Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your ghostly host, katee eke Goolden. It's it's Katie Golden.
Speaker 1: I'm doing a spooky Halloween name. I studied psychology and
Speaker 1: evolutionary biology, and I like to dive into the brains
Speaker 1: of humans and animals and get all gross and sticky.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature features Spooky October spook Tacular A thing
Speaker 1: I just made up today on the show Superstition Black cats, crows,
Speaker 1: ravens and a mysterious demonic monster. Where do superstitions come from?
Speaker 1: What are the facts behind the superstition? And our crows
Speaker 1: really conspiring against us? Discover this and more as we
Speaker 1: answer the angel question. Do Satanists like to kiss cat?
Speaker 1: But so? Superstitions are a powerful force throughout human society.
Speaker 1: About fifty of pold Americans report holding some superstitions. As
Speaker 1: children were particularly adept at picking up superstitions, researchers found
Speaker 1: that young children from three to five years old will
Speaker 1: dutifully rub a pebble against their forehead when told it
Speaker 1: can help them study. This seems cute and funny, but
Speaker 1: as adults were not much better. A study found that
Speaker 1: college students were more likely to keep lottery tickets that
Speaker 1: had their quote lucky numbers on them than those with
Speaker 1: random numbers. Whether we carry a lucky charm, avoid a
Speaker 1: crack in the sidewalk, think we're on a lucky role
Speaker 1: in the casino, or whatever weird little habits we try
Speaker 1: to do and get a certain outcome. We're all, to
Speaker 1: a certain extent superstitious. But being superstitious isn't a sign
Speaker 1: of being stupid, it's quite the opposite. As intelligent creatures,
Speaker 1: we form connections. This allows us to figure out tools, language, ideas, philosophy, technology, art,
Speaker 1: and bad puns, basically everything that makes human special. Of course,
Speaker 1: making connections can be a double edged sword. Sometimes they
Speaker 1: make sense, like if I wear a sweater, I'm less
Speaker 1: likely to be cold later. But sometimes they don't make sense,
Speaker 1: like if I wear my lucky never washed underwear, maybe
Speaker 1: this will be the day I'll win the lottery in
Speaker 1: the heart of my crush despite smelling like kind ofwashed underwear.
Speaker 1: Superstitions seem to reach a fever pitch when it comes
Speaker 1: to animals. I think this has to do with our
Speaker 1: natural curiosity about our fellow living creatures, and both our
Speaker 1: tips to understand them, and our misunderstandings. As we have
Speaker 1: throughout history tried to figure out the animal kingdom, we
Speaker 1: have sometimes developed superstitions about those animals which we deemed
Speaker 1: mysterious or sneaky. So today we'll be exploring some of
Speaker 1: the animal superstitions, the scientific facts behind these animals, and
Speaker 1: why our brains and even animal brains can be superstitious.
Speaker 1: Joining me to go on a superstition expedition as comedian, writer, podcaster, filmmaker,
Speaker 1: and Garfield lover Joey Cliff. Yeah, hey everybody, I okay,
Speaker 1: So a couple of things. Um, I wish I thought
Speaker 1: of like a Halloween name before this. I guess I
Speaker 1: should be like joe Eke Cliff, but like the cliff
Speaker 1: is where it first? Joe Eke Cliffhanger. Yeah, Oak Cliffhanger.
Speaker 1: There we go. And just for the record, UM, I
Speaker 1: definitely rubbed a pebble on my forehead and I'm wearing
Speaker 1: mine clean underwear before going on this show. Not for
Speaker 1: superstition reasons. I'm just weird. He just enjoys it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's just how I live my life. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk to superstitions. Yeah, for sure, I
Speaker 1: brought you on, especially because you're a fellow cat lover.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about black cats today. Oh my
Speaker 1: favorite I mean my favorite kind of cats, but also
Speaker 1: every kind of cat is my favorite kind of cat.
Speaker 1: So that does not know it right, you would? You
Speaker 1: You just showed me like an orange cat that looks
Speaker 1: like Garfield and you're like, this is my favorite cat,
Speaker 1: and then you look at another cat and you're like,
Speaker 1: that's my favorite cat. Yeah, it's It's just like any
Speaker 1: cat that I'm looking at or thinking about at any
Speaker 1: given moment is my favorite cat. It's a real object,
Speaker 1: permanent stitution. So as you may know, uh, in especially
Speaker 1: in Western Europe, there's superstitions about black cats and then
Speaker 1: being unlucky, like you're not supposed to be if your
Speaker 1: path is interrupted by a black cat, or a black
Speaker 1: cat walks in front of you, it's bad luck, which
Speaker 1: seems a little weird. So it's kind of curious where
Speaker 1: this started, what this kind of superstition originated from. My
Speaker 1: guess is that the just the dog lobby was very
Speaker 1: powerful century Europe. It's just this like teetering man in
Speaker 1: a trench coat with like oddly doglike features. It's like, yes,
Speaker 1: cats are bad. It's like it's like it's a dog.
Speaker 1: So he's like, gross, cots are bad. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's man mannershon and I am here a human fellow
Speaker 1: telling you that cats are bad. As an unbiased human,
Speaker 1: I mean like if like ten dogs learned to climb
Speaker 1: into a trench coat and like right on each other's
Speaker 1: shoulders and also speak English, I feel like I would
Speaker 1: listen to him that they really want they really wanted
Speaker 1: this right exactly. So in Western Europe during the Middle Ages,
Speaker 1: black cats beca aim associated with the devil. People believe
Speaker 1: that black cats were which familiars or even witches in disguise.
Speaker 1: There's this old story about a black cat who had
Speaker 1: rocks thrown at it, which come on, don't do that, um,
Speaker 1: and then it limped away into a woman's house. That right,
Speaker 1: and then a woman came out and was limping on
Speaker 1: the same foot as the cat. Qwe dy ergo the
Speaker 1: cat was which in disguise, perfect science, perfect science. So
Speaker 1: the your origin of this idea of cats being satanic
Speaker 1: maybe due to a papal bowl, which is a public
Speaker 1: decree in I guess the church, the Catholic Church um
Speaker 1: by Pope Gregory the ninth in the twelve thirties. So
Speaker 1: the decree was called vox in rama. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't speak Latin, so I think it's like speech
Speaker 1: in rama. Yeah, right, Um described a Satanic ritual. So quote,
Speaker 1: a black cat descends backwards with tail erect first the novice,
Speaker 1: then the master, than each one of the orders that
Speaker 1: these are Satanists who are worthy in perfect kiss the
Speaker 1: cat on its buttocks. Then each returns to his place,
Speaker 1: and speaking certain responses, they incline their heads towards the cat.
Speaker 1: Forgive us, says the master, and the next one to
Speaker 1: him repeats this, a third responding, we know, Master. A
Speaker 1: fourth says, and we must obey. So these are Satanists
Speaker 1: kissing a cat on the anus and then asking it
Speaker 1: to forgive them. Wow. So I think that today I've
Speaker 1: learned that I'm a Satanist. Um. Yeah, that's weird. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I wonder, like what is the root of that? Why?
Speaker 1: Like was this based on some like Pegan ritual or whatever,
Speaker 1: or was the pope just looking for an easy escapegoat
Speaker 1: or escape cat as for just like, why did they
Speaker 1: Why did they pick on cats? Why? I think the
Speaker 1: latter basically propaganda. Cats are kind of mysterious looking there.
Speaker 1: They aren't like a dog where they kind of obey you.
Speaker 1: And so maybe this idea of this kind of mysterious
Speaker 1: dark creature that you know, it's eyes glow in the
Speaker 1: dark and there there's something you know, spooky about that.
Speaker 1: But it's totally made up, Like this never happened as
Speaker 1: far as I know. This has never been a Satanic ritual. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's just propaganda to make it like, look, how
Speaker 1: spooky and weird these satans Satanic ritual It's just something
Speaker 1: that I mean a lot of my cat lover friends
Speaker 1: do all the time. Yeah, I mean, you guys are
Speaker 1: already probably riddled with ta gandhia eyes. So yeah, that's
Speaker 1: like the amount of cats that I've kissed directly on
Speaker 1: the mouth. It's like it's like I'm sure I have,
Speaker 1: And that's just like one step removed from the butthole
Speaker 1: because that mouth is on the butt hole almost right.
Speaker 1: It's also just part of the dietary, says, It's part
Speaker 1: of the digestives. Right. Cats are little poop donuts that's
Speaker 1: spend most of their time with mouth on their butt hole,
Speaker 1: like cleaning themselves, and half of the other time eating stuff.
Speaker 1: So it's just you know, you're any time you interact
Speaker 1: with a cat is just one butthole. I mean, you
Speaker 1: said you're describing a cat as a poop butthole. I know,
Speaker 1: I know that I should be grossed out by that,
Speaker 1: but when you said that, it made me go like, oh,
Speaker 1: they are because you because you're absolutely riddled with ganda
Speaker 1: Toxoplasma gandhia, which is a little um micro organism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a parasite that is in cat feces and it
Speaker 1: makes rats like when rats get infected with it, it it
Speaker 1: makes them lose their fear of cats. And it's suspected
Speaker 1: although that there's nothing scientific about this, suspicion that oh,
Speaker 1: humans who are infected, maybe they become attracted to cats,
Speaker 1: but I don't. I haven't never seen any evidence of it.
