Superstition

What are the facts behind the superstition? And our crows really conspiring against us? Discover this and more as we answer the angel question. Do Satanists like to kiss cat? But so? Superstitions are a powerful force throughout human society.

About fifty of pold Americans report holding some superstitions. As children were particularly adept at picking up superstitions, researchers found that young children from three to five years old will dutifully rub a pebble against their forehead when told it can help them study. This seems cute and funny, but as adults were not much better. A study found that college students were more likely to keep lottery tickets that had their quote lucky numbers on them than those with

random numbers. Whether we carry a lucky charm, avoid a crack in the sidewalk, think we're on a lucky role in the casino, or whatever weird little habits we try to do and get a certain outcome. We're all, to a certain extent superstitious. But being superstitious isn't a sign of being stupid, it's quite the opposite. As intelligent creatures, we form connections. This allows us to figure out tools, language, ideas, philosophy, technology, art,

and bad puns, basically everything that makes human special. Of course, making connections can be a double edged sword. Sometimes they make sense, like if I wear a sweater, I'm less likely to be cold later. But sometimes they don't make sense, like if I wear my lucky never washed underwear, maybe this will be the day I'll win the lottery in the heart of my crush despite smelling like kind ofwashed underwear. Superstitions seem to reach a fever pitch when it comes

to animals. I think this has to do with our natural curiosity about our fellow living creatures, and both our tips to understand them, and our misunderstandings. As we have throughout history tried to figure out the animal kingdom, we have sometimes developed superstitions about those animals which we deemed mysterious or sneaky. So today we'll be exploring some of the animal superstitions, the scientific facts behind these animals, and why our brains and even animal brains can be superstitious.

Joining me to go on a superstition expedition as comedian, writer, podcaster, filmmaker, and Garfield lover Joey Cliff. Yeah, hey everybody, I okay, So a couple of things. Um, I wish I thought of like a Halloween name before this. I guess I should be like joe Eke Cliff, but like the cliff is where it first? Joe Eke Cliffhanger. Yeah, Oak Cliffhanger. There we go. And just for the record, UM, I definitely rubbed a pebble on my forehead and I'm wearing

mine clean underwear before going on this show. Not for superstition reasons. I'm just weird. He just enjoys it. Yeah, It's just how I live my life. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk to superstitions. Yeah, for sure, I brought you on, especially because you're a fellow cat lover. I want to talk about black cats today. Oh my favorite I mean my favorite kind of cats, but also every kind of cat is my favorite kind of cat.

So that does not know it right, you would? You You just showed me like an orange cat that looks like Garfield and you're like, this is my favorite cat, and then you look at another cat and you're like, that's my favorite cat. Yeah, it's It's just like any cat that I'm looking at or thinking about at any given moment is my favorite cat. It's a real object,

permanent stitution. So as you may know, uh, in especially in Western Europe, there's superstitions about black cats and then being unlucky, like you're not supposed to be if your path is interrupted by a black cat, or a black cat walks in front of you, it's bad luck, which seems a little weird. So it's kind of curious where this started, what this kind of superstition originated from. My guess is that the just the dog lobby was very powerful century Europe. It's just this like teetering man in

a trench coat with like oddly doglike features. It's like, yes, cats are bad. It's like it's like it's a dog. So he's like, gross, cots are bad. I don't know. It's man mannershon and I am here a human fellow telling you that cats are bad. As an unbiased human, I mean like if like ten dogs learned to climb into a trench coat and like right on each other's shoulders and also speak English, I feel like I would listen to him that they really want they really wanted

this right exactly. So in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, black cats beca aim associated with the devil. People believe that black cats were which familiars or even witches in disguise. There's this old story about a black cat who had rocks thrown at it, which come on, don't do that, um, and then it limped away into a woman's house. That right, and then a woman came out and was limping on the same foot as the cat. Qwe dy ergo the

cat was which in disguise, perfect science, perfect science. So the your origin of this idea of cats being satanic maybe due to a papal bowl, which is a public decree in I guess the church, the Catholic Church um by Pope Gregory the ninth in the twelve thirties. So the decree was called vox in rama. I don't know. I don't speak Latin, so I think it's like speech

in rama. Yeah, right, Um described a Satanic ritual. So quote, a black cat descends backwards with tail erect first the novice, then the master, than each one of the orders that these are Satanists who are worthy in perfect kiss the cat on its buttocks. Then each returns to his place, and speaking certain responses, they incline their heads towards the cat. Forgive us, says the master, and the next one to him repeats this, a third responding, we know, Master. A

fourth says, and we must obey. So these are Satanists kissing a cat on the anus and then asking it to forgive them. Wow. So I think that today I've learned that I'm a Satanist. Um. Yeah, that's weird. Uh yeah, I mean I wonder, like what is the root of that? Why? Like was this based on some like Pegan ritual or whatever, or was the pope just looking for an easy escapegoat or escape cat as for just like, why did they Why did they pick on cats? Why? I think the

latter basically propaganda. Cats are kind of mysterious looking there. They aren't like a dog where they kind of obey you. And so maybe this idea of this kind of mysterious dark creature that you know, it's eyes glow in the dark and there there's something you know, spooky about that. But it's totally made up, Like this never happened as

far as I know. This has never been a Satanic ritual. Um. But it's just propaganda to make it like, look, how spooky and weird these satans Satanic ritual It's just something that I mean a lot of my cat lover friends do all the time. Yeah, I mean, you guys are already probably riddled with ta gandhia eyes. So yeah, that's like the amount of cats that I've kissed directly on

the mouth. It's like it's like I'm sure I have, And that's just like one step removed from the butthole because that mouth is on the butt hole almost right. It's also just part of the dietary, says, It's part of the digestives. Right. Cats are little poop donuts that's spend most of their time with mouth on their butt hole, like cleaning themselves, and half of the other time eating stuff. So it's just you know, you're any time you interact with a cat is just one butthole. I mean, you

said you're describing a cat as a poop butthole. I know, I know that I should be grossed out by that, but when you said that, it made me go like, oh, they are because you because you're absolutely riddled with ganda Toxoplasma gandhia, which is a little um micro organism. Yeah, it's a parasite that is in cat feces and it makes rats like when rats get infected with it, it it

makes them lose their fear of cats. And it's suspected although that there's nothing scientific about this, suspicion that oh, humans who are infected, maybe they become attracted to cats, but I don't. I haven't never seen any evidence of it.

