah. And it actually took off and became

very popular throughout Appalachia from the 1910s till about the 1940s. There was, I think, thousands of people who went to these Church of God with signs following churches. Yeah. And Hensley, for his own record, said that he survived more than 400 bites until 1955. He was in Florida and abandoned, I don't know if it was abandoned, but it was a blacksmith's shop. Uh-huh. And he was doing a demonstration and, I guess, holding a little religious service. Right. And he got bitten and refused treatment because that's part of the deal, is they leave it up to you. Yeah. Like Kootz saw an interview with him and he said, if someone gets bitten, I call the paramedics, I have them come down and then I say, well, now you have a choice.

You can either do as God commands and refuse treatment and he'll heal you if you should be healed. And if it's your time to die, it's your time to die. Or you can say, I'd like treatment, please. Yeah. But in the tradition of a true believer, Hensley said, no, I don't want treatment. And he died the next morning. Yeah. But he survived a bunch of other bites, like he said. Yeah, 400, he says. Although live by the snake, die by the snake is probably a pretty good motto. Sure. A lot of people think that holiness serpent handlers are either worship the snakes because they do keep them in cages on the altar during services. Yeah. Or that they, they're doing this as a show of faith to basically show, look at how much I believe in God.

Right. Apparently, this is definitively not the case that when holiness serpent handlers pick up snakes and this still goes on. Oh, yeah. Like there are still churches throughout Appalachia, apparently from Ohio to Florida, where hundreds, if not a few thousand people do this, go to these services. Yeah. When they do it, they don't do it at every service necessarily. Right. But when they do do it, it's because they believe they have just been commanded by God to show their obedience to God by picking up a serpent and handling it. And when they do it, it's apparently, they just enter into immediate religious ecstasy. Yeah. It's like they kind of jump up and down and maybe speak in tongues and sort of a trance like state. I guess we haven't even really described

it. I assume most people have seen this at some point. Look up a YouTube video. They're not holding the snake by the back of the head. No. They are literally just sometimes there are five and six snakes and they're just holding them and they're kissing them on the face or rubbing them on their face. They wear them like crowns. Yeah. They'll throw them over their shoulders. Yeah. The big difference between religious snake handlers and professional snake handlers is that religious snake handlers go to zero degree to establish any kind of safety precautions. Right. That's entirely antithetical to the point. Yeah. They don't have anti-venom shots standing by in a medical kit. No, they don't. No. That's one. There's a hundred things that are different, but sure.

Right. I know what you mean. And so this whole thing was very popular among the Appalachians for a good 20, 30 years. And in the 40s, there was a rash of people who died after being bitten. And all of a sudden, the outside world started to look in and say, what are you guys doing? Yeah. And the authorities were like, well, we don't think you should be able to do that. Right. And it started to try to pass laws, but none of them, there actually are laws that indirectly prevent people from doing this. And there's actually some that directly prevent them. I guess in every Appalachian state, except for West Virginia, but they're very rarely enforced because of religious liberties. Right. Yeah. Religious freedoms. Yeah. There have been some

raids, notably actually Coots Place. Coots Place. Sounds like a sitcom. Hanging with Mr. Coots. Coots Church was raided as a part of a series of stings in 2008 under the code name twice shy. Twice shy. Really? Yeah. You're kidding me. They did there. In one church, they confiscated 125 snakes and made 10 arrests. And then at Coots Church, I think they got about 75 snakes and arrested a few others, including him. But I don't think they stay in jail very long. I can't imagine what the penalty is. Well, the grand jury typically refused to indict them. Oh, really? They just say... They might be charged with it. They might be hauled to jail, but there's no indictment that's handed down so they don't go to trial. But they confiscate

the snakes, at least. Yeah. Usually because in Tennessee, for example, it's illegal to keep venomous snakes. And the snakes that they're using are very venomous. They're deadly cotton mouths, rattlesnakes, all sorts of very deadly venomous snakes. So they're breaking the law just by having the snakes. But again, they're typically left alone as far as the courts are concerned. And the reason why you're saying at the beginning of this episode that it's hard to not just be like, stop. Yeah. I think the reason why I don't have that much trouble with this, I came to see it differently after doing research on it. Okay. They have mores involved with this stuff. More eels? No. Oh, I thought they handled those too.

