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Selects: How Snake Handlers Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and for this week's s
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Speaker 1: Y s K Selects, I've chosen How Snake Handlers Work.
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Speaker 1: It's a really truly fascinating episode that you might have overlooked.
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Speaker 1: And you know, we talk a lot about Christian snake handling,
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Speaker 1: but we also talk about people who handle snakes for
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Speaker 1: fun or because it's their job. There's a lot of
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Speaker 1: people who handle snakes weirdly. So kick back and enjoy
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Speaker 1: this episode from May of two thousand and sixteen, How
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Speaker 1: Sneake Handlers Work. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
0:35
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:44
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and
0:46
Speaker 1: there's Jerry over there. And my hair is now a
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Speaker 1: fourth character. Laughed at my hair. Everybody, Well, its my
0:55
Speaker 1: beard can be the fourth character. Your hair could be
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Speaker 1: the fifth. Oh really, yeah, we need Actually, Jerry's got
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Speaker 1: great hair. She does have nice here stylish salt and
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Speaker 1: pepper Amy Goodman level tasteful salt and pepper. I'm not
1:12
Speaker 1: sure what that means, Amy Goodman from Democracy. Now it's
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Speaker 1: very tasteful salt and pepper hair. Maybe that's the thing.
1:19
Speaker 1: It is clearly between Jerry and Amy Goodman. It's the
1:22
Speaker 1: thing that beats shoe polished black. Yeah, you know, like
1:27
Speaker 1: trickling down your forehead. Yeah, but do what makes you happy?
1:32
Speaker 1: You know? Well sure if you don't, whatever makes you
1:35
Speaker 1: feel good, Yeah I should, Uh, I should get some
1:39
Speaker 1: of that beer blacken her and coming into my beard
1:42
Speaker 1: and come in with like that jet black Beard and
1:45
Speaker 1: Clyde Drexeler will show up at your house. Urge you one.
1:49
Speaker 1: But isn't he in the ads? Yeah? Really? Former Portland Trailblazer. Great, Yeah,
1:56
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it's Clyde Drexler. Wow, I think that
1:59
Speaker 1: did you picked this out? It's him? And who was
2:02
Speaker 1: the one? I think Keith Hernandez. I was gonna say
2:04
Speaker 1: the one that Kramer spit on or that got spit
2:06
Speaker 1: that spit on Kramer. I think it's Keith Hernandez and
2:10
Speaker 1: Clyde Drexler in the just for Men commercial. Well, those
2:15
Speaker 1: are freed package are just for men coming our way now,
2:19
Speaker 1: which we should say thanks again again to Crown Royal. Man,
2:24
Speaker 1: you say you like Crown Royal, they send you something,
2:26
Speaker 1: you say, you drank it, and they send you more.
2:27
Speaker 1: I know, it's pretty awesome. I'm brushing my teeth with
2:29
Speaker 1: this stuff. Now my lifestyle is improved for the better.
2:33
Speaker 1: Pretty neat. Thank you dudes. Uh So, I was just
2:39
Speaker 1: discussing before we record it. I said, it's going to
2:41
Speaker 1: be hard to record a show on snake handling, and
2:46
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the religious aspect of it without sort
2:51
Speaker 1: of like I fear for their safety. And I want
2:54
Speaker 1: to say, you people are crazy. A lot of people do,
2:57
Speaker 1: but um, we have a long standing tradition of like
3:00
Speaker 1: to each their own. I just you know, I hate
3:03
Speaker 1: seeing people die from doing something completely preventable. Yeah, you
3:07
Speaker 1: definitely do. But handling rattlesnakes and kissing them on the face.
3:10
Speaker 1: From from what I've seen of this or from what
3:13
Speaker 1: I've researched, I've not actually seen somebody handle snakes in person. Um,
3:17
Speaker 1: but from what I've researched, the people who handle snakes
3:22
Speaker 1: are doing it through total and complete faith. And uh
3:29
Speaker 1: there's even if you did judge them, I think it
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Speaker 1: kind of rolls off their back quite a bit. So
3:34
Speaker 1: it's not so much judgment. It's just like, no, it's
3:38
Speaker 1: not I'm telling you, this is this? What is it?
3:41
Speaker 1: My opinion, and I'm judging your opinion. Oh that's what
3:46
Speaker 1: you meant by its judgment. No, okay, now it's not judgment.
3:49
Speaker 1: I just I hate seeing people get hurt, Nina, uh
3:52
Speaker 1: and die. Have you ever seen somebody handle snakes? I
3:55
Speaker 1: had a religious upbringing. Well, yeah, this is rare though.
4:00
Speaker 1: This is yeah, it is Appalachian foothills stuff. Yeah, I know,
4:03
Speaker 1: but I mean, like Atlanta, we're in Georgia. I didn't
4:07
Speaker 1: know if you ever took like a field trip or
4:08
Speaker 1: something there. That's you have no idea how church works
4:13
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of field trips. In fact,
4:18
Speaker 1: you don't go to other churches. You're not supposed to
4:20
Speaker 1: do that. Oh really, yeah, he stay at your own church.
4:24
Speaker 1: You don't go on field trips to other churches. Aren't
4:26
Speaker 1: there like inter faith banquets and stuff like that. Yeah,
4:30
Speaker 1: we had a field day all right, with all the
4:32
Speaker 1: churches in the county. Now, I suppose other churches get
4:37
Speaker 1: together with as suppose to him getting together with other churches.
4:40
Speaker 1: But that wasn't my experience. Typically frowned on in New York.
4:43
Speaker 1: But you just keep it in the house. Although we
4:45
Speaker 1: would go to the big youth conferences all sorts of
4:48
Speaker 1: youth groups together. That's the field trip. Yeah, I'll just
4:51
Speaker 1: kids thrown in the big gymnasiums, struggling to fight their
4:55
Speaker 1: hormonal urges, going you believe what? So No, I've never
5:01
Speaker 1: done it. I didn't ask if you've done it. I
5:03
Speaker 1: need I've never witnessed it. I've never been anywhere near it. Okay,
5:07
Speaker 1: although I I have a strange feeling, Chuck, that it's
5:09
Speaker 1: possible we've both been near it, just from living in
5:12
Speaker 1: Georgia all these years, you think without knowing it. Because yeah,
5:16
Speaker 1: people who handle snakes UM religiously. It's actually called um
5:21
Speaker 1: holiness serpent handling. Is that correct? Uh? Yeah, they say
5:26
Speaker 1: serpent instead of snake. Yeah, and it has to be
5:29
Speaker 1: a venomous snake to be considered a serpent. But for
5:32
Speaker 1: holiness serpent handling UM. Until two thousand fourteen, it was.
5:37
Speaker 1: They kept a pretty tight lid on it for many,
5:40
Speaker 1: many decades. Who the handlers, Yeah, the people who um
5:44
Speaker 1: who practice this as part of their religious beliefs. Yeah,
5:47
Speaker 1: and I think still even most of them are pretty
5:50
Speaker 1: media shy. You'll see the occasional interview. When someone dies,
5:55
Speaker 1: they'll go knocking on the doors and they'll give an
5:57
Speaker 1: interview to explain like why they do what they do.
5:59
Speaker 1: But of so, it was that TV show, which really,
6:02
Speaker 1: I mean, you know you're clearly not media show if
6:04
Speaker 1: you're doing a reality show. No, it's It was called
6:06
Speaker 1: Snake Salvation and sorry not two four two thirteen. It
6:10
Speaker 1: was on nat g O and it was all about
6:13
Speaker 1: snake handling for religious reasons. And um, one of the
6:18
Speaker 1: main guys on the show ended up dying. He didn't
6:21
Speaker 1: die on the show, but he died the next year
6:23
Speaker 1: from a rattlesnake bite after it went off the air. Yeah,
6:27
Speaker 1: it was only on for one season. But his name
6:29
Speaker 1: was Pasty Pastor Jamie Coots, and he and another guy
6:32
Speaker 1: um named I believe Steven Amblen are They are holiness
6:38
Speaker 1: serpent handlers who believe in kind of bringing it out
6:43
Speaker 1: of the shadows and into the Christian mainstream. Good luck. Yeah,
6:48
Speaker 1: if you're if you're at all interested in that concept,
6:50
Speaker 1: you should read even on to Death. It was in
6:53
Speaker 1: the Chattanooga Free Press. It's a pretty good examination of
6:56
Speaker 1: that whole movement and those guys in particular. I guess
6:59
Speaker 1: we should talk a little little bit about other kinds
7:02
Speaker 1: of snake handling first though, Yeah, because when you see
7:05
Speaker 1: snake hangler, I'm sure when people saw this the title
7:08
Speaker 1: of this episode, they just assume we're talking strictly about um,
7:12
Speaker 1: really is a snake handling now, like other people handle
7:16
Speaker 1: snakes as well, like professional non religious settings. They're called
7:21
Speaker 1: herpetologists or some of them are. These are actually people
7:24
Speaker 1: who study snakes and amphibians, reptiles, and we talked about
7:28
Speaker 1: them on our Snake Show, and I think we dispelled
7:30
Speaker 1: a lot of rumors, uh, not rumors, but myths on
7:34
Speaker 1: the Snake Show which come into play when handling snakes,
7:37
Speaker 1: namely that they aren't out to kill you. Um, But
7:41
Speaker 1: we'll get to that later. But people display snakes, well,
7:45
Speaker 1: there's a few different categories of people who handle snakes.
