Dungeons & Dragons

Summary

Flightless Bird: "Dungeons & Dragons"

Podcast: Flightless Bird
Host: David Farrier (with Rob)
Date: January 27, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, David Farrier explores the all-American phenomenon of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), tracing its cultural footprint, personal impact, and the misconceptions that have surrounded it over its 50-year history. From discussing his own outsider perspective as a New Zealander who never played D&D due to the "satanic panic," to meeting lifelong players and the very people running D&D today, Farrier uncovers why the game remains a beloved institution and unexpected unifier across generations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. D&D as an American Cultural Export

• Global Reach: David notes D&D’s massive influence beyond the US, impacting gamers in New Zealand and shaping other media like HeroQuest, Baldur’s Gate, and Stranger Things.
  “The tendrils of America in all respects stretch everywhere. You invent a weird little nerdy game we know…” — Hayden, 01:51

• Pop Culture Revivals: Stranger Things is credited for D&D’s resurgence and cool factor for younger audiences:

  “Stranger Things… brought D and D back again for a whole new generation. Made it cool thanks to five seasons of that atrocious TV show.”
  — David, 02:10

2. Personal and Generational Histories with D&D

• Barriers Rooted in Moral Panic: David reflects on being denied D&D as a child due to fears of demonic influences, mirroring experiences of others who grew up in conservative communities.

• Firsthand Lifers: David visits Seattle’s D&D HQ to meet 83-year-old Phil Hirons, who’s been playing since 1976 and has run seemingly endless campaigns, bridging D&D into his personal and professional life as a teacher and chess coach:

  • “We started playing and the kids loved it and the neighborhood kids loved it and the grown ups loved it and it just… kept blossoming.” — Phil, 21:04

• Generational Friendship: Jesse Polhemus, Phil’s friend of 40+ years, describes Phil as the coolest role model, defying norms and fostering intergenerational bonds:

  • “To see a different model of masculinity or a different model of what an adult could be just really, really memorable.”
    — Jesse, 23:08

  • On D&D as a tool for empathy and teamwork:

    “You play D and D…it's collective problem solving. It’s collective storytelling…To be someone other than yourself, it's an engine for empathy.”
    — Jesse, 23:40

3. The Lasting Magic and Evolution of D&D

• Community Building: Phil has played with hundreds of students and friends, fostering a sense of camaraderie and creativity that outlives many other hobbies.

  • “I gotta live in two different worlds and they're both fun for somebody my age.” — Phil, 41:00

• Game Mechanics: The show highlights D&D as the originator of RPG tropes used across video games and pop culture:

  • “Things we take for granted right now originated with this game [like] the concept of leveling up…” — Dan Ayoub (D&D Executive Producer), 31:01

• Changing Perceptions: D&D's previous reputation as a dangerous or “evil” game (spurred by films like Mazes and Monsters and media hysteria) is contrasted with its use in education and increased mainstream acceptance.

  • “There were some parents who were concerned about what they'd heard… I said, well, the easiest way for you to find out is to sit in and watch the game… they were almost entranced to the point where they wanted to play.”
    — Phil, 32:53

• Inclusivity: Jesse highlights the multi-gender, multi-generational nature of their group, something rare in other American homosocial activities:

  “All genders are welcome… but the generations… four [generations]…”
  — Jesse, 24:11

4. Cultural Panics and D&D’s Villainization

• Satanic Panic: The episode revisits the 1980s panic over D&D, with wild urban legends about satanic possession, and parents burning game pieces out of fear.

  • “Adults are telling you this too?” — Rob, 54:18
    “Yeah, big time… if you burn your Star Wars figurines, Darth Vader was particularly evil… you would hear screams coming out of the fire. This was like written about as facts.”
    — David, 54:14

• Modern Parallels: The hosts muse on whether any present-day pop culture phenomena evoke similar panic (“Labubu” toys, Marilyn Manson), ultimately suggesting moral panic often centers on things adults don’t understand about kids’ interests.

5. The Legacy and Ongoing Appeal of D&D

• Creativity & Education: D&D’s shift from being feared to being used as an educational tool is discussed, including language learning and general creative skills.

  • “Those clubs quickly fill up… kids are super interested in it, doesn’t have the stigma that it did when we were growing up.” — Dan Ayoub, 31:58

• Emotional Impact: Lifelong players describe D&D’s unexpected and profound influence on their lives—friendships, creativity, therapy, and even professional opportunities.

  • “It showed me that I had even more creativity than I thought. I like dealing with people. I always have...”
    — Phil, 42:03

6. The Learning Curve and Accessibility

• Barriers to Entry: The hosts, particularly David, are honest about struggling with D&D’s initial complexity, reflecting many would-be players’ anxieties about new games.

  • “I just avoid [new games]… It's too stressful. I just can't take it in.” — David, 50:37

• Starter Kits and Resources: To help newcomers, D&D provides boxed sets (“Dungeons and Dragons starter set”), which David gifts to Rob for his son.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• The Endurance of Friendship:
  “He’s been playing with this kid he met when he was seven and they’re still playing the same game together…There’s not many things that endure that long.”
  — David Farrier, 47:11

• Satanic Panic Absurdity:
  “They would throw them in the incinerator or the fireplace and screams would come out…because there seemed to be some kind of…spiritual forces inhabiting those pieces.”
  — Denny (reenacting 1980s news hysteria), 33:39

• D&D as an American Cultural Gift:
  “I think of D and D…as America’s big cultural gift to the world…they were existing art forms, but D and D was the first of its kind.”
  — Jesse, 43:06

• Role-Playing and Self-Discovery:
  “Most people’s characters are either very much like themselves or almost total opposites…I think it’s fairly obvious, you know, they’ve got another side that they would kind of secretly like to investigate.”
  — Phil, 40:40

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:31–03:43: Opening chat, initial D&D memories
• 10:10–16:10: Show admin, engagement calls, and cult solicitation
• 17:10–19:15: David’s outsider status/inability to learn D&D as a youth
• 19:47–25:16: Visiting D&D HQ and meeting Phil Hirons
• 22:27–24:42: Jesse Polhemus on D&D’s impact
• 29:19–32:42: Meeting Dan Ayoub (“the guy who runs D&D”)
• 33:21–35:35: The 1980s satanic panic and Mazes and Monsters
• 39:01–41:28: Phil shows his hand-drawn world map, muses on D&D’s uniqueness
• 42:03–47:03: Reflections on creativity, legacy, emotional resonance
• 48:09–53:27: D&D’s influence on gaming and pop culture, starter sets, and learning barriers
• 53:27–56:16: Revisiting satanic panic and comparing to modern examples
• 61:08–62:44: D&D in movies and current pop culture

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Tone & Style

• Inquisitive, Playful, Warm: David maintains his signature Kiwi curiosity—never judgmental, and always endearing in his confusion—while Rob provides dry American asides. The guests’ voices are earnest and passionate.
• Reflective & Heartfelt: Longtime players describe the game’s emotional and communal rewards with gentle nostalgia, while the hosts’ struggles with game rules provide self-deprecating humor.

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Final Takeaways

• Dungeons & Dragons is more than a game—it’s a multi-generational cultural institution that has shaped pop culture, friendships, and personal creativity for the past 50 years.
• What began as an American curiosity became a worldwide phenomenon, surviving waves of hysteria and rebirthing as a tool for empathy, narrative, and community.
• The episode serves as an invitation to see D&D not just as dice and rules, but as a uniquely American gift—one best understood through the connections and stories it creates.

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For more details and bonus content, join the Flightless Bird Patreon or follow them on Instagram/YouTube. Feedback: [e-mail]

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Transcript

[Hayden Donnell]

Hi, Dave.

[David Farrier]

Hi Hayden, my little tasty smash broker. Ah, Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Yeah.

[Phil Hirons]

Oh no.

[Hayden Donnell]

Happy New Year to you. Happy 2026. It's looking like it's going to be a real good one.

[David Farrier]

Everything so far in America is just fine. It's good. It's not. There's nothing wrong. Yeah, I've heard that.

[Hayden Donnell]

I've, I've been, I. Because I was a little bit worried before but now it seems real chill and sweet.

[David Farrier]

There's nothing to worry about. Good. Look, a hard hitting topic on Flightless Bird today it occurred to me that Dungeons and Dragons, the famous role playing game, is 100% American. And so I'm going to do a deep dive into D and D. I'm wondering if my little nerdy friend Hayden Donnell grew up with D and D in New Zealand or if it didn't make it over.

[Hayden Donnell]

Yeah, we do have D and D in New Zealand, but I, I didn't personally play D and D. I think that I had interactions with a whole bunch of spin offs of it. Now some of your listeners might remember an awesome board game named HeroQuest which is kind of D and D adjacent. Maybe people will get angry at that, I don't know. Just please, I'm just a small man. Don't hurt me if you are angry when I say that. But I also played my favorite computer games ever, Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 in particular and they are basically D and D offshoots. And I love Baldur's Gate 2 so much. I kind of, I think it is kind of like a. It's played on the same sort of rules and it's like a dice system that you know to roll your stats at the beginning and everything.

[David Farrier]

So yeah, I think you've hit in a really good point that the giant influence of D and D on all sorts of things, including on the leisurely activities of one Hayden Donnell in New Zealand.

