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I m David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick.
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We re trying something a little different today, something we re calling Flights of Fancy.
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We re going to do it every now and then, and today s the first time, and I think you ll like it.
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I say that because we really liked making it.
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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.
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Maybe it was a job you had, or some other personal insight that you could give into something truly American.
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Maybe you worked at Buc-ee s, or in the lower depths of the White House.
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I heard from so many of you, like hundreds of you, with so many ideas.
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Rob made a fancy spreadsheet to collate all your responses and we picked a bunch we liked.
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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.
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We then got those people and we zoomed with some of them, getting them to explain their area of expertise.
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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.
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But for now, this is Flights of Fancy, where we talk to Flightless Bird listeners about what they want to see on Flightless Bird.
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Enjoy.
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Flightless.
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Flightless.
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Flightless Bird touchdown in America.
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And I m not saying it s because you re small.
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I look like, I try, it looks like there s an optical illusion happening right now.
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It s so- Well maybe it s because my legs are up.
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Fuck, that s funny.
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You look like- I do look really small.
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Also, your chair s so big, but that should make you look smaller.
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I find this very hard to take seriously.
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All right, do you want to have a mic for this?
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Oh, thanks Rob.
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Hi!
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Hi there!
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Oh my gosh, I am so nervous, but so excited to be talking to you guys.
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Oh, don t be nervous.
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Oh my gosh, I ve been listening to you guys for years.
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Before we get started, I was wondering if I could use a fake name.
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Of course, yes.
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What would you like to go by?
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Can you just call me B?
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B!
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Yes.
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B is really good.
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You look like a B. This is good.
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Oh great, thank you so much.
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You made yourself a little fort, which we really appreciate on this side of town.
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That is all I wanted to do, was to make you proud, Monica.
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You did it!
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Oh, oh my gosh.
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Okay, my bucket list is complete.
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What topic have you brought to us today, Bea?
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Yeah, what do we have?
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I replied to your flights of fancy, the most American job.
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I was a sea lion trainer for the US Navy for seven years.
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So I thought that might be interesting to bring to you guys.
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It s so interesting.
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Can you please just describe what that is?
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Because I feel like you ve said a sentence and my brain is just reeling with imagery and ideas.
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I love to hear what is going on in your brain, but I ll tell you a little bit about what I did.
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The U.S.
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Navy uses bottlenose dolphins and sea lions to help protect the coast, ships, anywhere that ships that contain U.S.
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Navy personnel might come into.
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So I worked with the sea lions who were in charge of interdicting swimmers.
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So basically we could find swimmers.
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We didn t know if they were foreign or enemies or not.
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but they deploy swimmers to make sure that areas are clear of divers where places they shouldn t be.
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I have so many questions.
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I mean, I m picturing sea lions strapped with some sort of harness with weapons attached and flashlights.
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What is going on there?
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So there s definitely a harness.
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No weapons.
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If they do need to work at night, we ll attach chem lights, which are basically glow sticks so that we can see where they are.
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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.
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So you guys are just tracking.
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How do you know from the dolphin that something s going wrong?
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Right, so the sea lions and dolphins are trained to go on search patterns.
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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.
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Wait, they ride in the boat?
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What do you mean they ride in the boat?
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Yeah, so sea lions can ride in little cages.
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Not little cages, they re big cages.
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But we ride on like 30-foot boats.
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And so there s a cage and we are able to keep the sea lions cool and comfortable.
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So we ll ride out to wherever we need to patrol.
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We ll put the sea lions in the water, ask them to do a search pattern.
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They ll go and search the pier and come back to the boat.
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And on the boat, there s actually a paddle.
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So we call this the positive paddle.
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So if they touch the paddle, that means, yes, there s someone there.
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How do you train them?
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I think a lot of myself, when I think of training an animal, I think of a dog.
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That s really all I have in my mind.
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How do you train a sea lion or a dolphin?
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Well, dolphins are really smart.
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They are really smart.
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Personally, I m a sea lion girl.
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When you re in the animal training world, you fall into two categories.
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You re either a sea lion person or a dolphin person.
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I m a sea lion person.
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Sea lions are more like dogs.
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Dolphins are more like cats.
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They re so smart.
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They know all the animals in the program.
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They get fed their daily breakout of fish every day.
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They re going to get their fish no matter what.
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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.
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I m a cat.
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I m going to go do whatever I want to do.
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So petulant.
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Sea lions, on the other hand, they re like dogs.
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They want to be engaged with you.
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They re really in tune.
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They re eager to please.
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Are you raising these creatures from babies to adults?
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Are you getting them as adults and training them?
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That s a great question.
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Yes and yes.
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The US Navy is one of the only programs in the world who has a permit to go and collect wild animals.
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The last time they did this, I think, was back in 2013.
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And during that time, there was a lot of UMEs, which is a mass stranding event where a lot of sea lions are actually ending up with domoic acid.
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They re being abandoned by their mothers.
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With the oceans getting warmer, sea lions are needing to travel out farther and farther to go find fish.
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And a lot of times that journey can end up being catastrophic for the mothers.
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And sometimes the mothers don t make it back for the
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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.
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And so those sea lions are actually able to help our program and they might not be fit to go out and do ocean work, but they help contribute by doing research.
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They are trained to wear little headphones like you guys are wearing and do sound tests.
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It s so cute.
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It s really, really neat.
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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.
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This is a good take on that, actually, because there is so much anti-
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removing animals from their environments and habitats and stuff.
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And this is interesting.
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Yeah.
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It s really fascinating because the sea lions, they actually have a lifespan that s three times longer than their wild counterparts.
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We ve had sea lions that live up into their fifties and sixties, and in the wild they live probably 13 years or so.
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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.
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How many of these animals are out there in the waters that the U.S.
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has under their control?
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Like a thousand dolphins out there doing their thing.
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Are the ten ballpark?
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Do you know the numbers or is that secret?
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I believe it s around 70.
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There s three locations, there s one in San Diego, and then they also have a place up in Washington and Georgia.
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Are there other countries doing this?
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Is China sneaking in, is New Zealand sneaking in their own seals and dolphins into American waters?
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The only other country that I m aware of is Russia.
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I m sure you saw that beluga whale that popped up that had a harness on.
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It went rogue.
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It had escaped.
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Wait, what?
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It was under training and then it went crazy?
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Well, actually, you tell me.
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I just know it wasn t where it was meant to be.
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And was it coming for us or was it on the run?
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on the swim?
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No, a beluga whale popped up somewhere wearing a harness and it said property of St.
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Petersburg and it was approaching boats and humans.
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It was very clearly trained.
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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.
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Wait, what do you mean?
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Present itself like rolls over so you can like do your thing.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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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.
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Is there anything really obvious that you ve wanted us to ask you but we haven t?
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Because I feel like this is mind-blowing, this whole area.
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This is very cool.
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I love that this is American.
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This makes me proud to be American.
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Yay!
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Oh my gosh, I m so happy to hear that.
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No, but I did want to get back to how we train them.
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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.
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So when people are like, oh, these animals are being forced to do them.
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No, they re not.
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We simply reward them when they are doing something that we want to see.
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What do they like?
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A little biscuit or something?
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Fish.
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I love fish.
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Sushi.
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Two quick questions.
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What s the favorite meal of a dolphin and of a sea lion?
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It would be herring, which is a type of fish.
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That s usually their favorite.
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Every animal is different, of course.
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Every individual is different.
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They are.
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You can t put them in a box.
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Not fair.
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Thank you so much, Bea.
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Yes, Bea.
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This was so cool.
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This was very uniquely American.
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I ve never heard about this and I really enjoyed it.
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Yay!
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I have a quick photo to show you because I m sure you guys have questions, but this is how the sea lions interdict.
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This is a clamp that goes onto the leg.
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Wow.
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So a sea lion will come and interdict a diver that way.
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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.
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Wow.
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We would hand it off to the police.
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The animal comes back to the boat.
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We take off.