It's it's stuff like the specifically toxic plasmosis um. It's they think that it makes like it makes people lazier and a little bit sloppier, and it kind of like they're a specific It doesn't necessarily make them like like cats more or less, but it does do like kind of weird psychological things, like I think it makes people a little bit more depressed, so it can trigger mental illness, like that is that is a I think that is an actual finding where it can trigger people who are

already predisposed to schizophrenia and can trigger that. It's also funny because like a lot of the things of like, oh, maybe it makes people more sloppy, more lazy, but that's also isn't that just part of cat ownership, like you and your cat becoming one I've also described like every comedy person, and like it makes them like sloppy and a little bit lazy, and like they're not very they don't clean their apartment very And I wonder, like with the pope kind of like decree, I wonder how much

of that is. I mean, you assume people in the Middle Ages probably felt the same affection toward cats that like we do nowadays, right, They probably like kissed them on their little heads and talked about their cute peats and stuff like that. So I wonder how much of that is the Church seeing that people are quote unquote putting this thing above Jesus or whatever and um kind of using that of like, oh, we gotta like get people stop caring about this thing that they love. That's

not the church. That's certainly the truth when it comes to um, we'll discuss a little later to like with corvids like crows and ravens, anything that had a positive association in paganism, Um, they're like, no, actually that thing is bad to kind of try to tear people away from their old pagan right. And I don't know if cats really have that much of an association with paganism, but it it could just be another like you said, another scape cat, Like, oh you care about this cat, well,

actually the cat is evil or whatever. Yeah, that's what if you cared that much about Jesus or Jesus being jealous of a cat, that makes sense. Look if Jesus had cute little pizza talk about Jesus way more. What's that word you're saying, pizza p e t s. Look, if you're really if you're really involved in the cat side of the internet, you know what pizza does. The

little tobeans is uh, there's highly scientific terms. So some historians believe that after this decree, it led to a mass slaughter of cats, and some argue that this could have made the Black plague more severe as there weren't as many cats to kill the rat carriers of the plague. I haven't really found any definitive evidence of either um mass slaughter or that this led to a worse plague. Just like I think it's just conjecture that this could

have happened. It's an alluring theory because it's such poetic justice of like we kill the cats. Oh no, now we get the plugue because the cats aren't there to protect us. Yeah, what is the It's like I forget exactly what it is, but it's like like it throws off kind of like the order of things, and you

like remove one species from it. And then it's like, I forget the exact scientific term for it, the logical catastroph Yeah, exactly makes sense that it's like, oh, you remove the cats the rats, like you know, kind of exploding population size, and with the rats kind of fleas exploding population size, and then the fleas have the plugue or whatever, right, right, I mean, and it could have happened. I'm just I just don't think there's it's hard to relate, right.

There may be some anecdotal evidence, but there hasn't been any like solid proof of that happening. But still what we know it happened is that people would torture cats as a way to fend off the devil. Maybe I shouldn't have had you on this. Yeah, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, oh no, whenever it gets a lot better, don't worry. All over Europe, burning cats was a common pastime because I was seen as fending off the devil.

And Epral Belgium, the festival Caton's thought involved setting cats on fire and throwing them from the belfry of churches. So cat Insto is still celebrated, but thankfully it's now more of a celebration of cats than hurting them. So yeah, so Jester tosses stuffed toy cats out to children who wait below and catch them. A giant cat puppet is paraded through the town square and it features people dressed as cats, as mice and witches, and there's like a

catneym parade. They even have Hello Kitty and Garfield now and I'm going to show you I'm excited about Are they part of the parade or just to live in the town Now? They are part of the parade. Let me, Um, when is like, what time of year is this? It's I think it's every second Sunday of May or something I was. I visited a couple of years ago, and it's like I did not know this existed, and now I have to go back to celebrate cats with them. It's a lovely city. If you haven't ven, you should go.

People dressed as cats, little kids dressed as a little dancing mice. These are my people. Um here's a float like with Egyptian cats on it. Oh, finally cats are getting the respect they deserve. Um oh yeah, giant cat. I'm not really sure what exactly is going on here, but there's like a big demonic cat float with a bunch of birds playing drums. All I know is my toxoplasmos firing out. And then let's see a bunch of which is more dancing, Let's see more wacky physical wacky

physical comedy. There's um a band and then hello kids, and then the moment we're waiting for giant Garfield floats. This is my kind of city. Uh. And then there's this giant effigy of a cat. More cats uh. And then just like these giant cat effigies that are paraded around. There's a cat wearing a suit, cat wearing a dress in a suit that are getting paraded around. Finally they're getting the respect they deserve exactly. Uh. And then they throw cats, the toy cats off the church now and

kids catch them and to keep them. So I guarantee that if I went to that, I would be pushing kids aside to those toy cats like mine. I'm a crown man. I need this cat. I need this cat more than your kid. So that's a positive change. And I like that. I like that it's switched to being you know, like a horrifying sacrifice of cats to like just like we. It feels like the town of ep is trying to make That warms my heart. Yes, going back back in time a little bit now. In Celtic mythology,

the cat she I think it's called the catch. It looks it's spelled like cat sith, which is really funny to be like like a cat sith lord. But I do believe it is pronounced catch um like banshee. I just want to say, like Star Wars has been like dipping in popularity a little bit lately, and if they want to make Star Wars more popular. Yeah, make star Wars. Yeah, cat star Wars a cat sit I mean I would star Walker, Muke Skywalker, uh pon sess lame Yo Vader, Yeah, yeah,

my Vader. All of this work. I think all of my all of my Star Wars points are going to just be mea with her name like Hanslo Jewi baka because it's like chew cats chew stuff. I'm bad at ones. But yeah, I mean I feel like cats sit lord. Is it Princess lay around? Yeah, Princess lay around. It's goods. So the cat She is a fairy creature resembling a large black cat with a white spot on its chest. Adorable. It's believed to be able to steal people's souls before burial. Adorable.

To prevent this, people watched over the body in late wake before the body was interred. Apparently there were tricks to prevent the cat She from stealing the soul of the deceased. There was music, leaping around and wrestling to entertain the cat. Riddles that were left on unanswered, so the cat she would try to figure them out. Cats classically bad at riddles. They even place cat up around the house to distract the catchy, which is the cutest

like funeral rite I've ever heard. Just please don't steal my dead grandma's soul. Here's some here's some catinet. Here's some here's some catinet. We made you a mouse that like this god smiley face on it is filled with nep Behold a small figure of a mouse filled with an interesting herb for you cat demon. Yeah, just like like somebody some these jobs after your grandmother passes away. It's just to have a laser pointer like they like, kind of wing around. This will appease the cat demon.