[Hayden Donnell]

The tendrils of America in all respects stretch everywhere. We all hear about it, we all know about it, it affects us all. You invent a weird little nerdy game we know, but I think those little dorks from Stranger Things were on it as well.

[David Farrier]

Eh?

[Hayden Donnell]

That was the whole thing?

[David Farrier]

Yeah, that was like a big Stranger Things that kind of brought D and D back again for a whole new generation. Made it cool thanks to five seasons of that atrocious TV show. Just awful.

[Hayden Donnell]

Just fuck those guys.

[David Farrier]

I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America. And I want to Figure out what makes this country tick. Now, for over 50 years, one relatively simple game invented in America has spread its influence into so many parts of pop culture, it's hard to keep count. Yes, Stranger Things is just the latest. Dungeons and Dragons was invented in the US back in 1974, 52 years ago. Annoyingly, when I was a child, I wasn't allowed to play D and D, thanks to an urban myth that D and D was a direct portal to the demonic realm. So here I was, decades later, realizing, holy heck, I've never played Dungeons and Dragons. I'd need to rectify this. And I'd heard about a man who's been playing the game for decades. In fact, he's been playing the game, the same D and D campaign, since the game came out in 1974. Phil is now in his 80s, and I knew I needed to speak to this old man to find out what had kept him playing D and D for this long. So grab your rulebook character sheet and a healthy dose of polyhedral dice. Or is that die, Rob, die Dice? I never know because this is the D and D episode. The new year brings new health goals and wealth goals. Protecting your identity is an important step. Your info is in endless places that could expose you to identity theft, rules leading to lost funds.

[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

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[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

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[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

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[Rob]

Flightless bird touchdown in America.

[David Farrier]

I'm a flightless bird touchdown in America. While the theme song was playing, you whispered, I think it's dice. Dice? Yeah, dice. Die. Multiple dice die. Maybe. Look, we've got bigger fish to fry.

[Rob]

Yeah, no, I don't have.

[David Farrier]

Look, we're very focused on the show. I think it's. One thing about the show is that we're.

[Rob]

That's a lot of dice. That's a lot of dye.

[David Farrier]

This is embarrassing because I don't have a handle on the English language when it comes to this stuff. If you have thoughts on dice versus die flight the spread.

[Rob]

Chatmail.com you wouldn't say, hand me those dices.

[David Farrier]

No, you'd say, hand me those die.

[Rob]

Or hand me those dice.

[David Farrier]

Or hand me those die.

[Rob]

Hand me Those die. Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Playthspreadchatmail.com? shorter, you understand the English language better than we do.

[Rob]

I mean, if only we had a tool that could tell us the answer to this.

[David Farrier]

I know that we are not about deviations on this show and we will get to D and D. But we were talking briefly about driverless cars and I just wanted to say I think it's crazy that driverless cars waymos are driving all around Los Angeles and San Fran and God knows what other cities. And we've all just kind of fucking accepted that it's happening. It's just. There's been no. To me, it's the equivalent of if they released flying cars and everyone was just like, okay.

[Rob]

It is very true that it feels like it just came out of nowhere.

[David Farrier]

Like, Correct. Right. We had those little. We had those little driverless food delivery vehicles that get stuck on every corner in Los Angeles. Those felt like we're in the future. But it's fun. But have humans jumping into driverless cars seems mad.

[Rob]

It was a slow. Because years ago we went to San Francisco and saw some.

[David Farrier]

Yes, there are a couple driving around.

[Rob]

Yeah. And it wasn't that crazy. And then we would see some on the west side. Well, I think it was.

[David Farrier]

I think it was crazy then. Like, even when they're in San Francisco, I was like, we haven't discussed this.

[Rob]

Well, it was. It was crazy, but it was slow rollout and it wasn't immediate.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. And in my mind, San Francisco, it's where all the horrific tech bros live. That's where they're going to roll out that bullshit. I don't care if they want to jump in a waymo. Do it.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

But the number of times I'm driving now and they're driving alongside me.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

I look to my right, there's no one in the front seat. I've never. I mean, they never discussed this with me. I didn't know I'd be on the road with these people. It's friggin. I think it's.

[Rob]

They're not people, David.

[David Farrier]

They're not people.

[Rob]

I have come around a little bit to them.

[David Farrier]

Okay. Have you been in one yet?

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

Okay. I haven't.

[Rob]

I rode one in San Francisco and I was there over Christmas.

[David Farrier]

Okay. You had a great time.

[Rob]

It was fine. Before that though, we had a conversation with some friends and female friend had said she drove in one and loved it and made the point that like normally creeped out by Uber driving drivers, worried about being kidnapped, all of these things. And she was like, I loved that. I had just this car, could sit in the back, not worry about anything.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Being a woman, brilliant. No added Level of. Do I need to worry about the number of horror stories with an Uber and the amount of unpolicing that that service does? Insane.

[Rob]

And we, I mean, the same thing happened when Uber came around. It very quickly was normalized of like, I'm gonna get in a stranger's car and drive with them somewhere.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, you're correct.

[Rob]

And I, I remember I went to south by Southwest before Uber had started, and they were testing out this app where you could call a taxi and schedule it from your phone just like through this app. And it would show up and take you where you needed to go. You could put your address in through the app. And it was like, I. It was mind blowing. I was like, oh, this is incredible.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. The system is entirely changing the way I think about things.

[Rob]

And then I'm pretty sure that just became Uber a couple years later.

[David Farrier]

I also know there's the aspect where obviously human drivers aren't great. Like we're constantly crashing. Yes. Unsafe. Awful. And I know technology is wonderful. I just think maybe it's a sign of getting old. I just look at a driverless car and I just think. I just think it's such a jump that it feels like no one is. Is really talking about it in, like, in a shocked way. And I feel shocked and amazed and I'm in awe and I'm in horror as opposed to just like, oh, yeah, I'm going to get away my now.

[Rob]

Yeah. I mean, it's not great that it's displacing people that drive. No, I don't think that the presence of it is there yet, that we have felt the full impact of that.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

But I think that is a consideration. But I also think, like, that's not a full enough of a reason to fully stop technological advances completely. Because we thought that way. I think in the Industrial revolution, when machines were brought in to do certain things, like other jobs are found.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. There is that shock and awe aspect when something arrives. I think we're having that with AI at the moment where it's incredibly difficult to tell whether the transition is going to bring about the end of humanity or it's just being shoved on us by tech companies at the moment. And it'll be much more minor than what we actually think.

[Rob]

Someone brought up a dinner a night or two ago that the main AI company. I think OpenAI.

[David Farrier]

OpenAI.

[Rob]

Open is like going to run out of money in two years.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

And then maybe all this just goes away.

[David Farrier]

No. I heard a similar thing on a tech podcast. I listened to and essentially what the point they raised is that these jumps, when they put a bunch of investment into it and build more data centers that suck up the world's water supply, the last big, like, upgrade they did, it's not like the technology was that much better. Like it's slowing down and how good it is. Like you can get to a certain point and then it's kind of like, oh, this isn't that different to the last version.

[Rob]

Right.

[David Farrier]

And once the hype dies down, people will just go, oh, no, this isn't gonna take over the movie writing business. It's, it's, it's, it's got an upper limit. And once the hype dies, then that. Because what was so shocking is that it went from not existing to suddenly we were having this amazing generated information that was like algorithmically, like created. And that was amazing. But it's not like the increase in the wow factor has continued.

[Rob]

Yeah, well, no, I mean, it was like waymos. It happened very fast where it was just everywhere.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

That got me excited. The idea of like, oh, maybe AI is just going to go away in a couple years.

[David Farrier]

I would.

[Rob]

To the degree that it's. That it is.

[David Farrier]

I know I'd love it if it's. It can exist, but it can exist in like a tiny pocket in effective.

[Rob]

Ways that like, oh, this is worth keeping it in these avenues. Like.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Put it into medicine. Great.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Like use a computer to solve things like that.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Like, like if we can take it away from all the jobs. Yeah. Take it away from like the AI generated art and slop and video and all that. And having a conversation with ChatGPT about your current relationship. Give it to the doctors, they can use it. Take it off the front page of Google. Don't want an AI summary. Take it away. D and D. No, wait. We've got a little bit of admin first.

[Rob]

Admin.

[David Farrier]

We have three very specific wants and needs from both Rob and I. Three call outs. I know that's a lot. The first thing we're going to do.

[Rob]

But hopefully one of these three resonates every single person listening.

[David Farrier]

We're going to do a new Flights of Fancy.

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

This is where we want to hear from you, the listener, about some specific insight you have into a deeply American topic.

[Rob]

And for Flights of Fancy, I think the real thing we need is that you have some sort of unique access to a topic.

[David Farrier]

Yes.

[Rob]

That not everyone does.

[David Farrier]

So your uncle started McDonald's. We would love to hear from you or your uncle. Yes. You were the founder of a famous American product. We want to hear from you. That kind of thing.

[Rob]

Yeah. You're a Disney adult. We want to hear from you. Wish we already did that one or other great ones with Navy dolphins. You train dolphins for the Navy?

[David Farrier]

Yeah. If you have just something. If you're linked to something so specific and you want to talk about it and it's deeply American, we would love to hear from you.

