Joe Rogan Experience #2248 - Michael Waddell

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast.…

   1. MWMichael Waddell0:00

      (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music) What's going on, my man?

   3. MWMichael Waddell0:13

      Joe, good.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      Is that Bigfoot on your shirt? It says-

   5. MWMichael Waddell0:15

      That is. It is Bigfoot.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      ... "non-vegan"?

   7. MWMichael Waddell0:18

      Yeah. (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      (laughs) How do they know Bigfoot's not a vegan?

   9. MWMichael Waddell0:21

      See, I don't know. I mean, but I think he's got canines like us, so there's a good chance-

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       (laughs)

   11. MWMichael Waddell0:26

       ... that he does eat meat, you know. (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       I think hunters are the number one argument against Bigfoot being real. I've never met a-

   13. MWMichael Waddell0:32

       I do, too.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:32

       ... hunter who's seen Bigfoot. (laughs)

   15. MWMichael Waddell0:34

       No, and the amount, especially some of your guests you've had on-

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:37

       (laughs) Yeah.

   17. MWMichael Waddell0:37

       ... and on top of, I mean, even myself and now you spend a lot of times in some pretty desolate places.

   18. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       Yeah.

   19. MWMichael Waddell0:43

       And all the trail cameras.

   20. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       Uh-

   21. MWMichael Waddell0:45

       We should've gotten one picture.

   22. JRJoe Rogan0:46

       Yeah. Trail cameras throw a big monkey wrench into that Bigfoot thing. (laughs)

   23. MWMichael Waddell0:49

       I agree. And I- and I- and I'm always, it's still, you know, the conspiracy that I'm still, every time I check, especially when you get in those deep, dark-

   24. JRJoe Rogan0:56

       Mm-hmm.

   25. MWMichael Waddell0:56

       ... places out west and all throughout the country and even the south, I'm thinking, "Maybe just this time."

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:02

       It would be fun.

   27. MWMichael Waddell1:03

       Yeti.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:03

       It would be fun, but-

   29. MWMichael Waddell1:04

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:04

       ... it's just, it's very unlikely. I mean, they, there's only, like, two jaguars in the United States, and they know exactly where they are.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah. …

   1. MWMichael Waddell15:00

      even take a lot of pictures of it 'cause I was always like, hey, you know, this guy didn't want us to take any pictures and talk about it. But man, I, every time I'd come back, you know, from morning hunt or we'd go scout, I'd come back and like, "Man, I wanna go to the buffalo drop." Like, you know, you're just-

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:11

      Yeah.

   3. MWMichael Waddell15:11

      ... it's like a little kid, like a little 10-year-old kid, boy scout and like, "Look at this! Here's a head," or, "Here's a buffalo horn or- or skull." And most of everything that would've been there had already been picked through 'cause it's right off kind of a county road.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:24

      Mm-hmm.

   5. MWMichael Waddell15:24

      And so most of the locals, they knew about it, and of course, you know, he's had kids and grandkids, just- just kind of rummage through it. But it was pretty interesting, but every time you'd go, you'd find something. So it was really interesting.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:34

      It just, just really stretches your mind and your imagination to imagine living like that back then. And that these people while, you know, Rome was being built, the Colosseum, Europe, all this, all these different places in the world, these people were living the same way people lived tens of thousands-

   7. MWMichael Waddell15:51

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:52

      ... years ago right here.

   9. MWMichael Waddell15:53

      It- it's crazy and- and now it seems like we're so far removed from it, but yet as we- we talk about it, that romance hadn't left and even getting a chance to chase a bull elk and there's still some amazing real wild places out there that we-

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:06

       Yeah.

   11. MWMichael Waddell16:06

       ... we can kind of revisit and- and that was the first thing I noticed is all the, uh, the- the Native American pictures you had. I hunt a lot with Native Americans, a lot with the Navajo Nation. I've become like family, or they become like family to me. I go out there every year and the resources they have, you know. I know Cam hunts a lot, you know, at, uh, Mescalero and different, different places.

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:26

       Mm-hmm.

   13. MWMichael Waddell16:26

       And I don't know, man. And- and even sadly, even amongst the natives, some of that culture is being lost with them more.

   14. JRJoe Rogan16:33

       Yeah.

   15. MWMichael Waddell16:33

       And so we even go out every year and do a hunt with their kids. We take 15 to 20 Navajo youth hunting every year out there with the Navajo Game and Fish. And they have a lot of mentors, Gloria Tom who she's just stepping down but she was the, uh, kind of in charge out there and we would go and work with people like Jeff Cole and that whole Navajo Nation, the families and we'd take just their kids. The kids of the Navajo Nation hunting and sadly enough, they're- they're, like a lot of kids in America, eating Little Debbies and playing Xbox, you know. (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:01

       Yeah.

