January 31, 2024 • 38 mins
Welcome to Sauce on the Side! On this week’s episode, Gandhi talks to wildlife photographer Bertie Gregory about what it’s really like to create documentaries and finds out if she can, in fact, touch it. And, appropriately, the first entry in her Burn Book happens to be someone from the original cast of Mean Girls.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
It's time for sauce on the side. This could get weird,
and it is gonna get weird, maybe not super weird.
But hello, I'm gandhi, co host of the Elvis Aram
Morning Show. We are on Z one hundred here in
New York City and we're syndicated on like eighty ish
stations across the country. But I've been working on this
podcast in my head only for like five years, gone
(00:25):
through a bunch of different versions of it, different co hosts,
different ideas, and finally settled on just doing it by
myself with my producer Andrew, who is sitting here silently.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hi, guys, there we go, I could speak yay.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So what we're gonna do is pretty much just talk
about the stuff that I want to talk about that
we don't talk about much on the big show, like
science and nature and OnlyFans, content, creators, comedians, all kinds
of stuff. Who else have we had in here?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
We've got some good guests lined up for you, guys.
I don't want to tease too much. Death Lady Yes,
oh my god, my favorite. But I've just loved working
with you and I can't wait for you guys to
like see all this behind the scenes stuff that's going
on finally come to life because Gandhi has put in
the work into this podcast. You guys, get ready make
sure you're liked and subscribed because this is going to
(01:13):
be a ride for you guys.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Oh my gosh, they're such a good hype man.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Shoot thinks, where's this?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
The rest of the time, you know, I.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Do it subtly.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Andrew's fairly evil. I want you to know something about him. Okay,
he wants me to do a burn book. Go ahead
and explain your burn books.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
So you have the most savage takedowns. I feel like
you can or is it destroy somebody? I feel with
your words. So I think a fun segment would be
Gandhi's burn book where you just take people down, tape
their picture in the book, and close it and we
move on.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Okay, I already have like plenty of ideas. I also
think there's potential to maybe get me canceled, because you know,
everybody's like all sensitive and you never know why that
person acted that way on that day.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Canceled, shmanceled. I think you're gonna be fine.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
He's a menace, by the way, Please know that behind
the scenes on TV shows, on radio shows, wherever it is,
it's the producer that are up to all the bullshit
and all the nonsense. So if anything terrible happens on
this show, it was Andrew's fault. But first, I want
to get to my first guest on my first podcast,
because I'm so excited. It is right up my alley,
(02:15):
Bertie Gregory. Let's give it up. Yay, it's just me, Hi, Bertie,
how are you.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I'm very good. Thanks, thanks for having me, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
For coming, because I'm about to harass you in a
good way, I promise.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Okay, there's a good way. Okay, good, good way. I
look forward to being harassed in a good way.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
So, if you don't know Bertie Gregory, he is. How
would we say? You are a wildlife photographer, documentarian of
all of the things that I would love to be.
How do you describe yourself?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah, I guess I hang out with animals for a living,
wild animals for a living, and uh yeah, fortunate enough
to make make wildlife films.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, genuinely my dream. I have a dream of doing
a podcast called Can I Touch It? Where, yeah, people
will get interested by the name, but then it will
just be a series of me trying to touch different
animals and seeing if indeed they attack me. You can
have that idea if you want to, because I don't
think they're gonna let me do it here.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Got it?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
But you really get to do this. So I just
started watching your series Animals up close. If you want
to stream it, you can stream on Disney Plus.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah, it's been it's been really really cool. You know,
you work on something for such a long time, you
get so close to it and then it's like, how
are people gonna react? So it's been awesome seeing, Yeah,
seeing what resonates with people and what doesn't.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I can't imagine any of it doesn't resonate. The thing
that struck me the most is what you just said,
how long you've been working on it? Because you've got
six episodes right, ye, and they're in very different climates
across the world, and you're tracking these animals and watching
them for a long time. How long did it take
to do these six episodes that we get to see
in what an hour ish?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah? So they're all about forty forty five minutes. So
what's interesting is that I think you know in when
you're making a wildlife film, time is your greatest adversary.
Tom Cruise line that, Yeah, and really you need the time.
That is the key thing, and you need to spend
a lot of time, and that is so you can
learn the habits of the animals, make relationships with the
(04:11):
local people, and really you know, figure out how these
animals tick. And that's how you make films. Usually, with
the wildlife films that I work on that are kind
of pure wildlife, they're called blue chip naturalistory shows. Typically
those are four years long, and there's a year of research,
two years of filming, and a year of editing. Animals
up close A bit different. It's because each episode is
(04:34):
just about one animal rather than taking you around the world.
We tend to do one or two shoots per episode,
but these shoots are long, so usually we're spending four
to six weeks per episode. The most number of days
I think we spent on any episode was the Patagonia
Puma episode. The Puma episode, but across the series I
think we did it was two hundred and nineteen filming
(04:56):
days within one calendar year. We shot it all within
two so we were all broken by the end of
that year.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I can't even imagine. So the one episode, and one
thing about the episode that really struck me. I am
obsessed with elephants, and in it, it shows a moment
of you filming and while you're filming, there are bugs
all over your arm, and I was like, oh my god,
he has to get attacked and bitten and just really
bothered by all of these things while he's sitting there
quietly and silently to not disturb other.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, so we weren't just filming any elephants. We were
filming forest elephants. So I think most people are more
familiar with savannah elephants, which is a different species of elephant,
and they're the ones in Lime King live in big
open plains alongside lions and hyenas and all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
He's order fined because they're not hidden in the forest.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Correct. So forest elephants, as their name suggests, live in
the forest. They live in deep, thick jungle. They also
really don't like people kill them, right, So that ivory
is more dense than savannah elephants, So for the ivory trade,
their tusks are more valuable per pound per kilo, and
as a result, their numbers have just been decimated twelve
(06:00):
thousand in the last year. Yeah, I mean, it's it's
just wild and if and it's thought that if if
the rate of poaching in crete continues at the current rate,
they could be gone within the next ten years, which
is why one of the largest land animals in the world.
And yeah, we're doing the jungle totally. So so we
we you know, as that they don't like people, understandably,
(06:21):
and so we want to film them behaving naturally. We
also want to stay safe because if you bump into
them in the forest, you know, they've got a personal space,
just like we humans do. If you if you enter
that personal space and surprise them, just like a person,
they get very upset. And with a savannah elephant you
can see them from a long way away. You know
each other are coming in the jungle, you just bump
into each other. For that reason, we had to live
(06:43):
off the forest floor. That meant building a canopy camp
one hundred and twenty foot up a big sapilli tree
deep in the in the jungle. And yeah, so we
kind of zip line to work. It was pretty cool commute.
But you mentioned about the bugs, So the entire time
during the day, like during daylight hours. If you're sweaty,
you're covered in sweat bees. Now they don't bite, they
(07:04):
don't sting, they but they're looking for salt. Their diet,
like the elephants diet, it's very salt deficient, so a
sweat is full of salt. So they just every time
you get sweaty, which is the whole time there because
it's hot and sticky, they just try and go in
any of your holes, in your nose, your ears, your eyes.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Just take it.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Well, you've just got a zen out because if you
if you, you know, start squishing them more and more
arrive and say you've just got a zen out.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
And there's no type of bug spray that can help
you out in this, not with.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
The sweat bees. No, they they just love sweat a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Also, in the beginning of that episode, it showed you
pretty much up in one of these trees filming and
a lightning storm is coming through. Yeah, they're like, Bertie,
we need you back, and then use zipline across back
to the tent. How much adversity climate wise are you
guys facing in these different scenarios because you were in
the the Glopagus Africa to forget these elephants, and then
you're working with gorilla, which would terrify me. But we'll
(08:05):
get to that in a minute. I mean, how difficult
is this? How many times have you guys had to
stop filming because of the environment.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Well, I mean it's a good question because I am
very often asked about, Oh, the animals are so dangerous,
and that is just not true. The most dangerous thing
is people and the physical environment. Yeah. Probably the hairiest
encounter we had filming for animals up close was in
the Galapagos. We were filming marine iguanas, which are like
a mini Godzilla. They're like three or four feet long,
(08:33):
and the biggest males. The males are the biggest. They're
the biggest and strongest, and they're all hunting foraging for seaweed,
and the best seaweed grows where the currents and the
waves are biggest and strongest, and they're like pro surfers.
They conduct dive under big ten foot waves. So we
wanted to go in the water to see what that
was like. We wanted to be a marine iguana, be
(08:56):
alongside them. And I don't know if you surf, but
if if you surf, you'll know that when you're waiting
for the waves to come in every now and again,
like once every half hour, you'll get an extra big
set of waves, much bigger than all the others. And
surfing you can see that coming because you're on a
board on the surface. We were scuba diving under the waves,
(09:16):
so you never know when that really big one's coming.
