The Harland Highway - 444: Endagered species interview, cold and flu season.

Episode Date: November 1, 2012

Harland interviews an expert on our vanishing wildlife, coping with sign language, fake colds, and reading letters from brief encounters. Bag my bag lady! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, my funny little friends. Yeah, you're funny little friends. And I'm your funny little friend. I'm your podcast host here on the Harland Highway. Welcome, it is I, Harland Williams, your funny little friend. Welcome to the show. We got some cool stuff going on today. Whole grab bag of different things.

We're going to be talking about, Um, colds. Yeah, it's cold and flu season is kicking into gear. And we're going to be talking about not just how much I hate colds and flus, but people who fake having colds and flus, okay? Um, we're going to be doing something really cool. We're going to be reading letters from people that had brief encounters with other human beings, but thought they missed a romantic opportunity.

So they sent these letters into a newspaper hoping that, they would find this person that they had a brief encounter with. So we're going to be reading some of their letters. We're going to be talking about sign language. Is it annoying? Is it, is it, is it freaky? We're going to find out. And then we also have an interview today with a renowned scientist who's talking to us about the disappearing animal life on our planet. Very important, very serious stuff, as it always is, right here on the Harland Highway! Welcome to the Harland Highway.

Hi, I'm Jackie. Wanna play? Please go away and leave me alone. You just made a wrong turn. On to the Harland Highway. Man, keep it going. Love the show. You're hilarious.

My black and my blue blanket. Give me my blue blanket. Fasten your seat. You're riding down the Harlan Highway. How are you going to me? It's the Holland Highway. Have you checked the children? Okay.

You hear that? You hear the coughing, the sniffling, the throat clearing, all that crap. Yeah, it's cold season. And there's only one thing I hate worse than cold. is people acting like they have a cold. And here's what I mean. I don't mean people are walking around in the street pretending to have a cold, although I'm sure many of you have done that when you've called in sick to work,

guilty ones, right? What I'm talking about is actors, actual actors, acting like they have colds, as in the plethora of sinus and cold flu medicine commercials that you see on TV. They drive me not. I can't stand it. You turn on the TV and there's some lady sitting there in her bathrobe in her living room. You know, her hair's all oily. It looks like she just finished cooking French fries in the back of a Denny's.

her hair's all greasy her eyes are all droopy and they've put like makeup on her so her nose is all like red and puffy and she goes into the classic like a cold talk you know that that nasally sinusy kind of like the way I talk all the time

I just burn myself but you know what I mean they go into that i've got the flu and i'm gonna be sick and if you need relief from cold and hay fever and sinus flu symptoms just use vix nyquil drops you know they sound like an ardvark like they've just had their face in a termite mound and they've been sucking ants out of there with their nose oh it drives I have to mute it immediately. I mute the TV. I turn the channel.

I just don't like seeing people sick like that. Because, A, it's irritating. It's annoying. It reminds you of how awful it is to be sick. And then above everything else, you realize they're just faking it. They're acting it. And you're doing that. I've got to know somebody take care of me.

It's like, get lost. Can you get something worse than a cold and just die? How about that? Like halfway through the commercial, you curl up and die on TV. I'm not feeling so well. I'm really not feeling good. Oh, and then you're just dead. Probably prompt most of us to go out and buy the product more if you died.

um so i just i hate it i hate the uh the cold actors okay there i said it the cold actors screw you guys go out and get a real cold and then uh you know come on tv tell me what you got you got it good And while I'm at it, well, I'm ranting, here's something else that I find a little bit off-putting, and I don't want to sound mean or cruel about this, but it's just, it's an odd thing that you can't get around. It's weird, but I have to say, I'm being honest,

it makes it hard to watch TV sometimes when this happens. And I understand the necessity for it, but have you ever watched a news conference or a speech or some type of informational show or it could be almost anything? And all of a sudden they bring a interpreter up on stage for the hearing impaired or the deaf. They bring someone up to start signing during the debate or, you know, during the, the press conference or whatever might be going on. And so they bring a person on stage,

and they're standing to the right or the left of the person given the talk, or sometimes they superimpose a little bubble on the side. And you're like, okay, I get it. The hearing impaired want to be informed. Maybe they don't have the little thing that scrolls text on the bottom of their TV, whatever. So what they do is they bring in this expert at sign language. And first of all, it's impressive that someone can sign, you know, when you think of how