[Rob]

Yeah. And what we'll do for that is we'll have an episode that we talk to five, six, seven, eight people, they pitch us their topic, and hopefully that turns some of those turn into fuller episodes. And to submit to that, you're going to go to Bit Ly fbfancy. We'll have a link in our description up on the screen.

[David Farrier]

One more time, Rob.

[Rob]

Bit Ly fbfancy.

[David Farrier]

We love reading submissions that come into that because it just like, it blows our minds about how much crazy shit is actually in this country. Secondly, we are looking for essentially a wonderful high school teacher who can. Is really good at explaining history.

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

Kind of like, if you think of, like, Bill Nye Science Guy, think of this wonderful man who can just break down science concepts. We're essentially looking for a wonderful high school teacher who can break down bits of America's history in a really lovely, compelling way.

[Rob]

Yeah. I mean, I had history teachers like that growing up.

[David Farrier]

They exist. Like in New Zealand, I had a history teacher who was just beautiful and entertaining and wonderful. And we want to find. We're going to incorporate them into the show, but we need to find that person.

[Rob]

If Mr. Pulser, who taught seventh grade at Carl Sandberg, is listening, or I think Mr. Miskowitz, that taught high school history.

[David Farrier]

These people stick with you. Right?

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And so I assume a listener, or maybe you are that high school teacher. Yes. But they need to be lovable, likable, charismatic. Yeah. Do you want to hear this person on a podcast breaking down American history? To me at certain times? Think of that person.

[Rob]

Yeah. Like. Or you've got a brother, you've got a boyfriend, you've got a friend. That's a good history teacher. We want to teach David about the Revolutionary War and what the Chicago Fire was. He doesn't know what the Chicago Fire was.

[David Farrier]

I know none of that shit you were taught at school. And I have a feeling like a lot of Americans increasingly don't know this stuff either.

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

So this isn't going to become an American history podcast, but we are going to look occasionally at certain things from the distant past. And if you know that person. You are that person. It is flightless breadchatmail.com as always. Flightless breadchatmail.com and then the last thing. Yes.

[Rob]

If you were in a cult, are in a cult, escaped a cult, know someone that was in a cult, know someone that's still in a cult. We want to do some more culty episodes.

[David Farrier]

And, you know, Rob and I were talking the other day and it just struck us that America is so saturated by cults.

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

It's something I am fascinated by. It's all around us. And yet between Rob and I, we don't know a lot of people that were in a cult or around cults. We're sort of Scientology adjacent. We've got the closest to that. But.

[Rob]

Well, you got, like, one taste. You've got Nexium. There's so many.

[David Farrier]

Is that weird owl cult in New York. There's a lot of. I know there's a lot of people that grew up in, like, quite bizarre communes.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

But if that. That rings any bells, again, it's flightless bird chat gmail.com. just write in a couple of lines, like who you are, what your link is to the cult dates and locations, and we will get back to you. So again, it's flightsofancy. Bit. Ly. Fbfancy. If you're a high school teacher or high school teacher adjacent. Email us flightless breadchatmail.com if you're a history teacher. What did I say?

[Rob]

Just high school.

[David Farrier]

Oh, yeah. We don't want.

[Rob]

We don't need an English teacher.

[David Farrier]

No, we don't need an English teacher. Take the facts. Our English teachers and science teachers don't.

[Rob]

Need a math teacher.

[David Farrier]

We need a history teacher.

[Rob]

History teacher specifically.

[David Farrier]

And if you. Inner cults or cult adjacent. Flightless breadchat gmail.com. thank you for helping us. And in turn, we will help you. D and D, Dungeons and Dragons. Now, I want to say at the top of this episode, I. I want to be really clear here. I. I still don't know a lot about D and D. I want to get that out of the way. I have a brain that cannot learn, like, new instructions and complicated rules, even though D and D isn't that complicated. Yeah. I'm not an expert. What this episode is about is I really wanted to meet this beautiful old man that's been playing the same D and d campaign for 74 years. No, not 74 years. Since 1974. He's been playing it for about four decades. And that fascinated me and blew my mind. Another Thing, Full disclosure, this is an episode where dndhq, they are listeners of Flightless Bird, which kind of blows my mind. They emailed flightless bird chat gmail.com and they said, david, would you like to come to Seattle to visit our headquarters? And I was, I was. Of course I will.

[Rob]

Yeah, absolutely.

[David Farrier]

Like, of course I will. And then I thought to myself, well, I. I want more of these emails from these amazing American institutions, emailing, going, we will take you there. Like, I will go, yeah, I'm just sitting around in America twiddling my thumbs. So if you are similar, here's our fourth situation. So, fourth thing, if you want to fly me somewhere, I'll go. But no, D and D is something that is so American. Obviously. Stranger Things has just been this phenomenon.

[Rob]

What was your. Before doing this?

[David Farrier]

Yes.

[Rob]

What was your knowledge of D and D prior?

[David Farrier]

Zero.

[Rob]

You've heard of it, though?

[David Farrier]

I'd heard of it in New Zealand. In the community I was in, it was seen is this scary, possibly evil thing. So when I was a kid, when I was like 9 or 10, sort of an age that could have been getting into this, it was sort of this scary. It was a satanic panic going on because I'm that old and people were in my world were like, this is bad. You shouldn't do it. Kind of like the equivalent of like Ouija boards.

[Rob]

Yeah. This was around like Salem witch trial time.

[David Farrier]

Yes, that's how it was. The exact time. You know, that's pretty much it. And so I didn't play it at all. Ignored it. And then when I heard about it, even on Stranger Things, I kind of had to remind myself, oh, that's right. That's where this whole thing started. It was like kids in a basement rolling die or dice.

[Rob]

Yeah, I don't. I've never played it either.

[David Farrier]

Never ever?

[Rob]

Never ever.

[David Farrier]

It was around.

[Rob]

Had you played?

[David Farrier]

No. Nothing. No.

[Rob]

I don't really know anyone that had or did play either. I think Calvin, a year or two ago, there was like a Dungeons and Dragons after school thing that he did for, like.

[David Farrier]

That's amazing. It's now, like, at schools. That's incredible.

[Rob]

Yeah. He did that for like a semester maybe.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

He didn't really gravitate too hard towards it because he didn't ask. Keep doing it.

[David Farrier]

So it's one of those things where I. I love the idea of it. Like, I love the idea of being like. I love using my imagination. I love the idea of being like, sucked into this world with like a bunch of other people. Playing. I love that. These games can go on for years and years. Yeah, I've watched the movie. It was a movie.

[Rob]

It was a movie.

[David Farrier]

Dungeons and Dragons. It was a film. It's huge. I'm gonna play the documentary to you and then we will discuss. Does that sound like a plan?

[Rob]

We can try it out for this episode.

[David Farrier]

I've come to Seattle to meet Dungeons and Dragons royalty. 83 year old Phil, who's been playing D and D for an outrageously long time. Why Seattle? Well, that's where D and D headquarters are and they'd Flo and Phil in yesterday to give him an honorary award bonus fact. The D and D office is next to a Boeing factory where they make brand new planes. But inside the D and D office, I shake hands with Phil who if you want to picture him in your mind's eye, looks a lot like Brian Cox from Succession.

[Phil Hirons]

My name is Phil Hirons, I'm a senior. There's a junior running around. I live in West Warwick, Rhode island, which is a small mill town which was once rich and now poor.

[David Farrier]

Phil tells me he got into the game by accident way back in the 70s when the very first edition of D and D had just been released. Do you remember the first time you heard about the game? Was it a friend that introduced you or.

[Phil Hirons]

First time I heard about the game is when I saw the package box in this toy store. I said, yeah, that looks interesting. And I read the blurb on the box and this is something the kids might like.

[David Farrier]

And what year would have this been roughly?

[Phil Hirons]

1976.

[David Farrier]

He was in his early 30s at the time. Do you remember when you knew, oh, this is a game I think I'll go back to, as opposed to just playing it once.

[Phil Hirons]

I don't think I ever went through that stage. We started playing and the kids loved it and the neighborhood kids loved it and the grown ups loved it and it just, you know, kept blossoming from there.

[David Farrier]

Phil loved being a dungeon master running the game and he wanted to spread the game beyond him and his kids. He worked as an English teacher and chess instructor, coming to teach at one particular school thanks to D and D.

[Phil Hirons]

I used to run games at the Jewish Community Center. Had some kids who attended this private school. Some of the kids from that school were in my classes at the jcc, but they wanted to continue to play and their schedules didn't mesh. So they talked to the school and got the school to contact me and see if I would be willing to run a game there, which I did for 17 or 18 of the 20 years I was there. So I was the chess instructor and the chess coach and also ran the D and D games.

[David Farrier]

So you've been playing for how many years now?

[Phil Hirons]

It'll be 50 years come summer.

[David Farrier]

You're how old?

[Phil Hirons]

I will be 84 in March.

[David Farrier]

What's the longest campaign that you played?

[Phil Hirons]

Sub campaign, if you want to put it that way. Seven years, counting both sections.

[David Farrier]

These days, Phil says he plays a few different campaigns every week and says a variety of players always fascinates him. There's a guy who manages a Walmart, there's a machinist who also loves philosophy, and then there's the retired explosives expert.

[Phil Hirons]

It's about as varied a mix as you could get.

[David Farrier]

But for Phil, the player that means the most to him is the one he's been playing with for the last 40 years.