And we thought we were safe kind of in a
little sheltered, kind of little rocky cave, and this extra
big set came through the iguanas all dived under it,
and it just picked me and Jeff the guy was
filming me, It just picked us up and just flung
us in different directions. The underwater visibility went to zero
because it's just bubbles everywhere. And yeah, I remember hanging
(09:39):
onto a rock with one hand camera with my other hand,
just really questioning my life choices. And fortunately, as well
as getting to hang out with cool animals, I get
to hang out with cool people. And I had this
guy called Haavia Mahuad, who's one of the top divers
in the Glapagus. He was safety diving for us, and
he was not in kind of it's called the suction
zone of the wave. He just watched both me and
(10:01):
Jeff just get ripped off in different directions and he
was giggling, I'm sure in his you know, scuba regulator
the whole time. And he came and found us and
kind of led us back into a safer spot. So, yeah,
have you saved the day?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Good for him for being there. That's a terrifying position
to be in for any of them. We went to
Hawaii earlier in the year and we went to this
beach called Magic Sands. We didn't realize it was called
Magic Sand because you'll be standing on a rock, the
wave comes and all of a sudden, the sand's gone
and you're just splatted out on a rock and that's
just us on the surface. I can't imagine being down
there also with all of the different animals, because I
(10:37):
saw I believe it was you with a leopard seal
trying to eat your face and you're just like, oh,
it's okay, behave oh behaved? What hell I would have?
It would have been an instant like crap my pants situation.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yeah, So that was in Epic Adventures, my last Disney
Plus show. We down in Antarctica and yeah, we were
actually sheltering from really bad weather came around this corner.
Found a huge chin strap peng win colony, as you do.
At the base of this penguin colony that probably had
you know, tens of thousands of birds in it, there
was this kind of rocky tongue that all the penguins
(11:10):
would use as a launch pad to get in the water.
And they were all kind of lining up. They look
like commuters that rush out again on the subway, and
they were all kind of like, oh, I don't want
to get in. And the reason they were really nervous
because there was this massive female leopard seal that looks
like a dragon.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Explain how big it is.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
I'm trying to think how big she was. She's like
ten foot plus, like, and like, they don't have it.
They've got these really like serpentine necks, really long. They
look like a dragon underwater. Yeah. Really, they're an intimidating animal.
And every leopard seal you get in the water with
is different. They have different personalities, and this one was
(11:46):
encountered quite a lot. Okay, yeah, some of them you
get in the water with and they don't want anything
to do with you. They're really shy. They disappear you
never see them. Some are really friendly and they come
over and like literally like lounge on your head. Some
imediately very bitey, very aggressive. This female was like perfect
because she was curious and bold, but not super bity,
(12:10):
like I.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Don't care if it's a little body, it's a upper seal.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
But let me clarify when I say bity like, these
are an ambush predator. If they wanted to kill you,
you know nothing about it, they'd come out of nowhere.
The fact that she was presenting herself to us meant
that this was this was curiosity. I should also say
that you know, if you or I want to find
out what a new funky object feels like. Well, you
mentioned the podcast idea, you have no you're going to
(12:33):
touch it, right because you got you got hands, right, Well,
a seal doesn't have hands. They got flippers, so they
use their teeth and that's why yeah, us they Yeah,
they kind of just get all up in your space.
When you look at the encounters we're having, we're we're
animal experts or we're working with animal experts, and we're
(12:55):
reading the animal's body language the whole time. We're not
just throwing ourselves to the wolves. Now, that phrase in
itself is completely misfounded because wolves are't aggressive to people.
That's a whole other side point all day. Don't worry
exactly right, Well yeah, yeah, so so in the case
of the seals, yeah, we're reading their body language. And
you see in the scene in that episode she gets
(13:16):
more and more fired up, more and more curious, and
it starts to go from being curious to being a
bit too a bit too bold and playful. And so
that was the time to get out.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So what do you do on that situation? What if
you can't get.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Out, you get out before it gets to that stage.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Oh see, I wouldn't know that because I'd be trying
to touch it and all I'm hearing is leopard seal.
Maybe you can touch it?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah, well no, So everything is on their terms, right,
So she dictates the encounter, and you'll see that we
are never touching her. I have a no big, no
touch policy, but we're never touching her. The encounter is
on her terms. She can come check us out or
she can leave us alone. It's up to her.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
So what kind of background did you have to get
into photography, but specifically animal photography and getting these up
close encounters because I imagine there's a lot of training
that goes into this, So.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I guess I'm definitely interested in wild By First photography
and videos was a secondary thing, like what I was doing,
because when I was in particularly in my early teens,
I'd sneak off from like sports practice, friends' birthdays, school
to like go and find animals in the farmland near
to where I lived. And you know, if you're choosing
(14:27):
to like skip football practice to go sneak up on
a badger, like when you're twelve, that's kind of a
weird thing to do. And I, you know, as soon
as I started showing people, oh this is why I
wasn't there, I was doing this, suddenly it's like, oh
that's cool. And suddenly it starts that you go from
being a bit weird to you know, people getting stoked
about the thing that you're stoked about, which is which
(14:49):
is always a goal, right if you love something, getting
someone else excited about it is is an amazing thing.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
That's why you're here, right, this this is amazing getting
people pumped. I want everybody to get pumped about it
because there's a lot of information as well as you're
gonna you're going to see the animals, You're going to
get up close to them, like you said, then you
learn a lot. I mean the poaching. We've known that
elephant poaching is going on for a long time, but
when you were actually holding some of those tusks and saying,
this was an elephant a week ago, this was an
(15:15):
elephant last year, it's devastating that. Actually I told you earlier.
You made me cry before we actually started recording.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
That's what That's what you're talking about. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I had to take a pause for a second because
I just I can't fathom how people could look at
something like that and decide they want to kill it.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Yeah, oh no, it happened. Well, that turned on my waterworks. Yeah,
that was I mean what so for context, Yeah, we
were visiting the anti poaching team in the Zangasanga National
Park in the Central African Republic. Amazing people that literally
put their lives on the line to protect these elephants.
And Tatiana, one of the Tatiana solo, one of the
(15:50):
eco guards that she said, I want I want to
show you something and she led me into this shipping
container that was full of all of the tusks, elephant
tusks and guns and ammunition that they'd confiscated from poaches
that year. And what what was key about that was
it was that year. I mean, I know, poaching goes on.
That's why we were there to you know, help tell
(16:13):
that story. But it was when there was there were
dates on each of the tusks, when they were killed,
when they were confiscated, and and that was that made
it so much more real. And you know, yeah, first
tusk I picked up was from like a week ago.
There was a huge task that was you know, taller
than me, weigh like fifty pounds. That that was. That
(16:35):
was really moving and yeah, I don't often get yeah
theory like that, and that was that was pretty dark.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Absolutely I had a pose it for a second and
just be like I didn't.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
But I think that's that's a key thing part of
the show is that we show, as well as amazing
animal behavior, the bigger environmental context. You know, there's no
secret we humans are trashing the planet. Yeah, rible, But
the important thing before everyone gets too doomy and gloomy,
is that in every episode, and this is the thing
that I'm most proud of with the series, we show
(17:10):
the good news, a lot of the solutions and a
lot of the amazing people already doing their bit to
change our relationship with the natural world. Because to me,
that is the key for getting people stoked about trying
to change things, is that surely it's much better motivation
to be told this is what you can do, rather
than don't do this.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Hope. It is terrifying, but it is good to know that, hey,
at the end of this there might be something that
we can all do to make this a little bit better.
You're doing the good work and I love that. By
the way, we are with Bertie Gregory, who is would
we call you the host creator of Animals up Close.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
We will go with host one of the camera people.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah, one of the Camera People is streaming on Disney
Plus right now. It dropped in September, September thirteenth, and
it's amazing. We have six episodes. And we were talking
about the different environments you were in, how dangerous they can.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Have you ever had a well you were saying how
dangerous they were. Say they're dangerous.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
I mean if there's a leopard seal, you're just The
Arctic in general is cold. There's a lot of stuff
that can go wrong when you guys are out there
in the middle of the water filming orcus. I mean,
have you ever been in a situation that you had
to exit immediately for some reason, whether it was the
animal or the environment.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Well, I mean you you mentioned earlier when we were
filming the forest Elephant episode and we were living in
the forest canopy, staying off the floor so we didn't
disturb the elephants. We were in a there was a
big tropical lightning storm came through and famously, in a
lightning storm, you're it's recommended that you're not up at
(18:43):
all object covered in metal, and we were up a
one hundred and twenty foot tree that we'd covered in
metal our camp. So we had a plan, it was
called the bailout plan for if this happened, and the
idea was to clip into a high line of zip
line that took a to a neighboring tree that was
not covered in metal, and in theory, therefore we'd be safe.
