Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Flightless Bird: Flights of Fancy

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

We’re trying something a little different today - something we’re calling “Flights of Fancy.” Now awhile back, if you follow David Farrier on Instagram, you would have seen a prompt where he wanted you to pitch a deeply American topic YOU could speak on. Maybe it was a job you had, or some other personal insight you could give into something AMERICAN. Maybe you worked at Buckees, or in the depths of the White House. We heard from so many of you - like hundreds - with so many ideas. Rob made a fancy spreadsheet to collate all your responses, and we picked a bunch we liked. Then we zoomed with those people - getting them to explain their area of expertise. We met a true cross section of America - and some of the topics you’re about to learn about - some of them we’re gonna dive deeper later in the year. But for now, this is Flights of Fancy - where we talk Flightless Bird listeners about the what they want to see on Flightless Bird. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. We're trying something a little different today, something we're calling Flights of Fancy. We're going to do it every now and then, and today's the first time, and I think you'll like it. I say that because we really liked making it. Now a while back, if you follow me on Instagram, you would have seen a prompt where I wanted you to pitch a deeply American topic that

you could speak on. Maybe it was a job you had, or some other personal insight that you could give into something truly American. Maybe you worked at Buc-E's, or in the lower depths of the White House. I heard from so many of you, like hundreds of you, with so many ideas. Rob made a fancy spreadsheet to collate all your responses and we picked a bunch we liked. We'll do this prompt again later in the year, so follow me at DavidFarrier on social media if you want to take part. We then got those people and we zoomed with some of them, getting them to explain their area of expertise. We met a true cross-section of America and some of the topics you're about to learn about, some of them we're going to dive deeper into later in the

year. But for now this is Flights of Fancy where we talk to flightless bird listeners about what they want to see on flightless bird. Enjoy. I'm not saying it's because you're small. I look like I try. It looks like there's an optical illusion happening right now. It's so funny. You look like they do look really smart. Also, your chair is so big, but that should make you look smaller. Find this very hard to take seriously.

You want to have a mic for this? Thanks, Rob. Hi. Hi there. Oh my gosh, I am so nervous, but so excited to be talking to you guys. Oh, don't be nervous. Oh my gosh, I've been listening to you guys for years. Before we get started, I was wondering if I could use a fake name. Of course, yes.

What would you like to go by? Can you just call me Bee? Bee, yes. Bee's really good. You look like a B. This is good. Oh great. Thank you so much. You made yourself a little fort which we really appreciate on this side of town. That is all I wanted to do was to make you proud Monica. You did it. Oh my gosh. Okay my bucket list is complete. What topic have you brought to us today? What do we have? I replied to your flights of fancy, the most American job. I was a sea lion trainer for the U S Navy for seven years.

So I thought that might be interesting to bring to you guys. It's so interesting. Can you please just describe what that is? Because I feel like you've said a sentence and my brain is just reeling with imagery and ideas. I love to hear what is going on in your brain, but I'll tell you a little bit about what I did. The US Navy uses bottlenose dolphins and sea lions to help protect the coast, ships, anywhere that ships that contain US Navy personnel might come into.

So I worked with the sea lions who were in charge of interdicting swimmers. So basically we could find swimmers. We didn't know if they were foreign or enemies or not. But they deploy swimmers to make sure that areas are clear of divers where places they shouldn't be. I have so many questions. I mean, I'm picturing sea lions strapped with some sort of harness with weapons attached and flashlights.

What is going on there? So there's definitely a harness, no weapons. If they do need to work at night, we'll attach chemlights, which are basically glow sticks so that we can see where they are. But the reason why they use sea lions and dolphins is because they can see underwater really well and sea lions can maneuver through piers better than a robot can. So you guys are just tracking. How do you know from the dolphin that something's going wrong?

Right. So the sea lions and dolphins are trained to go on search patterns. So essentially the sea lions ride in the boat and then we get to an area where we want to make sure it's secure. Wait, they ride in the boat. What do you mean they ride in the boat and then we get to an area where we wanna make sure it's secure. Wait, they ride in the boat? What do you mean they ride in the boat? Yeah, so sea lions can ride in little cages, not little cages, they're big cages,

but we ride on like 30 foot boats. And so there's a cage and we are able to keep the sea lions cool and comfortable. So we'll ride out to wherever we need to patrol. We'll put the sea lions in the water, ask them to do a search pattern, they'll go and search the pier and come back to the boat. And on the boat, there's actually a paddle.

So we call this the positive paddle. So if they touch the paddle, that means, yes, there's someone there. How do you train them? I think a lot of myself, when I think of training animal, I think of a dog. That's really all I have in my mind. How do you train a sea lion or a dolphin? Well, dolphins are really smart. They are really smart.

Personally, I'm a sea lion girl. When you're in the animal training world, you fall into two categories. You're either a sea lion person or a dolphin person. I'm a sea lion person. Sea lions are more like dogs. Dolphins are more like cats. They're so smart.

They know all the animals in the program, they get fed their daily breakout of fish every day. They're gonna get their fish no matter what. The dolphins are so smart that they know this, that if they don't feel like working that day, they can just be like, I'm not doing it. I'm a cat, I'm gonna go do whatever I wanna do. So petulant.

Sea lions on the other hand, they're like dogs. They wanna be engaged with you. They're really in tune. They they're eager to please. Are you raising these creatures from babies to adults? Are you giving them as adults and training them? That's a great question. Yes.

And yes, the U S Navy is one of the only programs in the world who has a permit to go and collect wild animals. The last time they did this, I think, was back in 2013. And during that time, there was a lot of UMEs, which is a mass stranding event, where a lot of sea lions are actually ending up with domoic acid. They're being abandoned by their mothers. With the oceans getting warmer, sea lions are needing to travel out farther and farther to go find fish.

And a lot of times that journey can end up being catastrophic for the mothers. And sometimes the mothers don't make it back for the sea lions. But we've also had sea lions who have been shot three times with bullets from fishermen's who have been deemed unreleasable by Noah. And so those sea lions are actually able to help our program and they might not be fit to go out and do ocean work, but they help contribute by doing research. They are trained to wear little headphones like you guys are wearing and do sound tests.

It's so cute. It's really, really neat. Actually, when you guys did your Justin Timberlake episode, I actually sent in an email being like, there's a whole other side to having animals under human care. So this is a good take on that actually, because there is so much anti- Yay! removing animals from their environments

and habitats and stuff, and this is interesting. Yeah, it's really fascinating because the sea lions, they actually have a lifespan that's three times longer than their wild counterparts. We've had sea lions that live up into their 50s and 60s, and in the wild they live probably 13 years or so. So it's really fascinating what we can do when we take away predators and we can give

them human-grade fish and we take a look at their fish and we have a vet staff on site. We have a full vet lab and hospital. How many of these animals are out there in the waters that the US has under their control? Like a thousand dolphins out there doing their thing. Are the 10 ballpark, do you know the numbers, or is that secret? I believe it's around 70. There's three locations, there's one in San Diego, and then they also have a place up in Washington and Georgia.

