Not Lost Chat: Road Work (Andrew Sean Greer & Jay Pharoah)

the pool, eating a salad. Shakespeare once described someone's youth as their salad days, a time of carefree innocence. But my salad days didn't begin until I reached middle age and realized if I didn't start pounding vegetables, my body would molt into a piece of uncooked dough. The sandwich days would be a better phrase for my care for youth. So there I was pool side, virtuously eating my raw vegetables,

as well as reading a book. It was a novel about a formerly successful, newly middle aged man, recently single, who decides to travel to find himself. Yeah, if it had been a podcast, I'd have a copyright claim. Palm Trees Swede American songbook music dribbled out some invisible speakers. Two young couples entered the pool area, and they looked as if they were from Central Casting, which, considering this

was LA, might have been the case. They were all slim, smiling, and wearing black bathing suits, the men in trunks, the women in bikinis. They called over the waiter and ordered a round of spritzes. I looked down at my long sleeved sweater and corduroy slacks, forked a tiddley wink of radish into my mouth and went back to my book. Earlier that day, I'd walked along Hollywood boulevards, concrete galaxy of stars floating amidst the Milky Way of celebrities for tourists,

street merchants, and unhoused people. Soon I found myself in front of the famous Hollywood landmark, Gramin's Chinese Theater, built in nineteen twenty seven by Sid Grammin. Built to look like a Chinese pagoda, It's set back from the street and has kind of a courtyard outfront. The story goes that when they were completing construction on it. Sid was inspecting things with an actress who stepped into the wet pavement by mistake. Instead of getting upset, Sid got an idea.

He decided he would invite celebrities to dip their hands and feet into the pavement on purpose, and it would serve as sort of a monument to Hollywood, the town that lined his pockets. So the area is covered with the feet and hands of the many famous Hollywood stars that have come before. You can see Shirley Temple's little feet. You can see Carrie Grants also kind of little feet. When I was there, I saw a German tourist try to fit her hand into scarlet to a Hanson's hand.

If you look closely, you can see the Melbrook's right hand has an extra finger. The comedian secretly wore prosthetic when he pressed his hand into the wet concrete. But a keen observer would realize that for a place that's been around since nineteen twenty seven, there really aren't that many slabs, which is odd because stars have been dipping their extremities in the concrete at Grammins for nearly a century.

It turns out the theater removes slabs of sidewalk from time to time when a celebrity star is faded, or if they just need space to make room for the new kid in town, then the imprints of the formerly

famous are stored somewhere in the theater. I imagine that inside Grummins is a room filled with hands and footprints that looks like an archaeological dick stacks of concrete indentations of people who made their literal mark on the landscape of Hollywood and never imagined that the ground could be pulled out from under them and they would be replaced

by someone else. Later, as I'm dutifully eating my salad poolside at the hotel, I noticed one of the women from the blackclad foursome emerged from the pool, and I noticed someone else watching her. It's a silver haired stranger who selected a lounge chair one seat away from the couples, despite the many other available chairs around the pool. He looks to be what would be called a silver fox, gray hair, lean tan body, his white teeth flashed in

the sun. He smiles and appears to start talking to the woman, while she looks on with that kind of grimace of someone who doesn't want to be rude, but is thinking what's going on here? Finally, her partner stands up and puts his arm around her, and they turned back to the other couple. The fox keeps chatting with them, even though their body language their backs mostly turned towards him indicate that they'd rather he didn't. At last, he took a hint, stood up and jumped in the pool,

did a lap, and returned to his lounge chair. I closed my book. As I returned to my room, I walked by the couples and the silver Fox, and that's when I recognized him. He was an actor who started Who's the Boss, one of the most popular sitcoms of the eighties. When I was a kid, it was on all the time, and yet that hit shows last season was in nineteen ninety two, which is probably before the couple he'd been chatting with We're even born to them.

He was just a guy interrupting their pool day. As I passed, I noticed the footprints he'd made stepping out of the pool, evaporating in the sun. All that is to say that novel I was reading by the pool really good. It was called Less. It won a Pulitzer and today I'm gonna be talking with the author. I'm Brendan Francis Newnham. This is Not Lost, and I'll be right back after this break. Welcome back to episode one of Not Lost Chat, my series of conversations with fellow travelers.

