January 25, 2023 • 34 mins
Brendan speaks with Kristin Newman, author of “What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding: A Memoir,” about falling in love in a different language, plus she provides travel tips for folks who are single and looking. And writer and director Paul Feig (“Freaks and Geeks,” “Bridesmaids”) talks about his civilized approach to shooting movies abroad and why he always travels in a suit and tie …all while answering listener’s travel questions.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin, Alright, not lost, Chat is back. This is my
season of conversations with people who travel, and it's a
fun episode. Later, the actor, writer and director Paul Feige,
(00:36):
the man behind cult hit TV show Freaks and Geeks,
the movie Bridesmaids, and a whole lot more. He's going
to talk a little bit about Northern Ireland, where he
shot his most recent movie, and he'll also talk about
his very chill travel style. I have never flown without
wearing a suit, and time I refused to do it.
All right, well, I don't go that far, but I
(00:59):
do respect the effort. But first, I'm talking with Kristen Newman,
which is no relation to me, Brendan Newnham or Brandy
Newman for that matter. I'm pretty sure about that. Kristen
is the author of a travel memoir entitled What I
Was Doing While You Were Breeding And no, you are
not alone in thinking that's a great title. If I
(01:22):
can tell a name droppy story, and I have a podcast,
so that's not only my right but my responsibility. The
other day I was speaking with David Sedaris, the great
comic writer who I'm working on another project with, and
when I told him the name of Kristen's memoir What
I Was Doing While You Were Breeding, He immediately began laughing,
pulled out a notebook and wrote it down, so you know,
(01:45):
the title is David Sedaris approved. And yes I did
ask him to write down, not lost. Not sure if
he heard me, but in any event, Kristin already knew
she was funny. Her day job is TV writer and producer,
and she has worked on a ton of shows, That
seventies show, How I Met Your Mother, The Muppets just
(02:05):
the name a few, And not only does that speak
to her comedy bona fides, but as anyone who knows
anyone who writes in the TV industry, what's really cool
about that career is that you have a lot of
time off. So when Kristen was working on that seventy
show in particular, she got three months off a year
in between seasons, and so what she did with that
(02:27):
time was travel a lot. And so while a lot
of her friends were getting married and having babies, Kristen
was taking long trips to Patagonia, New Zealand, Brazil, usually alone,
and though she was not breeding, she was definitely mating.
She had flings with and now I'm reading from her
book jacket quote Israeli bartenders, finished poker players, sexy bedwins,
(02:51):
and Argentinian priests who helped transform her into Kristen Adjacent
on the Road, a slower, softer, and yes, sluttier version
of herself at home spicy, And that's the basis of
her best selling book. It came out a few years ago,
but it's recently got new life as a TV show,
(03:13):
which is set to release later this year on free Form.
So yeah, I talked with Christen about her travels, her
search for a partner on the road, and turning her
sexy memoir into television fare. You're such a funny writer,
as you've said in interviews, and I think you say
on good Reads. I'm not a travel writer. I'm a
(03:34):
comedy writer. So would you mind reading the first paragraph
of the prologue? I will? And can I have a
prolog to the prologue? Yes? Okay. So here's the thing
about writing a memoir in the middle of your life
is that you age and you look back upon the
person who wrote the book and you think, I wish
I didn't write that. I don't like that at all.
(03:56):
I want to do a little edit. This is why
people write memoirs at the end of their lives, so
they die and they don't have to deal with the ramification.
So in the very first sentence of this book, there
is a sentence that I really found charming when I
wrote it eight years ago, and now it has a
word in it that I no longer use, and I
feel like, well, things have changed. But anyway, so I'm
(04:18):
going to have that prolog to this prologue. Okay, I
appreciate that. All right, great. The prologue is called I'll
have the House Special, and it starts I am not
a slut in the United States of America. I have
rarely had a fewer than four night stand in the
land of the Free. I don't kiss mary guys or
guys I work with. I don't text people pictures of
(04:39):
my genitalia. I don't go home with boys I meet
in bars before they have at least purchased me a
couple of meals. I've never shown my boobs for beads.
I do not sleep with more than one person at
a time, and sometimes no more than one per year
in America. But I really love to travel. I wanted
you to read that not to so people get a
little bit of your sense of humor. But also I
(05:00):
think that's the thesis statement of this book is this
Christen felt permission to do a whole set of things
outside of America abroad and create a the character called
Kristin adjacent there. Why was it easy to do all
these other things abroad? What about traveling? Well? I have
been thinking about this a lot, especially because I've been
making the TV show about this, and so I sit
(05:21):
in a room with eight writers and have therapy all
day every day because I have to figure out why
this character judges what she does and answer all of
their questions. And I think that a main reason is
just not having the mirror of other people around you,
to have to look at yourself trying on something new,
and just to go somewhere where nobody knows you and
(05:44):
so nobody knows that you're trying something new, and so
there isn't any need for feeling self conscious. It's sort
of like how it's easier to have weird sex with
a stranger than it is to invent something new and
weird with somebody you've been having the same sex with
for ten years. It feels awkward in the ten year
space versus it's a stranger and they're like, this is
(06:04):
her jam. So in a sense, there's like less shame.
You found less shame being other places, And maybe it
had less to do with the actual other places than
it did with just being not America. Yeah, and not
just sexually. But you know, I to talk about how
I feel like you have about twenty thoughts and that's it,
and we just cycle through them over and over again
(06:27):
all day long. And when you go somewhere new, especially
by yourself, there are so many things that take your attention,
like is this alley safe? Should I say yes to
this invitation? How do I pay for vegetables in this
grocery store where they're yelled at me and I clearly
did something wrong and I don't know what it is.
It replaces the thoughts, and just that alone is such
(06:48):
a vacation for me. That's interesting. It's like being off
balance a little bit. It's a sort of a challenge
and it throws you out of yourself, which is exhilarating
in some way and expansive in others. Yeah. Yeah, I
mean it's why you do balance poses in yoga, right,
is it just requires your attention and so you have
to stop thinking about all the other bullshit. Yeah, I
just go to Senior Citizen Yoga so they don't make
(07:10):
us do balance poses a lot of hip work. I
want you to I want you to feel good. However
you feel good, I'm not judging you. So something you
say early in the book too, which relates to what
you're discussing, is quote, love is a way easier word
to use outside the country. Can you talk a little
bit about your intention behind that sentence? Yeah, I mean
(07:30):
I love to fall in love. I love to feel love.
I love to imagine myself as a star in my
own movie. I love to imagine montages that I'm in
the middle of, complete with the song that would be playing.
I am an imaginer, right, but I am also somebody
who I've realized over the years equates the feeling of
(07:50):
yearning with the feeling of love, and inherent in that
is if you do not yearn for someone because they
say love you back, then that feeling goes away and
you wonder, am I in love? But and I love you?
Especially in another language. When everybody knows there's a plane
ticket that somebody is going to use, you can just
(08:14):
get the movie moment and the swelling music and all
of the wonder of it all and just say it
with all of your heart. You know, it wasn't about
having one night stands that made me want to have
travel romances. It was wanting to pretend I had a
boyfriend for four days, you know, wanting to get brought
(08:34):
into his friends, his family, where they have breakfast, where
they go to the beach, all the little inside of
being in somebody else's world and just getting to have
a four day vacation from being single without the you know,
the michigans that comes with it. Yeah, it's freeing in
a way, but it also means you're living in a
(08:55):
fantasy not reality. Have you thought about, you know, whether
there was a downside to these travel flings. I definitely
had to kind of come to terms with that thing,
which is that I associate the feeling of love with
the feeling of yearning and try to redefine that. The
woman in Israel that I met, who I found really fascinating,
(09:17):
who I write about, is this Hasidic woman. Her job
was working as a sex and marriage therapist in Jerusalem,
and one of the things that she was talking about
when I asked her about getting married, is that Hasidic
Jews think of love as not a feeling but an action.
