I'm still waiting for you. Hi everyone, thanks for listening to Shoos,
Booze and Tattoos. As always, I'm Jess, I'm your host. I
want to give a special shout out to those of you that have joined Patreon.
Shelly Ward, Tiffany Boots, and Laura Gilcrest. Thank you so much.
You guys are amazing. I will actually be posting a video episode and
another bonus episode here in the next couple of days. I am so sorry
it took me so long to get this episode out to you. I mean,
if you're listening in the future, you it's like no time it's has
passed. But the excuses don't really matter. What matters is we have a
long, in depth episode for you about zombies. Before we get started with
that, I do want to address one review, and I'm going to give
you the warning as normal. I did get a review sometime over the past
couple of weeks that was talking about the speed of how I talk. If
there's ever an issue with that, if you would like me to move a
little bit faster, there's a button on your player. Usually it'll have a
one and then an X by it. You can actually push that and you
can make it go a little bit faster. If me speaking a little bit
slower does bother, you always feel free to do that. It's a little
bit difficult for me to speed things up and still get the feel that I
would like and that I am going for and that people have become accustomed to.
So if you ever feel like you want to do that, or if
you want to hear me sound like I am drunk, you can actually slow
it down too, So that part out of the way. I'm not going
to read reviews at the end of this, just because it is such a
long episode. I had Johnny Coon on with me and he's from the Conspiracy
Cafe podcast. I love Conspiracy Cafe, honestly, it's one of my favorites
for conspiracy theories and stuff like that. And I want to say things it
can to Johnny for coming on with me and doing this because it was a
lot of fun. Now here's the warning for the episode. We do swear
quite a bit. It's not over the top, completely unnecessary, kind of
over the top, but we do swear so it might not be appropriate.
We talk about some things that are a little gross. We also do mention
things such as drinking drug use, not like hard drug use. Do we
mentioned I think pot a little bit or insinuate about it, but we don't,
you know, go overboard with any of that. And I have a
lot of nervous laughter through this because I have a tendency to do that at
times, especially when I don't when I'm not sure what to say or how
to process certain things, or if they make me uncomfortable, I'll get the
giggles. So I am so sorry about that. I don't mean to be
inappropriate at all, but I also didn't want to take that out because this
is one of those episodes where you get to see a little more of me,
but in a not so organized and professional type of setting. Johnny and
I have a conversation. We talk about zombies the possible ways they could actually
happen. Now, if you're not interested in hearing the initial part of this,
say you just want to skip to the meatia bits where we're actually talking
about zombies. The first like ten minutes or so is us talking about beer.
We have a full ten minute conversation about our favorite beers. So if
you want to skip that, feel free to go ahead and skip over about
ten minutes so that I'll bring you to about the fifteen minute mark now.
So again, I'm so sorry this was late. Thank you guys so much,
and I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as I enjoyed actually
having this discussion with Johnny. So, Johnny, what are you drinking?
Okay, so tonight, I am drinking a New Belgium Voodoo Ranger IPA hot
beer, the better for me, and this little sucker has seven percent.
Very nice. Yeah, two beers and one yeah. Absolutely. You know
when I shop for beer now, when I'm buying beer, I'll look at
the alcohol percentage really before anything else. I hire better, baby, get
your money's worth. See. I've had some that were pretty high there that
tasted like absolute shit. Some are pretty bad. Yeah, some are pretty
bad. But for me like the hopier, the hoppier, the better.
I like the hoppy beers super cheap. I am drinking honey brown. Do
you know what that is? I lost you there? Would you say?
Oh? I said, I am drinking honey brown? Okay, honey brown?
I'm not sure I know what that is. I really like it.
It's not like a light beer, it's not a dark beer. Somewhere in
between has like a slight honey after taste. Oh I like that. I
absolutely love it. Plus it's ten bucks for at twelfth pack, so oh
that's good man. Yeah. Yeah, most beer here is a little pricey.
I mean fuck, even Miller Lighte, which is my usual go to
if anything. Uh, it's it's like twelve fifteen bucks for a twelve pack
of cans. Oh yeah that's all. Yeah, ten bucks for that.
It's pretty good. Yeah, and I really like it. Nice nice.
Yeah. This Voodoo Ranger was on sale at Public today for like fifteen,
and if it's every one sale, I'll get it because it's super delicious and
it's seven percent and it gets me shitty and I love it. So how
many do you get for fifteen? A twelve pack? Okay, that's that's
actually really good for for one of those. Yeah, not too bad.
This is pretty crafty. Yeah, I think it's regular. It's usually like
eighteen, but yeah, I know. If I see it on sale for
fifteen though, I'm like, all right, you're on mine, come home
with me. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So we have similar taste in
beers, love the crafty stuff. Do you guys have total wine up there?
I don't think. So, it's like it's it's pretty much the home
depot of liquor and beer. It's like this huge, mongous, huge mongous
place, and they just have anything liquor wise or beer wise you could ever
think of. They have it, and they have this. It's amazing.
I get lost in there and they have this craft beer aisle and I'll spend
like hours and just in this one aisle. I'm just like, I don't
want to. It's like a it's like going to a puppy adoption, like
the human society. I want to take you all home. Wait, do
you do you have like a do you have giant eagles down there? No?
Here, Giant Eagle has a build your own six pack? Okay,
they have loose craft beers in local breweries and stuff like that. And you
can build a six pack for ten ninety nine. Oh nice, like really
crafty stuff. Yeah, you can put one different for each one in there
takes home six different beers and triumph. Oh. I like that. It
is it is really nice. I like doing that. And I've discovered a
lot of beers that sound amazing. But marn't right right, that is cool
there, there's like okay, so I'm getting off topic. I'm sorry.
We're talking about beer for two hours of the show. There's a little there's
a little place down here called Riverside Market and it's like a little hole in
the wall, like a little bar. They start pizza and stuff, and
but it's mainly like like a crap crap beer thing. So their whole thing
is they have like these just cooler you know, like you open up a
cooler and not a cooler, but like a glass door, and then you
know there's beers behind it, like a like a big cooler of beers.
Yeah, and I mean there's hundreds of them. So what We'll go there
and we'll be like, all right, you have to go say four three
two, So that means you have to go to the fourth cooler, like
the fourth fridge kind of thing, and you open that up and then you
have to go to the sixth shelf or whatever I said, and say four
six three you have to go to the sixth shelf, and then you have
to put the third beer from that shelf whatever it is you have to get
and you have to drink that. Interesting. Yeah, it's kind of cool.
So we discovered many many kinds of new new ship, like that new
beer. I love stuff like that. It's just fun. Man, you're
out hanging out, you're drinking, You're like, all right, four six
three, all right, you gotta go. You have no idea what you're
gonna get. H It's kind of cool. Do you have like, um
draft houses there? Yeah, yeah, yep, I fucking love those,
yesque Man best. We have some breweries, a couple breweries down here,
like the local local breweries. Um, Funky Buddha is down here. I
think that that's a pretty popular beer. I think outside of Florida. I've
heard of it, but I don't think I've ever actually tried it. Yeah,
the breweries, the breweries down here. It's kind of cool. Cool
place. We'll have to send each other a beer at some point. We
have Harley David. It's in brewery here. Oh nice. Nice. They
have this, Um they have this ah fuck. I can't remember what the
name of it is, but it's like a cherry beer. M good lord,
it is amazing nice like good No, I'm sorry. One of my
favorite beers on the planet is Sam Adams cherry wheat. I like that one
a lot too. Oh that's so good. There's like there's a little treat.
You know, it's pretty expensive even for the six packs. Yeah,
but yeah, yeah, Sam Adams cherry wheats, it's one of my go
toos. Good stuff. That's one of my absolute favorites too. And I
love their summer ale yes. Yes, they have, you know, during
the winter. I like darker beers. They have two different ones that come
out for like Christmas time. One of them I absolutely love, and the
other one tastes like a pine tree. And I can never remember which one
it is. I'm trying to think because yeah, I know they have a
like a winter ale yea and they have a Christmas one, but I can
never remember which one. Tastes like you just licked the pine tree. Oh
shit, that's good. So now I kind of play it safe a little
bit, or like if we go out or something like that, which obviously
hasn't happened in quite a while, I'll ask for like one of the little
testers. Yeah, that's always really nice. That's how I found um,
the Travelers Pineapple shandy. No, that sounds delicious. Pineapple is it's like
a pina colada in beer form. It was very, very good. They
have Travelers always has good beer. Though I don't know if I'm familiar with
that. I don't know where they're based out of. But they always have
like beer that's made from fruit. Oh I love that. And they do
have some very hoppy ones, like they have a hops kind of beer that
they put out that is just beer. It's just hops. They don't have
any extra like fruit and stuff in it, like a lot of their other
beers are right, that one is actually very very good. Sometimes you can
get a beer that's um that's a Hops and that has like the pictures of
the hops all over it and everything. Yeah, and it tastes terrible.
I'm like, yeah, some some are bad. Yeah, some of those
are bad. This one was really smooth and really good. I've liked all
of their beers that I've tried. Nice. Nice. Yeah, this foodoo
range is pretty happy but it's uh, but it's it's smooth. New Belgium
has some good stuff. I think they do fat hire Okay, yeah,
I think that's New Belgium. But yeah, good good stuff. Yeah.
We could all show on beer on crap Beer. Oh we could, we
could. That would be a good bonus episode. Oh what that would be
a lot of fun. Patreon We're both going to go buy a random kind
of beer, one that we've never tried before, and we'll sit down and
we'll drink them together. I'll get one of those variety packs. Yes,
Yeah, me too. Yeah, we'll get like six different beers, yes,
and try them. And it would be so funny to get like a
video type thing for that, because apparently I make some very funny faces,
but I don't like something that sounds amazing. We have to do that.
We're going to do that. I did a Patreon episode recently and I don't
even remember what I was talking about, but I was drinking white wine and
I don't like white wine, and this was a particularly bitter white wine.
So every time I took a drink, I think maybe I was no,
I wasn't live. I don't know what I was doing, but I would
make this fucking face every time, and three people so far I've been like,
you should do that again. Oh, that's hilarious and love it something
you don't like, Oh, we have to do that. And we have
to find a way to to do a video call. Yeah, while we're
testing these beers. That would be perfect. Yeah, we'll have to figure
out a way because I know my husband's computer is right behind me. His
has an actual webcam on it. Mine does not. So whenever I want
to do like a video thing, I even either have to use my phone
or I have to use his computer. Okay, but then I also have
to sit up on like two books and a pillow. So I'm in frame.
Oh we got to meet that work though? That would be great.
Well, we'll figure that out. So if you guys are patrons of either
mine or Johnny's show, you'll probably see that here soon. Absolutely, that'll
be fun. That'll be a lot of fun. So what are we talking
about tonight? So we were talking about zombies. Everybody loves zombies. I
think everybody does. I know a few people that don't, but everybody has
seen a zombie movie at some point, right, Absolutely, what's your favorite?
My favorite? Okay, so I'm gonna say we were talking about this
a little bit before we started recording. It's fairly new, but I'm gonna
say my favorite is Trained to Bissan. That was an awesome zombie movie.
I loved it. It was just so well done. It was it was
just from start to finish it was so good. Yeah, and Trained to
Bison. That's on Amazon Prime right now too, right, I think so
it was on Netflix a little bit ago. Oh it's on Netflix. I'm
gonna check to see I think it was on Netflix. But they have the
sequel now and the trailers out for the sequel, and it was just so
so so good, so good. Then, um, you know you have
your your your comedies like Sean and the Dead. That's one of my favorites.
