A 21st Birthday Starts At Midnight And Somehow Ends With Snakes

A midnight 21st in a tiny Wisconsin town collides with hunting rules, bar pranks, and a hard lesson about tradition versus change. We chase the thread from cement mixers and Malört to rattlesnake skins, anti-venom, fake IDs, and the value of small rituals.

• small-town tavern culture before gun deer season
• waiting for 12:01 and first-legal-drink hazing
• hunting safety, responsibility, and the sober dawn
• the lost rattlesnake skin and why change stings
• venom vs poison, Everglades pythons, anti-venom basics
• behind-the-scenes zoo tour and locked venom fridge
• dancing anxiety, weddings, and rhythm honesty
• fake IDs, $20 handshakes, and upgrade lore
• bitcoin pizza story and how value becomes legend

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Top Shelf Stories with Jay, Chris, and Tony.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

All right, guys, I'm gonna get right into it. I like it. I'm gonna set the scene. I like your style. Set it. It's a month and a half after my 21st birthday. Okay. It's the holiday season.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Did you even get drunk on your 21st birthday? I did. I didn't you don't have to you don't seem like the type.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

I did. It was uh it was kind of that was a great little story because I still go to that bar every year. Um so my 21st birthday. Uh my birthday is typically around on the day before or the day after um opening day for Wisconsin's gun deer hunting season.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Of course it is. You were born with that birthday. Yeah.

unknown 1:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

I didn't get to pick it. No, I'm just saying because you're such a gun freak that it it just coincides perfectly.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

You have more guns than I have children.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Technically own. That's not a very big number. You guys always talk shit about me having eight kids. Well, I mean, if you said I have more guns than you have fucking cats, you're not supposed to have in your apartment. All right, count all anyone that's under 18. So I go to this uh this tavern. I think when they're when they're uh in rural areas are no longer bars, I think they are technically taverns. Really?

SPEAKER_02 2:04

I wonder what the official difference between a bar and a tavern.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

So my grandfather's place uh what would you consider that? It's it wasn't a big thing. I don't know. It was a tavern.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

I think that that place was at one point a tavern, yeah. It felt very tavern-y. It was Don's Tavern. So I think it was called the Tavern, was it? Yeah, Don's Tavern. Oh, then it was definitely a tavern. I used to have the hat. That's a great hat. You should find that.

Bar Vs Tavern And Small-Town Life

SPEAKER_00 2:32

I know. I have it somewhere. So my 21st birthday, uh it was on opening day, so it was on Saturday. This year when we get up to the hunting the hunting uh area, you know, the town that I hunt in, there is a population currently, according to the sign, of 301 people.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

So it's a very small town. So their downtown or as they like to call it their metropolitan area is uh one block long and it consists of four closed businesses, a post office that's open two days a week for four hours. Um a hotel uh that can't seem to stay in business, it has uh it has a restaurant on the first floor, hotel on the second floor, and it's a shared bathroom with six individual rooms that only have a bed in it. I don't know how they can't stay in business. That's the hotel? That's the hotel. Is that connected to this tavern? Uh so we were in a tavern across the street. Does that tavern offer lodging? It does not. Okay, because I according to the internet, there have been people that have passed out and just politely not been woken up.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

The difference between a bar and a tavern is a bar just serves drinks. A tavern is a historically older, typically older establishment, and it offers food and potentially rooms. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

So so this one that we were at was uh the happening bar of the town. Tons of people in it. Um it's the day before hunting season, so the place is fucking packed. Uh that that city's whole commerce comes from hunting.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

It's during the two weeks of gun deer hunting.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Yeah. Also, it's a very popular place. It's on the Mississippi River, so it's a very popular uh duck hunting destination, also. So a lot of times the place is just filled with a bunch of duck guys. They're always trying to bring their Labrador retrievers in the bar. In the the bar. Yeah. The tavern, you mean? They come in wearing their camouflage that looks like swamp grass. Can't even see them.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Did anyone ever catch a shark in that in the Mississippi? I'm sure there's they've swam all the way north.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

A North Wisconsin, Mississippi shark. Yeah. Is that what?

