Morgan Fallon

00:01four three two one What's Up mo what's up buddy good to see you man good to see I'm glad we decided to get together and do this you know and talk and you know it's a crazy subject right I mean you and I've known each other since 2012 when I did meat-eater you were there filming when I shot my first deer which is very important part of my life man and then he went on to direct and produce parts unknown with our late friend Anthony Bourdain and we thought it'd probably be a good thing to come in here and just talk talk about him yeah and and I'm really grateful for it you know it's actually you know a lot of people have been saying to me like oh it must be really hard to talk about that I must really it's I actually find it kind of the opposite like I want to talk about him I want to talk about who he was and what that experience was you know so thanks ma'am my pleasure brother

01:05did you did you know him before you guys started working together no no I met Tony 10 years ago and I was called in he had a DP on a show who at the last minute cancelled couldn't go to Egypt so I got a call like a week before you know it's like do you want to go to Egypt with Anthony Bourdain yeah absolutely and and so I met him in Cairo man like kind of like perfect yeah exactly the episode when you guys eat a camel no no it is a camel no but um you know I met him there you know we start filming we're on the streets of Cairo and like you know it's like all of a sudden it's thrown in these kitchens like we're eating pigeon you know it's like go and cover them cooking pigeon and good I had seen the show like maybe once before but I hadn't I knew who he was and I knew what that adventure was right you know and I was so amped for and then there was like this seminal

02:13moment on that show where we go out and we we go ripping across the desert with the Bedouins and go out and cook a goat in the ground you know and so as we're driving out over the desert like well we need we need some shots from car to car right and I was like I'll get on the roof you know and and there's like this for for some reason there's a four-post bed tied to the roof of this Land Rover and so I get up there and kind of like you know latch my arm around it and these guys take off at I swear 80 miles an hour across the desert I mean and you're on a bed absolutely absolutely no regard for the fact that like I'm on the roof you know shooting and and when we got there we got to camp I survived it I had this big black and blue where I was holding on to the four-post bed night I go over in a show Tony and that was it man from that moment on it was like I like this guy

03:15and I started going out with him you know I started getting invited to do more shows so that was it how many years 10 years Wow 10 years yeah that's crazy I didn't realize that parts unknown was even know were you doing no reservations first yeah so that was a no reservation show and then we went to parts unknown five years ago Wow yeah so parts that no one's been on for five years yeah yeah and not a you know that transition no reservation was great and it really laid the foundation for what we do what Tony did I think it really built an audience and following for him that's where I found out about right exactly it was it was great show you know but that like that transition going on to CNN going into parts unknown that really that really changed things that really opened up a lot of locations and stuff that we didn't have access to before it opened up you know kind of CNN's logistics

04:15rolodex and you know things that we didn't have at the other network and and so that's you know No Reservations was awesome we did some incredible shows parts unknowns we've got really fun yeah that was on another level I remember watching the chains I'm sorry okay this is more more him you know everything from the opening music to the tone of it and the narration yeah for sure and then in you know you got a hand it to CNN to is like we all of a sudden we had these creative partners who were like willing to let him be him mm-hmm you know like willing to let him do a show like the Tokyo show where we're like you know really climbing into Japanese subcultures rope bondage tentacle porn yeah you know all this stuff that most network executives a little bit leery of you know CNN was kind of like you know go for it man be yourself you know and let's figure out

05:11what this is together you know that's amazing there really is amazing and one of the things that really made that show was Tony's narration because the narration gave you a sense of the way his sort of passion and enthusiasm for the world and for various aspects of cooking and travel and food and culture like you got it through his own words you know yeah I think that's I mean maybe in some ways the most important aspect of the show you know it I mean he is after all a writer right yeah you know and and that is how he experienced the world but actually making the shows and the the technical part of actually making the shows you know we'd once you'd go through and kind of edit the show and you know none of that voiceover was in it the rough cut phase and he send it out to him and get his writing back and record that vo and I keep describing his like that kind of dr.

06:09Frankenstein lightning bolt to the temples kind of moment we're like the monster Rises it would really just bring the show to life so this kind of carcass that was laid out and rough cut form on the table all of a sudden just gasped and jumped up and you know it was really beautiful like to see that and to have you know as a director as a producer I was a creative you know at any level you know to have that kind of power yeah to have his voice and his writing and his introspection thoughts and you know that would have like powerful you know powerful force to work with well it was a brilliant design the way the show was put together that narration really did make it something special and different from all those other kinds of shows because just his articulate and insightful and poetic and artistic view of these things that he had this infectious passion for things he

07:07completely changed the way I thought about cooking I had always thought about cooking as oh this guy knows how to make delicious food oh this place has good ribs is and then when I saw his show when I saw parts unknown I went oh it's an art form it's just an art form that you eat absolutely contemporary art form yeah and even beyond that it's an art form that's in that's taking and incorporating all of these greater kind of macro social elements of you know where you are the history of where you are you know what people did for a living what people's ancestors did for a living you know it it's rooted in so much more and what I think you know you know ultimately it feels like we kind of joke around a lot and say like yeah it's the food shows not a food show you know but the reason that worked I think is because of what you're saying and you know the food food is an art form that

08:04incorporates all of these other aspects and so it can be a jumping point off for exploration into anything you want to talk about yeah I've talked about the the history of the place the politics of a place you know the religion of a place you know all of these and things that inform who people are well that's all writ into the cuisine of a place or an area you know yeah and he was into stuff that wasn't necessarily even like high you know high dollar items he was into like street food definitely yeah it wasn't just the finest French you know bistros where these celebrated world famous chefs were cooking these bizarre small plate sort of masterpieces no he would love street tacos yeah absolutely I mean and again I think that was kind of like a whole new kind of fresh take on looking at food you know yeah it's like it's easy to you know to look at these kind

09:03of high-end French preparations he's highly talented you know highly trained French chefs and there's there's tremendous beauty in that yeah and all of those other things we talked about but to look at the woman on the corner the you know the Jamaican you know the best you know lingua tacos like that was revolutionary and then the realization that all of that all of that greatness all of that nuance all of that flavor you know was contained right within there that was an access point to it as well it's just an access point that everyone can afford that where everyone can go in and you know I mean right place at the right time I think the people like it seems like the culture at large was ready for that ready for that like experience and food and ready to kind of chase that because now and that's that's all anyone wants now well I think it's because of him I really do

10:01I really do it because I mean I'm sure that he changed the way I look at things in terms of food and I think he had that effect on many people I mean you think about how many years was parts unknown four five and then no reservations for nine new reservations yeah for about ten and then there was Cook's Tour before that right so original all told a decade and a half of his influence on people's food choices and and just appreciation for food I mean I know personally I've had some great meals and restaurants but some of my favorite meals have been like stepping outside of a bar you know it's 1:30 you got a little buzz on and some dudes got a taco truck and like oh baby what do you got over there my friend or in New York you know it's late at night and there's a falafel cart and some guys got incredible kabobs like Oh something about street food man absolutely man and

10:52yeah I kind of keep like a like a loose running list of my favorite meals you know and and some of them are on the show and some of them are on the show and I'd say most of them are that you know most of them are accidentally stumbling into some place where someone's doing something completely awesome that isn't you know some massive 26 course tasting menu you know and I think it's also about you know it's about place you know yeah it's about where you are the context of where even what it smells like what it sounds like what it looks like you know who you're with you know yeah and and so you know that's kind of I think another reason the show kind of worked is we had an opportunity to architect articulate all of those all of those elements you know we're able to choose an incredibly interesting guest to sit down with at a really interesting restaurant with you know people cooking

11:53of a really interesting backstory in a beautiful place and and then use the power of kind of the magic of TV to you know to polish it up and present this version of travel and food in the world that you know and really everywhere to I mean you guys covered Asia you covered Europe you covered some weird places in the south where people are cooking pigs in their backyard I mean it was just it gave people an understanding of the preparation of food and a view to chefs and this view of chefs as artists I mean these chefs look like tattoo artists they look like you know guys who are painters or something or women who are sculptors I mean they're they're real similar in the way they they appear to what we consider artists yeah absolutely and I and I think - I mean I you know what I kind of love about like you know at this point spent a good amount of time in kitchens and good or amount of

12:50time around kitchen staff is there's kind of two elements coming together there's there's the the artistic element that you're talking about right but there's also this very you know very earnest working-class kind of element to the way a kitchen works you know this tough hard sweaty work you know it's a rough environment you know and I and I think that's kind of part of what makes it so appealing to is he kind of pulled back the curtain on on that you know and say like these guys are you know these guys are not these inaccessible icons the although cues of the world you know they are as much as Paul book use is awesome you know they are these kind of rough and tumble you know guys that are back there making something really awesome Tony also had this sort of punk-rock sensibility to it all to you know I mean that was part of the thing about him that people found appealing is that they

