Flightless Bird: Flights of Fancy

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-ee'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 David Farrier 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.

Flightless, flightless, flightless bird touchdown in America. I'm a flightless bird touchdown in America.

And 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.

Well, maybe it's because my legs are up.

Fuck, that's funny.

You look like...

I do look really small. Also, your chair is so big, but that should make you look smaller.

I find this very hard to take seriously.

Do 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 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 B?

B. Yes.

B is 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, B?

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 U.S. Navy uses bottlenose, dolphins and sea lions to help protect the coast, ships, anywhere that ships that contain U.S. Navy personnel might come into. 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 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'm picturing sea lions strapped with some sort of harness, with weapons attached and flashlights. What is going on there?

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?

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 an 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 going to 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 going to go do whatever I want to do. Sea lions, on the other hand, they're like dogs. They want to be engaged with you. They're really in tune. They're eager to please.

Are you raising these creatures from babies to adults? Are you getting 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 domelic 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. 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 who have been deemed unreleasable by NOAA. Those sea lions are actually able to help our program. 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. This is fascinating.

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.

This is a good take on that, actually, because there is so much anti-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 there 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.

Are there 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.

Yeah, it went, rogue. It had 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?

It rolls over so you can 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 are they like? A little biscuit or something?

Fish. They love fish.

Oh, 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, Bea.

Yes, Bea. 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 and participating in Flights of Fancy. That was so fun.

Oh, my gosh. It's been an honor to meet you guys. Honestly, the armchair expert, whole podcast umbrella, got me through some really tough times. So thank you so much for talking to me. David, I binged Dark Tourist. It was amazing. You are so brave. And I love getting to meet you guys.

Thank you so much. Thank you. You're the best. Bye, Bea.

You're the best.

Oh, man.

Bye.

Incredible.

Yeah, that was good. I was not expecting that.

Some of the topics we have, there are some crazy. Wow. This is, yeah.

All right. We got Sarah coming. Sarah's ready. Yay.

Hi, you guys.

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 got to do. But I thought you should know. 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.

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 showrunner. I've worked in reality TV for over 20 years. I show ran Honey Boo Boo, Toddlers and Tiaras.

Whoa, 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 a 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 all off. 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 thing 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 and say, I hate David. It gets really tricky. And everybody signs NDAs.

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 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 docu-follow, 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 an end with cliffhangers.

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.

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 that we have to pitch before they happen, which doesn't make sense if it's unscripted, but you're having to kind of figure out 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?

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 Tiaras 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. It'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 moral lines.

And it's so interesting what you said. It's 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 dumb reality show? It's almost used as 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.

But also, obviously other countries have reality TV shows like Big Brother, Love Island. There's a lot. But I wonder if they make celebrities.

We do have a way of turning things up here. I think in general, I know the UK loves a reality celebrity, 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.

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 that 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? oh, I'm all serious. I'm making my documentaries. sell it to me what I should watch, so I get it.

Love on the Spectrum is 10 out of 10 A+.

same. I was like who did this? This is awful.

I watched it to be mad at it and judge.

Number one. we've got number two.

Antiques Roadshow.

Classic.

Big in New Zealand.

That's part of the charm, as 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 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. They've got good character development. Top notch.

We've got some ideas. can we come to you? Offline?

Do you want to show? run the David and Monica show? I never miss an episode.

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..

We're coming up to our 10 year anniversary, so we'll have to do something special for that.

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. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for chatting with us, Bye.

Really good.

Reality

That's great right? What a topic.

I never really contextualized it as American. Some of the biggest ones, like Big Brother, are British, but it's true that we just make everything just so outrageous.

I think you're so good at it. America has just made it so.

And there's so many.

Yeah,

There's just so many, one after another. Wow, That was cool, Okay great.

Okay, this is.

Another Sarah. Back to back Sarahs, 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.

You know what you do have? You have, I think, a beautiful cat behind you.

I do. Yes, This is Mama Tooth, She's very farty. Oh wow, Oh my.

Oh, my god, That's so funny. You named her after a fart, Yeah.