I'm Brendan Francis Nunham, audio producer, journalist, dinner freeloader, and for the next half dozen or so episodes, I'm going to be doing something a little bit different. I will be in a studio speaking with writers, musicians, actors, and others about their journeys. Someday in the future I'll be out in the field going on more journeys on my own.

But until then, we have this to enjoy. Also, since so many of you have been asking me for practical travel information, which if you've listened to the show, I clearly don't have a lot of. In each of these episodes, I've invited a frequent traveler of some renown. We will help answer your questions. But first, about that book I

was reading by the pool in Hollywood. Less is named after its protagonist, Arthur Less, who is a mildly successful author who was surprised to find himself middle aged and a Drift. The author of Less is Andrew shown Grier, who coincidentally, I'm sure is also a novelist and travel writer probably definitely not a drift. After he won a Poulter for Less, he wrote a sequel called Less is Lost, and I wanted to talk with him about these books. So I decided to reach out Andrew Shan Greer, thanks

for green to chat with me. I'm happy to be here. And also it seems like a perfect fit for maybe able to be on this podcast. It, I mean, it really is in fact, so I'm not to be a modest but you know, recently New York Magazine named Not Lost one of the best podcasts of twenty twenty two, and in the review describing Not Losses said, quote kind of has the slight energy of Andrew Shong Grier's Less, But let's not oversell it. What right I think that? To make you read that correctly? I think I think

I think I was nagged by the reporter. But anyway, nonetheless he piqued my interest. But yes, for better or worse, I feel like the journey I took on this show, at least for season one, mirrored that of your part agonist Arthur lest Essentially, you know, he's a mildly successful novelist in the throes of middle age who in the first book goes on a journey to avoid the agony of attending the marriage of his ex boyfriend. And yes, all that does, except for the last part, sound eerily familiar.

And in the first book he goes from San Francisco to New York to Mexico City, to Berlin, to Paris, to Morocco and then India. And in the most recent book he's in need of money and he ends up traveling around the US. And so I guess, just stepping way back, why is Arthur Less always traveling? I would say it started off as a very practical reason, which is that I was in order to make a buck, because I'm just a novelist. I was pitching myself as a travel writer, and I would pitch ideas to in

flight magazines for United and stuff like that. Yeah, so I was already finding myself traveling around. And I was working on a novel about a sad, sack, middle aged game a man in San Francisco, and the novel was just a drag and I thought, what if I make him travel? What if I have memories of travel because I have all these notes, because if you're a travel writer or sitting alone in a restaurant in Saigon for hours just writing down what dog walks in, And so

I thought, I will, I'll use my notes. And I enjoyed writing the travels so much that I ditched the other part of the novel and I made it a comedy about him traveling and it was great fun. And I started pitching ideas to fit the novel, not to fit where I wanted to go. Yeah, can we talk about that for a moment, because, as you just said, to help support your creative writing, you work as a travel writer. In other words, it's a job. Yeah. Now

I'm someone who's done some travel writing. I have a travel show, and I find that my friends and people I meet often forget the fact that it's actually work. Does that happen to you? Like, I feel like people think it's all Margarita's and cha cha cha. Yeah. People people get very envious of my being able to travel. But I will tell them like, well, like I just took a trip to Australia and I was there for three days and then I flew back, And that sounds fun to people, and I know how to enjoy it,

but it is madness, you know. And I'm still suffering the jet leg from that for three days in Australia. And it was, you know, the first time I went to Japan, in fact to research for Less, I was only in Kyoto for four days, and you can't do very much, especially if you're having to gather information about three hotels and five restaurants in that time. You can't do much else but eat the same meal five times in a row and sleep in very similar hotels. So

you have to get used to that tedium. You mentioned that you drew from your notebook in many of Arthur's misadventures. So what about the most recent book, where Less is traveling across the United States. As I understand it, you yourself also drove across the United States in an RV. Kind of things occurred on your journey that ended up making it in the book. Yeah. I took two different RV trips. One was like a big Cruise America RV through the Southwest, and the second was these handmade little

camper vans this guy makes out of Atlanta. What never made it in was when I would get the story of the diner cook who would tell me your life story. I didn't put anything like that in, but I would put in things like when I went to a rural bar outside of Muscle Show's, Alabama and it was kind of like a Peewee Herman movie where I walk in and the jukebox stops and everyone stares at me. I put that down verbatim in the novel because I thought it was so funny. I did not belong in that

bar and they were awfully nice to me. Well, you allude to this a little bit in Definitely Less is Lost. But you know, traveling across the United States as a gay man is I'm assuming different than it was for me as just a straight white guy. First of all, I was saying, I don't think it's different at all.