(19:05):
What we didn't plan was that this happened on the
first night we were in the canopy. It was in
the middle of the night and it was torrential rain.
So the thing that we don't mention in the show
was so Meg, one of the tree experts. She was
across first. I went second, and me and Meg got
(19:26):
over to the safety of the tree and Meg was like,
you're good. I'm like, yeah, I'm good, You're good. And
then Meg, Meg and I had this realization. We looked
around in this tree that was meant to be our
safe tree, and Drew, our sound recordist, he was based
in that tree for filming, so to increase the transmission range,
he'd covered that tree in aerials that are made of metal.
(19:50):
So Drew had in fact covered our safe tree in metal,
which was entirely the point of the tree. So Meg
and I just sat there like, ah oh dear. But
fortunately the storm carried on going and it was a
source of good entertainment later that.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Are you guys ever visited by things that you did
not anticipate visiting?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah, well, a lot of birds, you know that they
instinctively are scared of upright mammals on the ground. A
lot of them are hunted by us humans. But when
you're in the trees, you know that's not a place
that we humans hunt things from, and so they're much
more bold Yeah, loads of different birds that on the
ground you could never get anywhere near, and suddenly they're
(20:30):
really bold.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Do you guys ever have encounters with, say, people like
the poachers, who the egoguards are there to protect against.
Have you guys ever had any human issues?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah, so this was in the film. We did hear
gunshots one night that was poaches poaching, but yeah, they
didn't come to where we were. Fortunately.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Is there certain things that you are there certain things
that you're supposed to wear or not wear when you're out,
let's say, dealing with the gorillas. You actually got very
close to a silver bacuerilla, which I would find terrify
You guys just seem to be fine with it. But
what are the rules of something like that? And can
I touch it?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
And definitely not that would be very bad for everything involved,
mostly you. So the gorillas, they have this amazing group
of people that they take it in turns, but they've
they're followed. But gorillas that have never seen people, are
you know, run away from people. These gorillas have been
(21:26):
habituated over many, many years of being followed. In the
case of the gorilla family we were filming. Yeah, mccumba
is the name of the Big the Big Male Silverback.
He was born in nineteen eighty and yeah, this project
has known him pretty much every every day of his
life and as a result, he's kind of familiar with
with with people and as long as you're with one
(21:46):
of those people. Interestingly, the whole time the person I
was with, he's called osolo. He was going all the time,
and that is something that he does. The Gorilla family
know that. Oh that's a thing that you know, the
human we know makes and and that was that was
I guess their way of saying, you know, it was
(22:08):
like be saying, Oh, it's Bertie here, it's Bertie here.
You're good, You're fine.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Thank God for all these people who allow you to
get into places that. How else would you get back
there and be able to do.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
This totally well, I get very lost, never mind never
mind being able to film the Gorillas.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Oh, I know season one. If season one just the
six episodes correct, not just but obviously took your whole
year to do it. Do we have a season two coming?
Speaker 3 (22:29):
That depends how many people watch it. So if you
go watch it, so if you enjoy it, please yeah,
share it. With your friends and family, watch it on Loop. Yeah,
I will so much appreciated streaming.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
On Disney plus animals up close. If you get a
season two, do you already have the animals in mind
that you what are they?
Speaker 3 (22:44):
That would be a secret? Oh the secret spoilers, So
you got it.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
You have to tease people so that they all go
watch it, so that you can get Well.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
All I can promise is that if we are lucky
enough to get another season, it will be equally, if
not more epic and more exciting.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Can you give us countries, no regions of the world,
no nothing? Can you do a rhymes with damn it? All?
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Well season or trying that. I'll keep going. As soon
as the microphone shut off, I will continue to ask
you if we want to follow you on Instagram? Where
do we find you at?
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Bertie Gregory? And yeah, that's where I post lots of
fun stuff about about the series and behind the scenes,
some stuff that well, I mean, the series is kind
of behind the scenes, so behind the scenes and behind
the scenes, which is that it's quite meta. Yeah, so
so yeah, that's that's the best way of staying in touch.
And yeah, if if anyone has any questions or feedback,
positive or negative. We love it mostly the positive feedback. Yeah,
(23:40):
but it's good to improve. So yeah, constructive criticism okay,
much appreciated.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Instagram is great at constructive criticism. It is there anything
you want us to know about what you're doing that
we haven't covered?
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I think the thing that I love about the format
of this series we want you to feel like you're
on the expeditions with us. We want you to go
through the emotional and physical highs and lows. I mean,
you're not going to go through the physical highs and
lows emotional, although that might be a fun interactive thing.
Scorching Sun there's like a yeah, Scorching Sun treadmill that
(24:16):
like goes up really steep when you've got to climb
the mountain with us bugs. Yeah, well that's season two.
Then is the four D Animals up Close Experience Animals
up Closer?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, so through these episodes you have dealt with let
me see if I can remember all of them. African
wild dogs orcas. That was fascinating by the way, watching them. Yeah,
it made me very sad for the seals, but that's
what they and the.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Key thing is we're celebrating just how intelligent these killers are.
I mean, could you imagine being smart enough and like
physically capable of as a family creating a wave with
your bodies to wash a seal off of a chunk
of icin into the water.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
No, I am a radio DJ. That's not o thing.
The intelligence, We're not really there. So you've got the Orcas,
You've got the wild dogs. You went to the Galapagos
Islands and dealt with the iguanas like Little Godzilla's elephants, Pumas.
What am I missing?
Speaker 3 (25:13):
You're missing Devil Ray, Devil Ray Island.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yes, of these six episodes and these encounters with these animals,
do you have a favorite?
Speaker 3 (25:21):
I should say that's impressive that you rattled off most
of that list. I struggle with that sometimes, yet it's
cool line. So my favorite has got to be the
Patagonia Puma episode, just because we weren't going to find
any puma. We were going to find one puma in particular.
She's called Pataka. She's a female puma that I've known
(25:43):
since she was a cub, and we went back four
years on to see how she was doing. And not
only has she survived those four years, which is a
big deal for a wild puma. You know, the survival
rate is not really high. But she's just transformed from
this cute little bundle of fluff that was totally reliant
on her mother to now this powerful mother herself with
(26:05):
two cubs of her own. And you know, we are
trained to emotionally disconnect from our subjects so that we
can focus on keeping you know, them in focus and
in frame. But when you've known an animal, you know,
since it was a little cub, and she is battling
males that are twice as heavy as her that are
(26:25):
trying to kill her cubs. She took us on this
crazy rollercoaster emotional and physical, and that was really special.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Does she have any memory of you guys being around?
Does she just ignore you? Does she?
Speaker 3 (26:37):
I mean I've described her as a long lost friend.
This is very much a one way relationship. She sees
us as part of the landscape, and as much as
I want her to really enjoy our company, she doesn't
care about us.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
So Patagonia Puma, Can I touch it?
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Definitely not.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Is there anything you would say I could touch?
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Maybe?
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Yeah, But in all seriousness, you know, these are wild
animals and nine hundred and ninety nine times out of
a thousand, when you hear about a wild animal attacking
a human, it's because the humans have done something wrong,
like try to touch it. I once, this is a
true story. I was once filming black Bears in British
Columbia and I went to this place and I saw
(27:26):
this family with a small daughter, and the family were
putting honey on the small daughter's hands. Oh, and I
wandered over and said, what exactly are you planning here?
And they said, oh, we're putting honey on her hands
so she can go over and feed the bears. The
problem with this, as well as being totally bizarre that
(27:47):
you think this is a good idea, is that something
bad will happen in this situation and ultimately the animal
will suffer. Maybe the human will get injured, but always
the animal suffers, and that is why it's such a
selfish thing to do. The show is called Animals up Close.
We do get close to these animals, but I should
say we're experts are working with experts. It's on their terms.
(28:07):
We all want to hang out with these animals because
we love them and want them to do great things
and be ambassadors for their species, but we need to
make sure that their well being is the most important.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Thing, all right, So we will end it on don't
touch it, even if you want to, don't do it.
I'm talking to myself because I don't think a lot
of other people will try to touch it. That's a
good note. The animal suffers the consequence, not us again.
Animals up close streaming on Disney Plus right now on
the net. Geotile is where you need to find.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
It, correct, sweet, Yeah, if you just search animals up close,
you'll find it.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
All right. Well, thank you so much. It's been so
fascinating talking to you. I could do this all day long.
But I know that you have a life and things
that you have to do, and you have secrets that
you don't want to tell us. But we'll get to that,
and hopefully we'll have you back here again to be
talking about season two.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
That would be cool.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
That would be amazing. Thank you, Bertie Gregory, thanks very much.