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We re like, bye.
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And the police handle it from there.
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This is mind blowing.
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It s like a whole other world that most of us never think about.
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Sea world.
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Yeah.
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It s really cool.
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It s an awesome job.
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I loved it.
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It was amazing.
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Fun.
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Well, thank you so much for sharing and participating in Flights of Fancy.
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That was so fun.
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Oh, my gosh.
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It s been an honor to meet you guys.
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Honestly, the armchair expert Cole podcast umbrella got me through some really tough times.
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So thank you so much for talking to me, David.
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I binged Dark Taurus.
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It was amazing.
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You are so brave.
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And I love getting to thank you so much.
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You re the best.
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Bye.
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Maybe.
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You re the best.
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Oh, man.
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Bye.
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Incredible.
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Yeah, that was good.
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I was not expecting that.
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Yeah, some of the topics we have, there are some crazy.
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Wow.
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This is, yeah.
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All right, we got Sarah coming.
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Sarah s ready.
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Hi, you guys.
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So nice to meet you.
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Big fan.
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I have two things I have to say.
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Monica, I ve never noticed your neck.
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Oh, thank you.
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I did not end up getting it.
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I didn t get it, but I m not ruling it out.
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OK, but do whatever you got to do.
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But I thought you should know.
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Thank you.
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And David, I admire your work tremendously.
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Tickled is a bit of a North Star for me for how to treat subjects like people and not like subjects.
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So really, really, really appreciate your work.
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That s really nice.
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Thank you.
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Which we can talk about if we want, since we re talking about reality TV.
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Oh, is that what we re?
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OK, so I m in the dark here.
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So if you were going to present your topic, what would it be?
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What are you pitching us?
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OK, so I am a reality TV showrunner.
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I ve worked in reality TV for over 20 years.
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I show ran Honey Boo Boo, Toddlers and Tiaras.
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Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
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Oh,
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Where do we even begin?
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Exactly.
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So, you know, I m not sure what it said, flights of fancy.
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I don t know if this is an offshoot.
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We want to meet Americans that do uniquely American jobs.
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You re essentially pitching us your expertise and your area, and we ll decide whether we dig deeper in a future topic.
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But regardless, this will be part of this kind of pitching session.
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Gotcha.
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Tell us how you got into this world, because in my mind, reality TV and a big brother in the UK was like a big thing that kicked us a lot.
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But America has run with it.
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We ve run with it.
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We ve created presidents out of it.
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We ve created some of our biggest cultural icons.
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You know, Kim Kardashian.
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It doesn t get much bigger than that for an American icon.
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So, yeah, we ve really run with it.
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And we ve also really run with the capitalism side of making money off of
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people s stories.
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And that is a really tricky area that I think is interesting to examine.
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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.
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You re constantly making decisions about how to tell the story and where those lines are, and there s nobody there governing you.
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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.
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Can you tell us, without giving away too many details, the most egregious thing you ve seen in this environment as a producer?
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Probably the things where it gets really tricky is in the edit.
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There s a lot you can do in the edit.
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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.
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I don t hate David.
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Take out the don t say, I hate David.
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It gets really tricky and everybody signs NDAs.
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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.
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They re like, oh, that s reality TV.
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That s trash.
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I suspect that there is so much expertise and it s such a knack to make reality TV work.
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I was wondering if you could talk a little bit, the skill, because you can t just produce the stuff.
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It is such a difficult thing to make compelling.
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It s an art.
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It s incredibly difficult, and thank you for saying that.
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You are walking into somewhere with no story.
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I focus on docu-follow reality.
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There s also competition.
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Competition s its own thing.
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It s got a built-in format.
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Very different.
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I ve worked on those as well.
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I did Big Brother.
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Oh my goodness.
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SPEAKER_00
Wow, you re like, you re the queen.
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SPEAKER_00
You started this.
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SPEAKER_00
I can t believe you.
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SPEAKER_00
I m so flattered you listened.
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I didn t showrun Big Brother, but I did work on it early seasons, too, when everybody was figuring it out.
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You re walking in with no story and you have to, first of all, get a story.
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You have to earn the trust of the people in order to have access.
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Then you need to figure out a beginning, middle, and an end of a story within a time constraint that doesn t make sense.
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Most shows that are docu-follow, so like the Kardashians, Housewives, things like that, you have one week per episode, five days.
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So in five days, you need a beginning, a middle and end with cliffhangers.
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Life doesn t work that way.
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Yes.
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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.
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So that brings me to my next question, and it s what everyone always says, is reality TV real?
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What s the realness of it?
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How much is structured and maneuvered and how much is really happening?
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It truly depends on the project.
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There are projects I ve worked on that are completely hands-off.
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There are other ones that are very manipulated, including Honey Boo Boo.
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Honey Boo Boo, every week we would say, let s do this.
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This week, let s have new chores.
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This week, let s go to this event.
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I would say something that s common across all of them is giving people something to do.
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So giving them a trip to go on, just kind of organizing their life a little
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I mean, even the fact that there is a showrunner, the fact that there s a showrunner on these reality TV shows, it s telling.
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It means it s a show.
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It is produced.
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There are storylines created.
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There are storylines.
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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 think where you think the story is going, spend time with the people, figure out where you think it s going.
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The most recent show I did was very hands-off.
1
SPEAKER_00
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.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that one was very hands-off, other than, what are you doing in the next month?
1
SPEAKER_00
We d like to follow this, this, this.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then it comes down to interview questions.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you can shape a story just by what you ask and don t ask.
1
SPEAKER_03
Do you have any regrets?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes, I do.
1
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think Younger Me did not really consider or understand the impact that a show could have on younger participants.
1
SPEAKER_00
Also, by the way, nobody did.
1
SPEAKER_00
This was a very young invention.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I think I would do things differently.
1
SPEAKER_00
I worked on Toddlers and Tiaras and Honey Boo Boo.
1
SPEAKER_00
Those are both involved children.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think if I were to do them today, I would probably be better informed at how to structure the production to protect people.
1
SPEAKER_00
But that s coming with
1
SPEAKER_00
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.
1
SPEAKER_00
So that s something that I would change for sure.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think there s an inherent pressure in this job to deliver something outrageous and noisy.
1
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes you have to push things to get that from people.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that really puts you on some interesting moral lines.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it s so interesting what you said.
1
SPEAKER_01
This has created presidents.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s created our biggest celebrities.
1
SPEAKER_01
Do you sit back sometimes and think about how it has changed America?
1
SPEAKER_01
People, again, they think of it so dismissively sometimes.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, are you watching that dumb reality show?
1
SPEAKER_01
It s almost using an insult.
1
SPEAKER_01
You should be watching my high and mighty drama series.
1
SPEAKER_01
You re the one that s actually shaping the country.
1
SPEAKER_01
Do you sort of reflect on that?
1
SPEAKER_00
I do quite a bit because I ve seen firsthand how Honey Boo Boo is a very good example.
1
SPEAKER_00
People didn t know who she was.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then suddenly they did.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you re very aware of the responsibility of
1
SPEAKER_00
shaping a story that is accurate that you know reflects the person that you re actually filming because you have so many moments every single day in production and in post-production to shape a story that tells a story of a real person.
2
SPEAKER_01
that millions of people are going to watch and make decisions about.
2
SPEAKER_01
And in our country, we love, and judge, we love to put people up on a pedestal and then tear them down.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I m aware that each step is going to create information that makes people decide how much they want to put this person on a pedestal and then inevitably tear them down.
2
SPEAKER_02
But I am aware.
2
SPEAKER_02
But also, obviously other countries have reality TV shows, like you said, Big Brother, Love Island.
2
SPEAKER_02
There s a lot, but I wonder if they make celebrities out of their reality TV stars in the way we do.
2
SPEAKER_02
I don t follow Vanderpump, but I keep hearing names.
2
SPEAKER_02
I kind of want to start because I keep hearing it s so in the zeitgeist.