If from ever passing around channels and I see Sean the Dead, I'm
gonna probably watch it. Yeah, yeah, So what about you, what's
your favorite? It's hard for me because I love them all. I'll always
love Dawn of the Dead. I will always love that one, yes,
But the ones that I can watch like over and over and over would have
to be The Girl with All the Gifts. So good, that's also on
Netflix. I highly recommend it. That was an amazing movie. And of
course Sean of the Dead. That's the best funny zombie movie out there,
so so so good. And then there's one other one, twenty eight Days
Later, awesome. That was a great zombie movie in my opinion, me
too, that was that might have been I'm not sure, but I want
to say that might have been the first zombie movie that I saw where they
were actually like super fast. Yeah. For me, it was the remake
of Donna the Dead. That was the first zombie movie that had really fast
zombies. Okay, the remake was that with them? Was that the one
with being Rahims? Was that that? I have no idea, It's been
a long time since I've watched it. I remember the one zombie coming around
the side of the mall that had one arm, and it was like an
Asian guy that was just booking it towards the doors that they were trying to
shut, and he got like his arm that had been ripped off inside the
doors, and that scared the shit out of me. You're right, yeah,
yeah, that was They were fast there. So for you, what's
scarier the slow just trundling along zombies or the fast ones. For me,
it's definitely the fast ones. Same like the slow ones, I feel like,
I mean, I cannot, I can, I cannot run them at
least, you know, I'm not worried about you know, you're worried about
so many things with the slow ones, like a horde coming at you,
coming out all different angles and stuff. Yeah, but the fast ones you
have no chance, I think, or it's much much less. Yeah,
yeah, super low chance. Um, you know, compared to the slow
ones. Right, the slow ones you can you can get away, you
can run, you can climb something. The slow ones don't seem to be
that bright as well. Yeah. The fast ones see, seemed to be
a little more, a little much smart, smarter than than than slow ones,
I think, or at least seem to catch on to things or have
like some kind of heightened sense. Yeah, yeah, but this. Yeah,
the slow ones, I feel like, you know, just just run
and get away from them, right, it seems like it would be a
lot easier to survive. Yeah, it does, like the fast ones.
Fuck, man, if you're if you can't, if you can't run fast,
you're you're done. I'd be done. I cannot run fast, and
I cannot run a long time. I would be screwed. I used to
be able to run fast, but now that this quarantine is in place and
you need like a fucking maniac, I don't think i'd be able to run
even a slow one at this point. Well be fucked either way. I
haven't running fast, and over a decade I used to do tracking cross country
in high school. Huh, but then I had my first kid and stopped.
Oh yeah, running's not fun and there a lot of people do and
they get the high or you get that runners high. No, I'll just
rather I'd rather walk home and get the regular high, right, same thing.
So yeah, trained to Bisson. They were fast there, the zombies
were fast. Yes, yes, they were. Um, twenty twenty days
later they were fast. Um, like you said, they remake they were
what don in the Dead was it? Yeah, they're fast, but I
think generally they're they're like walking down. Are you a Walking Dead fan?
I was for quite a while. Um, the last episode I saw spoiler
alert for anybody that's trying to catch up or wants to watch this like your
ears. The last episode I watched was when Nigan killed Glenn and Abraham.
Okay, that's the last episode I watched. And then I stopped watching because
Abraham was my man in that show. Oh he was so good. I
loved him too. I loved him. I loved him so much. He
was my hands down, absolute favorite. Yeah, he was good. But
then I just kind of stopped watching after that. It got to be more
about the characters than the zombies. It was more drama, less action.
Yeah, it did turn into like a like a high school drama show almost.
Yeah, with the characters. I still watched. I'm all kind up,
but it seems like Walking Dead, like all right, it's great and
then it sucks for a couple of seasons and then it gets good again and
then it kind of falls off. It really seems like that right now,
it's it's pretty good, but yeah, that the scene you're talking about where
they killed Abraham and Glenn Um Glenn. I don't know if you're familiar with
the with the comics, with the graphic novels vaguely. I know I read
a few of them, but okay, they're they're kind of close. Like
the way Glenn was killed was exactly like how he was killed in the in
the in the comics, you know, was I popped out and everything?
It was like exactly the same. But then yeah, it was it was
that was a brutal scene too, right, that whole it was it was
that was rough, like that was on what it's on AMC, and like
fuck that should have been on HBO or something that was rough. Right,
then it gets like you stopped watching there, and I could totally see that
because it kind of sucked after that for a little bit, but then it
got good and then Rick left. Yeah another spoiler alert if you guys haven't
already gave it away, so fuck you. Um yeah, Rick left and
I was a big Rick fan, Like Rick was the show to me.
He was like the center. Yeah yeah, yeah, so and then he
left and I don't know, it's okay again, but it just comes and
goes. But those zombies are slow, super slow. And it's funny because
then the first season they were I remember Morgan, Rick's friends Morgan, Yeah,
and he had the son who actually ended up dying. What Morgan's wife,
you know, was turned bitten and turned into a zombie. And there's
one point where she goes up to the door and she's trying to turn the
door knob. Yeah. Yeah, like they were smarter. And then now
that they can't even climb over a fence, you know, like they got
really dumb. They dumbed him down really really really much. Well, part
of this episode is going to be talking about the science behind zombies. So
watching that show, watching The Walking Dead and seeing how they become dumber,
did you think that might be because of like brain deterioration. Yeah, it's
a that's a really good point. Yeah, I do, because I know
people are kind of thinking, like what the fuck, like science behind zombies.
There is a science behind it, and we will get into it later
in the episode, but we're just kind of hypothesizing with some of our favorite
shows to see maybe where their heads were at. But like you're saying,
the brain deterioration might have some kind of an impact. Yeah, I feel
like the longer they're in zombie form, they're going to their whole body is
just deteriorating. I would think, so, right, Yeah, that's what
I would think. I mean, your brain controls everything, so if that's
getting eaten away, then like muscle function, muscle memory, things like that
are gonna go absolutely. I mean that makes sense to me me too,
which is why they're you know, even slower. They seem to be slower,
right, slower and this you know, like, yeah, they were
trying to open doors. Yeah, that's right, that's that's right, and
that one they were. They are and it's different in every movie and in
every TV show. It is. It is. So let's talk about like
the infection time thing. In all these movies and all these TV shows,
it's widely different. It could be a week, it could be a few
days. It could be minutes, like and train to Poissan it was like
minutes. Yeah, it was so quick, right, So what do you
think would be scarier somebody getting bitten and infected and changing within minutes or not
knowing the timeline a week? So I think it would be scarier not knowing.
You know, if somebody was bitten, like trained to Bissan, someone
has bitten and you know they're going to turn in you know, a couple
of minutes, three to five minutes, then you know, all right,
yeah, that would that would be scary to me. Like even in Walking
Dead, there there were times where they would it varies. There are times
were they would changing minutes. And this is like we're talking about the same
TV show, the same type of zombies, right, and there would be
sometimes would it would take hours or if not a day or two to change.
Wasn't there something kind of um that you noticed about when the person got
bit, like where they got bit and how fast they change, like closer
to the head, closer to the head, closer to the heart, they
changed faster versus like on the leg or on the hand. Yeah, that's
very true. Yeah, because there was a couple that got bit, you
know, a leg. They had time to even cut their leg off to
you know where they weren't they weren't infected. Yeah, that's that's a good
point. Yeah, closer to the heart or the head the brain. Do
you think it would be the heart or the brain that would that would be
for the heart, right, the heart would send everything. Well, I
would say the brain because the brain still controls the heart. But in that
particular TV series, like once the person died, then they came back right
right, right right, and they didn't just change from being loving to now
a zombie. They died somewhere in between, right, And that that was
interesting with that show, you know, The Walking Dead, because it was
in everybody. You didn't have to be bit. If you died, you
were changed. So I thought that was kind of cool like it And I
don't know if we've ever learned that was it like a virus that just completely
overtook the entire planet that if you die, you're or was it always It
couldn't been always in you because if you died, you know, twenty years
before you weren't a zombie. Something had to trigger that. I honestly don't
know what the Walking Dead if they ever really said exactly what it was.
And there's probably people screaming at us right now, probably, but I'm not.
I'm not I've watched all of them. I'm not sure. I haven't
watched it in a few years, to be honest, Like, I would
have to go back and rewatch stuff just to see if I could catch that.
Yeah, that's interesting because there's some movies you had to be bitten,
yeah to turn. In that case, if you just died, you would
You're you're going to be turned automatically. Yeah, So that would be a
very different like if we're talking science, that would be a very different virus.
That would be something that's airborne that is then triggered once your heart stops,
once you stop breathing, versus something that is spread through like bodily fluid,
right right, right, Yeah, true. And we'll talk about more
of that a little bit later too, because there's a lot of different things
that could potentially turn us into zombies. Since we talked about the infection times,
have you seen the movie I Am Legend yeah, I have has been
a long time, so I can't really These zombies were basically not really zombies,
but more like humans with rabies. And this is a pretty common theme,
especially in a lot of zombie books, that it's a certain kind of
a strand of rabies that affects humans in a certain way. And in that
one, they couldn't come out during the day, I think I think it
was. Yeah, it was during the day. But then in a lot
of other zombie movies it's the dead coming back to life, so where it's
not a disease, these people aren't rabbit, they're bad, right, right?
Which one do you think is more realistic? Oh? Man, I
that's hard to say. I think I think more realistically it would be something
airborne that that just gets in you. Yeah. Um, But then again,
you know, being bid, if somebody has something, even with what's
going on today, you're going to give that to somebody else, you know,
Corona or whatever we're talking about, right, You're going to give that
to somebody else. So that's so realistic too. But then I can also
see like an airborne thing like you should you breathe this in it's in you?
Yeah, that's very true. But you know, I guess somebody bites
you because it would kind of be the same thing. You know, it's
it's getting from some it's getting in you from somewhere else, right, So
say aborn or somebody else. Airborne is definitely terrifying because there's no protection from
that, or very little protection from something like that. Let's assume the zombie
apocalypse is going to start. People are going to start getting infected with something
through bite. Strictly through bite, it's not airborne, it's passed through bodily
fluids. Do you think it's more likely that this virus or this illness would
have like a Raby's like effect where the person is still alive but their brain
is altered in a way where they're not in control. Or do you think
it's more likely that it would kill them and then whatever this virus or fungus
or whatever it is then takes over after they die and then animates so that
they can spread more of them. Oh, I can totally see an animating
and spreading. I can see either one. I totally, I totally can
see either one. Like air one is scary, like you said, that
is some scary shit, but like being bit and and then your brain just
yeah, I don't know, it's so, I don't know, it's scary.
Have you ever been bit by another person? Are we talking pleasure or
for like? The first thing I thought of was like when my kids were
going through that little phase where they would bite. Yeah, shit, fucking
hurts being bit by another person. I don't know if it's because our teeth
are more blunt, but it hurts way worse than like being bit by a
dog or a cat or anything like that. Well I can see that because
like a needle so so pointy, like a cat or whatever animals has pointy
teeth, it's gonna go right through you. It's gonna hurt, of course,
but not so you know. What I mean is like you said,
it's a blunt that's gonna just that's just pressure going through your skin. That's
gonna that's pressure in tearing. Yeah right right, yeah, that yeah cool.
No, I don't know that I've ever been bitten. I know both
my kids went through a little phase with that, and that just popped into
my head as we were talking about the bites, and yeah, I know,
like like when they were when the kids were breastfeeding, sometimes they get
a hold on that thing and bite down. Oh. I never had to
worry about that, So I don't I don't know about all that, but
we usually as toddler's kids tend to go through this little phase where they'll bite
anywhere from like two to five, they'll go through that little phase. And
some people don't like this, but both of my kids when they would bite,
if they bit me, I would bite them back and they never did
it again. I'm with you on that, man, I for an eye,
and some people aren't too keen on that. But yeah, it nipped
that problem in the bud real quick. Whatever works. Good lord, did
those little teeth hurt. I could only imagine adult worn down through years of
eating food teeth. Yeah, and like you, like I said, you'd
rather have like a pointy teeth going through you than than a blunt like like
I said, that's just ripping through your skin, like just yeah, that's
pressure, pinching and tearing. Yeah, not just a pure suck right right.
So it's interesting to kind of analyze all these little things that we normally
don't think about with zombies. I've never really sat here and thought about the
way it would feel to get bit what would be more afraid of? You
know right? No, now it's in my head, like fuck, that
would yeah, to be bit by human teeth, like an adult human.
That would yeah, that would suck. Oh, I just realized I forgot
one of my favorite zombie movies, zombie Land. I love zombie Land.
Everybody loves zombie Land. It's just so entertaining. I mean, Bill Murray
makes an appearance, so right, have you seen that new one with him
yet? Which I don't remember what the name of it is, but it
is a zombie movie with Bill Murray. Yeah, and they're in like a
sheriff's department and it's supposed to be a comedy. It's out, but I
don't remember what it's called. And I have not seen it yet, but
I heard it is amazing. No, I have not heard of that.
