#781 - Kevin Rose

Thanks for having me.

And thanks for introducing me to your dog, because I have to tell you that that video of you grabbing that raccoon and chucking it down the stairs was easily one of the most gangster things I've ever seen.

Appreciate that.

Is this it?

Yeah, this is it. I had to put a little disclaimer up here so that, you know, the animal rights folks wouldn't get pissed off.

Yeah, they're going to get pissed off.

Anyway, right now, I hear him crying because there's no audio on the cameras, but he's, like, just getting mauled by this thing.

And you just picked it up and fucking chucked it like a gangster, dude. I mean, you didn't just push it away. You picked it up over your head, went back behind the head like you're throwing a medicine ball.

Here's another angle.

Yeah, this is the best angle over the back of the head, and bang. We're talking to Kevin Rose, the founder of dig.

I got to say, though, it was a little liquid courage. I'd had a couple of glasses of wine. And number two, my intention was to go down there and just kick it right. But it was on top of my dog, so I'd be punting my dog at the same time.

It was tangled. It was tangled.

Then I grabbed it, and it's greasy and kind of bristly, but whatever. When it's your baby. I know that sounds weird to say with a dog, but it's just like, I thought he was dying. He was howling like he was getting shredded, but with his claws. So I'm thinking, my dog is being killed.

Did you think it was a coyote? No.

We had seen raccoons in the backyard before, and it was just one of those things where they always just kind of, like, run away the second the lights come on. And this time, I don't know if he had babies. Actually, there were some other raccoons that we saw with him at the same time, so I don't know, man.

Those weird sort of fringe wildlife creatures like raccoons and coyotes that kind of hang around cities are so creepy.

Yeah. There's a ton in Francisco just all over the place at night. They just dig through the trash, basically.

Well, San francisco, believe it or not, at least the outside edges, has a bit of a mountain line problem.

I've heard that.

Yeah. They did this study recently where they checked the digestive tracts of all these mountain lions. And they thought, we're going to find deer and rabbit. No, they found mostly pets. It's like 50% cats and dogs is what they found.

Yeah. You don't want to tangle with a mountain lion. That's crazy.

Well, it's just weird that they've chosen to exist in the periphery of these cities and sort of feed on these pets.

House animals.

Yeah.

It's too bad.

Yeah. It's not normal, though, that a raccoon attacks a dog like that. Right?

Yeah, they typically just take off. That's been our experience with them. And then I proceeded to go on Amazon and buy a trap. And so then I was able to trap one a few days later, and it was like, I went down there just to check out the trap, and I saw it from above, and when I got down there, it was just hissing and trying to scratch the cage at me. They're not the friendly ones that you see on YouTube. There's some that are kind of domesticated where people feed them, and then they come and you can pet them and whatnot. These wild ones are just like the I will cut your throat kind of animals.

I had a feral cat for a while, and I love cats, but feral cats, it is a completely different experience. Like, mine was a kitten. It was a little baby. It was really young, like maybe three months old at the most. And you couldn't get anywhere near it. You'd go near and it would run up the side of the wall. It would tear apart the curtains. What did you get away from you?

Did you just get rid of it?

No, I kept it. I locked myself in a bedroom with it for a couple days.

Taming it?

Yeah.

You had to break it?

It's not even that I had to break it. I just had to get it used to me. It was a real weird experience. My friend Lainey, she and her boyfriend lived in this apartment in west La, like, Santa Monica area, and there's these feral cats that had had babies underneath the apartment building. And so they're like, oh, my God, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? All right, we have to trap them. And so she knew that I already had two cats, so she's like, do you want a cat? I was like, all right, fuck it. Give me a cat.

Yeah. And if you give those to the animal shelter, they'll just terminate them.

They'll kill them immediately.

It's too bad.

Well, it was so hard to get used to this thing, but it would hiss at you. But when you pick it up, it would go. It would, like, be the loudest purrs, so happy that someone was touching it. But then you'd put it down, just for a second. It would, like. It would run away again. It took forever, and it took years before it would let anyone else get even close to it.

Like hiding under furniture, things like that.

It would hiss at you and run away from you. I was the only one that could touch it. And even me, I had to go, hey, dude, it's me. You know me, right? We're cool, right? We're cool. And I had to get close to him, but he would swing at you. He would definitely bite you.