[Jesse Polhemus]

So I'm Jesse Polhemus. I live in Providence, Rhode island, and I've played D&D for 41 years. When I was seven, my mom had heard that there was this D and D game at the local Jewish community center. And she knew her son as reader of Tolkien and dweller in fairy tale and fantastical worlds and said this is for him. And that was the beginning.

[David Farrier]

I just met Phil. As I said earlier, he reminded me of Brian Cox. But when Jesse met Phil, he was the coolest teacher he'd ever met.

[Jesse Polhemus]

Yeah, I mean, he was just effortlessly cool. You know, he had a vanity plate on his car that said gamer one, get out. He came in with his cowboy hat and leather jacket and this box of figures and these dungeons that he'd built, everything. And so to see a different model of masculinity or a different model of what an adult could be just really, really memorable. In the US Sports are seen as a panacea for kids because that builds teamwork. Bullshit. You play a team sport and the coach tells you what to do and you do it. You play D and D, and that is collective problem solving. It's collective storytelling. It's collective creativity and the role playing itself. To be someone other than yourself, it's an engine for empathy. You're watching someone else step outside themself.

[David Farrier]

Does it trip you out sometimes that you guys are still friends after all this time? Like, it's quite a long friendship as well. It's kind of amazing. Phil chips in from across the room.

[Phil Hirons]

I watched him literally grow up. The only time I didn't see him was when he went off to college.

[Jesse Polhemus]

I really want to talk about the fact that all genders are welcome, which is very rare in America or elsewhere. But the generations. When I joined what we call the grown up game, the adult game, when I was 18, you had our mutual friend Bruno, who is 20 years older than me. So at the moment, I'm 48. Bruno's approximately 68. And Maria Conti, our friend who passed, 25 years older than Bruno. So literally three distinct generations now maybe add my daughter. You've got four.

[David Farrier]

Today's a pretty surreal day for Phil. I guess he's at the headquarters of D and D, this game that's been with him through well over half his life. Yesterday, he met the whole office, and of course, he sat down and played D and D with him.

[Phil Hirons]

I was kind of dumb by the greeting I got. I had a whole group of people who were waiting to meet me and, you know, thought what I was doing was marvelous. And, you know, I don't really think of myself that way. It's just, you know, it's something I like to do. I love to entertain my friends.

[David Farrier]

Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Support for Flightless Bird comes from Warby Parker. Rob, as a glasses wearer, I am so excited Warby is on as a sponsor because I've been trying to figure out where to get new glasses in America, and now I finally have my solution, and I'm very deeply, deeply happy about this.

[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

Okay.

[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

Oh, my God. Thank you, Warby. Nothing comes close when it comes to quality, price, selection, and customer service. Once you buy from Warby Parker, which, by the way, I have just done, my glasses are on the way. You realize how much easier they've made the entire process. And yeah, as someone who has just gone through this process with them, I could not agree more.

[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

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[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

Oh, of course.

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[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

You are not having that.

[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

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[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

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[David Farrier]

Phil, Jesse and I are moving to a different room. The games room in the office. Phil wants to show me how to play and as he sets up, we're joined by the big boss, the dungeon master to end all dungeon mast.

[Dan Ayoub]

My name is Dan Ayoub and I.

[David Farrier]

Run D and D. Just a casual.

[Dan Ayoub]

Thing to say, a crazy thing to say. I joke a lot. That 12 year old me is still somewhat in shock. This game I've been playing my whole life and has shaped my whole career. If you were to tell me when I was playing in the basement with my friends that one day I was going to be overseeing this, I never would have believed you.

[David Farrier]

Do you remember your first interactions with D and D as a kid?

[Dan Ayoub]

Absolutely.

[Phil Hirons]

Yeah.

[Dan Ayoub]

I was about 10. I was hanging out with some older kids in the neighborhood and then I got super into the books, started reading the Dragonlance books and Crystal Shard and that was it. I was done. I was just sucked into the universe and a group of friends and I started playing and I still play. Not the same campaign, but I still play with that same group of friends. And you know, I always say that's part of the magic of D and D. Right. Through marriages and divorces and kids and births and deaths. Right.

[Phil Hirons]

Like this game because I went through a divorce.

[David Farrier]

Field chipping and again saying he had a divorce. A marriage may have ended, but his DND campaign went on.

[Dan Ayoub]

Absolutely. It is this thing that just brings you all back together. Right. Like, even if you're feeling like because something happening in your life, you know, it's. You can come back and sit and go to another world and just have a great time.

[Phil Hirons]

It's therapeutics sometimes.

[David Farrier]

Danny's career started in video games. He worked on games like Halo and Prince of Persia. He worked on games that were influenced by D and D. Things we take.

[Dan Ayoub]

For granted right now originated with this game. Like the concept of leveling up.

[Phil Hirons]

That's where it started.

[Dan Ayoub]

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we just in video games and things like that. You take things like that for granted. Where I'm going to level up my character and there's that progression. There's RPG elements in almost any game you play, right? You level up your character, you increase your weapons, your weapon quality or your damage, your proficiency, those conversation systems and things like that. I say a lot. D and D is probably why I ended up making video games. I mean, it really is kind of an American art form. Like Chainmail, I guess you could really call the precursor. Even that was influenced by other forms of war gaming and things like that. Coming down with, I think, somewhat European roots that very much influenced Gary Gygax. And chainmail was really that thing that led to first edition and all of those things.

[David Farrier]

Danny says it's interesting Phil was using D and D in the schools he taught at. That wasn't all that common back then, but today it is, and there are.

[Dan Ayoub]

A surprising number of schools that are using it. I did a brief stint in education before coming here and I was really interested in what how D and D can be used in education. So when I came here, I was really excited to dig into the education programs. What we're hearing, those clubs quickly fill up because kids are super interested in it doesn't have the stigma that it did when we were growing up. Where you hit it, they fill up, they run out of space very, very quickly. And it's either just for an after school program or I know my kids school, they use it for French language instruction. Like, okay, we're gonna play D and D, but it's gonna be in French, so. And like anything when you're having fun, you don't realize you're learning. But I think it just shows how much D and D and the perception of it that has changed.

[David Farrier]

Phil has all his notes out and we've been joined by some other players from the office. Phil hands us all character sheets, who we're going to be. I tell him this game was semi banned when I grew up.

[Phil Hirons]

That's a shame. That same thing happened when I started to run games at the local Jewish community center. There were some parents who were concerned about what they'd heard. Right. I said, well, the easiest way for you to find out is to sit in and watch the game. And I did that with the kids and. And then the parents said, oh, what's that silliness all about? Right. As a matter of fact, one of the parents said he wanted to see if they could start an adult game. It never came to pass. But they were almost entranced to the point where they wanted to play.

[David Farrier]

Denny CHIMES in. Turns out when he was a kid, some of the adults around him also thought D and D was evil, which is just quite objectively funny when you realize he runs D and D worldwide. Today, he remembers news reports from the time that helped feed the moral panic, part of the satanic panic of the 1980s.

[Denny]

Just to show the images of this game, I mean, the gruesomeness of this game and the occult link to it. Well, I know that when I did my message and this has happened, I have letter after letter where people took the pieces. Now there's sixes involved in the pieces of the game, but they take the pieces of the game. They would throw them in the incinerator or the fireplace and screams would come out because there seemed to be some kind of. Of spiritual forces inhabiting those pieces. And children would drop out of life. They didn't want to study anymore. What are the pieces, for instance? Well, this game affects the most intelligent of our children and the pieces include white witches, wizards, necromancers, the clerics, that type of thing. It includes evil wizards. It's a white versus black witchcraft.

[David Farrier]

Looking back, Denny points the finger at one. Man, I'm gonna have to blame Tom.

[Dan Ayoub]

Hanks, man, for the D and D movie he did where he played where. Do you guys remember that? This was in the peak of the satanic panic. What was it called?

[David Farrier]

It sounded like the rhythm of Dungeons and Dragons. Corridors and mirrors or something.

[Dan Ayoub]

Prince Mazes and Monsters. Yeah, that was it. I would have been like 14 or 15 at the time. So this would have been like 82, 83, something like that.

[David Farrier]

Mazes and Monsters was a movie starring Tom Hanks that came out in 1982, the year I was born. The plot is essentially about a bunch of D and D players. One of them experiences a psychotic break and can't tell the difference between what's real and what's not. It helps stir the pot. When it came to people being scared of dnd, Tom Hanks and his friends.

[Phil Hirons]

Get caught up in a deadly game of fantasy.

[David Farrier]

I am the maze controller until they take it too far.

[Denny]

I propose we play mazes and marvel.

[David Farrier]

In a real setting.

[Denny]

It won't be a fantasy.

[David Farrier]

Too bad for one of them, because.

[Phil Hirons]

Now there's no turning back.

[David Farrier]

This is only a game. Hello?

[Hayden Donnell]

I killed somebody.

[David Farrier]

Mazes and Monsters. The film was loosely based on a real life story about a teen having a mental breakdown who happened to also like Dungeons and Dragons.

[Dan Ayoub]

There was this real life incident of.

[David Farrier]

This college student, a psychotic break or.

[Dan Ayoub]

Something, some kind of thing, and went missing. And was it it my. I can't remember if he actually had gone missing or what.

[Phil Hirons]

But very good movie.

