Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of the
Speaker 1: Weekly Zeitgeist.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: These are some of our favorite segments from this week,
Speaker 1: all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: So, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist.
Speaker 2: Miles.
Speaker 1: We are thrilled to be joined by an acclaimed wildlife
Speaker 1: ecologist and conservationist who specializes in researching how human activity
Speaker 1: influences the behavior of wild animals. M m She's a
Speaker 1: TV host and the host of the PBS Nature podcast
Speaker 1: Going Wild with Doctor ray Wing Grant, which makes sense
Speaker 1: because she is doctor ray Win Grant.
Speaker 2: I'm here here, welcome back.
Speaker 3: Oh I really love having so many memories.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we loved having you last time. And we're like,
Speaker 2: now that we're talking to experts, let's talk to it.
Speaker 2: Let's really digging into a real expert.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's spend some time doing some research and like
Speaker 1: just you know, really square up, make ourselves seem extremely smart.
Speaker 2: And that's what we're doing.
Speaker 1: We put put our brains together and have put together
Speaker 1: a list of some of the hardest hitting, science based,
Speaker 1: deeply researched, science based questions in your area of expertise.
Speaker 3: This is like my all over again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is exactly. This is on and it's
Speaker 2: going to be on the record, right right, are high
Speaker 2: stays incredibly high?
Speaker 1: So we're going to get to that in a moment,
Speaker 1: But before we do, we still like to ask our guests,
Speaker 1: what is something from your search history that's revealing about
Speaker 1: who you are or what you're up to.
Speaker 3: Oh, well, I have something. I hope this can kind
Speaker 3: of be the great equalizer. Perhaps because I'm a scientist, right,
Speaker 3: I'm an environmental scientist, a wildlife ecologist. I have all
Speaker 3: this expertise, and yet ever so often I have to google,
Speaker 3: like the simpler things just to make sure that I'm
Speaker 3: explaining it correctly. So two weeks ago, I was with
Speaker 3: a film crew and filming a television show. It's called
Speaker 3: Wild Kingdom. It's great. You can watch it's on NBC
Speaker 3: streaming on Peacock. And I was with the crew and
Speaker 3: we were in a place I mean, I gotta gotta
Speaker 3: sneak it in. We were in Texas, or in Central Texas,
Speaker 3: in a place that has dinosaur footprints, right, Like this
Speaker 3: part of Central Texas used to be an ocean. And
Speaker 3: then at the point that there were these dinosaurs. It
Speaker 3: was like more of a swamp and they sunk their
Speaker 3: giant feet into the mud and then it just like
Speaker 3: there was a drought and they just solidified and they're
Speaker 3: still there. It's amazing. So talking to the crew about dinosaurs,
Speaker 3: this is just like rural central Texas too. And somehow
Speaker 3: we got into the topic of fossil fuels and one
Speaker 3: of the producers on the show didn't know where fossil
Speaker 3: fuels came from, Like she didn't understand the word fossil
Speaker 3: that's part of fossil frut. So fossil fuels are like
Speaker 3: you know, the gas you put in your car is
Speaker 3: a type of fossil fuel, right right, It's what's contributing
Speaker 3: to climate change. And so I was explained to her, like, girl, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's when dinosaurs lived and then they died. Their bodies
Speaker 3: decomposed and sunk into the earth. But because it's been
Speaker 3: millions of years, those decomposed dinosaur bodies have liquefied because
Speaker 3: it's so hot down there and turned into essentially like
Speaker 3: oil that we drill up and used to put in
Speaker 3: our cars and used to you know, power stuff, and
Speaker 3: we've you know, contaminated the whole atmosphere because of it,
Speaker 3: and her mind was blown to the point that I
Speaker 3: started getting like a little bit concerned. I was like,
Speaker 3: that is that right?
Speaker 2: So that what we would sometimes call fossils, those slowly,
Speaker 2: over a course of long decomposition became fuel.
Speaker 3: So let me just say I was right. I mean
Speaker 3: I had to google it because I was like, I mean,
Speaker 3: I study living animals, not dead runs. But I mean,
Speaker 3: but that is accurate, right, So fossil fuels like scientists
Speaker 3: throw that turn around, politicians thrown around, but it's literally fossils.
Speaker 3: We have them because it's decomposed dinosaurs from under the earth.
Speaker 3: So like the gas you put in your car is
Speaker 3: dinosaur body gas, right that we drive and it combusts
Speaker 3: and you know, makes all.
Speaker 1: These dinosaur body like it's not it's not like plant
Speaker 1: body or something.
Speaker 3: It's not plants. It's like decomposed animal matter. So it's
Speaker 3: like dinosaurs. It's like all those old crustaceans. And I mean,
Speaker 3: it's it's a bunch of stuff that used to live.
Speaker 3: One day humans will be that same liquefied substance and
Speaker 3: people could use.
Speaker 2: Us a cool Wikipedia oil.
Speaker 4: Why does Wikipedia says they I think it's like they
Speaker 4: might be or I might be wrong, but I believe
Speaker 4: it's like if it's plans, it's from those like ancient oceans,
Speaker 4: right that like right like not like not like you
Speaker 4: know grad Yeah, it's all prehistoric from before there were
Speaker 4: people to take down the data of like how it
Speaker 4: all started and what decomposed. It's just like organic matter,
Speaker 4: but it's a lot of it is like really big
Speaker 4: animals like dinosaurs.
Speaker 3: Okay, so using their bodies.
Speaker 2: I have to apologize to the listeners. I've been calling
Speaker 2: fossil fuels dinosaur farts that were just cooking dinosaur farts
Speaker 2: for our guess, so I.
Speaker 1: Looking them, I always said, I said, yeah, what is
Speaker 1: that even cooking farts?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we're cooking them to get our cars started.
Speaker 2: But yes, it's the bodies, not the fart.
Speaker 3: I mean, I feel like that's like click baity enough.
Speaker 3: Like a lot of people, you know, you just hear
Speaker 3: this word over and over and you're just like, I get,
Speaker 3: I guess that just means like dirty gases that go
Speaker 3: into that atmosphere. But it's really I mean, it was
Speaker 3: interesting to make the connection while looking at a dinosaur
Speaker 3: footprint and like marveling at it to be like, Oh,
Speaker 3: I interacted dinosaurs all the time, right.
Speaker 2: And you will have your come up in dinosaurs. You
Speaker 2: will help.
Speaker 3: Destroy our remain relevant.
Speaker 1: Remain dinosaur fart to dinosaur fart, as the Bible says, yeah, my, my,
Speaker 1: how I would have searched that. What you were just
Speaker 1: talking about is how dinosaurs footprints Texas? Because I only
Speaker 1: talked to Google in the dumbest phrases.
Speaker 3: But we were in Glen Rose, Texas. If you ever
Speaker 3: go there, you'll be astonished because there are legit huge
Speaker 3: dinosaur footprints, like and it's just there's just out in
Speaker 3: the in the community. It's just it's this rural, rural
Speaker 3: part of central Texas that is like, you know, kind.
Speaker 2: Of oh, do they have like like dinosaur statues there too?
Speaker 3: Instead they have the other big statues like off the
Speaker 3: highway kind of statues. But it is the country like
Speaker 3: it is like it is not urban. It is a
Speaker 3: wild place, but it's just very accessible. So let me
Speaker 3: just say the dinosaur footprints are super accessibly just like
Speaker 3: kind of walk upon them.
Speaker 1: Really, I'm looking at a picture from the Smithsonian magazine
Speaker 1: and it has the dinosaur footprints and then to make
Speaker 1: sure you know that it's Texas, somebody just dropped a
Speaker 1: cowboy hat on top of them.
Speaker 2: For scale with yeah yeah, scale, Yeah, how many cowboy
Speaker 2: hats tall? Are you? Jack? If we're doing the Texas measurement? Joe,
Speaker 2: what's something you think is over it?
