Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - The Two Brothers and the Biscuit Basin Brown Bear Attack + Other Animal News Stories

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

On this edition of their animal news roundup, the guys discuss the efficacy of bear spray, a couple of unruly elephants, the real dangers that attend combatting poachers, and much more. Watch here: https://youtu.be/CvTH2i_SsQ4 ~ Ollie Pet Food - Go to https://ollie.com/tooth and use code tooth to get 70% off your first box! Smalls - For a limited time, get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life, when you head to https://Smalls.com/TOOTH Quince - Elevate your summer wardrobe—go to https://quince.com/tooth for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada. Hims - To get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, Hair Loss, Weight Loss, and more, visit https://hims.com/TOOTH for your free online visit. ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/c/toothandclawpodcast ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everyone, welcome to Tooth and Claw podcast. We have Time Magazine named him the bad boy of Bear Biology, Wes Larson. And I'm his younger brother, Jeff Larson, and then we have Mike Smith with us who... What's up? He likes us some. Yeah, he's a good boy. Beautiful floral background. today, Mike.

Thanks. Yeah. In another life, I was a floral, what do they call them? Floral arranger. Yeah. A designer, sure. A florist or floral designer, yeah. My aptitude test that I took in college, that was my, I was a hairdresser and floral

arranger. Really? Top two career options, yeah. Huh. One of mine said I was supposed to be a cop. Whoa. And I was like, nope, that's actually not true. His questionnaire, it's like, do you?

You like using your power over people, I was like, yes. Of course. Who doesn't? I follow some floral designers, and sometimes, like, our friend Yesmeen, sometimes they make things where it's, like, breathtaking. Like, I'll see someone's, especially when they have the video of them putting it together, and it's like, oh, that's so pretty, you know?

Stunning. Yeah. So. They need, like, a British bake-off, con-es-a-old. competition show, but for four. They have that. They had that. What?

That exists. Oh, really? Yeah. I follow this account. What, dude, you guys got to follow it. It's this AI florist design where it's all AI. The flowers are AI. The thing making the AI flowers is AI.

And it's more breathtaking than even what Wes was talking about. It sounds awesome. There's flowers that like don't even exist in real life on that. If you're using AI to. arrange flowers, stop, get help. Like that one, Michael Jordan meme. Stop. Get some help.

Stop it. Get some help. Yeah, I'd just say, you know, if you're using AI for anything, be real careful. Just use it only if you have to, but I would say maybe don't use it at all, even. What else is going on? Not much for me. I'm going to Yellowstone tomorrow to do a little bit of guiding. I think a couple listeners on that trip.

Watch out for that super volcano. Oh man, Mike, that's my fantasy that it blows up while I'm there. Just get vaporized. Watch out for that super pack of wolves. I love those wolves. Yeah. I will, though. That's also a dream to see a super pack of wolves.

But, yeah, I would love to be there when it blows up. I think that's the best place in the world to be if that thing goes up. It's a super pack of wolves. What are they lobbying the government for at this point? More elk. Something awful. Yeah. Please ship more elk into Yellowstone.

Well, this is our news episode. So if you're in news, a new listener, this is an episode where we go over kind of the stuff that's happened in the news for the past five or six weeks, things that maybe weren't big enough to merit a whole episode devoted to them, but that were, you know, interesting and newsworthy and that were sent to us by listeners. So each of us is going to go over a few of those stories. it's going to be fun guys. Yeah.

And then we're going to have some categories. All right. Well, do you do one of you guys want to go first? Mine are kind of, I have like really just one big story this time. So I can go whenever. Maybe I'll go in like the middle. But, and then I have a few headlines that I think are fun. Why don't one of you guys go first?

I'll go first. Why not? Did you guys hear about the million? Big Game Hunter who got killed by elephants in Africa. Yeah. Yeah. So Ernie Dosio, he was 75, and he was in a place that I actually had to Google called Gabon. I'm saying that with a weird emphasis, I feel like.

Gabon is how you say it, yeah. In Central Africa, right? So I hadn't heard of Gabon before, but it's this country in Africa. where he's like a trophy hunter. So he was looking for something called yellow-backed duke years. Yeah, species of antelope. Is it like a blue sheep situation where their backs aren't yellow enough? I'm not totally sure.

Let's look it up. Let's look it up. No, it's got a pretty yellow back. Cool. Well, something about Gabon is it's pretty heavy. heavily forested area of Africa, right? Like there's a lot of brush. There's a lot of trees.

It's denser than most Africa, what you like imagine, seeing African wildlife in. And they're walking through this, and they come up on a herd of female elephants with calves. So this calves. Yeah, that's what the article said. But that sounds weird to me, elephant calves. That's right. Elephant Babies. Cabs is right.

And I was kind of thinking, you know the newest Jurassic Park movie with like Scarlett Johansson? Yeah. You know where they like are walking through a field and then all of a sudden there's like 50 bronosaurus that just come out of nowhere? Yeah. It's just like how did you not see those? Like the biggest dinosaur that's ever exist. Right.

That's gigantic. I was kind of thinking like it almost feel like that. It's like elephants seemed like the hardest animal just to like sneak up on and like not. Yeah, exactly. But like I said, it's dense force. Humans aren't super tall, you know, so they probably just didn't have a good eye line. And once they came up on this herd, like they were still like fairly far distance away. It was about 150 yards.

which you don't want to be that close to a herd of elephants, but it's also not like, oh my God, I'm about to die distance. On foot, though, I would definitely kind of be concerned. Right. If I surprised a herd of elephants at that distance. So they start backing away as they should, and these elephants are like, no, you're on our turf now. You can't just, you can't step up on us and back off.

So they charge, they stop, they charge again, they stop, and then they charge all the way, make contact with these hunters, and they injure Ernie and another hunter with him, like a brave hunter, drags him out of the way, but then this elephant sees him and she is still enraged, you know, and she gores her tusk into him, killing him. Jeez. Yeah. So elephants, like, especially like, I don't think these elephants, they're forest elephants, which is more uncommon. And, like, I just don't think they come in contact with humans as often. And they're just can be really aggressive animals. Like, they know how big they are. They had calves.

So these elephants really want to send a message. And they ended up killing Ernie, which is really sad. It's unfortunate. but his family was quoted saying like this is what he loved to do so he at least died doing what he loved to do. You know, we've talked about this before, but there's this myth out there that hippos are like the most dangerous animal in Africa outside of crocodiles and snakes. But it's probably elephants.

Elephants are probably the mammal in Africa that kills the most people. Because like you were just saying, Jeff, they're so big that they don't really have much they have to worry about. So they're pretty unafraid and pretty willing to try and, you know, get rid of a threat. And so that's what, that's what happened here. And, yeah. And I think even worse, it's like they do still have to be protective because of lions in a lot of these areas, you know. So even though they're so big and unafraid, they still are, like, defensive because they, like, do still need to especially

protect calves, you know? And people. Like, they, they have a fear of people now because they are hunted and they, you know, they get into a lot of conflict. And like I was saying, Ernie, this is what he liked to do, you know, he has, he's gone out there, he's killed lions. He has, like, really big elk that he's killed where he's from in California. And he's just kind of like later in life started collecting more and more different types of species of animal. And Africa's a really good location for that and i was thinking it's kind of like what mom says to me and west with tattoos you don't actually like your tattoos because you keep wanting to get more right and eventually you're just bragging about how many tattoos you have of all different types rather than just getting local tattoos

and appreciating the beauty of your local tattoos you're needing tattoos from all over the world Yeah. So I think that's kind of similar to what happened here. Yeah. It's interesting. I think that's not a terrible comparison. Good theory. When this happened, there's a lot of people online again that were just like, oh, he got what he deserved, yada, yada, yada. And I don't, I think it's a lot more nuanced than that. And I have a colleague that recently put out a full film on trophy hunting in Africa and how it actually,

is in a lot of ways, in a lot of the countries that it's done. It's a big boon to the economy. It funds a lot of the conservation work. Often, you know, some of the meat is given to local communities. So it is more complicated than just kind of good and evil. I, my personal feeling is just like, I think you have to look at your motivations and how you feel when you're hunting. And if you are like killing something out of bloodlust or like collection or whatever, then maybe you're not doing it for the right reasons. But I do think it's kind of wrong to just jump in and say this guy was a bad guy. And he's a millionaire, not a billionaire.

