Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Flightless Bird: The Villages

Episode Date: May 16, 2023

This week on Flightless Bird, David sets off for The Villages, America’s biggest retirement community, home to over 100 thousand people over the age of 55. What lies in this mysterious land spread out over about 32 square miles, an area bigger than Manhattan? David discovers the Villages are so big, they get their own designation on the census. Taking a tour with a resident, Farrier discovers golf courses, pickleball courts, grocery stores, banks, and a roading system just for golf carts. And while the local paper is full of positive stories, is there a dark underbelly that runs underneath? And is there any truth to the ongoing rumor that the Villages is the STI capital of the United States? 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. One thing I've noticed since being here in America is that Americans love to tap out of reality a little bit. Whether that means tapping into someone else's reality by watching beautiful people on TV, Listen, everyone has their own truth of how they think something happened. or running off for a day at Disneyland with its perfectly curated surroundings that make you forget about the harsh realities of real life. Now as I learned in the Epcot episode, Walt Disney had originally planned for that amusement park to

be a real community. More Truman Show than theme park. Good morning. Morning. Good morning. Oh and in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening and good night. But there's one place in America that really did decide to go full Truman Show. Not with the cameras, but with the idea of this perfectly curated world where nothing can go wrong, where the flowers are always fresh and citizens live in perfect harmony. That was an old ad for The Villages, America's largest retirement community. And it really is large. Found about an hour's drive northwest of Orlando, The Villages is home to over 100,000 people over the age of 55 and is spread out over about 32 square miles, an area bigger than Manhattan.

It's so big, it gets its own designation on the census. There are golf courses, pickleball courts, grocery stores, banks, and a roading system just for golf carts. And with a population with a median age of 67, there's an ongoing rumor that it's the STI capital of the United States. So grab your mobility scooter, bingo board and false teeth, because this is the Villagers episode. Flightless, flightless, flightless bird touchdown in America. I'm a flightless bird Touchdown in America

Listening back to that intro, Monica, my voice I think can sometimes be quite kind of flat. Oh. The Villages is fucking incredible. It's so big. I can't. When you said the Manhattan thing, that really put things into perspective.

There are between 120,000 and 130,000 old people all living together in this area that continues to spread. It was meant to start at a certain size and stay that size, but the old people keep coming. And this place, if it keeps growing, it's going to take over Florida, and it's going to take over the entirety of the United States. And it's just going to be mobility scooters and false teeth everywhere. Okay. Is there a minimum age? And who's running this? Is there like-

We're going to find out all these things. It's an empire. It is an empire. Is there people taking advantage? Look, I don't want to get sued. There's always people taking advantage. It's very white. You would stick out like a sore thumb there.

Do you have to apply? You've got to apply. Driving in, you're driving along on the freeway and you pass one of these overpasses. It's just got the villages and giant letters and you cross through. And then you realize that you have already been driving through the villages for miles and miles and it's already all around you. been driving through the villages for miles and miles and it's already all around you it seems like a very weird thing to have to apply to be in a place that takes up 32 square miles like you wouldn't ever apply to live in manhattan mostly it's an age thing you gotta have the money you've got to sign an agreement that your house is going to fit certain colors you're not going to make it

look crazy because it is like the Truman Show. It all has to look and feel a certain way. There's three major housing types in there. Different size ranges depending on your wealth. I'm surprised there isn't some sort of federal law that limits the amount of space that an application type of living space. This is weird. The whole place is weird. And there's also huge debates about people about how big it should get.

Because some people signed up to this place 15 years ago, and they didn't expect it to get as big. So they signed up for a tiny village, and suddenly they're living in this place besides Manhattan. And they're like, I didn't sign up for this shit. What's going on? Wow. Zooming out, though, I don't really touch on this in the documentary, but the idea of getting old and having to go to a, what do you call it in America? A retirement community, right?

Yeah. We call it a rest home in New Zealand. Okay. You go there to rest and then die. Oh. What do you imagine getting old looks like for you or people around you like the kind of people you're hanging out with what do you imagine are you all living together are you married with children looking out to you by then are you oh my god are you at the villages the only brown person there

no what's it gonna be they're gonna harass me if i'm the only brown person there um that would be a funny show seeing you to the villages it's being chased around town on scooters. Oh, wait. I wonder if this is a problematic question. I want to circle back to yours, but that is deep. But if I were dying, like let's say I got a diagnosis tomorrow. Yeah. Monica, the news is bad.

No, you don't need to role play. Don't need to role play my death. Okay. My impending death but yeah if i got a diagnosis tomorrow they said you have two years and let's say i didn't have a family or friends or something would i be able to go there even though i'm young no oh it's not around mortality it is an age okay yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got to be, I think it's over the age of 55 to go in.