It's a verb, something that you do, and as you
(09:39):
love someone, which is taking care of them and doing
for them, that is what creates love. And that if
you think of love as a feeling, feelings or ephemeral,
they come and go, and so what happens when that
feeling goes? And I've found that in my own life
where I find myself in some relationship where it's become
clear that we're on a competition to do less than
(10:01):
the other, like something is off and somebody feels like
somebody is not giving enough, and so they start giving less,
and then that other persons like, wow, I'm not getting
as much as I'm giving. I'm gonna give less, and
then you just you take this little ladder down until
nobody is giving anything. And I remember one time in
one of those relationships, going, what if I just give
(10:22):
what I want to get? And then I did, and
it was like seconds before everything was transformed and I
got back what I wanted needed to give, And that's
when I understood, like, oh, I see yeah. For the
first season I show I'm kind of roaming from Montreal
to Mexico City and I had just ended a job
in a relationship, and every town I was really going
just to genuinely check it out, but I also was
(10:44):
going being like what if I lived here? Like look
at this apartment, it's gorgeous, or look at this restaurant.
There was this kind of like chasing this new kind
of shiny object. I feel. Yeah, And you know, we
all know about all the studies that say that the
more options you have, the less happy you are. You know,
even if it's picking what kind of chips on the
table in front of you, we definitely are all set
(11:04):
up from misery. But also I learned this thing that
is I put in the pilot of the show because
I find it so fascinating that there is a wanderlust
gene and twenty percent of us have it. And it's
just like this tendency to be restless and curious. And
that was so calming to me and helpful to know
that there is literally a piece of our DNA that
(11:25):
it is programmed to do. And my guess, knowing nothing
at all about anything, is that our ancestors. It makes
sense right that there would be people in the tribe
who are programmed to want to go look over that
next mountain to see if there's better food and water sources,
but that there would be people in the tribe would
be like, all right, we're going to stay here with
the babies and make some more babies in case all
(11:47):
of y'all get eaten, and so the tribe can continue.
And it makes sense that we would be wired to
need to fill both of those functions, And so it
really helped me like understand my father who didn't want
to ever get off the couch to go anywhere. But yeah,
I do think that we have a harder time sitting
still in being happy than people who aren't wired like this.
Do you hear that, Mom? It's science, It's it's not
(12:10):
just me. All right. Well, look, you have a few
rules for traveling abroad that you write out in the book.
They're very strict. They're very strict rules. The first one
I identify the lot. I feel like a lot of
my friends don't understand this, people who've gotten married and
started their lives. And the rules basically, don't book expensive trips.
If you want to meet fun single people, yes, can
(12:32):
you talk a little bit about this for people who
find that confusing. Yeah, I mean the more expensive of
the place, the fewer single people will be there. It's
people on honeymoons, it's people on anniversaries, it is you know,
people who have lived long enough to amass some wealth.
There's a lot of retired people. There's all of that.
In your twenties, just go stay at a hostel. It's
(12:54):
all very simple. In your thirties, everybody is going to
be nineteen at the hostel, except in South America weirdly,
where there's people of all ages who stay at the
nice hostels, which is kind of wonderful. But anyway, the
middle ground is where I always recommend you go. Like
I went on a boat on the Great Barrier Reef.
That the like middle priced boat, because that's people have
existed long enough on Earth that they can afford not
(13:15):
the cheapest one, so they're probably in their thirties. But
it's not the fanciest, so it's not the families and couples,
it's not the old. Now. I'm glad you said that
because I feel like often recently I ended a relationship,
went to Portugal for a few weeks, and people texting
me from the States like, oh, how's it going, you know,
like oo la lah, like there must be some hot romance.
(13:36):
And I was like, I'm of a certain nature. I'm
not staying at youth hostels. I'm not staying out till
five in the morning, and I stay at a hotel.
And you can put yourself in a situation where you're
not going to meet anyone because you want some creature comforts,
and the creature comforts often mean you're not there when
moments of serendipity happens. So yeah, it's interesting. Calibration the
main thing for me because I don't like a tour. However,
(13:59):
there are certain activities that kind of require a guide.
So day trips is a big, big, big, big big
tip for any solo travelers who want to meet people,
because that's where solo travelers all go together and you
suddenly are with twenty people on a bus for the
day going on some sort of excursion. Then that's where
you talk to people because you're together for eight hours
and then you go to dinner with them at night.
(14:21):
And also update, I was in Venice last summer or
two summers ago, and stop by for coffee of this
youth youth hostel. I'm using quotes the kids. They have
it so much better now. Like when I backpacked when
I was eighteen, it was really just a smelly house
where you share bunks with Australians. And now this place
had like Wi Fi, DJs at night, natural wine, you
(14:42):
could rent private rooms, heated floors. I feel like they've
really found that market of twenty thirty somethings. So your
options are no longer like the Four Seasons or you know,
the Kuala Hut in the bad part of town. There's
really some slicker places available to people. Yeah, yeah, it's important.
So you're writing the television version of this now. But
(15:04):
I'm curious about this. I've been interviewing travel writers like
Capital T and you've kind of been thrown amongst this
crew because you wrote this wonderful book that has a
beautiful cover of someone looking out of an airplane. What
is it like being on the travel shelf phones in
certain bookstores as opposed to being, you know, a writer
of that seventy show and chucking other things. Well, just
(15:26):
writing the book was a joy because there's no rules
when you're writing a book, and the way that they're
there's such strict rules about TV and film writing. How
many books have to be on a page, how many
pages are in an episode, where the act breaks have
to be, what the character has to be, all of
those things. So the writing it was a joy. But
my favorite thing is, honestly, it's been translated into a
few different languages, and getting to see it with these
(15:49):
different covers. As you get further into Eastern Europe, the
cover gets progressively kind of more sexualized, Like by the
time you get to Russia, it's just a woman's bare
midriff with passport stamps on her body, like she has
been stamped. So that's fascinating. But my favorite thing is
I get texted or tweeted pictures of the book. Dogeared
(16:12):
that somebody found on a shelf in a hostel somewhere
in the world, or like a lot of people have
tweeted me messages that they bought their first so little
plane ticket after reading it, and then here's a picture
of it, you know, in that location, and so it
lives in the world, which gives me the most joy
on Earth. I call it a one in five star book. Listen,
(16:33):
you're either really into me or you're really not into me.
I am also a one in five star person I think.
And so, you know, part of making a TV show
that's different than a book is there's this likability, likability, relatability, likability.
This word is the word you hear the most about
TV characters, which means when you write a show based
(16:56):
on yourself, you get to get a lot of really
heartbreaking notes about things that the character is doing that
you know don't make sense emotionally, aren't likable. Why why
would she do? Why would we ever root for this
person who has done this? So it's a very personal
journey that you get to take in terms of therapy
(17:17):
that's somehow led to me discovering things that I had
never discovered. So you're now married with a family, and
you're about to go travel to Argentina, this country you
love that means so much to you. Is any part
of you a little bit bummed that you are now
going with like a crew and that you don't get
to be the Christen of your You know, I am
(17:41):
so excited to get to go and see it in
this other way and get to see my family there.
But oh yeah, like do I wish that this TV
show got made before had a six year old, which
also means bringing my mother to help take care of
the six year old. Yes, obviously I was there in
March to scout for a week for the show, and
(18:02):
also trying to figure out where we could all live
and what we could all do while I work fourteen
hours a day, and I'd bring mine higher family parents
has been child to Argentina to keep them happy and
not revolting. And I was like, what is different about Argentina.
