Interrupto!

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Hey Mike, how are you? Where are you right now? Oh my gosh, hey Conan. I'm in London, Ontario in Canada. Oh wow, okay. And are you in the wilderness right now? I mean, are you in a pretty urban area? Yeah, I'm in the urban area today. Okay, can I just pretend that you're way out on the tundra somewhere? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, can you occasionally make a sound with your mouth just so I feel like this is really authentic? What do you want, sorry? Forget it. Why don't you repeat what you asked him? No, I'm good. Oh, okay. And I just wanted to get you to say Canadian sorry, so I'm happy. Hey, Mike, it says that you are a conservation authority. Is that correct? Oh yeah, I worked for a local conservation authority. And in the past, you were a polar bear monitor. What does that mean? Essentially, I would go up to the Arctic and get dropped off by helicopter with anybody who needs a safe escort across the Arctic from polar bears. So I would kind of track the bears, find the bears, keep my eyes on them and make sure. Sorry, I was supposed to do this reveal earlier. Oh my god. Look, for those of you listening, Mike just pan to, I mean, a Hogwarts owl. A beautiful owl is perched right next to you. And apparently, it was just happily hooting. That was a perfect cinematic reveal. If you get a chance to see that, go on your computer and check it out. That's amazing. That was amazing. She's gonna leave that. What is that bird's name? Well, Kota, I was hoping you could name her for me. She's fairly new to my team here, so I was wondering if you could give her an input. How about Interrupto? Interrupto? I love it. Interrupto the owl. She's also sitting on my router right now, so she might even interrupt us further. That's okay. That bird, Interrupto just wants to destroy, like not that guy. Just this podcast? Yeah, this podcast? Why isn't it smartless? And he's like crushing the wire. Where's Will Arnett? He's Canadian. Hey, Mike, so I just have to ask you, so your job was to be basically a guide who would protect people from polar bears in the Arctic. And so I have so many questions right now. I've always heard polar bears are the most dangerous bear. They can kill you so quickly. Is that true? It's true. Yeah. Like a black bear, a grizzly bear, might not want anything to do with you, where a polar bear, if they smell you, see you. They're coming to get you. They're hungry. It's cold. And they want to eat. Right. They're not sitting around on their backs, eating a bunch of blueberries that they found. There's nothing like that in the Arctic. So when they see a ham steak and boots walking by, they go for it. They go for that person. They want it. They want it bad. So what can you do to protect them in that situation? Yeah, so I care about conservation so much. So I want to protect the bears just as much as I want to protect the humans, because I am armed. I do use non-lethal rounds, but there are lethal rounds that need to be never had to, never want to. So what are the non-lethal rounds made of? It's like a rubber slug. And so it hurts. If you hit a polar bear with it, he'll say, I want to leave now. Kind of. I did it once and the polar bear just kind of squinted its eyes and walked away. Sort of like Clint Eastwood. It looked annoyed and then walked away. Yeah. Yeah. And can I ask you, what is the caliber of weapon if the rubber bullet isn't working that you would use on a polar bear? Because I would think it just has to be a, you can't just be using a 22. No, no, it would be a 12 gauge. Jesus. Okay. Yeah. But I'm glad, but you never had to kill a bear. No, I haven't. I've had some guys think that maybe I should have. They might have pooped their pants a bit while they hid behind me, but I wanted to give that bear every chance to get away. And luckily nobody got hurt and the bear got away. I think once they pooped their pants, the bear wanted to leave. Yeah. Yeah. That's what saved their lives. And the bear doesn't want food. The bear was like, oh my God. There's poop all over my ham steak. Yeah. Yeah. I'm giving this a terrible yelp review. You also have worked a lot with birds. Is that correct? That's right. Yeah. Birds of prey. Birds of prey. And you would train the birds of prey? Yep. Train them right from the very beginning. And I would use them anywhere that has a problem with birds, not a prey. So if there's a blueberry farm and all the songbirds are eating all the blueberries, they would hire me to bring my birds of prey. I would fly them around and it would scare all the other birds away. Okay. So tell me a little bit. What kind of birds of prey are we talking about? Yeah. Hawks. Geer falcons, Saker falcons, paratum falcons, Parasawks, bald eagles, all kinds of different birds. You can train a bald eagle? I had a bald eagle named Babe. I raised her from an egg, basically. So. Oh, you are so rugged. Take it easy, Sonia. You're married, Sonia. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Thanks, David. Good Lord. To be fair, I'm swooning too. Oh, so am I. Yeah. Wow. Let's get it on. Hey, time for some polar porn. Oh. So anyway, moving on, I didn't think you could train a bald eagle. Yeah, it's possible. They are one of the trickier to train birds because they have a natural instinct to be a bit nasty. Oh, really? If they can steal prey from another bird, they will, to save themselves the energy of catching their own. So, you know. I love that that's the symbol of America. Oh, I know. Our national symbol is the dickiest of the birds. Yeah. Yeah. I'll steal that food before I get my own. Yeah. Well, yeah, Babe had a, Babe was her name. She had a really good personality. She didn't really have that nasty side except towards women. My girlfriend at the time. Really? They were near me when I had her, but you could come up and shake my hand and she'd just be like, no, many birds have thought I was a woman. Trust me. They're like, no. But so, really, so sometimes a bird will or in this case, a bald eagle or in Babe's case specifically, Babe would be cool with dudes, but if a lady showed up, would try to attack the lady or just be super jealous. Yeah, I wouldn't give her the chance. I'd hold on to her pretty good. But yeah, she'd think about it. She'd let you know she wasn't happy. This must have gotten in the way of your dating life, I would think, that you had a bird that attacked women instantly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it did. But that's all right. I know what you mean. I got polar bears to monitor. You get to live alone. You know, yeah. Wow. So you have all these different birds and then you would use them like, oh, damn, there's some seagulls that are hanging around my house by the ocean and they're real drag and they're pooping all over the place. I'm going to get one of these birds of prey to chase them out of here and it works. Yeah, I'll get rid of them right away for you. But we do something called car hawking, which is essentially the hawk will ride in the front seat of my car. We will do a drive by of your house. I'll do that on my window and the hawk will just fly out. She might grab a seagull. She might miss, but either way, every seagull in the area is going to disappear pretty fast. And how long do they stay away for? When do people think, okay, the coast is clear now? The guy who has a hawk in his car, what left? Yeah, it depends. They will send a scooper back to sea. If it's a food source like a landfill, they will keep coming back daily to check and see if I'm still there. Yeah. And I would be. I love that you would ride up with a hawk in your front seat, riding shotgun, and then you'd pull up to the address and go, here we are at 34 Crenshaw Road, put the window down and that's so amazing. And the hawk scares them all and just comes right back into your car? If they catch a bird, they'll stay out there. I did have a hawk train to come back right in the window and I drove a Dodge Dakota at the time and she went out the window and I was driving behind a Dodge Dakota and they had their windows down. They didn't know that, they didn't know me. And she flew straight into their window and the car hit the gravel and everyone came running out of their cars. You know what I love? The hopping embarrassed. I'm just thinking of the hawk going, oh god, I'm sorry. Oh god, I'm so sorry. No, it's easy. I swear to god. It's the same smaroon. It's the same color. It's okay. It's okay. No, no, oh god. Oh god. Did the hawk just cover its face when it got back to your car? With its two wings. Oh yeah, she walked back to me. Yeah. Yeah. Just give me home. Just give me home. Just give me home. Oh my god. Oh my god. The walk of shame for a hawk. Bird of prey, walk of shame. Oh my god. Wow, that's so amazing. A bunch of fascinations here. I love the birds. I love, did you always, did you ever work with other bears other than polar bears? Grisly's? Because Grisly's fascinate me. Yeah, they are incredible. I didn't work directly with them, but I was a guide on horseback in the Rocky Mountains. Yeah. And I've had a few run-ins with Grisly bears, but nothing too crazy. Yeah. But they're also quite incredible. Yeah, I mean, take it easy, Shona. I'm sure it, TAC has been around. It's just one thing after the other with this guy. Didn't TAC, hasn't TAC worked with some lethal animals? No. No, there was a sickly hamster that he befriended. No, he's like cuddling with her poodle at home. Like, you know, that's what I have. Okay, take it easy. I'm a big TAC fan. You can have them. I'll go to them. I'll move to Canada. Yeah. And be attacked immediately by one of his birds. No, no, no. I won't allow it. I'll cut a bitch. I'll cut a bitch. I'll die immediately. I forgot. I'm not a very outdoorsy person. Take it easy, interrupto. Wow. I know I'm fascinated by Grisly's and it's this crazy fascination where I find it terrifying, the idea of being mauled and eaten by a Grisly. But I'm also, I just find them so fascinating that part of me wants to have a Grisly encounter just as much as I don't want to have a Grisly encounter. Does that make sense to you? I totally get it. I totally get it. I try to tell my mom and family things because it's a bit of a dangerous job, so they worry about me. But it's not to be morbid, but I don't want to dive old age working in an office my whole life if I had a bear encounter and that's what happened. I don't want it. It would be awful, but you know. Yeah. That is a closed casket funeral. I'm telling you right now. Yeah. Or I don't even know what's left at that point. They have to follow the bear for three weeks. Keep tricking it to use a toilet and then put your wool cap on whatever's left. I'm sorry, exactly what would happen. Nobody would go to Africa. Just leave me out there. It's okay. Okay, leave you out there. Got it. Okay. I think this is very cool. Now, be honest with me, Mike. If you've been listening to me at all or familiar with my work and know me as a person, what you see is pretty much what you get. How would I do in these