This is this is an adorable demon on Swen or all hallows eve. I think I pronounced this wrong on the last episode. I think I called it sam Haine. That's how it's spelled. But I think it's called Solwen because the Celtic pronunciations of things are all all all weird. The holiday, this is the holiday that Halloween is based on. So saucers of milk were left out for the cat she so that they would bless the house. But if you didn't treat the catch they'd trick you by cursing

your cows. So their milk runs dry. So cats were the original trick or treaters in a way. Before we get into sort of the facts behind cats, there's just this wonderful quote from grad show Marks that's a black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere, which I kind of love, especially in the framework of evolutionary biology, because sometimes it's the most obvious thing is

actually the truth when it comes to animal facts. Here's a modern day myth about black cats, which is that they're killed more on Halloween, or that shelters won't adopt them out because they're they're afraid they'll be used in Satanic rituals. This seems to just be kind of a rumor or an old old wives tales. I can't find any evidence of this being true, and in fact, the a s p c A says like, that's not true. You can adopt black cats year around. They're not worried

about Satanists. I mean, if anything, it's like the Satanists are just going to kiss the cats butt. So what's what's the problem. Yeah, I mean I wonder if there's a way too, because I I uh personal promo. I run a Facebook group for Los Angeles comedians to share pictures of their cats called the La Underground Cat Network.

That's ten thousand members, and uh, like that's something that like, I mean around Halloween, a lot of people in group are always very concerned about people that are like trying to get cats adopted around Halloween. So if that, you know, it is for exactly what you're talking about, like worries of sacrifice and stuff like that. So like, if that isn't the case, uh, somebody should publicize that more. This is the thing that like cat lovers are worried about,

you know. Yeah, And I mean I think that there's another thing I looked into to try to figure out if it's true, and unfortunately, I don't think there's a study that is conclusive yet. But the idea that black

cats aren't adopted out as much. Um. And I've seen some shelters say like, no, that's not the case, and then other shelters saying like yeah, annecnotally we've noticed that, um and some claiming it just like well, black cats are so common, you see them more in shelters, so uh, it's not that they're adopted out at a lower rate. There's just like more of them. So you see them languishing in shelters more. But I can't really find anything definitive.

So I know, I read that someone was planning on doing a study, so I'll be really interested to see the results of that because I think, especially today, I just don't think that superstition around black cats are as powerful as they used to be. I mean, I think it's still something that like, it's something that I think is still still exists in the popular culture as a thing that people are aware of because it's been a thing for so long. It's like self fulfilling a little

bit in a way. But you know, yeah, I don't necessarily think that people are worried at so much about like bad luck and things like that. Yeah, So now let's do just some facts about black cats because they're actually quite interesting. So the reason they're black is there's a recessive gene that turns off the tabby coloration, so there are solid black cats. They're also black smoke cats whose coats go from white to black or gray to black.

They can rust in the sun, so they're black. Fur sometimes turns a lighter rust brown shade and the same Yeah, because it's there's the u melanin pigment present in their fur, which is actually kind of fragile, and so the sunlight will actually break down that pigment and UH thus that kind of reddish brown color that happens and there are

actual potential benefits to their black coat. UH searchers looked at melanism in cats and identified a gene called a goody which controls black fur in cats, and the researchers believe that one purpose of the black coat could be like just camouflage, like if it's dark, you can't see a black cat as well. But there's another theory that is not proven, although there's been a connection made, which is that there's a possibility that melanism and that black

coat UH can offer resistance to viruses UM. The melanism gene in South American jaguars and jagger undis, which is a smaller wildcat UH, is also linked to the genes that control resistance to HIV and infection, which is something that cats can get feline chick. This is kind of speculative.

They haven't really UH tested to see like if there's if cats with black coats are actually more resistant to HIV infection, But it's a really interesting kind of promising avenue of research that I'm excited to see develop that could I guess that that could point to, like why there are just more black cats. Where we're noticing more black cats is maybe like because I mean, like feline HIV. That is definitely something that comes up a lot and

cats are tested for. So like if black cats are in some way resistant to that, that could be why one of the reasons there was a little more like um small dovetail. Fun fact, do you know how jaguars hunt? I know, they drag stuff up trees. Yeah, they're They're intense. They like basically what they do. They they hunt alligators and crocodiles. And the way they do it is their jaws are so strong that they can they don't just

strangle them. They can but with one bite pierce through their skull, so like it's just like a straight like kill. So jaguars are great. They have one of the strongest psi JA strength cats. Yeah, yeah, they're great. They're just extremely like if you I think also because they're not super fluffy, their hair is quite short, you can see how incredibly well muscled they are, so like when they're carrying they'll be able to carry prey up to the branches of a tree, which keeps their prey safe from

other predators or scavengers. And it's just it takes they have a whole antelope that they're just shoving up a tree. Incredible when you watch that and you're like, if another antelope sees that, they're gonna be like, oh, I'm not uh yeah, I mean just like really, there are so many interesting cat species that have different like abilities and things like that. Do you know what like a caracle is. Yeah, yeah, they're they're kind of the cute ones with the really

tall ears of the little poofs. Yeah, they've got like super cute ears. But the way they can jump so high that one of the ways that they hunt is that they literally will jump and intercept birds midflight out of there. There's footage of it on the internet. It is insane. That's incredible. Yeah, because they are quite leggy. Yeah. Yeah, my my cat would do that, although she had a little bit of a cheek because she would sit next to the bird fountain and just wait for birds to

land there and then she would just spring up. Oh that asnorable, destructive to the environment, but adorable. Your cat is your cat? Chunky is your cat? Like, yeah, so this was my childhood cat. So she's she's in that big ball yard in the sky now. But she she was a chunker. It was pretty cute because she was

like very she was quite um. She wasn't overweight. It was more like she was just very fluffy and she had that especially older like female cats will sometimes developed that just sort of wattle like basically just flub and so she she was like that. She was really cantankerous and grouchy. But okay, so um, when she passed away, did you, uh, did you use a laser pointer to distract? It would be like a cat demon and a regular cat,

they'd be fine with each other. No. But you know, when my other cat passed away, who was my other childhood cat, Binky, my mom buried him in our backyard and the next day a bobcat, a young bobcat, was sitting next to the grave site, which my mom was like, he's reincarnated into a bobcat and like that bobcat want to eat as corpse. But you know it's still cute. Yeah, that is one of those things where it's like, yeah,

you think about like the superstitious thing of it. It's like, oh, it's like that bobcat saying goodbye, and it's like, no, scientifically, that bobcats like waiting for you to turn around. So I like the idea that that maybe maybe my cat and the bobcat were friends and the bobcats like respecting the cat, but but probably not. Yeah, Like, well, let's

just say real recognized to feel in that situation. As someone with o c D, I'm intimately familiar with superstition, and I find it interesting how the mindset of superstition can be harmful or helpful. Some days, I'm really good at problem solving as I make connections between seemingly unrelated ideas. Other days I'm worried that if I chew unequal amounts of food in the sides of my cheeks, everyone I

love will die. I wonder, though, if the problem solving skills are more valuable than the random superstitions are harmful while O c D maybe an extreme example, research shows that superstition maybe an evolutionary benefit. Harvard and University of Helsinki researchers Dr Kevin Foster and Dr Hannah Coco created a mathematical model to see whether superstition could help with