13:52had seen cooking shows before but they never saw cooking shows where the host gets up you know like dude I was first time I partnered with him I'm like this guy goes so hard I was amazing yeah tell me about it it was amazing I was like I can't believe he can do this all the time like I think one of the first times we ever got hung out together was in Montreal we were there for UFC fights and we went out afterwards and got we had some steaks and it was just amazing walking into this restaurant people freaking out one guy actually had a copy of Kitchen Confidential in the actual kitchen itself and that Tony sign it was pretty bad out where'd you go do not remember that Joe beef no wasn't but he turned me on to Joe beef and I've eaten there several times since those guys are coming on the podcast - I love the Breton's day ya know they're amazing that restaurant is one of my

14:42favorite restaurants on the planet no doubt man they'll hurt you inch thick slab of foie gras you know yes well their show one of the ones that I really loved was the one where they did ice fishing they were on the water and they had this ice fishing shack but inside the ice fishing shack they had fine silverware and fine china and they had bottles of really excellent wine and they were cooking on a wood stove they had a wood stove and they were cooking foie gras like right there on the stove and then they were laying out what they think makes you a good dinner companion and you know Davis like I shut my phone off I turn it off I put it away he goes I don't check it I doubt he goes I don't put my elbows on the table you know and he's like I'm I come prepared with stories and Tony was like I have stories to tell ya I come prepared like to him it's like not really a

15:44performance but it's an agreement that you're gonna you're gonna go there and you're gonna share this enthusiasm for this experience together and you're gonna try to enhance it with your own anecdotes and personality and your own appreciation for the food and the wine and and then afterwards there smoking Cuban cigars it's like the whole thing's and made you want to go eat at a really good place yeah or in a you know in a in a shack you know it was in Lake with with people who understand that that there's an elegance to all of these yes you know that you can create an environment the that has an elegance that's you know I'd say that's like a hallmark of a lot of chefs that I've met through the show is like you will see that you know no matter how big they get no matter how successful there is an inherent kind of desire to please on multiple levels yeah you know you'll

16:37love like we were in a Danielle deludes house in France I did his parents house right and so here's Danielle volute like the mega chef you know but like running around to all of the crew members like you have something to eat are you good you want another glass of wine you want to look you know and it just inherent his nature is exactly what you're talking about this idea that you know they have this just ongoing desire to please their guests to entertain to you know make sure that everyone's taken care of they're curators of an experience absolutely yeah yeah you know and so to be able to you know run around the world for ten years and explore that yeah it was nice man yeah man I can only imagine yeah I could only how many shows that you guys film together I don't you know i'm i don't know 57 or 60 something like that and somewhere in LA yeah Wow so I mean and

17:37listen there are people you know what 10 years on the show I was on the show for a long time there's people lot longer it's people that did the whole 17 years people done well over 100 hours you know no one left that show you don't leave that show if you get a spot on it were you with him when when it ended no no I was with him about a week and a half before so no I had good friends that were there I was in Chicago and I woke up and I checked my phone and I got a text from my friend Maynard Maynard Keenan from tool and Maynard is a jujitsu brown belt and really loves jujitsu any any text me he said so much for the Maynard versus Anthony Bourdain celebrity jujitsu match and that's the whole text and you know I'm just sunk sunk up pit in my stomach and I'm just more I just picked up my phone and went into Google and I looked it up and I saw it I'm just like oh

18:54I just couldn't believe it I couldn't believe it you know start crying I think I think I called my wife they're called Maynard I texted him I called my wife just called a few friends you know just you know just couldn't believe you know when someone's just not there I didn't get to see him a lot but just to just appreciate the out of that dude you know I don't want to do anybody's TV show but when I got a call from him I was like yeah what are we gonna do shoot pheasants and and hunt and camp we're gonna cook by the campfire him and dude you know I'm in I just really appreciated him as a genuine unique person like is a genuine rare person and you know that's that's what I got out of being being able to spend some time with him and being able to talk to him and pick his brain and he did my podcast once and we always planned on doing it again which we never

20:14got around to it because we're both have ridiculous schedules but just mine I would think about things differently because of him like that my I would sometimes like hold things to his standards and he like legitimately his appreciation for things and his enthusiasm for things changed the way I look at a lot a lot of aspects of food and and culture and and and even travel you know yeah I mean I'm sorry man and I you know and I know he thought very highly of you and that was that experience in Montana was fantastic man so fun you know I it's been I and it's been a rough three months and it's still hard for me to really contextualize it and put it together it feels like you know upside-down world like there's no and he was such a I mean it was a friend and a collaborator and you know but also just such an icon to me you know yeah and did it's almost like you know it's

21:27almost like the Sun disappears you know it's something that is so just inherently part of life there and and dependable and you know so yeah I mean it's been it's hard to describe how profound that's been I remember when he got into jujitsu I got psyched because I'm like we have more to talk about now I could see I could actually shows and you know and he was always asking about things you know he's really good things remember when we were in Montana we were rolling around on the dirt I know shoulder stuff him and Josh I was like when you're in here like here's what you can do you can get the end he's like oh yeah he's like he was so wide eyed you know I think it was before even got his blue butt or maybe was like a round blue belt so he was super super jacked about it and he was doing it every day I remember when we were we were filming we were outside of Billings

22:26is that we were where were we yeah well where the hunt was yeah the hunt we were in like up in central Montana you know so we kind of started in Billings but we headed up towards central Montana he was training so often in even on the road that he traveled to a club there was just a jiu-jitsu club in Bozeman yeah and he found some guys news rollin with these guys in bows yeah yeah definitely like damn you doing it every day I was day for a long time on the show that was a mandate we find the local you know the local clubs and yeah make sure that he had a place where all he texted me from some European Bloc country said he was bone bone chips he worked out with some old-school carlson gracie guys yeah they don't believe rollin light it's all the top game and smashing you yeah I'm bone chips but I just I admired that a guy could be 58 years old and decide I'm

23:17going to learn jujitsu and I'm going to be obsessed with it and then he became addicted to it which you know jiu-jitsu was a very beneficial thing to be addicted to but it is absolutely an addiction I've I've come back from injuries where I definitely shouldn't have been training yet and I just wrapped my arm up and just get in there people get super super addicted to it and he got addicted to it just like he's been addicted to many things he just he jumped right into the jiu-jitsu experience yeah man well I'm glad he did it wasn't me was clearly like really good for him yeah us I mean I know very little about jiu-jitsu I know what I know from Tony you know yeah so slim yeah he lost all that weight also he had a six-pack stopped smoking yeah you know those were those were big things man and any look right you know you got off statins there's no longer on

24:09any sort of medication he lost all that weight caught all the carbs out I was just eating like you know yeah just protein crazy it's so good he did look good he did look good and I also just I you know the whole thing was kind of indicative of the way he I mean he did things so passionately yeah you know whether it was travel and the world and soaking up all these experiences or jiu-jitsu or whatever he was into something if something caught his attention he was just so aggressive about knowledge yeah learning what he could pulling everything out of it that he that he could it's just crazy to see someone do something that's not physically demanding no 58 with no background in athletics at all yeah like you could see when he was like even when he was doing things like when he went to curt OC Enders place and was rolling around like he doesn't have a background now but

25:03he's just pushing himself to it yeah yeah and again I think that was true with everything you know I mean if he if it was something that was interested in him he just went yeah you know he loved it man it was crazy and I said you know I remember text and I'm going like how deep you getting into it he goes real deep he goes but he goes he goes I'm getting tapped out every day but he goes I'm giving guys half my age a real struggle and he goes and I'm loving it yeah and I he talked about that a lot I mean I think he talked about like the failure as much as anything else he loved that yeah going in and you know getting smashed yeah but you know again to his credit you know we'd show up in these places you know Bozeman Montana Manor or beaut you know I mean I think he rolled in Butte you know buta hard hit in town man and listen I love you I love you too much respect to anyone from

25:58Butte but man that's a hard hit in town you know you'd roll into these real cowboys yeah you know and and get the kicked out of him and show up on set all you know sore bruised and oh man and then just jump into that it's just different for a guy who's 58 I mean you got a guy who does it at 20 I admire anybody who does jujitsu cuz it's a real humbling ego dissolving experience in a lot of ways because she makes you realize like all your illusions of how well you can defend yourself they go out the window and someone just chokes you easily like great I'm just a wanna go out run around this life thinking I'm a man but the fact that he did it at 58 just showed what kind of a unusual Duty was yeah but what you just talked about there I mean what you're talking about was like the ego diminishing aspect of it again I I think that that was something that he took great pleasure in

26:50yeah and I think that you know if you look at the way he went through the world one of the things that you know I appreciated right off the bat and one of the things that kept me around as long as I stayed around you know the fact that it you know for Tony I I think that he was constantly trying to dismantle that persona you know to say like I'm I'm not the focal point of this yeah but what we're interested in here what I'm interested in talking about is out there that's cameras pointed away from me you know Brian he was kind of a clearinghouse for all that information and he was the root of the show and it was his journey but you know ultimately you know what was refreshing is he wasn't like working with some celebrity or host that was completely consumed by their own ego or their own you know Brandon and how they were presented to the world that's so disgusting right you

