Join Clay and the crew for a behind-the-scenes view into the MeatEater Live Tour. Steve Rinella, Janis Putelis, and Spencer Neuharth are hitting ten cities across the western United States telling stories, playing music, and even playing games.
Get your tickets for the remaining tour dates in Spokane, WA, Portland, OR, and Tacoma, WA here.
Connect with Clay and MeatEater
Clay on Instagram
MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube
Shop Bear Grease Merch
And way off you can hear fire trucks coming and I just remember when one of the firemen says and he said, that's a great idea, but you're gonna need to put that fire out.
On this episode, we're going on tour, a meat Eater live tour. That is, we're hitting ten cities in an epic thirteen day bus tour. No, I'm not kidding, and I want to give you a sampling of one of our shows. On this one, you're gonna hear from Steve Vanella, Giannis Putellis, and myself. You're gonna hear some music and some great stories. Hop on the bus with us as we hit the American West. I really doubt that you're gonna want to miss this one. Who else is standing up long hair, long haired California hippie.
Yeah, I know who you are. We talk about y'all all the time.
My name is Clay Knukem, and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. Presented by f h F Gear, American made, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place.
As we explore, how are.
They handling the knife situation tonight?
I think they're taking them, take them and label them. I think, so, okay, it's friendly.
Maybe they'll have more than customer service.
Good customer service. Gotta beat seventy five.
Seventy five Sacramento, seventy five.
Knives, one bear spray, and three guns.
We're in Salt Lake City, Utah.
We've been in California for three days and the security is checking people at the door. A couple of nights ago in Sacramento, people brought in a bunch of knives. I'm backstage with Steve Ranella and I ask him if he gets nervous before he goes out in front of a bunch of people.
Steve, how do you feel before these shows? I feel nervous for you, Clay. That's not what I wanted to hear. Do you get nervous at all when you do your monologue?
Yeah?
Man, you real nervous, do you?
Yeah? But it dissipates every time, you know. But like when I'm thinking about kind of like how the material is going to go, I can't decide until the day. Oh, like if I sat side a time aside, I can't commit till the day.
Oh, so it.
Feels very last minute.
But if I decided a month earlier, I wouldn't pay attention to my decision anyways. Yeah, so I only get like, I only get clarity about it at the end. Yeah, and I'm real nervous because I hadn't even thought about it till that day.
I get nervous right before. I felt real solid until that. You know, I never really expected to be on tour.
I always thought it would be the grand old Opry call and hoping to get DIBs on my original guitar ballads.
But this ain't Nashville. This is the Meat Eater Live Tour.
I'd like to invite you along to get a taste of the show. I'm opening up with a song and I hope you can't tell it, but I'm as nervous as a cat, and I think it's important to note that I'm wearing a pale yellow pearl snap button up shirt with two embroidered roosters on the lapel. Misty would call this a bold fashion move. This show is starting, Let's go.
Yeah, it's just a little nerve wracking.
Like this gun fighter.
Old Yeah, this is skilly.
Good evening, everybody. My name's klay Ukelem.
I'm from the great state of Arkansas. We're gonna have a great time tonight. Very happy you guys are here. We're gonna invite Phil Taylor, the Southman out and Mark o'kill.
You guys may know this song. It's called old Slufah. If you know what, you can sing along oak classic.
Him on the mount, don't.
Tell me what you see, fair tracks, fair tracks.
Looking back at me.
Don't get dropped the spot before it's too late.
There's got a little big and he's painted boars.
Okay, Oh he's big around the middle and he's gone across the Frock, running ninety miles.
Now we're taking thirty feet of jump.
Hein never been come, he ain't never been treed.
Con bull, save a second bird.
I said up my money and I bought me some pease, start amaging honey, way up in the trees.
I cut down that tree, up my hunt. It's all gone full soup foot.
Done, eat himself at home. Oh he's sticking.
Around the middle land.
He's gone across the Frock running tiny miles an hour. We're taking thirty.
Feet of jump.
He never been da ever been three Sompule says about like I'll tell you.
Yelling, yell when else come out out of bloody be river flows over, so where can go?
Well they step up the holler and would put him then well.
Shoot him in the bottom.
Just a listen to hill.
He's being around the minute, latystup front running ninety miles an hour, were taken thirty feet of jumping.
Never been calling, he hain't never been treated.
Tom Bold say he's.