evolutionary survival. They found that despite the high error rates with superstitious behavior, this strategy can still lead to higher rates of survival, thus being favored by natural selection. So is wearing your lucky underwear a deeply ingrained evolutionary skill. Maybe, but I don't think it makes you special. When we return, we'll discover that humans aren't the only superstitious ones. Birds

were more alike than we realize. In ninety B. F. Skinner conducted a famous set of experiments involving a box and food and birds. He placed hungry pigeons in a box a cage really, and offered them brief access to feeding trades at regular intervals. The pigeons began to engage in interesting behaviors. They would start to spin around, thrust their heads up, or rock from side to side, seeming

to connect these behaviors to the arrival of food. Once they had formed a specific superstitious habit, it continued even once Skinner started to increase the time between feedings. The pigeons probably desperate for some control over their lives. We're trying anything to see what would stick. Even turning counterclockwise without fail, waiting for their food. Now, I don't think these pigeons are dumb, and I don't think humans who

engage in superstition are stupid either. I think in a way, superstition is a way to try and feel some semblance of control over our dumpster fire lives. If we feel helpless, like a pigeon stuck in Skinner's evil little device, We're going to try anything to feel that we're doing something to help our situation, even if that means blaming all our problems on well birds. So, now moving on from cats, I want to talk about crows and ravens. Boo, I'm leaving. Um,

that's that's very interesting and I am. I definitely feel that in my own life, and that like before you have, like you know, a big job interview or a big meeting, or like you know, anything that has any level of pressure. I feel like a lot of us have just things that we do that make us feel like, oh, because I did this, I feel less nervous about this thing

that I'm about to do. Like I used to wear, Um, this is uh pre finding out that he's a monster, But I used to wear like a like a whole cogan wrist a band to uh job interviews and stuff like that when I was in college. And you know, it's something that whenever I would not do that, I

would definitely feel more nervous about it. Never would do that, I would feel a little bit more like, Yeah, a whole comania has got my I used to have this little Celtic not ring that I got at this fair, and like, when I wore it, I had a really good time at the fair, and so I started wearing it again. And I was a kid, And of course I think with my O C D. It makes those superstitions even stronger. I see so clearly the cause and effect of the superstitions, Like, Okay, one time I wore

this ring and I had a good time. So then I started wearing it in order to have a good time again, and then that transformed into if I don't wear it, I'll have a bad time. And it's it's just like those those pigeons where that it's really funny because they would just try to do a behavior like rocking back and forth, and if the food came after that just by chance or like oh, rocking back and

forth equals food. I think it's just so interesting that we seem to have this desire to make these connections, almost like it's a little scary to feel like we don't have control over environment. And then if we can make these connections, maybe we can get a little more controlled, especially with death, because like death is the ultimate uncontrollable force.

So if we can make superstitions surrounding death, like bad omens and things, we feel like, Okay, maybe I know when it's coming, maybe I can feel some reassurance that I have some control over my own mortality. And that kind of brings us to two crows and ravens because they're they're the sort of ultimate like bad omen of death.

I wonder how much of that is not to not to make it about cats again, but I'm gonna I wonder how much of that is um, you know, like if we talk about like the things like you know, burning cats or sacrificing cats when like a loved one dies or whatever, like, how much of that is, Oh, your loved one died, you feel like you like, you feel like guilt that you didn't talk to them enough for that you weren't nice enough to them, or maybe like they sucked and you feel like conflicted about, like

mourning somebody who was who was lame or bad or whatever, and you feel like by doing some kind of sacrifice or some kind of ritual or whatever, you know, like putting cat nip around your house discriminate that god that you feel like you're kind of making right on your like past things that you did or didn't do with that person, right, like having some control over your relationship with them, even once you no longer have that control because they're gone. I mean, I definitely like I will

talk to dead people in my life. It's like I don't often talk to the dead people in my life who I had a great relationship with usually just think of them fondly when I had a bad relationship with them all like lament out loud. Almost. This desire to communicate with them is stronger when you had a fractured relationship, which I think is interesting. Well, it's also like with a fractured relationship, you there are more blanks that you can kind of fill in with whatever you wanted to write,

like cat nipping cat gods. Yeah, yeah, cat gods all great things. Um, yes, I mean that that makes a lot of sense, Like a lot of it is like you said, it's like season control over something you don't really feel like you have control over. UM. Yeah, that's super interesting. I saw this, UM, this story. I don't know the veracity of it really, but it was on Facebook,

so it has to be true. UM. And it was this video of this woman where this cardinal lands on her and she's like crying with tears of joy, and like the backstory is that her I think either her sister or her mother had passed away. And she said, like if when I pass away, I'll give you a sign, you know, after I'm gone, that I'm still there with you. And so she took the bird landing on her as

the sign. And I think that's another That's another thing that like that magical thinking gives us a connection to things that maybe we otherwise are kind of out of our out of our grasp. UM. Just a personal story. I when I was in college, I took an entomology class and UM, part of the entomology classes that we had to raise caterpillars. So they gave us a caterpillar. They give us a cup with caterpillies food in it, with the thought process being that like you'll raise it

into you know moth or whatever. And um, it was particularly cold, um in that winter, and I was really excited about raising this caterpillar. And I raised it to the point rosenick cocoon and then just like it was very clear. Um after like a couple of days that like I know probably wasn't gonna yeah, and um, I before that gave it a name, bug Zilla, and I cut out a picture of Mathra and taped it to the inside of like it's like home that I built for it, just so it could have like a hero.

And UM. I went to Washington State University and at the time, I'm not sure if it's still around anymore, but there was a bar called Valhalla. And um, after the um like caterpillar, you know, presumably passed away to didn't become a mouth or whatever. Um, I got a bunch of my friends together. We put on suits and

then we like took the dead caterpillar to Valhalla. And then I like, uh, we all went to like one of the toilet stalls and like put it in the toilet and flushed the toilet with like her hands in her cheeks. So it's like I don't know, I was like, oh, we just put it to Valhalla like a true and it's like, yeah, ultimately that's madness if you track it right. But but it made us feel better. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, I know, my when one of my fish died when I was a kid, I was about to flush it.

My brother was like, you can't do that, We've got to bury it. So we had a little funeral for the fish. Yeah, and it's like afterwards you felt like, oh, you know, ultimately, like so much of what happens in life is just like random chaos crash together. Those little things that you do make it feel more under your control and more like makes more sense, Like random death

makes more sense when you kind of ritualize it. Yeah, yeah, totally speaking of random death the Greek and uh In Greek mythology, which is often they seem to just try to really make sense of the capriciousness of the universe, ravens were seen as bad omens um and also God's

messengers to Earth. So the story goes that Apollo, the sun god, had sent a white raven to spy on his lover Coronas, but when the raven returned, it brought news of Coronas's infidelity and Apollo was so angry he set the raven on fire, which and then that turned it black. But that seems really rude, like the ravens just doing its job. Yeah, first off, drama? Uh? Second off, yeah, what the f like? What did you did? You want it to lie to you? Um? Yeah? Whoever did that?