Speaker 5: Las Vegas? A lot of friends who Las Vegas is
Speaker 5: a destination. First time I went, I was like, I
Speaker 5: cannot believe how much of a scam this openly is,
Speaker 5: Like like they're really not hiding it, you know, they're
Speaker 5: they're selling the high roller lifestyle to people who can't
Speaker 5: afford it, and those people are hopping it up like dogs,
Speaker 5: And it's really it almost doesn't even feel like deception
Speaker 5: because it's it's all there. You could all the information
Speaker 5: is there. You will go and you will lose a
Speaker 5: ton of money with the promise, with a very American promise,
Speaker 5: that you could get rich buying into the system that
Speaker 5: is built specifically to take everything you have.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it. I love it.
Speaker 2: Luck be a lady. Hey, you're to win with that attitude, Joey,
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something. Let me tell you gotta
Speaker 2: lose three hundred to make three hundred.
Speaker 6: You know what I mean, to lose money to make money,
Speaker 6: you gotta lose your two hundred. You never were in
Speaker 6: the game, pal, you gotta lose your children's entire college
Speaker 6: fund to make children's college.
Speaker 2: At a blackjack table and he already and I'm like, yeah, dude,
Speaker 2: I'm broke. They're like, you gotta lose, like you know,
Speaker 2: you gotta look come out three hundred to start winning.
Speaker 2: I'm like that sounds a fucking wild, dude, Like I
Speaker 2: was like reckless even cashing in like a hundred bucks here, right, No, totally.
Speaker 5: And I'm also like really astounded by how not I mean,
Speaker 5: like we were affecting that kind of rat packing voice.
Speaker 5: But you go into a casino and there's there's nothing
Speaker 5: classy about it. It's just like a bunch of flashing lights.
Speaker 5: Everything is like a giant iPhone, you know. It's yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Know an that take your money?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's like huge screens where at least I don't know,
Speaker 5: maybe at one point there was a charm and you
Speaker 5: can still like pull a lever if you want, but most.
Speaker 2: Of it is digital.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just just gaudy and not like you kind of want.
Speaker 5: I mean, I would want like, oh, let's get a
Speaker 5: little bit of a little bit of velvet, a little this,
Speaker 5: and maybe you can get that some places, but for
Speaker 5: the most part, it's all just really yellow and gross.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so funny, Like I have such a I
Speaker 2: used to go there a lot when I was younger,
Speaker 2: you know, because I was just kind of into like,
Speaker 2: you know, it was a lot of my friends are
Speaker 2: just into that, like let's go going Vegas man, right,
Speaker 2: And then I hadn't gone for a few years, and
Speaker 2: then Jack and I recently went over the summer to
Speaker 2: go see like the NBA Summer League, and it was
Speaker 2: like surreal, where like I was feeling like I was
Speaker 2: watching like an old part of myself die while I
Speaker 2: was there, and also seeing like a new future from us.
Speaker 2: Like I was like, wait, these smells. Like I used
Speaker 2: to be blacked out in these lobbies, like not knowing
Speaker 2: what was going on, and now I'm like, uh, it
Speaker 2: feels a little different. I just is it an.
Speaker 1: Underage drinking destination like when you lived three hours from it?
Speaker 1: Cause like I when I was in high school, I
Speaker 1: drove to from Boston to Montreal.
Speaker 2: To to get fucked up. Wow. Yeah, Nah, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's how my think problem was. It was just like
Speaker 2: to Joe's point, like it was like I was on
Speaker 2: that mirage ship where I'm like, let's go to Vegas.
Speaker 2: Now i only have circus circus money, so like to
Speaker 2: stay there. So like for sure the place I'm gonna
Speaker 2: stay is so fucked up that I'm just gonna be
Speaker 2: so fucked up that i don't have to go back
Speaker 2: to that room until like four in the morning. Right.
Speaker 2: And But at the same time, like I was always
Speaker 2: like feeling myself when I was there because I was
Speaker 2: putting so much like weight into like partying in Vegas
Speaker 2: and stuff. Got it? Yeah, yeah, Hey, but you can
Speaker 2: drive a Lambo out there and shoot a fucking machine gun.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you know, so that's all that matters.
Speaker 1: Got me right back, That's all I want to do
Speaker 1: when I wake up in the morning, I wake up
Speaker 1: quaking with just a desire to shoot a machine gun
Speaker 1: out of the window of a Lambo and drive by.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Gabe, what's something you think is underrated?
Speaker 7: All right, I'm very passionate about this because sushi is
Speaker 7: expensive everywhere. There's a twenty four hour grocery store next
Speaker 7: to my apartment that for like six bucks, you can
Speaker 7: get a sushi roll and it is just powering my
Speaker 7: whole life. Yeah, So grocery store sushi when it's good under.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah, if you can get it. Like there's
Speaker 2: a there's a local market that I'm surprised sells sushi,
Speaker 2: but it seems like they have a business where like
Speaker 2: this sushi company owns the refrigerator case that they're just
Speaker 2: asking like their market to have in there. So I
Speaker 2: found out when they come drop the ship, and so
Speaker 2: the times I've gone for the drop and I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is fucking this is great for fucking seven bucks. Absolutely,
Speaker 2: I knew it was good. When they started to use
Speaker 2: that health food store as a as like a sham
Speaker 2: restaurant on grub Hub where you buy sushi and you
Speaker 2: don't know, I'm like, oh, they think they're a whole restaurant.
Speaker 8: Hell yeah, I love I love outing a good ghost restaurant.
Speaker 2: That's always yeah favorite. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Remember during the pandemic, it was Chuck E Cheese.
Speaker 2: They changed the name.
Speaker 7: They were like raise famous and it was just a
Speaker 7: Chuck E Cheese up and the Chris is.
Speaker 8: Hot Chicken, and you just it's like this is Denny's. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 8: what the fuck. Yeah, there was a few different ones
Speaker 8: that everyone yeah, everyone just was like Squally's that's what.
Speaker 2: Yes, well done, well squaleh yeah, man, that's fu. But
Speaker 2: the other thing though, too, if you got an Asian
Speaker 2: market nearby, or like someone has like a good fishmonger,
Speaker 2: you could save money buying sashimi grade fish and just
Speaker 2: buy your own microwave rice and put a little bit
Speaker 2: of sushi, Like, buy yourself some sushi seasoning vinegar for
Speaker 2: your rice, do the microwave pack, and you could buy
Speaker 2: a fucking big ass piece of fresh salmon for fucking
Speaker 2: like six seven bucks by my house and I'm my bro,
Speaker 2: slice this up.
Speaker 7: Shit fuckish. I love that TikTok guy, the sushi guy.
Speaker 7: He goes to Costco and buys a big piece of
Speaker 7: salmon and just turns it into sushi.
Speaker 9: Oh, breaks it down. Okay, yeah, you gotta do that.
Speaker 9: I'd be afraid of the parasite. Yeah, he explains all that.
Speaker 9: He explains that they're in there. You'll be good.
Speaker 2: You just take pills for that. They eat the pills
Speaker 2: your life. Just take iodine. You'll be fine. You'll be fine.
Speaker 2: You'll be fine, you'll be fine. All right, We're gonna
Speaker 2: take a break. Let's come back and we'll talk about
Speaker 2: the life and times of Donald Trump after this. And
Speaker 2: we're back.
Speaker 1: We are, And so we want to take this opportunity
Speaker 1: to check in with you, doctor Grenn about how you,
Speaker 1: as a scientist, perceive some of the news that we
Speaker 1: cover on a regular basis, and that is entering the
Speaker 1: zeitgeist on a regular basis. As the sign in my
Speaker 1: front yard will attest. In this house, we believe in science. Okay, no,
Speaker 1: but we we do believe. We don't think COVID was
Speaker 1: caused by five gen Okay, speak for yourself, speak for yourself.
