Ep. 158: Best of 2020: Dumper's Redemption, Chuck Norris Reads Aldo Leopold, and the Not So Sharpest Moment of the Year

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
The Hunting Collective is presented by Element. I guess I
grew up on a row. Hey, everybody, welcome to another
episode of The Hunting Collective. I am Ben O'Brien and
I'm joined by Phil the Engineer. Hello, phill Up. Last
episode of the year. Who we did it? We did it?

(00:30):
Fifty two episodes. We did more than fifty two episodes.
We had. We had a lot of extra credit time
on Hunting Collective here this year thanks to the Quarantine cast.
And if you weren't here for the Quarantine cash you
missed a lot. Go back and listen to all those episodes.
We did two full weeks of daily podcast right at
the start of the lockdowns, way back about ten fifteen
years ago in April um back when we thought that

(00:53):
we might be over in two weeks. Yeah, we were like,
well for these two weeks that we'll be locked out
before we get out of this, will do dailies. Yeah.
Really engendered a lot of good feelings for us and
for you that we could do that for you and
that you guys enjoyed it and liked it. But we're
still there, Phil, We're still sitting around in our house.

(01:14):
Is not going to concerts, not going parties, nothing like that.
So didn't turn out the way we thought, did it? Nope?
Not really. I'm still having fun, how about you, dude?
I can't You know what I told you earlier when
we were talking that I felt every once in a
while with a podcast that's weekly like this, you get
into a funk where you're just like, I don't have

(01:37):
time to make it what I want to make it,
so many things I want to do, It's just it
has to come every week, and you just get into
this creative funk. And when I got COVID, it kind
of threw me into an overall funk that I'm just
want to get out of desperately. And going back over
all the shows from this year, listening all the fun moments,
all the poems and the songs and the poop jokes

(02:00):
just made me want to do this even more next year.
Maybe want to jump twice as hard into THHC next year,
make it as good as humanly possible, and get you, guys,
a show that you're gonna love even more than you
already do. And if you hate it, which you know,
by the bye Phil. There's some negative reviews going up

(02:21):
on iTunes. I was alerted by this by an emailer. Oh.
He said, hey, man, I saw there's a couple of
negative reviews. What do we do? I said, nothing, you
can do. We don't We could fight those people. We'd
have to go to great effort to find them and
go to their houses and and fight them. Yeah, and

(02:42):
then and then you're probably breaking several several laws at
that point. Yeah, then you're in jail, you never see
your kids again, you get divorced. It's a whole it's
a whole spiral. So don't read the comments, don't read
the reviews. But if you want to help us out
specifically with this, there's a lot of people saying that
we're too immature, that we're too silly, that skipped the guests,

(03:02):
the intro apart where fills a part of it. It's
just it's not even worth your time. What you're gonna
hear on this best of is a middle finger to
all those people say like, we have fun and we're
not ashamed of it. Well, sometimes we're silly. Sometimes we
tell poop jokes, sometimes we get a little uh infantile, maybe,
but but sometimes we get way too serious. Sometimes we
shed a tear. Sometimes we change lives here at th HC.

(03:25):
So in your face, negative reviewers, go listen to some
other bullshit podcast. We get. We take it seriously here
at t HC. Any anything you want to say feel
in defense of what we've built here. No, I thought
that was that was pretty good? Uh summary? Um, yeah,
I don't care about any of them? Is that bad?

(03:48):
Should I care that people don't like me? Ben, Ben,
please tell me it's okay, it's not okay. If someone
likes you, you should someone likes you, you you should be happy,
and if they don't like you, should be sad. And
that's how it works. Um, that's a great way I
find a move through the world on a productive way. Okay,
thank you listen. If you want to help us out
with this, certainly always Well you don't say this every episode,
but you could. If you like this podcast, you should

(04:09):
go to and review it on iTunes or wherever you listen.
Give it five stars right up? Some great thing about Um,
that'd be nice, but you don't have to do that.
We don't care. We'll still keep making shows whether you
like us or hate us. So that's what this best
of it can be all about. This is this is
stuff that we like, the fans of this show like
that me and feel like and stuff that made us laugh,

(04:29):
stuff that made us think. Um, so this Best of
Part one is all about that, and we're gonna celebrate
the holiday season along the way. And so Phil, are
you ready for some best of action? Let's do it? Okay?
First up, now we have to well, if we're gonna
if we're gonna say anything about this podcast, we gotta
talk about sweet sweet Phil. He or the engineer, touched

(04:52):
us all so deeply this year. Um, there's so many ways.
But really, one of the ways that we've learned about
Phil this year is that we've gone through this exploration
of him not wanting to go hunting, and then and
then convincing him that it was a value, and then
watching him struggle to to find the time and his busy,
busy schedules to take the hunter safety course and eventually

(05:13):
pass it. Uh. It was riveting, confusing, exhilarating, um mind
numbing at times, but we followed along with Phil as
he discovered himself in a coming of age tale that
was Phil will fill every go hunting, Phil, do you
have Before we get into some of our our looks back.

(05:34):
Do you have anything you want to say to the audience.
I just want to say thanks for all all all
of the support out there from from just on Instagram,
emails to ben, from high profile celebrities which will get
too later. You've you all inspired me, so a big
thank you, appreciate it swept the nation. Um, so let's

(05:59):
just get into it. Everybody knows that you. Everybody knows
the end. Here in the beginning, Phil past the Center
safety course. Next year is going to be the year
when will be the year where Phil goes hunting and
kills and eats his first ever wild creature. That doesn't
mean he didn't have a lot to bring to this podcast.
So we're gonna take you. We're gonna start this story

(06:23):
last February, episode one four the Hunting Collective, where we
were announcing the winners of our one hundred episode contest
and one lucky fan who who got into the finalists
of our poetry contest Poetry about th HC, was able
to write a song, a poem, a work of art

(06:46):
that captured how we all felt about th HD at
that time last February. And so we're gonna We're gonna
go back in time. We're gonna we're here our man
Seth the flip Flop Flesher Morris through a little render
of a song. We all know about an engineer we
all love just to go over. Everybody who wrote their

(07:09):
poetic reviews has given us their Instagram, Twitter, Facebook handle, whatever,
so we know how to get ahold of them. So
that's how we'll represent. We don't have their names most
times we have their handles, but we have printed out
piece of paper. Everybody shake your paper rounds. We know
we got something going on going on. Um, we're gonna
have these performances, and then we'll take a quick quick

(07:30):
break to let Tracy calm down, get the breathing again,
and then we're gonna go back. But we have a
varied slate of performers here today. We'll start off by
the Flip Flop Flesher. Yes, sir, well, I'm feeling a
lot of pressure myself personally on your behalf. So you're
gonna do your poetic review. You're gonna hear a lot

(07:55):
of coughing in the backround. There's somebody sick. People in here.
They're all they're all sick. Uh, you have Bismarck's just
a friend. Is that correct? Am I correct about that?
You are correct? Man, You've been practicing a little bit.
Let's just play it. Take a minute to listen to
the beat, Tracy, can't hear it? You can't hear it?

(08:18):
Can I just hit it when whenever you're ready? Set? Okay?
Can you start to beat over? Yes? I can start
to beat out over. We got a disruption. I wanted.
I wanted to hit it at a time, at a time.
We have a destric in the studio. Didn't practice. I'm
gonna be sure, Tracy, try trying to hit it, hitting it,

(08:42):
gonna hit it, all right, I'm gonna hit it. Tell
us who this is for? Who are you performing for?
Jake Schuer, Ja, Jake Schuer? Give him a follow? All right,
give him a follow and we're gonna do a little
He's written this. Yes, bis Market's just a friend? About
th C? Here we go, h feeling it? M m
oh yeah ye. All right. Have you ever heard of pod?

(09:09):
You tried to rate but a hundred episodes They made
you wait before they gave away some sweet sweet gear.
Now listen up, it's a pod you need to hear.
Oh you got what I need. You ain't been hunting yet.
You ain't been hunting yet. You got what I need?

(09:35):
What you ain't been hunting yet? You ain't been hunting yet.
That's it, folks, all right, that's what I'm talking about.
That was beautiful. How don't feel How do you feel? Great?
It's electric in believally. You started off slow, I will say,

(09:55):
but you came into form at the end. You're feeling
about that? But I I just love the confidence and
he backed he backed it up with his performance a
lot of confidence. That was fan That is that? What like?
Is that? What stars feel like? That's like going to
American The people that get kicked off American Idol in

(10:17):
the early rounds rush like no other. Right now, this
is a better rush than no no, just in Okay, Phil,
how long did it take you to get the Phil?
He got what I need? How long it take to

(10:38):
get that out of your head? That's still in there?
It's probably in there, and now against that you listen
to it. That's right. I was just working on putting
this episode together and I kind of what we should
just get Seth back on the show more often to
do some singing. What do you think, yeah, maybe he
could just sing the intro song. Now if we run
out of money, which we mind, who knows the more
to flip getting better my opinion, That's all I care about.

