February 16, 2023 • 41 mins
No piña coladas were consumed during travel writer Pico Iyer’s quest for paradise. Instead he found himself communing with guides and locals in thorny parts of the globe: Iran, Kashmir, and North Korea, among others. Brendan speaks with Pico about his lifetime of exploration and what it’s taught him. Then comedian, musician and self-proclaimed “disinformationist” Reggie Watts talks about growing up in Montana and shares his do’s and don’ts for TSA pre-checkers, wedding guests, and folks in the window seat. Plus, Brendan boards a flight on this last episode of this season of Not Lost Chat.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. By the time you hear this, I will be
in an airplane exiting the United States. It will be
my first non work trip since August. The irony at
the heart of this season of Chat episodes is that
(00:37):
I've been talking to travelers, but I've been stuck at
my desk. While I've been talking to people who've traveled
all over Ghana, India, Naples, Bora, Bora, I haven't gone
further than Exit four on the Jersey Durmpike. Mostly I've
(01:00):
spent my days in New York oh mule with blueberries, laptop, laptop, laptop,
over priced salad, laptop, meeting laptop, some elaborately made dinner
as a form of procrastination, laptop washing the dishes on
good days. Bed. Now there's some positive things about not traveling.
(01:22):
My laundry is done, my credit card bills are pretty low.
For the first time, I've been able to respond to
spontaneous invites to dinner with friends, and I could finally
buy hair products over three point four ounces. But to
be honest, I was starting to become homesick. Not in
(01:43):
the I miss my own bed kind of way, because
I did not miss my bed, but in the I'm
sick of my home kind of way. I've done every chore,
visited every local shop, walked every inch of my local park,
streamed and schemed. But after being at home for a
few months, my feet were beginning to itch in a
(02:06):
metaphorical sense, because honestly, my feet haven't been cleaner. Yes,
Over the course of this season, my guests have talked
about travel as a means of self development, as a
means of understanding humanity, as a means of escape, as
a way of learning, and my instinct to travel could
be a bit of all those things. Or maybe I
(02:28):
don't need to overthink it. Perhaps I'm just one of
those people who is genetically predisposed towards wonderlust. Or maybe
the answers at my next destination. If it is, I'll
be sure to let you know anyway. I have my
ticket in my blazer. I booked a window seat. I'm
(02:48):
prepared to yield the armrest to the person in the
middle seat if needed. I have plans for my destination,
whe they're not too specific. I won't turn my nose
up at a tour, nor will I overthink what I'm doing.
In short, I'm going to try to deploy all the
knowledge I've gained this season, and yes, I might try
to finagle a dinner. I might too. In the meantime,
(03:11):
we have an excellent valdictory episode of Not Lost Chat
for you. Today. Celebrated travel writer Pico Iyer is here
to talk about paradise and musician, comedian and performance artist
Reggie Watts stops by enlists what he thinks of when
he thinks of me. Ragmatism, practicality, preparedness, helpfulness, flexibility, dynamicism.
(03:36):
I feel seen when Not Lost Chat returns Welcome back
to Not Lost Chat. I'm Brendan Francis Nunham. Later in
the show, performance artist and musical savant Reggie Watts comes
by to answer your travel questions. But first I speak
with the doyenne of contemporary travel writers, Pico Iyer. My
(04:01):
editor warned me that that word was a little too precious,
but I think it's perfectly accurate for Pico. He has
written fifteen books about everything from the Cuban Revolution to globalism.
Some of his best sellers include Video Nighting, Catman Do
and the Art of Stillness, and he also writes on
average a hundred articles a year for various publications including
(04:22):
The New York Times, The Financial Times and others. Plus
and this is my favorite part of his bio. He
splits his time between a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sir,
California and an apartment with his wife in suburban Kyoto.
And here you thought having separate bedrooms was the secret
to alarm relationship. Pico's most recent book is The Half
(04:44):
Known Life in Search of Paradise, and in that book
he travels around to ten places across the world, places
like Iran, North Korea, Northern Ireland, Cashmere. And if you're
getting the sense that these aren't the typical places travelers
associated with paradise, you're not alone. I had the same feeling,
and when I met with Pico, I asked him about it.
(05:06):
I said, you know, if I didn't know any better,
I would assume you we're being cheeky about the search
for paradise. You're absolutely right. I mean, I've been lucky
enough to be traveling a long time, and so of
course when you step into a travel agency, everywhere is
presented as Shangola or Paradise. And when I was young,
I would go to Bali and later the Tahiti the Seychelles, Antarctica,
(05:27):
all the places that are commonly thought of as paradise,
and what's paradise for the visitor often isn't for the local.
If I were to ask one of them, what's your
notion of paradise? So they say, oh, yeah, paradise is
Santa Monica, It's New York City, It's that place across
the ocean. If I go to somewhere that really does
feel very content and self contained and unfallen, what do
(05:49):
I have to offer to it? I only corruption. I
am the serpent in the garden of Eden. And of
course everybody's sense of paradise is different. So probably the
best way of answering your question is this book rose
out of the pandemic, and twenty hours after lockdown was
announced in California, my eighty eight to old mother was
raised into the hospital in an ambulance, losing blood very quickly.
(06:12):
And when she came back, I flew through these three
ghost down airports from my little apartment to Japan to
be with her. So there I was sitting with my
mother who was wavering between life and death and the
whole world in this state of anxiety and lockdown and
I was thinking, well, the only paradise I would really
believe in is one that happens in the middle of
real life and in the face of death. In other words,
(06:34):
given that life is always going to throw difficult things
at us, how can we find our paradise in the
midst of that difficulty? And so, as you said, I
thought back onto the places of conflict and the many
war zones I'd been to, and I thought, maybe there
is a durable paradise that can outlast even the harshest
forms of reality. The book begins in Iran, and you
(06:57):
know there's an oppressive regime there. There isn't a hot war,
although there have been really intense protests of late. But
there's a couple of reasons you went there. Because it
also the origin of the word paradise, if understanding you,
also comes from Persian culture, exactly so. And also I
think the second reason is it's a perfect way of
(07:18):
seeing conflicting visions of paradise, because, of course, as you
are suggesting, the oppressive ayatold Us who rule Iran, maintained
that paradise belongs only to the faithful, and the place
called Zachar's paradise in South Tehran is actually a graveyard,
one of the largest in the world, with one point
five million dead bodies there. And meanwhile, as the protests
(07:40):
remind us, so many of the citizens of Iran constructing
their own paradise behind closed doors, which is a very secular,
worldly place of sex and drugs and rock and roll.
And then both sides meanwhile quoting from the Sufi poets
that they learned in high school or elementary school, who
remind us that the only paradise you can find is within,
(08:04):
which I think at some level everybody knows. But as
you say, Iran doesn't sound like a honeymoon location. But
as soon as I got there, though I'd been studying
it for thirty years, every hour of the next sixteen
days was full of surprises. And one of the surprises
is that if you're staying in a garden hotel in
the desert city of YaST and you step out after
(08:27):
nightfall and there are sweet smelling flowers all around, and
there are fairy colored lights in the trees, and you're
lead to this beautiful divan and you stretch out, and
an elegant way it brings you slices of sweet watermelon
and a pot of strong tea, and all around you
the beautiful, soft eyed people exchanging murmurs. My heavens, it's
as close to an earthly paradise as anything I've seen.
(08:48):
And the Iranians or the Persians, for thousands of years
have been building gardens that are meant to be a
replica of paradise and an enticement to the paradise of
the afterworld, and to this day they're as idyllic as
anywhere I've seen on earth. You also mentioned as another
fascinating detail is in your notes you would refer to
Ara as paradise in case your notebooks were reviewed when
(09:12):
you left, or in case your emails were being read,
and so you had to kind of veil Run as
paradise in your communications. Yes, I had to become as
veiled and complex as a society around me. So because
I think the first day I arrived there, I arrived
in the holy city of my shard, and it was
so surprising. I wanted to tell my friends back in
(09:32):
the US, so I went online, no problem sending emails.
By the third day my email account was completely blocked.
So I was positive that some poor lackey in Tehran
was being asked to read my every email at the
same time as my email was blocked. I could go
down to the hotel computer and send emails at any time,
but realizing that somebody was reading them, I thought it
(09:54):
was prudent to say this is the most wonderful place
on earth. And so in that culture where everything is
taking place between the lines and beneath the words, I
quickly realized I had to be the same, and I
had to pretend to be something that I wasn't. It
was a most interesting, sophisticated, rich place I've ever been,
the number one destination of my life. But I did
(10:17):
always feel that somebody was looking over my shoulder, and
it was wise to be vigilant. And when you say
it's the most interesting place you've ever been, that is
high praise, since you spend a lot of your life traveling.
