Starting Standup in Maine with David Walton

#40 DMB and Eating Farm Animals

• David Walton

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Speaker 1:

Good evening. Today, on Starting Stand-Up, we are simply going to talk about two things Dave Matthews Band and farm animals. Please enjoy. Oh man, that's rubbish. That's rubbish. Big news, big news. I'm heading to Dave Matthews. I haven't seen a DMV show in about 20 years. I'm going to be back around 1 in the morning a few hours before this podcast goes live, so maybe I'll just add a little post-DMV thing I'd like to talk.

Speaker 1:

I wrote an essay, award-winning essay, about how I used to imitate Dave Matthews' voice and thought it was like cool, or I thought it was impressive that I could imitate Dave Matthews' voice. And I was driving with my girlfriend then at the time, who was in a very serious relationship, and then at the time who were very serious relationship, and I remember crash came on and I just decided to like match it, you know, just to like show her that I had as good a voice as Dave, maybe even better, and so I did the whole song, kind of eyes closed, and I opened them and I and at that point is when I realized that she, at that moment, watching me sing, she fell out of love with me. That was it. That was the end of our relationship. Of course we didn't break up right then and there. But if I think back to what happened, that was it. I earnestly sang Dave Matthews, and that is just such vagina repellent. I just this is a PSA for anyone listening. And this is the essential message of the essay I wrote, which maybe I'll share because it's well written, so some of the best writing I've ever done.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, I'm going to the show. Hopefully it's loud enough. I'm going with my wife. I think it's a high-risk environment. She hasn't really seen me sing Dave. I think there's something so dorky about being into Dave as a dude. There's something effeminate about it. I can't quite put my finger on it, you know it's just like it has. He holds the guitar really high and I don't know. There's just something the frat jazz of it all. Um, it be the crowd I'm. I love the crowds at concerts. I don't really like live music, but I love seeing who's there and realizing where you are, like what kind of person you are, because who you like to listen to and who you'll spend money to go see really says something about who you are. And so what I'm expecting is kind of a lot of washed up frat boys and girls who are kind of balding and fat and are trying to go back to that time. You know that carefree late 90s, early 2000s. Dave was fresh and we were just tripping billies. I'll take some pictures. I'm really fascinated. I'm going to New Hampshire for the show they're playing right now. This is Tuesday night actually, because I'll be at the show tomorrow, so I'm doing a Tuesday night record anyway. Um, dmb all the way. I'll give you a little tickle of the show. Uh, coming up, I'll send it out right after.

Speaker 1:

But uh, another big epiphany this week my daughter is working at a farm. This farm is called Red Boot Farm. It's the sweetest thing in the world. She is in charge of a dairy cow named Dottie, the dairy cow's baby calf, a goat named Ginger, milking goat, and then a number of other goats and then chickens who are both being raised for slaughter and for egg laying. She's got some other responsibilities. She's working at the ice cream shop, she's shoveling cow manure. You know, she's just being a helping hand. She's like a farm intern and it's so sweet and beautiful and I'm just so happy for her and I've been going with her some mornings. So I'll be at the farm at 6 in the morning and I'll open the barn door with my daughter and the cow, dottie, is just waiting there waiting to get milked. My daughter hand milks the goat and then there's a really cool machine that milks the cow.

Speaker 1:

This is all to say. I have a much closer, as of this week, I have a much closer connection with where food comes from. So, and there's been some changes, some massive changes in how I think about what I'm eating. The long and short of it is, I used to be like, oh, poor chickens. And now I'm like chickens are the dumbest fucking animals on earth. You should have no problem eating chickens. They're basically idiot dinosaurs. They don't love their mothers. They're just so dumb.

Speaker 1:

And the way they kill them at least on this farm, I watched the slaughter and it is, it's humane. I mean, do I want to get into it right now? Yeah, you put a head into they, put a cone, they screw a cone into like a two by four around chest height. You grab the chicken by the legs. It doesn't like being grabbed by the legs, of course, and so I would say that these chickens have perfect lives for eight weeks and then it sucks for about 30 seconds. So they live an eight-week life and for 30 seconds they're like this sucks. I'm upside down, my head is poking out of a cone. The guy who's been feeding me this whole time just slit my throat and I'm bleeding out into a bucket. You slit the two arteries on either side. They don't have a lot of blood, so within four seconds they're toast. They're not feeling, so maybe this is the kosher way to do it. This is the most humane way to do it.

Speaker 1:

If you cut their head off, you know the classic, just hacking a chicken's head off and watch watching it run around without a head. That just goes to show you what kind of animal you're dealing with. But uh, that they can choke on their own blood through their esophagus and I think that's more inhumane. So when you slice the arteries around the esophagus and don't cut the esophagus, then they don't choke and it's really just, it's kind of clean living. It's just like the mellowest way to go. And anyway, I've been watching the processing, which is a pretty cold word for how they kill a chicken. So I'll take you through the process because it's really fascinating.