intricate our language is, right? Think of all the words and the grammar and the phrases and everything that entails or encompasses our language. It's pretty heady stuff, man. and to think that someone can communicate all of that with their fingers, okay? The same fingers that open a jar of pickles, same fingers that wipe their butt,

same fingers that, you know, wash their face, that maybe squeeze a breast, these fingers are communicating to people that can hear, which is great. It's almost a marvel. It's an incredible thing. feet. Well, no, I can't say feet because they use their hands. And I don't want to confuse you. It's an incredible feat with their hands. All right. Now I'm mixed up. But anyways, it's quite

incredible. But here's the part where I'm going to sound like a bit of a bastard. And I don't want to be, but I'm just being honest, when these people sign, when they're using their hands, and I guess it just comes with the territory, it's an automatic response from the body, their faces seem to contort. They seem to be mouthing the words. And I got to tell you, it's very hard to look at. Okay, I wish in a perfect world that people could sign just using their hands and their faces would remain still.

But it sounds like they're, it sounds like they're very anguished and pained and they look, it kind of looks very abnormal. You know what I mean? like their mouths are half twitching and they're kind of, it looks like they're getting half a word out, but there's no sound coming out. So it almost looks like somehow they grabbed an electric power line and they're being shocked and their mouths and their faces are going out of control

and they're, you know, distorting. And I don't want that to sound overly mean, but that's just the illusion one gets when you look at it. And, you know, it comes with the territory. It probably comes with that expression. It's probably the same way when we talk. We use our hands, you know, when we're talking about something. We use our hands and our fingers to express ourselves.

And the two are intertwined. But when someone's signing and they're doing a conference, like let's say the president or a mayor of a city is talking about an evacuation or something. dangerous or some big event and you're trying to focus on that person and standing right beside him is this person like twisting their face all over the place. It's very distracting and it's a bit unsightly and that's not to knock the hearing impaired or to say it's a bad thing. I'm just saying it's it's a weird thing for us to have to contend with. I would wonder, I would beg to ask the question of even the hearing impaired if they find that a little offsetting.

Maybe not. Maybe when deaf people or the hearing impaired communicate, they have the same thing. Probably do. But what I'm saying is people who aren't used to it, it's just, I don't know, it's very weird. And I guess what I'm saying is I don't really love it. I don't like looking at it. And again, that's not to be not compassionate towards people that don't hear well, but this is a whole different thing.

I'm taking the hearing impairment out of the equation, just saying, ah, to the face twitch. So I don't know if signing can evolve to the point where people, People don't use their face and their mouths because they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not forming full words when they sign. I've watched them. It's not like they're doing it so that a hearing impaired person can lip read. They're kind of doing half, half a word or just, you know, their face is following the energy of their hands. and it looks a little crazy but you know that's just an observation

and um what's that you'd like me to do the rest of this show in sign language so you don't have to hear my stupid voice well that's not very nice tush tushay to say toshay to me

all right here I'm gonna do some sign language there guess what I just said yeah I don't know either so let's just let's just move on shall we what we've got here is failure to communicate hey everybody who wants to have better sex no yes Yes. The answer is yes. You always want to have better sex. That's what you want it to be better, not worse. Trust me. And Adam and Eve is offering 50% off just about any item plus free shipping. And more than that, Adam and Eve wants to make your life easy. They offer discrete shipping as your privacy is a priority. Plus 100% free shipping on your entire order. Doesn't matter

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So be sure to use this code Harland so you get your discount and 100% free shipping. Code Harland. Have fun. Don't throw your back out. Okay. Well, on a much more serious note, you know, we have a problem that faces us globally worldwide that, you know, animal species are being eradicated. at a horrible rate as you know humans expand their their zones for living we're using up we're using up wild space where animals live and and it's it's very disconcerting

and we have a specialist in with us today and And he's going to talk to us about the disappearing species on our planet and what a catastrophe it is and how fast it's moving. So let's bring them in. This is Kevin Tatum is his name. Kevin Tatum from the biology department at the University of, Colorado and sorry Kevin I was just looking up your resume here quite a quite a fascinating resume you've done a lot of field studies overseas looks like you spent a lot of time in

in Africa I mean you've been all over the world yes I've been everywhere and it's it's quite an alarming situation we have here Harland well I got to agree with you I'm looking at some of these pictures here that you brought. We've got the black rhinoceros. We've got, uh, looks like some kind of lemur from a Madagascar. We've got bird species on here. Yes, there's even fish species. And believe it or not, amphibians, reptiles, and insects.