2
SPEAKER_02
I feel left out that I don t know because they re celebrities now.
2
SPEAKER_01
We do have a way of turning things up here.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think in general, yeah, I know the UK loves a reality celebrity.
2
SPEAKER_01
They definitely have that in common.
2
SPEAKER_01
But we tend to just do everything way turned up.
2
SPEAKER_01
Literally a president came out of this genre.
2
SPEAKER_01
And yes, he was well known before that, but that s what made him accessible.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then people believe that they know somebody.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s the tricky part of trying to be fair and accurate and honest about who the person is.
2
SPEAKER_03
You ve worked on so many shows, you probably know the trends that are going on and the competition to the shows you make.
2
SPEAKER_03
Do you have a sense of where reality TV is heading?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, it seems like there s really two camps.
2
SPEAKER_01
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.
2
SPEAKER_01
That in-between zone does not
2
SPEAKER_01
survive anymore, and it used to.
2
SPEAKER_01
We used to have more subtle, factual series where you could get to know a little subculture.
2
SPEAKER_01
It didn t have to be outrageous and wild, and it feels kind of, you know, similar to the way America is going.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s just getting more and more polarizing, that you have to be incredibly extreme.
2
SPEAKER_01
Even the documentary space is extreme.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s mostly true crime or revolves around a celebrity that we know.
2
SPEAKER_01
So it s really just everything s getting more extreme.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m stressed.
2
SPEAKER_03
Before we leave you, if you re new to the world of reality, what are your top three shows?
2
SPEAKER_03
And don t be biased.
2
SPEAKER_03
You can do ones you haven t worked on.
2
SPEAKER_03
Someone who s so skeptical, you know, Oh, I m all serious.
2
SPEAKER_03
I make my documentaries, sell it to me what I should watch.
2
SPEAKER_03
So I get it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Love on the Spectrum is 10 out of 10, A+.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s really good.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s a perfect example of storytelling that s compelling and you re engaged and you can t wait to see the next episode, but it doesn t feel exploitive, which it could.
2
SPEAKER_01
I heard dating show with autistic people and I thought, oof,
2
SPEAKER_01
Same.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was like, who did this?
2
SPEAKER_01
This is awful.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, and they, they really pulled, I watched it to be mad at it and judge.
2
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_03
Number one, number one, we ve got number two.
2
SPEAKER_01
Antiques Roadshow.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, classic.
2
SPEAKER_03
Big in New Zealand, big in New Zealand.
2
SPEAKER_01
It is.
2
SPEAKER_01
That to me is perfection because you ve got real people.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s part of the charm is you re watching real people.
2
SPEAKER_01
You ve got story built in perfect format.
2
SPEAKER_01
Number three.
2
SPEAKER_01
I like Real Housewives.
2
SPEAKER_02
Which one?
2
SPEAKER_02
What s your number one?
2
SPEAKER_01
Beverly Hills is my number one.
2
SPEAKER_01
I ve watched it since day one.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think it s escapism, which is ultimately why most people go to reality TV.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_01
They ve got good character development.
2
SPEAKER_01
Pop notch.
2
SPEAKER_01
I love it.
2
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_03
We ve got some ideas.
2
SPEAKER_03
Can we come to you?
2
SPEAKER_03
We ve got a few ideas.
2
SPEAKER_03
Can we come to you offline?
2
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
2
SPEAKER_01
Do you want to show run the David and Monica show?
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_01
I never miss an episode, you guys.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m a big, I m a really big fan and truly tickled.
2
SPEAKER_01
I just showed randomly to my stepdaughter three weeks ago and it was so fun to watch her reactions as it unfolded.
2
SPEAKER_01
She s 21.
2
SPEAKER_01
She s 21.
2
SPEAKER_01
This is great.
2
SPEAKER_03
We re coming up to our 10 year anniversary, so I ll have to do something special for that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s something that is a North star to me with the way you handled the ending.
2
SPEAKER_01
That really matters to me.
2
SPEAKER_01
So thank you for that.
2
SPEAKER_03
That s awesome.
2
SPEAKER_03
Thank you.
2
SPEAKER_03
Thanks for sharing.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yes, thanks for chatting with us.
2
SPEAKER_02
Bye.
2
SPEAKER_02
Bye.
2
SPEAKER_03
Aw, really good.
2
SPEAKER_03
Ooh, reality.
2
SPEAKER_03
That s great, right?
2
SPEAKER_03
What a topic.
2
SPEAKER_02
I never really contextualized it as American.
2
SPEAKER_02
Some of the biggest ones, like Big Brother- Are British.
2
SPEAKER_02
Are British, but it s true that we just make everything just so outrageous.
2
SPEAKER_03
And I think you re so good at it.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_03
Like America has just made it so- And there s so many.
2
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
So many one after another.
2
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_02
That was cool.
2
SPEAKER_02
OK, great.
2
SPEAKER_03
OK, this is another Sarah.
2
SPEAKER_03
Back to back Sarah s.
2
SPEAKER_02
Hello.
2
SPEAKER_02
Hi.
2
SPEAKER_00
Hello.
2
SPEAKER_00
I obviously I m not in a closet.
2
SPEAKER_00
My closet is like.
2
SPEAKER_00
A sliver.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s fine.
2
SPEAKER_00
This is my only chance.
2
SPEAKER_00
You did your best.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_03
You know what you do have?
2
SPEAKER_03
You have, I think, a beautiful cat behind you.
2
SPEAKER_00
I do.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
This is Mama Toots.
2
SPEAKER_00
She s very farty.
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh my.
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s so funny.
2
SPEAKER_02
You named her after a fart.
2
SPEAKER_03
Well, we d love to know about what your American topic is and how you fit in.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I have an OnlyFans.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, this is great.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
And specifically, I feel like America is hyper-sexualized, but we re all pretty sexually repressed still.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s not like the 1950s.
2
SPEAKER_00
50s, it s not that bad, but there s still not a lot of conversation about what s actually going on in the bedroom.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
And obviously there s stuff like, you know, 50 Shades of Grey and that kind of thing, but it s very shallow as far as kink culture goes.
2
SPEAKER_03
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.
2
SPEAKER_03
It s really frowned upon, isn t it?
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, and it s only one sort of vanilla level of it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And since I started OnlyFans, it s incredible how many kinks there are.
2
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_02
Tell us the top five kinks.
2
SPEAKER_00
For me specifically, apparently I have great armpits, so I get a lot of armpit photo requests, yes.
2
SPEAKER_02
I really need to hear the other four, but I also have to interrupt myself and say, what made you get into it?
2
SPEAKER_00
So I started modeling, the normal kind of modeling, when I was about 16.
2
SPEAKER_00
I liked it and everything, and I kind of moved into photography from there, and then automotive photojournalism specifically.
2
SPEAKER_00
a very niche thing and money started to get kind of tough.
2
SPEAKER_00
And with modeling, I found that I didn t have control of what was going on with the images that I was producing.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
but usually for the normal range.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, back to the stigma and everything.
2
SPEAKER_00
I feel like the main purpose that I have found with OnlyFans is kind of supporting those people who have those kinks so that they feel more comfortable in their real life being like, OK, yeah, I want to see your armpit.
2
SPEAKER_00
I have several armpit fart people, which is very specific.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you can t go look up on Pornhub.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re not going to get that content.
2
SPEAKER_02
Wait, is that like making a fart with your armpit?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_03
I haven t thought about that since I was a kid.
2
SPEAKER_00
So bad at it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m like the worst.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_02
So people are allowed to ask you specifically, they ll like request
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a secondary element of the fantasy world.
2
SPEAKER_03
And it s like a safe space for them to explore their stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
And there s a lot of incel activity on OnlyFans and that kind of thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
But for the most part, if as long as you, you know, keep your eye out and everything and you you have those like blocking features and all of that.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s a safe site.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think that.
2
SPEAKER_00
They do take a large percentage of your earnings, but it s nothing like the traditional sex work industry.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re in complete control.
