The Joe Rogan Experience - #2216 - Luke Bryan

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Luke Bryan is a country singer/songwriter, philanthropist, and broadcast personality. His latest album, "Mind of a Country Boy," is available now. www.lukebryan.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Hey, what's up Luke? Good, this has been, thank, this has been a long time in the making. Well, I need to thank you for taking care of my family. When they came to see your show. I hope they had a great time. They had a fucking fantastic time. But it was also, my daughter was like freaked out because they came to see your show. I hope they had a great time. They had a fucking fantastic time.

But it was also my daughter was like freaked out because she was going to the show. She didn't know she was going to get to meet you. And her friend didn't know they were going to get to meet you either. So we were able to keep that a good little secret to them. Yeah, it was cool. They had the best time. They came back beaming. So thank you.

Well Vegas, you know, that was wrapping up Vegas. So yeah, that was a fun two years of residency there. Did you do two years there? I did, yeah, I did two years, 26 shows per year. Dude, man, like... Vegas will take a little piece of your soul. It's a little piece of your soul. Well, here... Just a little tiny piece every day.

Well, the thing about it is, like, all of that get to Vegas and, like, you know, you run to the craps table or blackjack table your whole life getting to Vegas. Dude, I got all that. I could... I'm like, I get to Vegas, I'm like, man, let's just sit in the room, watch little sports. And I got the gambling out of the system. Well, that's good. Did you used to gamble a lot? You know, I've always been, I've never been a sports gambler. My dad, but my dad raised me to kind of be a poker player kind of kid.

He was like a, I mean, I used to joke if my dad didn't play poker, we'd have never had Santa Claus. You know, he, I mean, he was, I mean, he was just a crazy little poker player and like a little pool hustler. And then, and then, and then um oh so he was all in well so one of my dad's fate one of my dad's famous quotes is um so we we we he flies me out to Vegas when I'm 21 or whatever and man I had like we were in college and I had took like three three or four hundred bucks with

me you know just broke as shit. And two hours into the trip, lose my money. This was like, well, we still had truck phones, you know, I'm not even sure we were like totin'. We certainly didn't have like the Motorola Razr where he could just call me. So he just goes looking for me and he calls my hotel room and he's like, boy, what you doing? He's real southern Georgia. I said, I done lost all my damn money and hell with this place. He goes, well, you ain't gonna win it back in the goddamn room. So I mean, once you have that mindset in gambling, certainly, I mean, when that's your dad going.

And so that's been a famous saying when my buddies, when they're down and out, down two or three grand, and they're pouting over the bar, you're not going to win it back at the goddamn bar. But I did, I went through phases where I never really got financially behind when I didn't have money. I controlled it pretty well. And I did my two years out there. I never really had any big beats or anything like that, but I do love to just, man, I love

to just sit there, have a drink, have a cigar, and watch Dice Cards because you're just sitting there and your mind's checked out. It's like no different than going to the driving range and hitting golf balls or sitting on the bank fishing or sitting in a deer stand. But I got out of there. I got all my gambling, at least for now, out of my system. But it was great to meet your kids there. I really appreciate it. They really enjoyed it. And like I said, they were just, they were blown away meeting you. Well, it was a fun show because we got to really do a lot of bells and whistles out there that aren't available on normal shows when you're, you know, out touring and stuff because you're having to take

down stuff be real mobile out there we put a lot of stuff in the room and that's nice that though that's one good thing about the residency you know you going back to the same spot over and over again and we had our routine I mean I have my my room and you know about 630 I'd hop the shower run down there and get on stage about 830 and knock it out and 1030 somewhere at a craps table. I'm lucky I don't gamble. I don't do it.

You never got into sports? Nope, nope. I used to bet on fights. Back in the early days of the UFC, I used to bet on fights and one day they made it illegal but I already stopped doing it because I was like, this is probably not a good thing for me to be betting on things I'm commentating on because I can't affect the outcome right, but sometimes I quite close I also sometimes know some shit You know, this has been a bunch of times so one of my business partners

I would just I would tell him to what to bet on and we were like 84% at one time It was crazy. Yeah for like six or seven fights in a row, six or seven fight cards in a row, we were at about 84%. Cause every now and then they would have these guys that were coming in from Japan or from Russia. And the odds makers didn't know who these guys were. And I was like, oh Jesus Christ, bet the house. Yeah.

Oh yeah, I knew those guys. Studying them for years. So I knew everything about these guys. I'm like, Jesus Christ, bet the fucking house. Lay up. Yeah, there was a few. Like when Anderson Silva came into the UFC, I was like, bet the house. Bet the house on the Brazilian.

Whatever you got, I go throw it all at this guy. You can't fucking lose. Because when he came into the UFC, he was like in his prime. And I got to see him evolve in Japan and then later on in England and so when he came in the UFC I think he was a favorite over this guy Chris Liebman was a really tough guy but I like whatever the whatever the odds are fucking throw it all at that guy. I bet y'all were you were you betting with him too? No I wasn't betting I already stopped.

Yeah. I was like I could get in trouble. Don't get in any trouble now either, don't lose the gig. Well now, now the UFC made a law and it was real recent, like two years ago. Up until like two years ago, all staff, anyone could bet. Now no one can bet. Really? Yeah, because there was a scandal. One of the trainers apparently was involved, allegedly was involved, knew about an injury. Need more hot takes? Head to the FanDuel Sportsbook app. They've got more ways to bet, more ways to win, and more ways to cash out quick. You can cook up same-game parlays on any MLB or soccer game all in one place, not to mention golf, tennis, and more. Download FanDuel and get more from North America's number

one sportsbook. Please play responsibly. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connexontario.ca. with so they're like okay we got to put a stop to this which is too bad because it was fucking nice to know if i was unscrupulous i had a little so i went my whole life no sports betting through college i mean my i through college i'd walk in and my buddies back then they spliced 78 tvs together eight TVs together and they got all their notes. And I'm like, dude, no wonder you got all Ds and you're about to get shipped out of college. But I survived all that and me and a buddy, we started picking two games a week and we would load up.

And this was like six years ago, five years ago. So I would load up like 20 grand a game. But I was strict and I had my deal. And it just, we like bet, I mean, just take Alabama in the points in the first half. You do that most of the year. I mean, it was 80%. So we did well. And then my buddy moved away from me and we quit talking about it.

And I just, then I went rogue for like two years. I was betting like Utah State, you know, the West Coast game, midnight, just throwing bets in and I was like, man, I'm out. So I stopped. Did you see Uncut Gems? Yes. Dude, that movie tripped. So much anxiety.

That movie tripped me out. I think it tripped everybody out there. What a great movie. Especially if you've dipped your toe into that world of like Chase now and I've got buddies that do parlays and like I'm not even sure I even Understand the inner workings of parlays now a steal I mean in teasers and all that and you know, I'm so removed from that level of sport like let you know And you know, I'm so removed from that level of sport like let you know

so and so is doing four late gonna get four layups at the half and Man that that'll that's that's opening up Pandora's box there So it is and you gotta think there's people that are involved like there's been scandals referees were involved Or referees are making calls. They shouldn't have made maybe calling fouls They shouldn't have called and people getting paid. There's so much money being thrown around and, you know, the average referee, what do they make? You know? Hey dude, so I saw you at the, I'm a giant Georgia fan, and I saw you obviously on the sideline on Saturday and just manned some of those calls. Yeah, there was some bad calls. It started getting weird. We actually left after the first quarter and went to see Eminem.

So we had an epic day. We saw first quarter of UT Georgia and then jetted and went to Eminem at the racetrack. The Formula One? Yeah, Eminem played in front of like 150,000 people. It was fucking wild. I mean, what a weekend for Austin too. Cause I had buddies that were like, why are you not coming?

And I'm like, man, I've had to be me all year. And it's like the weather's chilly in Nashville. My boys want to go deer hunting. I'm going to take them deer hunting, sit on my back patio and scream at the TV. But it got a little dicey there on the back. I was like, oh, it was weird. Yeah, well, just the energy. There's so much anticipation for a game like that.

You can't replicate it in any other, in any other, I guess those big global Brazil versus Argentina or whatever. We had some friends from England who had never been to an American football game before. What was their take on it? They were blown away. They're like, oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. This is madness.

I'm like, this is Texas football. It's so fun though. They get serious here. It's crazy. I got to shoot the cannon. Boom. Did you shoot it through the Georgia shirt? Yeah, yeah, oh gosh Maybe I gave you bad luck hurt my heart. Maybe it was bad luck cuz they lost maybe what maybe it's a fucking rude thing to do

we Yeah, man, it was it was a it was a good win for George and I said, both those programs are just so incredible. It's when you're watching it behind the scenes, you know, watching how much organization there is and it's incredibly complex. Through the years, Kirby and I have gotten to be pretty good buddies. Kirby can't be buddies with anybody because that job requires, I've never seen a requirement of a job more than being a college. It's probably like being a president.

It is. And so I don't text Kirby during the season really. I know he, man, just watching what those guys go through trying to manage these big programs like that. I mean and when they're not Coaching I mean dude, they are politicking Yeah, I mean they got to go to the steak supper for this For this touchdown club here, you know some man It is it's a wild ride what those dudes go through when you think about gambling with calls like bad calls

That has got to be... Imagine all your money's on the line and you see some horrendous call and you're fucking... See, I'm out of that. And I didn't really get into that heavily even when I was betting regular games. But man, it's freedom. Man, I just watch the games with freedom and I don't get in, you know. I'm good friends with Dana White and Dana's a, he's a real degenerate. Like a hard... I love how big, that's the best way to describe.

Oh, he'll describe it that way. Yeah, like most... I get it from him. They most, like your big horse racing guys, they all, their adjective of themselves is, I'm a degenerate. That's the first thing that's Jamie And I Jamie and I went to visit we went with Shane Gillis and a bunch of other guys We went to visit Dana while he's gambling when we got there. He was down $600,000

And I was like what is happening? I heard him say he learned how to play back wrap because you can bet more That's so crazy I could I was getting anxiety just sitting there watching and so the more like you can bet like 500k or something or crazy like that. That's so crazy. I could, I was getting anxiety just sitting there watching. And so then Taylor Luan came over and Dana and Taylor have this deal where Dana teaches Taylor what to gamble and how to do it. They're down $120,000 in what, five minutes? Five minutes.

Five minutes are down 120 grand. And I'm just sitting there going what the fuck man Look Dana's rich as shit. Obviously. I know Taylor is wealthy, but there's like a level where you could lose $125,000 is $125,000. Well, yeah, I mean I've learned kind of like If you're betting a thousand a hand you can get down 50. Yeah. Like, and quick. But when you transition to that 30, 40, 50 thousand a hand, you'll be down a million or two. And I say, because I've watched some other buddies that bet on that level, I'm talking about like 15 hand swing is an $800,000 swing. And I'm like, but that's the scary part about gambling when you start when you don't have

much money and you grow into some money, but your level of what you want to press your anxiety level and your endorphins and all that, it grows with your wealth and man, next thing you know you're... But that's the only way they get their fix too. Right. They can't play $20 a hand. Yeah, right. That goes away.

Right. Right. Well, it's like the whole, you know, there's a lot in society that, you know, I think we're preyed upon with that thought process, gambling and a lot of other... Dopamine hits. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then once one level of the dopamine levels out, then you go to the next one.

Yeah, it's hard to watch. Forget about doing it. It's hard to watch. Like, I don't get it. I'm glad I don't do it. Well, I can say that I've always had fun with it. I mean, I've always had fun gambling. And a lot of times I take my band after we get off stage and we'd have one band night and I'd like set them all up with some chips and and I've

gotten at a craps table where I can kind of manage everybody's bets and I'm like don't do that now wait wait and it's kind of like the you know steering the mothership and we had some great nights you know just laughing and cutting up and you know cheering you know you know know, just laughing and cutting up and, you know, cheering, you know, like I said, one guy walks up and everybody rubs his head for good. You know, it's just camaraderie, you know, at the craps table. I gambled so much at the craps table. My last night, they let my craps team that dealt me all the craps come on stage and we celebrated

I'm out there like I'm playing and I look at my you know, cuz they work in teams You know, they are and my team comes out on stage and dude I was Roaring laughing. I'm like, yeah, so that's hilarious Look, I know people have a problem with gambling. I think it should be legal, but it can get away from you Yeah, well, but that's like a lot of things in this world alcohol There's a lot of things and get away from you. Yeah, it doesn't mean it should be illegal, right? Well Lord, it's just weird That's only legal in a few states I think that's expanding now and then I remember when online gambling was

illegal. Oh, yeah. And then... Wasn't that long ago? The early days of the UFC, online gambling was illegal. And then my, you know, and because we're obviously southeastern Tennessee, Bible Belt, and I don't know, but there's certain states. I guess Tennessee is a legal gambling state, But there's certain states, I guess Tennessee is a legal gambling state, or maybe Georgia, I can't tell. I have to talk to my nephew's, all of his buddies and see if they're on the little apps. But man, they'll go sign their buddies up to get the $200 free bread. I mean, they got all kinds of little racket. Yeah.

Well, and then also people would go to Indian reservations. That was the big thing. Right. Which is also crazy. Like gambling's illegal. You got to pay the Indian reservation tax. Right. You know, you gotta pay your 50 cent to do the dollar bet. Yeah. Do that math. Yeah, and you only have to be like a small percentage Native American to get a piece of that. So there's a lot of millionaires just hanging around that casino, just enjoying it.

But if you got a place like in Connecticut, like... Oh, Mohegan and all that. They're great places. Typically on my way kind of, the Mohegan, I'd go play there a couple years. One night I did three nights there and dude, I'm like getting off stage, just sitting there gambling and I'm like, am I coming out ahead on this gig or what but I think I got out there making a little money. Yeah it's weird though that you could do that legally. Well then even like in Tennessee and Tunica back in the day you just put a barge on

the Mississippi River and you can gamble. It's like well what is that all about? Right that's that show Ozark. Right, yeah, well totally the same premise, you know, it's like put a barge on the river and now let's take all these people's money. Yeah, my buddy Johnny, he used to, he was a pool hustler, he used to call people riverboat gamblers. When guys would just go off and you know a guy was a gambling addict, you just trick him into a game, he's like guy's a riverboat gambler. Or yeah, that's the two analogies degenerate or riverboat gambler Yeah, be careful of all of them

So it's just always been funny to me that like Native American reservations They're essentially a country inside the country and they could do whatever the fuck they want like I was just reading about this Colorado wolf deal, you know, they've Relocated wolves to Colorado and the Native American reservation. Let them know the moment those wolves get onto our land We're flying over in helicopters and gunning them down. I Was I elk hunt every year in Colorado and is that where you've done I've done Colorado most years I go to Utah. Yeah. Well, first of all cam Hanes and I you know, we've got a connection with cam Yeah, just love that guy. But yeah, we've got a connection with Cam and

just love that guy. But yeah, we, so when I saw Colorado do that, I was like, it's just like, what are we doing, guys? Well, whenever you have biology that's getting voted on by people who don't understand it, it should be decided by wildlife biologists. That's it. That's the only people that should decide whether or not things like that happen. Well We can really dive into this and let's do it. Yeah, my thing is

We are so governed in the world of wildlife biology through the states and stuff they're not gonna let Animals they're not gonna let humans ruin animal populations, I don't think, anymore. Of course. If anything's gonna happen, they're gonna mess it up and let animal populations get too big. I was, and I don't know who to name or whatever, but I was with some guys with Wyoming, and we're talking about grizzly bears. And I said, man, you know, because they brought up, you know, grizzly bear problems. And I said, well, what, what, what is the deal? And they said, well, there's 1500 or 14 to 1500 grizzly bears in Wyoming. There needs to be five to six hundred, and five of the fifteen hundred

are only hunting humans. Like, have totally, have totally... But there's not that many human deaths. Well you bet, in Yellowstone, if you pay attention, there's about two or three that get... Right, but those five hundred grizzly bears that are just hunting humans... No, five. Five. Five.

Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five.

Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. 1400 to 1500, there needs to be 500 to 600 grizzlies. But of those five to six, of all

of them, five of them have like, oh, we don't care about salmon anymore. We want to sit by this trail and pick off this hiker. Jesus Christ. And that is a high-up biologist in Wyoming telling me that. I'm like well why won't they let y'all go in there let some hunters think about the the you can do the math chart do a $30,000 grizzly bear tag do a $20,000 one they'll go for that yeah for sure um go in and let it manage it right but there's one federal judge it's got it all shut down one judge that's so it all shut down. One judge. That's so crazy. My friend went moose hunting, said he saw no moose and he saw 12 grizzlies in Wyoming.