Other countries doing this, is China sneaking in, is New Zealand sneaking in their own seals and dolphins into American waters? The only other country that I'm aware of is Russia, I'm sure you saw that Beluga whale that popped up that had a harness on. It went rogue and it escaped. Wait, what? It was under training and then it went crazy? Well actually, you tell me. I just know it wasn't where it was meant to be and was it coming for us or was it on the

run? On the swim. No, a Beluga whale popped up somewhere wearing a harness and it said, property of St. Petersburg, and it was approaching boats and humans. It was very clearly trained. They brought in some trainers and it responded to some husbandry SDs, which are like when you ask the animal to present itself in an area that we can collect blood. Wait, what do you mean?

Presented stuff like rolls over so you can like do your thing. Yeah, absolutely. Wow. You're one of these people, when you leave, because we've got to jump on to talk to someone else now, when I leave, I'm not going to have a million more questions. Is there anything really obvious that you've wanted us to ask you but we haven't? Because I feel like this is mind blowing, this whole area. This is very cool.

I love that this is American. This makes me proud to be American. Yay. Oh my gosh. I'm so happy to hear that. No, but I did want to get back to how we train them. We train them using positive reinforcement because obviously when you have an animal

who's bigger than you, can kill you if it wanted to, you can't get them to do anything they don't want to do. So when people are like, oh, these animals are being forced to do them. No, they're not. We simply reward them when they are doing something that we want to see. What do they like? A little biscuit or something?

Fish. They love fish. A fish, yeah. Sushi. Two quick questions. What's the favorite meal of a dolphin and of a sea lion? It would be herring, which is a type of fish. That's usually their favorite. Every animal is different, of course. Every individual is different. They are.

You can't put them in a box. Not fair. Thank you so much, Bee. Yes, Bee. this was so cool. This was very uniquely American. I've never heard about this and I really enjoyed it. Yay, I have a quick photo to show you because I'm sure you guys have questions, but this is how the sea lions interdict.

This is a clamp that goes onto the leg. Wow. So a sea lion will come and interdict a diver that way. So it's kind of like a handcuff and then the handcuff is connected to a really thick cable that we would hand off to the police. Wow. We would hand it off to the police,

the animal comes back to the boat, we take off, we're like, bye, and the police handle it from there. This is mind blowing. It's like a whole other world that most of us never think about. Sea world. Yeah, it's really cool. It's an awesome job.

I loved it. It was amazing. Fun. Well, thank you so much for sharing's an awesome job. I loved it. It was amazing fun Well, thank you so much for sharing and participating in fights of fancy. That was so fun Oh my gosh, it's been an honor to meet you guys. Honestly, the armchair expert Cole podcast umbrella got me through some really tough times So thank you so much for talking to me David. I binge dark tourists. It was amazing You are so brave and I love getting thank you so much You're the best

Maybe you're the best. Oh man. Bye incredible. Yeah, that was good. I was not expecting some of the topics We have there are some crazy. Wow. This is yeah. All right. We got Sarah coming Sarah's ready. Yeah So nice to meet you! Big fan! I have two things I have to say. Monica, I've never noticed your neck. Oh, thank you. I did not end up getting it. I didn't get it, but I'm not ruling it out. Okay, but do whatever you gotta do.

But I thought you should now. Thank you. And David, I admire your work tremendously. Tickled is a bit of a North Star for me for how to treat subjects like people and not like subjects. So really, really, really appreciate your work. Thank you. That's really nice.

Thank you. Which we can talk about if we want, since we're talking about reality TV. Oh, is that what we're... Okay, so I'm in the dark here. So if you were going to present your topic, what would it be? What are you pitching us? Okay, so I am a reality TV show runner. I've worked in reality TV for over 20 years.

I show ran Honey Boo Boo, Toddlers and Tiaras. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh wow. Where do we even begin? And many, many others. Exactly. So, you know, I'm not sure what it said, flights of fancy. I don't know if this is an offshoot.

We want to meet Americans that do uniquely American jobs. You're essentially pitching us your expertise and your area. And we'll decide whether we dig deeper in a future topic. But regardless, this will be part of this kind of pitching session. Gotcha. Tell us how you got into this world, because in my mind, reality TV. And a big brother in the UK was like a big thing that kicked us a lot, but America has run with it. We've run with it.

We've created presidents out of it. We've created some of our biggest cultural icons, you know, Kim Kardashian. It doesn't get much bigger than that for an American icon. So yeah, we've really run with it. And we've also really run with the capitalism side of making money off of people's stories. Yes. And that is a really tricky area that I think is interesting to examine. You really have to hope the people in the room have good ethics about how

they're going to get the footage, edit the footage. You're constantly making decisions about how to tell the story and where those lines are. And there's nobody there governing you. So there's a wide range of ways that you can take someone's story, make money off of it, put it on TV, and it impacts their lives forever. Can you tell us without giving away too many details,

the most egregious thing you've seen in this environment as a producer? Probably the things where it gets really tricky is in the edit. There's a lot you can do in the edit. You can take someone who's made a statement and said, I'm not competitive and take out the not and say, I'm competitive.

I don't hate David. Take out the don't say, I hate David. They got the don't say I hate David. You know, it gets really tricky and everybody signs NDAs. So something I am so curious about in this space is the way I think about reality TV is I think there's a certain snobbery that some people look at it with. They're like, oh, that's reality TV. That's trash. I suspect that there is so much expertise and it's such a knack to make reality TV, that's trash. I suspect that there is so much expertise and it's such a knack to make reality TV work.

I was wondering if you could talk a little bit, the skill, because you can't just produce the stuff. It is such a difficult thing to make compelling. It's an art. It's incredibly difficult. And thank you for saying that. You are walking into somewhere with no story. I focus on docu-follow reality.

There's also competition. Competition's its own thing. It's got a built-in format, very different. I've worked on those as well. I did Big Brother. Oh my goodness. Wow. You're like, you're the queen.

You started this. I can't believe you. I'm so flattered you listened. I didn't show run Big Brother, but I did work on it early seasons too, when everybody was figuring it out. You're walking in with no story and you have to first of all get a story. You have to earn the trust of the people in order to have access. Then you need to figure out a beginning, middle and an end of a story within a time constraint

that doesn't make sense. Most shows that are docufollow, so like The Kardashians, Housewives, things like that, you have one week per episode, five days. So in five days you need a beginning, a middle, and end with cliffhangers. Life doesn't work that way. Yeah, exactly. Life's boring for the most part. Yes. There's a lot of skill in sniffing out where the interesting story is, where to put the camera, where to ask the questions, and then figuring out how to get your beginnings, middles and ends so that it fits into an episode.

So that brings me to my next question, and it's what everyone always says, is reality TV real? What's the realness of it? How much is structured and maneuvered and how much is really happening? It truly depends on the project. There are projects I've worked on that are completely hands-off. There are other ones that are very manipulated, including Honey Boo Boo. Honey Boo Boo, every week we would say, let's do this, this week let's have new chores,

this week let's go to this event. I would say something that's common across all of them is giving people something to do. So giving them a trip to go on, just kind of organizing their life a little bit more. I mean, even the fact that there is a showrunner, the fact that there's a showrunner on these reality TV shows, it's telling, it means it's a show, it is produced, there are storylines created. There are storylines, storylines that we have to pitch before they happen, which doesn't make sense if it's unscripted,

but you're having to think where you think the story is going, spend time with the people, figure out where you think it's going. The most recent show I did was very hands-off. It was the D'Amelio show for Hulu, and we are following Charlie and Dixie D'Amelio as they're crashed into a world of extreme fame. And that one was very hands-off,

other than, what are you doing in the next month? We'd like to follow this, this, this. And then it comes down to interview questions, and you can shape a story just by what you ask and don't ask. Do you have any regrets? Yes, I do, absolutely. I think younger me did not really consider or understand the impact that a show could have on younger participants.

