North Sea

[00:00] Rory: Hi, Matt. Hi, Roar. I’m excited for today. We’re recording our first sort of bonus mini episode.

[00:07] Matt: Bonus mini episode. Only for superfans.

[00:10] Rory: Yeah, only for those how to be addicts who just need more episodes in between our main episodes.

[00:17] Matt: But really for us, because we had something that we so desperately wanted to discuss that didn’t really fit into our normal format.

[00:28] Rory: Format definitely wouldn’t carry us through a full hour episode or so we think.

[00:33] Matt: Yeah. But I sense we may be running up against that outer limit of the bonus episode, too. We’ve been talking about it all week.

[00:43] Rory: Yeah, we’ve been talking about it for a few weeks now. And that is the North Sea videos that are constantly popping up on our Instagram feeds. And I think a lot of people’s Instagram feeds.

[00:58] Matt: It’s the most dangerous. This is what they tell us. It’s the most dangerous ocean in the world. Yes.

[01:07] Rory: Could you describe the videos to the people who maybe haven’t seen them yet?

[01:12] Matt: Okay, so the videos show a rollicking, wild, angry sea with these giant waves. And there are different themes. One of them that I sent you was all about chains. Showed big chains on the boats. One of them was about, like, winter on the North Sea, hacking big ice chunks off the deck. Some of them are big waves. And those are kind of the best ones. The best one have the same music.

[01:49] Rory: I think the music adds so much to the addiction of why I’m so addicted to these videos.

[01:54] Matt: Yeah, we love the song. It goes like this. Yo, yo, I’m a little.

[02:05] Rory: No, no, you’re doing good.

[02:07] Matt: Thieves and beggars.

[02:13] Rory: Yeah. And the implication, or at least the assumption Matt and I both made, was that this is an old sea shanty, an old demon song. And actually, Sam informed me that it was written by Hans Zimmer for the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. Caribbean.

[02:35] Matt: Pirates of the Caribbean.

[02:37] Rory: Interesting caribbean family. I grew up in a caribbean household. Not a.

[02:45] Matt: Grew up. I think it was a caribbean household in my house also. Caribbean.

[02:52] Rory: Caribbean. Yeah. Pirates of the Caribbean. Now I can’t get that song out of my head.

[02:58] Matt: Everything is just walk around my house, sing it there. I hit it that time.

[03:07] Rory: But these videos are so enchant. They just really bring you into the danger of the North Sea. And there’s these giant boats, know, men.

[03:18] Matt: Are.

[03:20] Rory: Swaying back and forth, almost falling off the ship, being saved by another seamen. And you wonder, why are they there? What are they doing in the North Sea?

[03:31] Matt: Well, yeah, that’s not what I wondered. That’s what you wondered? You were like, are the fish so good there? But it’s like, no, I think it’s oil drilling, mostly, and perhaps some shipping routes. But I wonder why they’re there. In a different reason. I look at these men, especially the video, the winter video where they’re hacking the ice off the deck.

[03:54] Rory: Yeah.

[03:55] Matt: I’m like, I would almost rather do any job. There’s nothing you can do to get me to be on the North Sea. So, like, how to be. No, it’s not how to be for me. But you might have a different answer to that roar. Because Rory, a psychic told you once.

[04:12] Rory: Yes. That I would one day be on a dock. I would one day be on a dock. Commanding people in charge of the dock, basically, yeah. Part of my job. And I would think it’s so funny that this is my job, because it’s so different from where I started.

[04:32] Matt: And this psychic also told you you would meet Sam, right?

[04:37] Rory: That’s true.

[04:38] Matt: And predicted his birthday and when you.

[04:41] Rory: Would meet, his astrological sign.

[04:44] Matt: And the month you would meet. Right.

[04:46] Rory: And the month I would meet. And the color of his eyes. But there’s only so many eye colors still.

[04:52] Matt: She got a lot, right. So you may very well end up.

[04:55] Rory: On that dock, she said. It just came to me, a vision. You on a dock, there’s fish all around you, and you’re in charge.

[05:09] Matt: Yeah. We’ve always known this is a potential for your future. Because of that, you and some waiters with a clipboard. All right, boys, enough fooling around. Back to work.

[05:27] Rory: All right, back to work, boys. Come on. We got a big laugh.

[05:30] Matt: As much as the next girl, but we got a lot of salmon to haul today.

[05:37] Rory: Yeah, I mean, maybe that’s why I feel called to these videos, but I think these people, they go on these oil. Okay. Yes. I thought they were fishing at first, but then you told me they’re oil drilling, which I actually. Yes, that’s true. They are oil drilling, I think, because you see them underwater sometimes, drilling and doing work underwater on these things that are underwater welding.

[06:05] Matt: How do you weld underwater?

[06:06] Rory: I don’t know.

[06:07] Matt: They have that fire, that blowtorch. Underwater. Underwater.

[06:13] Rory: That’s such a great question. But I think it’s like they work two or three months a year and get paid, like, a lot of money. Six figures. Yeah.