Yeah. Because that would require like an aquarium and nobody wants that. Sure. They have just kind of rules around the whole thing where you don't go handle a serpent unless you feel like you have been commanded by God to go do that right then. Yeah. And you're imbued with the Holy Spirit, which is protecting you right then. Right. There's no pressure whatsoever to go do that. There's actually discouragement to do it for any kind of show of faith or anything like that. Yeah. And then children are banned from doing it. They're not allowed to handle the snakes. So after that, you were fine with it? Yeah. In the same way that like you're free to walk into traffic if you want. I find it even less harmful than that because you're endangering the other

driver's life. If you're walking into traffic, somebody might steer into somebody else to get around you. This is you and a snake. Yeah. I do have issues with how the snakes are treated. Well, that's one of my other big problems. So let's we'll get into that. We got to take a break. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh God. Seriously,

I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life.

In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too.

Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Chuck, we're back. What's the problem? What's your beef? Well, over the years, let's get into some numbers. In about 100 years, they estimate about 100 people have died from doing it. And if you look at the numbers and the number of people handling snakes, you'd think there'd be a lot more people dying from snake bites. Pretty surprising, especially considering that most of them do refuse medical treatment after being bitten. They still recover. Correct. That is unusual. It's remarkable. It is. NPR did a story on this in 2013. And some snake experts, herpetologists,

started coming out of the woodwork, specifically the Kentucky Reptiles who has been sort of investigating this on their own for years. And they said, you know what, there's a lot of things going on here that is sort of a rigging of the stacking of the deck and the human's favor. For one, these snakes are mistreated, which is one reason I have a problem with it. By all accounts from their investigations, they saw crowded cages. They were dirty. There was no fecal matter in the cage, which looked like they weren't being fed. They asked Coots about that. And he said, well, my rat connection went away. My mouse and rat hookup disappeared on me. And he says, besides, they won't eat anyway, I think was his quote,

which I don't understand what that means. I don't need it. Snake's eat. They want to eat. That sounds like something someone says when they're pulling their collar away from them. And he said they asked him how long his snakes lived. And he said, on average, three or four months, the reptiles who in Kentucky said snakes should live 10 to 20 years. Oh, wow. He said they live on average two or four months. Yeah, they're being mistreated. So because of this mistreatment, these hungry snakes, there's a lot of things that happen once you have a hungry snake. And one is they are less likely to strike if they're unhealthy. Yeah. What else?

When they do strike, they're less likely to inject venom. So it's going to be, it's likely to be a dry strike. Yeah, 25%, I think, are dry strikes. But that's just under normal circumstances. Oh, really? If it's a malnourished and less fed or under watered snake, it's probably even a higher incidence of dry strikes than that. Okay. The venom apparently isn't as potent if it's an unhealthy snake. In 2013, they raided a church in Tennessee. I think that's Andrew Hamblin's like you were talking about. Yeah, I think I may have said his first name incorrectly before. But yeah, that's who I was

talking about. And they confiscated 53 snakes that most of them died within months. They were all unhealthy. And so basically, you've got these malnourished snakes that, even when they do get bitten, they're maybe even not getting any venom or less potent venom. Right. So it's, yeah, it's rigged in a certain way. Plus also, this article points out, there's a Julia Layton joint. She points out that it's also possible that those of us here on the outside, maybe even the holiness serpent handlers, overestimate just how aggressive snakes actually are by nature. Yeah, like you were saying, if you're handling them gently, they're not going to strike you.

Especially if they don't feel threatened. If there's like, oh, this is just a religious person. Right. They're in the throes of religious ecstasy. I'll just ride it out. I've been wanting to be gently shaked for a while. So let's see where this goes. Plus, a lot of these snakes are raised in captivity and snake experts will tell you if you raise a snake in captivity, it's less likely to strike at you because they don't fear you as they should. Right. Plus snakes don't typically, speaking from an evolutionary standpoint, it doesn't make any sense for a snake to be like, yeah, I'm going to strike you thing that is way bigger than I am, that I don't prey upon naturally. I'm going to deliver all of my venom. Right.

