This Past Weekend - E362 Brian Barczyk

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

Brian Barczyk is a reptile expert that owns the reptile zoo "The Reptarium". Theo talks with Brian about snakes, reptiles, catching crocodiles, and what drugs NOT to be on when handling them. Brian Ba...rczyk YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4zS1wbO81p59CxKL7CQAcA The Reptarium YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/AnimalBytesTV New Merch: http://theovonstore.com  New Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour Podcastville mugs and digital prints available now at https://theovon.pixels.com Support our Sponsors: The Zebra: http://thezebra.com/THEO  Public Rec: http://PublicRec.com  and use promo code THEO for 10% off Urbanista: http://urbanista.com/theo  to get 20% off your entire order BlockFi: http://blockfi.com/THEO  bonus $25 in crypto after you make first purchase with credit card Egnyte: http://egnyte.com  to start your free trial Better Help: betterhelp.com/THEO 10% off first month Liquid Death: https://liquiddeath.com  Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to tpwproducer@gmail.com. Hit the Hotline 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: http://bit.ly/TPW_VideoHotline Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/groups/thispastw... Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiEK... Producer: Spencer Liautaud https://instagram.com/adventuresofspe... Producer: Colin Reiner https://instagram.com/colin_reiner    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:04:33 It is Mr. Brian Barczak. Yeah, man. So I guess I think my top fears with snakes are, and I don't do people, do people come to you suddenly like, well, I feel like, I feel like snakes create so much fear in me that right when I see you, I want to tell you about it. Right. Yeah. Like you're the middle man for them.
Starting point is 00:05:29 Yeah. You know, and I'm really good at getting people over their fears, right? You know, like, that's one of the things I pride myself on, you know, I mean, every single week we have dozens and dozens of people that come to my reptile zoo that are like, I am terrified. And I'm like, your pace, but I guarantee you by the time we're done, you're going to be holding snakes. So never, never going to happen.
Starting point is 00:05:46 Then they're holding like a 12 foot python, you know, by the end. So I'm telling you, when I get you to my place, you're going to be holding the giant snake. I'm telling you. Dang, man. Yeah. I don't know if I want it. You know, I think, I think snakes, for some reason, create so much fear in me, you know, why is it that snake is that fear animal?
Starting point is 00:06:04 You know, I think it's, you know, I mean, it goes back to probably a bunch of things, right? Biblical number one, number two, they are either love them or hate them, right? You know what I mean? And there's that thing I always talk about, like, you know, I think Howard Stern once said the thing like similar where it's like, if you love snakes, you want to talk to me. If you hate snakes, you want to talk to me more. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:06:24 It's like, they're like, they're just so interesting, right? But for me, I've just loved them my whole life. I mean, like, my first memory as a kid, when I was two years old, was of a ball python at the zoo, right? And I've just been obsessed with them. Yeah, I was three years old, four years old out in the woods collecting snakes. Was that a rescue 9-1-1 episode? Do you remember that rescue 9-1-1 episode?
Starting point is 00:06:42 No, no, I didn't watch it, no. Where that snake, I remember as a kid, it was like the scariest one, like a baby was playing with a snake. Oh, correct. And it wasn't like an Indian baby, like they do, you know? Yeah, like they do. It was like a regular, just street, like white, you know, local white baby. Was it a big snake?
Starting point is 00:06:57 Huh? Was it a big snake? It was a, here we go, rescue 9-1-1 snake baby, YouTube. Oh, gosh. This is what did it for a lot of America. In the small town of San Francisco, Louisiana, Independence Day is the time of celebration. This is my Paris, this is the Paris I'm from, I don't even know what happened there. Come on now.
Starting point is 00:07:22 Oh! Little Terry got bit, man. My God, little Terry got bit. Okay. That's good. Holy cow. Jesus Christ, dude. I didn't realize that happened in my area until just now.
Starting point is 00:07:33 So I can see now why I remember just sitting there with my mom and watching that and I knew it was going to be a rough go. Well, what they did there is they used two different snakes, right? The one snake was a water snake, harmless, the other one was a cotton mile. So they look real similar just for the scare factor. So yeah, that's what most media does though, right? Right. The media makes it scary.
Starting point is 00:07:56 The Bible made it. They bit somebody in the first eight pages of the Bible. Right. So that's probably... Yeah. We didn't start off well. Yeah. You guys didn't start off well.
Starting point is 00:08:05 Yeah. But I'm here to change everyone's opinion. Okay. That's my thing, you know. Okay. I tell you, they're great, man. Do you feel that that's kind of like your purpose, like a little bit of your mission is to...
Starting point is 00:08:13 Yeah. I mean, I think so. I think so. I mean, like, listen, there's nothing that makes me happier than someone changing my... I had like a 75-year-old woman come in about a year ago and she's like, I am terrified. So she said, I've been having nightmares about snakes since I was like two years old. And she said, and I started like... She had a good memory.
Starting point is 00:08:31 Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But then she's like... So I started like looking online, find her videos. She goes, I'm starting to watch her videos, kind of exposure therapy. And then she booked a private tour with me. She says, you know, listen, I don't even know if I could touch a snake, but I'm coming here
Starting point is 00:08:43 for an hour with you. And I said, let's just take it slow. We took about probably 40 minutes just to walk around. I'd take snakes out, then I'd eventually let her like touch a snake, then eventually she held her first snake. By the time when she was done, she's holding giant snakes and stuff like that. And she's actually come back two or three times since because she's like, now I love them.
Starting point is 00:09:01 So yeah, I think it's something I'm really passionate about. And do you... So you said when you were small, you ran across a ball python when you were little? Yeah. Yeah, I didn't run... It was at the zoo, right? You know, it was at the zoo. It's my first memory.
Starting point is 00:09:15 I was a kid. First memory. My mom said I was two years old. Have a crazy memory, right? But literally, I remember that cage. I remember the smell in the air. I remember everything. It was like...and from that time on, I was just obsessed.
Starting point is 00:09:26 And no one in my family had snakes. Everyone thought I was crazy. You know what I mean? I loved them. And my mom hated them. She was terrified of them. And finally, when I was 15 years old, after whatever, my entire begging her for snakes, she finally let me get a snake.
Starting point is 00:09:40 And it turned out it was a Burmese python, which is, by the way, the worst snake you could possibly get as a first snake because they get like 18 foot. So my first snake, I was a little baby, but the thing ended up getting like 18 foot, you know? Anyways, long story short, I was like living in my mom's basement at the time. I was like 15, worked at a pet shop. And were you doing drugs or anything at the time? Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:59 Yeah. I don't do drugs now. I don't do drugs now. But yeah, but it wasn't because of snakes. It was just because I was a rock guy. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Whatever.
Starting point is 00:10:08 I'm just trying to get the whole picture. I don't know if it's got like a kind of a nerdy kid down. You know, I don't know if it's a science kid down there doing volcanoes, doing snakes, or if it's a kid like, you know what I'm saying, is listening to some Megadeth and some ACDC. Megadeth, ACDC. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, you know, I was always pretty good about not messing with the snakes when I was, you know, partying up a little bit, but don't get me wrong. I had a snake room and by the time I was like 17, I had like 200 snakes in my mom's basement.
Starting point is 00:10:34 She like didn't know. She just wouldn't come downstairs, you know? And you have, you know, when you have 10 snakes, what's 12 snakes? What's 15 snakes? You know what I mean? That's more snakes. Yeah, it's more snakes. But yeah, I ended up having like 200 snakes.
Starting point is 00:10:45 But the thing is, dude, literally, I started breeding snakes, I'm 17 years old. I made like 40 grand in my mom's basement when I was 17 breeding snakes. Really? Yeah. So I was able to literally. And who's buying them? Are you meeting people outdoors? Are you meeting people indoors?
Starting point is 00:10:58 Where are you? How are you getting rid of these? Yeah, back then. You showing up, you got a little, is it in like a briefcase? Like how are you, how do you even, where do you even meet anybody? You surprised how many people would you, I've done a lot of deals in the Walmart parking lot. Have you really?
Starting point is 00:11:12 But not anymore. But when I was, but that was pre-internet. So yeah, there was like reptile shows and like, you know, like reptile conferences and stuff like that. I've been to one of those before and that was really, oh, that was so alarming, dude. It was so scary. And that, the whole thing just really, I think about snakes, it's the element of surprise, man.
Starting point is 00:11:32 That was the same thing that happened in my kitchen the other day. I get a snake came through and I didn't know he's there. Like an animal, you know, a little, you know, you see a puppy, you see a little falcon or something realistic, you know, it's, it's a little bit more like, oh, look at this, you know, it's more noticeable. Maybe they have a bell on its neck. But if you see a snake, you don't see, there's no like, they don't whistle. There's no like email in advance.
Starting point is 00:11:59 There's no information. You don't hear it licking out of a bowl. There's no, and then it's just there. I think it's, um, it's like you're playing this game of hide and go seek that you didn't know you were playing. And then you fucking lost. That's how I feel like all of a sudden when I see them. Yeah, I got you.
Starting point is 00:12:15 You know, listen, coming across a snake, even I, when I come across a snake in the wild, I'm looking for them. You know, I'm out. You know, I've traveled all over the world, right? You know, I mean, I've had a series on Discovery Channel, you know, for the most venomous snakes on the planet. And when I come across them, I met them hunters. What was it?
Starting point is 00:12:30 Yeah, venom hunters. Exactly. Yeah, it was great. Season one almost died several times. That's all right. You know, they wanted me to like, they're like, you know, hey, you know what, instead of having a nice big snake hook, you know, Jesus, little tiny snake hook or, you know, let's make it as dangerous as possible.
Starting point is 00:12:42 So. Oh, they want you to die. That's the best. The producers want you to die. Bring your girlfriend. Bring your sick girlfriend. She'll do great. But even I, like out in the bush, you know, when I come across a snake, I'm looking for
Starting point is 00:12:53 them and I come across a snake and it startles me for a second. If it's in my living room there, I tell you, I literally went out, again, I was at my mom's basement, bought a house when I was 20 years old because I had made enough money. Made that bridge. Now you got a lady at this point. I just want to know what kind of man has these snakes at this point. Well, yeah, I have 200 snakes, dude. I don't know how I'm finding time to pet a lady, you know, or to feed a lady, you know
Starting point is 00:13:16 what I'm saying? You got 200 dates every day. Yeah. No, you're right. It's a lot of work. But no, I literally still, I'm with my wife, Lori, for, since we were like 18, 19 years old and she wouldn't even come into my mom's basement when I met her because she was so terrified of snakes.
Starting point is 00:13:29 Smart. And now she's been, you know, running our businesses for, you know, 30 years together. So. So she's really the bookkeeper. No, she's hands-on, man. She's hardcore. Really? I mean, I tell you, you don't want to mess with Lori.
Starting point is 00:13:42 Anyone who knows that. I tell you, listen, I run a lot of the different things that are all reptile related, but she's the boss. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And like everyone's terrified of her, but she's a bad ass. She'll get in with an 18 foot snake like nothing, you know?
Starting point is 00:13:53 I mean, my employees are scared to death, like, I'm not getting in there, things, you know, me and Matt, she'll go, get out of my way. She'll get in there. But no, it's like, but, but so I moved out when I was 20, bought a house. Okay. So you moved out, you got a house, you got the girlfriend. Yeah. I had a girlfriend and my wife and kid and stuff like that, but I had a few snakes in
Starting point is 00:14:10 my mom's house. You left them in there. A few because I was still moving into the new house, right? Yeah, dude, that's fucking really mean. It was, right? But it turns out one time I was over there, you know, so I still got to take care of them, right? And I accidentally left one cage open, right?
Starting point is 00:14:26 But the downside was that snake got out of the cage and then opened up a bunch of other cages. So my mom calls me like three in the morning. How do you do that? Like Madagascar? Yeah, exactly. It's like, let all your friends out, you know? Oh my God, you know that.
Starting point is 00:14:39 See, that's the thing that I understand sometimes is how, like, do they know more than we think they know? Oh yeah. Oh, there's so much smarter than you think, dude. I mean, mostly we have snakes that literally are like ball trained and what I mean by that is though. We're fucked, man. You know what I'm saying, bro?
Starting point is 00:14:57 No, I think it's great. I think every person in the planet should have a pet snake, including you. Let me ask you this, man. You touched on it a second ago, people on drugs, being with snakes. Should somebody that's high, because first two questions, one, I think I remember my friend Alex had a snake, he would feed it, he would feed his snake dog food pieces. Is that possible? Was I high?
Starting point is 00:15:26 I mean, you're probably high. You're probably high, yeah. Okay. I mean, I'm not going to say that it can't happen, I'm just saying that I've never seen it. Okay. I've had this memory my whole life and then I'm like, I don't know if maybe we're high. So then the second part is, do you think drug-induced people should be around snakes?
Starting point is 00:15:41 And what... No. Sorry, answer? No. Okay. Listen, any animal, especially a reptile or a big cat or something that could potentially hurt you, and listen, a lot of snakes can hurt you, but I'm talking a bigger snake. We have a rule that number one, you can't even go in with a big animal without a second
Starting point is 00:16:00 person with you in our place, but no one can be intoxicated on any level. Okay. Say you have to be intoxicated, right? Okay. There's a federal mandate, you know, and I'm not talking like with the vaccine, I'm talking like federally mandated, you got to be on some type of drug. Yeah. What is the best drug to be on around a snake?