(11:00):
The only other thing I would say about that clip
and that best stuff that was in February. Not really
close when we recorded that to the beginning of the pandemic,
as it kind of elevated in our minds. But we
were talking about an episode one oh four, how everybody
had given the flu to each other in that episode.
So that didn't age well, Phil, that didn't age well

(11:22):
or at a very different time right now, that's not
something we would joke about, but in that episode we
did joke about it. So that just goes to show
times they are changing. Uh maybe not for the better
in this case. So now we kind of set the
stage for we need to convince Phil, Phil and are
are the leader of our listenership. Eric Hall had a

(11:45):
back and forth where Eric asked Phil, hey, Phil, one
to ten, how excited are you? And Phil said, what
did you say? Phil? Three? Four five? It wasn't high.
It might have even been two and a half. It
was low, dude, you were not excited. It about hunting.
So what I did is I enlisted two of my
best friends in the world to to really give Phil

(12:06):
what he needed. And so here is David Hasselhoff Chuck
Norris given Phil a little motivation. Have you prepared a
opening uh opening sound for this? No, not at all.
Are you gonna figure it out right now? Okay, this

(12:33):
is called a Now we're reading, and this is Phil.
I haven't told you this. This is to help you
get inspired. Okay, okay, help you get inspired to go hunting.
Because I felt like we've tried everything to get your
number up. We've tried your in the beginning. If if
listeners don't know the story, in the beginning, Phil, I

(12:55):
just feel, hey, man, one to ten, how excited are
you to go hunting? And Phil said two? And eventually,
over time, Eric Hall is part of the committee to
try to get fields excitement level up for this upcoming hunt.
And now you're at a four four and a half,
four and a half. And so I felt the only
way to really do it was to get desperate and

(13:17):
enlist some of my great friends in the celebrity community.
Oh okay, this is news to me. So this be
the first time you're seeing this video, Phil Ah And
now reading this is David Hasselhoff reading Edward Abbey Mill.
My name is David Hasselho. Did you possibly know who

(13:37):
I am? But this quote comes from Ed Abbey Be
a part time crusader, a half hearted fanatic. Save the
other half of your lives for pleasure and adventure. It's
not enough to fight for the lad It's more important
to enjoy it, enjoy being yourself. Remember the theme of

(13:59):
night Rider is one man can make a difference to
fill the engineer you are that. This comes from Ben
and Davidoff. And now we're reading, Phil, what are you
feeling about? How do you feel David Hassloff David Hasslof, Wow, yeah,

(14:23):
um motivated That numbers is getting up. They gotta be
up there night You got a night Rider quote out
of this. I just wanted the lizards can see this.
But David Hasselhoff has just like a wall that's covering
like gold and gold record. I've watched this video from David.
I'm gonna post this on my social of course, David
is looking really good. Oh yeah, I don't know how

(14:43):
old he is. We should look that up, but he's
looking exceptional sounding exceptional. He's got a wall full of
platinum and gold records, a Dolphins statue, a pencil sharpener,
and what looks like some CDs and then a globe
snow globe. Yeah. Okay, well that was incredibly inspirational. I'm
up to a five. You up to a five? Up

(15:04):
to a five. Okay, we're gonna be a regular segment. Uh.
Next up is it is another celebrity you're really gonna like? Okay,
I'm not gonna tell you who it is. I want
to first of all, where did you meet David Hasselhoff?
That's impressed me and day in Germany back in oh yeah,
you were part of the disco text the early eighties. Yeah,
well thanks, Benn, I really appreciate that. Does he say Bill?

(15:26):
He says Bill, Bill, My name is David Bill Engineer.
I'm sure that you possibly know who I am. But
this quote comes from Now you get to know about
you can read Edward Abbey and learn about his um,
his writings and also his teachings. UM, we're gonna continue

(15:47):
to deliver and now reading for you guys, and it
will be celebrities reading inspirational quotes to fill from some
of our favorite writers on hunting and conservation. It's gonna
be great. It's gonna be great. Thank you to David Hasselhoff.
I know you're a regular listener of the show. Then
he was was he like a famous singer in He
has a long music career that I don't think I

(16:09):
ever got off the ground in America that that high.
But yeah, he was a huge hit, huge star in Germany.
So we're gonna take you into the interview now a
little bit of David Hasselhoff's true survivor. Oh look at this,
Look at David hashof Uh, we're all kind of just

(16:38):
feeling a little bit of worn down, feeling dull um.
I don't think my synapses. It's a good thing we're
talking to a neurologist, because I don't think my synapses
are quite firing just right. I've been doing some things
that I wouldn't normally do. I've been missing some beats
that I would normally hit, and I think it's just
been a long drawn out I think seven years has

(17:00):
it been since the pandemic begun? Yep, yep, almost eight almostly,
So we're all just kind of feeling worn down. But
I have someone here to keep you going, Phil, to
push you somebody else forward, someone else, a good friend
of the show. Hassle off wasn't enough, A good friend
of the show, A good friend of the showy. So

(17:21):
now I'm not aware if this person has had a
music career, but we'll dig that up. If there's any
songs by this person, we'll dig that up. But without
further ado, play the music, Phil, and now a reading.
Hi Phil, I hear you are learning how to hunt.

(17:45):
Chuck Leopold once said, we abused land because we regard
it as a commodity belonging to us. That's right. When
we see land as a community to which we belong to.
Thanks Chuck began to use it with love and respect.
Chuck Norris then, and I wish you the best, stay

(18:07):
safe and all the best, your friend, Chuck Norris. Whoa
Chuck Norris. Oh my goodness, Chuck Norris. What do you think, Phil? Wow? Yeah,
so I ended at a five and a half from
last week. Yeah, Chuck Norris was a little more like

(18:27):
he was a little more subdued than David Hasselhoff. That's true,
but I think his words carried weight. And I'm I'm
gonna go up a full number Chuck six and a half,
son of a bitch. Thank you, Chuck Norris. I wish
I had, you know, Chuck Norris. Uh looks great. Bye
the bye. Uh not as many gold records on the

(18:49):
wall compared to hassle Off. No, he's like, you know,
he's been a nice place. We're learning how to hunt
because al gold Leopold once we abused Land. That's right,
we do abuse Land. It's crazy that he just pulled
that up quote off the top of his head. Yeah, no,
you know, I call it Chucks Like, hey, Chuck, Charles, Charles,

(19:11):
I've been I got this problem, you know. And then
and the kind of guy that Chuck Norris is, he's
a problem solver and he's not gonna let you've seen it. Yeah, yeah,
he's not gonna let anything go go unsolved. And so
thank you to Chuck. What's you know, what's Chuck? What's
his most famous movie? I have no idea, but his show.

(19:32):
I've got a history with this show. Uh Walker Texas Ranger.
I'll say that that's the that's the highlight of the
Norris career. There it is there he is, Oh, I
keep the guy ready in the face. The unsuspected strange

(19:53):
here that better know he's a singer too. M it's
not good. That's great behind you because that's where the

(20:13):
Rangers gonna be boom. Thank you, Chuck Norris, thank you
so much. In the early two thousand's, Conan O'Brien had
a bit on this show called the Walker Texas Ranger Lever,
or he would just pull it out and pull this
lever and it would play a random clip from Walker

(20:35):
Texas Ranger without any context whatsoever, and it was always
completely absurd, and I think it's what got me, like
completely shaped my comedic sensibilities that that one segment. Yes,
I apparently there's a Walker Texas Ranger reboot last year,
and so we'll hang on Chuck. Chuck is busy, but

(20:57):
I mean in the interest song, if you guys, go
and watch the video, he roundhouse kicks the ship out
of a guy like harder than I've ever And so
that's what I feel like in your heart right now,
you're doing to your hunting, to the to the challenges
that will be presented to you here. I mean that
house's house he's sitting in was was purchased by his
Roundhouse Kicks that's what he's known. Thanks well, thanks Chuck,

(21:20):
friend of the show. I'll text you later, buddy. Um,
I know you're listening, so thanks, Thanks so much. Phil.
These are the best times I when I was listening
back to this, man, this is these are this those
two segments of that, those episodes, which were episodes one, respectably,

(21:42):
Whereas when I was at my happiest because I was
spending media your cash higher out celebrities to give you
fake motivation, and it was the happiest I've ever been
in my life. Yeah, how did the people are responsible
for that cash feel about it? Though? There were a
little bit of a controversy within the accounting department. What's

(22:03):
this for? Uh? And I was like, well, you know,
this is for it's for us, it's for our it's
for Phil, and it's for everybody else. Uh. Not only
is it entertaining, but it's important for Phil to know
that people out there care about him, especially people in
the media. Accounting department. You have to spend money to
get celebrities to read quotes to Phil, So to me,
it all made sense. Yeah, it treated tracts for me too. Man,

(22:25):
I'm I'm I'm here to support you. And worst, I'm
still here. I didn't get fired over it. So, uh,
you know, whatever money we spent an undisclosed amount of
money we spent to bring those two mega celebrities on
the program, it was well worth it in my opinion.
And so we have to go to the time where
Phil is now encouraged to go outside, and when he

(22:46):
goes outside, something happens. Phil, you had your first poop
in the woods this year, and all the haters that
are writing the reviews about our podcast that we're immature
in your face poop story, give it to him, Phil, Ben,
I crapped in the woods this weekend. I did, really

(23:12):
its first crap in the woods. Congratulations, crap in the woods.
Thank you, thank you. That makes you don't understand what
that does to me. I feel a little bit awkward
that I'm so excited. But I needed that. I mean, listen,
I did it just for you because otherwise I absolutely
would not have done it. Um, And I gotta tell

(23:34):
you it was not great. It's experience was this was
this like impromptu. You were out doing an outdoor activity
and you thought, well, I gotta do it. Better, do
it to make Ben happy or just go in the
backyard and take a dump one time. No I went.
I went out for a hike this weekend, a little
warm up hike, just to get the legs back in
some some amount of shape before I try to do

(23:56):
some bigger ones this summer and uture. It was a
don't skip over this paint the picture it was? It
was what kind of morning was it? Was it? Calm? Wendy?
It was? It was a late late morning into afternoon. Um.
It started out calm. It was a night. It was
a very pleasant sixty to sixty five degrees low winds. Um.