I went on a bear hunt in Alberta and there's so many grizzlies now you can't even go. It was through CAM's people. John and Jen. Yeah. They've, I saw them recently and they've had to move. Yeah, they move areas. Yeah, they have abandoned areas because they're overrun with Grizzlies. They sent me some trail camp picks They're terrifying like little school buses. They're like school buses like the size

Did you was it you that was talking about we were trying they were trying to determine a male Grizzly versus a male gorilla And who would win do we ever I think I'm on team Grizzly me too Because they eat things and kill things every day. Gorillas just, they fight. They just like, they puff their chest out and they mostly eat grass. Well, but when you think about 30, 40 thousand dollars per Grizzly and then the the guiding fee, and then the taxidermy. Yeah. Think about the taxidermist... And then the Pittman Roberts, people need to understand all the gear, everything, 10% of that goes to wildlife management. All of it. And then at the end of that,

nobody's going to let the grizzlies get... Exterminated. Right. It's not... They're overpopulated now. And then when you look at the population, how beautiful the elk population is in Colorado, and how amazingly managed it is in Colorado. For public hunters, for a guy like me that can go get an over-the-counter tag, I think they're probably going to wipe out over-the-counter tags for out-of-staters. They're going to make it a draw tag. And then, now the wolves get to eat them, and I don't get to bring my elk hunting money in and give it to the...

Right. But I don't get it... Well, the thing is, they always say that they're going to get to a certain level of the population and then they're going to open it up for management, but they don't. Wolf management? Yeah. But what happens is people sue. In the wildlife, all the people that love wolves, they sue. And when they sue, they stop the hunt and then it has to go to court, then it has to get decided. And if you get

a radical judge like this judge that you said that's in Wyoming... And these are all things that people in the know are telling me. So Lord, I don't need a judge somewhere in Wyoming like pulling my... No, you're probably right. You're probably right. Everyone that I know that hunts there says there's a lot of grizzly bears, and it's concerning because you don't see all of them. If you see a lot of them, there's a lot more than you don't see because most of them are just not just out in the open hanging out with you. Most of them are up in British Columbia.

And what you, 99% of your interpretation of a grizzly is this big old fat chunky thing. Well, so we're flying in on these helicopters to go fish the salmon runs that are running up into the mountains of British Columbia. And it's an amazing trip. Like you fly over in the helicopter, you look down, you see the huge schools of salmon, you take your fly rod and you go catch them and drink your beer. Well, helicopter pilot was like, Hey man, we've seen some grizzlies in the area. Just, and you know, at the time we're like, man, this is all part of the, uh,

experience. Yeah. It's like, get a, get us kind of going a little bit. Well, we land and the night before we didn't fish that day. So we'd flown in and drank some wine and, dude, you know, my eyes are like fuzzy and we're fishing and I tell my guy I'm with him, like, hey, I'm going to go to the helicopter and get a beer or something. And, dude, I get there and I pop my beer and I'm like, I look down the river and I'm like, fuck, that is a fucking grizzly coming toward my buddy. And I went, Jay!

And dude, it was slim and like a damn, it was lean and like a greyhound. I wouldn't say lean, but it hadn't got all fat on salmon yet. Well it comes down the bank and jumps in and we ease back to the helicopter. We look back, here comes another grizzly literally 30 yards from us and I'm like, we get there and I had left my beer on the bank and my grizzly sticks his tongue in my beer and then he jumps in the river. I run grab the beer, drink, I'm like, grizzly spit! Anyway, the helicopter pilot goes, I had to sip of it after. I had to! But that's like what kind of trichinosis and wild shit do you get from that?

Some berry infection or whatever, salmon infection. Moose ass. So listen dude, we get on the helicopter and the pilot's like, man, they're getting too comfortable. We take off, fly a mile down the river. I'd already had my fly rod together, I never broke it down, so I sat it in a little basket and we land. I take off about 200 yards, start fishing, and I had to slide down this like 20-foot cut bank where the river had cut the bank. I look across the river, and here comes

a grizzly bear galloping on the other side of the river. And I'm like, well, I've already seen the other two mature ones. And I was like, well, that's a baby grizzly. That's, I was like, that's cute. Dude, that grizzly hits that bank on the other side of that river and jumps about 20 feet in the air and lands in that river. It looked like a Volkswagen VW bug hit that river. I take off to the helicopter. All my guys are like, get here, get here. A mother and two of the babies were on my tail. Oh my God. And when I got to the helicopter, dude, ruined my whole trip. I couldn't realize.

That's when you get scared when you're on the mothers. Oh, they're the ones that... They fuck everybody up. In two seconds. Yeah, they don't play any games. When they have their cops with them, they don't take any chances. Like I'm going to incapacitate this dude. Fuck him.

So that was my grizzly encounter. I wish all these people that get to vote, unlike BC when BC outlawed grizzly bear hunting, I wish all those people that experience, you should have to experience what it's actually like there. You should have to see. You should have to see the population. You see what it's like experiencing them. These aren't teddy bears.

And for you saying you shouldn't be able to manage the population as wildlife biologists say it should be managed, you're putting people in danger, especially people that live up there. The thing about it with me now, listen, I grew up deer hunting my whole life, ducks, dove, quail, and man I always had a soft spot for bears and probably I still, it's not like I got to go shoot bears every year, I mean whatever, but when you find out, when you hear you are a hunter and there are, like when I met John and Jenny and they were like, Luke, there are so many that need to be managed. I was like, man, that's cool. Let's go do a bear hunt. Had a great time and didn't get all heady with killing a bear. I mean, I know guys in

Tennessee in Gatlinburg, Joe, I mean, dude, they are darting black bears off second story Holiday Inn balconies. They're digging in, I mean, they're digging in candy, you know, vending machines. And, yeah. Walk. And I'm like, dude, it's just a matter of time somebody's going to walk out their balcony and they're going to get, they're going to get got right there. 100%. And they dart them and move them back into the Smoky Mountains. And then.

You know what happened in New Jersey, right? The governor ran on this policy of banning the grizzly bear hunt. And he got in, or excuse me, the black bear hunt. In Jersey. In Jersey. Jersey has the most black bears per capita in the country which is crazy. I'm gonna send you something because I sent this to Cam last night cuz it's nuts. This dude just shot the state record. So it's back in? Yes, it's back in immediately

because they had so many interactions. Because they had so many interactions Joe my mother lives in Mexico Beach, Florida on the panhandle out over there, too And they like trash cans turned over every day crazy amounts in South Georgia, Florida. Yeah, that's it So I have a photo of the bear Jamie. I'm gonna send it to you next to the dude who killed it That's a good one. Yeah, I'm sending this to you. But look at that. Look at the size of that bear. So this is in New Jersey. This is New Jersey. This is New Jersey. That's a 770 pound bear in New Jersey. I didn't know they were up there that... They're dense. Dense with bears.

I have a buddy who lives up there, he sees them all the time. So down in the furthest, most southern corner of Georgia, Bainbridge, Georgia and all that, and then Mexico Beach, Florida around Lake Seminole, I mean, they're everywhere down there. They're all over the place. You get that photo of that dude laying next to it? Yeah! Look at that.

Look at the size of that thing. Now that article says 800 pounds. That's from Sever Broadheads. It says 880, but the other article said 770. It's big. Whatever the actual size it is, it's big. Look at that sever hole. Good shot dude.

Good fucking shot. That's a perfect shot. I think there's healthy numbers of all of it. And like I said, when I see, you know, when you see, I don't know, wolves and elks. Well, there's more than healthy numbers. Okay, there it goes. But you know, the hunna.

770, oh, gutted, 770 gutted. Whoa! That's what it is. So they weighed it in at 770 pounds gutted. So they think it was about 880. Holy shit. Holy shit! Yeah you see they got it in a slide they had to put it in a... well... that's crazy. Man there's so many of... and for people who don't know people eat bear and bears good. Yeah. It tastes good.

Well and you know the sad part about I think California you know the the whole the whole you know the gallbladder deal I don't know much about that, but there was a black market for black bear gallbladders. Yeah, in some cultures, they think it's medicine. So they were killing black bears just for their gallbladder. But I think that was overblown. I don't think it's gonna affect the population. I'm just guessing, especially a place like New Jersey, how are you gonna affect that

population? They're everywhere there. You ever see the fights they have in Far Rockaway? What's Far Rockaway? Far Rockaway, New Jersey is like a nice suburb. It's like a nice neighborhood. Giant bears. Jamie, pull that video up. Giant bears crawling under this guy's front lawn. Did you ever see the guy that filmed like the 10 minute grizzly fight? This might be, oh yes, I did see that. That was insane. But that's where grizzlies are supposed to be. This isn't a fucking neighborhood. These are big bears and they're duking it out on this guy's nice lawn. They go tumbling down the stairs and they start fighting in the street and people are watching and they're probably fighting over trash cans look at so look at the size of

these fuckers imagine like you're watching TV so these dudes they duke it out this is is like, Jamie, how long is this video? It's like a 10 minute video. Six minute video. So six minutes, for six minutes these dudes duke it out. They pile out into the street, they're biting each other, and this guy's filming from a car and you see it as it like, trumbles down, like go, yeah, pull it down so when they're in this, so they come tumbling down the hill you know full UFC style

duke it out passing by this guy's track of this guy's mailbox look at them it goes on forever and they're out in the street this is a nice neighborhood and you have huge predators in front of a Volvo in front of a Volvo. What the fuck? And this guy was trying to ban the hunt. Hey pal, there's plenty of these bears. You should hunt them. Because if you don't hunt them, they're gonna hunt you. Well, they're gonna, you know, that's the thing. I think it's no different than, I mean, I grew up in South Georgia with gators and you get you you get one comfortable with you man and it's not good it is not good at all what's the problem what we're dealing with here is ballot biology it's all people that are very emotional most of

them live in cities before I ever hunted bear before ever hunted at all I was like kill a bear why what an asshole you have me asshole kill bear and then you get it I was saying I was kind of the same way. But you probably had more hunting experience. I grew up fishing. Well, I had whitetail hunting. And I remember, man, you know, being a 14-year-old kid shooting a deer and having remorse. But then you need to have that remorse too as a hunter. You need to understand... You're taking a life. Yes. And you need to... And I tell my boys that my boys have

grown up in it seriously. I'm like, Hey man, hold up. Right. Let's just don't run up to the run up to it. Chunk it in the machine. Just, just do a little homage. Right. So go ahead. But that, but the remorse, go ahead. The remorse is important. It's a part of the experience. You are now connected to the food that you're going to eat. And I think that's what most people don't have. And I think that's bad for us. I think all of human existence has been wrapped around hunting animals. And we hunted them ourselves forever, and then we eventually figured out agriculture.

But when we hunted them ourselves, most of the time the humans were human, and we had this deep connection to this animal because this animal was gonna sustain our family. And they used it, they took the skin from it, and they made all kinds of things. They took the tendons, they made strings for bows. I mean the fur. Yeah, the fur. I mean it's what their clothes were made out of. They ate all the

organs, they ate everything. It sustained everybody and that was how people lived. And then when people stopped living like that, we got a little confused. I know people that eat meat. Like my wife was at dinner with her friends and they were from England and one of the friends said where's your husband and she said oh, he's he's elk hunting and And the guys made some sort while he's cutting a steak made some sort of like oh, that's atrocious Why does you do that and she goes why are you eating meat you didn't like you paid a supermarket hitman to go kill that fucking Steak listen like this is so stupid But when you're removed from it culturally and England is basically removed from it culturally You paid a supermarket hitman to go kill that fucking steak. This is so stupid. But when you're removed from it culturally, and England is basically removed from it culturally,

there's roe deer there and there's some stags. But for the most part, England has a very small hunting population. And I believe bow hunting is actually outlawed there. It's outlawed in a lot of places in Europe. It's outlawed in Scotland. It's outlawed in a lot of places. So there's a deep ignorance as to what's going on and what it is. And then they have judgment based on these cultural norms of like, and there's media depictions, media depictions of hunters

in movies. They're never the good guys. They're always pieces of shit. The hunters are always assholes, are always drunk. They're always, you're always trying to kidnap women or kill somebody, right? They're always like torturing an animal. There's always something where someone has to come in and fuck up the hunters. Because hunters are, they're portrayed as bad guys in movies. Yeah, and then, and listen, you know, the success rate of the proper ethical things always line up. That, you know, you don't, the success rate doesn't always go like you wanted it to. But you know, the fact that hunters still are working every day just to keep hunting and the fact that hunting is declining so bad. It took a little uptick during COVID.

Because during COVID, people are like, hey, man, this fucking, what if there's no food? My buddy lived in Asheville and he sent me a photo in the middle of the pandemic. He goes, dude, he goes, there's no meat. And he was going down the meat aisle. He's like filming it. He's like, there's no fucking meat here. One of the best things that's just naturally happened at our house, and my wife is, you know, my wife's like typical housewife, plays tennis, great shape, doesn't, you know, when

she kind of eats like a bird when she does eat, but man, she will call me and she'll go, hey, let's have elk night. And because we keep our freezer in my garage and I've got all my tackle in there and she has through the years understood Like hey, I'm gonna run out to the freezer. We're gonna do taco night I'm gonna throw all the elk meat in the sink start thawing it and man over the last five years We I've woke up and we haven't had we haven't had beef cattle and hamburger uh... tacos, spaghettis, bolognese, we haven't eaten in five years at my

house it just it takes you a minute to go hey uh... put it in the freezer and then plan your dinner you know we all get busy with kids and stuff like that but i'm so proud of her that she'll call me and be like hey i'm going out of the freezer do you want me to get these elk

tenderloins because by the time me and my I got three children that go out there with me now and two or three of us will get one I mean we got enough meat like it's awesome that it's the best food it's so good for you man when you pad out an elk patty hamburger, like, your hands have nothing on it. Right. Like, I mean, you could take beef patty and just like, it's just like... Fat grease. It's like caulking, you know. That's also why it tastes so good. Right. Which, we got to, there's a time and

place for that. But it's pretty cool that elk gets that. And they still have to add a little bit of pork fat to Elk just to keep it. I give a lot of meat away and whenever I do, when I get text back, I get excited. People are like, damn, this is so good. And it makes me feel better. It does make you feel, like there's something about wild game. You get energy from it. Well, yeah.

And yeah, when you can go like we, at my place, my deer place in southern Tennessee, yeah, and yeah, when you can go like we, at my place, my deer place in southern Tennessee, yeah, man, we just, we make sure, man, I got a big walk-in cooler there, and if we're not gonna take something in there, I've got some red stag at my place in Tennessee. I did a high fence down there, and so between stag and whitetail and elk, you know, we're moving, we're moving me around and making Are they roaring on your property? They do that's the craziest sound It's the bad the elk sound was crazy elk sounds probably the craziest It's the best I'm used to it. But the roar when you hear a stag is all sounds like a lion

I put one on my instagram story Jamie See if you can find it this dude just staring at the camera roaring a bet or I hear rather Argentina is a great place to go Yeah, I hear they have a lot of them down in Argentina. It's interesting because Tennessee is very very strict on their white tail Here he is, listen to this guy. Imagine if you were some dude and it's like a thousand years ago and you don't know what the fuck that is. You wander through the woods. thousand years ago and you don't know what the fuck that is. So my 14 year old has been going to Colorado with me since he was five or six and when

they're that little, obviously they can't bow hunt, but we would get an elk down and I'd let the boys hike up with me and pack the elk out. And one day we had another hunter with us going to get an elk and my two little ones were following me. And I said, well, we had an elk bugle and I said, hey boys, stay right here. And there's six, six and eight. And we went up the hill and I could keep, well, Tate right before I walked off, he goes, Dad, are they gonna kill us if we sit here? Because those elk bugles, I mean, you can feel their bugles in the woods.

And I said, no, son. You feel them in your chest. So we went up and tried to call this elk inn, and then some elk did actually cross in front of them. And there's six and eight just sitting there, this big herd of elk coming by, and we'd come back. And I was watching, I could see them sitting down there on this, this tall log that I put them on and I got back and they were like, those help were all, I mean, you know, having your

boys, I mean, that's, that's what I live for and to, to keep the, you know, and I just wish we could create a narrative where getting your children doing that will, I mean, I don't know. Well, hunting is a very difficult entry. It's very difficult. It is. If you're a person who's like listening to this, like I've never hunted before, but I'd like to learn how to do it.

Good luck. It's very hard. You're right. Very, very hard. It's very hard to find someone who's going to teach you, who has the patience to show you what to do. If you've never shot a rifle before, it's very hard to find someone who's going to teach you, who has the patience to show you what to do. If you've never shot a rifle before, it's very hard to understand, like, what is the difference between a.300 wind mag and a 7mm?

What is this? Yeah, that is the tricky part really with all outdoors. If you could bridge the gap between all parts of urban life and allow urban life to find a place to go. But we went through a phase in outdoors where landowners were like, if you hunt my land and you twist your ankle and break your leg, you're gonna sue me, so no, you're not allowed to come hunt my land, so all the deer get overpopulated, eat all my crops. And then, so I think now states, I think Tennessee has put a law into where some of those getting sued. Well, what I'm saying is that feeds people's inability to go find somewhere to hunt, too.