Starting point is 00:16:19 Probably marijuana, you know, because it chills you out, you know, maybe they sense a little energy thing or something like that. I know a lot of keepers that smoke a lot of reefer. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that fits. If you had a drug that you would not recommend probably being on around a snake. Definitely not like mushrooms or LSD.
Starting point is 00:16:34 Yeah. That'd be a bad idea. Really? Yeah. I mean, you're barely knowing what's going on. You got some snakes striking at you, you know, you think it's maybe a goblin or something like that. Is a snake more likely to strike at you if you have sunglasses on?
Starting point is 00:16:52 Probably not. Some animals would. I would say like lizards, like giant lizards and stuff like that, they get a little freaked out by stuff like that. They're more visual, you know what I mean? Snakes aren't as visual. What about skin lotion, like a vino skin lotion, like a basic moisturizer? Probably nothing too major to be honest with you.
Starting point is 00:17:10 I've never seen anything too agitated by smells and stuff like that. We get a lot of people in our zoo that handle a lot of stuff and there's all kinds of smells from batouli oil to, yeah, you know, Calvin Klein. What is up? I will tell you something real quick. Not snake related. If you ever go to like a big cat sanctuary type of thing with lions and tigers, don't wear a Calvin Klein because they almost all for some reason spray Calvin Klein on boxes
Starting point is 00:17:34 for enrichment. So they'll throw the box with Calvin Klein in the cage and then the tiger or lion loves it. They rub all over it and stuff. So it's like now every time they smell Calvin Klein, they think, I can eat that. So don't do that. That's a little tip. You'll like that tip.
Starting point is 00:17:47 When, uh, how far can a snake see? Depends on the snake. Like a king cobra is real visual. It could probably see a pretty good distance, you know, several, maybe 20, 30 yards, something like that. Uh, pythons don't have a lot of great high sight, you know, probably 34 foot something like that. Can snakes dance?
Starting point is 00:18:06 You know, like you see a lot of those videos of snakes dancing in other countries and stuff. It's more like a combat for males, right? So if you get two male snakes, particular species, they'll do like the kind of stuff like that. But they're not dancing. They're fighting. Okay. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:18:22 So those go through a popularity phase. Like in your lifetime, have you noticed popularity phases for certain types of reptiles or anything like that? And what kind of creates those? Do you notice? Oh my gosh. I tell you, listen, when I, you know, when I was a kid in the late 80s, getting into snakes, you were like a closet, like snake guy.
Starting point is 00:18:40 You didn't tell anyone you kept snakes, right? It was a homosexuality of animals really. Maybe not quite that bad, but, but it was close. Yeah. I mean, you know what I'm saying, dude? Yeah, I know. That guy has snakes. I mean, I definitely got looked at as a freak, like what is that guy, that guy's a killer
Starting point is 00:18:55 or something like that. But now it's like literally, I think there's like 40 million households in America keep snakes. So it's crazy how busy, I mean, it's like every pet shop has them. Yeah, they're super popular, you know? So I've just seen a kind of upward trajectory to be totally honest with you since the late 80s, early 90s. Now it's like so mainstream to keep snakes, you know, I mean, everyone, like everyone
Starting point is 00:19:17 knows somebody that has a snake. You've got to know somebody, right? Oh, I know a guy, right? Actually, you know what? We got a question from somebody I do know who has one. I'm not going to lie. I am not a fan of Theo Vaughn. Never have been, never will be, but I love Brian.
Starting point is 00:19:33 So here's the question, Brian, what kind of animal should I get to put inside someone's house when they are not home to scare or intimidate them? I don't want any death or violence to occur. Maybe just a lot of fear. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you so much. And interesting how he didn't blink once during all of that, which I want to say that definitely reminds me of.
Starting point is 00:19:56 The mustache is a little freaky, too, to be totally honest with you, but. It fits his entire interior of complete darkness, cabin heart. I would do something like a black racer, a blue racer, something fast, right? That way when you see it, it's just like, you know, the faster something moves, the more scary it is, right? Do they, can they go on top of the water even those? Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:20:18 We went to South Africa a couple of years back and we collected a couple of black mambas, right? And we wanted to release them. And so we went down to a river and. R.I.P. Also. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:20:30 I'll tell you what, black mambas are, I mean, they're wicked. I mean. Oh, definitely, dude. They want, I mean, listen, you know, no snakes are aggressive, but they're defensive. But when you start messing, you muck with a black mamba, it's quick and it's willing to bite you and it's not a good bite. As a matter of fact, I was at the same trip, I was at a venom lab and we did some milking of venom for antivenin and just about three weeks later, the guy that I was with got killed
Starting point is 00:20:50 by the same place. I was at. Yeah. Yeah. I got bitten, died. But so we released the black mambas into this area. They had this nice river and I mean, they just glide on the top of the river. It's absolutely, it's, to me, it's stunning and beautiful.
Starting point is 00:21:02 This is them right here. Yeah. I mean, they're crazy and they call them black mambas because the inside of their mouth is black, not because they're a black snake, right? They're more like a grayish green snake, to be honest with you. But they're, you know, they get like nine, 10 foot super wippy and super willing to bite and they're, you know. Like a Ferrari kind of.
Starting point is 00:21:18 Oh yeah, they're fast. Or like a Porsche. They always say like, you know, hey, I've been messing with venomists since I was 15 and they always say like the most experienced venomist guy, if you're handling either a mamba or a coastal type ant, you look like you don't know what you're doing. That's how, that's how crazy they are. Like even when you know what you're doing, you don't look like you know what you're doing.
Starting point is 00:21:37 Damn. Yeah. So even so at that level, a black mamba, you will handle it differently. You'll have more fear in you at that point? Never fear. I always say don't fear respect, but I definitely respect a black mamba tremendous amount, especially if you get out in the, you know, the African sun, it's like 95 degrees sunny. They're soaking up the rays and you've got to remember animals are, you know, these animals
Starting point is 00:21:54 are cold-blooded. So when it's warm, they're faster because they're higher temperature. And I mean, I've had a couple, you know, real close encounters with black mambas and coastal type ants in Australia as well, but. So is it better to put ice on a snake before you approach it then? You know, I wouldn't do it because it's probably not that good for the snake, you know, it's not good to cool them down like that. But the cooler they are, the more mellarite.
Starting point is 00:22:16 If you go into Africa during the winter months, which of course are summer months, you know, they're chill, you know, because it's cool. Well, here's a question. Let's bring those mamas back up if you don't mind Spencer. The, the, yeah. Now this snake right here, what is the benefit of having that black mouth inside of its body? It's all about danger, you know, threat, you know, like basically, you know, someone comes up, it's going to open that mouth, it's going to look really dangerous.
Starting point is 00:22:43 Get away from me. Don't muck with me. You got to remember like snakes don't want to be messed with and they also don't want to bite you. They don't want to bite you, but they will bite you if, if, if you, you know, get into their space, right? Then who's trying to kill a snake? What are they afraid of?
Starting point is 00:22:55 I never met anybody trying to kill a snake or animal. Oh my gosh, snakes are, you know, listen, you know, it's, it's all a circle of life, right? But I feel like it's a freaking coldest. I feel like it is a damn U-turn of life for them because I, I, I, what animal's trying to get them? Oh my gosh. So, you know, from anything from, you know, like mongoose, for instance, over in Africa,
Starting point is 00:23:16 they're actually immune to the venom. They love killing snakes, right? You know, so, and then when there's a smaller snake, birds will get them, you know, I mean, gosh, you know, Africa is just. Oh yeah. I've seen a falcon get one. Yeah. Or a hawk.
Starting point is 00:23:28 Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I didn't think about that. So that's such a predator too, because you can't even see that coming from the air. Yeah. That's like if an airplane came down and got one of those.
Starting point is 00:23:36 Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And then when you have, like I said, you have a mongoose or something like that that literally can get bit. And it's almost like they get drunk. If you ever, you want to go down a rabbit hole, just watch like mongoose is getting bit by cobras because they actually, it's like they, they like walk around and get drunk.
Starting point is 00:23:50 They'll fall over. Then they just get right back up and then go back, the honey badgers will do the same thing. It's pretty crazy. So when they get bit, it affects them for a little bit at phase and then they're back. Yeah. Yeah. Like almost like it's, they're drunk or something for a minute.
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Starting point is 00:27:09 terms of subject to change additional terms of service at BlockFi.com BlockFi is a financial technology company banking services provided by Evolve Bank and Trust member FDIC. Start earning Bitcoin back on all your qualifying purchases today, BlockFi.com slash Theo. Do you think it's ironic Australia was a place where they put all the criminal humans, right? Yeah. At one point in time. Yeah. I've long thought that God put all the criminal animals over there too, ironically.
Starting point is 00:27:40 Well, you know, it's. Are you surprised that all the criminals of human and animal? It is an irony. I hadn't thought of it that way, but it is ironic and it is true that most everything in Australia wants to kill you, you know, the only difference between Australia and Africa is that the animals in Africa kill you and eat you, whereas the animals in Australia just kill you, you know, with the exception of crocodiles, crocodiles that eat you in Australia as well.
Starting point is 00:28:04 And I've been, I've been out there with those guys too. So when you guys are hunting, like, do you go on hunts or what do you go on? Like, do you go out on a weekend looking like in your town for snakes? Do you pack a lunch in the morning? Like, what do you do when you get out there? Like, and what are you, where are you going? Well, there's not a lot of great stuff in Michigan to be honest with you. That's why I'm from the Detroit area, but when I go out to Africa, you know, Asia, you
Starting point is 00:28:32 know, whether it's Indonesia or wherever I'm going, yeah, I mean, we're, we're like, we're there just to look for something. Usually I'm filming something, you know, but at the same time, I love it. Even if I'm not filming on my days off or something like that, I'm out looking for stuff. And yeah, I mean, I don't know, you know, I don't take them. I just like catch them, maybe take some pictures, hang out with them for a minute and then let them loose. Matter of fact, I love letting snakes loose after I catch them because I think it's super
Starting point is 00:28:56 cool. But yeah, I don't know. You know, listen, some people jump out of planes, some people have fast cars. I like to play with things that might kill me, you know, so it's, it's kind of that thing. What scares you then if snakes don't? Everything. Really? I'm not afraid of animals and animals.
Starting point is 00:29:12 I mean, I'm not afraid of any animals because I've worked with, you know, again, lions and rhinos, you name it. Could you pet a big animal? Oh, hell yeah, man. I don't care. I'm, that, that's actually, I'm broken a little bit to be totally honest with you because I don't fear any animal. Like, you know, people are like, you shouldn't do that.
Starting point is 00:29:26 I'm like, let's go, you know, like, why not? Let's go. Let's check it out. And I'm never thinking like, I've, listen, I've been doing this my whole life and I've been around the craziest animals all over the planet. Never once have I been to the hospital yet for an injury, nothing. Not even one time, you know, and, and, and maybe you can call it luck. Maybe you got what, I don't know what it is, but I don't ever like think of it as scary.
Starting point is 00:29:48 Have your children and wife been bit? Not by anything dangerous. Well, my wife did get, yeah, of course, yeah. But do you feel some responsibility for that? Not at all. They, I like their attitude. They, yes, their decisions. My wife does have a pretty good scar from a tiger, but in the leg, so that, that was
Starting point is 00:30:04 a good one. Sorry, but some of these bitches deserve it. Not your lady, but I'm just saying, I'm glad to know tigers are on our team. Yeah. That's a beautiful question that came in right here from somebody. He looks like a reptile guy to me. He def, yeah, he does. And I feel like he's sitting in a question before I'm glad this guy's chiming in here.
Starting point is 00:30:21 Let's hear it. Yeah. What up Theo? Uh, this question's for Brian. I'm actually genuinely curious. What's the worst injury, uh, you sustained while messing around with those little critters, those little reptiles and amphibians and snakes, uh, they look pretty, pretty dangerous. So I'm curious, uh, how long you've been hospitalized or what, what the worst entry
Starting point is 00:30:45 was, but, uh, appreciate you guys, Theo, my dude gang, gang brother. Thanks for the question. That's a good question. Brian, I'm sure you get asked it a lot. Yeah. I kind of, you know, almost covered it right where I've never been hurt really. Right. You know, I have a few scars.
Starting point is 00:30:59 And I want snakes to hear that. Yeah. I want snakes. I want animals to hear that. It's a challenge. Right here. Yeah. We got a guy who just entered the ring.
Starting point is 00:31:08 I'm not saying it's a royal rumble. Yeah. This dude that just entered the ring has suffered zero damage points. Okay. Yeah. This guy has, has, has all of his hit points snakes. Yeah. And yeah, I'm telling you what, we, uh, it's shot, it's honestly, it shocks me.
Starting point is 00:31:24 Do you feel like when you start to see that you haven't been damaged, you haven't had any hit points yet, that you think there is something in certain people's bloods? Do you notice that maybe Native Americans don't get it bit as much, that blacks don't get bit as much? Who is getting bit? Uh, well, I do think that, you know, I don't think it's a, uh- If it's women, it's women. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:31:48 Yeah. I think, no, I think it's, I always talk about confidence. Yeah. Right. Like if you can re, so, you listen, everybody has, like you might have a puppy and you're like, I know what that puppy wants. I know it wants food. I want, you know, some people have that same mentality with animals at all.