Wow, this is. So it's not old, old. Okay. But yeah, you can't go there. And they also have this incredible rule where your grandchildren can only visit you for like a certain number of days in a year. Because they don't want it to be this place that's just overrun by kids. This is where you go and have your best life when all your other shit's been dealt with you've retired you're in bliss without children running around there's something that

feels wrong about this like very exclusionary and there's nothing else in life that we say yeah it's fine for just this group yeah it. It is. Okay, back to your hard question. My grandfather is very old right now, and he has dementia. And my mom and her sisters, they are in the thick of taking care of him. My mom is there every other day. And it has made all of us as a family really stop and think about how we want to do this when it's our turn yeah my parents said put us in a nice home just put us in a nice home this is not your responsibility yes and my dad said something really interesting he was like you're dealing with the stress of your older parents but

you yourself are getting old it's such a weird time to have to do this because you're also aging yeah yeah and there's that weird um kind of sad but beautiful role reversal where suddenly they're the baby and you're the adult caring for them and it it all Benjamin Button flips on you. It does. It's a really strange place to be. It's sad. It's so sad to see someone so capable and able. And then my mom is changing his diapers. That's too much. I struggle with this a lot because my parents are getting old as well.

And my brother is in New Zealand. And he kind of keeps an eye on things, which is amazing. But my folks don't want help at all they're probably a bit like your parents like no we don't want to be a burden on you but then as children you're beginning to think oh no finally i can have i can help them for once in my life yeah they've done so much so this is the time to help but if they don't want help that's's tricky. But also, if they fall down, you have to take them to the hospital. My dad's always climbing ladders. Oh, no. And just like, stop.

We'll get someone else to do the guttering. Get off that ladder. Yes. Loves it. Always climbing. The older he gets. When I was a kid, I was tunneling. Now my dad's climbing.

He's got to be up high. No, I don't like that. I don't like it either. And also, you know, when you talk about with people getting older and at what age do you tell them they have to stop driving and then this always becomes a huge point of contention. That person definitely doesn't feel like they should have to stop driving. No, and that's their whole freedom being taken away from them, right? When the car goes, that's the first step to freedom going.

It's like the symbolic thing. And so they do dig their heels in there's also this thing i think definitely speaking as a just from where i am in the world and being like a white male we we do ship people off to a retirement village or rest home right other cultures will be much more caring and there's this much impetus like no if you're a child you absolutely move in with your parents and you care for them and that's just normal and that seems to me much more sane than what i would do which is shipping people off to this rest home which is where you end up with something like the villages which is the ultimate rest homes have sort of flipped it and they're like this retirement village is is meant to be

like paradise it's not this awful thing. It's the best place you can be. I mean, I'm with you on, it feels inhumane to be like, you're old now here, go to this home. Oh, it's bonkers. But my parents are Indian. So they have grown up in this exact paradigm where you're required to, and now they're like, oh, no, like this isn't actually good for anyone's mental health. Yeah. Including the older person. Yeah. I listened to a TED talk, Jared Diamond.

Oh, yeah. We've had Jared on. Oh, he's amazing. But he looked at some different practices of dying around the world. Oh. And these are some top lines that I jotted down. of dying around the world. And these are some top lines that I jotted down.

In Siberia, there's a tribe there that practices voluntary death in which an old person requests to die at the hand of a close relative when they're no longer in good health. Some Norse tribes in Scandinavia follow similar practices where the elderly put themselves in an impossible situation like setting out on a solo sea voyage. What? Specifically go out knowing that they will die. No, I don't like that.

Which is incredible. And in Paraguay, although I don't think this is happening anymore, men would be left just to wander off and to die on the white man's road, which is what they called it, which I love, semi-white man's road. And shockingly, in a slightly more intense twist they kill elderly women by breaking their necks of course they just let the men go like you go off on this road and do your own thing and then they're snapping the women's necks horrific yeah still sexism even in death everywhere yes and on the flip side there's a greek island where

there are some residents on this mediterranean island who live uh four times more likely than their american counterparts to live to 90 wow so i want to go there how do you want to die well obviously you just want to no that's a no i want to know i want to die in a funny but memorable way i want something where the funeral is a good story to tell and a bit funny so i hit by a cow that's flung out of a tornado or something. That probably means it's like too soon though. That's exactly, that's the problem. I want to be comical, but 80.

Yeah, I want to go out with a bang. 80 is young. Send me out at 80. No. I'm done. My bones are already sore now. I'm 40. Science is advancing though.

There might be solutions for that. I'd like to live longer, but at the moment, it just seems like 80. Listen, 80 is always the age, right? In my prayers that I made up, there was a line in it that said, everyone lives up to be 80 or older. That was like a line. Oh, that was your prayer? Yeah, it was in there.

Oh, that's really nice. I kind of hodgepodge a prayer together, and that was in there. There was also a line line no kidnappers and robbers i was prescribing do you still pray it um no i don't but pause but well i'm trying to think 80 was the age that felt old but now it's rushing my exactly that My dad is... What year was he born? Forget his age. What year was he born? I don't remember. I don't remember. Oh, my God. But I think he's 70 or something.

