A Hint of Lube

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Hello.

Hi Caleb. Welcome to Conan. O'Brien. needs a fan? Hey Caleb, how are you?

You?

I'm well, thanks. How are you?

Doing great. It's very nice to chat with you. I have a few questions trying to orient myself in time and space. Caleb, where are you right now?

I'm in Halifax, Canada, so east coast of Canada.

Nova Scotia.

Nova Scotia Exactly yeah.

Okay, all right. are you on the water? are you close to the water?

I'm as close as I could afford to be, so probably about a half hour from the ocean. But beautiful little neighborhood. We got a couple acres in the woods, so we're very happy.

That's very nice and also I got to say the tides are rising. I think you made the right call. All those rich assholes on the water are going to pay for it.

Absolutely. Is it windy there?

My hair is a little cuckoo, you know what happens? When I put headphones on, my hair gets knocked all askew. I'm trying to adapt to the changing media environment and never had to wear headphones until I got into this gig. And it's a curse.

Yeah, so I'm semi-retired is what I like to say, because it sounds better than unemployed, but I did. A 20-year career split between the army, the special forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted police. Those are the dudes with the big hats, red coats and horseback.

We all know about the mounties, we call them, they're very impressive. That's very cool, but you know what you just said?

I was, yeah, for four years.

And can you tell us anything about it? What are you allowed to talk about?

I'm an open book. I'll tell you whatever you want to know, except for a couple things I'm legally not allowed to let you know. But I'm going to take a lot of heat for it. There's this long-running joke that Navy seals can't get to the gym and get home without writing a book about killing Bin Laden.

I take it. You were one of the only seals that didn't kill Bin Laden. Is that right?

Yeah, I was in a different country.

Yeah, apparently there were 900 seals there. He was shot 10,000 times.

I killed him.

Yeah, you were there, too. Well done.

Yeah, I was there, I did it.

Yeah, you baked him something.

I don't even know exactly where to go with that.

We don't know how to react.

Is your baking particularly bad?

It's not good.

I don't want to bake for Osama bin Laden.

Well, you didn't know it was for him. You made some cookies and he was like, Oh, these look good, and then he was gone. But listen, the spotlight needs to be on Caleb, not on your terrible, terrible cooking. And, trust me, I've talked to Tack.

So I was what we call a supporter. So in Canada at least there's sort of three tiers. There's operators, door kickers who go through Hell week selection, all that stuff. Then there's close supporters and supporters, so close supporters are medics, engineers, people who have to be right at the front to support exactly what's happening as they're kicking doors.

Wait, are you dressed like a civilian? So this is like the undercover stuff. Oh, you're the coolest man that ever lived.

Well, hold on, no, no, I'm here.

Caleb, you are the coolest man that ever lived.

Caleb So you go in, you're dressed as a civilian. are you going under your name Caleb, or are you going under a fake name?

So I go as Caleb McDonald and I fly Air Canada, Air France, and they give me a ton of shit about having 400,000 euros in my backpack. Because we're Canada, right? We're small, we don't have much money, so I fly coach all the way to Niger.

Wait, but tell me you at least. Dress in a Hawaiian shirt and aviator sunglasses.

Oh, of course, Magnum Pi was my inspiration for all my undercover.

Well, I'm sorry. The Nova Scotia version of Magnum Pi. So you show up in a country you've got $400,000 in your backpack, and how do you know you start spending that money to set up the operation? Is that right?

Absolutely yeah.

Did you have to keep good records? Would you ever go and drop $50,000 in a strip club and go like, Oh shit, well, anyway, they're not going to miss it.

Yeah.

Yeah, you just write it off as a.

That's what you call foreplay.

Yeah.

400,000 euros in West Africa becomes like 180 million francs. Yeah, and so your accounting becomes a lot of zeros, yep, a lot of decimals.

But are you setting up contacts? are you paying people to get information? are you planting bugs, all that kind of stuff?

More or less, all those things. I would also say that we rely heavily on our American partners, which is always very nice. So I meet them in-country and they help us out with whatever we're up to. But traveling with that much cash very stressful, especially when it's what we call OPM other people's money. And so if it gets taken, I'm still on the hook.

Yeah, and you have a bank safe strapped to your back, and you're walking around saying, Oh, I'm a public school teacher. I'm just here from Nova, Scotia to kind of look around and buy a t-shirt or two.

It's not bad when you have euros because they're really big denominations. But I traveled with USD to Jordan once and I had 300,000 American, and your biggest denomination is 100. So I basically had like a hockey bag on my back full of cash.

Yeah, remind me to rob you sometime.

Well, I don't have any money now, I'm retired, I'm broke man.

I think you stashed a few backpacks around here and there. I think if you took a little walk in the woods, there's an old, hollowed out tree. A couple of passports? Exactly, you've got nine passports.

We didn't cover slappy fighting when I went through the training. More in the lines of sort of a Brazilian jujitsu grappling style. Then you add in knives and rifles and pistols as an accessory.

So you know all that stuff?

With an asterisk again. As an operations logistics guy, that was part of the training, but it wasn't the focus of the training.

What's the hardest thing you had to go through in the training? Was there some, you know, is there something where they did something crazy to you, like, held you underwater for a week or something, and you just had to get through it?

Something like that. So we did this course called TCCC, which is Tactical Critical Combat care, so it's basically first aid in a wartime setting. Because you can't just be like, Oh, I'm going to come over and do CPR on you because you got shot in the middle of the street. It's about winning the firefight, establishing dominance and then extracting the casualties to a safe place, and then doing the treatment.

Oh my god.

But we practiced that for real. So I'm a casualty in this scenario. I'm on my back, I'm covered in fake blood, I'm unconscious. The guy coming over to me is doing his first aid, he does all the right stuff. Puts the tube in which you know you're like, gagging, sneezing, coughing. That's awful.