So he can't say that he's bad just by how much money he has. Yeah, you're a millionaire, right, Wes? I am not a millionaire. No. Yeah. No, and I think where I've changed with that is just like, I just don't want people to be impressed by it anymore. Like, I think it shouldn't be impressive that someone has, like, so many different taxidermied

animals from all over the world in their home. Yeah. But that's just a personal opinion. Some people think it's impressive, and, you know, that's just how I feel about it. I used to think it's impressive. I think on the flip side, too, when people are upset about this kind of thing, it's also, like, you know what, this is part of the deal with hunting. Like, there's some danger associated with it, especially if you're big game.

hunting in Africa. That's part of the reason these guys like this is it feels like an adventure and there's danger. And that's just kind of something you have to accept. Mike, what are you doing with the spatula? This is my mic set up for today. Sorry, I should have led with that maybe. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Mike is holding a spatula with a tiny microphone connected to the end of it. Well, right after this, he's going on a cooking podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Do his favorite. Flip some What's your best dish if you got invited on one of those? No, I make a mean bacon. No, hold on.

Wait, give me a second here. I made a lemon velvet cake. That was real good. Oh, my gosh, you guys, everyone's invited over. Come on over. I got something for you. Yeah. Okay.

Mike, you want to go next? I do. So this is maybe a pretty good follow-up to Jeff's story. and I'm going to do a little bit of a double header here for a couple of different reasons, just because I wanted to shout out a group of people who are doing some really awesome, albeit dangerous work, and also just as a bit of a warning in general, I guess. But I wanted to start with a stat, if you'll allow me. Yeah, allowed.

So according to the Game Ranger Association of Africa, at least 384 wildlife rangers were killed between 2012 and 2020. And I wanted to talk about a couple that happened just within this past month that are interesting and tragic to me all at once. So this was reported on April 19th. I got most of this information from a People magazine article. They're doing good work sometimes. Corroborated by many other sources.

But I thought this one just gave the most insight into this person's personal life, which I thought was the most interesting angle of this article. So this is about 65-year-old Gary Freeman. I got it mixed up earlier. People Magazine's the one that called you bad boy a bear biology. Time was the sexiest bear biologist. Oh, no, he was top 10 hottest bear biologists. Bear biologists, they're just like us.

And they have photos of me like drinking a coffee and stuff. Yeah. Do you know what my favorite sexiest man of the year photo is, is when Harrison Ford won it in like 1999 or something, and he was wearing all denim? And he had kind of a goofy little haircut and then earring in. It's just iconic. I love that picture. Man, I love Harrison Ford so much. Not even that.

Like, even then, I was still like, yeah, he's still the sexiest man. I think that's maybe what they were trying to do is prove that even through the... Doesn't matter. Yeah. The all denim. Yeah. He had like a flat top. incredible work. Okay. Anyway, we're talking about 65-year-old Gary Freeman. So he was leading a small

group of tourists at Clisserie, Private Nature Reserve. I believe that's how you say that, Clisserie. And this is in South Africa. And an elephant actually charged out of the bush towards him and his group, too. So much like, maybe not all the way similar to what Jeff's story was like, but pretty similar here. So he's a very experienced safari tour guide. And he's a very experienced safari tour guide, and he dedicated his whole life. He spent every waking moment, it seemed, to the protection of elephants. He loved elephants. It was just doing everything he could to make sure that the poachers weren't getting at them, that they were being respected and still had their land to operate and all that. And he would connect with these tour groups that he led, just to the

point where, like, everybody loved him. They were inviting him to weddings, future family gatherings and stuff. They're like, we've known you for a day, but we want you at all these things. Yeah. And he was actually quoted once, ominously quoted as saying, he would rather be killed by an elephant than ever shoot one. Uh-oh. Foreshadowing. The six-ton elephant is what the size of this elephant was, started charging at his group, and he stepped in front of it to try to break this charge. He actually, he stayed true to his word. The elephant covered the ground quickly. He never fired a shot and it basically trampled him unimpeded at that point. That's amazing. I don't think I could do that. Even if it was an animal I loved that much, I think I'd shoot it,

you know? I know. Yeah, I was wondering maybe even just like a shot in the air or over the elephant's back or something, but the people in his group said, and the investigators afterwards were just like, yeah, never, all the bullets were still in the gun, like nothing, no discharge or anything. So the other people in his group, they tried to usher him to a safe spot so medical assistance could arrive. But by the time they did, he was just pronounced dead on the spot. So there's no real shot at surviving the encounter. So that's part one of what I wanted to talk about. The next one, pretty eerily similar involving a different animal, also reported late April, this time by outdoor life.

And this one's about 58-year-old conservationist, Schumann. von Yarsfeld. And he was out in the Samara Karu Reserve in South Africa. So again, South Africa. And he was tracking a black rhino that he and his private security firm were trying to protect from poachers. And the team knew that they were closing in on it. It had an ankle monitor, a GPS tracker on it. So they knew they were close. So when the black rhino, show it off, dude. The ankle monitor? How many days do you have left? Joey Chesna, he's competing this year with the anchor monitor. Yeah.

Is he really? What did he do? He slapped someone at a bar. It's like the most American thing ever. He's wearing an ankle monitor at a hot dogging contest on 4th to July. Yeah. Anyway, they knew they were getting close because of this monitor it was wearing. But when it suddenly burst out from the brush,

Schumann didn't even have time to react. and it actually gored him, impaled him with one of its horns. Wow. Before retreating back into the reserve. And again, by the time... That's what you don't want to have happen with them. Either one. That's the dangerous part, you know?

They have two horns, neither of them, of which you want to go through your body. Yeah. Unless you're trying to get your ear pierced and it goes through your earlobe. Just perfectly through your earlobe. Just the very tip. Sure. Right. Just the tip.

So, again, no shot. were fired. The rhino was left unharmed and it just retreated back into the safety of the reserve. And tributes came pouring in from friends and coworkers. And everyone was just like, this dude was awesome. He was such a good guy. He worked tirelessly to protect these animals from poachers. And he was really, really good at doing it. So it's just one of those really like kind of tragic ironies where two men who live their lives in service of these animals were killed by the animals. And I think I don't want to, you know, put words in the mouths of the dead, but like maybe in some kind of way there's a beauty in that, you know, kind of like. It's kind of poetic.

A little bit. But I just thought that these articles said something very, one of them said something poignant by the end where it was like, this is largely thankless and often dangerous work that these anti-pochers and security firms are doing down there. It's like not the most financially rewarding job, and it's dangerous on both sides. The animals and honestly, like, armed poachers, you know, they get in shootouts and armed conflicts with these people. So it's just a scary situation to be in, but doing it for a good cause. So I thought it was worth a moment to shout out the good work that they're doing. For sure. Yeah, that sucks.