Speaker 1:

The chickens have been growing for eight weeks. Every chicken you've ever eaten mostly is like this Cornish hybrid. They grow from chick to fully like a five pound chicken in like eight weeks. And if they've been raised out in pasture they're eating organic feed. You know they're going to get big fast. They're going to taste delicious.

Speaker 1:

The minute they're dead in the cone you put them in 150 degree water, like a vat of it, almost like you're throwing a lobster in a vat and that loosens the feathers. Throwing a lobster in a in a vat and that loosens the feathers. Then you do that for like 10, 15 seconds and you loosen the feathers up. Then you put it in this drum that has all these sort of rubber nipples and it's basically like there's like probably 33 inch rubber nipples poking out of the side of a metal drum and it's almost like the rubber nipples are quarterbacks and they're just throwing the chicken to each other like go long. And you just hear this like and the chicken is just getting fucking, just pulled around in this weird steel drum with all these nipples. I don't know how it works, but basically the hot water has loosened up the feathers and now this thing. And then I'm not kidding 15 seconds later that chicken that was once alive is now almost completely featherless and just ready to be gutted, you know, take all the organs out, that's not the technical term.

Speaker 1:

Then you go to this nice silver table. You take out whatever remaining feathers are in there. You have a little tool and you get the little guys out and then you cut it. You cut off the neck and the feet. Save the feet and the neck. I mean dogs love necks. A lot of gelatin, a lot of medicinal value in the feet, the feet and the neck. I mean dogs love necks. A lot of gelatin, a lot of medicinal value in the feet, collagen. And then you take out all the organs, the intestines, the heart save the heart and the liver. Pancreas is poisonous so you got to make sure that doesn't split open. You can die from eating the pancreas of a chicken. And then you get the rest of the stuff out of there. It's a pretty long process. But what's crazy is that once all the organs are out, you sort of cut out the butthole.

Speaker 1:

That chicken goes into a vat of cold water just to kind of cool it down because it's hot from the water, and then you vacuum seal it, I would say from alive to vacuum sealed in a refrigerator. This is, at a small time, you know, super organic. These are. These chickens will retail for about eight 50 a pound. So you know you're talking about a five pound chicken as being over $40. Organic farm raised, humanely raised chicken $40. And that chicken was alive and within. Yeah, I mean you could do it faster, but in this particular operation, 7 minutes was vacuum sealed With a sticker on it in a refrigerator In 7 minutes and when you look in the fridge you're like I just bought that chicken. So it's this sort of fast forward of the process where animal to food, animal to food. It's fascinating. I'm very happy I saw it.

Speaker 1:

You would think I wouldn't want chicken after seeing it, but my mouth is salivating right now. I think chickens I mean I think a perfectly roasted chicken may be my favorite food. Obviously, steaks are delicious, but something about a roasted chicken where you can get in there with all the juices and everything and the veggies Anyone with me on this one? Anyway, I thought that would be interesting. Nothing funny about my description, just trying to be accurate, but what really I'm trying to say is, after seeing a goat get milked by my daughter, I will no longer drink goat milk.

Speaker 1:

After seeing a cow get milked, I will still drink cow's milk, but it takes a little time and those nipples are nipples. I mean that is a, a resembles, a human nipple, just like someone who's had about 48 babies. And they've just been sucking on those human nipples and they've just extended a bit but they they're very nipply, same Same with the goats. So I remember Arnold Schwarzenegger being like milk is for babies and it's like I kind of agree with Arnold. You know it feels like what are we doing? Are we babies? But milk is so good for you Protein, carbohydrate, sugar and fat is everything. Perfect food, perfect food, milk, so you can live off that shit. So anyway, I'm happy about the milk. I like a little raw milk from this farm.

Speaker 1:

And then the big thing is I'm going to have a hard time eating beef now. Because I'm going to have a hard time eating beef now? Because, well, here's my journey is that as I was feeding the dairy cows hay, they have a personality of a dog. I mean, these cows are quirky, they're loving, they have these beautiful big black eyes. They look at you.

Speaker 1:

When I feed, I'll go into the hay bale and I'll fetch out like a really nice moist piece of hay, you know, like a big handful of hay and I'll put it in the little dairy cow's little trough and he will. Just you can see the enthusiasm. He loves it. He'll go and he'll get that moist little morsel of hay and he'll just munch it, staring straight into my fucking eyes, saying thank you and I love you for giving me this choice, hay. It's almost like you know, when you, when you pack your friend a bong and you and you just give them the perfect part of the nug. You know, you know you get that nug and there's just that one little part of the nug that looks so glistening and good and you're like you're packing your buddy's bowl and you're like, oh, let's just hook him up with this perfect glistening nug. That's how it felt when I was giving the cow the hay.