Also, by the way, nobody did. This was a very young invention. So I think I would do things differently. I worked on Toddlers and T.R.s and Honey Boo Boo. Those both involve children. I think on Toddlers and T-Rows and Honey Boo Boo. Those are both involved children. I think if I were to do them today, I would probably be better informed at how to structure the production to protect people.

But that's coming with experience and as the genre grows up, and we see now all these people coming forward and saying they were actually really negatively impacted by fame at a young age. So that's something that I would change for sure. I think there's an inherent pressure in this job to deliver something outrageous and noisy. And sometimes you have to push things to get that from people. And that really puts you on some interesting, you know, moral lines. And it's so interesting what you said.

This has created, you know, presidents, it's created our biggest celebrities. Do you sit back sometimes and think about how it has changed America? People again, they think of it so dismissively sometimes. Oh, are you watching that reality show? It's almost using an insult. You should be watching my high and mighty drama series. You're the one that's actually shaping the country. Do you sort of reflect on that?

I do quite a bit because I've seen firsthand how Honey Boo Boo is a very good example. People didn't know who she was, and then suddenly they did. You're very aware of the responsibility of shaping a story that is accurate, that reflects the person that you're actually filming because you have so many moments every single day in production and in post production to shape a story that tells a story of a real person that millions of people are going to watch and make decisions about and in our country we love and judge we love to put people up on a pedestal and then tear them down.

So I'm aware that each step is gonna create information that makes people decide how much they wanna put this person on a pedestal and then inevitably tear them down. But I am aware. But also, obviously other countries have reality TV shows. Like you said, Big Brother. We do, New Zealand, we try.

Love Island. There's a lot, but I wonder if they make celebrities out of their reality TV stars in the way we do. Like we like fully, like these Vander, I don't follow Vanderpump, but I keep hearing names. I kind of want to start, cause I keep hearing, it's so in the zeitgeist, I feel left out

that I don't know because they're celebrities now. We do have a way of turning things up here. I think in general, yeah, I know the UK loves the reality celebrities, so they definitely have that in common. But we tend to just do everything way turned up. Literally, a president came out of this genre. And yes, he was well known before that, but that's what made him accessible. And then people believe that they know somebody. That's the tricky part of trying to be fair and accurate and honest about who the person is. You've worked on so many shows, you probably know the trends that are going on and the

competition to the shows you make. Do you have a sense of where reality TV is heading? Well, it seems like there's really two camps. You can only survive if you're incredibly outrageous, like Love Island, Vanderpump Rules, or very much more in the documentary space, which does really well. That in-between zone does not survive anymore. And it used to. We used to have more subtle factual series where you could get to know a little subculture. It didn't have to be outrageous and wild. And it feels kind of similar to the way America

is going. It's just getting more and more polarizing. You have to be incredibly extreme. Even the documentary space is extreme. It's mostly true crime or revolves around a celebrity that we know. So it's really just everything's getting more extreme. I'm stressed. Before we leave you, if you're new to the world of reality, what are your top three shows and don't be biased. You can do ones you haven't worked on someone who's so skeptical. You know, Oh, I'm all serious. I make my documentaries sell it to me what I said, watch. So I get it. Love on the Spectrum is 10 out of 10 A+.

It's really good. That's a perfect example of storytelling that's compelling and you're engaged and you can't wait to see the next episode, but it doesn't feel exploitive, which it could. I heard dating show with autistic people and I thought, oof. Same. I was like, who did this? This is awful. But then yeah.

And they really pulled, I watched it to be mad at it and judged. Okay, number one, number one we've got, number two. Antiques Roadshow. Oh, classic. Big in New Zealand, big in New Zealand. It is. That to me is perfection because you've got real people.

That's part of the charm is you're watching real people. You've got story built in perfect format. Number three, I like Real Housewives. Which one? What's your number one? Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills is my number one. I've watched it since day one.

I think it's escapism, which is ultimately why most people go to reality TV. Yes. They've got good character development. Top notch. I love it. Okay. We've got some ideas. Can we come to you?

We've got a few ideas. Can we come to you offline? Absolutely. Do you want to show run the David and Monica show? Oh my God. Yes. I never miss an episode, you guys. I'm a big, I'm a really big fan and truly tickled.

I just showed randomly to my stepdaughter three weeks ago and it was so fun to watch her reactions as it unfolded. She's 21. She's 21. Oh, I'm glad it's still cutting through. This is great. We're coming out to our 10 year anniversary, so we'll have to do something special for that. Yeah, it's something that is a North Star to me with the way you handled the ending that really matters to me.

So thank you for that. Thank you. You're amazing. Thanks for sharing. Yes, thanks for chatting with us. Bye. Bye. Oh, really good.

Oh, reality. That's great, right? What a topic. I never really contextualized it as American. Some of the biggest ones like Big Brother. A British. A British, but it's true that we just make everything just so outrageous.

And I think you're so good at it. Like America has just like made it so. And there's so many. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's just so many, one after another. Wow, that was cool. Okay, great. Okay, this is.

Another Sarah. Back to back Sarah's. Hello. Hi. Hello, I obviously am not in a closet. My closet is like a sliver. That's fine. This is my only chair. You did your best. OK. You know what you do have?

You have, I think, a beautiful cat behind you. I do. Yes. This is Mama Toots. She's very farty. Oh my. Oh my God. That's so funny. You named her after a fart. Well, we'd love to know about what your American topic is and how you fit in. Yeah. So I have an OnlyFans. Oh, this is great.

Yeah. So there's a lot of stigma and everything around it. But I think it does have a place that's important for our society. And specifically, I feel like America is hypersexualized but we're all pretty sexually repressed still. It's not like the 1950s, it's not that bad but there's still not a lot of conversation about what's actually going on in the bedroom and I think it's something like 30% of men and women have some sort of kink or fetish that they don't really feel comfortable expressing and obviously there's stuff like you know 50 shades of gray and that kind of

thing, but it's very shallow as far as kink culture goes. That's so interesting because America loves it's violence so much that sort of fine, but there is this, this prudishness around showing skin or sex, and they show sort of HBO or something it's really frowned upon, isn't it? Well, and it's only one sort of vanilla level of it. And since I started OnlyFans, it's incredible how many kinks there are. Wow. Tell us the top five kinks. For me specifically, apparently I have great armpits,

so I get a lot of armpit photo requests. Yes. I really need to hear the other four, but I also have to interrupt myself and say, what made you get photo requests? Yes. I really need to hear the other four, but I also have to interrupt myself and say, what made you get into it? So I started modeling, the normal kind of modeling, when I was about 16. I liked it and everything, and I kind of moved into photography from there,

and then automotive photojournalism specifically. So a very niche thing, and money started to get kind of tough. And with modeling, I found that I didn't have control of what was going on with the images that I was producing. Obviously when you're driving down the street and you see those billboards of people in swimsuits, the company is making millions

and the model is often making maybe a couple thousand dollars for the whole shoot, unless they're like highly gender or something. But usually for the normal range. And so for me, I was like, if I'm already being commodified, my body is already doing that, I might as well just take the money for myself.

