I’m not a snake person myself, but I’m surrounded by them in my family.
My husband will veer off a hiking path when he sees one slithering out of the corner of his eye. He follows it until he can get set up just so and — snatch! — grab it with his thumb and forefinger right behind its head.
Then he brings it over to the rest of us so the kids can see it, touch it, hold it, passing on his snake fandom to the next generation.
He and my guest, Tim Freide, would be a good tag team on a hike through snake habitat.
I first read about Tim about a year ago in a NYTimes piece with this attention-grabbing headline: “Universal Antivenom May Grow Out of Man Who Let Snakes Bite Him 200 Times.”
Death, Sex & Money producer Zoe Azulay tracked him down because, well, we had more questions.
I loved our conversation. I learned a lot about snakes and antivenom, and he’s very, very funny. I also appreciated hearing a story about someone starting with a bonkers idea, and then, after years of unpaid, self-taught toil between shift work to pay the bills, his dreams finally came true.
I proved my immunity...it published. I proved I could beat the bites and I don't have to work anymore.
We also got this nice message from a listener, in case you’re not sure you need more snake content in your life.
The snake guy episode was genuinely the funniest thing I’ve heard in so long. Every question just landed an even funnier response. Bravo and thank you.
And if you missed our episode last month about Fishbone with band co-founder and keyboardist Chris Dowd, here’s another nice note we got in our inbox:
I’m a Slate Plus member and I have never interacted with any of the many podcasts I subscribe to but I had to write and thank you for that Fishbone episode. I loved those guys so effing much! Chris is so sweet, smart and eloquent about his path to now. Really great.
Hear the one here!
Join us for a live Death, Sex & Money taping at Tribeca Festival in New York. Tickets to see me in conversation with artists and spouses Peter Dinklage and Erica Schmidt are available here.
The Comeback on HBO! Man, oh man. Lisa Kudrow is brillant in this newest season that takes on the rise of AI and collapsing Hollywood opportunities.
A very old-school San Francisco story from SFGate. “San Francisco activist dies at 91 after spending final night at the club.” Read this remembrance of Huntly Gordon, San Francisco’s unofficial pope. “I thought he was going to live forever.”
Speaking of remembrances, I loved the idea for this new podcast series, The Obit Project. It’s “stories about real Montanans after they die,” from Jad Abumrad and (I heard about this project from the sharp new regional news/newsletter site The Western Edge)
Finally, I am really loving this series, “Succession Stories,” from Missoula-based journalist Megan Torgerson on the podcast Reframing Rural. Her tape of families grappling with aging, disability, and multiple kids with just one family business and acreage you don’t want to break up. “What’s equal is not always fair, and what’s fair is not always equal,” is an adage that comes up. If only every family could learn to talk about money so directly.
Until next week,
Anna
This newsletter is free to you, but let me urge you to support the Death, Sex & Money team by becoming a member of Death, Sex & Money Plus. What do you get? Ad-free listening and special member-exclusive podcast drops. Please join us at slate.com/dsmplus or through Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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