7:47
Speaker 1: There's people who display them Like you drive through Florida,
7:51
Speaker 1: you might see like a snake and gator farm where
7:53
Speaker 1: they do snake shows. And there's a really famous guy
7:56
Speaker 1: we'll talk about a little more in depth named Bill
7:58
Speaker 1: Host who was like the man when it comes to that,
8:02
Speaker 1: let's see. Yeah, uh, And then there are um, there
8:06
Speaker 1: are people, there are snake milkers. Of course, there's veterinarians
8:09
Speaker 1: who care for your snakes. Yeah, which I mean they
8:12
Speaker 1: have to handle snakes. Um, there's also rescuing and recovery people.
8:17
Speaker 1: Who gets a snake in my basement? Right? A guy
8:20
Speaker 1: will show up and um, most likely he's professionally trained.
8:25
Speaker 1: At the very least, you would hope that he has
8:27
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of experience in handling snakes. Yeah. And
8:30
Speaker 1: they will show up and you'll say how much does
8:32
Speaker 1: it cost to get the snake out of my basement?
8:34
Speaker 1: And they'll say how much you got? I'd like to
8:37
Speaker 1: see your last three bank account statements please, Um. And
8:40
Speaker 1: in those cases they will probably you'll probably see what's
8:44
Speaker 1: called an extension tool. Um, if you've ever seen those tongs?
8:48
Speaker 1: Are those long uh they call it a snake cook
8:51
Speaker 1: sort of a just a long metal not a PROD
8:55
Speaker 1: because they're not product. Senior adults use it to grab
8:59
Speaker 1: can ends off of the high shelves in their homes. Yeah,
9:03
Speaker 1: it's like that sort of I haven't seen them that
9:06
Speaker 1: actually flex and grab. Yeah. Okay, if you get some money,
9:11
Speaker 1: you're gonna spend it on that. The ones i've seen
9:14
Speaker 1: are just have a flat uh you know, it's a
9:16
Speaker 1: long pole and then it has like an L shaped uh,
9:19
Speaker 1: you know, at a right angle flat piece coming off
9:22
Speaker 1: that they pin the snake with. UM. I've read this
9:26
Speaker 1: thing about handling snakes safely for like just normal people
9:30
Speaker 1: or people who are starting out in the rescue and
9:32
Speaker 1: recovery business. UM, And you can use just about anything.
9:36
Speaker 1: The key is extension. You want to put distance between
9:41
Speaker 1: you and the snake. And I want to say, as
9:43
Speaker 1: a legal disclaimer, I'm not at all advising anybody to
9:47
Speaker 1: handle a snake, but what I read was that you
9:50
Speaker 1: want to put as much distance as possible. So if
9:53
Speaker 1: you have a garden tool and a long one, use that.
9:57
Speaker 1: But you also would want to use say you have
10:00
Speaker 1: a hope, you would want to turn your whole upside
10:02
Speaker 1: down and use these just the wooden end to manipulate
10:07
Speaker 1: the snake because you don't want to hurt the snake.
10:09
Speaker 1: I just want to get rid of it, right. I
10:11
Speaker 1: relocated a snake from my backyard a couple of years ago.
10:14
Speaker 1: What did you use? I use my hands. Oh my god.
10:18
Speaker 1: It wasn't big. It was, but it wasn't small. So
10:21
Speaker 1: how did you describe this interaction? UM? I was cutting
10:27
Speaker 1: the grass and I saw the snake. It was about
10:29
Speaker 1: a foot long. Did you positively identify it as non
10:32
Speaker 1: lethal or non venomous? Yeah, it was pretty Yeah, it
10:35
Speaker 1: was definitely not well. Actually, it had the markings where
10:38
Speaker 1: it could have been a copper head. It wasn't just
10:41
Speaker 1: just like a green snake, right, So you took a
10:43
Speaker 1: shot of whiskey and approached it. I approached it, and
10:46
Speaker 1: I did use an implement to um pin it, but
10:51
Speaker 1: I can't remember what I used. It was something, you know,
10:54
Speaker 1: blunt and soft. It wasn't, you know, an accent, you know,
10:57
Speaker 1: head right, because like you said, it was in the
11:00
Speaker 1: cinder block. You're dropping, Like what did I use? It was?
11:04
Speaker 1: I can't remember. Let's just say like a wooden paddle.
11:09
Speaker 1: It might have been a piece of wood actually. And
11:11
Speaker 1: then I did like I saw in the TV shows.
11:13
Speaker 1: I grabbed it behind the you know, right behind its head,
11:18
Speaker 1: got a good hold of it and picked it up
11:20
Speaker 1: and it wrapped around my wrist and I went and
11:24
Speaker 1: then I ran across the street like pee wee herman.
11:28
Speaker 1: Then threw it in the wood. Didn't throw it. I
11:30
Speaker 1: laid it down in the woods, put it into the wood,
11:34
Speaker 1: and it was great. I think it was a successful
11:36
Speaker 1: catch and release. It sounds like it you weren't bitten. Yeah,
11:39
Speaker 1: and I don't. I don't. I'm sure I didn't hurt
11:42
Speaker 1: the snake. Good. Yeah, that sounds pretty successful. What I
11:45
Speaker 1: was reading in this one um article was that you
11:50
Speaker 1: most snakes if you just approached them calmly. Um, and
11:57
Speaker 1: I guess smoothly is a good way to put it. Sure,
12:00
Speaker 1: don't lunge at the snake, right, and also don't be like,
12:02
Speaker 1: oh my god, oh we're good. Right, just kind of
12:04
Speaker 1: come at the snake and pick it up like it's
12:06
Speaker 1: just a stick in your yard. It's probably not going
12:10
Speaker 1: to strike you, supposedly according to this website, of which
12:14
Speaker 1: I have no affiliation whatsoever. Yeah, and I'm not my story.
12:17
Speaker 1: Please do not take that as a That was probably
12:19
Speaker 1: pretty dumb for me to do that. Yeah, you know,
12:23
Speaker 1: and even if it's non I didn't want it. I
12:26
Speaker 1: don't want to get bitten by a snake. I don't
12:28
Speaker 1: care if it's venomous or not. One of my biggest
12:31
Speaker 1: fears is seeing a snake attach its mouth to my body.
12:36
Speaker 1: It frightens me. Well, I have to say. Also, this
12:38
Speaker 1: site put pretty plainly, do not ever touch a snake
12:43
Speaker 1: that you haven't positively identified as non venomous, because yeah,
12:48
Speaker 1: I mean if you you could have easily been bitten
12:50
Speaker 1: and lost your hand or whatever it was, well, no,
12:53
Speaker 1: I could have get in the hospital pretty quickly. Yeah,
12:56
Speaker 1: I mean if you're you know, anti, then it works
12:59
Speaker 1: apparently a hundred percent of the time if it's gotten
13:02
Speaker 1: to in a timely manner. Yes, and for the pedants
13:06
Speaker 1: out there, we will say anti venom and anti venom
13:09
Speaker 1: because both are acceptable. Yes, they are alright, So chuck,
13:12
Speaker 1: let's take a break right here. Huh it sounds good. Okay.
13:34
Speaker 1: Did I say how how far a snake can strike? No?