So yeah, back to the stigma and everything. I feel like the main purpose that I have found with OnlyFans is kind of supporting those people who have those kinks so that they feel more comfortable in their real life, being like, okay, yeah, I wanna see your armpit. I have several armpit fart people, which is very specific and you can't go look up on Pornhub.

You're not going to get that content. Wait, is that like making a fart with your armpit? Yeah. I haven't thought about that since years. Since I was a kid, like maybe I ate armpit. I could never do it. So bad at it. I'm like the worst.

I go like wet my hand and try and I'm like, shit, I don't know who's paying for this, but that's okay. Wow. So people are allowed to ask you specifically, they'll like request. Yeah. That's the difference between most porn sites and OnlyFans is that you're giving people a relationship, a connectivity that you can't get elsewhere. It's a secondary element of the fantasy world.

And it's like a safe space for them to explore their stuff. Exactly, yeah. I mean, of course I've gotten some really uncomfortable kinks that you just kind of turn around, you know, you're like, no, thank you. And there's a lot of in-cell activity on OnlyFans and that kind of thing. But for the most part, if, as long as you, you know,

keep your eye out and everything and you, you have those like blocking features and all of that. So it's a safe site and I think that they do take a large percentage of your earnings but it's nothing like the traditional sex work industry. You're in complete control. The other American aspect of it is that there's clearly a loneliness issue in America. People are alone far more often than they should be. I think a huge percentage are debilitatingly lonely weekly and I would say a huge number of my repeated clients and they're like the highest paying typically are people who

are working long hours, typically men, and they don't really have time to have a relationship or the desire to invest in a relationship like that. And so instead they would rather have this kind of surrogate partnership with me. And I think it's kind of a band-aid for an issue, you know, that's not a solution. But I spend hours talking to people about their day at work or an issue they're having. Wow. They just want someone to talk to and to break stuff down with sometimes. Definitely. Yeah. So I mean, they're paying me. So I'm going someone to talk to and to break stuff down with sometimes. LW Definitely, yeah. So I mean, they're paying me, so I'm going to be kind to them.

And I think there's that too. And I'm going to be attentive and flirty and all the things that they want from a partner. KS There's some control, not necessarily negative, but they do have some control. It's not going to go off the rails because they paid you. LW Definitely. Yeah. And I mean, if it does, then they stop paying me.

You know, I mean, there has been times where I'm just like, this has gone too far, you know, that kind of thing. But that's the other part of the positive aspect for a sex worker is it's like, I can just say, no, I'm a person. How do you find managing? Because as you say, you have built this community around you. And I imagine some of them like you like some of them you're neutral on. How do you deal with having so many people?

Because that's a certain pressure. It's not like you put a video of them you're neutral on. How do you deal with having so many people? Because that's a certain pressure. It's not like you put a video out and you never think about it again. You're dealing with people and that takes a lot from you as well, right? Yeah, definitely. For me, it's a balance of, you know, if I'm actually with people in real life, like I have a social life, you know, I have a relationship. There's other things going on. So it's like any job where if it's work hours, it's work hours.

If it's not, it's not. But as far as trying to remember people's lives, because that's has been an issue for me, there's a chat thread. So if I'm like, okay, last week he's talking about this. We'll talk about that again. It is a little odd because it is anonymous often. So sometimes I'll find out there's somebody I actually know that kind of thing is has been tricky with, with boundaries. But it's like any other business where you're dealing with a lot of people

you have accounts basically and you read through the many of notes and that kind of thing. What happens if you feel that's one of your clients is in love with you? Do you like that's fine or I mean that has to happen right? That has happened more than I would like to say is comfortable especially in those surrogate partnership situations. What ends up happening is I'll start pulling back. So I'll be like, oh, you know, I'm going on a date tonight. I have a life outside of this. Right. Eventually, there's something that clicks where they're like, I forgot this is fantasy. And then they disappear. And I think that's positive. I think it's like, okay, you've gotten to a point where you've had feelings for a person

again and learned to have some sort of interpersonal dynamic with a woman, even if it's not a full picture. So now you have maybe some sort of tool set to go and do that, or desire to go and do that in a real way. Yeah, interesting. Wow. How long have you been doing this? I've been doing it for a little over two years.

And has the industry changed much over that time? Because I know there was a moment where OnlyFans suddenly turned and they sort of banned sex work on there and that was a crazy time. There's these giant celebrities came in and sort of took everyone's attention away from people that weren't as big. What are the shifts for people listening that know about this world and might want to know more? What's the landscape like?

The average income on there is $180 a month, and there's tons of creators on there. The top 5% make basically a livable wage. So if you're top 5%, that sounds impressive. It's not it's livable wage. And those big giant creators are people like Bella Thorne, the famous people who go on there and they just immediately have a million people who want to see them naked and they're making millions of them. Wow.

Yeah, it's an insane dynamic with that. But because of that, I think that there's these new sort of scammy agencies that have come up and they're scammy in the way of like fast fashion kind of scammy. They offer this really super great quality product or service that they're going to offer you. They definitely exploit young models in that kind of 5% range and they'll say like, oh, you're making 4,000 right now a month, we could make you 20. And they say they have a team of chatters.

So all you have to do is make photos or videos and then the chatters will do the actual chatting. Oh, jeez. So if you go on OnlyFans right now, it looks like bots are running everything. The main page is just full of chatters. They're real people. And the shittiest part of it is those people are typically in the Philippines and they're making maybe one to five dollars a day and they're seeing these girls.

They are selling the content for hundreds of dollars and they have complete control of the account, of their social media accounts. And so there's all these leaks everywhere because they're frustrated. Yeah that is like fast fashion it's like a sweatshop. It is it's like has the same feeling and the other thing is what I do where I'm creating these fantasy dynamics they're creating fake dynamics with people so it's just not real and what I'm doing isn't real either but I'm a real person doing it I'm not a person pretending to be the model. The whole site is littered with that. I don't know anyone who doesn't use them, who's in my income bracket. Rage.

Yeah. Wow. So is an American company? It's actually a British company, but I think 49% something like that of users and creators are in America, mostly in Miami. The rest of them are kind of scattered around the world that allows a lot of countries of BAN it. Wow. Would you have any tips for anyone getting into this world? Good, bad, in between?

Yeah, I would say the first thing to do is make sure you have clear boundaries with what you're comfortable putting out there. Once you get on the site, it's really easy for somebody to say, you know, like, I'll give you $1,000 to do this. Slippery slope. It's definitely a slippery slope. It's on the internet forever.

They're not allowed to share it, but people share it. There's full sites of leaks. It's just gonna happen. So doing that, I think there is a huge, huge social sacrifice that goes along with it. And I think a lot of people think that if you're willing to just take hot photos of yourself, then you're gonna make a lot of money.

But there's not a single person who have ever been like, oh, like I do this. And there's not a shift in their attitude towards me. Sometimes it's positive. Often it's negative because there's all this stigma and everything. And they're assuming that you're getting like gangbanged on camera. You're not necessarily. But they're assuming all these things that are happening. And even if I was, you shouldn't change your attitude towards me.