Speaker 1: It's it's stuff like the specifically toxic plasmosis um. It's
Speaker 1: they think that it makes like it makes people lazier
Speaker 1: and a little bit sloppier, and it kind of like
Speaker 1: they're a specific It doesn't necessarily make them like like
Speaker 1: cats more or less, but it does do like kind
Speaker 1: of weird psychological things, like I think it makes people
Speaker 1: a little bit more depressed, so it can trigger mental illness,
Speaker 1: like that is that is a I think that is
Speaker 1: an actual finding where it can trigger people who are
Speaker 1: already predisposed to schizophrenia and can trigger that. It's also
Speaker 1: funny because like a lot of the things of like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe it makes people more sloppy, more lazy, but that's
Speaker 1: also isn't that just part of cat ownership, like you
Speaker 1: and your cat becoming one I've also described like every
Speaker 1: comedy person, and like it makes them like sloppy and
Speaker 1: a little bit lazy, and like they're not very they
Speaker 1: don't clean their apartment very And I wonder, like with
Speaker 1: the pope kind of like decree, I wonder how much
Speaker 1: of that is. I mean, you assume people in the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages probably felt the same affection toward cats that
Speaker 1: like we do nowadays, right, They probably like kissed them
Speaker 1: on their little heads and talked about their cute peats
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So I wonder how much of
Speaker 1: that is the Church seeing that people are quote unquote
Speaker 1: putting this thing above Jesus or whatever and um kind
Speaker 1: of using that of like, oh, we gotta like get
Speaker 1: people stop caring about this thing that they love. That's
Speaker 1: not the church. That's certainly the truth when it comes
Speaker 1: to um, we'll discuss a little later to like with
Speaker 1: corvids like crows and ravens, anything that had a positive
Speaker 1: association in paganism, Um, they're like, no, actually that thing
Speaker 1: is bad to kind of try to tear people away
Speaker 1: from their old pagan right. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: cats really have that much of an association with paganism,
Speaker 1: but it it could just be another like you said,
Speaker 1: another scape cat, Like, oh you care about this cat, well,
Speaker 1: actually the cat is evil or whatever. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: if you cared that much about Jesus or Jesus being
Speaker 1: jealous of a cat, that makes sense. Look if Jesus
Speaker 1: had cute little pizza talk about Jesus way more. What's
Speaker 1: that word you're saying, pizza p e t s. Look,
Speaker 1: if you're really if you're really involved in the cat
Speaker 1: side of the internet, you know what pizza does. The
Speaker 1: little tobeans is uh, there's highly scientific terms. So some
Speaker 1: historians believe that after this decree, it led to a
Speaker 1: mass slaughter of cats, and some argue that this could
Speaker 1: have made the Black plague more severe as there weren't
Speaker 1: as many cats to kill the rat carriers of the plague.
Speaker 1: I haven't really found any definitive evidence of either um
Speaker 1: mass slaughter or that this led to a worse plague.
Speaker 1: Just like I think it's just conjecture that this could
Speaker 1: have happened. It's an alluring theory because it's such poetic
Speaker 1: justice of like we kill the cats. Oh no, now
Speaker 1: we get the plugue because the cats aren't there to
Speaker 1: protect us. Yeah, what is the It's like I forget
Speaker 1: exactly what it is, but it's like like it throws
Speaker 1: off kind of like the order of things, and you
Speaker 1: like remove one species from it. And then it's like,
Speaker 1: I forget the exact scientific term for it, the logical
Speaker 1: catastroph Yeah, exactly makes sense that it's like, oh, you
Speaker 1: remove the cats the rats, like you know, kind of
Speaker 1: exploding population size, and with the rats kind of fleas
Speaker 1: exploding population size, and then the fleas have the plugue
Speaker 1: or whatever, right, right, I mean, and it could have happened.
Speaker 1: I'm just I just don't think there's it's hard to relate, right.
Speaker 1: There may be some anecdotal evidence, but there hasn't been
Speaker 1: any like solid proof of that happening. But still what
Speaker 1: we know it happened is that people would torture cats
Speaker 1: as a way to fend off the devil. Maybe I
Speaker 1: shouldn't have had you on this. Yeah, I'm gonna say,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, oh no, whenever it gets a lot better,
Speaker 1: don't worry. All over Europe, burning cats was a common
Speaker 1: pastime because I was seen as fending off the devil.
Speaker 1: And Epral Belgium, the festival Caton's thought involved setting cats
Speaker 1: on fire and throwing them from the belfry of churches.
Speaker 1: So cat Insto is still celebrated, but thankfully it's now
Speaker 1: more of a celebration of cats than hurting them. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so Jester tosses stuffed toy cats out to children who
Speaker 1: wait below and catch them. A giant cat puppet is
Speaker 1: paraded through the town square and it features people dressed
Speaker 1: as cats, as mice and witches, and there's like a
Speaker 1: catneym parade. They even have Hello Kitty and Garfield now
Speaker 1: and I'm going to show you I'm excited about Are
Speaker 1: they part of the parade or just to live in
Speaker 1: the town Now? They are part of the parade. Let me, Um,
Speaker 1: when is like, what time of year is this? It's
Speaker 1: I think it's every second Sunday of May or something
Speaker 1: I was. I visited a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 1: it's like I did not know this existed, and now
Speaker 1: I have to go back to celebrate cats with them.
Speaker 1: It's a lovely city. If you haven't ven, you should go.
Speaker 1: People dressed as cats, little kids dressed as a little
Speaker 1: dancing mice. These are my people. Um here's a float
Speaker 1: like with Egyptian cats on it. Oh, finally cats are
Speaker 1: getting the respect they deserve. Um oh yeah, giant cat.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure what exactly is going on here,
Speaker 1: but there's like a big demonic cat float with a
Speaker 1: bunch of birds playing drums. All I know is my
Speaker 1: toxoplasmos firing out. And then let's see a bunch of
Speaker 1: which is more dancing, Let's see more wacky physical wacky
Speaker 1: physical comedy. There's um a band and then hello kids,
Speaker 1: and then the moment we're waiting for giant Garfield floats.
Speaker 1: This is my kind of city. Uh. And then there's
Speaker 1: this giant effigy of a cat. More cats uh. And
Speaker 1: then just like these giant cat effigies that are paraded around.
Speaker 1: There's a cat wearing a suit, cat wearing a dress
Speaker 1: in a suit that are getting paraded around. Finally they're
Speaker 1: getting the respect they deserve exactly. Uh. And then they
Speaker 1: throw cats, the toy cats off the church now and
Speaker 1: kids catch them and to keep them. So I guarantee
Speaker 1: that if I went to that, I would be pushing
Speaker 1: kids aside to those toy cats like mine. I'm a
Speaker 1: crown man. I need this cat. I need this cat
Speaker 1: more than your kid. So that's a positive change. And
Speaker 1: I like that. I like that it's switched to being
Speaker 1: you know, like a horrifying sacrifice of cats to like
Speaker 1: just like we. It feels like the town of ep
Speaker 1: is trying to make That warms my heart. Yes, going
Speaker 1: back back in time a little bit now. In Celtic mythology,
Speaker 1: the cat she I think it's called the catch. It
Speaker 1: looks it's spelled like cat sith, which is really funny
Speaker 1: to be like like a cat sith lord. But I
Speaker 1: do believe it is pronounced catch um like banshee. I
Speaker 1: just want to say, like Star Wars has been like
Speaker 1: dipping in popularity a little bit lately, and if they
Speaker 1: want to make Star Wars more popular. Yeah, make star Wars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: cat star Wars a cat sit I mean I would
Speaker 1: star Walker, Muke Skywalker, uh pon sess lame Yo Vader, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: my Vader. All of this work. I think all of
Speaker 1: my all of my Star Wars points are going to
Speaker 1: just be mea with her name like Hanslo Jewi baka
Speaker 1: because it's like chew cats chew stuff. I'm bad at ones.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I feel like cats sit lord.
Speaker 1: Is it Princess lay around? Yeah, Princess lay around. It's goods.
Speaker 1: So the cat She is a fairy creature resembling a
Speaker 1: large black cat with a white spot on its chest. Adorable.
Speaker 1: It's believed to be able to steal people's souls before burial. Adorable.
Speaker 1: To prevent this, people watched over the body in late
Speaker 1: wake before the body was interred. Apparently there were tricks
Speaker 1: to prevent the cat She from stealing the soul of
Speaker 1: the deceased. There was music, leaping around and wrestling to
Speaker 1: entertain the cat. Riddles that were left on unanswered, so
Speaker 1: the cat she would try to figure them out. Cats
Speaker 1: classically bad at riddles. They even place cat up around
Speaker 1: the house to distract the catchy, which is the cutest
Speaker 1: like funeral rite I've ever heard. Just please don't steal
Speaker 1: my dead grandma's soul. Here's some here's some catinet. Here's
Speaker 1: some here's some catinet. We made you a mouse that
Speaker 1: like this god smiley face on it is filled with
Speaker 1: nep Behold a small figure of a mouse filled with
Speaker 1: an interesting herb for you cat demon. Yeah, just like
Speaker 1: like somebody some these jobs after your grandmother passes away.
Speaker 1: It's just to have a laser pointer like they like,
Speaker 1: kind of wing around. This will appease the cat demon.
Speaker 1: This is this is an adorable demon on Swen or
Speaker 1: all hallows eve. I think I pronounced this wrong on
Speaker 1: the last episode. I think I called it sam Haine.
Speaker 1: That's how it's spelled. But I think it's called Solwen
Speaker 1: because the Celtic pronunciations of things are all all all weird.
Speaker 1: The holiday, this is the holiday that Halloween is based on.