I don't know anything about you, but I bet the awkwardness of feeling foreign in your own country is something a lot of people share, and that it's most apparent for me that people can sense something different about me, but they can't quit put their finger on it. And that's what happened when I showed up at the RV park and there was a woman who said, now you're not from here are you? And I said I was from Maryland and she said, now, I thought you're from

the Netherlands. There was just something about me she couldn't quite name that was not what she would call American, and I knew what it was. But that was actually the real surprise to me going around is that as much as I dressed myself up in Walmart when I thought was straight guyed clothing, everybody knew I was gay yea, whether they knew that's what they were talking about or not.

And it was not dangerous for me. Yeah. So maybe stepping back to Arthur, and I guess I am asking this about you too, Like what is the appeal of travel? I think it's two things, and I don't share necessarily both of them. One is the sense of being wrong all the time. And if you are wrong at home all the time about like how to order a bagel,

you're kind of like a loser. But when you travel, being wrong is like the name of the game, Like that's part of the experience, is to challenge yourself with There are other ways to get onto a subway or the different people around the world have a different idea of what a sidewalk is you start to realize that it's arbitrary the system you thought should always be in place, and that's eye opening and liberating because if you make mistakes,

that's normal. Yeah, so that's good for him. He is a character who is utterly innocent about the sort of dangers of the world or the problems he himself is causing. And then at the end of each he keeps choosing doubling down on innocence. You know, like, the next town is going to be better. I'm going to get it right this time. I'm sure. I'm sure it's going to improve, which I found really sweet to write about and which I think is part of travel too. You're like, well,

let's try the next town. You know, who knows what's going to happen there. I consider travel kind of the laziest form of learning in that sense too, where you arrive in a place and just waking up, getting breakfast, getting somewhere, getting a cup of coffee. You're learning all across, you know, just by survival, because you know you're in a different place. You might be a better traveler than I am, though I already have that sense that I am quite incompetent at those but I agree it's it's

a great learning experience. Now, when I've done traditional travel writing, I've found that the frame is too limiting, like you have to leave out all the stuff that's the best part of traveling. Oh yeah, random meeting of people, Yeah yeah yeah, misadventures, romance, whatever. And when I was making this show, I tried to make it in a way

where I could include all of that stuff. And I'm wondering if you kind of viewed your novels in a similar fashion, like that they were a place you could open up about what it's really like to go somewhere.

I think you're totally right. Like I in the books, I don't have to put in every restaurant that I've been assigned, or sit down with the manager for two hours as they take you on a hotel to where you're never going to put in the article, you know, all those really important parts when they need a sidebar of like you know, five places to get a great bond me in ho Chi Min City. I didn't have to do that for the book, but for less everything else got put into the book because you're right, you

can't put things that are too personal. So when you're you know this is your second this is the follow up to Less. When you're touring for these books or people are talking about them, why do you think they enjoy them so much? I people tell me. I can only report what people tell me. They find them to be like a big, warm hug, that's what everyone says. Now. I don't know if I wrote them as a hug, but I do think that it's because I'm not making fun of the places I'm going to. They're not cruel.

People are, especially after being trapped inside so much that they're enjoying this sort of fantasy of travel as trouble, where everything certainly is going to turn out okay. Because I think in a comedy you have there's a tacit understanding with the author that it's not funny unless it turns out okay. So we're going to laugh assuming that's how it's going to be, and when you're actually traveling, you're not sure that's how it's going to be. Yeah,

that's where the panic comes in. Like these books aren't simply hugs, Like they contain a certain amount of pathos. Arthur is a little heartbroken and a drift. You know, he's single at middle age, while most of his friends are in couples. And actually, on that point in particular, I have a question for you. Yeah, absolutely, How would you describe the difference between traveling when single versus traveling while in a relationship. Oooh, that is a juicy question.