27:48know yeah but it's everywhere it's everywhere yeah he was very self-deprecating and and he had reverence for real artists and real masters and total reverence yeah came across he got across I texted him about some guy there was a photo of a restaurant and I'm sure it's still on my phone some dude who's like a real famous guy who's like some big-time chef character and I was eating in this restaurant and so I'm like who the is this guy I guess it seems like it's a big deal and so I texted him the photo of this cat right here yeah do you know that guy's was that guy's name so I said who is that guy says Marco Pierre White made Ramsey cry like a all-time original rock star chef genius madman the original Punk but that kind of text like that's that's a Tony Bourdain text and that's that's what that that text shows that reverence yeah for the master oh yeah you know I mean even the way he

28:51phrases it you know made him cry like a all-time original rock star chef genius madman you know and and that's the way I mean what was what worked about that is he had a like an instant ability to sniff through the you know so you know this is listen there's all kinds of famous people celebrities and you know well accomplished people he met that he didn't feel that way proud you know he would cut through that instantly but if you were on his radar in that way you know it's like total commitment yeah what you do you were in or you're out Anthony Bourdain clue exactly if do you want to be in list of people is like that's a cool list via yeah well I just remember hanging out with him you know like I just it was one of those guys he was one of the ones that I met that I was like pretty starstruck like right away yeah I said some really stupid like my wife says you're my boyfriend watch

29:51his show all the time oh you watch your boyfriend on TV likes great this guy's great but like when we were in Montana that's when I real well I always knew how hard he went but when I was blasted out of my mind and he was like where's that bottle where's those joints and I was like Jesus man yeah like I can't even I'm hanging on to the earth here yeah it was a late night yeah that one yeah I mean listen they're like an all fair and it's not every night was quite like that yeah without we had a lot of fun that and then for sure it was real fun and in a really interesting thoughtful dialogue around the campfire was super lamb Tony from backwoods country hunters and anglers and all these the other guys that were with us right yeah these guys who it was good to get a different perspective on what going out and getting your own wild food is like you know and then having him

30:44cook it there and it was delicious yeah it was awesome and but also being able to put those ideas on like a major Network that's pretty pretty rare man you know yeah kudos to CNN for having the cojones to put together that kind of a show and have it on you know big-time man uh again uh what can I say best creative partners you could ask for in terms of that you know you really yeah what's not that was the dream job you do what I do you know you are interested in making documentary television and you know that's it and that's where there are some other options because I know he had a giant problem to travel channel because I know he had told me that they they him over and did some Cadillac ad yeah yeah I know he was really pissed about the Cadillac and you know honestly I don't really know a lot of the details of the whole story I don't know what other deals were on the

31:41table besides CNM but it's safe to say that I think the relationship with Travel Channel was toxic before that you know I mean Travel Channel is a religious own place at least was I don't know if still is I think the original people that owned it because my friend Bert Kreischer has a show over there I had a show over there a couple shows birth to conquer and what was his other show hurt Bert yeah she's a crazy but you know Bert had issues with that too like he would be on the show if we'd all be hanging out together if he wanted to smoke pot he had to make sure that Jamie turned the camera away from him oh yeah cuz they couldn't see him yeah yeah for sure you know but and listen I don't have any like inside information so this is purely like my outside perspective I don't do the deals and I don't deal in that stuff and make the shows you know but uh you know I saw

32:29a network that was more interested in making like you know it shows about sand castles you know yeah and ghosts you know they had a bunch of go show a lot of go shows yeah you know shows are popular yeah they're really popular ran so stupid you know dumbest shows on television and there's like a hundred of them but the thing is if you're watching everybody's scared of ghosts so if you're watching and there's some people and they're in the basement and they have night vision on and they pretend they see something like what are they seeing as there are real ghosts cuts to commercial and then all sudden you're hooked it's a hook after hook after hook yeah it is the craziest weirdest thing it's one of the weirder things on television I just got them to shoot those shows Oh Joe Maddon try to make them interesting like you stumbling around some old house like with night vision you

33:23know trying to hear now I mean look you're gone you went from meat-eater which is an amazing show and parts unknown and no reservations and so you've got these three amazing shows and they put you on a go show no listen that might be a nightmare that maybe is like something I'd dream about you're sweating through my sheets you know but no man I'm you know listen I still work for 0.0 you know hi Morgan Morgan Fallon it's Mike from Finding Bigfoot listen we're coming back for Season 1000 we're gonna find them this year yeah please please come aboard we love what you did with Tony Bourdain and we think you could do that with Bobo you know but here's the thing they don't they don't want that they don't want they don't want cinematography and art you know they want listen man they want some kid producer director / cinematographer that they can you know they don't want they don't want what we

34:23do Bigfoot noises yeah yeah you know and I and I'm still like I said I'm still with 0.0 Tony's long term you know a long time production company we do awesome work a ton of awesome stuff lined up you know we'll be okay man but are you gonna do more stuff with Steve at meat-eater I'll go out with Steve any time he calls I just need a little more advance warning these days I think they called me last week to see if I want to do an elk on now if you do that would you try to get in shape first like like heavy duty yeah absolutely that's the last time I when I wasn't I got my ass kicked it man dude he's got yeah I mean talk about a guy who was like you know he has no empathy whatsoever for for the people he's with who maybe can't keep up with now man when you're in the it's like if you can't make that hike you did not make that hike you know yeah and you know he

35:18weighs 110 pounds and he can walk for days yeah yeah and he's been doing this since he was a baby yeah exactly yeah no man I went the last time I went out with him was I guess two years ago I went up to Alaska and did the black tail hunt but we actually had nice weather which was kind of unbelievable because I know you've been up there when it's like you know ten days of rain coming in sideways yeah we had a literally last time I was there because the storm was coming we had to make a decision coming every time we got there we weren't gonna be able to get out there was a possibility right exactly yeah part of me was like even though we're rain soaked I want to hunt the last six hours yeah because if I stay the last day never know that might be the that's so many times that's that's when you hook up with an animal absolutely I mean in my experience up there with an animal sounds like the

36:06wrong thing no man but you know like it was that's exactly the way it was you go up there and you'd be in you know six days rain and all of a sudden you know the fog are clear and there's some you know black tails standing right there looking at you you know a lot of bear out there too yeah tons of bear no but he you know I got my ass whooped last time I went up there first time I went up there I was still in shape you know I was younger yeah when I did pretty well well you were doing it all the time you have to get it all the time you have the hiking thing is something I mean you're you're basically building up this endurance in your legs you only get from hiking absolutely yeah hiking endurance is no joke it seems like it's a joke because if you hike for like five feet it seems like nothing you climb a small hill yeah I could do this all day you think you could do it all day you do

36:58that for 20 minutes you start heaving you'd be drenched in sweat you'd want to take your jacket off and then you realize like oh my god I have to do this for eight more hours eight more days yeah and then the morning yeah go and then if your immune system is at all taxed it's gonna crash hard you might get sick yeah man no you could like you said you can't train for it you can't train for that kind of backcountry stuff you can go out and you know run up and down the stair master or whatever but it doesn't rain all like those little muscle so you use it constantly stabilize yourself you know stress will help a little what's that Stairmaster help a little but we have the major muscle groups right running Hills help yeah yeah just cuz it's so much harder than hiking he's run them you could do it easier makes hiking easier walking with weighted packs on - do you ever do that

37:46oh yeah yeah that's what we did but I mean not just like for training oh just for training yeah I would on the Stairmaster actually sure I'm guessing the Stairmaster with us ya know I'd put weights on my back and go in the Stairmaster yeah yeah and boots you know did they let you do that the gym where they look at your word everyone looks at you weird oh my god if you if you even talk about hunting in Los Angeles it was row camo on for me I feel like I may have had some camo aspect of my pack yes of course but um blood stains you know I you know it's interesting I think back on those times like you know like while we're talking about like all the shitty weather and all that stuff and then just think back to that the first time I went out with Steve him saying like yeah dude but you won't you know you never tell stories about the good days you know and

38:47I gotta say to his credit that's been absolutely true it's like those those shitty days freezing cold you know getting out of here getting out of your sleeping bag in the morning and putting on wet clothes cold wet clothes to go you know to go out and hunt all day you know I look back on that with like a great degree of fondness and I also have to say it made me a lot more of a person than I was before you know toughen you up it it it toughened me up me to open me up to the idea of it opened me up to accepting you know possibilities for myself that I had never thought of before you know like you're building your capabilities you know that we like we all have that somewhere back down in the brain stand this idea this I billet II to just go out in the and you know hunt something and eat it right you know and up until that point I had never done that I'd done some hiking