   17. MWMichael Waddell17:01

       It's like, man, you got 17 million acres in your backyard.

   18. JRJoe Rogan17:04

       (laughs)

   19. MWMichael Waddell17:04

       Come on, bro. You 'posed to be-

   20. JRJoe Rogan17:06

       I know, right?

   21. MWMichael Waddell17:06

       ... the damn eagle.

   22. JRJoe Rogan17:07

       Right.

   23. MWMichael Waddell17:07

       You gotta, you gotta fly and dip down. We got, you know ... I'm even out here, you know, i- i- at your- your room and we ... Me too, I have all kind of Native Americans. My heroes, um, were Native American hunters like Ishi, who taught Pope and Young how to bow hunt. He's who got them-

   24. JRJoe Rogan17:23

       Oh, really?

   25. MWMichael Waddell17:24

       Yeah. Ishi, out of California. I think he- he'd come back and- and, uh, he- he basically taught those guys who were doctors, he introduced them to- to bow hunting and then Pope and Young, as we kill a elk we think, "Oh, is he big enough to go Pope and Young?"

   26. JRJoe Rogan17:39

       Wait, explain to people what Pope and Young is for people who don't know what you're talking about.

   27. MWMichael Waddell17:42

       Pope and Young is, um ... So basically Pope and Young were- were two guys that basically just kind of revolutionized archery as we know it a lot of times. I mean, obviously you thought- throwing around names, you gotta talk about Fred Bear and stuff like that, but prior to that, there was an Indian named Ishi, um, out of a California tribe and I'm not good enough at remembering exactly what tribe that was, but, uh, there's a lot of cool information that you can read. Obviously if you ever get your hands on, um, Saxton Pope and Arthur Young, any books. It's fascinating. Like my favorite book of all time is called The Adventurous Bowmen. A friend of mine, Jeff Johnson, who's a writer, gave it to me, and I- I read it all the time. And even my kid, I read him that book at night, you know, and this talks about their first venture into Africa and- and when they went there, when they hunted grizzly, when they hunted elk the first time. And so these guys were kind of ... Based on what I can assume seem to be pretty much city slickers who had basically, um, a patient called Ishi who taught them how to-... hunt. And, and pictures of him, you can still see him, he looks like he's dressed at a Ted Nugent concert in 1969, you know?

   28. JRJoe Rogan18:42

       (laughs)

   29. MWMichael Waddell18:42

       (laughs) Jumping off the amps. And, uh, and so yeah. And so now, that's become similar to Boone and Crockett, uh, Pope & Young is an organization that's formed around, you know, celebrating certain animals that are trophy aspect, and if you get a, you know, say a white-tailed deer that nets 125 inches on the Pope & Young scale, you can enter him into the Pope & Young record books. And every category of species, like elk, bear, caribou, moose, so on and so forth, has that. And so it's just kind of to celebrate a lot of the heritage of archery. And so Pope & Young, a lot of people don't know it, but that, that basically is the basis of what it come from, but it starts back to, guess what, a Native American, these arrowheads, they passed it on. And so now, we're kind of carrying on that same tradition. And so as a student of the game, it's like, it's so cool to talk about 'em.

   30. JRJoe Rogan19:28

       There they are.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   (laughs) …

   1. MWMichael Waddell30:00

      air out anything and everything, and obviously culture has changed the world, I mean, these podcasts, but back then, you know, you had articles. Well, they would write these books and, and it would be so, like I would read it sometimes the same page two or three times, it'd be like, you know, Saxon Pope talking about or Arthur Young talking about, "Yes, I found out, I think it's too far, 70 yards is too far to shoot at a Cape buffalo. I put three arrows in him. He didn't seem hurt. I got two in the rump, one in the neck." And you're like ...... uh, like, they didn't edit this out?

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:29

      (laughs)

   3. MWMichael Waddell30:29

      It's almost like-

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:30

      Right, right, right, right, right.

   5. MWMichael Waddell30:31

      ... it's, it's almost like me and you hunting squirrel, like, "Man, I tell you what, I don't like them pellets. It's just not-"

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:36

      Yeah.

   7. MWMichael Waddell30:36

      "... those pellets in that air rifle are not, that is not knocking the squirrels down good enough." Like, "Oh, you wasn't supposed to put that. Can you edit that out?"

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:43

      Right.

   9. MWMichael Waddell30:43

      They were just like, "Okay, let's put this in a book and let's sell it." Let's put-

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:46

       Well, they were pioneers, essentially.