I'm not sure I get in there and that liberty to answer that fully. Well, they're definitely very different. I think when you're single, you're looking for an experience. You have the kind of person you would never meet anywhere else, and you might find that if you're open to it in these in these in places where you go, you're open to it. But if you're not single, it's you

have it. You're open to something different, which is that you can't sit at a bar and just talk with the locals for hours because you're not trying to pick anyone up. Yeah, but so you're never going to get that intimate pillow talk from around the world, but you do get the bud light talk. Each is different. They

both had their pros and columns. Yeah, I also think I've done both, and I do feel like traveling for better worse is a little bit of a narcotic in that you're on you know, it is a little bit fantasy, and part of the allure is that anything can happen, whereas when you're with someone, even if they're not with you, there is a ballast, which is a good thing but

also changes the experience. Couldn't you get close enough to the fire where there's a little vibration of possibility and you're like, actually, I don't have to push the button. I can't push the button, so I don't have to, but I can just still imagine what might have happened. Good Night, everybody, you know, well, Andy, thank you so much for coming to chat with me, and thanks for making these books. They're they're just wonderful and inspiring me to want to go hit the road for me too,

And I've just left the road. Thanks so much for chatting with me today. Thank you for having me. Andrew Sean Greer's most recent book is called Less's Lost. I saw it at the airport when I was returning from la which to me that means you've made it. Forget the Pulitzer. If they're selling your book next to the neck Pillows and Peanut M and M's, you are a popular author. And speaking of airports, it's almost time for us to talk about the less sexy parts of traveling.

So after a quick break, comedian and master of impressions, Jay Farrow channels a former president to help me answer some of your travel questions. If I'm sitting in the seat and the person beside me is acting our rate, I'm going to call a flight attendant before I stick my size thirteen foot up there, tiny ass, not lost, We'll be right back. So I asked some of you to send me travel etiquete questions via my small but

mighty social media channels. BF Newnham on Twitter. Thank you, I asked because during my recent excursion to La I realized that I've kind of forgotten how to be with other people in public, specifically in airports, in shuttles, in hotels. Anyway, you gave me some great questions, and today I have actor and comedian Jay Farrow here to answer some of them. Jay is best known as being that guy on Saturday Night Live who did amazing impressions of Barack Obama, Kendrick Lamar,

Kevin Hart, and countless others. He has gone on to work on a number of TV shows and movies, including Unsane, White, Famous, and most recently comedy centrals out of office, and he also does stand up, which is where he started. And he's currently on tour all over the world, which means he's traveling a lot. And Jay, welcome, glad you're here. Tell me how do you feel about all this traveling. It's only a pain in the ass if I have to ride air lines because they're trash. You know what

I mean. They really not a good airline. It was messed up. That was so bad. One time I ended up getting the mechanical problems and um, we took off from Texas and then we got stuck in Portland and my destination was Virginia, Like what, why do we go back? Why do we go back here? Yeah, that's the wrong direction. Absolutely. I like it when it's a straight flight, and I like when I have my bag. That's the only listen.

As long as I can get my bag back. I'm good man, because I got oils and stuff in there that I need for my hair, you know what I mean. I've got I've got essentials that I need for the Jay Ferrell package. Are you a carry on guy or you or check? I got? I have so much stuff I have to check in check. I'm a check in guy. I feel like it's underrated frankly because you once you drop off your big bag, It's like life is a lot easier when you're gonna in and around the airport. Yeah, man,

I got a question. Do you fit when you travel? Do you still put your mask on? Because I kind of feel like the only sub zero out here? What do you mean by sub era that you do wear your mask? Yeah? I wear my mask. I The only reason I don't recently is because I had COVID, So I feel like I'm in that sixty day window where I get to like do whatever I want. You know, even if the pandemic didn't exist. A mask in an airplane,

isn't it bad? I don't like like being so close to all these strangers in the recycled error me neither. I still do a social distancing. I'm like your backup six feet or I'm a stone Coast stunning, stone Coat stunning. Is that is that a move? Like? What is that move? Oh? You don't even know. It's a wrestling move from the

Attitude era WWF. Stone Coast. Steve Auston does this thing where he flicks you off, he kicks you and he grabs your neck with his arm and like go like this and my knees hit the ground and you bounce up and do a flip. That that doesn't seem like something, um that would be acceptable in an airport. Jay, you don't think it. You don't think it is. Well, I think I should try it and report back to you. Okay, I think I should do it. Yeah, let me know.