On that point about traveling, how if at all, do
you think that you're living betwixt and between places affects
(10:37):
your view of paradise, Well, it changes in my relation
to home, Because you're absolutely right. I grew up in
the passageways and criss crossings between cultures as the child
of Indian parents born and growing up in England, moving
to California at seven, and then from the age of nine,
commuting back and forth every few weeks between England and California,
(10:57):
and now living in Japan for thirty five years on
a tourist visa. The space in between is my home,
and I'm very comfortable there, with one foot inside and
one foot outside. When a little boy, I was the
only dark skinned kid in all my classes in England,
So I never guessed then that what was so unusual
at that time would be the norm. I think if
(11:19):
I go to a classroom in San Francisco, I bet
forty percent or maybe more of the kids would be
just as in between as I am, and have lots
and lots of cultures inside them and around them. And
I think that's the great beauty of this new century.
I do think, as you say, it's not a paradise
for many people. It's a purgatory, not being able to
(11:41):
define themselves in a clear way. For me, it just
reminded me that home had nothing to do with any
physical location. It had to be what lives inside me,
my mother, my wife, the songs that go through my head,
the books I carry around with me, wherever I go.
And I'd always felt that, But actually, when I speak
(12:01):
of purgatory, this book came out of the lockdown, as
I was saying, and that was an in between time, essentially,
like the in between spaces where I've lived, And in
that in between time, I was thinking, and I'm sure
many other people were thinking, Well, this is a time
of uncertainty. We can't go anywhere, we don't know what's
coming over the horizon. How can we make it as
(12:21):
close to paradise as possible? How can we make ourselves
warm and cozy in this state of anxiety and unsettledness.
I wonder when you're going to places to write about them,
there is a certain amount of fantasy. Do you arrive
with an assignment. You arrive to pay attention, but you
don't have to get too involved in the mundane. And
(12:42):
I'm wondering if that, in a way it gives some
sort of artificial feeling of you know, you're unburdened by
certain mechanics of life because you are just always kind
of on assignment and adrift. Well, you're right, I mean,
the tourist is always carrying an artificial paradise around with
him and there's this dis equilibrium because we arrive in
(13:02):
Bali and as you say, we imagine we can do
anything we want. We're free of obligation, we're on holiday,
and the people were meeting at desperately trying to make
a living. So I've always felt that the traveler is
living in a sort of false paradise of projections and illusions. Yes,
you visit Kashmir, which you describe one point as the
(13:22):
paradise that's shone in your mother's heart, and that is
such a beautiful chapter. I don't know if that's why
it in such a beautiful chapter in this book, but
I do think the duality of the water versus the
land there, versus the political situation versus the hope, and
tourism's role. Could you speak about Kashmir and how it
fits into your kind of search for paradise. Yeah, no,
(13:45):
that's so beautifully, said Brendon. I mean you caught it perfectly. So, Yes,
as you said, I grew up on my mother's remembrances
from nineteen forty one of the lake under the snow
caps and the fields full of alpine flowers, and it
was a magical place for her growing up in Bombay,
And when finally I made it there a few years ago,
I stayed on as every traveler does, on a houseboat
(14:07):
on lake, and there was a lotus pond right outside
my window, and there was no sound but the whir
of Kingfisher's wings, and people would paddle slowly past, bringing
curries right to the doorstep or beautiful intricate carved boxes,
and couldn't have been more peaceful and heavenly, so long
as I screened out the fact that, just as you said,
(14:29):
ten minutes away on land, there were five hundred thousand
soldiers keeping an uneasy piece in a violent and occupied
place that for seventy years has been fought over by
India in Pakistan. And again that's part of the hazard
of being a paradise. Everyone wants to claim you, and
there are lots of people fighting over the same territory.
(14:50):
And so I thought, well, this is it's a paradise,
so long as I ignore the reality for the Cashmirius,
which is a very tragic reality. In that chapter, you
also you describe a lot of the people you meet
and what you learn from them, and I think a
more personal kind of do our that one has to
(15:10):
exist with in order to find peace. I think the
character he encountered. His name is Johnny, is that correct? Yes, yes, yes,
And can you talk a little bit about his story
and how he ended up there and found his way there.
So Johnny is a British tour guide and I had
been told by my magazine edit he's the guy you
should make contact with and should show you around Kashmir.
(15:32):
And indeed he was. He knew everyone and everywhere, and
in the course of our days together he told me
how twenty five years earlier, as a very very young traveler,
he'd come to Kashmir with his girlfriend and they stayed
on the houseboat called the Dream Palace, and one night
he woke up and his girlfriend couldn't breathe, and he
(15:55):
did everything he could, and she was dead at the
age of probably twenty three. And every traveler's nightmare, and
in a very difficult foreign place, there's your girlfriend. Not
only is she dead, but the police take him to
be the number one suspect if it was not a
natural death. And so suddenly his time in the paradise
(16:15):
of Kashmir involves going to the police station, going to
the coroner's office, making the most difficult phone call of
all to his girlfriend's parents back in England. I mean,
just a devastating thing. And then finally he went back
to England. And I imagined, after all that the one
place in the world he would never want to see
again is Kashmir. But of course I met him in Kashmir,
(16:38):
and in fact, as soon as Kashmir opened to visitors
again after some turmoil, he was the first professional talk
guide operator to go back. And he felt he wanted
to help Kashmir, which is a region he'd always loved,
but he also thought he could only repair his heart
by going to the place where his heart had been shattered.
(16:59):
And it also spoke, as you perfectly pointed out, to
this duality that on the one hand, I, who was
traveling there with Johnny, was like Johnny, trying to revise
this place which had suffered so much over seventy years
of war. On the other hand, a tourists can only
have a good time in Kashmir by sort of a
(17:19):
time is pretending that the war doesn't exist and sitting
out on the lake in this stillness of this paradise
lem setting. So as you said, it's a very complex
hornetsness but Johnny really moved me by his resolve to
go into the place that had been so difficult and
really come through it the other on the other side,
and now introduce many other people to Kashmir. Yes, I
(17:42):
think what's also interesting about that it's a side. Now.
Sometimes when I'm travel writing, I would almost ignored the
travel guide. I would almost be chagrined that, Okay, here
I am with someone who's going to kind of open
up this place for me, and somehow it'll kind of
taint the wisdom of this ancient place and not at all,
you know, you wouldn't have encountered him otherwise, this character
that's not a native of Kashmir but still has wisdom
(18:05):
and can still give you insight into a place. Yeah,
thank you. That's an interesting perception, and it was very
deliberate on my part that in almost every chapter here,
I am, as you pointed out, in the hands of
a guide, usually local or a driver, and I wanted
to make sure that I'm always in the passenger's seat,
because part of the point of the book, and I
(18:26):
think part of the point of travel is that, especially
when I was younger, I assumed I was in the
driver's seat. I was on top of everything. I could
control everything, I could plan my day, and I knew everything.
And the beauty of travel is it completely upends that.
And I'm at the mercy of all kinds of things
I can't begin to understand. And I'm very much metaphorically
and in this case literally in the passenger seat. And
(18:48):
so one reason that I gave this book the title
The Half Known Life, is that was it the half
known world I keep forgetting? And I think one of
the reasons I gave that title is that I feel
the amount that we really know is tiny, as if
(19:09):
we're in a little tent up in the Himalayas, and
maybe there are a couple of lanterns and we have
a flashlight, but it's a small pocket of light in
this vast darkness of the heavens above, pockmarked with stars
and the silvery mountains around, And basically the field of
our knowledge is tiny compared with everything we don't know.
And we are in the passenger seed. We are at
(19:30):
the mercy of the elements, and at the mercy of
the guides and the locals who are showing us around.
And so yes, I think in my other books, I
was nearly always describing just traveling alone unguided through cities
I couldn't make head nor tail of. But here having
the guides in almost every chapter was really essential. Yeah,
(19:50):
as a reader, I respond to it because I know
what it's like to happen the back of an uber
give myself over to someone like that. I trust you
as my guide, but it seems more honest or authentic
in a sense that you are a passenger and then
I am joining you. In a way. It makes for
a different sort of reading experience. You know, I was
having dinner with the companion as I was preparing for
(20:11):
this and trying to explain what the book is about.
I think that's why it's fitting this book is called
the subtitle I'll let you know because you might not remember.
The subtitle is They Have Known Life in search of Paradise.
It's about the search, and ultimately there is the fact
that we just have to live in this in between
(20:34):
the tension of the darkness and the light of knowing
and not knowing? Am I wrong in that? I mean?
Is that part of the reason it remains of search?