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Heck yeah. It's a bull shark. They go all the way to Lake Michigan. Come on. So I don't go there and I don't swim in Lake Michigan anymore. Like I ever did.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Lake Michigan doesn't even connect to Mississippi River.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Doesn't so I think there's some outline.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

There's a way, but it would have to like swim up the fox and swim up those. Yeah. It would have to swim quite a different path.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Jump on a car traveling towards Michigan.

Opening Day Crowds And Duck Hunters

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Okay. So my uncle, who was my mentor for hunting, w was very rule oriented. Like it was very it was like, we're here to hunt. Don't fuck around. We're not doing this. We're you know, he didn't drink. He's like, you know, we're not staying up in the bar, we're not doing anything stupid. We're gonna go. We're gonna kill some time in the bar, we're gonna eat some food, then we're gonna go back, we're gonna get to sleep early, we're gonna wake up, and we're gonna get out in the woods fresh, you know. He pre-baked his potatoes for breakfast the next day, the next one. Pretty much, dude, just ready to go. Um so I go in there and I order a drink. Like it's my fucking birthday in the morning. Kitty cocktail? No, no, I ordered I ordered uh well because I didn't really know much about drinking and most bars don't serve Boons Farm or Mad Dog because that was most of my drinking experience before that. Um I ordered a shot of vodka because what the fuck do I know really? Gross. Uh and they asked me for my ID, and he uh the bartender looked at it and she said, Well, technically I can't serve you until uh 12 01 and it was like nine o'clock and I'm like son of a bitch, and this this bar has a little band in it, you know, for hunting season. Um and we sat in there, uh my cousin and I, we sat in that bar killing time until I turned 21, and then I spent the next two hours in that bar just getting hammered drunk. Drinking shots of vodka?

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Fucking I wonder how you are as a drunk.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Well, like she probably wouldn't have asked if you would have ordered a rum and coke. So you ordered a shot of vodka. Yeah, I'm like a shot of vodka.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Yeah, oh yeah. How do you act drunk? Uh how are you? Are you like a quiet, tired, like you just relax when you're drunk, or are you like psycho, like someone you know? I don't know. I don't know. I just ever told you, hey, no, Tony, you you like fell asleep on the bar, or you just were like you didn't talk to anybody like you normally just talk to everyone.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

I personally think that when I when I'm drunk, I am exactly the same. And nobody tells me otherwise. Just like my dad. You can never tell when he's even buzzed. I so I I did get a little drunk last summer one time. Uh and it was the first time I'd been like where I knew I was drunk. And uh I was at I was at like a band outdoors. Yeah. It's a great spot. It's a great spot to have a good buzz going on. I had to uh I had to go use the bathroom and it's I don't know like half a city block walk away. And uh I started walking and uh I just thought, you know, I don't think my hands are doing what they normally do when I walk. You drinking THC drinks or alcoholic drinks? I think like like they're not moving enough, so it looks like I'm walking real weird. So I'm like, I should probably move my arms a little bit more, so I'm walking, I'm walking, and now I'm like exaggerating moving my arms. And I need to think you're really excited walking? I need I needed to come up with a plan on how I was gonna make my arms look normal when I walked. And uh I don't think I executed it because one of my friends said, What the fuck you doing with your hands? But that's about the extent the things that happen to me when I'm drunk. Um sounds pretty boring. It it really was. But I noticed since I was since I was a little drunk, um we ended up we ended up going to the bar after this little concert. You'd never guess where I was. I d I can't, you're right. Yeah, no, we'll just leave that as a mystery. But I go I go into the bar and uh um I started noticing like I I wasn't like I'm not I don't care how drunk I am, like I'm not gonna fucking dance or anything like that. I'm not gonna do fucking dumb shit like that. I'm not gonna do I'm not gonna do the standard like Chris at his at his uh concerts, the white guy dancer, you just hold the drink. The head bob? Look around. You don't you don't like the headbob? I just I just sit there, but that's like you can do a side-to-side head bob.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

You do the same thing you always do then at the at a concert. I don't I can't see you dance. I stay brought and stiff. I've seen you dance like a goddamn man.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

I dance in a way that my feet move. I make sure I consciously make sure that my feet are also leaving the floor and as exciting as my arms and shoulder and head is.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

So you've seen Tony do Zumba. Is it if it's any implication about how he actually dances? He doesn't dance. I don't, not at all.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

So when you go out I don't pretend to, I don't think I know how to secretly dance. On the dance floor, I don't practice at home at no beat.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

On the dance floor one-on-one with your wife. Do you know how to just stand around and hold her and just kind of walk around with her?