(24:19):
I went to an undisclosed trail in the Gallatin Valley
and Riparian Corridor. Or were you in the foothill regions
near a river? Where were you? Uh? Yeah? I was
in the southern foothills of of Bozeman. Um. And I
did not have to uh poop. I did not have

(24:44):
to uh release, but I I but I forced it
out for you. Oh God, this is by day, buddy.
Now we should say, do you poop in the toilet
and ship in the woods Mark Canyon? Is that how

(25:05):
it has to go? Uh? I typically ship in both,
but this depends how you want to put it. That's fine.
You wrote an article about crapping in the woods on
meteor dot com, did you not? I did, and I
wanted to use ship in the headline, but we we
decided to keep it tame. And I think we used crap.
Didn't we use crap? Yeah? Crap in the woods? Um.

(25:27):
So listen, listen carefully as Phil talks about the situation,
and then when we're done, you should grade his performance.
Here doesn't sound it doesn't sound great. Well, here's the thing.
I didn't read marks article, so I may it probably
could have gone better. Did you have any guidance or
was this all just ad lib? No? This is completely

(25:48):
you know, oh natural. I was just feeling it, you know,
I was just playing it. Let me reading. Let me
ask you a question though. There's a key question here,
and it goes to the timeliness of the Corn team.
Because you've never crapped in the woods before. Did you
have toilet paper with you at this moment this time? Yes,
So I brought it along with you know, everything I needed.

(26:10):
I brought some sanitizing wipes, some ziplock bags. Yeah, you know,
because I was listen, I wanted to I wanted to
make you proud, and so I was like, I'm gonna
go for this hike and if if nature calls, then
I'll report back to Ben. And I was wrapping up
the hike, and I was like, I don't have to,
but I'm gonna try anyway. So I trudged, let's stop

(26:32):
from it. What you what was the dinner of the
night before or the breakfast? Okay, it's gonna I'm not
gonna go into crazy detail, but I will get there, okay. Um.
I So the hike was wrapping up. Do you have
a curry? He doesn't want his bulls? This, I guess

(26:56):
I started good. I started a couple of coffees in
the morning. Oh of course. So I started looking around. Um,
I'm like, okay, I gotta find a place to do this.
It's off the beaten path. Can I can I interrupt him?
So sorry? Please do Yeah? Did you have a did
you have anyone with you? Or was the solo hike? Oh? No?

(27:16):
This was solo? Okay? Um? You know it was a
nice day. So the trail was relatively active, but I
I wandered off. I tried to find kind of like
a dead spot where I where there weren't a lot
of people passing by that I went. I trudged into
Waiste deep snow. I was wearing shorts by the way, uh,
to get far enough off trail so that I could

(27:38):
still see the trail from a distance. But no one
could see me unless they had were like really like
looking for me. I thought that you're gonna say, like
I I took. I went three miles off the trail
and uh about the thousand vertical feet, so no we
could see me. Oh no, No, I wasn't like. I
mean I wish I would have. Um so you know,
I dropped trout as the I'd say, and you know

(28:02):
I make it happen. Um, let's let's just say it was.
It was one of those you know movements where it
took a little bit more toilet paper than than average
to clean up. Um, so not ideal. Uh the you know,
the multiple coffees in the morning, mark Uh and so

(28:23):
I see, you know, I'm like I'm wrapping up things
are okay, it was going all right. I was soaking wet.
I mean like my my shoes were and my legs
were you know, freezing. But I did it. I was
proud of myself. Then from a distance, I see a
couple coming, but I'm like, oh, that's good, that's good.
It's good timing because I just wrapped up. I'll head
back to the trail. I'll just pretend I was like

(28:43):
Geo cashing or something I don't know. And then but
then I hear the distinct jingle of a dog collar,
and the dog immediately smells me out and what I
left in the woods and just starts going to town
on like he got right in it. Oh yeah, in

(29:04):
the snow. And so of course this couple is like,
where is our dog going? They look off, they see
me standing there and just like pretending I don't know
what's happening anyway. So I just kind of was like
looking at my phone, pretending like I was like hunting

(29:27):
for buried treasure, treasure or something. I don't know. Anyway,
they there, their dog finally went back to them, I hope,
smelling all right and uh, and then I made my
way back to the trail and finish the hike. Did
did the dog run up? And then the two of
them knelt down and started let them kiss their faces.

(29:47):
And I was too horrified to even I was not
even looking. I was like pretending like I was on
a different planet at that point. What kind of dog
was this? This is fantastic, I I I'm not great
with with dog breeds. It was like that it was
a medium size for very furry dog, one of those
one of these, you know, the ones great bird dogs. Phil.

(30:13):
My only other follow up, Phil is, um, what would
happen if this was Mango? Like, what would you have
done if Mango had pulled this off? Well? So in
this in this, in this situation, am I the couple
walking the trail with her dog and Mango goes running
off to the straight to the weird guy crapping in
the woods or so then so then Mango? I mean,

(30:36):
I don't I would have tried to call her back
a little more aggressively than these than this couple was doing. Um,
but if she came back like reeking of ship, I
probably would have been horrified. And U be a cat person,
I guess. But Phil, I mean, like I got so

(30:56):
any questions go ahead, Mark, I mean this is yeah,
I do have some question was about the details because
you didn't read the article yet, it sounds like you
don't have much experience, so I'm just curious, Like what
kind of position did you try to pull it off? Um?
Because the very first time I ever took a crap
in the woods, I fared much worse than you did.

(31:16):
I actually dropped troal, hunched down, and then just dropped
a ship right back in my pants and underwear beneath me.
So yeah, at least, how did you how did you
make sure that didn't happen? Well, So Ben gave me
a little advice last week. He was like, you know,
trying to look for a log to sit on, or

(31:36):
like a tree to like lean on a stump or
some of some some sort. Everything was I mean, it
was very inaccessible because the snow was still. It was
a north facing slope that I was on, and everything
was still pretty pretty icy and snowy. I couldn't really
find a great place to just like sit so but
I did try to lean on like a stump. Yeah,

(31:57):
wanted to lean against a tree and then be like
a chi air right like. Sure, I tried to find
a good spot to do that, but it was it
was tough. You want your knees right. It's also a
good workout, but you want your knees to be bent
in a ninety degree angle, Phil, But I you know,
hopefully that's not going to prevent you from further excursions. Oh,

(32:22):
it absolutely will. I will only ever crap in the
woods if it's an emergency. Um. Uh, you know, it's
not gonna stop me from hiking. But um, it was
not a great first experience. And you didn't go over
to the couple and say, hey, listen, Uh no, no
I did not. Yeah, probably would have been proper etiquette

(32:43):
to warn them, you know, stop, do not kiss that dog,
do not let him lick your hands. Yeah, I have.
So if anybody's listening to this who had an experience
with a gentleman that looked like Phil, and please right
in and let us know if this was you, we'd

(33:03):
love to have you on the show and we could
probably give you a full set of free first Light
or something. Who knows, but we'll shower you with gifts
as an apology for Phils for fiddls misdeeds in the woods. There. Well,
thanks for that, Phil, that really uplifted me. Buddy. I
was feeling I tried so down, so melancholy, and then

(33:24):
you just you you know, I didn't know about this
until just now when you sprung it upon me Um,
I'm feeling really good buddy that that that was hilarious
And uh, I don't know if inspiring is the right word,
Mark Kenyon. You know, like encouraging though at least encouraging
a man getting out of his comfort zone, which is
key in life, I find. And he practiced proper leave

(33:48):
no trace etiquette by making sure there was none left over.
That's true. Yeah, nothing was left behind. Nothing was left behind.
When you look back on that, are you happy that
you sprung that upon us, Phil and the way that
you did? Are you happy that you told the cult
about your activities outside? Oh? Sure, I'm not embarrassed by

(34:10):
that at all. I have some regrets about the actual
poop in the woods. I would do things slightly differently,
but hey, you know it was it was a learning
experience for me um, for the owners of that dog. Uh.
And you know we're all better people for it, and
now you will we get to the moment where you

(34:33):
all of this pays off. We've convinced Phil that he's
important to us. We have laid out that celebrities and
the mediator accounting department care about Phil enough to spend
money and time to convince him to go hunting. Our
listeners like Eric Hall care deeply about his investment in hunting.
And then you have this idea that he has to
take the hunter safety course. And I would and and