It's supposed to be very zombie Land esque. Okay, but Bill Murray is
in the entire thing. M I'm gonna have to look it up because I
don't remember what it's called or anything. What was it called it? Dead
Don't Die. I'm gonna google it because I want to know. Now,
the peaceful town of Centerville finds itself battling a zombie horde as the dead start
rising from their graves, starring Bill Murray. Gotta be it. Yep.
Oh no, I've never heard of this before right now. I remember seeing
the trailer for it, and I thought it looked so good, and I
think it just came out recently, but I don't know if it's available.
Oh, it's available on Amazon Prime for fourteen ninety nine, or on Hulu
with a subscription. Okay, I don't have Hulu, and I really don't
want to pay fifteen dollars to see a two hour movie. I'll give you
my Hulu information. You can watch it. Well, I don't drivers in
it too. I guess all right, I'm gonna have to check this out
now. It looks so good. When I saw the trailer for it,
it just looks so damn funny. Oh it looks good man, Steve Bushemy,
Tom Waits is in it. Adam Driver. Yeah, yeah, I'm
gonna check this out for sure. Yeah, Zombie Land is good. Did
you see the second one, Double Tap? I have not seen Double Tap
yet, not nearly as good as the first one. Was still watchable,
I figured, I mean the first one was so I mean that was the
first of its kind really with big name actors, right, big name actors,
and then with Jesse Eisenberg with the rules and then the way they pop
the rules up every time, you know what I mean. They're like,
that was so good, so good it was, and it was and he
was he did so great in that. It was so funny. I love
I like him a lot, and I think he's great. Okay, So
why don't we move on from movies and hypotheticals and talk about some of these
articles I found yea because I sent you too to where these are actual news
reports talking about zombie attacks. So creepy, I know. Now, this
first one I think is the most famous. Most people have heard of this,
and I think it's so funny that both of these, both of these
right occur in Florida, right where you live. Yep. I was trying
to find some from like other areas, and I couldn't. No, just
just Florida, Florida, Florida. And this one, this first one,
I think everybody has either seen the footage when it first happened or heard about
it at some point. This is the Miami Cannibal. Yes, and the
craziest thing about this is you just said the footage, Yes, there's footage
of Oh that was rough. Yeah, this one was crazy because, like
you said, it's not even Florida. Miami's right here with me, Like
I'm right there. So we heard, you know, immediately when this happened.
Man, you know, it was on the news or something. I'm
in for Lauderdale, which is, you know, just just north of Miami.
This one was crazy. And the craziest thing about this whole one,
this whole article. Before we sent this to me, I had no idea
that it's turned out not to be bath salts. Yeah, this was just
like a little side note that they did for a correction at some point,
and I think it was only in newspapers. Yeah, because the whole thing
was the bath salts. Oh yeah, basalts. He fucking went not to
a bath salts and chewing on some guy's face exactly. And that's in case
people don't know or don't know what we're talking about. This is um the
attack on Ronald Popo. He was a sixty five year old homeless man.
He was living in Miami. He was under the MacArthur Causeway and he was
just minded in his own business when thirty one year old Rudy Eugene just attacked
him and he was naked, wasn't he He was totally naked? Yep.
Okay, so automatic, first thing you think is drugs. Yeah right,
well initially, first thing we all think is zombie and then we think drugs.
Yes, but this guy showed off most of Ronald Popo's face over a
course of eighteen minutes. Yeah, like legit ate his face. Yes,
he did survive. Ronald Popo did survive. I mean he's He's underwent an
extensive amount of surgery to help repair. But his eyes were gone as far
as I know, his eyes, nose, and tongue are all gone,
along with a majority of the flesh from his face. So that reconstructive surgery
has been over a long period of time. But he did survive. So
it's not an actual zombie virus. Yeah. True, But this guy nobody
knows what made him do it because he tested negative for bath salts. The
thing that they claimed made him do it initially, right, that was that
was the whole thing's bath salts. Bath salts are crazy even you're gonna turn
nuts into a zombie, and you know that's what we were told it was
because of bath salts, and then reading this article, it was not at
all that, right, And he tested negative for any of those drugs,
right, So what what would possess a person to do that if not drugs?
I mean you would think, But they got those tests, but they
didn't announce any correction or anything for over a month, which over the course
of a month, if people have only heard that this dude was on drugs,
he was on bath salts and he attacked this poor man, and there's
constant news reports about that, and then there's just one little blurb, they're
still gonna they're gonna completely ignore that because they've been taught for the past four
weeks that this dude was on drugs. Right, But did you know that
bath salts are still legal in most places. Yeah, you can still buy
them because they're making them in different ways to where technically the ingredients aren't illegal.
Right. Yeah, there was always a way around. Yeah, but
that's what they're doing and that's still available, and it can cause very aggressive
outbursts, blackouts, things like that, as well as high right, like
yeah, and the strength like a normal strength. Yeah. Yeah, But
I thought that was wow, because I remember when this happened back in what
was this May of twenty twelve. Yeah, yeah, I remember back when
this happened and people were flipping their shit, even here in Ohio, I'm
pretty far away from you. Yeah, I can't imagine what people were doing
there in Miami after this news hit. Yeah, I remember. It was
a little nuts like on the the news anyway, so it just look a
little another and it was labeled to Miami zombie, right, Yeah, that's
what all the news reports were for that first like month, was the Miami
Zombie, and then it switched to Miami cannibal, and then it just kind
of fizzled out. I was looking for the video because it's on here,
you know, it gives you a link to the eighteen minute assault, and
it's not available. I'm sure you can dig and find it. And if
you guys can try to dig and find this video, you should probably check
this out because it's insane. It's a it's surveillance footage, isn't it.
Yeah, it's not like like up close to the video of I mean,
but you can from what I remember, you can. I remember thinking,
oh my god, right, you can tell what's going on it's just on
this other dude, like and I just said, he like literally ate his
face off, like chewed his face off. Man. Yeah, and this
poor guy had to live with that after like, oh dude, oh my
god. But the other article I sent you might actually have something. It
might offer some kind of explanation, at least a possible one. I mean,
we're not going to know because Rudy Eugene ended up being shot multiple times
to get him to stop attacking this poor man, right, and he did
pass away. He didn't he didn't survive that one, so he never got
to talk to anybody afterwards and let them know what was going on through his
head and why he did it. So we're not going to be able to
know. Really, he did test negative for all of the drugs that they
tested him for, nothing like that. So this other one that again happened
in Florida, and this one was in Palm Beach. Yeah. This one
was Palm Beach, which is just um, so you have Miami Fort Lauderdale,
and then just north of that is is pomp Beach. Okay, so
I'm like right in the middle of that's terrible. So this this was more
recent than the than the last one. This was in twenty sixteen, right,
yeah, and I mean, Jess, reading this, man, when
you send me this, I'm like, oh my god, like what all
right, I'll let you go on because I insane to me. Well,
this one, the one that did the attacking, did survive. Austin Herroff,
I don't know if I'm saying that right, and I don't care,
is facing first degree murder charges in the depths of John Stevens the third and
Michelle. Michelle. He this, this is a crazy one to me.
Like, reading through this, I was blown away. He was only nineteen
years old. Yes, he wasn't on drugs, but he was found on
top of John Stevens, gnawing on his face and making growling sounds, right,
making growling sounds. Yes, And like you said, like Eugene,
nothing tested positive for nothing exactly. Yeah, but this one, we do
have some kind of answer for this one, at least after he was taking
in taken in for psychological evaluation. He was examined and they gave him the
diagnosis of clinical like entropy delusions also known as werewolf syndrome. Yes, this
is something that does actually occur, and it's not something that occurs in people
that are just obsessed with werewolf movies or you know, have this like delusion
in their mind like I'm a ware wolf and I change And this can onset
at any time for any person and they're automatically just in this primal state of
mind like a wolf. Yes, so scary. It could offer some explanation,
but like he made, there were no signs of this at all beforehand,
right, Like, like you said, just a snap of a finger
and I'm a fucking werewolf. I'm gonna rip your face off exactly. Now.
He was acting a little weird before all of this, his parents said,
but nothing that would make you think, hey, my kid's gonna go
now kill two people and eat one of them, Like yeah, right,
like weird shit, like he was drinking like cooking a oil. Right,
Yeah, it was just stuff that was just off to where you could tell
he was off. But I mean, even as a parent, if you
see your kid is a little bit off and he starts just drinking some vegetable
oil, you're like, dude, go take a shower, lay down,
right, yeah, let me brush some chicken wings in your mouth and then
get out of here, right right, You're not going to automatically think that
this is going to be a dangerous situation to where he's going to put somebody
else's life in danger. Right, You're gonna be worried for his safety,
not for the safety of others. Yeah, if I found my kid drinking
vegetable oil, all right, we're gonna help you out. Yeah, I'm
worried about you eating someone. I'm worried about you, yes, exactly.
But you're not going to think at all that they're now going to go off
on a cannibalistic attack. Fuck, no, man, not at no.
No. I mean, initially they thought it was cost by drugs, but
all of us talk schology reports came back negative right again negative, Eugene.
Ye. So the similarities here there are, there are quite a few,
but we can't really talk to Eugene and see you know what happened there.
This kid said that he did blackout, right, he didn't remember doing any
of it. Yeah, he, I mean he said he was he believed
he was half dog half man, Yes, which would explain the growling while
he's ripping on this dude's face exactly. But if you black out, say,
okay, put yourself in his position you black out and before it's like
no time passes and you come to and you're staring at police. There's a
guy underneath you covered in blood, there's some kind of meat in your mouth,
and there's chunks missing from him. Your automatic reaction is to try to
make that makes sense. What's the one way that it would make sense?
What are wolf? Right? Yeah? Right? Right? Yeah? It's
um. I wonder if there's a full moon that night. That would be
interesting to know, like for real, that would be interesting to know.
I mean, I don't know. I don't think that has anything to do
with clinical likecanthropy and how it on sets and how quickly it does, because
it can just be hours between when the person is totally fine, talking to
you on the phone, doing their normal shit. So when they're attacking somebody
or in this state in their house where they're tearing shit up and growling,
and because this is this is something that happens more than we'd like to think,
right, But I would like you to know if I mean, did
he start freaking out? Was it daytime and you know it turned to night
there was a full moon and he started freaking out? You know, thinking
is a wa wolf and that's when he started, you know, growling and
then eating this guy's face was I'd just be really curious to know if there
was a full moon that night. That that would be interesting to try to
find out when when was this with a second date? Yeah, just I
mean if it's nothing else. But but you know, schizophrenic like his dad
thought he was, um would a full moon? Man? You know,
I'm not sure. I'm actually looking up to see what the moon phase was
because I mean, if he's nuts, like like schizophrenic nuts, would he
I don't know. I'd just be curious to see if if it was a
full moon that night it was a waxing gibbus. Yeah, it wasn't a
full moon. It was not. No, it would have been so much
better if it was. I know it would have. But I mean,
realistically, I mean, mental illness, that's something that a lot of people
can't You can't control it. Yeah, No, for sure, I would
much rather find out that my child had schizophrenia rather than like entropy. Yes,
those are I mean, schizophrenia can become violent at some points, but
that's mostly because of confusion to where like entropy is a primal urge to attack
or to defend or right, like, can that be can that be helped?
That? Can that be avoided? Whereas you know schizophrenia, you take
this and you take that and it will help you. Yes, yeah,
you know, is there medicine for that? I would imagine. I didn't
look into that, but I would imagine there's a treatment out there, because
this isn't a new thing clinical, it's been around for a long time.