Starting point is 00:32:02 Like I can tell when I get in with a, a tiger, if it's going to be chill. And I know the, like, I can tell before it's going to want to attack me when it's going to do it. And same thing with reptiles. I can just, I can look at a reptile at a zoo and be like, okay, that needs a little bit more food. It needs, you know, it's, that's agro, that's whatever. You know, so I think that confidence and the ability to read them, and that could be something
Starting point is 00:32:23 that's natural. I don't, I don't know that you can learn. I mean, you can learn, like my wife, Lori, she wasn't a reptile person. She's learned to really deal with reptiles, but you know, I, I just, I've always been that way. I've always been able to read like every animal and maybe, or maybe I'm just lucky. I don't know. Maybe I'm testing fate all the time, but I, you know, you give me a challenge.
Starting point is 00:32:43 I'm in for it. When it comes to that. It, when it comes to being around reptiles, cause it's just, I wouldn't think it was crazy if it wasn't something that struck up so much fear. We had a blind lady that was on the podcast one time and we're just talking about all kinds of stuff, what it's like to be blind and different inquiries and blind inquiries. And she said the craziest thing, we're talking about animals, she said the craziest thing is snakes.
Starting point is 00:33:08 She's like, I get nothing from a snake. Like other animals I can hold, I can feel, I can get some kind of energy from them, but a snake, I just don't get anything from it. And that's when I knew dog, y'all was fucking up, bro. You know what I'm saying? That's when I knew y'all was out there dark art and dog. So do you think that you get a reading from snakes? Like do you think it's a temptation to battle like this, this thing that's so scary to other
Starting point is 00:33:35 people? Like is there any of that in it for you? Yeah, I think that, you know, most people that are really into reptiles, there's a little bit of like outlandish, you know, you want to be a little bit of an outlaw like type of thing. I think that you're a little, you don't, you know, follow the same path as everybody else. There's no doubt about that.
Starting point is 00:33:53 Yeah. The snake guy was always a crazy guy. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, but people always are surprised how like I may do crazy things, but I'm not that crazy. The snake guy was always a really cool guy though. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:34:06 Yeah. And like you said, you know, when you did earlier on, like, Hey, what do you think about the women? I tell you what, guys with snakes always get the women. Really? What is it? I don't know. It fascinates them.
Starting point is 00:34:16 I don't know if because you're rebel, you know, I don't know what it is, but it seems like all my snake friends are always hooking up with the hottest chicks. Do you feel like a lot of that snakes, that snakes know it's you? If you have a snake, do you think a snake knows it's you? You know, that's a tough question, man. I think that there's something that's called anthropomorphism, right? When we start, you know, applying our human feelings to an animal, right? You know, people do it with everybody, with their dogs, even the anthropomorphism.
Starting point is 00:34:42 Yeah. Yeah. People start looking like they're animals too, they say all the time. And sometimes it's true. Yeah. I agree with you there. I, so I don't know, you know, I'd like to, there are certainly reptiles that know me. My reptiles, you know, lizards and some other things like that.
Starting point is 00:34:55 And you know they know you. Well, yeah. I mean, literally I have a rhino iguana that her name is Bella. She'll only come to me. Like when I call her, she'll come to me when I call her, my cruise she won't come to, you know, so she's, you know, and a lot of my animals act very differently. With snakes, they act different to me as well. But I wonder sometimes is that my like calmness with them that's making them calm with me.
Starting point is 00:35:18 You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know that they, I just don't know. You can't read that with a snake. I said it and told you I did. I think people would think I was kooky. Do you feel sometimes though, like there's some kind of connection, like sometimes I'll see an animal bra and I'll be like, dude, there's some piece of me inside of me that's
Starting point is 00:35:34 also inside of that animal. Do you feel that with snakes sometimes because we're all come out of nature? Yeah. I mean, I think we're all connected, right? You know, but I don't think that I'm like part of a snake or something. I think, but I do think that, you know, we're all kind of interconnected through energies and stuff like that. And so I think that that's, that's what I always say, you know, if you have confidence,
Starting point is 00:35:54 you have like positive energy, you're less likely to get bit, less likely to get hurt. You know, it's when you're afraid of stuff, you know, or even like when you're catching a snake and I had one of my crew out and we were in Florida and like he wanted to catch this little lizard, you know, how little lizards running around in Florida all the time. And he's like, oh, let me go catch this. And he gets close and he gets, and he hesitates, right? And then the lizard runs away and I'm like, you can't hesitate. You know, it's just like when you play that guy in a movie, I think.
Starting point is 00:36:19 Honestly. Yeah, that's me. Yeah. No, it's even like with a crocodile. Like if you're going to catch a crocodile, the last, I mean, you know, again, we're in a place called Josini, Africa. And we were actually it was crazy. I was, I was filming a documentary and we, we hook up with this guy, you know, Josini
Starting point is 00:36:34 is the largest population of, of Nile crocodiles in one area in South Africa and it's, it's yeah, Josini and it's, you know, tons of big wild crocs. And so the biologists that had been studying him for over a year was named Mark, right? And so my, my fixtures for the, the show like hooked up with this guy and like, hey, we want to catch a croc. We'll do some research, you know, some skewed samples, whatever the case is, toxicology stuff. And so we go out on this boat, we get there, we go, we only have a day and a half, right? We go out on a boat and we got to catch a croc for this film, right?
Starting point is 00:37:07 We got the whole film crew with us, stuff like that. We're like, and he's like, all right, this is what we're going to do. We got this noose on the end of a pole. We're going to try to, you know, get to the bank or they're all on the banks. And as they come out, you knew some and then we can pull them over to land, right? And so, you know, at one croc after another, explodes in the water, gone, explodes in the water, gone. Hours and hours and hours, we, we aren't even getting close, right?
Starting point is 00:37:27 So finally I look back to him and I go, Mark, you know, like, how many crocs have you caught dude? And he's like, and he's been there over a year. He's a biologist. I mean, a crocodile biologist. And he's like, well, I've never caught one. I'm like, what? Here we are with the film crew.
Starting point is 00:37:40 We haven't caught one. Like we're screwed, right? And so we had, we had a half a day the next day. So I spent the night like sleepless, right? Like, what am I going to do about this, man? You know, and I kind of devised a plan and literally we went out the next morning and within an hour we had like a 15 foot bull crocodile, giant crocodile. But my point is that now you're pulling them on land.
Starting point is 00:38:00 When you jump that thing, right? Cause you got to jump them, tape them and stuff like that. Let's pull that up. 15 foot bull crocodile. Let's put a bull crocodile. Oh yeah. Nile crocodile. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:38:09 Right there. I mean, there we go. Is that it? Yeah. There you go, man. That's right there. That's the male crocodile. You know, so the bull crocodile, the male crocodile is going to be one of your bigger
Starting point is 00:38:19 crocodiles in the area and they're all hierarchy, right? The biggest one is the bull because he's like, Hey, I've got this dam. Don't come around me. I'm going to, I got all the women I want. You can't have any. Can you zoom in on one of those spins? Can you pull it up, please? So that's one of them right there.
Starting point is 00:38:33 Yeah. I mean, is this the size of that? Yeah. That's actually smaller than normal. You don't put a dart on them? No. We don't, no, no, nothing, man. We just literally, we knew some, get them on land and then that's what I'm saying.
Starting point is 00:38:43 No hesitation, right? You have to jump it. You have to jump on top of it and get that thing subdued so that someone can tape its mouth so you can do your research on it. So how were you guys, the one you guys were able to get, you guys, what, what was the difference that you guys chose to do that day? So, so basically what happened was there was one area on the end of the dam that actually had some hippos on there.
Starting point is 00:39:03 And so the boat driver didn't want to go over there, right? So what's happened is when they were just exploding in the water, they're just disappearing. On the opposite side of the dam, it was kind of shallow for about a hundred feet. So when they exploded off the side, they'd have to run. And so I knew that if we could like triangulate when, hey, let's get to where they get to deep water, now we got a chance to knew some, right? Now the boat driver really didn't want to go over there because of course, hippos are dangerous.
Starting point is 00:39:29 Oh, they'll capsize a boat. Capsize a boat and kill you. But I'm like, that's the only chance we have, right? And so we went out and like I said, there was a big 15 plus foot crocodile and we, that's the one, right? And I said, and I remember a boat driver's name was Amos and I said, Amos. Don't go towards the crocodile. Go where he's going to go, right?
Starting point is 00:39:46 Like when he's exploding that way, you've got to meet him at that, right when he gets that water, right? And we got there, got the news on him, drug him across land. It took six of us to drag him out onto land because he was so heavy and then I had to jump his head, right? So you got to jump on top of his head with your body. What are you wearing? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:40:02 I mean this, right here. I'm like, I'm not, no khakis, no hat, just me, you know? But no hesitation. You hesitate. Sneakers though, huh? Yes. But man, slip and fall, you're done, you know? But like I said, you hesitate.
Starting point is 00:40:15 That thing's going to take your hand off or your arm off. Right. So you have to be quick. You have to make, you have to make your own move. Do you think they respect that almost a little bit more or they're just, it's just surprise? I think it's surprise. Yeah. I don't think they care either way, you know?
Starting point is 00:40:26 I mean, they, you know, listen, crocodiles have one thing in mind. They're predators, man. They're apex predators, a hundred million years on this planet, you know? So when you say an apex predator, is a snake an apex predator? It can be. It depends on where it is, you know? A lot of snakes aren't apex predators. Apex predators would just mean that they don't have a, you know, there's nobody predates
Starting point is 00:40:45 on them, right? Really most apex predators, crocodiles, you know, the list goes on of anything that would, you know, lions, tigers, the only real predators that they have are humans really, you know? We're the only ones that can kill them. I mean, in the wild, if humans weren't around, nothing kills a big crocodile, right? Wow. You know? So big crocodiles are really there.
Starting point is 00:41:04 They don't have anything getting them. Not, well, not except for humans, you know? Not anymore. Yeah, not anymore. They're down in the Everglades. You've got the Burmese pythons that are eating alligators, which, you know, those are both apex predators, you know? In Asia, Burmese pythons, 20 foot, you know, 18, 20 foot pythons, they're the apex predators
Starting point is 00:41:20 once they hit adulthood, you know? Nothing's killing those guys. But now you've got two of them down in Florida fighting for the same land, you know? And where are these two located at? Do they know? Yeah, they're down in the Everglades, you know? So how many, are there a lot of Burmese pythons alive on the planet? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:41:37 And in Florida alone, there's estimates of a couple hundred thousand. Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah. And those are, those are not supposed to be there, man. They're not supposed to be there. I'm not in your sleep, dog. You're making me scared, bro. Well, listen, I'm going to, we're going to go the other way, we're going to talk about
Starting point is 00:41:53 how awesome snakes are, right? I don't know if we can make it there. Yeah, we can. I don't know, man. I didn't come here to scare you, Theo. I know. I came here to get it. And that's, I just think it's, I'm even an example of what I'm saying, what I was thinking
Starting point is 00:42:04 about earlier, it's like, it's like, you have all this pen. I remember the first snake I ever saw was walking with my grandparents and my grandmother hated me and this fricking snake, what next, you know, wrapped around my boot and I was so scared. They're like, don't move. And my grandmother was like beating me in the leg with this shovel and I'm like, what is happening? I couldn't even see the snake.
Starting point is 00:42:25 I didn't know what was going on. I knew my grandmother didn't like me. So I'm just like this. I knew, you know, I didn't think it was going to go down like this. We're in the woods. You know what I'm saying? And now I'm thinking that they're trying to take my life, you know, and then it's a black snake wrapped around my, wrapped around my boot.
Starting point is 00:42:42 And then I remember being a kid, swimming in the, like the chafalaya or bogafalaya or something and my friend Robert and he had, he was like haunted or something. He had some kind of issue where he would say stuff and then like, he would repeat everything he would say over real quietly under his breath. He'd be like, it's lunchtime. And he did it for everything. You know, so I think he was supposed to be twins or something. You know, I don't know what happened to him, but anyway, he and I are out there playing,
Starting point is 00:43:10 right? And he, and we just see this on top of the water. And we're just, I mean, it just so much every time it was always fear. I think I never knew anybody who introduced me to a snake as a, hey, this is a safe thing around. This is a safe thing. So it was always a lot of fear in the environment of snakes. So I think that's what I think I am as an example of people show up with, to you with
Starting point is 00:43:34 all that shit like, Hey, you did it. You know, you did it, Brian. You know, like you put those snakes in my childhood, you asshole. Like I think that there's a lot of that because it's such a fear thing for a lot of people or for me anyway. Yeah. Well, you know what the opposite of fear is, is knowledge. So the more you know, the less you fear, right?
Starting point is 00:43:55 So, you know, when your grandma was beating you, all you thought of is bad snake, right? Not bad grandma, but bad snake. Yeah. I probably thought a little bit of both about my grandma. My grandmother was really, she was a real, she was out there, but, but yeah, I think, yeah, you, yeah, a lot of stuff gets, yeah, it's just such a fear thing, you know. So there's not a lot, and especially there didn't used to be, there wasn't a, we didn't have snakes in the classroom.
Starting point is 00:44:16 Really? Yeah. We didn't. We had one fellow named Curtis. Oh, I'll tell you it is, dude. So we went to prom or something, some dance, Sadie Hawkins or something. You got to wear the same shirt, right? And my buddy ended up touching this girl's crotch for like the first time ever in our
Starting point is 00:44:34 childhood. And I don't know if it's appropriate. I don't know your son's in here, but yeah. Hell yeah. Is it okay? He's, I'm not going to say anything. Okay. Good.