2
SPEAKER_00
The other American aspect of it is that there s clearly a loneliness issue in America.
2
SPEAKER_00
People are alone far more often than they
2
SPEAKER_00
should be, I think, a huge percentage are debilitatingly lonely weekly.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so instead, they would rather have this kind of surrogate partnership
2
SPEAKER_00
with me and i think it s kind of a band-aid for an issue you know that s not a solution but i spend hours talking to people about their day at work or an issue they re having
3
SPEAKER_01
They just want someone to talk to and to break stuff down with sometimes.
3
SPEAKER_00
Definitely, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
So, I mean, they re paying me, so I m going to be kind to them.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think there s that too.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I m going to be attentive and flirty and all the things that they want from a partner.
3
SPEAKER_02
There s some control, not necessarily negative, but they do have some control.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s not going to go off the rails because they paid you.
3
SPEAKER_00
Definitely, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I mean, if it does, then they stop paying me.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, I mean, there has been times where I m just like, this has gone too far, you know, that kind of thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
But that s the other part of
3
SPEAKER_00
The positive aspect for a sex worker is it s like, I can just say, no, I m a person.
3
SPEAKER_01
How do you find managing?
3
SPEAKER_01
Cause 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.
3
SPEAKER_01
How do you deal with having so many people?
3
SPEAKER_01
Cause that s a certain pressure.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not like you put a video out and you never think about it again.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re dealing with people and that takes a lot from you as well, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, definitely.
3
SPEAKER_00
For me, it s a balance of, you know, if I m actually with people in real life, like I have a social life, you know, I have a relationship, there s other things going on.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s like any job where it s if it s work hours, it s work hours.
3
SPEAKER_00
If it s not, it s not.
3
SPEAKER_00
But as far as trying to remember people s lives, because that s has been an issue for me, there s a chat thread.
3
SPEAKER_00
So
3
SPEAKER_00
If I m like, okay, last week he s talking about this, we ll talk about that again.
3
SPEAKER_00
It is a little odd because it is anonymous often.
3
SPEAKER_00
So sometimes I ll find out there s somebody I actually know.
3
SPEAKER_00
That kind of thing has been tricky with boundaries, but it s like any other business where you re dealing with a lot of people, you have accounts basically, and you read through them and you have notes and that kind of thing.
3
SPEAKER_02
What happens if you feel that one of your clients is in love with you?
3
SPEAKER_02
Do you like, that s fine?
3
SPEAKER_02
Or, I mean, that has to happen, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
That has happened more than I would like to say is comfortable, especially in those surrogate partnership situations.
3
SPEAKER_00
What ends up happening is I ll start pulling back.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I ll be like, oh, you know, I m going on a date tonight.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have a life outside of this.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
Eventually, there s something that clicks where they re like, I forgot this is fantasy.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then they disappear.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s positive.
3
SPEAKER_00
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.
3
SPEAKER_00
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.
3
SPEAKER_00
So
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
Interesting.
3
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_02
How long have you been doing this?
3
SPEAKER_00
I ve been doing it for a little over two years.
3
SPEAKER_01
And has the industry changed much over that time?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because I know there was a moment where OnlyFans suddenly turned and they sort of banned sex work on there.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that was a crazy time.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s these giant celebrities came in and sort of took everyone s attention away from people that weren t as big.
3
SPEAKER_01
What are the shifts for people listening that know about this world and might want to know more?
3
SPEAKER_01
What s the landscape like?
3
SPEAKER_00
The average income on there is $180 a month.
3
SPEAKER_00
And there s tons of creators on there.
3
SPEAKER_00
The top 5% make basically a livable wage.
3
SPEAKER_00
So if you re top 5%, that sounds impressive.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not, it s livable wage.
3
SPEAKER_00
And those big giant creators are people like Bella Thorne, the famous people who go on there and they just immediately have a million people who want to see them naked.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they re making millions of a month.
3
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s an insane dynamic with that.
3
SPEAKER_00
But because of that, I think that there s.
3
SPEAKER_00
these new sort of scammy agencies that have come up.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they re scammy in the way of like fast fashion kind of scammy.
3
SPEAKER_00
They offer this really super great quality product or service that they re going to offer you.
3
SPEAKER_00
They definitely exploit young models in that kind of 5% range.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they ll say like, oh,
3
SPEAKER_00
you re making four thousand right now a month we could make you 20 and they say they have a team of chatters so all you have to do is make photos or videos and then the chatters will do the actual chatting oh jeez so if you go on onlyfans right now it looks like bots are running everything the main page is just full of
3
SPEAKER_00
Chatters, they re real people.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the shittiest part of it is those people are typically in the Philippines and they re making maybe one to five dollars a day.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they re seeing these girls.
3
SPEAKER_00
They are selling the content for hundreds of dollars and they have complete control of the account.
3
SPEAKER_00
of their social media accounts.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so there s all these leaks everywhere because they re frustrated.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that is like fast fashion.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s like a sweatshop.
3
SPEAKER_00
It is.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like has the same feeling.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the other thing is what I do where I m creating these fantasy dynamics or creating fake dynamics with people.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s just not real.
3
SPEAKER_00
And what I m doing isn t real either, but I m a real person doing it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m not a person pretending to be the model.
3
SPEAKER_00
The whole site is littered with that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know anyone who doesn t use them, who s in my
3
SPEAKER_00
income bracket.
3
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_00
So is an American company?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s actually a British company, but I think 49% something like that of users and creators are in America, mostly in Miami.
3
SPEAKER_00
The rest of them are kind of scattered around the world that allows a lot of countries have banned it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_01
Would you have any tips for anyone getting into this world, good, bad, in between?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I would say the first thing to do is make sure you have clear boundaries with what you re comfortable putting out there.
3
SPEAKER_00
Once you get on the site, it s really easy for somebody to say, you know, like, I ll give you a thousand dollars to do this.
3
SPEAKER_00
Slippery slope.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s definitely a slippery slope.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s on the internet forever.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re not allowed to share it, but people share it.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s full sites of leaks.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s just going to happen.
3
SPEAKER_00
So doing that, I think
3
SPEAKER_00
There is a huge, huge social sacrifice that goes along with it.
3
SPEAKER_00
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.
3
SPEAKER_00
But there s not a single person who have I ve been like, oh, like I do this.
3
SPEAKER_00
And there s not a shift in their attitude towards me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Sometimes it s positive.
3
SPEAKER_00
Often it s negative because there s all this stigma and everything.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they re assuming that you re getting like gangbanged on camera.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re not necessarily.
3
SPEAKER_00
But they re assuming all these things that are happening.
3
SPEAKER_00
And even if I was, you shouldn t change your attitude towards me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and then also parents, when my mom found out, it was definitely a conversation that was uncomfortable.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
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?
3
SPEAKER_00
People you just don t want on there will end up on there because they re curious.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, boy.
3
SPEAKER_00
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.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s one of those things.
3
SPEAKER_00
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.
3
SPEAKER_00
You ll be okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think the other thing is
3
SPEAKER_00
You need a lot of social media followers in order to actually be successful.
3
SPEAKER_00
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.
3
SPEAKER_02
I have one last question.
3
SPEAKER_02
Did you say you re in a relationship right now?
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
So how does that work with partners?
3
SPEAKER_02
Do you feel obligated to share?
3
SPEAKER_02
Do they ask?
3
SPEAKER_02
Do you feel like you have a boundary up there?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
He has been there since I started.
3
SPEAKER_00
So he encouraged me when I was wanting to do it or not.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think that that s an important aspect.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it s tricky to find people.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like I can t imagine trying to date right now.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it would be a lot trickier.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of boundaries in place, for sure, for both of us.
3
SPEAKER_00
The kind of type of content that he s comfortable with me doing.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s also a tattoo artist, so there s boundaries on both sides.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s both working in intimate spaces and areas and that kind of thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s on the site.
3
SPEAKER_00
He knows what s going on.