There's there's no discovery, beautifully said, and I really my
heart goes out to trying to explain what this book
is about, because it's impossible to most people. I think
it's just an enigma. It's one of the harder books
to characterize deliberately, but exactly what you said. And I
(20:57):
think the search for paradise is actually what gets in
the way of our finding the paradise. That it's our
notions of paradise or our longing for something that we
don't have, that keeps us from seeing what we do have,
which may be the closest to paradise we get. And
so that's why this climatic moment, which in fact I
(21:17):
don't fully describe in the book. But I'm in Varnasi,
which is, as many people know, the most chaotic, terrifying,
intense place in often chaotic, terrifying, intense India. For those
who don't know Varanasi, as I understand it is, people
want to have their loved ones bodies burned there. Over years,
(21:38):
it's become like lower the or a magical place that's
supposed to be a crossing ground and the auspicious place
in which a traditional Hindu can enter the afterworld. That's right,
you burn the ashes and you put them into the river.
There there are flames burning to the north and south,
reducing dead bodies to ash. There are people racing through
the narrow lanes carrying stretchers to commit the corpses to
(22:01):
the flames and the Holy waters, or naked ascetics walking
around who live in graveyards and drink from skulls to
show their indifference to right and wrong. And there are
people bathing in the Holy waters and drinking from them,
although there are there three thousand times beyond the maximal
level found to be safe for consumption by the who,
so as in this mad scene. I'm an one hundred
(22:23):
percent Indian and Hindu by births, and even I'm freaked
out by this. And suddenly I heard somebody call my name,
and it was two Tibetan Buddhist monks, one older Tibetan
and one an American monk whom I knew from New
York City. And as I surveyed this sort of psychedelic commotion,
(22:44):
the American monk said, isn't this gorgeous? This is the
whole thing. This is reality, This is life and death
and everything in between. This is exactly what we have
to grasp This he might as well have been saying,
is paradise. This is where we have to find our paradise,
right in the middle of the chaos and the death
and the stuff that we can't begin to comprehend. And
(23:06):
I thought that was almost exactly what the book was about.
In my eyes. I live in Japan, as you say,
and often when I step into a temple in Kyoto,
written on the ground at the entrance other words, look
beneath your feet. In other words, don't look to the future,
to the past, and never never land. Imagine that paradise
(23:27):
around the corner. Choose to find your paradise right where
you are. Well, Pico, I think that's a lovely sentiment
to end on, actually a lovely sentiment for a travel
show to arrive at, kind of find the paradise where
you are. Thank you so much for coming by to
discuss your book. It is really bit of pleasure. Thank
you for such a really rich and wonderful conversation. I
(23:49):
think anyone listening can tell you and I could keep
on going for three hours, so this has really been fun.
That's a great compliment and gift. Pico Iyer's most recent
book is The Half Known Life In Search of Paradise,
and that was such a great conversation I had to
leave some of it out. But among Pico's friends the
(24:11):
Dalai Lama and the other was the late Leonard Cohen,
so we had a lot to talk about. And he
told me that Leonard will make an appearance in his
next book. All Right coming up. Musician, comedian and improv
maestro Reggie Watts comes by and talks, among other things,
(24:33):
about the ghostwriter of his upcoming memoir. Chat GPT is
when Not Lost Chat returns. Welcome back to Not Lost Chat.
(24:55):
We are now at the etiquette portion of our episode
and I am joined by Reginald Lucian. Frank Roger Watts,
better known as Reggie Watts. He came up as a
musician in Seattle and then may some appearances on TV.
You may have seen him on Comedy Bang Bang. He
is now leader of the house band for The Late
Late Show with James Cordon. He is an absolute American original,
(25:20):
although Bornich took guard with his mothers from France, but
he was raised in Great Falls, Montana and his upcoming
memoir is named Great Falls Montana that comes out later
next year. And when I spoke with him, I asked
him about the book. For someone who is so famous
for improving, was it anxiety producing to put pen to
(25:42):
paper and just really capture his ideas once and for all. Man,
You know, I never really thought of it that way.
That's interesting. Yeah, I think I think what made that
not happen so much, or at least that you know
the possibility of that that vibe happening, is because I
worked with a really great ghost writer who works just
(26:06):
like I've always loved to work, like whether it was
mental theater or coming up with bits for my early
shows and things like that. Like would just have a
writing partner who I could just relay the ideas that
flow into my head and just like put it out
there and then they kind of format it and organize it.
And I chose him as as a writer because his
(26:28):
name's Chris Ferra, and he I chose him because he's
from the Midwest, so Montana's got to share some sensibilities
with the Midwest. And obviously I would help craft and
shape the language, and I would read things with him
in his presence. I would we would just read through
the pages and I'd be like, I wouldn't do that.
(26:49):
I would say that and then he would touch it up,
and so that process allowed me to not have to
have that terrified feeling that I get when someone's like,
here's a script, you know, or like write a script.
You know. That to me is so terrifying because everything
I do is just let's just do it live. Even
(27:10):
even your Netflix specials. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Spatial was
fully improvised. I just did two. I always like to
do two or three shows and then composite them together,
even the improv with Rory Scoville and Cape berlant Um
for the fictional nineties sitcom Crow's Nest was me just
before we were going on stage, like all we had
(27:31):
was wardrobe. The most important thing for me was knowing
that we had the right wardrobe. Once we had the wardrobe,
we were just about to go on stage, and I'd
be like, let's just do a physical take where we're
not really talking, we're just doing physical bits. Yeah, and
then they're like okay, and then we just go up
and did it that. I love it so, Frank, I
just love so you So your your co author's chat GPT, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(27:51):
of course really gets it right. Well, I didn't know
it's from the Midwest. I didn't realize there was a
gen xer no chat chat gptum is yeah, he's amazing. Um.
I actually worked at Elsa National Park years ago and
then I let because it was crazy, which I don't
even feel like counts as Montana. And I went back
(28:13):
to my first season of this show and it was
so clear to me I felt so still unmanly in Montana,
Like I felt so inadequate as a city kid. What
did you did you? What was your relationship to that?
Do you feel like the masculinity in Montana is different
than on the coast? I think so one hundred percent.
(28:35):
I think there's um. Yeah, it's a really good question
because I've never really thought of it in that way.
But I think what it is is, I mean, there's
definitely like a lot of tradition when it comes to
the way that sexes and genders, you know, elaborate together.
But I think there's like they're a little bit more equal,
generally speaking than in other places, perhaps just because practicality
(29:02):
is kind of king in Montana. Pragmatism, practicality, preparedness, helpfulness, flexibility, dynamicism,
these types of things are key because people are outdoors.
There's a lot of outdoors and outdoors persons, you know
that just we go out there, like, you know, I
remember my friend's dad dropping us off with back packs
(29:25):
and it was just like me and my friend Steve
and we just ye. It was in the winter. We
had to dig out snow and chip away at the
ground and make a fire pit, so, you know, and
then he'd come, he'd like, I'll pick you up on Sunday.
You know, it sounds terrifying, sounds like the beginning of
a true crime podcast. It's kind of terrifying, but like
when you have the gear and you know the basics,
it's actually great. It's like super freeing, so that actually
(29:47):
I can that naturally. Kind of jives with this travel theme,
the loose travel theme of these chats, which is, so
what when you do have time off when you are
not professionally touring? What do you do for kicks? Where
do you go? Where does Reggie relax? You know, I
rarely go on vacations, or I'll have to. I'll have
a vacation at the end of a tour, like I'll
(30:09):
stay in the last city. So I love hanging out
in Berlin. One of my favorite cities. And uh, I
went to Salem recently for the weekend before Halloween to
kind of go on some history tours and learn about
which trials and all that stuff. That was really cool. Um,
trying to think if I've got you know, I've gotten
(30:30):
like you know, the cabins and things like that for
a weekend. But yeah, I don't know. It's it's very
rare that I do. But the thing is like, whenever
I go to these places, I feel like I might
as well do a show, right, yeah, you know, because
because my show isn't like I'm not preparing for the show.
I'm not writing a show. I just show up and
if I have my gear, or even if I don't
have my gear, I can still do a show. So
I figure, like, why not do a show because it's
(30:52):
it's fun and it you know, it's like helps offset
the cost of the vacation whatever. All right, Well, look,
I have some adiquate questions from from the audience that
you're going to help with your because you're a wise man, Um,
you're going to improvise. If you're not a wise man
and not it will work. So this first question comes
from Crystal from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Crystal asks, if I'm
(31:13):
in the window seat, is it rude to keep the
shade open while I know other people around me are
trying to sleep. Yes. Yes, it's a weird one because
obviously you're next to the window, so you're like, I
control out the windows seat because I wanted to, you know,
maybe you like to look outside or something like that.
(31:34):
But if it's really bright and you see that most
of the shades around you are closed and people are sleeping,
I don't know, I just close the shade. I mean
at that altitude, like what do you do? What do
you get some clouds and some land masks, you know,
open it, take a look, close it, you know, and
then maybe rest or like watch something or think about something.