Do you get recognized at airport? It's like do people come up to you and do the thing? You know what? Man? Even with a mask on, I get recognized. It just it blows my mind. I'm like, how the hell do you know? Like my nose is covered, how do you know who I am? And then looking at them, it's I think it's just the eyes. It was the eyes of the window window to the soul right. Like I'm just chilling and people still come up to me, and its just like Jack, I'm like, oh, I got a

mask on, I fist bumped you. It's like seventies all day with me? Hey, what up? Brother? You know what I'm saying? Because I easily get sick, Like for instance, I was I traveled to Raleigh on North Carolina. I got sick. I got sick because this dude he was his hand. He came up to me and I normally like, I said, I like doing this, but he wouldn't take this for an answer, and so I like, I took him and I gave him my hand, and his hand was so freaking sweaty. Up, it was slipping, slick hand sweaty.

So I touched. I was like, oh god, I'm sitting and I'm and I don't even know if it was from him. Yeah, but I got sick that following day. All right, well, look it sounds like you are. You're well traveled on tour, so you're perfectly prepared to help our audience. They submitted some traveling questions. Okay, can you help us with these? Absolutely what we're doing, all right.

So the first question comes from Lee, and the question is what's a polite way to let a chatty seat neighbor on a plane know that you're not in the mood to talk. Oh oh wow wow, just um admit conversation. Just look at them and just put your head down like this. So look at them and close your eyes and fall asleep while they're talking. In yep, that's exactly what you do. Because and I feel like that's so yo, bro, Like, you know, I have put my headphones on, right, why

are you trying to talk to me? I have put them on. You watched me put them on. Read the room broad Yeah, you know, if you could, I would love to hear how Kevin Hart might react if someone started to talk to him like this on an airplane. Listen, God damn it, listen, listen. I'm not on this. I'm not sitting here to talk to you. Listen. I've had I've had a very rough, long, long shooting day. I'm not here to talk. Listen. I should be on a private jet. I don't understand why the hell I am

on frontier airlines. I don't even know, fam, I don't know why I'm up here. Listen, Listen, this wappen, This wappen. I have mechanical problems and a plane couldn't take off, couldn't get another to seat. Everything was sold out to the only damn option. So I need you to shut the hell up and let me sleep. God damn it, that is uncanny. All right, I think we got the answer. I will say addendum to that, we're just as equally

as bad as when you're in the aisle seat. You're finally situated, you got your headphones, your bag, maybe your books out, every you know, you kind of checked around, and then they want to go to the bathroom. Oh man, it's like after your table's down, after the drink is out. It's like we had this whole twenty minute pre am, but you could have gone. But now I'm sure your bladder was was was on fun percent, but not now

it's old. It's one hundred point one. I have to get up, Like, come on, broxactly exactly do you do you? Are you the person that gets up? Or do you just take your feet and just move move in a seat like this, I stay in the seat and I just move my feet to the side and let them walk. I can't do that, but I might give a look of I might do an exhalation, like throw my headphones down, slam up the table, and then stand there and just not look them in the eye. This shit. I don't know.

I don't know what. That doesn't do anybody any good, but I do it anyone? All right? We got another question. This one comes from the shell from State College, Pennsylvania. So our question is when checking into a hotel Is it acceptable to lie about a special occasion to try to get a room upgrade? Why or why not? Um? I feel like if you want to have fun with your partner, like sometimes you might do that. You know, you just be hey, you know this is such and

such as bird. Oh it's a special occasion where you can't say birthday because they got your license. You know what I'm saying. What they look down like, Wait a second, Wait a second. It's just your birthdays in August. It can't be anything sprasial. You have to But if you say, oh, it's our anniversary or something like that, or you know somebody, we just got a job promotion and something like, I