The Rule-Bound Uncle’s Hunting Code

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Oh, the slow dance? Yeah. The sixth grade shuffle. Yeah. Yeah. Keep the Bible distance between you. I do that. That's what saves my marriage. You do that? Does she make you dance, or she doesn't like dancing either? No, I basically get raped into school. So you're dancing at every wedding I go to.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

You're at a wedding and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

She's like, give you a blowjob if you go on the dance floor with me.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Her favorite song hits and she grabs you and says, Tom. That's the song that's in my head.

SPEAKER_03 12:15

To the window, to the window.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

So the sweat's dropping off your balls. You're dancing with her, or are you like standing there, just kind of holding her, spinning her around a couple times? No, I don't know. Trying to ditch her off to one of her girlfriends and then ditch it, dip, dip away. No. Or are you grabbing the hips and grinding her deep?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

No, I don't even entertain a situation like that. Dude, you gotta take advantage of those things. I gotta wait till motions on the move play uh like Eric Clapped and Tears in Heaven or something.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

You gotta act in a way that if you're if your children were there, they'd be they'd be ashamed of you by the way that you're dancing with their mother. That's the way you gotta do it at these weddings.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

I just I just don't I don't have it in me. Like I I feel like I'm naturally good at most things that I do. Not dancing. Dancing, I just I don't even understand it.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

There's always something you're not good at. And there's dancing. If dancing's one of the things, I mean I'm fine with me not being good at dancing. Yeah. But I could do some Michael Jackson moves that would be.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

And then you look at him and you're like, God damn, I wish I could do that. Nah, I didn't know. I wish my body moved like that. They have they have rhythm. They they're they're good. That's the problem. I have no rhythm. We don't have rhythm.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

I have no musical talent. We have to really work at it for years, and that even still, you'd still look like you're a white boy dancing.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Yeah, like you're acting, like you know how to dance. Like you don't actually know how to dance, you did it once, and a player had acting as a dance.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

You know, one dance, like one dance from high school and you were in a production of fiddler on the roof.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Like you can dance for 12 minutes. And that's it. All right, let's get let's go back here. So you're at this tavern. What happened to the tavern? Uh yeah, first 21-year-old drinking spirit.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

They made they made me sit there for what felt like a decade, but it was really like four or five hours. No. No, and I was with my cousin and and he had been 21 for a long time already, over six months. So he wasn't feeding you drinks? No, so so he just made it like this big deal where he would have the drink and then the bartender would be like, Don't give none to the don't give none to the kid. The kid. Yeah. So it was this big ordeal where he could have his, he was drinking vodka lemonades because he was also just 21 and didn't really know what like vodka lemonade's a fine drink to have.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Maybe not in the evenings, it's more of a day drink, but it's like heartburn in a bottle. Yeah, you can only have two of them. One.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

So then then uh I waited out. It gets to be 12 01, you know, 1216 on the bar clock. Yeah, and uh uh the bartender goes, I'm gonna buy you your first drink. Salad, whiskey. And uh I assumed it was gonna be the vodka I had ordered earlier, but she hands me this uh delicious looking creamy shot. I was like, Oh, this is gonna be fucking awesome. It looks like chocolate milk. Sex on the beach, no concrete mixer, cement mixer.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

Yeah, that's other bad. That's bad.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

That's real bad.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

It turns into a rocks in your tummy.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

You ever had a cement mixer?

SPEAKER_02 16:30

No, is it strong?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Uh it's some kind of cream something or other. I don't even know if there's actually liquor.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

What is it? No, there's alcohol in it, but it's it basically it's alcohol and milk, which curdles in your stomach and turns into uh yeah, they they put lime juice on it.