Like meat, Bill Taylor and marko'kill. Yes, we're opening with music was a solid plan. I mean, who doesn't like live music? And who knew that Phil could rock the harmonica and sing like that. The heart and soul of the show is to bring the crowd close to the metaphorical campfire of the Meteor crew for the evening and celebrate our way of life.
The tour is also.
About Steve's new outdoor cookbook. Soon after I finished my song, Steve Vanella opens the show with some.
Photos and stories from the cookbook.
This one is about when Steve had to haul a roasted pig in a new York Cab In.
The book, I'm telling us a story of a particular pig roast that I had in Brooklyn, New York. I was living there with my wife and we had we had an apartment, and we had all these people above us, but we had access to this little garden area. And one day me and my body, who was a chef, we wanted to do a Hawaiian luile there, and we went up to my buddy's dairy farm north of the city at all kinds of wood and started building up all our supplies, and we eventually built We dig a pit seven feet long and three feet wide, and we just chisel this pit into this little backyard area and dig, dig, dig, And I would have thought someone would have called the cops based on the hole, because I mean, I look like you were going to bury a person in there. We were actually laughing about that. And we got the hole down real deep, and then it came time for the pig rolls. We had one hundred and fifty pounds pigs standing by it with a bunch of sacks of ice on it, and we started just burning all this firewood we had. We're gonna burn it till we had, you know, eighteen twenty inches of oak charcoal in that fire. Well, we kind of screwed up, and pretty soon it looked like it looked like a scene from Bagdad Bagging the early two thousands. I mean, just black smoke going up through all these buildings, and way off you can hear fire trucks coming. And at first we don't even mention it to each other, you know, I'm like, man, I don't sound good. And they kind of get more and more around and more and more around, and pretty soon not only are the sirens close, but we got lots of firefighters coming through the apartment.
And we get in the back and I'm explaining to the fireman what it is, you know, what's going on here.
And I'll always remember when one of the firemen says, during my explanation, and he seemed like honestly open to the explanation, and he said, that's a great idea, but you're gonna need to put that fire out.
So we still have this pig. The next morning, we get up and we put the pig in a cab.
And take it to this other body of ours restaurant, and we think that his big old restaurant like he's got a commercial restaurant. This pig will fit in the it'll fit in the oven, but it doesn't fit in the ovens. And then we gotta start cutting the pig up, and we're like cooking part of it till it's like done enough, take it out, put another part in. Get that done enough, because we're having we're still having all these people over to have this big party. And we eventually get it done, and we had ninety some people come to our pig roast that wasn't really a pig rolls. It's just a regular in the oven pig rolls. And my wife is real pregnant, real unhappy with me. And at this point, I've been scrambling for days with a stupid pig, including making that big fire and getting all smoky, then getting all greasy, and then like partying with all the grease. And I remember climbing in bed that night, and I remember her saying, please tell me you did not just get in this bed without taking a shower. And I want to point out that the guys that are coming out right now are showered and clean.
Keep it going for Steve.
After Steve's opening monologue, Spencer newharth Our mc calls the whole team to the stage.
We're going to have a little story time.
Next, we have everybody's favorite hillbilly. He came all the way from Arkansas. Makes some noise for Clay Newcombe. And last we have the man of many nicknames. He's the Latvian Eagle, the Latvian Lover. Long time, Yanni, give it up for Yannis poo tell us.
Steve asked us if we'd tell a story about cooking wild game. Here's Yannis, who tell us with a story about a recent family turkey hunt, what they ate and how they cook their turkey. On the screen is a picture of Yanni's daughter with a big gobbler. And by the way, Yanni's wearing a coonskin cap.
This is my oldest daughter Aine, And man, I was really happy that this is just last week. I was really happy that we had a couple successful hunts last week because I knew how to give this presentation coming up, and I took a lot of pictures. My girls think I'm professional photo taker when it comes to dead animals.
They're right.
And I thought I chose just an absolutely beautiful picture of my daughter, so I sent a photo of someone had taken from the crowd back to my wife a couple days ago, and then she showed it to fin know, well, let me tell you, I chose the wrong picture, dude. I mean I got it. Oh my gosh, I got the earfull like you've never at this point. It's if you're gonna show anything of me, I need to look at it first.
Wow.