I don't know why. About a month ago, I was looking up how to break a horse. I just thought that'd be kind of. Kind of a fun thing.

Fuck that.

Why not? It would be amazing, the bond you would have. I know. They'll kick your ass, though. They're so big. That'd be fun, though. Yeah, that'd be a good, like, weekend project. Get off the computer, go break a horse.

I know a bunch of people that have gotten hurt from horses, that have fallen off horses and broken arms and legs and stuff. I know a dude got kicked by a horse. Yeah.

That could be death.

Oh, yeah, they kill, like, all kinds of animals. Like dogs, like barking dogs. They kick them. The dog over. Yeah, I mean, you're getting hit by a telephone pole. These fucking things are giant. It's an animal that can take a 200 pound man and run with it on its back for hours.

Right. There's raw power there.

I was in Montreal, and there's this amazing restaurant called Joe Beef, and they serve horse there. And it's one of those places where I know the owners through Anthony Bourdain. He introduced me to him. And so they said, just let us cook for you. And so we're like, okay, go ahead, man. He goes, fuck the menu.

Just let us cook for you, like horse three ways.

Well, that was just one of the things they brought over. We didn't know what it was until they set it down. They're like, this is horse tartar. And we're like, wait, crazy. Wait a minute. What? Raw horse?

Yeah. I've had lamb tartar one time when I was in Dubai. That was a little funky. It's very fatty, so it's a lot of, like, film on your mouth after you get done eating. Know, like, the roof of your mouth. Kind of like a little filmy, not fun.

Well, I'm a fan of lamb until I found out what lamb is that. It's baby sheep. That's what it is you think of. It's lamb.

Sheep though, too, right?

No, that's mutton.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah. It's like veal is like the veal.

Of the mutton world.

Yeah. And I went, oh, I didn't know it was babies. Yeah. Well, really young, immature. Yeah.

That's too bad.

It is too bad.

It is tasty.

It's the most delicious. Well, that's why when you get lamb chops, it's a very small bone.

Interesting.

Yeah. You figure, like, we would just assume, right.

That's too bad. You just kind of tainted me forever.

Bummed it out. Well, it's really easy for you to digest, for some reason. Lamb is a much more digestible meat protein wise. Yeah. It's very good for you. A lot of people feel like it's a more high quality meat, closer to a wild game than, say, like, cows and things along those lines.

How do they measure that?

It's a good question. I know they can measure protein content somehow, and they know that some animals, I think moose as, like, the highest protein content, like per gram kind of thing. Yeah. But I think it's also. That's probably based on how lean it is, too, because you would assume that an eight ounce piece of mousse would be far less fat than an eight ounce piece of domestic beef.

Right.

So that's probably how they measure it.

Crazy.

Well, it looks different. Like, lamb looks different than beef. When you look at. It's like a redder sort of. Unless it's grass fed beef. Grass fed beef, pretty red.

Have you tried bear?

Yes.

See, that's one I haven't tried, but I've been curious. I've heard it's pretty oily, though.

No, it's not. No. Well, it really depends on how you prepare it in the field and what you do with it. But bear sausage is delicious. And bear back straps. The loin is really good grilled. But bear, you have to be really careful because you can get trichonosis. A lot of bears have trichonosis, so you have to make sure it's cooked to 165 degrees.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

So there's no medium rare bear loin.

The only way you could ever do that is if you got it tested first. You could do that. Like, you'd send it to a lab. Like, you take the bear's tongue and you send it out to a lab and they test it. Or is that. I think you might have to actually send the actual meat itself or a piece of meat, but if it has trichonosis, it's throughout its whole body.

Is it tough?

No. Bears. Weird, man. Their bodies are very mushy. You would think of their bodies like an elk or a deer is a very strong. They're very muscular, like a horse is, but a bear is almost, like, gushy, like when they die. And when you pick them up, they're like a fat person. It's weird.

Well, they hibernate and they have those big fat stores. That makes sense.

But they have what you would. The way you would describe it is like they have a soft body, but the meat is very good.

Yeah.

The way I describe it is like a pig fucked a deer. That's a bear tastes like.

Really? Because I like pig.

Yeah, you would like it fucked a deer. If I had some, man. I'm having some delivered on Thursday. How long are you going to be in town for?

I take off tomorrow.

Damn it. Next time I'll bring you some bear sandwich, and I'll have it frozen for you so you could take it back. But it's really good. And