From Ancient Ruins to Hollywood: Expat, Novelist and Filmmaker 🎥 📖 | Expat Interview with Neil Laird

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this new episode of expat experts I'm thrilled to be joined by Neil leart Neil is an award-winning documentary TV
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producer with over 25 years of experience working with National Geographic BBC Discovery PBS and much
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more he has traveled over 70 countries exploring Lost Cities ancient cultures
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and recently he has ventured and moved from producing TV to fiction writing her
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own novels of time traveling adventage Series in Egypt Italy and turkey in this
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episode we will explore Neil's expert experience in Egypt and how his travels
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has informed and affected his film making and his
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writing this is expat experts the podcast that dives into the fascinating lives of those who've lived and worked
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across borders exploring the challenges experiences and insights they've gained along the way
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but before we start with the episode I want to remind to all listeners that the best way to stay tuned with the latest
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episodes is by hitting subscribe here on YouTube and in your favorite audio platform for extra information about the
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podcast check the website exper
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I I I really appreciate having you here um my pleasure it's a great it's a great
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podcast and great subject so I'm happy to jump in thank you um actually like
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the first part I want to talk a little bit about your whole experience like living abroad traveling I know that you
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backpack quite a lot you've visited over 70 countries as far as I as I recall uh
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you lived in Egypt you lived for some time also in Turkey um back and forward between the the US you're originally
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from from us really correct is it correct yeah okay from which part of
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America small town in Western Pennsylvania outside of Pittsburg so another reason why one wants to see the
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world when you live in Western PA but you traveled 7 more than 70
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countries that's said really fast but it's done marry in a long time I suppose how how this yeah was all in a summer
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exactly like red ey it took about 35 before I KCK those boxes yeah can
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imagine when when did you start traveling like what when that happened it was again I grew up in a small town
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outside of Pittsburgh which you know is pretty much in noville but I've always been into fascinated into movie making
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and even as a kid I would watch all the Epic movies particularly the kurasawa movies that took me across the world and
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they always love history and I always love um just exotic locations um but I
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didn't really get a chance to do much as a kid growing up middle class kid we would do our holidays to the beach in Jersey and that kind of stuff which was
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lovely but it was only after I got to film school um I I knew I wanted to be a
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filmmaker and I thought I would do the doc I thought I would do the narrative route that I would become you know like
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narrative films and and write scripts and stuff which a lot of kids want to do and I went to film school for it and I
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had my degree in hand and moved to New York City thinking IID become Martin Scorsese overnight and that did not
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happen most the case I spent a lot of time just sort of like with sitting
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around waiting for the phone not to ring and having a lot of time with my hands so one day for some reason was already
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Hut in New York summer I can still remember this I um I had like six bucks in my pocket and you know I I needed a
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cool air conditioned place to hang out for a while and I went to the New York Public Library because it's free and for
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whatever reason I'm I'm I'm perusing the the aisles and I come across this old tattered book about the rise of early
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civilization uh you know about Neolithic man and cave art in France and that kind of stuff and
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I never got that kind I went to a small Catholic School in Pennsyvania so I never got that kind of his historical or
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International Education so I took picked the book up and a penny dropped I became
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absolutely fascinated with it with with ancient history what I didn't learn so I resolved to teach myself why I waited
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for the phone to ring history through the New York Public Library and then I got to the Middle East and I got to ancient Mesopotamia in Egypt GRE Roman
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cultures and I became enamored of that world something something about it just
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absolutely called to me so I said to hell we're waiting for this phone not to ring you know I scraped together the few
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bucks I had and I backpacked in the Middle East this was maybe was 21 or something
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like that you know so I was old enough to kind of like you know understand the minations of travel but this was in the
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early 90s where except for a Lonely Planet you did not have the internet and
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you did not have all the stuff I'm sure we can talk deep how much travel has changed but I just lost myself in that
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world so I went to I went to Syria turkey Iran Egypt Iran and um Israel and
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eventually the money ran out and I came back and I said you know well how can I get someone to take me back there and pay for it then I went back to school
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and became a documentary filmmaker which we'll talk about later but essentially that's how I got into it I just became
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so fascinated particularly with the Middle East and the ancient world that I just knew it was my calling I knew how to get back there somehow over and over
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again and that's pretty much what I've been doing at nauseum since 1991 nice I mean seems like you find a
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passion due to a hot summer and then went to the probably the hottest one
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another hot region I a glutton for punishment I was
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in these places it was July and August I think of 91 92 something like that you know when it was just fraking sweltering
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but that's when it was offered I went to with with a friend of mine who was a school teacher and the only time he has off is the summer months when the kids
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aren't in school so to have a travel mate that was the time I did it now I stayed much longer than him I stayed
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into the fall and kept going into Iran and keep going east and East and East I only came back because I ran out of
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cash but I could still be wandering around Afghanistan by now who knows if I had more cash who knows how far I would
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have gotten that's a typical thing no but but it's very cool that you were like
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passionate enough to just grab some your back some stuff put it inside and just
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go for it like as long as you can and then um it's it's not that you were
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going like I I I can imagine that for you it was also a shock when you arrived there because okay reading some stuff
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it's it's okay you you can imagine some things but when you are there in reality
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and especially the difference between United States and Middle East it's huge it's not that you're going to France I
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don't know like I live in London I went in London so I knew Western it wasn't the first
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time they been abroad but you know Western Europe like the US is a very it's a very different environment London
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is home France and those places are very much like it but you're plopping your butt down in Cairo you're plopping your
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butt down in Damascus and you are definitely off the beaten path and you're out of your comfort zone and I
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think that's what I was chasing I remember there was a glorious moment I think it was in Eastern Turkey and I was