I did not feel the same way as I did
eleven years ago when I'm like, God, is Argentina different?
(18:25):
Is it a darker time here? You know what has changed?
And then there was this last morning before I had
to get on the plane where there was no work
to do, and I didn't do anything but just walk
out the doors of my hotel and just turn which
direction I felt like turning, and then just walk until
I was hungry, and then just pee when I needed
to pee, and not stop at any other point for
(18:47):
anyone else to pee. And I was like, oh, it
was immediately back, like I immediately received Argentina the way
I remembered it again, and I'm like, oh shit, the
trick of this magical place was that I didn't have
to worry about anybody but myself, and I didn't have
to have any plans for anybody but me. And inherently
(19:10):
in the way I'm returning, I am taking the magic away,
your footloose and fancy freeze days behind you. But maybe
there's a whole new type of experience that a way too,
I'm hoping. Yeah. Well, look, I really look forward to
the television show. Thank you so much for taking the
time to talk to me today, and thanks for writing
this book. And I feel like filling in a blind
spot in the cannon here it's appreciated. Well, thank you
(19:32):
for liking it and reading it, and thank you for chatting.
This was so fun. That was Kristen Newman. Her memoir
is called What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding,
and the TV show based on it will be out
on Hulu and free Form this may. Since we've established
(19:53):
that people successful in the TV world have time to travel,
I'm going to invite another one on. Paul Fieg will
be joining us in a moment to help answer your
travel questions. He has traveled the world and he has
some keen observations about it. Well, we go on vacation.
We're all the background for everybody else's vacation photos and
vacation in general. Not Lost. We'll be right back, all right,
(20:32):
Welcome back to Not Lost Chat. It is now time
for the part of the show where I bring in
a well traveled guest or frequent flyer to help answer
some of your travel questions. Today I am talking with actor, filmmaker,
writer and producer Paul Feig. He's behind a ton of
popular TV shows and movies like Freaks and Geeks, Ghostbusters, Bridesmaids,
(20:54):
and Minks. His latest project is a film called The
School for Good and Evil, which is filmed in Northern Ireland.
And he's also got a new cocktail book out called
Cocktail Time. And when I met with him, he was
certainly dressed for Cocktail Hour. He had on a dapper
navy cardigan with a dark blue purple tie over a
light purple button up. Forgive me, but I am. I
(21:18):
am shamefully underdressed. For no, I'm dressed like somebody's grandpa.
As I apologize, I no, no, But do you ever
have a casual day, Paul, Like, do you ever? This
is a casual day for me? Okay, I know the
cardigan and all that. I feel a little like mister Rogers.
But um, if I'm just like at home writing and
that's it, then I'll put on, you know, something like
a flannel shirt and jeans, just like a bow tie,
exactly exactly. It depends. It depends how cold it is too.
(21:40):
I'm in New York right now and the window has
this crazy draft, so Grandpa has to bundle up while
he's here. Well, it looks, it looks charming, and it's
consistent with Actually, I think one of your projects, one
of your many, which is your book Cocktail Time, which
came out, which you know, Grandpa probably is a different
sort of cocktail Time. But I think part of the
mission of this book it's about grown ups. Actually, it's
(22:01):
not necessarily about getting annihilated on gin, although that can
be part of the probat. Do you want to talk
a little bit about the ethos behind you're this project? Yeah,
I mean it kind of started because when we went
into lockdown, I decided to do an Instagram live show
every day for one hundred days to raise money for
first responders and to learn how to make cocktails at
all that. But the book, you know, the book started
(22:23):
is people were just like, can you write down all
the recipes and put them in a book? So I did,
but then started realizing, like I wanted this to represent
so much more. And my whole thing about life is
I think there's too many guys, especially especially my age,
you know, definitely too many guys, many guys in general. Yes,
we can all agree on that good point. No, I
(22:43):
just think there's too many guys who are trying to
hang onto this idea of being a teenager. And I
find that really sad, especially when you get into like thirties, forties, fifties,
because you're not fooling anybody. But the biggest thing is
why why do you want that? Why do you want
to hang on too? I mean, unless you like like
ruled when you were a teenager, I don't know who did,
(23:07):
why would you not want to jettison those and go like,
let's be grown ups and have grown up fun. You know.
That's the biggest thing about the book for me, is like,
it's fun to be a grown up, and I really
want to impress that on people. I'm with you. I
actually I'm thinking about that. Maybe Tony Hawk like he
can stay sixteen forever because apparently his genetics allow him exactly,
and he did have a pretty pretty good teen years.
(23:27):
But for the rest of us exactly, well you only
just just on that point. I think it was with
Richard E. Grant we had dinner name drop and thank you,
but I think I think it was him. He said, Basically, people,
especially guys, freeze at the age they got famous, you know,
so like if you got famous you're eighteen, you sort
(23:49):
of never mentally go past that, you know. So I
think I'm going to age gracefully because I've never been famous.
So there. So you travel a lot for work. Your
most recent film, The School for Good and Evil, came
out in October. It was shot in Northern Ireland, and
I'm thinking, like about this kind of grown up like atmosphere.
You know, it's cocktail, but it's dim light, it's good music,
(24:10):
it's conversation with other adults with out interruption. How do
you find that when you're going somewhere Like I know
you had a job to do a Northern Ireland, but
you know you had some weekends and some follow time,
Like do you do any advanced research for for bars?
Like how do you get how do you get your
reader usually I do. I do a lot of research
on where to eat, where to go, where where the
(24:31):
best bars are, like you said, but this was weird
because we were going in during lockdown, So so for
more than anything, it was like, where's the best liquor stores?
You know, who's got the best selection so I can
stock up the house, you know. And I got this
great apartment that had this huge kitchen, and so I
just decided I'm just gonna cook for people. So you know,
it's like, hey, you know, come on over and I'm
(24:52):
gonna just cook a chicken or whatever and let's just
sit around and have drinks and have fun. But yeah,
in general, my wife, Laurie, she's what we call the CEO,
the chief entertainment officer, because she will normally and during
a normal production period, we'll organize parties on the weekend
and usually she loved to find a body of water
and then we always have these kind of like boat parties,
(25:13):
you know, we go out food and drink and dance. Yeah,
it's really fun. So, yeah, how does film insurance work
when you're getting people drunk on a boat and it's
part of your Yeah, it's always a dicey proposition. All right. Well,
speaking of propositions, I believe the advertisers might have a
few for my audience, So I need to put a
(25:33):
break in here. But when I get back, will you
give me a hand answering travel questions submitted by our audience.
I will give it a shot. Great, Okay, Not Lost Chat,
We'll be right back. All right, Welcome back to Not
Lost Chat. I am joined by writer, director and bomb
vivon Paul Feig, and we are now going to answer
(25:55):
your travel questions. Remember you can always submit your travel
questions to not Lost at pushkin dot FM. Are you ready, Paul?
Take everything I say with a grain of salt, people
out there, but bring it on. All right, Well, let
me find one here. Okay, I think I knew the
answer for this one, and it's not even on my list,
but it's always on my mind and it has been
(26:17):
out exactly. No, the question is airplanes dressing? What are
the rules of the road? You're talking? You're talking the
right guy for this. I've never flown without wearing a
suit and time I refused to do it. I just
because I you know, look, I get it. Share the
philosophy behind that. Yeah, Well I just think if you
(26:38):
lose respect for sort of miraculous things, and we've completely
forgotten that, like flying is a miracle that we can
do it, you know, And so to me, it's just like,
why would you treat it like anything other than that.