   11. MWMichael Waddell30:47

       They were, they were learning.

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:48

       They were learning how to do it.

   13. MWMichael Waddell30:49

       But you imagine how you, you get crucified sometimes for the people who don't understand hunting, even ethically hunting-

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:56

       Yeah.

   15. MWMichael Waddell30:56

       ... and making a good ethical shot, whether it's a bow and arrow or a rifle. And back then, they were like, "All right, let's go try to hunt some African lions."

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:04

       Yeah.

   17. MWMichael Waddell31:04

       "I don't know what it's going to (laughs) take to kill them-"

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:06

       Right.

   19. MWMichael Waddell31:06

       "... but we'll see." (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:07

       They were just experimenting.

   21. MWMichael Waddell31:09

       Experimenting, and they-

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:10

       Yeah.

   23. MWMichael Waddell31:10

       ... they took a boat over. Think about, I mean, I, I mean, I want to go to-

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:14

       How long did that take?

   25. MWMichael Waddell31:15

       ... I've been to Africa quite a few times.

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:16

       How long does it take to get to Africa in a boat?

   27. MWMichael Waddell31:18

       It was taking 'em months to get over there, and they would, they would take a whole ship, and I think they, I forget, I don't want to say it 'cause it could be inaccurate historically, but I want to say they was taking 40, 50 bows, these recurves, and like, just tubs and tubs of arrows. I mean, just-

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:36

       (laughs) 'Cause they were just launching them. (laughs)

   29. MWMichael Waddell31:39

       It's, it's like they had more freaking arrows than P. Diddy had baby oil.

   30. JRJoe Rogan31:44

       (laughs)
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   That's so wild. …

   1. MWMichael Waddell45:00

      piece where he's talking to this authority, but I did go, you know, 30 miles south of there, or 100 miles, and I had a chance to work a turkey around one that's not even been excavated, and it was just-

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:12

      That's so wild.

   3. MWMichael Waddell45:12

      ... blew my mind.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:13

      They find so many of those, too. The, the jungle just overrun all that civilization, just-

   5. MWMichael Waddell45:19

      Oh.

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:19

      ... overcame it, and y- you just, they find them with l- you know what LiDAR is?

   7. MWMichael Waddell45:23

      I heard ... Yes. I saw-

   8. JRJoe Rogan45:25

      Yeah.

   9. MWMichael Waddell45:25

      Uh, well, I s- I didn't know about it until I watched that on the Netflix show with Graham and he-

   10. JRJoe Rogan45:30

       It's crazy.

   11. MWMichael Waddell45:30

       ... was showing how they're flying over in those rings and stuff.

   12. JRJoe Rogan45:32

       See if you can find that pyramid that they just unearthed in Guatemala. They just unearthed some huge pyramid in Guatemala that-

   13. MWMichael Waddell45:39

       And that's-

   14. JRJoe Rogan45:39

       ... has been excavated.

   15. MWMichael Waddell45:39

       We were, we were south-

   16. JRJoe Rogan45:41

       I think it was Guatemala.

   17. MWMichael Waddell45:42

       We were right there in kinda right on the southern tip of Mexico, just as you go into Guatemala, and, uh, I was just intrigued. And we're in the jungle and stay in these little huts and, I mean, these little tents, like almost a screened porch. I was just, I was blown away, and the whole time I was like, "Thank you Lord for allowing me to be the hunter to go see this, to, to experience this and to-"

   18. JRJoe Rogan46:02

       Right.

   19. MWMichael Waddell46:03

       ... and to, I don't know. It's just, I'm overwhelmed. I've never got bored with it, and the more I do it, the more humbling it becomes. As soon as you start thinking, like, "Man, I got a bunch of elk with my bow and arrow. I got this figured out. I'm about to run a rake through 'em. I know where they're gonna be." And then you go out there, and they just kick your butt.

   20. JRJoe Rogan46:19

       Yeah.

   21. MWMichael Waddell46:20

       All right.

   22. JRJoe Rogan46:20

       There's no real figuring it out.

   23. MWMichael Waddell46:22

       Mm-mm.

   24. JRJoe Rogan46:22

       I mean, you, certainly you get to your level or level of Cam Hanes or Remy Warren. You, you, you become very proficient, and you understand what to do and what ... Here it is. Find lost city in Mexico jungle by accident.

   25. MWMichael Waddell46:35

       Holy cow.

   26. JRJoe Rogan46:36

       Yeah. This is what it was. It wasn't Guatemala. So, archeologists found pyramids, sports fields, causeways in connecting districts, amphitheaters in the southern central state of Cam- Campeche?