Burning the messenger? Literally? Um. In the Jewish religious texts the Talmud, the raven was considered to be one of the only animals to have sex on the arc, so God punished them only the pipe. In the Ark and Celtic and Serbian literature, ravens are associated with warfare and battle. And one of the reasons I think that crows and ravens and other corvids are associated with death in battle

is that they often feed on carrion. This might be you why so much folklore is about them being an omen of death because they literally will show up when something dies because they want to eat its eyeballs because by balls are good. Yeah, they're it's like the original gusher, you know, right exactly in terms of being bad omens. Corvids,

which includes ravens and crows, it's that family of birds. Um. It's mostly in Western European culture, potentially or perhaps partially due to the fact that they were associated with the god Odin and Norse mythology and Christianity sought to slander these pagan symbols, so people were less likely to follow them. But in South Asia they are associated with sages and as guardians in the Hindu religion. In Bhutan, the raven is the national bird and it's associated with bravery and guardianship.

In mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, he name the tribe I'm from, I'm indigenous, I'm I'm en world cowl. It's yeah, it's a whole bunch of tribes. Can I show you that? Yeah? Yeah, I let me see if I grew up on any of these reservations, um uh tillamok shinok. Yeah, these are all these are all around where I grew up A yeah, do you

know about this then? Um, it's one of those things where it's like I grew up in reservation and went to tribal schools up until um, like seventh eighth grade. So like I guarantee that there was an assembly that we had where an elder told us these stories while I was playing a game. So yeah, there's definitely a lot of like things surrounding specifically like Pacific Northwest. The term is like coastal sailor isious sort of what is and um, there's a lot of stuff about crows and

ravens kind of in that mythology. Yeah, and I think there's a more it's a more positive association because it's involved in creation myths rather than like I think, I think it's just really interesting to me that it's really mostly at the Christian areas of Western Europe where it's associated with these negative things and you can kind of almost trace it back to this propaganda effort to make them seem bad because they were associated with Norse or

paid in mythology. Yeah, it's I mean there's a lot of that stuff, like a lot of there's so much. It's really interesting to see where like superstitions and religious beliefs kind of stem from um uh, Like people can look at the same symbols and interpret them differently based

on how they interact with them. So like, um, I want to say, in like Egyptian religions, um, the like the Niles River is or the Nile and that's what's called right now, Yeah, the Nile Um, the Nile is seen as like a very um I guess kind god or very kind thing within like ancient Egyptian religions, because the Nile like floods very reliably. It's like it floods, you know, every six months or whatever. They know exactly when it's gonna do it, exactly how it's gonna take.

It's um like it fertilizes the land and does a lot of really great stuff, whereas like the nearby tigers, Tigris and Euphrates rivers are kind of complete chaos and

they flood just like whenever. So like because of that um mess obtaining religions that were more near the tigers and Rephrates looked at rivers as being kind of like chaos gods essentially, so like even if you take something, it's just like literally a river or like you said, like you know, like Corvid's like just you know, uh, it's entirely based on like are there a lot of Corvids in that area? Is there like is there a scary guy in your neighborhood that likes a Corvid? And

you're like, oh, I don't like that guy. So corvids are bad, you know, like it is. It's interesting to see how that stuff kind of develops based on situations. Yeah yeah, And Swedish folklore, ravens are thought to be the spirits of murdered men. It's still associated with death, but in a different way where it's like, rather than than being omens of death, they're like a result of someone dying in a way. So it's like it's still kind of that death association, but instead it's like a

risen spirit from someone who has died. You have a slight similarity, but then it it's just the interpretation is different. So, Okay, crows, maybe they're around carrion, maybe they're associated with death, but instead of being a sign of death to come there like, oh it's a spirit of someone who's died, well yeah, it's more like a crow. A crow appeared at that

guy's funeral. He must have been a murderer. Like it is, it's kind of looking at us like the residue of something as opposed to something right, which I think is interesting because it easily can go either way. Um, as as the case with any mythology or superstition, where it's like just like a slight difference and interpretation will come

into a different result. There's an ancient Greek saying that the swans will sing when the jackdaws are silent, which means that wise people will speak after fools stop talking, which I gotta correct the Greeks the saying is actually backwards because swans are rude. Oh, fish, jerks and jackdaws

and other corvids are actually very intelligent, right. Yeah. There is also like I feel like there are a lot of sayings like that, where like when you analyze them, you're just like, oh, it's clear that the person who came up without saying has never met a cat before, right, or never met a swan. Yeah, It's like they only know if swans in theory, they don't know that they're big jerks, right exactly. They just look at a swan, it's like, oh, it's pretty and elegant, but really no,

if you've ever been chased by a swan, you've been chased. Well, my mom has. She she was in I think she was in the UK and she got chased over a long distance spice swan and it was just like really terrifying. How long is the long was the swan like waiting outside of her hotel room is a several days? Was this a Revenant situation with swan like she got in a taxi and the swan like in another tax i?

Mean that would be I want to see somebody make the Revenant, but with a swan just this, like this swan wing burst out of the ground and clods way up. I think that's basically the Goose game though, isn't it. Yeah, it's basically that was the pitch for untitled Goose games, even like the Revenant, But what if it was a have you have you played untitled Goose game? I haven't, but I'm so excited to. Yeah, me too, I've I've heard it's incredible. We're installing it in the office. I'm excited.

It's amazing. Yeah, I've just seen enough gifts of like a goose stealing a kid's glasses and then dropping perfect game. It's the perfect game. It's so let's get into some crow and raven facts. They are Corvid's and I bet everyone's wondering what's the difference between a raven and a crow.

Ravens are typically larger and they travel in pairs, whereas crows are a bit smaller, and they travel in big groups, so like you know, the titular murder of crows, right, Although it's important to note like people who actually study birds don't necessarily call like say like, oh, there's a murder, just say a flock of of them. Crow's tails are fan shaped, whereas ravens have a longer middle feather, so it's like they're giving you a middle finger with their butts.