I hope that rhino gets poached now. Don't say that. I do not. Oh, man. My dog Shanks is the cutest dog in the entire world. Also, he's a better bear biologist than Wes, and he's a better producer than Mike. But really, at this point, he feels like family to me, and that's why I try to give him the best food possible. All these fresh recipes are developed by real chefs and backed by vet nutritionists.

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I guess. Yeah, they are kind of both both a little heavy and a little bit of this is going to be a little repetitive, but we're going to have to talk about it. So there's been a lot of news about Grizzlies in the recent news. And a lot of kind of fear mongering, too,

which is something that hasn't really happen in a bit for Grizzlies. It's a little discouraging to see. But I want to talk first about the two incidents that have led to this fear-mongering, and then we're going to go into it a little bit. We're going to go into bear spray a little bit because there's been a lot of chatter about bear spray as well. But first, let's talk about the incidents. So on May 4th, two brothers were hiking near the Mystic Fall Trails by Biscuit Basin and Yellowstone National Park. They were attacked by what was most likely a female grizzly bear with cubs. I saw in some places one of the brothers was reported as 14

and other places he was reported as 15 and the other one was 26. Where did this happen? This was near Biscuit Basin on the Mystic Falls Trail. That sounds so much like a candy land. Like you know when you're playing the board game. It's like the starting zone is Biscuit Bay. Yellowstone has some great names for their different

Like, uh, soda river. Yeah, the different like geyser basins and stuff. Okay. Anyway, uh, these two victims were found by a tourist from Maryland. Uh, this tourist was hiking on the same trail and they'd seen grizzly tracks on the trail. Then they stumbled on a bloody hat and a bloody watch. And then they heard one of the brothers calling for help. Um, having a watch like on the ground is kind of like watches are really fast into you.

Yeah, like if you know, if the watch got torn off. Yeah, something bad happened. Yeah, a hat could just be like, oh, someone dropped a hat. A hat can fall off pretty easy. Yeah, but if it's covered in blood, you kind of are like, this probably didn't just fall off. Anyway, at first he thought it was a prank, this person calling for help, but when he got a better look at the victim, he knew that it was really serious. He called for help, and then he stayed with this victim, put a t-shirt over him, and an effort to help. keep him warm. A helicopter arrived and it took both of the brothers to a hospital in Idaho where

they at last I could see they're both still listed as being critical and serious condition. And the park has been really tight-lipped about this encounter or this attack. And for me, that makes me think that it was very serious, that these two got torn up really badly. I've heard some things that have kind of trickled out and it does sound like a very intense serious mauling. The entire area was closed to hikers and visitors until recently those restrictions were lifted. Jeff R. Family was hiking right in that area a couple days ago. When they sent photos, I was like,

ooh, you were right by where those guys got mauled. But I think the park probably has a pretty good idea of which bear was responsible but I also think they probably aren't going to try and remove her or take her cubs or anything because this feels like cub defense and something that's well within her natural behavior. It's definitely like an elevated response to a threat. This isn't usually what you expect, especially of Yellowstone bears that are somewhat habituated to people, but still within her natural behavior. So I don't think they'll be killing her.

But, you know, TBD on that. They haven't released yet whether or not bear. spray was used. But speaking of that, a day earlier that same week, a hiker disappeared while hiking the Mount Brown Overlook Trail in the Lake McDonald area of Glacier National Park. Mike Mount Brown? That's like your favorite mountain ever. McDonald's too. Oh. On May 6th, a few days later, search and rescue found human remains about 50 feet from the trail in a densely forested patch of timber. The body was a body.

he was identified as that of missing hiker Anthony Polio, who was 33 and lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Again, it's thought that it was most likely a female with Cubs that was involved in this attack, and on this one they did find a fully emptied can of bear spray near the victim. Once again, the entire area was closed to visitors. I'm guessing it's been reopened by now, but I'm not totally sure. And this is actually the first fatality in Glacier National Park since 1998. So the first one in about 30 years. So even though people are like getting pretty, you know, up in arms about this stuff, just like put that in context.

You know, it has been a while since something like this has happened. So we're going to have a little discussion. Apart from the obvious tragedy to these victims and their families, a big downside to these incidents happening so close to each other in the same week is that it's led to a lot of wind in the sails of people that think Grizzlies both need to be deal with. listed in the lower 48, and then people that think bear spray doesn't work. So let's talk about that second one first, and then we'll talk about the first one. I think we do, here on tooth and claw, need to do a slightly better job about how we talk about bear spray. And the main thing I think we need to correct just a little bit is to make sure that people understand that this is not a perfect deterrent. There are situations where it doesn't

work. It should make you feel a lot more confident when you're in Grizzly country, but ultimately you're still taking a risk if you recreate around Grizzlies. If you have bear spray, if you have a machine gun, if you have grenades, like it doesn't matter what your deterrent is. You're still taking a risk. There's always the chance that your deterrent won't work. You know Jake Joan Hall in the movie Bubble Boy? Yeah, a big old bubble. That suit he makes where he can like go outside. We've talked about the guy that made the bear suit, you know? Troy.

It didn't work very well. Your risk would be lower in a bear suit or with a good deterrent like bear spray, but there's still a risk. That's just part of recreating around grizzly bears. But since these attacks, there's been people that have written these big essays that have gotten a lot of attention, unfortunately, because I think they're irresponsible about how bear spray doesn't actually work. They do a lot of cherry picking when it comes to science and quotes.

They say it doesn't work. Just like blanket statement. Or they say that it works like a third of the time, which is grossly like, you know, wrong. And they're picking a lot of this stuff from Tom Smith, my mentor, because Tom is very candid about how he feels. And sometimes his quotes get misrepresented. If you were to ask Tom today, if bearspray will always work, he's going to be the first to tell you no. But then he's going to say, for the vast majority of people, it's by far the best deterrent. due to its ease of use and the margin for error that it allows.

Like, this is a product that you don't have to be perfect with for it to still work effectively. And then the best part about it and the thing that Tom for sure would say is that you're not killing the bear. You know, this bear is probably just acting naturally responding to a threat and it gets to leave the encounter as well. So the thing about this glacier one is people are saying that this can of spray was empty and that means that it didn't work. But no one was with this guy. We don't know what happened. There's so many things that could have happened that we don't know. He could have been attacked and sprayed the can, you know, wildly up in the air or something.

We just don't know. So an empty can and a dead body doesn't tell us if it was used properly, and it's wrong to assume that it just didn't work. A little disclaimer, if you were going into Grizzly Country, you should use the deterrent that you feel most comfortable with. If you think that's a gun, I would do a bit of soul-searching and make sure, that's not just like a power trip or an ego thing because guns do give you that feeling you know

when you pick up a gun it makes you feel powerful and i understand that and i have i have pretty good with guns yeah uh jeff you're our gun guy you're pretty good with guns i'm pretty good with guns what would you go to with you know in a bear encounter first grenade if you had a gun on your Probably bazooka. Yeah. Okay. If you had a gun on your hip and a can of bear spray, which one are you grabbing first? No, I would, I don't think I'd even think, I don't honestly think it even be a decision.

I think I would just grab the bear spray. Me too. I think I'd forget about the gun. Gun would be more of a last gas type thing where in the movies the bear like forgets that I have a gun and right before he gives. this like speech before he kills me, I pull it out from under me. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what I was thinking too.