Yeah, if it's a real thing, I'm sure there's there's something to combat
it, at least, you know, some kind of therapy, some kind
of anti anti psychotics or something like that that would help keep that person in
the right frame of mind. But that's probably something that they have to look
out for or have somebody else look out for, if they're exhibiting any weird
behavior, right, I mean, even something as simple as drinking some oil
or I don't even know what else you would do. Yeah, now you're
right though, it's something as simple as drinking oil. Yeah, it's where
I mean your first reaction if I saw my kid drinking oil, I'd be
like, what did you pick that up on accident? Like right, right,
but now looking at this article and stuff, if if I saw my
kid drinking oil, I would think something totally different now exactly exactly, Okay,
I'm gonna tell me to tie you up, exactly. I mean,
now it gives you the sense of something's not right. Yeah, right,
right. But now we can't talk about zombies without mentioning the Haitian zombies because
this is where our pop culture kind of representation of zombies came from. Yeah,
this was a good article too. I thought this was a really really
good one, just because they really go into the history of it, why
it was, what it was, what it was caused by. That is
what I find fascinating. So the original Dawn of the Dead, you see
the slow kind of shambling zombies right right right, those were based off of
stories that were heard about these these Haitian zombies, the way those people would
act, so straight from this article. This is from Live science dot com.
The slouching, flesh eating zombie has become one of the most in vogue
creatures in current TV and movie offerings, appearing in films like World War Z
and the AMC series The Walking Dead, which we've already talked about. Most
rational people scoff at the suggestion that zombies are real but a number of respected
medical experts and academic journals have presented evidence that zombies are in fact real.
To understand the zombie phenomenon in its Haitian roots, and appreciation of the practice
of voodoo, sometimes spelled in different ways or pronounced like vodon, is needed
a religion based in West Africa. Voodoo is still practiced in varying forms throughout
the Caribbean, Brazil, and American South and other places with strong African heritage.
We don't need to go into voodoo in particular too much. What we
know. I haven't done an episode on voodoo yet. I do plan to
at some point, but I really want to find somebody that practices. Oh
that would be great. I would much rather have somebody that actually practices and
lives with it and does it talk about it than me just do the research,
you know. But I mean they use the same kind of things that
I do in my practice. It could be any number of things, pretty
much anything you can find. You can use animal parts, phones, hair,
dried plants, shells, minerals, whatever. Then there's another kind of
practitioner of voodoo. They're known as the book core. These ones are the
ones that pretty much can be bought by people there. Their services can be
bought by people for unsavory reasons. One of these is to produce a powder
to turn somebody into a zombie. Yes, and this is fascinating to read
about. Never in my wildest dreams, but I think to put all this
stuff together and all the angry against that they put into this powder can turn
somebody into a zombie. In the nineteen eighties, Harvard ethnobotanist Wade Davis traveled
to Haiti to investigate zombies in this zombie powder. Now, every bocore kind
of has their own recipe for this. They might use some different things,
but Davis found that there are five constant animal ingredients burned and ground up human
remains usually bone, a small tree frog, a segmented worm, a large
New World toad, and one or more species of pufferfish. The most potent
ingredient is the pufferfish. This has a deadly nerve toxin known as tetradoxin,
so some of the scientific community have criticized Davis's research. His investigation was published
in nineteen eighty three in the Journal of Ethna Shit Ethna Pharmacology. Yes,
yeah, that's okay. But his identification of tetratoxin as the active ingredient in
zombie powder has considerable scientific merit. Okay, so they analyzed. He bought
some of this zombie powder and then brought it back to analyze to see what
the hell was in it. He talked to multiple bow course, these people
that were making this powder, and found that they were all using very similar
ingredients, but they might vary a little bit, right, But those five
constant ingredients are just crazy? Yeah, you know that, how do you
all come up with that? How many different scenarios do you have to try
to come up with that? The tree frog and the puffer fish and you
know, well who knows how long this has been around too, right,
right? And that's yeah, I mean, it just could have taken so
long to figure this out. And puffer fish, you know, as you
know somebody who fishes and stuff, they are poisonous. They are delicatessin in
some countries, but you have to know exactly how to filet them without the
poison. And they are like delicatesses in other countries, but they are poisonous
pufferfish. And that's where the tetrads chester tetrad Jesus Christ. I know it's
hard. Tet detoxin comes from this is that puffer fish, and yeah,
they are poisonous. They are poisonous. Yeah, and those levels are especially
high in their lever eyes and ovaries. So it's not like these people needed
the whole fish. They could just remove the lever of the eyes and the
ovaries, dry those out, and then turn them into a powder, right
right, right, I mean fish, parts of fish at least dry up
really really fast. I've only been fishing once, but I do remember we
caught one fish and by the time we caught another, I was looking down
at the bottom of the boat and saw the fish and its eyes were already
dry, like starting to dry out and look almost like they were crumpling.
Yeah. Yeah, No, it doesn't take long in some some fish at
all. Yeah. Well this was like hours later, two because we weren't
having much luck. But it's they would dry out extremely fast, so they
would be very likely to be a good source of this toxin, especially if
you wanted to poison somebody or kill somebody. Right, It's not such a
whole lot of work, no, because I know if you cook them wrong,
you're you're done. Man. That you get that poison in you.
That's no joke. Yeah, you have to know exactly how to flame him,
how to cut that poison out of them. Yeah, but it does
take a certain amount to affect you really negatively, right right, right right,
Small amounts will basically like get you high. It causes numbness, tingling,
and a This is from the article not unpleasant sensation of floating. Even
euphoria doesn't sound so bad. Actually, no, it doesn't sound bad at
all. But I don't know that line between well it's dangerous and what's not.
So I'm going to stay away from puff Yeah, if you get a
very high dose of this, it'll cause death within minutes. Your your respiratory
system is just gonna stop. It's gonna fail. And wonder that is that
from one fish? Do you think I know nothing about puffer fish? Yeah,
I'm not sure. I'm not sure if you eat one the wrong way
and you could die, I'm not I'm not. I mean, I guess
depending on how big it is, then they get they get bigger. Yeah,
I'm sure. I have no idea how Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know if it would be just from eating one. So you get
a bad one. You know, it wasn't cut right, wasn't prepared right,
whatever. I don't know if that would do that or if it would
just make you very sick. Yeah, if you know what you're doing and
you're fishing, you're like you cutch a two pound one, You're like,
yeah, we're getting high tonight, or you know, you're like, nope,
we gotta stay away from that. Let's put this something back. So
we talked about like a small dose and a very big dose. What if
it's a big dose but it's not like enough to kill you. This sub
lethal dose, the toxin can leave a victim in a state of suspended animation.
How fucking scary is that? Yeah? Right, Breathing is subdued,
barely perceptible by observers. The heart rate is near zero, but the person
remains conscious and away but is not able to speak. Oh my god,
Oh my goodness. Right. I didn't realize they were conscious and aware for
some reason, Like I read through this, but I kind of like skimmed
through it because I thought I knew about this. I didn't realize they were
conscious and aware of what was going on. I thought they like went to
sleep, like passed out. Can you imagine being conscious and like aware of
what's everything that's going on? No? No, oh god god no,
So well that's fucked up. Yes. So, according to Davis this and
Investi gave it one over there and other observers, a person who was exposed
to a certain amount of zombie powder containing tetra detoxin can slip into a vegetative
state resembling death shortly after. This person is buried and then their body is
exhoomed by a bocor. So the exzoom zombie suffers from oxygen deprivation caused by
their limited breathing inside the coffin, and because their lungs aren't breathing in air
like normal, why they have this toxin running through them. The bocor then
has control over them by continually administering a second drug, and it's a psychoactive
compound derived from the gimson weed. This second drug causes delirium and disorientation,
rendering the person incapable of normal functioning. So after this happens, they can
do very basic tasks right like working on a sugarcane plantation. It's a very
repetitive task. And this was a huge, huge thing. Haiti. They
were finding a lot of these people that had been exposed to this zombie powder
and then the jimsonweed. And we're working on these these plantations because it was
very repetitive work. It's the same. Yeah, they're just doing the same
thing. Or oh, man, like that's all. Oh that's scary exactly.
I mean it's one thing to imagine going through it. But imagine that
you buried your sister. Okay, very sad they died, but three years
later you see them walking around. Yeah, and this actually happened. Oh,
under control of this book or yes. Now. The British medical journal
The Lancet published three accounts of zombification in nineteen ninet seven. In one case,
a woman who was presumed dead and was buried in a family tomb reappeared
three years later. She was positively identified by several family members in townspeople after
a local court authorized the opening of her tomb, which was full of stones.
Her parents were undecided whether to take her home, and she was admitted
into the psychiatric hospital. Oh that is sad, that is man. She
got out and then was oh my god, I wouldn't be trusting the deaths
of anybody, No, so full of stones. Her tomb was full of
stones. So basically they took her out because they knew she was still alive
there because of it, and they replaced it so that if anybody picked up
this this coffin, it would way like, Yeah, you'd think a person
wasn't You would feel like somebody was in there. Yes, that's some planning
Jesus Christ's yeah, that's insane. Yes. Now this occurs even still today
in parts of Haiti. It's usually the much more rural parts, but it
still happens from time to time where somebody will bury somebody and then they'll pop
back up years later. Because what these these bookors do is right after you
bury somebody, okay, like even here, if you bury somebody in a
cemetery, the ground is disturbed, it's all torn up and everything. Well,
after everybody goes home after the funeral that night, the bookcor comes back,
digs it up, takes the person out, and then puts the dirt
back in the grave. Right, it looks like nothing happened. So somebody
comes back the next day it looks the same. Yeah, it's not like
they're doing this two months later and you know, shit's disturbed. It's no,
it looks the same, right, exactly right. Now they have changed
a lot of laws there in Haiti to try to help these people, but
it's still it's still an issue. It's not near what it used to be.
It has gotten a lot better, but a lot of these cases where
people were found years later and they were just like shambling through the town and
didn't look at anybody. They were just like an empty shell. This was
the inspiration for a lot of our modern day zombie movies. Right. These
people that are just saying through the town, are they've been fucking brought up
from graves exactly right, that's like, oh my god, and most likely
after this tetri To talks in and the second terrific drugs, they don't really
know what's going on or who they are or what they're supposed to be doing.
Right, they're just the book Coors control, right, just like yeah,
they're they're very um like a zombie. If you take away all of
your ambitions and all of your hopes, you'd be very easy to control,
right, absolutely right. So they're shown how to do one very simple task.
It's usually some kind of labor intensive task, that nobody else wants to
do. And they just do that over and over and over and over until
they're no longer needed. That's it, and that's it, and nobody knows
because their family already thinks they're dead. They're not going to be looking for
them, right. Yeah, out of all the articles you sent, that
dead is reab as folk to me. Yes, it is, because you
said the boy Well, usually in the book course are just employed void temporarily
to get this process started. And then this this person goes somewhere like most
often a plantation, to then just work the fields. Wow for the plantation
owner. And the owner of the plantation is the one that most likely paid
the bocore see that grave right yep, So they're paying for slave labor,
right Jesus. And that that's real. Yes, yes, that has happened.
Man, we're you going to get into more real stuff. This I
mean, as sad as it is when you think about it, and you
kind of wonder how much this person is actually suffering. We can't really tell,
especially with the psychotropic drugs and not knowing what's going on. It's one
way to get it. Did they even know? Yeah, they don't even
know what's going on. They don't even know who they are. In comparison
to some of the other some of the other ways that zombies could occur,
it's it's down on the bottom of the worry scale for a lot of us
because this is going out now. The issue in Haiti, with the Haitian
zombies in the Bocors, it's not as much of an issue anymore. It
still happens, but you don't have to worry about going to Haiti and never
coming back and being a zombie like, right, you don't have to worry
about that. But there are things in nature now that are evolving and changing
that could present a very large issue later. And it's not the responsibility of
people, like it's not people intentionally doing this, it's just nature. Right.
There's no bullcre you know, being in somebody now they're grays in this
situation, yes, But some of the stuff we're going to talk about now,
there's no bookcore, there's no plantation owner, there's there's no funeral,
there's nothing right that stuff doesn't happen, there's no plan. So there are
a lot of things in nature that don't affect us as people as human beings,
but affect other organisms around us in a way that if it were to
evolve just a little bit in a lot of cases, it could be a
huge concern for us. This article is from Science News for Students dot org.
