Transcript
A (0:01)
Well, hi there, it's me, Julia Louis Dreyfus. We're back for season three of Wiser Than Me. We've got so much more wisdom to share from the magnificent old ladies featured this season. To celebrate the start of season three, we've added some groovy new items to our Wiser Than Me merchandise collection. Head over to our merch shop to check out all of our great stuff, like a classic Wiser Than Me bagu tote bag, a kitchen tea towel with my grandma Deedee's delicious peanut butter cookie recipe featured on it, and a new, gorgeous hardcover Wiser Than Me notebook to capture all of this season's bits of wisdom. Start shopping today by visiting wiserthanmeshop.com.
B (0:45)
Lemonade.
A (0:49)
In California. When you live near the mountains like I do, every once in a while you get to see a bear or even a mountain lion. And it's a reminder of the wild world this place used to be and that we've tamed it thoroughly and perhaps tragically, but not completely. So when the opportunity came for our family to go to the Galapagos Islands many years ago, the miraculous volcanic archipelago off the coast of Ecuador, we knew exactly how lucky we were. And boy, off we went. And I gotta tell you guys, it was way, way, way beyond my expectations. I mean, I don't, honestly, I don't think I'll ever experience anything like that again. I mean, you're 550 miles off of South America, right on the equator, the very place that gave birth to Darwin's Origin of the Species. And for an animal person, and I'm certainly an animal person, it's just magical, you know, I really mean that literally. It feels like it's a magical place because you see, you step onto these rocky little islands and you are instantly and absolutely surrounded by the most incredible variety of spectacular animals. Blue footed boo and Galapagos penguins and giant tortoises and waved albatross who are amazingly beautiful and Sally Lightfoot crabs and of course, the famous marine iguanas, who are sort of the stars of the show down there. And the thing is, is that none of these animals give a shit about the humans. It's awesome because you are in their world. You aren't king of the hill. You're in the minority, in numbers and in status. And then you put on a snorkel or a scuba tank and it's bottlenose dolphins and seals and hammerhead sharks and sea turtles and more penguins and iguanas. My son Charlie and I were just talking about this, the other day, his memory of the experience. And we were both remembering that when we were swimming, how all of these seals, particularly the little young ones, the baby seals, and they're so cute, by the way, they would follow us and they'd start to play with right there, they'd be somersaulting around us and they'd blow bubbles like little kids. They'd blow bubbles at us. It was like they were laughing at us. It was completely playful. Or a marine iguana would climb up onto a rock and puff itself out. And I swear to God, it really does look like some guy in a Godzilla suit. And of course, I realize that I just anthropomorphized all these animals. But that's what we do, I think, when we try to understand them. Anyway, when I got back home to Los Angeles, I had to promote a TV show. So I went on the Tonight show. And the main guest on the show was Nancy Pelosi, which was fantastic because of course, I'm Nancy Pelosi's greatest fan and admirer. So I was telling a story about the Galapagos trip on the show, and I was talking about the giant Galapagos tortoises, the biggest of all tortoises on Earth. We went to go see them with this naturalist guide who is wonderful, and she was telling us all about how the tortoises live for a hundred plus years. Maybe we should have one of the tortoises on this show. I mean, they really do get that old. Anyway, while she's talking, this giant tortoise behind her starts to rub himself up against a rock and he gets an erection. I am not kidding you. This actually happened. And it was a giant erection, okay, because it's a giant tortoise. And I realize, oh, my God, holy crap, this thing is masturbating. This tortoise is masturbating. And right when I get to this part of the story on the Tonight Show, I suddenly think, oh, my God, I'm telling a tortoise jerking off joke on national television. And the climax of this story is the actual tortoise's climax. And then I also realize I'm sitting next to the first female speaker of the House in the history of the United States Congress. And she's so classy and so Catholic, and I am so not classy telling this story. What the fuck am I doing? And it kind of threw me off my game. But of course, Nancy Pelosi was very polite and she laughed at all the right places, even the jizzy part. Anyway, I digress. My point is that the world was once a much wilder place. Humans weren't the top of the food chain. We shared the world with our fellow creatures because we were uncorrupted innocents. No, no, we had to share. But at some point, we stopped sharing. And what a shame, because even in the controlled, safe way that I got to experience the absolute wonder of seeing those creatures cavorting in the Galapagos, there is just so much to learn and so much joy to be derived from the living things we share this planet with. So, as we embark on season three, I've been reflecting on how quickly the world is moving today. Work, social media and politics often separate us from each other, from our own feelings, from our relationships to the natural world, animals and community. But the amazing women on this show are out here fighting to stay connected and reminding us of the importance of finding our place alongside each other and nature and everything that surrounds us. So today, as we begin this new season, how lucky then, are we to talk with Jane Goodall? I'm Julia Louis Dreyfus and this is Wiser Than Me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me. With nothing but a notebook, binoculars, a pair of incredibly chic high top Converse sneakers, and an intense fascination with wildlife, Jane Goodall, at age 26, ventured into the jungles of Gambe and introduced us to our nearest living relatives, the chimpanzees. She immersed herself in their world, observing them, living alongside them, learning their social dynamics and behaviors firsthand. Slowly, through trial and error, patience and pure determination, she built a thorough study of the species. Jane Goodall was first to observe that chimps aren't just passive vegetarians, they are hunters, meat eaters and tool users. This shattered the long held belief that only humans made and used tools and led to the redefinition of the term man. Leave it to a woman to redefine man. See, the thing about Jane Goodall's work is that it embodies how women often approach challenges. Since 1960, she has merged good science with empathy and revolutionized how we see primates and how we talk about them, not just as categorized species, but as fellow beings with emotional complexity. For more than six decades, Jane has shown us the critical need to protect chimpanzees from extinction, while expanding the idea of conservation to include local communities and the environment. In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation. Today, she's a global advocate for chimps and wildlife and our planet. Crisscrossing the world to speak about the urgent threats facing the planet, calling on all of us to act. It is not an exaggeration to say Jane Goodall has inspired millions. She is the winner of the UNESCO Peace Prize and has been named messenger of Peace by the United nations and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She's a mother to her son Hugo, who is known as Grub, and of course, Mr. H, a stuffed monkey who sits beside her right now. She's an author, a trailblazer, and let's face it, she's Tarzan's true Jane, wiser than me and probably so much wiser than all of us. Jane Goodall, welcome. Jane Goodall to wiser than me.