Speaker 1: So saucers of milk were left out for the cat
Speaker 1: she so that they would bless the house. But if
Speaker 1: you didn't treat the catch they'd trick you by cursing
Speaker 1: your cows. So their milk runs dry. So cats were
Speaker 1: the original trick or treaters in a way. Before we
Speaker 1: get into sort of the facts behind cats, there's just
Speaker 1: this wonderful quote from grad show Marks that's a black
Speaker 1: cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere,
Speaker 1: which I kind of love, especially in the framework of
Speaker 1: evolutionary biology, because sometimes it's the most obvious thing is
Speaker 1: actually the truth when it comes to animal facts. Here's
Speaker 1: a modern day myth about black cats, which is that
Speaker 1: they're killed more on Halloween, or that shelters won't adopt
Speaker 1: them out because they're they're afraid they'll be used in
Speaker 1: Satanic rituals. This seems to just be kind of a
Speaker 1: rumor or an old old wives tales. I can't find
Speaker 1: any evidence of this being true, and in fact, the
Speaker 1: a s p c A says like, that's not true.
Speaker 1: You can adopt black cats year around. They're not worried
Speaker 1: about Satanists. I mean, if anything, it's like the Satanists
Speaker 1: are just going to kiss the cats butt. So what's
Speaker 1: what's the problem. Yeah, I mean I wonder if there's
Speaker 1: a way too, because I I uh personal promo. I
Speaker 1: run a Facebook group for Los Angeles comedians to share
Speaker 1: pictures of their cats called the La Underground Cat Network.
Speaker 1: That's ten thousand members, and uh, like that's something that like,
Speaker 1: I mean around Halloween, a lot of people in group
Speaker 1: are always very concerned about people that are like trying
Speaker 1: to get cats adopted around Halloween. So if that, you know,
Speaker 1: it is for exactly what you're talking about, like worries
Speaker 1: of sacrifice and stuff like that. So like, if that
Speaker 1: isn't the case, uh, somebody should publicize that more. This
Speaker 1: is the thing that like cat lovers are worried about,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And I mean I think that there's
Speaker 1: another thing I looked into to try to figure out
Speaker 1: if it's true, and unfortunately, I don't think there's a
Speaker 1: study that is conclusive yet. But the idea that black
Speaker 1: cats aren't adopted out as much. Um. And I've seen
Speaker 1: some shelters say like, no, that's not the case, and
Speaker 1: then other shelters saying like yeah, annecnotally we've noticed that,
Speaker 1: um and some claiming it just like well, black cats
Speaker 1: are so common, you see them more in shelters, so uh,
Speaker 1: it's not that they're adopted out at a lower rate.
Speaker 1: There's just like more of them. So you see them
Speaker 1: languishing in shelters more. But I can't really find anything definitive.
Speaker 1: So I know, I read that someone was planning on
Speaker 1: doing a study, so I'll be really interested to see
Speaker 1: the results of that because I think, especially today, I
Speaker 1: just don't think that superstition around black cats are as
Speaker 1: powerful as they used to be. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's still something that like, it's something that I think
Speaker 1: is still still exists in the popular culture as a
Speaker 1: thing that people are aware of because it's been a
Speaker 1: thing for so long. It's like self fulfilling a little
Speaker 1: bit in a way. But you know, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily think that people are worried at so much about
Speaker 1: like bad luck and things like that. Yeah, So now
Speaker 1: let's do just some facts about black cats because they're
Speaker 1: actually quite interesting. So the reason they're black is there's
Speaker 1: a recessive gene that turns off the tabby coloration, so
Speaker 1: there are solid black cats. They're also black smoke cats
Speaker 1: whose coats go from white to black or gray to black.
Speaker 1: They can rust in the sun, so they're black. Fur
Speaker 1: sometimes turns a lighter rust brown shade and the same Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's there's the u melanin pigment present in their fur,
Speaker 1: which is actually kind of fragile, and so the sunlight
Speaker 1: will actually break down that pigment and UH thus that
Speaker 1: kind of reddish brown color that happens and there are
Speaker 1: actual potential benefits to their black coat. UH searchers looked
Speaker 1: at melanism in cats and identified a gene called a
Speaker 1: goody which controls black fur in cats, and the researchers
Speaker 1: believe that one purpose of the black coat could be
Speaker 1: like just camouflage, like if it's dark, you can't see
Speaker 1: a black cat as well. But there's another theory that
Speaker 1: is not proven, although there's been a connection made, which
Speaker 1: is that there's a possibility that melanism and that black
Speaker 1: coat UH can offer resistance to viruses UM. The melanism
Speaker 1: gene in South American jaguars and jagger undis, which is
Speaker 1: a smaller wildcat UH, is also linked to the genes
Speaker 1: that control resistance to HIV and infection, which is something
Speaker 1: that cats can get feline chick. This is kind of speculative.
Speaker 1: They haven't really UH tested to see like if there's
Speaker 1: if cats with black coats are actually more resistant to
Speaker 1: HIV infection, But it's a really interesting kind of promising
Speaker 1: avenue of research that I'm excited to see develop that
Speaker 1: could I guess that that could point to, like why
Speaker 1: there are just more black cats. Where we're noticing more
Speaker 1: black cats is maybe like because I mean, like feline HIV.
Speaker 1: That is definitely something that comes up a lot and
Speaker 1: cats are tested for. So like if black cats are
Speaker 1: in some way resistant to that, that could be why
Speaker 1: one of the reasons there was a little more like
Speaker 1: um small dovetail. Fun fact, do you know how jaguars hunt?
Speaker 1: I know, they drag stuff up trees. Yeah, they're They're intense.
Speaker 1: They like basically what they do. They they hunt alligators
Speaker 1: and crocodiles. And the way they do it is their
Speaker 1: jaws are so strong that they can they don't just
Speaker 1: strangle them. They can but with one bite pierce through
Speaker 1: their skull, so like it's just like a straight like kill.
Speaker 1: So jaguars are great. They have one of the strongest
Speaker 1: psi JA strength cats. Yeah, yeah, they're great. They're just
Speaker 1: extremely like if you I think also because they're not
Speaker 1: super fluffy, their hair is quite short, you can see
Speaker 1: how incredibly well muscled they are, so like when they're
Speaker 1: carrying they'll be able to carry prey up to the
Speaker 1: branches of a tree, which keeps their prey safe from
Speaker 1: other predators or scavengers. And it's just it takes they
Speaker 1: have a whole antelope that they're just shoving up a tree.
Speaker 1: Incredible when you watch that and you're like, if another
Speaker 1: antelope sees that, they're gonna be like, oh, I'm not
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I mean just like really, there are so
Speaker 1: many interesting cat species that have different like abilities and
Speaker 1: things like that. Do you know what like a caracle is. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're kind of the cute ones with the really
Speaker 1: tall ears of the little poofs. Yeah, they've got like
Speaker 1: super cute ears. But the way they can jump so
Speaker 1: high that one of the ways that they hunt is
Speaker 1: that they literally will jump and intercept birds midflight out
Speaker 1: of there. There's footage of it on the internet. It
Speaker 1: is insane. That's incredible. Yeah, because they are quite leggy. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my my cat would do that, although she had a
Speaker 1: little bit of a cheek because she would sit next
Speaker 1: to the bird fountain and just wait for birds to
Speaker 1: land there and then she would just spring up. Oh
Speaker 1: that asnorable, destructive to the environment, but adorable. Your cat
Speaker 1: is your cat? Chunky is your cat? Like, yeah, so
Speaker 1: this was my childhood cat. So she's she's in that
Speaker 1: big ball yard in the sky now. But she she
Speaker 1: was a chunker. It was pretty cute because she was
Speaker 1: like very she was quite um. She wasn't overweight. It
Speaker 1: was more like she was just very fluffy and she
Speaker 1: had that especially older like female cats will sometimes developed
Speaker 1: that just sort of wattle like basically just flub and
Speaker 1: so she she was like that. She was really cantankerous
Speaker 1: and grouchy. But okay, so um, when she passed away,
Speaker 1: did you, uh, did you use a laser pointer to distract?
Speaker 1: It would be like a cat demon and a regular cat,
Speaker 1: they'd be fine with each other. No. But you know,
Speaker 1: when my other cat passed away, who was my other
Speaker 1: childhood cat, Binky, my mom buried him in our backyard
Speaker 1: and the next day a bobcat, a young bobcat, was
Speaker 1: sitting next to the grave site, which my mom was like,
Speaker 1: he's reincarnated into a bobcat and like that bobcat want
Speaker 1: to eat as corpse. But you know it's still cute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is one of those things where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you think about like the superstitious thing of it. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's like that bobcat saying goodbye, and it's like, no, scientifically,
Speaker 1: that bobcats like waiting for you to turn around. So
Speaker 1: I like the idea that that maybe maybe my cat
Speaker 1: and the bobcat were friends and the bobcats like respecting
Speaker 1: the cat, but but probably not. Yeah, Like, well, let's
Speaker 1: just say real recognized to feel in that situation. As
Speaker 1: someone with o c D, I'm intimately familiar with superstition,
Speaker 1: and I find it interesting how the mindset of superstition
Speaker 1: can be harmful or helpful. Some days, I'm really good
Speaker 1: at problem solving as I make connections between seemingly unrelated ideas.
