Speaker 1: Pushkin. By the time you hear this, I will be
Speaker 1: in an airplane exiting the United States. It will be
Speaker 1: my first non work trip since August. The irony at
Speaker 1: the heart of this season of Chat episodes is that
Speaker 1: I've been talking to travelers, but I've been stuck at
Speaker 1: my desk. While I've been talking to people who've traveled
Speaker 1: all over Ghana, India, Naples, Bora, Bora, I haven't gone
Speaker 1: further than Exit four on the Jersey Durmpike. Mostly I've
Speaker 1: spent my days in New York oh mule with blueberries, laptop, laptop, laptop,
Speaker 1: over priced salad, laptop, meeting laptop, some elaborately made dinner
Speaker 1: as a form of procrastination, laptop washing the dishes on
Speaker 1: good days. Bed. Now there's some positive things about not traveling.
Speaker 1: My laundry is done, my credit card bills are pretty low.
Speaker 1: For the first time, I've been able to respond to
Speaker 1: spontaneous invites to dinner with friends, and I could finally
Speaker 1: buy hair products over three point four ounces. But to
Speaker 1: be honest, I was starting to become homesick. Not in
Speaker 1: the I miss my own bed kind of way, because
Speaker 1: I did not miss my bed, but in the I'm
Speaker 1: sick of my home kind of way. I've done every chore,
Speaker 1: visited every local shop, walked every inch of my local park,
Speaker 1: streamed and schemed. But after being at home for a
Speaker 1: few months, my feet were beginning to itch in a
Speaker 1: metaphorical sense, because honestly, my feet haven't been cleaner. Yes,
Speaker 1: Over the course of this season, my guests have talked
Speaker 1: about travel as a means of self development, as a
Speaker 1: means of understanding humanity, as a means of escape, as
Speaker 1: a way of learning, and my instinct to travel could
Speaker 1: be a bit of all those things. Or maybe I
Speaker 1: don't need to overthink it. Perhaps I'm just one of
Speaker 1: those people who is genetically predisposed towards wonderlust. Or maybe
Speaker 1: the answers at my next destination. If it is, I'll
Speaker 1: be sure to let you know anyway. I have my
Speaker 1: ticket in my blazer. I booked a window seat. I'm
Speaker 1: prepared to yield the armrest to the person in the
Speaker 1: middle seat if needed. I have plans for my destination,
Speaker 1: whe they're not too specific. I won't turn my nose
Speaker 1: up at a tour, nor will I overthink what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: In short, I'm going to try to deploy all the
Speaker 1: knowledge I've gained this season, and yes, I might try
Speaker 1: to finagle a dinner. I might too. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: we have an excellent valdictory episode of Not Lost Chat
Speaker 1: for you. Today. Celebrated travel writer Pico Iyer is here
Speaker 1: to talk about paradise and musician, comedian and performance artist
Speaker 1: Reggie Watts stops by enlists what he thinks of when
Speaker 1: he thinks of me. Ragmatism, practicality, preparedness, helpfulness, flexibility, dynamicism.
Speaker 1: I feel seen when Not Lost Chat returns Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Not Lost Chat. I'm Brendan Francis Nunham. Later in
Speaker 1: the show, performance artist and musical savant Reggie Watts comes
Speaker 1: by to answer your travel questions. But first I speak
Speaker 1: with the doyenne of contemporary travel writers, Pico Iyer. My
Speaker 1: editor warned me that that word was a little too precious,
Speaker 1: but I think it's perfectly accurate for Pico. He has
Speaker 1: written fifteen books about everything from the Cuban Revolution to globalism.
Speaker 1: Some of his best sellers include Video Nighting, Catman Do
Speaker 1: and the Art of Stillness, and he also writes on
Speaker 1: average a hundred articles a year for various publications including
Speaker 1: The New York Times, The Financial Times and others. Plus
Speaker 1: and this is my favorite part of his bio. He
Speaker 1: splits his time between a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sir,
Speaker 1: California and an apartment with his wife in suburban Kyoto.
Speaker 1: And here you thought having separate bedrooms was the secret
Speaker 1: to alarm relationship. Pico's most recent book is The Half
Speaker 1: Known Life in Search of Paradise, and in that book
Speaker 1: he travels around to ten places across the world, places
Speaker 1: like Iran, North Korea, Northern Ireland, Cashmere. And if you're
Speaker 1: getting the sense that these aren't the typical places travelers
Speaker 1: associated with paradise, you're not alone. I had the same feeling,
Speaker 1: and when I met with Pico, I asked him about it.
Speaker 1: I said, you know, if I didn't know any better,
Speaker 1: I would assume you we're being cheeky about the search
Speaker 1: for paradise. You're absolutely right. I mean, I've been lucky
Speaker 1: enough to be traveling a long time, and so of
Speaker 1: course when you step into a travel agency, everywhere is
Speaker 1: presented as Shangola or Paradise. And when I was young,
Speaker 1: I would go to Bali and later the Tahiti the Seychelles, Antarctica,
Speaker 1: all the places that are commonly thought of as paradise,
Speaker 1: and what's paradise for the visitor often isn't for the local.
Speaker 1: If I were to ask one of them, what's your
Speaker 1: notion of paradise? So they say, oh, yeah, paradise is
Speaker 1: Santa Monica, It's New York City, It's that place across
Speaker 1: the ocean. If I go to somewhere that really does
Speaker 1: feel very content and self contained and unfallen, what do
Speaker 1: I have to offer to it? I only corruption. I
Speaker 1: am the serpent in the garden of Eden. And of
Speaker 1: course everybody's sense of paradise is different. So probably the
Speaker 1: best way of answering your question is this book rose
Speaker 1: out of the pandemic, and twenty hours after lockdown was
Speaker 1: announced in California, my eighty eight to old mother was
Speaker 1: raised into the hospital in an ambulance, losing blood very quickly.