Speaker 1: We don't think vaccines killed every celebrity who has died
Speaker 1: since twenty nineteen, since before the pandemic. Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that's good.
Speaker 2: That's good, but good solid take.
Speaker 1: So, I guess you'll be shocked to know Miles is
Speaker 1: not a scientist. But I am also not a scientist.
Speaker 1: How do you think about communicating as a scientist to
Speaker 1: non scientists? Like how strategic are you when communicating with
Speaker 1: with those of us who may not I'm not going
Speaker 1: to confirm that I don't have a PhD.
Speaker 2: In the science. Well, look, I think getting I'm on
Speaker 2: Reddit are slash science, so I think I have a
Speaker 2: good grasp on things. But yes, how how would you
Speaker 2: in a world of contentious information? What's what's it like?
Speaker 2: What do you do? How do you you know?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: I got to say, I got to say that I
Speaker 3: work really hard at it, and I am also gifted
Speaker 3: with a type of science that I do that is
Speaker 3: highly visual, right, Like there are like chemists out there,
Speaker 3: people who study like micro organisms, that it's harder for
Speaker 3: them to show the science as they're doing it right,
Speaker 3: or mighty interesting to look at. But I study large animals.
Speaker 3: I study large carnivores, bears and lions and mountain lions
Speaker 3: and wolves, and the science behind studying them might be
Speaker 3: very technical or like you know, very mathy or very analytical,
Speaker 3: but kind of the basics of it are fun to
Speaker 3: look at and highly engaging. So I just I get
Speaker 3: that benefit just automatically that like people might tune in
Speaker 3: if I show like a hibernating bear, there's a huge
Speaker 3: science behind that, But the visual also speaks volumes, right,
Speaker 3: So there's that. And then I also wanted to just
Speaker 3: shout out how identity plays a huge role into how
Speaker 3: I approach science communication, and I even think how I
Speaker 3: got into it because as a you know, I almost
Speaker 3: had a young black woman, but I should create that
Speaker 3: as a as a millennial, that used to mean young
Speaker 3: as a millennial black woman. I always was a part
Speaker 3: of my community, right, Like my professional community was always
Speaker 3: so different from my personal, my, my you know, social community.
Speaker 3: And because of that, I was always telling stories about
Speaker 3: what I was doing to my community, which is predominantly
Speaker 3: Black women my own age, right or maybe their brothers
Speaker 3: and their husbands or their boyfriends or you know, my family.
Speaker 3: And so because there was such a disconnect between like
Speaker 3: ecologists and the people I spend my free time with,
Speaker 3: without really trying, without being purposeful, I would talk a
Speaker 3: lot about what I do or where I'd been, or
Speaker 3: why I was going to these places or the cool
Speaker 3: stuff that I found. And so I found that just naturally,
Speaker 3: storytelling or just science communication became a thing. And then
Speaker 3: of course I was also like growing up, I was
Speaker 3: such a nerd. So imagine me in college. I went
Speaker 3: to college in Atlanta, and there was this wonderful black community,
Speaker 3: and I was the girl who was like obsessed with
Speaker 3: recycling right, like environmental health, like picking up litter. I
Speaker 3: was the recycling coordinator form my dorm, right, and so
Speaker 3: I was also that person no matter what my identity was.
Speaker 3: That is like knocking on people's dorm rooms and being
Speaker 3: like it's recycling day, like bringing all of your bottles
Speaker 3: of ninety nine bananas or whatever.
Speaker 2: No, I'm collecting them. I put them up on my
Speaker 2: a pyramid out next to my gray Goose bottles, so
Speaker 2: they know I at one point could afford I have class.
Speaker 3: So I think that in so many of the ways
Speaker 3: that I've been involved in science, there's been also a
Speaker 3: practice to it that you can see, right, you can
Speaker 3: see someone collecting recycling, right, but there's like a science
Speaker 3: behind why that's important and how it works. And you
Speaker 3: can see someone like hiking in the wilderness looking for
Speaker 3: a bear, and there's a science behind that. So, you know,
Speaker 3: I think that I might have been super challenged in
Speaker 3: other ways, but I've just had this amazing benefit of
Speaker 3: what I do or what I care about, and how
Speaker 3: visual it is and how a person can kind of
Speaker 3: symbolize a lot of that, and so I haven't struggled
Speaker 3: too much. You know, I get like I do get
Speaker 3: the like comments on Facebook I got. I recently got
Speaker 3: an email through my website about someone like kind of
Speaker 3: threatening me to tell a story the right way right.
Speaker 3: It was really interesting. There's a bird called the atwater
Speaker 3: prairie chicken in central Texas. It's a highly endangered bird
Speaker 3: that has this terrible name because the word chicken is
Speaker 3: in it. But it's actually one of these like remarkable
Speaker 3: birds in the sage grouse family. So it has these
Speaker 3: like yellow cheeks that puff up really big, and they
Speaker 3: do like one of those mating dances that you'd see
Speaker 3: on all the natural history shows. It's like an incredible bird.
Speaker 3: And this guy sent an email and he was like,
Speaker 3: you better like if your show does a story on
Speaker 3: the Atwater prairie chicken, you better do it right because
Speaker 3: so many other people have done it wrong. You know,
Speaker 3: that's what those things are. I was like, you don't
Speaker 3: even know what we're doing, you know, like like there's
Speaker 3: no context here. But he was like threatening me, like
Speaker 3: little old me about this prairie chicken, you know. And
Speaker 3: so it's just very interesting that I do get people
Speaker 3: who don't like my communication, you know, I do get
Speaker 3: people who find problems in it, usually for no good reason. Sure,
Speaker 3: but I don't get a lot of deniers when it
Speaker 3: comes to what I'm communicating, And and.
Speaker 2: That is special to continue down this because I think
Speaker 2: this is it's relevant, right, because we're it's such an
Speaker 2: era too where it's people like I got to see
Speaker 2: it to believe it. For a lot of scientific stuff,
Speaker 2: like they're like I don't know how a vaccine works,
Speaker 2: and like and I remember like the like was it
Speaker 2: the CDC's like here's a fucking video. Man, Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna watch that. It's fucking nonsense. But like for
Speaker 2: things that are measurable, right, and like for people like
Speaker 2: if seeing is believing a lot of times, how I
Speaker 2: guess in that sense, how are you seeing climate change?
Speaker 2: Because this is another thing that people are like, I
Speaker 2: don't have it's cold today, therefore, like fine, shut up,
Speaker 2: But how are you seeing that sort of manifest in
Speaker 2: the physical world that of like these environments of the
Speaker 2: species that you study, because that's one thing like obviously
Speaker 2: you're not like an atmospheric scientist, but you very much
Speaker 2: do understand how climate is impacting animals. So in that sense,
Speaker 2: how are you seeing this play out? Like at that scale,
Speaker 2: because I'm sure that's indicative to like the sort of
Speaker 2: chain reaction that could happen with our environmental systems. Right.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's really interesting that you bring that
Speaker 3: up because I kind of want to put this disclaimer
Speaker 3: out that climate change impacts wild animals tremendously in a
Speaker 3: way that's not okay, But I think that we need
Speaker 3: to solve the issues of climate change to help people first.
Speaker 3: You know, there's a lot of people who like kind
Speaker 3: of care more about animals than people, or they might
Speaker 3: be convinced to care if there's an animal story rather
Speaker 3: than like, oh, people in this developing nation are suffering
Speaker 3: kind of story.
Speaker 2: But you see how they're how emaciated their dogs.
