Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard XX
[0] Flightless Bird is sponsored by Better Help.
[1] Now, if you're anything like me, you've had moments in life where you have absolutely no idea what to do, what path to take or even how to take the path in the first place.
[2] I had a lot of this when I first found myself marooned in America, readjusting to a million different confusing things all at once.
[3] The fact is, sometimes in life we're faced with tough choices and the path forward isn't clear.
[4] What decisions to make, how to make them.
[5] It all becomes really fuzzy.
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[7] Trusting yourself to make decisions that align with your values is like anything.
[8] The more you practice, the easier it gets.
[9] Therapy helps you do things like set boundaries, which for me as a people -pleasing New Zealander, has been very, very important.
[10] And I'm still learning.
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[16] That's BetterHelp .help .com I'm David Farrier, and New Zealand are accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick.
[17] This is essentially a show where I learn about American culture.
[18] Sometimes I learn a lot, and sometimes I emerge more confused than ever.
[19] Many of the topics I cover are big and obvious.
[20] I'm thinking of attending a game of baseball or football, or looking at America's love of flying the American flag in as many places as possible.
[21] So much of the American mythology is about ideas and the Constitution and there is no one American and we all are only here together in this place and the flag could represent that well because it is more of an idea than a country.
[22] But some things are slightly more subtle than a giant flag flapping in your face, aspects of American culture that are everywhere, but somehow hard to see.
[23] which brings us to today, with an Americanism of encountered countless times in a variety of places.
[24] I honestly can't remember where it happened first.
[25] There it was at the diner, of course.
[26] It arrived, fast and unannounced.
[27] Next, there was a movie theatre.
[28] There it was again at a 7 -Eleven and glaring at me from my local grocery store.
[29] It was offered to me at a friend's house, at a party, at a nightclub.
[30] I found so much of it in the hotel room corridor, and there it was again in my room.
[31] Each time, I would almost look right through it, but it was still all I could see.
[32] It made my head hurt, causing me actual physical pain.
[33] No, I started to say, I don't want that, I never requested that, leave me alone, keep it.
[34] But it just kept on coming.
[35] Because America loves its water one way and one way alone.
[36] Frozen.
[37] So, order your favorite drink and prepare to have it filled to the brim with frozen cubes of H2O, because this is the ICE episode Flyless Flyless Bird Touchdown in America I'm a flyless bird Touchdown in America Okay Do you know what I'm talking about at all How do you feel about this?
[38] Okay I feel As I felt many times When we've started these episodes That we've jumped the shark bit the bullet, you know, we're on death's door.
[39] Yeah, we've run out of ideas.
[40] Run out.
[41] Yeah, absolutely.
[42] But then it's skating on the ice.
[43] It's normally those that end up being sort of my favorite episodes.
[44] So I'm pretty excited about this because, yes, I have zero faith that this is relevant at all.
[45] Yeah.
[46] However, I do know that you are correct, that if you go to a restaurant, most often what they will serve you is water with ice.
[47] Yeah.
[48] And I notice this because I don't like ice water.
[49] Okay, you and me, identical.
[50] Okay.
[51] It's us against the world.
[52] It's too cold.
[53] Or America.
[54] It's us against America.
[55] So for me, there's two problems with it.
[56] The first one is, I don't want my water to be that cold.
[57] Yeah.
[58] Occasionally, yes, mostly no. The other thing is most of the volume of your drink is then just ice.
[59] Yes.
[60] And if you're having, you know, if you're at a cinema and you order a Coke, half of it's ice all of a sudden.
[61] You're getting ripped off.
[62] Also, when you drink it, your lips get cold.
[63] The ice sometimes hits on your lips.
[64] It can be sore.
[65] Brain freeze.
[66] Brain freeze, yes.
[67] But if there's ice, I ask for a straw.
[68] And I guess we're not really supposed to have straws that much anymore.
[69] No, but that's the thing.
[70] No, I mean, that's, I'm glad you raise that because I don't really raise it in this episode.
[71] But the straw, I think, exists to get through the ice.
[72] It does.
[73] It's almost like you're plunging over that icy layer down to the actual thing you wanted to do.