Yeah. And then also parents. When my mom found out, it was definitely a conversation that was uncomfortable. Oh yeah. There's the social stigma on top of the ability for people that you probably don't want to see you naked because they're your old boss or something or your grandpa, right? Like people you just don't want on there will end up on there because they're curious. Oh boy.

I have like a sense of it now where I'm like, okay, you've been on my site before. I can read it on you. Yeah. It's one of those things. But I think as long as you have a close core group of people around you that know you and like you and feel, you feel supported in it. Like if you're already in a social structure, that's good. You'll be okay. I think the other thing is you need a lot of social media followers in order to actually be successful. And so I would say before you actually start doing it, do the branding so that you're not just like,

hey, all of my friends and family, here's my body. You know, I have one last question. Did you say you're in a relationship right now? Yeah. Yeah. So how does that work with partners? Do you feel obligated to share? Do they ask? Do you feel like you have a boundary up there? Yeah, he has been there since I started so he encouraged me when I was wanting to do it or not and I think that that's an important aspect. I think it's tricky to find people. Like I can't imagine trying to date right now. Right. Yeah, it would be a lot trickier. There's a lot of boundaries in place for sure.

For both of us, the kind of type of content that he's comfortable with me doing. He's also a tattoo artist. So there's boundaries on both sides. It's both working in intimate spaces and areas and that kind of thing. He's on the site. He knows what's going on. I feel more comfortable that way. I don't feel like, want to feel like I'm hiding stuff from him.

Yeah. Cool. Interesting. Thank you so much for sharing all that. That was really interesting. I don't feel like I want to feel like I'm hiding stuff from him. Sure. Yeah. Cool. Thank you so much for sharing all that. That was really interesting. And can I just say this entire time we've been talking to you, your cat has continuously been cleaning itself behind you.

She does a very clean cat. She's really flexible. Get them on OnlyFans. I reckon. I mean, are there animals on there? Maybe. I hope not. Actually, I don't think there should be. That would be bad because consent, I guess.

They can't, yeah, because you have to put an ID in and, you know, verify your identity. So cats don't have those, I don't think. I don't know. Thank you so much. That's been so interesting. All right. Have a good one. Bye. What a world.

Yeah, cool. I was good about not talking about that cat. All right, have a good one. Nice to meet you, bye. Bye. What a world. Yeah, cool. I was good about not talking about that cat. We were just so angry the whole time. I love that cat so much. I think that's our main difference. The cats. You and I is the cat issue.

Yeah, there's a few, but that one's pretty high up there. I like to bring it up when I see one. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Support for Flightless Bird comes from Quince. I've been shopping on Quince for about six months now and I do a lot of walking and hiking and as things are starting to warm up I'm ditching my jackets and sweaters and hoodies for shorts and t-shirts. I used to waste a lot of money on clothes that would only last one season that was until I found Quince. Now I've got high quality pieces that never go out of style that I'll be wearing year after

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to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash bird. Shout out to Clariton for supporting this episode of Flightless Bird and providing us with samples. Now something I've discovered since I got to Los Angeles, I don't know if it's all the heat or just all the flowers and pollen, but I have allergies now. This wasn't something I had in New Zealand. I felt it especially when I was in Austin where it was particularly dry and hot and that's where Claritin came in. Yeah, having allergies made it feel like I couldn't do anything and with Claritin now I can.

So luckily for those of us who live with symptoms of allergies we can live Claritin clear with Claritin D. This double action combination of prescription strength allergy medication and the best decongestant available relieves sneezing, a runny nose, itchy and watery eyes, an itchy nose and throat, and sinus congestion and pressure with ease. As I said, since I got allergies here in America, I've been taking Claritin D and things have all just settled down. Claritin D's fast symptom relief starts working on allergies with nasal congestion in as little

as 30 minutes. It tackles nasal congestion caused by allergies or a cold and also relieves sinus congestion and pressure due to allergies. Ready to live life as if you don't have allergies, it's time to live Claritin Clear. Fast and powerful relief is just a quick trip away. Find Claritin D at the pharmacy counter. Ask for Claritin D at your local pharmacy counter. You don't even need a prescription. Go to Claritin.com right now for a discount so you can live Claritin clear. Use as directed. Okay, next we have Rosalie. Rosalie. Rosalie. That's a nice name. Hi there. Hi Rosalie. Hi, how are you? Good, how are you? I'm good, so excited to be here.

Thanks for having me. I love your glasses. Thank you, something fun. Yeah, that's fun. I like the color a lot. I have to start off as well. David, I studied abroad at University of Auckland and you can see I have my little Kiwis back here.

So, big fan of your country. Goodness, I'm so glad. What was your favorite thing and least favorite thing about New Zealand? Least favorite was probably the lack of people, but most favorite, I'd say I lived right at the bottom of the domain. So I was having parrots and incredible birds flying right by my window the whole time. So that's incredible. I love this.

Now what have you come to us with? What American topic and expertise do you have? So I worked in the US Senate for three years. I worked there post-grad when I was 21 as an executive assistant to a Democratic Senator. I was her driver. I was her body woman. I was the person who did her day-to-day scheduling. It was a fun time. Explain that. What was the fun?

What does that world look like? I just imagine this really high pressure, intense time every hour of every day. Yeah, that's about right. It's definitely high pressure. It's kind of weird because I'd say perhaps half of the people who work on the Hill are less than 29 years of age. Wow. And these are the people who are writing the bills, driving the Senator, working the floor. So even if you watch the floor, you'll see how high schoolers are on the floor itself,

the Senate pages. So there's a lot of young people. And so you get the angst of young people post-grad. These are kids that are just coming out of college who now have a ton of responsibility. So it's fun to get to walk around the hallways. For my Senator, she always liked to have someone with her. So every meeting we went to, the Senate is a big campus. There's three office buildings, the big Capitol, there's trains that connect everything

underneath. So it was basically my job to make sure she got where she needed to go. Were you the barringer of many secrets? Yes. the barringer of many secrets. Yes. I can't even tell us. Tell us some. I actually, I sat down with my friends on the Hill before being like, I'm doing this. You're like, oh, you got exposed.

Oh, exposed. Doing exposed thing. I won't do any exposure, but you can go look up Dear White Staffers. It's a very popular Instagram and Twitter, and that is where people will anonymously trash talk their bosses, their experiences. Oh, okay, that's really good to know. This is a real hack, tabloidy question, but how dramatic is it in there? Is it this sexily charged atmosphere where everyone's like young and sick?

You know, I'm thinking this is like, feels like a TV show what you do you know how What I'm trying to say is how horny is it in there? I mean, I it's complicated because have you watched the love yeah, so that's by far the most accurate US political show out there I love that I love that by far be West Wing is saying There's the horny angst of like everyone around here is your age and we're all sleep deprived and going to receptions after work and drugs. Not everyone. There are bosses that are not.

There are bosses that is correct. And I will say there are sexual harassment issues on the Hill, but I think people are so eager to make a career and to continue your career on the hill that they're very careful. So you do sleep with some people in your office sometimes, but that gets really messy quickly. So God, it's like when I worked at soul cycle and like everyone's young and hot and sweaty and stressed and just on the edge and you're rolling it together. Yeah. People are bound to hook up. But at the Hill, everyone thinks they're important.