But I always defer to the majority around me. Interesting,
(31:57):
I do feel like I try to give the middle seat.
I empower them because they're in a tough spot. So
I'll kind of like tie goes in the middle seat,
is kind of my thought. But I will say what
I don't like in this department is I'll get into
a plane close it because the sun's beating me in
the head. And then then sometimes it only happens sixty
percent of the time, so I don't know if it's
a rule or not. A flight attendant will come by
(32:19):
and say, excuse me, you need to have the shade
open for liftoff. Yeah, like what is this the right? Brothers?
Like like this is going to determine our death or not? Like, like,
what is that about? I think it's about I think
someone because I wondered about that too, and I think
it has something to do with um my situational awareness.
(32:40):
And it's like it's just a small point of failure,
like for if an emergency occurs or something like that,
somebody's going wrong, they'll have a better read on where
it's happening if they can count the windows or something.
I think it's that it feels pretty ardy. It feels
pretty small, bore, I know. Yeah, all right. This next
question us from Molly from Charlotte and Molly Rights. My
(33:01):
boyfriend's parents want to take us on vacation, but they
want all four of us to share a hotel room
to save cost. My boyfriend doesn't think this is weird,
but I do. How can I get out of this? Well,
she is right, that's weird. It also depends on how
old the relationship is, you know, because obviously if you've
(33:23):
spent a lot of time together already, maybe you can
kind of both decide like, well, this will be weird,
but let's just see what it's like. Yeah, um, but
I'm a big fan. I need my space. This is
very intimate. Um, I mean the parents got to feel
like that's weird, you know what I mean? Yeah, you know,
and unless the parents want to control it, you know,
(33:43):
if they want to, like they want to go in vacation,
but they don't want to have the stress of imagining
that they're you know that Molly is making love with
her boy. Yeah, making love next door? Like that breaks
us out. Let's just keep them in sight. I don't know.
It's just a little weird, right, that's your answer, Molly? Um,
not okay, but good luck. How can I get out
of this? I don't I don't know what to tell you. Um, okay,
(34:04):
A couple more questions. Um, This one I feel like
is made tailor, made for you. It doesn't have a
name attached. I'll make one up. Jacob Smith from Santa
Motica Rights. In a few weeks, I'm going to be
a plus one at a destination wedding where I don't
know anyone except my partner. Any tips, I would say,
hopefully the partner, you know, recognizes that there's a it's
(34:26):
a little incumbent on them to kind of ease you
into the situation and maybe them thinking about people knowing
you and then thinking about the people that are going
to be there, like which people you think that you'd
get along with, you know, introducing them whatever, or like
you know, announcing common interests, things like that. I think
I think of it as an adventure. Be open minded,
(34:48):
try not to be super resistant. I've definitely been in
that vibrate I'm goa go up. I don't know, I
don't want to go you know, that kind of stuff,
A little two way, but like you got to kind
of make a little bit of an extra effort to
these doked, you know, as much as you can. To me,
this sounds like a good dream. This means like, oh,
vacation free food, dress up dan, And I'm not going
(35:09):
to be embarrassed because I don't know anybody, Like I
have zero responsibilities except to my partner. That feels pretty dreamy,
Like I just have to sit there and maybe be
charming and not a jerk, Like that's like my preferred mode.
But and if you're anxious, I get that. Not everyone's
an extrovert, but you can still take joy in nothing
is expected of you except to like be a support
(35:31):
of your partner. Stakes are low. This is like free
meals for days another bonus tip. Yeah, so there you go,
enjoy and if if you can't go, you know my email.
I'll go with your partner as long as fast Nation's nice. Yeah,
all right, this is our last question. It comes from Lucy,
and Lucy asks if one partner has a TSA pre
(35:53):
check and the other does not, should we know where
this is going? Should the TSA PreCheck partner stand in
the regular line or should they soldier onto the gate?
Soldier on to the gate? I mean, come on, it's like,
why did you get TSA PreCheck? It's like also if
you're the reason, usually when people get TSA pre check,
(36:15):
it's because they don't want to deal with the bullshit,
the extra bullshit that you have to go through normally.
So if that's like an anxiety reducing thing, I think
your partner would understand. And also your partner should just
get TSA or get global entry hopefully you're not in
a codependent relationship. I mean I've had this cup both
ways because I have global entry, yeah, global entry, and
I've had people to go ahead and I hop on
(36:36):
the other side, and then you can kind of text
them be like hey, I'll get your snack and you're
there and you kind of can receive them. Yeah. But
I've also been in partnerships where they've been like, basically
you felt a test, like I cannot believe you abandoned me. Yeah,
you banned in me, and then I had to go
through this hell line and it's like you know what
this cost sixty dollars and took like yes, not that
(36:57):
that's that's that's totally. That's that's my that's my thing.
Like I'm like, it depends on the type of person
you are, you know, but like when you're in a relationship,
I think you're supposed to encourage, you know, if someone
else has an opportunity to take the opportunity. Yeah. So
it's like about independence and not code. It's interdependence, not codependence.
I can't stand the codependent thing and need to be
(37:19):
with people that are like, no, I don't worry about it.
I've got it and you're like, okay, cool, and you
know hopefully they're just like, yeah, that's what I would
fucking do. Yeah, get hip, Get hip, all right, REDI Odds,
thank you so much for giving some travel etiquette to
my audience. Easy and uh oh can I add one
thing to travel tips? Yeah? Please? Um uh don't check bags? Oh? Interesting?
(37:43):
I never check bags. Haven't checked bags since two thousand
and twelve. Interesting, okay, and that includes all my gear.
And I know some people some people obviously like, yeah,
how can you bring all your gear on it? And
their fashionist does and they need their you know, three
pairs of shoes and stuff like that. That's a little
bit I understand. But if you can, there are smart
ways to pack light. Uh. And if you if you
(38:06):
run into Morse if you need stuff, you can always
get more stuff basics or whatever along there is that. Well,
they did lose my bag this summer in Portugal, and
I now bought a check in bag, So I'm with you,
all right. Rock and roll symbol, Reggie Wats, thanks so
much for coming by my pleasure. Reggie Watts. You can
(38:29):
catch him on TV on The Late Late Show with
James Gordon, where he's the band leader or keep your
eyes peeled, because he often performs his mind altering variety
of comedy music at venues around the country. Okay, so
that's it for this edition of Not Lost Chat. And
that's it for this inaugural season of Not Lost Chats.
(38:51):
I used to scoff at the notion of a travel
show taking place in a studio, but our guests, from
Andrew tron Grier to Jessica Nobongo to Jeff Dyer, charl
Straight to Pico Iyer, they all gave me so much
inspiration and food for thought that I was transported, as
you will, away from the studios. I am about to
(39:11):
thank all of the people who helped put this show together,
but first, at risk of being corny, I'd like to
thank you for listening. Creating Not Lost Season one was
the most difficult and yet most satisfying endeavor of my
life so far, and the reception it received from folks
like you was part of that joy. For those who
stuck around for this season of Chats. And if you're
(39:33):
listening to this, by definition you are one of those people.
Thank you so much. Perhaps someday I can trick you
into inviting me over for dinner. This final episode of
the season of Not Lost Chat was partially produced by
Jordan Bailey, Jacob Smith, and Sarah Bruguire. For Better or
(39:54):
Worse the whole Thing was written and hosted by me
Brendan Francis Newnham. Booking assistance, as usual, came from Laura Morgan.
This episode was edited by Julia Barton, who in a
couple of months will be coming out with her maiden audiobook,
Best Audio Non twenty twenty two. It is filled with
some gems alas Not Lost didn't make the cut, but
(40:14):
who's bitter about that? Not me, I'm not. Jacob Smith
was also the managing producer in this episode, and he
did that with crutches, which is no easy feat. Fortunately
someone who wasn't on crutches despite a recent weekend snowboarding.
Sarah Bruger, who was our producer and mix engineer. I
really can't thank her enough for all the hard work
(40:35):
she's put into making this season happen. Thank you, Sarah.
You're probably listening to this late in the evening and
we may slack about when to post this episode. Not
Lost is a co production of Pushkin Industries, Topic Studios,
and iHeartMedia. It was developed at Topic Studios and the
executive users include Me, Brandon Franzis Nunham, Christy Gressman, Maria Zuckerman,
(40:59):
Lisa Langgang and Latamallad. It is not too late to
tell people about this show. I made these chat episodes
what is called in the biz evergreen, so they will
never go out of season. So if you have someone
in your life interested in travel, tell them about it,
and if you want to tell the world about it,
make a commented Apple podcasts. It's all greatly appreciated. And
(41:21):
while you're waiting for more episodes of Not Lost, you
can check out some other Poschkin podcasts. Jacob Smith is
also the mastermind behind Deep Cover Death. Been Artist is
a great show that we made. Story of the Week
is a very funny, interesting show that comes out. Lots
of good stuff out there. You can listen and find
them all on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever
(41:42):
you listen to your podcasts. That is it for this episode.