13:37
Speaker 1: Do you know? Uh? But this is what I've got
13:40
Speaker 1: from the same the same place that said just go
13:43
Speaker 1: smoothly and casually up to a snake, introduce yourself. Uh.
13:47
Speaker 1: It says that any snake greater than four ft can
13:50
Speaker 1: typically strike about one third to one half the distance
13:53
Speaker 1: of its body length. That's a good rule of thumb. Yeah. Um,
13:57
Speaker 1: a snake between one and three feet can strike about
14:00
Speaker 1: out one half to two thirds its body length, and
14:03
Speaker 1: then a snake underfoot can usually strike about its whole
14:06
Speaker 1: body length. Okay, I would take all those numbers and
14:09
Speaker 1: double them. It's probably a good idea, just to be safe. Yeah,
14:12
Speaker 1: of course I'm the guy who you know picked up
14:14
Speaker 1: maybe a copper head, right man, that scary stuff. You
14:19
Speaker 1: do the same thing. You don't want to pay a guy?
14:22
Speaker 1: Um uh you probably I would do with this with
14:25
Speaker 1: this site. What this site was saying was made a
14:28
Speaker 1: lot of sense to me, is like take a take
14:30
Speaker 1: a garbage can, tip it over on its side, take
14:32
Speaker 1: a shovel, use the wooden end of it, the handle it,
14:35
Speaker 1: and just kind of get it into the can, turn
14:38
Speaker 1: it over, put like something on top of the can
14:40
Speaker 1: and then call somebody. Or you could take the candy
14:44
Speaker 1: um like the woods or something that That's probably what
14:46
Speaker 1: I should have done. In retrospect, I was feeling brave.
14:50
Speaker 1: It was like those shots of whiskey, Like I watched
14:52
Speaker 1: enough Nature TV. All right, I know how this is done. Um.
14:56
Speaker 1: So the last thing that I think we didn't mention
14:59
Speaker 1: is snake milkers, which snake venom is very valuable. Um
15:06
Speaker 1: one gram. What you do is you freeze dry it
15:08
Speaker 1: into a powder. After you get the liquid, and you
15:11
Speaker 1: sell it to research labs big money. Yeah, one gram
15:16
Speaker 1: a freeze dried venom from an exotic snake is can
15:19
Speaker 1: go up to five grand, but it might take a
15:22
Speaker 1: hundred milkings to get that much. So do the math. Yeah,
15:27
Speaker 1: is it worth it, especially if you love hanging out
15:30
Speaker 1: with snakes and it's a legit job. You can make
15:33
Speaker 1: you know, bucks a month or more as a snake
15:36
Speaker 1: milker easily, depending on how many snakes you have. That's right. Um.
15:41
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of people that handle snakes,
15:45
Speaker 1: but all of them, well, I should say all of
15:47
Speaker 1: the people who professionally handle snakes have a rule of thumb,
15:50
Speaker 1: which is don't get hurt, don't be stupid, because there
15:55
Speaker 1: are two ways that snakes can typically get you Venomous
15:58
Speaker 1: snakes obviously injected venom, and that's why people milk snakes
16:03
Speaker 1: is to get that venom so that they can create
16:04
Speaker 1: anti venom um so that your life can be saved
16:08
Speaker 1: if you end up getting bit by a snake. Right, um,
16:12
Speaker 1: and venom is pretty nasty stuff. I think we did
16:14
Speaker 1: one on like what's the most poisonous animal in the world?
16:18
Speaker 1: That sounds familiar, and we talked a lot about venom,
16:22
Speaker 1: but it's worth revisiting. Basically, depending on the venom that
16:25
Speaker 1: you're injected with. It can cause tissue damage wherever it's spread.
16:30
Speaker 1: And by tissue damage, I mean just completely wipe out
16:33
Speaker 1: your tissue. And if that is blood vessels, your blood
16:36
Speaker 1: vessels bleed and you start bleeding internally. If it's a
16:38
Speaker 1: your liver or your heart, those things start bleeding internally
16:42
Speaker 1: and end up shutting down. You can have multi system,
16:45
Speaker 1: multi organ failure, paralysis, respiratory um distress, all sorts of
16:51
Speaker 1: horrible stuff. If it's on a limb or digit, you
16:54
Speaker 1: might lose that even if you get the anti venomom
16:57
Speaker 1: time exactly because it's so thoroughly destroys the issue, right,
17:00
Speaker 1: that's right. And it causes a lot of pain too.
17:03
Speaker 1: Like I was reading about the Texas coral snake, it
17:06
Speaker 1: actually has this um molecule that opens your the gates
17:12
Speaker 1: to your pain receptors and just hold them open so
17:17
Speaker 1: that you're just feeling excruciating, unremitting pain. So it's bad stuff.
17:22
Speaker 1: So you don't want to get bitten by a snake.
17:24
Speaker 1: You also don't want to mess around with constrictors either,
17:27
Speaker 1: because they will mess you up as well. Yeah, they will,
17:32
Speaker 1: I guess, wrap around you and then suffocates, you break
17:36
Speaker 1: your back, stop your heart. It's big enough. Bad news,
17:40
Speaker 1: bad news. So snakes can be dangerous is the point. Yes,
17:44
Speaker 1: but again not to feed into that anti snake I'm
17:50
Speaker 1: not trying to start a whacking no. Um. So getting
17:56
Speaker 1: back to the milkers, Oh yes, sorry, they are what's
18:00
Speaker 1: called free handlers. They don't use You would think like
18:03
Speaker 1: they should just wear anti snake gloves. Um, But you
18:08
Speaker 1: need to really feel the snake. Um. I read an
18:10
Speaker 1: interview with a guy that milked snakes for living and
18:14
Speaker 1: he's like, no, you gotta feel with your skin. The
18:18
Speaker 1: snakes are really fast, and you know you have to
18:20
Speaker 1: react and adjust to every little movement they make. And
18:24
Speaker 1: even wearing a glove, even a thin glove, I think
18:26
Speaker 1: glove wouldn't help anyway, but a chain mail glove, kevlar
18:29
Speaker 1: glove would not. You wouldn't be able to feel what's
18:32
Speaker 1: going on anyway. Incidentally, like crush the snake's head. They're
18:36
Speaker 1: not exactly made of kevlar themselves, that's true. So when
18:39
Speaker 1: you're milking a snake, when you're free handling it, you
18:42
Speaker 1: basically want to hold it the way you did behind
18:45
Speaker 1: the head, right where the jaws meet using your thumb
18:48
Speaker 1: and fore finger. Yes, that is correct, and that does
18:52
Speaker 1: two things. That keeps the head um from turning on you.
18:57
Speaker 1: And um, it puts your fingers on the in your
19:01
Speaker 1: thumb on those venom glands, which is what they you know,
19:03
Speaker 1: they just kind of massage it. Uh. You can also
19:06
Speaker 1: use electric stimulant, electrical stimulation, but the traditional way is
19:12
Speaker 1: to just just get a little squeeze and it'll milk
19:15
Speaker 1: those little glands. Right. But first, before you start squeezing,
19:18
Speaker 1: you want to basically take the fangs, the front fang.
19:21
Speaker 1: You're not like spraying her on the room into your hand.
19:25
Speaker 1: You put their fangs through a membrane on that's pulled
19:30
Speaker 1: over a jar, and then the venom just pumps out
19:33
Speaker 1: of the fangs into the jar. It's really neat looking.
19:36
Speaker 1: It is looking. It is man agreed. Uh. And they
19:41
Speaker 1: recommend that if you are milking, if you're a professional milker,
19:45
Speaker 1: you should have a little buddy with you. Okay, something
19:47
Speaker 1: goes wrong. It's not a solo job. Really, anytime you're
19:50
Speaker 1: handling a snake, there should be more than one person. Um, well,
19:56
Speaker 1: you know I didn't that should have called Emily outside.
19:58
Speaker 1: But she wouldn't let me pick up this snake. I
20:01
Speaker 1: had to keep it quiet. I think I walked up
20:03
Speaker 1: to and it's like, look at this, Yeah, I'm not mistaken. Um.