Waiting For Midnight And First Drinks

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Maybe that's what it is. And the minute the lime juice mixes with the other stuff, so you put it in your mouth, yeah, and then it immediately curdles. Gross. So you immediately have a mouthful of cottage cheese. It's terrible. And then you gotta try to swallow it down. And uh were they all laughing at you? Oh, yeah, they were all fucking laughing. They're making fun out of you. You know, the fucked up thing though is my cousin also took the cement mixer. Yeah, like she gave us both one, and my cousin loved it. And to this day, he'll order one for himself.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

I think it's called the concrete or is it a cement?

SPEAKER_00 17:27

I think it's a cement mixer.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Fair enough. They both sound bad. Yeah, you don't want to drink that.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

It's the worst.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

I could have given you like a rumpel min's, it just got nice kick, minty. Dr. McGillicutties.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Have have either one of you guys had a liquor called Malort?

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Not drank it. No, I know all about it though. People love to tease about it.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah, it's the national drink of Illinois.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

Yeah, something like that. It's a really nasty liqueur. Melort? Malort. Apparently mixes with nothing. All of the hipsters drink it because it's cool.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

What flavor is it? Uh Melort. It's uh Malort its own flavor.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

It's some kind of um wildflower. I forget which one.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

It's an Illinois thing, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

It's I've never had one personally. My brother has had one and he said he can he can uh like if he thinks about it, he can actually taste it in his mouth. Yeah, it's bad. It's so bad. So every time uh we're at the bar and somebody's kind of irritating them, my brother gets them all shots of malort. That's mean. Yeah, and it turns into a big ordeal. So what would the Wisconsin one be? Like dandelion? No, a flaming. That's what it is. That's what Melort is. It's dandelion. Is it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

A flaming Zambuka. You ever had a Zambuka shot?

unknown 18:53

No.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Zambuka is a black licorice. I think it's I don't know what what uh original place of the world it's from, but it's so high in alcohol content you can light it on fire.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Thought you can do that with the uh rumplements too. Can you?

SPEAKER_00 19:10

I think uh I think brandy is almost exclusively a Wisconsin thing. It I think it partially maybe is, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

And the and the um uh what are the Bloody Marys like Crazy is a big Wisconsin thing too?

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Yeah, old fashions.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

So after you had your concrete mixer, you didn't have nothing else up there or what?

Cement Mixer Hazing And Malört Lore

SPEAKER_00 19:31

No, then then you know I got like a vodka cranberry, you know, this typical 21-year-old shit. And uh I spent those two hours getting uh relatively wasted. And uh in the morning my uncle took great pleasure in fucking forcing me out of bed, which I did not want to get. At like four fifteen in the morning. Yep, and then dragging me out, and then uh for some Reason accusing me of still being under the influence of alcohol because it's only been fucking 40 minutes. And uh I told him, but I I got a good hour and a half of sleep, so I'm great. And uh he would not let me go out into the woods like a responsible human being uh with firearms, so I got to sit in a truck until lunchtime. And then you're allowed to and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Oh, that's bullshit. He should have let you go out there and then let you fall asleep out there and miss launch hour. That would have been a real punishment. He would have been like, told you.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

No, so so my job just became uh whenever somebody else shot something, I had to go help them drag it. Yes, sweat out that liquor. Yeah. And uh yeah, it that bar's uh it's not the same owners anymore, but it's uh it's still open. We still go in there and eat every year for hunting. It's a great little bar. I I uh over the last I don't know, whatever it is, 30 years of me going to that city for hunting and eating in that bar. Like there's uh I I don't know, man. It it just it feels like it feels like a piece of history to me.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Like uh a couple years ago when the new owners took it. Um you know, Wisconsin's got these little rattlesnakes, they're called the timber rattlers. And yeah. Are they they're poisonous? No, they're venomous. No poison, though.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

They're a timber rattler steak, Jay. How can they be venomous? Ven whatever venom. Venomous. Yeah. That just sounds wrong. And not be poisonous.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Uh there's a difference between poison and venom.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

I would love to hear the difference. Um like venom, it's just like a bee sting, like bee venom. Well that's it's not poisonous.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

You're on tech today. But uh uh these timber rattlers, I guess, are are pretty easy to find along little streams in the Mississippi River and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

So they got a rattle and everything. Yeah. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

I don't know we had those. That's why they're a rattlesnake. Um they found a rather large one, it was like seven or eight feet long. What? Um and they actually they killed it and skinned it and sh and had its skin stretched out on this big board. So there was like it was like basically having a mounted rattlesnake that was almost as long as this room. And they had that hanging up in the bar almost my whole life. And when the new people bought it, they fucking took it down and like just got rid of it. Yep. And then put up a shelf with a bunch of fucking dumb packer beer steins. And it was like the most irritated I've ever been. Like, I didn't want to go in there anymore. Like they fucking changed it.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

I'm about to go see my favorite band with a new drummer for the first time. That's tough. It is gonna be tough. That's on Friday. I've been worried about it. Yeah, man. Nobody wants that. We barely listened to him, let alone go see him.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Which band is this? Umfri?