Speaker 1: Other days I'm worried that if I chew unequal amounts
Speaker 1: of food in the sides of my cheeks, everyone I
Speaker 1: love will die. I wonder, though, if the problem solving
Speaker 1: skills are more valuable than the random superstitions are harmful
Speaker 1: while O c D maybe an extreme example, research shows
Speaker 1: that superstition maybe an evolutionary benefit. Harvard and University of
Speaker 1: Helsinki researchers Dr Kevin Foster and Dr Hannah Coco created
Speaker 1: a mathematical model to see whether superstition could help with
Speaker 1: evolutionary survival. They found that despite the high error rates
Speaker 1: with superstitious behavior, this strategy can still lead to higher
Speaker 1: rates of survival, thus being favored by natural selection. So
Speaker 1: is wearing your lucky underwear a deeply ingrained evolutionary skill. Maybe,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it makes you special. When we return,
Speaker 1: we'll discover that humans aren't the only superstitious ones. Birds
Speaker 1: were more alike than we realize. In ninety B. F.
Speaker 1: Skinner conducted a famous set of experiments involving a box
Speaker 1: and food and birds. He placed hungry pigeons in a
Speaker 1: box a cage really, and offered them brief access to
Speaker 1: feeding trades at regular intervals. The pigeons began to engage
Speaker 1: in interesting behaviors. They would start to spin around, thrust
Speaker 1: their heads up, or rock from side to side, seeming
Speaker 1: to connect these behaviors to the arrival of food. Once
Speaker 1: they had formed a specific superstitious habit, it continued even
Speaker 1: once Skinner started to increase the time between feedings. The
Speaker 1: pigeons probably desperate for some control over their lives. We're
Speaker 1: trying anything to see what would stick. Even turning counterclockwise
Speaker 1: without fail, waiting for their food. Now, I don't think
Speaker 1: these pigeons are dumb, and I don't think humans who
Speaker 1: engage in superstition are stupid either. I think in a way,
Speaker 1: superstition is a way to try and feel some semblance
Speaker 1: of control over our dumpster fire lives. If we feel helpless,
Speaker 1: like a pigeon stuck in Skinner's evil little device, We're
Speaker 1: going to try anything to feel that we're doing something
Speaker 1: to help our situation, even if that means blaming all
Speaker 1: our problems on well birds. So, now moving on from cats,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about crows and ravens. Boo, I'm leaving. Um,
Speaker 1: that's that's very interesting and I am. I definitely feel
Speaker 1: that in my own life, and that like before you have,
Speaker 1: like you know, a big job interview or a big meeting,
Speaker 1: or like you know, anything that has any level of pressure.
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of us have just things
Speaker 1: that we do that make us feel like, oh, because
Speaker 1: I did this, I feel less nervous about this thing
Speaker 1: that I'm about to do. Like I used to wear, Um,
Speaker 1: this is uh pre finding out that he's a monster,
Speaker 1: But I used to wear like a like a whole
Speaker 1: cogan wrist a band to uh job interviews and stuff
Speaker 1: like that when I was in college. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's something that whenever I would not do that, I
Speaker 1: would definitely feel more nervous about it. Never would do that,
Speaker 1: I would feel a little bit more like, Yeah, a
Speaker 1: whole comania has got my I used to have this
Speaker 1: little Celtic not ring that I got at this fair,
Speaker 1: and like, when I wore it, I had a really
Speaker 1: good time at the fair, and so I started wearing
Speaker 1: it again. And I was a kid, And of course
Speaker 1: I think with my O C D. It makes those
Speaker 1: superstitions even stronger. I see so clearly the cause and
Speaker 1: effect of the superstitions, Like, Okay, one time I wore
Speaker 1: this ring and I had a good time. So then
Speaker 1: I started wearing it in order to have a good
Speaker 1: time again, and then that transformed into if I don't
Speaker 1: wear it, I'll have a bad time. And it's it's
Speaker 1: just like those those pigeons where that it's really funny
Speaker 1: because they would just try to do a behavior like
Speaker 1: rocking back and forth, and if the food came after
Speaker 1: that just by chance or like oh, rocking back and
Speaker 1: forth equals food. I think it's just so interesting that
Speaker 1: we seem to have this desire to make these connections,
Speaker 1: almost like it's a little scary to feel like we
Speaker 1: don't have control over environment. And then if we can
Speaker 1: make these connections, maybe we can get a little more controlled,
Speaker 1: especially with death, because like death is the ultimate uncontrollable force.
Speaker 1: So if we can make superstitions surrounding death, like bad
Speaker 1: omens and things, we feel like, Okay, maybe I know
Speaker 1: when it's coming, maybe I can feel some reassurance that
Speaker 1: I have some control over my own mortality. And that
Speaker 1: kind of brings us to two crows and ravens because
Speaker 1: they're they're the sort of ultimate like bad omen of death.
Speaker 1: I wonder how much of that is not to not
Speaker 1: to make it about cats again, but I'm gonna I
Speaker 1: wonder how much of that is um, you know, like
Speaker 1: if we talk about like the things like you know,
Speaker 1: burning cats or sacrificing cats when like a loved one
Speaker 1: dies or whatever, like, how much of that is, Oh,
Speaker 1: your loved one died, you feel like you like, you
Speaker 1: feel like guilt that you didn't talk to them enough
Speaker 1: for that you weren't nice enough to them, or maybe
Speaker 1: like they sucked and you feel like conflicted about, like
Speaker 1: mourning somebody who was who was lame or bad or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you feel like by doing some kind of sacrifice
Speaker 1: or some kind of ritual or whatever, you know, like
Speaker 1: putting cat nip around your house discriminate that god that
Speaker 1: you feel like you're kind of making right on your
Speaker 1: like past things that you did or didn't do with
Speaker 1: that person, right, like having some control over your relationship
Speaker 1: with them, even once you no longer have that control
Speaker 1: because they're gone. I mean, I definitely like I will
Speaker 1: talk to dead people in my life. It's like I
Speaker 1: don't often talk to the dead people in my life
Speaker 1: who I had a great relationship with usually just think
Speaker 1: of them fondly when I had a bad relationship with
Speaker 1: them all like lament out loud. Almost. This desire to
Speaker 1: communicate with them is stronger when you had a fractured relationship,
Speaker 1: which I think is interesting. Well, it's also like with
Speaker 1: a fractured relationship, you there are more blanks that you
Speaker 1: can kind of fill in with whatever you wanted to write,
Speaker 1: like cat nipping cat gods. Yeah, yeah, cat gods all
Speaker 1: great things. Um, yes, I mean that that makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense, Like a lot of it is like
Speaker 1: you said, it's like season control over something you don't
Speaker 1: really feel like you have control over. UM. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: super interesting. I saw this, UM, this story. I don't
Speaker 1: know the veracity of it really, but it was on Facebook,
Speaker 1: so it has to be true. UM. And it was
Speaker 1: this video of this woman where this cardinal lands on
Speaker 1: her and she's like crying with tears of joy, and
Speaker 1: like the backstory is that her I think either her
Speaker 1: sister or her mother had passed away. And she said,
Speaker 1: like if when I pass away, I'll give you a sign,
Speaker 1: you know, after I'm gone, that I'm still there with you.
Speaker 1: And so she took the bird landing on her as
Speaker 1: the sign. And I think that's another That's another thing
Speaker 1: that like that magical thinking gives us a connection to
Speaker 1: things that maybe we otherwise are kind of out of
Speaker 1: our out of our grasp. UM. Just a personal story.
Speaker 1: I when I was in college, I took an entomology
Speaker 1: class and UM, part of the entomology classes that we
Speaker 1: had to raise caterpillars. So they gave us a caterpillar.
Speaker 1: They give us a cup with caterpillies food in it,
Speaker 1: with the thought process being that like you'll raise it
Speaker 1: into you know moth or whatever. And um, it was
Speaker 1: particularly cold, um in that winter, and I was really
Speaker 1: excited about raising this caterpillar. And I raised it to
Speaker 1: the point rosenick cocoon and then just like it was
Speaker 1: very clear. Um after like a couple of days that
Speaker 1: like I know probably wasn't gonna yeah, and um, I
Speaker 1: before that gave it a name, bug Zilla, and I
Speaker 1: cut out a picture of Mathra and taped it to
Speaker 1: the inside of like it's like home that I built
Speaker 1: for it, just so it could have like a hero.
Speaker 1: And UM. I went to Washington State University and at
Speaker 1: the time, I'm not sure if it's still around anymore,
Speaker 1: but there was a bar called Valhalla. And um, after
Speaker 1: the um like caterpillar, you know, presumably passed away to
Speaker 1: didn't become a mouth or whatever. Um, I got a
Speaker 1: bunch of my friends together. We put on suits and
Speaker 1: then we like took the dead caterpillar to Valhalla. And
Speaker 1: then I like, uh, we all went to like one
Speaker 1: of the toilet stalls and like put it in the
Speaker 1: toilet and flushed the toilet with like her hands in
Speaker 1: her cheeks. So it's like I don't know, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we just put it to Valhalla like a true and
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, ultimately that's madness if you track it right.
Speaker 1: But but it made us feel better. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: I know, my when one of my fish died when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, I was about to flush it.
Speaker 1: My brother was like, you can't do that, We've got
Speaker 1: to bury it. So we had a little funeral for
Speaker 1: the fish. Yeah, and it's like afterwards you felt like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately, like so much of what happens in
Speaker 1: life is just like random chaos crash together. Those little
Speaker 1: things that you do make it feel more under your
Speaker 1: control and more like makes more sense, Like random death
Speaker 1: makes more sense when you kind of ritualize it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: totally speaking of random death the Greek and uh In
Speaker 1: Greek mythology, which is often they seem to just try
Speaker 1: to really make sense of the capriciousness of the universe,
Speaker 1: ravens were seen as bad omens um and also God's
Speaker 1: messengers to Earth. So the story goes that Apollo, the
Speaker 1: sun god, had sent a white raven to spy on
Speaker 1: his lover Coronas, but when the raven returned, it brought
Speaker 1: news of Coronas's infidelity and Apollo was so angry he
Speaker 1: set the raven on fire, which and then that turned
Speaker 1: it black. But that seems really rude, like the ravens
Speaker 1: just doing its job. Yeah, first off, drama? Uh? Second off, yeah,
Speaker 1: what the f like? What did you did? You want
Speaker 1: it to lie to you? Um? Yeah? Whoever did that?