I found the same things in a lot of different articles, but this
one had all of them in one, you know, right, And that's
why I sent this one in particular to you, because they did talk about
all of the ones, at least the big ones that occur in nature,
that I would have had to send you like six articles, right, bunch
of yeah, yes, because realistically, we don't we don't have to talk
about this super super in depth because we're already at an hour in fifteen minutes,
you know, damn really yeah, okay, yeah, so I figured
we wouldn't need to talk real in depth about all of these things. Of
course we're going to talk about them, but we don't have to get into
the super in depth science that could cause these display to us and you know
all that stuff, right right, Yeah, but this is real and that's
scary. Yes, yeah, this this opening paragraph to this, I read
it and I already knew this was going to be the one that I was
going to use It's like you're reading a movie script exactly. It's like the
movie Yeah Crazy. A zombie crawls through the forest. When it reaches a
good spot, it freezes in place. A stock slowly grows from its head.
The stock then spews out spores that spread, turning into other zombies.
I mean, how cool is that. It's definitely plot for zombie movie.
Yeah, it's the opening of a but this is a thing that actually happens.
But this doesn't happen to people. It happens to ants. This is
a type of fungus. Yes, so far, so far, But this
particular type of fungus infects other ants so that this cycle can keep going.
In order to grow and spread, the fungus has to hijack an ant's brain.
It seems weird, but it's not unusual. The natural world is full
of zombies under mind control. There are zombies spiders and cockroaches that babysip developing
wasp larvae until the babies devour them. There's zombie fish that flip around and
dart towards the surface of the water. It seems like they're begging for birds
to eat them. There's zombie crickets, beetles and praying mantces that drown themselves
in water. Zombie rats are drawn to the smell of the pea of cats
that might actually just eat them. All of these zombies that occur in nature
have one thing in common, and that's parasites. As soon as they say
parasite, I gets chills. Right, that is one thing that freaks me
out so bad. Something living off of you or living inside you, completely
dependent on you. Right, that is apparently one of my fears. No,
that is scary as shit, because that is anything that's real. Yeah,
exactly, And that's why it is very scary, because you can't control
these parasites. Now, parasites, they can live on or in another creature.
The parasite might be a fungus, a worm, another tiny kind of
creature. All parasites eventually weaken or sicken their hosts. Sometimes the parasite kills
or even eats its host, but death of the host isn't the freakiest goal.
A parasite might get its host to die in a certain place or be
eaten by a certain creature. In order to accomplish these tricks, some parasites
have evolved the ability to hack into the host's brain and influence its behavior in
very specific ways. Oh yep, just death sends hack into somebody, hack
into your brain is so scary, I know, parasites or anything. Just
that's something that can happen to your brain. That is it. You're You're
done that. It's terrifying, control whatever you do. Yes, yes,
yes, yes, I don't like that at all. So how do parasites
turn these insects and animals into the almost dead? Every parasite has its own
method, but the process usually involves altering chemicals within the victim's brain. Researchers
are working hard to identify wish chemicals are involved and how they end up so
bizarrely altering the host behavior. I'm not sure if I am comforted or alarmed
by scientists working on this, right do yep, if you're working on this,
you know something. Yeah, well, conspiracy brains kind of take that
to a new level. Yeah, true, yes, So a fungus doesn't
have a brain. Worms and single celled critters obviously aren't very smart. Yet
somehow they still control the brains of larger and smarter animals. It blows my
mind, says Kelly Weiner Smith. I hope that's not Weener Smith. She's
a biologist who studies parasites at Rice University in Houston, Texas. She is
particularly interested in zombie creatures. True zombies, she points out, aren't exactly
like the type find in horror stories. In no way are these animals coming
back from the dead, she says. Most real zombies are doomed to die,
and some have very little control over their actions. The horsehair worm,
for instance, needs to emerge in water, so to make this happen,
it forces its insect host to leap into a lake or a swimming pool.
Often the host drowns. So that's it's a common thing when you look at
these these parasites. In order to release their eggs or to reproduce, they'll
they'll make whatever they're infecting do something. It even happens with us, like
there's I can't remember what parasite it is, but a lot of people get
it and then it'll cause intense pain and their feet in their legs, so
that that really bad pain makes you go sit in water, put your feet
in water to try to just cool the pain that's happening. To see that
just a little bit, Yeah, it's making this host and forcing up forcing
you to do that. Now, that's a different thing though. That's not
altering your brain chemistry and just making you want to be near water. It's
causing physical pain so that your reaction is to find water to try to make
it stop hurting. Yes, right, right, right, it is different
yeah right, Oh my god. But I mean just the fact that something
can have control over you to do that is scary, right Yeah. This
next one is found commonly in cats. This is Toxoplasma gondia gandhi. It's
a single celled creature that can only complete its life cycle inside of a cat.
First, the parasite must live for a time in a different animal,
like a rat. To ensure this part time host gets eaten by a cat,
the parasite turns the rat into cat loving zombies. Wow. So,
like, I mean smart enough to where a cat eats a rat, I
need to get into a cat, right right? So okay, what's a
cat going to eat a rat? Okay, so I need to get into
a rat. You're you're get a kick out of this. I cannot remember
where I read it or heard it, but apparently the part of the brain
that this particular guy and guy triggers. It's a lust for the cat.
Wow. Yes, so it's kind of like this rat is attracted to and
excited by this cat. That's crazy to me, Like, why can't you
just get into the cat? No, you're gonna get into a rat.
The cat wants the rat. The cat's gonna get the rat, and then
you get in. Can't you just get into the cat? The whole process
here, it's crazy. See, this is one keep touching my microphone.
This is one that can actually be passed on to us. That's why they
tell pregnant women not to scoop the litter box and things like that, because
that can cause some severe issue. But it's become kind of like a joke,
especially when you talk about like the crazy cat ladies and stuff like that.
It's that attraction to the cats. Wow. Yeah. Even over here
says Okay, one parasite causes an infected rat to become attracted to the smell
of cat pee. This helps the parasite because it needs a cat to eat
the rat for its life cycle to continue. That's insane, I know.
It's just a whole wow, like a whole process. Yeah, and that
seems to be very very common. There are some that live in fish that
will then fly out of the water, like keep jumping out of the water
over and over, or even beach themselves in an effort to get eaten by
birds so that the birds poop. An insect might get exposed to this poop,
and then the eggs are on them. A fish eats the insect,
repeat, repeat, repeat, right, right, But why why can't you
just get right into the cat? You would think they would just be able
to constantly reproduce inside the cat. Yeah, you have to get into the
rat first, and then the cat has to get the rat, and it's
so you can get into the cat. It's really interesting how those are so
particular. There's certain steps they need to do that is crazy to me.
I know, just the whole thing that I mean, Jesus Christ, just
get into the cat. Once you're in the cat, can't it just you
know what I mean? Well, it does. It'll lay its eggs and
then when the wait, I think it of the bird one right now,
But I don't know exactly what happens after it's outside the cat. Like I
know that the it'll lay eggs in the cat, and when the cat goes
to the bathroom. The eggs and stuff will be in its poop. Yeah
yeah, but I don't what happens after that. I don't know how it
gets around and then back to the rat. I mean, this is insane.
To be the complete completest life cycle, the parasite must live in time
for a time. Inside that a different animal sets as a rat to ensure
this part time host gets eaten by a cat. So you get in there.
You get in there hoping you're gonna get eaten by a cat, because
that's the what you can infect, you know what I mean? Yeah,
Like, what if you get into this rat and the cat doesn't eat you,
and then there's just a waste of time. Oh I'm just getting in
here for the cat to eat me. Well, this, this whole little
conversation right now is kind of shedding a little bit of light on what it's
like to be a podcaster and what our search histories are. Like, Oh
my god, you get so deep in this ship man. Had I been
doing this on my own, my search history would have said something about how
does Toxoplasma gondhii leave a cat's poop? I would have been googling stuff about
parasites and catsh it. Oh yeah, absolutely, it's you get into a
hole and you can't get out of. Yes, yes, absolutely. Our
search histories are a mess. I fear sometimes for my safety with my search
histories. Oh my goodness, my home. My husband will look once in
a while, not because he doesn't trust me or anything like that. He's
just curious. I think it's a kick out of it once in a while.
Yeah. Yeah. And then like he'll do it when I'm sitting right
there, and then he's looking at me out the side of his eye,
like, what in the hell is wrong with you? What are you looking
at? Man? Why did you google this? Oh that's so true.
Oh man, I want to do a show on pizza Gate, so so
bad you want to do one on pizza Gate? Yeah, but I'm so
scared to death of the happy looking at my search engine. And when I'm
looking up, I wouldn't worry about that. I mean, oh my god,
I can get into some deep shit there. We're not We're not those
big shows that could realistically draw their attention. They don't care if we talk
about it. True, you know, but part of me is like,
oh my god, what am I looking at? Here. I will fall
down those rabbit holes, no problem, it's hard not to. These next
ones are the ones that freak me out a lot. The fungus. Yeah,
in Thailand, there's a species of fungus Ophio cortesceps. They can force
an ant to climb almost exactly twenty centimeters about eight inches up a plant to
face north and then bite down on the leaf and it may they aunt do
this when the sun is at its highest point in the sky. This provides
ideal conditions for the fungus to grow and release its spores. So this is
another thing like you were talking about the cycle with a rat and the cat
and right this whole thing. This fungus makes the ant climb up the bottom
side of a leaf that is exactly twenty centimeters off of the ground and facing
north, right at exactly noon or the highest point in the sky. When
you say it out loud, it's crazy. I know, that's insane.
A fungus does that, A mushroom fungus. That's kind of what they look
like. They look like a little mushroom stem coming out their head. Yeah.
So biologist Karissa Debecker wants to better understand how that fungus exerts that mind
control over the ants. Again, scientist investigating this this is one of those
things that one small mutation and it can start moving on to much larger animals
than just ants. Right, So, she and her team have been studying
a species related to this fungus in Thailand. This United States cousin is a
fungus native to South Carolina. It too forces ants to leave their colonies and
climb. These ants, though, bite down on twigs instead of leaves.
This is likely due to the fact that the trees and plants in the state
lose their leaves in the winter, so they have them here in the US.
Right. Yeah, So she began to study these ants at the Pennsylvania
State University in University Park. There, her team infected a few species of
ant with the South Carolina fungus. The pair site could kill all of the
different ants she introduced to it, but the fungus made plant climbing zombies only
out of species that naturally infects in the wild. So it's like it could
read what these ants natural habitat was like, right, Oh, my goodness,
yeah, only out of the species that it naturally infects in the wild.
Oh, boy, that's that's worrisome. That it's scary. Now.
They do go on to talk a little bit about how they're examining these ants
and stuff like that and removing their brains. The researchers kept the ant brains
alive in a small petri dish. When the fungus was exposed to its favorite
brains, that is, ones from the ants that naturally and that it naturally
infects in the wild, it released thousands of chemicals. Many of these chemicals
were completely new to science. The fungus also released chemicals when exposed to unfamiliar
brains. These chemicals were completely different. They did publish their results in twenty
fourteen. I wonder if I can at some point try to find that paper.
I probably won't be able to understand it. But thousands of chemicals,
many of which were completely new, that's just baffling to me. In this
line from the next paragraph, is I mean as a zombie movie lover and
sometimes has nightmares about them. This is concerning the experiments at Penn State by
Debecker's team were the first to create ant zombies in the lab, and the
researchers only succeeded after setting up artificial twenty four hour cycles of light and darkness
for the zombies and their parasites. It will take more work to learn how
the parasites chemicals lead to zombie behavior. You're an ants. We are very
much in the beginning of trying to figure this out. Jesus, this just
makes me think it's way more likely for us to have a zombie apocalypse.
It really is. Man. They're creating ant zombies in a lab, yes,
let's say that out allowed, and they're analyzing these chemicals that are making
the fungus be able to turn these these ants right into whatever it is they're
doing. But I don't know if this chemical is just something that affects the
ants, or if it's some kind of signal back to the fungus so that
they know what kind of ant it is, where it's from. How How
is this now going to change and evolve, especially now that it's being experimented
with, right, I don't know. Man, that's we have people at
Penn State, Yes, creating ant zombies in a lab like legit. Yes,
well, oh wait, she now studies ant zombies at Ludwig Ludwig Maximilian
University in Munich, Germany. Thank god. There she is now probing how
that daily cycle of sunlight in darkness affects zombification. We're gonna have the girl
with all the Gifts scenario going on around here. Oh dude, twenty years
from now, that same that chick's gonna be sitting in the classroom all chained
up and ship Oh yeah, oh yeah, definitely. Oh my god,
Oh is hot as shit in this room. It is tot a shit here
in South Florida. I just spilled beer. It was like ninety seven.