3
SPEAKER_00
I feel more comfortable that way.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to feel like I m hiding stuff from him.
3
SPEAKER_00
For sure.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
Cool.
3
SPEAKER_02
Interesting.
3
SPEAKER_02
Thank you so much.
3
SPEAKER_02
Thank you for sharing all that.
3
SPEAKER_02
That was really interesting.
3
SPEAKER_01
And can I just say, this entire time we ve been talking to you, your cat has continuously been cleaning itself behind you.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s all she does.
3
SPEAKER_01
She s a very clean cat.
3
SPEAKER_02
She s really flexible.
3
SPEAKER_01
Get them on OnlyFans, I reckon.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, are there animals on there?
3
SPEAKER_00
Maybe.
3
SPEAKER_00
I hope not, actually.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t think there should be.
3
SPEAKER_00
That would be bad because consent, I guess.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, because you have to put up an ID and, you know, verify your identity.
3
SPEAKER_00
So cats don t have those, I don t think.
3
SPEAKER_01
Thank you so much.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s been so interesting.
3
SPEAKER_02
All right.
3
SPEAKER_00
Have a good one.
3
SPEAKER_00
Bye.
3
SPEAKER_02
What a world.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, cool.
3
SPEAKER_02
I was good about not talking about that cat.
3
SPEAKER_01
We were just so angry the whole time.
3
SPEAKER_01
I just love that cat so much.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think that s our main difference, you and I, is the cat issue.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, there s a few, but that one s pretty high up there.
3
SPEAKER_01
I like to bring it up when I see one.
3
SPEAKER_01
Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird.
3
SPEAKER_01
We ll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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Support for Flightless Bird comes from Quince.
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SPEAKER_00
Hi there.
4
SPEAKER_00
Hi, how are you?
4
SPEAKER_00
Good.
4
SPEAKER_00
How are you?
4
SPEAKER_00
I m good.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m so excited to be here.
4
SPEAKER_00
Thanks for having me.
4
SPEAKER_00
I love your glasses.
4
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Something fun.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s fun.
4
SPEAKER_00
I like the color a lot.
4
SPEAKER_00
I have to start off as well.
4
SPEAKER_00
David, I studied abroad at University of Auckland and you can see I have my little Kiwis back here.
4
SPEAKER_00
So, big fan of your country.
4
SPEAKER_02
Goodness, I m so glad.
4
SPEAKER_02
What was your favorite thing and least favorite thing about New Zealand?
4
SPEAKER_00
Least favorite was probably the lack of people, but most favorite, I d say I lived right at the bottom of the domain.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I was having parrots and incredible birds flying right by my window the whole time.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that s incredible.
4
SPEAKER_02
Oh, I love this.
4
SPEAKER_02
Now, what have you come to us with?
4
SPEAKER_02
What American topic and expertise do you have?
4
SPEAKER_00
So I worked in the U.S.
4
SPEAKER_00
Senate for three years.
4
SPEAKER_00
I worked there post grad when I was 21 as an executive assistant to a Democratic senator.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was her driver, I was her body woman, I was the person who did her day-to-day scheduling.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was a fun time.
4
SPEAKER_02
Explain that.
4
SPEAKER_02
What was the fun?
4
SPEAKER_02
What does that world look like?
4
SPEAKER_02
I just imagine this really high-pressure, intense time every hour of every day.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s about right.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s definitely high pressure.
4
SPEAKER_00
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.
4
SPEAKER_00
And these are the people who are writing the bills, driving the Senator, working the floor.
4
SPEAKER_00
So even if you watch the floor, you ll see high schoolers are on the floor itself, the Senate pages.
4
SPEAKER_00
So there s a lot of young people.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so you get the angst of young people post grad.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, these are kids that are just coming out of college who now
4
SPEAKER_00
have a ton of responsibility.
4
SPEAKER_00
So it s fun to get to walk around the hallways.
4
SPEAKER_00
For my senator, she always liked to have someone with her.
4
SPEAKER_00
So every meeting we went to, the Senate is a big campus.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s three office buildings, the big Capitol.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s trains that connect everything underneath.
4
SPEAKER_00
So it was basically my job to make sure she got where she needed to go.
4
SPEAKER_01
Were you the Berenger of many secrets?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_00
I can t even tell us one.
4
SPEAKER_00
Tell us some.
4
SPEAKER_00
I actually, I sat down with my friends on the Hill before being like, I m doing this.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re like, Oh, you ve got to expose.
4
SPEAKER_02
Expose, do an expose.
4
SPEAKER_00
I won t do any exposure, but you can go look up Dear White Staffers.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s a very popular Instagram and Twitter.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that is where people will anonymously trash talk their bosses, their experiences.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s really good to know.
4
SPEAKER_02
This is a real hack tabloidy question, but how dramatic is it in there?
4
SPEAKER_02
Is it this sexually charged atmosphere where everyone s like young and sick?
4
SPEAKER_02
You know, I m thinking this is like, it feels like a TV show, what you do.
4
SPEAKER_02
But what I m trying to say is how horny is it in there?
4
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s complicated because have you watched Beep?
4
SPEAKER_00
Love.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that s by far the most accurate US political show out there.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh no!
4
SPEAKER_02
I love that.
4
SPEAKER_02
I love that.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s so embarrassing.
4
SPEAKER_00
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.
4
SPEAKER_00
But not everyone is your age.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s bosses that are not.
4
SPEAKER_00
There are bosses, that is correct.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I will say there are sexual harassment issues on the Hill, but I think people are so eager to make a career.
4
SPEAKER_00
and to continue your career on the hill, that they re very careful.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you do sleep with some people in your office sometimes, but that gets really messy quickly.
4
SPEAKER_01
God.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s like when I worked at SoulCycle and everyone s young and hot and sweaty.
4
SPEAKER_02
You re stressed and just all on the edge and you re all in it together.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
People are bound to hook up.
4
SPEAKER_00
But at the Hill, everyone thinks they re important.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s the big kicker.
4
SPEAKER_02
Oh, the ego.
4
SPEAKER_00
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.
4
SPEAKER_00
Wait, so you still work there?
4
SPEAKER_00
No, so I left last August.
4
SPEAKER_00
I now work for a global nonprofit.
4
SPEAKER_00
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.
4
SPEAKER_02
What do you miss the most about not being on the hill?
4
SPEAKER_02
And by the way, I love how you call it the hill.
4
SPEAKER_00
I know, that makes me want to do it.
4
SPEAKER_02
The hill is, I don t have any emotional connection to the hill, but I hear it and I m like, it sounds interesting.
4
SPEAKER_00
It sounds so fun.
4
SPEAKER_02
What do you miss the most?
4
SPEAKER_00
I miss just being in the stress culture, honestly.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s so intoxicating.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you re working from 7 a.m.
4
SPEAKER_00
till 7 p.m., the boss leaves, and then everyone starts drinking in the office.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then you go to receptions, there s free wine.
4
SPEAKER_00
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.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then you have committees and lots of other, but if you want to work for a member, it s very limited amount of people you can do it for.
4
SPEAKER_00
So the pressure is intense, but we re also human.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so everything goes wrong just like it would in normal life.
4
SPEAKER_02
Can you maybe just take us through a day or a disaster?
4
SPEAKER_02
Do you have like a memory of something that was just chaos?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, there was definitely a couple of storms that would affect flights.
4
SPEAKER_00
So senators have 15 minutes to vote.
4
SPEAKER_00
The votes go longer, but in a given day, you ll have three to 20 votes kind of depending.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if the senator is not there, they can t vote.
4
SPEAKER_00
So your senator has to get onto the floor within those 15 minutes for them to have their vote counted.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if it s not, it would have been considered my fault.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I d be 30 minutes away from the hill with her on an event in an ambassador house in Northwest DC.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I would have to run a couple reds.
4
SPEAKER_00
We had Senate plates, luckily, but I d run a couple reds to get her to the floor on time to vote.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m, I d be on the phone with the floor staff at the time being like, do not close the vote, please, please, please.
