Latest / Drawn of History / Steven Rinella Talks About His Trips to Africa(M4A_128K)

Transcript

Steven Rinella Talks About His Trips to Africa(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: When I went to Africa, right, so I went there
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: like a couple times for some different safaris and stuff
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: like that. I felt like some of the people, when
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: you look in their eyes there, it goes further back
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: in time. Does that make any sense to you at all?
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  Speaker 2: I think that it may have, but I believe that
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  Speaker 2: that would be your— Perception of that? That would be
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: your perception.
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  Speaker 1: Right. Dude, I talked to this one guy, and I
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: was like, this guy, he's just goddamn just— just back
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  Speaker 1: through i mean it just felt like it went back
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  Speaker 1: to the like just to where the fingers of existence
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  Speaker 1: first snapped right there at the damn sound you've gone
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: hunting in africa i.
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  Speaker 2: Did for the first time ever this summer.
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  Speaker 1: You did did you enjoy it were you like i
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  Speaker 1: i i were you life-changing experience like in what way i.
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  Speaker 2: Hadn't been to that i hadn't been to that continent
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  Speaker 2: it wasn't like the going hunting there was life changing,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: but one of the things I like about hunting is
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  Speaker 2: it immerses you and it immerses you in a situation
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  Speaker 2: and immerses you in an environment in a deeper way
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  Speaker 2: than you would be immersed otherwise. Cause you're doing something
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  Speaker 2: very like very ancient and base, you know? So it
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  Speaker 2: wasn't the experience of being there hunting, but just the,
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  Speaker 2: I hadn't been, that was like, I hadn't visited that continent.
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  Speaker 2: And so I got to go to a couple of
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  Speaker 2: places and it was just, it just scrambled up my head.
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  Speaker 2: about when you see different ways of living. So in
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  Speaker 2: that way, it was profound. To me, it was profound.
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  Speaker 1: Did you guys visit some innate cultures there and stuff
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  Speaker 1: like that?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, like some really ancient cultures. I spent a little
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: bit of time in this place called Maasai Land. Met
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  Speaker 2: Maasai dudes that are herders. They'll live in structures they
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  Speaker 2: make themselves from native material and herd cattle and been
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  Speaker 2: herding cattle since then. from our perspective, since the beginning
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: of time on this place.
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  Speaker 1: Did it feel like traveling back in time a little bit?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it did for me, for sure. Just like those
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  Speaker 2: glimpses into cultures that have remained relative to our own
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  Speaker 2: that have remained very constant. Here's some photos of Maasai folks.
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  Speaker 2: That was very eye-opening.
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  Speaker 1: The dark Amish right there.
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  Speaker 2: Being out, they're herders.
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  Speaker 1: Beautiful.
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  Speaker 2: Dude, stunning. Stunning.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think they have such a different relationship with
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  Speaker 1: existence than we do?
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  Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, me too. The kids bust their ass. They'll
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  Speaker 2: send little kids out. When they'll send their kids out
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  Speaker 2: to watch the goat herds, man, those kids don't drink
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  Speaker 2: water and eat until they come home at night. they,
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  Speaker 2: they raise them to be tough, tough, tough. You kick
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  Speaker 2: it more as a grownup, like kids will work real hard,
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  Speaker 2: you know? And as you get older, you get, you
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: kind of get more of like, you get to kick
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  Speaker 2: it a little bit more, but when you're a kid,
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  Speaker 2: you bust ass. Um, that was fascinating. A lot about
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: it was fascinating. And I also liked like the animals,
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  Speaker 2: a thing that I've been, there's a thing that I've
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  Speaker 2: like lamented in, in, in, in conversations with my friends
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  Speaker 2: and my writing and all kinds of things. I've, I often,
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  Speaker 2: I spent a lot of time thinking about studying, talking
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  Speaker 2: about writing about, uh, ice age America. So our continent,
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  Speaker 2: what it was like in the, at the, the, the place,
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  Speaker 2: the scene, whole the scene trans transition. So like humans
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  Speaker 2: that were here during the tail end of the ice age,
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  Speaker 2: the first people that came here, what was their, what
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  Speaker 2: were their lives like? Um, and they lived amongst this,
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  Speaker 2: this great abundance of, And diversity of wildlife that we
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  Speaker 2: don't have now. Yeah. Mammoths, mastodons, short-faced bears, right? All
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: this kind of shit. They had a giant, like a
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  Speaker 2: beaver that was the size of a black bear. There
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  Speaker 2: was an American lion.
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  Speaker 1: Fuck, man.
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  Speaker 2: We got a bunch of shit.
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  Speaker 1: There was like multiple. Aftermarket shit.
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  Speaker 2: But we don't have shit. So going there, like that
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  Speaker 2: was the one continent. That was the one continent where
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  Speaker 2: all the big shit didn't vanish.
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  Speaker 1: We got fucking Bichons.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. that's the Africa is the one continent where humans
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  Speaker 2: and all this mega fauna.
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  Speaker 1: Never changed.