They fell, like ninety seven that It's so gross. Why do you live
there? I know it, I've lived her all my life. It seems
like I can't get out. Well, I mean, I live in a
place where the wind hurts your face in the winter, so oh yeah,
see, I like being cold way more than I like being hot, though,
yeah, I do not like being hot. Like we just started opening
the pool today, and oh my goodness, I cannot wait to get in
it. But come like three weeks from now, I'll be over summer.
Yeah yeah, yeah, it gets very humid here. Oh it's so humid
here. You walk out and you're just gross with sweat and like, you
know, greasy walk from from my condo to the car, and I'm like
soaking wet with greasy sweat. It's so disgusting. That sounds gross. Oh,
I hate it. There's nothing in me that wants to go to Florida.
Oh, I don't blame you. I'm terrified of the ocean. The
ocean is scary. Yeah, yeah, I'm not a fan. If she
was down there, it's really scary. Yes, absolutely, m hmm.
Okay, So now we're onto soul sucking wasps. Yes, oh god,
pretty good because now we're dan want to murder hornets? Yes, down in
the States. So I had no idea there was a kind of wasp that
did this. I mean, wasps are horrible little creatures and they're just the
biggest pain in the ass. But I didn't know they were also parasites,
right right, I mean it explains a lot. They're terrible, but of
all parasites, wasps know some of the creepiest tricks one wasp mm shit Reckland
or Vellas nil Sen Senny. That's pretty good, close enough. One of
these wasps. They make it easy for the spider. So this type of
wasp lays its eggs only on orb weaving spiders. When a wasp larva hatches,
it slowly SIPs its host blood. The spider stays alive long enough to
spin a web, but not just any web. It spins a nursery of
sorts for the really worm like wasp baby sucking to its back. The spider
will even break down its old web to start a new one for the larvae.
The new web is stronger than the normal web. This is from Keizo
Tokusica to Cut Cut Takasuka Takasuka. He studies insect behavior and ecology at Kobe
University in Japan. When this web is done, the larva eats its spider
host. Now, the larva spins a cocoon in the middle of the web.
The extra strong strands these threads most likely help the larva stay safe until
it emerges from its cocoon ten days later, and there's more of them too.
The jewel wasp puts an insect on the menu it serves up to its
young cockroach. But before the wasp larva can chow down, its mother needs
to catch a bug that's twice her size. To do this, these people
cut some freaking hard to say names. They really Frederick liber Sat lib Libra
Sat. She transforms the cockroach into a zombie. B Librasat is a neurologist
who studies how the brain controls behavior. He works at Ben Gurion Gryan University
in Beersheva, Israel. Beershiva is a great name for a town, by
the way, beer Shiva. Beershiva ior like the live in Beersheva. Yeah,
I don't want to live in Israel, but if Ohio or West Virginia
could have a Beershiva, I'll be there. The Jewel wasp sting takes away
a cockroach's ability to move on its own, but it follows like a dog
on a leash. When the wasp pulls on its antenna, Oh my goodness,
yeah man. The wasp bleeds the cockroach to her nest and lays an
egg on it. She then leaves, sealing the egg inside the nest with
its dinner. When the egg hatches, the larva slowly devours its host.
Being a zombie, this cockroach never tries to fight, bask back, or
escape Jesus Christ. So it's kind of like the Haitian zombie to where they're
just trained to do one thing. Or they're being gun around. They have
no conscious thought, basic right. They don't fight, bag, they don't
try to escape. Imagine a fucking wasp pulling on an antenna, you know,
of a cockroach and just leaving it. That is just crazy. I
want to see that. There's that little picture there, yes, in the
article, but I mean it just kind of looks like something inappropriates going on.
It really does. This poor cockroach in the picture is like on its
back and all its legs are like splayed out, and there's this teeny little
green wasp on top of it. Yeah, just owning it. Coaches there,
they're little, they are small, but they're here. Oh we get
big ones flying ones here. We well, ours fly but they're maybe the
size of a dime. Oh okay, we get them like maybe an inch
an inch and a half long. And they're called they're called palmetto bugs.
And it doesn't matter if you're the cleanest person in the world, Like,
you can get palmetto bugs cockroaches here. Oh yeah, you can get cockroaches
here too, very easily. Yeah, it doesn't matter how clean your place
is whatever, it's just one has to find a way into your house.
They creep me out. They're so gross. And then some fly, some
some don't fly, some some deal when you like go to try to catch
one and start flying, oh fucking out. Yeah, that's always a very
unpleasant thing. When something you don't expect to get up and fly does right,
You're like, oh, my God, wasn't expecting that. I I
don't like flying bugs much at all. M I've gotten a few like stuck
in my hair before, those little Japanese beetles that eat your roses and stuff.
I've gotten a couple of those stuck in my hair before, not into
it. So this, this next one, this next wasp has an interesting
name. Did you see that? Or am I looking at here? This
scenario is so creepy the biologists named a similar wasp, Ampulex dementor, after
a supernatural enemy in the Harry Potter series Wow. In these books, dementors
can devour people's minds. This leaves the victim alive, but without a self
or a soul. Although a dementor is a close relative of the jewel wasp,
Liversatte notes that researchers are not yet confirmed that it also turns cockroaches or
any other insects into mindless slaves. Libsatt's group has focused its research on figuring
out what the jewel wasp does to the cockroach mind. The mother jewel wasp
performs something like brain surgery. She uses her stinger to feel around for the
right part of her victim's brain. Once found, she then injects a zombifying
venom all the fight. This is kind of like a lobotomy, isn't it.
Yeah, right, it's like a chemical lobotomy. That's that's what I'm
getting so far. When liversat removed the targeted parts of a roach's brain,
the wasp would feel around for what was left of the roach's brain with Oh
wait, the wasp would feel around for what was left of the roach's brain
with her stinger for about ten to fifteen minutes. If the brain was absent,
or if the brain was present, the wasp would take less than a
minute. He notes, this shows that the wasp can sense the right place
to inject its poison. So that's interesting. It's not just going straight for
the brain and putting something in just wherever it needs a certain spot, right,
And how do you know that? I you know what I mean?
You feel around for the roach's brain for ten to fifteen minutes, and the
brain was present, it would take less than a minute. Well, the
only thing I can think is that it's a natural kind of sense or being
able to feel where that is. Yeah, which is crazy to me,
kind of like when a mother is in labor but knows when to push.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you can't physically feel that you're you're there.
You just know we need to do this. And we think of insects as
just nasty, yes, gross, disgusting. Yeah, they have these instincts
as well as right. Oh, that's crazy to me. So that that
venom that they inject, the venom might interfere with the chemical and the roach's
brain called octopamine. This chemical helps the cockroach stay alert, walk and perform
other tasks. When researchers injected a substance similar to octopamine into zombie cockroaches,
the insects again began walking. Jesus. So before they wouldn't just go walk
on their own. They wouldn't even move unless being basically shown that they needed
to move. Yeah. Here, I'm gonna inject you in with this and
now you're gonna walk around. Yeah. Hold, they hand follow me.
Wow, And then they reintroduced this octop I mean that naturally occurs in the
roach's brain. So it's like whatever that was that the wasp injected in there
just completely blocked it. Right, But now you inject this and thank you.
Walk around again. Now this doctor, this Libristat. He says that
this is likely just one piece of the puzzle. There's still a lot of
work to do to understand the chemical process happening in the cockroach's brain, but
Winer Smith, who was not involved in the research, notes that Librisat's team
has worked out this chemical process in more detail than is available for most types
of zombie mind control. So he's made a lot of progress with this one
example of like a zombie mind control and nature. Right, but there's so
many things we don't understand about, all these other ones that occur none at
all. Yes, and what do you what do you do? This guy
and that's his job, I mean, what do you do for a living?
Yeah? Oh my god? Right, like yeah, no, no
normal person who like not even me before I read this article, would ever
think that anything like that was possible. Right, It's something that we don't
know a lot about. So of course, normal people like you and I
that aren't doctors, aren't scientists, aren't going to know anything about them.
I mean, you know about parasites, and we know nature's weird. But
looking at all these things and knowing that, aside from like the wasps,
a lot of these just need to evolve a little bit to move on to
other animals, right right, right, that's it's scary, exactly exactly,
like this type of research is out there, and fuck, if this type
of resourch is out there, then it's real, you know, or at
least somebody thinks it's real enough to fucking put money into it and research it
exactly, and I think can be useful, but yeah, who is going
to be using it? Right? For the normal everyday people. It's just
crazy to think that there's somebody out there doing this. Yeah. So,
uh, we were talking about the fish a little bit earlier. M That
same woman that is studying the ants, her specialty is zombie fish. She
studies California killie fish infected with a worm another fucking hard name, a worm
called you have ploor kiss. What the fuck? It's a worm, It's
a worm. It's a worm. It's a parasitic worm. A single fish
may have thousands of these worms living on the surface of its brain. The
wormier the brain, the more likely the fish is to behave Strangely, we
call them zombie fish, she says, but admits that they are less like
zombies than the ants, spiders and cock riches and infected fish will eat.
They'll still eat normally, they'll still stay in a group. But it also
tends to dart towards the surface, twist its body around, or rub against
rocks. All of these actions make it easier for birds to see the fish.
It's almost like the infected fish wants to get eaten. And that's like
we were talking about earlier. These fish want to get eaten so that these
parasites can pass into the bird, right, rats and the calves exactly.
And we're gonna kind of breathe is over that because we've already talked about it.
And that's the end of the article. Bullshit this woman win Er Smith,
we ash Smith. It seems to be all over the place too,
right, I mean, California, South Carolina was the other place. It's
like we if we see her on the street, we had no fucking idea,
but when she goes like a conference. Yeah, you know, like
one of these conferences. She's like the ship. Oh my god, you
gotta sweet up here. We Oh. When there's the picture of the brain,
it kind of just looks like crumbs. Yeah it does. It looks
says something I would fucking it looks like a piece of chicken I was season
and put in the oven, right, it really does. Yeah. And
it's like the the uninfected one almost looks like a bunch of eggs just by
Yeah. Yeah, and maybe the eggs got pickled for the other one.
Yeah, that's weird. Interesting, very interesting. So zombies are already in
nature, They're they're already there, right, it's those are things that would
just small, one small evolution, one small mutation. They can now move
on to larger animals, and then maybe another small mutation, and they now
all can move on to us. They really could. And what was your
what was the crazy part of that that for you? Like? Which?
Which article? Which part of the article? I really didn't like the wasps,
but I mean, I just don't like wasps to begin with. It's
all unpleasant, it really is. It didn't necessarily ruin any thing for me,
But it's just eye opening how many possibilities there are exactly. Like,
it's like eye opening to the point where like, man, I had no
idea. Yeah, the whole Haitian thing with the digging up the bodies and
injecting them with the pufferfish poison too, well, I think crazy. I
think the pufferfish poison that was a powder that was made that was blown into
somebody's face. So you could just be walking down the street, somebody passes
you and just goes, yeah, you're done, right, done, that's
it. You're done. You're gonna be fucking farming on a planetation for the
rest of your life and not knowing what you're doing. Yeah, your slave,
your slave labor for the rest of your life, and you don't even
know it, right, and your family doesn't know it. Nobody knows that
you're missing. No, you're dead, You're buried, you're dead, you're
in this grave right here we come to Visio. Oh, yeah, that's
the craziest to me, that that that person is dug up. Yeah,
Oh that's nuts. Now, this this I found really interesting because I heard
it on that one podcast that I had listened to while doing my research.
Did you happen to listen to them at all. Was it the Doctor?
Yeah, the Um Monster Talk podcast. I'm not sure if I listened to
that, but I listened to The Doctor with the Certain parts of the brain.