Starting point is 00:44:42 Yeah. And it's safe. It's a human crotch, you know, nothing insane. But, um, and my buddy's dad comes out there by the fire and is like, spends the whole night like, like basically massaging my buddy's hand that he touched the girl's crotch with like real dark stuff going on. So anyway, that night we have to sleep at my buddy's house, right? And he had like 15 snakes in his room, in cages and dude, I'd never, I'd never knowingly
Starting point is 00:45:07 slept within probably almost 50 miles of a snake because that's where the zoo was closest to us. And I remember he turned this, I'm laying there, we all have to sleep in his bed. I'm laying there and he turns the ceiling fan and he had the fastest ceiling fan I've ever heard in my life. So suddenly every snake I feel like is just wide awake, every snake's smell is just swirling in the room. And I'm just laying there in this cauldron of just like hopelessness.
Starting point is 00:45:35 You know, it had just been such an insane night. And, uh, and then my friend's dog barked outside. The dad went out, shot the dog in the head, right, Mr. Joe. But anyway, uh, but anyway, so that was just another scary night where I'm surrounded by snakes, you know, so trauma. Yeah. I've just had a lot of trauma with snakes. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:54 PTSD. I do. I think I do have PTSD. And now you got a snake showing up in your living room or whatever. Yeah, I do, man. We got a question that came in right here actually from a gentleman, I think, what is this? Hey, what's up, Brian? What's up, Theo?
Starting point is 00:46:08 Um, my name's Gio. Nice to meet you. Uh, I got a question for Brian regarding reptiles, snakes, things of that nature, nature itself. Um, you feel like they're, what, what's like the biggest misconception you feel that most people have about snakes, venomous or non-venomous and, uh, or reptiles in general that you feel like you'd like to squash right now, you just, you just want to set the record straight for the world, the U S and other places. And Theo, not to make things a little awkward, but do you think that Brian is in cahoots with
Starting point is 00:46:48 Bobby Lee? And that's how you got that snake. I'd say you got that little snake in your, in your hotel that you posted on your story. Yeah. It's a thought not to make it awkward or whatever, but just think, think about it. All right. Thank you for your service, Mr. Gonzalez. That's a good question.
Starting point is 00:47:04 Uh, that's two good questions. Let's start with the first one. What is a misconception, man? Cause I feel misconceived. Yeah, totally. Yeah. That they're killers, you know, that they're, they're, you know, like just cold, blooded killers that all they want to do, they're put here to hurt you, you know, which is just
Starting point is 00:47:17 not the case. You know, why do you think a rattlesnake has a rattle to tell you to stay away from it? Right? It doesn't want to bite you. Yeah. You know, so that's a huge misconception that snakes are just heartless killers and that they're here to hurt you. What are they here to do?
Starting point is 00:47:31 They're here. Really. They're here to be part of the ecosystem. Right? So, you know, like think about a farmer, right? Yeah. You know, a farmer that has mice like grain, right? So now there's mice in the fields with those snakes are there to kill the mice to save
Starting point is 00:47:45 your grain. Right? So this is a misconception before where like, you know, maybe a kid gets bit in the town by a rattlesnake, then they go and they kill all the rattlesnakes all of a sudden, then they lose their crop to infestation, infestation of rodents, right? I see. So it's a real equalizer. It is.
Starting point is 00:48:00 It's, it's, they're here to equalize everything. It's huge, huge, huge part of the ecosystem and one that if you take it away, you're in big trouble. Really? Yeah. Big trouble. So when, why don't, do snakes operate mostly at night? Are they nighttime workers?
Starting point is 00:48:11 They can be both. You know, they can be both. So basically how you would tell a nocturnal animal from a diurnal animal, daytime, nighttime is round pupils, daytime, slits like cat eyes, nighttime. The one you had was actually a diurnal moving around in the daytime. That's daytime. Daytime. Okay.
Starting point is 00:48:30 Um, and then I don't know Bobby Lee, you know, so I, you know, I'm not going to take any. If there's one ethnicity you had to guess, let's ballpark it and let's say Asian that would send someone a snake, what, what ethnicity is most associated with snakes throughout the history of time? Oh my goodness. That's great. You know, I, that's, wow, you know, like obviously ancient Egyptians were really into
Starting point is 00:48:53 it. Uh, Indians. I mean, you know, you have in India, you have people, you know, kids that are raised to be snake people from the time they're infants, you know, like around snakes or there's some of the most adept snake people. I, you know, I think those two cultures are really, really, you know, Japan, again, they worship a lot of snakes. They have temples, snake temples and stuff like that.
Starting point is 00:49:13 Yeah. So I think all those things, you know, and then, um, yeah, so I think probably Egyptian, Indian, Japanese would be my two, they're my three top ones. Egyptian, Indian, Japanese Bobby Lee. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Very interesting.
Starting point is 00:49:30 Uh, well he admitted to sending me the snake. So that's the crazy part. Did he admit it? Yeah. He has an episode of his podcast coming out in like a couple of days that he admitted to sending me the snake. He sent it, huh? So it's just insane.
Starting point is 00:49:39 I feel like, and how do you even get a snake through the mail? Can you mail a snake to someone? What are the legal US postal system rules about a snake or FedEx? Can't mail it, but you can FedEx it. So I could set FedEx it to your door, but you can't mail it. That's, I think that's right. Why is the mail or the postal people, are they more afraid of it or what is the deal? You know, it's just, it's just a rule that they have.
Starting point is 00:50:01 I think that if I'm not mistaken and I could be rung by it, but I think you can ship frogs weirdly enough, you know, through the mail, but you can't do reptiles. But FedEx UPS, you know, chances are if you're flying on a plane, there's a reptile in that, the belly of that plane or tarantulas. There's probably, just think about that next time you're sitting up there having a cocktail. No one would want to do that. Okay. I mean, I respect you for wanting me to, but I just, I don't know if that's going to
Starting point is 00:50:28 help me, man. It's been hard for me to sleep since I saw that snake in my house. Really? Yeah. We got to work on you then, man. Yeah. I do need to, man. The last thing you want to do is look hellish in your clothing.
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Starting point is 00:53:19 from here in the soccer coach, his wife saw that I had the snake in my house and he came over because I guess soccer, they're running around after all the time or people, somebody gets bit probably every couple of days because they're in a big field, you know. But anyway, he came over and helped me get rid of it. So that was pretty cool. But yeah, what do you do then? Because now I'm thinking I need to get trapped and I need to make sure there's no more snakes in my house, like that's where a lot of my fear is at now, you know, and my concern really.
Starting point is 00:53:55 No, I'm sure it's just a one-off thing, you know. I mean, number one, snakes don't really like den and infest places, you know, that really happens. So they're pretty solitary animals and I saw the snake that was in your house, just a rat snake and it was like, you know, probably a year old, something like that. So there's no brothers and sisters hanging out, you know, waiting for you around the corner. So I think you're pretty safe.
Starting point is 00:54:15 You're pretty good. So what to do, you know, I mean, thankfully in this area, you know, you just call somebody that local pet shop or something like that, they send someone over and pick it up. You know, there are actual snake catchers in Africa, in Australia, that that's their full-time job is just to go and, you know, get snakes out. I've done that in Africa with snake catchers, go out and remove mambas from literally a shanty shed this size where it's like, you know, someone wakes up and there's a mamba and they're sealing, you know.
Starting point is 00:54:43 And we're talking a room this size that it's dangerous, man. You know, there's nowhere in the room that you can't get bit when that snake is around, you know. I mean, it's got that strike range. So there's literally people that that's what they do for a living is just remove snakes and protect people. But in this country, we don't have that problem. In this country, can you die from a snake bite?
Starting point is 00:55:02 It's pretty rare. I mean, anyone can die. You know, you've got diamond backs, you've got, you know, pig meat rattlesnakes, you've got, you know, lots of rattlesnakes mainly in this country also have coral snakes, but actual death rate in this country is pretty low because of treatment, right? If you get bit, you get to a hospital, you get treatment. It's not going to be pretty, you know, depending on how bad the bite is, but, but you're going to, you're going to live, you know.
Starting point is 00:55:26 Or, and yeah, was, is any person more likely to get bit by a snake? Like if you're wearing jewelry, if you are Caucasian, if you are Russian, if you are Mexican, if you are black, if you are wearing like a costume or something, is there anybody more likely to get bit? I would say the most likely person to get bit, really the most, most likely is someone that keeps them as a pet. Second would be someone that's drinking, comes across a rattlesnake in the wild and wants to cowboy it and like, look at me, I can get the rattlesnake, you know, they've seen Steve
Starting point is 00:56:03 Irwin, whatever the case is down the road and they're like, I'm going to do this. That is a bug of some sort. Okay. That's a reptile. Yeah. Yeah. That, that I'd be more afraid of than a reptile. Oh yeah.
Starting point is 00:56:15 We got that in here. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. But yeah, those are, you know, usually alcohol has a lot to do with the getting bit. What people get in bit. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:56:23 Alcohol a lot of times. So there's no real ethnicity or skin tone or anything. Do you notice that Native Americans have good relationships with snakes? I wouldn't say so. I have, have my family is Native American. Oh really? They like it. They like them, you know, but I wouldn't say they're any better or worse off for it.
Starting point is 00:56:38 At least the ones in my family. But they do fine. Wow. That's interesting. Cause I would feel like they would have a whole different, like just a different history with them, you know, because they have more experience probably being around them. Yeah. I think that's another thing.
Starting point is 00:56:52 We're just so not in nature, not in that as much nature as we used to be, you know, and so we see less snakes. No, that's true. Especially I was in California for a long time, so we never saw a snake there. Really? Yeah. I never saw any snakes in California unless it was already had one. That was about it.
Starting point is 00:57:08 Yeah. You get out in the deserts and around L.A. and there, there's a lot of rattlesnakes, you know? I mean, it's not far away from the city too, trust me. I mean, you're right outside the city and you're, you're getting rattlesnakes and golfer snakes. I mean, it's, there's a lot out there. I've caught a bunch of snakes out in California in the L.A. area.
Starting point is 00:57:25 So you're growing up. You got the, you got the, you got the money from selling the snakes. What size snakes? Are you selling big babies? You selling eggs? What are you doing? Yeah. I used to sell babies, you know?
Starting point is 00:57:35 That's how I started, you know? But it was, I sold babies of snakes that were going to get 18 foot. I sold babies of snakes that were going to get five foot, you know? Now I don't do big snakes. I, we do still breed some stuff, but mainly I'm education, zoo, film, stuff like that. You know, I'm not into the big breeder world like I used to be, but, but that's how I came up because that was the only way, listen, I, you know, I just wanted to work with reptiles. I didn't know, you know, and breeding reptiles was the best way for me to do it, right?
Starting point is 00:58:02 I could get a job at the zoo, but there's not much money there and there's not many openings, you know? So, so yeah. So I worked with reptiles. I bred reptiles because that was the way I could, you know, it's the labor of love, you know? What's the funnest reptile to breed? Oh my gosh.
Starting point is 00:58:16 I think it, you know, like live bear ones, you know, because, you know, snakes can have eggs and they can have live, right? And when you just like wake up. Really? Yeah. Like rattlesnakes have live, right? So. They just have a baby come right out of it?
Starting point is 00:58:28 Yeah. Just boom. As a matter of fact, crazy story. Just recently I had what I thought was a pair of anacondas. I have a giant female anaconda, like I'm talking like, you know, 125 pound anaconda. And then I had now males are there's what they call sexually dimorphic. So males are smaller. So I was sold this animal's male.
Starting point is 00:58:43 My mistake didn't sex it. And so I'm like, God, they're not breeding. That's kind of weird. This is literally like a month, month and a half ago in one day I come in and the male is now there's never been in with a male, by the way. This is these two animals have been together. That's it. Has a virgin baby.
Starting point is 00:59:00 It's by itself. Because it had both genitalia? Yeah. It's, no, it didn't have both genitalia. It's what they call parthenogenesis. So it's only a female. It's like a virgin birth. No sperm, no anything.
Starting point is 00:59:11 And it's actually a clone of itself. No way. Yeah. So my male turned into a female and had a virgin birth. So. Do they use that type of information to try and learn more about human cloning and stuff? Like, I mean, that seems like a real. They should.
Starting point is 00:59:25 I don't think, I don't know if they are. I mean, maybe someone out there is, I don't know. No one ever contacted me to say, Hey. Can we do some research on it? It would be cool though. I'd love to see it. But, but yeah. I mean, genetically, there's no male, you know, there's only one side and there's actually
Starting point is 00:59:37 there are reptile species like morning geckos, a little lizard, right? Oh, yeah. That have no males in the entire species. They're all everyone's females. Damn. Isn't that crazy? I mean, and they produce like, so parthenogenesis in, in, let's say in anacondas rare, like very rare, like there's probably only been a handful of recorded cases ever.
Starting point is 00:59:55 But then there's morning geckos that that's all they have as parthenogenesis. But I'd say my, going back to your point is lie babies are always the funnest. So that's really the power in nature. I mean, nature, when the, when, when put up against the wall can just make its own self. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the Jurassic Park thing, right? Nature finds a way.
Starting point is 01:00:16 Can other animals do that too? I don't think mammals, there's ever been a parthenogenic mammal. Can you look at it? Yeah. Yeah. See it. Yeah. Parthenogenesis mammal.
Starting point is 01:00:27 Yeah. Man. You said it. You said it. You said it. Not me. I mean, I, I never felt his skin, but I would, he doesn't seem like it. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:00:38 What do we say here? There are no known cases of naturally occurring mammal, mammalian parthenogenesis in the world in the wild. Yep. So it didn't happen. So it didn't happen. Of mammals. What does progeny mean Brian?