Well, it's just alarming. I mean, it says here that we're losing, uh, 35 different species of animal a week. Yes, and sometimes it's even more. It's a very rapid progression of elimination, and it's due to human expansion, as you mentioned in my introduction there. And it's just going to spell catastrophe for not only the human race, but the planet, everything's interconnected. Okay, well, what do we do?

I mean, you know, if the big species disappear, how do we stop it how do we stop like the black rhino from disappearing from the lemurs disappearing from uh the box painted turtle okay the box painted turtle disappearing well we have to stop the disappearing harlan right but how do we do that well i think we have to start at the source okay great and the source being Las Vegas Nevada okay the source being a Las Vegas Nevada I'm not sure I follow that why why is Nevada Las Vegas in particular the epicenter for this catastrophe well Harlan the operative word here disappearing okay yeah animals are disappearing all over the planet right we've established that And what cause is disappearing?

Well, I'm going to say, you know, pollution and overpopulation by humans and, you know, the lumbering and, you know, development, that type of thing. Well, though, there's some of them, but the main cause of disappearing is people like David Copperfield. And, excuse me, David Copperfield. And people like the former Doug Henning. The magician? Yes, Doug Henning. And even greats like Houdini. Okay, you're naming magicians here.

Yes, and Chris Angel, he's responsible. I'm not sure I follow here. Well, these are people that are masters of making things disappear. What do you mean? Magicians? I'm not getting this. Well, what do magicians? do. They do magic. They do tricks. And what is one of their main tricks,

Arland? I don't know. They make stuff disappear? Exactly. So we have to stop people like David Copperfield and Harold Houdini or whatever his name was, Harry Houdini, and others of his like that are making animals disappear all over our planet. Okay, you're joking, right? Why would I be joking? This is a catastrophic situation. I don't think magicians, Kevin, are making animals disappear. Well, they do make things disappear.

You can't argue. Well, I can't argue, but they make things like cards disappear and balls and little rabbits. Uh-huh. There you go. Rabbits. And what are rabbits? Mammals? Exactly. So if a magician can make a rabbit disappear, we therefore have to conclude that they can also make black rhinosthus, African elephant, Siberian tigers, and so on and so on, disappear. Magicians are killing the wildlife of our planet. Okay, this makes no sense. There's no physical proof.

There's no... Oh, yes, there is physical proof, Mr. Williams. What is the physical proof? Have you ever seen a black hat, a magician's black stovepipe hat? Yes. And when they make rabbits disappear and doves and things of the like,

where do they go? into the black hat? Right. Now let's put it together. Black hat, black rhino. I'm sure if we looked inside a magician's black hat, we'd find herds and herds of the endangered black rhino. Okay, this is stupid. You're an idiot, and I need you to leave immediately.

Are you suggesting that I disappear? You know what? Yes, I am. This is the dumbest argument. I thought you were coming on. Roger, I thought you were coming on here to present us with scientific data of what was causing our animal species to disappear. And you come in here and say that Vegas show people are the root cause, David Copperfields, the culprit behind causing wild animals to disappear. I'm glad you finally said it out loud. Get them out. Just get out. You know what? Disappear. I won't do it Well, how about this, abracadabra

How dare you? Abra-cadabra, get your ass out of here, you idiot How dare you, sir? Abra-cadabra Am I gone? Yes, you're gone. It doesn't feel like I'm gone. You're gone.