And ravens sound different from crows. So I'm gonna do you want to play a little game try to the difference between crows and ravens. Absolutely, So I'm gonna play at this call. Can we play this game with cats after this? Just imagine them as flying cats with beaks done? Am I guessing crow a raven? Yeah? Um? I want to say that is a I'm gonna say that's a raven. You're right, that is a raven. So by process elimination, that's only two choices. These are crows. I'm gonna say

that's a raven. Boy, So you can see like the raven call is sort of more of a what would you call that? Like a the raven is like a It's like a honk, yeah, like a honk and then the crow call is like yeah, um. Ravens beaks are slightly larger and more pronounced. They have like little shaggy r nose bristles, so the little like mustache right above

their beaks is a little bit poofire. Both are very intelligent animals, so according to a study at Loomed University, Sweden, raven are able to make complex plans when presented with food based situations, such as being able to exchange tokens for food or to use tools to obtain food. Ravens could plan out what they would need to accomplish the task, and they would make preparations, which ravens making preparations should just strike fear into. They would also decline an immediate

reward in favor of a functional item. So if they can only pick one item and there's like a little piece of meat or something, but then a tool they know they can use to get even more meat, they'll choose the tool so that they can do delayed gratification, which is pretty incredible. You've seen video of this. I've seen videos of them using tools to get things out

of things. This this study, I don't think there's a video of Unfortunately, there are a couple of Um I worked on like an Shan geographic show a couple of years ago where we did a lot of section was on the crows and ravens and stuff. And yeah, there's a lot of really great footage of them, you know, essentially like learning how to use tool tolls. And it's very it's like very clear watching that they're like putting

that they're connecting pieces together. They cocked their little heads and they're like huh yeah, and they're like bend they'll bend a wire so they can use it as a hook. Yeah, Like they don't just they don't just use tools. I feel like there's stuff like there's a new study recently where somebody found, um, there's footage that exists of a pig using a tool in the wild, and um, this is the first time that's ever been documented with like

pictures and video and stuff like that. And the tool is like it basically just uses a piece of bark to like help dig for you know whatever, Whereas like a crow or raven if you go which a corvid um, they'll like you literally watch them, yeah, like bend a piece of wire. Like it's clear that they're not just like using something to help there, like literally fashioning a

tool out of something. Yeah. New Caledonian crows are experts set that, so they will they'll bend wire, They'll they'll form tools into shape so that they can use them specifically for tasks. Crows are also extremely good at identifying human faces. Oh, I love this story. They will harass experimenters that they remember if they did them dirty. Researchers suspected this to be true when they felt they were getting harassed by crows after they had captured them for

a study. To put this to the test, experimenters wore masks and they held out taxiderman crows, and then this distrusted the other crows. They're pretty offended by them, just like holding these dead crows. So they issued alarm calls and they started to harass the experiment ers. And then weeks later they wore the masks again, and the crows recognized the masks and started to harass and scold them for their their horrible death cult that the crows probably

thought they were in. There's a there's a couple of fun additions to the story. It was a University of Washington study. I want to say in like the Middle Light two thousand's or something, and uh, the mask that they wore was literally a Dick Cheney mask. Really, that's so funny. Yeah, they were they were a Dick Cheney mask and harassed these crows, and the crows caught them. And then yet two weeks later they're kind with the same Dick Cheney mask and the crows would yell at

them more. Um, yeah, crows are super smart. This is great though, So now crows, do you think like these crows like if you somehow got Dick Cheney to come onto the campus, like they would attack Dick Cheney. Yeah, I wonder if that's like if that's like just a political protest from the researchers and just like okay, so like Dick Cheney's doing a speech here in a couple of weeks, these crows. So what you're saying is we

can train crows to hate the people that I also hate. Interesting, I guess that if you, like, I guess if you yelled at the crow and then showed them a picture of one of your enemies and said he did this. Uh, you know, they probably crows are smart. They are, but yeah, it is it is funny that like you can very clearly see that they feel spite, right, Yeah. And also they can use vending machines, which is pretty great. I mean, like they're gonna they're gonna take over the world. We're done,

We're done. So researchers made a crow vending machine that would dispense bits of meat in exchange for strips of paper, and the crows would just like tear off little pieces of paper, dispense them into a machine like the fresh dollar bill into a soda machine, and then they'd get there get their little bit of meat. Um. Actually I had neveat that study. That's super interesting. I want to see the crow where like they do this, but then the meat gets stuck before falling out, or like rejects

the strip of paper, and they're like, comes on. They've also been observed cracking nuts using crosswalks and passing cars. That's a pretty famous one. What I think is really interesting about the crow behavior is that this cause effect intelligence is also the same kind of thing behind superstition. So you know that's sort of like if I put a piece of paper in this machine, I get a

piece of meat. You know, I just wanted I'm really curious to see if there's any any studies that will come out about like corvid superstition that the core of its themselves have because we know pigeons can do it, and I imagine that these these kinds of crows, which in ravens, which are so intelligent, probably would develop some superstitious here because they can make that those causal connections.

So I mean, I feel like that's something that you see in like house pets, right, I mean, like like you know, like anybody's dog has like a favorite toy or whatever. Um, Like, I'm not sure exactly what the cause of this is, but it's like cats oftentimes before they pounced, well like wiggle their butt. That's actually they're aligning their feet under their body in the optimal way so that they're spring loaded to pounds. Oh that makes sense.

That's uh, that's way better than theory, which is for luck. But yeah, you know what, they may think it's lucky though they've got a lucky but yeah, they got a lucky but because so many Satanists keep keep kissing her asses special in some way. Um yeah, but I mean, like you know, like it's clear that it's clear that that animals have emotional intelligence beyond what we give them

credit for us. So, like it is easy to make the connection of like, yeah, does your does your cat have like a lucky place that they sleep, But does your dog have like a lucky Do they have like a lucky toy that they really love snuggling with before they eat or whatever? My dog, I think my dog actually thinks she has a lucky ass because every time she meets someone new, she will turn around and sniffer butt.

Like it's a compulsive behavior, like she will like or if she's coming up to greet you, she'll like sniff er butt first it's like her own but she sniffs her own butt. I wonder if that's if that's the equivalent of like checking your breath. Yeah, like checking your breath, or just like like looking in the mirror and like combing your hair. Yeah, maybe it could be like just making sure my butt smells like but just like, okay, it smells like a butt, good, stinky and ripe, exactly

how it's supposed to be. This to me is fascinating. Uh. In case you guys don't know, ravens can talk. Yeah, and so I've got a couple of um clips that I want to play. This one's a pretty famous one from the Clovis Zoo in New Mexico. His name is Joe the Raven. Yeah. They can say like hello and stuff. Right, so that's Joe the Raven. What did he say, Hang, Moun's coming. Oh yeah. And then here's another This is

Mischief the Raven. Yeah. Birds actually have the styrinx, which is the their kind of version of the larynx that can mimic human voices. Oh that makes sense, Like parrots have that too, right exactly, Um, parrots, starling's, minor birds, liar birds. I'm sure I'm for getting a few more species. So many more species than parrots can actually talk, because they can mimic sounds and birds, um, even songbirds who can't talk, like, they are very good at memorizing sound combinations.

And they go through this crystallization period where they will learn these incredibly intricate songs. Yeah, I mean, I wonder, at what point are you going to get like not a crow like learning, somebody's learning, somebody's a TM coaches, But like, you know, what is the what is the ceiling for this? Well, the ceiling, as far as I know is there was an African gray parrot name I

think his name is alex Uh. And he was able to identify objects based on what they were made out of, Like you could ask him what matters this, and then he would say like metal or like wood or something, and so he could use He seemed to be able to have some simple communication skills with his language. He would say goodbye or like good night or yeah, or if he wanted something, I think he could say, like you know, want to go cage or something. Wow, it's

very very simple. I wouldn't say that he knows how to speak human language, but like how a dog knows certain things will get the dog certain things, So like if the dog winds, he'll get attention, or if the dog rolls over on his tummy, like he'll get a tummy rub um, or if he sits, if you tell them to sitney sits, then he gets a treat, or like like an o ring. Attainment of sign language right exactly.