No, but I was thinking similarly. When I carried a gun in Yellowstone to like kind of high pressure situations, it was for if I was being mulled, I would use that gun, but not just like in my first line of defense. That being said, the most important thing if you're recreating a grizzly bear country is to have a plan. get in a group whenever possible make noise carry a deterrent know how to use it and just be smart pay attention to your surroundings don't take any chances that you need to take that you don't need to take like we talked about this last week with ravens if you're walking and you see a carcass and there's a bunch of ravens around don't go explore it you know just be smart in grizzly bear

country that's the most important thing next would be having a good deterrent that's the thing I have the hardest time with. Intelligence. Yeah. Being smart. Yeah. All right. So quickly I want to talk about the people, including the governor of Montana,

who are saying that these attacks just go to show that Grizzlies need to be delisted and that there's too many bears. And I'm not surprised our governor thinks that. He's a multimillionaire from New Jersey. No, it's Gianforte. He's not from Montana. Personally, I think having a healthy population. of grizzly bears on the landscape is what makes Montana special.

That feeling of wilderness is what brings people to western Montana to begin with, and a big part of that feeling comes from having grizzly bears around. If that doesn't appeal to you, maybe Montana isn't for you. You know, maybe there's plenty of beautiful places that kind of look like Montana, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, that don't have grizzly bears. They don't have big predators that you really need to worry about. But, you know, lions make places in Africa feel wild. Tigers make India feel special.

Great whites give the ocean this kind of beautiful, sacred feeling. And grizzly bears are important to the overall spirit of places like Montana. Now, I want to read a quote from a colleague of mine, Casey Anderson, who has spent probably... Wait, Mike, are you raising your hand on purpose? Oh, yeah. Your hands are racing. I was waiting for West to call on me. No, no, go ahead.

Mike, go first before I read this quote. Yeah. my hand real quick. Yeah. Okay. So what does it behoove people like the governor or whoever this guy is? Like, why do people want them delisted? What does that, what benefit does that serve people in their position? Just like everything, it's been highly politicized now and they want to be able to hunt grizzly bears. Like it's part of, it's a hunting thing then. It's a hunting thing and it's like a predator control thing. It's part of like ranchers and stuff that don't want to have to deal with grizzly bears. And it's part hunters that want to be able to kill them.

And it is politicized, unfortunately. And I think that's the reason why so many bear biologists, including myself, are really hesitant to push for delisting. Even though we have these really now healthy populations of grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Continental Divide, it's so politicized right now that if they're delisted, we're worried that it's going to be. the same kind of view toward wolves where they're just going to like allow people to kill 20 grizzly bears or you know whatever they they decide to do so that's why there's so much hesitance among the scientific community to push for delisting right now is the political environment gotcha um okay so kacy anderson is um he's not a bear biologist but he has probably spent more time around grizzly bears than anyone I know.

And he recently had a really good quote about the pushback on these attacks. And I did just want to read it verbatim because I think it's really beautiful and it really sums up how I feel. You can find him on Instagram at Grizzly Guy. Anyway, this is what he says. Who had their name first? Gris kid or Grizzly guy? I had mine first. Yeah.

Yeah. Props to you for being the bigger man. He's a good guy. All right. So he's talking about these recent attacks. He says every one of these situations is tragic, but we also need to ask an honest question, why were those people here in the first place?

Because they wanted to experience something wild. Montana, Yellowstone, glacier, these places still hold something rare in the modern world. And part of the reason they feel different is because grizzly bears still exist here. They remind us that this land is not fully tamed, that nature still has teeth, that we are visitors not community.

controllers. There are plenty of beautiful mountain places with elk, trails, rivers, and scenery that don't have grizzlies. But when you step into true grizzly country, you feel something different deep in your bones. You feel alert, humble, alive. And there are a lot of people right now trying to dilute that wilderness. Let's stop trying to tame the West. Let's honor it for what it is, including its danger. Because that danger, that uncertainty, that ruggedness, that is part of what makes these places special. It's part of what regulates them too. Not every place is supposed to feel like a city park with a parking lot every hundred yards and zero risk. And the truth is, if grizzly bears disappeared tomorrow, the next complaint wouldn't stop.

It'd become too many people at trailheads. Wildness itself is what limits saturation. Some people choose easier places. Some choose wilder ones. That balance is natural, too. Not every landscape is supposed to be comfortable. Some places are supposed to remain truly wild. And I agree with that.

Like full, you know, I put my full support behind that. We live in a world where you get to pick your poison when it comes to how you recreate outside. If you decide to share space with grizzly bears, you need to like prepare for the eventualities that come with that, the risks that come with that. And you need to have a plan and be properly prepared. So just one last thought before we go to our next one. This push for delisting is so the states can hunt. manage grizzly bear population numbers. Both of these attacks happened in national parks.

So even if delisting happened, there would still be, like, parks aren't managed by hunting and stuff. So these incidents still would have happened. It makes that whole argument counterintuitive. National parks. Yeah, exactly. Maybe that's the real problem. Start allowing hunting in national parks.

It's just counterintuitive. It's sad. It's sad. It's always sad. All of our stories so far have been, you know, it's just. Too bad, but like, you know, that's what... That's part of what makes having wild things beautiful. It's the world more exciting to have wildlife that can be dangerous, you know?

Yeah. All right. Who wants to go next? Other. I think Jeff better. Is the name Grizzly boy taken? Grisboy? Probably.

I feel like everything's taken at this point. Gris baby. Yeah. Grizz dude. I'm the grizzly dude. Gris Boy. Yeah, Gris Boy is taken. Shoot.

Yeah. I'll go with this one. Let's get out of the death for a second. Yeah. I think Gris Baby might be available if anyone wants Chris Baby. Jeff, it's all yours. Wes. Yeah.

You remember, so you're a bear expert, but you're also a bit of a celebrity expert. Like, you know a lot of pop culture facts and trivia. Like, two things stick in my brain really well, and that's animal facts and, like, movie facts. Sure. Yeah. So, hopefully you remember, you remember Will Smith when he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars? I watched that live. Yeah.

What would have happened if no one stopped him, and he is allowed to continue slapping? I don't think anyone did stop him, but I think he would have just kept slapping him based on what you're trying to get out of him. And Chris would have eventually died. Died, yeah. If he got slapped for too long without any intervention. Sure, like a few hours of slaps. Yeah. Right.

Well, West, similarly, there was someone named Kevin Deal and had. Had he not stopped an attack by a mountain lion on his seven-year-old Akita dog named Sasha, Sasha would have died. Yeah, I think that is. That's exactly the analogy I would have made, too. So Deal was upstairs, and I can only assume he was watching the game show, Let's Make a Deal, because of his name. And he says he heard a scream that could have only been a dog that was under attack, right? A scoing?

It is a piercing scream. Yeah, that's what you said. It's his quote, not mine. Oh, interesting. You don't think dogs can scream, just bark? I would have used just, yeah, that word, bark. Or like, yelp. Yeah.

Howl? Sure. That's fine. I don't want to, yeah, this is his story to tell. Yeah, I think if a dog's getting. Attacked by a mountain lion. I don't know what noise that is, but it's not a bark. I guess the Mount Lion could scream.

Is that more of a screamer? Yeah, they scream. Kevin runs downstairs. He runs outside, and he opens the door, and he's face to face with a large mountain lion that's pinning his 95-pound dog to the ground. The dog has, like, zero control. It's, like, one of the... What region?

What am I trying to say? It's like one of the UFC fighters who just like tries to get someone on the ground and hold them there for all five minutes, you know? Submission thing. Right. Yeah. Yeah. The dog just can't move at all. Okay.

And Kevin says its arms were wrapped around the dog's waist, around her belly, and Saucer's head was in the mouth of the mountain lion when he walked out. Ooh, check engine. Right. So he starts yelling and kicking the mountain lion saying, like, get the F out of here is what he said to it. I think you can go ahead and use the full F word there if I'm an issue. But I don't want a nitpick. He successfully gets rid of this mountain lion with a really hard kick and saying get the F out of here. Yeah.