Well look, 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 hyper-sexualized, but we're all pretty sexually repressed still, and 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, Fifty Shades of Grey and that kind of thing, but it's very shallow as far as kink culture goes.

It's so interesting because America loves its violence so much. that's sort of fine, but there is this prudishness around showing skin or sex. unless you're 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 5 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 4, 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 Kylie Jenner 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 being 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, I could never do it.

I'm so bad at it.

I'm like the worst. I'll 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. there's a lot of in-cell activity on OnlyFans and that kind of thing. but for the most part, as long as you keep your eye out and everything and you have those 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 it's not a solution, but I spend hours talking to people about their day at work or an issue they're having.

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 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.

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.

definitely yeah, 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. 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. I have a social life, I have a relationship. there's other things going on. if it's work hours, it's not. it's not. yeah, but as far as trying to remember people's lives,

what happens if you feel that one of your clients is in love with you, that?

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, 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. so

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 only fans turned and banned sex work on there and took.

the average income on. there is 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, they just immediately have a million people who want to see them naked, and they're making millions of a month. 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 4000 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, geez.

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 $1 to $5 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 or 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.

Range.

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 have banned 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 going to 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 going to make a lot of money. But there's not a single person who have. I've 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 gang banged 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.

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 and 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.

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 I'm hiding stuff from him.

For sure. Yeah. Cool. Interesting. 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. It's a very clean cat.

She's really flexible.

Get them on OnlyFans, I reckon.

I mean, are there animals on there?

Uh, maybe. I hope not. Actually, I don't think there should be.

That would be bad, because consent, I guess.

Yeah, because you have to put an ID in and, you know, verify your ID. So cats don't have those, I don't think.

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. We were just so angry the whole time.

I love that cat so much. I guess our main difference, you and I, is the cat issue.

Yeah. There's a few, but that one's pretty high up there.

I'll bring it up when I see one.

Hi there.

Hi, how are you?

Good, how are you?

I'm good. I'm 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.

Wow. 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 U.S. 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 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.

Actually, I sat down with my friends on the Hill before being like, I'm doing this. They're like, oh, you've got to expose.

Expose. Do an expose.

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 sexually charged atmosphere where everyone's young and sick? I'm thinking this feels like a TV show, what you do. What I'm trying to say is, how horny is it in there?

Sure. I mean, it's complicated,

because have you watched Veep?

Love.

Yeah, so that's by far the most accurate U.S. political show out there. Oh, no.

I love that. I love that.

By far Veep. West Wing is fake.

That's so embarrassing.

So, 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.

But not everyone is your age. Not everyone. There's 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.

God. It's like when I worked at SoulCycle, and everyone's young, and hot, and sweaty.

And stressed, and just all on the edge, and you're all in it together.

Yeah, and people are bound to hook up.

But at the Hill, everyone thinks they're important. That's the big kicker.

Oh, 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 non-profit. 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.

Yeah, the Hill is, I don't have any emotional connection to the Hill, but I hear it, and it sounds interesting. It sounds so fun. 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.

Oh.

And then you go to receptions, there's free wine. Ah! 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 others. But if you want to work for a member, it's a very limited amount of people you can do it for. So the pressure's 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 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. The votes go longer, but in a given day, you'll have 3 to 20 votes, kind of depending. And if the Senator's 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 at an event in an ambassador house in Northwest D.C., and I would have to run a couple regs. We had Senate plates, luckily, but I'd run a couple regs 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. Oh, jeez. 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 D.C. last year for a couple days, and there was a restaurant, bar, restaurant, I guess, that everyone there obviously worked in politics. The energy in there, I forget what it was called. I want to, like, not the diplomat. The diplomat, yeah.

So that's too obvious.

And, yes, everyone in there is just fuzzy, and they're in meetings, and they're rushing around. It is also very important. Beau 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 give two shits because someone else is more important than you is in town.

Yeah. Oh, this is fun. This is quite American. Can't get more American than The Hill.

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.

You need to learn more.

I do.

You're doing great, David. He wants to learn more about that.