Starting point is 01:00:54 Offspring. So if a parthenogenic offspring of mammals would have two X chromosomes and would therefore be female in 1935, George going before he successfully, Wow, into a rabbit reported successfully inducing parthenogenesis in a rabbit. Wow. I wonder how he would induce parthenogenesis in a rabbit. I don't know. I don't know.
Starting point is 01:01:14 I don't know how that goes. That's wild. I mean, that guy, I'd like to have a beer with that guy. Yeah. I'd like to frickin make sure his daughter's okay. Yeah. Damn. That's intense, man.
Starting point is 01:01:24 Wow. So that's what, one thing that baffles me a lot, man, is just the ability of nature, you know, especially we get so like city-fied and comfortable and like so used to like human accoutrements and stuff that we forget sometimes how much of nature we are. Yeah. At least I do anyway. Yeah. I love getting out, man.
Starting point is 01:01:44 You got to get away. And especially when you're in the bush for a while, like you get out, you know, like just totally away from everything. It's amazing how quick you adapt, right? The first couple of days when you're away from everything like cell phones and internet and TV and stuff like that, it's a little bit weird, right? Because we're so used to that, like, oh, God, check Instagram, you know? And a couple of days, it's a little weird, but then all of a sudden you just kind of
Starting point is 01:02:04 forget about it, you know? And it's wild how quickly you can acclimate into a situation because there's been times where I've been out for 30, 40 days, you know, where there's like nothing, you know? I mean, you're just in the bush, you know, working out and it's actually amazing. And then when you come back to reality, it feels really weird, you know? I mean, like, you know, you turn on the TV, it's almost like over sensed, you know, like, oh, that's bizarre. It feels almost bad.
Starting point is 01:02:29 Yeah, it does. It really does, you know? I mean, I look at my screen time on my phone all the time, I'm like, damn, I spent two hours on my phone today, you know? Yeah, just this week, man, I'm trying to really back off. I'm trying to really, really back off, make things less important if I can. Here's a question right here from a young man that seems rather interesting. Brian Theo, what's up, boys?
Starting point is 01:02:53 Stoked to see Brian on the podcast. Boy's been a big fan of, you know, reptiles and all things wild, if you will. I guess my question is for Brian. What are your thoughts on the existence of a giant anaconda still being out there lurking in the depths of the Amazon or Venezuela or wherever those things would be? Yeah, I guess it's kind of cryptozoological, if you will, but figured I'd just throw it out there. Peace.
Starting point is 01:03:22 Theo, see you in Charleston, man. Oh, excellent, man. I'll see you soon. What about that Moby Dick out there? Is there something out there going on? Listen, Theodore Roosevelt, or Teddy Roosevelt, I'm sorry, when he was president put out a grant for $50,000 for anyone that could come up with a snake over 30 foot live or dead, right, way back then.
Starting point is 01:03:45 And then it ultimately ended up, I think, getting raised to like $75,000 until the 90s when they discontinued the grant. And then recently, I even put out something saying I'd give someone 100 grand they came up with a 30 foot snake. I would prefer live instead of dead, and no one's ever claimed that price. So is there a snake out there in Venezuela? By the way, you had a cool shirt on. That's possible.
Starting point is 01:04:09 I mean, is there a megalodon? Probably not, but I'm not going to say never, right? Do you think nature could be trying to run it back ever? Do you ever get that sense being out in nature a lot and seeing a lot of these animals on ground zero of some of these genetic sequences messing with these baby animals? Do you ever think that nature could be trying to run it back and get more dinosaurs out here? Man, I tell you what.
Starting point is 01:04:35 I mean, listen, it's possible. There's a lot of land out there that no one has ever, the animals are being discovered all the time, right? I think it was in the early 2000s, there was an ape, like a 200 pound ape that was discovered in Vietnam that no one, it was like a mythical lure for 200 years. And I was like, no, there's no, that's not true. And then they found that it was real. So is it possible?
Starting point is 01:04:59 Yeah. I mean, I think it's possible. Because you know, a fish, you know, a sealicanth, have you ever seen them? So if you ever, you know, sealicanth, these were thought to be extinct for 100 million years and now they've found them multiple times. So is it possible there's like some dinosaur out there? Heck yeah, there's possible. Is it likely?
Starting point is 01:05:17 You know, this is what I always tell people when someone says, hey, do you believe in this? I say, I want to believe, but I don't, I don't know. You know what I mean? I don't know. It's never been found. I would love Titanoboad to still be around a 50 foot snake, you know, maybe one's crawling around there.
Starting point is 01:05:32 Most likely not. Right? Just like Megalodon is probably not a Megalodon in the water, right? But we don't know. What about Loch Ness monsters is when you ever see that, did you believe it or not? I'll say the same thing. I want to believe. Do I think there's a Loch Ness monster?
Starting point is 01:05:49 No, I don't. But I want to believe because it'd be badass, right? Yeah. I'd imagine if, you know, Pleasius soar would get found and Loch Ness, that'd be absolutely amazing. It'd be sick. But I don't think so. I don't think so.
Starting point is 01:06:02 I'm a pro-realistic guy. Until I have proof. I mean, I'm a science guy, so you got to show me before. As much as I want my heart to believe in it, until I see it, I can't believe it. Who was your first girlfriend? Was it your wife or no? Oh, no, no. I had.
Starting point is 01:06:16 You dated around a little. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. A little bit. A little bit. And would you mess with snakes then? Would you bring a snake on a date? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:06:24 Bring a date to a snake? No. To be honest with you, I didn't do that much of that. Would you keep them separate ever at that age where you're kind of scared that girls would think this is scary? Yeah. I think especially when I was like 15, 16, you know, I was kind of a rocker, played in a band, you know.
Starting point is 01:06:38 I had some groupie girlfriend stuff like that. Yeah, I didn't want them to think I was that much of a freak, you know? Especially back then. Oh, yeah. Like I said, it was so, you know, you were like, I don't want to lose this, so, yeah. Each town had one snake dude or every other town had a snake dude? Like that's kind of. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:06:53 I remember it being like, oh, you hear like, oh, that's the snake dude, people are like, what? Yeah. And then he'd like, he'd get scurry off or something. Yeah. I wasn't that guy. But yeah, I was, you know, to be honest with like in high school, the last few years of high school, like people thought it was cool, right?
Starting point is 01:07:07 They're like, oh man, he keeps snakes, you know, he plays in a rock band. I mean, you know, it's like, people dug it, you know? I mean, I was friends with that, you know, the jocks to the nerds. I was friends with everyone because I kind of had a little of everything in me, right? I was into science. I was, you know, I still liked to, you know, sports and, and I, you know, played rock music and I kept snakes. It's kind of like a little bit for everybody.
Starting point is 01:07:29 Um, who was your first kiss? Do you remember that growing up? Uh, yeah, it's a Karina was her name. I think I was about 11 years old, believe it or not. I was pretty young starter. No, I take that back. I take that back. Uh, I was eight years old named Helen, Helen Politz.
Starting point is 01:07:44 It was her name. It sounds illegal. I want to say also. Yeah. I think she was like 14. Yeah. Yeah. So half my friends have been busted for this kind of stuff.
Starting point is 01:07:53 Yeah. It was. Yeah. And, and if memory serves me correct, it was a little more than a kiss, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:08:03 Yeah. At eight years old, one more is a kiss would have sunk me in the damn mud dude. Yeah. Yeah. A kiss would turn my knees in a damn quick sand knees, bro. Yeah. Right. I couldn't even imagine anything more at eight years old dude.
Starting point is 01:08:15 My God. That's wild man. So whenever you met your wife, when you first met her, did you know it was going to be your wife or no? Dude, this is, it's a funny story, man. I swear. And this is an honest to God truth. Uh, I met her on her 18th birthday at a party and she was one of my best friends, girlfriend's
Starting point is 01:08:35 girlfriend. Okay. I met her. I went home that night and I told my mom, I met the girl I want to marry. Wow. And, and then so then my friend, I was like, Hey, I got to meet up with Lori, have a date, you know, because we hung out a little bit, not too much, you know, for maybe a half hour or just talking and stuff like that.
Starting point is 01:08:50 So the next day I called my friend, like, I got to go out on a date with this Lori. Can you hook me up? You know, and stuff like that. So, uh, so Kathy, my friend, uh, said, uh, yeah, sure. Called Lori. She didn't even remember meeting me. No. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:09:04 So I met the girl I wanted to marry. She didn't even remember meeting me. Literally was like, what? I don't even remember this guy. Don't you remember the guy staring at you for four hours? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:09:15 Long hair guy, you know, I was the only longer guy at the party. You know what I mean? Yeah, dude. I didn't even remember. The guy with the fucking Rango shirt on? Yeah. Exactly. But hey, man, it worked out.
Starting point is 01:09:24 You know, she, uh, she eventually came around and we've been together ever since. Dude, that's a real comeback story right there. I feel like, I think that's a total comeback story. Guys, you got to hear that, man. Persistence. Yeah. Zeroed in on a girl all night. She had no idea that he even existed.
Starting point is 01:09:41 Yeah. No, not at all. I could have been like, yeah. That's cool. I mean, it's cool because a lot of, a lot of guys, that'll shut us down right from the beginning. Yeah. You know?
Starting point is 01:09:50 Yeah. You got to be persistent, but not a stalker. Yeah, yeah. I mean, don't want to be a stalker. You know what I mean? Just like, you know, and we were friends on for a little while. I was like, all right. You know, she just wants to be a friend for a little bit.
Starting point is 01:09:58 You know? Great. And, uh, and then, then, you know, next thing you know, we're together for 33 years. So did you have children were they live or were they egg when you had them? Uh, both, both were live. Okay. Live born. What we'd call, uh, over viviparious.
Starting point is 01:10:10 Oh, really? Yeah. So yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And you got a boy and a girl. Or would you get?
Starting point is 01:10:18 Yeah. Boy and a girl. Girl came first. Matter of fact, I'm going to be a grandpa this January. No. The first time. Yep. Congrats, dude.
Starting point is 01:10:26 You look so young. Next. So thank you. I appreciate it. Yep. I'll be, uh, uh, intergenic grandpa. Hopefully, uh, raise another generation of reptile loving people. So spread that love, you know?
Starting point is 01:10:34 Are they all rep lovers, but you have right now your family? No, to be totally honest with you, it's, it's weird. My, my son, uh, works with us. Uh, my daughter, uh, worked with us out of like, like she had to write when she was younger, but when she graduated college, she was really, you know, like, hey, listen, I just want to tell you right now, I'm never working for you. I'm going off and doing my own thing. And she got like corporate job stuff like that.
Starting point is 01:10:55 So I wouldn't say anyone's like overly like rep, like I'm a reptile nut. Right. Like there's not probably, I mean, there's probably two days out of a year that I'm not around a reptile. Right. Like I'm always around a reptile or an animal. You know, sometimes it's not a reptile, but maybe I'm around, you know, whatever. I mean, you know, lions or whatever, but I'm always around animals.
Starting point is 01:11:14 Uh, you know, my, no one in my family has that gene where it's just obsessed. You know, they tolerate it. You know, my wife works because that's what she does. And she's, she's learned to like love the animals, but she, she's not like, listen, I always say like, if tomorrow I was like, we never have to see a reptile again, she's not going to cry. Right. I mean, she'll be like, okay, that's good.
Starting point is 01:11:32 Let's move on. Yeah. Um, here's a question that came in right here from some, uh, good gentleman right here. This is Roy, I think. Hey guys, it's Roy here from Kansas. I was excited when I saw you guys were doing a podcast together because I watched both of you pretty religiously. Uh, Theo, I wanted to know what advice you have for Brian's son.
Starting point is 01:11:56 No, I don't know if he's going to be on the podcast or not, but I know he's been trying to do some, a little bit of stand up locally where they live. Uh, what advice would you give him as a amateur to maybe make it in the big leagues one day? Also, I wanted to tell Brian. I successfully hatched my first two clutches of ball pythons this year or last year, I guess, um, getting ready to pair up, uh, all the females again this year. Okay. And, uh, probably have about six clutches this year.
Starting point is 01:12:28 So anyway, gang, gang. Thank you, Voldemort. So look at that. Yeah. Um, advice. What do you got? You know, that is a good question, man. Thank you for the question, Roy, man.
Starting point is 01:12:38 I appreciate you paying attention to myself and to Brian. Oh, man. It's interesting what kind of people would pay attention to you and me. Yeah. You know, that's real interesting. I'm sure there's a lot of crossover. I'm sure there is. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:12:49 You know, I, I, I, I, I find it interesting on your partner with people like, okay, what is happening? You know, um, I would say for know who is here, by the way, good to see you, Noah. Um, I would say I even think in the beginning, dude, I used to tell Jim Gaffigan's jokes, what? Yeah. I told this to Jim Gaffigan. What?
Starting point is 01:13:14 He was on one time I said, look, dude, I just want to apologize to you. I didn't have any jokes in the beginning. I just used to tell your jokes. Hot pocket. Did the hot pocket thing? Oh yeah. Oh, I told a couple of them. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:13:24 Yeah. It was good. I think I even sold T-shirts based on one of his jokes. One time I saw it tell the joke and then sell a shirt after the show. But what it did for me was it just got me used to telling jokes on stage. I had plans to tell my own jokes and I had some of my own jokes peppered in there. Yeah. Um, but it just got me comfortable telling jokes.