Speaker 1: And when she came back, I flew through these three
Speaker 1: ghost down airports from my little apartment to Japan to
Speaker 1: be with her. So there I was sitting with my
Speaker 1: mother who was wavering between life and death and the
Speaker 1: whole world in this state of anxiety and lockdown and
Speaker 1: I was thinking, well, the only paradise I would really
Speaker 1: believe in is one that happens in the middle of
Speaker 1: real life and in the face of death. In other words,
Speaker 1: given that life is always going to throw difficult things
Speaker 1: at us, how can we find our paradise in the
Speaker 1: midst of that difficulty? And so, as you said, I
Speaker 1: thought back onto the places of conflict and the many
Speaker 1: war zones I'd been to, and I thought, maybe there
Speaker 1: is a durable paradise that can outlast even the harshest
Speaker 1: forms of reality. The book begins in Iran, and you
Speaker 1: know there's an oppressive regime there. There isn't a hot war,
Speaker 1: although there have been really intense protests of late. But
Speaker 1: there's a couple of reasons you went there. Because it
Speaker 1: also the origin of the word paradise, if understanding you,
Speaker 1: also comes from Persian culture, exactly so. And also I
Speaker 1: think the second reason is it's a perfect way of
Speaker 1: seeing conflicting visions of paradise, because, of course, as you
Speaker 1: are suggesting, the oppressive ayatold Us who rule Iran, maintained
Speaker 1: that paradise belongs only to the faithful, and the place
Speaker 1: called Zachar's paradise in South Tehran is actually a graveyard,
Speaker 1: one of the largest in the world, with one point
Speaker 1: five million dead bodies there. And meanwhile, as the protests
Speaker 1: remind us, so many of the citizens of Iran constructing
Speaker 1: their own paradise behind closed doors, which is a very secular,
Speaker 1: worldly place of sex and drugs and rock and roll.
Speaker 1: And then both sides meanwhile quoting from the Sufi poets
Speaker 1: that they learned in high school or elementary school, who
Speaker 1: remind us that the only paradise you can find is within,
Speaker 1: which I think at some level everybody knows. But as
Speaker 1: you say, Iran doesn't sound like a honeymoon location. But
Speaker 1: as soon as I got there, though I'd been studying
Speaker 1: it for thirty years, every hour of the next sixteen
Speaker 1: days was full of surprises. And one of the surprises
Speaker 1: is that if you're staying in a garden hotel in
Speaker 1: the desert city of YaST and you step out after
Speaker 1: nightfall and there are sweet smelling flowers all around, and
Speaker 1: there are fairy colored lights in the trees, and you're
Speaker 1: lead to this beautiful divan and you stretch out, and
Speaker 1: an elegant way it brings you slices of sweet watermelon
Speaker 1: and a pot of strong tea, and all around you
Speaker 1: the beautiful, soft eyed people exchanging murmurs. My heavens, it's
Speaker 1: as close to an earthly paradise as anything I've seen.
Speaker 1: And the Iranians or the Persians, for thousands of years
Speaker 1: have been building gardens that are meant to be a
Speaker 1: replica of paradise and an enticement to the paradise of
Speaker 1: the afterworld, and to this day they're as idyllic as
Speaker 1: anywhere I've seen on earth. You also mentioned as another
Speaker 1: fascinating detail is in your notes you would refer to
Speaker 1: Ara as paradise in case your notebooks were reviewed when
Speaker 1: you left, or in case your emails were being read,
Speaker 1: and so you had to kind of veil Run as
Speaker 1: paradise in your communications. Yes, I had to become as
Speaker 1: veiled and complex as a society around me. So because
Speaker 1: I think the first day I arrived there, I arrived
Speaker 1: in the holy city of my shard, and it was
Speaker 1: so surprising. I wanted to tell my friends back in
Speaker 1: the US, so I went online, no problem sending emails.
Speaker 1: By the third day my email account was completely blocked.
Speaker 1: So I was positive that some poor lackey in Tehran
Speaker 1: was being asked to read my every email at the
Speaker 1: same time as my email was blocked. I could go
Speaker 1: down to the hotel computer and send emails at any time,
Speaker 1: but realizing that somebody was reading them, I thought it
Speaker 1: was prudent to say this is the most wonderful place
Speaker 1: on earth. And so in that culture where everything is
Speaker 1: taking place between the lines and beneath the words, I
Speaker 1: quickly realized I had to be the same, and I
Speaker 1: had to pretend to be something that I wasn't. It
Speaker 1: was a most interesting, sophisticated, rich place I've ever been,
Speaker 1: the number one destination of my life. But I did
Speaker 1: always feel that somebody was looking over my shoulder, and
Speaker 1: it was wise to be vigilant. And when you say
Speaker 1: it's the most interesting place you've ever been, that is
Speaker 1: high praise, since you spend a lot of your life traveling.
Speaker 1: On that point about traveling, how if at all, do
Speaker 1: you think that you're living betwixt and between places affects
Speaker 1: your view of paradise, Well, it changes in my relation
Speaker 1: to home, Because you're absolutely right. I grew up in
Speaker 1: the passageways and criss crossings between cultures as the child
Speaker 1: of Indian parents born and growing up in England, moving
Speaker 1: to California at seven, and then from the age of nine,
Speaker 1: commuting back and forth every few weeks between England and California,
Speaker 1: and now living in Japan for thirty five years on
Speaker 1: a tourist visa. The space in between is my home,
Speaker 1: and I'm very comfortable there, with one foot inside and
Speaker 1: one foot outside. When a little boy, I was the
Speaker 1: only dark skinned kid in all my classes in England,
Speaker 1: So I never guessed then that what was so unusual
Speaker 1: at that time would be the norm. I think if
Speaker 1: I go to a classroom in San Francisco, I bet
Speaker 1: forty percent or maybe more of the kids would be
Speaker 1: just as in between as I am, and have lots
Speaker 1: and lots of cultures inside them and around them. And
Speaker 1: I think that's the great beauty of this new century.