39:46and some camping it was always on like trails and they're all nicely marked and stuff like that the idea of stepping out of Steve's the backdoor Steve's cabin in just into the woods at that time for me when I first did it that was completely me Leslie well you can just walked into the woods where do we go you know and and then to do it and to have it be successful in to bring that animal back and just sit around and eat it and all that stuff that was a real huge aha moment for me you know personally and professionally like oh we can do that we used to do you know ten thousand years ago what was big for me too I remember saying that on the show like when Steve was asking me and Brian on the first hunt which just by sheer luck we were both successful on the first hunt yeah and Steve was like do you think you're gonna do it again I said yeah I'm doing this forever like I knew it

40:38yeah he goes when did you know I said the moment that deer dropped yeah the moment that you're driving like okay I'm doing this forever yeah this is how I'm making getting my meat now I'm gonna do this yeah man it's the its I don't know there's so many just like really glib interpretations of like the motivation behind hunting you know that's a cruelty and blood lust and you know it's like because in its worst cases that's the that's true yeah and because I I do think that hunting shows for years that's a lot of what they put forward was like kind of machismo and guys shooting you know black bears over you know doughnut barrels mm-hmm you know for all the wrong reasons you know the least we think of that as something that people or at least I do think of that as something that people eat for food when you think about Cecil like Cecil the lion the doctor gonna really sours

41:29people on the idea of hunting because there's no justification for the average person for shooting a lion I mean you have to you'd have to do decades of Education about conservation and the importance of the money that goes for the hunt and then they still don't get it because they're like why would you want to shoot a lion and that's the good question right good question is why would you want but you know and I would say it's a good question for me to like I definitely have limits you know as much as I went Steve I have limits on what I would personally choose to do and I got to say the Africa stuff I'm from II ma'am I just it's not interesting to me you know the only thing that's interesting to me in Africa would be to hunt something that I would eat so right they have antelope in Africa I would love to hunt a lot of those yeah hunt an antelope and cook it and eat it

42:12yeah that to me makes sense there's no way I want to shoot a hippo or anything else crazy even if people do eat hippos and I understand they do that okay good luck yeah I don't wanna have nothing to do with any of that no me neither but but game animals that have been that are delicious nilgai things like that yeah the people have eaten forever and that they they hunt just like they hunt elk or deer here that to me makes sense it would be just an adventure to go to Africa Africa so scary it's so scary I love I mean see I I love Africa and I became like I kind of took all the Africa shows I could on parts unknown really that's mostly wonderful place I well first of all I think there's like it I think is that there's a lot of misperception when I comes I've never had a negative experience there I've had maybe had one experience it was kind of quasi threatening you know yeah I'm you

43:14know we had a crowd kind of turn on us and throw rocks at us as we were driving away that's the one experience with like hundreds explore well we're in we're in Goma in the DRC you know and it's just a it's just a really really chaotic place the place has been run over by civil wars for decades people are in serious desperation but I think worse than any of that there's a huge culture of of nonprofit organizations and stuff there so I think there used to kind of white folks coming in with this very patronizing kind of view and then we're down there with cameras filming them and then all of a sudden they realize that we're not paying anyone for this you know and and I think you know there's a tendency from people to feel like well you're here taking something from us you know you're clearly making more money than any of us will ever you know be able to make and and what the did

44:11we get for it you know and I can understand that point of view and how did it turn into them throwing rocks you guys know we did you know again they realized that we weren't gonna be paying for any of this you know our security team was like hey guys time to get in the car as soon as you get in the car and you're leaving it's like oh these just came down here got all their footage and I'm gonna pack up and go back to their nice hotel you know but that's the one experience and like a lot of experiences there you know for the most part I found people that are like incredibly gracious you know I've hunted to be one of the most hopeful places honestly my day-to-day experiences in Africa I saw people who were working their asses off on a grassroots level of like some of the most you know some of the most like dynamic grassroots capitalism that I've ever seen and people who will literally

45:09find any any way to scrape out in existence and a living you know this is not like this is not a lazy culture this is a culture that will fight through anything you know go to Lagos and Lagos is one of the most dynamic cities I've ever been in this is constantly moving constantly people trying to make money constantly people trying to find a niche you know in a city of 20 million people you know so I find a lot of beauty and just like raw human endeavor there and I think that you know if they can clear some of the like obvious stumbling blocks that they have in terms of corruption in terms of you know foreign pressure in terms of you know manipulation of markets there's there's tremendous promise there I mean like just just in terms of the just the internet and technology sector and Africa is like absolutely booming you know you have kids that come in from the

46:11villages on streets of Legos who can take your computer apart and rebuild it by hand you know self-taught and all of that potential is there to be tapped you know and and they're starting to you know so I guess I just find it a hopeful place that's amazing that you only had one bad experience only one only one but I can say that about traveling the world kind of in general and we've been in a number of you know relatively hot zones I mean we never did active conflict because we don't you know make that kind of show but you know being in places like Gaza or the DRC or you know I can count on one hand and you know in many many years of doing this you know the number of times that I actually felt threatened by someone you know I've found that the most likely scenario is you're gonna get like accosted by a sandwich you know or someone trying to you know introduce you

47:12to their kids you know or take a selfie with you and that's that's the world that I know I don't really understand the world that we see you know on TV here man because that's not that's not my experience you know you know a lot of good people in again getting back to Tony I think that you know that's the legacy right I think that he really showed people that that is a problem with our view of the world is that if it doesn't look scary they're not gonna show it to you know because if it's not dangerous I mean other than his show what else are you seeing on CNN where they're in Africa where it's a good thing what else are you seeing where people are in Egypt where it's a good thing what else he's seeing where people are interacting with people on the street and there's not some sort of a murder story or a rape story or something awful yeah I mean I think

48:03you're starting you're starting to see it a little bit but mostly you're seeing it in like you know on like CNN's Africa you know network or you know there you're starting to see them covering stories about entrepreneurs right you know positive aspects you know building economies but it's a real problem in our view of the world for people that don't travel well listen Africa just simply doesn't make news in the United States I mean it takes a genocide you know well all I've been hearing about Africa lately is what's going on with white farmers in South Africa it's yeah it's very scary stuff for people are encouraging people to attack white farmers you know and there's a whole lot of socio political and economic that goes on with that that I'm not even gonna pretend I understand but that's what you hear about you don't hear about good things here about how many farmers

48:55have been murdered yeah at homes well that's a shame man because you know you go there and most of what I find going on there is positive you know listen there's a lot of pain there's a lot of suffering a lot of bad that happens there too obviously I'm gonna deny that you know but uh you know we don't hear the good stuff did you have a good did you have like a place where you enjoyed traveling to the most you know I not I don't think really because I you know this to me this is another kind of like real lesson of the show you know I think we got to a place where we were finding something kind of everywhere you know there's some places that I I didn't enjoy as much you know but uh I think most places we found something that was like oh this is awesome you know where was it one place where you like yeah I'm not going back here again I don't say okay positive people

50:00keep it positive let's just say it's a highly militarized state deep problems okay now and deep divides and on both sides yeah okay you know and and a lot of beautiful people on both sides but you know but I think you know I mean this was something we like we didn't kind of a lot as we kind of progress in the shows aside you know I met my dad would say it to me all the times like well weird were you guys gonna go now you know then everywhere it's just like yeah but I think we started to learn that you could like really point the camera kind of anywhere I think a big one for me was like doing this West Virginia show last year which is a place that always been like really close to my heart like I grew up when I was kid you know it's a place that has been I think like deeply misrepresented again another place has been deeply misrepresented in the media

50:53you know and but you know we got like I got into town on the scout there and it's like there's no restaurant you know it's not just that there's no restaurant like in the town there's like two restaurants in the county you know and I remember having this moment of like can we do this was this work like well Tony respond to this and we make a show here and within two days he was like this big you know very deeply heartfelt statements about the place really loved it you know and it was kind of another aha oh yeah of course because there's something everywhere the human story is everywhere and you wanna dig into it wherever you go the fundamentals of that don't change and I think that you know what he did was so cleanly and clearly and so free of cut to the core of those very fundamental kind of human stories you know and anyways it worked well we won an Emmy tonight to go for it so yeah

51:58posthumous Emmys are always odd right yeah that was a rough night when he would get the rough cut would it be length of the actual show and then he would add narration to it did he have any say in the editing process huge I mean so I think that's something important to about who he was you know I mean like everyone calls him a chef he wasn't a chef like he was a producer television producer you know he he would pick the locations he'd picked the subject matter for the most part you know there were a couple like how did you guys work it out like say if you were gonna go to Puerto Rico or something like that how would you make make the decisions how would you decide where to go and why okay well I'll take you through the whole process so so Tony would come up with a list of places that he was interested in going and maybe we would throw a couple in like I'd mention the West Virginia show