4
SPEAKER_00
You can see on C-SPAN people just waiting.
4
SPEAKER_00
So
4
SPEAKER_00
A lot of last minute, have to act fast decisions.
4
SPEAKER_00
So dramatic.
4
SPEAKER_01
Lots of adrenaline, a lot of cortisol.
4
SPEAKER_00
A lot of cortisol and a lot of alcohol.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God, I love it there.
4
SPEAKER_02
So there s a lot of cocaine in the bathroom and that kind of thing?
4
SPEAKER_00
Not that I was, but I was a Democrat.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if the Republicans are partying differently.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was in DC last year for a couple of days, and there was a restaurant, bar, restaurant, I guess, that everyone there obviously worked in politics.
4
SPEAKER_01
The energy in there, I forget what it was called.
4
SPEAKER_01
I want to, like, not the diplomat.
4
SPEAKER_01
The diplomat?
4
SPEAKER_01
The diplomat, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
So that s too obvious.
4
SPEAKER_01
And yes, everyone in there is just buzzy, and they re in meetings, and they re rushing around.
4
SPEAKER_01
It is also very important.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was a scene.
4
SPEAKER_00
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.
4
SPEAKER_00
So, like, it s fun because you re very important.
4
SPEAKER_00
You can tell the people, like, I work for the senator and they ll let you through.
4
SPEAKER_00
But then at a certain point, they don t give two shits because someone else is more important than you is in town.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, this is fun.
4
SPEAKER_01
This is quite American.
4
SPEAKER_01
Can t get more American than The Hill.
4
SPEAKER_02
Thanks for bringing that insight into this job that I do not even begin to understand.
4
SPEAKER_02
So thank you.
4
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s such a pleasure.
4
SPEAKER_01
You need to learn more.
5
SPEAKER_03
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 the stuff at the system here is complicated right.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, it s very complicated.
5
SPEAKER_00
You have checks and balances.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, American politics today too, we re going into election year.
5
SPEAKER_00
So it s its own year.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s its own world.
5
SPEAKER_03
But are you going to be sitting through this election feeling a bit sad you re not in there?
5
SPEAKER_03
Or are you like, thank God?
5
SPEAKER_00
I purposefully did not want to be on the Hill for this next election.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was in it for the last big one and I m all set.
5
SPEAKER_00
I lived in DC for January 6th.
5
SPEAKER_00
I lived six blocks from the Capitol.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I saw it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, thank you.
5
SPEAKER_03
Thank you.
5
SPEAKER_00
Thank you, David.
5
SPEAKER_00
Thank you, Monica.
5
SPEAKER_00
What a treat.
5
SPEAKER_00
Have a great day.
5
SPEAKER_00
Thank you, too.
5
SPEAKER_00
Bye.
5
SPEAKER_01
The Hill.
5
SPEAKER_01
I want to work on The Hill.
5
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, it sounds fun.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it really does.
5
SPEAKER_01
She was good.
5
SPEAKER_01
Everyone s great.
5
SPEAKER_03
It does sound sexy.
5
SPEAKER_03
It would be so charged.
5
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_03
All the egos.
5
SPEAKER_03
Young and horny.
5
SPEAKER_03
Young and horny.
5
SPEAKER_01
Also, industry towns are horny.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think that s the way it is.
5
SPEAKER_03
Hollywood has this level of, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
New York has the finance space.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s horny.
5
SPEAKER_03
And it is America, is what she talked about, everyone being exhausted.
5
SPEAKER_03
There is that thing in America, and I feel like it s in New York, where being exhausted is a badge of honor.
5
100%.
5
SPEAKER_03
And if you re not, you re a loser.
5
SPEAKER_01
You haven t worked hard enough.
5
SPEAKER_03
LA doesn t have that, does it?
5
SPEAKER_03
We re a bit more chill.
5
SPEAKER_01
Overall, it s more everyone writing scripts in the Starbucks.
5
SPEAKER_03
All right, here comes Jessica.
5
SPEAKER_03
Jessica.
5
SPEAKER_01
Hi!
5
SPEAKER_03
Hey, Jessica.
5
SPEAKER_01
Hello.
5
SPEAKER_01
Welcome to Flights of Fancy.
5
SPEAKER_03
Where are you in your house right now?
5
SPEAKER_02
I am actually at work.
5
SPEAKER_02
I work in a funeral home and I am in a little closet right now.
5
SPEAKER_02
You re in a coffin.
5
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_03
Basically.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow.
5
SPEAKER_01
Is that what you re going to offer us today?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I m here to talk a little about some death.
5
SPEAKER_03
How did you get into this very specific industry?
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, what drew you?
5
SPEAKER_02
I kind of felt a calling, and I feel like a lot of people are just interested in it.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I ve been in the industry for almost nine years, so I started pretty quickly out of high school.
5
SPEAKER_02
I got a job as a limo driver at a funeral home, which drives people to their
5
SPEAKER_02
funeral services.
5
SPEAKER_02
And then I went to mortuary school and got my degree.
5
SPEAKER_02
And now I have experience with funerals and embalming and cremation.
5
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_03
Where do we begin?
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, I already have 400,000 questions.
5
SPEAKER_01
One is as the limo driver, what a
5
SPEAKER_01
privileged, fascinating voyeuristic perspective to be in.
5
SPEAKER_01
At people s lowest moment, you re kind of an observer.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was very interesting.
5
SPEAKER_02
You would hear, like, all the little gossip and drama.
5
SPEAKER_01
Was mainly everyone just bawling or are people getting in fights?
5
SPEAKER_01
Are they gossiping?
5
SPEAKER_02
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.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
We can t help ourselves.
5
SPEAKER_01
Even when you re supposed to be the most connected to life, that s how we are by nature.
5
SPEAKER_03
And what do you do now?
5
SPEAKER_03
What s most of your day spent doing?
5
SPEAKER_03
I mean, you mentioned things like cremations and embalming, which of course, my mind instantly goes to wanting to know more about that.
5
SPEAKER_03
But what s your main part of your day doing what you do?
5
SPEAKER_02
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.
5
SPEAKER_03
What have you found America s relationship to death be like?
5
SPEAKER_02
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.
5
SPEAKER_02
I think especially through the pandemic was a big instance where I noticed all the healthcare 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
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s really true.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_02
It was a crazy time.
5
SPEAKER_03
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?
5
SPEAKER_03
And what do we do?
5
SPEAKER_03
And then you swing in to make all of this stuff happen.
5
SPEAKER_03
I mean, I think of America as pushing what funerals are like.
5
SPEAKER_03
We re live streaming them now.
5
SPEAKER_03
The coffins are so ornate and beautiful here in America.
5
SPEAKER_03
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?
5
SPEAKER_02
I think something that s interesting as the industry evolves is there s a lot more personalization that goes into it.
5
SPEAKER_02
A few decades ago, it was very, everyone has kind of the same service.
5
SPEAKER_02
You go to church, you get in your coffin, you get buried and that s that.
5
SPEAKER_02
But as it s evolving, there s a lot more options to kind of make every service a little more personal.
5
SPEAKER_02
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.
5
SPEAKER_01
And do we think that s more or less American?
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, I almost think the celebration of life is more other cultures.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like we re moving, we re trying, it seems, to move out of our, like, wearing all black type funeral.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_02
You know, there s some cultures where they have a whole festival with the dead person present and then bury them and then dig them back up a couple of years later to do that again.
5
SPEAKER_03
In Indonesia, right?
5
SPEAKER_03
They get people out every birthday and top up their supply of money and smokes and celebrate and send them back into the ground.
5
SPEAKER_03
It s pretty incredible.
5
SPEAKER_02
I don t think we ll ever get there.
5
SPEAKER_03
No, I m waiting for the day.
5
SPEAKER_03
You talked about there being increased personalizations of funerals.
5
SPEAKER_03
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?
