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PODCAST

Flightless Bird

Flightless Bird follows journalist David Farrier as he learns about what makes America special from his unique perspective as a Kiwi accidentally marooned in the Land of the Free. Infinitely curious but never judgmental, each week, David (along with cohost and American Rob) seeks to understand what makes America so unique, strange, and wonderful.

society & culture documentary

All Episodes

87:50

Train Hopping

Flightless Bird ·

2025/10/14

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David talks to a man who lived as a train hopper for two years. They talk about the lifestyle, dangers and chaos of illegally hitching rides across America using the railroad system. The country’s first train tracks were laid down in the 1820s - and since then, America has gone on to have the largest rail transport network in the world - over 136,000 miles of train lines weaning their way across the USA. Which is why train hopping is part of America’s history.Based

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66:24

Homecoming

Flightless Bird ·

2025/10/07

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David attends his first Homecoming football game and Homecoming dance - and Rob and David discuss their feelings around dances, balls, and weddings.Note: As discussed in this episode, Flightless Bird is hiring! We are looking for a “channel manager” to help look after a Flightless Bird’s Instagram, YouTube page, and other social media accounts. This is a paid position working 15 to 20 hours a week. If you are creative, organised and experienced please email us a

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77:47

Christian Chaos

Flightless Bird ·

2025/09/30

In this week’s episode, David looks at the downfall of one of the world’s biggest Christian stars, Michael Tait. The (now former) frontman of The Newsboys, and former member of DC Talk, Tait led a secret double life that all came crashing down this year. Farrier talks to two journalists who covered the story, Jessica Morris and Josiah Hesse - as well as whistleblowers and victims like Israel Anthem. Farrier discovers a world of coverups and legal action in the world of Christian rock - learning

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78:15

Christian Music

Flightless Bird ·

2025/09/23

In this week’s episode David and Rob look at the world of Christian Contemporary Music, or CCM for short. Born out of the 1960s Jesus Movement, CCM was a way for kids to listen to “cool” music without any of the sin, and it became embedded in large parts of American culture. They’re joined in the studio by Underoath’s Aaron Gillespie who knows a thing or two about Christian music - and they talk about everything from Hell Houses to the good and bad of Christian music.Aaron Gillespie:

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66:20

Chipotle

Flightless Bird ·

2025/09/16

In this week’s Flightless Bird, Rob takes David to his first ever Chipotle Mexican Grill experience, before teaching him about what makes this American food chain so iconic, important and delicious. Founded on July 13, 1993, we learn about its history with McDonalds to its attempt at being sustainable, they try to answer the eternal question: Is Chipotle better than fast food or slightly better than fast food?Flightless Bird merch: https://www.flightlessbirdpod.com/ Email Rob and David:

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69:16

Tunnel Girl

Flightless Bird ·

2025/09/09

In this week’s episode, David flies to Washington, DC to meet with Kala - AKA “Tunnel Girl” - a woman digging a tunnel under her suburban home. David descends into Kala’s tunnel, trying to figure out what motivates her to do this. Along the way they talk about her fame on TikTok, the controversies she’s faced, and what you can learn from a tunnel fire.This episode was based on original reporting done for Webworm: https://www.webworm.co/tunnelgirl Flightless Bird merch:

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81:22

Kony 2012

Flightless Bird ·

2025/09/02

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David looks back at Invisible Children’s “Kony 2012” documentary through the eyes of Lilly, an intern at the time - and Jedidiah Jenkins, the director of idea development for Invisible Children in 2012. Lilly and Jed take David inside the viral hit - the first ever video to reach 1 million likes on YouTube, the speediest ever to reach 100 million views. A Pew Research poll at the time indicated more than half of young adult Americans had heard about Kony 2012 in the

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73:58

Streisand Effect

Flightless Bird ·

2025/08/26

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David Farrier meets Mike Masnick, the journalist and entrepreneur who came up with the term “The Streisand Effect” 20 years ago. The term has its origins in Barbara Streisland suing someone for $50 million for daring to take a photo of her house - only to have the photo spread to millions of people. Since then the Streisand Effect has been used to describe the effect of the rich and powerful trying to shut down information. Farrier and Mike discuss the legacy of what

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83:37

Cryonics

Flightless Bird ·

2025/08/19

In this week's Flightless Bird, David Farrier explores cryonics - freezing human corpses in the hope they may one day be resurrected by future humans! We interview James Arrowood, CEO of Alcor, America’s biggest cryonics outfit, to talk about the perception of this practice and what it means for Alcor’s 250 bodies on ice. Email us your feedback: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com Links - Death To Dust: What Happens To Dead Bodies? http://www.galenpress.com/extras/extra32.htm - Melbourne Woman

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85:42

Pokemon Cards

Flightless Bird ·

2025/08/12

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David and Rob discuss Pokemon Trading Cards. They’re joined in the studio by Alex (@chantastic_collection) to get schooled on Pokemon fandom and trading cards (David and Rob open their first deck ever!), before David heads to New York to meet Dave Suchmann, a man who’s combined his love of Pokemon with his computer savvy to try and make a sustainable business trading Pokemon cards. Now of course Pokemon comes from Japan, but when it was introduced to America, and then