[74] So you can suck it up.
[75] And we all know that straws are one of the worst things in the world for the planet.
[76] They're not great for the environment.
[77] They're awful.
[78] Well, they have those noodle ones now.
[79] They're like made out of noodle.
[80] I hate them.
[81] I hate them.
[82] That sounds incredible.
[83] Is this an L .A. thing?
[84] I don't know.
[85] Or just give you sort of a noodle and you're sort of sucking out through a bit of macaroni.
[86] Essentially.
[87] That's so funny.
[88] But in New Zealand, do they not?
[89] Do this?
[90] No, generally not to this extent.
[91] So if you go to a cafe and you order some water, chances are...
[92] And look, I've been away for a few years now.
[93] So my...
[94] It's like eggs.
[95] I'm like tiptoeing because maybe now they do it more than they did.
[96] Okay.
[97] But if they serve ice at all, it's definitely less of it.
[98] Because in America, you get ice, it's a fuck ton of ice in that drink.
[99] It's not a cube.
[100] Yeah.
[101] It's 25 cubes, you know?
[102] It's so much.
[103] In New Zealand, it's either no ice or one cube.
[104] It's much less ice.
[105] Okay.
[106] I have one exception to this.
[107] As I don't like ice water, I do like ice with soda.
[108] Okay.
[109] So no one likes the lukewarm soda.
[110] What scenario in like a restaurant or the movies?
[111] The problem is I don't really drink soda very much so this doesn't come up often.
[112] But if randomly I'm at in and out, every now and then I'll get a Coke.
[113] and yes, it has ice in it.
[114] I don't say with ice.
[115] It obviously comes with ice.
[116] But if it didn't, that would be gross.
[117] Yeah, that would be a problem.
[118] So I would.
[119] You don't want a lukewarm soda.
[120] Yes.
[121] I guess it's more volume as well that I've got the issue with.
[122] Like one little cube or two is one thing, but a whole, like a half your cup is ice, half or more, then that's the problem.
[123] But you haven't probably had the pleasure of going to an American baseball game.
[124] with the baseball ice.
[125] What is baseball ice?
[126] Baseball ice is tiny ice.
[127] It's not crushed.
[128] It's the shape.
[129] It's like little cubes, but they're more in the shape of a...
[130] Are they a cylinder?
[131] Like a cylinder, but tiny.
[132] It's like, you know, those squishy earbox?
[133] I know, I had some in recently.
[134] But not the ones that are like putty.
[135] They're like a squish, and it's a cylinder sort of.
[136] And that's how big the size is.
[137] No, it's actually a little smaller than that.
[138] that.
[139] I like this.
[140] But it's so good.
[141] So baseball field ice is a known American luxury.
[142] Okay, because I've been to a game, but I don't remember that ice.
[143] Okay.
[144] It's really good.
[145] It's the only, so, okay, so you obviously didn't delve into that in this.
[146] No, because the other thing is, do you ever, like, suck on a cube, like, if you're bored?
[147] I have, and then sometimes I swallow it, and it's scary.
[148] Oh, yeah.
[149] You could choke on a bit of ice.
[150] But that's what's really scary because you just have to wait for it to melt, but by then you're dead.
[151] Yeah, completely.
[152] No dangerous.
[153] Completely.
[154] I always got scared when the kids would want ice.
[155] And I was like, I just, I was scared about the choke aspect of it all.
[156] Yeah.
[157] Well, okay, I'm going to hit play on this documentary.
[158] Ice in America, it's so much bigger than you imagine.
[159] It's so much bigger.
[160] Big ice.
[161] It's big ice.
[162] Oh, fuck.
[163] It's so much bigger than a waiter saying, do you want some ice in your drink?
[164] It's so much bigger than that.
[165] Okay.
[166] The story of America's obsession with ice would take me from one side of the US to the other.
[167] And it's a journey that almost didn't happen.
[168] I raised the topic of ice with Monica and Robb during the Alligator's episode, saying I wanted to investigate why every hotel room in America insists on having an ice bucket in every room.
[169] Ice buckets in American hotels.
[170] No, what?