And now after something so amazing and profound and interesting,
we get back to the bare bones of this podcast.
All right, So, Andrew, let's talk about your first idea.
(29:13):
What is it that you think I should do well?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Gandhi. I first of all loved that interview. That was
so fun. What a great guess.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Here comes the producer show.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
I can't wait to hear it.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Uh huh, please more smoke up my ass.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Please, You're wonderful.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
I'm just kidding. What's your idea?
Speaker 2 (29:27):
My idea is Gandhi's burn book. I think it's a
really fun idea because you have the most savage takedowns
of people or things or situations Like I feel like
when I need to come to somebody for snark, You're
usually one of my first people to go to. Oh,
I've always compared you to like a Teddy bear with
like a knife.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
You have on multiple occasions.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yes, And so I feel like for our listeners, like
they could take situations like I know of a couple
of things that are really annoying you, and I'd love
to see you, like almost write them out here.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
You want me to air out my grievances.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Air out your grievances, write it in the burn book,
close it, and let's go.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Do you think people know what a burn book is?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Well, if they don't, they need to go watch the
two thousand and four hit movie Mean Girls Iconic. It
is one of the best movies of all time. I
rewatched it recently. It still holds up one of the
greatest movies of all time.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Okay, burn book. You know who's going on my burn book? First?
Kevin from Mean Girls? You want to talk about this?
Have I told you about that?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
It first first entry and most fitting is Kevin from
Mean Girls.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Kevin from Me let Me Pull Them up here? So Kevin,
if you recall, he was like the head of the mathletes,
the Indian guy Kevin, it was just poor Yeah, okay,
Kevin napour.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Kevin g thank.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
He apparently did Mean Girls, and then he quit Hollywood altogether.
The reason he quit, according to the things that I've read,
was because he really truly, deeply prepared to have the
role of Pie in the Life of Pie, great freaking movie,
great book, by the if you haven't seen it, he
really practiced. He did all kinds of things to prepare
(31:03):
for this role, and his agent essentially said, it's definitely yours. Well,
fast forward, all these years later, we know it was
not his. It went to Dev Patel from slum Dog Millionaire,
also a great movie.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah, love that one.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
And for those reasons, Kevin Depoor left Hollywood because he
was devastated and he's never returned. So I was like, oh,
this is fascinating. Okay, you know what, I have a
podcast coming out. Let me hit up Kevin Dapoor because
I would love to talk to him about what's going on.
Indian person to Indian person. By the way, we call
ourselves they folk, they sy to day. See we can
talk about what's going on and being Indian in the
(31:34):
entertainment industry and all these different things. Kevin Dapoor from
Mean Girls, who has been an abb movie, wrote back
to me and said, sure, I'll do your podcast. My
podcast VI is two thousand dollars. Please reach out to
my team and we can make it happen, at which
point I just said the fuck.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Yeah, No, that's insane. That's insane, right, two thousand dollars
to if you're on a podcast on my.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Podcast, I know what kind of budget you think I'm
working with, buddy. Oh my god. I was just like Wow,
the audacity.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
The audacity of being in a movie and.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Ah movie and then being like, sure, here's my podcast.
Be whoa Kevin Depoor, You're on my list? Buddy. Also,
I really hope you're getting your two thousand dollars for
every podcast that you do, and I would like to
hear all.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Of them or one of them.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I don't know if they're anywhere. To be honest, I
know that was a shitty thing to say, but Kevin
really pissed me off. So he can be first in
the burn book.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
And that is exactly what I wanted it to be.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Oh, you want me to burn random actors or just
like whatever.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Is on your mind. I feel like, yeah, you're just
I don't. I hate the use of this works. It
feel it's overused, especially by gen Z. But like I feel,
you're savage.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Oh well, times all right. I like to think of
myself as the teddy Bear without the knife, just a
teddy bear. But I'll take it, I understand. I like
to think I lead with truth.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Okay, that's what we'll call it, leading my or speaking.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
My truth, speaking my truth. That's what's happening here. So,
Kevin Napour, if you ever change your mind and you'd
like to do a podcast without a two thousand dollars fee,
I'm gonna be here for you, buddy. You can come.
This is a safe space, even though it probably doesn't
feel like that to you at the moment. I will
make it feel like a more safe space. And I
hope that you and your ceramics are killing it out
there and that's just you speaking your truth. That is
(33:18):
my truth.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Are we changing the title to know speaking your Truth?
I actually love that.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
But the burnbuck is actually really good too. Maybe we'll
just leave the burn book for Kevin Napour because it's perfect,
that timing is perfect.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
It's in, but the segment could be called Speaker Truth.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
I'm glad you're in here, and I'm glad that you're
my producer.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Well for now, glad to be working on this show.
And I'm very excited.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
A lot of exciting guests coming and I'm so excited.
I feel like even when you don't have guests, just
I feel peeling apart. Your mind is fun, Like I
love going out for dinners with you, chatting with you
just on the side, like outside of the show, Like
you just have so many fun layers that I feel
like whether you're just talking by yourself and like a
(33:57):
random ramble like.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Don't makee people think I talked to myself.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
No, I'm sure you don't.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I do all the time.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I know you do. I feel like you talk to
your plants, you talk.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
To like that's how it helps him grow.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yeah. Well, I'm just excited that everybody is going to
get to like see the inside of your mind a
little bit more like we all get to here.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Okay, So that's I guess what we're going to be
doing here. We're going to have glimpses into the inside
of my brain. Good luck everybody. My sister says, it's
a terrifying place. I think we're going to talk to
amazing guests like Bertie Gregory. He was awesome and wonderful
and well and with an ask me anything should we
do one?
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Now? Sure?
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Here, I'm going to hand you my phone, Andrew, and
you pick one that you think is a good one.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Okay, the power I wheeled, the power. I love being producer.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Oh Neil de grasse Tyson started a live video.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Time to join that one.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Love him.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Okay, Oh, this is actually a really good question. I
feel for the first episode, it's kind of deep, but
at the same time, I I love it. Okay, So
do I read the name? Sure? So?
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Aita, I bet that's how you say it?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Angiita asks on Instagram. When did you realize that marriage
was not for you and how did you come to
that realization.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Okay, that's a good question, Angiita. If you listen to
The Big Show, you've probably heard me say I don't
believe in marriage. I'm never going to get married. I
am in a relationship. I've been dating my boyfriend for
four years now and we're both on the same page.
We don't need to get married. I don't want to
have kids, and I think that if you are in
a financially stable situation, there's really no reason to go
(35:34):
get married and involve the government in your love affairs
or whatever is going on. That's part of it, but
the bigger part, honestly, I think that I know, we
know a lot of people, and I'm not talking about
anybody on the show, so do not jump to conclusions.
But people who are married and they're not happy, and
a big part of the reason why they stay in
these unhappy marriages is because they say it's too hard
(35:57):
to walk away. So for me, I think it's so
much more romantic to be in a relationship where somebody
chooses me every single day knowing that they can walk
away with no strings attached, and I am what they
want to be part of. I want my partner to
just have freedom to do what they want to do
(36:17):
and to leave a situation if they're not happy with it,
and you know, vice versa. Same for me. I don't
know that I believe in forever. I think I do,
but until I really figure it out, I just don't
see the need to make my life more complicated. And
I just I believe in romance, and I think it's
more romantic to have that, to know that person is
just there and they don't have to be. Nothing is
forcing them to stay there. They're there because they want
(36:39):
to be, so Angita, that is my reason. And if
you want to know, when I realize that I've never
wanted to get married my entire life. I know lots
of people fantasize about what their wedding's going to be
like in their wedding dress and those shots and those
thoughts just never entered my head. So I feel like
I've just really never been a marriage type person. But
I do love love and I do love relationships, and
(36:59):
I'm happy to go to any weddings, so I'm not
crapping on other people that's just what I want for me.
Good enough answer for you, Andrew.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I thought that was a great answer. Right. Make sure
you follow her at Baby Hot Sauce and when she
posts the ask me any things, we'll go through them
on air every week for every episode. So if your
question wasn't asked this time like Angietas was, then next
week your question could be asked.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
It could be thanks for tuning in, We'll see you
next time. It's us on the side.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
So this is as producer. Yeah, so we're gonna say,
make sure you like this podcast wherever you're listening. I
hate that follow, subscribe.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Don't they know to do that if they're listening to.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
A podcast, I have to tell them that. And if
you like it so so much, you could even leave
a review. Five stars is preferred. Tell us what you think.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Wait, now you're opening it up to people giving me
one star.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
No, no, no, they're only going to give you five.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah, okay, Andrew, we'll see how this one goes.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Thanks a lot, So, yeah, make sure you like, follow
and subscribe and follow Gandhi at Baby Sauce and until
next week on an all News Sauce on the side.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
I love you we'll talk to you later.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Mm hmm.
