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.
Episodes
November 25, 2025 • 64 mins
In this week’s Thanksgiving-vibed Flightless Bird, David sets out to learn about the iconic American staple on the Thanksgiving table: Pumpkin Pie. Rob and David blind taste test three pumpkin pies - from supermarket scraps to high end Hollywood - to see if they can tell the difference. Rob then surprises David in the studio with Jordan Kahn, the chef behind incredible restaurants like Vespertine and Meteora (with French Laundry, P...
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November 18, 2025 • 58 mins
In this week's Flightless Bird, David and Rob attend Medieval Times in California - and are joined by Rob's son, Calvin. They set out to discover if it's still the same experience documented in the 1996 hit film The Cable Guy, before talking to a former worker at Medieval Times.JOIN US ON PATREON: www.patreon.com/flightlessbirdEmail us: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.comFollow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flightlessbirdpod ...
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November 11, 2025 • 76 mins
This week on Flightless Bird, Rob takes the reins and tells the story of Tom Pfaeffle - a mentor, musician, and the quiet force behind Seattle’s sound. What begins as a look into a mentor’s lasting influence becomes a haunting mystery: a motel shooting, a vanished gunman, and a community searching for answers. Rob speaks with Wild Orchid Children’s Kirk Huffman and Thomas Hunter, who share the story of Tom’s influence, and journali...
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November 6, 2025 • 53 mins
Once a month, Flightless Bird will release “The Nest Sessions,” a new music-focused series where each week Rob and David have a different musician in the studio to talk about a piece of American culture they’re obsessed with, before they share some live music in the studio. The Nest Sessions debuts with Anthony Green from Circa Survive, L.S. Dunes, The Sound of Animals Fighting, and Saosin. Anthony talks about his battles with sobr...
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November 4, 2025 • 90 mins
In this week’s spooky Flightless Bird, Rosabel reveals her thoughts on the afterlife and ghosts, before David meets a bunch of Americans who’ve taken part in, or run, Christian Hell Houses. What is a Hell House, and what do they have to do with Halloween? David then drives to visit his first Hell House, learning about the myriad of ways humans can die, and what hell looks like.
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October 28, 2025 • 83 mins
In this week’s episode, Hayden explains why his old band broke up and David reveals some shocking news: Rosabel’s name is not “Roosevelt”. Next, Rob takes David deeper down the emo rabbit hole. They’re joined in the studio by Chris Carrabba (Dashboard Confessional) and Nick Thomas (The Spill Canvas) to break down the genre, before they share some acoustic songs. Saosin and Days Away also perform!
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October 21, 2025 • 81 mins
In this week’s Flightless Bird, we reveal the results of the competition to guess Rosabel’s filthy email address, before David travels to Portland to see if it really is a raging city out of control. Rob also talks to some locals to get their take about what is going on in their city at the moment.
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October 14, 2025 • 87 mins
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 ...
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October 7, 2025 • 66 mins
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 wee...
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September 30, 2025 • 77 mins
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 cov...
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September 23, 2025 • 78 mins
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...
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September 16, 2025 • 66 mins
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 me...
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September 9, 2025 • 69 mins
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.webw...
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September 2, 2025 • 81 mins
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 ...
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August 26, 2025 • 73 mins
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 t...
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August 19, 2025 • 83 mins
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.
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Links
- Death To Dust: What Happens To Dead Bodies...
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August 12, 2025 • 85 mins
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 Poke...
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August 5, 2025 • 75 mins
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: METAL...
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July 29, 2025 • 76 mins
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
...
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July 22, 2025 • 115 mins
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 Ke...
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