Speaker 1: I do think, as you say, it's not a paradise
Speaker 1: for many people. It's a purgatory, not being able to
Speaker 1: define themselves in a clear way. For me, it just
Speaker 1: reminded me that home had nothing to do with any
Speaker 1: physical location. It had to be what lives inside me,
Speaker 1: my mother, my wife, the songs that go through my head,
Speaker 1: the books I carry around with me, wherever I go.
Speaker 1: And I'd always felt that, But actually, when I speak
Speaker 1: of purgatory, this book came out of the lockdown, as
Speaker 1: I was saying, and that was an in between time, essentially,
Speaker 1: like the in between spaces where I've lived, And in
Speaker 1: that in between time, I was thinking, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: many other people were thinking, Well, this is a time
Speaker 1: of uncertainty. We can't go anywhere, we don't know what's
Speaker 1: coming over the horizon. How can we make it as
Speaker 1: close to paradise as possible? How can we make ourselves
Speaker 1: warm and cozy in this state of anxiety and unsettledness.
Speaker 1: I wonder when you're going to places to write about them,
Speaker 1: there is a certain amount of fantasy. Do you arrive
Speaker 1: with an assignment. You arrive to pay attention, but you
Speaker 1: don't have to get too involved in the mundane. And
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if that, in a way it gives some
Speaker 1: sort of artificial feeling of you know, you're unburdened by
Speaker 1: certain mechanics of life because you are just always kind
Speaker 1: of on assignment and adrift. Well, you're right, I mean,
Speaker 1: the tourist is always carrying an artificial paradise around with
Speaker 1: him and there's this dis equilibrium because we arrive in
Speaker 1: Bali and as you say, we imagine we can do
Speaker 1: anything we want. We're free of obligation, we're on holiday,
Speaker 1: and the people were meeting at desperately trying to make
Speaker 1: a living. So I've always felt that the traveler is
Speaker 1: living in a sort of false paradise of projections and illusions. Yes,
Speaker 1: you visit Kashmir, which you describe one point as the
Speaker 1: paradise that's shone in your mother's heart, and that is
Speaker 1: such a beautiful chapter. I don't know if that's why
Speaker 1: it in such a beautiful chapter in this book, but
Speaker 1: I do think the duality of the water versus the
Speaker 1: land there, versus the political situation versus the hope, and
Speaker 1: tourism's role. Could you speak about Kashmir and how it
Speaker 1: fits into your kind of search for paradise. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's so beautifully, said Brendon. I mean you caught it perfectly. So, Yes,
Speaker 1: as you said, I grew up on my mother's remembrances
Speaker 1: from nineteen forty one of the lake under the snow
Speaker 1: caps and the fields full of alpine flowers, and it
Speaker 1: was a magical place for her growing up in Bombay,
Speaker 1: And when finally I made it there a few years ago,
Speaker 1: I stayed on as every traveler does, on a houseboat
Speaker 1: on lake, and there was a lotus pond right outside
Speaker 1: my window, and there was no sound but the whir
Speaker 1: of Kingfisher's wings, and people would paddle slowly past, bringing
Speaker 1: curries right to the doorstep or beautiful intricate carved boxes,
Speaker 1: and couldn't have been more peaceful and heavenly, so long
Speaker 1: as I screened out the fact that, just as you said,
Speaker 1: ten minutes away on land, there were five hundred thousand
Speaker 1: soldiers keeping an uneasy piece in a violent and occupied
Speaker 1: place that for seventy years has been fought over by
Speaker 1: India in Pakistan. And again that's part of the hazard
Speaker 1: of being a paradise. Everyone wants to claim you, and
Speaker 1: there are lots of people fighting over the same territory.
Speaker 1: And so I thought, well, this is it's a paradise,
Speaker 1: so long as I ignore the reality for the Cashmirius,
Speaker 1: which is a very tragic reality. In that chapter, you
Speaker 1: also you describe a lot of the people you meet
Speaker 1: and what you learn from them, and I think a
Speaker 1: more personal kind of do our that one has to
Speaker 1: exist with in order to find peace. I think the
Speaker 1: character he encountered. His name is Johnny, is that correct? Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: And can you talk a little bit about his story
Speaker 1: and how he ended up there and found his way there.
Speaker 1: So Johnny is a British tour guide and I had
Speaker 1: been told by my magazine edit he's the guy you
Speaker 1: should make contact with and should show you around Kashmir.