Whoa. Now, a real interesting part of this is there's a picture of Sasha's head after. the attack. Sasha got pretty, you know, beat up. And one of the mountain lion's teeth was like stuck in the skull of the dog. Wow. Yeah. It's like a pretty big tooth. It's a cool little souvenir though. Right. So I saw pictures. You know, it looks like Sasha's going to be just fine. Good. And probably have some battle scars now. But yeah, kind of crazy. Yeah. Got to admit that's kind of crazy, West. That is kind of crazy. Yeah.

You all have heard me sing praises about my cat on this show a lot. I think Toad is the perfect pet. I just absolutely love having a cat. And that's something I never would have expected. I'm allergic to him. I just never thought I would like a cat so much, but I really, really love having a cat. And for that reason, it's important to me that I give them the best possible food. And Smalls is fresh, human-grade cat food that does so much more than just feed your cat.

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smalls.com slash tooth. One last time, that's 60% off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com slash tooth. Mike? Yeah. I got you, Wes. So this is a real interesting one. I thought this one was pretty fun. Spoiler alert, no one dies. I wouldn't say it's fun if someone died, I promise. Yeah, I'm done with ones where people died too.

Yeah, unless it's someone I, like, knew and hated. And there's only one of those people. In the world? Nolan, if you ever die by an animal, I'm going to call it fun. I hope he listens. Okay. Okay, so this was reported on April 22nd by Surfer Magazine. And this concerns one 30-year-old Sydney native Guy Rowles.

His name is Guy. I love that name. It's a great name for a guy. Or a gal. Sure. That's confusing. Right. It's a great name for a guy.

It is his name. Yeah, it's quite literally. Guy was out on a surf trip with his dad down in Fiji. They went to a famous surf spot called Cloudbreak. Maybe the surfers out there will be familiar with that. I've heard of that one, actually. It's like one of the ones that's like way out in the ocean, but it's like a perfect...

There's just perfect sets and beautiful waves out there. That's actually a pretty important factor in this story, Wes. So good job. Thanks. Keep contributing with good things like that. Good interjections. Jeff, you can try. Okay.

So 30 minutes into their first... stay out in the water. He suddenly feels this zap on his arm, like an electric shock almost. And when he looked down, he saw several long tentacles wrapped around his arm. You might think with the way that was worded. That was one of those unhelpful interjections, Jeff, but keep trying.

He looked really fast. And then he heard the thunder immediately since it was so close. Okay. So instinctively, you know, you just try to rub, brush whatever's on your arm if it's causing you harm. And that's what he did. Just instinctively try to brush it off. And he said as soon as it did, it felt like he had poured hot boiling oil all over his whole body.

Wes, you probably know. Jeff, you could probably even guess what we're talking about here. I know what it is, yeah. So he paddled over to his guide who immediately identified it. as box jellyfish. Box jelly. Box jellyfish sting. And he rushed guy back to the boat and they set out for the nearest hospital as quick as they could.

And Wes, like you said, they're pretty good ways away from land at this point. So 40 minutes at the very fastest just to reach land. And then probably another 20 minutes from there to get to any meaningful care. So we know from box jellyfish stings. We've done stories on this before. Things are looking pretty grim for a guy here. Yeah, it sucks too because I don't, I think it stays like intense that entire boat ride, right? Yeah.

Even like if a shark bites your leg off, I feel like you get waves of pain and stuff. And this one I feel like you just stay in pain. It gets worse and worse. And that's like the baseline for these are like terrible pain. Like you're going to get that almost no matter what. But then you can also have like systemic reactions where organ. and stuff start shutting down and breathing is difficult. So there's a lot that can happen.

Usually when stings have this much coverage area on even just in extremity, like an arm, it can be a death sentence. Like pretty quickly it can lead within minutes to death. And sure enough, his guy was riding back on the boat. He said he felt like he was breathing through a straw at first. He started convulsing and sweating profusely. His heart was beating out of control all the while his arm just felt like he was on fire. you know. So once they reached land and got connection, guy called his mom, told her that he loved her,

and then was admitted to the hospital. And the doctors just went pale when they had heard what had happened. Probably were shocked that he was even still alive with like how bad a shape his arm was in. Like sting marks all coiled around his whole arm. And he was actually Googling while he was being admitted to the hospital. Like, what is the prognosis here? What should I do? What do we do? And it's like, you should probably be dead is what he learned. And he was just like freaking out. And he was like, dad, am I going to die? Dad, like, what's happening?

And the dad just was so clutch. The whole experience stayed right by his side, kept him calm. And it was like, you'll be all right. You'll get through this. You'll be all right. You'll get through this. Kind of just repeating a mantra almost just to keep him calm and give him hope, you know. This was an interesting part of the story.

So, Guy's dad was just like pleading. with the doctors to administer anti-venom. And the doctor at this point said, it's too late for that to even be effective. So all we can really do is douse's arm in vinegar and load them up with some morphine and just hope for the best. I was under the impression that, like,

no matter when anti-venom would probably be helpful, but I guess these doctors, I mean, obviously they know better than me, but... Yeah, I... You know, with snakes, I think that might be the case. But with box jellies, I do think it has to be, like, pretty quick because I think it affects, like, the tissue. And if it's already, like, entered into, like, the lymphatic system or the blood or whatever box jellies do, I don't think it really works that well anymore. But I'm not sure. Okay.

Well, that's what guy was quoted as saying in the article that the doctors told him. So apparently, that's just what they thought was best was just to get them all. loaded up on morphine. His dad, again, right by his side. It was kind of like a trip sitter when you're having a bad trip. You're like, this is going to pass. You'll be okay. It's just really nice to have someone there to,

to like keep you anchored to reality, kind of. Yeah. And that's what he'd said his dad was for him. He wouldn't have made it without both the doctors. And he just, he said the people of Fiji were so amazing. And the doctors, of course, were life-saving and that he's going to keep going back there for the rest of his life.

Were the doctors life-saving? They sound like. They just give him. Morphy. Yeah, but if there, I mean, I think the thing with these two is if you get to the hospital and time, that's the biggest thing because then the doctors can treat any like systems that are failing, you know? So if like he suddenly has like trouble respirating, they can put him on a respirator. If, you know, if whatever happens, they can treat that thing.

So I think it's fair to say the doctors help save his life. Yeah. I'm not trying to be funny even. I'm just like they couldn't even give him the antivans. them anymore. So it's like, yeah, I was wondering like, you might be technically right, but I do also think the vinegar that they put on his arm. That's, that'll get the rest of the, um, whatever the stingers, the barbs will come out and release. Anything that's remaining from the jellyfish will be shed off because of the vinegar. So maybe there was a life-saving component there. Either way, he was just incredibly

grateful. And shockingly, he was actually back in the water the next day. That's crazy. He's right back out there. And he was like a little anxious, but he was like, this is my happy place. This is where I feel safe. Like even despite what just happened, nothing will ever keep me out of the water. So the very next day he was back out surfing with his dad, which I thought was pretty incredible. That's always so admirable. Like, I can't just loving something that much and having it be that important to you where that trauma doesn't ruin it. That's pretty impressive. Cool. All right. I got a couple short ones. I have a question with that real quick. So like, In a perfect

scenario, once the jellyfish was on his arm, should he have done anything differently? Because I know you're not supposed to swipe it off. That's where he got all the pain. But would the jellyfish like detach itself eventually? Like what do you even do? Yeah, I think you want to like get the jellyfish off as carefully as possible.