SPEAKER_02 23:25

Yeah, Umfri's McGee. They got an they got a new guy? Yeah, they're drummer and um split ways. Didn't they have two drummers? No, but he was just that good.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

I think they're like slipping.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

They got a percussion guy and a drummer, if that's what you're thinking of. Yeah, behind the bongos, and he plays a symbol and all kinds of other little things. We all joke, he doesn't do anything, yeah. Yeah. So I can understand the change, man. The change is trouble.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Some Yeah, man. I was I was very dissatisfied with the stuff.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Next thing you know, they're gonna have different seasoning on the steak. So my god.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

They'd probably go out of business.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

All right, venom is injected. While poison is absorbed. Think of it if it bites you, it's venomous. Yep. If you bite it and die, it's poisonous.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

What did you say?

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Venom is poison. If it bites you, it's ven venomous. But a timber's la rattler, I don't think, can kill a human, is I think is the distinction that you're trying to establish, Jay. Maybe it can. Yeah, I'm just saying. But if you bite it and die, it's poisonous. What do you mean if you bite it? If you bite like a fruit, okay, I get it.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

I'm just saying, you're not gonna bite a snake and be like, fuck. You could. I'm gonna get poisoned. I bit a snake.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

You couldn't.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

I was uh you could bite a snake.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

I just watched uh video about a chick who was jumping on the bandwagon. You know, there's these whole uh groups of people that are trying to clear the Everglades of the Burmese pythons. Yeah. And I don't know I I'm assuming because they're non-native species that they they've this in Flor Florida, Ever Everglade. Okay, yeah. I'm assuming that that they've been people's pets that have been released. Yeah, they're but I don't really know how there's such a huge population of them.

Dancing, Rhythm, And Wedding Floors

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Because they have no predator, they are really not being eaten by anything other than like an alligator, and I mean snakes aren't like that type of snake, I think, is more out of the water than it is in. Yeah, it's not a water, but yeah, they are not native to Florida.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

But they there's all these groups of people. I think the government is paying people to collect them. Kill them. So people are are getting into the snake wrangling game. And uh, I watched this video of this chick who went out in her new venture to try to catch these Burmese pythons, and uh she she found one in the road and she picked it up to to capture it, and it bit her, and then she was looking at it and she was going, I don't think this one's a python, and then the video switched to her friend recording her being airlifted out of the Everglades. Yikes and uh she was in the hospital for like 60 something days, and uh this so uh you gotta like fight venom with venom somehow. Yeah, I I it's weird.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

Every toxin is is got his equal and opposite toxin.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Yeah, I so they collect venom from snakes and then administer to you somehow when you get when you get that you get bit by it. The an they figure out antibodies from the anti-venom is the venom in reverse? No, it it's it's like the milked venom of that snake. And I don't know how they how they administer to you.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

Chris, another one that doesn't make any sense. Sounds like the hospital is trying to milk her out of a stay.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

So so right now I took I took a behind the scenes uh zoo tour this year, and we went through the like reptile holding room, and they have several venomous snakes at the zoo, Milwaukee County Zoo.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Yeah, is this only for like uh people in rich rich counties and and uh suburban areas? It it actually was. Like you we're not looking I wouldn't be allowed there.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

No, God, no, you had to prove income. I've been on the behind the scenes thing, and I don't have any income.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

I sort of knew they had a behind-the-scenes zoo adventure. It's uh it's a tour, it's it was like five or six-hour tour. I don't want to get into what it costs to have them pick you up on their little golf cart and take you around the whole zoo.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

They pick you up from your house on your golf cart, yeah. They drive all the way to your house on their golf cart.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Did you get to go in the training? They send you a car. Do you get to go in the train repairs?