That's the big kickers. Of the ego. Every kid who's 21 is like Afghanistan will fall if I'm not here today, which is not true whatsoever, but there's big egos on the Hill. Wait, so you still work there? No, so I left last August. I now work for a global nonprofit. I just needed a different change of pace, but I was on the hill for three years and then I did a couple college

internships beforehand. What do you miss the most about not being on the hill? And by the way, I love how you call it the hill. I know, that makes me want to do it. You know, the hill is, I don't have any emotional connection to the hill, but I hear it and I'm like, sounds interesting. What do you miss the most? I miss just being in the stress culture, honestly. It's so intoxicating and you're working from 7am till 7pm, the boss leaves and then everyone starts drinking in the office. And then you go to reception, there's free wine. There's a big hustle culture and it's a very isolated community because there's

only 535 offices on the hill between the House and the Senate and then you have committees and lots of other other but if you want to work for a member it's very limited amount of people you can do it for. So the pressure is intense but we're also human and so everything goes wrong just like it would in normal life. Can you maybe just take us through a day or a disaster? Do you have like a memory of something that was just chaos? Yeah, I mean, there was definitely a couple of storms that would affect flights. So senators have 15 minutes to vote.

They votes go longer, but in a given day, you'll have three to 20 votes kind of depending. And if the senator is not there, they can't vote. So your senator has to get onto the floor within those 15 minutes for them to have their vote counted. And if it's not, it would have been considered my fault. Oh, I'd be 30 minutes away from the hill with her on an event and an ambassador house in Northwest DC. And I would have to run a couple of reds. We had Senate plates, luckily, but I'd run a couple of reds to get her to the floor on time to vote. And I'd be on the phone with the floor staff at the time being like, do not close the vote, please, please, please. You can see on C-span people just

waiting. So a lot of last minute have to act fast decisions. So dramatic. Yeah, lots of adrenaline, a lot of cortisol. A lot of cortisol and a lot of alcohol. Oh my God, I love it there. So there's a lot of cocaine in the bathroom and that kind of thing? Not that I was, but I was a Democrat. I don't know if the Republicans are partying differently.

I was in DC last year for a couple of days and there was a restaurant bar restaurant, I guess that everyone there obviously worked in politics and it was the energy in there. I forget what it was called. I want to like not the diplomat. The diplomat. Okay. The diplomat. Yeah. So that's too obvious. And yes, everyone in there is just like buzzy and they're in meetings and they're like rushing

around and it is also very important. Vogue is a scene. I would regularly get distracted on my day because the president was in town and motorcades were around and I would not be allowed to leave a hallway because he was walking by. So like, it's fun because you're very important. You can tell the people like I work for the senator and they'll let you through. But then at a certain point, they don't get two shits because someone else more important than you is in town.

Yeah. Oh, this is fun. This is quite American. Can't get more American than the Hill. Thank you, Rosalie. Thanks for bringing that insight into this job that I do not even begin to understand. So thank you. Thank you. It's such a pleasure. I do. About You're doing great, Stephen. He wants to learn more about the- No, don't do that.'s such a pleasure. I do. About- You're doing great. He wants to learn more about the- No, he'll do that.

He has a lot more to learn. Yeah, politics is the one topic that I'm really scared to get into because I just find it so, I mean, I'm just a bit of a dummy when it comes to this stuff. The system here is complicated, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's very complicated. You have checks and balances. I mean, American politics today too, we're going into election year, so it's very complicated your checks and balances i mean american politics today to go into election year so it's on here it's its own world.

Are you gonna be sitting through this election feeling a bit sad you're not in there are you like thank god. I purposefully did not want to be on the hill for this next election I was in it for the last big one and I'm all set. I lived in DC for January 6. I lived six blocks from the Capitol. So I saw it. Rosalie, you're wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, David. Thank you, Monica. What a treat. Have a great day. Thank you too.

Bye. The hill. I want to work on the hill. Yeah, it sounds fun. Yeah, it really does. She was good. Everyone's great. It does sound sexy. It does. I would to work on the hill. Yeah, it sounds fun. Yeah, it really does. She was good. Everyone's great. It does sound sexy. It does. It would be so charged. Yeah.

Because you're all... All the egos. Young and horny. Young and horny. Also, industry towns are horny. I think that's like, that's the way it is. And Hollywood has this level of... Yeah.

New York has the finance space. That's horny. And it is America is what she talked about, like, just everyone being exhausted. There is that thing in America, and I feel like it's in New York has finance space. That's horny. And it is America is what she talked about, like, just around being exhausted. There is that thing in America. And I feel like it's in New York where like being exhausted is like a badge of honor. 100 percent. If you're not, you're a loser. You haven't worked hard enough. L.A. doesn't have that, does it?

We're a bit more chill. Overall, it's it's more everyone writing scripts in the Starbucks. All right. Here comes Jessica. Jessica. Hi, Jessica. Hello. Hi. Hey, Jessica. Hello. Welcome to Flights of Fancy. Where are you in your house right now? I am actually at work. I work in a funeral home and I am in a little closet.

You're in a coffin. Yeah. Basically. Oh, wow. Is that what you're going to offer us today? Yes, I'm here to talk a little about some deaf. How did you get into this very specific industry? Yeah, what drew you? I kind of felt a calling and I feel like a lot of people are just interested in it. And I've been in the industry for almost nine years.

So I started pretty quickly out of high school. I got a job as a limo driver at a funeral home and would drive people to their funeral services. And then I went to mortuary school and got my degree. And now I have experience with funerals and embalming and cremation and. Wow. Yeah. Where do we begin?

I mean, I already have 400,000 questions. One is as the limo driver, what a privileged, fascinating, voyeuristic perspective to be in. At people's lowest moment, you're kind of an observer. It was very interesting. You would hear all the little gossip and drama.

Was mainly everyone just bawling or are people getting in fights? Are they gossiping? I would say not really fights, but they'd get in the car from the service to the cemetery and be like, oh my gosh, can't believe that she wore that to the service. Yeah, we can't help ourselves. Even when you're supposed to be the most connected to life. That's how we are by nature.

Yes. And what do you do now? What's most of your day spent doing? I mean, you mentioned things like cremations and embalming, which of course my mind instantly goes to wanting to know more about that. But what's your main part of your day doing what you do? So currently I manage what we call a care center and we work with a bunch of funeral homes in the area and basically

all the loved ones for the funeral homes come to my building and we do all of the prep work, the removals, the cremations, everything kind of behind the scenes to get the people ready for their funerals. What have you found America's relationship to death be like? I mean, it is still very taboo. A lot of strange reactions as soon as I say what I do for work. And it's kind of underappreciated. I think especially through the pandemic was a big instance where I noticed all the health care workers, rightfully so,

got all the recognition of all the doctors, all the nurses. But there was not the same amount of recognition for the death care workers rightfully so, got all the recognition of all the doctors, all the nurses, but there was not the same amount of recognition for the death care workers that were going through the same amount. Yeah, that's really true. Yeah, it was a crazy time. We all ignore that death is coming up and then it arrives and it's a scramble of like, oh my god, how are we gonna do this and what do we do? And then you swing in to make all this stuff happen. I mean, I think of America is pushing what funerals are, like we're live streaming them now.