So many people don't have a 50-acre farm, they can't afford it, but they want to go hunt. And then I just hope the hunting community and even the whole outdoor community can make it more accessible and landowners. I had this little lady that I wanted to turkey hunt. She had 60 acres that bordered like a 300-acre track of mine, and I was like, ma'am, when I'm out hunting and some of my turkeys or our turkeys may cross onto your property, do you mind if I go? And her house is a mile away from, or it's 50 acres, it's probably 400 yards, she thought my shotgun was going to shoot through her house and kill her.

And I had to spend 45 minutes, and she grew up in Tennessee, in the country, and she doesn't understand that a shotgun is not, you know. And so, man, the education of it all, just the bridge and the knowledge of it gradually gets worse and worse. But the need for it gets greater and greater. And I tell my children all the time, I'm like, boys, there is no drug in the world. And I'm not a, you know, I'm pretty straight guy, never done much of that. But I said, I got a lot of crazy buddies that have, and when a big elk's walking in or a big whitetail or you hook a big fish there, the adrenaline from that, no drug will replace it.

Nothing's like it. I've done some wild shit in my time. I've seen the documentation of the wild stuff. I've done some wild shit. I'm going to send you a video, Jamie, of something that happened last week. So this is the best example of that. This is the best example of that. We had this elk and he was out at about 50 yards. We'd snuck in on him.

He was over the ridge at 50 yards. We could see the tips of his antlers moving around. I had my sights set at 50 yards. And as my friend was calling him, my friend was at a tree that was about 20 yards from me, he came right into our lap So it's one of those things I had a range of 50 and then I see him coming in he's coming in a diamond I've range we get a 40 a diamond my oh she's coming into our lap He just kept coming in watch this video. It's just you don't have it

Damn Modern technology it didn't make it through? Oh it's still going. Hold on. Pressing it to send it through. I messaged it. Oh is that what it is? Maybe.

Okay let me. It said it went through. Did it go through? It just got it. Okay. What's on those cigars? You want a little heavier or mild? Whatever you have.

Here it goes. Check this out. Oh. Listen to this. Listen to this when he comes over the hill and gets angry like when I heard that oh here he comes so right now he's about 50 yards what's your heart doing right now right now I'm pretty calm because he's a 50 yards right but now I'm realizing he's not gonna stop so I range him again now he's at 40 he pauses for a second he's staring at me I have to stop oh yes so you're off to the right I'm off to the right and I'm pressed up against

a tree full camo hiding in plain sight so now he's moving out so now I'm like oh shit I'm moving my sight to 20 so now I move my sight to 20 and I trying to figure out a time to draw. So right here I draw that's when he turns. Oh. He needs to see some movement. That's another one, beautiful one. Perfect. That was it. Boom. It's like that and there's so much nerves and so much like anxiety and you're ranging them and he's coming in and it's like and you think he's going to be at 50 but all of a sudden he he's coming in and it's like and you think he's gonna be a 50 but also he's at 20 and then it's like don't punch the shot like relax

execute a perfect shot. Well here's the beauty of all that in the outdoors. You know when you hear these are mild they're good though. Man when you when you when you kind of conquer one level of fishing or hunting, then there's another one you can go learn the space in. You know what I'm saying? You can go... Right. And what I say is, I just... I mean, from the elk hunter that I was 10 years ago, The elk hunter that I was 10 years ago, like, took so much work to even get from a 10% knowledgeable elk hunter to a 60%.

Now, like, I can watch that elk react to everything and know what that elk's, how that elk's reacting because I've done it for 11, 12 years now and I've got, I've taken my boys. Well, so when you get tired of whitetail hunting and whitetail hunting gets rudimentary, then go try to dig in and take it to the next level to challenge yourself. That's what's so fun about, like, when I got, I was always a bass fisherman, always a bass fisherman, never fly fisherman. Well, then I got into fly fisherman and that became the new seven year challenge that I-

You tie your own flies? I can now the little, I can tie big streamers. Right. But like the little bitty intricate- Where you gotta get like goggles on. Oh yeah. It's a real art form. Totally one of the most rewarding things you can do. Sure, you make your own doors. Make your own

fly and trick a big ass fish. A big fish with it. Yeah. My only problem with fly fishing is a lot of it is catch and release and I'm like, it's fun. I know it's fun. But you're basically just fucking with fish. You're just fucking with them. Like, I could have killed you bitch. You know? Well, it gets the handling of the trout. Like when I was, you know, I grew up bass fishing and we were like, and the bass flies out of the trout. Like when I was, you know, I grew up bass fishing and we're like, and the bass flies out of the water. We grab it and you know, as kids we're like, oh, you know, you catch a trout and it's like a, it's like a, it's like a team in the, in the delivery

room comes in to hold the brand new baby or what. Heck, they treat newborns, they're slapping newborns around and getting their lungs going before you mishandle a trout. But the whole mystique of trout and all of this stuff is just, man, it's outlets for all of us. I mean, I remember when I moved to Nashville, man, my dad, he kept me fishing and hunting, and he wound up being a pretty dang successful business guy and he told me, he goes, dude, when you move to Nashville, don't forget to take time to go

do that stuff. And you know, for about two or three years, man, I didn't. I was focusing on my career. But now as I roll out, you know, as I'm kind of... Established. You know, man, it's been the highlight. And the fact that three boys landed in my life, like, you know, my wife's like, it's not even fair that you have... Because I can always use one of them. I was like, well, baby Bo, you know, he's really been stressed at school and he wants

to hunt this evening. She's like, I know your game. I know your game but uh, well, we're so lucky in this country, too There's so much places that are public land. That's another thing that Europe doesn't have I mean That's what Robin Hood was all about people think Robin Hood was Steal from the rich and give to the poor No, it was about hunting lands and hunting rights people were starving and the king had all the land and there was all these deer and Robin Hood would go out and whack deer. Like that was the story about Robin Hood. It really wasn't about stealing money. It was really about hunting rights. Right. They don't have that. I didn't know that. Yeah,

that's why it's so fucked over there. That's why they don't have this attitude about it. That's why, you know, you hope the whole education of hunting and landowners and conservation of the animals and all the land ties into where, you know, landowners need to have a better understanding of, man, give this old boy a break. Give this guy that just knocked on your door and asked permission the good old fashioned way, man, give him a break and let him take his son or go hunt. And don't hoard your 15,000 acres till you're dead. But hopefully he's a good guy.

That's the problem also is that assholes ask for permission and then do something stupid. Dude, I had a guy shoot a stag. One first year I put my stag in my fence, shot him right off the road. Really? Left him. Man. Oh my God. You talk about pissed.

Right off the road. Just shot him and left him. Shot him and left him. Yeah, see there's people like that out there. And it's so fucked up. It's the bad apples, you know. They're out there. How could you do that to a stag too?

God, that's so awful. Yep. And the meat is so sensational. To know that that meat is going to go to waste. That's so crazy. And I don't know, you know, I guess enough whiskey and a whole back road and a raffle you'll, you'll, you'll, shitty education, bad childhood, all the above. Well, but um, yeah, all the above. But yeah, I mean, I look at, I've got a Till, my nephew, he's lived with me since he was 12. And then my, so Till's 22 now and Bo is, Bo's 16 and Tate is 14.

And Till was 15 when he killed his first elk. The rule has been if you can pull 55 pounds, you're ready to hunt. And so Bo is a lot bigger than Tate. When he was 13 and 14, so Bo, my 13-year-old, killed a full-grown elk at 13. Whoa. With a Bo? With a Bo. Totally the frigginging most badass thing I've ever seen. And then- Just to be that young and be able to execute the shot. Dude, he did it and he earned it.

And like I said, I've been hiking them up those hills. That's what another, like the hunting and the killing is that, man, when you pack out a damn 800 pound animal, the first time I packed my elk out, dude, when I got to the Polaris, I mean, I was like, I was sobbing like from... Exertion. Exertion. Like delusional. Because we took a wrong turn, we hit a big aspen blow down, and I had to tote the head

and the cape out, and I had to tote the head and the cape out and I had to walk over blown down aspens with that cape and once we got 500 yards into the blow down and man we got that bug in you know all and all the elk hunting guides they're the toughest they're the toughest dudes oh yeah they're doing their own long they're grizzled they're doing that all year long. They're grizzled. They're the toughest guys. I tell people man if I get called to a serious If I get called in in a serious war, I'm calling my elk guys. That's that's my first first call so but it's you know, and I didn't grow up ever thinking I'd have the opportunity or the or the you know, the

ability to go hunt elk but once you start doing it and and But you know man this this week I killed Thursday I killed my biggest whitetail ever did and I was so I'm so Like overwhelmed by killing it I haven't even like I don't even know if I've enjoyed it yet because it was it kind of happened fast But it's just so far. I'm sure We are big is it it was big so listen now and so I didn't post it because it's obviously in my high fence and you know the

You know, but man this deer was born in the fence in Tennessee You can't bring any genetics in you can't do anything whatever her do you have? In Tennessee, you can't bring any genetics in. You can't do anything. Whatever herd you have, when you- Wild herd. Whatever wild Tennessee deer you have, you have to grow them. And man, this deer, Joe, when he was two years old, we were like, what in the fuck? What a UFO ship dropped this off in here. He started with huge mass, different looking genetics,

and we watched him for, we grew him for, we feel like he's five and a half. And dude, we are, we are over the moon about this. That's a huge deer. How big is your property? It's I guess all together it's probably 11, probably 1200 acres in the fence. So that is much more space than a deer would ever travel in its natural life anyway. I'll put it to you this way. We put about 18 red stag in there. We don't know how many there are. That deer might have got fucked by a stag. I think his mom. Yeah, deer might have get fucked by us dad

Yeah, he might have crossed cross a hybrid yeah Dude, we will ride around we we have too many stag and we'll try to thin them out Joe. We can't find them like Literally like we'll spend a day I'm like hey grab the rifle. We're gonna pull up here this bottom, can't find them. There's 60 of them in there. We hunted them for four days this weekend. We killed two. So, 1200 is, I mean... It's much larger than a deer would have in its natural realm. Yeah, and I, you know, listen, I mean, there are a million ways you can criticize me

for having the high fence, but, you know, I have low fences that we bounce back and forth on the low fences, because that's fun as hell too, to not know what's walking in. But the main thing is, I wanted my boys to have the ability to manage deer and grow them. I grew up, I love South Texas. Big, big, I love South Texas deer hunting.

But I learned I leased a South Texas place down here. And then I learned having young children in my schedule, man, to go on a South Texas ranch, commit that much to a South Texas ranch and get five days there, what my thing. So my high fence in Tennessee is kind of like my little ode or my little homage to my love for South Texas whitetails. So you can keep it close? Keep it close. It's 55 minutes from the house.

Oh, that's nice. And it's a retreat. I get down there. You know, Starlink has ruined us because now we have internet. Yeah. But before that, man, we'd pull in the holler down there and you'd have to drive up to the hill to make a phone call. But oh, Elon saved us on that.

Yeah, the new Starlink's wild. It's the size of like a notebook. Well, what was funny is the first time we saw the satellites come over, we were at Elk Camp. You know, my nephew, Till, he's 21 and we're all liquored up. My nephew, he goes, guys, I know we've been drinking all day, but what in the hell is coming toward us right now? And we were like, and then we had one guy in the group was like, goddamn, that's Elon Musk. And we watched it go over and we were like, wow, what a. It's amazing, we used one in Utah

for the first time this year. So easy to set up, set it up in like five minutes. And then we're online, YouTube, whatever you want. I mean my wife, when I went to elk camp, my wife was like, all right, I'll hear you, I'll see you, I'll talk to you in six days. First day, elk camp, set the starlink out, FaceTime, hey baby, how are you? It's crazy. Yeah. My buddy was deer hunting recently in South Texas and he said on three different occasions in the week, their deer got bumped by illegals. He said it was crazy. He said illegal aliens just moving through the ranch.

He said they have a swarm of them every day. I hunt South Texas every year and the ranch we went to last year, at any given moment you can drive and pick up 50 backpacks. They just, that ranch looks like, when I, and I hadn't been, this ranch was closer to the border than I've ever been. There are piles of backpacks and tarps. They'll take tarps and put the tarp out. They'll wait in the day and then they get picked up at night, typically. When they get picked up, they chunk their backpack.

The ranch I was at, they have to have a full-time team of people just going around picking up backpacks and keeping trash off the ranch I was at they have to have a full-time team of people just going around picking up backpacks and keeping trash Off the ranch my buddy who has a ranch in South Texas found a dead guy Found a guy ran out of water Just died on his ranch. It's heartbreaking because dude if anybody dude I Can't imagine having to walk through that brush to get to freedom, right? Because when I'm not knowing where you. And not knowing where you're going. Not knowing where you're going and probably you have kids.

Yeah. Dude, when I leave South Texas, I'm pulling cactuses out of my ass for a month. Yeah. Especially if you do, you know, you got rattle form and stuff. So man, it's... Forget about rattlesnakes. Forget about everything else that's down there. And when water, yeah, when you think think about me you get your water rations

Yeah, you you miss that Yeah, you could zig when you should have zagged and you're not gonna run into water Especially down there and it was in the summer. So, you know 105 degrees outside this poor dude just died And they found him well every ranch every ranch I've went to the ranch owner You know they're encountering to two deaths a year 15 to 20 Most of the time they come up to the main headquarters Needing water and when they get to you or that's been my experience with talking to ranch managers down there

They're they're very you know they're, I don't think they're there to create any problems. They just like, hey, you know, we're right. We need some water and vast majority of them are just trying to get a better life, get a better life. And yeah, and we would be doing it too. Could you imagine if you live in a third world country and you had kids and you realize you can get to America and you get a good job and you got to figure out how to do it. Yeah, I would do it. We would all do it. We would all do it. It's just the craziness of not knowing where you're going in South Texas, which is so vast.

I mean, I think it's one of those things where people talk about it. It's almost like talking about space, you know, like, oh, the galaxy is 200 million stars or 200 billion stars. It doesn't make sense because it's like it's too big for you to understand if you had a walk through South Texas it's South Texas well I Texas itself is bigger than like multiple countries in Europe yeah well I think you know and even imagined before like the oil booms and oil ribs and stuff like now they have a little bit of visual right lights to walk to right right I mean man I couldn't imagine yeah just striking out

just take a chance grand hoping hoping or maybe you'd gone with someone who went through it before they have a vague memory of what's the best way to get to a creek I don't know I mean I you know, we've been there and, you know, the guys, they open box blinds, you know, they're hunting towers and there's a family sleeping in the box blind. Man, you just got to feel so sorry for them. I mean, how bad. I mean, I thought, I mean, dude, I remember when I was 15 16 years old processing Cubans where it's so bad that you're gonna fucking piece together a Raft and you're gonna you're gonna give it a you're gonna give it a go for Miami, right?

I remember being 16 going how bad must that be? How bad must that be? Pretty fucking bad pretty fucking bad pretty fucking bad Their case is a little different because they're running from a communist dictatorship and they were like we got that's why the most Republican motherfuckers in this country Cubans Cubans go hard. They're like we've seen We've seen what all this socialist horse shit comes down to. And it comes down to government control over every aspect of your life and they enforce it with violence. They enforce it with guns.

It's not as simple as everybody just gives up whatever they have and now everybody has an equal amount. That's all nonsense. That's the hook. But the reality is the government controls everything and you are fucked. And they always live in big ass houses and they eat great food and everybody else is very good at buying. And it's everywhere.

It's from Africa to Cuba to... That's way off. The whole African... Yeah. That whole... Have you ever hunted in Africa? I haven't, but I know I will. I will, I can go on this show and say, man, I'm not like a, I'm not one of those guys

that's like thinking about an elephant or lines and all that I just I love to bow hunt and I love I'd like planes animals, you know Your your kudos and all that stuff man I I you know to build when my boys get a little older and we can do a proper two-month Currently sports and my children have ruined my hunting life or my my, well, because my boys are going to play all the sports. But when we can get a, I'd love to do them a gap year and let's go do a true safari. And when I say safari, that doesn't mean I want to go like hunt 60 days. I want to do like your, I want to see all of the Serengeti's and all of the animals

and take in the animals for a month and have like the wives and the girls and the girlfriends and we sit out there and do the safaris. But then I want to carve out two or three days where all the boys go, you know, go get the true planes game. And I would look, it's, man, I tell you, it's a pretty cool story. My pilot, my lead pilot is South African. And during COVID, man, he couldn't, his mother was dying and he couldn't get down there to tell his mother bye. And at this point, I just, I just kind of got to know AJ. And man, I've always heard that South Africans are pretty badass dudes. And at the time, I was learning that AJ's a pretty badass dude. I didn't altogether know it.