Thank you, everybody. I am somewhere right now drinking Margharita.
I raise it to you. Don Voyage
Pushkin. By the time you hear this, I will be
in an airplane exiting the United States. It will be
my first non work trip since August. The irony at
the heart of this season of Chat episodes is that
(00:37):
I've been talking to travelers, but I've been stuck at
my desk. While I've been talking to people who've traveled
all over Ghana, India, Naples, Bora, Bora, I haven't gone
further than Exit four on the Jersey Durmpike. Mostly I've
(01:00):
spent my days in New York oh mule with blueberries, laptop, laptop, laptop,
over priced salad, laptop, meeting laptop, some elaborately made dinner
as a form of procrastination, laptop washing the dishes on
good days. Bed. Now there's some positive things about not traveling.
(01:22):
My laundry is done, my credit card bills are pretty low.
For the first time, I've been able to respond to
spontaneous invites to dinner with friends, and I could finally
buy hair products over three point four ounces. But to
be honest, I was starting to become homesick. Not in
(01:43):
the I miss my own bed kind of way, because
I did not miss my bed, but in the I'm
sick of my home kind of way. I've done every chore,
visited every local shop, walked every inch of my local park,
streamed and schemed. But after being at home for a
few months, my feet were beginning to itch in a
(02:06):
metaphorical sense, because honestly, my feet haven't been cleaner. Yes,
Over the course of this season, my guests have talked
about travel as a means of self development, as a
means of understanding humanity, as a means of escape, as
a way of learning, and my instinct to travel could
be a bit of all those things. Or maybe I
(02:28):
don't need to overthink it. Perhaps I'm just one of
those people who is genetically predisposed towards wonderlust. Or maybe
the answers at my next destination. If it is, I'll
be sure to let you know anyway. I have my
ticket in my blazer. I booked a window seat. I'm
(02:48):
prepared to yield the armrest to the person in the
middle seat if needed. I have plans for my destination,
whe they're not too specific. I won't turn my nose
up at a tour, nor will I overthink what I'm doing.
In short, I'm going to try to deploy all the
knowledge I've gained this season, and yes, I might try
to finagle a dinner. I might too. In the meantime,
(03:11):
we have an excellent valdictory episode of Not Lost Chat
for you. Today. Celebrated travel writer Pico Iyer is here
to talk about paradise and musician, comedian and performance artist
Reggie Watts stops by enlists what he thinks of when
he thinks of me. Ragmatism, practicality, preparedness, helpfulness, flexibility, dynamicism.
(03:36):
I feel seen when Not Lost Chat returns Welcome back
to Not Lost Chat. I'm Brendan Francis Nunham. Later in
the show, performance artist and musical savant Reggie Watts comes
by to answer your travel questions. But first I speak
with the doyenne of contemporary travel writers, Pico Iyer. My
(04:01):
editor warned me that that word was a little too precious,
but I think it's perfectly accurate for Pico. He has
written fifteen books about everything from the Cuban Revolution to globalism.
Some of his best sellers include Video Nighting, Catman Do
and the Art of Stillness, and he also writes on
average a hundred articles a year for various publications including
(04:22):
The New York Times, The Financial Times and others. Plus
and this is my favorite part of his bio. He
splits his time between a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sir,
California and an apartment with his wife in suburban Kyoto.
And here you thought having separate bedrooms was the secret
to alarm relationship. Pico's most recent book is The Half
(04:44):
Known Life in Search of Paradise, and in that book
he travels around to ten places across the world, places
like Iran, North Korea, Northern Ireland, Cashmere. And if you're
getting the sense that these aren't the typical places travelers
associated with paradise, you're not alone. I had the same feeling,
and when I met with Pico, I asked him about it.
(05:06):
I said, you know, if I didn't know any better,
I would assume you we're being cheeky about the search
for paradise. You're absolutely right. I mean, I've been lucky
enough to be traveling a long time, and so of
course when you step into a travel agency, everywhere is
presented as Shangola or Paradise. And when I was young,
I would go to Bali and later the Tahiti the Seychelles, Antarctica,
(05:27):
all the places that are commonly thought of as paradise,
and what's paradise for the visitor often isn't for the local.
If I were to ask one of them, what's your
notion of paradise? So they say, oh, yeah, paradise is
Santa Monica, It's New York City, It's that place across
the ocean. If I go to somewhere that really does
feel very content and self contained and unfallen, what do
(05:49):
I have to offer to it? I only corruption. I
am the serpent in the garden of Eden. And of
course everybody's sense of paradise is different. So probably the
best way of answering your question is this book rose
out of the pandemic, and twenty hours after lockdown was
announced in California, my eighty eight to old mother was
raised into the hospital in an ambulance, losing blood very quickly.
(06:12):
And when she came back, I flew through these three
ghost down airports from my little apartment to Japan to
be with her. So there I was sitting with my
mother who was wavering between life and death and the
whole world in this state of anxiety and lockdown and
I was thinking, well, the only paradise I would really
believe in is one that happens in the middle of
real life and in the face of death. In other words,
(06:34):
given that life is always going to throw difficult things
at us, how can we find our paradise in the
midst of that difficulty? And so, as you said, I
thought back onto the places of conflict and the many
war zones I'd been to, and I thought, maybe there
is a durable paradise that can outlast even the harshest
forms of reality. The book begins in Iran, and you
(06:57):
know there's an oppressive regime there. There isn't a hot war,
although there have been really intense protests of late. But
there's a couple of reasons you went there. Because it
also the origin of the word paradise, if understanding you,
also comes from Persian culture, exactly so. And also I
think the second reason is it's a perfect way of
(07:18):
seeing conflicting visions of paradise, because, of course, as you
are suggesting, the oppressive ayatold Us who rule Iran, maintained
that paradise belongs only to the faithful, and the place
called Zachar's paradise in South Tehran is actually a graveyard,
one of the largest in the world, with one point
five million dead bodies there. And meanwhile, as the protests
(07:40):
remind us, so many of the citizens of Iran constructing
their own paradise behind closed doors, which is a very secular,
worldly place of sex and drugs and rock and roll.
And then both sides meanwhile quoting from the Sufi poets
that they learned in high school or elementary school, who
remind us that the only paradise you can find is within,
(08:04):
which I think at some level everybody knows. But as
you say, Iran doesn't sound like a honeymoon location. But
as soon as I got there, though I'd been studying
it for thirty years, every hour of the next sixteen
days was full of surprises. And one of the surprises
is that if you're staying in a garden hotel in
the desert city of YaST and you step out after
(08:27):
nightfall and there are sweet smelling flowers all around, and
there are fairy colored lights in the trees, and you're
lead to this beautiful divan and you stretch out, and
an elegant way it brings you slices of sweet watermelon
and a pot of strong tea, and all around you
the beautiful, soft eyed people exchanging murmurs. My heavens, it's
as close to an earthly paradise as anything I've seen.
(08:48):
And the Iranians or the Persians, for thousands of years
have been building gardens that are meant to be a
replica of paradise and an enticement to the paradise of
the afterworld, and to this day they're as idyllic as
anywhere I've seen on earth. You also mentioned as another
fascinating detail is in your notes you would refer to
Ara as paradise in case your notebooks were reviewed when
(09:12):
you left, or in case your emails were being read,
and so you had to kind of veil Run as
paradise in your communications. Yes, I had to become as
veiled and complex as a society around me. So because
I think the first day I arrived there, I arrived
in the holy city of my shard, and it was
so surprising. I wanted to tell my friends back in
(09:32):
the US, so I went online, no problem sending emails.
By the third day my email account was completely blocked.
So I was positive that some poor lackey in Tehran
was being asked to read my every email at the
same time as my email was blocked. I could go
down to the hotel computer and send emails at any time,
but realizing that somebody was reading them, I thought it
(09:54):
was prudent to say this is the most wonderful place
on earth. And so in that culture where everything is
taking place between the lines and beneath the words, I
quickly realized I had to be the same, and I
had to pretend to be something that I wasn't. It
was a most interesting, sophisticated, rich place I've ever been,
the number one destination of my life. But I did
(10:17):
always feel that somebody was looking over my shoulder, and
it was wise to be vigilant. And when you say
it's the most interesting place you've ever been, that is
high praise, since you spend a lot of your life traveling.