[06:26] Matt: For two or three months a year?

[06:28] Rory: Yeah. Would you do it now?

[06:30] Matt: No.

[06:31] Rory: Well, you couldn’t. They wouldn’t let you.

[06:36] Matt: Do they need a rabbinical chaplain, administer last rites?

[06:42] Rory: Oh, yeah. I think it’s like a one in 20 or something. Chance you’re going to die. It’s something really high.

[06:48] Matt: Oh, wow.

[06:51] Rory: Way higher than either of our jobs as a writer for the Jewish Journal and a nonprofit administrator.

[07:01] Matt: Yeah, definitely lower fatality rate. How about that gender death gap? That’s the gender death gap. Have you ever heard about that?

[07:09] Rory: No.

[07:10] Matt: Like, when women talk about how they’re paid less, men’s rights activists talk about how they die more on the job. So we’ll take our extra quarter on the dollar.

[07:24] Rory: Thank you very much. I think it’s that women get paid less for the same jobs, though.

[07:29] Matt: Oh, yeah. You think there are a lot of women doing underwater welding?

[07:34] Rory: No. I mean to say is that the gender pay gap has to do with why someone say there’s two firefighters, one’s a woman, one’s a man. Do with that man getting paid more than the.

[07:51] Matt: Yeah, I mean, I guess maybe. Yeah.

[07:57] Rory: But Sam did tell me that, indeed, that show, deadliest catch was about catching some sea, some very dangerous sea, and they were about catching king crabs. And, like, the first season, one of the boats they followed, they all died. They all died because it is literally so deadly to catch these king crab.

[08:19] Matt: Oh, my God. Do people know that when they eat the crab?

[08:23] Rory: That’s what I was thinking. I was like, I like crab just fine. I like Crab. I don’t want to eat it if people are going to die for it. Who could possibly want crab that much?

[08:34] Matt: Yeah. If we knew. If we all knew. If there was sort of a broad campaign. But I guess that show is the broad campaign. Yeah, I think a lot of people. How many out of ten king crab eaters would desist if they knew?

[08:53] Rory: Count me out. Also, there’s other kinds of crab. It’s not even like you could never have crab again.

[08:59] Matt: Just can’t have that crab.

[09:01] Rory: Yeah.

[09:03] Matt: Can they not farm these king crabs? They can’t grow them in a safe location.

[09:07] Rory: I was just thinking the same thing. I don’t know.

[09:10] Matt: Yeah. Seems worth it in today’s day and age to die for a big underwater bug.

[09:17] Rory: Yeah. So unnecessary. But another thing I want to talk about is who did the North Sea video? Why? Because I’ve seen other accounts talking about how they are getting North Sea videos. Like, really? And so it seems like it’s in the zeitgeist. And so I’m curious why we’re so coddled.

[09:42] Matt: And I think it’s two things. We’re so coddled, our lives are so meaningless. We do alienated labor, and we’re really separated from the power of nature.

[09:58] Rory: That’s true. We’re soft.

[10:01] Matt: There we are, sitting on the toilet, pounding reels to the face for 20 minutes. 20 minutes on a pee. Okay.

[10:15] Rory: You’re sitting for a pee so you can watch your reels.

[10:18] Matt: Could have been a 22nd visit. We’re in there 20 minutes, pounding reels to the face, and then we hear yo. A call to a more pure life, a more authentic way of being.

[10:35] Rory: They’re really, like, in a literary theme, man versus nature.

[10:41] Matt: Yeah.

[10:42] Rory: I’m not in a conflict that would be good for a short story.

[10:50] Matt: Am I?

[10:51] Rory: Versus bed?

[10:54] Matt: Rory v. Bed. Yeah, I don’t have a big conflict right now. Versus beast. Man versus man. Nothing. Yeah, they’re in the thick of it. I saw a different reel today. I sent it to you, I believe, about this woman with a medical condition, and she has a dog that’s trained to get her medicine and get her water from the fridge. Did you see that?

[11:21] Rory: Yeah, I did. I thought the medicine was very conveniently placed for the dog to get. Yeah, medicine like that.

[11:30] Matt: Well, maybe she does. Maybe she does, but I want to know why we don’t all get to have dogs that can get us things from the fridge.

[11:40] Rory: You could. If you wanted to get, like, a smart dog and you wanted to devote hours to training it, you could.

[11:48] Matt: No, I don’t want to train it. Do they sell these well trained fridge dogs to non people without chronic illness?

[11:56] Rory: Dude, you could get someone to train your dog to do that.

[12:01] Matt: Yeah.

[12:03] Rory: I don’t know if there’s a program called training dogs for lazy men, but there’s a trainer out there who you could find who would do it.

[12:12] Matt: Hold up a little card with a picture of leftover pasta on it. That’s a pasta. The show is on. Quick, hurry. That’s the kind of life we live. But those yoho men, they don’t need a dog to do nothing for them.

[12:37] Rory: No. Can you imagine? What do they do at night without the Internet?