He's old. But the idea of only having 10 more years, that is unacceptable and not okay. Yeah. So I've raised it to 95. Oh, it could have ended on another 15. 15 yeah so i do need to maybe start my prayer back up well that's the weird thing about nursing homes though is that it's the last 10 years and you want that time with your parents well unless they're had they have dementia and stuff because then they aren't them i'm happy to help until they're not them anymore. And they don't want that.

They don't want me to have to see them like that. Yeah. The dementia thing is scary. I've got a really good friend in New Zealand. I used to work with her father in a newsroom and he has dementia and going to visit him, like it's really difficult because he doesn't remember you specifically. But the thing that I thought was about this person that was really incredible was there was still that inherent kindness in them. Like they'd light up when you walked into a room and they're just really happy to see you. But it is so, that's the hardest thing, right? It's so heartbreaking.

When those facts all leave. Yeah. All right. Got a bit heavy there. The villages are a place of happiness and light and excitement. This place blew my mind. And it's probably one of my favorite places in America I've gone besides Disneyland. Did you have to show your passport to get in there?

No, I didn't have to show a passport, but it felt like you might need to at some point. There are a lot of gates that close up and down. Oh, my God. And a lot of them, like some of them you come across and they're broken because someone lost control of a scooter and just gone straight through the gate. So there's comedy to be found there as well. Okay. I can't tell you how many times I've watched this commercial for the Villages leading up to this trip. I'd been excited to visit Disney World in Florida, but to me, the Villages was the real theme park.

A Westworld of the over 55s. A utopia of the elderly. They have 60 golf courses on this property. That's too many. Way too many. And how many pools? 70! Stopping for guests along the way, I wasn't the only one who was a fan. I bumped into this woman who was taking her mother, who lives in the villages, out for the day.

It's basically just some say an adult amusement park. How many people live here? It's huge. About 160,000 and growing. In New Zealand, our retirement homes average around 70 residents. Here in Florida, it's a lot bigger. 160,000 is a bit of an exaggeration. It's closer to 130,000, but that's still a load of people.

A lot of people up for adventure in their old age. We're actually swimming with manatees in the Gulf. Big adventure today. This sounds very silly, but I don't even know what a manatee is. It's like a big, huge, grey mammal. It swims in the salt water, but it comes up for air. Are they friendly? They're friendly, yes. They won't attack? No, they won't attack. When I was planning this episode, I'd reached out to the villagers directly,

explaining that I wanted to visit for Flightless Bird. I was met with complete radio silence, possibly because the villagers isn't hot on journalists, documentary crews, or podcasters right now. They probably still have some kind of heaven in mind. A documentary that came out three years ago and showed a somewhat darker underside to the place. Somebody found me out. I got in trouble with the law last night. You're charged with possession of cocaine. Who am I?

Also, the villagers doesn't really need PR. For a period of about 10 years, they were the fastest growing metropolitan area in the US, and they're still expanding at an alarming rate. I talked to someone who'd done business with the villagers, and this is what they told me. The villagers manage their brand very tightly. They're extremely controlling over every aspect of the community, from who can visit, to what health insurance can be sold to its residents, to who can even say or type The Villages as it's a trademark name. I've also worked with Disney, and I'd say they are comparable in how challenging they can be to work with because of the tremendous level of control they want over everything. If you approach them officially, and they fear your

peace may not put them in a good light, they will likely do everything they can to shut you down. With those words buzzing around in my head, I took another approach. I found someone who had a parent who'd retired to the villages, and they agreed to introduce me. Patrick is as fascinated by this place as I am, and seemed more than happy to give me a quick tour by car as we drove to his dad's place. There's some rumors that they had former Universal employees and Disney Imagineers kind of helped them with the immersion of it. The first thing I notice about the villages is it's big. It just rolls on and on, street after street, and it all sort of looks the same. It really is the Truman Show. I also noticed that all the flowers planted everywhere are almost too perfect. Patrick

tells me they change out all the flowers depending on the season, as in the flowers will be in perfect shape and the village's groundkeepers will rip them out and put in new ones. In summer the blooms are red, white and blue. For the spring it's typically bright blue, pink and yellow. It's always the same pattern. I suppose somewhere there's a graveyard of pulled out old flowers. As we drive around, I notice the villagers often opt for roundabouts over traffic lights. You've got a lot of roundabouts. Oh, I mean, this is, I feel like I'm back in New Zealand. All we have in New Zealand is roundabouts. So this is like New Zealand. I feel comfortable here. I feel at home.

After our 50th roundabout, we drive past a giant rocky wall. It goes on and on, and I'm told that's where the founders live, about four acres right in the middle of the villages. This community was founded by Harold Schwartz back in the 60s. It started out as a trailer park, and Harold put up a church and a town square for residents to gather at in the evenings. And then it got further developed, starting to snowball into what it is now. Ten houses turned into a hundred. A hundred turned into four hundred by 1980. Harold's son Gary took over when he died.