On that point about traveling, how if at all, do
you think that you're living betwixt and between places affects
(10:37):
your view of paradise, Well, it changes in my relation
to home, Because you're absolutely right. I grew up in
the passageways and criss crossings between cultures as the child
of Indian parents born and growing up in England, moving
to California at seven, and then from the age of nine,
commuting back and forth every few weeks between England and California,
(10:57):
and now living in Japan for thirty five years on
a tourist visa. The space in between is my home,
and I'm very comfortable there, with one foot inside and
one foot outside. When a little boy, I was the
only dark skinned kid in all my classes in England,
So I never guessed then that what was so unusual
at that time would be the norm. I think if
(11:19):
I go to a classroom in San Francisco, I bet
forty percent or maybe more of the kids would be
just as in between as I am, and have lots
and lots of cultures inside them and around them. And
I think that's the great beauty of this new century.
I do think, as you say, it's not a paradise
for many people. It's a purgatory, not being able to
(11:41):
define themselves in a clear way. For me, it just
reminded me that home had nothing to do with any
physical location. It had to be what lives inside me,
my mother, my wife, the songs that go through my head,
the books I carry around with me, wherever I go.
And I'd always felt that, But actually, when I speak
(12:01):
of purgatory, this book came out of the lockdown, as
I was saying, and that was an in between time, essentially,
like the in between spaces where I've lived, And in
that in between time, I was thinking, and I'm sure
many other people were thinking, Well, this is a time
of uncertainty. We can't go anywhere, we don't know what's
coming over the horizon. How can we make it as
(12:21):
close to paradise as possible? How can we make ourselves
warm and cozy in this state of anxiety and unsettledness.
I wonder when you're going to places to write about them,
there is a certain amount of fantasy. Do you arrive
with an assignment. You arrive to pay attention, but you
don't have to get too involved in the mundane. And
(12:42):
I'm wondering if that, in a way it gives some
sort of artificial feeling of you know, you're unburdened by
certain mechanics of life because you are just always kind
of on assignment and adrift. Well, you're right, I mean,
the tourist is always carrying an artificial paradise around with
him and there's this dis equilibrium because we arrive in
(13:02):
Bali and as you say, we imagine we can do
anything we want. We're free of obligation, we're on holiday,
and the people were meeting at desperately trying to make
a living. So I've always felt that the traveler is
living in a sort of false paradise of projections and illusions. Yes,
you visit Kashmir, which you describe one point as the
(13:22):
paradise that's shone in your mother's heart, and that is
such a beautiful chapter. I don't know if that's why
it in such a beautiful chapter in this book, but
I do think the duality of the water versus the
land there, versus the political situation versus the hope, and
tourism's role. Could you speak about Kashmir and how it
fits into your kind of search for paradise. Yeah, no,
(13:45):
that's so beautifully, said Brendon. I mean you caught it perfectly. So, Yes,
as you said, I grew up on my mother's remembrances
from nineteen forty one of the lake under the snow
caps and the fields full of alpine flowers, and it
was a magical place for her growing up in Bombay,
And when finally I made it there a few years ago,
I stayed on as every traveler does, on a houseboat
(14:07):
on lake, and there was a lotus pond right outside
my window, and there was no sound but the whir
of Kingfisher's wings, and people would paddle slowly past, bringing
curries right to the doorstep or beautiful intricate carved boxes,
and couldn't have been more peaceful and heavenly, so long
as I screened out the fact that, just as you said,
(14:29):
ten minutes away on land, there were five hundred thousand
soldiers keeping an uneasy piece in a violent and occupied
place that for seventy years has been fought over by
India in Pakistan. And again that's part of the hazard
of being a paradise. Everyone wants to claim you, and
there are lots of people fighting over the same territory.
(14:50):
And so I thought, well, this is it's a paradise,
so long as I ignore the reality for the Cashmirius,
which is a very tragic reality. In that chapter, you
also you describe a lot of the people you meet
and what you learn from them, and I think a
more personal kind of do our that one has to
(15:10):
exist with in order to find peace. I think the
character he encountered. His name is Johnny, is that correct? Yes, yes, yes,
And can you talk a little bit about his story
and how he ended up there and found his way there.
So Johnny is a British tour guide and I had
been told by my magazine edit he's the guy you
should make contact with and should show you around Kashmir.
(15:32):
And indeed he was. He knew everyone and everywhere, and
in the course of our days together he told me
how twenty five years earlier, as a very very young traveler,
he'd come to Kashmir with his girlfriend and they stayed
on the houseboat called the Dream Palace, and one night
he woke up and his girlfriend couldn't breathe, and he
(15:55):
did everything he could, and she was dead at the
age of probably twenty three. And every traveler's nightmare, and
in a very difficult foreign place, there's your girlfriend. Not
only is she dead, but the police take him to
be the number one suspect if it was not a
natural death. And so suddenly his time in the paradise
(16:15):
of Kashmir involves going to the police station, going to
the coroner's office, making the most difficult phone call of
all to his girlfriend's parents back in England. I mean,
just a devastating thing. And then finally he went back
to England. And I imagined, after all that the one
place in the world he would never want to see
again is Kashmir. But of course I met him in Kashmir,
(16:38):
and in fact, as soon as Kashmir opened to visitors
again after some turmoil, he was the first professional talk
guide operator to go back. And he felt he wanted
to help Kashmir, which is a region he'd always loved,
but he also thought he could only repair his heart
by going to the place where his heart had been shattered.
(16:59):
And it also spoke, as you perfectly pointed out, to
this duality that on the one hand, I, who was
traveling there with Johnny, was like Johnny, trying to revise
this place which had suffered so much over seventy years
of war. On the other hand, a tourists can only
have a good time in Kashmir by sort of a
(17:19):
time is pretending that the war doesn't exist and sitting
out on the lake in this stillness of this paradise
lem setting. So as you said, it's a very complex
hornetsness but Johnny really moved me by his resolve to
go into the place that had been so difficult and
really come through it the other on the other side,
and now introduce many other people to Kashmir. Yes, I
(17:42):
think what's also interesting about that it's a side. Now.
Sometimes when I'm travel writing, I would almost ignored the
travel guide. I would almost be chagrined that, Okay, here
I am with someone who's going to kind of open
up this place for me, and somehow it'll kind of
taint the wisdom of this ancient place and not at all,
you know, you wouldn't have encountered him otherwise, this character
that's not a native of Kashmir but still has wisdom
(18:05):
and can still give you insight into a place. Yeah,
thank you. That's an interesting perception, and it was very
deliberate on my part that in almost every chapter here,
I am, as you pointed out, in the hands of
a guide, usually local or a driver, and I wanted
to make sure that I'm always in the passenger's seat,
because part of the point of the book, and I
(18:26):
think part of the point of travel is that, especially
when I was younger, I assumed I was in the
driver's seat. I was on top of everything. I could
control everything, I could plan my day, and I knew everything.
And the beauty of travel is it completely upends that.
And I'm at the mercy of all kinds of things
I can't begin to understand. And I'm very much metaphorically
and in this case literally in the passenger seat. And
(18:48):
so one reason that I gave this book the title
The Half Known Life, is that was it the half
known world I keep forgetting? And I think one of
the reasons I gave that title is that I feel
the amount that we really know is tiny, as if
(19:09):
we're in a little tent up in the Himalayas, and
maybe there are a couple of lanterns and we have
a flashlight, but it's a small pocket of light in
this vast darkness of the heavens above, pockmarked with stars
and the silvery mountains around, And basically the field of
our knowledge is tiny compared with everything we don't know.
And we are in the passenger seed. We are at
(19:30):
the mercy of the elements, and at the mercy of
the guides and the locals who are showing us around.
And so yes, I think in my other books, I
was nearly always describing just traveling alone unguided through cities
I couldn't make head nor tail of. But here having
the guides in almost every chapter was really essential. Yeah,
(19:50):
as a reader, I respond to it because I know
what it's like to happen the back of an uber
give myself over to someone like that. I trust you
as my guide, but it seems more honest or authentic
in a sense that you are a passenger and then
I am joining you. In a way. It makes for
a different sort of reading experience. You know, I was
having dinner with the companion as I was preparing for
(20:11):
this and trying to explain what the book is about.
I think that's why it's fitting this book is called
the subtitle I'll let you know because you might not remember.
The subtitle is They Have Known Life in search of Paradise.
It's about the search, and ultimately there is the fact
that we just have to live in this in between
(20:34):
the tension of the darkness and the light of knowing
and not knowing? Am I wrong in that? I mean?
Is that part of the reason it remains of search?
There's there's no discovery, beautifully said, and I really my
heart goes out to trying to explain what this book
is about, because it's impossible to most people. I think
it's just an enigma. It's one of the harder books
to characterize deliberately, but exactly what you said. And I
(20:57):
think the search for paradise is actually what gets in
the way of our finding the paradise. That it's our
notions of paradise or our longing for something that we
don't have, that keeps us from seeing what we do have,
which may be the closest to paradise we get. And
so that's why this climatic moment, which in fact I
(21:17):
don't fully describe in the book. But I'm in Varnasi,
which is, as many people know, the most chaotic, terrifying,
intense place in often chaotic, terrifying, intense India. For those
who don't know Varanasi, as I understand it is, people
want to have their loved ones bodies burned there. Over years,
(21:38):
it's become like lower the or a magical place that's
supposed to be a crossing ground and the auspicious place
in which a traditional Hindu can enter the afterworld. That's right,
you burn the ashes and you put them into the river.