(34:55):
every time I would see Phil during the during the
quarantine and the pandemics, the Phil, how's that hunter safety going?
I got kids, man, you know, I got him reading
a book about goblins, and I'm play a lot of
video games. And it became a real suffrage for all
of us. And the only person who had any real
effect on on Phil was you, honest, but tell us.
Every time he would give Phil ship, Phil would turn

(35:17):
completely white and he would say, Okay, be honest, I'll
do it. I'll do it for you. And I'd be
sitting there in my hands up, like what the funk man, Like, well,
you don't care about me, you don't care about us,
I don't care about THHC. But finally, finally Phil did it.
And here's the moment when I found out, Uh, well, Fred,

(35:39):
I've got something to say to you and to Ben
and the audience, and that is that I have finished
my Hunter Safety Oh oh yes, oh hey, you doubt it.
I'm here on election day. I've never been more proud

(36:00):
be an American, or at least I know I'm free,
and I won't forget the men who died and gave
the hunter's safety to pass his Hunter's safety course. Uh please,
I speech speech. I mean, I don't I don't have
much to say. I uh, you know, I just you know,

(36:21):
it was hard work, but I had to get it
done for for you and for actually mainly for free
for Yanni. I know. I always felt that when Yanni
would give you ship, you'd be like you you get
up and you move. When I would it almost like
it was like quicksand you would sink further into the
non action. Yeah, well, I mean in in actuality, it
wasn't difficult. I just it was time consuming though, because

(36:43):
they've got I mean, when you do it online. You
got this little timer they threw up with a card
and they were like, it takes what well, I don't know,
I'm just excited. I was making noises of Jesus. It said,
lay threw up a little car. It takes you seven
seconds to eat it, and then it's like you have
to wait a minute and a half before you can
hit the next button. And you know, it's just they don't.

(37:06):
It's you know, I understand why they want you to
retain the information and really get it in there. But
it was just a was a pain in the ass,
but I learned a lot. I'm glad I did it,
and you know, flying colors at this point. Next episode,
we're gonna have Phil give what he learned. We're gonna
have what you learned segment. We'll have you give the

(37:28):
listeners a little bit of what you learned. I've forgotten
behalf of it already. So enough, alright, Phil, Now we
just have to talk about the future, buddy. We got
to talk about what we're gonna do next. And I
have a full on plan to go turkey hunting with
you as soon as humanly possible. Is that's something that

(37:50):
you're okay with? Absolutely? I will be waiting on bated breath, uh,
with a with a shotgun in my hand. I'll be
holding it until you call me in March or whenever
this happens. Yeah, well, we'll make it happen. We don't wanna.
We have plans. We will likely record the audio, possibly film.
It's a lot that I have to figure out, but

(38:11):
we will culminate this story at least the beginning of
Phil's story with his first hunt. Of that, I can
promise you we will not let th HC go on
without doing that. So now there's another thing about th
HC that I think is the most important to me,
because when I was listening to this best, I'm like,

(38:32):
what are the things that are important to me? Well,
of course Phil the engineer is important to me. I'd
like to protect him, wrap him and envelop him in
warmth and love. But also you the listener was a
year and I think really at the end of twenty
nineteen where I realized the power of the listeners of
this podcast, what you were willing to do, how much

(38:53):
you cared, and how how much silly ship you're willing
to take part in to make me and feel laugh
and to be a a THC. So why not go
over some of the coolest moments and also explore some
not so sharp moments. So after this next segment, we're
going to do an award for the not so sharpest
moment of the year. Feels it, the not so sharpest

(39:15):
moment of the years. That sound right, the not so
sharpest moment, the least sharp moment. No, no, I like
that I like the not so sharpest not so sharpest
moment of the year. We're gonna give out the award
for the not so sharpest moment of the year, and
the winner will get nothing but our undying love and
devotion from th HC. And you will be the not
so sharpest person of the year. And you have entertained

(39:37):
us fully. So we're gonna get to that. Before you
do that, I want to tell you about a couple
of things that made us laugh, made us think, it
made us wonder if this little podcast was worth a
little bit more than just a bunch of dudes talking
about hunting making poop jokes. Um. First, Phil, First, do
you remember the first time you heard about the dumper

(39:59):
story to fel else Dumper fan? You remember the first
time you considered this idea that you had a fan
who was a littering bastard. Uh? Well, there were two
things that were kind of uh bizarre to me. One
was that I have a fan. Apparently that's one he
would leave some more comments on the iTunes reviews. That
would be great. You should go in there and definitely

(40:21):
tell this story, so we're not going down to the iTunes.
And the second thing the copy of Guard was that
he was up to some not so savory business man. Yeah,
he was littering. He was he was dumping things on
our public lands. Now we don't want to give away
the story here, but there was two important moments of
this story. One when we found out about the dumper,

(40:41):
and then when the dumper was redeemed. So this is
this is my favorite moment from if I had to vote.
I don't know about you, Phil, but this is my
favorite moment. So enjoy the dumper's redemption. I got an email,
maybe the most interesting email I've ever received that's saying

(41:01):
a lot um. This came from Andrew Wolf. He's up
in Beautiful Canada. He said, Hey, Bennett Field, big fan
of the show and had an interesting story for you.
I'm a fishing wildlife officer up in Beautiful Canada and
the other day I went up to one of the
more secluded trailheads in an area that is known for
getting illegal dumpers. I'm assuming illegal dumpers. It means dumping

(41:21):
of trash, but hopefully not like bodies or anything like that.
We'll just we'll just assume trash. As I was driving up,
I was of course listening to the good old Quarantine cast,
and sure enough came across a dumper. I hopped, but
we're big in the dumping community. Apparently. I hopped out
of my rig and detained the guy and brought him
back to my truck. As I was checking the guy's license,

(41:43):
he recognized the podcast in the background. Hey, is that
the Hunting Collective? He asked, it is? I responded, I
love that show man, I listened to it all the time.
I love that new guy. They have one now fills
his name, he said, I've had it pretty funny that
this guy just cut got just caught doing something illegal
and was a fan of your show. Looks like Phil

(42:05):
has a big fan out there. Keep doing what you're doing,
and hopefully I can find more suspects who are fans.
Andrew Wolf. Thanks Andrew, Um you know, Phil, any any
official comments? We're gonna need to do some some pr here.
We're gonna really need to actual statement. We're gonna put
an official statement. Okay, Well, I don't I don't appreciate.

(42:27):
I don't appreciate that I'm being singled out here as
the person attracting these these uh miscreants. I don't know
what's the word I should use. Well, I appreciate that
this guy was had done everything legally and enjoyed our show,
and I don't really got to get rid of this stuff.
Want to Yeah? Okay, oh yeah, he he heard my

(42:48):
Star Wars segment and decided he had to drive off
into the woods and dump a bunch of tracks. Just
lost it. Okay, Well, I'd like to apologize to UH,
to the to the th H community out there. Um, well,
thanks for listening to the show, both both the warden
and the dumper. Yeah, no, this is good. It's a
good rhythmic. It helps you kind of get motivated for

(43:09):
dumping and then do the dumping. Just kidding. Don't be
dumping out there. You don't do it, you idiots, especially
if you're listening to this show. You're not welcome. Phil. Yeah,
you knew that we had to return to uh some
form of dumping pretty much on every episode at this point.

(43:30):
But I'll have you know that this has nothing to
do with you, very little to do with This is
from Andrew Wolf. You remember him from episode one. He
was the game warden who caught it, who caught it,
got dumping trash at a trail head, and that guy
that was dumping trash recognized THHC and said he was
a big Phil fan. Remember that, I love it. It's

(43:52):
so good. Remember that that was back in the innocent days,
well before the quarantine, the recent unrest um he said.
He continues to said, Well, today I got a call
from a hiker who believed there was an individual dumping trash.
I haven't read through this, but I hope this guy
was a Phil fan too. I went to the area

(44:12):
and it was an overflow parking lot for one of
the more popular stock to lakes, and I got my
bins out and started looking for this supposed dumper. There
was one truck in the parking lot, and lo and behold,
there was bags of trash in the bed. Out of
the bushes comes a man who I recognized as the dumper,
who recognized t C. Repeat repeat, I also wanted to

(44:36):
be a new dumper that was also a Phil fan, damnit.
And to my amazement, I see him picking up trash
and putting it in a bag in his hand. I say,
because I was an exclamation point. I drove up and
made contact with him, and he explained to me that
he was picking up trash that had been littered around.
When I asked him why, he told me after hearing
about it on the podcast, he was ashamed and realized

(45:00):
how bad what he was doing was and had a
change of heart and wanted to clean up and make amends.
This isn't this isn't real. It's real. I'm reading it verbatim.
So thanks to you and Phil, you haven't in a
way made the world a little better place, having turned
at least one individual from not caring about our wild
places wanted to keep them clean. So thank you for that. Also,

(45:23):
he said he had a Star Wars shirt on, and
when I told him Phil would love that, he said, oh,
my son got this for me. I think that weird
space magic shit is stupid. He's not wrong. That's a
new story. If you were to right, if you were

(45:46):
to write this story a new movie, someone would say,
I don't believe. Well, and dumping trash into the woods
gets publicly shamed and then is now now cleaning it up.
He said, sorry, Phil, Uh, for what it's worth. I
am a Star Wars fan. Keep up the great stuff, guys,
and keep on preaching the good word of keeping nature pristine.