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  Speaker 2: They, for whatever reason, it's the one continent where all
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  Speaker 2: the big shit didn't vanish. So you still have that
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  Speaker 2: great diversity of wildlife. So you can sit in the
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  Speaker 2: U S like if you're a guy like me, who's
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  Speaker 2: a really interesting history, you can sit in the U
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  Speaker 2: S and lament that our elephants are gone. Like we
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  Speaker 2: don't have like nine, 10, 11, 12, species of ungulates
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  Speaker 2: running around at any given time antelopes yeah like whatever
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  Speaker 2: but you go to after you're like oh that that's
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  Speaker 2: what they were talking about like the ice age yeah
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  Speaker 2: like the ice age is alive and well like there
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  Speaker 2: is an elephant there's a hippo there's stuff that weighs
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  Speaker 2: thousands of pounds like thousands of pounds there's stuff that
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  Speaker 2: weighs tons you know and so it it didn't What
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  Speaker 2: happened everywhere else didn't happen there. So that was to
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  Speaker 2: go like, oh, it's not gone. It's somewhere else. But
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  Speaker 2: you can go and be like, this is what it
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  Speaker 2: would be like. I wrote down a list. I kept
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  Speaker 2: a list on my notes function in my phone. I
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  Speaker 2: kept a list of like large mammals, large mammals species
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  Speaker 2: that we encountered. And I can't remember, man. By the
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  Speaker 2: time we were done, we had like 27. I could
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  Speaker 2: pull up my phone and show you. Maybe I have it. Anyways,
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  Speaker 2: I had like 27 large mammal species that I personally
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  Speaker 2: laid eyes on.
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  Speaker 1: That's cool.
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  Speaker 2: And that would be, like, that's the shit we're talking about, like,
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  Speaker 2: in Ice Age America. And so life-changing in those kind
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  Speaker 2: of ways.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I wonder if you had a brain scan whenever
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  Speaker 1: you see those types of things, right, as a human.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder if there's a different reaction that happens in
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  Speaker 1: your brain as opposed to when you see different animals. Like,
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  Speaker 1: does it take us back to a part of us that, like,
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  Speaker 1: knew those animals well or knew that they existed? There's
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  Speaker 1: a theory.
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  Speaker 2: About that, that, like, why do– that, you know, when
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: you take babies and make a mobile– animal things there's
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  Speaker 2: this kind of seems to me a kind of a
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  Speaker 2: cockamamie theory but there's this idea that and this is
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  Speaker 2: kind of like ancestral Africa thing that that those animals
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  Speaker 2: resonate with babies because it's drawing back to some deep
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  Speaker 2: deep memory.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, the animals that are on a mobile?
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  Speaker 2: African megafauna.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I don't buy that shit.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: It's always a giraffe.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: I don't buy that shit. But, like, I think it's,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: like I said, I think it's a little goofy. But
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: there is that idea.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you think Bluey resonates with, you know what I'm saying?
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: That's crazy. You think Thomas the Train resonates, like, from
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: prehistoria or whatever? But, dude, one thing, I will say this.
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  Speaker 1: I went on a safari, and we're there, right? So
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  Speaker 1: the guy, it was, like, in Amboseli or somewhere. I
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: think we were in, maybe in Kenya. Mm-hmm. And the
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  Speaker 1: guy took us.
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  Speaker 2: But you're on a photo safari.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we were just, like, in. Yeah, we didn't get...
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  Speaker 1: We got out, but only near the place we were staying.
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  Speaker 2: Got it.
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  Speaker 1: Otherwise, we were just kind of in.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Cruising in trucks.
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  Speaker 1: Cruising in trucks, yeah. Oh, there was a pride alliance
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  Speaker 1: that kind of came around us at one point, and
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  Speaker 1: they were just laying down. Like, they weren't bothering us
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  Speaker 1: or anything. And the guy is like, do not stand
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  Speaker 1: up in here. Everybody just stay. I'm going to start
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  Speaker 1: the engine up in a little bit. I'm just going
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  Speaker 1: to back out of here. And they were like, someone
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  Speaker 1: like six or seven feet away. Like, it was definitely
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  Speaker 1: pretty gnarly. There's probably like seven or eight of them.
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  Speaker 1: And this one woman's fucking phone goes off, right? And
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  Speaker 1: it was like an iCarly ringtone or something. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know what that means. It was some TV, some children's
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  Speaker 1: in the world. It was just like, fuck, we're going
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  Speaker 1: to die. And she immediately kind of just like, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know. It's just funny.
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  Speaker 2: You thought it would have startled the cat and the
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  Speaker 2: cat might have done something.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure. The guy just said, do not make
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  Speaker 1: any sharp moves. Do not stand up. And this lady's
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  Speaker 1: phone went off, and she kind of went like that,
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  Speaker 1: and the guy just turned around. But it's just like
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  Speaker 1: in a moment's notice, like you can be wiped out
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  Speaker 1: because of human ignorance, you know, human error.
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  Speaker 2: Again, it takes up psychological space. Big old cats.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.