Okay, but no, I'm always gauging how much my girls actually like hunting. What like the real reasons are like, are they authentically into it? Are they into it just because they want to make their dad proud? Or there's a little bit of competition between the two sisters, So are they just doing it because they want to better their sister? And right after she shot this bird, it's still flopping in front of us a little bit, and she's looking at me and she's like, man, you really just don't feel that recoil when you're shooting at a real animal. And I thought, man, that's only something that a hunter that's really excited about what just happens says. Right when, like you shoot a gun and you don't even feel it go off, it's called recoil. Finally used to be called kickback for a long time in our house, Mabel's just about had enough. I has killed a bird now, so Mabel's kind of up on the gun.
And what I like about this I love folks to see it. But the array of footwear is a stylish yeah, oh yeah. Where you got one girl running chucks and then over yonder Yanni's boots. Got Yanni's daughter's got like three foot tall muck boots.
Mike in Montana.
I don't know, maybe it might be like that here too, But in Montana, those kids wearing mutt boots ten months out of the year.
I mean, it's just it's just normal attire.
But not long after this pictures taken, Mabel and I were off by ourselves a little.
Bit and she's she's fade.
You know.
It's been three days out there and short nights, long days, lots of hiking, getting drug around by dad through the Turkey woods.
And she looks at me and she goes pop them.
I really want a turkey, but I don't want to walk anymore, and I want to go home, and I'm like, baby, no, I don't know what.
To tell you, but you just got to make a decision. On what's more important.
You know, if you want to just you know, throw the towel in, or if you want to try to get a turkey. Now we had some turkeys later that we knew where there were some. So I talked her into going out for one more hunt, and here we go.
She she got her She got herself for a first bird.
And you know, turn your meat into food, and uh, take your kids hunting, especially if they're girls.
Right on, that was a good story, Jannis. The crowd loved it. Now it's my turn. I decided to give a full timeline of the newcom history of eating wild game.
This is some deep history, Clay.
You're ready to let her up?
Yeah, I think so. So the storyteller has to wear the coonskin hat, all right.
I'll see this photo up here. This is my family around two thousand and three. This photo is one of the best depictions in the nukemb photo album of our socioeconomic status about that time in our life. That when I told my wife that I was using this photo all across the country as the entry point to tell about our family and the way we've eaten wild game, I was promptly scolded as she said, this is like the most embarrassing photo that we own. But this is my lovely wife, Misty. These are my two daughters, Willow and River. Misty's actually pregnant in this photo. And we're going to have our fourth son, our third son, and then we'd have another son. But I have a wonderful family, truly do. And I want to I want to walk you through kind of the the arc of wild game in our house because I grew up in a hunting family. It was in the cold cultural background of the newcoms to be hunters. But my dad was born in nineteen forty eight and that was kind of the ascension of America's economic status, so he didn't want to eat wild game, like it wasn't cool to eat wild game and so, but he still wanted to hunt, and he loved to hunt, and he did hunt. He was a very serious hunter. I grew up just never knowing a life outside of hunting. But there was a strange missing piece that we didn't eat a lot of it. My dad was very diligent to take care of all the meat and give it away to people, which he did. But it's kind of weird, you know, And I always thought it was weird too, and so when Mistery and I got married, I was like, we're gonna eat wild game. And as you can tell by this photo, we didn't have much money. We needed to eat wild game that I was killing and Phil go to the next slide. The next lide bumps up about ten years. This is what people in our kinsas do when you take before first day of school photos for your kids. Grab up all your best animals, line them up, bring the kids in, take a beautiful photo. This is a Willow River bear and shepherd. The mule is Elie May. It's a wonder that I'm here today. After riding that mule, Elie Mace tried to kill me three times. Ran off worst. The worst thing that a mule can do is run off. It's not bucking or kicking you gotta worry about. It's when you're on them and they like just out of control run off.
That's what she did. That's eli Ma. The two dogs.
This dog in the front, this is newcom Zoe's Arc Bluff Creek Fern, one of the finest hounds to ever Treecoon and the Ozarks. The dog in the back, his name's Jedi. I was once with a guy named Warner Glenn, an old cowboy in southeast Arizona.
Y'all know Warner.
One time mister Warner, I was with him, was talking to him about his dogs. He says, I asked a very pointy question, how is that dog?
What does it do?
And he said he said, well, he said clad, I wouldn't say it in front of him, but that dog is not very good, son, And I wouldn't say it in front of Jed, but Jed's not very good. So that's Jed, the not very good coon dog. Sad story started to bring the house down. Ferns dead.
She passed away last fall.