Oh, okay, well, hope I see some black rhinos. Roger, idiot. unbelievable let's take a break and come back with something real roger can i have a word with you please damien look at me i'm over here damien i love you look at me damien i love you look at me damien it's all for you Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. And speaking of disappearing, have you ever had this happen where you're out and about, you're walking around, you're doing your thing, and maybe, just maybe you have a connection

with someone, and you had a flirtation, or you got a, a, uh, you got a, uh, glance from someone or you were interacting with someone and you felt that there was maybe more there than was being said and maybe you were intimidated or maybe you were shy um and uh you you didn't verbalize anything and you regretted it when you left you were kind of like man i think that chick was into me man i should have said something damn i'm never going to see her again oh i think we've all had those moments right well i found a newspaper it's one of these local every city has them they're like the you know the la weekly or uh you know the uh you know the now magazine or they're like they're like local newspapers for uh for the city that you live in

and they're usually free, and they've got all the entertainment events and all that stuff, and they have editorial stories and things like that. And this one that I picked up, in the back, they have a little segment called I Saw You. And I thought it was fascinating. It was full of letters from people that had these moments, and they felt like they missed an opportunity to connect with another person, person and um and uh and and this little uh this little segment's called i saw you and people have posted their their letters hoping that maybe the other person reads this and and uh

they uh they make a connection so i thought it'd be pretty cool to read a couple of these um so here we go here's uh here's one where it's it says uh a lady says i saw a man and I am a woman and it was like a coffee shop and it says you super tall plugs tattoos along your arms

we see each other every Saturday at the coffee shop you have the most adorable smile hope that one day I have the courage to say hello hmm you know but if I could be an armchair advice giver

if you see the guy every week you know he's going to be there maybe just go up and say hi to him um look at me suddenly being a dear abbey uh here's here's a here's another one here's uh a guy who says he saw a woman and uh he says we had a couple of dances at the do d e w before that we were flirting all night and i finally started talking to you but you said that you have a boyfriend. But here's the thing, I don't care. I knew you were into it when you grab my ass while I was about to grab some drinks from my comrades and I. And yes, I like older woman. So interesting. Here's a guy who probably should have said something in the moment. I think the minute a woman

grabs your ass, you have the right to turn around and say, all right, what do you want to do? I don't think that's one where you walk away. Sorry, dude. Here's one, here's a gay one where a, there's a lesbian one. How about that? It says, I'm a girl and I saw a girl. You, a short, stunning brunette outside waterfront station. Perhaps you were waiting for a bus or a ride. Me, a short, cute brunette in the leather jacket, jeans, and military boots. I was with my Persian male friend walking out of waterfront towards Gastown. We made eye contact. I hope, I smiled at you before I walked past you. You may have been on my mind all week. I hope you see

this. Now, let's be honest here. These are far-reaching, you know, the odds of people seeing these. okay I think they're really slim but you know I guess if for some reason somebody sees one of these it was meant to be would you say I mean first of all

what are the odds of that person remembering that little glance and then what are the odds of this person picking up this paper in the timeline that the paper's printed because it's a weekly thing so I don't know let me read a couple more here and see if any of these are even plausible uh here's a woman that saw a man

we were both at the clerk's windows at the same time you were well dressed in a long red coat glasses and hair in done up i was a short khaki coat and jeans you looked over my way a couple of times and we smiled at one another i overheard your british style accent and the and thought it queued along with the rest of you. Wanted to chat, but it wasn't a good place to do so, and it looked like you were going to be a while longer. Let's grab a coffee. I'd be happy to show you around.

Really, that's what you want to do? You want to show her around, do you, buddy? You're going to all this trouble to show her around, and here's the city museum, and here's the city art gallery. Don't you really just want to jump her bones? I hate to, you know, cut to the chase for you, but come on. Let's do a couple more. These are kind of fun.

Here's one. I saw a woman and I am a man. Used to see you every morning skating to work. What? We only ever really said, hello. I wish I would have said more. I hope I see you again soon. Who skates to work?

What is this? What is this guy, an elf up at Santa's workshop? Who the hell? I don't know if I get that one. I mean, skating to work. Where do you live, Alaska? Yeah, I'm off to the shop to open her up, eh? Got to skate down the river and get to work there, huh?

That one's kind of weird. Let's do another one. Let's see, midnight on the B-line. This is a, I saw a woman and I am a man. Okay, maybe it looks like they were on a bus. That's a good place to meet someone at the back of a bus. We met at the back of the 99 B-line bus. When you got on at Cramby, right after you got off work around midnight.

You said I looked very sleepy. We briefly talked about ice skating and our jobs. Then you got off at Fraser. I visited your work, but I didn't see you. and I don't want to creep out and come back again and again. Your name starts with an A, and my name starts with a D. I'd sure like to see you again. Well, I'm sorry to say a D, but it sounds like your lady is skating to work

and flirting it up with someone else, man. Oh, I got to do one more. Just one more. This is too much fun. This is too much fun. One more. Let me see. Let me see.