(46:11):
Phil was that your favorite moment of the year or
was there something that topped that. I think when I
think back on it, it's the moment that stands out
to me the most for sure. Um. I mean like
all the all of the contests at the beginning of
the year also stand out, but this was the one
that I that I feel happiest about. Yeah, I do too,

(46:31):
because it's a real change in one man's life, but
it's analogous to the rest that change in all of
our lives. Thanks thanks to everybody that wrote in, thanks
to Canada, thanks to game Warden's, thanks to Dumpers, and
thanks to the Redemption, thanks to everything on that story.
We're thankful for all of that ship And we gotta
move now to our buddy Greg Morris. Now, Greg Morris

(46:54):
has has He's a winner at heart. He's also a
funny son of a bit and he's one of my
favorite people in the th HC world. Now, Greg Morris
first came on our radar when we did the one
hundred episode contest. He did a video where he was
in a robe. He had a picture of squeakers and
it made us laugh and it got on the show

(47:16):
well when we came when it came time to do
the Great American Outdoors Contest, where we were asking people
to send in things that entertained us that they were
doing on pieces of public ground that were funded by
the Great American Outdoors Act and the Atlanta Water Conservation Fund.
It was time for us to hear from Greg again,
and I should have known he was gonna come hard

(47:36):
and try to win this contest. Well when it he
did with this beautiful prank call. If you'll remember Greg
Morrise from his win, he was the guy that sent
us the video of him and his house in his
robe and he had the picture of frame frame picture

(47:57):
of squeakers, remember him Rescue squeakers? The same guy. So
he's he's he's a second time winner. He knows what
makes us tick. So he sent a video in where
he was calling We said to call. I think he
didn't quite pick up what we meant by calling, and
so he made a video that goes a little something

(48:19):
like this. Hello called first Light. Nate answered, good, thanks
for going on. Do you guys um sell any pants
that like are okay to poop? In? Sorry? Can you

(48:39):
repeat that? Man? Do you feel like pants that are
like okay to poop? In. It depends on how running
it is, you know. No, I'm trying to see her
because like I got this issue when I go out
in the woods and like I always poop my pants.

(48:59):
Oh man, and that's too bad. So you do you don't?
You don't sell anything that's like okay to pooping. I
can't say i'd recommend any pant, but I'm sure they'd
hold up just fine to your normal set. Okay, can
I can you can I leave that as a recommendation
or something that like it's maybe something you guys could
look into. You guys come highly recommended. That's the only

(49:21):
reason I'm calling you. Yeah, I'll mark you down, man,
no problem. What's your name? It's um Janice and last
names Ranella. Okay, it is really the star of this

(49:42):
It is really the star of that show. So now
he's out, he says, call him er two. He's at
Massonol State Park in Plymouth, Massachusetts as LWCF funded but
scouting right now. Um the Onyx app, you guys, do
you guys have like a feature that shows where the
deer are? H? What do you mean by that? Like

(50:08):
where the deer are? Like, don't don't you guys have
like like a GPS system that shows where the deer are, like, um,
like uh no, like shows you where a gear would
be on on the map. Yeah, like if like where

(50:29):
he is, Like I opened up on X maps and
then it says there's a deer here and a deer here. No, no,
we we don't have that here? All right? Can I
can I put in a recommendation for that that your request?

(50:50):
And uh figure out is there anything that can be
done to you know, considering putting something that you know
you were the dear Yeah, I think that would be
like a huge, huge help for like I don't know,
we're trying to find these these employees raise customers always rare,
all right, can't give you my name? My name's my

(51:12):
name's My first name is Phil, last name is engineer silence.
All right, thank you so much, you o man third
cause that Gregg, I'm a part of your district and
I was just calling to encourage you to vote on

(51:35):
the Great American Outdoors Act with no changes or um
clauses in there, just as the bill states. So thank
you very much and I appreciate it. And then there
was an ending American are probably all right? Everybody. Well done, Greg,

(52:04):
I was going to give you the Nemo tent, but
I felt like I want to I'm gonna reverse and
give you the first like kid, and I want you
I want Greg, I want you to call Nate after
shipping in the pants. I want you to just call
Nate and he'll help you with your kid. Okay, So
that was well done, man, Yeah, I um well done.

(52:26):
I'd say that was that. That was a There's some
prank calls I think that are just just mean, unnecessary cruel.
I thought that was that was reasonable, good fun. The
dude from Honest is my favorite. I'll put that in
the queue. Sure, yes, sure, And then you feel bad
because I when I used to work at Yeah yeah,
so the customer service people just want to give him

(52:47):
a hug and you see him like, I can never
do it. I can't do it. I could never do it.
There's no way, no I were At one time when
I was a kid, I prank called the Walmart with
some friends and I said I was allergic to follic
acid and I needed a breakfast cereal that did not
contain folic acid. And we had this woman on the

(53:08):
line for over an hour. While she looked at the
ingredients of every cereal. It turns out they all have
fallic acid. This poor woman probably making minimum wage at
a Walmart. I feel so bad about she probably went
home she was like, Oh what a day, honey. He's like,
what happened? Some douche bag? All that? Maybe go over
folic acid for an hour. We've all we've all had things.

(53:28):
We also like the the reaction to Janice right right,
all right? If he didn't already figure this out, Yeah,
Phil is just the most you laughed all on the
podcast because we laughed pretty hard at this long Yeah,
what was the It was the Janice vanilla or something

(53:51):
and the what's your name? Filled the engineer? Right, Yeah, No,
I laughed when that. The on next customer service guy
just took it so seriously everything he's Can I put
that in as a request? Yes, yes, we'll put that
in the logs. Give that man a raise. It was
just fantastic. Give them a raise. Yeah, give give all

(54:14):
those folks a raise. But Greg Morris actually did win,
uh for this. He want to first Like Kit He
finally got months later, finally got his first Like Kit
and he was the guy who kicked off our people
from Maryland campaign where I'm trying to get on the
people from Maryland Wikipedia page, which still isn't happening, but
people continue to try daily to get me on there.

(54:34):
So everything comes full circle, full circle with our boy
Greg Morris. So thank you, Greg, and thanks for for
kicking it in and making us laugh. Um and we're
gonna end this portion of the Best of was something
that made us think maybe tear up a little bit,
and that was from not too long ago, back towards Thanksgiving,
when we were talking about hunting, our fathers, our origins,

(54:58):
stories and our traditions, and our buddy Ben Upton shared
this pretty cool story that made me and feel emotional
and we hugged over squadcast. Next up is Ben Upton,
and I think Ben Upton wins the day and I'll
tell you why. He said. Um, hey Ben Ben here

(55:20):
for this week's contest. I want to I want to
share with you a little Thanksgiving time tradition that I've
established for myself over the past few years. I grew
up in Vermont with the privilege of learning to deer
hunt for my dad and grandfather on a two acre
property that we own. It is a beautiful oak and
beech forest that we actually managed for wildlife habitat, much
like you all do on the Metator back forty So,

(55:42):
even though that property isn't in your name, I'm sure
you at least somehow know how special deer hunting on
a family's property is to me. When I started college
a few years ago on the University of Vermont, I
met a lot of kids who had similar passions for
the outdoors as I do, but didn't grow up with
the privilege of a family of hunters and landed hunt on.

(56:03):
I decided to make it a tradition each November to
take a friend who hadn't been deer hunting before down
to deer camp, lend them a rifle, lend them close,
and take them out with me to learn how to
hunt white tails in the hardwoods. This tradition has somehow
made me even more in love with hunting and strengthened
my understanding of what it means to hunt and be

(56:23):
a hunter for the reasons well beyond the scope of
killing game. This year, after graduating college, I moved to
Denver to hunt the Rocky Mountains and test my medal
in a whole new world of back country hunting and
thus didn't have the opportunity to take a new friend
out with me to deer camp. But through th HC,
I found a way to do the next best thing.