There there are flames burning to the north and south,
reducing dead bodies to ash. There are people racing through
the narrow lanes carrying stretchers to commit the corpses to
(22:01):
the flames and the Holy waters, or naked ascetics walking
around who live in graveyards and drink from skulls to
show their indifference to right and wrong. And there are
people bathing in the Holy waters and drinking from them,
although there are there three thousand times beyond the maximal
level found to be safe for consumption by the who,
so as in this mad scene. I'm an one hundred
(22:23):
percent Indian and Hindu by births, and even I'm freaked
out by this. And suddenly I heard somebody call my name,
and it was two Tibetan Buddhist monks, one older Tibetan
and one an American monk whom I knew from New
York City. And as I surveyed this sort of psychedelic commotion,
(22:44):
the American monk said, isn't this gorgeous? This is the
whole thing. This is reality, This is life and death
and everything in between. This is exactly what we have
to grasp This he might as well have been saying,
is paradise. This is where we have to find our paradise,
right in the middle of the chaos and the death
and the stuff that we can't begin to comprehend. And
(23:06):
I thought that was almost exactly what the book was about.
In my eyes. I live in Japan, as you say,
and often when I step into a temple in Kyoto,
written on the ground at the entrance other words, look
beneath your feet. In other words, don't look to the future,
to the past, and never never land. Imagine that paradise
(23:27):
around the corner. Choose to find your paradise right where
you are. Well, Pico, I think that's a lovely sentiment
to end on, actually a lovely sentiment for a travel
show to arrive at, kind of find the paradise where
you are. Thank you so much for coming by to
discuss your book. It is really bit of pleasure. Thank
you for such a really rich and wonderful conversation. I
(23:49):
think anyone listening can tell you and I could keep
on going for three hours, so this has really been fun.
That's a great compliment and gift. Pico Iyer's most recent
book is The Half Known Life In Search of Paradise,
and that was such a great conversation I had to
leave some of it out. But among Pico's friends the
(24:11):
Dalai Lama and the other was the late Leonard Cohen,
so we had a lot to talk about. And he
told me that Leonard will make an appearance in his
next book. All Right coming up. Musician, comedian and improv
maestro Reggie Watts comes by and talks, among other things,
(24:33):
about the ghostwriter of his upcoming memoir. Chat GPT is
when Not Lost Chat returns. Welcome back to Not Lost Chat.
(24:55):
We are now at the etiquette portion of our episode
and I am joined by Reginald Lucian. Frank Roger Watts,
better known as Reggie Watts. He came up as a
musician in Seattle and then may some appearances on TV.
You may have seen him on Comedy Bang Bang. He
is now leader of the house band for The Late
Late Show with James Cordon. He is an absolute American original,
(25:20):
although Bornich took guard with his mothers from France, but
he was raised in Great Falls, Montana and his upcoming
memoir is named Great Falls Montana that comes out later
next year. And when I spoke with him, I asked
him about the book. For someone who is so famous
for improving, was it anxiety producing to put pen to
(25:42):
paper and just really capture his ideas once and for all. Man,
You know, I never really thought of it that way.
That's interesting. Yeah, I think I think what made that
not happen so much, or at least that you know
the possibility of that that vibe happening, is because I
worked with a really great ghost writer who works just
(26:06):
like I've always loved to work, like whether it was
mental theater or coming up with bits for my early
shows and things like that. Like would just have a
writing partner who I could just relay the ideas that
flow into my head and just like put it out
there and then they kind of format it and organize it.
And I chose him as as a writer because his
(26:28):
name's Chris Ferra, and he I chose him because he's
from the Midwest, so Montana's got to share some sensibilities
with the Midwest. And obviously I would help craft and
shape the language, and I would read things with him
in his presence. I would we would just read through
the pages and I'd be like, I wouldn't do that.
(26:49):
I would say that and then he would touch it up,
and so that process allowed me to not have to
have that terrified feeling that I get when someone's like,
here's a script, you know, or like write a script.
You know. That to me is so terrifying because everything
I do is just let's just do it live. Even
(27:10):
even your Netflix specials. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Spatial was
fully improvised. I just did two. I always like to
do two or three shows and then composite them together,
even the improv with Rory Scoville and Cape berlant Um
for the fictional nineties sitcom Crow's Nest was me just
before we were going on stage, like all we had
(27:31):
was wardrobe. The most important thing for me was knowing
that we had the right wardrobe. Once we had the wardrobe,
we were just about to go on stage, and I'd
be like, let's just do a physical take where we're
not really talking, we're just doing physical bits. Yeah, and
then they're like okay, and then we just go up
and did it that. I love it so, Frank, I
just love so you So your your co author's chat GPT, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(27:51):
of course really gets it right. Well, I didn't know
it's from the Midwest. I didn't realize there was a
gen xer no chat chat gptum is yeah, he's amazing. Um.
I actually worked at Elsa National Park years ago and
then I let because it was crazy, which I don't
even feel like counts as Montana. And I went back
(28:13):
to my first season of this show and it was
so clear to me I felt so still unmanly in Montana,
Like I felt so inadequate as a city kid. What
did you did you? What was your relationship to that?
Do you feel like the masculinity in Montana is different
than on the coast? I think so one hundred percent.
(28:35):
I think there's um. Yeah, it's a really good question
because I've never really thought of it in that way.
But I think what it is is, I mean, there's
definitely like a lot of tradition when it comes to
the way that sexes and genders, you know, elaborate together.
But I think there's like they're a little bit more equal,
generally speaking than in other places, perhaps just because practicality
(29:02):
is kind of king in Montana. Pragmatism, practicality, preparedness, helpfulness, flexibility, dynamicism,
these types of things are key because people are outdoors.
There's a lot of outdoors and outdoors persons, you know
that just we go out there, like, you know, I
remember my friend's dad dropping us off with back packs
(29:25):
and it was just like me and my friend Steve
and we just ye. It was in the winter. We
had to dig out snow and chip away at the
ground and make a fire pit, so, you know, and
then he'd come, he'd like, I'll pick you up on Sunday.
You know, it sounds terrifying, sounds like the beginning of
a true crime podcast. It's kind of terrifying, but like
when you have the gear and you know the basics,
it's actually great. It's like super freeing, so that actually
(29:47):
I can that naturally. Kind of jives with this travel theme,
the loose travel theme of these chats, which is, so
what when you do have time off when you are
not professionally touring? What do you do for kicks? Where
do you go? Where does Reggie relax? You know, I
rarely go on vacations, or I'll have to. I'll have
a vacation at the end of a tour, like I'll
(30:09):
stay in the last city. So I love hanging out
in Berlin. One of my favorite cities. And uh, I
went to Salem recently for the weekend before Halloween to
kind of go on some history tours and learn about
which trials and all that stuff. That was really cool. Um,
trying to think if I've got you know, I've gotten
(30:30):
like you know, the cabins and things like that for
a weekend. But yeah, I don't know. It's it's very
rare that I do. But the thing is like, whenever
I go to these places, I feel like I might
as well do a show, right, yeah, you know, because
because my show isn't like I'm not preparing for the show.
I'm not writing a show. I just show up and
if I have my gear, or even if I don't
have my gear, I can still do a show. So
I figure, like, why not do a show because it's
(30:52):
it's fun and it you know, it's like helps offset
the cost of the vacation whatever. All right, Well, look,
I have some adiquate questions from from the audience that
you're going to help with your because you're a wise man, Um,
you're going to improvise. If you're not a wise man
and not it will work. So this first question comes
from Crystal from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Crystal asks, if I'm
(31:13):
in the window seat, is it rude to keep the
shade open while I know other people around me are
trying to sleep. Yes. Yes, it's a weird one because
obviously you're next to the window, so you're like, I
control out the windows seat because I wanted to, you know,
maybe you like to look outside or something like that.
(31:34):
But if it's really bright and you see that most
of the shades around you are closed and people are sleeping,
I don't know, I just close the shade. I mean
at that altitude, like what do you do? What do
you get some clouds and some land masks, you know,
open it, take a look, close it, you know, and
then maybe rest or like watch something or think about something.
But I always defer to the majority around me. Interesting,
(31:57):
I do feel like I try to give the middle seat.