Also with like sign language, it's really hard to tell like how they're using the sign language because there's so much interpretation air in terms of like you'll interpret something is perhaps like a sign, whereas it may not be the sign that you think it is. Um, So there's a lot of human interpretation that can go wrong there. But I do think that. I mean, just as dogs can do simple communication nonverbally, I think that animals who are capable of mimicking or language can then do a

verbal communication. Although it's hard to say whether they understand what that means. Yeah, I mean, it could just be like a simple cause effect thing where it's like they're, uh, this crow is aware that when it says food, it gets food, right exactly, So I guess what I mean. That means that it knows what food is, but like right, um uh. Side note, have you ever seen a picture of the world's smartest dog? No, you should google it. It's definitely clear that the dog is self aware. Is

his name? Chasers E the border Collie? Oh yeah, let's see, there's a picture of this dog that's it looks like he's looked into the universe. It definitely looks like this dog as contemplated the state of things his eyes are. He's like I've seen I've seen the universe. Although my dog also gets that look, and it's usually right before she farts. Who knows what that means? Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, anyway, I take it back. Dogs are Superstitions about animals aren't

always negative. In Kombolcha, Ethiopia, hyenas are regarded positively in folklore. They eat evil spirits and they're laughing hells bear supernatural meanings. This superstition may be based in a very practical reality. The hyenas eat herbivores, which locals are grateful for as an excess of herb wars can eat crops and disturb homes, so the people of the region make sure to share

their space and make conservation efforts for the hyena. The British, who throughout history have had a checkered past when it comes to animal conservation, came to the rescue of the Barbary macaque due to a superstition. The legend goes that once the maccaques disappear from Gibraltar, Britain would lose control of the territory, which they had captured from Spain in seventeen o four. In nineteen forty two, the population of

macaques had crashed to only about seven individuals. Winston Churchill, either out of tradition or superstitious belief, arranged for the macaques to be repopulated. Unfortunately, not all superstitions look so kindly upon rare creatures. When we return, we'll explore the soft side of a demonic monster. So imagine that you're just chilling in your room, sitting on your bed, but you hear a tapping on the ceiling above you, tap tap tap, Then it's quiet again. Then you hear it

tap tap tap. The taps then migrate from the ceiling down the wall, tap tap tap. The taps get closer, as if they're searching for you. You freeze, trying not to make a sound, but the taps get closer and closer. Suddenly you hear a loud, scraping noise right behind you in the flash of long yellow teeth. You scramble to hide under your bed. You think maybe you're safe. That's when a huge, bony finger scrapes under your bed and

impales you on a sharp needle like claw. As you start to bleed out, you feel yourself being dragged up and forced through the hole in the wall into the jaws of the eye I. You seem very scared, Yeah, I definitely so. The I I is a lemur native to Madagascar. So, just just so people know, Lemurs are a type of primate that evolved independently from monkeys and apes. They're about five pounds, they're nocturnal, and they have huge yellow eyes. So here's a few pictures. They're these guys.

They've got like long, weird fingers and basically scrape into like they get hants and stuff exactly. So. Uh. They have wiry gray and white wild hair, long squirrel like tail. Uh. Their nipples are near their grind. They have nictating membrane like in cats. So you should like them. It's the third eyelid that protects the eye. My favorite part. They have teeth that perpetually grow. They have huge floppy, dobby

like ears. And it has a big middle finger. So it has already has these long, narrow, bony fingers, but they have this really really narrow and disproportionately long middle finger that just it's so it's really weird when you look at it. Um. I hope that I know that there's I know the scientific reason for the middle finger. I hope that the real reason is they don't give a It's an omni tool. Yeah, it allows them to

tell authority how they think. So it uses this long spindly finger to tap on trees, and it listens or feels for the vibrations inside hollow channels in the trees. Then it listens for the movement of grubs inside these hollow channels. Um. Once it finds a grub, it uses its sharp beaver like teeth to rip open the bark, and then it shoves its long, bony fingers right in the hole and then hooks and impales the grub, drags

it up, pulls it out into the mouth. Um. So this is called percussive foraging, which sounds like a great name for a metal band. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I feel like a metal A successful metal song could definitely be written about using your giant middle finger to impale you, impale amazed with my middle finger. Yeah, that's a good that's a good metal lyric. If you're listening to this, go for it. In superstition, the I

I is a demonic entity. Folklore holds that if it points its long, narrow middle finger at you, it has marked you for death, or it's marked you as an asshole that cut it off in traffic. Thank you. Another legend is that they break into your house and murder you in your sleep by stabbing your aorta with their pointy middle finger. These things aren't that big now, they're

like four pounds. Yeah, I feel like if it tried, you could probably you probably find it off pretty cheesy, unless you're a grub, which case you know you're kind of screwed. If you're grab your screwed. But I'm a big strong man, although I mean, I don't think I'll ever take a threat seriously again unless it's I'll stab you in the heart with my middle finger. Yeah, that's like the most metal way to do that is. And

it's like that, that's when I know you're serious. If you're just like I'll kill you, it's like, okay, whatever, it's like, I will stab you in the heart with my middle favors like, oh, you don't like me, do you? And you also want to make a point of that, right, Despite the horror story I gave you about the I I, there are no threat to your me. In fact, they're an endangered species. No habitat destruction and hunting has put

them at risk. Um. I think they're actually very cute. Um. They're these adorable little guys who live in balled up nests of leaves and branches. Their eyes are big and weird. They also don't exclusively eat insects. They will eat fruit, seeds and nectar. They just they just love eating eating grubs and stabbing them with they're weird fingers. The babies are really cute. Let me show you. I'm excited to see this. Here's a baby one. Ah. They are so

cute and like every picture of them. Uh, if you're listening to this, I strongly recommend googling a picture an I I they look constantly surprised. Yeah, they definitely do. I'll include these in the show notes and pictures of these. But their eyes are big and yellow and they look shocked. Um. Some of them are uglier than others. Here's one that looks a little scrappy, but it's cute. They look like

cute little demons. Like they constantly look like they they ordered a dinner at a nice restaurant and didn't pay attention to how much it cost and just looked at the bill. Yeah, and I don't know that. It's just like the whole thing, the whole look they've got going on with like the big the big years, the huge middle fingers, the wide eyes. It's like a little bus shimmy. Yeah, it's a little bit bu shimmy. It's a little Steve Sammy. Yeah, but you know in a good way. I like bushimmy. Yeah,