   27. MWMichael Waddell46:47

       Campeche, yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan46:48

       Campeche. They uncovered the hidden complex, which they have called Valer- Valer- Valeriana? Valeriana, using LiDAR, a type of laser survey that maps structures buried under vegetation. They believed it is second in density only to Calakmul, thought to be the largest Maya site in ancient Latin America. The team discovered three sites total in a survey the size of Scotland's capital Edinburgh by accident when one of the archeologists browsed data on the internet. That's so crazy.

   29. MWMichael Waddell47:21

       D-

   30. JRJoe Rogan47:21

       They found it by accident.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:05:44

   (laughs) …

   1. MWMichael Waddell1:00:00

      you. And it's just amazing, and it's definitely given me a whole lot better perspective. Um, and, and, and I, I don't know. That, that's been probably the coolest part of what I've had a chance to go on an adventure and a journey, is to be able to, you know, meet somebody like Brewer, who's like... You know, he didn't really... was in- not intrigued with hunting. It was more the conspiracy of what was going down, and like, "Dude, I went to go get some chicken breasts and some chicken wings to watch football. You couldn't find any. The government, Fauci is making me learn-"

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:30

      (laughs)

   3. MWMichael Waddell1:00:30

      "... Waddell, teach me how to kill a turkey." (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:33

      Oh.

   5. MWMichael Waddell1:00:33

      You know, on the other hand, first morning out, Jim kills one, and so you know, you've hunted enough, you and Cam, where, you know, you get an elk, and it is a, a reverence. It's not like you... Everybody reacts different, so, but if, you know, if you played a good arrow, kind of the Ted Nugent, the spirit of the arrow, the spirit of the wild, and that arrow goes in there, and you, you've worked for it, you've practiced, and when it, you know it's a good ethical shot, and you know that you got and essentially put the tag on that bull, it is almost like spike... Some people, it's almost like spiking a football and you get a touchdown.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:01:03

      Yeah.

   7. MWMichael Waddell1:01:03

      So I was so excited that Jim Brewer had just got a turkey, that me and, and I had Ira Dean, who used to be in that country group Trick Pony, who is just a trip in itself. He's good friends with Jim, and they live somewhere close down there in Naples, Florida. And me and Ira are just grabbing him. It looked like you wrestling jujitsu. I got him in here like, "You got him, Jim!" You know?

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:01:24

      (laughs)

   9. MWMichael Waddell1:01:24

      You know, and we're like, you know, punching like...

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:26

       Right.

   11. MWMichael Waddell1:01:26

       "You smoked him, you... Now, you... Dude, right in the head." You know, we're high-fiving, and Jim's just over like...Like- like-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:33

       Overwhelmed.

   13. MWMichael Waddell1:01:33

       ... the, like the woman in the shower all psycho, like, "What did I just do?"

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:37

       (laughs)

   15. MWMichael Waddell1:01:37

       "I just killed something." And then, and all of a sudden, I forgot, this is a guy in the movies. This is a comedian that I grew up as a kid watching on Saturday Night Live.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:44

       Right, right, half baked.

   17. MWMichael Waddell1:01:44

       He's never been there.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:46

       Right.

   19. MWMichael Waddell1:01:46

       And- and so, uh, and then I, we slowed down, and it wasn't even hardly any time after that, you know, Jim's just sitting there and he takes the turkey and he's holding it like a, like a little puppy dog and he's holding it. And Ira, my buddy, gets it, he grabs his beak and says, "Hello, Jim." And he's-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:02:02

       (laughs)

   21. MWMichael Waddell1:02:03

       And I think even Jim talks about it, but I- I- I just sat back and I'm like, "Man, what? How cool is this?"

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:02:09

       Yeah.

   23. MWMichael Waddell1:02:10

       You know, and then the same token, you know, Jim's like, "Hey man, if you're ever down here and want to come to one of my comedy shows," and, you know, for my wife and friend to go do that or- or- or to- t- to see something I've never seen.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:02:20

       Yeah.

   25. MWMichael Waddell1:02:21

       Or go home and still tell my dad who's 71, like, "You're not gonna believe, you know, what I saw in Austin. You're not gonna believe what happened in-"

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:02:28

       Yeah.

   27. MWMichael Waddell1:02:28

       ... you know, wherever, Las Vegas, we were at the SHOT Show, it's, I don't know, it's- it's pretty amazing.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:33

       That's the beauty of travel, right? Like, the more environments you could go into, the more completely different cultures you could explore, you get a b- a- just a wider sense of h- humans.

   29. MWMichael Waddell1:02:44

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:02:44

       And that- and you realize, like, we have more in common than we do opposed to each other. We're- we're- we have much more that we share than we don't.

Episode duration: 2:52:11