(56:44):
You might remember a fellow who rode in a week
or two ago named Hayes Hyle. He wrote in about
becoming an adult onset hunter and about the issue of
wolves in Colorado. While I didn't know Hayes at all,
he mentioned that he lived in Denver, and I thought
it would be a cool way to continue my Thanksgiving
tradition in some way. I found Haze on Instagram and

(57:06):
reached out to him, and I let him know that
I'd love to talk about hunting with him, and even
invited him to come duck hunting with me for the
rest of the season. Even though this isn't exactly my
tradition of taking out a brand new hunter, I still
feel excited about the prospect of a new hunting buddy
and the ability to share my passion for hunting was
someone who didn't grow up with it like I did. Well, Phil,

(57:27):
we're really doing it, buddy. Wait what do you what's
your reaction to Ben? What Ben's doing? And over there
in Colorado. I I just still can't get over how
how this show goes about connecting people. I'll never understand it. Yeah, man, um,
you know, I know we've had some funny stories before

(57:49):
where you know game wardens, a game warden in Canada
who who had found the guy that was trashing public
lands and then found him later and said that he
heard the story on our podcast and was now cleaning
up public ends. Um, but this is is a little
different for me. So there's I am with you. I
don't understand how how this uh talking into our microphone

(58:10):
what it means to people. I'd rather not understand it
because it would be hard to do if I did.
But I man. Thank you to Ben Upton, Um, thank
you too to Hayes and Ben. He's actually sent me
a screen grab of their conversation on Instagram, and UM,
it sounds like they're gonna go hunt, So hopefully they check.
Hopefully Hayes and Ben check back in with us and

(58:31):
let us know how the duck hunt wasn't denver um,
and maybe one of these days we'll get these guys
out to hunt with me and you once you're a
veteran hunter, or maybe for your first hunt. We got
a lot of prospects out share three years from now,
three years time we actually get it. Okay, Phil, do
you want to try to encapsulate what the listeners mean

(58:51):
to this podcast before we move on? The best way
to sum it up is to say that without the
listeners there would be no podcast. And in all see
curiousness it Ben, it's clear that you care a lot
about this show and the kind of people you bring
on and the stories you tell, and I think that's
I mean, we we have all the fun we we
can have in the first thirty minutes of an episode,
but I think people stick around for the stories that

(59:15):
are shared on this show and they continue to be
to be great. So thank you, Ben, Well, thanks thank
you Phil. I would say that one thing that I
I'm prone to and that I like is change, like
forced change. I like. I don't like to be comfortable.
I don't like to be somebody who gets in with
it's in a groove or lets himself get too comfortable

(59:37):
with anything. And so I look at one is a
year We're gonna We're gonna refocus and get uncomfortable again.
We're gonna find new ways to test ourselves. We're gonna
find ways that we haven't explored before, um to poke
at hunting to poke as we talked to Clay Newcomb
last week about to to kind of rip away the
dogma that that is instilled in the in community and

(01:00:00):
try to try to find um different in roads to understanding.
So that's what we're gonna do next year. I am
going to get uncomfortable again. I'm gonna change. We're gonna
do a lot of things different, So you can certainly
look forward to that. That's just who I am. It's
hard for me to think of doing the same thing
every week for three four straight years. And so we're

(01:00:21):
gonna we're gonna wreck shop next year and and do
things um that maybe you won't expect, maybe some you
should because because we do a lot of silly ship
around these parts. But before we end the year, there's
a couple of things we want to do before we
end the year. We're going to award the not so
sharpest moment. I went back and listened to all we

(01:00:43):
had eighteen not so sharp moments from last year. I
went back and listened to every single one of them,
and did a lot of laughing along the way, and
I picked Phil, and I want you to be the
final vote here, Phil, can you do that for me?
It's a lot of pressure. I'll try my best. Though
I have provided the nominees, I'd like you to be
the ultimate decider on who gets the throne as the

(01:01:05):
NZO Sharpest Moment of the year, brought you by Work Sharp,
and thank you to our friends at work Sharp for
helping fund this podcast and our mission and what we
do and all the things that are serious and silly
and hopefully we'll have them back. But it's been great
to do another year, season two of the Nazi Sharp Moments.
So Phil, if you don't mind, I'm gonna play each
one of these and I want you to to think

(01:01:26):
hard about the one you want to win and then
cast your vote at the end. Is that cool? Yes,
let's do it? Okay. First up, we have Ashley with
a G and an H no last name. She actually
uh ate some chicken nuggets off the ground. You'll find
out why in a minute. We were gonna have a

(01:01:47):
debate about this Notaza Sharp moment. This came in unfettered
on and we did not ask for it. People have
been sending Anaza Sharp moments people have been doing dumb shit,
uh since we last checked in with Noza sharp moments,
and you've all been sending them to me, so I
have logged them in a folder so we have some.
But this is your chance. If you're listening to this
now and you have a not a sharp moment. We're
going to do this for the rest of the year,

(01:02:08):
all through the fall. So if you do something stupid,
write it down, be creative, and send it in to us.
But you have to tell the truth, Phil right, you should.
You can't make it up. No, we're not going to
know this one that I'm about to read. I read
it a little bit ago and discuss with Joe. You
have your doubts. I have my doubts about whether it's
true or not. And if it is true, it's not

(01:02:31):
so sharp to the maximum, Like it's the least sharp
thing I've ever heard, which is maybe we're sending the
bar high though for the first the first moment of
the kind of what I just want to skip to
the end because everything else just anyway, I digress. I
should read it to you. This is from Ashley. I
don't know if I won't even say her last name

(01:02:53):
for her sake, don't Ashley. And it's spelled a s
h l E I A. You know right when you
said and it's spelled like, yeah, I knew you were
going to say that. Now I'm very upset. Now you're
upset enough. You've upset Pail Ashley. Actually, he would prefer
you to spell your name like a normal act. Actually,

(01:03:15):
now that was the first clue that something was amiss.
And I saw the spelling of Ashley. But anyway, it's
already fake. She her name is Ashley. She's not a hunter,
but she respects and admires hunters. She doesn't mind getting
her hands dirty if her boyfriend who does hunt needs
an extra set of hands. A huge fan of the
podcast and the show and everything else that we do,

(01:03:36):
and she listens on her drive. So so right now
she does like to go fishing and camping and go
outside exploring. You're gonna need to know that for what
comes next. I'm gonna do my best work through this.
Do we have it like a background music? No, nothing,
we need it with this one. I just mean there's
more pressure on you to put a lot of life
into this deliver it actually says I've got five kids

(01:04:00):
and I try to raise them right, and it's still
a love of the outdoors every chance I get. I'm
also stubborn as an ox, and I've been fortunate enough
to have my middle son inherit that particular trait from me.
I'm a big fan of letting my kids learn the
hard way, provided it safe to do so. So, of course,
when my middle son was eight, he decided he didn't
have to listen to me anymore because he was going

(01:04:22):
to walk out into the woods and live on his own.
Do you ever have that notion when you're a young man, Phil,
Not at all. You're just gonna go Christopher mccandal list
and just live in a van uh. I naturally decided
to let him play playing a three day camping trip,
including choosing what to pack, but he could only pack
what he could carry. Kid had no real money, but
I'm determined that he has to learn how hard you

(01:04:44):
have to work to get things you need. So he
earned monopoly money by doing chores for other family members
over the course of a few weeks, and I had
a mass the selection of hiking and camping gear for
him to purchase before our trip out. Picking this up,
Phil feel uncomfortable. All right, well, hang on. He could
only take what he could purchase, and I would only

(01:05:05):
pack my own bag with similar items. We were driven
two hours out and dropped off at the trail head
in the morning, with a rendezvous point and pick up
time established. So far, pretty sharp, it seems great. Pretty sharp? Yeah?
Learning left going well about five miles in, I realized
I lost my phone and thus our map and our
ability to call for early extraction should something go wrong.

(01:05:28):
Now I just want to make a guy. As I
was reading and I'm like, well, this is this is
the time when you turned around and go back out.
You're not that fireing five miles in? What are you
doing five miles in? Anyway? Get some exercise? Uh? Okay.
At this point all I could do is keep track
of what turns we were making and head for the lake.
I don't know what like this is, but hopefully it's

(01:05:50):
an easy one to find and try to catch some dinner.
We we found a good spot by the lake, but
I had failed to realize that the path we had
turned down lead to a lake in a recent burn area,
not the lake that was several miles in the opposite direction,
surrounded by all the berry bushes and shade trees we
could have asked for. So now you're at the wrong lake.

(01:06:12):
There's no shade, no food to be had, So she said,
I call a break to rest and go relieve myself.
Normally this story would go in that direction. I would
have all the all to do with relieving ones. Classic,
classic class. When I returned my son returned to my son,

(01:06:32):
I find that he has burned every one of our matches,
trying to start a fire with a stick. Tired, hungry,
and irritated, I realized, if we're going to make it
to the other lake, we need to eat something. All
we had packed were life straws, fishing poles, and survival tabs,
because the kid decided he could make it on his own,
and I conceded that we could survive on the tabs

(01:06:52):
as well as hopefully catching some fish, gathering berries and morrels.
I got to pull out to survival tabs only to
find that he had eating all of them during the hike,
and while I was answering nature's call, Now I've got
a handful morales, no berries, and a fishing pole, and
realize we're not going to hike to the other lake
without any food, So I set out to fish. I'm

(01:07:13):
fishing for hours, not catching a damn thing, getting hunger
every minute. A random hiker came along, asking if we
minded if he set up camp near us, and if
we had any water, as he had made the bright
decision himself to hike out ten miles to camp for
two days, and it only brought a leader of water.
Where are you like in the dumbest piece of timber ever?

(01:07:37):
Who water filter? Anybody? You're buy a lake lord and
mighty gets worse though, it gets worse. Together we made
a fairly decent ragtag group of idiots in the woods.
Well leash yourself away, self aware, that's exactly what I was.
There's no way you can type that out and not
not make that mention. We had two lifestarals, so I

(01:07:59):
traded LifeStraw for a handed fishing, and he and the
guest wound up catching the only three fish that were
caught that weekend. My son managed to decapitate a garter
snake with his machete, so we cleaned that and ate
that as well, if you can even call that eating.
They ate a gardener snake, okay. On the hike out.