Well he got with me and he goes, Luke, man, it's still, I cannot get into South Africa. It may have been his mother or his wife's mother, but I called some local guys, some local congress guys in Tennessee, and they granted him permission to get down there and they got to tell either his wife's mother, by the way. He comes back and he's like, Luke, I now owe you a Cape buffalo. And I was like, what? He goes, my family has a big ranch, we're overrun with Cape Buffalo, and you now have one of my Cape Buffalo. So dude, he is going to fly me down there. And

I'm like, and that's just kind of the way he's, he's, he's wired, but you know, he's going to help us with some safari stuff. Don't they call them the Black Death? Yeah, now they are bad. Yeah, you, you don't just go running up to them. Yeah. Like with your, not your shit together. That's a big animal. That's like a 1800 pound animal, right? Maybe bigger and like all muscle. So Cam and Adam Greentree, they went up to Australia. You know, Australia has like an infestation of Asian buffalo they have I forget which type of buffalo it is but invasive so someone introduced it like all the animals in Australia a lot

of the mammals were introduced and they have no natural predators so they have these buffalo up there everywhere cam said he shot one and he you know they went up there with no food and they went up there to live off the land They're drinking out of fucking crocodile lakes like literally bathing in that shit filtering water Filtering water eating whatever fish they caught it's cams new version of pushing himself now. He's gonna now he's gonna I think was Adam's idea Oh, he's a psycho too The both of them are perfect together So he said he had one piece of buffalo in his mouth for half an hour just chewing on

it. He said that's how tough they are. He said it took forever to eat that thing. The true form of like, yeah, no, that's even a whole nother level of true organics when it takes you. Oh yeah. You know, when you're jerky's jerky right out of jerky right out of the, you know, right in the field. Yeah, well there's no dry-aged buffalo out there.

Did you say how it was a taste of it? I mean, because most plains animals in Africa, historically, they say are far beyond our plains animals as far as the meat like your kudos and your I mean your I'm drawing a blank on all the planes games and like I said this is stuff that I'm like totally elementary in because I don't I just don't know much about that whole African thing it seems like the things that the big cats want to eat are all delicious. Right, yeah. Like I shot a Neil guy a couple years ago and tigers eat them. Right, did you ever eat the Neil guy?

Yeah, it's delicious. And the meat is like an even more vivid, a more vivid red color to it than even our, you know, our elk and stuff. Well it's all delicious. My favorite is still elk, but another one is Axis deer. They get hunted by tigers, and they're some of the best tasting animals alive. Axis deer are delicious. I think cats are smart, just like bears are smart too. Salmon's delicious. Sit there and pick them off. They know what they're doing. Well, have you done Africa? Are you gonna do it?

I would like to. I'd like to go over to Africa just to see it. You really got it. Cam, was he kind of your catalyst? Oh yeah. And God, I mean, it's like you had... Michael Jordan teach me how to play basketball. Yeah, Michael Jordan teach you how to shoot free throws. Yeah.

It's so fun though. But you know, even with... I tell you man, I dove hard into duck hunting. And you talk about... You talk about, you man, I dove hard into duck hunting. And you talk about, you talk about, I mean learning to blow a duck call. And when you think you know how to blow a duck call and you get next to somebody that blows a duck call and you blow yours and the room starts laughing at you, like, like ridicule, like, take your duck call off

and put it in your bedroom and leave it when we go hunting. And I'm like, dude, I've been working on this fucking thing for four years and they're like, and it's so funny, but. It's like elk bugles. Yeah. Like someone who sucks at bugling, like you hear me like, what the fuck was that? I mean, it's like you walking in with a tutu on. I love duck hunting too. I've never done it but I love the idea of it because you're sneaking, you're hiding,

you got fake ducks, you get the whole deal. Some people have ducks that even have like flopping wings. Oh dude, we got, listen man, let me tell you something. Dude, I got given a chocolate lab about eight years ago, and here comes this wormy ass chocolate lab into my home, you know, scrawny, and since then, oh my god, that damn animal has thrust me into duck hunting just so I could take him duck hunting. And man, it is... That sounds like the same excuse used with the kids. Right, my kid, yeah.

I have to go for the dog. The dog needs some duck hunting in its life. And my wife is this dog, man, this dog can open every drawer in our house. He can open Frito-Lays He can open Frito-Lays with his, he can smack Frito-Lays open and eat them. He can, he can, he is, he's, he's pushed a porcelain pound cake, a pound cake on a porcelain island off onto the floor, ate the pound cake and the porcelain dish, and like x-ray hundred shards of porcelain in his stomach. That's like put that fucker out in the yard Because there's in if he makes it if he lives call me back He lived and now I have duck hunting properties and my boy, you know So and we're in the house blowing duck calls my wife's like You know, I mean my wife's like five four boys in the house all of them blowing duck calls

She's like man one day. Yeah, so do you have one of them setups where you're like hiding in one of those? We have we have elevated blinds that are brushed in and some brush and then we have pit blinds that are You know when you get down in a pit blind lift it up. Yeah, you're right along the water level and then You know we have you know, there's experiences where you wade in the woods and they come down in the woods and man, it's just, and it's, the thing that really makes duck hunting kind of like when you're in a blind with your, let's just say you got your buddies from way back and there's five of you and you're sitting there smoking cigars and you're in the blind together and it's very social too. Drinking coffee, it's 15 degrees, coffee, cigar, and everybody's like, shut up, shut

up, shut up, shut up. And you work the ducks, they light in front of you, kill them, the dog gets them, brings the duck back. You look at the duck and you're just like, you just have a big old toke on your cigar and you're like, yep, this is pretty good shit right here. Are you good at cooking them? Yeah, man. You know, the thing about it, when you do, you know, your grain ducks, your ducks that

feed on your rice and your corn. You know, like a diver duck that eats essentially minnows. You don't want to eat that. And geese, geeser. You find somebody that can cook a goose. You know the story about how to cook a goose? No. Well, you get a big pot and you put a bunch of water and then you put a concrete cinder

block in there and you boil the goose and you pull the goose out and eat the cinder block. But some people can make a speckled goose speckle bellies are good. But like a mallard and a wood duck, oh man, a wood duck with jalapeno and cheese and bacon wrap, which nothing's bad when you do that. But my friend Jesse Griffiths, he runs this restaurant out here called Die Due. It's fantastic. And he serves a lot of wild game.

And Jesse came on this hunt with us with Steve Rinello down in South Texas. And Jesse cooked some diver duck. And was it good? It was fantastic was fantastic. Whoever the hell Jesse is he's a wizard. He's a real chef. So Ryan Seacrest he's like hey man. Ryan Seacrest the radio guy? My guy yeah at American Idol and Seacrest goes, hey I've got a you know like yeah he goes dude I booked this at EMP 11 Madison Park number one at the time number one restaurant in downtown you know Adam was Ryan was taking me and Katie and Lionel to dinner and I've never been to a, certainly the number one restaurant in

the world. They take us to tour the kitchen and dude, they have ducks, walls, because all of your French cuisine, really the centerpiece is duck. That's like the duck fat. The ducks are the real big part of French cuisine. Well, dude, I see these, I see all these ducks and I'm like, what are y'all doing here? He goes, man, we're aging them. So they get these, now they're getting probably there, they're getting farm raised, organically grown ducks, and they age them with the guts in them.

Yeah, I've heard of that. I've heard people do that with like pheasants too. You hang them by their neck. The enzymes of the guts pull stuff out of the meat. Well it adds a flavor to it apparently. And dude man I eat duck. But it sketches me out. Yeah well here's the tricky part because dude I don't even know if I enjoyed my meal because I picked the chef's brain because I wanted to figure out a way to take my mallards and all my ducks I killed and age them properly but what you do got to worry about is when you shoot them you know you're putting you know you're

shooting it's good the guts are going right through kind of in the meat a little bit so that gets a shoot them. Yeah Where I all headshot them yet, but uh, no when when these guys are aged them, what's the temperature in the room? I think it's I think it's like a you know, just above They're not freezing them. I think it's however you would dry age a cow So like 40 degrees probably 40 degrees and, 15 days with the guts in them. And then 15 days with the guts in them. I've heard that people hang their pheasants until their heads fall off. And that's when they cut them up.

Who figured that out? Who was the bold bastard that took that 15 days? It's the guy that ate the first oyster, right? They would drink out of the puddle. Right. Yeah, and it is fascinating in pheasant, and when you look at pheasant and quail and chuckers and Hungarian partridge now, you're talking about the end-all of wild game, in my opinion, at the top of the...

That's what you like the most? Well, I think when you look at the pheasants, you know, they're, you know, they call them prairie chickens and they're beautiful. The meat's a little whiter and less gamey or so. Have you had Sandhill crane? Yes, right by the sky. I haven't, but it's crazy to look at it. It does look like steak.

It's a red meat, a deep red meat, and it's a bird. And you know, they're, they're wild little creatures too, man. You know, when you take your lab Sandhill crane hunting, you got to fit them with goggles. Because it'll poke your eyes out? Yep. Whoa. And then, I just got in a golf course property down in Florida. And we sold our beach house, and then we're kind of migrating to this

place. And I fly down to the tour of the property and I'm like, dude, what are y'all doing with all these Sandhill cranes? And they're like, what do you mean? It's like a golf course guy. And I said, dude, that's the real bye of the sky, bro. He's like, he looked it up and you can't shoot Sandhill cranes in Florida. What? Somebody call the governor. Everywhere. Really? Everywhere on this property.

You can't shoot Sandhill Cranes in Florida, but you can shoot alligators? Unless they're lying to me because they're scared I'm gonna go like, I'm gonna like, you know, have a psychotic episode and go running out through the golf course with the guns. Maybe it's just the area where you're at. You couldn't shoot Sandhill cranes. They may be protected in certain counties, but you know, even in Tennessee, for the Sandhill cranes, they're protected under the federal...

They're protected under the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Look at that shit. Wow, state rule, blah, blah, blah. Intentional feeding of Sandhill cranes is prohibited. So you can't hunt them. Wow, they're protected in Tennessee we have In Tennessee there's a couple guys that got them and I think it's a draw tag You can draw you can put in to draw a sandhill crane tag and then mmm man

They make a they make a very distinct make a very distinct sound like that and dude you can hear them and I'll hear them coming over my farm and God if that's the wrong noise I just made I'm gonna get uh sounds good I'm gonna you got it whoa I love this guy I need me one of... that's them. Wow. Now that's a... Look at all of them. Yeah, that's... you hear that?

Yeah. What a fucking cool animal. They sound like something from Avatar. See those beaks? Yeah. Those are Labrador blind... Labrador Retriever blinders right there. How do you fasten the goggles on a dog? Man, oh God, here he goes. Oh my gosh, this is like the group.

Sandhill Crane goggles for labs. This is going to be great. How does it secure on? I'm thinking about a dog's face. I guess you've seen those dogs in those side cars on the motorcycles. Probably that rig. But, um... I mean, I googled something and that's not the same.

I don't think that's the same. Yeah, that's like an Aspen. That's two dogs being silly. Yeah. But, um, the, um... Yeah, so in Tennessee, you can hire a guy and he'll take you and they'll kind of get them coming into an area and I think you get it. There you go. Oh, there it goes.

There you go. Oh, wow. Oh, that's crazy. Now those look like, I think those are snow geese. Wow. Snow geese are probably the same. Look at their goggles all scratched up too. Yeah.

Crane hut. No, those are, yeah, those are sand hills. Wow, that's crazy. Dogs need to have their eyes protected. Yeah, so when you, when you get, yeah, well you've got your gold and, but man, if you get you a lab and, oh man, beware of that because you will get hooked. You'll start. Oh, I'm sure I would be. Also, I love duck. Duck's delicious. Oh, on the grill, mar in a marinated properly for a day or two plan on it. That's what Jesse does That's the difference. That's why it does the diver duck

I'm telling you this diver duck was sensational Well, but when that and that's the that's what you got to watch in all wild game is man plan it Preparation get it marinated and yeah, and man, you just can't beat it. Yeah you got to know what you're cooking, how to cook it, especially if you're cooking something that has low body fat, you got to make sure you cook it nice and slow. That's one of the great things about things like a Traeger, you can just set it for $2.65, leave it. The new one's fantastic too, everything comes out so smoky and delicious.

If you know what you're doing. Man, my dad, Fourth of July, he was, I think he was drunk and hated us on Fourth of July because he stayed up smoking the Boston Bud every night. You know, I remember my dad, man, he'd had that old char broil out there and he'd get up with his vinegar and all this shit and he would wake up all night night before the fourth and smoke them butts man but now you just walk out put that thing on 220 at about 8 p.m. wake up at 8 a.m. and the app tells you if you're low on pellets. I know it's like what are we doing here? It's crazy, it's so much easier. There's something that men are attracted to like cooking over wood though,

like an actual fire charcoal wood. Well, we're in the heart of it in Texas, you know, right here. I mean, these guys take a damn, you know, they, they, they glue four propane tanks together and have a smokestack and the guy that, what's our guy that does our charity event? Oh my God, I can't believe I'm, I'll come up with him. Mark, text me Meat Church. Have you met the Meat Church dude? Oh yeah, I met that dude. Yeah, he comes and... He's got some awesome rubs. He's got all that, but then what's funny is, yeah, he pulled up to our charity event with his big smoker and man, I'm like, this is like Elon Musk style engineering on this thing. It's pretty, you know, and man, you know, they get out there and yeah, they'll look

at me and you doing tragers and we're, that's about like us. That's our version of having a tutu on. It is funny because people want to do it all themselves. The offset smokers, like have you ever gone to Terry Black's here and see the lines of the offset smokers like have you ever gone to Terry blacks here see the lines of the offset smokers Terry blacks is the number one barbecue place in the country probably in the world They cook more volume of barbecue than anywhere else on the country and they have just line after line of these giant Propane tank smokers and they're just briskly

Ribs and spare ribs see when I when I moved to Nashville being a South Georgia boy, I'd never even heard of brisket. Really? We only knew pork barbecue. So when I moved to Nashville and then there's some dude there with a Texas brisket restaurant in Nashville, I'm like, what are they talking about brisket? And this was 2001 I moved to Nashville. This is how insulated you could be in your own, you know, as we talk about the ways of the world changing. I mean, it's like, dude, I lived in a section and everybody, North Carolina, it's Georgia, Alabama, we, they didn't, brisket was like... I think brisket was originally a German thing. I think it's like with the sausages,

like there was cuts of the meat. Well, the smoker thing came certainly from German immigrants that came to Texas. That's where the origin of the barbecue out here is. And then the brisket was like cuts that nobody else wanted. Right. So they figured out a way to take these cuts that nobody else wanted and turn them into something delicious They just had to do it over time and now it's like a preferred cut You know if you go to Terry Blacks the brisket sensational and they're probably cooking You know the preferred cuts of like which cut of the brisket would you like not not the old? Flank meat down there, you know, probably you can probably get the rib eye and all that

It's all just how long you cook it for. How do you, how you do it, what temperature and they they wrap it and they unwrap it and they spray it like they have it down to a science. And then at the end, it's like the key is you want to be able to fold it over your finger and not have it break apart. Just get it to just where it folds over. See our deal was just always smoke a big pig, you know, smoke a pig, you know, not the one's big as this table, but you know, about that long. 100 pounder. Yeah. Yeah.

And walk up there on the family reunion and all the women were grossed out because, you know, you're just pulling the big pig, you know, the big, you know, you can pull that meat off a pig. It's like that. So, we're getting getting hungry Joe. I know That's the good thing about wild pigs too So they're always available to hunt like the one of the great things about Texas It's it's not good if you're on a ranch or if you have a farm

But if you're a person wants to hunt you can hunt wild pigs So five days a year and always have sausage our place and um Me and my best friend, we've got like a quail hunting place down in the heart of South Georgia, tons of swamps. Dude, we were, which you know all the math and I'm sure you've brought it up on how many sow pigs, they'll kick off 30 pigs a year annually. They can, yeah. And then we would have them roll through our front yard, $30,000 damage a night.

For anybody out there listening, if you have this going on, we mounted lights in all the trees around our whole lodge. And you flip them lights on and we haven't had one wild hog root up our yard since. Really? They will not come around those lights. It's a great tactic. That's interesting. Yeah. And when somebody told him, some good old boy told him, and he was like, man, we'll

try anything. You would walk out there and it looked like 300 land mines went off in the night before our yard looked like Augusta. Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? I mean, they are bad little dudes now. They do a lot of damage. I mean, in Texas alone, it's millions and millions dollars

of damage of crops every year. They shoot them out of helicopters here. You ever seen it? You ever done any of that? Have you? It is. Man, it is. It's the most unfair type of hunting that's ever existed. Man, if you know, I don't know, you know, my children, I took my boys and somewhere there's a, you know, I hope he doesn't hear it, but there's

a Navy SEAL Marine recruiter because my sons are ready for warfare after doing that. I'm like, but you know, my, the guy that we took, you know, he's got a big, beautiful high fence and me, you know, you, if you fly around and man, you can, you know, you just, he has to thin them out every year. Yeah, you have to. But it's so fun doing it out of a helicopter, you don't want to thin them all out because you just keep wanting to, you know, you keep wanting to do it a little bit. But, but it's a, you hadn't done that yet?