But these are my children. We raised them on wild game, truly did. I told them from the time of their birth. I preached to them that wild game was the rocket fuel of planet Earth. The healthiest, most sustainable, most most intelligent way to live your life was to eat wild game. I preached this to him, like literally, just on the pulput at my home for a.
Decade, and they didn't know any better.
They would go to people's houses and smell beef cooking and be like, what smells so gross?
You know?
They like embarrass us and stuff like this.
Tell them about your repertoire.
Well, the Big Five. Yeah, so we raised them on the Big Five. The Big Five was all ground meat, and it was chili, tacos, burgers, spaghetti, and meat loaf. Those kids, if you stretch those out, man, you can get like a month's worth of meals. And we ground everything. I mean, I ain't scared to grind a backstrap.
I mean I did it so much.
We were young, We had careers, jobs, families, My wife work. My wife has a PhD to this day. She was in college back on that last photo, but so she was a working woman. We needed to grind, We needed easy food. But so the arc of the story kind of kind of peaks about right here in this photo.
About twenty thirteen.
I think you, guys, of all people, will identify with what I'm about to say about twenty thirteen. This guy right here, Steve Ranella, came in to my world because he was a friend, because I just I watched him, I listened to him, was influenced by him.
And and this this is not like supposed to be cute or funny, It's.
Just the truth.
He told the world that eating wild game was cool and that and that we were actually the smart people, and it kind of kind of goes back to like what I had heard my whole life, that like, this is not what the cool kids are eating. I stood on the pulpit of my home and was like, this is what we're gonna do. This is how we're gonna live. And then meat Eater came along and validated the whole thing, and I was like, I told you guys, we were cool this whole time.
You know.
I really give a lot of credit to Steve. He changed the game. He changed, he changed the narrative on hunting and it and it it won't. I mean it truly was.
It truly was something remarkable and now we're all a part of that story. Go ahead and flipped to the next live Okay these Yeah, we've been showing some pictures of the kids. This is Shepherd. This is my youngest son, a great kid. Go to the go to the one before this is River my daughter. She killed that bear with her bow. And then the picture before this this is bear John Newcombe, my son.
But uh, is that the neighbors fence?
Yeah?
It was real close to the neighbor's fence. That's right. Thank you guys.
The next section of the show is probably the highlight of the evening, at least for me.
We're gonna have a barred ol hooton contest.
The winner gets the genuine coonskin hat that Giannis and I have been wearing. This hat was made from a combination of Steve and my coon hides.
And we're out.
West, and you know, these are great people, but my expectations for great al hooters are low, very low. If we were in Mississippi, it'd be different. Let's see what these folks have got. The winter gets the coonskin hat. All right, everybody, have a good intermission. All right, we're going to We're gonna have our out hooting contest. Now that I know that this is the native range of the barred out, I'm expecting a lot.
It's not.
It's expanding its range, expanding its range.
So the way this is gonna work is if you are a bona fide barred out hooter.
I want you.
I want you to stand up.
I mean, like if you'd like to compete, but don't stand up. If you're just trying to be cute. I mean, there's like nine hundred of us in here. You know, and I would love to just go through and hear every one of y'all barred out.
Hoot.
But so what we're gonna do?
Surely you guys knew this was gonna happen if we could just turn the lights up just a little bit so that I could see everybody.
There, we go, there, we go? All right, So what we're gonna do.
I'm gonna have like probably like eight or ten of you stand up, you're gonna out, hoot. I'm gonna pick two of you to come up to the stage, and we're gonna have a grand finale up here. I want you to give a sequence of a barred owl, you know, but so barred out, hooters?
Stand up? Who wants? Who's ready? We got a guy right here?
Who's ready? We've got a guy right here, right here. We got a guy right here, orange hat. I'm having a hard time seeing up top. We got somebody right here. All right, here we go. Hey, guys, y'all gotta help me keep track.
Of who's good.
I like the guy out in front because he waved his hands down his pants when he's still.
He's ready to go. All right, we're gonna start right here. Give me your best. Start us off loud as you can go. It's really hard to hear, but these people are making their best owl hoots.
I teeter on embarrassing them, but I have to uphold the integrity of America's greatest turkey shock gobble mechanism.
I gotta be honest. Okay, okay, that was cute. You can sit down, oh right here, right here. Remain standing though, unless I tell you to sit down. Sorry, buddy, Okay, okay, good volume, good passion.
I like it right here?
Mm hm, oh trill are meat eater on your back? Oh dude, he's like a plant. Okay, Oh here, big guys, that's the restaurant dude, I think, Yeah, that's the pokey guy.