And then it really bloomed. By the 90s, there were 8,000 houses. And Gary was a billionaire. When Gary died, his three kids took over. And they're now the CEO, the CFO, and the chief engineer here. One of their kids, Megan Boone, is a lead actor on The Blacklist. I asked him not to say anything. It's not his fault. It's mine. No, it's mine.

Patrick tells me when his dad moved in here, he thought the villages would stop growing, but it hasn't. They kind of were told that, okay, you know, we have this area, it's going to be this finite area, and then that's going to be it. This is going to be the villages. I don't know if you came in through the turnpike, but they are expanding this massively. Some think this place could still double in size. There's also a sort of figurative village around the villages, an infrastructure that supports all the staff that work here to keep the 130,000 residents happy in old age.

So there are a lot of draw cards to get staff to move here to this alternate reality. For instance, Pat points to a school we pass and tells me it's a charter school, a really good school one of your kids gets access to if you work at the villages. A really good school one of your kids gets access to if you work at the villages. He knew with 150,000 people, you've got to have enough people to come work and you've got to have a draw for them. And that's their draw. I'd never heard of a charter that was based on where you work and not where you live. So it has nothing to do with where you live.

As for kids visiting their grandparents, there's a rule around that. Grandchildren can only spend a total of 30 days a year in the villages. The villages is meant to be a utopia and screaming grandkids do not make a utopia. We pull off into a driveway. We've arrived at Pat's dad's place. There are three types of homes here at the villages and Frank's is one of the bigger types. How long have you been here now? We have been here about 11 years. How old are you?

I'm 71. I think the average age now in the Villages is somewhere around 68 or 69, so I'm pretty typical. Lived up north, came here, retired. Frank has a big smile and is wearing a light blue golf shirt and cap. I look around his home and it's really nice. There's a giant kitchen, a barbecue outside, and I can tell I'm in Florida because there are Disney collectibles on the shelf. Frank's wife is out today, so Frank has agreed to take over as my tour guide.

So you get snowbirds that are people that come down and spend the winter. And then they call people like us frogs. And they call us frogs because they said, we're here till you croak. Frank tells me that between now and croaking, he plans to keep busy. That's why he came to America's biggest retirement village. There's a reason they call it the villages. There are over 3,000 organizations, we call them clubs, inside the villages. So if you are interested in woodworking or quilting or

if you want to collect oval post stamps or just anything, there's something to do. And that's kind of the part that I think draws people here is wherever you want to be at in your retirement, you can be that here. If you want to golf five times a week, you can golf five times a week. He says he's mainly here for the golf courses. Right now, I think there's 38 or something like that. There's over 700 holes of golf. Have you played most of them? I have played all of them. 38 or something like that. There's over 700 holes of golf and there are... Have you played most of them?

I have played all of them. Technically, I realize you never need to leave the villages, ever. It's all here. If you want, you can shut the rest of the world out completely. There's probably 120 places in the villages that I can go eat by golf cart. Now, that'll range everywhere from an ice cream shop to a steak restaurant and a country club or whatever. There's two Walmarts and a Sam's here.

How many towns that are 100,000 people got all three of those? Frank gets out a newspaper, The Daily Sun. It's the official newspaper of the villages. It's like every other newspaper. News is about, you know, a half a day late because it's not online. But it is, I think, the only paper paper in the country that had a 16% increase in circulation from last year. Journalism isn't dead. I flick through. There's a lot of local news and photos from some recent Villagers events. There are a lot of ads for new Villagers houses and a lot of ads for golf carts. I notice it's mostly good news, which is what you want in a utopia. But there's

a rogue publication that reports on the bad news here. No one knows who runs it, but it's online only at Villagers-News.com. I go and read some recent headlines, and it's a bit like TMZ for the elderly. Overcrowding at the golf course. Passenger arrested with marijuana. Pedestrian struck and killed. Golf cart rolls into pond. Villager to lose their license after crashing into a pole on a roundabout. Frank emerges. He ducked off to make me a 1pm drink. It's a vodka gimlet. It has two shots of vodka, some lime juice, and some sweetener. And it has olives in it. If you don't like olives, save them. I'll eat them. Gimlet fixed. Frank wants to give me a tour of

his corner of the villages in his golf cart. of an estimated 60 000 golf carts here i ask him if he's a good driver he says yes he is stay tuned for more flightless bird we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors the show is sponsored by better help now i don't know about you, Monica, but most weeks my energy goes into the show and writing my newsletter and thinking about other people. Never think about myself. Not because I'm selfless. It's just because my brain is full of other junk. Sure, sure. And I hear a rumor. People tell me that sometimes taking time for yourself is important. It sure is. Have you heard this? I've heard it. I hear a rumor. People tell me that sometimes taking time for yourself is important. It sure is. Have you heard this?