[171] No, what?
[172] Answered Monica, putting a dampener on the whole thing.
[173] But as I carried on my American life, I kept noticing America's obsession with ice.
[174] My local diner makes sure any cold drink I order is at least half ice.
[175] At the movies it's nearly all ice.
[176] At friends' houses, every fridge comes with a built -in ice dispenser.
[177] I've started recording them on my phone.
[178] I walk into the CVS to buy some toilet paper, and there it is.
[179] A giant wall freezer filled to the brim with bags of ice.
[180] I opened the door and fondle it.
[181] In every 7 -Eleven, a slushy machine, ice twirling and swirling in a never -ending motion, hypnotized, I get a cup and pull down on the handle.
[182] America is ice obsessed.
[183] And while I made this episode, I'd be constantly reminded of this fact.
[184] Walking into a sunny house in Los Felas, California, I was offered two things.
[185] A seat and a glass of water filled with ice.
[186] Do you think Americans clock the amount of ice they're dealing with on a day -to -day basis, or do they think it's just normal?
[187] Because it's not.
[188] No, I don't think they clock it at all.
[189] It's so normal here.
[190] No one even thinks of it, where if you come to the United States, it's like, whoa, what's up with all the ice?
[191] What is up with the ice?
[192] I've come to visit Reed Mittenbuehler, a journalist and writer who shares my curiosity about America's ice obsession.
[193] I've lived in Europe for a little bit, and you're like, wow, there's not that much ice.
[194] But then I slowly adjust and you get used to it and then you forget about it.
[195] I imagine Monica is simply forgotten about it, experiencing a kind of ice amnesia.
[196] She came here when she was just a kid and she's just gotten used to America's icy ways.
[197] But for me, it's still a shock.
[198] Reed came to understand America's relationship with ice when he wrote his first book, Bourbon Empire.
[199] As he traced the history of American whiskey back to the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, Reed started thinking about a key ingredient often paired with bourbon, ice.
[200] And it turns out that America was the first country in the world to fully embrace ice as a commodity.
[201] Back then, and this is the early 19th century, people would go out to big big, and they would carve out these big, you know, maybe 300 -pound blocks of ice.
[202] And it was very high quality.
[203] It was very dense, very clear, because it, you know, freezes more slowly.
[204] And you would ship it to people's ice houses.
[205] especially rich people, and you could insulate it, and it would stay year -round, so whenever you needed ice, you could go and you could get it.
[206] If you've seen the opening scene of Disney's Frozen, yeah, that's how that harvest ice back in the 1800s.
[207] Born of cold and winter air and mountain rain combining, this icy force both foul and fair has a frozen harbor mighty.
[208] As Reid points out, various civilizations had been harvesting ice forever.
[209] But no one did it as ambitiously as the Americans.
[210] It was a man from Boston who had the original icy vision, a man called Frederick Tudor.
[211] Nickname, the Ice King.
[212] Back in 1806, Frederick the Ice King Tudor's aggressive ice harvesting in New England made him one of America's first millionaires.
[213] They used the tale of Frederick, the Ice Gang, to...
[214] Frederick Tudor, at the Harvard Business School, he created a formula.
[215] He created a roadmap for a way to make money to create a business, to create a market that's been used a lot since.
[216] The self -proclaimed Ice King made his millions by getting people hooked on ice.
[217] Like a drug dealer pushing heroin, Frederick pushed ice.
[218] He did this by making Americans realize they not only wanted ice, they needed it.
[219] There was a market for supermarkets, hospitals for keeping medicine cool, but that's pretty niche.
[220] And he's like, well, I need to expand the market.
[221] So he starts going to inns and places selling food and it's, well, what about your drinks?
[222] So suddenly you go from this niche thing of, you know, a couple hospitals and some stores to just like, every time you drink anything, which is throughout the day for pretty much everyone, why don't you cool it down?
[223] So create a big market.
[224] and he sells it kind of the way a drug dealer works where you know you give the first hit away for free like here you go just try it and then once you get him hooked it's like okay now here's the bill so he'd offer free ice at bars and places like savannah chalston and new orleans and then started charging and then he thought bigger his ice was a big hit in the Caribbean and so it's not until about the 1830s that he really starts to make a lot of money the Caribbean England he just kept it expanding.