20:08
Speaker 1: And they say for constrictors, they have a little handy
20:12
Speaker 1: chart as well, for at least one person for every
20:16
Speaker 1: five feet of snake, unless it's an anaconda or reticulated
20:22
Speaker 1: python in case. In that case, you want every three
20:24
Speaker 1: feet of snake. Those are very heavy snakes. Females can
20:29
Speaker 1: get up to like two hundred pounds. Which I saw
20:34
Speaker 1: the jackass bit the other day again where um, I
20:37
Speaker 1: think it might have been in a sequel where they
20:40
Speaker 1: put it's a python or anaconda and one of those
20:44
Speaker 1: uh pits of a little red balls that kids jump
20:48
Speaker 1: in and they, you know, Johnny Knoxville and the gang
20:50
Speaker 1: get in there, and this thing bites. This huge thing
20:54
Speaker 1: bites Johnny Knoxville like two or three times. And thing's
20:59
Speaker 1: got the head the size of a baseball, and it
21:01
Speaker 1: sounds like a jackass bit. Hey, hey to Lance Bangs, Yeah,
21:06
Speaker 1: speaking of jackass. Yeah, he was one of the filmmakers
21:09
Speaker 1: behind that, and we had dinner with him in Portland,
21:12
Speaker 1: very pleasant dinner. So Hello, Lance, if you're out there listening. Um,
21:17
Speaker 1: I can't believe that they did that. Anyway, it was
21:19
Speaker 1: it was and he kept getting back in, he kept
21:21
Speaker 1: getting bit he's bleeding, and he keeps getting back in.
21:24
Speaker 1: I don't know why this isn't ringing a bell. I'm
21:26
Speaker 1: sure I've seen Jackass two a bunch of times, you know,
21:30
Speaker 1: plus Chuck. You also want somebody around any time you're
21:33
Speaker 1: handling a snake, whether it's a python or a venomu
21:35
Speaker 1: snak or any sneak, really, because you want somebody to
21:38
Speaker 1: call nine one one if something goes wrong, if you
21:41
Speaker 1: want somebody to be able to drive you to the
21:43
Speaker 1: hospital if something goes wrong, or um, if a python
21:47
Speaker 1: is trying to get around you, they can keep the
21:49
Speaker 1: tail from fully wrapping around. Um. There's a lot of
21:53
Speaker 1: stuff that an extra person can do, and things go
21:57
Speaker 1: really horribly awry when that doesn't happen. There was actually
22:00
Speaker 1: a very famous case not too many years ago of
22:03
Speaker 1: the Venezuelan zookeeper. I think it was Venezuela, wasn't it.
22:08
Speaker 1: I remember? Um? Who was I think a grad student
22:13
Speaker 1: working as a zookeeper and he or she went into
22:17
Speaker 1: a into a I guess a python's cage, a ten
22:23
Speaker 1: foot Burmese python cage alone during the night shift, and
22:29
Speaker 1: they found probably just to get something or to give
22:33
Speaker 1: it some food, just something. I'm sure it was something
22:35
Speaker 1: mundane and totally not worth losing your life over. And
22:39
Speaker 1: they found the person the next morning like half swallowed
22:42
Speaker 1: by the python. Oh my lord, Um, which is so
22:45
Speaker 1: you always want somebody around? Um? Well, should we get
22:50
Speaker 1: into the uh the religious nick handling? Yeah for sure,
22:54
Speaker 1: all right, well you said it, dude, It's called holiness
22:57
Speaker 1: serpent handling. And we actually you might think like, oh,
23:01
Speaker 1: they've done this for millennia um, or at least since
23:05
Speaker 1: you know, the seventeen eighteen hundreds. No, nope, we have
23:10
Speaker 1: a definitive start date nineteen ten in Tennessee the Dolly
23:15
Speaker 1: Pond Church of God in birch Wood, there was a
23:18
Speaker 1: preacher named George Hensley, and the legend is that he
23:22
Speaker 1: was having a faith crisis and was reading Mark from
23:28
Speaker 1: the Bible sixteen eighteen. Thou shalt take up serpents, and
23:35
Speaker 1: if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.
23:38
Speaker 1: That was a good Appalachian preacher um. And so he
23:43
Speaker 1: supposedly turned in, saw a snake there and said, I'm
23:47
Speaker 1: gonna take this quite literally. The Bible says to take
23:49
Speaker 1: up snakes, so I'm gonna pick it up. And he
23:52
Speaker 1: picked it up, and the snake didn't bite him, and
23:53
Speaker 1: he said, well, there goes my crisis of faith. That's right.
23:57
Speaker 1: And apparently George Hensley didn't start out a preacher. He
24:00
Speaker 1: started out an alcoholic who had trouble keeping work. And
24:04
Speaker 1: once this happened to him, he found his religious calling
24:07
Speaker 1: and became a preacher in the Pentecostal tradition. And he
24:11
Speaker 1: actually helped establish this separate group that's kind of within
24:16
Speaker 1: the Pentecostal religion. Um. But the Church of God of
24:20
Speaker 1: Science following is essentially the sect that he helped found. Yeah.
24:24
Speaker 1: These are subsets of subsets, subsets of Christianity. Yeah. And
24:29
Speaker 1: so Hensley's whole philosophy was you read the Bible plainly,
24:32
Speaker 1: is how he put it, which means, if it says
24:35
Speaker 1: you pick up snakes, you pick up snakes. It's God's
24:38
Speaker 1: command to you. If it says you can drink only
24:41
Speaker 1: any deadly thing and it will not harm you, you're
24:44
Speaker 1: supposed to do that. Um. All churches are independent so
24:47
Speaker 1: you decide whether women can wear pants or not at
24:50
Speaker 1: your church. Um. And it was about as simple as that,
24:54
Speaker 1: and it actually took off and became very popular throughout Appalachia.
24:59
Speaker 1: From the nine Team Tends till about the nineteen forties,
25:02
Speaker 1: there was I think thousands of people who went to
25:06
Speaker 1: these um church of God with signs following churches. Yeah,
25:09
Speaker 1: and Hinsley, for his own records, said that he survived
25:14
Speaker 1: more than four hundred bytes until nineteen fifty five. He
25:17
Speaker 1: was in Florida and an abandoned I don't know if
25:20
Speaker 1: it was abandoned, but it was a blacksmith shop and
25:22
Speaker 1: he was doing a demonstration and I guess holding a
25:27
Speaker 1: little uh religious service and um he got bitten and
25:33
Speaker 1: refused treatment because that's part of the deal is they
25:36
Speaker 1: leave it up to you. Like Coots us on an
25:39
Speaker 1: interview with him, and he said, if someone gets bitten,
25:42
Speaker 1: I call the paramedics, have them come down. And then
25:45
Speaker 1: I say, well, now you have a choice. You can
25:47
Speaker 1: either do as God commands and refuse treatment and he'll
25:52
Speaker 1: heal you if you should be healed, and if it's
25:54
Speaker 1: your time to die, it's your time to die. Or
25:56
Speaker 1: you can say I'd like treatment please, UM. But in
26:00
Speaker 1: the tradition of you know, a true believer, Hensley said, no,
26:05
Speaker 1: I don't want treatment, and he died the next morning,
26:08
Speaker 1: but he survived a bunch of other bites. Like he
26:10
Speaker 1: said says, although I lived by the snake, died by
26:14
Speaker 1: the snake is probably a pretty good UM motto. A
26:18
Speaker 1: lot of people think that UM holding a serpent handlers
26:22
Speaker 1: are either worship the snakes because they do keep them
26:26
Speaker 1: in in cages on the altar during services UM, or
26:30
Speaker 1: that they UM they're doing this as a as a
26:35
Speaker 1: show of faith to basically show, look at how how
26:38
Speaker 1: how much I believe in God. Apparently this is definitively
26:42
Speaker 1: not the case. When UM holding a serpent handlers pick
26:47
Speaker 1: up snakes and this still goes on like there are
26:50
Speaker 1: still churches throughout Appalachia, apparently from Ohio to Florida UM
26:54
Speaker 1: where hundreds, if not a few thousand people UH do
26:59
Speaker 1: this go to the services UM when they do it.