No, don't do that.

He has a lot more to learn.

Yeah, politics is the one topic that I'm really scared to get into. 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 its own year. It's its own world.

But are you going to be sitting through this election feeling a bit sad? you're not in there, or 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 D.C. for January 6th.

I lived six blocks from the Capitol,

so I saw it.

Thank you. 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 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 the way it is.

Hollywood has this level of...

Yeah. New York has, in the finance space, that's horny.

And it is America, is what she talked about. Everyone being exhausted. There is that thing in America, and I feel like it's in New York, where being exhausted is a badge of honor.

A hundred percent.

And 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 more everyone writing scripts in the Starbucks.

Jessica. 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 right now.

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 death.

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, which drives 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. Wow. Yeah.

Where do we begin?

Well, 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.

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 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 going to do this, and what do we do, and then you swing in to make all of this stuff happen. I mean, I think of America as 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? I almost think the celebration of life is more other cultures. We're moving, we're trying, it seems, to move out of our wearing all black type funeral. Yes.

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. It's pretty incredible.

I don't think we'll ever get there.

No, I'm waiting for the day. You talked about there 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. It was 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, because 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 there 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 3-Body Problem with spoilers. They throw a head up into space.

But isn't like just throwing ashes into space, then it just falls onto the...

Isn't that just like throwing them up in a rocket? And sending it to the moon. 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.

So you want a little compost, heap.

Well, 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. Or I guess it's also religion.

Yeah, cemeteries 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 combusted and put in your little vegetable garden. So whenever you eat a little carrot or a little potato.

I'm never doing that.

Or a feijoa, you're having a little bit of me.

We could do a feijoa 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 where they're alive. 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? 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.

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.

What's the quickest you can cremate a body? You 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.

Okay, that's not that long. Someone was asking me recently about ashes. An 150-pound person, how much would the ashes weigh?

Average for ashes, about five to seven pounds.

Okay.

But it's very dependent on 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.

Just a massive burn.

Yeah. Oh, my God.

You have the densest bones. Never knew.

Never knew until you did. 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.

I'm working through some stuff.

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. We appreciate you.

To have nice audio for you guys.

It's perfect. It sounds nice.

No, 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. I just remember one episode where he couldn't deliver the mail in time, so he was just dumping it in his apartment and not delivering it. Tell us what you 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 a 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 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 want to go there. I don't want to 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 efficiently.

Yeah, 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, because 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, because 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 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 mail 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 tinier hamper of mail. Interesting. Okay, if anyone has kids in the car right now or nearby, I'm going to 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 there are 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 distribute them. So I've kind of gotten 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? We can help out. with this. I'm in a unique position, and my mom, as well, is 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 people.

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. 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. 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 colleague's 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 Timu or AliExpress packages that they don't spend a lot of time, really dolling up what's in the box type deal.

You're just holding a big dildo or something. Yeah.

I thought you meant an actual penis. That's pretty much what's happening.

Someone cut off someone's penis.

Just to clarify, you haven't found an actual penis in the mail? Because 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 weirdest thing, what made you go, holy shit?

Yeah, what's the weirdest? Okay, I was working a night shift, 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..

So I walk back up to the office, and I was like, hey, I didn't touch it.

Scary.

But I just need to call the police and tell them to come get this loaded gun we just found.

Wow.

Yeah, it's probably not a great criminal that decided to send that through the post.

Also, that could have gone off and killed you. It didn't even have postage on it, so I don't know what they were thinking.

Ew.

Didn't even know where to 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 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. 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 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 going to be 72 or three 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 $15.. They're not set up for like letters, but specifically kind of our game for a long time.

As we wrap up, you know, we've got an audience of Americans listening. Is there anything Americans could do differently to make the male 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 step. 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'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 Smith's 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.

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 really enjoy what you guys do. Now, your web worm was great last night. Oh, you're fully in. That's so great.

Yeah. 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 as well.

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 lions, I mean, that entire world, I'm going to keep researching that.

Okay. That's awesome. This was super fun.

Thanks, Monica.

Thank you.

You.