[225] The Zeruma Queen Victoria would only use Massachusetts ice to make her drinks at Buckingham Palace.
[226] The Ice King's icy fingers enveloped the entire planet.
[227] And he looks at Calcutta in India as this market.
[228] And by that point, he had a couple things.
[229] He had a foreman named Nathaniel Wyeth who figured out a way to harvest ice from the lakes where they'd use these horse -drawn carriages.
[230] It brought the costs down by about two -thirds.
[231] So it's a lot cheaper to get the ice out of the lakes and then he's packing it in these ships the way that Wyeth's machines worked the ice was very consistent so there wasn't a lot of air in between the blocks which would help it evaporate or melt and they'd pack that with sawdust insulate it so they could make this voyage of 14 ,000 miles to India where we've got across the equator which is very hot twice and they get to Calcutta and it was the same thing as where you've got all these people who had gotten along fine for centuries without ice.
[232] So, well, what do we do at this?
[233] It's like, well, drinks.
[234] And then cocktails and all that comes into the equation.
[235] And once they were hooked and liked this luxury, the market was established, and made a fortune.
[236] As better techniques for storage and transportation were created, America's obsession with cold drinks back home just kept growing and growing.
[237] American newspapers would report on America's ice trade like it reported on other things like the weather.
[238] in war, panicky headlines warning of ice famines when summers got too hot.
[239] There was artificially made ice, but it wasn't grey, expensive to make, and slushy.
[240] But in 1844, almost 40 years after the ice king had started extracting his ice and shipping it to the world, Floridian Doctor John Gorey invented the world's first artificial ice -making machine.
[241] He'd been trying to cure yellow fever.
[242] Sure that coldness was the trick, Gory didn't end up curing yellow fever, but he did make ice.
[243] By the time the 1920s rolled around, American inventor Clarence Bird's Eye figured out how to freeze food even faster.
[244] Inventing the double -bought freezer, he birthed the frozen food industry.
[245] Walk into any American supermarket, and you're reminded of Clarence BirdEye's invention.
[246] Isles and aisles of frozen food as far as the eye can see.
[247] So the frozen food and the way ice relates to frozen food really ties into, I think, America's pre -industrial past.
[248] So you've got this era where the country is very agrarian.
[249] And you've got local markets for food and everything's highly seasonal.
[250] And as soon as ice comes into the picture, you're able to ship food further.
[251] You're able to preserve it for longer.
[252] So it's changing America's diet.
[253] And it allowed the cities to explode in the U .S. You know, you've got, now it's like you can move into the city and you can preserve food and you can get stuff from markets that are further and further away.
[254] And so it really changed, I think, the landscape of America.
[255] So you see this transformation, and it is right around the middle of the 19th century, mid -1800s, when cities are really starting to explode and you start to see that transition from an agrarian to an industrial society.
[256] So ICE played a huge part of that.
[257] so it really did transform the country.
[258] The New York Times called it a scientific miracle.
[259] Americans falling in love with their frozen food as much as their icy beverages.
[260] By 1930, an American had invented the rubber ice cube tray.
[261] And by the 50s, frozen TV dinners were part and parcel of the American lifestyle.
[262] Pull up a chair, America, sit right down there, America.
[263] Swanson's cooking just for you.
[264] Swanson puts dinner together the way.
[265] You like it.
[266] To be American was to freeze everything in sight.
[267] Liquid solid.
[268] It didn't matter.
[269] Ice wasn't simply pleasure anymore.
[270] It was patriotism.
[271] Told you it was big, Monica.
[272] Ice made the country, just like beavers.
[273] Don't act like the first thing we're not going to talk about is that you said I came to this country.
[274] I was born here.
[275] Do you even know?
[276] Have you been paying any attention?
[277] Are you serious?
[278] Are you serious?
[279] I thought you came across here as a little bubub.
[280] Her mom.
[281] And a little manger.
[282] Your mom was born here too.
[283] No. God, damn it.
[284] I thought you were born.