27:03
Speaker 1: They don't do it at every service necessarily, but when
27:06
Speaker 1: they do do it, it's because they believe they have
27:08
Speaker 1: just been commanded by God to show their obedience to
27:12
Speaker 1: God by picking up a serpent and handling it. And
27:16
Speaker 1: when they do it, it's apparently they just enter into
27:20
Speaker 1: um immediate religious ecstasy. Yeah, it's like they kind of
27:24
Speaker 1: jump up and down and maybe speaking tongues and sort
27:27
Speaker 1: of a trance like state. Uh. I guess we haven't
27:30
Speaker 1: even really described it. I assume most people have seen
27:32
Speaker 1: this at some point. Look up a YouTube video. Um,
27:36
Speaker 1: they're not holding the snake by the back of the head.
27:39
Speaker 1: They are literally just sometimes there are five and six
27:42
Speaker 1: snakes and they're just holding them. Man, They're kissing them
27:45
Speaker 1: on the face, they're rubbing them on their face. They
27:46
Speaker 1: wear them like crowns. They'll throw them over their shoulders. Um, yeah,
27:52
Speaker 1: they're they're The big difference between religious snake handlers and
27:55
Speaker 1: professional snake handlers is that religious snake handlers go to
27:59
Speaker 1: zero zero degree to establish any kind of safety precautions.
28:06
Speaker 1: That's entirely uh ant athetical to the point. Yeah, they
28:09
Speaker 1: don't have anti venom shots standing by in a medical kit.
28:12
Speaker 1: No they don't. That's one. There's a hundred things that
28:16
Speaker 1: are different. But sure, I know what you mean. And
28:18
Speaker 1: so this whole thing was very popular, um among the
28:23
Speaker 1: Appalachians for a good twenty thirty years and then the
28:28
Speaker 1: forties there was a rash of people who died after
28:31
Speaker 1: being bitten, and all of a sudden, the outside world
28:33
Speaker 1: started to look in and say, what are you guys doing?
28:37
Speaker 1: And the authorities were like, well, we don't think you
28:39
Speaker 1: should be able to do that. I started to try
28:41
Speaker 1: to pass laws, but none of them. There actually are
28:44
Speaker 1: laws that and indirectly prevent people from doing this, and
28:49
Speaker 1: there's actually some that directly prevent them, I guess in
28:53
Speaker 1: every Appalachian state except for West Virginia, but they're very
28:57
Speaker 1: rarely enforced because of religious liberties, right, yeah, religious freedoms. Yeah. Um,
29:03
Speaker 1: there have been some raids, uh, notably actually Coots Place.
29:07
Speaker 1: Coots Place sounds like a sitcom hanging with Mr Coot.
29:12
Speaker 1: Coots Church was rated as a part of a series
29:15
Speaker 1: of stings in two thousand eight under the code name
29:18
Speaker 1: twice Shy. Really yeah, you're kidding me that they did there?
29:23
Speaker 1: Um in one church they confiscated a d twenty five
29:26
Speaker 1: snakes and may ten arrest and then it coots Um Church.
29:31
Speaker 1: I think they got about seventy five snakes and arrested
29:33
Speaker 1: a few others including him. But um, I don't think
29:37
Speaker 1: they stay in jail very long. Um, I can't imagine
29:40
Speaker 1: what the penalty is. Well, the grand juries typically refused
29:44
Speaker 1: to indict them. Oh really, they just say they might
29:46
Speaker 1: be charged with him, they might be haulled to jail,
29:48
Speaker 1: but they there's no indictment that's handed down, so they
29:51
Speaker 1: don't go to trial. But they confiscate the snakes at least. Yeah,
29:53
Speaker 1: usually because Um, in Tennessee, for example, it's illegal to
29:58
Speaker 1: keep venomous snakes, and snakes that they're using are very venomous.
30:02
Speaker 1: Their deadly cotton mouths, rattlesnakes, um, all sorts of very deadly,
30:08
Speaker 1: venomous snakes. So they're breaking the law just by having
30:11
Speaker 1: the snakes. But again, um, they're typically left alone as
30:15
Speaker 1: far as the courts are concerned. And the reason why
30:19
Speaker 1: you're saying at the beginning of this episode, that's hard
30:21
Speaker 1: to not just be like stop. Um, I think the
30:26
Speaker 1: reason why I don't have that much trouble with this
30:28
Speaker 1: I came to see it differently after doing research on it.
30:33
Speaker 1: There they have more a's involved with this stuff, so
30:39
Speaker 1: more eels more. No. I thought they handled those two
30:43
Speaker 1: because never require like an aquarium and nobody wants that. Um,
30:47
Speaker 1: they they have just kind of rules around the whole
30:50
Speaker 1: thing where you don't go handle a serpent unless you
30:54
Speaker 1: feel like you have been commanded by God to go
30:56
Speaker 1: do that right then, and you're you're imbued with the
31:00
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit which is protecting you, right then, there's no
31:03
Speaker 1: pressure whatsoever to go do that. There's actually um discouragement
31:08
Speaker 1: to do it for any kind of show of faith
31:11
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Um and then children are are
31:14
Speaker 1: banned from doing it. They're not allowed to handle the
31:16
Speaker 1: snakes were fine with it, Yeah, in the same way
31:20
Speaker 1: that like, you're free to walk into traffic if you want.
31:24
Speaker 1: I find it even less harmful than that, because you're
31:27
Speaker 1: endangering the other driver's life. If your hand you're walking
31:30
Speaker 1: into traffic, somebody might steer into somebody else to get
31:33
Speaker 1: around you. This is you and a snake. Yeah, I
31:36
Speaker 1: do have issues with how the snakes are treated. Well,
31:39
Speaker 1: that's one of my other big problems. So let's we'll
31:41
Speaker 1: we'll get into that. We gotta take a break. Okay, Chuck,
32:03
Speaker 1: we're back. What's the problem. What's your beef? Well, over
32:09
Speaker 1: the years, let's get into some numbers, um and and
32:12
Speaker 1: about a hundred years, they estimate about a hundred people
32:16
Speaker 1: have died from doing it. And if you look at
32:20
Speaker 1: the numbers and the number of people handling snakes, it's, uh,
32:24
Speaker 1: you think there'll be a lot more people dying from
32:26
Speaker 1: snake bites. Pretty pretty surprising, especially considering that most of
32:30
Speaker 1: them do refuse medical treatment after being bitten. They still recover. Correct,
32:36
Speaker 1: that is unusual, it's remarkable, it is uh. MPR did
32:40
Speaker 1: a story on this in two thousand and some snake experts,
32:44
Speaker 1: herpetologists started coming out of the woodwork, specifically the Kentucky Reptiles,
32:48
Speaker 1: who has been sort of investigating this on their own
32:51
Speaker 1: for years, and they said, you know what, there's a
32:54
Speaker 1: lot of things going on here. Um that it's sort
32:57
Speaker 1: of a rigging of the stacking of the deck. Stacking
33:01
Speaker 1: of the deck and the humans favor. For one, these
33:04
Speaker 1: snakes are mistreated, which is one reason I have a
33:07
Speaker 1: problem with it. By all accounts from their investigations, they
33:11
Speaker 1: saw crowded cages, they were dirty, There was no fecal
33:15
Speaker 1: matter in the cage, which looked like they weren't being fed. Uh.
33:18
Speaker 1: They asked Coots about that and he said, well, I,
33:22
Speaker 1: um my, my my rat connection went away, rat hook,
33:27
Speaker 1: my my mouse and rat hook up disappeared on me,
33:32
Speaker 1: and he says, besides they won't eat. Uh, they won't
33:35
Speaker 1: eat anyway, I think was his quote, which I don't
33:39
Speaker 1: understand what that means, because snakes eat, they want to eat.
33:42
Speaker 1: That sounds like something someone says when they're like pulling
33:44
Speaker 1: their collar away from them. Uh. And he said as
33:48
Speaker 1: they asked him how long is snakes lived, and he
33:49
Speaker 1: said on average three or four months. The reptiles Zoo
33:54
Speaker 1: and Kentucky said snake should lived in it's twenty years. Wow,
33:57
Speaker 1: he said, they live on average two or four months. Yeah,
34:00
Speaker 1: they're being mistreated. So because of this mistreatment, these hungry snakes.