Because the venom, they need it to actually eat. They need it for prey, right? Yeah. And the snake wouldn't know this, but natural selection would have figured it out by now that if a snake is striking something like a hippo that's coming at it and delivers all of its venom, right, that hippo is still going to stomp the snake before the venom actually has any effect on it. Yeah. And you've lost all your venom, right. And you have to read, you know, you can regenerate it, but it, you know, it's not like immediate. Right. So it doesn't, in an evolutionary natural selection standpoint, it doesn't really make sense for a snake to strike and deliver a full venom bite. Correct. Right. Yeah. So you add all this stuff together. And suddenly the mystery

of snake handling still is, it becomes a little clearer. It makes a little more sense how people are surviving. Yeah. But it's still remarkable that they, they aren't, that more people don't die considering how often these snakes are handled. Yeah. And if you, if you look at interviews with Coots on the YouTube, he'll, he'll pick up his chunk of rotted finger that he keeps and show you. He'll say, look, this, you know, my wife had to cut it off at the mid-knuckle with rose pruners. That was a different guy. That was Bill Haas. Well, no, Coots, it happened to him too. Oh really? Rose pruners again? Yeah. Like he literally held up his finger and showed it to the lady on CNN. She was like, eh. Yeah. Like you kept that thing? Yeah. Well, Bill Haas's wife cut

his off with rose pruners. I think digits falling off as a snake handler is pretty common. I don't think it's like, no, that was that one guy. All right. So yeah, I don't, I mean, there you go. I'm against it because they're mistreating snakes. Yeah. I have that. That's my issue with it too. And so it's, other than that, I'm like, you want to do it. It's your thing. Yeah. It's just one of those rare instances where you are, again, aside from the treatment of the snake, you're not harming anybody but yourself. Yeah. There's almost no other instance that's just like that. You know what I mean? Right. I guess I'm getting to be a libertarian. So let's talk about Bill Haas, man, because that guy deserves maybe even his own podcast one day. Yeah. This dude is something else.

Boy, where do you start with him? He was, well, as a kid, he had a dream to, he was always obsessed with snakes. Yeah. And he had a dream to one day have a snake house open to the public where he could educate people. And he was an educator. He wasn't, he wasn't a religious snake handler. We should point that out upfront. He was a self-trained scientist. Yeah. For sure. That's a good way to say it. Yeah. Thank you. So little kid has a dream and he grows up and makes that dream a reality and really believed, like really believed in his heart and through experimentation that snake venom could be very beneficial to a human. Yeah. He was actually, after the Miami Serpentarium, which is his famous place that he opened, was in full swing by the late 70s. He was in clinical

trials using snake venom to help cure things like Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis. Yeah. With a doctor and the FDA actually came in and shut them down because they were, they were basically doing human experimentation that was unsanctioned. Yeah. But they were seeing results from what I understand. Yeah. Apparently he was seeing results with his polio work earlier when Jonas Salk invented the vaccine and he was like, oh man, I was so close. I guess it's great that it's cured, but I wish it could have been me and the snakes. So this dude started self-immunizing in 1948. He injected one part Cape Cobra venom with 1,000 part saline solution into his forearm and started gradually increasing the amount of venom he would inject into his own body. Right.

And then within a couple of decades, he was injecting every day a cocktail of 32 different snakes and reptiles venom, which is a process called mithrididism. Yeah, mithrididism. Okay. Mithrididism was this famous, I can't remember. He was an ancient king and he developed a tolerance to poison because he was so afraid of being poisoned. So he would drink a little bit. Right. Nice. And this is, so now if anybody who does that, it's mithrididism and that's what he was doing. So he actually did this for such a long time that his blood itself became anti-venom. Yeah. And it actually saved 21 people's lives. Yeah. He would draw pints of blood from his body to keep on hand. And he literally several times flew all around the world with his blood to give it to people

to save them. Yeah. And apparently, and I think 1989, he was bit by a Pakistani pit viper and he didn't have any anti-venom. And the White House used back channels to get their hands on some from Iran and saved his life. Yeah. Pretty neat stuff. He has this famous quote, I could become a poster boy for the benefits of venom. If I live to be 100, I'll really make the point. And he lived to be 100. Yeah. 100 years old. Yeah. With snake venom pumping through his blood all day long. Yeah. And there's a really neat discussion about this guy in a larger article called the Mithrididies of Fandu Lak. I can't remember the guy who wrote it. It's a really great article. I'll tweet it out or something. But it has some stuff about Bill Haas in it. But it's also about this other

dude named Tim Freed, who in the article, he takes four venomous snake bites in 48 hours, all of the whole things about whether or not he can live through five. But he's been doing the same thing. Wow. Yeah. So the serpentarium in Miami closed in 1984 because, and I saw that the accident was in 1977. So I'm not sure why it took seven years to close. But a six-year-old boy had crocodiles and other stuff at the place. Yeah. Six-year-old boy fell into the crock pit and was mauled. And it really obviously disturbed Bill because he wasn't a bad guy. He wasn't, you know, he tore him up and he shot this crocodile nine times with a Luger pistol. And I guess seven years later decided to close it. Right. Apparently the dad didn't blame Bill,