Speaker 1: And indeed he was. He knew everyone and everywhere, and
Speaker 1: in the course of our days together he told me
Speaker 1: how twenty five years earlier, as a very very young traveler,
Speaker 1: he'd come to Kashmir with his girlfriend and they stayed
Speaker 1: on the houseboat called the Dream Palace, and one night
Speaker 1: he woke up and his girlfriend couldn't breathe, and he
Speaker 1: did everything he could, and she was dead at the
Speaker 1: age of probably twenty three. And every traveler's nightmare, and
Speaker 1: in a very difficult foreign place, there's your girlfriend. Not
Speaker 1: only is she dead, but the police take him to
Speaker 1: be the number one suspect if it was not a
Speaker 1: natural death. And so suddenly his time in the paradise
Speaker 1: of Kashmir involves going to the police station, going to
Speaker 1: the coroner's office, making the most difficult phone call of
Speaker 1: all to his girlfriend's parents back in England. I mean,
Speaker 1: just a devastating thing. And then finally he went back
Speaker 1: to England. And I imagined, after all that the one
Speaker 1: place in the world he would never want to see
Speaker 1: again is Kashmir. But of course I met him in Kashmir,
Speaker 1: and in fact, as soon as Kashmir opened to visitors
Speaker 1: again after some turmoil, he was the first professional talk
Speaker 1: guide operator to go back. And he felt he wanted
Speaker 1: to help Kashmir, which is a region he'd always loved,
Speaker 1: but he also thought he could only repair his heart
Speaker 1: by going to the place where his heart had been shattered.
Speaker 1: And it also spoke, as you perfectly pointed out, to
Speaker 1: this duality that on the one hand, I, who was
Speaker 1: traveling there with Johnny, was like Johnny, trying to revise
Speaker 1: this place which had suffered so much over seventy years
Speaker 1: of war. On the other hand, a tourists can only
Speaker 1: have a good time in Kashmir by sort of a
Speaker 1: time is pretending that the war doesn't exist and sitting
Speaker 1: out on the lake in this stillness of this paradise
Speaker 1: lem setting. So as you said, it's a very complex
Speaker 1: hornetsness but Johnny really moved me by his resolve to
Speaker 1: go into the place that had been so difficult and
Speaker 1: really come through it the other on the other side,
Speaker 1: and now introduce many other people to Kashmir. Yes, I
Speaker 1: think what's also interesting about that it's a side. Now.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when I'm travel writing, I would almost ignored the
Speaker 1: travel guide. I would almost be chagrined that, Okay, here
Speaker 1: I am with someone who's going to kind of open
Speaker 1: up this place for me, and somehow it'll kind of
Speaker 1: taint the wisdom of this ancient place and not at all,
Speaker 1: you know, you wouldn't have encountered him otherwise, this character
Speaker 1: that's not a native of Kashmir but still has wisdom
Speaker 1: and can still give you insight into a place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. That's an interesting perception, and it was very
Speaker 1: deliberate on my part that in almost every chapter here,
Speaker 1: I am, as you pointed out, in the hands of
Speaker 1: a guide, usually local or a driver, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that I'm always in the passenger's seat,
Speaker 1: because part of the point of the book, and I
Speaker 1: think part of the point of travel is that, especially
Speaker 1: when I was younger, I assumed I was in the
Speaker 1: driver's seat. I was on top of everything. I could
Speaker 1: control everything, I could plan my day, and I knew everything.
Speaker 1: And the beauty of travel is it completely upends that.
Speaker 1: And I'm at the mercy of all kinds of things
Speaker 1: I can't begin to understand. And I'm very much metaphorically
Speaker 1: and in this case literally in the passenger seat. And
Speaker 1: so one reason that I gave this book the title
Speaker 1: The Half Known Life, is that was it the half
Speaker 1: known world I keep forgetting? And I think one of
Speaker 1: the reasons I gave that title is that I feel
Speaker 1: the amount that we really know is tiny, as if
Speaker 1: we're in a little tent up in the Himalayas, and
Speaker 1: maybe there are a couple of lanterns and we have
Speaker 1: a flashlight, but it's a small pocket of light in
Speaker 1: this vast darkness of the heavens above, pockmarked with stars
Speaker 1: and the silvery mountains around, And basically the field of
Speaker 1: our knowledge is tiny compared with everything we don't know.
Speaker 1: And we are in the passenger seed. We are at
Speaker 1: the mercy of the elements, and at the mercy of
Speaker 1: the guides and the locals who are showing us around.
Speaker 1: And so yes, I think in my other books, I
Speaker 1: was nearly always describing just traveling alone unguided through cities
Speaker 1: I couldn't make head nor tail of. But here having
Speaker 1: the guides in almost every chapter was really essential. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as a reader, I respond to it because I know
Speaker 1: what it's like to happen the back of an uber
Speaker 1: give myself over to someone like that. I trust you
Speaker 1: as my guide, but it seems more honest or authentic
Speaker 1: in a sense that you are a passenger and then
Speaker 1: I am joining you. In a way. It makes for
Speaker 1: a different sort of reading experience. You know, I was
Speaker 1: having dinner with the companion as I was preparing for
Speaker 1: this and trying to explain what the book is about.
Speaker 1: I think that's why it's fitting this book is called
Speaker 1: the subtitle I'll let you know because you might not remember.
Speaker 1: The subtitle is They Have Known Life in search of Paradise.
Speaker 1: It's about the search, and ultimately there is the fact
Speaker 1: that we just have to live in this in between
Speaker 1: the tension of the darkness and the light of knowing
Speaker 1: and not knowing? Am I wrong in that? I mean?
Speaker 1: Is that part of the reason it remains of search?
Speaker 1: There's there's no discovery, beautifully said, and I really my
Speaker 1: heart goes out to trying to explain what this book
Speaker 1: is about, because it's impossible to most people. I think
Speaker 1: it's just an enigma. It's one of the harder books
Speaker 1: to characterize deliberately, but exactly what you said. And I
Speaker 1: think the search for paradise is actually what gets in
Speaker 1: the way of our finding the paradise. That it's our
Speaker 1: notions of paradise or our longing for something that we
Speaker 1: don't have, that keeps us from seeing what we do have,
Speaker 1: which may be the closest to paradise we get. And
Speaker 1: so that's why this climatic moment, which in fact I
Speaker 1: don't fully describe in the book. But I'm in Varnasi,
Speaker 1: which is, as many people know, the most chaotic, terrifying,
Speaker 1: intense place in often chaotic, terrifying, intense India. For those
Speaker 1: who don't know Varanasi, as I understand it is, people
Speaker 1: want to have their loved ones bodies burned there. Over years,
Speaker 1: it's become like lower the or a magical place that's
Speaker 1: supposed to be a crossing ground and the auspicious place
Speaker 1: in which a traditional Hindu can enter the afterworld. That's right,
Speaker 1: you burn the ashes and you put them into the river.