SPEAKER_00 28:32

Send you a limo. No, I didn't. We uh I think we spent too much time in some of the other places of the tour.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

So I'm saying, like, when I go to the zoo and I see someone coming out of limos, those are the people that get the the back end tour. The golf cart limos, the zufari mobile.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

The zufari. No, we are I'm like, why can't I get on one of those? We had a personal uh just a regular six-seater, nothing fancy.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

The turning radius radius of the Zufari trolley train thing is impressive.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

The way they come in and turn that bitch around to grab the new pair, new new set of people, it's pretty pretty legit.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

But they they have a refrigerator in the back of the snake area, and uh you need two keys to open it. And they gotta be turned at the same launch house. No, they're they're the shitty uh clasps like you would put on your door, like if you went and added a screw-on clasp to put add a padlock to a door, but there's two of them on this refrigerator, and it's uh written on the outside of it in Sharpie the inventory of it, and it's all their snakes venom.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Anti-venom or venom?

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Well, I think anti-venom is the venom. I don't think that's how we I think it is, bro. You got a computer right in front of you. So you're saying uh if you get bit by a snake.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

You have to find venom from a water moccasin. Why not just get by bit by it again? Then it counteracts it and kills its own venom.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

I I don't I don't know if uh when it's injected into you from the snake.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

Yes, got it. Venom is used to create anti-venom for anti-venom, which is specific treatment for venomous bites and stings, using antibodies, antibodies from immunized animals or humans to neuralize toxins.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Immune immunonize. Immune.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Yeah, so I think if you get bit by a snake, you gotta drink that snake's venom.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

Basically, you have to get you gotta get pissed on in the leg.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

You have to give you something that is immune to the venom, the actual venom, and then you take that blood or whatever, whatever their antibodies from that immune person, and then put it into you if you've been bit.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Or you can make Tim Freedy. Tim Freed, F R.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Does all the guys get bit by snakes all the time to make anti-venom?

SPEAKER_02 31:09

He the blood of a US man who deliberately injected himself with snake venom for up to two decades. He is protected against fatal doses from a wild range of species in animal tests. That is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

So he's been used to make antibodies.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

He just injected himself with snake venom. I saw that on one of those. In order to be immune.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Well, that's how they uh that's the treatment when you uh um what is that? Lyme's disease. The the like um if you get Lyme's disease, you're saying? I don't know if it's the Lyme's disease. I can't do this, right? Uh before before you get it or after you get it. Like if it's preventative or real.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

I've been sleeping with ticks for years to avoid Lyme's disease.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

They literally inject you with small amounts of Lyme's disease.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Uh of the I was camping and I had a tick on my dick. Thank god it didn't bury itself in there. I'd be jerking it off to get it off.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Jeez, that's how you found it? Tick on the dick? You notice there's a little nub rubbing against your callus? Little bump is not.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

I just felt it when I got a aroused. And I was like, what is this? Oh, it was it was rocking my dick.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

It was hiding in the uncircumcised dick.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

It's a new record. How many minutes did we make it before Jay said dick this time? Where are we at?

Tradition, Change, And The Missing Rattlesnake

SPEAKER_01 32:43

32. That's pretty good, Jay. Yeah, I was it was under the flap of my uncircumcised penis. It's hiding there, burrowed in that little warm, cozy. It's right in a fold.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

If I was a tick, that's where I would go.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

No, I know a couple people that have that have gotten Lyme's disease, and I it's really bad. You never go, you can't, there's no cure for that.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Okay, so then then it's pre-Lyme's disease, they inject you with Lyme's disease. To try it to avoid ever getting it? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't fucking know. That's yeah, that's the treatment.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Do you guys remember that one time there was a virus where we all decided rather than fight it, we were all gonna hide in our homes and wear masks? Do you remember that part?

SPEAKER_01 33:27

I think it came from a uh Lyme's disease light. Lime's disease light.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Never again. Lyme's disease 19. I remember.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

I was there. I wish I could remember my 21st birthday. I had a whole bunch of them because I had a fake ID since I was like 18. So I had like a 19-year-old 21st birthday, a 20-year-old 21st birthday.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

Did you get your brother's ID or something?