Starting point is 01:13:46 Sure. So it was like, it wasn't anything that was being recorded or anything like that. So it just got me like, how do I learn to get whatever some of this comfort is? Sure. And then I think one benefit that Noah probably has is that your dad is a unique character. Right. My dad was a unique character. My dad was 70 when I was born.
Starting point is 01:14:07 Everybody knows that. Like it just gave me a lot of material. It was like, you know, it gave me a lot of like cute kind of little jokes that were safe, that were pretty clean that I could tell about my dad, you know. And so I think I've always felt like that was kind of a blessing. Like I was always angry that my dad, not angry, but it was always felt odd, you know, kids always want to be just the regular kids always want to be like, sure, you know, nothing that stands out real crazy.
Starting point is 01:14:34 Sure. Your dad comes to show until he's a fucking guy out there who's doing magic or something. You know, I'm saying that kid is probably going to get beaten down. Right. But it's like, so I think if your dad comes in, your dad comes to show until he's like, I was born in 1910, you know, that's a weird time for the class. Yes. So I think it could, there's just a lot of unique material when your dad is unique like
Starting point is 01:14:57 you are. So I think that that's, I would play on just easy stuff in the beginning. So those are things that I think are just probably gifts that are in your wheelhouse. Yeah. Yeah. When you come from a fan, I mean, there's a lot of stories, right? I mean, you know, mom and dad are, you know, have a reptile zoo, we travel all over the world, we do crazy stuff, been on Discovery Channel, you know, there's a lot of material
Starting point is 01:15:20 there. Yeah. It's a weird, it's a weird life. Right. You know, I say that all the time. I mean, like, I've lived the craziest life ever, you know, I mean, it's the weirdest thing. Like I literally clean snake shit for a living. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:15:33 It's like, it's the weirdest thing, but yet I get to do the most amazing things on the planet. You know, it's like, you know, most people look at me and like, how did this happen? I'm like, I don't even know how it happened, you know, I'm like, I don't even know how I got here. You know, I'm sitting in Theo Vaughn's podcast room here, you know, it's crazy, right? Yeah, it is. I mean, it's definitely interesting.
Starting point is 01:15:51 Yeah, I'm trying to think of some of more and more of my curiosities about snakes. So snakes, why do snakes eat rats and stuff like that? Well, most of them eat rats or rabbits or pigs or whatever the case may be. They're just carnivores, right? You know, but there are snakes that eat really weird things, like snails, some will eat worms, some will only eat slugs, other snakes eat only other snakes or mainly other snakes. Like King Cobra's eat mainly other snakes, you know, in the wild. So, so they're a very diverse animal, right?
Starting point is 01:16:21 You know, but in captivity, most, you know, most snakes that people keep are mice and rats, you know, that's it. Do snakes ever do anything fun together, you think? Well, I don't think so. They're pretty solitary animals. We keep most of our snakes separate except for breeding. I think they just want to be left alone, you know, I think they're not like a real social animal.
Starting point is 01:16:41 Although there's like the Narcissi snake dens, if you want to pull that up, it's pretty cool. Narcissi snake den up in Manitoba, Canada, it's crazy. It's the place you would love to go, I'm sure. And is it outdoors or it's an indoors place? It's outdoors. And so it's a naturally occurring thing. Naturally occurring snake den that is, this is your nightmare right here, dude. I mean, thousands and thousands of snakes gather together.
Starting point is 01:17:02 Why are they doing it? Yeah, thousands and thousands of snakes. But it's crazy. I mean, it's like, it's a super popular tourism place, you know, people go and see these thousands of snakes that have den together for hibernation or brumation is what they would call it. And pretty crazy, right? Damn. I've never been.
Starting point is 01:17:19 I want to go. I want to go so bad, you know, I've never seen anything like it, but I want to check it out. It's like Burning Man. Yeah, Burning Man for snakes, right, exactly. It's like, yeah, Burning Man. And how much snakes are there and why are they there again? Well, they're just brumating.
Starting point is 01:17:35 So a lot of times in particular species like garter snakes will brumate together. So they're mating. They're not even mating. No, they're just like going to sleep for like a hibernation. Oh, so they sleep in a group. Yep. They just sleep in a group and then they wake up. And then when they wake up, they then they get into breeding and you'll have like breeding
Starting point is 01:17:51 modes and stuff like that. And then, yeah, I mean, that's pretty much it, you know, and then they'll go on their own way. You know, during the summer months, they're not together at all. Have a snake ever eaten an animal and then the animal lived and cut open the snake and got out? Well, I don't know of any that have lived, but there have been like, there's actually a famous picture.
Starting point is 01:18:12 You can pull this up too. And Burmese Python eats alligator and explodes out of the alligator. So the alligator explodes out of the Burmese Python. What the fuck are y'all doing, dude? Oh my, I'm sure. I'm sure. Well, you're going to have to clear your cash when you're when we're done here. I mean, y'all got to chill with all of this shit.
Starting point is 01:18:32 So you can see the second picture here right over. Not that one. The neck, that one right there. That's actually an alligator that's busting out of a snake's gut, you know, stomach. So that's crazy, right? Nature, man. It's awesome. It fucking scares me so much when I think that's the thing that scares me sometimes
Starting point is 01:18:51 about dying is going back and becoming part of something that I'm scared of. Right. Yeah, you could be a snake. Who knows, man? Or even as a part, you know, becoming like a cell and a snake. It really does. That's the thing I think that scares me the most about him is like, is that they are closer to whatever the source of like life is that I feel like then as humans, we are that way.
Starting point is 01:19:11 But maybe, maybe, and I'm no expert in this Buddhism or whatever, but maybe you keep moving forward, not backwards. Yeah. The next life you're supposed to be one step closer to the enlightenment, right? Yeah. I don't know. You could be right. No, no.
Starting point is 01:19:27 I think you're right. I think that. But I just wonder which way is the enlightenment going? It's like, I don't know what the scale is. Yeah. You think you start off at the beginning and then end up a single cell amoeba somewhere? Yeah. Like, that's what I don't know.
Starting point is 01:19:40 It's like, I don't know which way and which way you're passing. Like, are you headed this way or just whatever you did in this, you know, this space in the firmament, does that choose wherever you're going to be at next kind of, um, yeah, I choose to think that it'll be better next time. Yeah. If there's a next time. That's a really good outlook. I think, um, I'm an optimist.
Starting point is 01:20:02 Are you? Yeah. You seem like an optimist man. Yeah. That's got to be really nice. You're not. I would like to be, I think. I think I am.
Starting point is 01:20:10 I just think I'm just like a burnt out optimist. Gotcha. Not even drug induced. Just like, oh God. And so yeah, I've been thinking optimistic for so long, I'm tired of thinking in that way anymore. Yeah. I understood.
Starting point is 01:20:24 And you're always battling the dark arts, I feel like. Right. And so you're like, man, you want to see more of the light, you know? Yeah. I think that's one thing that's neat about, well, it's one thing that's neat about life in general is if you get off of like a lot of like the news and the BS and Twitter and a lot of that, you get back to the things that are more important and there is a lot of joy and a lot more optimism.
Starting point is 01:20:43 Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't watch the news man. Yeah. Yeah. About two years ago, I was like, I'm done. Yeah. Don't do that in my life anymore.
Starting point is 01:20:51 Just, you know, negativity breeds negativity, man. Yeah. It's like that. I just want, get rid of all the negative stuff in my life, get, you know, surround myself with positivity, you know? And that's the thing that's nice about animals, right? I mean, they, that you get what you give, right? You give them good, you know, it's like a dog, right?
Starting point is 01:21:07 If you love your dog, he's going to love you back, you know, and it's the same thing with reptiles and, and all animals for that matter. Is there a reptile that you feel, I mean, you mentioned that lizard that can love you kind of? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, it's crazy.
Starting point is 01:21:21 I, you know, and I don't know if love is the right term for a reptile. I don't know what they're thinking. I have no idea, but, but they definitely seem to have this, you know, some seem to have this really interesting bond where, you know, like I have a giant anaconda, the one I was talking about, not the one that had the virgin birth, but the other female that, you know, you go on her cage and she'll crawl right up to you and just like sniff you like a dog, you know? And I mean, I've had like other reptile people that have been working with reptiles for decades
Starting point is 01:21:44 to come and sit in a cage and they're like, I can't believe this. This doesn't even make sense to me because it's like, you would think of a snake wants to go away from you. She actually literally wants to come over to you and sniff you and literally she'll, as soon as you go in her enclosure, it's a gigantic enclosure. It's 10 and a half by 10 octagon waterfall, the whole shot. And, and, and, you know, she loves to be in the water. You go in the water, she'll be right in there, you know, swirling around your legs.
Starting point is 01:22:10 I mean, yeah. So I think they, they at least have a bond. If it, I don't know if it's love, but it's a bond for sure. Do people ever rent snakes out from you? Do you do like snake rentals? You know, I don't rent snakes, but we've worked with, we, you know, we've done a few things with like film and stuff like that where like, hey, can you bring a snake for the day or something on that line?
Starting point is 01:22:28 Up in Detroit, is Kid Rock ever rented a snake from you? You know, I haven't met Kid Rock, met Eminem at an animal show I was doing once. Kid Rock, we just haven't crossed paths, you know, my tattoo or tattoos him. So it's interesting that we haven't crossed paths at some point, but I would think he would be into reptiles. It seems like a guy that would be into reptiles, but we just haven't crossed paths, but, but I do have people that their main job is to rent snakes to, to like movies and stuff like that commercials.
Starting point is 01:22:57 But I just don't, I just don't do that, you know, it's something I, I probably could do more if I want to do, but I don't care about it that much. Was there a lot of sacrifice? Cause if you did so much stuff, it seems like with the animals, was it hard to like run a family and have that at the same time, or was things pretty manageable? Did it all seem okay? No, dude, you know, I mean, you know, just like in your career, man, when you're committed, you're committed.
Starting point is 01:23:17 Now, all of a sudden I, you know, with you, you're probably working constantly, traveling, doing all these other engagements. I'm taking care of thousands of animals, right? You know, so, and they don't take Christmas off, right? They don't have a holiday, you know, so Christmas morning, we're opening presents with the kids and then I'm off to the shop to make sure everything's healthy and happy. And so there's tons of sacrifice, you know, I mean, you know, running businesses are sacrificed and then a live animal business is even a giant sacrifice, you know, because
Starting point is 01:23:44 you're always, and then, you know, on my end, I, because I film every day, you know, for my vlog, and then now I got that I have to do every day. So yeah, it's a, it's, the balance is tough, you know. Have you ever got a crazy call, somebody hit a snake or the cops are neat a snake or something, a man been hiding a snake, something's going on, you ever get called in because they're like, oh, we know a guy? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've been called into, as a matter of fact, the real estate agent just two days
Starting point is 01:24:08 ago called me and said that there was a snake in a house she was renting, similar to what happened to you and said, can you come on, get this snake? I don't know what to do. So we get calls like that or like the local authorities will call us if they, you know, maybe someone moved out of a house and left snakes behind or reptiles behind or stuff like that. So we will do that, you know, it's not something that I, you know, it's part of my life or something like that, but I'm happy to help at any point I can, you know, but it's always
Starting point is 01:24:33 weird. I put out about probably 20 pounds of snake repellent this morning. That's like cinnamon. I thought a little bit. So that's an interesting thing, right? It's like, I heard you say that and you're right, you know, like cinnamon is one pepper is another one that people talk about. I don't think any of them work to be honest with you.
Starting point is 01:24:49 I think it makes you feel better. Right. I mean, not that I'm, no, I'm faking, making you feel worse, but I'm not sure that anything breaks the thing. But I, if I was a betting man, I think your invasion is over and you're not going to see a snake again. Is there worse setting any kind of trap inside or anything like that to see if there's more snakes in there?
Starting point is 01:25:07 Would they come and get it? Like a mouse trap or something? No, no, no, not really. I think there was a guy one time made this snake trap thing that supposedly worked. So first off, snakes oftentimes want to be along a wall. Like they don't want to be in the middle of the floor because that's dangerous, right? You know, danger, danger. I'm in the middle of there.
Starting point is 01:25:26 So they'll like be along the walls, right? And so he actually took like a two liter Pepsi bottle that was an opening that it could get into and put like a little mouse in there and it could get into it, but then wasn't smart enough to figure out how to get out of it. Interesting. So that was the only snake trap I've ever seen that apparently worked, but I've never tried it. And, you know, we don't get mini snake escapes, but we get the occasional snake that escapes,
Starting point is 01:25:50 you know, from a drawer or something like that. And then we have to try to find it. Probably, you know, I actually had a 19 foot snake escape once, but that was my fault. I left it. Listen, every time a snake escapes, it's always my fault. I've always accidentally left a latch undone or a lock undone, but, and she wasn't a happy snake either. So it was a lot of fun catching her.
Starting point is 01:26:10 Have a snake ever killed its owner that you know of? They have. Yeah. Yeah, they have. It's not, it's not common, but it does happen. I think there's been about, there's probably been about five or six deaths in the United States in the last 30 years. Oh, that's not that many.
Starting point is 01:26:24 So it's not many. It's far less than even shark attacks, you know, so it's pretty, no, no, you know, again, it happens, you know, in the wild more in Indonesia and the Philippines, you know, big giant reticulated pythons will take people a little bit more common. Again, I don't think like multiple per year, but it does happen. I mean, just maybe two, two years ago, I remember seeing a story of a woman went out because like her pig was squealing, right? And she went out to go figure out what was happening with the pig.