Speaker 1: There there are flames burning to the north and south,
Speaker 1: reducing dead bodies to ash. There are people racing through
Speaker 1: the narrow lanes carrying stretchers to commit the corpses to
Speaker 1: the flames and the Holy waters, or naked ascetics walking
Speaker 1: around who live in graveyards and drink from skulls to
Speaker 1: show their indifference to right and wrong. And there are
Speaker 1: people bathing in the Holy waters and drinking from them,
Speaker 1: although there are there three thousand times beyond the maximal
Speaker 1: level found to be safe for consumption by the who,
Speaker 1: so as in this mad scene. I'm an one hundred
Speaker 1: percent Indian and Hindu by births, and even I'm freaked
Speaker 1: out by this. And suddenly I heard somebody call my name,
Speaker 1: and it was two Tibetan Buddhist monks, one older Tibetan
Speaker 1: and one an American monk whom I knew from New
Speaker 1: York City. And as I surveyed this sort of psychedelic commotion,
Speaker 1: the American monk said, isn't this gorgeous? This is the
Speaker 1: whole thing. This is reality, This is life and death
Speaker 1: and everything in between. This is exactly what we have
Speaker 1: to grasp This he might as well have been saying,
Speaker 1: is paradise. This is where we have to find our paradise,
Speaker 1: right in the middle of the chaos and the death
Speaker 1: and the stuff that we can't begin to comprehend. And
Speaker 1: I thought that was almost exactly what the book was about.
Speaker 1: In my eyes. I live in Japan, as you say,
Speaker 1: and often when I step into a temple in Kyoto,
Speaker 1: written on the ground at the entrance other words, look
Speaker 1: beneath your feet. In other words, don't look to the future,
Speaker 1: to the past, and never never land. Imagine that paradise
Speaker 1: around the corner. Choose to find your paradise right where
Speaker 1: you are. Well, Pico, I think that's a lovely sentiment
Speaker 1: to end on, actually a lovely sentiment for a travel
Speaker 1: show to arrive at, kind of find the paradise where
Speaker 1: you are. Thank you so much for coming by to
Speaker 1: discuss your book. It is really bit of pleasure. Thank
Speaker 1: you for such a really rich and wonderful conversation. I
Speaker 1: think anyone listening can tell you and I could keep
Speaker 1: on going for three hours, so this has really been fun.
Speaker 1: That's a great compliment and gift. Pico Iyer's most recent
Speaker 1: book is The Half Known Life In Search of Paradise,
Speaker 1: and that was such a great conversation I had to
Speaker 1: leave some of it out. But among Pico's friends the
Speaker 1: Dalai Lama and the other was the late Leonard Cohen,
Speaker 1: so we had a lot to talk about. And he
Speaker 1: told me that Leonard will make an appearance in his
Speaker 1: next book. All Right coming up. Musician, comedian and improv
Speaker 1: maestro Reggie Watts comes by and talks, among other things,
Speaker 1: about the ghostwriter of his upcoming memoir. Chat GPT is
Speaker 1: when Not Lost Chat returns. Welcome back to Not Lost Chat.
Speaker 1: We are now at the etiquette portion of our episode
Speaker 1: and I am joined by Reginald Lucian. Frank Roger Watts,
Speaker 1: better known as Reggie Watts. He came up as a
Speaker 1: musician in Seattle and then may some appearances on TV.
Speaker 1: You may have seen him on Comedy Bang Bang. He
Speaker 1: is now leader of the house band for The Late
Speaker 1: Late Show with James Cordon. He is an absolute American original,
Speaker 1: although Bornich took guard with his mothers from France, but
Speaker 1: he was raised in Great Falls, Montana and his upcoming
Speaker 1: memoir is named Great Falls Montana that comes out later
Speaker 1: next year. And when I spoke with him, I asked
Speaker 1: him about the book. For someone who is so famous
Speaker 1: for improving, was it anxiety producing to put pen to
Speaker 1: paper and just really capture his ideas once and for all. Man,
Speaker 1: You know, I never really thought of it that way.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Yeah, I think I think what made that
Speaker 1: not happen so much, or at least that you know
Speaker 1: the possibility of that that vibe happening, is because I
Speaker 1: worked with a really great ghost writer who works just
Speaker 1: like I've always loved to work, like whether it was
Speaker 1: mental theater or coming up with bits for my early
Speaker 1: shows and things like that. Like would just have a
Speaker 1: writing partner who I could just relay the ideas that
Speaker 1: flow into my head and just like put it out
Speaker 1: there and then they kind of format it and organize it.
Speaker 1: And I chose him as as a writer because his
Speaker 1: name's Chris Ferra, and he I chose him because he's
Speaker 1: from the Midwest, so Montana's got to share some sensibilities
Speaker 1: with the Midwest. And obviously I would help craft and
Speaker 1: shape the language, and I would read things with him
Speaker 1: in his presence. I would we would just read through
Speaker 1: the pages and I'd be like, I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: I would say that and then he would touch it up,
Speaker 1: and so that process allowed me to not have to
Speaker 1: have that terrified feeling that I get when someone's like,
Speaker 1: here's a script, you know, or like write a script.