Yeah right here. Mm that's pretty that's pretty good.
I like that.
Stay standing, stay standing? Who else, orange hat?
Go for it?
Mmmm?
Here's some real talent down in there. Deep didn't quite show up today, but it was. It's good. Right over here.
That's that's pretty good. That's pretty good. Who else is standing up? Long hair, long haired California hippie.
Yeah, I know who you are. We talk about y'all all the time. The guy rips a terrible alhu but Steve liked it just what I thought.
All right, that was not bad.
It was good.
That was good.
That was good.
All right.
Now we chiseled down to the final two and the audience will choose who's best.
All right.
So the way the way this works now is this will be like an applause O meter. We're gonna hear them both individually.
Hoot.
Okay, And this is when you bring out the big guns. You got big guns. Now's the time you get one chance. I mean, this is like you got one chance. What's the eminem song? You know, like one shot, one opportunity sees everything you wanted, mom spaghetti. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, you're we're on the same level.
Come on up here, man, what's your name? Sharp?
All right?
What's your name? Shar and Nick?
So hit me with your best hold your plause until we hear both of them. You got one shot, did not miss your chance?
You know your opportunity comes once in a lifetime, Steely.
I'd all right, m M, it's pretty good.
All right.
Who's voting for mister King's here? It's applause? That don't look good? All right?
All right?
How about for Nick?
Nick.
Oh wow, overwhelming, overwhelming sounds like Nick wanted.
Good job, man, It was good Nick.
Congratulations you get at the rest of the night.
Good job, guys, Thank you, Thanks. I'm really proud of all of you. If you're out hooting. Wow, that was a lot of fun.
A little embarrassing for the hunting community, but a hat tip to the bold souls that hooted. As we close down the evening, we do a Q and A from the audience, and Spencer has a question for me.
All right, we're moving on. This question just came in. It's for Clay. What wild animal would you like to domesticate to keep as a pet.
Well, I've domesticated and had in hand many of the animals.
That live in my state.
Give me some exciting all right.
The best animal story that I've got is we had a deer. We raised multiple white tailed deer. There was a time in Arkansas when it was legal to have up to.
Six hand caught animals from the wild in the rags. Each family could have six. We raised several. We had one named road Runner.
It was a little buck.
I've got four kids. All my kids were probably between five and twelve when we had road Runner. He lived in our home. I mean literally was like a dog. He would come in and out. The older he got, the further he would range from the house. He had a green collar on his neck. There came a time when he would be gone for hours at a time and then come back and all this one afternoon fall afternoon was musloader season. I went deer hunting about two hundred and fifty yards from my house. I sat on the ground, nestled up by a big white oak tree, had my musload over my knee. There's a deer trail running down in front of me, and you know, right at prime time, I see two deer coming and you know, I go, here we go. And as they get closer, I look and it's road runner leading a wild buck that he had.
Picked up somewhere. It was a small buck. It was like a forked horn.
And I don't know if the wind shifted, but the wind was hitting me right in the back of the neck, just parallel on this trail. And I just laid there, dead still with a muzzlot across my knee. I wanted to see what was gonna happen in my wind is cutting this trail. Roadrunner hits my wind. I mean this, this animal is like lived in my home.
It knows me. It literally, this sounds crazy. It happened just like this.
He literally turned up when started bleating and walked straight to me. And I never moved and he started licking my face.
And I never moved. In the wild buck, he hits.
My wind and just freaks out, you know, stomping his feet and bobbing his head, and he took a couple of steps towards.
Me, and you know, you could just see what he was saying. He was like, don't do it, man, And.
Finally only the buck, the wild buck flags and runs off, and I'm like, dad, gummut.
Roadrunner and we just walked back to the house. You know, hunts over.
You know, it's like, what am I gonna do?
We walked back to the house, Me and Roadrunner.
Now Clay, the question was what wild animal would you like?
It?
I have.
I have.
I have big plans, big plans to uh to to have a pet timber rattlesnake, Like not a joke. We just did a big Snake podcast on bear Grease and I met a guy and uh, anyway, I need a timber Rattlesnake, don't tell my wife. Thanks to everyone who came to the live shows, I really hope that you had a great time. And thanks to everyone who bought Steve's new outdoor cookbook. I'm still waiting on that call from Nashville, but until then, we'll see you on the Bear Grease Render next week. I can't thank you in a for listening to bear Grease in this country life.