No, no, I'm still, I just mostly bow hunt them. Well, you know, the, our pig stuff in Georgia, man, it's fun because you can go on a deer hunt, you can shoot some deer with a bow, and then we'll take a rifle and late in the evening the hogs will come out. I know a lot of guys shoot them at night time too. Yeah, yeah. And then we have guys with the big trap doors that trap them and stuff like that. So, I mean, they're probably the number one wildlife. I never will forget, right when maybe iPhones come out and you get your iPhone news updates, and then I never even knew what the magazine like the New Yorker was, or like The Guardian and all those things.

Well, The New Yorker, I'm scrolling through and I see Feral Pigs, and it was this huge article done by a guy, maybe the editor of The New Yorker. Man, he did a great job with that article and just went through. And this was 15 years ago I read that article about about You know the feral hog problems and you know, you would think I would I don't know I would think the New Yorker leans quite leans quite left, but the fact that this guy wrote the article from a perspective of huge problem need to be need to be dealt with was pretty a

Pretty badass take on it. Well once people see the sheer numbers, they're so overwhelming that you go, wait a minute, how are you going to stop this? How are you going to stop it from multiplying continually every year? Well you're not. You're not. There's places that you're not going to get to them. Well in Georgia, these swampy deals, you can't helicopter them there. So that's when

you get these old boys with their dogs and they run off in the... That'll help. But even then... So Joe, here's another thing. You think about this. So when I start my high fence, the year year that I started it, our turkey population in Tennessee, which it's been going through hell, and you'll hear this, the turkey population in Tennessee was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I mean, eastern turkey hunting, one of the most beautiful things in the wildlife that the state of Tennessee has. And my turkey population was like, is amazing and still is, but we hired a guy and he put

110 traps out. 110. And night one had over 100 varmints. Coons, possums, armadillos in the traps night one. So they're just killing all the turkeys. They eat the eggs. Yeah. You know, a turkey lays 12 to 14 eggs. Now listen, I found this out this year. This is going to, I hope, if I can get a couple nuggets that you hadn't learned yet, that's kind of the goal for the day. So, and turkey does not lay their eggs all at the same time.

Really? They lay their eggs one day at a time. They lay it next to a water source. They go to the water source, hold the water in their mouth, drip the water on the eggs periodically, using the water to hatch them at the same time. Because a hen turkey, if she had to hatch, all the eggs hatch at the same time. But if she had to hatch them for 12 days, she could never keep them corralled properly. Oh. 12 days, she could never keep them corralled properly. So she manipulates with water. And if I'm wrong, now this is a biologist that told me this, I heard this this year, totally

blew my mind. So in the nest, and I've walked up on them, they got 12 or 13 of them sitting there beautifully. And whatever that hen does, she manages those eggs to hatch at the same time. Wow. And maybe, maybe, now like a tortoise, I guess, or a beach turtle or whatever, you know, I think they, they sped them all out that night. But a hen, a hen turkey does not. Well, so one armadillo rolls by that nest. That's a wrap.

That's a wrap. She just lost them all. And so there was a big study that went on in Tennessee about the decline of the turkey population. So what do they do about that? They try to hunt the varmints? Well, first of all, trapping now is so rare. The art of trapping has gone down quite a bit, and the arm of

the, the, the, um, oh, and I'm not even bringing up coyotes in Tennessee, but, uh, so yeah, if you can, if they can loosen up, Tennessee can loosen up their trapping laws and make it more available, and, and, uh, you just gotta thin out those, uh, you know armadillos in Tennessee you would have never um Man we woke up and we can ride around and shoot 30 a night Really armadillos 30 on a on a they carry like crazy man. I wouldn't recommend touching them, you know, they they You know, they say they do but that that's That may believe them. I've never heard of that, but that's... People eat them? I've never heard of that, but you probably can find somebody.

They definitely eat raccoons. They definitely eat raccoons and definitely... I don't know about possums, but if you're eating a possum, your ass is hungry. You're very hungry. But raccoons, I mean, in Georgia where we grew up had several old timers, man, they'd get them a coon and it was always a kind of a party deal. You know, what does raccoon taste like? I never had.

I never. Well, we got an old buddy down there. He's like, you know what bald eagle tastes like? Owl. So I guess you could say raccoon. You know, I had a buddy of mine tell a game more than that joke. It didn't go over well. So, but uh, there's a lot of shit that people eat that people would go what?

Yeah. I mean, when you're talking about, I saw somebody do the pig deal with a full gator. Oh, I've seen that before. And I hadn't done that. I've had gator tail, but I hadn't had a giant smoker and put a gator in there. Put the whole thing on. Yeah. And they skin, you. They skin it and all that. Put an apple in its mouth.

You know what's crazy in Georgia? There's a place rural. So all the chicken farms down there, huge chicken farms, all of them. Well, what do you do with the chicken carcasses? Well, I mean, there's a lot that used to grind them up and feed them back to chickens, but some of them, well, they feed them to gator farms. Oh, wow.

They put them in a, put them in a, um, a limb, a limb shredder. Oh wow. Now you talk about the most foul smell on the planet. Go into a gator farm warehouse. Oh. Joe. Buddy? Just rot. Nothing can replicate.

Maybe the Sir Stroman challenge can replicate, you know, the whole Sir Stroman joke thing. What's that? You've seen where the guys pop the lid on the Swedish fish? No. Oh, Joe! Sir Stroman? What is it? Oh, Joe! Sir Strahmann? What is it?

Oh, we did it at our deer camp. It's like an aged Swedish fish that's rotten in a can. It's aged? For years, like a sardine. And so, yeah, the Sir Strahmann challenge. Please, guess face. Dude, we popped that thing. So people fish with them? they use it for bait like for look that people eat that oh foul

And if you can stay in the room with it Have you tried it dude? No one I know I was outside 15 yards from it Throwing up in the flower bed. All right, we got to order some Jamie. I'm glad I didn't get you. Might eat it on fight companion. But um. Well Denver's on they're on the verge of passing a no fur law. So if Denver passes a no fur law, what are they gonna do about cowboy hats that have

beaver skin lining? And then if you're gonna say no fur, how are you gonna say no fur but you're allowing leather? So skin is okay as long as you take the furry part off. Is the furry part what's offensive? You know what you'd fucking, the chaos that would ensue if you outlawed leather? Everybody's belt is illegal.'s shoes are legal Air Jordan's and they're calling it illegal illegal yeah they're trying to pass a law they're trying to pass a law where they banned for sorry they've done it before I mean they've done it like I said where does it Joe I'm out with keeps going that's

the problem fucking and when I'm at a minute no it never ever it's never I'm an American Idol. No, it never ends. It's never gonna end. They're gonna keep pushing. What it'll get to you can't eat meat. It'll get to it has to be lab-grown meat. It'll get to it could get as crazy as you could ever imagine there's animal rights people that would like to push it in that direction and you would have never thought that this would be possible but you would have never thought that you would have biological males competing against females in high school sports. And that's everywhere. And if you complain against that, you're a bigot.

You're seeing the craziest of crazy thinking. There's people that think the pedophiles are minor attracted persons. And they'll talk about this as university professors teaching classes. It's been recorded. People have seen it. It's not everywhere, but it's enough where you go I see where this goes if it keeps going because none of this shit existed 20 years ago. You go back to 2004 there was none of this shit, nothing. A transgender person was a rare person with gender dysphoria.

It was very rare and there wasn't a lot of hatred towards those people. It wasn't the thing that people worried about. Now there is because everybody's like what the fuck Why is this in schools? Why are you having them there was a recent pool tournament where it was a woman's pool tournament in the semi-finals? It's two trans trans women may be against each other two men two biological men that wear lipstick Competing against each other in a women's tournament. It's fucking crazy. So I would have never thought that would be possible. So it can get to a point where there's no meat. It can get to the point where meat, there's this demonization of meat.

You keep hearing about it all the time. Meat is the number one source of carbon. It's fucking complete total horse shit. It's not even number two. It's not number three. It's not even fucking close. Cow farts. Yeah. It's the dumb three. It's not even fucking close. Cow farts. Yeah.

It's the dumbest shit ever. And by the way, all of that is factory farming. Regenerative farming is actually carbon neutral. If they don't sequester carbon, it's actually good for carbon. There's a whole reason why there's a balanced ecosystem of cows eating grass and the grass fermenting in their stomach and then creating manure. That regenerates. Yes, regenerates.

It's carbon neutral. It's actually good for the environment and everything feeds off everything. There's a system that nature has evolved for millions of years. That's the normal way it's supposed to be done. And you know, we're just living in a crazy time. Yeah, when you think of Denver and Colorado and the outdoors, man, you gotta appreciate everybody's opinion of, you know, the grunt. I mean, it's a so old term, the granolaist, but it ain't granola no more. I mean, it's...

They're getting a lot further than granola. Granola used to be normal until they... See, the thing is, those people were weird and rare, and they were tolerated. But then they got online and say if there's only 10 of them in this town, 5 of them in that town, well, now there's hundreds of thousands of them collectively in the country, all as a group. And then they think that they're activists. So they think that they're doing something good. So then they start saying things like, fur in Colorado pass this bill and you start saying no meat no more meat No one should have meat. Okay

We're gonna do these cows. We do you gonna go around castrating all those bulls. What are you gonna do? How you gonna control the populations? Are you gonna let them go extinct? You're gonna castrate all the bulls Are you gonna let some of them breed? How you gonna make this distinction? Are you gonna bring in wolves to handle them? What are you gonna do? What the fuck are you gonna do? What are you gonna do with all those people that work at the butcher shop? What are you gonna do with all those people

that work at the meat processing plant? What are you gonna do with all those people that have been transporting meat back and forth? What are you gonna do with all those jobs, all those families, all their income, all their businesses that they've had for a hundred fucking years? What are you gonna do with that?

These people have like the most minimal understanding of the system and they're trying to influence they don't know what the fuck they're doing by releasing wolves they think wolves are beautiful yay see the governor he's releasing the wolves like yay he's like so happy yeah they're gonna be saying yay when they're when they're damn I Don't know dude the whole dogs getting eaten dog everything. Yeah, let me tell you something Oh, yeah, they brought in wolves that had a history of killing cattle the wolves they brought into Colorado different than the grizzly focusing on the on humans and

Man, we I live just south of Nashville. We got 180 acres. I've got neighborhoods all around us, man. About every night an email goes out. Little Fluffy's gone. Coyotes? We put six coyote traps out on my farm. One night. Six for six. Wow. And let me tell you what else is a little vicious son of a bitch. A fucking otter. Oh yeah. Otters will fuck you up. Let me tell you buddy, those things are...

I mean Joe, I'm so like, I mean, week like I said my brain is bass fishing and all this stuff Man will have otters come up into my bass pond I'm talking about They're fucking gone the fish in three nights. The fish are gone and the otters Eat one and play with the other ones that they kill Wow and like you go by my lake Like I have an all-female bass like at my house Which you're gonna this is a whole nother fun deal they will roll through there and eat my all females and

Just throw them up on the bank. There's carcasses. There's... How many? Well, you get four otters in your pond on a 17-acre lake. They'll eat 20 bass a night. The problem is you don't know you've been got until you've been got. Wow. And so Joe, to grow a 10-pound bass is about $3,000.

And think about it, I've been loving on these damn fish. I've been walking out there making sure they're happy so we can all catch them and yeah, look at them. And then damn, damn damn them otters roll so they'll if you have an overflow a spillway on your farm and it runs through your farm and dumps into a major river body of water and that otter swims by that water dumping in that river he is up that river he's up that spillway into your lake and he is he has gotcha Wow And we'll put traps out dude and man they just keep coming. Wow. Keep coming and I'm talking about Otter Pelts I mean like

the prettiest thing you've ever seen. So do you turn them into coats or anything? You I mean we've got enough where you know we can we've got them skinned out in freezers and rolled up in our freezers and my farm guys. I mean, I think they're... But you know the sad part is the market for that should be an amazing market, but I think because everybody's scared to say they got a damn otter pelt. Yeah.

Yeah, fur. Fur's got a bad name. If it's got hair on it, leather's fine. None of it's fine. got a bad name. If it's got hair on it, leather's fine. None of it's fine. But leather's fine with people. No one has a problem with you wearing cowboy boots. Nobody gets mad. Yeah, see, leather.

Nobody gets mad at leather. All that is is fur with no fucking hair on it. It's the same thing. It's weird. But damn otters, man, them little rascals. You know, they, I got, I'm building a lake at my place in Georgia and it's right on the Flint River. You're running wildlife management.

I love it, man. It's so fun. It's so damn fun. Like, it's four hours of my day. And it also cleanses your mind, right? Totally. Just like hunting. It's totally, and it is not for myself.

You can't, my enjoyment is to watch the kid, my buddies, my children's friends come enjoy it too. You know, my sons will bring a buddy home from school. And next thing you know, Tate and his 13-year-old buddy are shooting bows in the front yard all weekend. And this kid, who doesn't have a dad that hunts or has the ability, next thing you know, I got one kid, my Tate's buddy James, his eighth consecutive weekend at my house, hunting. Just loving live shooting bow and arrows.

Did you show them how to shoot correctly? Got it all, got him dialed in. He shot his first doe this weekend. Nice. Just so fun. And so, you know, when you meet these guys that they don't let anybody else enjoy it, I don't like those guys either. Yeah. And, you know, I love to, I love to enjoy it with people. But, you know, I love to love to enjoy it with people but you know bass fishing things a blast But my lake in in Georgia, it's gonna be about 35 acres and I think we'll do an all-female lake down there

Why all-female so that way they can't breed your females are your trophy bass, right? The big fat ones the big fat ones don't they have to get pregnant to be really big and fat you put them in and to get pregnant to be really big and fat? You put them in and if you don't, they don't have to be pregnant. They just have to have the big eggs and when they lay them they just have to have a male not fertilize them. That's right, of course. So if you get a male in there, then the male, then you have a natural thriving. He'll eat the babies too though, right?

A male, a bass will forage on themselves. Yeah. But male bass... Now I have three lakes that are naturally their own ecosystem, where we have to... You know, I've got an 82 acre bass lake that we have to catch 3,500 pounds of bass a year just to keep them from not choking themselves out. Really? Oh yeah, it's 3500 pounds. So what do you do? Just call your friends? Dude, we have bass roundups and we get out there and we catch them and we'll load up

coolers and take them into the little towns and give them to people and I mean it becomes a problem. It's a weird thing with large mouth bass too because a lot of people don't eat them and yet they're delicious. They're good, they're great. Yeah. They're great. They're basically the same as bluegills.

Well, bluegills, bluegills, you know, like all the bluegills at my lake are, we feed them pellet food so they'll get big so the bass will eat them so the bass will get big. And you don't want to go eat a bluegill that's been parked under a pellet. But a little wild bluegill stream or a little natural creek where I grew up in Georgia like shell crackers and bluegill that eat like a cricket or that are eating live stuff. You fillet one of them real small creek or river bluegills. Fry them up. Oh, nothing better in the world. Yeah.

And then- Bass is similar to that. Oh, bass, if you- It's a nice flaky white meat. Flaky white meat, get you a three or four pound bass, fillet it like a red snapper. But people like catching them so much, they want you to release them.

We spent our whole life, my dad would catch bass, we would fillet them, he'd put them in a Pyrex dish, saute them, bake them, and then broil them on top, and we'd eat large mouth bass. You could either have salmon croquettes that stink up the whole house, or you knew your mama was cooking them, or you can have fresh bass, you know, so we grew up. But isn't it a weird animal, or weird fish rather, that a lot of people don't eat, but it's good to eat? You know, you wouldn't want, you wouldn't want your, you wouldn't want everybody fishing

your big reservoirs, like Texas is the best big bass lake reservoir state in the country. You wouldn't want everybody out there keeping them. You want to practice catch and release on your big public reservoirs. But you know, when you've got a private impoundment where, you know, you want to keep your bass – because your bass, you'll wake up. Let's just say you've got a nice brand new bass lake you built, 10 acres. You stock it. You spend 50 grand to put your bluegill, all your fish in there. Then you just don't ever catch them.

Well, then in five years, you've lost it. Right. You have to manage it. Yeah, you're done. Your lake's done. Your three pound bass didn't have enough fish to get four pounds. And then he missed a year of growing, or she missed a year of growing. And then you just put a $50,000 investment in your bass lake, and then you're out. You might as well drain it, start over.

