If You Want I Can Double-Bag Them: Real Snakes on Real Planes

In honor of the release, finally, of Snakes on a Plane, Salon has an interview with biologist Jesus Rivas, an expert in the green anaconda who has actually flown with real snakes, on a real plane. 29 baby anacondas. In pillow cases. As Samuel L. Jackson might say, this motherfucker is motherfucking crazy, motherfuckers.

I'm pretty sure this interview is more entertaining than the movie will be, and all it'll cost you is a few seconds wait through an ad. Here are some highlights:

• "When I catch them in the wild they are upset, of course, and we have to wrestle."
  
  
• "I know the kind of places where they live -- usually in shallow waters with a lot of vegetation. I go shuffling through the water, feeling with my feet for them and poking with poles in the mud. Normally I find them by stepping on them....that's when the fun begins."
  
  
• "So when it was my turn I decided I better tell the security guy that I have some snakes here because I didn't want him to just open my bag of baby anacondas. He jumped and said, You can't travel with snakes on this plane, man! ... I told him not to worry. "They're not venomous. And they're nicely contained in a brand-new pillow case. There's no reason they're going to escape. If you want, I could double-bag them."
  
  
• "Once I took some mature female anacondas to the gynecologist."

Those are the best, crazy-ass parts. Here's the whole thing. Enjoy, motherfuckers.