I've heard it. I've heard it. And you know the best way to do that? Therapy. Yeah. It's something that, as a New Zealander, it's taken me a while to wrap my head around. In New Zealand, there's this idea that you shouldn't talk about your feelings. Yeah.

But we absolutely should. And a good way to do that is better help. And I think that's also a little bit of a false narrative. It's not just talking about your feelings. And I think that's sometimes why people are against it. Yeah, it's not. It's talking things out. It's not necessarily like, I'm sad today. It's if you're going through a problem, which we all are at all times or conflict or trying to resolve something, it's just very helpful to do it with another person. And you can't do it with the person you're in conflict with.

No, I hear that's not the best way to do it. It's not generally the best way. Yeah, having like an outside neutral force is a really good thing. With BetterHelp, it's entirely online. So you don't have to go into a little waiting room and like drive there and all that stuff. It's convenient, fixable and suited to your schedule. You fill out a brief questionnaire, you get matched with a licensed therapist and if for any reason you don't like them you can just switch to another one for no additional charge. So if you want to find more balance with BetterHelp visit betterhelp.com slash bird today

and you'll get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash bird. What do you think so far, Monica? Oh my God, I love it. You were perking up as you were listening to that. And by the time he was making me a little vodka gimlet, you were like, oh yeah, I'm moving in. I love it there. Everyone there that I saw was having a really good time. They start drinking at 1. They can do whatever they want. There's no responsibilities.

Ice cream, steakhouses. Yeah. It's all contained. I mean, that's very much my personality. Yeah. I would like that. You just like things all on hand, right? I would love it.

Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I mean, you might be able to forge a path. But I can't because they don't let brown people in. I'm not allowed to say that. No, they definitely do. It's something like the whiteness there is about 98%. It was a surreal thing though to be surrounded by this entire world.

So do they have buses and stuff to take all these people to the polls for voting? No. So politicians come there. Republican politicians absolutely come there. Yeah. And there are absolutely booths set up there so you can vote in the villages. Oh, boy. Yeah.

No, so it's a big Republican hotspot. So nominees will go there and give that speech. That's a lot of fucking people. It's a lot of people. And because they are motivated, they will vote. So you turn them and suddenly you've got 130,000 people happily voting. Make it easier for them to vote and harder for black people. I know.

What are you doing in your old age, Rob? Do you have a plan? You've got kids. Are they going to be looking after you? I hope so. The idea of being stranded in a retirement home sounds kind of dark and depressing. That's why you have kids, right? So they can look after you.

You're birthing little helpers for when you're too old to look after yourself. I think that's kind of an old school thought. Is it? Yeah. I mean. I think Rob's making on it. Calvin said he never wants to leave home. Okay.

He has to live with us forever. I'm going to let you keep thinking that's really cute. It's so cute. And then he said if he has to leave, he just wants to live in the house next door. That sounds like you've got it made, Rob. I want all my friends to build a commune. We all live there. And then we hire nurses and stuff to help us.

I don't want to be a burden. Right. A nurse sounds fine. Yeah. But being in like a home, my grandparents were in homes and you visit them like once a week at most. Well, he was just saying like they call them frogs because you come there to croak. It's likeak it's like it's a joke it's it's something that you have to become very aware of but that guy was 60 when he

moved in that is so young yeah he'd worked really hard his whole life and i think when he came to hit retirement he knew exactly what he wanted he wanted to play golf he wanted to have a good time and you meet people whose mentality is that and you've got other people that can't imagine not working or creating or doing stuff. Right. That is true. Yeah. Interesting. He's loving it.

He's like, you know, I'm never going to work another day in my life. Are we going to get into how much it costs? It's actually the one thing I didn't get into. Really? And while I play this next part of the doc, I'm going to Google it. I'm so curious. Because I'm super curious. Because it's basically like you buy the house yeah outright and then as you basically pay to be a

part of the community right i think you said it's something like 10 000 or something a year and it gives you access to the clubs and the gym and the pool and you can like eat for free it's all inclusive no no you pay for everything okay let's skip's skip. I want to, you Google that, but I want to hear more about this paradise I'm moving into. Frank has decided to take me and his son out for a tour of the villages, up close and personal, in his golf cart. The three of us are looking at it now. And it's not any golf cart. It's fancy.

A mini version of what looks like something my grandfather would have driven. Okay, so here we go. So this is a 5-inch replica of a 1934 Ford. Across the replica Ford's windscreen, a sticker. Trump Pence. Keep America Great. I still have a Trump Pence sticker on my thing, okay? Yeah, yeah. So you can't find any more loving family than we have, really. You really can't, okay? Yeah, yeah. So you can't find any more loving family than we have, really.

You really can't, okay? But politically, we are different. And so he almost won't ride in this cart because it's got Trump vets on it. I think this is the first time I've driven in a car emblazoned with a Trump sticker. A tiny car. I'm excited for this new American experience.