5
SPEAKER_02
I remember a service I worked that was pretty funny.
5
SPEAKER_02
It was a person who enjoyed marijuana in their life and they did it like a full 420 themed service.
5
SPEAKER_02
We started it at 420.
5
SPEAKER_02
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.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_03
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.
5
SPEAKER_03
Exactly.
5
SPEAKER_03
What else can I do with my body?
5
SPEAKER_03
Can I throw it into space?
5
SPEAKER_03
Can I throw it into the ocean?
5
SPEAKER_03
Are there rules in America?
5
SPEAKER_03
Do you know what that s about?
5
SPEAKER_02
There s more and more options.
5
SPEAKER_02
There is, you can release your ashes into space.
5
SPEAKER_02
Don t think we ve fully got to your full body in space and orbit.
5
SPEAKER_03
I ve just been watching Three-Body Problem where spoilers, they throw a head up into space.
5
SPEAKER_01
But isn t like just throwing ashes into space just then just falls onto the, isn t that just like throwing them up in a rocket?
5
SPEAKER_03
I m talking about getting in a rocket and like sending it to the moon and you know, I want personally want my ashes on the moon.
5
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
5
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
5
SPEAKER_02
That s a big ask.
5
SPEAKER_02
And then they re starting to do some like human composting where it s very natural and then you can use the soil afterwards.
5
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_03
So you want a little compost heap.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, I mean, I do think what does make America a unique, we probably lead in burials, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
Because I think many other places are first and foremost cremation.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s a religion.
5
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, cemeteries seem like such a big deal here where we are in LA.
5
SPEAKER_03
I think of Hollywood forever.
5
SPEAKER_03
It s like a theme park in there.
5
SPEAKER_03
Do you have any sense of that?
5
SPEAKER_02
I think it s definitely region dependent in the country too.
5
SPEAKER_02
I m in the Pacific Northwest where we re a lot more cremation heavy here.
5
SPEAKER_02
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.
5
SPEAKER_03
And I have to rewind back actually.
5
SPEAKER_03
Composting.
5
SPEAKER_03
What are you talking about?
5
SPEAKER_03
I m putting my body in a little compost bin and you leave me there for two years?
5
SPEAKER_03
What are the realities of that?
5
SPEAKER_02
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.
5
SPEAKER_02
And then you can go use that for whatever.
5
SPEAKER_03
If I die, I want to be combusted and put in your little vegetable garden.
5
SPEAKER_03
So whenever you eat a little carrot or a little potato or a feijoa.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, you re having a little bit of me.
5
SPEAKER_01
We could do a Feijoa tree growing on top of you.
5
SPEAKER_01
That would be beautiful.
5
SPEAKER_03
It actually is really beautiful.
5
SPEAKER_03
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.
5
SPEAKER_03
It s so much money, it s such an industry, and the person s dead.
5
SPEAKER_03
It s not like a wedding where you re all together celebrating this thing where they re alive.
5
SPEAKER_03
It s like you re dead and there s so much pressure on the family.
5
SPEAKER_03
I don t know.
5
SPEAKER_03
I m just raving now.
5
SPEAKER_03
I don t really know what my question is, but it s kind of fascinating, isn t it?
5
SPEAKER_02
It just is an interesting world.
5
SPEAKER_02
It definitely is.
5
SPEAKER_02
We re trying to move away from the perceptive that we re just trying to get your money from you.
5
SPEAKER_02
But that was a big part of the business in the earlier times of, oh, you want the biggest, grandest funeral.
5
SPEAKER_02
And if you love this person, then why are you not spending
6
SPEAKER_02
this much money on celebrating them.
6
SPEAKER_02
And I think now we re faced with the realities of what can we do that s more environmentally friendly and more affordable for people to move forward in the future.
6
SPEAKER_00
Jessica, what else do you have on the table today when we leave you?
6
SPEAKER_00
What are you going to be doing today?
6
SPEAKER_02
Cremation is really my area of expertise, so that s where I like to spend most of my time.
6
SPEAKER_03
How many do you do a day?
6
SPEAKER_02
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.
6
SPEAKER_00
What s the quickest you can cremate a body, get the best machine?
6
SPEAKER_00
What are we looking at?
6
SPEAKER_02
The best machine, usually someone who s about 150 pounds could be done in a little over an hour.
6
SPEAKER_03
Oh, okay.
6
SPEAKER_03
That s not that long.
6
SPEAKER_03
And how much, because someone was asking me, someone was asking me recently about ashes.
6
SPEAKER_03
An 150 pound person, how much would the ashes weigh?
6
SPEAKER_02
average for ashes about five to seven pounds.
6
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_02
But it s very dependent on like a person s bone density because that s what most of the ashes are comprised of.
6
SPEAKER_02
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.
6
SPEAKER_03
Oh wow.
6
SPEAKER_03
Cool.
6
SPEAKER_00
This massive urn.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God, you re the Dean Suspones, never knew.
6
SPEAKER_03
Never knew until you did.
6
SPEAKER_03
Well, this was lovely.
6
SPEAKER_03
Thank you so much for chatting with us.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I know that death has come up a few times on the podcast, so I m happy to enlighten everybody a little bit.
6
SPEAKER_00
Love it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I m working through some stuff.
6
SPEAKER_02
Thank you, have a great day.
6
SPEAKER_02
Awesome, you too, thank you.
6
SPEAKER_02
Bye.
6
SPEAKER_01
Bye.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh my goodness gracious.
6
SPEAKER_01
You re in your car.
6
SPEAKER_01
I had to take a lunch and find the quietest cemetery I could find to park in the back of to have nice audio for you guys.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s perfect.
6
SPEAKER_01
It sounds nice.
6
SPEAKER_00
Now, I d love to know what your pitch is.
6
SPEAKER_00
What is your American expertise that you are pitching to us?
6
SPEAKER_01
I m a 22 year veteran of the Postal Service.
6
SPEAKER_03
Oh, yes.
6
SPEAKER_03
This is American as it gets.
6
SPEAKER_00
All I jumped to instantly is Newman in Seinfeld, just dumping, he was a mailman.
6
SPEAKER_00
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.
6
SPEAKER_00
Tell us what you sort of do and what this world is like.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t even know where to begin.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so, I mean, I ve been working for the post office since a month after I graduated high school.
6
SPEAKER_01
I did it through college, which I only got an associate s degree, so a two-year degree.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I worked all the jobs that we have pretty much, minus one or two.
6
SPEAKER_01
I ve done overnight machine work with letter processing and package processing.
6
SPEAKER_01
I ve done delivery.
6
SPEAKER_03
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.
6
SPEAKER_03
I don t want to be a part of it.
6
SPEAKER_01
It really depends where you re at.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like in a more urban environment, it is just a mess to try and go to the post office.
6
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, it sucks.
6
SPEAKER_03
I mean, I m sorry.
6
SPEAKER_01
Whoa.
6
SPEAKER_01
No, you that s fine.
6
SPEAKER_01
I agree.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t like waiting in line either.
6
SPEAKER_01
So 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
6
SPEAKER_00
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.
6
SPEAKER_00
If it doesn t arrive, I get very stressed out trying to find my mail.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re part of this hidden infrastructure of the mail getting to us.
6
SPEAKER_00
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.
6
SPEAKER_01
It is a 24-hour operation, whereas we have tens of thousands of workers who never work during the day.
6
SPEAKER_01
They just work at night.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I did that, I did nights for seven years before I moved over to carriers because we had children and I was like, I can t do this for the rest of my life.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I d worked with people in certain jobs and they d done 30, 35 years on night shift.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s a weekend thing too.
6
SPEAKER_01
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.
6
SPEAKER_03
So you ve been working seven days a week for 20 years?
6
SPEAKER_01
Six days a week for almost 14 years.
6
SPEAKER_01
I started in 2002.
6
SPEAKER_01
2006 was peak male volume as they call it.
6
SPEAKER_01
So it s like the year we had the most volume.