Speaker 1: You know. That to me is so terrifying because everything
Speaker 1: I do is just let's just do it live. Even
Speaker 1: even your Netflix specials. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Spatial was
Speaker 1: fully improvised. I just did two. I always like to
Speaker 1: do two or three shows and then composite them together,
Speaker 1: even the improv with Rory Scoville and Cape berlant Um
Speaker 1: for the fictional nineties sitcom Crow's Nest was me just
Speaker 1: before we were going on stage, like all we had
Speaker 1: was wardrobe. The most important thing for me was knowing
Speaker 1: that we had the right wardrobe. Once we had the wardrobe,
Speaker 1: we were just about to go on stage, and I'd
Speaker 1: be like, let's just do a physical take where we're
Speaker 1: not really talking, we're just doing physical bits. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then they're like okay, and then we just go up
Speaker 1: and did it that. I love it so, Frank, I
Speaker 1: just love so you So your your co author's chat GPT, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course really gets it right. Well, I didn't know
Speaker 1: it's from the Midwest. I didn't realize there was a
Speaker 1: gen xer no chat chat gptum is yeah, he's amazing. Um.
Speaker 1: I actually worked at Elsa National Park years ago and
Speaker 1: then I let because it was crazy, which I don't
Speaker 1: even feel like counts as Montana. And I went back
Speaker 1: to my first season of this show and it was
Speaker 1: so clear to me I felt so still unmanly in Montana,
Speaker 1: Like I felt so inadequate as a city kid. What
Speaker 1: did you did you? What was your relationship to that?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like the masculinity in Montana is different
Speaker 1: than on the coast? I think so one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: I think there's um. Yeah, it's a really good question
Speaker 1: because I've never really thought of it in that way.
Speaker 1: But I think what it is is, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: definitely like a lot of tradition when it comes to
Speaker 1: the way that sexes and genders, you know, elaborate together.
Speaker 1: But I think there's like they're a little bit more equal,
Speaker 1: generally speaking than in other places, perhaps just because practicality
Speaker 1: is kind of king in Montana. Pragmatism, practicality, preparedness, helpfulness, flexibility, dynamicism,
Speaker 1: these types of things are key because people are outdoors.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of outdoors and outdoors persons, you know
Speaker 1: that just we go out there, like, you know, I
Speaker 1: remember my friend's dad dropping us off with back packs
Speaker 1: and it was just like me and my friend Steve
Speaker 1: and we just ye. It was in the winter. We
Speaker 1: had to dig out snow and chip away at the
Speaker 1: ground and make a fire pit, so, you know, and
Speaker 1: then he'd come, he'd like, I'll pick you up on Sunday.
Speaker 1: You know, it sounds terrifying, sounds like the beginning of
Speaker 1: a true crime podcast. It's kind of terrifying, but like
Speaker 1: when you have the gear and you know the basics,
Speaker 1: it's actually great. It's like super freeing, so that actually
Speaker 1: I can that naturally. Kind of jives with this travel theme,
Speaker 1: the loose travel theme of these chats, which is, so
Speaker 1: what when you do have time off when you are
Speaker 1: not professionally touring? What do you do for kicks? Where
Speaker 1: do you go? Where does Reggie relax? You know, I
Speaker 1: rarely go on vacations, or I'll have to. I'll have
Speaker 1: a vacation at the end of a tour, like I'll
Speaker 1: stay in the last city. So I love hanging out
Speaker 1: in Berlin. One of my favorite cities. And uh, I
Speaker 1: went to Salem recently for the weekend before Halloween to
Speaker 1: kind of go on some history tours and learn about
Speaker 1: which trials and all that stuff. That was really cool. Um,
Speaker 1: trying to think if I've got you know, I've gotten
Speaker 1: like you know, the cabins and things like that for
Speaker 1: a weekend. But yeah, I don't know. It's it's very
Speaker 1: rare that I do. But the thing is like, whenever
Speaker 1: I go to these places, I feel like I might
Speaker 1: as well do a show, right, yeah, you know, because
Speaker 1: because my show isn't like I'm not preparing for the show.
Speaker 1: I'm not writing a show. I just show up and
Speaker 1: if I have my gear, or even if I don't
Speaker 1: have my gear, I can still do a show. So
Speaker 1: I figure, like, why not do a show because it's
Speaker 1: it's fun and it you know, it's like helps offset
Speaker 1: the cost of the vacation whatever. All right, Well, look,
Speaker 1: I have some adiquate questions from from the audience that
Speaker 1: you're going to help with your because you're a wise man, Um,
Speaker 1: you're going to improvise. If you're not a wise man
Speaker 1: and not it will work. So this first question comes
Speaker 1: from Crystal from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Crystal asks, if I'm
Speaker 1: in the window seat, is it rude to keep the
Speaker 1: shade open while I know other people around me are
Speaker 1: trying to sleep. Yes. Yes, it's a weird one because
Speaker 1: obviously you're next to the window, so you're like, I
Speaker 1: control out the windows seat because I wanted to, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you like to look outside or something like that.
Speaker 1: But if it's really bright and you see that most
Speaker 1: of the shades around you are closed and people are sleeping,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just close the shade. I mean
Speaker 1: at that altitude, like what do you do? What do
Speaker 1: you get some clouds and some land masks, you know,
Speaker 1: open it, take a look, close it, you know, and
Speaker 1: then maybe rest or like watch something or think about something.
Speaker 1: But I always defer to the majority around me. Interesting,
Speaker 1: I do feel like I try to give the middle seat.