I get it, you know, you go through security and
the tear you to part and all that stuff, so
it's much easier to have the sweatpants and be able
(26:59):
to knock off your flip flops. But at the same time,
is that really the image you want to present to
the world when you're flying. I just I like that pageantry,
and I I mean, all I know is every time
I fly, everybody the airports, all the flight attendants, everybody
just like, oh my god, you should dressed up. That's
so nice, Like they appreciate it, you know. Yeah, I
think there's just something nice about it. And from a
(27:20):
practical point of view, it's one less suit you have
to pack, So there you go. I think having kind
of a uniform when you arrive someplace and then you
get to your hotel and then you want to go
downstairs and have a drink, you can change out of
your kind of travel armor. I agree, And then you
decide your mode. If you want to exercise, you put
on your exercise clothes. If you want to, you know,
go take a walk, maybe you put on sneakers. But yeah,
(27:41):
if you're always dressed the exact same way all the time,
there's no delineation point in your day. I'm so with you.
Years ago, I wrote an article for Esquire called responsible Tourism,
and the idea behind it is, well, we go on vacation.
We're all the background for everybody else's vacation photos and
vacation in general. You know, So that's that's an interesting Yeah. So,
like we go to Capri, you know, which we love,
(28:03):
and I always wear something nice, some kind of like
vacation wear or something, you know, jacket, And when we're
taking picture and I got a bunch of people in
like tiva's and cargo shorts and all that behind me,
it's like, well, now you've ruined my movie. I made
your movie look really good because they're like, oh look
how classy that is. And I got I'm stick with you. Yeah,
so yeah, you're messing up the scenes. That is interesting. Yeah,
(28:25):
all right, I have some actual questions now that aren't
just my arm. This one comes from Greta in New
York City, and she writes, generally, when we travel, my
husband thinks we should book the cheapest possible hotel room.
After all, he says, we're only going to be sleeping there.
I disagree. I want the place we are staying, even
just for a night, to have a great vibe. Who
is right? Lol? Stakes are medium, but she has she
(28:49):
has a good question. I say, Greta's right by all means.
I mean, look, it is true. And my wife and
I grapple with that sometimes too, because you know, sometimes
you'll get a chance to get like a really good room,
and it's like, are we going to be in it
enough to use it? But it's also the bed you're
gonna be on, the sheets that they're gonna have, what
the bathroom's gonna be, like, how they take care of you?
Now it's yeah, I mean, you know, as much as
(29:09):
you can. And I'm not saying, like, you know, go bankrupt,
but if you can afford it, get get the nicest
room you can afford. That doesn't, you know, put you
in trouble. Yeah, I think it's good. Yeah, it's because
it's a holistic experience, and sometimes you end up spending
more time than you want, or maybe you're happy to
spend more time in your hotel room. Yeah, so there
you go, Greta, that's that's our guidance for you. There
you go. Okay. This question comes from Maya and she asks,
(29:33):
if you're traveling with someone, is it okay if you
both want to do something different? Is it okay to
part ways for a bit on the trip to do
your own thing? Yes? Yes. My wife and I've been
married for twenty eight years, twenty eight happy years, together
for thirty two and you're like thirty four years old week.
I met her in the maternity ward when I was just,
I mean, creepy but beautiful exactly. So we always say
(29:55):
that the most successful relationships are where you're not tied
at the hip. You have to be able to spend
time apart, because look, I'm saying, there's probably couples have
been married for fifty years and never been out of
each other's sight. But I think that's a that's a
lot of pressure to put on on a relationship. And
it's worse if you go like one person wants to
do someone that a person doesn't really and you go
(30:17):
together and that person's like, you know, having a bad
time or being a downer, you're gonna have the big
fight versus if you just go off, have the greatest time.
Come back. You got stuff to talk about dinner? What
you did? You know? Yeah, get somebody a little present
while you're out, so then you can surprise, like, oh
look what I picked up when I was out. You know,
make it a fun thing. But but yeah, don't be
tied to the hid and and just the low level
(30:38):
tension you have. Bringing someone to museum that they were
ambivalent about almost undermines the whole trip for you. And
you're there all day. There's three meals, four five opportunities
to drink and eat. Yeah, you can always mix it up.
So yeah, I say, may I feel comfortable breaking away
from whoever it is. Yeah. I've heard a lot of
fights in places of like, oh you're actually you don't
(30:59):
want to be here. It's like, oh God, I'm like, oh,
I bet I bet that person didn't want to be there.
All right, Paulicians, you're so good at this. I'm gonna
throw one more out at you. I love this just
from Ashley from maryl Astley writes, I've always been nervous
about asking folks in the security line about cutting in
front of them when I'm running late for a flight.
I've never skipped a line, and I've miss flights because
of it. When do you think it's acceptable to cut
(31:21):
the line? What's the best way to ask the folks
in line. I'm with her, like, I'm really I don't
like to do that, you know, especially on my own.
What the times I've been able to do it is
when somebody who works at the airport and you're like,
before you get in the line, you're like, I'm in trouble,
we got held up or whatever, could you help me?
(31:41):
They will generally do it when you're doing it yourself.
I don't when people ask me is I was like,
all right, you know my head, I'm like, well you
should have got here, not like you know, that's on
you for That's a little bit of the thing. I
think you're right if you can have an escort, okay,
But otherwise, no matter what you say, no one's gonna
believe you. Everyone's gonna be resentful. Even Gandhi would be
angry in a security line if someone starts barging up
(32:04):
the path. Yeah, exactly, I did like the picture though
of you, you know, coming in late but dressed like
you are for the airport, like oh great, you know,
like James Bond. It needs to cut in front of me. Oh,
I know, like the rich guys getting in here. It's like, no,
I didn't want to pack my suit. I swear, I'm
not a jerk. I was running late because we liked
our hotel rooms. It's right. I couldn't get out of
(32:25):
the room. I was student. I was emptying the mini
bar Um. Paul, thank you so much for helping with
our etiquette questions or travel etiquette questions. Love and this
is a wonderful chat. Thank you so much. It's great.
Great Jude talk to you. There's a lot of fun.
That was Paul fig check out his new film The
(32:47):
School for Good and Evil, which I don't think it's
a Montessori school. And also you can pick up his
book Cocktail Time, which by the way, pairs well with
another book about adult fun called Brunch's hell. Um, I'm
spacing the name of the authors on that one, but um,
you can google it. Okay, that's it for this edition.
(33:07):
I'm not lost chat. As always, if you have traveled
questions that you want answered in a future episode, please
email me at Not Lost at Pushkin dot Fm or
ping me at BF Newnham on Twitter. Not Lost Chat
could not have been made without producer Jordan Bailey, who
is currently I Think at home this week, so that's
a new development resting for a future trip, I'm sure.
(33:30):
The show was written and hosted by Me Brendan Francis Nunham,
booking assistance from Laura Morgan. This episode was edited by
Sarah Nis. Thank you Sarah. We also had assistance from
managing producer Jacob Smith and our mix engineer and co
producer is the Really Wonderful Sarah Bruguerre Not Lost as
a co production of Pushkin Industries, Topic Studios and iHeartMedia.