Yes, yes, it's yes, that was Hughes, right, yes,
yeah, yeah. Is it David Hughes, Stephen slow Field or something
slum Yeah, that's Oh. He got me on this little rabbit hole on
these different things and how they can affect the brain and if one part of
the brain is damaged, how will a person act. Yes, yeah,
I watched. Yeah, why do they move so slow? Why you know
this part of the brain was affected. Yeah. He does talks and seminars
about this, and I want to go to one so bad. Oh my
god, I would totally be there. I started watching some of his stuff
and listening. I'm like, and you're right. I got into it.
I listened to like three different videos after the one I watched. I'm like,
oh my god, just different parts of the brain affect this is just
a certain way you'll act, Like, that's why you move slow, you
know, that's why you're not so bright. His whole thing was crazy exactly.
That was one of the episodes that made me go, oh my goodness,
this is gonna be a long episode. I love it though, because
it's a very logical approach, in a scientific approach, because studies have been
done on these parts of the brain and what they control and how they might
affect somebody that has damage to those parts. Right. But on this particular
episodisode that we're talking about, it's Monster's Talk podcast. This was back in
twenty eleven, so you got to scroll back quite a bit, but there's
an interview with Harvard medical doctor Stephen Schlasman, and he talks about the brain
possible effects of damage from viruses, prions, parasites, and how they would
create zombies. In this episode, I remember his main concern was not a
virus, It was not a parasite. His main concern was these prions.
This is something that I did do a little bit of research into, but
it's it's a bit terrifying when you look into them. Did you happen to
look into the prions and stuff like that and how they're different from viruses and
a little bit not not as much as I looked into his brain. Parts
of the brain that effects. Yeah, but a little bit, well,
a lot of us have seen the whole zombie deer disease that's been going around
for a while. Now, have you seen anything about that. There's just
the article you sent me. I was looking at the deer thing and it's
insane. See. We actually got a news alert at the start of hunting
season last year saying that if you saw a deer that weren't acting like a
normal deer, or if you killed a deer and you wanted to get it
butchered for the meat, you needed to get it tested first. Because this
disease is spreading like crazy. It was in one or two states when it
first started, and then it went to five, and right now it's in
twenty six different states. Holy shit. Yes, and this infects deer.
And I know I skipped over the parts of the brain part, but we'll
go back to that because this is something that is current. It is happening,
and you're probably you might see a news alert for it come hunting season
again. This zombie dear disease is called chronic wasting disease CWD. It causes
infected animals to stumble around, drool, become aggressive, they lose weight,
they're just kind of rhyming like like us shamplaining zombie. Yeah, this is
the most zombie esque behavior we've seen through any virus or any parasite or anything
like that, at least as far as our understanding or our culture kind of
understanding of zombies goes. But the hard part about this one is it's not
curable. They have no cure whatsoever for this prion disease. They don't even
understand prions at all. They're a misfolded protein that somehow became infectious, but
they have no idea how or why, and there's no treatments and no cures.
If you were to catch one, you would just deteriorate over the course
of several months, maybe lose your ability to speak or move, and eventually
die and doctors could not do anything to save you as a human. Yeah,
if you eat a deer that is infected with this chronic wasting disease,
say you go hunting, you shoot a deer it happens to have it,
and you consume the meat from this deer that has these proteins in it,
and you contract this disease because you can contract it through eating the meat.
You're fucked. Is there any way of telling you that the meat is bad
or not even you do have to go get it tested. Most butcher shops,
if you take it to get butchered, you can ask them to test
it. What if you clean it yourself though you might have no idea,
right, Yeah, they're advising against doing that. Oh my god. If
there are cases in your state, they suggest that you death la get the
meat tested before you eat it or before you butcher it. Because most of
the time you could even call like um local wildlife places, um, stuff
like that to where they do deal with like deer, and you can ask
them where to get this meat tested before you butcher it. Oh my god.
How many people are not doing that though, like just yeah, probably
that's scary. Well, as of right now people do. People can get
it and you can die from it. But these animals that are just kind
of shambling around and stuff like that. This is this is mostly affecting deer,
moose, and elk. The University of Minnesota researchers warn local lawmakers that
they should be taken action to prevent the spread. While humans are getting it,
they're not doing this funny shambling around thing because of the way it affects
their brain and they just end up getting sick and show some symptoms like not
being able to speak, not being able to move, but then they die.
They're not showing the aggression, they're not showing the wandering or confusion and
stuff like that. Right again, it might only take one small mutation for
people to now start showing the rest of those symptoms. Right, Yeah,
you're right, one mute. Yeah, and they are studying this in the
library, not the library, oh my goodness, the laboratory. But yeah,
it says that it is probable, and this is an older article too,
that the human cases of CWD associated with the consumption of contaminated meat will
be documented in the years ahead. It is possible that number of human cases
will be substantial and will not be isolated events. So if you eat deer,
which deer is delicious, be very careful with the deer you're eating,
Maybe check to see if this disease is in your area or is in your
state, and then get the meat tested before you take it home and make
stew or jerky or anything with it. Yeah, definitely get it checked out
if it's you know, this is going on in your area. Yeah,
which I mean after the last time I checked, it was twenty six states,
and that I mean that's when I got the alert last year, So
it could be more. Well, that's a lot of states considering how many
you know, how many states actually hunt for deer exactly? I mean,
I think deer hunting is legal in every state, isn't it. I think
so I wonder if there's states you're not allowed to. Yeah, I'm not
sure on that, I don't think. So. I'm trying to think of
what state might not let you. Oh, I know down here, like
yeah, you think Florida, No, not so much. But Florida in
general is a very very country. Yeah, and there's a lot of deer,
Like even even in the Everglades down here. It takes me two minutes
to get to the Everglades from where I'm at right now. I'm like in
my place, and you know, people hunt deer on airboats and they ever
do you? I can never remember which is which? Do you have alligators
or crocodiles? There? Alligators? They are a new fear of mine.
So many alligators down here. Like going fishing a lot of stuff in freshwater,
you see a lot of alligators. And there's many times where We've taken
a canoe out fishing and stuff, and I biggest alligator I ever saw.
It is probably like fourteen fifteen feet from you know, head to tail,
and you're just sitting the canoe. You're in a little canoe that could tip
in a minute. It's a little freaky. Like I said, you like,
huh, why do you do that? I don't know. I guess
because I guess it might be similar to like say you're in Colorado and and
you see a bear and it's not that big of a deal. Um,
you know, they're not gonna fuck with you unless you're messing with their babies
or you you know, you like ball right near one. You're trying to
steer clear of them. But like even going out to the Everglades, like
when Mandy used to come down, we uhould go to Everglades, watch the
sunset and shit, and there's she saw a few alligators in the in the
in the water there. They're everywhere down here, like everywhere. I don't
like that. Oh I don't like me either. There they creep me out.
But there are also saltwater crocodiles down here. I've never seen a saltwater
crocodile, but they are in soft Florida. So I mean you're at the
beach and you don't worry about sharks. Now you gotta worry about crocodiles still
in the ocean. Man's that's sounds terrible. Oh, alligators are they're they're
They're very intimidating. But if you if you just stay away from them,
not no bother at all. They won't fuck with you at all. But
they're still scared to see because it's like fucking prehistoric. Yeah, it's like
a little dinosaur. I don't know. I prefer our beaches up here.
They're like on the lake and there's nothing in there that really wants to eat
you see. I would like I would like that. I mean there's things
that want to but they can't, right right right, Yeah, I've um
man, I talked to that on the show once where I'm pretty sure our
sharks hit me once we were um we were surfing and it was like dusk,
which is a really stupid time to go surfing, because you know,
the sharks and fish feet at dusk and dawn. And we were at dawn
and I was sitting on my board and you kind of like all right,
So you have your hands, your elbow blows up on your board, but
the rest of you is like floating in the water. You know what I
mean, Well, you're holding on to yourself. Just buy the elbows on
your board. So from probably like tits down, you're you're just in the
water. And something hit me so hard, like in my thigh, like
right in my thigh probably like I would say, like a foot and a
half maybe two foot, like why it hit my thigh like hit me to
where to the point where I like swayed in the water like boom, like
hit me hard. And my friends say, I pretty much walked on water.
I just got out of there. But one hundred percent, man,
But it is known that sharks will they will bump you before they buy you.
Most of the time they will bump you just to see what's going on
and see what you are, you know. Yeah, And I wish that
I could have seen what happened so I could say that was a shark,
But I it was you know, it was dusky, it was dark.
I couldn't see in the water. So I can only say like ninety percent
it was a shark. But one hundred percent in my mind a big fucking
shark bump me. I am sweating. Yeah, it freaked me the funk
out. I will never go surfing again, whether it be light or dark
or whatever since that. Yeah. Yeah, I've never surved since since that
day. Again, I would say just don't go at that time. But
there's there's sharks in the ocean. I just wouldn't go to the ocean anymore.
Yeah. And it's creepy, man, because you can't see down there.
You know, you can't see what's coming up on you at all.
You just can't see. It's not so clear where you can see like twenty
feet down and you just you don't know what's down there. And the ocean
is scary to me, man, the ocean is terrifying. I mean I'm
right by Lake Erie, Like, I'm not even an hour's drive from Lake
Erie, and we can go up there and swimming stuff, right, can't
You can't even see like six inches down? Oh yeah, it's it's like
the ocean. You can see a little more, but oh not much man.
And you know in your head, you know that there are sharks out
there. Yeah. See, we just have fish. Yeah, No,
there's there are sharks in there for sure. Frogs. It's so scary.
Frogs actually freaking me the fuck out. I'm scared of death of frogs.
I just heard that. I don't know why, but I am so.
I'm scared of death of frogs, which I found really funny because my best
friend, she's been we've been best friends since we were five, twenty five
years now. Her favorite animal is a frog. Oh she even has tattoos
of frogs. That's fine. I don't know why many I don't know why,
something maybe something I don't have our memory before now, which scares me
also because who knows what happened, But I don't know why. Frogs freaked
me the fuck out, Like I'm scared of that, the frogs. We
have a lot of frogs up here. Surprisingly, we found a couple in
our pool. Filter there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot down here,
like a lot down here. Man, Well I expect them to be
down there. Yeah they yeah up there? Yeah that is weird up there?
Yeah, no randomly show up. Yeah. They freaked me out.
I don't know why. Maybe something happened when I was small, I don't
remember, but maybe well, maybe frogs freaked me the fuck out maybe if
you remembered, you'd be like, oh, well, that wasn't that bad.
I thought about doing like hypnotism and ship too. But then again,
I'm like, maybe I don't want to know. Maybe I don't remember for
a reason. Maybe maybe I'm yeah, I'm good, I'm all right.
Frogs never freaked me out. Frogs to snakes, so I'm fine with all
of them. Yeah, I don't know why. Just frogs freaked me out.
I can I think I can understand why, though. I mean,
they're they're slimy, and they do move really fucking quick. Yeah, but
I don't have a problem with snakes or anything, you know, anything like
that. And the way they look at you, there's something with their eyes.
Yeah, they got those funny shaped pupils, and yeah, they're like
sweating you. They're reading you. Yeah, oh yeah, it's funny.
Frogs fread me out though, that is that is funny, all right.
So the last part of this zombies and parts of the brain. So that
same guy we were talking about, this is something on him in his research
that he's done, and parts of the brain and how they might explain zombie
behaviors, specifically in a lot of the movies we watch. When I was
listening to that episode with him, he's the one that raised the question is
it scarier to have a fast zombie or a slow zombie? Okay, he
thought it was a slow zombie because he gives you time to think before you
die. Okay, I can get that. But I am definitely more terrified
of than the fast ones. Yeah, me too. I get what he's
saying. Yeah, it's boone done, you're dead. But no, I'm
still scared of the fast ones. Yeah. Same here. So do you
want to go over the zombie stagger? The zombie stagger, zombie stagger?
Okay, zombie stagger, sterebellum and basil ganglia, the areas of the brand
that regulate balance and fluid motion could be responsible for the zombies clumsiness. Slowsman,
said Slasman, something like that, Slasman, and damage to these areas
could explain why they stagger so ungracefully with their prey. He has. So
many people are experiencing a temporary impairment of their cerebellum when they drunkenly stumble out
of a bar. Okay, so that makes sense. Yes, it's that
part of the brain you're cerebellum, which which I saw in that video that
I watched with him, was the part of you that was so unstable and
like you're stumbling and you can't you know, right, right, Yeah,
that's what's affected when you drink excessive amounts of alcohol. You start stumbling around
because your cerebellum is impaired a little bit. That makes so much sense.