Speaker 1: I empower them because they're in a tough spot. So
Speaker 1: I'll kind of like tie goes in the middle seat,
Speaker 1: is kind of my thought. But I will say what
Speaker 1: I don't like in this department is I'll get into
Speaker 1: a plane close it because the sun's beating me in
Speaker 1: the head. And then then sometimes it only happens sixty
Speaker 1: percent of the time, so I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: a rule or not. A flight attendant will come by
Speaker 1: and say, excuse me, you need to have the shade
Speaker 1: open for liftoff. Yeah, like what is this the right? Brothers?
Speaker 1: Like like this is going to determine our death or not? Like, like,
Speaker 1: what is that about? I think it's about I think
Speaker 1: someone because I wondered about that too, and I think
Speaker 1: it has something to do with um my situational awareness.
Speaker 1: And it's like it's just a small point of failure,
Speaker 1: like for if an emergency occurs or something like that,
Speaker 1: somebody's going wrong, they'll have a better read on where
Speaker 1: it's happening if they can count the windows or something.
Speaker 1: I think it's that it feels pretty ardy. It feels
Speaker 1: pretty small, bore, I know. Yeah, all right. This next
Speaker 1: question us from Molly from Charlotte and Molly Rights. My
Speaker 1: boyfriend's parents want to take us on vacation, but they
Speaker 1: want all four of us to share a hotel room
Speaker 1: to save cost. My boyfriend doesn't think this is weird,
Speaker 1: but I do. How can I get out of this? Well,
Speaker 1: she is right, that's weird. It also depends on how
Speaker 1: old the relationship is, you know, because obviously if you've
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time together already, maybe you can
Speaker 1: kind of both decide like, well, this will be weird,
Speaker 1: but let's just see what it's like. Yeah, um, but
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan. I need my space. This is
Speaker 1: very intimate. Um, I mean the parents got to feel
Speaker 1: like that's weird, you know what I mean? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and unless the parents want to control it, you know,
Speaker 1: if they want to, like they want to go in vacation,
Speaker 1: but they don't want to have the stress of imagining
Speaker 1: that they're you know that Molly is making love with
Speaker 1: her boy. Yeah, making love next door? Like that breaks
Speaker 1: us out. Let's just keep them in sight. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's just a little weird, right, that's your answer, Molly? Um,
Speaker 1: not okay, but good luck. How can I get out
Speaker 1: of this? I don't I don't know what to tell you. Um, okay,
Speaker 1: A couple more questions. Um, This one I feel like
Speaker 1: is made tailor, made for you. It doesn't have a
Speaker 1: name attached. I'll make one up. Jacob Smith from Santa
Speaker 1: Motica Rights. In a few weeks, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: a plus one at a destination wedding where I don't
Speaker 1: know anyone except my partner. Any tips, I would say,
Speaker 1: hopefully the partner, you know, recognizes that there's a it's
Speaker 1: a little incumbent on them to kind of ease you
Speaker 1: into the situation and maybe them thinking about people knowing
Speaker 1: you and then thinking about the people that are going
Speaker 1: to be there, like which people you think that you'd
Speaker 1: get along with, you know, introducing them whatever, or like
Speaker 1: you know, announcing common interests, things like that. I think
Speaker 1: I think of it as an adventure. Be open minded,
Speaker 1: try not to be super resistant. I've definitely been in
Speaker 1: that vibrate I'm goa go up. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to go you know, that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: A little two way, but like you got to kind
Speaker 1: of make a little bit of an extra effort to
Speaker 1: these doked, you know, as much as you can. To me,
Speaker 1: this sounds like a good dream. This means like, oh,
Speaker 1: vacation free food, dress up dan, And I'm not going
Speaker 1: to be embarrassed because I don't know anybody, Like I
Speaker 1: have zero responsibilities except to my partner. That feels pretty dreamy,
Speaker 1: Like I just have to sit there and maybe be
Speaker 1: charming and not a jerk, Like that's like my preferred mode.
Speaker 1: But and if you're anxious, I get that. Not everyone's
Speaker 1: an extrovert, but you can still take joy in nothing
Speaker 1: is expected of you except to like be a support
Speaker 1: of your partner. Stakes are low. This is like free
Speaker 1: meals for days another bonus tip. Yeah, so there you go,
Speaker 1: enjoy and if if you can't go, you know my email.
Speaker 1: I'll go with your partner as long as fast Nation's nice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, this is our last question. It comes from Lucy,
Speaker 1: and Lucy asks if one partner has a TSA pre
Speaker 1: check and the other does not, should we know where
Speaker 1: this is going? Should the TSA PreCheck partner stand in
Speaker 1: the regular line or should they soldier onto the gate?
Speaker 1: Soldier on to the gate? I mean, come on, it's like,
Speaker 1: why did you get TSA PreCheck? It's like also if
Speaker 1: you're the reason, usually when people get TSA pre check,
Speaker 1: it's because they don't want to deal with the bullshit,
Speaker 1: the extra bullshit that you have to go through normally.
Speaker 1: So if that's like an anxiety reducing thing, I think
Speaker 1: your partner would understand. And also your partner should just
Speaker 1: get TSA or get global entry hopefully you're not in
Speaker 1: a codependent relationship. I mean I've had this cup both
Speaker 1: ways because I have global entry, yeah, global entry, and
Speaker 1: I've had people to go ahead and I hop on
Speaker 1: the other side, and then you can kind of text
Speaker 1: them be like hey, I'll get your snack and you're
Speaker 1: there and you kind of can receive them. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: I've also been in partnerships where they've been like, basically
Speaker 1: you felt a test, like I cannot believe you abandoned me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you banned in me, and then I had to go
Speaker 1: through this hell line and it's like you know what
Speaker 1: this cost sixty dollars and took like yes, not that
Speaker 1: that's that's that's totally. That's that's my that's my thing.