You know what I'd really like to do? Get a place in the north and have a lake with pike in it. I think they might be my favorite thing to catch because they're so ruthless. That's such a ruthless fish. Animal. Fucking dinosaur. A killer. They look like dinosaurs.

First time I caught a pike, I'm like, why isn't this like the most exciting thing to catch? They fight hard. Or a musky, Jesus. I've never caught one of those. Me either. That's the wish of a 10,000 cast. Yeah, see I'm not that dude. Now I'll wait and hunt it. You know, I'm not a, like I don't have to have the biggest, best animal my whole life. Like I don't, you know, some people they're like. They get into numbers. They're

size queens. Size, yeah. Or score.... They get into numbers. They're size queens. Size, yeah. Or score. I'm not that guy. I'm an experienced. Let's have fun. Let's see a lot of animals. Let's catch a lot of fish.

Let's keep a lot of action. Yeah. Let's keep the kids engaged. Yeah. You know, like when my boys were, you know, when my boys were four and five, I'd take them, you don't want to take them out there on their first three bass fishing trips, and you burn them in the hot sun and they catch one fish. Right. You want them engaged and get them going. But, you know, pike and all that, that, you know, steelhead and

that Northwest steelhead, and catching one, man, I don't, that's just, I hadn't done that. I can't do that. That's a release fish too, I don't, that's just, I hadn't done that. I can't do that. That's a release fish too, right? Oh, those are, those are the, yeah, those are high on the list of, especially like a C-run steelheads. You know, you have, you have some that are kind of locked in, you know, locked in the reservoir locked. But you get those big C- Run steelheads and they really hold them in. And they should hold them in high regard. You shouldn't, you need to leave those alone and let them, you know, let them come and go. Yeah, but then why are you catching them?

You know what I'm saying? Why are you fucking with those fish? Because that's, it's a little bit of that. I get it. It's fun. I'm not opposed to it I get it, but if I catch fish, I like to eat them. That's the whole reason why I'm catching fish So that yeah, you know what? It's why I like to catch walleye. I would still say you're in the majority. Yeah Yeah, you're in it should be I mean imagine if you just run around shooting deer with tranquilized darts like I got them Well weird Little weird. Little weird. Yeah, I've seen some.

Just to prove that you did it? Yeah, you know, and then they make bumper, you know, they make bumper tips on bows. You can doink deer in the ass and run them off. Yeah. And not, you know. And they're like, why are you doinking a deer in the ass? You know? It's a little weird.

Well, it's like they make those club heads so you can shoot squirrels and birds. Yeah. Well, you know, man, listen, dude, I grew up, you know, my little town of Leesburg, man. I mean, every year I got a pellet gun for Christmas. And I got a, I got a full camo onesie or a coverall. And dude, I put my new pair of Chippewa hunting boots I put my new set of I put my new set of coveralls on with the camo pattern I'd hit the neighborhood walking around with a pellet gun shooting the neighbor

squirrels and you know we we'd eat them you know we'd eat them every now and then this little lady Mabel Copswell she we'd skin them and she'd fry them with some wild rice. It tastes good. If you cook a squirrel and do it right, man, it ain't nothing wrong with a squirrel. Isn't that crazy that most people don't know that? Right. Squirrels are delicious.

Squirrel hunting is like very popular in parts of the South. Squirrel dumplings. Squirrel dumplings. Yeah. Instead of chicken and dumplings, squirrel dumplings. You know, you get a squirrel and clean it right and brine it for the night and cook it with dumplings and put some onions and celery and all that and you're off to the races.

People think of them, they have like fluffy tail privilege. Rats. Rats with tails. Because you see a rat, rats have those slimy tails and people like that's disgusting And they see that fluffy tail like oh so cute Not much different You know well the the fact that you know the fact that yeah, I could run rampant with a

Eight-year nine years old through the neighborhood riding my Honda 50 Motorcycle, you know through people Honda 50 motorcycle, you know, through people's backyards, you know, chasing squirrels and everybody's like, thank you. That damn thing's been in my attic chewing up my pink panther insulation for... That's rural life, right? Yeah. That's rural. Well, that's people that understand what's going on.

Yeah. That's the difference between if you did that in a neighborhood in Manhattan, people are like, what the fuck is this guy doing? We need these squirrels If you they caught you in Central Park with a pellet gun, you'd go to jail First first round ticket first. Yes. Do not do not pass go do not collect Breaking to a store and rob it. Nothing will happen to you. They'll let you right out Yeah, but if you get caught in Central Park shooting squirrels and eating them, you're going to get in real trouble.

It's wild. We live in a wild world. It's a very strange, distorted version of what human beings have been experiencing for most of history. I mean, nothing is wrong with hunting a little bit. Especially when 95% of the world eats meat. It's a stupid argument. Well and I think you know I think it's all treated to I think now the beauty is

now the education of you know I mean you look at you know you look at the how great you know carnivore diets are being you know I've never done like a big old Connor have you ever done a big carnivore? yeah yeah they change your life oh yeah that's mostly how I eat great I eat fruit and meat great 99% I fuck around like my daughter likes to cook cookies I had a big-ass cookie the other day I was awesome I mean I'm not ridiculous yeah I'll eat other things I'm not religious about it but most of my diet like 90% is just meat and occasionally fruit fruit before I out, fruit sometimes after I work out, but mostly it's just meat. Well, you know, like I said, the best thing about what you do here is you give everybody

their platform to talk about their way. Yeah. And, you know, your platform is enlightening me. I mean, you know, dude, I've never you know, I was around some dude That was talking about you know Micro dosing mushrooms and all that dude. I never saw a drug. I never saw a drug Until I was 30 Saw moonshine a lot. Well, that is that is a fucking job. Well, you're right

I mean you drink you drink a half jar of mason, you know, oh, yeah Yeah, that's the crazy thing about alcohol is we get some ass thing. Yeah, we are having nicotine right now This is a drug and when I have these a nice cigar by the way. It's perfect. It's very good, very mild. And man, when I... I was 39 years old before I did any tobacco. Really? Never dipped. My dad kept Levi Garrett, Taylor's Pride, you know. The only time he wasn't chewing meant he had a life insurance policy. He had to get blood work and didn't want to fail his life insurance policy. But I was 39. My mom, you know, my mom's a character. She, you know, but never did tobacco, never dip. I put one dip in one time and threw up outside

my high school. This old boy threw me a dip in, and dude, big old Kodiak and I threw up outside the high school gymnasium and missed my fifth and sixth period and I was like, dude, I don't need that. You remember those bricks, little squares of chewing tobacco you bite a chunk off? Oh, yeah. All the old. And what I was getting at is I was sitting, we were celebrating an album release. I was 39 years old, one of my best buddies, brought a nice Davidoff Churchill cigar.

And any cigar I'd ever done, now I had smoked a cigar like in Vegas. And most times back then, you know, I didn't drink a Handel Le Crown and smoke a cigar. And you wake up the next morning, you're like, you know, your life's over, essentially. essentially well it's probably the handle of crown right well we smoked that cigar and I sat in my rocking chair and just smoked that cigar and I was like man this is kind of it's kind of nice this is kind of like

therapy right here all these people smoking cigars aren't stupid it's got to be something to it and they're chilled chilled out. Yeah. It's a nice conversational thing to do. They are chilled. They are universally chilled out. But it's a drug. Oh, it's a drug. Yeah, let's don't. It's a drug.

We're drinking coffee. That's a drug. The problem is there's a lot of drugs and some of them are really fucking bad for you. Here's the deal. And I'll call my buddy every now and then that, and he was my buddy that bought me the cigar, he was a lifelong Copenhagen and cigarettes here and quitting and I called him, I'll call him periodically and I'm like, you asshole, I'm stopping at a grocery, I'm stopping at a random cigar shop. I've gone four days without a cigar and I'm riding down the road and I determine right now I need one. You know, you weave across four lanes

of traffic, find a, you know, and the next thing you know you're smoking a grocery store, I mean a gas station cigar to just, but hey, it keeps you, keeps you, keeps the head clean. I like them. Like I said, I think it's one of the best things. And I don't think you need to smoke 12 of them a day. No, I don't think so either, but I know people would do. I know people would just go one to the other. They'd just change, smoke cigars. Now my mother, dude. Salem Ultralight 100s, three packs a day.

Whoa. Four Bud Lights a day, her whole life. Four Bud Lights. Every day. Is she still with us. She's with us. Damn. That's the thing that always gets people They're like, maybe I should quit. Hold on. Well Listen my mom man, dude She Joe She she's curved the bitch. She's curved the beer a little bit, but she'll drink her a couple of O'Douls, but she's going

to have her one or two Bud Lights. Every day? Every day. She's going, three packs, but she's like a... It's like, if she's walking into the Dillards or to the TJ Maxx, she's like, oh my God, I'm walking in. Take a couple of pops. Take a couple and hit, you

know, litter the parking lot. But she'll pan fry a ribeye in butter. Pan fries a ribeye. That's probably what's keeping her alive. Pan fries a ribeye, fries some shoestring french fries. And that's her damn meal four to five nights a week for 76 glorious years. That's probably why she's healthy and is ready to chew my ass out at any moment And how many cigarettes do you think she's down to a day I hope she's probably at a pack and a half But man when you do the math when I used to sit her down and do math But man, when you do the math, when I used to sit her down and do math, you know, her and my dad were married 32 years and divorced, and so when she went out kind of on her own, I'd sit her down and do the math on four Bud Lights, two and a half packs of Salems, and

four pan-fried ribeyes. It becomes a damn number annually. I think the ribeyes are fun. Leave her alone with the ribeyes. You know what? But through the years, I've gotten Miller Lite endorsements. I would get Miller Lite, like I'd be like mama, there's a Miller Lite truck pulling up to your house. It's going to deliver you a pallet of Miller Lite. Just try. Just try to fall in love with Miller Lite.

Right. No. Bud Light. I'd get home two months after the palette got there. There the palette sits. I'd call up my buddies, hey boys. A lot of people had a personal crisis when there was the Bud Light boycott. There was a lot of people like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. When Kid Rock shot that Bud Light, and then he kept selling it in his bar.

We drank some. We drank some on the podcast we did together. Yeah, and I love him. He let it go after a while. He let it go. He did. I love him. He's been a damn good buddy of mine and has come to my charity event. He's a wild boy. He's awesome. I love that dude. He's a lot of fun. He's awesome. But when I saw him do that I was like oof Imagine being the CEO of Bud Light and seeing that like oh no

Kid Rock just shot our beer with a fucking Automatic and was like fuck anhyzer bush like no And I mean that alone probably cost them billions of dollars just having when our beer yeah when our beer when our beer is is political political we're like not just our beer but Bud Light Bud Light the beer that sponsored more boxing matches more sporting events more people been drinking Bud Light I mean think about all the people who swear by Bud Light.

Post Malone's always drinking Bud Light. And then, you know, my wife's dad is a Budweiser fucking 12-pack-a-day dude, man. And, you know, he had to hear a little shit from his buddies about it. People getting fights in bars. I have a friend who owned a bar. We stopped carrying it at the mothership because nobody was buying it. We stopped carrying Bud Light because nobody was buying Bud Light. Have we checked on where it... It's come back.

Fully? No, I don't think so. I think there's a bunch of holdouts that are always gonna go fuck those liberals forever. But the lady who came up with the idea is gone like the whole the whole marketing team behind they're all gone And heiserbush is an American company that it's employed American people forever. It's a great company They just fucked up they get caught up in the mind virus and heiserbush taught us that beer is wonderful for Christmas and Clydesdales and Dalmatians are the equivalent of of Jesus and Christmas.

Well, you remember those Bud Light guys, the real American genius guys? Remember that? Remember that? American genius. They had great commercials. Dude, I would cry over the Dalmatian Clydesdale commercial. You remember the little puppy? Yeah.

He's riding on the Clydesdales. Find that, Jimmy. Find that company. Oh shit It's like a friggin hallmark. You would never think that that company could get taken down But that just I think that was good. It was bad for Bud Light, but I think it was good. Here it is Let's see it. We're gonna get all sweet. There we go Oh, don't oh the little puppy Listen to that music

Oh a little puppy got out. Oh Poor puppies lost Yeah Poor little puppy. Wow, what a commercial. We need to find... Wolves. Oh, God.

Wolves. They're in Colorado. The horses save the puppy from the wolves. Have a bud. Very effective commercial, you know? Real quick, you're happy. Yeah, and then there's the one where it's the Dalmatian too that grew up and then got to the old Dalmatian and the little, you know, they're riding, and the young Dalmatian sees the old Dalmatian. And I think the old Dalmatian kicks the bucket, and then the new Dalmatian takes its place, and then you're like, oh my God, it's the best thing ever.

Yeah. Well. And then you're like, oh my god, it's the best thing ever. Yeah. Well and that company got taken out By having a transgender woman on their can But it just shows you how Prevalent this whole mind virus is that it even got into Bud Light. It's just bizarre But you know the lady who's responsible for it all basically shit on the entire customer base. You know, saying that they have a fratty sense of humor and we need to update it and make

it more inclusive and like, do you know what you're saying? You're alienating all the people that buy it and love it and counting on people who don't buy it and love it to start buying it and loving it and Maybe that'll work, but you just alienated everybody who buys it love it. It's the dumbest poker move of all time the worst the worst move well, you know when you look at country music to I mean with country music, I mean It is what it is. There's things that it is. And you gotta, you gotta love on what it is. And then you gotta grow it too. I mean there's,

there's sensible ways to grow it. But it has to be up to the artist to just express themselves honestly. And if the artist is a country artist that has a different perspective, let that be. But leave all the rest of it the way it is too. Buddy, with every successful music artist that's ever lived, they may have faked you out, any genre, but country is even, country's tough, because once you show any unauthenticity, buddy, you're done. I can imagine. Like, dude, I mean, like, dude, my thing was tight jeans. You wouldn't imagine me wearing tight jeans on stage. How much that pisses

people. Well, it's because you're handsome. But that's part of the problem. You're a good looking guy up there with tight jeans. Shaking ass. Shaking that ass, showing that bulge. Get out of here. Dude, and then I'm like... Bring back Merle Haggardgard what the fuck is this? So Joe you know one thing you know my biggest my biggest hurdle ever in my my career and it still breaks my heart to this day. I you know, back when I, my only way to, your only way to make it in music is you've

got to stop people's eyeballs on you. You got to grab them vocally, visually, musically different. You got to get them to stop for two seconds, go, what is that? What is that fucker doing right there? And when I came out with Country Girl Shake It For Me on the CMA shaking my ass, I mean, I had to do it that way. In my opinion, I had to go, this is my moment to show country girl checker for me and I'm the guy that dances and don't give a damn and let's have some fun and come along for the ride. And it was amazing. It was amazing. You know, the fact that I'm a

Georgia boy at the time and I was talking to Texas people I was talking to everybody well then at some point a label for me came became bro country you ever even heard that time did I did because of you yeah well so I heard it and I'm like well bro country well then I started seeing the people making fun of Bro Country and I'm like, this is kind of fucking pissing me off. And then, and then me and some other artists start getting looped into this Bro Country phase. Well, when I was in my form of coming up as an artist, and I don't even know, we don't have to live

on this long, but you'll be amazed, dude. So I would go play, I made my way by going to Georgia and playing Georgia college towns in the southeast, and even I played Auburn a little bit, Auburn, Alabama, and that school, I always wanted to break into Auburn and Tuscaloosa because I was always a Georgia artist. Well, I started branching out. Well, dude, I'd get done with a college party. I'd walk off stage. The first thing that would happen is, you know, 369, damn, she fine, give it to me, give it to me one more time, get low,

get low. I mean, and right when my set got done, hip hop, the vibe went to a nightclub. And I'm standing, I'm at the, I done walked off the stage, went to the bar, ordered the beer, and watched everybody that just let me play Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, all the classics, my couple of new songs. And I was like, well man, this is, nobody's got a fucking problem with this. This is, this is, we're all together in this good time.

So when I did Country Girl Shake It for me, that made that tie. Crossover. It combined them. It made it tie to a little bit. Yeah. And then Jason Aldean had his, she's country, fucking biggest song when I heard, I mean, at the time when Jason and I are buddies, he does She's Country, I do Country Girl Shake for me, and me and him are like, we're like, this shit. Our lives are, I mean, I toured with Jason one year and he broke all of Elvis' indoor records.