What's good. Here's a guy. I saw a guy and I'm a girl. And here we go. You were walking your pug on Robson behind the art gallery heading east. And I was across the way heading west. I looked up and realized a cute guy was attached to the pug. You were tall with dark.

I was wearing a light pea coat and have my hair up in a bun. We made eye contact and after we passed each other I turned around to look at you again and you turned around too and then a few seconds later I turned again and so did you. Made me laugh and made my day. Wish I had ran after you. Well, I wish you had to because that was me. Okay. I was out walking my pug in my long jacket.

and I was flirting I used the pug as bait to score chicks damn it no that wasn't me I couldn't have been me because that's the day I was skating to work

and my pug doesn't like ice skates so there you go so interesting stuff I don't know if any of you have a story like that where you you went back and tried to track down

a moment in time a brief moment in time and thought there might be a connection. But let's address that. You know, there's something to be said about being proactive. Okay. And this is something that I've learned in my life. If you feel a little connection or catch a look, you know what? Don't gamble. Don't put it down to putting something in the back of a newspaper or hunting for them on Facebook or whatever it is you plan to do. You got to live a little. little bit you got to live dangerously you got to be spontaneous all right so this is this is your homework

this is my challenge to you and there nobody gets hurt in this maybe your pride a little bit maybe your feelings but the next time you have that moment where someone's looking you up and down or you think you picked up on some energy act on it just walk over to the person say hey how's it going what's your name i saw you looking at me or hey what's going on you want to grab a coffee or just start talking about anything and then maybe just say hey you know you want to get together and it's scary look we've all been there your heart gets beating it's weird to approach a complete stranger especially in this day and age when everyone's like uber sensitive and everyone thinks you're a creep and people don't talk to each other anymore people don't look

at each other anymore it's like how can you be talking to me you're not text texting me how can this person be talking to me if they're not texting me i don't know you text me so what i'm saying is next time you have that moment and maybe this will lead to something feed off the fear feed off the energy and just go oh man here i go this is way out of character for me this is stupid this is sick. My heart's beating. My skin's clammy. I'm sweating. My palms are hot. But I'm walking right over there and saying hi to that girl. And then you get over there and it turns out the girl's a guy. No, I'm just kidding. But do it. I want you to try it. I'm not saying go after married people and cheat and all that, but if there's someone there and you're feeling something,

go for it. Who knows? Right? Just try it. That's the challenge. I've done it before. I've done it. Sometimes it leads to something. Sometimes it doesn't. I'll tell you a story. Okay? Here's a story. I was at a show once. And some girl was like heckling me from the crowd. She was with all her friends. And I noticed that she was quite attractive. So from the stage, after the show, I went, and I looked for her, and I didn't see her. I thought, ah, maybe we'll bump into each other or whatever. And then I wandered outside the club, and I could see her standing on the sidewalk talking to her friends. And I got that feeling. I was like, oh, no, there goes my heart. Should I say anything?

Should I go talk to her? She was heckling me. She probably didn't like the show, blah, blah, blah. I was like, screw it. I ran right up to her. I said, howdy, blah, blah, blah. We ended out hanging out that night. Nothing nasty happened.

And it turned out she had a boyfriend, but me and all her friends ended up going and grabbing a little drink. And nothing happened, but then we stayed in touch. And we've stayed in touch for like, I don't know, it's got to be 10 years now, maybe longer. We've been friends. And it all came because I took a chance. And she told me, she goes, I was hoping you'd come up to me. you know so you just never know so there's your homework i'm going to end it right there um next time you have that moment go for it and if it doesn't happen nothing ventured nothing

gained right the upside is it could be great so there you go let's end on that a little homework for you um and uh hope you had a great time here on the harland highway And we'll be back next time. Don't forget to join the Twitter page at Harlan Williams or the official Harlan Williams Facebook page. You can always write me here at HarlanWilliams.com. Check out our store at Harlanwilms.com. And there you go.

So until next time, everybody, happy mystical, magical, romantic encounters. and, of course, throw in a big greasy bowl of chicken. Chalman, baby!