Like you could just grab it and pull it off. You don't want to, like you were just saying, you don't want to rub. where it stung you because often those barbs are still attached and they can continue to inject venom when you rub. And so that as hard as it might be, you don't want to do that. Like it's almost like when you get stabbed with a knife, like you don't pull the knife out type of thing.

Yeah. You do want to take the jellyfish off, but you don't want to like rub it off necessarily, you know? But isn't it kind of hard to take it jellyfish off your arm? So if you, in the unlikely scenario, or maybe likely if you take the moral of the story to heart, if you do have vinegar close at hand, that for whatever reason there's an agent in vinegar that makes jellyfish release along with their barbs. That just cleans them off, I guess. So, yeah, that's, I guess, best case scenario, you just have some in your swim trunks, a little bottle of vinegar. Or you're surfing in vinegar.

For surfers. Yeah. Oh, yeah. vinegar surf spot. And then some guy would write an article. It's like, no, it doesn't work. Doesn't work. You need a god-effective.

To get them off your arm. Here's why I use my gun when I surf. All right. I got a pretty annoying one. A Punch the Monkey update. So two U.S. nationals were arrested after one of them jumped into the enclosure. Punch the Monkey at the Japanese Zoo while the other one filmed. One of the men was a 24-year-old college student.

He was the one that actually jumped into the enclosure. The other was a 27-year-old singer. They denied the allegations, even though they were like filming it as they jumped in. 4K. Yeah, other people filmed it as well. And the person that jumped in was wearing a costume, carrying a stuffed toy, jumping over the fence,

and the costume was promoting. a cryptocurrency. So they're being held by police. I think they should be executed. I am off for that. This sounds like, you know, I just think these are people that probably should be removed. Kind of like how we remove bears that give all the other bears a bad name. We probably should just remove these two people that are giving all other Americans

a really bad name. So. Yeah, it's interesting because it's honestly like at the heart of it, It's pretty harmless. Like I even saw the video and like all the monkeys just kind of moved away from them. And then the workers took them out of the enclosure. But then it's just like, I don't care what happened. Like I don't care if they get life in prison in China.

Once I heard it was to promote a cryptocurrency. I was like, okay, whatever. Throw the book at him. Yeah. All right. How's Punch doing, by the way? I think Punch is doing okay. There wasn't much info in this about Punch himself.

That's what always happens with bullies. Like, Wes, Mike. What? You hear about it once, and you're like, oh, that's so sad he's getting bullied. And then you never, you're just assumed they stop bullying. Wait, am I a bully now? I can't. I have, I haven't really traced this thread.

So wait. Okay. Okay. But I would assume he's still getting bullied. Yeah. Well, I'm just going to do a, I'm going to hit Wes with a do better, I guess, and move on. I'll do better. Yeah, do better, Wes.

Okay. All right. So another quick one here in Bremerton, Washington, where MX is from, if you're a pop punk fan. There's a family that's going to get a $350,000 settlement. And can you guys guess why? It's animal related. I doubt you can. Oh.

I'll tell you. why because you're not going to get it. Their child was attacked by an otter at a marina and pulled underwater by this river otter, bitten up pretty badly, and they ended up suing this marina and the state because they didn't put up the proper warnings and whatnot. They knew this otter was there and was being pretty aggressive. So they're going to win a $350,000 settlement. The reason I want to include this one is because we talk about this sometimes on the podcast, like, why problem bears and stuff have to be removed sometimes. And part of it is because we are in such a country where you can sue for just about anything.

And there's a liability with leaving those animals. And this is a good example of that. So had they done a better job with signage and stuff, they probably wouldn't have lost this court case. But yeah, that's kind of the world that we live in, unfortunately. But this kid did get pretty bitten up, apparently. All right. So, as we said last news episode, I think Wes said this, but the year, 2026 is the summer of the snake. Right?

I didn't say that. But, yeah, there were some, we did talk about rattlesnake bites. So another death happened. It's the third death in California this year. This one happened a little bit more north. They was in a rural area in Redwood Valley out in California. And this was a 78-year-old lady who was just hiking in the Redwoods, you know, beautiful day, such a beautiful part of the country.

And she's bitten three times by a rattlesnake on her hike, which, you know. Normally I feel like it's just one bite. and this one got her three times. So three different times, or was it all one snake? It was all one snake. It was all one snake. Three bites from one snake. Yeah.

Right. That would have been crazy. So she was taken by family to the hospital, and according to their sheriff's office out there, she succumbed to her injury after two days in the hospital. Oh, wow. And, you know, I don't want to make any assumptions. but I hope they gave her enough anti-venom

because we have seen and had even someone on who, like, is like I really had to fight to get more anti-venom. But yeah, third person killed by a rattlesnake in California this year. And if you guys, listeners, I'm going to have some euphoria spoilers. So skip ahead if you don't want that spoiled.

But honestly, might even have a fourth death by rattlesnake in California this year because Nate Jacobs was killed by one in the show you four. And a pretty bad way too. And really bad way. But also, like, I thought it was like really egregious that they had like a rattlesnake up on top. And then in the coffin, they just have a gigantic python on top of. the actor Jacoba Lordy. Yeah.

And then they just like CGI had a rattlesnake tail onto this python. So like I went to Twitter like looking for people to be like, look at this and not a single peep. So then I felt responsible to make a tweet about it. And I was like, this is going to pop off. And then I was like, actually, it probably won't. And I never tweeted it at that. Yeah. But it was disappointing to me because it kind of took me out of what I think would have been like just so much scarier had I like not been so focused on their just shape-shifting sneak.

This is how I felt pretty much my whole life watching movies and stuff. There are, there's a lot of articles now that are saying, you know, what's going on in California? what's happening with our snakes, kind of like Jeff just said, like summer the snake. And there's the one reason that I've been seeing over and over again is just a really early season warmup might be responsible for these bites. And we talked about this last news episode that things got real warm, real quick in California this year. And that might have caused for snakes to be active a little bit earlier than normal. But I think the other part of that, the other side of that equation is it caused people to be active

normal or earlier than normal too. Like it was really warm and nice out early in the year. So you had more people out and more snakes out. So I think that's part of the reason. But I also think it might just be just kind of a fluke that this many people are being bitten. And because of it, they're reporting on it. You know, it's become kind of like that whole thing with the sharks where once those

stories kind of start getting some traction, then other news agencies are going to report on them too. And it becomes a bit of a frenzy. I also saw the heavy rains and then it dried up. So like the rain kind of drove them out of the grounds a bit more. But I don't know. Yeah. Stay safe out there, hiking around California.

Or wherever. Yeah. That's true. Is that all you got, Jeff? Yes. I got one more. Apparently, I thought this was pretty important to bring up since we just did an episode about them. But Kyle Rittenhouse got bit by a brown recluse recently?

You see that? Yeah. And he said, the communist didn't get me, neither will this spider. So comparing the brown recluse to communists. And the article, well, the article was unclear, but it didn't say whether he shot the spider or not. Yeah. He probably tried to. So, communists couldn't get him, dude.

All right. I have a quick correction. I kept saying Brodus instead of Broadus for the town in Montana last week. And I really should have gotten that one right because we have family that lives in Bronis. But I just kind of got in my own head about it. So sorry. All right. Should we move on to our categories?

Bro, this is a bear. Brodice. Brough. Brough. Yeah, that works either way. Broadest. Broadest bear is mauling me. This episode is brought to you by Quince.

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does. Jeff, you do. Oh, with all three? All right. Yeah, let's just do it that way. Yeah. First is, what are you deeming this the summer of? So, like, call your shot. You know, I think Chet Hanks did the White Boy Summer.