We did it for two years. I was the opener and Jason was the headliner and people and and rap was we were playing rap before the show and and everybody was in well then bro country comes along. Dude, I wake up on the bus one morning and I got this interview sitting there drinking my coffee and my fucking underwear and this dude calls me with Hits magazine and he goes, well Luke, you know, man this pro-country thing. And I said, well hold up buddy, here's what this is. And I said, and man, I did this and I made one fatal error. And at the time, Joe, no one hated my ass. I believe that. I mean, I didn't, because I was coming to Billy Bob's,

playing in, well, I had Texas, I had the, I had the, I had the, I had a, I'd go to, I'd go to Bozeman, Montana and play Country Girl Shake It for me. I'd go to everywhere. Well, and I said, man, I don't know how to be an outlaw. I'm not an outlaw. That ain't, I'm a, I'm a college dude that played frat parties for country music. I played... I was like, I fucking did not go sit in a prison cell like Murrell Haggard and write songs about guys going to death row. And I didn't go to Folsom Prison. And man, I listed all the, I was like, I'm not like Willie

Nelson. I don't do Willie Nelson. They're outlaws. And I said, if it's bro country, and that's what I'm labeled as, I said, and where I fucked up, as I said, I haven't, I haven't spent the night like sleeping on the street. And I didn't say, like Johnny Cash's song, Sunday morning coming down. That's what I meant. I just didn't tie it. Well, that dude took that article and said, Luke Bryan says outlaw country people are basically drug addicts sleeping in the street. And man, I pissed that whole, that the way they

manipulated that story, I lost that whole crowd right there. Wow. Broke my heart. And wait, like I think Waylon Jennings daughter went real public with being, I mean, she's fucking mad at my ass. And dude, she went on there going, you know, Luke, my dad never laid and I never meant that. I just meant, yeah, Waylon was in there too. But we all know what all those guys are because we got to watch all the documentaries about those guys and we got to be students of those guys. That's the problem with interviews is first of all, they're trying to get you.

What your interviews are the beauty. Well, and you, no one's gotten popped more than you because they'll take our, man, I hope we sit here and bullshit for three hours, but they'll take your five minutes. Right, out of context. Now they'll AI you. That's happened a lot. So, well, so what happened, man, that thing started growing.

And man, I had motorcycle gangs wanting to burn my house down. When you get misrepresented in that type of deal and then the subcategories of articles then the article of the article of the article. What year was this? Man I don't know we I don't it was probably 2012 or 13. So this was when social this was that was not as impactful. It was becoming Was YouTube even around then? Yes and clickbait the world of clickbait was was getting started getting rocking right and But what so what I did is man. I called Waylon Jennings' daughter and said, I said, ma'am, I just forgot to say, like the Chris Christopherson song, Sunday Morning Coming Down. That's all I meant by

that. And I think she accepted. I called, I text Willie. He sent me the best reply. He goes, it's okay to step on your dick, just don't stand on it. I called Jesse Coulter and she goes, Luke, what did you mean in the interview? And I told her. And she goes, Waylon stopped doing print interview. And, and it was, and then, but by then the, the, the narrative started and since then I can always tell that if that one little thing I probably would have kept that whole base. And then the, oh my God, he wears tight jeans and he must homosexual on the side as I'm

posing with my all-American family. I think it's probably a thing also they think Hollywood has invaded country music, which is always a big threat because there's so much money in country music that they think these Hollywood executives that don't understand or appreciate real country are going to come in and make something inauthentic. So then they hear you saying that, get misrepresented, and then they take it as a part of all that, right? Joe Latt, so my album came out. I worked on an album for three years. It's called Mind of a Country Boy, and I put it out like first of October. And I didn't want

to put the damn album out because the reality is I'm not at the height. Every artist hits their peak. You know it. I mean, I sold out. I was selling out football stadiums first day. Three or four years I did it. I know that's my peak, probably. I know it is.

Fuck, I'm not going to even say probably. I'm a realist. Well, so we put the album out and I said, you know what? The albums, no albums sell. Nothing sells anymore. So I knew there was gonna be a negative take on the album. I knew something negative would come by me putting the album out based on it may not sell. And it sold what it would. It didn't do, it did what I thought it'd do. As me being the artist where I'm at My life in this world of streaming right nothing's buying nothing's buying. Well, dude, I did 2040 I did 40 hours of

40 hours of You know all the stuff The what's happened is because of online advertising being the primary source of income for news, they have to do clickbait shit. They have to distort things and then they have editors that don't give a shit about anything other than the bottom line. So you get a writer, even if the writer is a good person, I've had writers that I know have written about people that I know and they told me that their editor came in and changed things. They told me

their editor came in and changed things out. Because their editor's ass is about to get canned. Yeah, exactly. Because his company just got bought by a big conglomerate. Exactly. That's why artists should just stay away from that shit. Well, and I knew it. What sucks is, dude, you know it. You know when you're getting baited. You can see it coming a mile away. You have to film everything you do, every conversation you have with someone, you should film them all so that no one can take you out of context. And then if anything goes wrong, say that guy's full of shit, this is what I said. And then maybe even make a video.

And those people should be shamed. It's a terrible, evil, ugly thing you do. You crush people's perspective. You change how the world looks at people just for clickbait and it could it could genuinely affect someone's life. Dude man listen you know the deal. I mean I grew up in South Georgia and you know we've raised our dang kids like colorblind. It's so awesome. I'm so proud of their colorblindness.

Isn't it funny that that is a negative thing to say today? That people don't like that idea? Did I just say something negative? Yeah, there's a lot of people that don't think you should be colorblind. They think that that's a lie. See I thought that way. You should think that way. That was what we were all working towards until about 2012.

Have you ever seen like the numbers? I'm gonna send you this Jamie, because this is what people need to understand. A lot of what we're all experiencing is manipulation. And a lot of this manipulation might not even be from our own country. A lot of this manipulation is what happens when you have foreign entities

that are manipulating people. Oh yeah, that's it. Thank you. Look at that. Jamie, you're the best. Yearly mentions of prejudice in popular U.S. news media outlets. Now look at what happens. Look at this crazy spike. So you have everything from 1970 until you have like 1990. See, what's going on in 1990 between 80 and 90? You have cable. OK? So now you have people that need more eyes on their shit. So you have Fox News.

You have a lot of this. You have people who get a little bit more jazzed up. Look at transphobia. You never even heard what the fuck that was until 2010. Look, look how it just jumps up in 2020. In 1990 didn't exist. 1980 didn't exist. Islamophobia, same deal. Anti-Semitism. Scroll all the way up to the top though, Jamie. So look at racism. Racism is essentially fairly steady until around 2012 and then it goes on this wild ramp straight up.

The New York Times from 2010 to 2020, it goes up 712%. Los Angeles Times, 756%. It just skyrockets all the mention of racism. Why? Because no one of racism. Why? Because no one wants racism, no one wants to be racist, everyone's scared of being called racist, and all the race hustlers love to call people racist. So it becomes a commodity. So people start trading in racism.

And this idea that you shouldn't be colorblind, and then you should recognize race, you should recognize color, and stop, we were on a good path to what Martin Luther King said, judging people based on the content of their character. We were on that path and social media and manipulation fucked us and hopefully we realize what happened now and I think there'll be a downward trend and people will sort of like wake up and I think that is that's one thing that is Balancing out right now with the internet is enough people realize they've been manipulated So starting to like calm down a lot of this woke shit started to die off

It's people are coming to their senses like everybody's woke up from a fever dream But as far as your situation and dealing with the media don't oh, I just don't You know you Just don't. You should, you have a- When you're so dang, you know the deal. You're naive. You're a little bit naive, because you're a nice guy. But it's because you're a good person.

That's why you're naive. You assume other people are good people. Well, you know what, man, what's amazing is when I'm on American Idol, that desk, and I've been doing it for nine damn years, and I have cried with everybody when those kids come in they are everybody walking through that door is a microcosm of America and man I've sat there and loved and loved and learned. Do you enjoy doing that? I do. Nothing is more amazing than watching a broken kid that's been told they're not good. And they come from everywhere. It could be the man, the craziest thing is the kids that were raised in the homes of doctors. That the doctor family can't wrap their head around my child

wanting to go try this fucking music thing. What? Well, you're, we're doctors. We're doctors. And man, when they branch out and the family gets behind them and then they go and follow their dreams and man, it's really, it doesn't get old. I mean, listen, I mean it's a fun chair to be in. It's a fun chair to be in because that door opens

and it's a life that comes in and you don't know what the hell. You know, we have a note or two like, you know, just lost their father to cancer three months ago, you know, from a small town. But other than that, man, we don't know what they're going to do and how they're going to react. And it's pretty cool. I mean, you know, when I had just moved to Nashville when American Idol was just, I mean, 40 million viewers a week, and the, you. And the tone in Nashville is, that's the cheap route to get famous.

Because I came up through, you got to play a thousand nightclubs, you got to go through, you got to meet the record labels, you got to do the radio, you got to go meet everybody at radio. So the whole town of Nashville was like, well, it's not totally fair that they get to just pop on TV and, and, and, you know, and skip all the, but now, I mean, now all that's gone, which is great. Well, here's an example, Oliver Anthony. Totally. Oliver Anthony has one song he releases. It's the most, pull up that song, because this fucking song, this dude song he releases it's the most pull up that song Because this fucking song this dude when I when I heard a camera and him with his guitar heard it

I was like, holy shit That's fucking amazing and holy shit that guy better have some songs to come behind. Yeah. Well, he's a talented mother He is I mean a, very bright man. And it's what life should. My soul's working all day. Over time, how are you gonna bullshit pay so I can sit out here and waste my life away? Drag back home and drown my troubles away.

It's a damn shame what the world's gotten to. Listen to that. Damn, Shane. Listen to that. This dude was selling equipment. He'd never even done a concert. First concert he does is like 18,000 people at a state fair. And he's as genuine as you get. You had him on here, correct?

I had him on here and I actually gave him advice. How did he do? He did great because I gave him advice before I met him because he was in the middle of all this and he goes, hey man, he goes, can I talk to you? We talked on the phone. I'm like, what's up? He's like, man, I'm getting all these offers from all these people. They want to buy this and buy that and they want to give me $7 million if I do this and

sign that. I said, stay independent. I go, you have talent. Everyone's saying I have to act now. I go, fuck those people. I go, you don't have to act now. That's famine thinking. I go, you have talent. Everyone's saying I have to act now. I go, fuck those people. I go, you don't have to act now. That's famine thinking. I go, you're talented, man. I had heard a couple of his other songs as well. He's fucking talented and he's genuine. And I go, you can't fake that. Just stick, stay independent, man, because they're not

going to offer you anything. Those people are just going to, the reason why they want to give you a lot of money is because they're going to make way more than they're going to give you. That's the only reason why they want to give you money. They want a piece of you before you become one of the biggest stars in the world. And then they own a chunk of you forever because they gave you $7 million and you didn't have any money. They go, just bank on yourself, man. Yeah.

And God, you know, the beauty of idol is, and guys like this, there's so many avenues now. You can go the old-fashioned route, you can go the quick route, you can go the idol route, you can go video yourself on all your social platforms and the right song can blow you up. And then you got to go do the real work. You got to do the real work and you you gotta have other bullets in your chamber. That's what we tell the kids on Idol now. I think when Idol was really, really, obviously when Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood won

and even people after that, they went their ass to work too. It's an insane opportunity. These kids on Idol now, they love seeing their social media platforms go up 1000% and it's worth it. And you know, we, you know, and there's going to be bumps in the road and it's, you know, it's still, you know, it's still, you know, there's going to be a, you know, a group of people saying, you know, American Idol may exploit these kids. But man, I'm in the back, I'm behind the scenes on everything, and man, we won't, you know,

they won't, when we get a kid that we love, man, we sit around, we go to dinner, and we talk about that kid and love them. And I think, you know, these kids leave it going, man, that was a great experience for them. I hope so, but you know. I'm sure they do. And it is an insane opportunity. If you want to be a professional musician and you want to make a career out of it, it's one of the most unbelievable moments. You got to do your path. Yeah. You got, my path was my path and it was unique to mine. Because yours is different, that don't mean I need to hate you for it.

There's a lot of that shit with comedians today too. Because a comedian will have one clip where he's doing some crowd work or one clip of one bit that everybody loves and then all of a sudden he's selling out and everybody's like, that guy. He only had one good joke. Yeah, he's only been around for three years. But so what? let him run with it We'll let him run with it

You know, it's it's we're living in a new world. It's like the song World why wouldn't we all want someone else to win? Right? What is wrong? What's wrong with people winning? It's like you have figured out how to feed yourself with a guitar. You figured out how to tell jokes and make a living. And you know, all like, man, like I said, dude, I won't even post my damn deer I killed. Because I don't want to, I don't want to get online and be there with a glass of wine at 3 a.m And start motherfuckers

Like dude, I want to kill them And I Yeah, you in like I said you get over it you get over it, but man, it pisses you off. I don't read anything. I tell everybody, don't read anything. Don't read anything about you. Just don't. Don't read the good stuff, don't read the bad stuff.

I do good with it. I mean, hell, I'm sitting here, I'm a 48-year-old man. My shit's in the bank, but it still makes you mad. It still makes you mad. It doesn't matter, even if you're undeniable. It doesn't matter, even if you're undeniable. It doesn't matter. It's a human instinct to read negative things and get upset. Because humans always had to worry about threats.

And if the threats were other tribes or predators or whatever. You had to attack that threat. So we're mentally conditioned to look for threats. What is it, fight or flight or something? Well, it's also like if you have 100 hundred people who love you but one that hates you, that one is the one you're going to think about. You're not going to think of all the people that say you're awesome. You're going to think about that one that hates you.

And then you have to think about the kind of people that post comments. Most of the people who post comments are miserable people. Not the positive comments, but the negative comments. I started a thing, you know, and I know you've got people in your world where, man, you know, there's assholes and you'll huddle up and you'll spend an hour talking about how you can't believe how big an asshole that person is. Yeah. And I'm like, guys, we're 15 minutes in on talking about this person being an asshole. We wasted 15 minutes on life. We wasted 15 minutes on us trying to figure out, why can't they stop being an asshole?

You basically wasted one 100th of your day. On somebody that sucks. You only get 100 of those 15 minutes in a day, you wasted one talking about a shithead. It's a mess. But it's a normal thing that people do. You just got to not do it. You You gotta realize that this is a new world. And I've gotten conscious where when I see other buddies doing it, I'm like, whoa, whoa,

whoa, whoa. Get out of there. Yeah. Man. I recognized it when I was on television before social media. There was a thing called, there was these Hollywood magazines like Variety and the Hollywood Reporter and I would always call them the Devil's Rag because I would get to the set of the TV show and everybody was reading the Devil's Rag. They were all like, oh, I can't believe they're number two.

We should be number one. We should be right after Friends. Everybody was upset and I was like, you guys are, I'm on TV. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you people. I'm on television I can't believe I'm on TV You guys are upset that we're number 30 instead of number two or whatever the fuck it is Can we just appreciate the fact that this is back when there was only like five networks? Can we appreciate the fact that we're one of the luckiest human beings that have ever lived? We're on a fucking television show. And yet you're reading these magazines.

And it's like, is it Thomas Jefferson who wrote that quote? Comparison is a thief of joy. But whoever was that? Was it Jefferson? I know we know who it was. We've read it before. But that quote is so accurate. Comparison.

That's why billionaires. I know a dude who's worth like a billion and a half dollars, and he thinks he's broke because he's friends with like Jeff Bezos Do not get into that you cannot get into that world there. You can't win you can't win because you're in a crazy fucking numbers Race and it doesn't mean anything. You're not even enjoying what you have so my wife for her 40th birthday, man I Surprised her, I surprised her and I rented her, never done anything. We rented like a hundred twenty foot boat and took all our college friends down to St. Barts for New Year's. Have you ever

heard of this scene? No. Is it crazy? Joe. So first of all, I mean, this boat that we got is a 120 foot Westport. Beautiful. We get to St. Bart's. I didn't know what the fuck we were doing. Oh, you're in the yacht world. Okay. So you're entering into these worlds of 200 foot boats, 250 foot boats. The oligarchs. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I've seen that before. And it's in St. Barts and they all float there for New Year's. And it's all dick measuring contests.

Dude. And my captain of that little boat, which that boat looked like, our boat that we were on looked like their shuttle boats. Right. And my captain, I said, did you ever pilot one of those? He goes, oh yeah. He goes, I said, what were they doing on there?

He goes, looking at the other boats wondering. I said, that dude is on a fucking billion dollar yacht and pissed at the other billion dollar yacht. Yeah, that's real. They're all in competition with each other and they're all hating. You know, and I'm entering in, yeah, you just got to get your little world, like my little world now. Keep it tight. My little Tennessee hunting world. I tell people all the time. They're like, come on down to my ranch. I'm like, man, I got my little deal. Yeah, it's enough. Stay sane. Keep it tight. What are they doing on that boat?

Can't in that nuts imagine being a 250 foot yacht looking at the dude on the 300 foot yacht going. God damn it I got an upgrade. I was talking to a dude who pilots yachts and he was telling me that they they always want to sell them They always want to sell them and get another one goes all these yachts are always almost for sale I go how come he goes because they're always want another yacht they always want a bigger yacht it's a trap it's a giant trap imagine having all that money you're not even appreciating it because you're worried about making more remember we were kids if you said do like what would you do if you had a million dollars but never work again I'd fucking just well you, you know, I remember dreaming.