SPEAKER_02 33:52

No, no, I would. And I was just like Steve Bradley or whatever the guy's name was. But you always get like that guy.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

You always gotta do it from a different state, too, right? You always had an ID from Michigan on Mindset McLean.

SPEAKER_02 34:09

I took it so far that I would wear a pair of non-prescription glasses, and then when the guy would say this doesn't look like you, I would say, Oh, hold on, let me put on or take off, I would say, my glasses. Jesus. I wear glasses. I even tried.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Well, if you got it made, what did they they make it with someone else's picture?

SPEAKER_02 34:29

The best way to get in with a fake ID is to have a$20 bill in your hand and shake the guy who's gonna check the ID's hand with that same hand. I don't think that's the 20 in it. It works all the time.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

Oh works all the time. In the local West Dallas Bar is not.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

This was 25 years ago, though. That's how I got my zoo tour.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

The handshake, man. The handshake. I've gotten rooms at hotels drastically upgraded using that move.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

I've done that at in Vegas. A$20 bill.$20 bill goes a long way to a counterperson who's making five, seven, eight dollars an hour back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

What if I try it?

SPEAKER_02 35:09

You just take it.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Someone's like, this is extortion and slaps me.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

You at the hotels, you do it real sneaky. You bring your reservations paperwork and you just put it down on the table with just a little 20 corners just sticking out of the paperwork, and they grab it and they go, We'll take care of this paperwork right away for you. And then you get in and you got an upgraded room and you're taken care of right away.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

What if you try that with a police officer and he wants your registration and you slip out a hundred dollar bill out of your wallet, and here's my license and registration? I I heard cops only accept dick.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

Bribes are best taken when they know you're coming. It's like you already have a reservation to the hotel. You already have a reservation.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

So someone's got their hand up, but like you have to the restaurant.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

Hey, hey, mister, we want to have a really good table tonight. And then you just leave a 20 in there when he gives your ID.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

You know, I want to try it for something, and I feel like it's not gonna work, especially with the 20. So I'm just like, 20.

SPEAKER_02 36:10

No, yeah, 20s are tough.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

It's not even gonna get me a meal at McDonald's. Yeah, 20s are tough nowadays.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

Used to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

I give them a fraction of a Bitcoin now. Could be ten dollars. This could be ten dollars. I hand them a digital wallet, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

Paper wallet.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

This could be twenty dollars, it could be twenty thousand dollars, you don't know.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

Depends on your time horizon.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

When Bitcoin was not a thing in 2000, whatever, 12. Someone tipped a pizza delivery guy like thousands of Bitcoin. Yeah, did you hear about that? Imagine that, dude. Yeah, oh my god. So now that dude's still working at Domino's he's trying to, he's waiting for the next crypto to get tipped to him.

SPEAKER_02 36:51

It's only the half of the true story, the way you told it. Oh, is it okay? I don't know. Some guy said that he would buy a pizza using Bitcoin if he could find someone who could take it. So this is some guy in Britain or something. He's like, I will buy a big pizza and then some guy ordered it with Bitcoin, and Papa John's took it. 20,000 Bitcoin for two large pizzas.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Yeah, but they'd have to hold it to a certain amount. I mean, they could have sold it at$200 a share. Whatever. I get enough topic here.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

There is no topic. That's top shelf stories today. All right. It started off with Tony getting drunk for the first time at 21 years old on shots of vodka and concrete or cement mixers.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

And it ended up being your finest budget-friendly vodka. And it ended with venomous snakes.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Tony getting uh zoop zoop freaking a la carte. Tony's wife's knees hurting because they got backstage viewing at the zoo.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

No, they gave her pads. You bring your own. She had to run through like ten people. You were like, hey, you did you ever hear of pronies? All right. Well, I mean, that was our fucking ramblings of a madman. Top shelf stories. You are a madman, Tony.

Venom Vs Poison And Anti‑Venom

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Every Tuesday. Tune in where you can. It's available everywhere. Let us know where you listen to Top Shelf Stories by emailing us at Top Shelfstories at gmail.com. I don't think that's our email address. So if you get something kicked back, just call Jay. There you go. Leave us a review. Just go to our non website. We'll send you a t shirt. Good night.