[Dan Ayoub]

But, you know, but everyone kind of glommed onto it, right? That, like, oh, D D was this thing that was gonna make people go crazy and the satanic panic of the area era. And I think even when you got out of that blast zone, there was still this notion of like, oh, yeah, this is this weird game that people shouldn't be doing.

[David Farrier]

Remarkable. Because we've come now we've got Stranger Things, which is having the opposite effect, is boosting it in an insanely positive way entirely, right?

[Dan Ayoub]

Because now this kind of makes it cool and makes it neat and people are kind of seeing what it is. And I mean, and the irony of that is it just made you want to fucking play it more, right? Like you're a 14 or 15 year old and your elders are telling you, no, this is bad. Don't do it. Like, you are literally just dumping kerosene on my desire to play this game.

[David Farrier]

And here I am, 42 years later, finally about to play my first game. I got to say, this feels very intimidating. There's a lot going on here. I'm also quite bad with rules and retaining new information in the moment, so I'm excited, but also scared.

[Phil Hirons]

Well, I'm not going to be explaining all the basic rules, but I am going to be explaining the differences between what they do now and what my campaign does. Because, as you know, there are like five editions of the books. Mine is based on the first edition. It's gone in a different direction in a lot of ways, but it's still basically on the very first one.

[David Farrier]

I'm excited. We should get into it.

[Phil Hirons]

Okay.

[Dan Ayoub]

All right.

[Phil Hirons]

There are seven characters. There's a fighter, a human fighter, a Dwarven fighter, a human magic user, two human clerics, a half Elven fighter, magic user, and a halfling thief. Okay.

[David Farrier]

Okay, Time to pick my character then.

[Phil Hirons]

We have now, let's see, for him, I think the best thing for him would be a fighter. We'll give you the most powerful fighter there is.

[David Farrier]

Thank you.

[Phil Hirons]

His name is Mighty Bones.

[David Farrier]

That helps me. Is I'm into. In case you missed that, my character's name is Mighty Bones, which is just objectively a very cool name I think you'll agree with. Much like my own nickname, Brave it. And look, I'm not going to recount the hour I spent playing Dungeons and Dragons for the first time for a few reasons. First, it's not going to be that fun for you to listen to. I mean, dear God, just the rules.

[Phil Hirons]

There might be special circumstances where like if you've just been attacked, you might have to. It would blow the spell on a 19 or a 20, or maybe even an 18, 19 or 20. The round before you're going to cast, cast the spell, you have to stand still, do nothing, say nothing. And you cannot be disturbed in any way by physical or magical damage or even by jostling.

[David Farrier]

Secondly, the whole thing was just a blur as me and my fellow players rolled dice, navigated some dungeons and battled a bunch of trolls. As we wrap up, Phil rummages around in his bag and pulls out this giant hand drawn map. It's the whole universe that he, as a dungeon master has drawn up. How long did this take to create, would you say?

[Phil Hirons]

Probably 15 years altogether. I started with the original, which was a little bit simpler, a little bit smaller. And then I redrew it to this size because I wanted this to be able to contain all the basic elements of the game. There are 21 different religions, or 22 if you count the old druid ways, and all of them are represented here in the the city. Nine of the 21 have their major temple or synagogue or whatever it is here. But this is probably my biggest accomplishment as far as how realistic it is. It has a civic auditorium, it has a library, it has schools.

[David Farrier]

And when you look at this, can you like imagine and see what all this looks like?

[Phil Hirons]

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's easy enough. It also has a 30 foot outer wall which was done with magic, which is before their time. That so that it is even impervious to most spells.

[David Farrier]

For someone that hasn't played this before, what is it that sets this game apart from say, chess or some other board game that people are maybe thinking of?

[Phil Hirons]

There's usually an element of chance which you don't have with chess. You know, chess is all logic. It's a sense of camaraderie and mutual cooperation. This is particularly true with the kids. The kids learn to cooperate because if they don't, they get into trouble. And it's fun to have people be able to step outside their own personality and create basically another person. And it's really funny. Most people's characters are either very much like themselves or almost total opposites.

[David Farrier]

Wonder what that says about a person. That's quite funny.

[Phil Hirons]

I think it's fairly obvious, you know, they've got another side that they would kind of secretly like to investigate.

[David Farrier]

I feel like you live these two existences where you're in this world that you and I are both in right now and you can sort of have all those references and then you've got this entire other world that you've existed in for decades now. That's quite fascinating.

[Phil Hirons]

It is, and that is true. I gotta live in two different worlds and they're both fun for somebody my age. I'm still enjoying life. I'm very, very fortunate that I've got good genes, I'm doing very well for my age. I've got hearing aids and I've had the laser surgery on the eyes and I've been diabetic for almost 40 years. But that's still under fairly good control. So, you know, I expect to live at least as long as my grandmother. I had a grandmother who had made 91, still had all the marbles.

[David Farrier]

I wonder how many kids you've gotten into this that are still playing.

[Phil Hirons]

Well, I know of at least three in different parts the of, of the country that are, you know, have moved away and are either playing in somebody else's game or have started their own campaign. As far as the total number of kids between my own kids and the, the neighborhood kids and then the kids at the JCC and we, and at the private school, it's got to be upwards of 500.

[David Farrier]

What is something that you've learned from all these years of playing about. About people or about the game or about yourself?

[Phil Hirons]

Well, it showed me that I had even more creativity than I thought. I like dealing with people. I always have. I have run into kids that I had in school over the years and without fail, they said, oh, Mr. Hirons, I still remember da da da, da da da. You know, which makes me, you know, really makes me almost weep because, you know, it's nice to know you're remembered.

[David Farrier]

As he says things this. I look over at Jesse and realize this is all so true. Jesse met Phil close to four decades ago over a game of D and D. And that game and their friendship is still going strong.

[Jesse Polhemus]

Phil, you just looked at him, you wouldn't know, but he's touched a lot, a lot of people and just had amazing success and amazing generosity.

[David Farrier]

I've just scratched the surface of what Dungeons and Dragons is and the massive influence it's had on pop culture. But to understand that, I realize I don't even really need to know the game. I can just look at Phil and Jesse and their friendship, their really, really long friendship.

[Jesse Polhemus]

Role playing games have taken on so many different forms now. You can have role playing games where there are no dice. You can have role playing games that are a limited half hour scenario and you're done. The creativity that people have brought to the new, very new genre is incredible to me. I've had a lot of time to think about this and you know, looking back at what Phil's done, I think of D and D as role playing, as America's big cultural gift to the world. Is it the superhero comic? No. You know, is it jazz? No. Is it baseball? Is it any of these things? They're subgenres. They were existing art forms, but D and D was the first of its kind.

[David Farrier]

Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Support for Flightless Bird comes from Mint Mobile. Now every group has someone who insists on doing things the hard way. The friend still paying for a subscription. They forgot they had that one person refusing to update their phone because it still works. I used to be that person too, especially when it came to overpaying for wireless. Then I switched to Mint Mobile and I'm really glad I did. I used to be paying over a hundred dollars for a plan. Now I am paying much, much less.

[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

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[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

Payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only over 50 gigabytes. May slow when network is busy. Capable device required availability, speed and coverage varies. Additional terms apply. See mintmobile.com support for Flightless Bird comes from Quince. It's a new year. It's colder days even here in Los Angeles, and good God, some parts of America. Freezing.

[Rob]

We got that ice storm happening.

[David Farrier]

Oh, my God. Yeah, I'm actually going somewhere very cold very soon, and I have my Quince puffer jacket that I got last year coming out and it's just made me order a bunch of other warm stuff from there. Thank you, Quince.

[Rob]

Yeah, I did a bunch of wintery travel during the holidays too, and had to get a new jacket. Got a nice long pea coat from Quince. That saved me quite a bit in the five feet of snow that we got.

[David Farrier]

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[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

That's q I n c.com bird Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.com bird. I think we can all agree that Phil is the sweetest man you've ever met.

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

And he just loves this so much. It mainly blew my mind that he's been playing with this kid he met when he was seven and they're still playing the same, like, game together.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Like, there's not many things that endure that long.

[Phil Hirons]

No.

[Rob]

That, like, generational friendship that seems like is fairly common.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

In people that are playing this game.

[David Farrier]

I love that so much. That made me love DND about a thousand times more as a concept than Stranger Things did.

[Rob]

Yes, I. I agree. And the fact that they were saying that there were four generations of people playing together and bonding over this thing.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

When did Dungeon Dragons start? When was it founded?

[David Farrier]

Okay, some facts. So I believe it was 74. Yes, 74.

[Rob]

When he started.

[David Farrier]

Oh, when he started playing.

[Rob]

Well, no, no, no. He played in 76. I was close to one he was playing.

[Phil Hirons]

Right.

[David Farrier]

So it came out in 74. Designed by Gary Gygax, an inherently cool surname. And Dave Arneson, the game. This is off of the Great cycle. Wikipedia. First published by Tactical Studios rules in 1974, it's now published by Wizards of Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro. So it's part of that giant friggin empire.

[Rob]

I wonder how much influence it had on campaign style video games.

[David Farrier]

I feel like all of that is like from dnd, like, and it's so simple. Like essentially, if I also didn't explain this, but essentially you're just. You're sitting at a table with friends, you've got paper in front of you and you've a dungeon master essentially rolling the dice and you explore this world with him. And so it's all your imagination, like you're drawing on the paper, what's ahead of you so you can remember like what's there.