We take off. We should have probably taken the other cart but we can't take three in the other cart because this cart is I have custom exhaust on it so I make it it makes it louder. What are the road rules in here? We've got our own lane. You have the same rules in this golf cart as you do in a car and this is a golf cart lane. There's a whole roadway of cart paths in here there's well over 100 miles of dedicated cart path other golf carts zoom by and the surreal feeling of being in some kind of theme park comes back we pass through a tunnel that's just for golf carts and Frank gives his horn a big toot. Are there any collisions between? Yes, we lose someone in a golf cart.

I would say it averages once every year to two years. Regardless of whose fault it is, whenever a golf cart tangles with a car, the golf cart loses. As we zoom along, we pass a number of so-called rec centres. There's a rule here that for every certain number of houses, there has to be a rec centre. It's like the ultimate game of Sim City or The Sims, keeping your residents happy. So this is a small rec centre, has some amenities. Here's a horseshoe pit.

There'll be a shuffleboard place in the back. They'll always have a pool. There are, I don't know how many swimming pools in the villages, but a lot. I'm going to tell you there's a hundred or more. There's a lot of these too. Oh, pickleball over there. Pickleball. Some will have tennis. As I look around at residents wandering the streets, I do notice the population of the villages isn't particularly diverse. According to the last census, 98% of residents here are white. I'm another white face in a sea of white. We roll past a Publix, which I've heard Monica talk about a lot. Maybe she could retire here, mix up the diversity a little bit. This could be the largest publics in the state of Florida, I think. That's a big thing around Florida, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's a

huge grocery store and a really nice one. Eventually, we pull over at one of the massive rec centers, the Rohan Rec Center. The building is huge, the size of a hotel. Walking inside through these giant doors, it's one of the most ornate, ridiculous foyers I've been in. It feels a bit like the foyer in a Vegas hotel. Chandeliers hang from the roof, a roof that's painted a bit like the Sistine Chapel. But instead of scenes from the Old Testament, it's just scenes of old people. Some are playing lawn bowls. There's some fishing and some line dancing going on. Looking up at the painted heavens above me,

I notice a number of American flags hanging around the room too. It is one of the highest percentages in the state of Florida of people that do vote. We all vote. It is amazing. If there's an election, the Republican candidates will make their way here. All of them. I walk around the room and see a portrait of a man in an open neck shirt wearing a cowboy hat. It's Schwartz, the founder, and next to him, his sons. I wander into another room and it's a wall of family photos from the archives, all smiling, all worth millions, billions.

So this is the family and that would be Morris. This would be Mr. Swartz. Okay. And that's the gal from Blacklist. I take more photos in this rec center than I did at Disney World. Then we leave and our tour continues. I learn what bocce ball is. These are bocce ball courts.

We can just walk straight across here. What? So this is... What the fuck is bocce ball? So I sort of know how bocce ball works. I haven't played it a lot. From what I can tell, it's a bit like curling, but without the ice. We go into another giant rec center.

This one is military themed. On the carpet, a giant seal proclaiming to those who served. Giant ornate stairs wrap up from the foyer to a second floor, which is completely cordoned off. At the top, a series of mannequins, all dressed in various military outfits, stare down at us. I mean, it's pretty intense, isn't it? Right. So can you describe what we're seeing right now? Well, this is a military-themed rec center.

And so all the artwork and all that sort of stuff will be centered around some military either branch or battle or whatever. It's the most American room I've ever been in. I can see Bulls, Eagles. I can see every bit of the military. Right. So there's Eisenhower. He was the general in World War II. All of this should come as no surprise when you realize that outside of actual military bases, the villages has the largest veteran population in the entire United States. This

rec center, full of meeting rooms and billiard tables and multiple rooms just for playing cards in, it's like a museum. There's military paraphernalia everywhere. I could stay here all day, but time is running out. Daylight's fading. We jump back into the replica 1934 Ford golf cart and take off. Driving past cars and golf carts, I notice a few loofers, those body scrubby things you have in the shower, attached to various aerials. According to someone I just talked to, certain loofers mean you're a swinger. talked to, certain loofahs mean you're a swinger. The color of the loofah shows what kink you're into. A checker Frank has one on his golf cart. He doesn't. As to the rumor the Villages is the STI capital of America, well from what I found

out today, that's not quite true. The Villages doesn't have the highest STI rate in the country, but it does have the highest rate per capita for adults 65 and over. That's because often people move here after the loss of a partner. Suddenly they're lonely, and they're horny, and they're in utopia. One thing leads to another, and due to their age, no one here is worried about pregnancy. Back in their youth, STIs weren't really even a thing, so they just don't think about it. And so STIs spread like wildfire here. As it draws close to 5pm, we head to one of the many town squares in the villages to finish our day.

Town squares are what they sound like. A central square featuring live entertainment, surrounded by a network of restaurants, cafes and bars. I even see a little movie theatre, with a line of mostly females extending around the block. Oh we're here to see 80 for Brady or 8 for Brady. 80 for Brady. That's big.