don't think anything's wrong with that. I mean, if you're just trying to you know, I think like concierge's are one of the few people in modern capitalism that have the ability to upgrade you or not. Right Like, they have a bunch of rooms, they know who's filling them up or not, and they have a little bit of latitude. So why not pour on the charm a little bit, give them a little wink. I think I think it's fun, That's what I say. I mean, even like when you

go into restaurants sometime. Now you can use the birthday thing at restaurants. And then my sister went into one restaurant and had a birthday five times in the span of two and a half months. They were like, wait a minute's birthday again. I feel sorry for the people who have to sing the song. Yeah, like at the restaurant, because you know, like they will be in the middle of some doing some other shit and they gotta drop everything they're doing to come out saying happy birthday to you.

Fucking hands are hurting, hands are hurting, You're exhausted, You're like just broke up with Kennedy the dishwasher, and now you're gonna singing a happy birthday, Like I don't want to do no, I'm not singing no. All right, So this is our last question, uh, and maybe you can answer this as former President Barack Obama, And the question is when is it okay to push the flight attendant call button? Like what need qualifies as urgent enough to

push it? What would make you push it? Well, if I'm if I'm sitting in the seat and the person beside me um is acting, I rate irrascible. What I'm gonna do is Um, I'm gonna call flight attendant before I stick my size thirteen foot up there kind of ass And that's when you call him when you have

a problem. If you have a problem with the seat or you can't get the seat belt out the them and the buckle is caught in the back and you don't want to touch that because it's COVID down there, so you don't want to get it, so you want them to get it for you. So you're like, hey, you put your hands down there and you get my belt because I'm not gonna get COVID. You are ensured by Belta me I'm not. So they might have Obamacare, though they might have Obamacare. I mean I think Trump

pretty much, uh, try to get that shit out of it. So, um, you know they might have it, but it's it's not active if they do, right, Jay, do you want to imitate my voice and say goodbye to Jay Farah? Thanks for coming on to not lost. Um you know, I'm i pot rose with my impressions. They're not microwavable, so that's not that ain't fair enough? Well, look, thank you so much for coming by. Good luck at the rest of your tour. If anyone sees Jay farre on the airport,

do not approach him. It's just just stay six feet away or I will stone cold stun your punk ass. Okay, that was Jay Farrow, honest, it was not someone impersonating Jay Farrow, I promise you. Which come to think of it, he could totally make a bundle just impersonating other people for podcasts. So if you hear Barack Obama on a future episode of the show, you are right to be suspicious.

If you have travel questions that you one answered in a future episode, you can email them to me at not Lost at Pushkin dot fm or ping me at b F Newnham on Twitter. Not Lost Chat could not have been made without ACE producer Jordan Belly, who honestly travels a lot more than me, so maybe she should be hosting this. The show is written and hosted by me Brendan Francis Nunham. We receive top notch booking assistance from Laura Morgan, who always has the nicest zoom background around. Laura,

please book your interior designer for me some day. This episode was edited by the Great Julia Barton with assistance from our managing producer Jacob Smith, our mix engineer who has the patience of job is the unflappable Sarah Brugere Not Lost as a co production of Pushkin Industries, Topic Studios and iHeartMedia. It was developed at Topic Studios and in case you're wondering, this show has some executive producers including me Brendan, Francis Nunham, Christy Gressman, Maria Zuckerman, Lisa

lang Gang and Lata Mulad. If you dig what you here, please tell a friend to make a comment at Apple Podcast, get a tattoo, whatever it takes to spread the word, it's appreciated. And if your inboxes lonely, you can sign up for the Pushkin newsletter at Pushkin dot fm, slash Newsletter and to find more pushin podcasts. And I really mean this, there are some pretty great podcasts bipping and

bopping around here these days. You can listen and find them on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or you know where wherever you listen to podcasts. That is all for this episode. Thanks everybody. We'll definitely do Robbie Downey Junior Listen, Listen.

It's it's just bro It's so arduous when you sit down beside somebody and they're just you know, falling asleep, and they're spitting all over your arm, and you know you're just like, you know, I don't want your DNA or me, And and what you're what you're gonna do. You're gonna stone close, stun them