6
SPEAKER_01
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.
6
SPEAKER_01
Compared to when I started, you would take out a tiny hamper of packages and a tiny hamper of mail.
6
SPEAKER_01
Now you take out a large hamper of packages and a tinier hamper of mail.
6
SPEAKER_03
Interesting.
6
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_03
If anyone has kids in the car right now or nearby, I m going to give you a second to turn off this show.
6
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_03
We re back.
6
SPEAKER_03
Um, Santa letters.
6
SPEAKER_01
What do you do?
6
SPEAKER_01
Santa letters.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_01
So each office is different.
6
SPEAKER_01
Usually,
6
SPEAKER_01
If there are charitable organizations in town, sometimes they ll be like, bring them all to us.
6
SPEAKER_01
Police stations usually collect them.
6
SPEAKER_01
My mother and I do a lot of stuff with a program called Toys for Tots, where you get toys to local fire departments and they need to distribute them.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I ve kind of gotten inside track on some of that stuff sometimes.
6
SPEAKER_01
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.
6
SPEAKER_01
Be like, hey, what do they want?
6
SPEAKER_01
We can help out with this.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m in a unique position and my mom, as well, is probably the most giving person I ve ever met, so we re gonna try and do our best to help out if we can.
6
SPEAKER_01
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.
6
SPEAKER_03
He thinks he s going to the North Pole and do a lot of- It is!
6
SPEAKER_01
It is going to the North Pole.
6
SPEAKER_03
Do a lot of postal workers just throw them in the garbage?
6
SPEAKER_03
What else would you do, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, no, no, no, no.
6
SPEAKER_01
You can t throw anything away.
6
SPEAKER_03
Oh, it s illegal.
6
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
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.
6
SPEAKER_01
The ones that don t make it charitable things.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I know that it is a unique thing because I m sure it s illegal.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah certain degree because we re sending them to a fictitious place but what do you do people are very much line.
6
SPEAKER_00
What s the most unusual thing you ve ever found in a package in your career or a colleagues found someone try to ship a child.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, people ship everything.
6
SPEAKER_01
And things aren t always packaged well, so you ll blatantly grab a package and you re grabbing a package.
6
SPEAKER_01
You get a lot of Teemu or AliExpress packages that they don t spend a lot of time really dolling up what s in the box type deal.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re just holding a big dildo or something.
6
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_03
I thought you meant an actual penis.
6
SPEAKER_03
That s pretty much what s happening.
6
SPEAKER_03
Someone cut off someone s penis.
6
SPEAKER_00
Just to clarify, you haven t found an actual penis in the mail?
6
SPEAKER_00
Because that s a crime you should tell the police.
6
SPEAKER_01
I haven t found any body parts.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s good.
6
SPEAKER_00
Good.
6
SPEAKER_00
You don t want to either, but... But weirdest thing, what made you go, holy shit?
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, what s the weirdest?
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay, I was working a night shift, like 5P to 1A, and you had to go out and clear out the drop boxes where they drop all the letters off.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I was doing the midnight run, as they called it.
6
SPEAKER_01
So at midnight, you d go and empty the boxes to make sure they weren t too full for the next morning crew.
6
SPEAKER_01
I opened two boxes and I go to dump them in the hamper and I dump out a loaded 38.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh!
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh boy.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I walked back up to the office, and I was like, hey, I didn t touch it.
6
SPEAKER_01
Scary.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I just need to call the police and tell them to come get this loaded gun we just found.
6
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s probably not a great criminal that decided to send that through the post.
6
SPEAKER_03
Also, that could have gone off and killed you.
6
SPEAKER_01
It didn t even have postage on it, so I don t know what they were thinking.
6
SPEAKER_01
You don t even know where to send it.
6
SPEAKER_01
Scary.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
6
SPEAKER_00
Is there one sort of misconception you think Americans have about the mail service, something you d like to clear up?
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, this is your chance.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s a good job.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s a tough job.
6
SPEAKER_01
And the volume that we operate on, I don t think a lot of people really understand.
6
SPEAKER_01
If you re looking at the piece count, I ve read breakdowns and like UPS, let s say these are vague numbers, but UPS handles 150 billion pieces of parcel a year.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh my goodness.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s unreal.
6
SPEAKER_01
We would handle closer to eight times that amount.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
6
SPEAKER_01
I know we re doing like an eight to one.
6
SPEAKER_00
And the thing that s so interesting, you know, if you send an email, you know, that email is probably going to get there.
6
SPEAKER_00
If you lose one bit of those millions and millions of messages that could change someone s life.
6
SPEAKER_00
It could be like a, a love letter someone sent and that doesn t get delivered.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s the most important thing in that.
7
SPEAKER_00
person s life.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s such a responsibility.
7
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
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.
7
SPEAKER_01
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.
7
SPEAKER_01
And we ll come to your house and we ll get it just like we would a factory or anything else.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s lovely I d say that s the thing that people take for granted is it s a really Available tool and it helps keep prices in check because a letter costs 68 cents to mail currently It s gonna be 72 or 3 in July But I m pretty sure if you go and try to just mail a letter through UPS or FedEx.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s gonna cost you a
7
SPEAKER_01
Six to fifteen dollars they re not set up for like letters but specifically kind of our game.
7
SPEAKER_00
For a long time so as we wrap up you know got an audience of americans listening is there anything americans could do differently to make the mail person s job easy and obviously put the dog away.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t know is there anything that you wish people could do when it snows sweep off your steps.
7
SPEAKER_01
Because we have to walk up them either way.
7
SPEAKER_01
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.
7
SPEAKER_01
Right.
7
SPEAKER_01
You, I know, have been bit by numerous animals.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s one of my favorite pastimes here.
7
SPEAKER_00
But I encourage it, you know, I m a bit of an idiot.
7
SPEAKER_02
You ve done great.
7
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God.
7
SPEAKER_02
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.
7
SPEAKER_02
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.
7
SPEAKER_02
That was just the nicest, kindest gesture.
7
SPEAKER_02
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.
7
SPEAKER_01
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.
7
SPEAKER_01
If I get canned for that, then we re all screwed anyway, so.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re such a good human.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thank you so much for this.
7
SPEAKER_02
This is very American.
7
SPEAKER_02
There s no getting around it.
7
SPEAKER_01
My wife got me to listening to you in the pandemic.
7
SPEAKER_01
We couldn t really do anything.
7
SPEAKER_01
And we would go on long drives because we live in the middle of nowhere.
7
SPEAKER_01
We d go to Costco, which is like an hour and a half away.
7
SPEAKER_01
We would listen to
7
SPEAKER_01
armchair and then David came on and I became even more infatuated and just really enjoy what you guys do.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m now your web worm was great last night.
7
SPEAKER_02
Oh, you re fully in.
7
SPEAKER_02
That s so great.
7
SPEAKER_01
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.
7
SPEAKER_02
I just wanted it.
7
SPEAKER_00
You ve been an absolute star.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thank you so much.
7
SPEAKER_02
It was so nice to meet you.
7
SPEAKER_02
Thanks for chatting with us.
7
SPEAKER_01
Thank you, guys.
7
SPEAKER_01
Nice to chat with you as well.
7
SPEAKER_02
Bye.
7
SPEAKER_01
Bye.
7
SPEAKER_01
Bye-bye.
7
SPEAKER_02
Well, that was episode one of Flights of Fancy.
7
SPEAKER_02
That was really fun to talk to people.
7
SPEAKER_02
People are quite American.
7
SPEAKER_00
People are so American.
7
SPEAKER_00
And people, I love how interesting Americans are.
7
SPEAKER_00
They start talking, I m captivated.
7
SPEAKER_00
For me, training dolphins and sea lions, I mean, that entire world, I m going to keep researching that.
7
SPEAKER_02
OK.
7
SPEAKER_02
That s awesome.
7
SPEAKER_02
This was super fun.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thanks, Monica.
7
SPEAKER_02
Thank you.
7
Yeah.