Yeah, yeah. It's a new one. What are you most excited about for this film? Is it Brady? Just the act...no. No, no, no, no. The actresses. I don't believe you. No. How old are you? 80. Oh, target demographic right there. Walking away from the cinema, I meet back up with Frank.

He wants to show me a band playing tonight in the town square. The thing about this is that it's so nice is that this happens 365 nights a year at each of these squares. There's some kind of musical entertainment, almost all of it being live music. You can come down here and listen to music. You can come down and dance. It's happy hour at 5 p.m. And, well, people come here to party. Every night of the year, old people get on the juice and they party.

I'm going to have a vodka gimlet again only I'm going to have it on the rocks and I'm going to have it with uh top it off with club soda. Single or double? Uh double and uh no just lots of it that's all. All we need is lots of vodka we don't need we're worried about the brand. And as the band starts, we drink and we talk and we yell. And I can see why people like this place. There's a guy sitting up at the bar, they got martinis, they're bringing him two martinis at a time or whatever. There are a bunch of people line dancing in the square, including one old bird who's just off on her own, dancing to the beat of her own drum. It's time to call it a night, and I'm worried if I keep drinking, I'll come back with an STI.

I thank Frank and his son, Pat, for letting me spend the day with them exploring America's biggest retirement community. Retiring here, it's like going back to college with a gold card. Anything that you possibly want to do here, you can go do it. If you want to go get in trouble,

you can go do that. If you want to go get in trouble, you can go do that. If you want to donate money to your church, you can, I mean, you can do any of that. So when you get to be 70, you take on the mentality of when you were 20 and you say, okay, maybe I shouldn't be climbing this ladder, but who cares? I mean, I'm 70 years old. Nobody cares. And people in general, a dealer like me is, you can do whatever you want here. And as long as you're not bothering me, I don't really care. Okay. So I've always said, you know, it's kind of the biggest don't give a darn place I've ever been at and everybody gets along. So if you want to wear a pink shirt and walk down the street, I don't care. This is good news for me. I like pink shirts. I'd fit right in here

because despite what I tell myself, I realize I'm no spring chicken. One day, I guess I'll have to think about where I go when I'm 80. If I'm still in America. I never really thought about it before. It's too scary. If you don't have kids, who's meant to look after you? Maybe the villagers will. Most of the people that live here are in the last third of their life. Nobody talks about it much, but that's where you are. But Frank seems pretty happy about all this. He's ready for where this all ends. Just not right now.

Not while the music's still playing. I'm not afraid of dying. I just don't want to die today. And that band played on and on and on as a band plays every night in various town squares around the villages. Oh, my God. I loved this. So did you take a lover? I think that's what everyone wants to know.

No, I didn't have any sex in the villages at all. Too many STIs. Way too many STIs. It's crazy. Did you look it up? Yeah. So costings. So there are different tiers.

You get a tiny villa for $300,000 and then per month it's $1,000. And then right through to the designer series, which can go for over a million and you're paying about $1,300 a month. So the monthly fee is around $1,000 basically. And so you buy your home and then for $1,000 you get to take part in all that other stuff. So you buy your home and then for $1,000, you get to take part in all that other stuff. But you pay for your meals. You know, we went out and ate in the town square and it's just priced like any restaurant in Florida. Do elderly people own the restaurants? Do they have their own businesses then within it? No, they're all staffed by the external community that comes in to staff this place. And it's huge.

I mean, as I say, there's a full hospital there. There's 200 pools. They're making so much money oh they are honestly and as i say they're still building and expanding and i didn't get into it here but the way they've set up the business which is just way too complex for my brain they're so smart and how they've done it they are just getting so rich those founders and they're now their grandchildren are just. The blacklist girl. She's apparently distanced herself from the whole thing. But they're very proud of her there.

They're always like, that's the girl from the blacklist. Wait, why is she distanced herself, I wonder? I think it's just an empire she doesn't want to be a part of. She's like, she's an actor. You know, she's not this village empire. Right. And I mean, they live, that commune is sort of in the middle, this big walled off home that they live in. It's this estate that this family has lived in for generations within a retirement community.

It's a wacky place to live. On an episode of Armchair, we had Huey, Houston Estes, one of Dax's friends on. He lives in Nashville. He's quite a character. And we got into country clubs. Right. That'd be a great episode, by the way. That's a whole thing.

Yes. We got into country clubs. I'm against country clubs. Is that where Larry David goes in Caribbean enthusiasm with his friends all the time? Yeah. That's a country club, right? In the South, country clubs are a thing. Okay. enthusiasm with his friends all the time yeah that's a country club right in the south country clubs are a thing okay and you belong to clubs and you have you have to get into them and it's a whole

exclusive it's very exclusive and it's racial to me i believe and we got into that a bit and basically they were saying it was suggested that maybe it's all white because it's such a white culture that maybe people of other ethnicities, they wouldn't really want to go there. Pickleball, golf. Right. It's so white. Yeah, it's a pretty white man thing. But I would suggest this is like that where I hear all this and I think, oh, my God, this sounds fantastic. Vodka, gimlets everywhere.