Speaker 1:

Now. So I don't want to eat beef and I told the farmers this. They had a really interesting response and this was well, you don't eat dairy cows. Dairy cows are kind of special. They're chill, they're like with you. You know, beef cattle are assholes. They're like angry and aggressive and they don't want anything to do with you and they're just out to pasture their whole life and then they get a nail in the head. You know, uh one bad day, but they're not. They're not doing a whole lot of connecting with you as a human.

Speaker 1:

So if we're going to have the perfect farm, you know, for retirement, you're going to have a dairy cow. I think that's a great idea. One dairy cow. You're going to have some egg laying chickens. Maybe you get one or two chickens. You raise a few chickens to eat every now and again. You got to have some goats. I mean goats are so funny. I mean goats are. I think goats are more intelligent than dogs. They are dogs. I mean it's just so arbitrary that we don't eat dogs or that we eat goat and pigs when they're just as smart as dogs. But anyway, I digress because goat is incredibly delicious.

Speaker 1:

This episode is sponsored by PETA. Peta is our first sponsor. Peta is an organization that protects the lives and welfare of animals all across the world and they're super happy about me talking about this. So thank you, peta. Anyway, the big thing is I am still going to eat meat, but it's going to be harder. It's going to be harder for me to have some beef, but what's cool about these farmers are they were 13 years vegetarian and then they started raising animals and now they eat meat because they have this connection with them Almost like. You know, you sort of lazily think about Native Americans, like honoring the life, and I will digress.

Speaker 1:

Joseph Campbell, you know who wrote A Hero with a Thousand Faces. You know the Hero's Journey. Basically every Hollywood movie is based on the principles of Joseph Campbell's study of myth, mythology, jungian archetypes, etc. Joseph Campbell has a great quote. He goes, he always, he's sort of funny about vegetarians. He's like I don't really get it. Life lives on life. Everything is alive, everything is conscious.

Speaker 1:

The only difference between an animal and a plant is a plant can't run away. I thought that was pretty funny and probably accurate. So I know the Buddhists don't kill living beings, but you know plants are alive. So I'm not sure what they think about that. I know some Buddhists who go I only eat things that don't love their mother, and I think that's a pretty solid way to look at it. So, fish, oysters, any shellfish, chickens I don't think chickens yeah, I haven't seen any chickens loving a mother more than like two or three days after they're born. Turkeys Uh, I'm not sure they're loving anything. Turkeys their reputation is truly the dumbest fucking animal on earth. So, yeah, slice that turkey up, no problem. But yeah, not sure why this has turned into an eating thing. It's just on my mind. You know diet, exercise and meat.

Speaker 1:

This is a post DMV broadcast. This is a post DMV broadcast. Dmv, I'm back. It's 1.30 in the morning. Look guys, it was an amazing night but it wasn't amazing for the reason you think it was. I think I recognize five or six songs of the 30.

Speaker 1:

We sat down for a good portion of the show. Dave still has the guitar held high. He's still ripping. It still has that frat jazzy vibe. It still has that frat jazzy vibe.

Speaker 1:

Uh, it seemed like he just wanted to kind of play his songs, like he wasn't. He wasn't too concerned about playing the hits. We kept thinking like, okay, a nice string of hits are gonna come along. I mean maybe five or six of the big boys. He did play the. I'll go back to being friends. You know that song about hooking up with your friend and then the next day going back to being friends. It's a very beautiful song, um, but I was dead accurate. It was a high-stakes environment and I'm very happy to say that it may have saved my marriage. I mean to be singing Dave Matthews at the top of my lungs earnestly with that intonation and to have her still be attracted to me. You know she poked a healthy amount of fun at me but at the end of the day she was in even though she loathed it. She loathes the music she doesn't understand and she's very upset. They didn't play Crash, she was a total all-in-er and I had a blast and I'm just so happy I went Well.

Speaker 1:

I hope everybody enjoyed a recap of Dave Matthews and farm animals. I hope you've re-evaluated your relationship with the food you eat and re-evaluated what you earnestly sing to. And if you're a man and you think you have a pretty good voice and you think of any song by John Mayer, eddie Vedder, dave Matthews, if you feel like singing along to it is going to help you get laid, I want to assure you that you are sorely mistaken and that you are risking everything. You should shut up and not imitate these men. That's the Mount Rushmore of don't imitate eddie, dave, john mayer uh, there's four on my sure. Yeah, we'll think of the fourth, but yeah, let's just just never, ever do it, unless you're being ironic and, you know, making fun of them. Tiktok, summer goes on. Guys, we're half. Basically, christmas is almost here. Fuck, if you're going to do anything this summer, do it now. Tiktok, thank you.