situations you think? If you were with me, whether it's in the Arctic and we're approaching a polar bear or in a grizzly encounter, I want to know. I want to know. I'm constantly wondering how I would measure up. I think you know. I don't know. I don't. Go ahead. Let's see. How big can you get? How big can I get? I'm 6'4 without doing anything. And when I'm frightened, my hair gets much taller. So I could be 6'6 maybe? Okay. So that's bigger than me. I'm bald. So I'm 6'4 but I'm bald. So you might, standing behind me, we'd look even bigger. So you know what? We might survive together out there. Would you think that I'd be the kind of person to panic and run or do you think I'd be calm? I want to believe you'd be calm. Why do you want to believe that? Why can't you just believe that? I don't know. You might try and use comedy to get out of it. Yes. Hey, here's my question. Do grizzlies like bits? Do they like sort of cartoony physical schtick? A little bit. Yeah. Okay. So I'm just thinking, yeah, that's the problem. The biggest problem is I might see a comedy opportunity and start pretending to be another bear who's kind of a wise guy and I could see that really irritating, not just a human but any member of the animal kingdom. If the bear wasn't going to kill you after your bits, it would want to kill you. You would be doing yourself a disservice. The bear might befriend me and then I would start to show the bear stuff from the podcast and old Conan episodes at which point the bear would reduce me to a pile of ground chuck instantly. You're still going to be doing bits during the attack? Even during the pet. I'd be like, oh no, I'm being murdered by a bear. Mold, mold, I tell you. Mold. Look at me, I have one leg. Look at me. Oh, hoppy, hoppy, hop. Got one leg and a hoppy, hoppy, hop. Yeah, Mike, I'm going to cancel this idea right now. Okay. If you change your mind though, you know, we can go over there. I'll make sure. Yeah. Yeah. We have a good time. We'd have a good time. I like this guy. I do too. Yeah. And I think you and I would do well hanging out. I think we'd be good buddies. And I think so mutual. I would try to, I think I could, I think I would be a little, you know, the way I, you've seen this, Sona and David, I kind of become the person I'm with if I'm with them for a while. I'm very zealous that way. I think I would become more like Mike. And I would, I would, I might calm down. I really like being out in nature. I chill out a bit. There's way too much stimulation around me all the time. This might calm me down and maybe battling a bear of some kind would, you know, make me realize what it's all really about. Yeah. Battle a bear. Yeah. Like you think you have a chance? I have a very good chance. Okay. If maybe, maybe Mike is there. Only if Mike is there. That's true. Yeah. I will be in the car. The car will be locked. I'll be in there with your hawk. With the hawk. There's, there's no cars out in the Arctic. Yeah. Dropped off. So. Oh, it get dropped off. Okay. Yeah. So there's, there's no, obviously no wifi, no reception. You're in the middle of nowhere. I love it. And that's, it can get quite boring. I'd go out for 30 to 60 days at a time. So I basically downloaded a good jillion hours of your podcast and trailer park boys. And I would just listen to you guys. That's a big compliment. Thank you. That's a look at that. That is very cool. That's really cool. Well, I've been, yeah, I've been watching you for forever Conan. I just have so much respect for you and your team. Thank you so much. You're bringing comedy and kindness. And we just need so much more than you're bringing it away. It just reaches everyone. And me getting to tell you this is changing my life. Oh, wow. Like I just, I want you to know how, how incredible you're changing people's lives, whether you know it or not. It's such a good way. Well, all I know is we keep our head down and we do this stuff and we do it because I can't not do it. Does that make sense? I'm not trying to do a public service. I do this because it just has to happen. You guys have been around me when I haven't been able to do this for 10 minutes and it's not pretty. But Mike, getting to talk to you is a real, it's a real pleasure. You seem like a great person. And what you're doing is really cool. And I love that you have found this life for yourself. Those are, I say this all the time when we talk to fans, people that have found what they love and that what they're passionate about. And then they managed to will that to be their career, their life. I think that is the best way to go, you know, through our time here. I really do. I managed to do it. You're doing it. It's a beautiful thing. So I hope our paths cross in person because I'd love to shake your hand. I really would. Incredible, Conan. Incredible. Did you have a question for Conan? Well, a question for him. Well, I got him to name Interrupto over there. Yeah. Who? She sat beside me perfectly through all the tech checks as soon as we got off, she flew away. So yeah, no, she saw which way this was going. Really standoffish now. Just get back to our net. I brought her to a staff meeting earlier today and she was interrupting everyone. So they're going to love that name. Great. Well, say hi to everybody and Mike, a real pleasure. And I mean it. I hope we cross paths. That'd be fun. That would be incredible. Look, I'm hard to miss. So keep your eyes peeled. Okay. Well, thank you so much. This was incredible, guys. Thanks for having me. Take care. We'll see you soon. Bye. Thank you. Bye.