Speaker 3: Are exactly no, exactly exactly. So I always want to
Speaker 3: point out, like I like, I live and breathe wild
Speaker 3: animals every day. I've dedicated my life to saving them
Speaker 3: and keeping them on this planet. And I think people
Speaker 3: are more important and more urgently need saving, right because
Speaker 3: climate change is devastating entire communities of people right now.
Speaker 3: With that said, bears, right, bears are a perfect example
Speaker 3: of been studying bears for thirteen years and we're seeing
Speaker 3: how climate change is impacting all different kinds of bears.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that we love about bears
Speaker 3: as like Americans, is that they hibernate in the winter.
Speaker 3: It gets cold, and they go into their den and
Speaker 3: they hibernate and they sleep for you know, two four
Speaker 3: six months at a time. Well, they actually need all
Speaker 3: kinds of environmental cues to enter hibernation, right, So it's
Speaker 3: not like they just like look at a calendar and
Speaker 3: say like, oh my gosh, it's November fifteenth, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: time to go, right, It's like their ecosystem has to
Speaker 3: signal to them is coming. The temperature drops, maybe precipitation increases,
Speaker 3: maybe because some snow, right, the trees stop producing food.
Speaker 3: The other animal species they eat, whether it's fish or deer,
Speaker 3: go away. Everyone is locking down and there's nothing to eat.
Speaker 3: That's when bears chemical balance changes and hibernation starts. Actually
Speaker 3: their metabolism slows down, right, that's like body chemistry within them.
Speaker 3: But that's not going to work if it stays warm, right,
Speaker 3: if the trees keep producing, if the bunny rabbits keep
Speaker 3: hopping around, that doesn't happen. So in some of the
Speaker 3: places that I've studied black bears in the Western United States.
Speaker 3: There have been these winters recently where the temperature hasn't
Speaker 3: dropped and the snow hasn't fallen until like February, and
Speaker 3: so the bears have remained active. But then when February
Speaker 3: comes and in one week it's you know, three months
Speaker 3: of snow and everything shuts down. They're not hibernating already.
Speaker 3: Their bodies haven't got into that hibernation state. They might
Speaker 3: not be able to get there in time, and they
Speaker 3: may starve, or they may freeze to death, or they
Speaker 3: may die, or they may come into your garage and
Speaker 3: look for a warm place and some food. So we're
Speaker 3: finding that climate change not only impacts like the bear's
Speaker 3: perception of what season it is and whether or not
Speaker 3: it's time to hibernate, but it could also increase conflicts
Speaker 3: with people, right because they kind of freak out. They're like,
Speaker 3: all I need is some food. It was available last week,
Speaker 3: it's not this week, So where can I find it?
Speaker 3: In your trash can? And that is also a problem.
Speaker 1: It's got to be a heart just like on their
Speaker 1: natural like if they're not getting the rest that they
Speaker 1: had in the past, right, like that doesn't that affect them?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 2: Are they cranky?
Speaker 3: They are cranky. Bears are a lot like us, they
Speaker 3: just aren't. They're hungry, they have They're angry.
Speaker 2: I need three months of sleep in the world.
Speaker 3: They're angry like as do I. Yeah, there are bears
Speaker 3: in warm places where they never hibernate. So there are
Speaker 3: bears in Florida, right, like in the Everglades. It's swampy,
Speaker 3: it's warm, and they don't hibernate in the winter. But
Speaker 3: let me clarify that setting up a hibernation den is
Speaker 3: the most important and the most critical for surviving periods
Speaker 3: where there's no food, right, So like classic winter when
Speaker 3: there's no food and female bears give birth in hibernation,
Speaker 3: they need to set up a hibernation down. They need
Speaker 3: to slow down their metabolism. They need to go into
Speaker 3: a hibernation state in order to give birth because when
Speaker 3: they do, they give birth. Every January. Every bear that's
Speaker 3: ever lived in the history of no North American bears
Speaker 3: has given birth in January, every single one.
Speaker 2: It's the most It's like my favorite doctor, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: have to fact check.
Speaker 3: That checked it now, like you have you have my permission.
Speaker 3: They're born in January.
Speaker 2: Let me call it Tim Ferris.
Speaker 1: Really quick, they realize how much better they'd get it,
Speaker 1: Hockey if they were born a little bit later.
Speaker 3: Oh just slightly later.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, you're really going to Malcolm Black.
Speaker 3: When I was doing my PhD research in the Lake
Speaker 3: Tahoe area on black bears, we would just give every
Speaker 3: bear a January first birthday, and it was more about
Speaker 3: it was less about when they were born and more
Speaker 3: about what year, right as opposed to like what day
Speaker 3: or what just January, And so the moms and mama
Speaker 3: bears like have to stay in their den for you know,
Speaker 3: sixteen twenty weeks because they give birth to these one
Speaker 3: pound like hairless, kind of blind little cubs right like
Speaker 3: they're they're they're little. Bears are huge, right, Bears are
Speaker 3: bigger than people and they give birth to these tiny,
Speaker 3: little like fist sized cups.
Speaker 2: Right wow.
Speaker 3: I mean I personally am jealous, like human beings should
Speaker 3: be able to do that, right, Like, we are smaller
Speaker 3: and we give birth to these enormous babies and it
Speaker 3: turns us apart. So bears they have these like nice
Speaker 3: little births. The babies just slip out right, and then
Speaker 3: they just nurse from their moms and the protection of
Speaker 3: this hibernation den for a couple of months, like two
Speaker 3: or three months, and then they emerge from the den altogether.
Speaker 3: So the mama bearon needs to prepare for hibernation by
Speaker 3: packing on the pounds, getting as fat as she possibly
Speaker 3: can in order to not eat, not drink, not urinate,
Speaker 3: not defecate, and just urt birth and nurse some babies
Speaker 3: for several months. And if the climate is not giving
Speaker 3: her that signal that it is time to do that,
Speaker 3: then she won't be ready.
Speaker 2: And the like, if you play it out to the
Speaker 2: worst possible outcome, it's that like the cycle gets disrupted,
Speaker 2: disrupted to the point that the population just begin dwindling.
Speaker 3: That's right, We just stop having births like successful berths. Right,
Speaker 3: So it's less about sometimes people are worried about like
Speaker 3: hunting them, like outright killing of them, and it's more
Speaker 3: about like females of reproductive age, like having successful berths
Speaker 3: over and over, and that's if we don't have that,
Speaker 3: then we don't have a future of the species.
Speaker 2: You said something really interesting earlier that I wanted to
Speaker 2: touch back on. They don't. And I was always curious
Speaker 2: about this. They don't pooper pee that whole time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, isn't that crazy?
Speaker 2: I always wondered how that. I don't know. I remember
Speaker 2: as a kid hearing that. I'm like, they got to
Speaker 2: poop a little bit, probably.
Speaker 3: They Okay, okay, So let me just say because scientists
Speaker 3: are always going to give a good like, it depends, right,
Speaker 3: So here's my scientist. It depends for accuracy. There haven't
Speaker 3: been a lot of studies done on hibernating bears. You
Speaker 3: can imagine why, right, Like, it is very hard to
Speaker 3: study these animals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems so cozy in there. I would be
Speaker 1: all about that. If you need somebody to go in there.