It's time for sauce on the side. This could get weird,
and it is gonna get weird, maybe not super weird.
But hello, I'm gandhi, co host of the Elvis Aram
Morning Show. We are on Z one hundred here in
New York City and we're syndicated on like eighty ish
stations across the country. But I've been working on this
podcast in my head only for like five years, gone
(00:25):
through a bunch of different versions of it, different co hosts,
different ideas, and finally settled on just doing it by
myself with my producer Andrew, who is sitting here silently.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hi, guys, there we go, I could speak yay.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So what we're gonna do is pretty much just talk
about the stuff that I want to talk about that
we don't talk about much on the big show, like
science and nature and OnlyFans, content, creators, comedians, all kinds
of stuff. Who else have we had in here?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
We've got some good guests lined up for you, guys.
I don't want to tease too much. Death Lady Yes,
oh my god, my favorite. But I've just loved working
with you and I can't wait for you guys to
like see all this behind the scenes stuff that's going
on finally come to life because Gandhi has put in
the work into this podcast. You guys, get ready make
sure you're liked and subscribed because this is going to
(01:13):
be a ride for you guys.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Oh my gosh, they're such a good hype man.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Shoot thinks, where's this?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
The rest of the time, you know, I.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Do it subtly.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Andrew's fairly evil. I want you to know something about him. Okay,
he wants me to do a burn book. Go ahead
and explain your burn books.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
So you have the most savage takedowns. I feel like
you can or is it destroy somebody? I feel with
your words. So I think a fun segment would be
Gandhi's burn book where you just take people down, tape
their picture in the book, and close it and we
move on.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Okay, I already have like plenty of ideas. I also
think there's potential to maybe get me canceled, because you know,
everybody's like all sensitive and you never know why that
person acted that way on that day.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Canceled, shmanceled. I think you're gonna be fine.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
He's a menace, by the way, Please know that behind
the scenes on TV shows, on radio shows, wherever it is,
it's the producer that are up to all the bullshit
and all the nonsense. So if anything terrible happens on
this show, it was Andrew's fault. But first, I want
to get to my first guest on my first podcast,
because I'm so excited. It is right up my alley,
(02:15):
Bertie Gregory. Let's give it up. Yay, it's just me, Hi, Bertie,
how are you.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I'm very good. Thanks, thanks for having me, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
For coming, because I'm about to harass you in a
good way, I promise.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Okay, there's a good way. Okay, good, good way. I
look forward to being harassed in a good way.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
So, if you don't know Bertie Gregory, he is. How
would we say? You are a wildlife photographer, documentarian of
all of the things that I would love to be.
How do you describe yourself?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah, I guess I hang out with animals for a living,
wild animals for a living, and uh yeah, fortunate enough
to make make wildlife films.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, genuinely my dream. I have a dream of doing
a podcast called Can I Touch It? Where, yeah, people
will get interested by the name, but then it will
just be a series of me trying to touch different
animals and seeing if indeed they attack me. You can
have that idea if you want to, because I don't
think they're gonna let me do it here.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Got it?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
But you really get to do this. So I just
started watching your series Animals up close. If you want
to stream it, you can stream on Disney Plus.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah, it's been it's been really really cool. You know,
you work on something for such a long time, you
get so close to it and then it's like, how
are people gonna react? So it's been awesome seeing, Yeah,
seeing what resonates with people and what doesn't.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I can't imagine any of it doesn't resonate. The thing
that struck me the most is what you just said,
how long you've been working on it? Because you've got
six episodes right, ye, and they're in very different climates
across the world, and you're tracking these animals and watching
them for a long time. How long did it take
to do these six episodes that we get to see
in what an hour ish?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah? So they're all about forty forty five minutes. So
what's interesting is that I think you know in when
you're making a wildlife film, time is your greatest adversary.
Tom Cruise line that, Yeah, and really you need the time.
That is the key thing, and you need to spend
a lot of time, and that is so you can
learn the habits of the animals, make relationships with the
(04:11):
local people, and really you know, figure out how these
animals tick. And that's how you make films. Usually, with
the wildlife films that I work on that are kind
of pure wildlife, they're called blue chip naturalistory shows. Typically
those are four years long, and there's a year of research,
two years of filming, and a year of editing. Animals
up close A bit different. It's because each episode is
(04:34):
just about one animal rather than taking you around the world.
We tend to do one or two shoots per episode,
but these shoots are long, so usually we're spending four
to six weeks per episode. The most number of days
I think we spent on any episode was the Patagonia
Puma episode. The Puma episode, but across the series I
think we did it was two hundred and nineteen filming
(04:56):
days within one calendar year. We shot it all within
two so we were all broken by the end of
that year.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I can't even imagine. So the one episode, and one
thing about the episode that really struck me. I am
obsessed with elephants, and in it, it shows a moment
of you filming and while you're filming, there are bugs
all over your arm, and I was like, oh my god,
he has to get attacked and bitten and just really
bothered by all of these things while he's sitting there
quietly and silently to not disturb other.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, so we weren't just filming any elephants. We were
filming forest elephants. So I think most people are more
familiar with savannah elephants, which is a different species of elephant,
and they're the ones in Lime King live in big
open plains alongside lions and hyenas and all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
He's order fined because they're not hidden in the forest.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Correct. So forest elephants, as their name suggests, live in
the forest. They live in deep, thick jungle. They also
really don't like people kill them, right, So that ivory
is more dense than savannah elephants, So for the ivory trade,
their tusks are more valuable per pound per kilo, and
as a result, their numbers have just been decimated twelve
(06:00):
thousand in the last year. Yeah, I mean, it's it's
just wild and if and it's thought that if if
the rate of poaching in crete continues at the current rate,
they could be gone within the next ten years, which
is why one of the largest land animals in the world.
And yeah, we're doing the jungle totally. So so we
we you know, as that they don't like people, understandably,
(06:21):
and so we want to film them behaving naturally. We
also want to stay safe because if you bump into
them in the forest, you know, they've got a personal space,
just like we humans do. If you if you enter
that personal space and surprise them, just like a person,
they get very upset. And with a savannah elephant you
can see them from a long way away. You know
each other are coming in the jungle, you just bump
into each other. For that reason, we had to live
(06:43):
off the forest floor. That meant building a canopy camp
one hundred and twenty foot up a big sapilli tree
deep in the in the jungle. And yeah, so we
kind of zip line to work. It was pretty cool commute.
But you mentioned about the bugs, So the entire time
during the day, like during daylight hours. If you're sweaty,
you're covered in sweat bees. Now they don't bite, they
(07:04):
don't sting, they but they're looking for salt. Their diet,
like the elephants diet, it's very salt deficient, so a
sweat is full of salt. So they just every time
you get sweaty, which is the whole time there because
it's hot and sticky, they just try and go in
any of your holes, in your nose, your ears, your eyes.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Just take it.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Well, you've just got a zen out because if you
if you, you know, start squishing them more and more
arrive and say you've just got a zen out.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
And there's no type of bug spray that can help
you out in this, not with.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
The sweat bees. No, they they just love sweat a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Also, in the beginning of that episode, it showed you
pretty much up in one of these trees filming and
a lightning storm is coming through. Yeah, they're like, Bertie,
we need you back, and then use zipline across back
to the tent. How much adversity climate wise are you
guys facing in these different scenarios because you were in
the the Glopagus Africa to forget these elephants, and then
you're working with gorilla, which would terrify me. But we'll
(08:05):
get to that in a minute. I mean, how difficult
is this? How many times have you guys had to
stop filming because of the environment.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Well, I mean it's a good question because I am
very often asked about, Oh, the animals are so dangerous,
and that is just not true. The most dangerous thing
is people and the physical environment. Yeah. Probably the hairiest
encounter we had filming for animals up close was in
the Galapagos. We were filming marine iguanas, which are like
a mini Godzilla. They're like three or four feet long,
(08:33):
and the biggest males. The males are the biggest. They're
the biggest and strongest, and they're all hunting foraging for seaweed,
and the best seaweed grows where the currents and the
waves are biggest and strongest, and they're like pro surfers.
They conduct dive under big ten foot waves. So we
wanted to go in the water to see what that
was like. We wanted to be a marine iguana, be
(08:56):
alongside them. And I don't know if you surf, but
if if you surf, you'll know that when you're waiting
for the waves to come in every now and again,
like once every half hour, you'll get an extra big
set of waves, much bigger than all the others. And
surfing you can see that coming because you're on a
board on the surface. We were scuba diving under the waves,
(09:16):
so you never know when that really big one's coming.