The coffins are so ornate and beautiful here in America, the sort of a grandness to some funerals, obviously not all of them. But is there anything you see as distinctly American about the way Americans do funerals? I think something that's interesting as the industry evolves is there's a lot more personalization that goes into it. A few decades ago, it was very everyone has kind of the same service. You go to church, you get in your coffin, you get buried, and that's that. But as it's evolving, there's a lot more options to kind of make every service a little more

personal. And a lot of people are moving more towards we're celebrating the person's life and a little less sad and grieving as heavily. And do we think that's more or less American? Like I almost think the celebration of life is more other cultures. Like we're moving, we're trying, it seems to move out of our like wearing all black type funeral. Yes. You know, there's some cultures where they have a whole festival with the dead person present and then bury them and then dig them back up a couple years later to do that again.

In Indonesia, right? They get people out every birthday and top up their supply of money and smokes and celebrate and send them back into the ground. That's pretty incredible. I don't think we'll ever get there. I'm waiting for the day. You talked about the being increased personalizations of funerals. What's the most out there funeral you've seen as far as the way someone has put together a service or what they've done? I remember a service I worked that was pretty funny. There's a person who enjoyed marijuana in their life and they did it like a full 420 themed service. We started it at 420. There was a little prayer ceremony in the parking lot beforehand where everyone was partaking and letting people live their life how they love and then

reflecting that in their service is always fun. Yeah. In America, cause I don't know the answer to this. I always think you can get cremated or you can get buried in a coffin. What else can I do with my body? Can I throw it into space? Can I throw it into the ocean?

Are those rules in America? Do you know what that's about? There's more and more options. There is you can release your ashes into space. Don't think we've fully got to your full body in space in orbit. I've just been watching three Body Problem where spoilers say, throw a head up into space. But isn't like just throwing ashes into space just then just falls onto the...

Isn't that just like throwing them up there in a rocket? No, I'm talking about getting a rocket and sending it to the moon. Oh my. I personally want my ashes on the moon. Okay, wow. Okay. That's a big ask. And then they're starting to do some like human composting where it's very natural and then you can use the soil afterwards.

Wow. You want a little composting? Well, I mean, I do think what does make America unique, we probably lead in burials, right? Because I think many other places are first and foremost, cremation. That's a really good question. Well, I guess it's also religion.

Yeah. Cemetery seem like such a big deal here where we are in LA. I think of Hollywood forever. It's like a theme park in there. Do you have any sense of that? I think it's definitely region dependent in the country, too. I'm in the Pacific Northwest, where we're a lot more cremation heavy here. But if you go back to the South where it's a lot more traditional services,

there's going to be more embalmings and burials. And I have to rewind back, actually, composting. What are you talking about? I'm putting my body in a little compost bin and you leave me there for two years. What are the realities of that? I don't know the full specifics, but yeah, they put it in a type of storage and they break down. And then you get a bunch of soil nutrients, rich soil out of it. And then you can go use that for whatever.

If I die, I want to be combosted and put in your little vegetable garden. So whenever you eat a little carrot or a little potato or a fijoa, you're having a little bit of beef. We could do a fijoa tree growing on top of you. That would be beautiful. It actually is really beautiful. And the thing that I find so interesting about funerals is how they are kind of a bit of an environmental disaster where you're burying people in these plots of land and these ornate coffins that you're suddenly putting into the ground. It's so much money.

It's such an industry and the person's dead. It's not like a wedding where you're all together celebrating this thing with their lives. It's like you're dead and there's so much pressure on the family. I don't know, I'm just raving now. I don't really know what my question is, but it's kind of fascinating, isn't it? It just is an interesting world. It definitely is. We're trying to move away from the perceptive that we're just trying to get your money from

you, but that was a big part of the business in the earlier times of, oh, you want the biggest, grandest funeral. And if you love this person, then why are you not spending this much money on celebrating them? And I think now we're faced with the realities of what can we do that's more environmentally friendly and more affordable for people to move forward in the future. Oh, Jessica, what else do you have on the table today when we leave you? What are you going to be doing today? Cremation is really my area of expertise, so that's where I like to spend most of my time. How many do you do a day? We usually do about six to eight people a day out of my building, but it totally depends

on the workload and the machines you have and the capacity of everything. So what's the quickest you can create a body, get the best machine. What are we looking at? The best machine. Usually someone who's about 150 pounds could be done in a little over an hour. Oh, okay. That's not that long.

And how much, because someone was asking me recently about ashes. In a 150 pound person, how much would the ashes weigh? Average for ashes, about five to seven pounds. Okay. But it's very dependent on like a person's bone density, because that's what most of the ashes are comprised of. So someone may not seem like they have a lot of ashes and then they get out and we're like, wow, you had very dense bones.

Oh wow. Cool. This massive urn. Oh my God. You have the densest bones. Never knew. Never knew until you're dead. Well this was lovely.

Thank you so much for chatting with us. Yeah. I know that death has come up a few times on the podcast, so I'm happy to enlighten everybody a little bit. Love it. Yeah, I'm working through some stuff. Thank you. Thank you.

Have a great day. Awesome, you too. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Oh my goodness gracious. You're in your car. I had to take a lunch and find the quietest cemetery I could find to park in the back

of to have nice audio for you guys. It's perfect. It sounds nice. Now I'd love to know what your pitch is. What is your American expertise that you are pitching to us? I'm a 22 year veteran of the postal service. Oh yes. This is American as it gets.

All I jumped to instantly is Newman in Seinfeld. Why? Just dumping. He was a mailman. Oh. And he had often, I just remember one episode where he couldn't deliver the mail in time so he was just dumping it as if it was in his apartment and not delivering it. Tell us what you sort of do and what this world is like.

I don't even know where to begin. Okay, so I mean, I've been working for the post office since a month after I graduated high school. I did it through college, which I only got an associate's degree, so two year degree. And I worked all the jobs that we have pretty much minus one or two. I've done overnight machine work with letter processing and package processing. I've done overnight machine work with letter processing and package processing. I've done delivery. Do you feel defensive ever because it's like when they hear the DMV, when they hear the post office,

there's like an immediate like, ugh, like I don't wanna go there. I don't wanna be a part of it. It really depends where you're at. Like in a more urban environment. It is just a mess to try and go to the post office. Yes, it sucks. I mean, I'm sorry.

Whoa. No, that's fine. I agree. I don't like waiting in line either. But where I'm at, it's more of a pop in, pop out. So we don't get as much of the hate. It's more of a, we're just glad that we can still get our mail picked up and brought to us. Cause I'm in a very rural area as well.

I feel like you're part of this kind of magical world where, you know, we live our lives. My mail arrives. I'm like, that's great. It's arrived. If it doesn't arrive, I get very stressed out trying to find my mail. You're part of this hidden infrastructure of the mail getting to us. I'm wondering if you could maybe talk us through a little bit about what that system is.