[12:43] Matt: Wow. Can you imagine, though, if dogs could do that kind of labor, we would have them do everything for us, I guess you have those monkeys that harvest coconuts.

[12:53] Rory: Oh, really?

[12:54] Matt: Yeah.

[12:55] Rory: Don’t know about that.

[12:56] Matt: Yeah.

[12:57] Rory: Can we have monkeys harvest king crab?

[13:00] Matt: Yeah. So, what do you think the lodging is like on those north ship boats?

[13:10] Rory: Bunk beds.

[13:12] Matt: You don’t think you get your own room?

[13:17] Rory: I have no idea. I don’t know anything about a ship.

[13:20] Matt: What kind of men do you think do it? Is it really thieves and beggars?

[13:24] Rory: But I don’t know what kind of men do it. I think, like, okay. Men whose frontal lobe isn’t fully developed.

[13:31] Matt: Yeah.

[13:31] Rory: Obviously, these people who we know are, like, always been risk takers in life and didn’t go to a liberal arts college like us. Probably most of them.

[13:45] Matt: No, they’re not soft. Do you think Jack from Titanic would do it for six figures?

[13:50] Rory: No, he’s an artist.

[13:52] Matt: Yeah, it’s not his. The sea. The sea really does not call to, you know.

[14:01] Rory: Okay. I guess the type of person who would sail on the sea is the type of person who’s always been interested in sailing on the sea. Like the Moby **** esque characters. Seamen.

[14:16] Matt: The first chapter of Moby **** is all about how humans are drawn inexorably to the sea.

[14:21] Rory: Yeah. It’s all about these men who love.

[14:23] Matt: The sea, but he wants to portray it as universal. We all love the sea.

[14:28] Rory: Well, we know that’s not true, but we as the reader.

[14:34] Matt: We as the reader.

[14:36] Rory: Would you ever even go on a cruise?

[14:39] Matt: No. Maybe back in the Titanic day when it was, like, elegant.

[14:44] Rory: Oh, and transportation.

[14:46] Matt: Yeah. I remember I looked into once, you can get, like, a room on a shipping vessel. Yeah. Because I thought it was kind of a romantic idea, and I was like, and I bet it’s really cheap. No, it’s like, $5,000 to go from where to.

[15:07] Rory: Where were you going?

[15:09] Matt: From New York to Spain.

[15:13] Rory: Oh, you wanted to cross the Atlantic.

[15:17] Matt: Yeah. And you’re just in a spare room on a shipping.

[15:25] Rory: So that sounds scary and creepy and terrible.

[15:28] Matt: Yeah. Let alone who knows what’s going on with the food.

[15:33] Rory: Yeah. I would never go on a cruise. I have no desire to be on the water. I never really think about the water, which is why I’ll be so surprised. Like that psychic said, when I find myself on a dock.

[15:46] Matt: Now, aquatic life. Octopi. I also follow a lot of octopus videos, and I was watching some octopus videos about octopuses that imitate other animals. I was thinking, like, no. To scare off predators, one of them will hide in a little burrow, but send out just two legs to look like a snake.

[16:14] Rory: Oh.

[16:15] Matt: I’m like, do they know that they’re imitating another animal, or do they just.

[16:19] Rory: Feel the instinct to send out two tentacles?

[16:22] Matt: Yeah. And they’re like, this works.

[16:25] Rory: We don’t know why. Well, that’s like when polar bears go hunting and they cover their nose.

[16:30] Matt: Oh, yeah, their nose is black.

[16:33] Rory: They’re all white. In order to fully blend in, they cover their nose with their paw to look all white. Look like the snow. What do they think they’re doing.

[16:42] Matt: But then again, okay, what do we think we’re doing all the time? If we saw, like, a wild animal, maybe we would scream at it. Do we know why that works?

[16:54] Rory: Well, sometimes it doesn’t. Right? There’s the two ways you’re supposed to respond to a bear attack, depending on the bear.

[17:00] Matt: Yeah. Playing dead. Do they know that they’re playing dead? Sometimes it seems like there does. Like, there was that reel about that squirrel that faked its own death scene. Like, it knocked over a broom and put the broom on top of it and was like. It was a dog.

[17:20] Rory: Yeah. I mean, there’s always these dogs pretending, like my dog pretended to fake six that I would stay home from work. Yeah, the fake limps, and they just run off normal with it.

[17:37] Matt: So many mysteries. I hope we get to find out the answers in the next life.

[17:43] Rory: So many holy mysteries. Okay, well, I think we both agree.

[17:48] Matt: Not for us, but we’ll.

[17:50] Rory: We do need the oil. We don’t need the crab. And if you are north ***** listening to this episode, let us know. We’d love to have you on the podcast to do a full episode on it.

[18:03] Matt: Yeah. If anyone listening knows anyone who’s, like, in this world, please put them in touch.

[18:10] Rory: Please reach out, like, subscribe, share, follow more great content. Yeah.

[18:18] Matt: Bye.

[18:18] Rory: Always a pleasure, Matt. Bye.