Wait, you had no anesthesia, that that went straight in, because I've had that done with anesthesia and it was crazy.

Well, there's a hint of lube when they put it in there.

I always ask for a hint of lube, just a hint.

A little dollop of lube, a little dollop will do you.

The problem with the tube going in is during this course, it's live fire, so there's bullets, there's explosions, right? Because you're meant to be simulating a combat environment. And so, when Buddy was done the first aid and I was ready to go, I just opened my eyes and saw this big hand coming down. And he just gripped it and ripped it like he was starting a lawnmower. And I felt my soul just....

Oh, you know what? I'm sorry. I really want to serve in the special forces in Canada, but that's a I can't cross that line. I can't have a tube shoved up my nose and then ripped out.

It's not ideal.

Well, I'm not even going to say not ideal, I'm going to say absolutely terrible.

Yeah, it's a deal breaker.

Yeah.

There you go.

But up until that point, you thought, Hey, I could do what he did.

Well, I'm good at slap fighting, okay, and I regularly travel with hundreds of thousands of dollars in every denomination.

Of course.

Just because I am obsessively, compulsively going to ATM machines, but I never spend the money, I just use my credit card.

Yeah, so I deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 during the war, and then I was in Mauritania, Libya, Jordan, Niger and a few other spots. Throughout my time, it was you get to see a lot of places that you wouldn't normally see, so the travel is kind of cool.

Oh yeah, were you shot at? Oh yeah, and what does that feel like? what does it feel like when someone's...?

Yeah, so it was pretty uncommon, admittedly, for me, because, look as a logistics dude. But with Afghanistan, the way it was structured was we had FObs all over the place, and so in between these FObs. Is bandit country for lack of a better term?

Is that a forward operating base?

Exactly, yeah. So as you're driving around, look at this guy.

Very nicely done, Matt. It's also something that attaches to a pocket watch. Okay, so it could have been either one, I assumed it was the latter.

It's also someone who's fresh off the boat. That's what we use FOB for. I'm sorry, am I the only one?

It's also for someone who's full of bullshit.

Well, yeah, before you even go out, you have your whole plan, your whole brief and everything sort of determined on. If this happens, we do X, if that happens, we do Y. So your training takes over in a lot of ways. I would also say, your asshole puckers up like a snare drum when that happens, too.

Everything you've described is what we go through before every podcast. That's true. If Ted Danson says this, we'll go to X, if he says that, we'll go to Y. And then our assholes pucker up. So it's pretty much the same thing.

Well, Sona and I are, I think.

That's true. Yeah, hey, you've got some cool stuff behind you. Do you mind telling us what's behind you? I see a framed knife that looks like a really cool knife.

Well, that's actually a.

That's very nice, and what's over your other shoulder right there? it looks like you've got a what is that this?

So this is.

Wait, so if they're fighting with each other, they grab a walrus dick and go at it.

I mean, that's what I'd grab.

And just a little bit of lube.

Just a little.

We covered this in sloppy fighting. Oh, that'll do you.

So that's a weapon.

Yeah, it's quite old, I got it at an antique store in Alaska.

Doesn't look big to me very much right now.

It doesn't.

Yeah, doesn't look that hard either.

Ew.

I apologize. Oh God, Caleb, I lost my mind for a second and I blame you because you've taken us down some dark paths, sorry.

I think against a regular, untrained person, absolutely against someone with equal training, maybe against somebody with more training. Yeah, not a chance, but most people have none.

Okay, I'm going to be honest with you, Caleb, I have no training. Okay, okay, what if I came at you? What would your strategy be?

Are you doing the slap fighting?

No, I'm just coming at him. Yeah, what would you do? And keep in mind you're a fan.

Oh, you want him to go easy?

No, no, no, be serious. What would you do? A guy? my size comes at you?

So you're a pretty tall guy, so you want to use that against you because everyone's the same height on the ground. So I want to get you down, get you low and then take advantage of my training and grappling. It looks easy, but anyone with some training in grappling is leagues ahead of anyone with no training in grappling.

What's better to know how to grapple or box?

Grappling, for sure.

Yeah, a grappler beats a boxer nine times out of ten, right?

I would say so in my experience, for sure, because every fight ends on the ground, and so boxing has no value on the ground. So if you can't win it in one punch or two punches, then it's kind of over for you.

What if I have a Walrus dick and you didn't know it?

Oh, okay.

No, in my back pocket, you know what?

Why are you carrying around?

You'd be really easy to beat in a fight. Because all you have to do is say something that will hurt your feelings, and then you'll just cower and start.

Read me a lukewarm review when I'm on the floor, curled up. Well, I didn't. The Wall Street Journal, like what I did. They should know comedy.

Comedy goes a long way when you're in those situations, too, to making them easier to bear, so I appreciate it.

Well, you didn't specifically say you liked my comedy, you just said comedy.

I think that's good, I think he said. Enough.

No, no. He was like, You know, I really admire what you did on Seinfeld, and I'm like, What, what did he say?

What did he say? I'm a big pistol, shrimps, radio and mall walking guy.

It's a former couple. Podcasts about it. CALEB Oh, you listen to that in your forward operations base.

Well, that was before, that was 15 years ago.

Yeah, yeah.

That was for bulletproof legs and walker, Yes, walker lever. That was back in that generation, that was what I grew up on.

Well, my show, I think, was probably the best tool in the fight for freedom.

Oh boy.

I think I'm having a small stroke.

I'll have to answer the door with my Oosek now every time. Yes, when someone comes knocking, just in case.

Yeah.

I think he just wants your Walrus dick.

There's enough.

Anyone just tuning in should know that Caleb has a fossilized.

And that's all the time we have bye Caleb, thank you.

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