(33:54):
It was developed at Topic Studios and yes, there are
some executive producers on this show. Executive producers include Me
Brendan Francis Nunham, Christy Gressman, Maria Zuckerman, Lisa Langang and
La tom lad And if you dig, what you tell
a friend, Tell the person behind you on the TSA line,
Tell the person in front of you in the coffee line,
(34:16):
make a comment at Apple Podcast, Spread the word. It's
really appreciated. And if you like what you hear, I
want to learn about more stuff happening at Pushkin, you
can sign up for the Pushkin newsletter at pushkin dot
fm slash Newsletter. And if you just want to find
some more things to listen to a Pushkin, you can
use the iHeartRadio app. You can head to Apple Podcasts,
or you know, go wherever you listen to podcast. That
(34:40):
is it for this episode. Thanks everybody, bomb Voyag
Pushkin, Alright, not lost, Chat is back. This is my
season of conversations with people who travel, and it's a
fun episode. Later, the actor, writer and director Paul Feige,
(00:36):
the man behind cult hit TV show Freaks and Geeks,
the movie Bridesmaids, and a whole lot more. He's going
to talk a little bit about Northern Ireland, where he
shot his most recent movie, and he'll also talk about
his very chill travel style. I have never flown without
wearing a suit, and time I refused to do it.
All right, well, I don't go that far, but I
(00:59):
do respect the effort. But first, I'm talking with Kristen Newman,
which is no relation to me, Brendan Newnham or Brandy
Newman for that matter. I'm pretty sure about that. Kristen
is the author of a travel memoir entitled What I
Was Doing While You Were Breeding And no, you are
not alone in thinking that's a great title. If I
(01:22):
can tell a name droppy story, and I have a podcast,
so that's not only my right but my responsibility. The
other day I was speaking with David Sedaris, the great
comic writer who I'm working on another project with, and
when I told him the name of Kristen's memoir What
I Was Doing While You Were Breeding, He immediately began laughing,
pulled out a notebook and wrote it down, so you know,
(01:45):
the title is David Sedaris approved. And yes I did
ask him to write down, not lost. Not sure if
he heard me, but in any event, Kristin already knew
she was funny. Her day job is TV writer and producer,
and she has worked on a ton of shows, That
seventies show, How I Met Your Mother, The Muppets just
(02:05):
the name a few, And not only does that speak
to her comedy bona fides, but as anyone who knows
anyone who writes in the TV industry, what's really cool
about that career is that you have a lot of
time off. So when Kristen was working on that seventy
show in particular, she got three months off a year
in between seasons, and so what she did with that
(02:27):
time was travel a lot. And so while a lot
of her friends were getting married and having babies, Kristen
was taking long trips to Patagonia, New Zealand, Brazil, usually alone,
and though she was not breeding, she was definitely mating.
She had flings with and now I'm reading from her
book jacket quote Israeli bartenders, finished poker players, sexy bedwins,
(02:51):
and Argentinian priests who helped transform her into Kristen Adjacent
on the Road, a slower, softer, and yes, sluttier version
of herself at home spicy, And that's the basis of
her best selling book. It came out a few years ago,
but it's recently got new life as a TV show,
(03:13):
which is set to release later this year on free Form.
So yeah, I talked with Christen about her travels, her
search for a partner on the road, and turning her
sexy memoir into television fare. You're such a funny writer,
as you've said in interviews, and I think you say
on good Reads. I'm not a travel writer. I'm a
(03:34):
comedy writer. So would you mind reading the first paragraph
of the prologue? I will? And can I have a
prolog to the prologue? Yes? Okay. So here's the thing
about writing a memoir in the middle of your life
is that you age and you look back upon the
person who wrote the book and you think, I wish
I didn't write that. I don't like that at all.
(03:56):
I want to do a little edit. This is why
people write memoirs at the end of their lives, so
they die and they don't have to deal with the ramification.
So in the very first sentence of this book, there
is a sentence that I really found charming when I
wrote it eight years ago, and now it has a
word in it that I no longer use, and I
feel like, well, things have changed. But anyway, so I'm
(04:18):
going to have that prolog to this prologue. Okay, I
appreciate that. All right, great. The prologue is called I'll
have the House Special, and it starts I am not
a slut in the United States of America. I have
rarely had a fewer than four night stand in the
land of the Free. I don't kiss mary guys or
guys I work with. I don't text people pictures of
(04:39):
my genitalia. I don't go home with boys I meet
in bars before they have at least purchased me a
couple of meals. I've never shown my boobs for beads.
I do not sleep with more than one person at
a time, and sometimes no more than one per year
in America. But I really love to travel. I wanted
you to read that not to so people get a
little bit of your sense of humor. But also I
(05:00):
think that's the thesis statement of this book is this
Christen felt permission to do a whole set of things
outside of America abroad and create a the character called
Kristin adjacent there. Why was it easy to do all
these other things abroad? What about traveling? Well? I have
been thinking about this a lot, especially because I've been
making the TV show about this, and so I sit
(05:21):
in a room with eight writers and have therapy all
day every day because I have to figure out why
this character judges what she does and answer all of
their questions. And I think that a main reason is
just not having the mirror of other people around you,
to have to look at yourself trying on something new,
and just to go somewhere where nobody knows you and
(05:44):
so nobody knows that you're trying something new, and so
there isn't any need for feeling self conscious. It's sort
of like how it's easier to have weird sex with
a stranger than it is to invent something new and
weird with somebody you've been having the same sex with
for ten years. It feels awkward in the ten year
space versus it's a stranger and they're like, this is
(06:04):
her jam. So in a sense, there's like less shame.
You found less shame being other places, And maybe it
had less to do with the actual other places than
it did with just being not America. Yeah, and not
just sexually. But you know, I to talk about how
I feel like you have about twenty thoughts and that's it,
and we just cycle through them over and over again
(06:27):
all day long. And when you go somewhere new, especially
by yourself, there are so many things that take your attention,
like is this alley safe? Should I say yes to
this invitation? How do I pay for vegetables in this
grocery store where they're yelled at me and I clearly
did something wrong and I don't know what it is.
It replaces the thoughts, and just that alone is such
(06:48):
a vacation for me. That's interesting. It's like being off
balance a little bit. It's a sort of a challenge
and it throws you out of yourself, which is exhilarating
in some way and expansive in others. Yeah. Yeah, I
mean it's why you do balance poses in yoga, right,
is it just requires your attention and so you have
to stop thinking about all the other bullshit. Yeah, I
just go to Senior Citizen Yoga so they don't make
(07:10):
us do balance poses a lot of hip work. I
want you to I want you to feel good. However
you feel good, I'm not judging you. So something you
say early in the book too, which relates to what
you're discussing, is quote, love is a way easier word
to use outside the country. Can you talk a little
bit about your intention behind that sentence? Yeah, I mean
(07:30):
I love to fall in love. I love to feel love.
I love to imagine myself as a star in my
own movie. I love to imagine montages that I'm in
the middle of, complete with the song that would be playing.
I am an imaginer, right, but I am also somebody
who I've realized over the years equates the feeling of
(07:50):
yearning with the feeling of love, and inherent in that
is if you do not yearn for someone because they
say love you back, then that feeling goes away and
you wonder, am I in love? But and I love you?
Especially in another language. When everybody knows there's a plane
ticket that somebody is going to use, you can just
(08:14):
get the movie moment and the swelling music and all
of the wonder of it all and just say it
with all of your heart. You know, it wasn't about
having one night stands that made me want to have
travel romances. It was wanting to pretend I had a
boyfriend for four days, you know, wanting to get brought
(08:34):
into his friends, his family, where they have breakfast, where
they go to the beach, all the little inside of
being in somebody else's world and just getting to have
a four day vacation from being single without the you know,
the michigans that comes with it. Yeah, it's freeing in
a way, but it also means you're living in a
(08:55):
fantasy not reality. Have you thought about, you know, whether
there was a downside to these travel flings. I definitely
had to kind of come to terms with that thing,
which is that I associate the feeling of love with
the feeling of yearning and try to redefine that. The
woman in Israel that I met, who I found really fascinating,
(09:17):
who I write about, is this Hasidic woman. Her job
was working as a sex and marriage therapist in Jerusalem,
and one of the things that she was talking about
when I asked her about getting married, is that Hasidic
Jews think of love as not a feeling but an action.