52:51you know be like but this is my list right and and then he write like a brief each one I'm interested in X you know like I'm interested in Singapore it's Disneyland with the death penalty right and you're like okay so there's like there's kind of a basic operating thesis right we can kind of like go in and look at this place from this perspective and some of them some of them didn't add the Lego SEPA sewed for example you just be like like we we haven't been in Nigeria let's go to Nigeria you know and and so we would start doing research on what that was just big kind of you know 30,000 foot macro you know what is this environment like what are the interesting things what are the stories that have been told about this place and how can we look at it from a different angle so like the Nigeria one we kind of focused in on like I said you know grassroots capitalism DIY

53:48entrepreneurship you know street level you know the street level kind of dynamics of the economy you know and that became like like we could see ways to kind of make a beautiful like human story out of those elements so I'd end up putting down to him probably in like a two or three page thing like here are my ideas you know here's what I found based on what you were interested in here's some other things I found this is the way we'd kind of like to go about it and he'd either be like ya know you know and from that point we just get heavy into research right a treatment you know and break that story into like six acts right and then look for scenes to kind of feel and articulate that story so it scenes like you know I have this great economist I know we're gonna need an economist at some point but we got to put you know economists are kind of boring by nature so we got to put him

54:50somewhere more dynamic there's this really interesting computer market that has a lot of energy so let's put the economists there they can walk around there's a great restaurant in the corner there so like here are some elements we can put together that's a scene in a act of the show you put all that stuff together and treatment form send it to Tony usually minimal notes from him you know and then and then we'd go out Scout shoot the show you know how weird is it shooting in a restaurant with camera people standing over the table I think we go I think we got really good at not taking over the environment you know so I don't I I don't know I don't know how to answer that because how do you do it how do we say if you and I are having a conversation at dinner and we're being filmed right would they be as close to Jamie as right there two cameras yeah closer than that

55:44well right on top of you yeah they're pretty close but you know understanding yeah but we wouldn't use like that we're rules to that right because it like we're a documentary show we can't just go in and just like completely take over so our slice or take over some village or scare the out of local people or you know what I mean like we got to go in with some deafness you know so we would go in early and we would light so that the characters Tony aren't really seeing us screw around with lighting stuff like that that's all kind of in place put the cameras in there no sound guy no big booms sit the rest of the crew down are they wearing wireless mics yeah exactly and then and then and then fill in local people and the rest of the restaurant make sure that there are people who actually go to that restaurant in the restaurant Richard that feels like alive not like

56:39full of you know extras like miming dialogue and you know carrying large cameras like how big the cameras are carrying their big cameras like regular big ole production cameras heavy on the shoulders yeah like you guys would use a mediator yeah yeah you know but again you know it's two guys standing there with cameras that have been traveling at least from Tony's perspective when traveling with Tony for a long time you know this is just like having two more you know friends at the meal in terms of with the sidekicks you know I think we learned early on that like you gotta like you got to go up you got to introduce yourself you got smile you gotta laugh you got to be able to be self-deprecating make them feel comfortable like you're there to ask them questions not to tell them who they are you know and I don't know and it I I just say we we traveled all over the

57:29place a lot of people have never been on camera before it largely worked you know so it must've been doing something right was he every time you in a restaurant and people were pissed off that there's people standing there with cameras filming a table oh yeah yeah yeah but you know that's pretty easy you know someone gets pissed off and they wave you off and okay cool sorry you know no worries you know I never really escalated you know this with me never escalating you had a view of the world by doing that show and traveling the way did that it's less than 1% of the population is ever gonna experience probably less than 1% of 1% yeah I would say for sure yeah yeah I mean it's got to be an incredibly enriching journey for you yeah hugely I mean usually there's I mean it's I don't know it's very simple there's before and there's after and it's two different

58:20people really it's just all the data you have to take in the view of the world change as it gets bigger becomes a much bigger place it does that's was you know that's exactly right and that's what's really interesting I tell people this too they'd be like oh well you know you've been on this place and it's get I was a gap but the the world doesn't work like that it doesn't it's not like the more places you go the smaller the world feels more places you go the bigger the world feels it just feels bigger and bigger and bigger because you realize like there's you know people's country there's this county in this country there's this town in this county there's a street there's all these other streets there's all these other people yeah you know our shows were just a sliver of a place a tiny little sliver you know you can go into Legos we'd go back to Legos

59:07and make 10 more shows each one of them completely unique and individually you know the world's big place a lot of going on you know yeah now they're gonna keep airing these shows right I mean how long are they gonna how long are they gonna do this for they have how many did they have all told how many they did five seasons I guess we're getting near 100 you know I've never counted I don't really know a lot of shows uh yeah they'll keep Aaron I have it on my DVR so they'll occasionally run these marathons and yeah I'll go to my DVR and there's like 20 new shows yeah you know I watched a few of them the other night no the first time I watched it in a while I I posted a thing on Instagram too about it cuz I was real reluctant to watch it after he died but then I went on a bender yeah I watched like a binge watched like three of them in a night I was like god damn what a good show it

60:06was yeah yeah it was good man you guys nailed it yeah I'm you really he should be really proud thanks man yeah and I'm you know I'm actually still working on one right now which is maybe the weirdest experience you know you're asking about process before you know after we chewed it that's when Tony really came in what do you do if he's not there for narration well that's that's the thing who narrates it you know it's I'm not gonna replace Tony so no narration oh yeah I mean we have our sidekicks talking to him we have his dialog in the field you know but who's gonna step in and do that voice no and how offensive would it be if we did that it would have to be someone who is so close to him that it didn't didn't freak everybody out it'd have to be someone who's on the show a thousand times was just there with them always yeah that person doesn't really exist it doesn't

61:02yeah there's no you know there's no voice there when you would give him a rough cut say it like I said show on Porter yeah so he would take that he would watch it and then he would start writing exactly so yeah getting back to process you'd like I'd send him an act right once it was in rough cut for him and then you get his notes back that was always kind of a terrifying moment too because you're like dude you've worked on this thing a lot you send it off to him he can go one way or another man right I got I you know I got gutted a few times man but I got a couple that were like out-fucking-standing you know and that's all the notes yet but you would you'd send him basically scratch writing so you'd say like here's what we're thinking you know is this kind of idea goes here this kind of idea goes here and then he would actually write it you know and you get that writing back and

61:52I'm gonna take for him to do something like that oh he ripped that out man yeah he's fast and that's the thing to you I never you know there was never an email or a text that he didn't get back to you he was no slouch man he like he was sharp he was on it he'd get back to you he'd do that work you know it uh we took pride in that yeah we talked about a lot of doing doing the work yeah yeah yeah and he did I mean there's another that's another another thing that was so delightful about it you know something you're having to drag some you know carcass along and you know prop him up in front of the camera and you know he was into it man and like he had total ownership total control awesome incredible creative ideas incredible creative power like he was in you know and no show was like that you know we can just like kind of slip by on this one you know every show is

62:49important and when you know when they weren't working he was pissed you know and great you know I think the biggest thing that I miss in this process of cutting this Texas show that I'm doing now is not having the pressure of him looking at it and being like dude you know no man this ain't working you know that was a real benefit to us when did he start smoking again I you know so weirdest thing man I I didn't know I didn't really know he was smoking again then the Puglia show came out and I just saw him light up on camera you know I was like oh I guess we're doing this again and then a couple of my like a couple of my shows at the end he'd start just lighting up on camera and that was always like that was always no-go territory like if he in the past when he was smoking we would like stop shooting you know all of a sudden he was just lighting up right on

63:50camera and I don't know chuck the out of me you know I kind of looked around the crew liked what we do like I was shocked because he said that when his daughter was born it's when he decided to stop smoking because he realized that you know he had something else to live for that he you know he didn't want to be on some cancer bed yeah I iron lung having his daughter visit him yeah so he quit yeah it was a bummer when he started again that's you know did he stop going to jujitsu I don't know I guess it wasn't as frequent during the end you know during the last few episodes I you know we stopped kind of having to find gyms when we'd offer you know and be like Nam you know cool so I think the last couple of shows would probably like that for me I was like you must find a local gym and be like Nam you know I'm good man so was it within the last year or so or

64:57less less than a year say the last year or so yeah so that's when the smoking started I cast made a little earlier in that yeah oh that's a bummer when you see someone quit and then go back on its that is one of the weirder use of our culture because he got through I mean he got through the really hard part you know yeah couple years under his belt and you look great man he was you know really he was doing really well yeah but that we do you go from here mo where do I go from yeah oh I you know I you know Tony gate I think gave us like tremendous tools to you know for how we look at the world like how we will continue to go on looking at the world and I don't know exactly what show I'll do but I know it will continue that kind of ethos you know and I get you know I feel like I have this very powerful kind of like I said set of tools now that that he kind of handed us you know that to go