Starting point is 01:26:53 Obviously, there was a snake there and the next morning they found her slippers and in a giant snake with a huge lump in it and they actually cut the snake and she was inside. Oh, she was deceased? Oh yeah. Yeah. Damn. But that's, it's a rare thing. Like I said, in America, it's very, very rare, you know.
Starting point is 01:27:11 And again, usually it's, you know, listen, you know, that's why you shouldn't handle a big snake without someone else there. I have never, we've always had the policy, got to have two people just in case and I've never been in danger my entire life. Never once has a snake almost killed me. If a snake starts swallowing your friend, what do you do? What is the other about? What are you supposed to do?
Starting point is 01:27:30 So we, we have a policy as much as I hate to say it is that if there's ever a situation where someone's in danger, you kill the snake, you know, immediately, like, I mean, there's no second chance, you know, you can't, you can't take the risk of trying to get that snake off if it's danger mode, right? Because if you have an 18, we have snakes that are almost 200 pounds, you know, if that thing is, is for some reason, and we've never had it happen, but for some reason that is constricting you, you don't have much time, I mean, that's going to, it's going to black you out, you know, you follow UFC, I mean, you'll put someone to sleep pretty quick,
Starting point is 01:27:59 right? You can imagine a snake this big, it's going to put someone to sleep real quick, you know. Once you're asleep, will they then, do they then let go? Can they tell when you're asleep? They'll, they'll squeeze you until you're done, right? You know, so they're not going to, you're not just, you can't play, yeah, so you can't play dead, you know, you can't be like, oh, I'll just play dead and they'll let go. I mean, it'll, it'll, it'll hang on to you for 20, 30 minutes, you know, and then release.
Starting point is 01:28:22 So what should you do if a snake started wrapping around you, hit it with your car keys or something? Yeah, 99.9999% of times when a snake is wrapping around you, it's holding on to you like it wants you, like you're a tree, it's just trying not to fall, you know, just trying not to fall. It is, like I said, I've never experienced a snake trying to kill me or anyone around me ever, so I don't know what would trigger a snake, maybe it's hungry, maybe you haven't taken care of it and haven't fed it properly. I'm not sure.
Starting point is 01:28:49 I don't know what would trigger a snake to try to constrict you. I've never seen it. So I don't think it's, I think people think it happens and even, you know, when people see me have a giant anaconda around my neck, like, isn't it going to kill you? You know, you're like, no, it's just hanging on to me, man. It's like literally I'm like a tree, you know, and it's just going to wrap around you so it doesn't fall, right? Right.
Starting point is 01:29:10 Yeah, it's not trying to kill you. Do you, is there another question that came in Spence? Anything else you want to get to? So my question is, how do you feel about, like, all the hate that you get, people say you don't take care of your animals, correct, whatever, like, I don't know, watched you for a few years. I don't know. I'm very interesting.
Starting point is 01:29:34 It's crazy taking care of a bunch of reptiles like that, but I just want to fill your opinion, like, and all the hate, all that shit, sorry, it's windy out here, y'all, gang, gang. Windy inside everywhere, man. So why do, why do animal people get so much you don't take care of your animals? Why is that such a common thing in the animal world? I think it's, it's always, I think it's not just in the animal world. I think that hatred comes from success, right? You know, just like you, you have a big following, I guarantee you, there are people out there
Starting point is 01:30:00 that think you're bad for whatever reason, right? People are mean. Yeah. And so like, I can tell you this much, no one that's ever visited my place has ever said I haven't taken care of an animal, you know what I mean? It's always just the people that like are jealous or like, oh my God, this guy's got a big following and he's, and, and it doesn't even bother me to be honest with you because I know, right?
Starting point is 01:30:19 I don't have to prove to anybody what the deal is. I know that, I mean, you can't go to a place that's better kept than ours. I mean, the animals are impeccably kept and, and we have a crew that's really great. So, so yeah, that stuff, I think that just comes with being successful, you know, comes with people following you, you know, when you have five people that follow you online, no one cares, but when you have millions of people that follow you, you know, their voice, you know, that, that minor, that vocal minority, and they, you know, you know, you know, I'm sure you get the same thing.
Starting point is 01:30:48 The most crazy things get made up about me that, that's wild. I'll read something. I'll be like, what? No, we're like, like, you know, it's like, you know, who knows, you know, I mean, I hear all kinds of stuff, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, and he's building a know his art. You're like, that's fucking insane. Yeah, I, yeah, this is all kind of shit, but I think that, you know, as you know, in
Starting point is 01:31:10 your position that, you know, we, we signed up for this number one, right? I mean, no one told us to become social media or comedians or whatever. We decided to do it. So we have to take the good with bad. The bad, the bad is, is loudmouths that like to, you know, have their 15 minutes of, you know, fame with the keyboard, you know, and, and you have to learn how to just not worry about it. It's a little bit more difficult, you know, with animals because, because when someone
Starting point is 01:31:35 hears like you're not taking care of your animals, then people like, oh my God, he's an animal abuser. Whereas if someone's like, you know, like Theo stole the, you know, Jim Gaffigan's jokes when he was, you're like, eh, whatever. It didn't matter as much. So people take that more serious. But again, I think that's a good point. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:31:50 Animal things are hot. It's always such a hot topic. I think especially when that Joe Dirt, Joe Tiger King, yeah, Tiger King. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever run across that guy? I didn't know Joe, but I knew almost everyone else in the series. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:32:02 They're almost everyone else in the series with friend of mine. So it was, it was definitely a very, as a matter of fact, the scene, if you remember the scene opens up at a reptile place, if you remember. And so he's at a reptile place, guy named Tom Crutchfield. And then all of a sudden there's a van, Mark McCarthy, a buddy of mine, and there's a snow leopard in it. And he says, wow, this took me on a completely different direction. That series was originally supposed to be a reptile series.
Starting point is 01:32:27 It turned into a tiger series because he just happened to be at my friend Tom Crutchfield's place, which by the way, they've now filmed that reptile king. I don't know. I think it's going to be called Lizard King, to be honest with you, because there was a book called Lizard King from Brian Christie, was a bestseller. And the guy named Ray and Mike Venostrum were the Lizard Kings in their reptile people. But Tom Crutchfield also was one of the main guys. That's how that whole thing started.
Starting point is 01:32:51 It was supposed to be shot about Ray Venostrum, Mike Venostrum, Tom Crutchfield, and a couple other guys. And it turned into Tiger King. But yeah, like I'm friends with Mario, the guy that Scar faces, you know, I don't know. The guy, he's literally, the Scar face was made after him, Mario, I've known Mario for a long time. Pretty much all the guys in the series I've been friends with, you know, the Myrtle Beach and Doc Antle.
Starting point is 01:33:14 Doc Antle's wild. Yeah. He seems interesting. The interesting is a word for it. That's exactly what he says. That whole thing. I mean, listen, I don't know how they make it work, man, you know, like, but they do. Like I see what they do with these animals and I'm like, I don't know how people aren't
Starting point is 01:33:28 dying, you know, but they got it. Oh, I don't know. His son is in debt every day. Like they're eating damn mangoes with a damn, you know, snow cat or whatever. Yeah, no, I mean, but it works, man. I mean, they somehow have those animals dialed in and it's, you know, like, I don't know, man. I mean, I give them a lot of respect from the standpoint that they really know their stuff
Starting point is 01:33:48 because no one's ever been hurt there and they are, you're walking around with a Liger that's 800 pounds or whatever, you know, it's like, that's crazy. I gotta go over there. You should, man. Just see. I'm supposed to go to Charleston in a couple of weeks. Maybe I'll try to stop on the way. Let me know.
Starting point is 01:34:02 That'd be a great idea. Is it hard to support like, does your wife and children have other interests? Are you so reptile and that it's ever like hard to like, because I find it hard in my own life. I get so caught up in my own stuff that it's like, man, I've created so many things that are busy. It's hard for me to put them down and recognize other people's interests and stuff. And it's not a judgment.
Starting point is 01:34:23 It's just a curiosity. No, no, I think you're 100% right. I think that, you know, if you're doing things the way, I mean, this is a, it's a, let's go back to the balance thing. I am so unbalanced, dude. You're right. You know, I mean, like I work, like I work like way too much. I mean, you know, it's hard to have other interests at all.
Starting point is 01:34:43 You know what I mean? Like, like I'd love to go out and play hockey or play baseball or something like that on the weekends. That just ain't going to happen. You know, I'm too busy and, and it's the same thing. My wife is, you know, she's, you know, 24 seven, you know, with me. So we try, we're trying, you know, I mean, but it's, it's hard because you've done everything you can do.
Starting point is 01:35:01 I feel like. Yeah. Well, that's. Besides be a damn snake. Right. Well, this is the thing that's great about my life. And same thing with yours is that I'm doing all this crazy work, but in the meantime, I'm like, you know, on a fricking island in the middle of Indonesia, you know, in a cave
Starting point is 01:35:17 with, with snakes, you know, or, or I'm traveling around or even, even, you know, like again, you know, just like the first time I met you, you know, I'm going to a comedy show and then going back and meeting Theo Vaughn, you know, that's what everything is. So I go to a baseball game, I'm meeting the baseball players, you know, so, so like, you know, so you might work your, your butt off, but at the same time you're with, you're, you're, you're winning because you're living an extraordinary life. Yeah. You know, even though you're working like a dog, you're like doing things that people
Starting point is 01:35:43 can only dream you could do, sitting in a room talking with Theo Vaughn for two hours or whatever. You know, it's like, it's, it's a blessing, but yeah, there's not a lot of balance, man. Like, you know, I'm not sitting around playing bocce ball very much. That's for sure. Yeah. That's interesting. And I don't know if it goes back to something inside of me that wants to work all the time.
Starting point is 01:36:01 If it goes back to a fear of being like not seen or something, I don't know. Do you know what made you, what drove, what drives you, if you ever thought back on it? Oh my gosh. Yeah. A hundred percent. It's, you know, the typical, you know, parents never thought you had to mount to anything. You're never going to be good enough. You're never going to be the, you know, your brother and sister are going to be more successful
Starting point is 01:36:19 and then you have that chip, you know, you're like your, I tell people all the time, I've been, I've been trying to, you know, prove to my, my dad that died 10 years ago how good I am, you know? Yeah. And that's what it is, right? I mean, it's, you know, I, I listen, I've got a lot of pathologies, right? You know, and I know them all. I've been through therapy plenty, you know, so, so I get it, you know, I'm driven because
Starting point is 01:36:38 of things that happened to me when I was young, but, but at the same thing, you know, like I've said, it's like I'd rather be driven to do something great than be driven to do something wrong. You know what I mean? And I could have, hey, that fork was in the road when I was 16, 17 years old. That tongue is split at the end, baby. Yeah. I could have went the other way and I could have been doing bad things my whole life,
Starting point is 01:36:57 you know? I mean, I tell people all the time, I'm, I'm, I'm an addict up the, you know, more than an addict, you can imagine. I just choose my addictions to be positive addictions and not drugs and alcohol and, and bad stuff, right? Hmm. Interesting. Um, I got one last question.
Starting point is 01:37:11 Do you, uh, when you travel around the world and you go to these different cultures and stuff, is there a culture that you feel like that is most closest to nature, that you get like a sense like, man, these people are right. Or so much closer on the cusp of, of nature than maybe, uh, US culture or of our culture. Well, for me, it's always been the continent of Africa. You know what I mean? Like, you know, Africans, uh, are more in tune with animals for sure. Wow.
Starting point is 01:37:42 Now, you know, see Australia embraces animals, but Australia, you've been, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're very, it's like America with an accent. You know, really. But they, but you also, when you go to the store, there's a gummy snakes and there's, you know, there's koala bears everywhere and, you know, I mean, they're very, they embrace nature.
Starting point is 01:37:59 Yeah. And those animal little sanctuaries and zoos all over, you pull off any, yeah, you pull off at a damn truck stop and there's somebody in there fucking tickling a koala, a little, uh, note cheer, whatever that little animal is. A walk. A walk. Yeah. Or a little, what is it called, that smiling animal?
Starting point is 01:38:16 Oh, that's a quokka. Quokka. Yeah. Yeah. Quokka. Happiest animal in the earth. But I think the Africans are, you know, Australians embrace wildlife. They still live in homes and stuff like that.
Starting point is 01:38:29 Africa, especially if you get into the bush, I mean, those people, I mean, it's a way of life. I mean, they're certainly, you know, they've got lions and they've got, you know, leopards and they've got rhinos and elephants living amongst them. Right. And it's a, I love being in the bush in Africa, you know, that's like the probably purest places I've ever been in my entire life. And the people there are, you know, I went to a place called, uh, Daktari school for,
Starting point is 01:38:55 bush school for kids and they would take, uh, they would take these kids from the bush and bring them into this little camp for two weeks. And the first thing they would teach them is how to flush a toilet because they had never seen running water before. Right. And I was lucky enough to come in and spend some time teaching these kids about wildlife. Right. And for them, wildlife can be scary because you wake up in the morning and, you know,
Starting point is 01:39:18 your uncle Johnny got killed by a lion, you know, or whatever. So, so everything. And he was the breakfast chef. Right. Yeah. Exactly. And so, uh, but, but then you teach them that these animals can be respected and it's amazing. I mean, and I've never been to a, uh, a rural village in Africa that they aren't all smiles
Starting point is 01:39:36 and aren't all like loving life, even though they have virtually nothing. And so, uh, so yeah, I think Africa is the place. I mean, it's the place I always get called back to. Right. Like when I, I want to go and, and, and just feel nature, that's where you go and, and have you been to Africa? Yeah. Yes.