Speaker 1: Burning the messenger? Literally? Um. In the Jewish religious texts
Speaker 1: the Talmud, the raven was considered to be one of
Speaker 1: the only animals to have sex on the arc, so
Speaker 1: God punished them only the pipe. In the Ark and
Speaker 1: Celtic and Serbian literature, ravens are associated with warfare and battle.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons I think that crows and
Speaker 1: ravens and other corvids are associated with death in battle
Speaker 1: is that they often feed on carrion. This might be
Speaker 1: you why so much folklore is about them being an
Speaker 1: omen of death because they literally will show up when
Speaker 1: something dies because they want to eat its eyeballs because
Speaker 1: by balls are good. Yeah, they're it's like the original gusher,
Speaker 1: you know, right exactly in terms of being bad omens. Corvids,
Speaker 1: which includes ravens and crows, it's that family of birds. Um.
Speaker 1: It's mostly in Western European culture, potentially or perhaps partially
Speaker 1: due to the fact that they were associated with the
Speaker 1: god Odin and Norse mythology and Christianity sought to slander
Speaker 1: these pagan symbols, so people were less likely to follow them.
Speaker 1: But in South Asia they are associated with sages and
Speaker 1: as guardians in the Hindu religion. In Bhutan, the raven
Speaker 1: is the national bird and it's associated with bravery and guardianship.
Speaker 1: In mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast,
Speaker 1: he name the tribe I'm from, I'm indigenous, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: en world cowl. It's yeah, it's a whole bunch of tribes.
Speaker 1: Can I show you that? Yeah? Yeah, I let me
Speaker 1: see if I grew up on any of these reservations,
Speaker 1: um uh tillamok shinok. Yeah, these are all these are
Speaker 1: all around where I grew up A yeah, do you
Speaker 1: know about this then? Um, it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where it's like I grew up in reservation and went
Speaker 1: to tribal schools up until um, like seventh eighth grade.
Speaker 1: So like I guarantee that there was an assembly that
Speaker 1: we had where an elder told us these stories while
Speaker 1: I was playing a game. So yeah, there's definitely a
Speaker 1: lot of like things surrounding specifically like Pacific Northwest. The
Speaker 1: term is like coastal sailor isious sort of what is
Speaker 1: and um, there's a lot of stuff about crows and
Speaker 1: ravens kind of in that mythology. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: there's a more it's a more positive association because it's
Speaker 1: involved in creation myths rather than like I think, I
Speaker 1: think it's just really interesting to me that it's really
Speaker 1: mostly at the Christian areas of Western Europe where it's
Speaker 1: associated with these negative things and you can kind of
Speaker 1: almost trace it back to this propaganda effort to make
Speaker 1: them seem bad because they were associated with Norse or
Speaker 1: paid in mythology. Yeah, it's I mean there's a lot
Speaker 1: of that stuff, like a lot of there's so much.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting to see where like superstitions and religious
Speaker 1: beliefs kind of stem from um uh, Like people can
Speaker 1: look at the same symbols and interpret them differently based
Speaker 1: on how they interact with them. So like, um, I
Speaker 1: want to say, in like Egyptian religions, um, the like
Speaker 1: the Niles River is or the Nile and that's what's
Speaker 1: called right now, Yeah, the Nile Um, the Nile is
Speaker 1: seen as like a very um I guess kind god
Speaker 1: or very kind thing within like ancient Egyptian religions, because
Speaker 1: the Nile like floods very reliably. It's like it floods,
Speaker 1: you know, every six months or whatever. They know exactly
Speaker 1: when it's gonna do it, exactly how it's gonna take.
Speaker 1: It's um like it fertilizes the land and does a
Speaker 1: lot of really great stuff, whereas like the nearby tigers,
Speaker 1: Tigris and Euphrates rivers are kind of complete chaos and
Speaker 1: they flood just like whenever. So like because of that
Speaker 1: um mess obtaining religions that were more near the tigers
Speaker 1: and Rephrates looked at rivers as being kind of like
Speaker 1: chaos gods essentially, so like even if you take something,
Speaker 1: it's just like literally a river or like you said,
Speaker 1: like you know, like Corvid's like just you know, uh,
Speaker 1: it's entirely based on like are there a lot of
Speaker 1: Corvids in that area? Is there like is there a
Speaker 1: scary guy in your neighborhood that likes a Corvid? And
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I don't like that guy. So corvids
Speaker 1: are bad, you know, like it is. It's interesting to
Speaker 1: see how that stuff kind of develops based on situations.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And Swedish folklore, ravens are thought to be
Speaker 1: the spirits of murdered men. It's still associated with death,
Speaker 1: but in a different way where it's like, rather than
Speaker 1: than being omens of death, they're like a result of
Speaker 1: someone dying in a way. So it's like it's still
Speaker 1: kind of that death association, but instead it's like a
Speaker 1: risen spirit from someone who has died. You have a
Speaker 1: slight similarity, but then it it's just the interpretation is different. So, Okay, crows,
Speaker 1: maybe they're around carrion, maybe they're associated with death, but
Speaker 1: instead of being a sign of death to come there like,
Speaker 1: oh it's a spirit of someone who's died, well yeah,
Speaker 1: it's more like a crow. A crow appeared at that
Speaker 1: guy's funeral. He must have been a murderer. Like it is,
Speaker 1: it's kind of looking at us like the residue of
Speaker 1: something as opposed to something right, which I think is
Speaker 1: interesting because it easily can go either way. Um, as
Speaker 1: as the case with any mythology or superstition, where it's
Speaker 1: like just like a slight difference and interpretation will come
Speaker 1: into a different result. There's an ancient Greek saying that
Speaker 1: the swans will sing when the jackdaws are silent, which
Speaker 1: means that wise people will speak after fools stop talking,
Speaker 1: which I gotta correct the Greeks the saying is actually
Speaker 1: backwards because swans are rude. Oh, fish, jerks and jackdaws
Speaker 1: and other corvids are actually very intelligent, right. Yeah. There
Speaker 1: is also like I feel like there are a lot
Speaker 1: of sayings like that, where like when you analyze them,
Speaker 1: you're just like, oh, it's clear that the person who
Speaker 1: came up without saying has never met a cat before, right,
Speaker 1: or never met a swan. Yeah, It's like they only
Speaker 1: know if swans in theory, they don't know that they're
Speaker 1: big jerks, right exactly. They just look at a swan,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, it's pretty and elegant, but really no,
Speaker 1: if you've ever been chased by a swan, you've been chased. Well,
Speaker 1: my mom has. She she was in I think she
Speaker 1: was in the UK and she got chased over a
Speaker 1: long distance spice swan and it was just like really terrifying.
Speaker 1: How long is the long was the swan like waiting
Speaker 1: outside of her hotel room is a several days? Was
Speaker 1: this a Revenant situation with swan like she got in
Speaker 1: a taxi and the swan like in another tax i?
Speaker 1: Mean that would be I want to see somebody make
Speaker 1: the Revenant, but with a swan just this, like this
Speaker 1: swan wing burst out of the ground and clods way up.
Speaker 1: I think that's basically the Goose game though, isn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's basically that was the pitch for untitled Goose games,
Speaker 1: even like the Revenant, But what if it was a
Speaker 1: have you have you played untitled Goose game? I haven't,
Speaker 1: but I'm so excited to. Yeah, me too, I've I've
Speaker 1: heard it's incredible. We're installing it in the office. I'm excited.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Yeah, I've just seen enough gifts of like
Speaker 1: a goose stealing a kid's glasses and then dropping perfect game.
Speaker 1: It's the perfect game. It's so let's get into some
Speaker 1: crow and raven facts. They are Corvid's and I bet
Speaker 1: everyone's wondering what's the difference between a raven and a crow.
Speaker 1: Ravens are typically larger and they travel in pairs, whereas
Speaker 1: crows are a bit smaller, and they travel in big groups,
Speaker 1: so like you know, the titular murder of crows, right,
Speaker 1: Although it's important to note like people who actually study
Speaker 1: birds don't necessarily call like say like, oh, there's a murder,
Speaker 1: just say a flock of of them. Crow's tails are
Speaker 1: fan shaped, whereas ravens have a longer middle feather, so
Speaker 1: it's like they're giving you a middle finger with their butts.
Speaker 1: And ravens sound different from crows. So I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: you want to play a little game try to the
Speaker 1: difference between crows and ravens. Absolutely, So I'm gonna play
Speaker 1: at this call. Can we play this game with cats
Speaker 1: after this? Just imagine them as flying cats with beaks done?
Speaker 1: Am I guessing crow a raven? Yeah? Um? I want
Speaker 1: to say that is a I'm gonna say that's a raven.