[Rob]

Well, and it's not a board game in the sense where one person wins at the end of this. Right. It's just you're going through this full campaign.

[David Farrier]

You're going on an adventure and just summing up the game. You're going on an adventure and. No, that's the weird thing, talking about this. I have played D D for a grand total of an hour. Yeah. I am. I can't speak to what a full campaign even is like. I feel my mind is. Still doesn't grasp the whole thing.

[Rob]

I've seen you do this a couple times when you were getting the rules read to you. Did you just fully glaze over?

[David Farrier]

Yeah, I'm gone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a, it's a brain issue I have. And when you're. When people start reading out lists and they're not written down, but it's just audio, my brain just, it just goes like it retains none of it. And that means I instantly feel a combination of, of boredom and I feel stupid because I'm not understanding. Yeah. And that's what it's like when I'm. And unfortunately that is my barrier to D and D, I think.

[Rob]

I mean, that's why I do presentations for you because I know that they're visual. Like Dave, if I just tell David these things, he is not gonna follow along.

[David Farrier]

Gone. You've seen like when you're. Yeah. When you're explaining, like when you're. When we're just talking and I feel like you're coming out with show ideas and if it's not written down, you can probably see me kind of like, like drifting off around the room.

[Rob]

We're telling you about football games. I showed you clips though, and you were.

[David Farrier]

I need clips. I was that one run through where you Gave me a video was good. But you talking about sport. Oh, my God.

[Rob]

I'm similar. I think the verbal explanation for me is harder.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Like when you are playing games with a group, playing a new game. I don't know how often this happens. Maybe it happens more because I have kids. I think.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Are you the one that's like taking the instructions and telling everyone or you're letting someone else and then them translate and explain it to you?

[David Farrier]

I just avoid it.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

I avoid games. It's like, I know how to play chess and Monopoly and Uno. Anything new, I'm just not doing it. It's too stressful. I just can't take it in. If I had kids, I guess I'll be forced to get back into it again.

[Rob]

It happened recently. We were. We gotta. The boys got a gift for. For Christmas. It was like tacos and burritos was the game. And we were trying to play with my mom when she was in town. The rules may. I was reading through them. They made no sense to me. And I was just like, I give up.

[David Farrier]

I. I'm out.

[Rob]

I don't even want to play this game.

[Jesse Polhemus]

I gave.

[David Farrier]

It feels like that should be a game. That should be very simple.

[Rob]

It should be.

[David Farrier]

It sounds simple.

[Rob]

I mean it. Eventually, yeah. Once we started playing with simple.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

But it got so overwhelming that I was like, yeah.

[David Farrier]

The initial wall of rules is. Just makes you go, I don't want to do this.

[Rob]

And these are very arbitrary. It was like you're picking up a card from the dump and putting it in your taco or burrito. And then.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. So it's nothing that logistic, like, logically makes sense.

[Rob]

Just weird phrases and words happening like, what's a taco?

[David Farrier]

Yeah, what's a burrito? Sounds like a real hit.

[Rob]

We're finding out that I don't know about Mexican food today.

[David Farrier]

One cool thing, he bought all his, like, old school dnd like literature because there's like whole. There's books around it, there's movies. But he had a list of like, things from the D and D universe. And I was just randomly flicking through this old book because it was like. It smelled like an old book. It looked epic. And one of the things in the D and D universe which has been created is the flightless bird, which blew my mind. It's really cute. I'll post this on our Instagram, but. And I don't know what any of this means, but its frequency is common. Its armor class is seven. Its move is 18 inches. All the you know, number of attacks, one or one special attacks nil. Special defenses nil. So sort of like a shitty kind of a. Not a very powerful thing.

[Rob]

This feels similar to Pokemon, right? Totally semi based on.

[David Farrier]

Well yeah, Pokemon probably wouldn't exist without all this. And in this book it said these large avian creatures are typified by the ostrich, emu and rhea. They live in warm climates in open grasslands. The ostrich sized have three hit dice, emulite birds have two and rear sized types have one. All flightless birds are non aggressive and run from danger if cornered. They can peck for one to four hit points or kick two to eight hit points. And to be honest, that sounds pretty accurate to what a flightless bird is or you. It clashes with the Bravid brand.

[Rob]

Yeah, a little bit. I do want to touch on the whole satanic panic piece of this.

[David Farrier]

Too friggin wild.

[Rob]

Yeah, yeah. So someone, they were burning the dice and claiming that screams were coming out of them.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, that was like a big thing in Christian circles in the 80s. They were convinced that these like either evil toys or evil games were literally possessed by either Satan or demons. And if you owned any of those things, you had to burn them. And then the rumor going around, which is something that was in like my childhood as well, like this was a thing. If you burn your Star wars figurines, Darth Vader was particularly evil at the time. Then you would hear screams coming out of the fire. This was like written about as facts.

[Rob]

Adults are telling you this too?

[David Farrier]

Like yeah, big time. Yeah, that was a thing.

[Rob]

That's wild. I can't imagine, like it's wild to me that the public has seen a movie that a fantasy movie and then somehow thinks, oh this is real. I'm going to then start implementing this into my life.

[David Farrier]

And remember this was before social media and Facebook. So this stuff was spreading through. I think like it'll be Christian radio, it'll be like magazines, newsletters, church groups, all that kind of thing. And I think there were a few things going on. So the satanic panic was happening. Dungeons and Dragons had been released a number of years before that kicked off. So it was like out in the world.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And then there was this news story where one particular kid had a psychotic break that made the news. Some newspaper linked it with the fact that he was an avid D and D player. So there's this idea that because he was playing D and D, he was in this fantasy world all day. That's what caused the breakdown. That's what's caused his violence? That happens. The satanic panic is kind of building up around D and D. Dungeons Dragons is kind of scary. Then Tom Hanks enters the scene, makes this movie, which got good reviews at the time, like it. The trailer's pretty amazing to watch.

[Rob]

Mazes and Monsters.

[David Farrier]

Mazes and Monsters, which is just riffing further on the idea of this group of people playing a very Dungeons and Dragons like game. Guy has a psychotic break, goes crazy. And by then the rumors are going through churches, they're going over Christian radio. And then suddenly parents are going, oh, yeah, this game is evil. We better not let our kids play it. And obviously not just in Christian circles, because he was doing this at a Jewish synagogue. Yeah. And he also had parents approach approaching.

[Rob]

Him, being like, yeah, I guess to me, just that leap from, yeah, fictionalized story, movie wild. But I. I mean, I guess consumption of TV shows and movies weren't at the level they are now. If that's an excuse.

[David Farrier]

It was, I guess, the idea of entertainment for kids. Well, I mean, before then, I guess, what, people were playing, like, cards and stuff. And like, I. What? I guess Dungeons and Dragons film and movies.

[Rob]

I just mean not at the level there is now. Like, today we don't think Stranger Things is happening where there's an upside down. And that's not. Like that show came out and people think that that's a real place now.

[David Farrier]

No, completely. Yeah. No, it's just why it is. It is a wild thing to think that.

[Rob]

But this is a fantasy movie. Like, you didn't go see the Never Ending Story and think Atreyu is somewhere.

[David Farrier]

No, but it was that, I guess it was that idea that in the 80s, I'm gonna take myself back to that mindset where Satan was, like, this evil entity that was trying to infiltrate through, like, the evil media, which was becoming big. And so that's why, like, I remember as well, I went to a Christian school, and in our music class, we watched this documentary called Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames. And it was all about basically how Satan is trying to get to you through secular music. And so there was a big section on, like, backmasking and how if you run certain, like, rock songs backwards, you'll have, like, Satan says to kill you. You know, that kind of thing.

[Rob]

And then bands probably did that as to fuck with people.

[David Farrier]

And then bands did start to do that to fuck with people.

[Rob]

This is a fun.

[David Farrier]

So it's like everything. I think there was this period of time where a certain part of conservative America, which then spread to the rest of the world, including New Zealand, is like, we have to be so careful with what our kids are watching and listening to and playing, because that's how Satan is going to get to them. And, yeah, dnd kind of scary. There's, like, monsters and dungeons and, like, your kids all want to hang out for, like, literally hours and days doing this one thing. Yeah, it must be evil. Like, these kids can't just be having fun. It must be something horrific.

[Rob]

I'm just trying to, like, wrap my head around. Is there equivalent today?

[David Farrier]

What? I feel like the last thing the Labubu.

[Rob]

Did you see the.

[David Farrier]

No, but I'd love it if that's.

[Rob]

I support it if that's satanic. Are they look up Labubu satanic?

[David Farrier]

Well, I have no doubt that American conservatives are freaking out over certain things. I feel like in my lifetime, Marilyn Manson was the last, like. Like this. This guy's evil, you know, it just.

[Rob]

Ends up being ignorance, though, on a topic most of the time, right, of, like, something you don't know about that you're putting this, like, are there any cases of, like, oh, this is great. This actually was evil and the person behind this was doing something nefarious?

[David Farrier]

No.

[Rob]

I mean, always just a panic.

