Thank You For Coming To My Ted Talk

Summary

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Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: Thank You For Coming To My TED Talk
Date: September 18, 2025
Podcast Host(s): Main Host (Identity unclear, possibly Jack or Joe), Katie, and intermittent input from Michael

Episode Overview

This episode of Armstrong & Getty’s “One More Thing” segment dives into the quirky, sometimes heartwarming, and occasionally stark world of cattle ranching. A viral video of a rancher giving a “TED Talk” to his herd inspires a wide-ranging conversation: from the peculiar behavior of cows forming attentive audiences to personal experiences in feedlots, from animal bonds to the harsh realities of industrial-scale livestock management. While the tone begins light and humorous, the discussion navigates into the ethical and emotional complexities of working with animals, ultimately challenging both hosts and listeners to consider their own relationship to meat and animal welfare.

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Main Discussion & Key Insights

1. Viral Cattle Rancher "TED Talk" (03:37–04:25)

• Katie sets the scene: A video of a rancher speaking earnestly to his cattle at his truck, delivering “good news and bad news.”
• Clip of the Rancher (04:00):

  "The bad news is I will not be able to get the well going to give you water. It's not an electrical problem. It's an issue with the motor...The good news is Michael's coming and he'll bring you water...Thank you for your continued support. All right, have a great day."

• Hosts react lightheartedly to the idea of addressing cows as an audience.

2. The Quirks of Cattle Observation (04:26–05:35)

• Host describes his feedlot experience:

  "If you're out in a field, middle of nowhere...like you're digging a post hole...all the cows will come over and stand there and just look at you...And it's a common thing...to address them, say, hey, guys, how's it going?" (04:28–05:11)

• Comparisons with other animals: Sheep, pigs, and goats aren’t the same—cattle are unique in their audience behavior.
• **Hosts joke about delivering impromptu “TED Talks” to cows about topics like leather.

3. Affection for Cows (05:35–06:14)

• Katie laments:

  "I wish they didn't taste so good because they're so stinking cute, man." (05:35)

• Discussion of docile bovine nature:

  "They are unlikely to hurt you. Other than bulls." (05:43)

• Katie shares about Jiggles, a cow with Down syndrome and a blind eye—emphasizing the animal’s sweetness and individuality. (05:50–06:05)

4. Harsh Realities in Cattle Feedlots (06:14–07:52)

• Host reflects on past practices:

  "The cattle were not treated that well, and I was very young, and so I just did what everybody else did. But...looking back on it, it is a little rough...Grown up me would not be able to participate or be around that behavior toward an innocent animal." (06:24–06:54)

• Katie’s boundary:

  "Grown up me doesn't want to hear about it. So I think we've come to a nice agreement." (06:54)

• Improvements in animal handling: More humane (or economically prudent) practices now, e.g., walking cattle rather than running them to reduce weight loss.
• Description of cattle processing: Vaccinating, dehorning, dipping in chemicals, and the somewhat “barbaric” but standard practices of mass cattle handling.

  "That's what I spent most of my time doing, processing cattle, which is giving them all their shots...You give them all their shots. You get a big clipper, clip off their horns. Blood squirts out, and they walk off." (07:05–07:52)

5. Ethics, Meat Consumption, and Desensitization (07:52–09:24)

• Katie refers to "meet your meat" videos, unable to watch animal suffering, yet confesses her love for steak. (08:59–09:09)
• Host recounts a traumatic accident:

  "I ran over a steer with a tractor one time. That was completely an accident...that was pretty horrific." (09:24–09:44)

• The emotional disconnect and humor needed to process these realities is apparent.
• Discussion of the practical—even callous—handling of livestock deaths on large farms, with euphemisms like “the used cow truck.” (10:30–10:44)

6. A Morbid Turn and Self-Awareness (10:06–11:01)

• Katie protests the grim details:

  "This took a turn...Now it has moved into this morbid, horrible place that I don't like." (10:06–10:24)

• The host self-consciously apologizes for darkening the tone, especially on National Cheeseburger Day.

7. Pop Culture Reference & Episode Close (11:02–11:13)

• Napoleon Dynamite anecdote: The infamous scene where a farmer shoots a cow as a school bus passes—used to underscore the sometimes surreal, darkly comic nature of farm life.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On addressing cattle:

  "It's a common thing when you're out there by yourself to address them, say, hey, guys, how's it going?...Welcome to my TED Talk." — Host (05:01–05:13)

• On affection vs. consumption:

  "I wish they didn't taste so good because they're so stinking cute, man." — Katie (05:35)

• Animal individuality:

  "My friend has a cow that has Down syndrome and is blind in one eye. Its name is Jiggles, and it's the sweetest cow ever." — Katie (05:50–06:05)

• Feedlot memories:

  "Looking back on it, it is a little rough...Grown up me would not be able to participate or be around that behavior toward an innocent animal." — Host (06:24–06:54)

• Dealing with death at scale:

  "Lots of cattle die....So you have a pile, and then they had something that they humorously called the used cow truck." — Host (10:30–10:43)

• Katie’s comedic resignation:

  "I tried to stop him. I did. And so did Michael. On National Cheeseburger Day, this is what you do." — Katie (10:52–11:01)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:37: Introduction of the rancher’s “TED Talk”
• 04:26–05:13: Cattle’s peculiar audience behavior & hosts' farm recollections
• 05:35: Katie expresses affection for cows
• 06:14–06:54: Host reflects on ethical discomfort from feedlot work
• 07:05–07:52: Practicalities of cattle processing
• 08:59–09:09: Katie on meat-eating and animal suffering
• 09:24–09:44: Host recounts tractor accident with steer
• 10:30–10:44: Mass cattle death and "used cow truck" realities
• 11:02–11:13: Napoleon Dynamite reference and episode closure

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Tone & Style

Warm, candid, sometimes darkly humorous, with a touch of rural wit. The episode illustrates the tension between affection for animals and participation in a system of industrial animal agriculture—balancing personal memory, practical necessity, and moral reflection.

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This episode offers both an insider’s look at cattle handling and a thoughtful, if uncomfortable, reflection on the realities behind our food—couched in the loose, conversational style characteristic of Armstrong & Getty.

Transcript

[Christina Quinn]

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[Christina Quinn]

Many ultra processed foods, you could be starving your gut microbes and they'll get hangry. That's one of many things I learned after working on a new audio course about the gut microbiome. You can learn how to keep your gut happy by listening to Try this from the Washington Post. I'm Christina Quinn. I host Try this. Dig in with me on practical advice for life's common challenges. Follow. Try this right now, wherever you're listening. Seriously, try it.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. It's one more thing.

[LG X Boom Advertiser]

Armstrong and Getty, One more thing.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

Gonna be a short podcast today unless something pops into my head. But I wanted to get this on because I've had this experience myself. Katie, what are we about to hear?

[Katie]

We are listening to a cattle rancher who is standing at his truck and his entire herd of cattle are all facing him. And he is addressing the crowd.

[Cattle Rancher (voice in story)]

I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is I will not be able to get the well going to give you water. It's not an electrical problem. It's an issue with the motor.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

Okay.

[Cattle Rancher (voice in story)]

The good news is Michael's coming and he'll bring you water. Okay. So you're not gonna die. You'll just be thirsty for a while longer. Okay. I'm sorry. Thank you for your continued support. All right, have a great day.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

Thank you for continued support.

[Katie]

Have a great day.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

So I don't even know if you know this about me, Katie, that I used to work in feedlots for years. I worked with cattle for years. Tens and tens and tens of thousands of cattle in pens and out in fields and everything like that. And that is a thing that cattle do. Sheep don't do it. Pigs don't do it. Goats don't do it quite the same way. They will. But you, but cattle, if you're like, if you're out in a field, middle of nowhere by yourself and like you're digging a post hole because you got to replace a broken post.

[Katie]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

All the cows will come over and stand there and just look at you.

[Katie]

And just watch it.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

And they'll just stand there right around you, like in a nice orderly circle and watch you. And it's a common thing when you're out there by yourself to address them, say, hey, guys, how's it going?

[Katie]

And they're just observing.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

They're just observing. And it feels like you've got an audience. And I know that Other friends of mine, because we'd be out there working on somebody, we'd start talking about, how you guys doing, huh? That's my whole, like, welcome to my TED Talk. I. I want to talk to you all today about why I like leather. No, no, no, hear me out. This is what I like about leather. You know, we would start various conversations, make each other laugh.

[Katie]

And I've said this a million times to family and friends. I wish they didn't taste so good because they're so stinking cute, man.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

Ah, they are. They're relatively nice, too.

[Katie]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

They aren't. They're. They. They are. They are unlikely to hurt you. Other than bulls.

[Katie]

My. My friend has a cow that has down syndrome and is blind in one eye. And its name is Jiggles, and it's the sweetest cow ever, and it comes up to you and just kind of puts its little head sideways. India and I love it and made me want to be a vegetarian.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

And does Jiggles lives outside some?

[Katie]

Yeah. Amongst the other cattle. But she's just. She's not, you know, she just kind of does her own thing.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

I don't want to turn something nice into something not nice, but when I worked in the feedlots and this was many decades ago. Gladys.

[Katie]

Oh, you're gonna go there. I can feel it.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

The cattle were not treated that well, and I was very young, and so I just did what everybody else did. But it was. Looking back on, it is a little rough. A little rough, yeah. The way cattle were sometimes treated. And I don't even want to tell the stories or get into the specifics, but it was grown up me would not be able to participate or, Or. Or be around that. That behavior toward an innocent animal.

[Katie]

And grown up me doesn't want to hear about it. So I think we've come to a nice agreement.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

Yeah, I don't think that goes on anymore.