Speaker 1: You're right, that is a raven. So by process elimination,
Speaker 1: that's only two choices. These are crows. I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: that's a raven. Boy, So you can see like the
Speaker 1: raven call is sort of more of a what would
Speaker 1: you call that? Like a the raven is like a
Speaker 1: It's like a honk, yeah, like a honk and then
Speaker 1: the crow call is like yeah, um. Ravens beaks are
Speaker 1: slightly larger and more pronounced. They have like little shaggy
Speaker 1: r nose bristles, so the little like mustache right above
Speaker 1: their beaks is a little bit poofire. Both are very
Speaker 1: intelligent animals, so according to a study at Loomed University, Sweden,
Speaker 1: raven are able to make complex plans when presented with
Speaker 1: food based situations, such as being able to exchange tokens
Speaker 1: for food or to use tools to obtain food. Ravens
Speaker 1: could plan out what they would need to accomplish the task,
Speaker 1: and they would make preparations, which ravens making preparations should
Speaker 1: just strike fear into. They would also decline an immediate
Speaker 1: reward in favor of a functional item. So if they
Speaker 1: can only pick one item and there's like a little
Speaker 1: piece of meat or something, but then a tool they
Speaker 1: know they can use to get even more meat, they'll
Speaker 1: choose the tool so that they can do delayed gratification,
Speaker 1: which is pretty incredible. You've seen video of this. I've
Speaker 1: seen videos of them using tools to get things out
Speaker 1: of things. This this study, I don't think there's a
Speaker 1: video of Unfortunately, there are a couple of Um I
Speaker 1: worked on like an Shan geographic show a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago where we did a lot of section was
Speaker 1: on the crows and ravens and stuff. And yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of really great footage of them, you know,
Speaker 1: essentially like learning how to use tool tolls. And it's
Speaker 1: very it's like very clear watching that they're like putting
Speaker 1: that they're connecting pieces together. They cocked their little heads
Speaker 1: and they're like huh yeah, and they're like bend they'll
Speaker 1: bend a wire so they can use it as a hook. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like they don't just they don't just use tools. I
Speaker 1: feel like there's stuff like there's a new study recently
Speaker 1: where somebody found, um, there's footage that exists of a
Speaker 1: pig using a tool in the wild, and um, this
Speaker 1: is the first time that's ever been documented with like
Speaker 1: pictures and video and stuff like that. And the tool
Speaker 1: is like it basically just uses a piece of bark
Speaker 1: to like help dig for you know whatever, Whereas like
Speaker 1: a crow or raven if you go which a corvid um,
Speaker 1: they'll like you literally watch them, yeah, like bend a
Speaker 1: piece of wire. Like it's clear that they're not just
Speaker 1: like using something to help there, like literally fashioning a
Speaker 1: tool out of something. Yeah. New Caledonian crows are experts
Speaker 1: set that, so they will they'll bend wire, They'll they'll
Speaker 1: form tools into shape so that they can use them
Speaker 1: specifically for tasks. Crows are also extremely good at identifying
Speaker 1: human faces. Oh, I love this story. They will harass
Speaker 1: experimenters that they remember if they did them dirty. Researchers
Speaker 1: suspected this to be true when they felt they were
Speaker 1: getting harassed by crows after they had captured them for
Speaker 1: a study. To put this to the test, experimenters wore
Speaker 1: masks and they held out taxiderman crows, and then this
Speaker 1: distrusted the other crows. They're pretty offended by them, just
Speaker 1: like holding these dead crows. So they issued alarm calls
Speaker 1: and they started to harass the experiment ers. And then
Speaker 1: weeks later they wore the masks again, and the crows
Speaker 1: recognized the masks and started to harass and scold them
Speaker 1: for their their horrible death cult that the crows probably
Speaker 1: thought they were in. There's a there's a couple of
Speaker 1: fun additions to the story. It was a University of
Speaker 1: Washington study. I want to say in like the Middle
Speaker 1: Light two thousand's or something, and uh, the mask that
Speaker 1: they wore was literally a Dick Cheney mask. Really, that's
Speaker 1: so funny. Yeah, they were they were a Dick Cheney
Speaker 1: mask and harassed these crows, and the crows caught them.
Speaker 1: And then yet two weeks later they're kind with the
Speaker 1: same Dick Cheney mask and the crows would yell at
Speaker 1: them more. Um, yeah, crows are super smart. This is
Speaker 1: great though, So now crows, do you think like these
Speaker 1: crows like if you somehow got Dick Cheney to come
Speaker 1: onto the campus, like they would attack Dick Cheney. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's like if that's like just a
Speaker 1: political protest from the researchers and just like okay, so
Speaker 1: like Dick Cheney's doing a speech here in a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, these crows. So what you're saying is we
Speaker 1: can train crows to hate the people that I also hate. Interesting,
Speaker 1: I guess that if you, like, I guess if you
Speaker 1: yelled at the crow and then showed them a picture
Speaker 1: of one of your enemies and said he did this. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they probably crows are smart. They are, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it is it is funny that like you can very
Speaker 1: clearly see that they feel spite, right, Yeah. And also
Speaker 1: they can use vending machines, which is pretty great. I mean,
Speaker 1: like they're gonna they're gonna take over the world. We're done,
Speaker 1: We're done. So researchers made a crow vending machine that
Speaker 1: would dispense bits of meat in exchange for strips of paper,
Speaker 1: and the crows would just like tear off little pieces
Speaker 1: of paper, dispense them into a machine like the fresh
Speaker 1: dollar bill into a soda machine, and then they'd get
Speaker 1: there get their little bit of meat. Um. Actually I
Speaker 1: had neveat that study. That's super interesting. I want to
Speaker 1: see the crow where like they do this, but then
Speaker 1: the meat gets stuck before falling out, or like rejects
Speaker 1: the strip of paper, and they're like, comes on. They've
Speaker 1: also been observed cracking nuts using crosswalks and passing cars.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty famous one. What I think is really
Speaker 1: interesting about the crow behavior is that this cause effect
Speaker 1: intelligence is also the same kind of thing behind superstition.
Speaker 1: So you know that's sort of like if I put
Speaker 1: a piece of paper in this machine, I get a
Speaker 1: piece of meat. You know, I just wanted I'm really
Speaker 1: curious to see if there's any any studies that will
Speaker 1: come out about like corvid superstition that the core of
Speaker 1: its themselves have because we know pigeons can do it,
Speaker 1: and I imagine that these these kinds of crows, which
Speaker 1: in ravens, which are so intelligent, probably would develop some
Speaker 1: superstitious here because they can make that those causal connections.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I feel like that's something that you
Speaker 1: see in like house pets, right, I mean, like like
Speaker 1: you know, like anybody's dog has like a favorite toy
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um, Like, I'm not sure exactly what the
Speaker 1: cause of this is, but it's like cats oftentimes before
Speaker 1: they pounced, well like wiggle their butt. That's actually they're
Speaker 1: aligning their feet under their body in the optimal way
Speaker 1: so that they're spring loaded to pounds. Oh that makes sense.
Speaker 1: That's uh, that's way better than theory, which is for luck.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know what, they may think it's lucky
Speaker 1: though they've got a lucky but yeah, they got a
Speaker 1: lucky but because so many Satanists keep keep kissing her
Speaker 1: asses special in some way. Um yeah, but I mean,
Speaker 1: like you know, like it's clear that it's clear that
Speaker 1: that animals have emotional intelligence beyond what we give them
Speaker 1: credit for us. So, like it is easy to make
Speaker 1: the connection of like, yeah, does your does your cat
Speaker 1: have like a lucky place that they sleep, But does
Speaker 1: your dog have like a lucky Do they have like
Speaker 1: a lucky toy that they really love snuggling with before
Speaker 1: they eat or whatever? My dog, I think my dog
Speaker 1: actually thinks she has a lucky ass because every time
Speaker 1: she meets someone new, she will turn around and sniffer butt.
Speaker 1: Like it's a compulsive behavior, like she will like or
Speaker 1: if she's coming up to greet you, she'll like sniff
Speaker 1: er butt first it's like her own but she sniffs
Speaker 1: her own butt. I wonder if that's if that's the
Speaker 1: equivalent of like checking your breath. Yeah, like checking your breath,
Speaker 1: or just like like looking in the mirror and like
Speaker 1: combing your hair. Yeah, maybe it could be like just
Speaker 1: making sure my butt smells like but just like, okay,
Speaker 1: it smells like a butt, good, stinky and ripe, exactly
Speaker 1: how it's supposed to be. This to me is fascinating. Uh.
Speaker 1: In case you guys don't know, ravens can talk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I've got a couple of um clips that
Speaker 1: I want to play. This one's a pretty famous one
Speaker 1: from the Clovis Zoo in New Mexico. His name is
Speaker 1: Joe the Raven. Yeah. They can say like hello and stuff. Right,
Speaker 1: so that's Joe the Raven. What did he say, Hang,
Speaker 1: Moun's coming. Oh yeah. And then here's another This is
Speaker 1: Mischief the Raven. Yeah. Birds actually have the styrinx, which
Speaker 1: is the their kind of version of the larynx that
Speaker 1: can mimic human voices. Oh that makes sense, Like parrots
Speaker 1: have that too, right exactly, Um, parrots, starling's, minor birds,
Speaker 1: liar birds. I'm sure I'm for getting a few more species.
Speaker 1: So many more species than parrots can actually talk, because
Speaker 1: they can mimic sounds and birds, um, even songbirds who
Speaker 1: can't talk, like, they are very good at memorizing sound combinations.