[David Farrier]

I mean, funnily, technically, Marilyn Manson is sort of a horrific present, but he wasn't in cahoots with Satan. He wasn't killing people. I'm just on Reddit. Anyone else following the Labubu Satanic panic? I had not heard of this. Christians are freaking out because Labubu rhymes with Pazuzu, Therefore the dolls are satanic. To top it all off, they're spending lots of money on these things just to burn them. Holy.

[Rob]

Yeah, there's like, flyers and stuff of.

[David Farrier]

Like, I'd miss this. Yeah, I. I mean, the thing is, I kind of hate Labubus. I sort of support the burning of.

[Rob]

Them, to be honest.

[David Farrier]

Like, this is maybe the Christians that got it right. This is wild because it's literally what was happening in the 80s when parents were burning their kids toys.

[Rob]

And I guess some people sincerely are thinking that, because to me, this seems like it's spreading as a joke. I love the idea that Labubus are satanic. You love that idea.

[David Farrier]

You're right. It's, like, done in a slightly ironic way. Much like on Etsy, you can buy spells at the moment. That's like, a big thing. And I don't understand whether it's people buying them ironically, because it's kind of a gag. Or it's people actually spending $50 on a love potion on Etsy is a thing.

[Rob]

Well, but is that the line? Like, there are probably a percentage that like. Or was that totally manufactured as a.

[David Farrier]

Viral post, I feel a whole new episode coming on.

[Rob]

I mean, are there phone numbers on any of those?

[David Farrier]

Influences are burning them. Yeah. As someone who I love to collect things and I have, like, a lot of junk in my life, but I feel like the whole Pop Mart, Le Boo Boo thing is like, sort of her. It's just like lumps of plastic.

[Rob]

Yeah. One. It's all just capitalism.

[David Farrier]

It's capitalism, like, writ large. Like in a really. But I can't talk because I obsessively collect records and stuff, so I'm gonna shut up. The other thing I briefly wanted to touch on. There was a very popular D and D movie called Dungeons and Dragons. I've watched it. I don't remember it that well, but I think I watched it on a plane.

[Rob]

What year did it come in?

[David Farrier]

It was Dungeons and Dragons, Honor Among Thieves. It was a 2023 fantasy heist comedy.

[Rob]

Heist comedy.

[David Farrier]

Directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daly. It starred Chris Pine, big star. You see him walking around our neighborhood. Sometimes he looks rugged, sometimes with a beard. Hot guy. Michelle Rodriguez was also in it and.

[Rob]

Hugh Grant, Bradley Cooper.

[David Farrier]

So it's actually quite a good film. I remember watching it and really enjoying it. Apparently, like, really gets, like, the tone of the game and like, the spirit of the game.

[Rob]

Tom Morello was in it.

[David Farrier]

Get out of Town, Rage against the Machine. So, yeah, apparently. I mean, I've watched it and I enjoyed it. I just don't remember it that well, but it was really good film. So before Stranger Things or as. So as Stranger Things was happening, that was happening as well. So point being, DND huge. Before I left DND headquarters, they gave me this to give to you.

[Rob]

Oh, to give to me?

[David Farrier]

Rob is a Dungeons and Dragons starter set. They thought that Calvin may want to get into it. This is the shit. That's everything he needs to get into the world. It's so heavy.

[Rob]

So that I did not.

[David Farrier]

So that will have, like, the monster guide in there. It'll have whatever the world building thing is. The guidebook.

[Rob]

It's a role playing game. The world's greatest role playing game does say 12 plus.

[David Farrier]

Okay. How old is Cal Van?

[Rob]

He turned nine today.

[David Farrier]

Okay, well, give it to him in three years, his birthday. He's a smart kid.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

I reckon Barbie Vinnie would probably dig it as well.

[Rob]

Get into that Vinnie would. Yeah, Vinnie would probably.

[David Farrier]

So I thought that was a lovely thing that they passed on. Okay. Feedback. There's a. I think because we've been, like, on a bit of a break, and there's been a lot of gallivanting around. There's so much feedback that's backed up. I'd like to begin by saying the Rosebell episode seemed to come. People seem to enjoy it because Rosabelle is a fucking delight. Yes. And people love Rosabelle. And we're just amazed by Rosabelle. And I thought that was a really beautiful thing. I really enjoyed that.

[Rob]

Yeah. You. You guys were both, I think, a little skeptical after that recording.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. So we had a discussion, and we were like, will anyone be interested in this? Like. Cause I feel like I'm so used to Rosabelle.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And I don't quite know what I expected from the recording, but Rosabelle was very worried. She was like, no one will want to listen to this. Like, this is the most boring thing ever released. And I was like, maybe it is quite boring, but Rosabelle's fucking wonderful. And I think it was so nice, the feedback we got from that episode.

[Rob]

Yeah. No, I think it was fun to see your guys friendship interaction.

[David Farrier]

Looking at it back. I enjoyed it more than being in the moment. Also, I had a fucking egg cracked on my head.

[Rob]

Yes, you did.

[David Farrier]

Which was horrific. And I actually have a deeper understanding of how bad that was because. Also, getting it out of your hair. I went to the shower. It's the shell and the egg get so deeply ingrained in there. And Rosabelle has so much hair. And I'd done that to her before she was about to go out to an event. And so I have an added understanding of, like, her dismay at what I'd done.

[Rob]

Yeah, that was pretty shitty.

[David Farrier]

Also, like, over on Patreon, there was a lot of talk about this. Lisa said, like, how David completed the episode serious with a giant clump of eggshell hanging in his head like a crusty fascinator. There was also a lot of debate about whether I knew it was coming. And I'd like to clear up. And I didn't realize at the time you were smart. You're like, dave, take off your hat. Yeah, we need to see your hair. That was you just being a little shithead?

[Rob]

Yeah. Well, I tried to do it, so I did it early. And then I wanted to happen, like, right before the gift, because I've always felt like that would be a giveaway.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Dave, you see that here?

[Rob]

You went a while with it off, but Then for some reason, you put it back on again. And it was. It was right around then.

[David Farrier]

And I was like, there was basically a lot of people couldn't conceive that I'd be so stupid as to not to see it coming. And I just want to say I didn't see it coming.

[Rob]

Well, you brought it up. You were like, it happened over here.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. All of it.

[Rob]

You knew we had hit that milestone because we'd already been talking about the Lord of the Rings, but I think you maybe just fully didn't remember that an egg break was part of it.

[David Farrier]

Not at all. I didn't remember any of it. I was like, we get to this many Patreon subscribers, we're going to do a Lord of the Rings screening. The whole egg on the head thing was gone. Also, Roosevelt creates, and you'll know this if you've heard her voice. She creates such a peaceful atmosphere around her. I never expected badness. If it was you sitting next to me, I would expect badness. But Rosabella's pure. And she also. She told me that morning she spent time. She was worried that it was going to hurt because eggs are actually quite. You've got to really smash it to break. And so she spent the morning practicing. And then also she partly broke the egg beforehand.

[Rob]

Yep.

[David Farrier]

So she's evil is my main point out of that. Also got but this really remarkable bit of feedback from Rachel speaking of parasocial relationships and Rosabelle. This feels like as good a time as any to ride in. In 2018, I went to Universal Studios Hollywood for my birthday. While standing in line for the Harry Potter ride, my wife and I noticed a man in front of us with a New Zealand accent, bright pink shorts and short shorts, and a young woman beside him. I knew him from somewhere, but I couldn't place him. It Name blindness strikes again. So for the next 30 minutes, we stood in line Googling New Zealand celebrities, trying to solve the mystery. No luck we got on the ride. The pink short sky remained unidentified until almost two years later when that same man appeared on Armchair Expert. Suddenly, it clicked. Like many people in 2018, I discovered your work from Dark Tourist. And when Flight the Spirit began, I realized it was Rosabelle with you that day. So back in 2018, Roosevelt visited America. I took her to Universal Studios. Wow. We waited in the line for Harry Potter for ages. We ate a turkey leg. Amazing at that time that Rachel and her husband were there observing Roswell and I in line also and became a.

[Rob]

Fan of the show.

[David Farrier]

And years later, this is 20, 18 years later clocked it when they listened to the Roosevelt episode and wrote in. And I just think that's really remarkable. Cool. That is amazing. It's also a universal trip where I did. There's a part of universal where you do like a. You're on a tram and it's like a very long, like backlot tour maybe.

[Rob]

Yeah, yeah. We did that for Calvin's birthday two years ago.

[David Farrier]

So I was in line for that ride. The line was maybe an hour. Going into that line, I was like to Rosabelle, I'm busting, I need to piss. She said, just hold on.

[Rob]

On.

[David Farrier]

You're a man, you can hold on. It's what we can do. If you're a man, you hold on. I held on for that whole hour. By the time we got on the ride, I was in pain, but there was nowhere to go and piss on the ride. I was sitting there, I turned to Roosevelt. It's like, I, I need to go. Like I either need to get off this ride and like stop the driver or I'm gonna piss next to you in the seat. There's a part of the tour you get to where it's. I think it's. You're on a street and they. And this is probably one of the worst things that's ever happened to me. They flood the street with water.

[Rob]

Yeah, yeah, I remember that.

[David Farrier]

It just. You're in. And if, you know, if you're needing to go to the bathroom and you hear water coming. So this was this. But like the Hal version where the whole street is essentially a river that's just running under you and around you and splashing on you. Yeah. And by that point I was physically sweating. And I also know that if you hold your bladder for too long, like it can do damage.