And we thought we were safe kind of in a
little sheltered, kind of little rocky cave, and this extra
big set came through the iguanas all dived under it,
and it just picked me and Jeff the guy was
filming me, It just picked us up and just flung
us in different directions. The underwater visibility went to zero
because it's just bubbles everywhere. And yeah, I remember hanging
(09:39):
onto a rock with one hand camera with my other hand,
just really questioning my life choices. And fortunately, as well
as getting to hang out with cool animals, I get
to hang out with cool people. And I had this
guy called Haavia Mahuad, who's one of the top divers
in the Glapagus. He was safety diving for us, and
he was not in kind of it's called the suction
zone of the wave. He just watched both me and
(10:01):
Jeff just get ripped off in different directions and he
was giggling, I'm sure in his you know, scuba regulator
the whole time. And he came and found us and
kind of led us back into a safer spot. So, yeah,
have you saved the day?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Good for him for being there. That's a terrifying position
to be in for any of them. We went to
Hawaii earlier in the year and we went to this
beach called Magic Sands. We didn't realize it was called
Magic Sand because you'll be standing on a rock, the
wave comes and all of a sudden, the sand's gone
and you're just splatted out on a rock and that's
just us on the surface. I can't imagine being down
there also with all of the different animals, because I
(10:37):
saw I believe it was you with a leopard seal
trying to eat your face and you're just like, oh,
it's okay, behave oh behaved? What hell I would have?
It would have been an instant like crap my pants situation.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yeah, So that was in Epic Adventures, my last Disney
Plus show. We down in Antarctica and yeah, we were
actually sheltering from really bad weather came around this corner.
Found a huge chin strap peng win colony, as you do.
At the base of this penguin colony that probably had
you know, tens of thousands of birds in it, there
was this kind of rocky tongue that all the penguins
(11:10):
would use as a launch pad to get in the water.
And they were all kind of lining up. They look
like commuters that rush out again on the subway, and
they were all kind of like, oh, I don't want
to get in. And the reason they were really nervous
because there was this massive female leopard seal that looks
like a dragon.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Explain how big it is.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
I'm trying to think how big she was. She's like
ten foot plus, like, and like, they don't have it.
They've got these really like serpentine necks, really long. They
look like a dragon underwater. Yeah. Really, they're an intimidating animal.
And every leopard seal you get in the water with
is different. They have different personalities, and this one was
(11:46):
encountered quite a lot. Okay, yeah, some of them you
get in the water with and they don't want anything
to do with you. They're really shy. They disappear you
never see them. Some are really friendly and they come
over and like literally like lounge on your head. Some
imediately very bitey, very aggressive. This female was like perfect
because she was curious and bold, but not super bity,
(12:10):
like I.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Don't care if it's a little body, it's a upper seal.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
But let me clarify when I say bity like, these
are an ambush predator. If they wanted to kill you,
you know nothing about it, they'd come out of nowhere.
The fact that she was presenting herself to us meant
that this was this was curiosity. I should also say
that you know, if you or I want to find
out what a new funky object feels like. Well, you
mentioned the podcast idea, you have no you're going to
(12:33):
touch it, right because you got you got hands, right, Well,
a seal doesn't have hands. They got flippers, so they
use their teeth and that's why yeah, us they Yeah,
they kind of just get all up in your space.
When you look at the encounters we're having, we're we're
animal experts or we're working with animal experts, and we're
(12:55):
reading the animal's body language the whole time. We're not
just throwing ourselves to the wolves. Now, that phrase in
itself is completely misfounded because wolves are't aggressive to people.
That's a whole other side point all day. Don't worry
exactly right, Well yeah, yeah, so so in the case
of the seals, yeah, we're reading their body language. And
you see in the scene in that episode she gets
(13:16):
more and more fired up, more and more curious, and
it starts to go from being curious to being a
bit too a bit too bold and playful. And so
that was the time to get out.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So what do you do on that situation? What if
you can't get.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Out, you get out before it gets to that stage.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Oh see, I wouldn't know that because I'd be trying
to touch it and all I'm hearing is leopard seal.
Maybe you can touch it?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah, well no, So everything is on their terms, right,
So she dictates the encounter, and you'll see that we
are never touching her. I have a no big, no
touch policy, but we're never touching her. The encounter is
on her terms. She can come check us out or
she can leave us alone. It's up to her.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
So what kind of background did you have to get
into photography, but specifically animal photography and getting these up
close encounters because I imagine there's a lot of training
that goes into this, So.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I guess I'm definitely interested in wild By First photography
and videos was a secondary thing, like what I was doing,
because when I was in particularly in my early teens,
I'd sneak off from like sports practice, friends' birthdays, school
to like go and find animals in the farmland near
to where I lived. And you know, if you're choosing
(14:27):
to like skip football practice to go sneak up on
a badger, like when you're twelve, that's kind of a
weird thing to do. And I, you know, as soon
as I started showing people, oh this is why I
wasn't there, I was doing this, suddenly it's like, oh
that's cool. And suddenly it starts that you go from
being a bit weird to you know, people getting stoked
about the thing that you're stoked about, which is which
(14:49):
is always a goal, right if you love something, getting
someone else excited about it is is an amazing thing.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
That's why you're here, right, this this is amazing getting
people pumped. I want everybody to get pumped about it
because there's a lot of information as well as you're
gonna you're going to see the animals, You're going to
get up close to them, like you said, then you
learn a lot. I mean the poaching. We've known that
elephant poaching is going on for a long time, but
when you were actually holding some of those tusks and saying,
this was an elephant a week ago, this was an
(15:15):
elephant last year, it's devastating that. Actually I told you earlier.
You made me cry before we actually started recording.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
That's what That's what you're talking about. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I had to take a pause for a second because
I just I can't fathom how people could look at
something like that and decide they want to kill it.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Yeah, oh no, it happened. Well, that turned on my waterworks. Yeah,
that was I mean what so for context, Yeah, we
were visiting the anti poaching team in the Zangasanga National
Park in the Central African Republic. Amazing people that literally
put their lives on the line to protect these elephants.
And Tatiana, one of the Tatiana solo, one of the
(15:50):
eco guards that she said, I want I want to
show you something and she led me into this shipping
container that was full of all of the tusks, elephant
tusks and guns and ammunition that they'd confiscated from poaches
that year. And what what was key about that was
it was that year. I mean, I know, poaching goes on.
That's why we were there to you know, help tell
(16:13):
that story. But it was when there was there were
dates on each of the tusks, when they were killed,
when they were confiscated, and and that was that made
it so much more real. And you know, yeah, first
tusk I picked up was from like a week ago.
There was a huge task that was you know, taller
than me, weigh like fifty pounds. That that was. That
(16:35):
was really moving and yeah, I don't often get yeah
theory like that, and that was that was pretty dark.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Absolutely I had a pose it for a second and
just be like I didn't.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
But I think that's that's a key thing part of
the show is that we show, as well as amazing
animal behavior, the bigger environmental context. You know, there's no
secret we humans are trashing the planet. Yeah, rible, But
the important thing before everyone gets too doomy and gloomy,
is that in every episode, and this is the thing
that I'm most proud of with the series, we show
(17:10):
the good news, a lot of the solutions and a
lot of the amazing people already doing their bit to
change our relationship with the natural world. Because to me,
that is the key for getting people stoked about trying
to change things, is that surely it's much better motivation
to be told this is what you can do, rather
than don't do this.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Hope. It is terrifying, but it is good to know that, hey,
at the end of this there might be something that
we can all do to make this a little bit better.
You're doing the good work and I love that. By
the way, we are with Bertie Gregory, who is would
we call you the host creator of Animals up Close.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
We will go with host one of the camera people.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah, one of the Camera People is streaming on Disney
Plus right now. It dropped in September, September thirteenth, and
it's amazing. We have six episodes. And we were talking
about the different environments you were in, how dangerous they can.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Have you ever had a well you were saying how
dangerous they were. Say they're dangerous.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
I mean if there's a leopard seal, you're just The
Arctic in general is cold. There's a lot of stuff
that can go wrong when you guys are out there
in the middle of the water filming orcus. I mean,
have you ever been in a situation that you had
to exit immediately for some reason, whether it was the
animal or the environment.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Well, I mean you you mentioned earlier when we were
filming the forest Elephant episode and we were living in
the forest canopy, staying off the floor so we didn't
disturb the elephants. We were in a there was a
big tropical lightning storm came through and famously, in a
lightning storm, you're it's recommended that you're not up at
(18:43):
all object covered in metal, and we were up a
one hundred and twenty foot tree that we'd covered in
metal our camp. So we had a plan, it was
called the bailout plan for if this happened, and the
idea was to clip into a high line of zip
line that took a to a neighboring tree that was
not covered in metal, and in theory, therefore we'd be safe.