Yeah. White Boy. And then there's always like a summer of the shark. Charlie X, X, X, Brat Summer. Rat summer. Yeah. Yeah. There's Summer the snake.

But we're each going to do our own summer of the what? I'm going to say French summer. This is French summer. I think they got a chance of having Wimby win a NBA championship, and they have a really good chance of winning the FIFA World Cup, which is kind of like the two most universal sports is basketball and soccer. And if France wins at both of those, it's kind of like, that's saying something, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. And then French fries? Never been bigger than right now. Yeah. Yep. I just had a French dip. Yeah.

Oh, my God. I had a French dip sub for the first time in a while. Wes, you got it. And that was so good. So some are French. I like it. French kissing is probably the best kind of kissing, right? Hmm.

It depends. I think on how good. Yeah, I'll rethink that. Yeah. I picked the summer of class consciousness because I've been really encouraged all these data center projects that are being announced. It's been really encouraging seeing people on kind of,

in every political spectrum in the U.S. say no. Like, we don't want this. This isn't something we want in our communities. It's happening in Utah. It's happening here in Missoula. people are uniting to say no to billionaires. And even if they get pushed through.

Even like people I know from college who were completely different politically, they're like this bull honky. Yeah, exactly. And for me, that's been really encouraging. I think it's a step toward people realizing that our neighbors aren't our enemies, regardless of their political affiliation. Our enemies are the people that are trying to make life worse for us to profit off of us.

Was the person you knew in college Joe Biden by any chance, Jeff? Yeah. This is bullhawky. Bull honky. Malarkey. So yeah, Summer of Class Consciousness is what I'm deeming it.

I'm going with Summer of the Sciop because it turns out everything you don't like apparently is just a sciop, it turns out. If you don't like the band geese, they're a sciop. If you don't like Dubai chocolate, sciop. It's starting to get out under my skin a little bit, but I just keep hearing it. I keep seeing it. And that's what I'm

deeming this the summer of. Yeah. Okay. Next one is what's some good news that you've seen? I can go first. I read recently that Texas's solar grid now outpaces its coal power grid. And I think a kind of silver lining to the weird energy struggle that we're seeing going on in the world right now with the Iran War and whatnot is that people, are realizing this reliance on fossil fuel is a dead end and it's it's too easily controlled by these global powers and whatnot and alternative sources of energy are are burgeoning and becoming much more popular because of that and I think that is some really good news I think it's something that needed to happen and we're seeing it happen which is great don't forget about nuclear

power too guys it's a good one check it out I only paid attention to a little of that but you said the Iran War. Yeah. I said Iran War. Yeah. Yeah. I can go. Angelina Jolie.

She purchased a huge 60-acre span of hunting ground in Cambodia and made it like wildlife preserve and is just like making this huge section like sanctuary for wild elephants and tigers. and different animals. It's pretty cool. That is cool. That's great. I like her. Good job.

Good job, Angelina. I've always wanted to go to Cambodia. Me too. Bill, cut less in that he likes her so that Jesse doesn't get mad. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm editing this one, so ask me. Do I have to raise my hand again? Okay.

I picked a different tack. I just saw Naoki or Asawa's manga, Billy Baxter. finally get an officially licensed English translation, and that's exciting. Since he's the goat, he's the goat. That's why he's the goat. Oh, man, I'm so excited. I mean unofficial translations for everyone's work exist out there, but I like supporting my artists officially when I can.

So, Billy Bat. Good job, Naoki. Naoki Orosot, he's one of those guys who make stuff that I don't really have to give too many caveats about. It's like, no, he's just a great storyteller. really distinct art style. That's why he's the goat. Great.

All right. My last one was what's the quickest? What's the quickest you've ever given up on something? Mike, why don't you start this time since you keep going last? Yeah. So my job at State Farm, I gave up before I even went in the first day. I got that. One of the best days of my life was when I quit and I felt just the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders.

and I ran away to Texas for a summer. My boss is just like, so Mike's not coming now. I'm like, what? Yeah, you just called me and said he's quitting. I love that. So awesome. Mine's also a job. I'm sure there's things I've quit faster than this,

but this was something I think about how quickly I left. For a minute I did this job that was you talk to people that are in debt and you try to sell them a debt relief program. and you could sell it to them for as much as they're willing to pay. So it was really predatory and terrible. And you're supposed to try and get them to pay up to $10,000, but you could give it to them for like $2,000. And I never sold a single plan because when people would start asking about it,

I'd just try and give them the cheapest one. And then my boss would get mad at me. Never made a single dime. And I quit after two office days because I realized that it was, the most soulless awful thing that I could possibly be doing. And so I'm glad I didn't make any money from it because I would feel like I'd have to give it back or put it into something good.

And I quit. Yeah. God forbid you put your money into something good. Yeah. Mine was a job too. I got a job that I think I kind of almost lied to get the job even. I said I had like experience serving and I got a job as a server at a man.

air yacht and oh yeah they made it so like you had to stand at this like little whatever they're called a kiosk thing you had to stand and you couldn't look at your phone and one lady came in the entire shift so it's the most bored i've ever been and then the next day that i like just didn't go in and they're like hey where are you I love the Irish goodbye to a job. Yeah, that's pretty tough. So good. Yeah.

Oh, man. Mike, you want to do yours? I'll go. I'll do your mind. Yeah, sure. So a time when your dad helped you through something tough. And bonus points, I'm giving you bonus points. We're keeping track of points all of a sudden if he was there physically with you in person to help you through it.

There's one night where he just did my homework for me. It took a while. but I was on like Adderall and it wasn't like the long lasting stuff either and then like I would have to get up like super early for family scriptures reading and all this stuff so then by the time school was over I was just like mentally exhausted you know and there's this one day where I literally just could not think at all and I just sat there looking at my mom math homework for maybe an hour and a half without solving one single problem. And my dad just ended up doing it all.

That's nice. Our dad, like, shout out dads. We got Father's Day coming up, which we never do a Father's Day episode, but shout out dads. And I feel really, really lucky. Not all dads. Not all dads are good. But I was about to say, I feel really, really lucky that we did get a really good dad.

and the thing about my dad that I think makes him special, among other things, is that he is one of the most willing people I've ever met to help someone that, like, needs help, and he's really capable of doing most things and just really generous with his time and whatnot. And a thing that I thought of was in college, my freshman year, I was getting a ride from my friend to Montana, and then he continued up to Canada for Thanksgiving, and then he was going to pay him. pick me up on the way back down and we're going to drive back to Utah. And he flipped his car in the middle of nowhere, Montana on some ice. And my dad drove me out there. We helped get his car like pulled out of this ditch. He took us to the auto shop where they fixed things. They put like snow tires on the car, which my dad helped pay for. He put us up in a hotel. And then he helped us like on our way out the next day. And it was just him going a bus. and beyond for someone that he'd never met and to help me out too.

And it was just one of those things where I just realized, you know, I'm very lucky to have such a generous dad. Dads are pretty great when they're good. Yeah. Sometimes they can be real bad. Ours was good. You guys fucking love Nick Cannon. Oh, he's got a lot of kids. He's got all that, yeah.

No, my dad also, just the best person I know. He's the best I could ever hope for. It's actually his birthday yesterday. Happy birthday, dad. Shout out, Dad. Happy birthday, Chris? Chris? The best.