(01:08:20):
We passed a couple hiking in and I asked if
they happened to have a granola bar despair, and they
gave me a pack of cliff blocks, which I devoured
and of course promptly let me let me pause here.
Cliff blocks. Do you guys know what those are? Yeah,
they're chewy, little energy blocks, little energy blocks. So I
actually devoured them, and of course she says, of course,

(01:08:41):
I don't know why this would be, and of course
promptly regurgitated them into a puddle of still perfectly formed
gummies and water. The only other thing that was in
my stomach. She forgets, the garter snake. I'm not I'm
not one to waste, So I rinse those suckers off
and ate them again. To pause, you guys picture in

(01:09:03):
this Ashley's got problems all on our ford, just puking
into the dirt and then just scooping them up. The
great news is they stayed down the second time. This
is thank god. It gets worse. This is go home
Ashley with a g In an h by the trailhead,

(01:09:27):
we found three McDonald's chicken nuggets on the ground. Yes,
you want to guess what happens next and I should
you not? They were the best thing I had ever
eaten up to that moment in my life. Oh, I mean,
I can imagine like like a beam of light coming
down in the clouds shining on the chicken nuggets. Moral

(01:09:49):
of the story is, can't wait for this one. Don't
let your eight year old plan a camping trip. It's
a not so sharp decision. Okay. Next up is Jane Park.
Jane used a feminine hygiene product in an interesting way
and some glue in an even more interesting way. Check

(01:10:11):
it out. Okay, this one's a good one, philma Um
and has everything everything. It's from Jane Park. It just
just reminded me of the Stephen from S and I.
This this club has everything. Last fall, Jane says, I

(01:10:31):
was out whitetail hunting in Alberta. I only had a
week of hunting left because I had just learned I
was going to be deployed to Australia with a bunch
of other Canadian fire personnel to help with the brush fires,
so the pressure was on. Because of my cheapness, I
usually just use the same first aid kid for work,
play and hunting, but that means I have to swap

(01:10:52):
it from my work pack to any other pack. Over
coffee one crisp morning at hunting camp, my hobby and
a buddy of ours and I were chatting about first aid, kids,
injuries and the like. I mentioned I had forgotten mine
in my work pack. They rassed me about being so
cheap I wouldn't just buy another first aid kit, but
I defended my frugal nature phils, you say that you're

(01:11:14):
frugal or no, No, you just let it fly, probably
to a fault. Oh my gosh. We'll talk about that
in future episodes. We each headed to our spot in
the woods, and before long I had rattled in a
little three point the western count Knowing I had only
one more day left hunt, I sighted in and shot
him from thirty three again this person's from Canada metric system. Stoked,

(01:11:42):
I tagged him and started the process of gutting him.
When my knife slipped and zip slice the top of
my index finger pretty deep, not so sharp. With my
finger bleeding a lot, and having only started gutting my deer,
I was in a conundrum. Asked for help and admit
my lack of first aid kit was biting me in
the ass or deal with it? What do you do there, Phil,

(01:12:05):
I'm gonna I'm gonna admit my fault six, definitely fix
the old finger. Looking in my pack, I didn't have much,
but being a well prepared lady, the one thing I
did have was feminine hygiene products and some rope. So
I washed my cut with snow, tied one of those

(01:12:26):
around my finger, and then tied a rope tightly around
it to stem the bleeding. Without any bandages or tape,
I couldn't adequately protect the wound from potential nassis inside
my dear, so I went on to gut my dear
one handed, with my other hand held in the air
with a phenomone hygiene products. She says, f HP tied
to my finger. It's hardcore. She never says what kind

(01:12:49):
of f HP Because I'm trying to picture pad that
would make the most sense, To make the most sense,
that's very uncomfortable. They're hoping it was a pad. My
buddy and my hubby heard the shot, got in touch
with me and asked if I needed help. My buddy
was closer, so he came and helped drag the deer
out of the bush. Back at camp I endured some

(01:13:11):
pretty good ribbing and I asked steepishly for some help
first aid supplies. Out of my buddy's kit, I grabbed
an alcohol swab and some stary strips, which, by the way,
are awesome, and that's true, I have those of my
first aid kit. Wiping my finger with a swab was
super painful, but I figured it was because it was
pretty deep cut. As I started putting the stairy strips on,

(01:13:32):
it took four It's a big cut. I noticed my
fingers were sticking together. Okay, okay. It was then that
I realized I had rubbed the ship out of my
cut with a glue swab. Uh. This is my favorite
segment of Every every Week. People are the best. Thankfully,

(01:13:55):
my other hand didn't get stuck to my wound, but
damn those starry strips held good. In the end, my
cut was healed so good you couldn't even see this car,
probably because it was glued from the inside out and
starry stripped. I also bought another first Aid kid specifically
for my hunting pack the end. The third and final

(01:14:18):
entry in our top three is George Barlow, who sent
us this poem and you know what got him the
got him in the final three from episode one six, Phil,
two words. You know what those two words are. I've
got a guess, but I want you to say it. Huffy, Puffy, Huffy, puffy.
Enjoy George Barlow. Not So Sharp Moments, George Barlow wrote

(01:14:44):
in George Big fan of the show. George wrote a poem?
This is? Is this the first not so sharp poem, Phil,
that we've ever had? Man, there's been so many poems now.
I don't remember what category they fall into, but it
might be and her write a fucking poem. Wikipedia cult
leader and poet Ben ben Over Yeah, Poe editor, Okay,

(01:15:09):
George Barlow. It was a few days past Christmas and
the ground was a glow with two inches of powdery snow.
It was a great day for boarding, and the decision
was tough. But instead of a snowboard, I grabbed my
hunting stuff. I picked up my shotgun and was met
at the door by Beasley, my faithful chocolate labrador. I

(01:15:29):
knew the police Hills would be covered in snow, and
I just knew where the pheasants were likely to go.
I had to meet my brother. I couldn't be laid
out the door. I checked the mercury and almost said eight.
Frigidly cold, but still well worth going. It was a
blue sky day now, as the snow had stopped snowing.
After a harrowing drive, we reached our destination. The dog

(01:15:52):
bounded out, and, needing no invitation, at the first hawthorn thicket,
he put up some birds. My brother shot the first second,
and I got the third. Then we hit the creek,
which wasn't too wide. With a good solid leap, I
could reach the other side. I unloaded my gun, checked
it once and then twice. With the action still open,

(01:16:13):
I leapt over water and ice. I landed across, but
continued to go. Before I knew it, I was lying
face first in the snow. When I stood up, I
found out, to my dissatisfaction, a great deal of snow
had filled up my action. I used my finger to
clear what I could, but there was snow up the barrel,
and that wasn't good. Luckily, the snow was so light

(01:16:35):
and fluffy it would surely come out with a little
huffy puffy. Yeah that was that was stretching it there. Yeah,
that was some Some clear and concise editing would help
this I'll just blow it out with some air from

(01:16:56):
my mouth. I'll just blow it out with some air
from my mouth. I'll just blow down the barrel. And
that's when things headed south. I realized that this might
not be my moment of glory, as I had flashbacks
of Ralphie, a flagpole and a Christmas story. My brain said,

(01:17:19):
don't do it, but the message was sent. It was
traveling down my neurons. I couldn't repent. My lips hit
the barrel, felt pain and went numb, and I thought
to myself, oh damn, I feel dumb. With my lips
firmly frozen to the end of the barrel, I couldn't
shout or swear sing Christmas carols. I knew then and
there what couldn't be done. I threw open my mouth

(01:17:41):
and left some lips on the gun. I'm not proud
of that day or the events that took place, and
the fact that I removed part of my lips from
my face. But now I am wiser because I'm getting
old advice to you youngsters. Don't lick metal. That's cold play.
The jingle Phil not a sharp moment, so you don't

(01:18:02):
have to. Okay, Phil, do you feel prepared to be
able to pick one of these, Ashley, Jane or George.
We have the you know, the lady who took her
eight year old son camping and let him plan it.
They didn't They didn't provision well enough. They ended up
eating a snake. She puked up some gummies and then

(01:18:23):
ate him again. And they ate some chicken nut us
off the ground. You have Jane Park who cut her
finger trying and tried to get a deer and then
wrapped it in the feminine hyding product and then glued
herself together accidentally. And then we have George Barlow, who
wrote a wonderful poem in the spirit of Christmas about
trying to blow some snow and dirt out of his
gun and getting his lips stuck to the barrel. So, Phil,

(01:18:44):
do you feel prepared to make this choice? It's a
big choice. I mean, I just have to go with
my gut at some point, Ben, I mean I could
sit here and way way each of them with a
lot of detail, but at the end of the day,
I just got a shoot straight. Um. Do you all
would you like me to make my decision now? I would?
Do you have some sort of drum roll sound effect.