which is remarkable for the accident, which I just thought was strange. Well, I mean, if he took safety precautions and the kid went around him, then... Yeah, maybe so. It's not that dude's fault. Either way, it's horrible and tragic. Yeah. And he ended up closing the serpentarium as a result of it, although I didn't realize it was seven years later too. But he kept his milking operation going. That's right. And his own self-injection routine. Right. And he did. He flew to Venezuela once into the Amazon to deliver some of his own blood to save a boy's life. And he was made an honorary citizen of Venezuela as a result. That is so cool. Yeah, pretty amazing. He claims to have never been sick a day in his life, didn't take,

never had the cold, never had the flu, didn't take aspirin. And this article that you sent says he was unusually youthful looking. I don't know. I looked at pictures. I don't know if he looked a hundred, but I don't know about unusually youthful looking. Maybe so. He had a glow about him. Yeah, a glow from venom. I'm going to start shooting that stuff, I guess. Oh, yeah? No, I'm going to stay away from it and just be fascinated by the whole concept. All righty. You got anything else? I got nothing else. I don't either. If you want to know more about snake handling, you can type those words in the search bar at howstuffworks.com. And since I said that, it's time for... Oh. You know what it's time for? Facebook Questions. All right, so what we do here is when

listener mails have dried up a little bit. We put it out to the people on Facebook to send in questions and we'll answer over the next two episodes as many as we can that aren't dumb. And it's sort of a rapid fire thing starting now. I'm like Billy on the street. Who? Billy on the street? Billy Eichner? No. Great TV show. And here we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I haven't seen it, but I am aware of it. It's wonderful. Let's start with Greg Storkin. Good old Greg Storkin. Yes. He says, if you woke up to find that you had replaced a character in a movie, you know well, what movie and character would it be and how would you handle the circumstances differently? This is a really good question. I feel like Josh has probably had an answer to this for years

for the shining wink emoticon. Did you spell out wink emoticon or did it just print out like that? I don't know. I'm not sure. Oh, no, he spelled it out. I had my answer easy, John Rambo. And what would you do differently? Would you just immediately surrender? I would have in the very beginning of First Blood when he drives him across the bridge and says, keep going that way. I would have just kept going that way instead of turning around and going back into town. Nice. The end. Yeah. John Rambo. That'd be a boring movie. Well, it'd be very short. Yeah. It'd be a short film. John Rambo, hitchhiker. That's a good one. Yeah. What about you? I'll have to think about that. All right. And hey, Storkin, we'll see you in Denver, buddy. All right.

Smile emoticon. This is from Jamie Whitaker. Josh always refers to his favorite book. Josh, you want to say it? 1491. That's right. Yeah. But I'm usually driving and I never take it down. I can't remember. So he says it's 18 something. It's not right. 1491. That's right. Chuck, what is your number one recommendation? I don't know if I have a favorite book, but I always recommend the book, Middle Sex, just because it's one of the great books that I've read. Jeffrey Eugenius. Oh, yeah, yeah. Eugenius. I think that's right. He wrote, he always written a lot of great books, but Middle Sex is wonderful. So great. Great all-around book. Yep. Okay. Nice one, man. Let's see. Trey Mclam has a great question. How different would our health

be if we could sleep every day until we wake up naturally as if alarm clocks were never invented? I would guess we'd all be a lot more mellow. We'd get less done, sure, but we'd be more mellow, like our five-day weekend. Remember that episode? I do. I think that kind of dovetails with that quite a bit. Just kind of doing what you do. There's your answer, Trey. Good one. I don't know about that. It was a good question, terrible answer. Sam Horn, you've been dropping hints of late about live shows overseas. Would love to see you in the UK. We have loads of stuff you should know. Terrible. Sam, we're hoping to come to the UK this summer. We're working on it hard. We're working on it. It may or may not pan out because planning shows overseas can be challenging. Yeah. You

have to take a citizenship test. Did you know that? I didn't know that. It's weird. We're trying and listening up for updates on that front. Okay. Let's see. Jessica Riddell says, I listened to your color podcast, Color with a U, and Chuck mentioned he might have a color deficiency. I'd like to hear a podcast about color blindness and color deficiencies. Please smile emoticon. I think people are putting this in. It's typing it out when you print. It's got to be. Maybe. What's the question? That wasn't a question. No. Okay. Done and off. Good one. Chuck. Well, they say Josh, Diego Leal. How's the property squatting coming along? That was me. I haven't heard anything from a few years, and I haven't heard anything about hippie Rob. I'm