Starting point is 01:39:54 Yeah. I've had some great experience. Yeah. I would say similar. You look in some people's eyes there and it looks like they go so far back. Yeah. It does. It feels like you're home when you're in Africa.
Starting point is 01:40:02 And that's what I always say. It's like, as a matter of fact, there's a great saying that says once you've, your boot has stepped its foot in Africa, you can never get the dust off. And, and I think that that's a real true story, you know, it's like it's always calling for you to come back. And I can't wait till we can do some more traveling and get back to places that I love like that. It's awesome.
Starting point is 01:40:22 Where do your kids like to go? Uh, well, Noah is a, is a big traveler, uh, and, uh, uh, my, my daughter is, is, uh, she's more like, she'd go to a resort, you know, something like, she's that type of a traveler. Yeah, that's fun. Whereas Noah is more of an adventurous traveler. I think, you know, he, over the, you know, he's been a lot of places, but I think over the rest of his life, he'll be, he'll, he'll see the places I've seen, you know, and, and
Starting point is 01:40:43 we've been to some pretty crazy things. I mean, I've, uh, uh, again, you know, some of my travels have been ridiculous. You know, I mean, probably the craziest, you know, travel thing that I ever did once was I was in Indonesia and, uh, there's this, this famous, uh, guy named Brady Barr. I don't know if you've ever heard him, Nat Geo guy, you know, like presenter, you know, and there's this really famous scene where he's in this cave, uh, in Indonesia in a place called Astanaular and, uh, he, he gets bit by a big reticulated python right in the gooch, right in the gooch gets him.
Starting point is 01:41:13 He's in Baguana, right? And, and he, uh, he gets bit and he screams like crazy. You pull them up. Yeah. And like I said, the most famous thing Brady ever done was get bit by a reticulated python in this thing. So we had, uh, I was in Indonesia, I was in Indonesia and, uh, I get this, uh, literally I have a piece of loose leaf, loose leaf paper dude with a map drawn, a drawn map, how to
Starting point is 01:41:37 get to the cave, right? Now this cave is on an island called Labanbaju. And, uh, so I, and all I have is a loose leaf paper, loose leaf paper literally says fly from Bali to Labanbaju, drive 43 kilometers up to Astanaular and hike an hour down a trail to the cave. That's all I got. Right. So I literally pack my backpack, one change of clothes.
Starting point is 01:41:59 I've got some camera gear, it's me and a friend of mine. And we get on a prop plane, fly two hours off of Bali to Labanbaju, get their, uh, taxi driver that we had arranged in the beginning, like not taxi, but a driver, like he's supposed to take us there. We get there and he's like, Oh no, no, I'm not going to Astanaular. That's way too dangerous to get up into that. And I'm like, what? We literally just flew here.
Starting point is 01:42:19 Right. So I fortunately had a friend that was real connected in Indonesia. I call him up. He gets on the phone with him. I don't know what he, I don't know if he threatens them, bribes and I have no idea what that. So finally I was like, all right, let's go. So we drive 43 kilometers, takes us literally like four hours because the roads are so bad
Starting point is 01:42:34 to get up there. Get up there. We get into this, this little village called Astanaular. And we have to get a passage, you know, for, from the elder, you know, the chief, like if we can go to the cave, because this is a holy cave. And, um, and, and so, so literally like, you know, you get up there and, you know, they probably don't see too many white people, probably seem Brady Barr was the last white person they probably saw.
Starting point is 01:42:54 Right. And we, you know, all the village folk are out there laughing, they're smiling, taking, you know, selfies and all this other stuff. And, and then they, now we got to sit down with the elders, right? We go into this dark room about this size and it's me and my friend and, and, uh, friend cool. My friend is cool. He's from California.
Starting point is 01:43:12 He's cool. He's hanging out. And then I've got my translator that was the guy that drove us here, right? He's going to translate for us. He's sitting next to me and we go in this dark room, three elders sitting here, rest of the village behind him. And now they're all stoic, not even a smile on their face, right? And 15 minutes I hear, you know, they're talking back.
Starting point is 01:43:29 No idea. It's like survivor at the end of survivor. I'm like, what's, and you got to remember there are still parts of Indonesia that head hunt, right? Yeah. You know, so at the end of this 15 minutes, the end of this 15 minutes, I'm not even shitting you, man. I was texting my wife hoping that maybe it would ping off something saying, I don't know
Starting point is 01:43:44 if I'm going to make it out of here alive, right? And so at the end of this 15 minutes of go back and forth, the, the, the lead elder reaches back and some lady hands a machete. At that point, I thought I was dead. I'm like, okay, I'm done. Yeah, I'm done. It's over. So that he gets the machete, he puts it on his side.
Starting point is 01:44:03 Everyone stands up, walks out. My translator is not saying shit to me, you know, like, and I'm like, what is going on? You know? So finally he says, okay, I talked to the chief. He said, he will take you to the cave for like what equated to like 40 bucks, right? I'm like, oh my, I got $40. I saved my life. I got an escort.
Starting point is 01:44:20 I'm in, you know? And we would have never found this cave. This, it was a trail that like an hour into the bush, we would have been lost in 15 minutes, you know? But the guy took us into the cave, did this really bad as ritual. He had like, he had an egg that was in a handkerchief. He like split the machete was to get like off a sacred tree to knock a branch off. And then he puts the branch down, puts the egg on top and then sings this ritual for
Starting point is 01:44:45 safe passage into the cave. And so we go in there and sure. The craziest hearties you could ever be at. Yeah, right? And so we go in there backwanna up to my waist. No way. I mean, just raining bat poop, right? You know?
Starting point is 01:44:59 And we caught some snakes in there. And it was a great adventure, man. It was a great adventure, you know? So I think no one will have those adventures in the future as well. You know, it's probably one of the coolest things I've ever done. I did fall into the backwanna at one point, killed my camera. By the way, I had my camera slip fell into the back when I was covered in bat crap. And then I had one change of clothes and that was, then had to hike an hour back up
Starting point is 01:45:21 to this, the thing to drive four hours back home. So yeah. Well, if he stays doing comedy, he won't have, I mean, he'll perform with the St. Louis funny bone. That's a real shithole. Yeah. So he might not have, it might have been the same type of shithole with the bat stuff, but it'll be just different type of shit.
Starting point is 01:45:37 Yeah. Still got to watch yourself off at the end. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brian Barzik, man, thank you so much, dude, for coming and just spending time with me, man. I really think it's fascinating.
Starting point is 01:45:46 I wish I'd, if I'd had a snake, I'd pet one, man. I got one. You want one? Did you guys really bring it? I bring one. Yeah. You want to get it? Oh, I was just saying that.
Starting point is 01:45:56 I think you should, I think you should. If you'd be here with me, man, I'm here. I'm here, man. I'm right here. All right. Let's get one, man. Let's see what's going on. And where is this snake from, brother?
Starting point is 01:46:07 All right. I'm going to start. Hang on a second. Oh, Jesus Christ. He's sitting there doing it. I'm going to start small. Whoa, whoa, dog. What you doing, man?
Starting point is 01:46:19 Come on, man. This is small. I'm going to start small. I've got one other snake. You got to check out. But check this out. This is called a piebald ball python. Look, it's got a smiley face on it.
Starting point is 01:46:27 Okay. And it's got an upside-down smiley face. Okay. Come on, man. Now, is these glasses, is this going to scare him? Nope. Not at all. This is drama.
Starting point is 01:46:35 Oh, come on, man. That dude's moving around, buddy. No, no. Just hold your hands out like this. You're going to be good. Oh, I'm scared right now. He's not going to care. He doesn't matter.
Starting point is 01:46:43 Well, what about me? You can be scared, but you're not going to be afraid, because you're going to feel it. You're going to be like, hold it out. That's way cooler than I expected. All right? You can't bite through this, can you? You can't bite you, ever.
Starting point is 01:46:52 All right? I promise you. Okay, so what's going to happen then? This is going to happen. Can I just put him on the ground? Can I put him on the table, or should I put him in the air? You can put him in the ground. But if I have these braces, is that going to scare him?
Starting point is 01:47:00 Nope. So I can't scare him. I don't want him scared, dude. Let me just touch him first. Okay, cool. All right. And then I got one other thing I'll show you. See, that's not bad, right?
Starting point is 01:47:14 The thought of holding a snake is way worse than actually holding a snake. He's just chilling. Okay. Okay. Good. All right. Let me show you one more. Jesus, dog.
Starting point is 01:47:24 Damn, bro. I think I just had an egg birth in my heart. I feel like I just had a pair of watcho. Damn, boy. Now, this one's got to go around your neck. Damn, bro. Come on, bro. This one's got to go around your neck, all right?
Starting point is 01:47:40 What? This one's super sweet. It's the only way you can hold on. Hold on, dude. I can't even hear you right now. You have to give me at least 10 seconds, man. Man, man. Damn, bro.
Starting point is 01:47:49 All right. You're going to be fine. Okay. Now, what is that snake doing? Where is that snake from, man? This snake is a Burmese python. It's now a final Burmese python. And it's not going to do anything.
Starting point is 01:47:57 It's super tame. I mean, this is, I mean. It seems like it wants to do something. It's around, like, five-year-old kids all day long. God, dude. You ready? Yeah. Now, what are you going to do?
Starting point is 01:48:08 You're going to put it on me, and then what do I do? Just sit here. Just sit here, and I'll take them off when you tell me. Okay. All right. Super simple. Well, it just, hold on, dawg. It's just breathing.
Starting point is 01:48:16 It's just breathing. Why can't it fucking just breathe real quietly, more quietly, dude? It's breathing like a damn, like it's damn. We got a V6 in its neck. It's going to be fine. I got you, all right? Okay. Let's wait till it's looking away.
Starting point is 01:48:31 All right. I'm going to take it like this, so it's looking away. You tell me when you're ready. Okay. And it's not going to go up my sleeves or anything, is it? Should I pin my sleeves to the clothes? Nope. You're good.
Starting point is 01:48:39 You're good. I got you, all right? Yep. Just like this? Yep. Like this? Okay. And if you put this hand out like that, you can control its head, and you're set.
Starting point is 01:48:48 See? You did it. You proud? Yep. You won. Thank you, brother. You got it. Jesus Christ, bro.
Starting point is 01:48:56 Yeah, that was awesome, right? Yeah, that was awesome, right? That's what I feel scared. You did good, man. You did good. You should be proud of yourself, man. That's good stuff, isn't it? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:49:04 Can I try one more time with you? Yes, of course. Okay. I just want to feel it. See, I told you. I want to feel the fear again. I told you. I told you this is how it happens.
Starting point is 01:49:12 All right. Am I good? You're good. He's just kind of cruising around. Do I hold him or anything? No. No. No.
Starting point is 01:49:20 No. No. No? No. No? Do I hold him or anything? You're good. All right.
Starting point is 01:49:28 As for how I seem, okay? You're good. I mean, you seem a little stiff. That's fine. He seems fine. He's happy. You can move. You can breathe.
Starting point is 01:49:39 You can do all that normal stuff that people do. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, we're grateful. We are grateful that you're here tonight. Thank you. This episode brought to you by liquid death or just regular death Okay, what is he looking at? Okay, good. Yeah, man. He seems wow. I think it's just that
Starting point is 01:50:07 He doesn't seem like a bad guy Okay, thank you Okay, I think I'm okay for today. That's good though. Goodbye, buddy. There you go. Wow You did good brother. I'm proud of you. We're powerful. See it's like you won. It's like you won your winner way I feel a little bit more Yeah, like I want to like I just like I did something, you know, like I leaned into the discomfort. Oh geez. No worries It means it's his lunchtime. I'm sure yeah, that's it I just in time just in time. I took him back so close. Yeah, so close
Starting point is 01:50:45 Wow, man, that's amazing, dude. Yeah, it's cool, right? I mean when you do it, it's kind of it's mesmerizing, right? Oh, yeah, that's what I told you is that people that just like you, you know, afraid then you do it And you're like, let me do that again, man Let me do that again and the next thing you know, you're like really into it I'm telling you, you know, if you were close to me, you'd be at my place every day You'd be like, holy crap. This thing is awesome. You know When we come up, man, oh you have log I'll come in there when we come up and we'll do something fun, man You have to show me around a little bit. I'll try to be more a little bit more brave. You're you were brave, man
Starting point is 01:51:17 You did great, dude. I feel good. It definitely makes me feel something It makes me feel like I did something I didn't want to do a little bit, you know Yeah, I feel a little bit more like maybe I don't know if it's maybe a little bit more confidence I think you're I think you could see it actually, you know I could see it in your face You went from like terrified in the beginning to almost like wow, this is all right. I got this man. I got this. That's pretty awesome You should be proud of yourself. I'm proud of you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you for being here, too, man Thanks for boosting my pride level today
Starting point is 01:51:46 guys you if you don't know a Brian you can check him out he is a Huge YouTube channel and you can experience everything that's all about all reptiles not just snakes, right? Yeah, great Yeah, all reptiles and he has two children and he seems like a good guy and we're happy he was here today Thank you so much both. Thanks man. It's been awesome. Thank you, brother. Yeah, it's cool But it's gonna take a little time For me to set that park and break and let myself on one I've been moving way too fast on the runaway train with a heavy load of my

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