[Katie]

I would. I wouldn't think so. Right? I mean, times have changed so much.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

Yeah. Well, even just for practical reasons, they stopped running them. We used to run cattle everywhere just because we're in a hurry. Like you have giant area of pens, and you've got a pen, maybe it's a quarter mile away, and you got 300 cattle. You need to process. That's what I spent most of my time doing, processing cattle, which is giving them all their shots and everything like that. So you run them down these alleys, and then you run them into a pen, and then you feed them through this process and they go through one at a time where they go in this chute, and, like, I would stand there and I'd have, like, 10 different syringes. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. You give them all their shots. You get a big clipper clip off their horns. Blood squirts out, and they walk off. It doesn't seem to hurt or anything. Just blood would squirt out like a fountain, like. Like a Monty Python fountain. It would just squirt out.

[Katie]

Barbaric is right.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

Then you. Then you put them. You dip them. So they would go into a cage, and then it would be submerged in all these chemicals.

[Katie]

He's still going, michael, do you notice that how we kind of had this agreement that he wasn't gonna go through?

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

I'm not doing the bad stuff. This is just the normal.

[Katie]

Oh, this is. This is. Okay.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

This is just the normal stuff. But they would submerge him in this liquid and all the chemicals and stuff like that to get ticks and fleas and whatever else off of them, that sort of stuff. They didn't dig that too, because they thought they were drowning. So they would evacuate themselves when they were submerged. And then you lift them back up, you open the gate, and then they run off because they're scared to death. But anyway, we would run them everywhere, and then they decided, you know, that's actually, you know, running a steer in the heat for a quarter mile is causing it to lose weight. We don't want them to lose weight. We want them to be heavy.

[Katie]

Right.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

Because you make more money. And then they started walking them.

[Katie]

Oh, interesting.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

That was more out of saving money rather than trying to be nicer.

[Katie]

Wow.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

But when we ran them, that's how I got stampeded. The one time. I've told that story too many times. I won't tell that story again. But, yeah, I did that for a very long time. Hmm. That didn't turn me off meat.

[Katie]

Yeah. See, that's the thing is, it's like, I've been sent those, like, meet your meat videos. You remember that one that went around. I think PETA made that crap years ago.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

Yeah.

[Katie]

And I. I saw. I can't watch. I cannot watch that stuff. I actually just told. I was like, if a dog dies in a movie, I'm not watching it. If, like, an animal is getting tortured, I'm not watching it. But I. I still. I. I can't resist a nice bone in ribeye. I ran wrong.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

I ran over a steer with a tractor one time. That was completely an accident. That was completely an accident in my fault. And it was that was pretty horrific. And I.

[Katie]

Could you not. Did you not see it?

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

I still did this day. Don't know how it happened. I was. I was turning a corner, and I don't know if it in. In between or. I just did. I was daydreaming and didn't see it or whatever, but I ran it over.

[Katie]

Oh, boy.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

Yeah. And then. And it was gruesome to watch. But then I had to go tell my boss, and he. He was quite unhappy because that's several thousand dollars I just destroyed. And then you get a. A chain you put on the back of your pickup. And then you wrap a chain around its hoof and you drag it down the gravel road.

[Katie]

All right. You know, this took a turn. It started with a really sweet video of a guy giving his cows a nice talk. You're not going to be thirsty for long, don't worry. Thank you for your attention. Have a nice day. And now it has moved into this morbid, horrible play. Moved into this horrible place that I don't like. I like it. Michael, back me up, please. This is. This is terrible.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

This will be my final comment. So then you put them in a pile because lots of cattle die. Because you heard tens of thousands of cattle. So they're dying regularly. So you have a pile, and then they had something that they humorously called the used cow truck. That would come by once a week.

[Katie]

Oh, my God.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

And pick up the used cow truck. And then you take it to a rendering plant where they, like, boil it down to make. I don't know, folks. I tried shoe leather or something.

[Katie]

I tried to stop him. I did. And so did Michael. On National Cheeseburger Day, this is what you do.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

Yeah.

[LG X Boom Advertiser]

That's pretty sick.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

If I had remembered that, I would have kept my mouth shut. I'm sorry. You guys ever seen Napoleon Dynamite?

[LG X Boom Advertiser]

There is one scene where the farmer shoots.

[Katie]

Yes.

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And the school bus goes by right at that time.

[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

Yeah, it's a funny moment. Well, I guess that's it.

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[Podcast Host (possibly Katie's co-host)]

Ah, come on.

[Christina Quinn]

Why is this taking so long?

[Sophia Bush]

This thing is ancient.

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This is Buzz Knight from Taking a Walk. Lexus believes in the importance of standards One of my standards I never want to be late. I always want to show up on time. For Lexus, the standard is simple experience. Amazing. Their benchmarks aren't stats or specs, they're feelings. Exhilaration, joy. That sense your car was designed just for you. Machines built to make you feel more human. Because a car that doesn't make you feel something is a car that stops short of amazing experience. Amazing at your Lexus dealer, if you.

[Christina Quinn]

Eat too many ultra processed foods, you could be starving your gut microbes and they'll get hangry. That's one of many things I learned after working on a new audio course about the gut microbiome. You can learn how to keep your gut happy by listening to Try this from the Washington Post. I'm Christina Quinn. I host Try this. Dig in with me on practical advice for life's common challenges. Follow Try this right now, wherever you're listening. Seriously, try it. This is an I Heart podcast.