Speaker 1: And they go through this crystallization period where they will
Speaker 1: learn these incredibly intricate songs. Yeah, I mean, I wonder,
Speaker 1: at what point are you going to get like not
Speaker 1: a crow like learning, somebody's learning, somebody's a TM coaches,
Speaker 1: But like, you know, what is the what is the
Speaker 1: ceiling for this? Well, the ceiling, as far as I
Speaker 1: know is there was an African gray parrot name I
Speaker 1: think his name is alex Uh. And he was able
Speaker 1: to identify objects based on what they were made out of,
Speaker 1: Like you could ask him what matters this, and then
Speaker 1: he would say like metal or like wood or something,
Speaker 1: and so he could use He seemed to be able
Speaker 1: to have some simple communication skills with his language. He
Speaker 1: would say goodbye or like good night or yeah, or
Speaker 1: if he wanted something, I think he could say, like
Speaker 1: you know, want to go cage or something. Wow, it's
Speaker 1: very very simple. I wouldn't say that he knows how
Speaker 1: to speak human language, but like how a dog knows
Speaker 1: certain things will get the dog certain things, So like
Speaker 1: if the dog winds, he'll get attention, or if the
Speaker 1: dog rolls over on his tummy, like he'll get a
Speaker 1: tummy rub um, or if he sits, if you tell
Speaker 1: them to sitney sits, then he gets a treat, or
Speaker 1: like like an o ring. Attainment of sign language right exactly.
Speaker 1: Also with like sign language, it's really hard to tell
Speaker 1: like how they're using the sign language because there's so
Speaker 1: much interpretation air in terms of like you'll interpret something
Speaker 1: is perhaps like a sign, whereas it may not be
Speaker 1: the sign that you think it is. Um, So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of human interpretation that can go wrong there.
Speaker 1: But I do think that. I mean, just as dogs
Speaker 1: can do simple communication nonverbally, I think that animals who
Speaker 1: are capable of mimicking or language can then do a
Speaker 1: verbal communication. Although it's hard to say whether they understand
Speaker 1: what that means. Yeah, I mean, it could just be
Speaker 1: like a simple cause effect thing where it's like they're, uh,
Speaker 1: this crow is aware that when it says food, it
Speaker 1: gets food, right exactly, So I guess what I mean.
Speaker 1: That means that it knows what food is, but like right,
Speaker 1: um uh. Side note, have you ever seen a picture
Speaker 1: of the world's smartest dog? No, you should google it.
Speaker 1: It's definitely clear that the dog is self aware. Is
Speaker 1: his name? Chasers E the border Collie? Oh yeah, let's see,
Speaker 1: there's a picture of this dog that's it looks like
Speaker 1: he's looked into the universe. It definitely looks like this
Speaker 1: dog as contemplated the state of things his eyes are.
Speaker 1: He's like I've seen I've seen the universe. Although my
Speaker 1: dog also gets that look, and it's usually right before
Speaker 1: she farts. Who knows what that means? Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: I take it back. Dogs are Superstitions about animals aren't
Speaker 1: always negative. In Kombolcha, Ethiopia, hyenas are regarded positively in folklore.
Speaker 1: They eat evil spirits and they're laughing hells bear supernatural meanings.
Speaker 1: This superstition may be based in a very practical reality.
Speaker 1: The hyenas eat herbivores, which locals are grateful for as
Speaker 1: an excess of herb wars can eat crops and disturb homes,
Speaker 1: so the people of the region make sure to share
Speaker 1: their space and make conservation efforts for the hyena. The British,
Speaker 1: who throughout history have had a checkered past when it
Speaker 1: comes to animal conservation, came to the rescue of the
Speaker 1: Barbary macaque due to a superstition. The legend goes that
Speaker 1: once the maccaques disappear from Gibraltar, Britain would lose control
Speaker 1: of the territory, which they had captured from Spain in
Speaker 1: seventeen o four. In nineteen forty two, the population of
Speaker 1: macaques had crashed to only about seven individuals. Winston Churchill,
Speaker 1: either out of tradition or superstitious belief, arranged for the
Speaker 1: macaques to be repopulated. Unfortunately, not all superstitions look so
Speaker 1: kindly upon rare creatures. When we return, we'll explore the
Speaker 1: soft side of a demonic monster. So imagine that you're
Speaker 1: just chilling in your room, sitting on your bed, but
Speaker 1: you hear a tapping on the ceiling above you, tap
Speaker 1: tap tap, Then it's quiet again. Then you hear it
Speaker 1: tap tap tap. The taps then migrate from the ceiling
Speaker 1: down the wall, tap tap tap. The taps get closer,
Speaker 1: as if they're searching for you. You freeze, trying not
Speaker 1: to make a sound, but the taps get closer and closer.
Speaker 1: Suddenly you hear a loud, scraping noise right behind you
Speaker 1: in the flash of long yellow teeth. You scramble to
Speaker 1: hide under your bed. You think maybe you're safe. That's
Speaker 1: when a huge, bony finger scrapes under your bed and
Speaker 1: impales you on a sharp needle like claw. As you
Speaker 1: start to bleed out, you feel yourself being dragged up
Speaker 1: and forced through the hole in the wall into the
Speaker 1: jaws of the eye I. You seem very scared, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely so. The I I is a lemur native
Speaker 1: to Madagascar. So, just just so people know, Lemurs are
Speaker 1: a type of primate that evolved independently from monkeys and apes.
Speaker 1: They're about five pounds, they're nocturnal, and they have huge
Speaker 1: yellow eyes. So here's a few pictures. They're these guys.
Speaker 1: They've got like long, weird fingers and basically scrape into
Speaker 1: like they get hants and stuff exactly. So. Uh. They
Speaker 1: have wiry gray and white wild hair, long squirrel like tail. Uh.
Speaker 1: Their nipples are near their grind. They have nictating membrane
Speaker 1: like in cats. So you should like them. It's the
Speaker 1: third eyelid that protects the eye. My favorite part. They
Speaker 1: have teeth that perpetually grow. They have huge floppy, dobby
Speaker 1: like ears. And it has a big middle finger. So
Speaker 1: it has already has these long, narrow, bony fingers, but
Speaker 1: they have this really really narrow and disproportionately long middle
Speaker 1: finger that just it's so it's really weird when you
Speaker 1: look at it. Um. I hope that I know that
Speaker 1: there's I know the scientific reason for the middle finger.
Speaker 1: I hope that the real reason is they don't give
Speaker 1: a It's an omni tool. Yeah, it allows them to
Speaker 1: tell authority how they think. So it uses this long
Speaker 1: spindly finger to tap on trees, and it listens or
Speaker 1: feels for the vibrations inside hollow channels in the trees.
Speaker 1: Then it listens for the movement of grubs inside these
Speaker 1: hollow channels. Um. Once it finds a grub, it uses
Speaker 1: its sharp beaver like teeth to rip open the bark,
Speaker 1: and then it shoves its long, bony fingers right in
Speaker 1: the hole and then hooks and impales the grub, drags
Speaker 1: it up, pulls it out into the mouth. Um. So
Speaker 1: this is called percussive foraging, which sounds like a great
Speaker 1: name for a metal band. Yeah, I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: like I feel like a metal A successful metal song
Speaker 1: could definitely be written about using your giant middle finger
Speaker 1: to impale you, impale amazed with my middle finger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good that's a good metal lyric. If you're
Speaker 1: listening to this, go for it. In superstition, the I
Speaker 1: I is a demonic entity. Folklore holds that if it
Speaker 1: points its long, narrow middle finger at you, it has
Speaker 1: marked you for death, or it's marked you as an
Speaker 1: asshole that cut it off in traffic. Thank you. Another
Speaker 1: legend is that they break into your house and murder
Speaker 1: you in your sleep by stabbing your aorta with their
Speaker 1: pointy middle finger. These things aren't that big now, they're
Speaker 1: like four pounds. Yeah, I feel like if it tried,
Speaker 1: you could probably you probably find it off pretty cheesy,
Speaker 1: unless you're a grub, which case you know you're kind
Speaker 1: of screwed. If you're grab your screwed. But I'm a
Speaker 1: big strong man, although I mean, I don't think I'll
Speaker 1: ever take a threat seriously again unless it's I'll stab
Speaker 1: you in the heart with my middle finger. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: like the most metal way to do that is. And
Speaker 1: it's like that, that's when I know you're serious. If
Speaker 1: you're just like I'll kill you, it's like, okay, whatever,
Speaker 1: it's like, I will stab you in the heart with
Speaker 1: my middle favors like, oh, you don't like me, do you?
Speaker 1: And you also want to make a point of that, right,
Speaker 1: Despite the horror story I gave you about the I I,
Speaker 1: there are no threat to your me. In fact, they're
Speaker 1: an endangered species. No habitat destruction and hunting has put
Speaker 1: them at risk. Um. I think they're actually very cute. Um.
Speaker 1: They're these adorable little guys who live in balled up
Speaker 1: nests of leaves and branches. Their eyes are big and weird.
Speaker 1: They also don't exclusively eat insects. They will eat fruit,
Speaker 1: seeds and nectar. They just they just love eating eating
Speaker 1: grubs and stabbing them with they're weird fingers. The babies
Speaker 1: are really cute. Let me show you. I'm excited to
Speaker 1: see this. Here's a baby one. Ah. They are so
Speaker 1: cute and like every picture of them. Uh, if you're
Speaker 1: listening to this, I strongly recommend googling a picture an
Speaker 1: I I they look constantly surprised. Yeah, they definitely do.
Speaker 1: I'll include these in the show notes and pictures of these.
Speaker 1: But their eyes are big and yellow and they look shocked. Um.