He's the best. He's so emotionally supportive and just so encouraging. Whenever I have an idea, no matter like how dumb or inane it sounds, he always just was so encouraging to pursue all of my interests and dreams and stuff. So I just wanted to say that. But there was a time when I was really little. I think I was like four years old and I hit my head. I was playing on the monkey bars with my just me and my mom at a little. play place. And I hit my head really hard on a metal bar. And I started crying. And I don't like,

this wasn't really a thing. I never like asked for my mom or my dad when I was in trouble or in pain. I just kind of like silently suffered through it. But this time for some reason, I just like needed my dad to be there. And it was in the middle of a workday. So my mom called him at his job. And he immediately left the office and came over to like this stupid little playground place at the, at the school I was at and just like hung out with me for a little bit. And like for a kid that just like made sense that he would do that. But as I grow into adulthood, I'm like, I don't know how many, I don't know, maybe that's a thing all dads would do.

But it was just a normal everyday occurrence that my dad would do something like that that maybe I'm realizing he's a pretty special guy. Yeah. After all. Tall. Tall as shit. Pretty tall guy. Yeah.

I know. Why didn't you give me some of that? It all went to Nate. What that? heck. Nate's like 14 feet tall. You're pretty tall, Mike. You, yeah, you can't.

I lie about my height and say I'm your height because you're tall. Yeah. I think if I were to be taller, I think the tallest I'd want to be is your height. So I'm the sweet spot for you. I think so. Yeah. I love how tall I am. But if I were taller, I think I'd want to be like 6-2.

6-1. Come on now. Hold on. Sure. Six one. Yeah. I'm not. No stolen valor from me. I'm like, Jeff. What's your other category, Mike? I don't know. It was probably some stupid one. Hold on. Oh, if you were to die right now, unexpectedly, from a score zero to ten, what do you think your associates and friends would score you?

Just on average. What do you think they give you? Yeah. I'm going to go quick, but I'll go through it. Shanks, I think, is giving me a 10. That's nice. I think Wes would give me an eight, and I think Mike would give me an eight. I think my mom and dad would give me like a six because I got tattoos. That's troubling. Cyrus would give me a seven. What's Danielle giving you?

Oh, business partner. Probably eight. Okay. Wow. Pretty good. That's good. That's pretty good. Yeah.

Nothing to sneeze at. I'm trying to think anyone under five. I don't think anyone's giving me under a five. Okay. There's probably some people. No, I liked how you did that. Yeah. I thought you were just going to give one average number from everybody,

but I liked that you did everyone individually like that. Yeah. I just came up with an average number, and I settled on like 7.5. But honestly, I think it'd probably be high. than that. I just didn't want to seem. Like, that was kind of some false humility. I think I'd probably get an eight from my friends and family combined. Well, Tom, you're his favorite student ever.

Yeah, I think Tom would give me a nine or a ten. I think, uh, I think Jesse would give me a nine or a ten. I think you guys would be a little bit more, uh, complicated in your answers, but... What do you think the lowest number someone would give you would be? Like, think of the person that hates you the most. Yeah, I think that that person's given me like a tour. three but I don't even know that person. What's crazy with you, Mike?

I just think it's like some unknown hater out there that would probably give me that. With Mike, like he would give Nolan like a two. Yeah. And then Nolan would probably give Mike like a seven. Yeah. Yeah, he'd be a lot more generous towards me than the other way around. That person that said I have the personality of a cardboard box would probably give me like a two or a three, I feel like.

Okay. Yeah. Your boxes are great. Sure. So neutral, five? Yeah. I'm going to go with, you're not baiting me into that west. I'm going with a six overall for me.

And listen, this isn't, I'm not trying to be humble. I'm taking, like, true, honest inventory of myself. I spend a lot of my time trying to, like, not be available for people. That's true. You know? I'm a pretty solitary creature. And it's not like I'm useless. or like a net negative.

Yeah. But I could be a lot better, I think. And I'm talking about like all associates, all coworkers, not like friends and family, of course, are going to raise the average pretty well. But like, I don't know. I just think about all the people I've ever worked with. And they're like, yeah, he was fine to have around the office,

but man. I think your score that you get given while you're alive is different than your score you are given while you're dead too. Yeah. Because I think there's a certain glossiness that comes over after someone dies where you really just remember most of the good stuff. Yeah. Like if I'm being honest, I'm getting a nine or ten.

From like family and associates, they all love them. Yeah, right. Give you guys nine and tens, I'm not going to dock you very much. Right. You know, I could maybe dock you for something small, but. That's how we should do funerals from now on. Just at the end, everyone, you get a score. Yeah, right.

And they carve it into your... You get to getting tens. tombstone. All right. My two categories. The first one was a pop culture one, and it was pop culture or a media that makes you feel the most peaceful and relaxed. I don't remember why I picked this.

I think it had something to do with one of my stories. But yeah, pop culture that makes you feel the most peaceful or relaxed. It's hard times out there. People need to know some things they're going to make them feel good. Anya? Hmm. for me. Interesting.

And Winter Came is the album of choice, but like honestly put on any song by Enya and I'm in a great place emotionally. Yeah, I just, I unironically, unabashedly, am her biggest fan. I love Anya so, so much. Love her. This one doesn't apply as much right now in my life because I have a great job I love. I work with my best friends and our listeners are awesome. But office space. back in the day when I would have to work like a nine to five was just like,

at least someone gets how I feel. Yeah. Yeah. That movie really tapped into some feelings. It's the best. Yeah. Yeah. That is a great movie.

I also picked a visual media. I picked the show Great British Baking Show. I think that one for me just puts me in a good mood no matter how I was feeling before turning it on. It just makes me feel cozy. and happy. And my favorite moment in that show is after the finale when they show how everyone is friends still and they're all hanging out with each other.

It's like the only show that makes me cry like real tears, not just get like choked up. Like I fully cry when I see that because it's just so affirming to see these people that are in a competition show, become like lifelong friends and have this deep love for each other. So nice. That's great. All right, and my second category is a pretty serious one. It's a would you rather. Would you rather all of your farts for the rest of your life

are going to be completely odorless, but incredibly loud? Like very loud. Picture the loudest fart you've ever had in your life. Or they're going to smell terrible like the worst smelling fart you've ever had, but be totally silent. This one's actually pretty easy for me. I want to hear you guys answer. I'm picking the smelly ones.

Wrong. Wrong. Loud. You got to go loud, man. Because loud fartes are funny and then they don't smell too. So it's like win-win. Yeah. I think that's, I don't think that's wrong.

And I just feel like the smelly ones you could get away with people not knowing it's you, which I know is sneaky and not the answer to it's very. You're going to be in a car and you'll do one and then everyone would be like, who farting? You're like, wouldn't me? The other thing is if I knew that they were that bad, I would just hold them until I'm not around other people. But yeah, I don't know.

I think you guys make a good argument. We're going to eventually figure out that you're, like, people have brands of fart. Yeah. And it will figure you out. Yeah. Well, and sometimes you fart in your sleep, like Jeff, in Antarctica, that first night you had the worst parts ever. And I literally couldn't sleep.

Because our room was so toxic from your farts. But if they're so loud, you're not sleeping either. Yeah. Either way, I'm picking loud. I think you guys are right. I think I might switch to loud. And you can do that trick where like Jeff did in school that one time where you like pin the blame on someone else. That's not easy with a loud fart.

That's easy with the smelly one. So funny. Blame it on a dog. But at least you have the change. Just like a, there's like a four seconds. fart and then I was like you farted the whole I sat by myself in one half of the class for the rest of the class and the entire rest of the class was

on the other half and I wasn't a confident kid like it started funny to me and I was traumatized by the end of the last but like it's still really fun like I did it on purpose you know to be funny All right. That's all I got. Me too. Me too. I'm done. Thanks, everyone, for sending us stories. We appreciate it. Stay safe out there, you know. Stay safe out there. Be smart. Have a plan.

And we'll talk to you soon. Love you. Love you. Love you. See ya. Bye.