[Rob]

Well, we've all seen that episode of the Simpsons where grandpa's bladder explodes.

[David Farrier]

I haven't seen that episode of the Simpsons.

[Rob]

That's what I think of.

[David Farrier]

Look, this story doesn't have a great ending. It's. It's, it's just a boring ending. I, I held on and like the end of the. I just remember being crippled with pain running to the bathroom when that ride ended and just never having such a satisfying like life affirming, urination.

[Rob]

Peeing anxiety is. I've suffer from it.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. I go, you're always peeing.

[Rob]

Just because I don't want to get stuck in a situation where I can't.

[David Farrier]

No.

[Rob]

And because it's happened a few times and I know how terrible it is.

[David Farrier]

The pain.

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

And the social anxiety.

[Rob]

Yes. There was. I went to a movie premiere for something a couple years ago.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

And I was seated like second row with like the cast pretty much all around me. And 15 minutes into the movie I had to go. And this, it was a theater where like the seats were very close. Were like I could not stand up and leave.

[David Farrier]

No.

[Rob]

And it was a two plus hour movie.

[David Farrier]

And once that thought is in your mind that I need to go, the movie's ruined pretty much straight away. That's gone.

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

You can't consume any more liquids which you arguably would usually want to do during a two hour film. Yes. And then there's a Q A after.

[Rob]

Yes. So I'm. I'm like trying to cross my legs and like how do I. Because it. I. Yeah, it was dead center and there was definitely like I could not stand up in these leave because the whole row would have had to stay with me.

[David Farrier]

You know the thing is that's what makes it worse. You know you can. That almost makes it worse. The option is there, but to do that it means you have to disrupt a whole row. Everyone's going to look at you. Everyone's going to know what you're doing. You're off to like piss or.

[Rob]

I don't even care that people know that I'm going to pee. But I.

[David Farrier]

Why didn't you get up? Why didn't you get up? You have free will.

[Rob]

The whole row would have had to get up and they'd have been like, oh, he doesn't like this movie that we made.

[David Farrier]

It's really, really good.

[Rob]

So that's why. Yes, I did make it and it was fine. No, no physical, permanent damage done. But that's movies. Anything seated. I, I need to be like near an egg near the end of a row.

[David Farrier]

Have you ever had to do like an emergency wee or a poo somewhere inappropriate?

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

We all have pee. Pee. Not an emergency poo is a different thing. Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Okay. A lot of feedback for the nest sessions, which is nice if you don't know about the nest sessions. Every Thursday, Once a month.

[Rob]

Every Thursday.

[David Farrier]

Every Thursday. Once a month. Once a month on a Thursday we release a nest session where we get abandoned that we love. We talk to them about very specifically American things and they do like a tiny desk esque performance Courtsy wrote in on YouTube. My family is from picture. I grew up climbing chat piles which the band chat pile told us about. Shop giant piles of waste, polluted and chat rats climb them and don't Roll down them. Slide down them. And Courtsy said I'm a lifelong chat.

[Rob]

Rat and wanted you to know that's almost an episode. You gotta go to Oklahoma and visit some chat piles.

[David Farrier]

Slide down.

[Rob]

Really confused people that we have another chat pile episode.

[David Farrier]

It's like we know this. We watch the ban chat pile. No, this is about chat piles.

[Rob]

We do a deeper dive into chat piles.

[David Farrier]

Okay. Tribute bands. A lot of feedback. Mostly people just writing in about their favorite tribute bands, which is kind of amazing. Anna Rhoden I used to work for Live Nation in a role where I had to where I had day of show access to the bands and Anna isn't a fan of tribute bands. Even though the tribute band we talked to was beautiful and wonderful and this doesn't apply to them. I loathed the nights I had to deal with COVID bands. Sorry, tribute bands. Calling them a cover band was the ultimate insult. They took the distinction so seriously that they fully committed to what they imagined. The real artists personalities were like this meant trashing green rooms, being openly awful to venue staff, and expecting backstage groupies and drugs despite the fact they were struggling to fill a 3,000 cap room. Meanwhile, the actual bands they were emulating were consistently kind, low maintenance and genuinely humble. The contrast was wild. The worst offenders can you guess which tribute bands the worst?

[Rob]

I could barely. I could name one tribute band right now.

[David Farrier]

Led Zeppelin tributes were particularly offensive and bad and I found this very amusing because I'm a huge tool fan and their fans are annoying. Tool tribute bands apparently very badly behaved. Truly some of the most impressive twats I've ever met. Also, we raise in the tribute band story the question of how legally they're allowed to cover this band's music.

[Rob]

Did a lawyer write in?

[David Farrier]

We got a couple of really good responses. This anonymous person wrote in quick 101 on the legal questions you had with the obligatory disclaimer this is not legal advice, just general information. There are three different types of IP at play here and this is why tribute bands probably aren't getting sued all the time. Number one, rights of publicity. These are individual rights and vary state by state without getting into the weeds. Alvis Tribute artists are a good case study. Tennessee has one of the strongest laws and Elvis Presley Enterprises tightly controls who can use Elvis's likeness. As you can imagine, individual band members may be less likely to have a claim depending on their applicable state law and their personal level of fame. Number two, trademark. If a tribute band isn't using the band's trademark at all, if they're using them in a way that will not confuse people into thinking they're the real band is probably okay. That's why tribute bands have weird different names.

[Rob]

Yeah. Which. Well, yeah, you can't be like Led Zeppelin's Plan Totally.

[David Farrier]

And copyright. When someone plays a cover song live, the only royalty they owe is the songwriter. Publishing royalty for publishing performances. Usually venues are paying blank at licenses that cover this royalty. So the COVID cover tribute bands doesn't have to worry about it. So yeah, I thought that was that kind of answered that question.

[Rob]

As long as they're not publishing the performance.

[David Farrier]

Totally. Last one, I thought this is some beautiful feedback from the Parasocial Listener story. Just wanted to say thank you on Parasocial Listener, which focus on Nick and the health difficulties he was having. When I first listened to this episode, I had quite a profound impact on me. During the time of the episode's original airing, I was dealing with some health complications of my own. Throughout my life I've had lung complications. Doctors put it down to severe asthma. But after multiple rounds of various tests and CAT scans, I was eventually diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. At first it felt quite scary and daunting to be diagnosed with such a disease. I asked myself how could it be that I've reached my twenties without ever knowing I had this?

[Rob]

Yeah, cystic fibrosis is I think can be fairly intense. I had. I played soccer with a kid that had it.

[David Farrier]

Did you? Right.

[Rob]

I was friends with and like he needed a ventilator every night.

[David Farrier]

I think he would full on.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. It's something that this person said is generally diagnosed at birth and infancy. So I think when they found out in their 20s they were just like. The idea was like, like I should know this already and this is a horrible thing to be finding out right now. This listener B said that they were mad. They found felt it was unfair. I knew I'd need to be put on new medications for the rest of my life. I knew me and my partner would have to rethink our family plans as I'll most likely be unable to have biological children. However, throughout all of this, I kept thinking back to the Parasocial listening episode and the story Nick shared. I specifically latched onto one thing he said in relation to having his condition. Why not me? Hearing this from someone like Nick really helped put some things in perspective. Life can feel unfair at times. Other times it can be downright cruel. But it can also be really beautiful. No rain, no flowers, as they say. I say all of this as A quick reminder of what you do and the art you make matters. Your show has brought me comfort and joy over the past few years, and I sincerely hope there's no plans of stopping any time soon. Thanks for all you do and thank you for next story. I'm sure I'm not the only person this has helped. So B, thank you for writing it. That's pretty much the dream kind of feedback and response to an episode, so. And I think Nick will be really grateful to hear that as well. And B no doubt you have a big journey ahead of you, but if our silly show has helped in any tiny way, that means a lot. My God. That was Flightless Bird for another week. If you have any feedback. What's our email?

[Rob]

Rob flightless bird chat gmail.com we are.

[David Farrier]

On Patreon if you want ad free episodes and extra episodes every Thursday patreon.com Flightless Bird we're on Instagram. You can like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And we're on YouTube if you want to watch us, we're on there. Thanks for listening as always. We'll see you next week.

[Rob]

And here's a little preview of this week's Patreon episode.

[David Farrier]

Yes. Hi Rob, I'm back in America.

[Rob]

You're back irl.

[David Farrier]

This episode I pitched you, I said when I come back to America, I want to do an episode about people shooting in toilets and things not flushing. My friend had a bowel movement in their boyfriend's toilet then at the time wouldn't flush. She panicked, didn't want to make a bad impression. So she got a bread bag, got the poo out, put the poo in the bread bag, then put it in that car drove away. Basically end story. Had to explain a poo. Little poo sitting in a bag next to her. So someone wrote in so many people have a friend of a friend that this happened to. The detail changes depending on country.

[Rob]

I went to the bathroom and went.

[David Farrier]

To flush the toilet and it would not flush. If there's one thing you take away from this episode that it is a.

[Rob]

Real problem, I think my sister will not in public anyway like only at her house. Has to be home, has to be.

[David Farrier]

Home, has to be private.

[Rob]

Should we call her and see if it's still her fear? Hello.

[David Farrier]

Hello.

[Rob]

I have a just a quick question for you for the podcast.

[David Farrier]

Okay, this is way too far.