Speaker 2: All right, cool, I'll be back in a couple hours.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like it says it's like pretty dangerous and like
Speaker 3: they don't want to be bothered, and a lot of
Speaker 3: these things are very important. And then it's hard to
Speaker 3: study hibernation and captive bears like at the zoo because again,
Speaker 3: their food source doesn't go away in the wintertime, and
Speaker 3: so they often don't hibernate because they're like I'm I'm cool,
Speaker 3: I'm chilling. I have like a heater and a you know,
Speaker 3: a person who brings me food. So there aren't a
Speaker 3: lot of studies on this, but what we found is
Speaker 3: that in this metabolic state that they enter, they recycle
Speaker 3: all of their waste and urine, so that's why they
Speaker 3: don't drink anything, and there the liquid in their body
Speaker 3: is being recycled like over and over. It's fascinating and
Speaker 3: there's a lot that we can learn about human health
Speaker 3: and you know, biomedicine from studying hibernating bears. In fact,
Speaker 3: there are some hypotheses that they're plasma changes, so we
Speaker 3: can detect the chemical changes down to the blood and
Speaker 3: the plasma level, and their organs are actually preserved because
Speaker 3: the like just from recycling molecular like components of their
Speaker 3: plasma changes. I've had a researcher come to the field
Speaker 3: with me in Minnesota who was a cardiologist and was
Speaker 3: studying you know, human hearts, and the idea was that
Speaker 3: they want to take a blood sample from a hibernating bear,
Speaker 3: which we were able to do, not without drama, but
Speaker 3: we were able to do it, and they wanted to
Speaker 3: see if the blood of a hibernating bear could preserve
Speaker 3: human organs because we need a way to make organ donors.
Speaker 3: Organs oh last longer. When there's an organ donor and
Speaker 3: there's a recipient somewhere in a hospital waiting for a
Speaker 3: lung or a heart or a kidney, often the organ
Speaker 3: will die in transport because we don't have a good
Speaker 3: way to keep them alive. But apparently bear blood, hibernating
Speaker 3: bear blood might be the thing we need to, like
Speaker 3: if we can replicate it to figure out how to
Speaker 3: preserve organs for double the amount of time so that
Speaker 3: more lives can be saved by organ donors.
Speaker 2: Right. See, this has been learning new stuff too. I'm
Speaker 2: going to start going poop and pee in the recycling can.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, I mean that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: That is, I think we got what you recycle your way.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, talking about the vaccine and you
Speaker 1: know the like, there's a lot of people who had
Speaker 1: some ideas about how you could recycle your own you're
Speaker 1: help protect you from Jack. I think you just endorsed that, right,
Speaker 1: so we can just move along.
Speaker 2: Let's get past the joke stuff. Why don't you want
Speaker 2: to ask a serious question? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, So you wake up and you're a bear. I
Speaker 1: have an answer to this that I'll get first, But like,
Speaker 1: what's the first thing you're doing? Like, I personally feel
Speaker 1: like showing the other bears water slides would be high
Speaker 1: on my I feel like bears would love water slides.
Speaker 1: And I don't think i've seen a bear like I've
Speaker 1: seen them enjoy a pool. I've seen them enjoy hammocks.
Speaker 1: Love a hammock, but like water slide park, Like me
Speaker 1: and my bear friends go right on water slide park.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds pretty fun. What would what would yours be?
Speaker 2: Other than that obvious? First?
Speaker 3: I guess realistically, Yeah, sure that I do as a bear.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, they're just so motivated by hunger
Speaker 3: as am I. So I think the first thing I
Speaker 3: might do is like hit up like a buffet, you know,
Speaker 3: like like a good Like what's a good buffet? I mean,
Speaker 3: Sizzler is classic?
Speaker 2: Yea based in my family pizza hut salad bar oh.
Speaker 3: From the nineties. Yeah, pizza hut salad bar I think
Speaker 3: Tuesdays used to have one. Yeah, okay, machine, you know,
Speaker 3: like a solid buffet I think would be what I do.
Speaker 3: But I might also, like, you know, what's funny is
Speaker 3: that what people talk to me about bears all the time, right,
Speaker 3: And so often they'll bring up like Yogi Bear, right,
Speaker 3: the cartoon, and they'll talk about like picnic baskets and
Speaker 3: like going for a picnic and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: And I'm like, maybe that would be cute. Maybe if
Speaker 3: I woke up as a bear, I might be like, hey,
Speaker 3: let's let's like let's actualize this. Let's like go for
Speaker 3: a picnic at a picnic table in a public park
Speaker 3: and blow people minds. You know, let's just like screw
Speaker 3: with people and make this whole Yogi Bear story real. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you know, do that play the part?
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: Sorry, we're just furiously crossing off the five Yogi Bear questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but not that one. Those might come off as hack.
Speaker 2: Now that's another one. Oh okay, So to that point
Speaker 2: right about you know, bears taking a pie off a
Speaker 2: window sill and things like this. So we constantly read stories,
Speaker 2: or I'm constant seeing stories of like, you know, black
Speaker 2: bear shows up in a backyard and you know, the
Speaker 2: species are increasing. The BBC over the summer was like
Speaker 2: bears are returning to the Alps. Here's what you need
Speaker 2: to do to avoid, you know, having a horrible encounter.
Speaker 2: We're in how to stay safe in bear territory. Some
Speaker 2: things feel and then other things I've read about how
Speaker 2: I think Louisiana may have a bear hunting season for
Speaker 2: the first time in a long time, and that like
Speaker 2: populations are are rising to levels where before it seemed
Speaker 2: like it was pretty rought with potential of like you know, extinction.
Speaker 2: Are these stories like are they part of a bigger picture?
Speaker 2: Are there people who are just looking at these bear
Speaker 2: communities being like trying to other the bears and make
Speaker 2: them feel like a threat, and how we have to
Speaker 2: control them or is it something that has to be hunted.
Speaker 2: That's one thing I'm seeing constantly, aside from also locally,
Speaker 2: especially in like La, people who live near the Angelus
Speaker 2: National Forest, increased anecdotes and like local news about bears
Speaker 2: like showing up. And I'm curious from your perspective, is
Speaker 2: it like this is a good thing, like right, like
Speaker 2: like conservations working and we're able to like help repopulate
Speaker 2: or this is or it's it's it's fine lines. Where
Speaker 2: are we at the bear?
Speaker 3: So much to say about this. I'm gonna save the
Speaker 3: hunting stuff okay, because I have a personal opinion about
Speaker 3: hunting and I have a professional opinion and they're different. Okay,
Speaker 3: But to answer your first question, I just want here's
Speaker 3: a little anecdote. When I was in grad school, my
Speaker 3: advisor said to me he had been studying carnivores for
Speaker 3: his whole professional career, and he said to me, when
Speaker 3: it comes to carnivores, people think there's either too few
Speaker 3: or too many. They never think there's the right number.
Speaker 3: And man, oh man, does that ring true? Because when
Speaker 3: bears are on the endangered species list, like people are like,
Speaker 3: save the bears. We love bears. We got to get
Speaker 3: more bears, bring them back by any means necessary. And
Speaker 3: once we get like a good number of bears around,
Speaker 3: and they're like, oh, look, my ancestors used to live here.
Speaker 3: I'm going to come back to this space all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, right like people are ringing the alarm, like
Speaker 3: bears are everywhere they've returned, Like what are you going
Speaker 3: to do? They're eating your puppies. So that's like my thing.
Speaker 3: I would actually I would call on everyone listening to
Speaker 3: really think about, like where do you fit in this?