[285] In India?
[286] Yeah.
[287] And then your mom went, we're going to America.
[288] Wrapped you up like baby Jesus in a little swab.
[289] Put in a little basket.
[290] It bought you on a plane or a ship or something and came over here.
[291] No. I'm American.
[292] We just did a horse.
[293] A whole episode on 4th of July.
[294] You never told me. You know, I thought you came here as a baby.
[295] Hold on.
[296] And then...
[297] Oh, we're getting so...
[298] We're getting really deep.
[299] Okay.
[300] I never told you as in...
[301] So your assumption is...
[302] Yeah.
[303] That I'm not from here because I'm not white.
[304] No, I just thought that...
[305] Was your assumption that Rob isn't from here?
[306] No, because he's always wearing those American baseball caps.
[307] I thought you came as a little kid.
[308] No. Because I knew you're an immigrant.
[309] I thought you had just come over here as a baby.
[310] I'm personally not an immigrant.
[311] My parents are immigrants.
[312] Your mom was young, though.
[313] She was young.
[314] My mom came when she was six.
[315] Okay.
[316] All right.
[317] But I was born in Georgia.
[318] Wow.
[319] Hold on.
[320] I got to take this because.
[321] There's someone calling?
[322] Yeah, Albert Sims.
[323] Hello?
[324] I felt the need to take that because I could.
[325] I feel totally fine disrespecting this show right now.
[326] I didn't know, but I don't think it's a bad thing I didn't know.
[327] I made an assumption that was incorrect that something had led me. I was sure you came here as like a kid for some reason, a little bubub.
[328] I just don't know how you couldn't know based on the many, many interactions we've had.
[329] You know, I'm from Georgia.
[330] I know from Georgia, but just in my brain, I had you coming here as like maybe a one -year -old, maximum two.
[331] Okay.
[332] And that's what I expected.
[333] I just thought, yeah, for some reason, that's what I thought.
[334] Wow.
[335] I mean, this does make me feel like so much of what you say on here is...
[336] Is coloured in a whole different way.
[337] Is a lie.
[338] Well, no, I always just thought we'd both kind of come here.
[339] You'd come here as like a one -year -old.
[340] I'd come here as like a 38 -year -old.
[341] And I always thought we had that sort of that one thing in common.
[342] And I find we're further apart.
[343] Remember yesterday?
[344] I guess you were on muscle relaxers.
[345] I was on a lot of drugs because of my back issue.
[346] Did you tell me?
[347] Just a few days ago, we talked about on Independence Day, how grateful I am for my dad and my grandparents for coming over here.
[348] When you were a little one -year -old.
[349] No, Monica, I feel bad and I take it on board and I've learned something new about you.
[350] That's that you were born in America.
[351] I wonder how many other people think this.
[352] I don't think anyone does.
[353] I think it's pretty known.
[354] I do have some like...
[355] I think it's known.
[356] I mean, sometimes you do have a fact wrong and you just never question it.
[357] And I'm really glad to now have it corrected.
[358] It just feels like one of those things, like the veil was pulled.
[359] Like, all of a sudden, you don't know me at all.
[360] Like, you don't know my face.
[361] You don't know my history.
[362] You know, all of it.
[363] Wow.
[364] Wow.
[365] Okay, it's just going to be hard for me to get back into ice.
[366] I've got a Google Doc of Monica Fax, and I'm just going to open it up and just add born in the U .S .A. Over the past month or so, I've earned a note in your phone for the airplane when it crashes.
[367] Like, you've done enough damage that I think I've earned one at this point.
[368] I have done psychic and emotional damage to you, and I feel, I'm just going to, I'm worried now what other things I've got wrong.
[369] I'm worried, too.
[370] I've just got this whole other view of you.
[371] What does it do now that you know that I'm fully...
[372] Full -blooded.
[373] American.
[374] It makes me feel like the premise of the show is even stronger.
[375] Okay.
[376] Obviously.
[377] You're even...
[378] I mean, you're always very American to me. Uh -huh.
[379] But you're even, you're a little bit more because you're like birthed...
[380] Yeah, I'm...
[381] I'm actually American.