34:04
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things that happen once you have
34:06
Speaker 1: a hungry snake, and one is they are less likely
34:10
Speaker 1: to strike if they're unhealthy. Yeah. What else, when they
34:13
Speaker 1: do strike, they're less likely to inject venom, So it's
34:16
Speaker 1: gonna be it's likelier to be a dry strike, I think,
34:20
Speaker 1: or dry strikes. But that's just under normal circumstances. Really,
34:24
Speaker 1: if it's if it's a malnourished and less fed or
34:27
Speaker 1: um underwatered snake, it's probably even higher. Higher incidents of
34:33
Speaker 1: dry strikes than that. Okay, the venom apparently isn't as
34:37
Speaker 1: potent if it's an unhealthy snake. Um. In two thousand thirteen,
34:43
Speaker 1: they rated a church in Tennessee. I think that's Andrew
34:46
Speaker 1: Hamblin's like you were talking about. Yeah, I think I
34:48
Speaker 1: may have said as his first name incorrectly before, but yeah,
34:52
Speaker 1: that's who I was talking about. Uh. And they confiscated
34:55
Speaker 1: fifty three snakes that most of them died within months.
34:58
Speaker 1: They were all unhealthy. And so basically you've got these
35:02
Speaker 1: malnourished snakes that you know, even when they do get bitten,
35:06
Speaker 1: they're maybe even not getting any venom or less potent venom. Right,
35:10
Speaker 1: So it's yeah, it's rigged in a certain way. Plus
35:13
Speaker 1: also this article points out, um it was a Julia
35:16
Speaker 1: Layton joint. She points out that it's also possible that
35:20
Speaker 1: those of us here on the outside, and maybe even
35:22
Speaker 1: the holiness serpent handlers, overestimate just how aggressive snakes actually
35:27
Speaker 1: are by nature. Yeah, like you were saying, if you're
35:30
Speaker 1: handling them gently, they're not gonna strike you if they
35:34
Speaker 1: especially if they don't feel threatened. If there's like, oh,
35:37
Speaker 1: that's just a religious person right there, and they're in
35:40
Speaker 1: the throes of religious ecstasy. I'll just ride it out.
35:43
Speaker 1: I've been wanting to be gently shaped for a while,
35:47
Speaker 1: so let's see where this goes. Plus a lot of
35:50
Speaker 1: these snakes are raised in captivity, and snake experts will
35:54
Speaker 1: tell you if you raise a snake in captivity, it's
35:56
Speaker 1: less likely to strike at you because they don't fear
35:59
Speaker 1: you as they should. Right. Plus, snakes don't typically speaking
36:05
Speaker 1: from an evolutionary standpoint, it doesn't make any sense for
36:07
Speaker 1: a snake to be like, yeah, I'm gonna strike you
36:10
Speaker 1: thing that is way bigger than I am that I
36:13
Speaker 1: don't prey upon. Naturally, I'm going to deliver all of
36:15
Speaker 1: my venom because the venom they need it to actually eat,
36:19
Speaker 1: they need it for prey. Right, And a snake wouldn't
36:24
Speaker 1: know this, but natural selection would have figured it out
36:26
Speaker 1: by now that if a snake is striking something like
36:28
Speaker 1: a hippo that's coming at it and delivers all of
36:30
Speaker 1: its venom um, that hippo is still going to stomp
36:34
Speaker 1: the snake before the venom actually has any effect on it. Yeah,
36:37
Speaker 1: and you've lost all your venom, and to you know,
36:40
Speaker 1: you can regenerate it. But you know, it's not like immediate, right,
36:44
Speaker 1: So it doesn't in a in an evolutionary natural selection standpoint,
36:49
Speaker 1: it doesn't really make sense for a snake to strike
36:51
Speaker 1: and deliver a full venom fight, correct, right. Yeah, So
36:56
Speaker 1: you have all this stuff together and suddenly the street
37:00
Speaker 1: of snake handling still is. It becomes a little clear.
37:04
Speaker 1: It makes a little more sense how people are surviving,
37:07
Speaker 1: but it's still remarkable that they aren't. They that more
37:11
Speaker 1: people don't die considering how often these snakes are handled. Yeah,
37:15
Speaker 1: and if you if you look at interviews with Coots
37:17
Speaker 1: on the YouTube, he'll he'll pick up his uh chunk
37:23
Speaker 1: of rotted finger that he keeps and show you. He'll say,
37:28
Speaker 1: look this. You know, my wife had to cut it
37:30
Speaker 1: off at the mid knuckle with rose pruners. That was
37:33
Speaker 1: a different guy. That was Bill Host. Well, no Coots,
37:36
Speaker 1: it happened to him too. Oh really rose pruners again. Yeah.
37:39
Speaker 1: Like he literally held up his finger and showed it
37:41
Speaker 1: to the lady on CNN. She was like, yeah, like
37:44
Speaker 1: you kept that thing. Yeah, well, Bill Host's wife cut
37:46
Speaker 1: his off with rose pruners. I think digits falling off
37:49
Speaker 1: as the snake handler is pretty common. I don't think
37:51
Speaker 1: it's like, no, that was that one guy. Um, so yeah,
37:56
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, there you go. I'm against
37:58
Speaker 1: it because they're mistreating snakes. Yeah, I have that. That's
38:01
Speaker 1: my issue with it too, And so it's other than that.
38:04
Speaker 1: I'm like, you want to do it, it's your thing. Yeah,
38:08
Speaker 1: it's just one of those rare instances where you are again,
38:11
Speaker 1: aside from the treatment of the snake, you're not harming
38:15
Speaker 1: anybody but yourself. Yeah, there's almost no other instance that's
38:20
Speaker 1: just like that, you know what I mean. I guess
38:23
Speaker 1: I'm getting to be a libertarian. So let's talk about
38:28
Speaker 1: Bill host Man, because that guy deserves maybe even his
38:31
Speaker 1: own podcast one day. Yeah, this dude is something else. Um, well,
38:36
Speaker 1: where do you start with him? He was well as
38:39
Speaker 1: a kid, he had a dream. Two. He was always
38:44
Speaker 1: obsessed with snakes, and he had a dream to one
38:46
Speaker 1: day have a a snakehouse open to the public where
38:50
Speaker 1: he could educate people. And he was an educator. He
38:53
Speaker 1: wasn't He wasn't a religious snake handler. We should point
38:55
Speaker 1: that out up front. He was a self trained scientist. Yeah,
38:58
Speaker 1: for sure. It's a good way to say it. Thank
39:01
Speaker 1: you so little kid has a dream and he grows
39:04
Speaker 1: up and makes that dream a reality and really believed,
39:08
Speaker 1: like really believed in his heart and and through experimentation,
39:13
Speaker 1: that snake venom could be very beneficial to a human. Yeah,
39:17
Speaker 1: he was actually um after the Miami Serpentarium, which is
39:22
Speaker 1: his famous place that he opened, was in full swing
39:25
Speaker 1: by this By the late seventies, he was in clinical
39:28
Speaker 1: trials using snake venom to help cure things like Parkinson's
39:33
Speaker 1: in multiple sclerosis with a doctor and the FDA actually
39:37
Speaker 1: came in and shut them down because they were they
39:39
Speaker 1: were basically doing human experimentation that was unsanctioned, but we
39:44
Speaker 1: were seeing results from what I understand. Yeah, apparently he
39:47
Speaker 1: was seeing results with his polio work earlier when Jonah
39:50
Speaker 1: Saulk invented the vaccine, and he was like, man, I
39:54
Speaker 1: guess it's great that it's cured, but I wish it
39:56
Speaker 1: could have been mean snakes. So this dude started self immunizing.
40:00
Speaker 1: In He injected one part cape cobra venom with one
40:05
Speaker 1: thousand parts sailine solution into his forearm and started gradually
40:12
Speaker 1: increasing the amount of venom he would inject into his
40:14
Speaker 1: own body, and within a couple of decades he was
40:17
Speaker 1: injecting every day a cocktail of thirty two different snakes
40:22
Speaker 1: and reptile's venoms, which is a process called mythrid it
40:25
Speaker 1: mythrid it ism. Yeah, methrid it is, methrid it issm
40:30
Speaker 1: methrid Ityse was this famous um I can't remember. He
40:34
Speaker 1: was an ancient king and he developed a tolerance to
40:38
Speaker 1: poison because he was so afraid of being poisoned. So
40:40
Speaker 1: he would drink a little bit, right, and this is
40:43
Speaker 1: it's so now anybody who does it, it's it's methrid
40:46
Speaker 1: it ism, And that's what he was doing. So he
40:48
Speaker 1: actually did this for such a long time that his
40:52
Speaker 1: blood itself became anti venom, and it actually saved twenty
40:58
Speaker 1: one people's lives. Yeah, he would he would draw pints
41:01
Speaker 1: of blood from his body to keep on hand, and
41:04
Speaker 1: he literally several times flew all around the world with
41:07
Speaker 1: his blood to give it to people to save them. Yeah.