Speaker 3: Like you do care about wild animals? And you care
Speaker 3: when there's not enough of them, but when there's like
Speaker 3: plenty or when they're doing well, and when you see them,
Speaker 3: does that mean there's too many or does that mean
Speaker 3: you're uncomfortable? Because I think that's a huge, huge difference
Speaker 3: because like, on one hand, when it comes to black bears,
Speaker 3: like we've been doing conservation on them for several decades,
Speaker 3: it's been working pretty well, and black bear populations are rebounding,
Speaker 3: But there's not like so many black bears, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: considering how many there used to be before, like you know,
Speaker 3: the colonization of North America, there's a fraction of that
Speaker 3: number here today. Right, there's no habitat for them. I mean,
Speaker 3: like you know, you look at New York City. New
Speaker 3: York City used to have bears before it was New
Speaker 3: York City, and now you're not going to find a
Speaker 3: bear anywhere near there. So you know, like San Francisco,
Speaker 3: Los Angeles, grizzly bears like walked in those spaces. You're
Speaker 3: not going to find grizzly bears in California. So I
Speaker 3: have such a strong like pushback on people who are
Speaker 3: like there's so many, they're everywhere, They're in my backyard,
Speaker 3: cause it's like, well, it's their backyard. Actually, that's like
Speaker 3: they're in their backyard, like they're at their house. It's
Speaker 3: like they came first. Bears existed in North America from
Speaker 3: what we can tell from like the evolutionary timeline. They
Speaker 3: were here before people, before indigenous people, before any human
Speaker 3: beings walked on the continent of North America. As far
Speaker 3: as we know, black bears were here first. And so
Speaker 3: this is their land and we need them right Like
Speaker 3: they helped to control the herbivore population. That helps control
Speaker 3: the vegetation community, and that gives us deeper roots in
Speaker 3: the soil, and that prevents erosion. And that's a really
Speaker 3: big issue. I mean, there's a lot of reasons we
Speaker 3: need these predators. Okay, the next thing I'll say is
Speaker 3: that COVID, man oh man, COVID actually plays into this
Speaker 3: because when the world shut down and everyone had to
Speaker 3: start working from home in twenty twenty, we started like
Speaker 3: noticing shit. Like people started like looking out their window
Speaker 3: and be like, oh my gosh, there's a coyote out there.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, have you seen how many wrecks boons
Speaker 3: are in the trash? Oh my gosh, the combination of
Speaker 3: people being home and being able to notice what happens
Speaker 3: in and around their home, and also like not going
Speaker 3: out at night, right like we're not going to the club,
Speaker 3: We're not like going to places where just like we're
Speaker 3: on bear watch, we can hear. We can notice people
Speaker 3: spending more time in wild places, right like when we
Speaker 3: were able to travel again in COVID, it was safer
Speaker 3: to be in nature than other places. And then technology,
Speaker 3: everyone has like a ring camera, right Like you used
Speaker 3: to have a doorbell, and now you have a camera
Speaker 3: at your door. Everyone is ape and they have a
Speaker 3: camera at the front door, at the back door, all
Speaker 3: around the house. Door came, the doorbells have cameras. Like
Speaker 3: there's so much monitoring. There's also like I'm flashing my
Speaker 3: iPhone at y'all because when I first started studying bears,
Speaker 3: we didn't have cameras with phones or phones with camera.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm trying to say, camera phones, and
Speaker 3: now we do so like the amount of bears that
Speaker 3: I can show that I'm working on today when I
Speaker 3: do field work is an order of magnitude bigger than before.
Speaker 3: So anyone who interacts with a bear in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: can prove it, can show it and put it on
Speaker 3: the internet, can spread this information. Whereas ten years ago,
Speaker 3: fifteen years ago, you just had the story to tell
Speaker 3: and it didn't get very far.
Speaker 2: I didn't believe so existed. It was like Bigfoot.
Speaker 3: To me, it was yoking bear, and I was like, yeah.
Speaker 1: That's that's a cartoon, you fools.
Speaker 2: Sure enough. And then I got a cat, sure enough,
Speaker 2: feels one of those real ones.
Speaker 3: So it's like talking to There's like this combination of things, right,
Speaker 3: there's just a combination of things like, yes, there are
Speaker 3: more bears, there's not very many more bears. Like it's going, well,
Speaker 3: it's going, well, there's more coyotes. There's not that many
Speaker 3: more coyotes. There's more coyotes caught on your nest camera. Right,
Speaker 3: that's what it is like. You just didn't know the
Speaker 3: coyotes are finding their own business on your property, you know,
Speaker 3: five years ago, But now you know, and now you
Speaker 3: have a feeling about it. And so there are so
Speaker 3: many scientists, a lot of folks especially I have to
Speaker 3: highlight like UC Berkeley has this incredible lab, the Shell
Speaker 3: Lab sh e L run by a black man who's
Speaker 3: a wonderful wildlife ecologist and they primarily study like urban carnivores,
Speaker 3: and they are actually using data from next door you
Speaker 3: know that terrible like app people on therasist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, data are they getting? Yeah, how those people
Speaker 2: are selling stuff outside on their corner, So like filter.
Speaker 3: Out all of the discriminatory like posts on racism and
Speaker 3: anti homeless rhetoric, and you get people talking about animals
Speaker 3: and they're actually using data from next door to kind
Speaker 3: of measure like are people reporting seeing wildlife more often
Speaker 3: than before? And the answer is yes, So we have
Speaker 3: like a few more animal but a lot more reporting,
Speaker 3: a lot more discussions, a lot of people sharing it
Speaker 3: and seeing it. And I think that's good. I think
Speaker 3: it normalizes wildlife being around. But people got to like
Speaker 3: stop worrying that they're not going to be okay because
Speaker 3: it's like when was the last time a coyote like
Speaker 3: killed somebody? We don't have that, Like that doesn't happen
Speaker 3: a bearing.
Speaker 2: My baby, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like it's not like you're okay, like you're safe.
Speaker 3: You just might not feel comfortable.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah. I mean it gets to your point about awareness,
Speaker 2: Like the more I see it, the more. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I actually see more videos of bear encounters where people
Speaker 2: like successfully are just like who know what they're doing,
Speaker 2: and like the bear leaves, and that's actually given me
Speaker 2: a little bit more of being like, Okay, they're not
Speaker 2: out here to fucking eat our pies. You know, They're
Speaker 2: just doing their thing. And if you if you happen
Speaker 2: to have an encounter, there is a way to exit
Speaker 2: about being like, get your fucking gun tall.
Speaker 1: This bear all this bear pie fear mongering is getting
Speaker 1: out of hand and it's unbearable.
Speaker 3: I actually, okay, we need to wage your campaign.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to take a quick break, and then
Speaker 1: we're going to come back. And I want to ask
Speaker 1: about bear videos just generally, because I think you've mentioned
Speaker 1: it a couple of times, but bear videos rule, they
Speaker 1: probably make your job a little bit easier.
Speaker 2: So we're going to talk.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back, and we're back, And so I guess.
Speaker 1: October sixteenth, two days ago, was the one hundredth anniversary
Speaker 1: of the founding of the Walt Disney Company.
Speaker 2: Yeah we did it. Hell yeah, time past.
Speaker 1: Speaking of racist caricatures. So you know, it is good
Speaker 1: to see that there are people pushing back on this
Speaker 1: monoculture of Disney. Oh wait, sorry, it's people who are
Speaker 1: like it should be more racist.
Speaker 2: Oh right right.
Speaker 1: Daily Wire co CEO Jeremy Boring. Yes, the man behind
Speaker 1: this terrible entertainment platform literally named Boring, kicked off a
Speaker 1: video announcing his new company called bent Key, with a
Speaker 1: rant about how Disney is trying to indoctrinate our kids,
Speaker 1: adding that while Disney still uses Walt's name, he's like
Speaker 1: on a nickname basis with Walt Disney, they have all
Speaker 1: been abandoned his legacy, presumably meaning his legacy of racism
Speaker 1: and anti semitism.
Speaker 2: But they come back. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they go on to announce a new app which
Speaker 1: will feature license program and also original children's shows, including
Speaker 1: Chip Chin Chip Chilla'.
Speaker 2: That's a mouthful. Yeah, so it's just chip Chilla.
Speaker 1: It's about a it's just a blue rip off with
Speaker 1: chinchillas instead of dogs.
Speaker 10: Fucking terrible blue ripoff. Just a terrible blue rip off.
Speaker 10: Featuring the voice of Rob Schneider.
