Enter Bugman

Remember when I wrote a blog post about Survivorman and Man vs. Wild? It was only about two blog entries ago, so your memory doesn’t have to be particularly keen. But in the past few days I encountered a new show that essentially wipes the floor with the other two. Les Stroud and Bear Grylls are insignificant life forms compared to Ruud Kleinpaste.

Better known as the “Bugman” to his fellow New Zealanders, Kleinpaste is insane. And I don’t mean Les Stroud insane, or even Bear Grylls insane. I mean, call the local insane asylum and book the next 60 years insane. I was watching this show on Animal Planet called the “World’s Biggest, Baddest Bugs,” and I see this guy staring at a giant spider. By staring at the spider, I mean the spider was walking around a table and he was at eye-level with it. And by giant spider, I mean an enormous, highly poisonous spider…like call the nearest morgue poisonous spider. So he’s just sitting there, staring at said spider and talking about how poisonous and enormous it is, and then he sticks his hand out. The ferocious, angry, poison-infused spider crawls on his hand and around his arm, and I’m not sure, but I think the guy started petting it. He said something along the lines of, “They’re really not so mean unless they’re frightened,” and I was just thinking to myself, “Well, aren’t you frightening it??” Doesn’t frightening a highly poisonous spider entail a strange human stroking its hairy back in a sexual suggestive manner?

Well, I was hooked. The Bugman survived the first bout with the insect that I witnessed. Note that I said, “that I witnessed.” The show was almost over when I tuned in so I probably don’t even know the half of what his craziness involved. Although I did see a coming attraction with him fighting a sumo wrestler, which, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with bugs.

Either way, I figured, that must have been the grand finale. It wasn’t. The Bugman then traveled across the world to New Mexico, or somewhere in that vicinity to play with the Africanized honey bees. He first met with some Africanized honey bee expert who told him exactly how deadly these bees are, and how anyone would have to be lacking in sanity to attempt anything touchy feely with them. Oh, I should also add an interesting tidbit regarding Africanized honey bees. Apparently, these bees are really attached to their queen. They live for their queen. They will kill to defend their queen. So, if they feel their queen is threatened, they will chase the perpetrator for one mile. I found this strange. Why a mile? Would they give chase for a mile and a foot? Or would they just reach that mile point and then simultaneously droop their heads and fly back to the hive? The morale is, if you ever find yourself being chased by Africanized honey bees, you better hope you can run a mile in under 2 minutes.

Anyway, the Bugman starts to examine the honey bee nest. Ok, I thought, that’s not bad. He goes to the hive at night, and sticks a camera in there…he didn’t just stick his head in the nest or anything cooky like that. But the next day, he met up with the bee expert again, and tried something new. The bee expert sprayed pheromones on the Bugman’s body (the pheromones smelled like the queen bee). Now, he sprayed pheromones on the Bugman’s regular clothes. He wasn’t wearing one of those huge, astronaut-like bee suits. And then small groups of bees started landing on the Bugman. This was crazy, but not yet. Then the expert (who was wearing one of those bee suits), took a giant bag of Africanized honey bees, tossed them up in the air, and then ran away. A blinding mass of these bees poured onto the Bugman. At first, the expert came back, and the Bugman started asking him questions while this insanity was occurring on his body. But then the bees started going in his mouth. At that point he stopped talking, though at points he murmured, “I’m starting to panic…” At which point the expert responded, “Just be calm.” Be calm?? You couldn’t even see the Bugman after a few minutes…his entire head was a mass of bees, there were bees in his mouth, a deafening buzz in his ears, and it looked like he was going to tip over from sheer bee weight. But don’t panic, of course.

I was also wondering how in the world these bees were going to come off. It happened like this. The expert had some sort of air blower, and he blew it at a chunk of bees. The bees momentarily cleared, and the expert sprayed something on the phermones to get the smell away. He kept doing this until you could see the Bugman’s human form again. Finally, the bees were gone. I don’t think the Bugman got stung, except for when the expert was clearing them away…I think he accidentally smushed some bees on the Bugman…which was actually pretty hilarious at the time.

That’s the story of the Bugman. He’s insane with a capital “I,” and a very lowercase “sane.” Steve Irwin did some insane things in his day as well. He wrestled crocodiles, played with snakes and swam with stingrays (the last one did not end too well.) So I suppose they’re not so different…this guy just likes bugs more than crocodiles. It might just be my personality that puts the Bugman in a category of his own. I hate bugs. Cockroaches freak me out. If I were one of these people, I could see myself wrestling crocodiles. They don’t bother me that much, in theory. In person, I’d probably cry. I could also be a survivorman. Well, like I said before, I would be “Not surviving man…” but the “idea” doesn’t seem that absurd. I can see it being fun. But playing with giant spiders…no….just no.

Call me old fashioned. I like long walks on the beach, Phish Food ice cream and The Simpsons. And I like my Africanized honey bees where they should be….not on me.