Cause I feel like I just have no concept of how it works. It is a 24 hour operation. Whereas we have tens of thousands of workers who never work during the day. They just work at night. And I did that, I did nights for seven years before I moved over to Carriers because we had children and I was like,

I can't do this for the rest of my life. And I'd worked with people in certain jobs and they'd done 30, 35 years on night shift. Wow. It's a weekend thing too. I worked Sundays, Saturdays for seven years and next month I actually moved to the top of the seniority list at my office

and I will start getting Saturdays off for the first time in my career. So you've been working seven days a week for 20 years. Six days a week for almost 14 years. I started in 2002. 2006 was peak male volume, as they call it. So it's like the year we had the most volume. So I saw that right up through it happening

and then things started to follow off. And now we've went to the transition to where I deliver less and less mail, but more and more packages. Compared to when I started, you would take out a tiny hamper of packages and a tiny hamper of mail. Now you take out a large hamper of packages and a tiny hamper of mail. Now you take out a large hamper of packages

and a tinier hamper of mail. Interesting. Okay, if anyone has kids in the car right now or nearby, I'm gonna give you a second to turn off this show. Okay, we're back. Santa letters, what do you do? Santa letters, okay, so each office is different. Usually, if they're charitable organizations in town, sometimes they'll be like, bring them all to

us. Police stations usually collect them. My mother and I do a lot of stuff with a program called Toys for Tots, where you get toys to local fire departments and they need to distribute them. So I've kind of got an inside track on some of that stuff sometimes. I've had families on my routes Toys for Tots where you get toys to local fire departments and they need to distribute them. So I've kind of got an inside track on some of that stuff sometimes. I've had families on my routes where I knew there wasn't going to be Christmas and it was kind of like, let's feel this out. Be like, hey, what do they want? Oh, we can help out with this.

I'm in a unique position and my mom as well as probably the most giving person I've ever met. So we're going to try and do our best to help out if we can. But yeah, the Santa letters are, it's like that kid hands you that letter. It's like, you better get this to the North Pole. He thinks he's going to the North Pole and do a lot of-

It is. It is, it is going to the North Pole. Do a lot of postal workers just throw them in the garbage? What else would you do, right? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You can't throw anything away. Do a lot of postal workers just throw them in the garbage? What else would you do? Right? No, no, no, no, no. You can't throw anything away.

Oh, it's illegal. Yeah. There are special departments where you can, I think they send all of them probably to be destroyed after the fact and that sort of thing. The ones that don't make it charitable things. But I know that it is a unique thing because I'm sure it's illegal. Yeah. To a certain degree, because we're sending them to a fictitious place. But what do you do?

Where people are very much lying about what they're doing with them. And then... Yeah. It's a lie from the start. What's the most unusual thing you've ever found in a package in your career or a colleagues found? Has someone tried to ship a child? Oh, people ship everything.

And things aren't always packaged well, so you'll blatantly grab a package, and you're grabbing a package. You get a lot of Teemu or AliExpress packages that they don't spend a lot of time really dollin' up what's in the box type deal. You're just holding a big dildo or something. Oh. Yeah. I thought you meant an actual penis.

That's pretty much what's happening. Like someone cut off someone's penis. Just to clarify, you haven't found an actual penis in the mail? Cause that's a crime you should tell the police. I haven't found any body parts. That's good. Good. You don't want to either, but.

But weirdest thing, what made you go, holy shit. Yeah, what's the weirdest? Okay, I was working night shift, like 5P to 1A, and you had to go out and clear out the drop boxes where they Drop all the letters off and I was doing the midnight run as they called it So at midnight you'd go and empty the boxes to make sure they weren't too full for the next morning crew I open two boxes and I go to dump them in the hamper and I dump out a loaded 38 Oh Boy, I walk back up to the office

It didn't touch it scary. You call the police told to come get this loaded gun. We just found Wow, yeah, it's not probably not a great criminal with the decided to send that through the Yeah, I didn't even have postage on it. So I don't know what they were thinking Gary send it. Oh my god. Is there one sort of misconception you think Americans have about the mail service, something you'd like to clear up? You know, this is your chance. It's a good job, it's a tough job, and the volume that we operate on, I don't think a lot of people really understand. If you're looking at the piece count, I've read breakdowns, and like UPS, let's say these are vague numbers, but

UPS handles 150 billion pieces of parcel a year. Oh my goodness. It's unreal. We would handle closer to eight times that amount. No! Oh my god. I know we're doing like an eight to one. And the thing that's so interesting, you know, if you send an email, you know, that email is probably going to get there. If you lose one bit of those millions and millions of messages that could change someone's

life. It could be like a love letter someone's sent and that doesn't get delivered. It's the most important thing in that person's life. It's such a responsibility. Absolutely. Yeah. I appreciate what I do and the fact that the post office is one of the only real equal opportunity small business tools that we still have. Because you can

start a business selling carved dolls and you have equal rights as anyone else to the same rates for shipping your goods. Yeah, that's really true. And we'll come to your house and we'll get it just like we would a factory or anything else. Yeah that's lovely. I'd say that's the thing that people take for granted is it's a really available tool and it helps keep prices in check because a letter costs 68 cents to mail currently. It's gonna be 72 or 3 in July but I'm pretty sure if you go and try to just mail a letter through UPS

or FedEx, it's going to cost you six to fifteen dollars. They're not set up for like letters, but specifically kind of our game for a long time. So as we wrap up, you know, we've got an audience of Americans listening. Is there anything Americans could do differently to make the mail person's job easier? You know, obviously put the dog away. I don't know. Is there anything that you wish people could do? When it snows, sweep off your steps.

Because we have to walk up them either way. The dog thing's nice. I play nice. I'm an animal guy, but it's intimidating walking into somebody's yard where there's an animal that doesn't want you there. Right. You, I know, have been bit by numerous animals. It's one of my favorite pastimes here.

But I encourage it. You know, I'm a good- I'm gonna say, you've done great. Oh my God. So one of the nicest things that's ever happened to me in my life is one day someone knocked at the door and I was annoyed because no one likes to answer the door and I opened it and it was my postal worker. He was like, Hey, I'm just checking

in on you because I got worried because you haven't checked your mail in a week or something. That was just the nicest, kindest gesture. And you do kind of forget because it does happen so effortlessly that you forget there's real people behind it and they're worried about you sometimes Yeah, I've done customer checks where you call the police and you're like, hey go check on You know miss miss house because she hasn't got her mail in three or four days if I get canned for that Then we're all screwed. Anyway, so you're such a good human. Thank you so much for this. Yes, this is very American. There's no getting around it. Guys, my wife got me to listening to you in the pandemic.

We couldn't really do anything and we would go on long drives because we live in the middle of nowhere. We'd go to Costco, which is like an hour and a half away and we would listen to Armchair. And then David came on and I became even more infatuated and just to really enjoy what you guys do.

I'm now, your web worm was great last night. Oh, you're fully in. That's so great. I didn't tell anybody I was doing this because I was like, I might panic and not be able to go through with it or anything else. Oh my god, no, you killed it. You've been an absolute star. Thank you so much.

It was so nice to meet you. Thanks for chatting with us. Thank you guys. Nice to chat with you killed it. You've been an absolute star. Thank you so much. It was so nice to meet you. Thanks for chatting with us. Thank you guys. Nice to chat with you as well. Bye. Bye. Bye bye.

Well, that was episode one of Flights of Fancy. That was really fun to talk to people. People are quite American. People are so American. And people, I love how interesting Americans are. They start talking, I'm captivated. For me, training dolphins and sea lion, I mean that entire world, I'm going to keep researching that.

Okay, that's awesome. This was super fun. Thanks, Monica. Thank you.