It's a verb, something that you do, and as you
(09:39):
love someone, which is taking care of them and doing
for them, that is what creates love. And that if
you think of love as a feeling, feelings or ephemeral,
they come and go, and so what happens when that
feeling goes? And I've found that in my own life
where I find myself in some relationship where it's become
clear that we're on a competition to do less than
(10:01):
the other, like something is off and somebody feels like
somebody is not giving enough, and so they start giving less,
and then that other persons like, wow, I'm not getting
as much as I'm giving. I'm gonna give less, and
then you just you take this little ladder down until
nobody is giving anything. And I remember one time in
one of those relationships, going, what if I just give
(10:22):
what I want to get? And then I did, and
it was like seconds before everything was transformed and I
got back what I wanted needed to give, And that's
when I understood, like, oh, I see yeah. For the
first season I show I'm kind of roaming from Montreal
to Mexico City and I had just ended a job
in a relationship, and every town I was really going
just to genuinely check it out, but I also was
(10:44):
going being like what if I lived here? Like look
at this apartment, it's gorgeous, or look at this restaurant.
There was this kind of like chasing this new kind
of shiny object. I feel. Yeah, And you know, we
all know about all the studies that say that the
more options you have, the less happy you are. You know,
even if it's picking what kind of chips on the
table in front of you, we definitely are all set
(11:04):
up from misery. But also I learned this thing that
is I put in the pilot of the show because
I find it so fascinating that there is a wanderlust
gene and twenty percent of us have it. And it's
just like this tendency to be restless and curious. And
that was so calming to me and helpful to know
that there is literally a piece of our DNA that
(11:25):
it is programmed to do. And my guess, knowing nothing
at all about anything, is that our ancestors. It makes
sense right that there would be people in the tribe
who are programmed to want to go look over that
next mountain to see if there's better food and water sources,
but that there would be people in the tribe would
be like, all right, we're going to stay here with
the babies and make some more babies in case all
(11:47):
of y'all get eaten, and so the tribe can continue.
And it makes sense that we would be wired to
need to fill both of those functions, And so it
really helped me like understand my father who didn't want
to ever get off the couch to go anywhere. But yeah,
I do think that we have a harder time sitting
still in being happy than people who aren't wired like this.
Do you hear that, Mom? It's science, It's it's not
(12:10):
just me. All right. Well, look, you have a few
rules for traveling abroad that you write out in the book.
They're very strict. They're very strict rules. The first one
I identify the lot. I feel like a lot of
my friends don't understand this, people who've gotten married and
started their lives. And the rules basically, don't book expensive trips.
If you want to meet fun single people, yes, can
(12:32):
you talk a little bit about this for people who
find that confusing. Yeah, I mean the more expensive of
the place, the fewer single people will be there. It's
people on honeymoons, it's people on anniversaries, it is you know,
people who have lived long enough to amass some wealth.
There's a lot of retired people. There's all of that.
In your twenties, just go stay at a hostel. It's
(12:54):
all very simple. In your thirties, everybody is going to
be nineteen at the hostel, except in South America weirdly,
where there's people of all ages who stay at the
nice hostels, which is kind of wonderful. But anyway, the
middle ground is where I always recommend you go. Like
I went on a boat on the Great Barrier Reef.
That the like middle priced boat, because that's people have
existed long enough on Earth that they can afford not
(13:15):
the cheapest one, so they're probably in their thirties. But
it's not the fanciest, so it's not the families and couples,
it's not the old. Now. I'm glad you said that
because I feel like often recently I ended a relationship,
went to Portugal for a few weeks, and people texting
me from the States like, oh, how's it going, you know,
like oo la lah, like there must be some hot romance.
(13:36):
And I was like, I'm of a certain nature. I'm
not staying at youth hostels. I'm not staying out till
five in the morning, and I stay at a hotel.
And you can put yourself in a situation where you're
not going to meet anyone because you want some creature comforts,
and the creature comforts often mean you're not there when
moments of serendipity happens. So yeah, it's interesting. Calibration the
main thing for me because I don't like a tour. However,
(13:59):
there are certain activities that kind of require a guide.
So day trips is a big, big, big, big big
tip for any solo travelers who want to meet people,
because that's where solo travelers all go together and you
suddenly are with twenty people on a bus for the
day going on some sort of excursion. Then that's where
you talk to people because you're together for eight hours
and then you go to dinner with them at night.
(14:21):
And also update, I was in Venice last summer or
two summers ago, and stop by for coffee of this
youth youth hostel. I'm using quotes the kids. They have
it so much better now. Like when I backpacked when
I was eighteen, it was really just a smelly house
where you share bunks with Australians. And now this place
had like Wi Fi, DJs at night, natural wine, you
(14:42):
could rent private rooms, heated floors. I feel like they've
really found that market of twenty thirty somethings. So your
options are no longer like the Four Seasons or you know,
the Kuala Hut in the bad part of town. There's
really some slicker places available to people. Yeah, yeah, it's important.
So you're writing the television version of this now. But
(15:04):
I'm curious about this. I've been interviewing travel writers like
Capital T and you've kind of been thrown amongst this
crew because you wrote this wonderful book that has a
beautiful cover of someone looking out of an airplane. What
is it like being on the travel shelf phones in
certain bookstores as opposed to being, you know, a writer
of that seventy show and chucking other things. Well, just
(15:26):
writing the book was a joy because there's no rules
when you're writing a book, and the way that they're
there's such strict rules about TV and film writing. How
many books have to be on a page, how many
pages are in an episode, where the act breaks have
to be, what the character has to be, all of
those things. So the writing it was a joy. But
my favorite thing is, honestly, it's been translated into a
few different languages, and getting to see it with these
(15:49):
different covers. As you get further into Eastern Europe, the
cover gets progressively kind of more sexualized, Like by the
time you get to Russia, it's just a woman's bare
midriff with passport stamps on her body, like she has
been stamped. So that's fascinating. But my favorite thing is
I get texted or tweeted pictures of the book. Dogeared
(16:12):
that somebody found on a shelf in a hostel somewhere
in the world, or like a lot of people have
tweeted me messages that they bought their first so little
plane ticket after reading it, and then here's a picture
of it, you know, in that location, and so it
lives in the world, which gives me the most joy
on Earth. I call it a one in five star book. Listen,
(16:33):
you're either really into me or you're really not into me.
I am also a one in five star person I think.
And so, you know, part of making a TV show
that's different than a book is there's this likability, likability, relatability, likability.
This word is the word you hear the most about
TV characters, which means when you write a show based
(16:56):
on yourself, you get to get a lot of really
heartbreaking notes about things that the character is doing that
you know don't make sense emotionally, aren't likable. Why why
would she do? Why would we ever root for this
person who has done this? So it's a very personal
journey that you get to take in terms of therapy
(17:17):
that's somehow led to me discovering things that I had
never discovered. So you're now married with a family, and
you're about to go travel to Argentina, this country you
love that means so much to you. Is any part
of you a little bit bummed that you are now
going with like a crew and that you don't get
to be the Christen of your You know, I am
(17:41):
so excited to get to go and see it in
this other way and get to see my family there.
But oh yeah, like do I wish that this TV
show got made before had a six year old, which
also means bringing my mother to help take care of
the six year old. Yes, obviously I was there in
March to scout for a week for the show, and
(18:02):
also trying to figure out where we could all live
and what we could all do while I work fourteen
hours a day, and I'd bring mine higher family parents
has been child to Argentina to keep them happy and
not revolting. And I was like, what is different about Argentina.
I did not feel the same way as I did
eleven years ago when I'm like, God, is Argentina different?