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75:02

Home Alone House

Flightless Bird ·

2025/08/05

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David and Rob talk about one of the most iconic American movies of all time: Home Alone. David then meets Lauren, who not only loves Home Alone - but grew up in the Home Alone house. She was there during the entire shoot, observing the whole thing through the eyes of a six year old. This episode is part of Flightless Bird’s very unofficial “Chicago Week."LINKS: - Flightless Bird presents: METALLICA: SOME KIND OF MONSTER. Saturday August 23 in Los Angeles:

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76:51

Deep Dish Pizza

Flightless Bird ·

2025/07/29

In this week’s episode, Rob takes David around Chicago visiting some of his favourite deep dish pizza spots. The pair check out Pizano’s, Pequod’s, Lou Malnati's and Chicago's Pizza. They also stop by Goose Island so David can try Rob’s old favourite beer. Contact us anytime with your ideas and feedback: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com - Pizano’s Pizza: https://www.pizanoschicago.com - Pequod’s Pizza: https://pequodspizza.com - Lou Malnati's: https://www.loumalnatis.com - Chicago's Pizza:

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116:37

Live in Chicago: Joe Berlinger, Italian Beef, and...

Flightless Bird ·

2025/07/22

This week’s episode was recorded live in Chicago, where Rob and David brought Flightless Bird to Park West on July 10. They share their thoughts and feelings about Chicago, before interviewing legendary documentary maker Joe Berlinger about his work. Berlinger talks about recently EP’ing a doc about the “tylenol murders” that took place in Chicago in 1982. They then talk about some of the films he’s directed, including Brother’s Keeper, the Paradise Lost trilogy, and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster

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120:12

Live in Denver: Cryonics, Hearse Club, Ice Core, &...

Flightless Bird ·

2025/07/15

This week’s Flightless Bird is Live From Denver! Rob and David explore the sights and sounds of Denver, CO, presenting their findings to a very fun crowd at the beautiful Cervantes Ballroom. They are joined by four guests that each bring a fascinating aspect of Denver and Colorado to life: The CEO of a cryonics company who has 250 human bodies and heads on ice, the head a hearse club, an expert from the largest Ice Core story facility on the planet, and a professor deeply involved with reintroducing

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50:04

Candy

Flightless Bird ·

2025/07/08

In this week’s Flightless Bird, Rob takes David to Vons. There they each pick their five favourite American candies, ready to taste test back at the studio. They also pick a bunch of American candy David has never tried, so he can fill his blood with American sugar and become 200% more American.Live show tickets for Chicago on July 10: http://bit.ly/lostkiwiCHI If you want to contact Flightless Bird, we are always at: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.comT-shirts are available here: flightlessbirdpod.com

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75:46

Prison Firefighters

Flightless Bird ·

2025/07/01

Trigger warning: Today’s episode is very much adults only. In this week’s episode, Flightless Bird explores incarcerated firefighters, talking to former inmate Matthew Hahn who signed up to fight fires when he was serving time. Hahn brings his lived experience to this episode, talking about his time inside and his rehabilitation and road to recovery. The episode takes a turn when we discover what led Matt to this prison term - and how he got out early. Links:Matt can be found @hahnscratch on

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66:43

Subway

Flightless Bird ·

2025/06/24

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David and Rob look at Subway - breaking down what America loves about the sandwich, before dining at a Subway and ordering all things footlong. Of course, they also examine the Jared Fogle disaster - and read some of the favourite listener feedback.Email us: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com Live show tickets for Denver on July 3: http://bit.ly/lostkiwiDENLive show tickets for Chicago on July 10: http://bit.ly/lostkiwiCHI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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74:26

LA Protests

Flightless Bird ·

2025/06/17

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David and Rob sit down to record on June 10th - a few days after David got a dose of pepper spray to the face at Sunday’s protests outside the Metropolitan Detention Centre were members of the LAPD and National Guard were posted. David and Rob discuss what the hell is going on as Trump sends 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles, along with 700 marines. They talk to a former National Guard member about what they do, before David recounts his experiences Sunday

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100:03

Scientology

Flightless Bird ·

2025/06/10

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David and Rob explore Scientology in LA and beyond. David goes on a mini tour of LA Scientology, attempting to visit the Museum of Psychology, Big Blue and the Celebrity Centre to varying degrees of success. He looks at how this church/cult recruits members, before meeting someone who joined and spent around $50,000 on courses before leaving. He then meets Mike Brown, someone raised in Scientology, eventually joining the Sea Org before managing to escape. He takes

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74:45

Sperm Donation

Flightless Bird ·

2025/06/03

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David and Rob look at the USA’s very unregulated sperm doner market. Along the way David meets Sheena, who recently met her biological father and discovered over 80 half-siblings… and counting. Email us: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com Live show tickets for Denver on July 3: http://bit.ly/lostkiwiDEN Live show tickets for Chicago on July 10: http://bit.ly/lostkiwiCHI Links: - Sperm donor who fathered 550 children ordered to stop:

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