I empower them because they're in a tough spot. So
I'll kind of like tie goes in the middle seat,
is kind of my thought. But I will say what
I don't like in this department is I'll get into
a plane close it because the sun's beating me in
the head. And then then sometimes it only happens sixty
percent of the time, so I don't know if it's
a rule or not. A flight attendant will come by
(32:19):
and say, excuse me, you need to have the shade
open for liftoff. Yeah, like what is this the right? Brothers?
Like like this is going to determine our death or not? Like, like,
what is that about? I think it's about I think
someone because I wondered about that too, and I think
it has something to do with um my situational awareness.
(32:40):
And it's like it's just a small point of failure,
like for if an emergency occurs or something like that,
somebody's going wrong, they'll have a better read on where
it's happening if they can count the windows or something.
I think it's that it feels pretty ardy. It feels
pretty small, bore, I know. Yeah, all right. This next
question us from Molly from Charlotte and Molly Rights. My
(33:01):
boyfriend's parents want to take us on vacation, but they
want all four of us to share a hotel room
to save cost. My boyfriend doesn't think this is weird,
but I do. How can I get out of this? Well,
she is right, that's weird. It also depends on how
old the relationship is, you know, because obviously if you've
(33:23):
spent a lot of time together already, maybe you can
kind of both decide like, well, this will be weird,
but let's just see what it's like. Yeah, um, but
I'm a big fan. I need my space. This is
very intimate. Um, I mean the parents got to feel
like that's weird, you know what I mean? Yeah, you know,
and unless the parents want to control it, you know,
(33:43):
if they want to, like they want to go in vacation,
but they don't want to have the stress of imagining
that they're you know that Molly is making love with
her boy. Yeah, making love next door? Like that breaks
us out. Let's just keep them in sight. I don't know.
It's just a little weird, right, that's your answer, Molly? Um,
not okay, but good luck. How can I get out
of this? I don't I don't know what to tell you. Um, okay,
(34:04):
A couple more questions. Um, This one I feel like
is made tailor, made for you. It doesn't have a
name attached. I'll make one up. Jacob Smith from Santa
Motica Rights. In a few weeks, I'm going to be
a plus one at a destination wedding where I don't
know anyone except my partner. Any tips, I would say,
hopefully the partner, you know, recognizes that there's a it's
(34:26):
a little incumbent on them to kind of ease you
into the situation and maybe them thinking about people knowing
you and then thinking about the people that are going
to be there, like which people you think that you'd
get along with, you know, introducing them whatever, or like
you know, announcing common interests, things like that. I think
I think of it as an adventure. Be open minded,
(34:48):
try not to be super resistant. I've definitely been in
that vibrate I'm goa go up. I don't know, I
don't want to go you know, that kind of stuff,
A little two way, but like you got to kind
of make a little bit of an extra effort to
these doked, you know, as much as you can. To me,
this sounds like a good dream. This means like, oh,
vacation free food, dress up dan, And I'm not going
(35:09):
to be embarrassed because I don't know anybody, Like I
have zero responsibilities except to my partner. That feels pretty dreamy,
Like I just have to sit there and maybe be
charming and not a jerk, Like that's like my preferred mode.
But and if you're anxious, I get that. Not everyone's
an extrovert, but you can still take joy in nothing
is expected of you except to like be a support
(35:31):
of your partner. Stakes are low. This is like free
meals for days another bonus tip. Yeah, so there you go,
enjoy and if if you can't go, you know my email.
I'll go with your partner as long as fast Nation's nice. Yeah,
all right, this is our last question. It comes from Lucy,
and Lucy asks if one partner has a TSA pre
(35:53):
check and the other does not, should we know where
this is going? Should the TSA PreCheck partner stand in
the regular line or should they soldier onto the gate?
Soldier on to the gate? I mean, come on, it's like,
why did you get TSA PreCheck? It's like also if
you're the reason, usually when people get TSA pre check,
(36:15):
it's because they don't want to deal with the bullshit,
the extra bullshit that you have to go through normally.
So if that's like an anxiety reducing thing, I think
your partner would understand. And also your partner should just
get TSA or get global entry hopefully you're not in
a codependent relationship. I mean I've had this cup both
ways because I have global entry, yeah, global entry, and
I've had people to go ahead and I hop on
(36:36):
the other side, and then you can kind of text
them be like hey, I'll get your snack and you're
there and you kind of can receive them. Yeah. But
I've also been in partnerships where they've been like, basically
you felt a test, like I cannot believe you abandoned me. Yeah,
you banned in me, and then I had to go
through this hell line and it's like you know what
this cost sixty dollars and took like yes, not that
(36:57):
that's that's that's totally. That's that's my that's my thing.
Like I'm like, it depends on the type of person
you are, you know, but like when you're in a relationship,
I think you're supposed to encourage, you know, if someone
else has an opportunity to take the opportunity. Yeah. So
it's like about independence and not code. It's interdependence, not codependence.
I can't stand the codependent thing and need to be
(37:19):
with people that are like, no, I don't worry about it.
I've got it and you're like, okay, cool, and you
know hopefully they're just like, yeah, that's what I would
fucking do. Yeah, get hip, Get hip, all right, REDI Odds,
thank you so much for giving some travel etiquette to
my audience. Easy and uh oh can I add one
thing to travel tips? Yeah? Please? Um uh don't check bags? Oh? Interesting?
(37:43):
I never check bags. Haven't checked bags since two thousand
and twelve. Interesting, okay, and that includes all my gear.
And I know some people some people obviously like, yeah,
how can you bring all your gear on it? And
their fashionist does and they need their you know, three
pairs of shoes and stuff like that. That's a little
bit I understand. But if you can, there are smart
ways to pack light. Uh. And if you if you
(38:06):
run into Morse if you need stuff, you can always
get more stuff basics or whatever along there is that. Well,
they did lose my bag this summer in Portugal, and
I now bought a check in bag, So I'm with you,
all right. Rock and roll symbol, Reggie Wats, thanks so
much for coming by my pleasure. Reggie Watts. You can
(38:29):
catch him on TV on The Late Late Show with
James Gordon, where he's the band leader or keep your
eyes peeled, because he often performs his mind altering variety
of comedy music at venues around the country. Okay, so
that's it for this edition of Not Lost Chat. And
that's it for this inaugural season of Not Lost Chats.
(38:51):
I used to scoff at the notion of a travel
show taking place in a studio, but our guests, from
Andrew tron Grier to Jessica Nobongo to Jeff Dyer, charl
Straight to Pico Iyer, they all gave me so much
inspiration and food for thought that I was transported, as
you will, away from the studios. I am about to
(39:11):
thank all of the people who helped put this show together,
but first, at risk of being corny, I'd like to
thank you for listening. Creating Not Lost Season one was
the most difficult and yet most satisfying endeavor of my
life so far, and the reception it received from folks
like you was part of that joy. For those who
stuck around for this season of Chats. And if you're
(39:33):
listening to this, by definition you are one of those people.
Thank you so much. Perhaps someday I can trick you
into inviting me over for dinner. This final episode of
the season of Not Lost Chat was partially produced by
Jordan Bailey, Jacob Smith, and Sarah Bruguire. For Better or
(39:54):
Worse the whole Thing was written and hosted by me
Brendan Francis Newnham. Booking assistance, as usual, came from Laura Morgan.
This episode was edited by Julia Barton, who in a
couple of months will be coming out with her maiden audiobook,
Best Audio Non twenty twenty two. It is filled with
some gems alas Not Lost didn't make the cut, but
(40:14):
who's bitter about that? Not me, I'm not. Jacob Smith
was also the managing producer in this episode, and he
did that with crutches, which is no easy feat. Fortunately
someone who wasn't on crutches despite a recent weekend snowboarding.
Sarah Bruger, who was our producer and mix engineer. I
really can't thank her enough for all the hard work
(40:35):
she's put into making this season happen. Thank you, Sarah.
You're probably listening to this late in the evening and
we may slack about when to post this episode. Not
Lost is a co production of Pushkin Industries, Topic Studios,
and iHeartMedia. It was developed at Topic Studios and the
executive users include Me, Brandon Franzis Nunham, Christy Gressman, Maria Zuckerman,
(40:59):
Lisa Langgang and Latamallad. It is not too late to
tell people about this show. I made these chat episodes
what is called in the biz evergreen, so they will
never go out of season. So if you have someone
in your life interested in travel, tell them about it,
and if you want to tell the world about it,
make a commented Apple podcasts. It's all greatly appreciated. And
(41:21):
while you're waiting for more episodes of Not Lost, you
can check out some other Poschkin podcasts. Jacob Smith is
also the mastermind behind Deep Cover Death. Been Artist is
a great show that we made. Story of the Week
is a very funny, interesting show that comes out. Lots
of good stuff out there. You can listen and find
them all on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever
(41:42):
you listen to your podcasts. That is it for this episode.
Thank you, everybody. I am somewhere right now drinking Margharita.
I raise it to you. Don Voyage
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