66:13on and keep doing I guess this work you know isn't the problem with this work that you need someone like him he kind of need like either a Rinella who's a very unique person and in many ways similar not self-destructive at all but really meticulous about his work yeah and a very good writer as well and this narration like one of the things that separates mediator from any other show is that Steve has this eloquent narration exactly that goes through it and it makes you realize like our perception of what it means to be a hunter is based on stereotypes negative stereotypes that this is the best example this is a really well read brilliant man who has a great passion for the outdoors and for public lands and for wildlife and for a consuming wildlife and this this this adventure of pursuing it and in eating it and cooking it and showing you the art of cooking it

67:17you know that you wouldn't be able to make meat-eater with pig man the pork lips yeah I mean come on well unfortunately I enjoyed that with for all the wrong reasons you see there's justification enjoying a pork lips first of all because you got Ted Nugent with a machine gun in the helicopter okay and then too you have this real wild pig epidemic it's a legitimate epidemic in Texas and they don't know how to eradicate yeah I get all that and I've been putting it on television on a hunting show it's not really hunting its assassinating out of a helicopter it's the thing that it's that part it's the mentality behind it that you know I'm like listen I'm not saying don't have fun on a hunt I've had a lot of fun on hunts you know have a great time on a hunt I don't know there's something about you know ya know what you're saying no exact firing off a thousand rounds cackling

68:23outside of a helicopter yeah laughing when you see pigs do somersaults cuz you had shot at them yeah helicopter you know I think you know and I think that's one of the things I really loved about Steve you know like what he loved still the time that I still loved about Steve you know a really poignant episode and that show for me it was when we went up to Alaska and we're hunting black bear and and he decided not to take a shot yeah you know I mean here's a guy that loves animals as much as he loves hunting animals much he loves conservation of animals much he loves the knowledge and the science behind animals in the natural world you know that to me was appealing like that's something I can sink my teeth into dedicate my efforts towards you know further working on yeah it was a crazy show me I mean I talked to him about it and his sort of idea of why he didn't do it was

69:23so interesting yeah he just kind of went with his feelings yeah exactly yeah to have a hunting show where you have a bear which is what you're looking for they're lined up in your scope yeah I don't want to do it I'm not feeling it and in I loved what he said too at the time so he was like I'm not saying I'm never gonna shoot a bear again I just don't want to shoot a bear today and I'm not gonna and that that was a big moment man that's well that's what the words coming out of his mouth how conflicted must his perception be to realize that okay I'm filming a show where I'm actively hunting bears camera people there there's a budget behind it now I have to make a show about my decision to not hunt a bear and then next week I'm gonna go hunt something else and then the next week I'm gonna go hunting something else yeah but I mean that like his ability to to like admit and kind of

70:11understand that the human being is a complex animal with complex emotions and that you know this idea of just kind of uniform direction of the human mind is like a total fallacy man mmm we're all over the place you know and like I no I really bought in at that moment if I hadn't before which I completely kind of had but I really bought in at that moment I was like you this is this is a guy I can always stand behind you know one of my favorite episodes brave it was brave because you realized this is on the Sportsman's Network yeah so the Sportsman's channel and they have only hunting shows oh man and then he's on a hunting show with you got all these people that are watching that would kill to be on a hunt like that and to have a big ol bear in their sights what they want yeah and they're thinking we're gonna see Steve shoot this then we're gonna see him cook up a bear roast he's

71:04gonna see stewed carrots and onions and potatoes and it's gonna be amazing and he's gonna I don't want to do it yeah and everybody's like why it's yeah and we were like we were really nervous I remember when the episode came out were like who's this and we had done a few things before like we had failed at a hunt like you know we had taken shots that missed in the hunt failed we had gone on a mountain lion hunt where we never even saw a mountain lion those were all kind of moments were like will this work can we put this out in the hunting community will they respond to it and every one of those had kind of like hit or worked and I think people actually appreciate it because of the the realism of it you know that one was like can you can you put out a show where there's a perfectly legitimate shot at and you know I mean a a very high percentage shot at at exactly the

71:53animal we're going after and the choice to not take the shot you know how are people gonna respond the overwhelmingly people were like hey man I know exactly how you feel you know yeah it was incredible you know it was like it was like this moment and I and I don't mean a bag on anyone else man and I don't know that much about hunting shows before you know I know that a lot of what I saw I found to be really really either uninteresting or just stupid you know but you know I think that it was like this moment we're like oh my god like all these you know this this industry is like missed a big big part of who the people you know that are paying attention here are you know hmm you don't have to just go like sell arrowheads you know and you know and you know cackle hanging out of a helicopter yeah well that's the worst case example but for some hunting people that are like sort of deeply

73:01indoctrinated into the world of hunting they don't mind that show none of mine and listen imps no power more power to them I'm not trying to tell anyone how to be or what to like or was just not a lot of guys like Steve I mean do you know Donnie Vincent no similar guy yeah similar got really really smart guy yeah and just great reverence for the outdoors and for a wildlife - you know he does everything self filmed and sells the Gasko films he's smart you know he knows he knows what he's doing yeah cool man but he you know Steve he sort of changed the perception of hunting for a lot of people that have become fans a show the same way that Tony sort of changed the perceptions absolute and of cooking yeah yeah absolutely I mean I you know I mean I'm not like Terrence Malick or something but like I got a lot to offer and I got a you know I got a career I'm not gonna

73:57I'm not gonna dedicate my career to these people unless I really really believe in what they're growing and like that's those are two cases of people I like really believe in man because they were willing to look at an industry or look at something that they loved and say like well I have a completely different take on it you know and I'm willing to put that out there whatever cost and in both cases and work cuz they're both super smart you know really capable people you know yeah I don't think I've ever met really anyone more capable than Steve in a lot of ways that guy's uh he's he's kind of a force of nature you know he's a very unique person I know and the amount of stuff that he's able to get done as well you know written a bunch of bogus and constantly doing these shows and I don't just the enthusiasm - I mean he's not just going to these places and staying

74:53in hotels he's sleeping on the ground out side in these you know really up places and you know about a fogged AK what happened with the bear attack I do yeah yeah which is just if anybody doesn't know there's a two-part series on the meat-eater podcast about a fog nack which is an island in Alaska where they have enormous brown bears and they got charged and attacked by a 11-foot there which is just so crazy to think of and the description of it and and they made this podcast right after the fact so it's fresh in everyone's mind it is amazing it's amazing it's an amazing story it's also amazing it's not the first time he's been charged and you know by a number of different animals it was run over by a moose yeah you know yeah but I will say that I mean Steve also is like physically one of the toughest people I've ever met I mean I watched him set beaver traps one time in

75:55I mean breaking ice with his bare fists to set beaver traps for hours you know put your hand in that water for putting your hand in that water for two minutes you know just that's someone who does not have trouble you know enduring a lot of physical discomfort yeah you know and and that was what was kind of exciting about the show - is he was really like willing to integrate that stuff into the experience you know it wasn't like it wasn't like we need to go out we need the perfect kill shot we need to set this when you set that you it was kind of like well we're just gonna go out and we're gonna see what happens we're gonna kind of grit our teeth and bear it no matter what you know the where the journey takes us and we're just gonna document that that was like super exciting television to make at that time to that you know I've done five episodes of a show and we

76:51struck out on - mm-hmm you know that's uh it used to be they would never air shows like that no I don't know that they aired I mean I'll probably I'm sure a lot of people you know feel like yeah dude you don't know what you're talking about but I'm not sure that they a lot of failed hunts before we started doing it I don't think they did I don't think it was a popular thing it might have been done before but not to the extent the way Steve did one of my favorite episodes he never never shot a deer it was talking about his dad he was all that's brilliant yeah great you episode and I think that was Alaska as well wasn't it I don't think it was it was it wasn't in a black tail hunt maybe it wasn't Alaska no I feel like it was a coues deer hunt I think in Arizona and most of the show was him using a spotting scope and binoculars looking for deer and talking about his

77:48relationship with his father yeah and there was no music whoever edit it and put it together was brilliant yeah perfect yeah because it was you know some heavy heavy duty and it sort of makes you realize like oh this is where you came from you came from a hard man yeah the taskmaster yeah you know that was a brilliant episode there's also like I think you know one of the things I liked so much about that episode two is it feels so much like the process of hunting you know it's um long hours with people really kind of getting deep into stuff and not you know I did an episode with him - I it hasn't aired yet but it was a lot of that let it like just talking about life you know ya know I really enjoyed that part of vnl as him - when spending those long hours just sitting glassing Hills like talking about our families and you know plans for the future yeah it was