(19:05):
What we didn't plan was that this happened on the
first night we were in the canopy. It was in
the middle of the night and it was torrential rain.
So the thing that we don't mention in the show
was so Meg, one of the tree experts. She was
across first. I went second, and me and Meg got
(19:26):
over to the safety of the tree and Meg was like,
you're good. I'm like, yeah, I'm good, You're good. And
then Meg, Meg and I had this realization. We looked
around in this tree that was meant to be our
safe tree, and Drew, our sound recordist, he was based
in that tree for filming, so to increase the transmission range,
he'd covered that tree in aerials that are made of metal.
(19:50):
So Drew had in fact covered our safe tree in metal,
which was entirely the point of the tree. So Meg
and I just sat there like, ah oh dear. But
fortunately the storm carried on going and it was a
source of good entertainment later that.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Are you guys ever visited by things that you did
not anticipate visiting?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah, well, a lot of birds, you know that they
instinctively are scared of upright mammals on the ground. A
lot of them are hunted by us humans. But when
you're in the trees, you know that's not a place
that we humans hunt things from, and so they're much
more bold Yeah, loads of different birds that on the
ground you could never get anywhere near, and suddenly they're
(20:30):
really bold.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Do you guys ever have encounters with, say, people like
the poachers, who the egoguards are there to protect against.
Have you guys ever had any human issues?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah, so this was in the film. We did hear
gunshots one night that was poaches poaching, but yeah, they
didn't come to where we were. Fortunately.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Is there certain things that you are there certain things
that you're supposed to wear or not wear when you're out,
let's say, dealing with the gorillas. You actually got very
close to a silver bacuerilla, which I would find terrify
You guys just seem to be fine with it. But
what are the rules of something like that? And can
I touch it?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
And definitely not that would be very bad for everything involved,
mostly you. So the gorillas, they have this amazing group
of people that they take it in turns, but they've
they're followed. But gorillas that have never seen people, are
you know, run away from people. These gorillas have been
(21:26):
habituated over many, many years of being followed. In the
case of the gorilla family we were filming. Yeah, mccumba
is the name of the Big the Big Male Silverback.
He was born in nineteen eighty and yeah, this project
has known him pretty much every every day of his
life and as a result, he's kind of familiar with
with with people and as long as you're with one
(21:46):
of those people. Interestingly, the whole time the person I
was with, he's called osolo. He was going all the time,
and that is something that he does. The Gorilla family
know that. Oh that's a thing that you know, the
human we know makes and and that was that was
I guess their way of saying, you know, it was
(22:08):
like be saying, Oh, it's Bertie here, it's Bertie here.
You're good, You're fine.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Thank God for all these people who allow you to
get into places that. How else would you get back
there and be able to do.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
This totally well, I get very lost, never mind never
mind being able to film the Gorillas.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Oh, I know season one. If season one just the
six episodes correct, not just but obviously took your whole
year to do it. Do we have a season two coming?
Speaker 3 (22:29):
That depends how many people watch it. So if you
go watch it, so if you enjoy it, please yeah,
share it. With your friends and family, watch it on Loop. Yeah,
I will so much appreciated streaming.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
On Disney plus animals up close. If you get a
season two, do you already have the animals in mind
that you what are they?
Speaker 3 (22:44):
That would be a secret? Oh the secret spoilers, So
you got it.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
You have to tease people so that they all go
watch it, so that you can get Well.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
All I can promise is that if we are lucky
enough to get another season, it will be equally, if
not more epic and more exciting.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Can you give us countries, no regions of the world,
no nothing? Can you do a rhymes with damn it? All?
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Well season or trying that. I'll keep going. As soon
as the microphone shut off, I will continue to ask
you if we want to follow you on Instagram? Where
do we find you at?
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Bertie Gregory? And yeah, that's where I post lots of
fun stuff about about the series and behind the scenes,
some stuff that well, I mean, the series is kind
of behind the scenes, so behind the scenes and behind
the scenes, which is that it's quite meta. Yeah, so
so yeah, that's that's the best way of staying in touch.
And yeah, if if anyone has any questions or feedback,
positive or negative. We love it mostly the positive feedback. Yeah,
(23:40):
but it's good to improve. So yeah, constructive criticism okay,
much appreciated.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Instagram is great at constructive criticism. It is there anything
you want us to know about what you're doing that
we haven't covered?
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I think the thing that I love about the format
of this series we want you to feel like you're
on the expeditions with us. We want you to go
through the emotional and physical highs and lows. I mean,
you're not going to go through the physical highs and
lows emotional, although that might be a fun interactive thing.
Scorching Sun there's like a yeah, Scorching Sun treadmill that
(24:16):
like goes up really steep when you've got to climb
the mountain with us bugs. Yeah, well that's season two.
Then is the four D Animals up Close Experience Animals
up Closer?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, so through these episodes you have dealt with let
me see if I can remember all of them. African
wild dogs orcas. That was fascinating by the way, watching them. Yeah,
it made me very sad for the seals, but that's
what they and the.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Key thing is we're celebrating just how intelligent these killers are.
I mean, could you imagine being smart enough and like
physically capable of as a family creating a wave with
your bodies to wash a seal off of a chunk
of icin into the water.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
No, I am a radio DJ. That's not o thing.
The intelligence, We're not really there. So you've got the Orcas,
You've got the wild dogs. You went to the Galapagos
Islands and dealt with the iguanas like Little Godzilla's elephants, Pumas.
What am I missing?
Speaker 3 (25:13):
You're missing Devil Ray, Devil Ray Island.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yes, of these six episodes and these encounters with these animals,
do you have a favorite?
Speaker 3 (25:21):
I should say that's impressive that you rattled off most
of that list. I struggle with that sometimes, yet it's
cool line. So my favorite has got to be the
Patagonia Puma episode, just because we weren't going to find
any puma. We were going to find one puma in particular.
She's called Pataka. She's a female puma that I've known
(25:43):
since she was a cub, and we went back four
years on to see how she was doing. And not
only has she survived those four years, which is a
big deal for a wild puma. You know, the survival
rate is not really high. But she's just transformed from
this cute little bundle of fluff that was totally reliant
on her mother to now this powerful mother herself with
(26:05):
two cubs of her own. And you know, we are
trained to emotionally disconnect from our subjects so that we
can focus on keeping you know, them in focus and
in frame. But when you've known an animal, you know,
since it was a little cub, and she is battling
males that are twice as heavy as her that are
(26:25):
trying to kill her cubs. She took us on this
crazy rollercoaster emotional and physical, and that was really special.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Does she have any memory of you guys being around?
Does she just ignore you? Does she?
Speaker 3 (26:37):
I mean I've described her as a long lost friend.
This is very much a one way relationship. She sees
us as part of the landscape, and as much as
I want her to really enjoy our company, she doesn't
care about us.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
So Patagonia Puma, Can I touch it?
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Definitely not.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Is there anything you would say I could touch?
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Maybe?
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Yeah, But in all seriousness, you know, these are wild
animals and nine hundred and ninety nine times out of
a thousand, when you hear about a wild animal attacking
a human, it's because the humans have done something wrong,
like try to touch it. I once, this is a
true story. I was once filming black Bears in British
Columbia and I went to this place and I saw
(27:26):
this family with a small daughter, and the family were
putting honey on the small daughter's hands. Oh, and I
wandered over and said, what exactly are you planning here?
And they said, oh, we're putting honey on her hands
so she can go over and feed the bears. The
problem with this, as well as being totally bizarre that
(27:47):
you think this is a good idea, is that something
bad will happen in this situation and ultimately the animal
will suffer. Maybe the human will get injured, but always
the animal suffers, and that is why it's such a
selfish thing to do. The show is called Animals up Close.
We do get close to these animals, but I should
say we're experts are working with experts. It's on their terms.
(28:07):
We all want to hang out with these animals because
we love them and want them to do great things
and be ambassadors for their species, but we need to
make sure that their well being is the most important.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Thing, all right, So we will end it on don't
touch it, even if you want to, don't do it.
I'm talking to myself because I don't think a lot
of other people will try to touch it. That's a
good note. The animal suffers the consequence, not us again.
Animals up close streaming on Disney Plus right now on
the net. Geotile is where you need to find.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
It, correct, sweet, Yeah, if you just search animals up close,
you'll find it.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
All right. Well, thank you so much. It's been so
fascinating talking to you. I could do this all day long.
But I know that you have a life and things
that you have to do, and you have secrets that
you don't want to tell us. But we'll get to that,
and hopefully we'll have you back here again to be
talking about season two.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
That would be cool.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
That would be amazing. Thank you, Bertie Gregory, thanks very much.
And now after something so amazing and profound and interesting,
we get back to the bare bones of this podcast.
All right, So, Andrew, let's talk about your first idea.