41:09
Speaker 1: And apparently, and I think nine he was bit by
41:14
Speaker 1: a Pakistani pit viper and he didn't have any anti
41:17
Speaker 1: venom and the White House used back channels to get
41:20
Speaker 1: their hands on some from Ron heard about and saved
41:23
Speaker 1: his life. Yeah, pretty pretty neat stuff. Uh he um.
41:28
Speaker 1: He has this famous quote, I could become a poster
41:30
Speaker 1: boy for the benefits of venom if I lived to
41:32
Speaker 1: be one hundred I'll really make the point. And he
41:35
Speaker 1: lived to be one hundred one years old with snake
41:38
Speaker 1: venom pumping through his blood all day long. Yeah. And
41:41
Speaker 1: there's a really neat um discussion about this guy in
41:44
Speaker 1: a larger article called the Mathridityes of Fondue lock Um.
41:48
Speaker 1: I can't remember the guy who wrote it. It's a
41:51
Speaker 1: really great article tweeted out or something, um, but it
41:54
Speaker 1: has some some stuff about Bell Hasten it. But it's
41:57
Speaker 1: also about this other dude named Kim Freed who in
42:02
Speaker 1: the article he takes four venomous snake bites in forty
42:07
Speaker 1: eight hours, although the whole things about whether or not
42:09
Speaker 1: he can live through five. But he's been doing the
42:11
Speaker 1: same thing. Yeah. So the Serpentarium in Miami closed in
42:19
Speaker 1: four because and I saw that the accident was in
42:22
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, so I'm not sure why it took
42:25
Speaker 1: seven years to uh to close. But a six year
42:29
Speaker 1: old boy had crocodiles and other stuff right at the place.
42:32
Speaker 1: Six year old boy fell into the croc pit and
42:34
Speaker 1: was mauled, and it really, uh obviously disturbed Bill because
42:40
Speaker 1: he wasn't a bad guy. He wasn't you know. He
42:42
Speaker 1: tore him up and he shot this crocodile nine times
42:46
Speaker 1: with the lugar pistol um, and I guess seven years later,
42:52
Speaker 1: decided to close it. Apparently the dad didn't blame Bill,
42:57
Speaker 1: which is remarkable for the accident, which I just thought
43:01
Speaker 1: was strange. If he took safety precautions and the kid
43:08
Speaker 1: went around him, then yeah, maybe, so it's not that
43:10
Speaker 1: dude's fault. Either way, it's horrible and tragic. Yeah, and
43:15
Speaker 1: he he ended up closing the serpentarium as a result
43:17
Speaker 1: of it, although I didn't realize it was seven years
43:20
Speaker 1: later too. But he kept his um milking operation going.
43:24
Speaker 1: That's right in his own self injection routine, and he did.
43:28
Speaker 1: He flew to Venezuela once into the Amazon to deliver
43:32
Speaker 1: some of his own blood to save a boy's life,
43:34
Speaker 1: and he was made an honorary citizen of Venezuela as
43:36
Speaker 1: a result. That is so cool, Yeah, pretty amazing. He
43:40
Speaker 1: claims he had never been sick a day in his life,
43:43
Speaker 1: didn't take never had the cold, never had the flu
43:46
Speaker 1: didn't take aspirin um. In this article that you sent
43:49
Speaker 1: says he was unusually youthful looking. I don't know. I
43:53
Speaker 1: looked at pictures he I don't know if he looked
43:55
Speaker 1: a hundred, but I don't know about unusually youthful looking. Right,
44:00
Speaker 1: Maybe so he had a glow about him, Yeah, glow
44:03
Speaker 1: from venom. I'm gonna start shooting that stuff, I guess.
44:06
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, No, I'm gonna stay away from it and
44:10
Speaker 1: just be fascinated by the whole concept. Alrighty did anything else?
44:16
Speaker 1: I got nothing else? I don't either. If you want
44:18
Speaker 1: to know more about snake handling, you can type those
44:20
Speaker 1: words in the search bar how stuff works dot com.
44:22
Speaker 1: And since I said that, it's time for oh, you
44:25
Speaker 1: know what, it's time for Facebook questions. All right. So
44:31
Speaker 1: what we do here, uh is when listener males have
44:35
Speaker 1: dried up a little bit, we put it out to
44:38
Speaker 1: the people on Facebook to send in questions and we'll
44:40
Speaker 1: answer over the next two episodes as many as we
44:43
Speaker 1: can that aren't dumb. And it's sort of a rapid
44:47
Speaker 1: fire thing starting now. I'm like Billy on the street.
44:53
Speaker 1: Who Billy on the street. Billy Eigner no great TV show.
44:59
Speaker 1: Oh go yeah, yeah, yeah, I haven't seen it, but
45:02
Speaker 1: I'm aware of it. It's wonderful. Let's start with Griggs Dorkin,
45:06
Speaker 1: Good old Griggs Doorkin. Yes. He says, if you woke
45:09
Speaker 1: up to find that you would replace the character in
45:11
Speaker 1: a movie, you know, well, what movie and character would
45:14
Speaker 1: it be? And how would you handle the circumstances differently?
45:17
Speaker 1: Answer is a really good question. I feel like Josh
45:19
Speaker 1: has probably had an answer to this for years. For
45:24
Speaker 1: the Shining wink Emoticon. You spell out wink emoticon or
45:29
Speaker 1: did it just print out like that? I don't know.
45:31
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but no, he's spelled it out. I
45:34
Speaker 1: had my answered easy, John Rambo, And what would you
45:37
Speaker 1: do differently? Would you just immediately surrender? I would have.
45:41
Speaker 1: In the very beginning of First Blood when he drives
45:44
Speaker 1: him across the bridge and says keep going that way,
45:46
Speaker 1: I would have just kept going that way instead of
45:47
Speaker 1: turning around and going back into the town the end,
45:50
Speaker 1: John Rambo, that would be a boring movie. Well, it
45:53
Speaker 1: would be very short to be a short gun, John Rambo. Hitchhiker,
45:58
Speaker 1: that's a good one. Yeah, what about you, I'll have
46:00
Speaker 1: to think about that, all right, And hey Storkin, we'll
46:03
Speaker 1: see in Denver, buddy, all right, smile emoticon. This is
46:07
Speaker 1: from Jamie Whittaker. H Josh always refers to his favorite book. Josh,
46:13
Speaker 1: you want to say it, Foe, that's right, but I'm
46:16
Speaker 1: usually driving and I never take it down. I can't remember,
46:18
Speaker 1: so he says it's eighteen something. It's not right, Chuck,
46:24
Speaker 1: what is your number one recommendation? Um? I don't know
46:27
Speaker 1: if I have a favorite book, but I always recommend
46:30
Speaker 1: the book middle Sex, just because it's one of the
46:34
Speaker 1: great books that I've read. Jeffrey Eugene, I think that's right.
46:42
Speaker 1: He wrote. Uh, well, he's written a lot of great books,
46:44
Speaker 1: but Middlesex is wonderful, so great, great all around book. Yep, Okay,
46:48
Speaker 1: nice one man. Uh, let's see. Trey mclamb has a
46:54
Speaker 1: great question, how different would our health be if we
46:57
Speaker 1: could sleep every day until we wake up? Natural? Really is,
47:00
Speaker 1: if alarm clocks were never invented. I would guess we'd
47:03
Speaker 1: all be a lot more mellow. We get less done, sure,
47:07
Speaker 1: but we'd be more mellow like our five day weekend.
47:11
Speaker 1: Remember that episode. I do I think that kind of
47:14
Speaker 1: dovetails with that quite a bit, just kind of doing
47:17
Speaker 1: what you do. There's your answer, good one. I don't
47:22
Speaker 1: know about that. There's a good question. Terrible answer. Uh,
47:26
Speaker 1: Sam Horne, you've been dropping hintsive late about live shows overseas.