You imagine being like that, like permanently. No, you're gonna walk around,
You're gonna stumble around like that. Oh, there's there's many nights where
my cerebellum was affected. Oh, same by the zombie stagger. Yes,
like I've had it bad enough to where I was holding on to the grass
because the earth was spinning too fast. Oh yeah, yeah, that's terrible.
I hate that. I love my beer. I do not like getting
drunk. No, me neither. And you know what, hangovers I can't
take them me either. They're good at least one two days for me.
I can't recuperate. They're the worst thing in the world to me. I
get the body hangovers now, like that first day, I'm just I'm nauseous.
My whole body hurts, my head is pounding, my mouth is dry,
I feel like my eyeballs are going to fall out. Oh yeah,
body aches. So yeah, you feel like you have the flu? Yes,
yeah, yeah, you really do. So if any of you people
that are significantly younger are listening, this is what you have to look forward
to enjoy it. Well at last. Yeah. Absolutely. I didn't get
my first hangover until probably twenty six, twenty seven. Yeah, like a
first good one, like right the lasts. Yeah, yeah, but even
that was just a headache for the day. Oh it's just the worst.
But nowadays, yeah, like it almost it's almost a deterrent from drinking itself.
Get to a point where like, oh my god, I'm gonna feel
like this, I gotta stop. Yeah, that's why I like now now,
especially like I don't like to drink a ton. I have my times
where I do, like around my birthday and stuff. In January, I
was turning thirty, so I was like, you know what, fuck it.
Yeah, so I started drinking a lot more. But it was like
to the point where I would wake up in the morning, drink coffee and
take advil, go on about my day, and then come like dinner time,
I was having a beer or two again, right right, because I
knew that next day after it was going to be miserable too. Yes,
And I had that funny little cycle for about two weeks and then I was
like, I can't, I can't do this. I'm telling you last for
days now. Hum, well, it's the worst, the worst. So
yeah, I get the zombie snagger. Okay, now we're going to move
on to the appetite zombie munchies. Look no further than the brains venture medial
hypotho hypothalamus. To understand the zombies in social appetite, he likens their hunger
to studies on the thing again, venture medial hypothalamus in primates, which shows
that damage to this part of the brain causes the monkeys to eat anything and
eat uncontrollably. M there is a condition out there to where this part of
the brain, somebody will be born with this part of the brain damaged or
not fully formed in some way, and they will just constantly eat and eat
and eat and eat and neat and always feel hungry. I think I have
that right now, But that's that's actually a condition that happens naturally. Crazy.
If that part of your brain is damaged, say you're even in a
car accident, and that particular part is damage. You are gonna want to
eat anything in everything right, like uncontrollably. It says, yeah, that's
crazy. So what about the rage part? Okay, zombie rage. The
amygdala, the brain's primal emotion center, is where emotions like rage are first
registered. Then typically the anterior cingulate cortex steps in and dampens of the signals
from amdiglia migdola. In zombie, the words are crazy in this, Oh
I know? In zombie, Sloman said, the amygdala appears to have run
amok, causing hyper aggression. Hmm. So the brain's primal emotion center,
like who wear, emotions like rage are first registered. This isn't something that's
out of the ordinary either, like a lot of times you'll see it with
people who have been in motorcycle accidents or like fighters like professional MMA fighters,
boxers, things like that do will sustained brain damage and a large part of
it might be to the amygdala. And that's why like some of them might
be overly aggressive, get angry a lot faster, snap at people. Or
who's the one that murdered his wife and kid? Do you remember? Oh?
Yes, wrestler um Chris Benoit. Yeah, yes, he had brain
damage. Yes, right, right, so if that rage or unco controllable,
not even just rage, but sorrow, yeah, feeling betrayed. All
of these feelings are processed by the amygdala they passed through there. Yeah.
Remember when Mike Tyson bit a Vander Holyfield's ear huh, like took a big
chunk of his ear off, Like he actually bit his ear off. Yeah,
that had something to do with maybe some some zombie rage, which I
had to say. Mike Tyson is really nice. He seems to be right,
yes, yeah, I actually got to meet him quite a while ago
at a place I was working. He stopped in with like his whole little
entourage. Oh nice, and I got to sit talk with him, and
it was just super chill. He was very very nice, yeah, very
polite. Oh that's awesome he was. He was awesome, absolutely awesome.
Like he seems to be like anything I've ever seen of him, seems to
be really fucking down earth cool. I also did not ask him why he
bit somebody's ear off. Yeah, so I probably played it a little safe.
Oh that's awesome that you man. He's like one of my like growing
up. He was the best that's ever been. Well, I guess at
one point he used to live up around here. I don't remember exactly where
it was. Are the Catskills there? You what Catskills? I don't think
so. I'm not sure where there he are, but I know that he's
from the Catskills. I don't know where he lived since then. Yeah,
I don't know when exactly he supposedly lived up here, but I just always
heard that at some point he lived in I think it was either Canfield or
Courtland, which are both maybe fifteen minutes from me. It's just one's north
one south. Oh wow, Okay, did you meet him there? Where
are you're at now? Yeah? I met him here in Austintown. Actually,
it's this is that's the actual town right next to me. Because the
town I live in, if you blink while you're on the main road,
you're through it. Okay, The main town right next to me is Austintown.
And when I was working in there, in that town, he had
stopped into the place I was working, and it was really really cool.
It was a very nice experience. He was He's the only famous person I've
ever met, but he was cool as shit. That's awesome. Schools are
in New York. By the way, they were upstate New York. Okay,
okay where he's from. Okay. So the final part zombie stupidity what
we were talking about at the beginning full circle moment. Finally, zombies appear
to have a malfunctioning frontal lobe, the part the brain associated with problem solving,
planning, and reason. Zombies can't even figure out how to open the
farmhouse door to get to their cowering prey. So if this part, the
frontal lobe, isn't that what they did, lobotomy is on I think so,
yeah, a frontal lobe lobotomy. This impairs your your reasoning, how
to figure out how to do certain things, even simple things, right,
So that makes sense. So if there's damage to that part there, they're
gonna be stupid. They're not gonna be able to turn a doorknob to open
it, open a window, any of that. Absolutely, it makes perfect
sense. So he goes on to say, so the amygdala fires, and
you have a hypothalmus saying hungry, hungry, hungry, and an amygdala saying
attack, attack, attack, and no anterior congulate cortex to dampen that response.
And no frontal lobe to make sense of any of this. So the
combination of the damage to all those areas of the brain creates what we know
as the typical romero zombie, right, which is fascinating. Yeah, that
is I like that part. And he does these seminars where he does answer
questions and he does talk about the brain damage, what can cause this brain
damage in different scenarios that could lead to an actual zombie like disease, But
he does state that it is extremely unlikely that we will ever see it.
That's mostly because if this damage is done to the brain, then there's gonna
be a lot larger problems. Plus, this isn't going to spread if it's
just damage to the brain, right, there would have to be something that
is very fast acting, very very fast, and infecting spreads very quickly inefficiently,
maybe airborne. It would have to be something airborne to do this,
But then it would also have to cause brain damage very quickly, right,
or else people will start to study it and they'll come up with some kind
of cure or some kind of treatment for it. And even say like a
virus broke out, most likely if this virus broke out at one place,
if it was something like that, supposed a zombie virus, they would track
down every single person that stepped foot in that area and it would be quarantined
off, right, like what we're experiencing now with quarantine, it's not anything
and compares into something like that, that would be like martial law gates up,
no one in or out. Yeah, it would have to be like
you said, airborne, something so fast that it just spreads without without even
knowledge, right, because if it's passing through bodily fluids, if you get
bit, that's going to be a very fast a way to tell who's infected
and who's not. And it wouldn't realistically take over the world, right,
There would have to be certain sets of perfect circumstances to make that possible.
And it's so unlikely, but you could probably rest assured that we're not going
to have a zombie apocalypse on our hands anytime soon. No, unfortunately,
because I think that would be pretty cool. I say it would be pretty
cool, but it probably wouldn't be probably be the first one to die,
right, I mean it would be it would be something to see. Yeah,
yeah, it would be like I don't want to experience it. No,
it's almost like UFOs, you know, coming in attacking Earth. It
would be awesome to see, but no, I probably wouldn't survive, so
no, thanks, Yeah I have. Oh that just made me think of
something. Have you heard the theories that aliens and the fae are the same
thing? No, you and I might have to cover that someday, Oh
for sure, because that it made so much sense. It was insane.
So we've already did a couple of future projects beer tasting. Yeah, UFOs
and the Fae. It's going to be an interesting twenty twenty, at least
for us for collabs. I think it'll be a lot of fun. I
do want to thank you so much for coming on with me and doing this.
Oh my god, it's my pleasure and it's an honor to be on
your show. I love you. I think your show is awesome. So
yeah, thank you for having me. Well, thank you. And I
told you earlier when we were talking you are like my favorite conspiracy podcast.
Thank you so much. That is so awesome to hear like like someone that
you all right, so someone that you respect then you like so much to
hear them say that about you, it's just awesome and that's how I feel
right now. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. I mean,
I love your show. I'm an actual fan of your show too,
and I love the content you cover, the different little things, and I
can't wait to see, like what's next, because every time like an episode
comes out, I'll pull it up and I'll read the description and then I'll
download it and save it, and as soon as I have like a little
extra time, I will listen to either that that episode as soon as I
can, or if I have like a couple of them, I'll just listen
to them back to back to back because I do love them. I love
hearing about conspiracy theories. You guys, unfortunately, will probably never hear me
cover conspiracy theories or aliens, just because it's hard to talk about by myself.
Maybe you and I'll cover or something at some point, but yeah,
that will probably be the only time I cover it. All right, let's
go me as long as you you know, that would have you on any
show I ever do, so that would be awesome. Thank you so much
for saying that. That means a lot. I like that. Thank you,
of course. I mean, it's how I really feel about it.
And likewise, do, and I can't tell you how many. Um,
okay, so I've got I've gotten quite a few reviews saying that, you
know, I've been sent over here from shoes, booze and tattoos and I'm
glad. So, I mean you've brought me listeners and thank you so much.
I hope that, like I've brought you at least one or two.
But if not that, I mean you brought me that. Just thank you
so much. That's awesome. Well, hopefully with this, with us collaboring
like this and they actually get to hear us talk, interact and cover something
like zombies together, maybe more people will start heading over too. Yeah,
for sure, man, it's a great show. It's a lot of fun.
I really liked the last one too, when you talked about the UFOs
that we're being to classify by the government and you were talking with the guys
from Inhuman Experience, Yes, which Bobby and Bobby are awesome. Yeah,
they're good, good good dudes, man, good stuff and a good show.
They're they're really cool. I listen. I saved their episodes so as
soon as most likely tomorrow, since we've already wrapped this up a little bit
I'll start listening to some of theirs, because I haven't think, like six
episodes saved, ready to like go, but I haven't had time to just
sit and binge like I would like to. But they will be so happy
for that because they are such big fans of your show too. Well,
maybe they'll hear this. They'll hear this for sure. I mean, if
anybody makes it, what two and a half hours into an episode, is
it really it feels like like that just slowed. It felt like that,
right, Yeah, good stuff, and we covered a lot, yes,
all these different things that could lead to zombies. We love zombie movies.
Now we know how they might happen. Yeah, all creepy stuff, like
like shit, this could really happen. Is this creepy? Absolutely? Absolutely,
if you have a mind that can think that way, you know,
like that's oh, that's crazy. Definitely. And I'm gonna close out the
episode, so I guess all we can really do now is keep an eye
out for shambling deer and elk ants with mushrooms on their heads, fish flying,
yes, and maybe stay away from those things. Yeah, Steer Clear,
thank you so much for having me on. That was really awesome.
Of course, anytime, appreciate it. Thank you guys so much for listening.
I'll see y'all later. No Bader say I'm good looking. The body
and the way to from my stun deep inside of Yell can never feel away.
There is no mistake from my stun deep inside Yell. Almost to blame
prison called the pray. My stun deep beside Yell only only dreams. No
one to send your grace from my stun deep beside