Speaker 2: Yes, you gotta have the canceled, the voice of the
Speaker 2: canceled to power this kind of creative endeavor and like,
Speaker 2: it's wild when you look at this. The pictures of
Speaker 2: chip Chilla are So it's just like so blatant that
Speaker 2: it's a rip off with Blue. Don't they understand how kids'
Speaker 2: minds work. As a kid, I rejected anything that I
Speaker 2: suspected of being not the genuine article, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. If it's like you're too good for gobots? Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 2: Like you know if your my mom be like, oh,
Speaker 2: we got that at home, and I'm like, we don't
Speaker 2: have that at home. It's in the store. The thing
Speaker 2: you have at home is like this other version, or
Speaker 2: it's like there's this other toy that's like the thing
Speaker 2: I like, it's like, it's not the thing. So I
Speaker 2: can't imagine there'd be kids who are like seeing this
Speaker 2: and they're like I want Blue. Ye, Like right, unless
Speaker 2: you're able to start them off on this early, you know,
Speaker 2: don't you think the.
Speaker 1: Kids will inherently respond well to chip Chilla's inherently more
Speaker 1: heteronormative household roles. Where Rob Schneider his father character, is
Speaker 1: a distinctly alpha father named chum Chump.
Speaker 10: Chip Chilla is also homeschooled because his family doesn't trust
Speaker 10: the school system.
Speaker 2: I'm sure when are those ones gonna come out to
Speaker 2: like where it's like the teacher at school said I
Speaker 2: needed to get a shot to keep the other kids safe,
Speaker 2: right inevitably, Right.
Speaker 10: That's actually I'm kind of okay. So, like I write
Speaker 10: a lot of I write for kids TV a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 10: and I've seen this new story. I'm obsessed with it.
Speaker 10: Like me thinks like, oh yeah, this is insane, But
Speaker 10: part of me is also thinking, like what sort of
Speaker 10: crazy bullshit could I pitch to them to get them
Speaker 10: to buy, Like if I like teenage mutant ninja firearms,
Speaker 10: or instead of turning into turtles, they turn into guns, yeah, right,
Speaker 10: like sol sold or just like Garfield, but instead of
Speaker 10: hating Mondays, he hates being woke. He's always that ban
Speaker 10: or like instead Thomas the tank engine, it's just like
Speaker 10: Thomas the tank cannon or something pro military.
Speaker 2: Would they be like Thomas Thomas the crowd dispersement vehicle.
Speaker 2: Oh no, the people are complaining. Go Thomas is the.
Speaker 1: Trend that broke up that union protest with like machine
Speaker 1: guns on the back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Or he's the thing that like yeah, crashed in
Speaker 2: like East Palestine, that horrible trained derailment. It's like they're
Speaker 2: just they're they're they're mischaracterizing me.
Speaker 10: Wait, can I put you all my dream Daily Wire
Speaker 10: project please?
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 10: So it's about a vampire who, instead of drinking your
Speaker 10: blood with fangs, he injects vaccines into you with than
Speaker 10: His name is his get this, His name is Vacula Vcula.
Speaker 10: I think that it stars Scott BeO, canceled actor Scott
Speaker 10: bo is.
Speaker 2: Like a cop who got canceled just for doing what's
Speaker 2: right or something like that exactly.
Speaker 10: I think that it's revealed halfway through the Vacula is
Speaker 10: Hunter Biden, and also Joe Biden's a villain too.
Speaker 2: Yes, of course.
Speaker 10: And there's definitely gonna be a line of dialogue in
Speaker 10: this movie where the Scott bo penciled cop is holding
Speaker 10: a shotgun and a scientist is telling him, like, you
Speaker 10: just got to trust the science on this, h Why
Speaker 10: don't you just like look at our research and appreciate it.
Speaker 10: And then Scott Bayo will say, I do my own
Speaker 10: research and then caca shotgun.
Speaker 2: Yes? Who hell? Yeah? Now is there room for Dean
Speaker 2: Kine and Kevin Sorbo in this?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, Look, there's got to be a lot of uh,
Speaker 10: there's gonna be a lot of heroes in this movie. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 10: James Woods Daily Wire. If you're listening to this, hit
Speaker 10: me up. I think we could have you know, Rob
Speaker 10: Schneider could play Vacula or like who's that former SNL
Speaker 10: guy who's like who was goat Boy? Yeah, Jim Brewer,
Speaker 10: I'd be great, he.
Speaker 2: Would be He's a mess, dude. Have you seen his
Speaker 2: stand up recently?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 2: It's insane. It's fucking it's morbidly bad. Like it's like
Speaker 2: not even it's bad to a point where you're like
Speaker 2: if that movie The Wrestler, we're about a stand up,
Speaker 2: Like it's like we're seeing that version, like Mickey Rourke
Speaker 2: is just like a down and out. It's just it's
Speaker 2: so that's so distressing.
Speaker 10: But what's okay. So what's wild about it is the
Speaker 10: stand up. The jokes are bad, but he's performing largely
Speaker 10: in front of churches and like very right wing friendly audiences,
Speaker 10: and if you if you listen to the audience, it's
Speaker 10: like they're watching like Eddie Murphy's raw, Like it's just
Speaker 10: they're like eating it up right.
Speaker 2: It's because like he does like this thing where he'll
Speaker 2: be like and then you got like these democrats are Democrats. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: we like he just's like just over the top, like
Speaker 2: just like Garl sounds and stuff.
Speaker 10: You're like exactly, Yeah, yeah, I think there's something where
Speaker 10: it's just like the Democrats sound like parakeets.
Speaker 2: They're always like trust the science booker.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's his, that's his closer, right, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: I'm Jim Bury.
Speaker 10: All right, you could hear me on the coming upside
Speaker 10: of chip Chilla playing a racist cop, yeah.
Speaker 1: Who actually saves the day it turns out. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: got some interesting things to say.
Speaker 10: Racist cop who has some some real truths or whatever.
Speaker 2: But they're also doing like live action right like on
Speaker 2: this bench. Oh yeah, platform have.
Speaker 1: We got one kid Explore a show called Kid Explorer
Speaker 1: that appears to be like a recruitment tool for the
Speaker 1: US military.
Speaker 10: They all, they all appear to be a room tool
Speaker 10: for the US military.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah. Even chip Chilla is about being like, hey,
Speaker 2: and if you're too weak bodied, we can still use
Speaker 2: you in like a drone operating trailer. Who knows, you know.
Speaker 10: There's also apparently other Daily Wire movies they released. They
Speaker 10: came up with a movie called Terror on the Prairie
Speaker 10: in two and part of me is like, party wants
Speaker 10: to watch the trailer, and then another part of me
Speaker 10: is like, oh, I know that's going to be racist.
Speaker 2: Advanced error on the Prairie sounds like it could be
Speaker 2: something that's poignant, right, but it's just gonna go the
Speaker 2: other way. Oh yeah, it it did go the other way.
Speaker 1: Also, in terms of box office, it made a total
Speaker 1: of eight hundred and four dollars at the bottom.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying that they like fucking hurt my throat last.
Speaker 10: I'm sorry, I'm just saying if they would green light Vacula,
Speaker 10: that would make twice that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that would kill.
Speaker 1: By the way, it does reflect our Like we've talked
Speaker 1: before about something in my childhood made me think that
Speaker 1: Dracula had hollow fangs that sucked the blood through the fangs.
Speaker 10: Oh yeah, yeah yeah, like a like yeah, like a
Speaker 10: reverse Cobra or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And people, I don't think that was an assumption
Speaker 1: made by everyone, but no, we kind of mentioned it
Speaker 1: that it proves it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we're team hollow. We've been hollow for We're
Speaker 2: team hollow fangs. Yeah, I'm team hollow. I'm for that,
Speaker 2: all right? Cool? Like yeah, update the update. The reesis commercial.