78:51nice man I listen I feel I can't tell you how lucky I feel in my career to like land it with these folks you know yeah that's a great one - right there are those two those two guys yeah but like we were saying it's it's real hard to find those kind of guys there's not a lot of those kind of guys out there there's not a you know I think that you know the feels like there's more of what they call premium content now you know on TV there's or people looking for things that have more substance to it but Wow that is what do you think has happened what's the shift I you know I got I guess I don't really know I think I'm not in development so I'm not really in a you know place to say but I get the feeling that outlets like Netflix have really shaken up the the paradigm you know I think the Internet in general has change people's expectations yes and and uncensored content is so prevalent right

79:54and so much more attractive yes it's it's just changed change the way people absorb things yeah ya think - you know I think I think you know lesson efflux they've spent a lot of money they've taken a lot of swings not all of those swings have hit but they've been pretty brave in terms of like how much and how what a wide range of content they've been willing to take on yeah and and so they you know again I mean maybe that's you know part of what's driving it I know I'm I've been lucky enough to land at like I said before like 0.0 with Chris and Lydia there and their ethos of you know making content that like has a purpose you know that works towards bettering you know the world are showing people something about the world or you know connecting people and and that's probably been you know the greatest gift that's what brought me to telling you that's what brought me to Steve you know

80:54this is a connection with them so there are people out there that want to use the medium - yeah they're they're are idealistic suckers out there that's what creates that satisfying art I mean the stuff that we're talking about you're not gonna get that any other way you have to have those people with that deep reverence for the subject that they're discussing and the subject that's being portrayed yeah yeah and and now again more and more we have the outlets to put that on the air yeah I think back to the days when those three networks you know Tony's never getting on I'm never gonna find out about him I mean well he'll have to stick with being an author yeah exactly yeah you know it's it's in a lot of ways it's the Wild West now but in a lot of ways that's a good thing oh it's a good thing I mean it's great thing for me yeah this kind of show where we go so what do you want to do I

81:56just want to talk to you I wanted who's gonna schedule it me what are you gonna do on the show whatever format of discussion nope yeah but in a lot of ways that's what kind of that's what meat-eater was in the hunting version you know it was like what's the concept of the show well I'm gonna hunt the that I wanna hunt when you go to places I want to go yeah and then hang out with the people don't want to hang out with well you know are you gonna shoot animals I don't know maybe maybe not it's hunting I can't tell you you know we're gonna try yeah and I it was man again it was great to be able to do that and like have that freedom and I think CNN in a lot of ways like you know in Tony that that you know to have the freedom to be like well here's a you know six year old you know ex-heroin addict we're gonna do whatever he wants to do wherever in the world he wants to

82:46go and we're just gonna kind of let him talk you know well the the Seattle one yeah they let him get blasted I mean he was who's we'd on camera smoking weed through the show visiting growers yeah and then going to restaurants high as well you could tell he was high and he was talking I been talking about being baked with two people who are growers the brother and sister with her hilarious there they were a whole yeah and they were laughing it's like the whole family's involved really that was a great episode ban and it also goddamn that episode got me hungry cuz you like seafood in Seattle and all the delicious yeah haven't been up there no that was a good episode and those those folks were awesome yeah you know I went out to that place and I filmed that and it's like they were like as like dream scenario I mean that kid like he he put together the names I I'm seeing look like a

83:51chance to give them a shout out Seattle episode growers it'll come up african-american family but um they were awesome they were awesome and like you know it that was all that kid he had like put together a PDF showed his family and they were like cool let's sink everything into and they did and I went out to their place and they were just sitting back laughing you know like counting stacks of money you know and all smoking pictures you know with the grandmas there smoking a huge doobie like she was like quality control tester all these kids working for them and stuff like you know rolling joints and making oil and dust and it was just like I was like being good for you guys you know like like way to go like isn't that the way like kind of American entrepreneurship is supposed to work you know what's just rare that something comes along that's this controversial but yet also lucrative as

84:51marijuana sales and then all the sudden it's legal in the state totally oh yeah well so we could just do this yeah yeah I'll tell you what's funny the controversial part of that episode was not Tony smoking because that's legal it's perfectly you know it's fine for him this one it was when he handed the joint to me over the camera that one was a little I think that was a little tough for some folks to swallow as well because cuz I'm working you know but he's working - yeah well jeez you know I never thought of it that way I guess he was yeah he's working to I guess is the idea that you're holding machinery Hollingsworth's farm yeah yeah why was it I guess because maybe they're thinking you're holding a machine that's like real expensive I guess man or the I think they you know they didn't want the perception that we were just like yeah partying and out of control in the field

85:52we and we weren't man you know we were like you know professional so did CNN have a problem with it I think maybe there were elements at sea and someone who might have had someone must have chimed it but in the end again to their credit in the end you know they left us alone you know make a good show yes soon as those cooks start coming into the kitchen let's do and one to add ingredients yeah but that's the whole industry I know again that's why this was so refreshing you know I was like how rare is it not to get it not that people just breathing down your neck all the time the same thing with meat-eater you know cuz Steve Rinella came from the wild within which was a show that's where I met him yeah I met him from that show and I had him on my podcast but that show was a goat rope he was telling me that they were trying to let animals loose out of

86:44cages and then he would shoot them those were the early days when they're like then when they were like there were line items in for like animal Wrangler and like but you know to everyone's credit and like very quickly at 0.0 I'm very quickly with Steve they were like dude we don't do that like we're not doing that but it's hilarious that a producer actually came up with that idea I know how to do this producer didn't you know it's not like a producer came up with that idea that was just a playbook on how you make TV I know that's just pulling from the PlayBook for sure you know I'm reality air quotes TV yeah exactly you know that show I mean listen there's there's a lot of huge mistakes in that show and a lot of though it was I thought it was like a pretty revolutionary and like pretty interesting show in a lot of ways there's a lot of truth in there too you

87:32know we did end up going out and just like going on hunts you know this is a very high-pressure situation you know yeah but also like this is very typical of kind of like that I think the way that television works there's like still as we're out in the field there's still yet the network a lot of kind of infighting and jostling about what the show actually was is this a you know is this history is this you know reality is this you know subsistence yeah you know I I remember at one point someone saying something like well it's not a hunting show you know and we're like I'm in the field covered in moose blood you know and I'm like it looks like a hunting show from where I'm standing what does that mean it's not a hunting show yeah I think that there's you know I don't remember who that was but I think that they're very leery of this idea of like a hunting show well

88:28meanwhile was those subsistence shows that they have they're all hunting and gathering I mean that is like one of the more popular shows on all of these cable channels where these people that live in Alaska and they're trapping Matt with this shoot yeah that's crazy wasn't then I mean that John were really exploded after that yeah and I think there's something very different you know when you take like you know when you take like for some reason I mean it takes Steve like New York City intellectual and you put him in that environment I think there was a different reaction then like oh these people live in Alaska it's like watching pygmies hunt you know they're these are this is the natural environment of you know and that's what they do and so hunting is acceptable under those conditions you know looks like why isn't it acceptable for someone who like lives it as like a base

89:16philosophy in their life give him a chance to explain why you know but he lives in Brooklyn why would you ever hunt shopping center yeah yeah well you must be there must be something wrong with you if you enjoy it right exactly yeah I think that's like I think that's part of the mentality well Tony address out on the show too you know I remember one of the first times Tony shot a deer on the show and then they cooked it at that same guys restaurant yep exactly Marco Pierre way yeah yeah at his restaurant yeah and they shot a deer and Marco put the blood on Tony's head yeah exactly supposed to do in the first kill yeah and then they went and cooked it and it was there was a lot of that there was there was one time where he shot a pig at point-blank range with a pistol yes and I was like wow they put that on TV that was a big that was a big moment for him he tell

90:07you talked about that a lot yeah yeah yeah so well I mean he that was Cajun country right yeah and I think they'd eat I think he I think this story go he like he goes they asked him to kill the pig and he goes up and like just very very coldly double taps to pig in the head and I think he says there's just this moment of silence amongst a crowd like wow that was cold dude I don't know but he was like you would talk about it as if like a gasp came up from the crowd was like geez Wow you know the double tap you know uh looks like a mob hit or something yeah I think ones enough for a pig I don't know I've seen animals shot in the head though that could here's another one really yeah that's well I think especially with Jesus I've seen I've seen a couple pigs go real ugly so yeah double tap is totally acceptable to me because when a pig goes bad it's really it's not pleasant for anyone man

91:20yeah well it's also you don't want an animal ever to suffer if you exactly see it still alive another one that's always yeah bow hunting rifle hunting yeah if it's still standing put another one in it yeah yeah we're suffering in any way yeah I mean I think that's you know you know that's like kind of a responsibility you take onto yourself when you decide to hunt like right and for me when I made that decision I've been on two hunts now with Steve of shot two deer that was like a very clear kind of aspect of it you know it's like well I'm taking responsibility now not only for like this animals life but for this animals pain and suffering and the consequences of my actions you know so I'm not going to be lobbing off any 750 yard you know rifle shots because I'm not qualified to do that and it's irresponsible to the animal and the potential suffering that you can cause