still squatting everybody. It's working out great. And as far as we know, we don't own the property yet, but we think the county might. And there's really, I don't think we're in any danger of losing it. Nice. Anytime soon. It's not your next door neighbor, back back neighbor. No, behind neighbor, whatever. Nope. So yeah, the county, I don't know if you'll ever be able to own it then, even through adverse possession. Maybe not, but I don't think there's anything they can do with it. It's such a small strip. So I think we're good. Are they going to start parking like a tar truck back there? County land. What about hippie Rob? Any updates there, Josh? Hippy Rob will forever live forever in the ether. Great. Claire Dalby. Dalby. Dalby. I'd say Dalby

too. Normally. If you could revisit an episode and do it differently slash better, which one? The sun? Not a bad idea. The sun. I would definitely like another crack. Every once in a while, I can't think of them. I mean, we've done like 800 plus episodes every once in a while. I will leave here and I say it every time I feel that way. I'll be like, that one just wasn't as good as it could have been. And it's always something that's like really important. Like the topic is really important to me. So I'll like overthink it. Yeah. And it always pans out fine, but I can't. I can't think of any that I would just like to go back and do over again. Yeah, my thoughts just kind of let you know, even if I'm a little disappointed, it is what it is.

Yeah, that's a philosophy. I guess it is. Yeah, it's a boring philosophy. Dan Floyd, are we ever going to get a How Jerry Works episode? Nope. Jerry doesn't want people to know how she works. She operates in Stealth and Secret. Yeah. The CIA. And she may or may not exist. Larry Tiffany says, what evidence would we see if the flood epic of Noah's Ark were indeed true? Well, Larry, we've got something for you, buddy. It's a whole episode on Noah's Ark and the flood. That's a pretty good one, if I remember correctly. I have no recollection. That's a good one. Okay. How about one more each? Luke Visoring,

have you ever been told the topic is off limits? No. Luke, we have not. We are very lucky in that we are free to program our own content and all the various bosses and company owners we've had over the years have always steered clear of that, which we're very thankful for. Yeah. We self-regulate. One more. Josh Robinson asks, Josh and Chuck, why do you hate the 90s? Why do you hate my childhood? How well the 90s? I, I'm, yeah, I think the 90s were like, okay. I just don't think that they were, I don't think they produced that much great stuff. Everything just had this kind of superficialness to it. It felt like. Boy, I love the 90s. The 90s was my 20s in my college. That's

nice. I love it very much to me. And things were great in the 90s in a lot of ways. Are you nostalgizing right now? No. I thought we had a ban on that. No, I love the 90s. Great, great music. Great culture. See, I think the music thing is where I have the issue. I wouldn't say it was great, great music. There is some good music. I don't dispute that, but I think there's a lot of really bad music. That's every generation. Not necessarily. I knew you were going to say that and I was prepared to respond and it is as follows. Look at the 80s, right? Okay. A lot of bad music. A lot of great music. But there was a lot more good, listenable music. Like think of all the one hit wonders in

the 80s. There were a lot, lot of singles that were pretty good and listenable even at the time, not just in retrospect. In the 90s, there was a lot, a lot of stuff on the radio was awful. Yeah? Yeah. Like Nirvana and stuff like that. No. I mean, again, there was some like good stuff. There were plenty of good bands, but for the most part, it felt like there was just a lot of really bad stuff too. I'll go back to the spin doctors again. I think that is the emblem of the 90s. Yeah. Spin doctors. They were huge for a little while. And then I think that also carried into the early 2000s with a lot of the terribleness too. And just like there just seemed to be, and I know the 80s were super vapid, very shallow, but almost to a cartoonish degree.

The 90s were unaware of its superficiality it felt like. Like it was trying really hard to not be superficial, but it was failing at it. I think I reject the notion that a lot of one hit wonders equals good. Not good. Better. I got three words for you. Walking on sunshine. That was Katrina in the way. So what was wrong with that? Well, maybe we just have different tastes. Maybe so. All right. Let's end this now. And don't it feel good? Yeah. Yes, it does Chuck. So that was Facebook questions. Part one. Oh, part one. I was about to say let's never do that again. If you want to get in touch with us, you can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. We're also on Twitter at syskpodcast. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast.howstuffworks.com.

And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view

on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.