47:29
Speaker 1: Would love to see you in the UK. We have
47:31
Speaker 1: loads of stuff you should now terrible, Uh Sam. We're
47:36
Speaker 1: hoping to come to the UK this summer. We're working
47:39
Speaker 1: on it hard. We're working on it. It may or
47:41
Speaker 1: may not pan out because planning shows overseas is uh
47:45
Speaker 1: you know, can be challenging. Yeah, you have to take
47:47
Speaker 1: a citizenship test. Did you know that? I didn't know that.
47:51
Speaker 1: It's weird. So we're trying and listen up for updates
47:54
Speaker 1: on that front. Okay, let's see. Uh. Just Riddell says,
48:01
Speaker 1: I listened to your color podcast Color with a You,
48:04
Speaker 1: and Chuck mentioned he might have a color deficiency. I'd
48:07
Speaker 1: like to hear a podcast about color blindness and color deficiencies.
48:11
Speaker 1: Please smile emoticon. I think people are putting this in.
48:15
Speaker 1: It's typing it out when in print it's got to
48:17
Speaker 1: be maybe what's the question that wasn't a question? All
48:19
Speaker 1: was a nope? Okay and good one. Uh, chuck. Well,
48:25
Speaker 1: they say, Josh diego Leal, how's the property squatting coming along?
48:30
Speaker 1: That was me, Um, I haven't heard anything from a
48:33
Speaker 1: few years. Uh, and I have anything about Hippie Rob.
48:36
Speaker 1: I'm still squatting everybody. It's working out great. Uh And
48:40
Speaker 1: as far as we know, UM, we don't own the
48:43
Speaker 1: property yet, but we think the county might. And there's
48:46
Speaker 1: really I don't think we're in any danger of losing
48:48
Speaker 1: it anytime soon. It's not your next door neighbor, back
48:52
Speaker 1: back neighbor, now behind neighbor, whatever. So yeah, the county.
48:57
Speaker 1: I don't know if you'll ever be able to own
48:59
Speaker 1: it then, even through adverse possession, maybe not. But I
49:02
Speaker 1: don't think there's anything that can do with it. It's
49:03
Speaker 1: such a small strip, so I think we're good. Are
49:06
Speaker 1: they gonna start parking like a tar truck back there,
49:10
Speaker 1: County Lan? What about Hippie Rob? Any updates are John
49:13
Speaker 1: should be Rob will forever live forever in the ether? Uh?
49:17
Speaker 1: Claire Doll Dolby to Alby Dolby, I'd say Dolby too. Normally,
49:24
Speaker 1: h if you could revisit an episode and do it
49:26
Speaker 1: differently slash better, which one the Sun not a bad idea,
49:31
Speaker 1: then I would definitely like another track. Um, every once
49:37
Speaker 1: in a while, I can't think of him. I mean
49:39
Speaker 1: we've done like eight hundred plus episodes. Every once in
49:42
Speaker 1: a while, I will leave here and I say it
49:45
Speaker 1: every time I feel that way, I'll be like that
49:48
Speaker 1: one just wasn't as good because it could have been.
49:51
Speaker 1: And it's always something that's like really important, Like the
49:54
Speaker 1: topic is really important to me, so I'll like overthink
49:57
Speaker 1: it and it always pans out fine. But I can't.
50:00
Speaker 1: I can't think of any that I would just like
50:03
Speaker 1: to go back and do over again. Yeah, my thoughts.
50:06
Speaker 1: You just kind of let you know, even if I'm
50:07
Speaker 1: a little disappointed, it is what it is. Yeah, that's
50:11
Speaker 1: a philosophy, you know, I guess it is. It's a
50:14
Speaker 1: boring philosophy. Um, Dan Floyd, are we ever going to
50:20
Speaker 1: get a how Jerry works episode? Nope. Jerry doesn't want
50:25
Speaker 1: people to know how she works. She operates in stealth
50:27
Speaker 1: and secret. Yeah, the c I A and she may
50:31
Speaker 1: or may not exist. Uh. Larry Tiffany says, what evidence
50:35
Speaker 1: would we see if the flood epic of Noah's Ark
50:37
Speaker 1: We're indeed true? Well, Larry, we've got something for you, buddy.
50:41
Speaker 1: It's a whole episode on Noah's Ark in the Flood.
50:44
Speaker 1: That's pretty pretty good one, if I remember correctly, I
50:47
Speaker 1: have no recollection. That's a good one. Okay, how about
50:51
Speaker 1: one more reach Luke Vissering, have you ever been told
50:54
Speaker 1: the topic is off limits? No, we have not. That
50:58
Speaker 1: we are lucky and that we are free to program
51:01
Speaker 1: our own content, and are all the various bosses and
51:07
Speaker 1: company owners we've had over the years, I've always steered
51:10
Speaker 1: clear of that, which were very thankful for. Yeah, we
51:13
Speaker 1: self regulated. One more. Josh Robinson asks Josh and Chuck,
51:18
Speaker 1: why do you hate the nineties? Why do you hate
51:20
Speaker 1: my childhood? Will the nineties? I'm yeah, I think the
51:26
Speaker 1: nineties were like okay, I just don't think that they were.
51:30
Speaker 1: I don't think they produced that much great stuff. Everything
51:33
Speaker 1: just had this kind of superficialness to it. I felt like, boy,
51:37
Speaker 1: I love the nineties. The nineties was my twenties in
51:39
Speaker 1: my college then beloved very much to me, and things
51:43
Speaker 1: were great in the nineties in a lot of ways.
51:46
Speaker 1: Are you nostalgizing right now? No, though we had a
51:51
Speaker 1: ban on that. No, I love the nineties, great great music,
51:57
Speaker 1: great culture. See I think the music things where I
52:00
Speaker 1: have the issue. I wouldn't say it was great great music.
52:03
Speaker 1: There was some good music. I don't dispute that, but
52:07
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of really bad music. That's
52:10
Speaker 1: every generation, not necessarily. I knew you're going to say that,
52:13
Speaker 1: and I was prepared to respond, and it is as follows.
52:16
Speaker 1: Look at the eighties, right, A lot of bad music,
52:18
Speaker 1: a lot of great music, but there was a lot
52:22
Speaker 1: more good listenable music, Like think of all the one
52:27
Speaker 1: hit wonders in the eighties. There were a lot a
52:30
Speaker 1: lot of singles that were pretty good and listenable even
52:33
Speaker 1: at the time, not just in retrospect. In the nineties,
52:37
Speaker 1: there was a lot a lot of stuff on the
52:39
Speaker 1: radio was awful. Yeah, yeah, like Nirvana and stuff like that. No,
52:45
Speaker 1: I mean again, there was some like good stuff, and
52:47
Speaker 1: there were plenty of good bands, but for the most part,
52:50
Speaker 1: it felt like there was just a lot of really
52:52
Speaker 1: bad stuff too. I'll go back to the spin doctors again.
52:55
Speaker 1: I think that is the emblem of nine the nineties. Yeah,
53:01
Speaker 1: spin doctors. They were huge for a little while, and
53:05
Speaker 1: then I think that also carried into the early two
53:07
Speaker 1: thousand's with with a lot of the terrible nous to interest,
53:11
Speaker 1: and it's like there just seemed to be And I
53:13
Speaker 1: know the eighties were super vapid, very shallow, but almost
53:17
Speaker 1: to a cartoonish degree. The nineties were unaware of its superficiality.
53:23
Speaker 1: It felt like like it was trying really hard to
53:26
Speaker 1: not be superficial, but it was failing at it. I
53:30
Speaker 1: think I reject the notion that a lot of one
53:32
Speaker 1: hit wonders equals good, not good better. I got three
53:38
Speaker 1: words for you walking on Sunshine. That was Katrine in
53:42
Speaker 1: the way, So it was wrong that, Well, maybe we
53:44
Speaker 1: just have different tastes. Maybe, so sorry, let's end this now.
53:47
Speaker 1: And don't it feel good? Yeah? Yes it does, Chuck.
53:52
Speaker 1: So that was Facebook Questions Part one. Part one I
53:55
Speaker 1: was sales, Never do that again. If you want to
53:59
Speaker 1: get in touch of this, you can join us on Facebook,
54:01
Speaker 1: dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. We're also on
54:03
Speaker 1: Twitter at s y s K podcast. You can send
54:05
Speaker 1: us an email to stuff Podcast at house stuff Works
54:08
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54:10
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54:14
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54:17
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