Did you lay in bed and just be like, I remember dreaming about trying to do it and how I was gonna go. Are you gonna get rich? How am I gonna get, I wouldn't say rich, how am I gonna be able to have my own little, my own bass pond? Right.

Cause I would have to call other people and get permission. Right. And that dude, the anxiety of calling old farmer, going, hey, you know, farmer Johnson, can I go fish your bass lake? I don't know, Luke, not today. I'd be like, fuck. And so I remember doing that.

And then when you start achieving it, man, I still, I mean, I don't think it's, I don't think I'm living in that world of like the other digging. You know, I think you can for a minute. Yeah. I think it can, I think you can for a little bit. Like it's a trap. It is a trap. And the problem is it's all numbers.

No, it's like, you know, dudes are crazy with deer. Like I want a 200 inch deer, 200 inch mule deer. You can't do that. I want a 400 inch elk. They get crazy with numbers. It's like, you know how dudes are crazy with deer? Like I want a 200 inch deer. 200 inch male deer. I want a 400 inch elk. They get crazy with numbers. I talked to this dude who worked on a ranch and they have a big elk on this ranch and he said, sometimes the contras are really happy with an elk and then they'll put a tape to it and measure it and it's 396 and they get bummed out because it's not 400. I'm like, those people are sick. You should never have them here again. You should boy band them. They should never be allowed to be here again.

That's a sickness. But that's what happens with these people with everything, man. I never had a dream of being wealthy. It was never a dream. It was never even in my imagination did I ever think I was gonna be rich. I never even thought about it.

When I started doing standup comedy comedy my dream was to be a professional because I always had jobs My dream was to be able to pay my bills with comedy. I looked at all that was yeah, that was now My dream. Yeah, let me make sure I didn't steer you wrong on that my dream was to To do these things out of being driven. Like, when I moved to Nashville, I wrote on a chalkboard, write a number one song. You know, win a CMA award. You know. Oh, you had a little vision board. I had a little vision board.

Nice. But I didn't understand, I didn't really comprehend the money after that because I didn't know it. And I didn't know like, like people are like, I'm a big Georgia Bulldog fan. And they're like, did you go to Georgia? And I'm like, buddy, me going to the University of Georgia when I was 18 years old, I mean, I barely, my dad barely got the money for me to go to the community college 12 minutes down the road.

So going to Georgia didn't... Wasn't even thought. I didn't even put it in there. Right. So go ahead. Well, I'm just saying that when I see people that that's all they care about is the money. And then they're always thinking about the richness in them. I just think it's a trap.

And the problem is, if you're always comparing yourself to other people, you're not going to enjoy what you have. You're not going to enjoy this experience, temporary experience of life. Pete Slauson Right. Pete Slauson You know? Pete Slauson Because it is temporary. Pete Slauson It's so quick. I'm 57 years old. How the fuck did that happen? All of a sudden, you just keep getting older. And then, you know, one day you're dead. And I bet on your deathbed, you're

like, how did it happen so quick? How did it happen so quick? What are you doing with your time? And are you enjoying it? And I think you need things outside of what you do that you love. And like for you and I, I think it's hunting and the outdoors. You gotta have the outlet. Because I think it balances you. I think there's something very spiritual about it. I think there's something just being in the woods, it's a very spiritual experience, like a real spiritual experience. I think it's like a vitamin that you don't know you need until you get it.

And when you get it, you feel better. When I'm out there, I feel better. I just feel better. I'm like the air is cleaner. I feel more in touch with being alive. It just feels better. And I think I'm not thinking air is cleaner. I feel more in touch with being alive It just feels better and I think I'm not thinking about anything else when I'm if I'm elk hunting I'm not thinking about jokes and I'm not thinking about podcast guests. I'm not thinking about jack shit I'm just thinking about what I'm doing. That's it. It's and it's it's very difficult to do and

It's it you have to really focus and you're thinking about it You're always trying to improve and this that alone is good for your brain it's good for you know I lost you know I lost my brother and my sister and my sister's husband passed away and man when and then yes I lost my brother at 26 my sister at 39 and her husband died at 45 and Man, it is present the daily appreciation of this deal Yes Visually present isn't that crazy about people though

It's like they almost need to lose something to be able to appreciate what you have. Well, and I tell people lose something to be able to appreciate what you have. Well, and I tell people, man, you know, you meet, I tell people, man, really be careful because if you make it to 80, you're going to get, you're going to get popped with something. I don't think you can get through this thing. Like some kind of a disease or something? No, no, I don't. Well, I'm saying you're going to lose something. You're going to lose something you're gonna lose something dear you're not gonna get through a to Z without really a hard a

Hard loss. No, that's and it's a part of life and but some people man. They're just delusional And then well, they're delusional and then a lot of people are medicated too So that they don't even know what the fuck is going on while they're living this life. They're living this life under the influence of the pharmaceutical drug companies and they're just floating through life in a haze and they don't even know what's happening while it's happening. And then they get to the end.

And then what'd you do? What'd you do? Did you help people? Did you make people feel better? Did you inspire people? Did you enrich people's lives? Did you inspire people? Did you enrich people's lives? What'd you do? You know and then then you have to realize like goddamn. I wasted a lot of time reading comments Thank you

Thank you for doing that a lot of time get mad I don't do it bad. That's what's funny Everybody says they don't look at their phone. They go, let me see your screen time. Six hours? Jesus, bitch. What the fuck are you doing? Oh, Lord. Yeah, man. I mean... Well, we're all... This is a new world, too, in terms of that. I keep saying this is a new world, but this really is a new element to our lives, is this social media element. And I think there's not a lot of stuff that's written on it where people understand yeah we're learning and yeah we're

the we're the lab rats we really are especially our kids our kids really are the lab rats that we were the kids really are and not just that also access to violence they see so much violence they see so much violence. They see so much online. That's horrible. Think about I Think about this all the time. I Would go stay with a buddy at his house He go man. I rented faces of death remember those I

Wouldn't watch him. I'd be like man. My parents told me not to watch that He goes what you don't watch this guy get electrocuted and I'm like Fuck no, I don't want to do get electrocuted dude We're watching people We're watching people there. It's yeah, if you're on Instagram, you're seeing people dying. Every day. Every day I have friends that send me horrible shit. I mean, leg breaking.

I mean, I remember Joe Theismann, when Joe Theismann broke his leg. Dude, it like shut the country down. Yeah. I know, now that's nothing. And now it's like. That's nothing. I watched a dude on a diving board and his foot fell in a crack in the dive diving more had an opening in it And he went forward and his knee stayed in the same place and just snapped his leg the wrong way and he's screaming

Hanging from a broken leg That's just one thing I saw today. I Thought you don't do that. I watch things on Instagram. I just don't read comments. But me and Tom Segura, we send each other the most horrible shit every day. It's ridiculous. But some days he sends me things I don't even look at him. I'm like, not today. Oh, I can see it coming.

But I do love the funny comical aspect of it that gets me and a cup of coffee dying laughing at some person being a goofball. Or memes. Some memes- They got us though. They got us. Yeah, memes are some of the best comedy out there. And it's just random people create these funny things.

There's a lot of funny people out there. What's amazing is we've gotten to where we can see the meme happen and predict the meme and the memes on your phone the next day. And you're like, I mean. Within hours. Oh yeah. They're so quick. And memes are weird because a lot of times you don't even know who made it.

You're sharing it. Somebody sends it to you. You send it to other people like, who made this? Who's the wizard that figured this out? It's fucking hilarious. It's like a meme factory. Well, it's like jokes. Remember jokes like, you know, two guys walking to a bar?

Those jokes? Who fucking wrote those? We don't know, but some of them were bangers. They spread. They just spread. Spread across the whole country. But somebody had to be the guy that sat down and tells the story. Two guys walking to a bar.

And then it's everywhere. Well, I mean, there's a million places we can go, but it's, you know, you look at, yeah, I mean, the damn children, my kids, I mean, we're yelling at them every day, get up, get off the phone, get outside, and they do a good job, but man, I think it's just, it's a part of their deal. They're being influenced by things far beyond our control, you know, way different than anything that any other generation has ever experienced before. Like my son, he's a 16 year old quarterback, and man he watches all these other quarterbacks. Hell, there are 14 recruiting download sites from, and my son's like, that dude right there is the greatest quarterback in the country.

I said, well, how old is he, Bo? He's 15, Dad. I'm like, Bo, we don't know what that little shit's gonna be. What are you talking about? He goes, well, Dad, he's a five-star and he's 15. I'm like, Bo, your dad, when I moved to Nashville, I was a one-star country singer. If I'd had a rating next to me and probability of me making it, yeah, it would have been a one-star. I worked myself into hopefully a three-star, three-star recruit. And he's looking at me like I'm crazy. And so one of those kids, he played them.

Now, my son's not starting. He's backup quarterback to a great quarterback. And we played him and we beat him. We get down, he gets home after the game. I said, what'd you think about your little savior there? He goes, he's still the greatest quarterback of all time. I said, boo, he lost the fucking game. He's 15. Just son, let it, let's let life happen before we anoint. Yeah.

Just be inspired. Be inspired by other's success. But don't take it too seriously. And also recognize that kid might start getting laid and throw it all away. Exactly. He don't know what's gonna... Yeah, you're 15, you don't know what the fuck's coming your way. You don't know what, yeah.

Yeah, you're running some Russian chicken English class Yeah, it's some new Russian exchange student that needs a it needs an English tutor Yeah, all of a sudden you don't have any sperm left in your body. You're dehydrated all day long Yeah, you're you're getting the electrolytes on the sideline and you're not doing any offseason running or lifting. You're busy Also people just they lose the focus, you know, and sometimes they get pushed too hard by their parents. There's a little bit of that too. The kids rebel, they don't want to do it anymore. Anything can happen. But that's what's fascinating about life is that it's all open. Your daughters are how old now? 28, 16 and 14. Yeah, the 16 and

14. The 16 and 14 are Yeah, the 16 and 14. The 16 and 14 are going through a totally different experience. The girls are... The girls are way... I mean, I just... They're way more influenced in a negative way. My heart aches for girls in this... Well, there's some alarming statistics about

the growth of social media from like 2009, where you see girls with self-harm, all sorts of psychological conditions, online bullying, because girls are fucking vicious to each other online. Boys will run into each other and punch each other in the face, but girls will attack each other's character and they're reputation destroyers. And they love to like make up stories about girls

and be mean about girls and talk shit about the way girls look and the way girls dress and the guys girls are dating and they do it to each other and it's just, it's unfortunate but that's what gossip used to be. Gossip used to just be talking though. It's like a normal thing where girls get around and talk. But now they talk online and when they talk online then other people read it like,

and you're ruining people's lives. You're ruining little girls' lives. And suicide is off the charts, and self-harm is off the charts, and mostly young girls are getting affected by it. When I have my 14-year-old go, Dad, I'm anxious about this, I'm like, I didn't know the word anxious. Right. I didn't know the word anxious until I was 35 years

old. Right? Right. Right. It wasn't thought when we were kids in high school. It wasn't processed as anxiety. It was processed as like... Life. Yeah. You get nervous. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I got a big test. My stomach hurts. I got to go take a shit. Right. Right. Right. Now it's take a shit. Right, right, right.

Yeah. Right. Now it's a thing they think about all the time, and the problem with that is Abigail Schreier wrote a book about this. You focus on your problems, your problems oftentimes become bigger. When you think about things like anxiety, guess what? Makes you more anxious. It doesn't help it.

It actually has the opposite effect. Yeah, it's a weird world, but they're gonna be okay. We're all gonna be okay. We're just gonna have to adjust and figure it out on the fly. It's just this adjustment is bigger than any adjustment that any generation's ever had to make before. But it's also like, look at things like Oliver Anthony. Good comes out of it too. You know, Jelly Roll. Jelly Roll, Jesus. Love that dude. Best thing ever.

He's one of my favorite human beings ever. Best thing. He's such a fucking sweetheart. best thing ever. He's one of my favorite human beings ever best thing He's such a fucking sweetheart best thing ever and that guy sang that song save me and everybody was like what is going on? This this fucking ex con with tattoos on his face with a voice like an angel Best thing ever incredible, but that's this is all possible today, too So you got good and you got bad It's just you got to navigate the waters. You got to know where the rocks are steer that boat young sailor, you know and what amazes me is is Man what breaks my heart is when people think they're all alone in their

Thing that's hanging up their life. When you meet somebody, and it's all scaled way differently. When you meet, you know, I've had people, you know, when you grow up in a country music band and you're on the bus for hours with buddies and everybody go they got their own life and then man you find out I had one band member almost kill himself over something that if he'd have just had somebody say man I have that too right right and he would have not felt alone Right and and people have got a quit like thinking that they're the only ones That have gone through some gone through this thing. Yeah. Well, that's why you need people that you love. Yeah, that's why I need friends

See my household my household was a man. We sat at the dinner table and dude it it came out man, we sat at the dinner table and dude, it came out. I thought that. That's good. And then, but my wife's household was, man, they, you know, Bottled it up. They bottled it up and it all worked and we don't know who came out better. But me and my wife, you know, we work on like, you know, we work on like, I mean like my wife never saw her mama like in the shower, like just showering, you know, like walk through the house naked. I mean, hell, we had one bathroom.

It was like we were a bunch of damn naked idiots running around trying to get to the bathroom. And my wife said, yeah, my mama did not shower with the door open. And I'm like, or, and I'm like, really? She's like and I'm like or and I'm like really? She's like I'm like you're kidding me never once I'm like just that's kind of crazy. Everybody's. Well when you have daughters is a certain amount of time where you can't be naked in front of me anymore. Once they hit like four or five years old you're like okay that's a wrap. My 16 year old so my beard we're living in our

guest house right now because we're doing some work to our main house. Our main house had stuff that just kept happening. We were like, we're moving out and when we move back in, have it all fixed. So we got a 22 year old, a 16 year old living in the same house. When my wife stored all of my bathroom stuff, living in the same house. When my wife stored all of my bathroom stuff, it's in a box somewhere on my shaving gear. I run into my son's bathroom, my 16-year-old, and I grabbed this beer trimmer. I grabbed this fucking trimmer sitting there, and I shaved my beard, and I'm all up under my nose. – You smell ball hair? – No! I get in my truck truck and I'm driving down the road, my son gets home from school crying laughing. What? Dad, you shaved your beard with my ball trimmers! And I was like,

you little shit. First of all, I'm like, what in the hell? 16-year-old manscaping? What the fuck's going on? It's a new world. I know. I'm like, dude, I never imagined you had, I don't even think he's, you know, whatever. These damn, it's so fun, man. These kids, my dad, my, my, god, it's so amazing. Dude, we, you know, we were elk hunting, man, and my 14-year-old, we got this really cool, when we go elk hunting, we got a way to cross a river to get to our elk spot. And the first couple years, man, we just stripped down to our underwear and hung our boots and all our gear and walked underwear and dude, it was kind of like we're really men, you

know? Right. And so Tate and Bo, Bo the first time, I would put him on my shoulders and walk him. Well then, after two years we were like, dude, let's go by and get like eight pairs of waders and set them on the bank and we'll leave the waders and everybody's like, that's a damn good idea. I'm like, yeah. I mean, how many years does it take y'all to understand, go get some damn waders? So Tate, for the past three years, I've towed him across the river.

And man, I looked at him the last day of the hunt. And this was Tate's year to try to get an elk. And he actually died. I kind of messed up the elk hunt. I moved and spooked the elk, which was great because he realized that just because you're Luke Bryan's son, you don't get the damn elk. And I said, hey, I want to tow you across the river. I said, you're growing, and this is probably the last year.

So I towed him across the river. And then on the way back, he goes, hey, dad, I want to weight it by myself. You don't realize how much your kids really are watching you, but we're sitting on the bank and he's watching me and I sit my bow down. And he takes his bow and sits it down and he watches everything I do. And it was the cutest thing ever. I haven't even told my wife. So every year I take my boots and I tie them in a knot and I hang them and throw them over

my... because we're toting gear and I throw my boots over my shoulders so they don't get wet. And man, I looked at him and he's sitting there tying his little string. He stands up and throws in boots and he just... man, watching your kids just absorb it is just, you know, it's pretty damn special. It sounds like you're having a beautiful life my friend. Well it's uh. It really does. Kids make it. It really does it really does. Luke thank you very much man this is a lot of fun. I hope we. How long was that? More than three hours. Was it? Yeah yeah. Holy shit. Yeah it's 430. Three hours. Here it is.

Mind of a country boy, listen or download now. Look at you, you handsome bastard. Well. Fucking tight jeans. Get you. Tight jeans, everybody hates me. They don't hate you, man. Just don't read the ones that do.

Oh shit. Appreciate you, brother. Thank you very much. Love you. Hey, love you too. Love you too. Bye everybody.