yeah it is. Uh what is it's the like the the section of the uncanny Valley to something that is like a little bit scarier where it's still cute. So like a dog wearing a suit or something like that. Right, it's like in theory, if you describe it, it's scary, but if you look at it, it's like the cute version of scary, right, right, it's I mean they're sort of that like ugly cute thing. It's where it's sort of like sphinx cats where it's like they're horrible little

butt monsters, but they're cute, horrible little but monsters. Yeah, Like I'd still I'd still kiss that, but I'd still I'd kiss look, I would kiss and eye eyes, but I'd be that satanist. I think everybody'd be like, oh, jeez, would get it. You did a study abroad you and that I I but get a room. So do you want to talk a little bit about some of the podcasts you're doing and uh, some some of the cat related things you're doing as well. Okay, so podcasts and

cat realid things are doing. Um So, I run the l a Underground Cat Network, a Facebook group of people who love cats. You should definitely check it out. Um. I specifically cat related things. I um host a show called Chats on Cats with Joey Clift at the Right Citizen's Create Theater in Los Angeles, where I just celebrities about their cats. It's very cute. We uh don't have one in the books right now, but I don't know. I'm sure i'll come up soon. You can if you

want to hear me talk about Native American stuff. I've got a podcast on Your Wolf and Your Wolf Presents show called Wow Your Native American Too, where I interview other natives about native stuff. Um. If you check out my Twitter account, got a link to it, it's great. Uh. This is a little bit of an old one, but I still think it's very funny. I've got a podcast called twenty five Minutes of Silence where the premises, the guests and I just sit in silence for twenty five minutes. Um.

I work very hard to get good guests. I've gotten former Astronauts on the show Emmy Women, Emmy Winning Writers. I got ken Bone from the election to do. Uh yeah, it's very How do we know because if you're just sitting in silence, I mean always at the top of the show, I'm always like, look into silence and ms Joey Clift, I'm here with Katie Golden. Katie, I will say hi, and then Hi, let me with out of

the way. He's silence, And at the end of it, we plug each other's social media accounts and then that's it. So like you know, you know, you know, it's one unbroken recording. Can you hear breathing though you can hear breathing and oftentimes like you can hear background noise. So it's like we don't like make eye contact and staring blanking the whole time. And the goal isn't for us to stay quiet. It's just for us to not talk.

So when I had the astronaut on the show, uh, he used that time to clean out his rain gutter, and I used that time to do my laundry. See uh, so you know it's it's a real grab back. When Ken Bone did the show, he used to apply to fan mail, which he still gets really yeah, and his address is not publicly listed, so he does not know how people can send him fit mail, Like I mean, if it's to get at that that nice sweater, bod, I think that people will find a way. Yeah. Yeah, people.

People are thirsting for Ken Bones Jones, and for Bones and Jones and for a bones in And can you explain for just like a minute or so your fascination with Garfield because I shared this as well. So okay, so um, I'm a really I'm a really big fan of Garfield in the same way that Katie is. Um. I don't know, He's just such a weird piece of Americana that is. Um, he's so stable than what he is that it is very easy to make comedy based

on Garfield. So um. A couple of years ago, I thought it would be very funny to change my Twitter handle too, or my Twitter name to just Garfield official because I realized that the official Garfield Twitter account is not verify, and um, so I changed to Garfield Official and then just every couple of days, I would just

post Garfield facts just like Garfield Fact number seven. He has a there's a dog named Odie and Garfield's strips or whatever, and um, while I was doing this, um, I noticed that there was, um the official Garfield account. The actual Garfiel account was doing a Q and A with Garfield if you did the hashtag ask Garfield. And I realized very quickly, like, okay, I could probably answer

these questions faster than their social media team can. And because neither of our accounts are verified, people aren't gonverbable to tell the difference between which Garfield account because the real one are fake. You're like, it was really easy because people would just ask, like, what's your favorite food, and it's like lasagna is great, you know, and uh, it was super funny. It got like write ups from the A V Club and I also got blocked by

the go Comics account that was facilitating it. Weirdly enough, one of the things I was tweeting about was like I treated out Alive Garden for some reason, and the official Olive Garden account thought that I was the official Guarden. They thought that I was the official Garfield account, so they offered to like send me like a catered Olive Gardens, and I jumped into their d M and I was like, I'm not eficial Garfield account. But I do love all of gardens, and then they sent me like an for

pretending to be Garfield. The Garfield grift is real, lucrative. It was a real guard Field grift. I don't know. I just like doing bits around Garfield. So if you follow me on Twitter, I'll probably do some Garfield bits. Well that's just wonderful. Yeah, I have a I have a swoll gar Field that someone crocheted me based on a D and D character that I made, which is a swoll Field, which is an extremely buff and muscular Garfield. Do you have pictures of this because I have to

see this. Yeah, let me get them for you. Here he is posing with Kalle. Okay, I'm looking at swull Field. That is delightful, home um, and that was knitted by Nico Manner forty two. Thank you for that. I cherish him every days and I kiss his butt hole every day. Yeah, that's how you know the love is real, as if you're willing to kiss a cat's block. As part of my my satanic ritual is kissing Garfield's butth hole. Look, I would do that in a art. Garfield was real

and he had a blot hole. The Satanists of the Lasagna Order. I mean, look, if that's not already a call, we should start that call. Hold well we did it just now it's it's started. Yes, So you've got anything else to plug? Yeah, so I guess the main thing i'd plug is, um, just follow me on social media. My Twitter account is at Joey Tainment, My Instagram is at Joey Cliff. It's like five eyes. I was going to take Joey Cliff, which a twelve year old took it,

so I really missed that. Um And then um, this is uh not out yet, but I have an animated short film that's currently going through the film festival circuit. Um. It's called Thames Very Long. It's called telling people your Native American when you're not Native. Is a lot like telling a barrier a bear when you're not a bear. It's about weird racial like aggressions that people make about natives. And the name is twenty four words long and that's going to be online real soon, probably in the next

month or so. So yeah, follow me on socials. Look at for that's super great. If you have a cat or you know a cat, at that cat, I'm so I'm gonna put up cats. Thank you so much for joining us. You can follow us on all of the various internet things that go on. We're on Creature feature Pod dot Com, Creature feature Pod on Instagram, Creature feed Pod on Twitter. That's f e A T, not f

E T. That's something very different. Uh. And I am at Katie Golden And of course, as always I am at po bird Writes, where I make sure that birds have the tools necessary or own distraction. Uh. Thank you so much for joining us. Come back next Wednesday for more Creature Feature. If you're liking the show, hit all of the nice buttons below the episode, like all the stars and the reviews and things. Thanks to the Space Classics for their totally tubular tune Exo Alumina. Creature features

a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite chows. See you next Wednesday. Boot Spooky Spooky Windus joined the Garfield Cult