92:20you know or losing the animal or you know so you know and I I don't know I guess that all comes from Steve really you know Lisa he's gotten such strong ethics yeah exactly yeah I mean it became really clear with me just knowing him that this guy's he's got like a very very powerful moral compass yeah core set of beliefs that are just non-negotiable again both of them Tony and Steve I mean Tony is moral compass rock solid as well you know any mistakes that he may have made in his life I can honestly say he made them with his heart he made them with his moral compass in mind and making his best attempt to to follow that you know and again that you know that was something that was it was really nice to be around and refreshing to be around you know bright especially in this world of people with gimmicks trying to become more popular and more well-known and he

93:28had put zero effort into that yeah I mean just the base philosophy of the show we're not gonna fake anything we're not gonna do second takes we're not gonna hold the one where they were thrown frozen octopod this so this is like a really famous story right the Sicily episode yeah he describes that is like there may be the darkest existential moment of his life you know it was like who was throwing the fake act of the frozen sidekicks so they set up these sidekicks who are like sidekicks of the guy who was running the fishing operation well I I guess they were the sidekicks in the scene that we're gonna work with Tony right so I mean the way you'd set a scene up normally like that is you'd have like a sidekick someone who's gonna talk to Tony and be like hey what are we gonna do we're gonna go out and the sidekick would be a local yeah usually like a local or an expert in something or you

94:15know a fisherman probably in this case I wasn't on that show so I don't know exactly but you know and you'd be like oh we're gonna go walk to us you didn't you know do you know someone who fishes octopus oh yeah I know you know so and so we'll go out with them right so but it turned out that they they went to like this very crowded Beach you know and I think even in the scene Tony's like can we really catch octopus if there's like people swimming kids with like snorkel masks you know and yeah everything's gonna be fine everything's gonna be fine he got in the water and he starts hearing these plops and looks above them and there's this dead octopus like floating you know drifting down to the bottom of the ocean they're lobbing them in off the boat and then picking them up is a viaduct of us I got one you know but I think again like most TV shows would do exactly that

95:06you know like where's the octopus Wrangler and for Tony like that was always like complete completely unacceptable way to make TV so did you know he had no idea was gonna happen before happening no happening what did he say he he left and went to the beach in ordered like hit like seven to grones in a row he was really bummed out about it I saw him two weeks later in Tokyo and he was still talking about it he's like I just I just had the worst experience of my life worst thing that ever happened to me your darkest moment of my life you know frozen octopus of the water completely went against the the whole ethos of the show I know but he made fun of it on the show listen honestly it's a great scene it's great it's a great scene largely because Sally Freeman that producer of that is like absolutely brilliant and one of the best directors has ever come through that show so yeah it was funny

96:03to take on realizing that they were throwing frozen octopus into the water yeah exactly like how mortified he was by it all yeah totally but I mean I bet that again like that's that's the way it was you know like we didn't go in and like be like okay action and now cut okay and now we're gonna move the cameras and say that again you know there's none of that mana you I mean part of the hustle of the show was like being there with the cameras yeah you set up the scene and then you press play and you let it go and what happens happens and I'm sorry if you don't get exactly what you hoped out of it you know but we're not going to interrupt the world we're not going to manipulate and control things that is the difference between really good reality TV the word reality TV is so weird like what does that even mean because a lot of these shows they're scripted

96:52yeah they have these loose scenarios and then they go in they script them and they redo things that reshoot things it's not reality it's like shitty acting with people that are not trained and they're edited with people talking from the camera like I didn't know what Moe was thinking crazy I told Joe what we're gonna do like the Kardashians I mean they've got it down to a science a science of moronic television viewing I agree if you could just sit there slack-jawed uh they'll keep you locked in they'll keep you locked in don't Eddie they're good out of edits they'll show you their tits and right boom you cut to commercial on their rear right that's reality TV what what you guys are doing is more documentary television yes it is and it's not saying that it's not saying that there's no effect of of the convention of television there of course there is but we used to say like you

97:52know like Vietnam doesn't look like that but Vietnam doesn't not look like that you know there is a there is a refinement in the manipulation in what we're doing because we're choosing these locations we're choosing to talk to this person we're choosing to shoot it in a certain way that's beautiful we're adding light you know it's not exactly the way reality is but there's a threshold there's a line which you don't cross and that line is is a morally and ethically established line by Tony and by the crew that says like there's there's a place at which it becomes unfair the manipulation of reality becomes a manipulation that has now become unfair to the people who are viewing this the people who are there you know we're we're we've become self-serving you know and that's the line that we chose never to cross you know we can make it beautiful we can refine it down you know we can edit it

98:46we can make a compelling show but it has to it has to exist within under this within this certain threshold or else what you know what the are we doing but it must be a small percentage of people in the business that have that ethic incredibly small and it's incredibly powerful to have people backing you that believe in that and and super rare I mean you know we talk about in like the film industry today how rare it is to have true auteur final cut directors you know left there's only a handful of them you know largely the studios have taken over that control well equally in the television industry it's it's that rare to have people that have the kind of power and control to have the luxury of saying you know hey listen I have guidelines here and we're not gonna cross them you know and then have people you know be like great go go go make it you know and we were

99:45able to do that yeah it seems like Netflix would be a really good place for something like that yeah it seems like Netflix would be a really good place for a lot of things yeah it seems like that's the that's the best place for like real freedom yeah well I don't know how much is real free when they're giving you money anytime someone's giving you money there's always like you gotta get but the real way to do it would be like to produce it yourself but in the end is CNN was the best place to do that yeah you know and they really did back us up yeah and they really backed up Tony and that philosophy and they completely implicitly understood what we were talking about we can't do that now was Jeff Zucker was it his idea I you know again I don't know how the deal came about I assume so because I think it came it came in just after that transfer of power so did they did he

100:34have other places where he's thinking about taking it aside CNN again I don't know man I don't know I mean they you know it was a really successful show in its own right at that point so I'm sure it would have gone somewhere but that was it was Jeff Zucker who brought it in and that was like a just such a brilliant moves like perfect marriage you know perfect marriage like perfect move for CNN like perfect move for us yeah I thought it was interesting when they were taking a chance on these unscripted television shows he's yeah non news show yeah you've seen United shades of America yeah have a W he's my bell and a lot of times it's great he's the best he's super super nice guy yeah I did an episode with him in can you know with Tony which will be the premiere of this upcoming season okay you know so how many episodes have you guys done that haven't aired yet well I

101:24think we'll have seven in this next season that's the only one of those seven that was actually completed with Tony's narration narration the rest of them are uncomplete and in that respect and you know we were again we've been kind of fighting through editing those over the last few months and and trying to figure out ways to you know to do this without completely gutting you know write them the method of making this show so and then there's a couple specials in there like you know talking to the crew and stuff like that you know so it's gonna be a pretty profound sea isn't so once you're done with that you just start looking at new projects and different things to do and I have a couple like assignments already some projects I'm like pretty excited about you know I just don't know that they've officially been announced yet you know but there's good stuff out there and

102:29there's you know it one nice thing in all of this incredibly difficult time as a lot of people have come to us and said listen we've always believed in what you guys did and we'd like you to continue doing and here's a project we have that we think you know so hopefully we can continue to make things of the same kind of looks like we can well it seems like the success of the show and then the infectious enthusiasm that Tony had and that you know so many people were fans of the show had for that style of television it's just gonna lead to more more people taking more chances and doing things like that I hope so you know I think so I think it's getting better you know there will never be another Tony you won't find that you know and I think that's something the you know people will have to be aware of going forward you're not gonna copy that right he's right Tony and that's it we

103:34saw a Gordon Ramsay they announced some show with him traveling and people immediately just start all over him yeah easily from everything I understand it's just like a really good guy the problem is raised himself on the show the kitchen nightmare she comes in like an yeah that's a shtick just this TV stick yeah as far as I know I don't know nice yeah yeah yeah I'm at Guy Fieri too he was nice yeah shits on everybody Martha Raye too I don't know yeah maybe I think so maybe Yeah right he would he would pull that trigger all the time dude you always make fun of his Lamborghini and I'm like I'm kind of like one of those things you're not supposed to have right like you could have some cool cars like I remember when he did the show with the Queens of the Stone Age Josh Homme and one of the guys had a 69 Camaro yeah I shot that oh that was a bad car yeah that's an okay to have badass car

104:48because it's classic because it's got yeah style points totally but I would suggest to Tony that he might want to pick up the Lamborghini because of the traction control all right I think Tony getting big problems he'd have big problems on the Camaro no I'm sure yeah as most people that was a hot rod man yeah thing was sick yeah okay listen brother glad we did this yeah I mean I reached out we decided to get together and talk you know give a lot of people insight to what it was like to work with one of my heroes yeah me too I mean definitely my hero all right thanks brother thanks appreciate it man thank you