Speaker 1: Like I'm like, it depends on the type of person
Speaker 1: you are, you know, but like when you're in a relationship,
Speaker 1: I think you're supposed to encourage, you know, if someone
Speaker 1: else has an opportunity to take the opportunity. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: it's like about independence and not code. It's interdependence, not codependence.
Speaker 1: I can't stand the codependent thing and need to be
Speaker 1: with people that are like, no, I don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: I've got it and you're like, okay, cool, and you
Speaker 1: know hopefully they're just like, yeah, that's what I would
Speaker 1: fucking do. Yeah, get hip, Get hip, all right, REDI Odds,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for giving some travel etiquette to
Speaker 1: my audience. Easy and uh oh can I add one
Speaker 1: thing to travel tips? Yeah? Please? Um uh don't check bags? Oh? Interesting?
Speaker 1: I never check bags. Haven't checked bags since two thousand
Speaker 1: and twelve. Interesting, okay, and that includes all my gear.
Speaker 1: And I know some people some people obviously like, yeah,
Speaker 1: how can you bring all your gear on it? And
Speaker 1: their fashionist does and they need their you know, three
Speaker 1: pairs of shoes and stuff like that. That's a little
Speaker 1: bit I understand. But if you can, there are smart
Speaker 1: ways to pack light. Uh. And if you if you
Speaker 1: run into Morse if you need stuff, you can always
Speaker 1: get more stuff basics or whatever along there is that. Well,
Speaker 1: they did lose my bag this summer in Portugal, and
Speaker 1: I now bought a check in bag, So I'm with you,
Speaker 1: all right. Rock and roll symbol, Reggie Wats, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for coming by my pleasure. Reggie Watts. You can
Speaker 1: catch him on TV on The Late Late Show with
Speaker 1: James Gordon, where he's the band leader or keep your
Speaker 1: eyes peeled, because he often performs his mind altering variety
Speaker 1: of comedy music at venues around the country. Okay, so
Speaker 1: that's it for this edition of Not Lost Chat. And
Speaker 1: that's it for this inaugural season of Not Lost Chats.
Speaker 1: I used to scoff at the notion of a travel
Speaker 1: show taking place in a studio, but our guests, from
Speaker 1: Andrew tron Grier to Jessica Nobongo to Jeff Dyer, charl
Speaker 1: Straight to Pico Iyer, they all gave me so much
Speaker 1: inspiration and food for thought that I was transported, as
Speaker 1: you will, away from the studios. I am about to
Speaker 1: thank all of the people who helped put this show together,
Speaker 1: but first, at risk of being corny, I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank you for listening. Creating Not Lost Season one was
Speaker 1: the most difficult and yet most satisfying endeavor of my
Speaker 1: life so far, and the reception it received from folks
Speaker 1: like you was part of that joy. For those who
Speaker 1: stuck around for this season of Chats. And if you're
Speaker 1: listening to this, by definition you are one of those people.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Perhaps someday I can trick you
Speaker 1: into inviting me over for dinner. This final episode of
Speaker 1: the season of Not Lost Chat was partially produced by
Speaker 1: Jordan Bailey, Jacob Smith, and Sarah Bruguire. For Better or
Speaker 1: Worse the whole Thing was written and hosted by me
Speaker 1: Brendan Francis Newnham. Booking assistance, as usual, came from Laura Morgan.
Speaker 1: This episode was edited by Julia Barton, who in a
Speaker 1: couple of months will be coming out with her maiden audiobook,
Speaker 1: Best Audio Non twenty twenty two. It is filled with
Speaker 1: some gems alas Not Lost didn't make the cut, but
Speaker 1: who's bitter about that? Not me, I'm not. Jacob Smith
Speaker 1: was also the managing producer in this episode, and he
Speaker 1: did that with crutches, which is no easy feat. Fortunately
Speaker 1: someone who wasn't on crutches despite a recent weekend snowboarding.
Speaker 1: Sarah Bruger, who was our producer and mix engineer. I
Speaker 1: really can't thank her enough for all the hard work
Speaker 1: she's put into making this season happen. Thank you, Sarah.
Speaker 1: You're probably listening to this late in the evening and
Speaker 1: we may slack about when to post this episode. Not
Speaker 1: Lost is a co production of Pushkin Industries, Topic Studios,
Speaker 1: and iHeartMedia. It was developed at Topic Studios and the
Speaker 1: executive users include Me, Brandon Franzis Nunham, Christy Gressman, Maria Zuckerman,
Speaker 1: Lisa Langgang and Latamallad. It is not too late to
Speaker 1: tell people about this show. I made these chat episodes
Speaker 1: what is called in the biz evergreen, so they will
Speaker 1: never go out of season. So if you have someone
Speaker 1: in your life interested in travel, tell them about it,
Speaker 1: and if you want to tell the world about it,
Speaker 1: make a commented Apple podcasts. It's all greatly appreciated. And
Speaker 1: while you're waiting for more episodes of Not Lost, you
Speaker 1: can check out some other Poschkin podcasts. Jacob Smith is
Speaker 1: also the mastermind behind Deep Cover Death. Been Artist is
Speaker 1: a great show that we made. Story of the Week
Speaker 1: is a very funny, interesting show that comes out. Lots
Speaker 1: of good stuff out there. You can listen and find
Speaker 1: them all on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your podcasts. That is it for this episode.
Speaker 1: Thank you, everybody. I am somewhere right now drinking Margharita.
Speaker 1: I raise it to you. Don Voyage