Speaker 2: So there's like two holes, you know what. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: you can see, oh there were I think I think
Speaker 2: Reces is team Halo Fang.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I think, okay, but I'm just saying, what if
Speaker 10: instead of having Holo fangs, he had fangs that had
Speaker 10: little syringes that came out absolutely hard selling vacula.
Speaker 2: Those fangs go two ways?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, I think we're saying the logic of the
Speaker 2: Reces being team Hollo Fang wasn't because of the indents,
Speaker 2: but because what the indents represented was yeah, the peanut butter.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so put but I was talking about, like
Speaker 2: how you represent it doesn't matter because I don't understand.
Speaker 10: Okay, so I guess okay, so my my, so my
Speaker 10: bump there is that I'm also very much team Hollow Fang.
Speaker 10: But like blood is a liquid, I feel like if
Speaker 10: you drank peanut butter, like you drank blood, you'd like choke, right.
Speaker 2: Total mess. Yeah oh yeah, it would just clog up
Speaker 2: your fangs. Yeah, clog up your fangs. Yeah. The dentist
Speaker 2: would be like, oh man, you're doing the peanut butter
Speaker 2: thing again. I told you it's hard to get out.
Speaker 10: Also, I feel like that would be like a real
Speaker 10: pain to clean inside your fangs.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, said nobody said this Dracula stuff
Speaker 1: was going to be easy. Man, it's yere right, you're
Speaker 1: you've been turned by him, Like what the fuck?
Speaker 2: Man? Like the maintenance and ship on the fangs, you
Speaker 2: never told me. It's like, hey man, no, yeah.
Speaker 10: I gotta buy Yeah it was, yeah, I got so
Speaker 10: that sounds as you're sadly cleaning your fangs with pipe cleaners, my.
Speaker 1: Little pipe cleaners going in the points of your fangs.
Speaker 2: This this like a New Explorer though. These images from
Speaker 2: the New Explorer show are fucking like you can already tell, right,
Speaker 2: Like there's a kid in like a fucking bomber jacket
Speaker 2: in front of like a dream from Yeah man, this
Speaker 2: is how we this is how we make it rain.
Speaker 2: And then another one that seems like a Revolutionary War
Speaker 2: soldier but with a Thompson gun. I don't know, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I don't know what they're going to say here.
Speaker 2: I don't know what kind of cool stuff they're going
Speaker 2: to be saying.
Speaker 1: This facial expression suggests he's in the middle of murdering
Speaker 1: someone of the Revolutionary War Kid is like this or.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it has the feeling of like a nineties toy commercial. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: like the Red Coats, Yeah, like that kind of shit. Yeah.
Speaker 10: They're also on that note. They're making a Ryle snow
Speaker 10: White movie. Where get this snow Whites played by a
Speaker 10: white woman. Yes, well that's a big change. Yeah, yeah
Speaker 10: it is.
Speaker 1: They've been really upset about the snow Like. It seems
Speaker 1: like the snow white thing is the whole impetus behind this, right,
Speaker 1: just they've been so mad that the star of Disney's
Speaker 1: Actual Snow White, which they might have to change the
Speaker 1: title to Disney's Actual snow White. Rachel Ziggler had the
Speaker 1: goal to call the original movie dated. It came out
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty seven. I actually rewatched it for the
Speaker 1: Bechdel cast, And it's not just it is like the
Speaker 1: most profoundly sexist, Like if you do a close reading
Speaker 1: of the movie, like what it's saying about snow White.
Speaker 10: It's like, if you kiss a lady while she's a sleep,
Speaker 10: she has to love you.
Speaker 1: Yes, and if she only like every time she does
Speaker 1: something she is putting herself in dates, she's just like
Speaker 1: dizzily wandering into life threatening situations. The entire movie, she
Speaker 1: like runs away from the hunter and like runs into
Speaker 1: the woods and passes out and is like surrounded by
Speaker 1: a bunch of wild animals and the only reason the
Speaker 1: wild animals don't like eat her is because she's like
Speaker 1: really pretty when she's asleep. And then she also almost
Speaker 1: gets murdered. She like break breaks into the seven Dwarfs
Speaker 1: home and like falls asleep in their bed. They almost
Speaker 1: murder with.
Speaker 2: A pick axe. She rolls over it in her sleep.
Speaker 1: And they're like, ah, she's so pretty. And then like
Speaker 1: when she eats a poisoned apple, like that is clearly
Speaker 1: put like the person giving it.
Speaker 2: To her is given snake exactly.
Speaker 1: And then the only thing that saves her there is
Speaker 1: again when she's asleep, Like she has to be asleep
Speaker 1: for good things to happen, be beautiful and passive to succeed.
Speaker 1: Be beautiful and passed out is literally the message of
Speaker 1: the It's fucked.
Speaker 2: So what do you think the message will be with
Speaker 2: this one? Huh?
Speaker 1: Probably the same, Like I don't know, like I don't
Speaker 1: know if they could even do it, but I'm sure
Speaker 1: they could, Like it feels like they'll find it.
Speaker 2: Updating it for modern times. Yeah, are you? Yeah?
Speaker 10: Yeah, the Daily Wire will find a way, Yeah, as
Speaker 10: they always do.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The teaser trailer suggests the movie has not been shot yet,
Speaker 1: but does reveal that they cast a white actress of
Speaker 1: snow white and also have access to stock footage of
Speaker 1: a national park. Okay, okay, but yeah, but yeah, there
Speaker 1: are movies up to this point have averaged two hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty six thousand dollars at the worldwide box office.
Speaker 1: Oh and this is These are movies produced by Ben Shapiro,
Speaker 1: person who like went to see Barbie on opening day
Speaker 1: and like did created like seven hours of content just
Speaker 1: railing about like.
Speaker 10: How destroys Barbie for three hours or whatever that videos called.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it tanked the box office for Barbie, but
Speaker 1: nobody wants to see it after.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he really got his way. So that's really funny.
Speaker 10: Like how heavily the Go Woke, Go Broke Brigade was
Speaker 10: like really attacking the Barbie movie only for it to
Speaker 10: make one one to make one point five billion dollars
Speaker 10: of profit, like.
Speaker 2: Just the most successful movie. Yeah, yeah, yep, go broke. Yeah,
Speaker 2: too bad, they went broke. Uh huh uh huh. Ours,
Speaker 2: that's why you really want to be shooting for around
Speaker 2: two hundred and thirty k Yeah that's the real or
Speaker 2: like eight hundred dollars five weeks. Yeah.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's like, Okay, it made two hundred billion dollars,
Speaker 10: but did it make eight hundred dollars? Check meate whoa
Speaker 10: whoa brigade.
Speaker 2: And they have been.
Speaker 1: Defending the movie's performance, being like we didn't even like
Speaker 1: put it out in wide release, like they wouldn't have
Speaker 1: if they have, like the choice that they made.
Speaker 2: Actually, we don't even want people to see this movie.
Speaker 2: That's like the whole point, dude, And that's why you
Speaker 2: don't get it. That's why you're like a part of
Speaker 2: the mainstream like fucking echo chamber broke idea, but no legit.
Speaker 10: Like that's something that I'm kind of thinking about with
Speaker 10: like all of this stuff is like specifically Daily Wire
Speaker 10: stuff is like is this just Ben Shapiro trying to
Speaker 10: steal money from VC funders like because oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 10: you know it's like this feels like a tax scheme.
Speaker 2: Yeah totally. Man, damn took huge losses on all those movies. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: like what are the budgets because that's what you're really
Speaker 2: going to see. The magic in the in the accounting happen.
Speaker 1: All Right, that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: Please like and review the show if you like, The
Speaker 1: show means the world to Miles. He he needs your validation.
Speaker 2: Folks.
Speaker 1: I hope you're having a great week end and I
Speaker 1: will talk to you Monday. Bye.