(01:19:05):
Of course I do. It's the same cheap one I
use every time. Perfect letter, buddy, and give us the winner.
I want to give an honorary mentioned to Jane. I
thought that was a great story and but honestly I
was more impressed I had than than anything that that
she thought to use the pad and um, it didn't
go quite as planned. But yeah, i'm am she's not

(01:19:27):
a finalist though. Um it's between George and Ashley, I
have to say, and it is. Ashley actually is the winner.
Not a shocker, not a shocker. Congratulations. Actually it was
really it was the first thing we read in season two,
and it was the dumbest. I could not believe what

(01:19:50):
you were saying when you were saying. It was one
of those stories that I just I know I said
it in the in the bit there, I did not
think it was. I was reading, There's no way this
could be true. But Phil convinced me that the amount
of detail in the story, there's no way someone was
sat down and made this up. There's no way when
somebody would have taken the time. And I did have
some back and forth with Actually after that where she
sent me some more photos, and I gotta tell you

(01:20:10):
she was she was not lying. Uh, this really happened,
And so I I think you're right on Phil, and
I think she wins for the for the pure visual
of someone on the all all fours puking out gummies
and then eating them again and then uh, finding some
savior chicken nuggets on the ground and eating those. Not

(01:20:31):
no one were how they got to be on the ground.
But thanks George, Thanks Jane thinks, Ashley thinks everybody who
wrote in. We still have hundreds of unread nots of
sharp moments that will maybe one day put in a vault.
I don't know what we're gonna do with them, but
there's so many of them, and so maybe there'll be
a season three. We don't know. But for now we're
gonna say goodbye to the not so sharp moments and

(01:20:52):
thank you each one of you for doing what you
did and being some damn stupid along the way. All right, Well,
Christmas is Oh, we had a wonderful weekend. We're gonna
celebrate the end of the year with a little return
to Christmas and something we don't we don't have, We
don't hear hear from Steven ronell a lot on the show. Phil,

(01:21:13):
you think that's because he doesn't like us or is
he just busy he's the one leaving those comments on
on iTunes? Oh yeah, well well no wonder he's so
busy leaving those negative comments. He can't come on the
show exactly. So it's busy. So you're saying he's just busy,
that's what it is. Yeah, alright, well maybe we'll have
him for now. He allowed us to steal He doesn't

(01:21:36):
know about this, but he allowed us to steal a
little message from his podcast from last year where Santa
came on his show. And I have never met Santa,
but this, dude, sounds like a chance. So Merry Christmas,
Happy New Year's, enjoy the time to have some bubbly
drink of white claw, hug your loved ones, look forward

(01:21:58):
to a new year with the podcast and with your
families and friends. So see you say bye, Phil, bye.
You're only speaking of that. Did you hear that noise?
What is that noise? It wasn't bells, was it? It's

(01:22:24):
so of a bit a Christmas morcle to himself. That's oh,
it's great. The Special Holiday, The Special Holiday Special Boys
and Girls, This is called the kids corner of the
special holiday special. When we get a visit from Big

(01:22:45):
Man himself and you, you people who might not appreciate
how special saying is, let me let me hit you
with this. That's something I'd like to revisit. This is
uh this some stats pulled by Spy magazine many years ago.
This establishes how miraculous the Santa Claus. Just how special
does it? Have him here? This man? And are this

(01:23:06):
man here in our presence? He every year services and
estimated three hundred and seventy eight million Christian children. If
you imagine that fift of those Christian children are bad
and don't get anything, so he doesn't need to do
anything for him. And you give it that, you have
a whopping three point five Christian children per household. This

(01:23:29):
man still is visiting every year eight million homes. Even
with the rotation of the earth. He's only got thirty
one hours of darkness to get it done. This man
in our presence right here, a visiting us here today
can pull off eight hundred and twenty two point six
home visits per second. It takes him a thousandth of

(01:23:54):
a second to pull off a single home visit. Not
counting trans oceanic leg of his trip, this man travel
seventy two million, five hundred twenty two thousand miles every Christmas.
He's going six hundred and fifty miles per second. He's
going three thousand times the speed of sound. If he

(01:24:17):
were to only bring each kid him easily two pounds
of presents, this man pulls three hundred and twenty one
thousand tons of toys behind him in his sleigh, his
lead reindeer. His lead reindeer at these speeds is absorbing
fourteen point three quintillion jewels of energy per second. If

(01:24:41):
these were normal reindeer, he would be sloughing off. If
these were first off, these are nor reindeer, he would
need two hundred, fourteen thousand and two hundred reindeer to
pull that load in four point to six thousands of
a second. Two fourteen reindeer at this speed when he
sloped off into car at that at those speeds, Stephen, Stephen,

(01:25:05):
I'm not a numbers guy, but that sounds wonderful. This
man sitting here today is subjected to send trivical forces
seventeen thousand, five hundred times greater than the Earth gravitational force.
He is pinned to the back of his sled with
four million, three hundred seventy five thousand and fifteen tons

(01:25:26):
of force at those speeds. Ladies and gentleman standing class,
Thank you, thank you. If he can't do that, if
he can't do that, and then he damn sure wouldn't
be able to write a good poem. Damn right. Listen, Stephen, Uh,
I hear you have child three children? Three children, correct?
One girl and two boys? That's correct. Correct. I'm not

(01:25:49):
familiar with your program. The elves were telling me all
about it. Sounds lovely. Uh. They told me you have
three children, one boy? What, one girl and two boys?
Is that correct? Yes, that's correg Santa. Your first boy's
name is Ryan incorrect. Your girl's name is janicerect and
your second boy's name is Marcus. No, you're right, that's correct.

(01:26:12):
That's lovely. You have a television program. I'm I've not
seen it. It's nitflex. That's that's that's wonderful. I'm very
proud of all of you. Merry Christmas. And you're not
welcome at the North Pole because the elves telling me
that you kill brain deer on occasion I have. We

(01:26:35):
won't speak of it. What do you need now for me?
Very busy for kids to round out Kids Corner in
the first annual special holiday special. Uh, we would like
a poem? You would like a poem? And knowing the
incredible feats you're capable of, I feel like it's a
small thing. I've just written it just now. Are you ready?
I am ready. It's called twas the Night before Deer Season.

(01:26:57):
I've just written it in the last minute. Are you ready, Anthony,
I'm ready. Santa, You're naughty. Twas the night before dear season,
when all through the woods the hunters were prepping all
of their goods. Quiet quiet, Stephen, Santa's talking, shush it.

(01:27:24):
The bass layers were hung in the wall tent with
care and hopes that first light soon would be there.
Janice or Janice was nestled all snug in his cot
with visions of crosshairs and taking the shots with and
Cal in his lip broom, and Steve and his wool.

(01:27:47):
They each had a bottle of whiskey to pull. When
out of the darkness arose such a sound Stephen sprang
from his chair to see what was around away to
the tent, flap. Taking a media it flight, he threw
back the canvas and stepped into the night. With an
led lamp strapped to his head. He saw in the

(01:28:08):
darkness a buck in its bed. And what, to his
wondering eyes should he see the bucks? Giant rack had
rubbed every tree yea, his frame was wide and taking
one more look, it was a buck. Moon and Crockett
would put into their book his times. How they twinkled,

(01:28:30):
his muscles, hal tents, his aunt was like the pickets
and the most wonderful fence. The big giant buck had
a broad, saggy belly that shook when he laughed, like
a bowl full of jelly. Calm down, Mark Kenyon, you
seem to be excited. You're sweating. Your brow is filled

(01:28:53):
with Santa doesn't sweat. I get very busy, but I
do not sweat. You are a sweat here. I'm like
in this. You should get a handkerchief. He was chubby
and plump, full of cold fighting fat. Though the meat
eater man had ruined his nap, Steve dreamed to be
shouldering and naming his gun, gripping and grinning. Sure it

(01:29:14):
would be fun. The buck piste on his tossils and
with a twist of his head, let Stephen know there
would be nothing to dread. He sprang down the trail,
looking just like a missile, and the way he flew
like the down of a thistle. But the hunter exclaimed

(01:29:36):
as the buck ran out of you, I hear does
and spike box have tasty back straps too? Ho ho
ho beat eaters. Then I just wrote that. Now exilt
me one minute in twelve seconds. That's valuable time, quite elf?

(01:30:00):
Who let you out of the workshop? Santa, thank you
so much for dropping by. There ends the end of
the kid's corner of the special Holiday Specialist. And if
you'd like, we're gonna step out of this room and
we're gonna go do the Latvian holiday tradition of melton lead.
And then you breathe all those toxic fumes and then

(01:30:21):
you throw the lead into a bucket. It's a bucket
of water. The lead solidifies into a crazy shape. You
hold the shape up and make a finger puppet with it,
and then that predicts your future if you care to
join us. I have no idea what you're talking about.
That sounds dangerous. I've never been to a a lot for you,
but it sounds nice, So go on, Stephen, go on.

(01:30:44):
All right, everybody once again, give it up for Santa.
Busy man, busy man. All right, he's gonna go to
the shop mall. Goodbye, goodbye. He's wanted right now at
four thousand shopping malls. Listen. I didn't come out too
long because I can't go a week without doing run

(01:31:09):
without you and run, drinking out, run wrong, drinking in
e

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 158: Best of 2020: Dumper's Redemption, Chuck Norris Reads Aldo Leopold, and the Not So Sharpest Moment of the Year

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

Therapy Gecko

All Episodes

Ep. 158: Best of 2020: Dumper's Redemption, Chuck Norris Reads Aldo Leopold, and the Not So Sharpest Moment of the Year

Dateline NBC