I love this. And I even thought, I was like, oh, my God, my parents. Publix. Publix, my God. Biggest one in Florida. I thought, oh, even my parents would probably really like that. But I would hate the idea of them being there and them sticking out like sore thumbs and everyone looking at them so yeah totally so it's the same thing where it maybe does quote self

select but it's because you don't want to feel looked at yeah and i i don't think the villagers i might be wrong on this but i don't think the villages is actively out there marketing itself to attract a different crowd. I think the villages is very happy attracting who they attract. And they're Americans that have money and they can, you know, you need money to move in there. Maybe this is a whole separate episode. I was Googling a little bit about how Americans fare in their old age here on benefits, right? And if you are born before 1960, you get your retirement benefits from 65. If you're born after 1960, the retirement age, they bumped it up,

so it's 67. In New Zealand, the sort of informal retirement age is 65. Oh, it is. And you don't get a lot of money. This year, the average monthly retirement income from Social Security is $1,827. And monthly, it's not a lot for an individual. It depends on... It depends on how long you've worked for. Exactly. But the average in America, if you are on Social Security, is $1,800 a month.

Got it. Which, thinking of what LA costs, I wouldn't want to be 65 in LA probably 1800 a month. Got it. Which thinking of what LA costs, I wouldn't want to be 65 in LA probably without a plan. The thought is. I should be saving. Exactly. You should have your own retirement. You should.

And then that's extra. Completely. But I mean, going on how expensive it is and in the city, it's hard to save for a lot of people. Saving is hard. And if you haven't saved up, they say you need over a million by the time you get to retirement, to 65, to have a good, easy life. That's so much money for people. And if you don't have that,

then the idea of just getting $1,800 a month, you've got to live pretty frugally. And it's the same in New Zealand. It's a struggle. I think this is where, wow, my Republican zealand like it's a struggle i think you know this is where uh wow my republican sensibility will come in i do believe if you can't afford to live in la there are other places in this country that you can live i don't think like this is a republican line yeah not everyone should have a right to live in i don't believe that like i think you have, or you can live here and not save money, that's fine. But then you can't complain about living in the most expensive city and not saving money. You can live somewhere else and save money. You have to make choices in your life. Like, do I want to save money and live wherever, Georgia? Yeah. Or do I not want to and live in this city that's expensive? I mean.

Yeah, I steamroll through with my like super lefty politics and I feel like I'm a person that can decide. If LA gets too expensive for me, I'm in a position where I can decide, I can go back to New Zealand now and like live there or whatever. But I think the trouble is in somewhere like Los Angeles, some people here don't have a choice. They're born to the situation and their

families here, they might be caring for a parent who can't look after themselves. They're kind of stuck in LA. They've got no money. They can't save. And you're kind of stuck in this loop. And I think we still need to figure out a way, and this is my socialism coming through, is trying to figure out a way to help those people. It's not as simple as being like, oh, it's too expensive. I'll move to Michigan or something because some people can't. Well, why can't they? They might be stuck looking after a family member. They might have responsibilities. They might not be able to afford to move. It's really expensive to move to another city. That

stuff can be so tough for some people. And so it's a tricky thing I think of. Some people can definitely decide and it's like you decide to live in this stupidly expensive city. It becomes too hard to go somewhere else. But I don't think everyone can do that. Yeah. I guess I'm speaking more generally. I just feel for people. And it's the same in New Zealand.

There's so many people in New Zealand in their old age who, for whatever reason, haven't managed to save. And they're scrimping on the tiniest amounts of money every week. And it can be really rough as an old person. Oh yeah, yeah. If you don't have savings, it's terrifying. It's a really scary age. And then it's the age where your body's failing and you need more medical treatment. I guess what I'm saying is I just find old age so scary and the idea of not having a

backstop is so freaky. Yeah, it is. It is. But everyone at the villages was having a backstop is so freaky. Yeah, it is. It is. But everyone at the Villages was having a really nice time. Wow. Pat was the guy that took me in and introduced me to Frank, his dad, and they were both the loveliest people.

Very funny that his dad had a Trump sticker on. His son does not like Trump at all. And they sort of rib each other about that. When I am 80 in 40 years, I'll go back for a Villagers Part 2 of Flight and Swear. We'll both all be fucking old. Oh my God. I wonder if we'll still be in this attic. That would be so funny.

That'd be fun. And we'll remember this conversation we had. We were so youthful then. We didn't know how good we had it. Yeah. We'll all be here just wrecked in a little colostomy bag. We'll all be farting over there in the corner. His jokes will be even more lewd by that point.

I can't wait. Oh, man. So fun. All right. Well, you definitely are more American. That was very American. It was the most American place I've been. Wow.

Thank you, Monica. I'm becoming more American. Thank you.