(18:25):
Is it a darker time here? You know what has changed?
And then there was this last morning before I had
to get on the plane where there was no work
to do, and I didn't do anything but just walk
out the doors of my hotel and just turn which
direction I felt like turning, and then just walk until
I was hungry, and then just pee when I needed
to pee, and not stop at any other point for
(18:47):
anyone else to pee. And I was like, oh, it
was immediately back, like I immediately received Argentina the way
I remembered it again, and I'm like, oh shit, the
trick of this magical place was that I didn't have
to worry about anybody but myself, and I didn't have
to have any plans for anybody but me. And inherently
(19:10):
in the way I'm returning, I am taking the magic away,
your footloose and fancy freeze days behind you. But maybe
there's a whole new type of experience that a way too,
I'm hoping. Yeah. Well, look, I really look forward to
the television show. Thank you so much for taking the
time to talk to me today, and thanks for writing
this book. And I feel like filling in a blind
spot in the cannon here it's appreciated. Well, thank you
(19:32):
for liking it and reading it, and thank you for chatting.
This was so fun. That was Kristen Newman. Her memoir
is called What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding,
and the TV show based on it will be out
on Hulu and free Form this may. Since we've established
(19:53):
that people successful in the TV world have time to travel,
I'm going to invite another one on. Paul Fieg will
be joining us in a moment to help answer your
travel questions. He has traveled the world and he has
some keen observations about it. Well, we go on vacation.
We're all the background for everybody else's vacation photos and
vacation in general. Not Lost. We'll be right back, all right,
(20:32):
Welcome back to Not Lost Chat. It is now time
for the part of the show where I bring in
a well traveled guest or frequent flyer to help answer
some of your travel questions. Today I am talking with actor, filmmaker,
writer and producer Paul Feig. He's behind a ton of
popular TV shows and movies like Freaks and Geeks, Ghostbusters, Bridesmaids,
(20:54):
and Minks. His latest project is a film called The
School for Good and Evil, which is filmed in Northern Ireland.
And he's also got a new cocktail book out called
Cocktail Time. And when I met with him, he was
certainly dressed for Cocktail Hour. He had on a dapper
navy cardigan with a dark blue purple tie over a
light purple button up. Forgive me, but I am. I
(21:18):
am shamefully underdressed. For no, I'm dressed like somebody's grandpa.
As I apologize, I no, no, But do you ever
have a casual day, Paul, Like, do you ever? This
is a casual day for me? Okay, I know the
cardigan and all that. I feel a little like mister Rogers.
But um, if I'm just like at home writing and
that's it, then I'll put on, you know, something like
a flannel shirt and jeans, just like a bow tie,
exactly exactly. It depends. It depends how cold it is too.
(21:40):
I'm in New York right now and the window has
this crazy draft, so Grandpa has to bundle up while
he's here. Well, it looks, it looks charming, and it's
consistent with Actually, I think one of your projects, one
of your many, which is your book Cocktail Time, which
came out, which you know, Grandpa probably is a different
sort of cocktail Time. But I think part of the
mission of this book it's about grown ups. Actually, it's
(22:01):
not necessarily about getting annihilated on gin, although that can
be part of the probat. Do you want to talk
a little bit about the ethos behind you're this project? Yeah,
I mean it kind of started because when we went
into lockdown, I decided to do an Instagram live show
every day for one hundred days to raise money for
first responders and to learn how to make cocktails at
all that. But the book, you know, the book started
(22:23):
is people were just like, can you write down all
the recipes and put them in a book? So I did,
but then started realizing, like I wanted this to represent
so much more. And my whole thing about life is
I think there's too many guys, especially especially my age,
you know, definitely too many guys, many guys in general. Yes,
we can all agree on that good point. No, I
(22:43):
just think there's too many guys who are trying to
hang onto this idea of being a teenager. And I
find that really sad, especially when you get into like thirties, forties, fifties,
because you're not fooling anybody. But the biggest thing is
why why do you want that? Why do you want
to hang on too? I mean, unless you like like
ruled when you were a teenager, I don't know who did,
(23:07):
why would you not want to jettison those and go like,
let's be grown ups and have grown up fun. You know.
That's the biggest thing about the book for me, is like,
it's fun to be a grown up, and I really
want to impress that on people. I'm with you. I
actually I'm thinking about that. Maybe Tony Hawk like he
can stay sixteen forever because apparently his genetics allow him exactly,
and he did have a pretty pretty good teen years.
(23:27):
But for the rest of us exactly, well you only
just just on that point. I think it was with
Richard E. Grant we had dinner name drop and thank you,
but I think I think it was him. He said, Basically, people,
especially guys, freeze at the age they got famous, you know,
so like if you got famous you're eighteen, you sort
(23:49):
of never mentally go past that, you know. So I
think I'm going to age gracefully because I've never been famous.
So there. So you travel a lot for work. Your
most recent film, The School for Good and Evil, came
out in October. It was shot in Northern Ireland, and
I'm thinking, like about this kind of grown up like atmosphere.
You know, it's cocktail, but it's dim light, it's good music,
(24:10):
it's conversation with other adults with out interruption. How do
you find that when you're going somewhere Like I know
you had a job to do a Northern Ireland, but
you know you had some weekends and some follow time,
Like do you do any advanced research for for bars?
Like how do you get how do you get your
reader usually I do. I do a lot of research
on where to eat, where to go, where where the
(24:31):
best bars are, like you said, but this was weird
because we were going in during lockdown, So so for
more than anything, it was like, where's the best liquor stores?
You know, who's got the best selection so I can
stock up the house, you know. And I got this
great apartment that had this huge kitchen, and so I
just decided I'm just gonna cook for people. So you know,
it's like, hey, you know, come on over and I'm
(24:52):
gonna just cook a chicken or whatever and let's just
sit around and have drinks and have fun. But yeah,
in general, my wife, Laurie, she's what we call the CEO,
the chief entertainment officer, because she will normally and during
a normal production period, we'll organize parties on the weekend
and usually she loved to find a body of water
and then we always have these kind of like boat parties,
(25:13):
you know, we go out food and drink and dance. Yeah,
it's really fun. So, yeah, how does film insurance work
when you're getting people drunk on a boat and it's
part of your Yeah, it's always a dicey proposition. All right. Well,
speaking of propositions, I believe the advertisers might have a
few for my audience, So I need to put a
(25:33):
break in here. But when I get back, will you
give me a hand answering travel questions submitted by our audience.
I will give it a shot. Great, Okay, Not Lost Chat,
We'll be right back. All right, Welcome back to Not
Lost Chat. I am joined by writer, director and bomb
vivon Paul Feig, and we are now going to answer
(25:55):
your travel questions. Remember you can always submit your travel
questions to not Lost at pushkin dot FM. Are you ready, Paul?
Take everything I say with a grain of salt, people
out there, but bring it on. All right, Well, let
me find one here. Okay, I think I knew the
answer for this one, and it's not even on my list,
but it's always on my mind and it has been
(26:17):
out exactly. No, the question is airplanes dressing? What are
the rules of the road? You're talking? You're talking the
right guy for this. I've never flown without wearing a
suit and time I refused to do it. I just
because I you know, look, I get it. Share the
philosophy behind that. Yeah, Well I just think if you
(26:38):
lose respect for sort of miraculous things, and we've completely
forgotten that, like flying is a miracle that we can
do it, you know, And so to me, it's just like,
why would you treat it like anything other than that.