Speaker 1: Some of them are uglier than others. Here's one that
Speaker 1: looks a little scrappy, but it's cute. They look like
Speaker 1: cute little demons. Like they constantly look like they they
Speaker 1: ordered a dinner at a nice restaurant and didn't pay
Speaker 1: attention to how much it cost and just looked at
Speaker 1: the bill. Yeah, and I don't know that. It's just
Speaker 1: like the whole thing, the whole look they've got going
Speaker 1: on with like the big the big years, the huge
Speaker 1: middle fingers, the wide eyes. It's like a little bus shimmy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit bu shimmy. It's a little Steve Sammy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know in a good way. I like bushimmy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah it is. Uh what is it's the like the
Speaker 1: the section of the uncanny Valley to something that is
Speaker 1: like a little bit scarier where it's still cute. So
Speaker 1: like a dog wearing a suit or something like that. Right,
Speaker 1: it's like in theory, if you describe it, it's scary,
Speaker 1: but if you look at it, it's like the cute
Speaker 1: version of scary, right, right, it's I mean they're sort
Speaker 1: of that like ugly cute thing. It's where it's sort
Speaker 1: of like sphinx cats where it's like they're horrible little
Speaker 1: butt monsters, but they're cute, horrible little but monsters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I'd still I'd still kiss that, but I'd still
Speaker 1: I'd kiss look, I would kiss and eye eyes, but
Speaker 1: I'd be that satanist. I think everybody'd be like, oh, jeez,
Speaker 1: would get it. You did a study abroad you and
Speaker 1: that I I but get a room. So do you
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about some of the
Speaker 1: podcasts you're doing and uh, some some of the cat
Speaker 1: related things you're doing as well. Okay, so podcasts and
Speaker 1: cat realid things are doing. Um So, I run the
Speaker 1: l a Underground Cat Network, a Facebook group of people
Speaker 1: who love cats. You should definitely check it out. Um.
Speaker 1: I specifically cat related things. I um host a show
Speaker 1: called Chats on Cats with Joey Clift at the Right
Speaker 1: Citizen's Create Theater in Los Angeles, where I just celebrities
Speaker 1: about their cats. It's very cute. We uh don't have
Speaker 1: one in the books right now, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm sure i'll come up soon. You can if you
Speaker 1: want to hear me talk about Native American stuff. I've
Speaker 1: got a podcast on Your Wolf and Your Wolf Presents
Speaker 1: show called Wow Your Native American Too, where I interview
Speaker 1: other natives about native stuff. Um. If you check out
Speaker 1: my Twitter account, got a link to it, it's great. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a little bit of an old one, but
Speaker 1: I still think it's very funny. I've got a podcast
Speaker 1: called twenty five Minutes of Silence where the premises, the
Speaker 1: guests and I just sit in silence for twenty five minutes. Um.
Speaker 1: I work very hard to get good guests. I've gotten
Speaker 1: former Astronauts on the show Emmy Women, Emmy Winning Writers.
Speaker 1: I got ken Bone from the election to do. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very How do we know because if you're just
Speaker 1: sitting in silence, I mean always at the top of
Speaker 1: the show, I'm always like, look into silence and ms
Speaker 1: Joey Clift, I'm here with Katie Golden. Katie, I will
Speaker 1: say hi, and then Hi, let me with out of
Speaker 1: the way. He's silence, And at the end of it,
Speaker 1: we plug each other's social media accounts and then that's it.
Speaker 1: So like you know, you know, you know, it's one
Speaker 1: unbroken recording. Can you hear breathing though you can hear
Speaker 1: breathing and oftentimes like you can hear background noise. So
Speaker 1: it's like we don't like make eye contact and staring
Speaker 1: blanking the whole time. And the goal isn't for us
Speaker 1: to stay quiet. It's just for us to not talk.
Speaker 1: So when I had the astronaut on the show, uh,
Speaker 1: he used that time to clean out his rain gutter,
Speaker 1: and I used that time to do my laundry. See uh,
Speaker 1: so you know it's it's a real grab back. When
Speaker 1: Ken Bone did the show, he used to apply to
Speaker 1: fan mail, which he still gets really yeah, and his
Speaker 1: address is not publicly listed, so he does not know
Speaker 1: how people can send him fit mail, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: if it's to get at that that nice sweater, bod,
Speaker 1: I think that people will find a way. Yeah. Yeah, people.
Speaker 1: People are thirsting for Ken Bones Jones, and for Bones
Speaker 1: and Jones and for a bones in And can you
Speaker 1: explain for just like a minute or so your fascination
Speaker 1: with Garfield because I shared this as well. So okay,
Speaker 1: so um, I'm a really I'm a really big fan
Speaker 1: of Garfield in the same way that Katie is. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't know, He's just such a weird piece of
Speaker 1: Americana that is. Um, he's so stable than what he
Speaker 1: is that it is very easy to make comedy based
Speaker 1: on Garfield. So um. A couple of years ago, I
Speaker 1: thought it would be very funny to change my Twitter
Speaker 1: handle too, or my Twitter name to just Garfield official
Speaker 1: because I realized that the official Garfield Twitter account is
Speaker 1: not verify, and um, so I changed to Garfield Official
Speaker 1: and then just every couple of days, I would just
Speaker 1: post Garfield facts just like Garfield Fact number seven. He
Speaker 1: has a there's a dog named Odie and Garfield's strips
Speaker 1: or whatever, and um, while I was doing this, um,
Speaker 1: I noticed that there was, um the official Garfield account.
Speaker 1: The actual Garfiel account was doing a Q and A
Speaker 1: with Garfield if you did the hashtag ask Garfield. And
Speaker 1: I realized very quickly, like, okay, I could probably answer
Speaker 1: these questions faster than their social media team can. And
Speaker 1: because neither of our accounts are verified, people aren't gonverbable
Speaker 1: to tell the difference between which Garfield account because the
Speaker 1: real one are fake. You're like, it was really easy
Speaker 1: because people would just ask, like, what's your favorite food,
Speaker 1: and it's like lasagna is great, you know, and uh,
Speaker 1: it was super funny. It got like write ups from
Speaker 1: the A V Club and I also got blocked by
Speaker 1: the go Comics account that was facilitating it. Weirdly enough,
Speaker 1: one of the things I was tweeting about was like
Speaker 1: I treated out Alive Garden for some reason, and the
Speaker 1: official Olive Garden account thought that I was the official Guarden.
Speaker 1: They thought that I was the official Garfield account, so
Speaker 1: they offered to like send me like a catered Olive Gardens,
Speaker 1: and I jumped into their d M and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not eficial Garfield account. But I do love all
Speaker 1: of gardens, and then they sent me like an for
Speaker 1: pretending to be Garfield. The Garfield grift is real, lucrative.
Speaker 1: It was a real guard Field grift. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just like doing bits around Garfield. So if you
Speaker 1: follow me on Twitter, I'll probably do some Garfield bits.
Speaker 1: Well that's just wonderful. Yeah, I have a I have
Speaker 1: a swoll gar Field that someone crocheted me based on
Speaker 1: a D and D character that I made, which is
Speaker 1: a swoll Field, which is an extremely buff and muscular Garfield.
Speaker 1: Do you have pictures of this because I have to
Speaker 1: see this. Yeah, let me get them for you. Here
Speaker 1: he is posing with Kalle. Okay, I'm looking at swull Field.
Speaker 1: That is delightful, home um, and that was knitted by
Speaker 1: Nico Manner forty two. Thank you for that. I cherish
Speaker 1: him every days and I kiss his butt hole every day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how you know the love is real, as if
Speaker 1: you're willing to kiss a cat's block. As part of
Speaker 1: my my satanic ritual is kissing Garfield's butth hole. Look,
Speaker 1: I would do that in a art. Garfield was real
Speaker 1: and he had a blot hole. The Satanists of the
Speaker 1: Lasagna Order. I mean, look, if that's not already a call,
Speaker 1: we should start that call. Hold well we did it
Speaker 1: just now it's it's started. Yes, So you've got anything
Speaker 1: else to plug? Yeah, so I guess the main thing
Speaker 1: i'd plug is, um, just follow me on social media.
Speaker 1: My Twitter account is at Joey Tainment, My Instagram is
Speaker 1: at Joey Cliff. It's like five eyes. I was going
Speaker 1: to take Joey Cliff, which a twelve year old took it,
Speaker 1: so I really missed that. Um And then um, this
Speaker 1: is uh not out yet, but I have an animated
Speaker 1: short film that's currently going through the film festival circuit. Um.
Speaker 1: It's called Thames Very Long. It's called telling people your
Speaker 1: Native American when you're not Native. Is a lot like
Speaker 1: telling a barrier a bear when you're not a bear.
Speaker 1: It's about weird racial like aggressions that people make about natives.
Speaker 1: And the name is twenty four words long and that's
Speaker 1: going to be online real soon, probably in the next
Speaker 1: month or so. So yeah, follow me on socials. Look
Speaker 1: at for that's super great. If you have a cat
Speaker 1: or you know a cat, at that cat, I'm so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put up cats. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us. You can follow us on all of the
Speaker 1: various internet things that go on. We're on Creature feature
Speaker 1: Pod dot Com, Creature feature Pod on Instagram, Creature feed
Speaker 1: Pod on Twitter. That's f e A T, not f
Speaker 1: E T. That's something very different. Uh. And I am
Speaker 1: at Katie Golden And of course, as always I am
Speaker 1: at po bird Writes, where I make sure that birds
Speaker 1: have the tools necessary or own distraction. Uh. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. Come back next Wednesday for
Speaker 1: more Creature Feature. If you're liking the show, hit all
Speaker 1: of the nice buttons below the episode, like all the
Speaker 1: stars and the reviews and things. Thanks to the Space
Speaker 1: Classics for their totally tubular tune Exo Alumina. Creature features
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite chows. See you next Wednesday. Boot Spooky Spooky Windus
Speaker 1: joined the Garfield Cult