(29:13):
What is it that you think I should do well?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Gandhi. I first of all loved that interview. That was
so fun. What a great guess.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Here comes the producer show.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
I can't wait to hear it.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Uh huh, please more smoke up my ass.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Please, You're wonderful.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
I'm just kidding. What's your idea?
Speaker 2 (29:27):
My idea is Gandhi's burn book. I think it's a
really fun idea because you have the most savage takedowns
of people or things or situations Like I feel like
when I need to come to somebody for snark, You're
usually one of my first people to go to. Oh,
I've always compared you to like a Teddy bear with
like a knife.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
You have on multiple occasions.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yes, And so I feel like for our listeners, like
they could take situations like I know of a couple
of things that are really annoying you, and I'd love
to see you, like almost write them out here.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
You want me to air out my grievances.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Air out your grievances, write it in the burn book,
close it, and let's go.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Do you think people know what a burn book is?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Well, if they don't, they need to go watch the
two thousand and four hit movie Mean Girls Iconic. It
is one of the best movies of all time. I
rewatched it recently. It still holds up one of the
greatest movies of all time.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Okay, burn book. You know who's going on my burn book? First?
Kevin from Mean Girls? You want to talk about this?
Have I told you about that?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
It first first entry and most fitting is Kevin from
Mean Girls.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Kevin from Me let Me Pull Them up here? So Kevin,
if you recall, he was like the head of the mathletes,
the Indian guy Kevin, it was just poor Yeah, okay,
Kevin napour.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Kevin g thank.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
He apparently did Mean Girls, and then he quit Hollywood altogether.
The reason he quit, according to the things that I've read,
was because he really truly, deeply prepared to have the
role of Pie in the Life of Pie, great freaking movie,
great book, by the if you haven't seen it, he
really practiced. He did all kinds of things to prepare
(31:03):
for this role, and his agent essentially said, it's definitely yours. Well,
fast forward, all these years later, we know it was
not his. It went to Dev Patel from slum Dog Millionaire,
also a great movie.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah, love that one.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
And for those reasons, Kevin Depoor left Hollywood because he
was devastated and he's never returned. So I was like, oh,
this is fascinating. Okay, you know what, I have a
podcast coming out. Let me hit up Kevin Dapoor because
I would love to talk to him about what's going on.
Indian person to Indian person. By the way, we call
ourselves they folk, they sy to day. See we can
talk about what's going on and being Indian in the
(31:34):
entertainment industry and all these different things. Kevin Dapoor from
Mean Girls, who has been an abb movie, wrote back
to me and said, sure, I'll do your podcast. My
podcast VI is two thousand dollars. Please reach out to
my team and we can make it happen, at which
point I just said the fuck.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Yeah, No, that's insane. That's insane, right, two thousand dollars
to if you're on a podcast on my.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Podcast, I know what kind of budget you think I'm
working with, buddy. Oh my god. I was just like Wow,
the audacity.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
The audacity of being in a movie and.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Ah movie and then being like, sure, here's my podcast.
Be whoa Kevin Depoor, You're on my list? Buddy. Also,
I really hope you're getting your two thousand dollars for
every podcast that you do, and I would like to
hear all.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Of them or one of them.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I don't know if they're anywhere. To be honest, I
know that was a shitty thing to say, but Kevin
really pissed me off. So he can be first in
the burn book.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
And that is exactly what I wanted it to be.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Oh, you want me to burn random actors or just
like whatever.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Is on your mind. I feel like, yeah, you're just
I don't. I hate the use of this works. It
feel it's overused, especially by gen Z. But like I feel,
you're savage.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Oh well, times all right. I like to think of
myself as the teddy Bear without the knife, just a
teddy bear. But I'll take it, I understand. I like
to think I lead with truth.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Okay, that's what we'll call it, leading my or speaking.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
My truth, speaking my truth. That's what's happening here. So,
Kevin Napour, if you ever change your mind and you'd
like to do a podcast without a two thousand dollars fee,
I'm gonna be here for you, buddy. You can come.
This is a safe space, even though it probably doesn't
feel like that to you at the moment. I will
make it feel like a more safe space. And I
hope that you and your ceramics are killing it out
there and that's just you speaking your truth. That is
(33:18):
my truth.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Are we changing the title to know speaking your Truth?
I actually love that.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
But the burnbuck is actually really good too. Maybe we'll
just leave the burn book for Kevin Napour because it's perfect,
that timing is perfect.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
It's in, but the segment could be called Speaker Truth.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
I'm glad you're in here, and I'm glad that you're
my producer.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Well for now, glad to be working on this show.
And I'm very excited.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
A lot of exciting guests coming and I'm so excited.
I feel like even when you don't have guests, just
I feel peeling apart. Your mind is fun, Like I
love going out for dinners with you, chatting with you
just on the side, like outside of the show, Like
you just have so many fun layers that I feel
like whether you're just talking by yourself and like a
(33:57):
random ramble like.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Don't makee people think I talked to myself.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
No, I'm sure you don't.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I do all the time.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I know you do. I feel like you talk to
your plants, you talk.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
To like that's how it helps him grow.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yeah. Well, I'm just excited that everybody is going to
get to like see the inside of your mind a
little bit more like we all get to here.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Okay, So that's I guess what we're going to be
doing here. We're going to have glimpses into the inside
of my brain. Good luck everybody. My sister says, it's
a terrifying place. I think we're going to talk to
amazing guests like Bertie Gregory. He was awesome and wonderful
and well and with an ask me anything should we
do one?
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Now? Sure?
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Here, I'm going to hand you my phone, Andrew, and
you pick one that you think is a good one.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Okay, the power I wheeled, the power. I love being producer.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Oh Neil de grasse Tyson started a live video.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Time to join that one.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Love him.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Okay, Oh, this is actually a really good question. I
feel for the first episode, it's kind of deep, but
at the same time, I I love it. Okay, So
do I read the name? Sure? So?
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Aita, I bet that's how you say it?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Angiita asks on Instagram. When did you realize that marriage
was not for you and how did you come to
that realization.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Okay, that's a good question, Angiita. If you listen to
The Big Show, you've probably heard me say I don't
believe in marriage. I'm never going to get married. I
am in a relationship. I've been dating my boyfriend for
four years now and we're both on the same page.
We don't need to get married. I don't want to
have kids, and I think that if you are in
a financially stable situation, there's really no reason to go
(35:34):
get married and involve the government in your love affairs
or whatever is going on. That's part of it, but
the bigger part, honestly, I think that I know, we
know a lot of people, and I'm not talking about
anybody on the show, so do not jump to conclusions.
But people who are married and they're not happy, and
a big part of the reason why they stay in
these unhappy marriages is because they say it's too hard
(35:57):
to walk away. So for me, I think it's so
much more romantic to be in a relationship where somebody
chooses me every single day knowing that they can walk
away with no strings attached, and I am what they
want to be part of. I want my partner to
just have freedom to do what they want to do
(36:17):
and to leave a situation if they're not happy with it,
and you know, vice versa. Same for me. I don't
know that I believe in forever. I think I do,
but until I really figure it out, I just don't
see the need to make my life more complicated. And
I just I believe in romance, and I think it's
more romantic to have that, to know that person is
just there and they don't have to be. Nothing is
forcing them to stay there. They're there because they want
(36:39):
to be, so Angita, that is my reason. And if
you want to know, when I realize that I've never
wanted to get married my entire life. I know lots
of people fantasize about what their wedding's going to be
like in their wedding dress and those shots and those
thoughts just never entered my head. So I feel like
I've just really never been a marriage type person. But
I do love love and I do love relationships, and
(36:59):
I'm happy to go to any weddings, so I'm not
crapping on other people that's just what I want for me.
Good enough answer for you, Andrew.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I thought that was a great answer. Right. Make sure
you follow her at Baby Hot Sauce and when she
posts the ask me any things, we'll go through them
on air every week for every episode. So if your
question wasn't asked this time like Angietas was, then next
week your question could be asked.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
It could be thanks for tuning in, We'll see you
next time. It's us on the side.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
So this is as producer. Yeah, so we're gonna say,
make sure you like this podcast wherever you're listening. I
hate that follow, subscribe.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Don't they know to do that if they're listening to.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
A podcast, I have to tell them that. And if
you like it so so much, you could even leave
a review. Five stars is preferred. Tell us what you think.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Wait, now you're opening it up to people giving me
one star.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
No, no, no, they're only going to give you five.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah, okay, Andrew, we'll see how this one goes.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Thanks a lot, So, yeah, make sure you like, follow
and subscribe and follow Gandhi at Baby Sauce and until
next week on an all News Sauce on the side.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
I love you we'll talk to you later.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Mm hmm.
Host
Medha Gandhi
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