I get it, you know, you go through security and
the tear you to part and all that stuff, so
it's much easier to have the sweatpants and be able
(26:59):
to knock off your flip flops. But at the same time,
is that really the image you want to present to
the world when you're flying. I just I like that pageantry,
and I I mean, all I know is every time
I fly, everybody the airports, all the flight attendants, everybody
just like, oh my god, you should dressed up. That's
so nice, Like they appreciate it, you know. Yeah, I
think there's just something nice about it. And from a
(27:20):
practical point of view, it's one less suit you have
to pack, So there you go. I think having kind
of a uniform when you arrive someplace and then you
get to your hotel and then you want to go
downstairs and have a drink, you can change out of
your kind of travel armor. I agree, And then you
decide your mode. If you want to exercise, you put
on your exercise clothes. If you want to, you know,
go take a walk, maybe you put on sneakers. But yeah,
(27:41):
if you're always dressed the exact same way all the time,
there's no delineation point in your day. I'm so with you.
Years ago, I wrote an article for Esquire called responsible Tourism,
and the idea behind it is, well, we go on vacation.
We're all the background for everybody else's vacation photos and
vacation in general. You know, So that's that's an interesting Yeah. So,
like we go to Capri, you know, which we love,
(28:03):
and I always wear something nice, some kind of like
vacation wear or something, you know, jacket, And when we're
taking picture and I got a bunch of people in
like tiva's and cargo shorts and all that behind me,
it's like, well, now you've ruined my movie. I made
your movie look really good because they're like, oh look
how classy that is. And I got I'm stick with you. Yeah,
so yeah, you're messing up the scenes. That is interesting. Yeah,
(28:25):
all right, I have some actual questions now that aren't
just my arm. This one comes from Greta in New
York City, and she writes, generally, when we travel, my
husband thinks we should book the cheapest possible hotel room.
After all, he says, we're only going to be sleeping there.
I disagree. I want the place we are staying, even
just for a night, to have a great vibe. Who
is right? Lol? Stakes are medium, but she has she
(28:49):
has a good question. I say, Greta's right by all means.
I mean, look, it is true. And my wife and
I grapple with that sometimes too, because you know, sometimes
you'll get a chance to get like a really good room,
and it's like, are we going to be in it
enough to use it? But it's also the bed you're
gonna be on, the sheets that they're gonna have, what
the bathroom's gonna be, like, how they take care of you?
Now it's yeah, I mean, you know, as much as
(29:09):
you can. And I'm not saying, like, you know, go bankrupt,
but if you can afford it, get get the nicest
room you can afford. That doesn't, you know, put you
in trouble. Yeah, I think it's good. Yeah, it's because
it's a holistic experience, and sometimes you end up spending
more time than you want, or maybe you're happy to
spend more time in your hotel room. Yeah, so there
you go, Greta, that's that's our guidance for you. There
you go. Okay. This question comes from Maya and she asks,
(29:33):
if you're traveling with someone, is it okay if you
both want to do something different? Is it okay to
part ways for a bit on the trip to do
your own thing? Yes? Yes. My wife and I've been
married for twenty eight years, twenty eight happy years, together
for thirty two and you're like thirty four years old week.
I met her in the maternity ward when I was just,
I mean, creepy but beautiful exactly. So we always say
(29:55):
that the most successful relationships are where you're not tied
at the hip. You have to be able to spend
time apart, because look, I'm saying, there's probably couples have
been married for fifty years and never been out of
each other's sight. But I think that's a that's a
lot of pressure to put on on a relationship. And
it's worse if you go like one person wants to
do someone that a person doesn't really and you go
(30:17):
together and that person's like, you know, having a bad
time or being a downer, you're gonna have the big
fight versus if you just go off, have the greatest time.
Come back. You got stuff to talk about dinner? What
you did? You know? Yeah, get somebody a little present
while you're out, so then you can surprise, like, oh
look what I picked up when I was out. You know,
make it a fun thing. But but yeah, don't be
tied to the hid and and just the low level
(30:38):
tension you have. Bringing someone to museum that they were
ambivalent about almost undermines the whole trip for you. And
you're there all day. There's three meals, four five opportunities
to drink and eat. Yeah, you can always mix it up.
So yeah, I say, may I feel comfortable breaking away
from whoever it is. Yeah. I've heard a lot of
fights in places of like, oh you're actually you don't
(30:59):
want to be here. It's like, oh God, I'm like, oh,
I bet I bet that person didn't want to be there.
All right, Paulicians, you're so good at this. I'm gonna
throw one more out at you. I love this just
from Ashley from maryl Astley writes, I've always been nervous
about asking folks in the security line about cutting in
front of them when I'm running late for a flight.
I've never skipped a line, and I've miss flights because
of it. When do you think it's acceptable to cut
(31:21):
the line? What's the best way to ask the folks
in line. I'm with her, like, I'm really I don't
like to do that, you know, especially on my own.
What the times I've been able to do it is
when somebody who works at the airport and you're like,
before you get in the line, you're like, I'm in trouble,
we got held up or whatever, could you help me?
(31:41):
They will generally do it when you're doing it yourself.
I don't when people ask me is I was like,
all right, you know my head, I'm like, well you
should have got here, not like you know, that's on
you for That's a little bit of the thing. I
think you're right if you can have an escort, okay,
But otherwise, no matter what you say, no one's gonna
believe you. Everyone's gonna be resentful. Even Gandhi would be
angry in a security line if someone starts barging up
(32:04):
the path. Yeah, exactly, I did like the picture though
of you, you know, coming in late but dressed like
you are for the airport, like oh great, you know,
like James Bond. It needs to cut in front of me. Oh,
I know, like the rich guys getting in here. It's like, no,
I didn't want to pack my suit. I swear, I'm
not a jerk. I was running late because we liked
our hotel rooms. It's right. I couldn't get out of
(32:25):
the room. I was student. I was emptying the mini
bar Um. Paul, thank you so much for helping with
our etiquette questions or travel etiquette questions. Love and this
is a wonderful chat. Thank you so much. It's great.
Great Jude talk to you. There's a lot of fun.
That was Paul fig check out his new film The
(32:47):
School for Good and Evil, which I don't think it's
a Montessori school. And also you can pick up his
book Cocktail Time, which by the way, pairs well with
another book about adult fun called Brunch's hell. Um, I'm
spacing the name of the authors on that one, but um,
you can google it. Okay, that's it for this edition.
(33:07):
I'm not lost chat. As always, if you have traveled
questions that you want answered in a future episode, please
email me at Not Lost at Pushkin dot Fm or
ping me at BF Newnham on Twitter. Not Lost Chat
could not have been made without producer Jordan Bailey, who
is currently I Think at home this week, so that's
a new development resting for a future trip, I'm sure.
(33:30):
The show was written and hosted by Me Brendan Francis Nunham,
booking assistance from Laura Morgan. This episode was edited by
Sarah Nis. Thank you Sarah. We also had assistance from
managing producer Jacob Smith and our mix engineer and co
producer is the Really Wonderful Sarah Bruguerre Not Lost as
a co production of Pushkin Industries, Topic Studios and iHeartMedia.
(33:54):
It was developed at Topic Studios and yes, there are
some executive producers on this show. Executive producers include Me
Brendan Francis Nunham, Christy Gressman, Maria Zuckerman, Lisa Langang and
La tom lad And if you dig, what you tell
a friend, Tell the person behind you on the TSA line,
Tell the person in front of you in the coffee line,
(34:16):
make a comment at Apple Podcast, Spread the word. It's
really appreciated. And if you like what you hear, I
want to learn about more stuff happening at Pushkin, you
can sign up for the Pushkin newsletter at pushkin dot
fm slash Newsletter. And if you just want to find
some more things to listen to a Pushkin, you can
use the iHeartRadio app. You can head to Apple Podcasts,
or you know, go wherever you listen to podcast. That
(34:40):
is it for this episode. Thanks everybody, bomb Voyag
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