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working my way towards Iran and this was after a couple months of travel and I
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realized that except for my passport home my passport my travel ticket home I
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was sort of a nomad no one knew where I was no one could contact me again this before cell phones I was just totally
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absolutely free I was just floating on my own and I've been chasing that High ever
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since nice and I recognize how free I was and you know you can't step back in
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the same river twice when you go back to a place things are different now you have experiences now you're a little
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more knowledgeable but I was this naive kid drifting East and boy I've been trying to put that in the bottle ever
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since one of the things that you already POS and and I wanted to ask you is also like you start traveling in a moment
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that as you said like Lonely Planet it's still there you still have the the the the the book guides a lot of people
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doesn't use them anymore no you have like even you can even have Sims uh in
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any country and have internet on your phone everywhere and connection how how did your family react this is also
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something that it's curious to me like okay I'm leaving and then suddenly I don't think at first of I
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didn't know I was going to be gone so long I thought it was going to be originally it was a buddy of mine because I was really into Egypt at that
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point I still am Egypt is my muse I've written books about it I've made over 50 60 films I've been back to Egypt a
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couple dozen times 30 or 40 times I don't know how many times since then so it's always been my place so he wanted
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to go to Israel because he's Jewish and I said if you tack on two weeks holiday in Egypt I'll go with you and even the
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family was worried about this mind you this is right after the first Gulf War so this is 92 I suppose so you know people don't exactly what to think of
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the Arab world um but it was a package vacation to Egypt and Israel was fairly
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safe then I started getting really off the beaten path and my parents of course didn't know about it they didn't know was in Syria and Jordan and and Iran
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because those places clearly were on a you know more terrifying list I think I called home couple times a month or something I
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think I forget even how I even did it back then were there cyber cafe yet I don't think there was because I don't
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think there was a digital world yet I think I must have gone into a post office or something and a great expense
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had a two-minute call to my parents back here in Pennsylvania and said yeah I'm in teron I'm fine it
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clicked yeah of course it's also expensive it's it's not only the matter of like whatever back then calling like
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now it's also actually calling it's maybe the the thing that probably it's still very expensive to call
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internationally you do it through WhatsApp and you do it through online channels or like internet but calling in
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a normal now I mean it's all free now you know where where none of that stuff
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existed and I remember even the Lonely Planet I had done my research and I got my Lonely Planet Egypt but I remember
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like the reason I even went to to to uh Jordan was because I think I was in
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Damascus or somewhere and a friend who had a Lonely Planet Jordan and on the cover was Petra I said what the [ __ ] is
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that I want to see that so knowing nothing about it I just looked at a cover of a book and said that was enough
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for me to research and go on now of course you can sit there no matter where you are and wherever and you could
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Google all you wanted to about Petra how much tickets are what time it opens and the best hotels I just took a bus to the
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Allenby bridge and and went to you know Jordan and see what happened once I got over there and it was great and my God
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those are the most informative years of my life doing that stuff and I did it again through
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Southeast Asia and South America and stuff but that first one as you probably know is the most courageous and the one
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that sticks the most because that's when you really have to force yourself out of your own comfort zone as I said and
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recognize that it's just you figuring the stuff out you have to trust the people you got to trust your instincts
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and you got to let go you have to let go and recognize you're in somebody else's time somebody else's culture if the bus
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doesn't come for 12 hours and the bus doesn't come for 12 hours you find something else to do you buy a watermelon and you sit in the
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I mean there is people who would be extremely scared like also like what you said no you arrive there everything it's
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different you don't know much at that point of time you need to go with the flow and that's something that either
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you are made for it or you are not and that's that's that's the real not for everybody obviously people listening
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here I can well imagine they're xats they already gotten everything fear or they Embrace that the challenges and
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after a while it stops becoming a fear other people I recognize were they would say why would I want to do that to
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myself why do I want to go through that additional stress I'm happy here in Los Angeles or London or wherever you are I
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don't need it you know I don't place value I do for myself but I don't I don't place value judge on other people
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if they don't feel that kind of travel particularly Hard Scrabble travel in The Backpacker back in the day it's not for
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everybody and it shouldn't be not easy and I got dentary three or four times and you know I didn't get arrested until
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I started making films we can talk about that later I was perfect safe they were wonderful people so when I showed up with film cameras is when I you know I
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started get in trouble people get scared there yeah yeah yeah can imagine uh one
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thing that I also wanted to ask you because you you were saying also like you when you start traveling there was
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no phones you were calling like two minutes home maximum and that was the call back and forward that you had with
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home so um what what has changed you you
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continue traveling for 35 years and now probably you also have a smartphone and you can connect with everything very fast and
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you could but sometimes I wonder if if back then you were needed and forced to
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connect more with the local people and get it much more in contact with with with people when traveling or living
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abroad because either you do it or or you you die like or you don't you don't
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survive you have you have to I thinky I me I remember some wonderful conversation I had with I was
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in Jordan I think and I and I think waiting for a bus or something it never came and I started hanging out with
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these chickpea farmers who are sitting by the side of the road and they invited me over for tea and of course they spoke no English and I spoke no Arabic except
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from a Lonely Planet where I pulled out a book and showed where where I live New York City that was only reference point
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we sat there and we talked for hours and hours no one pulled out a phone there
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was no Google translate there was just somehow we communicated and of course it was rudimentary communication we weren't
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getting deep thoughts but it was a substantive conversation I wouldn't have had today I think because by now we
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would have got an Uber or they'd be on their phone or somehow there'd be some
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something between us it could make it either easier through Google translate or we could get out of there sooner so
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having those long weights and things and being forced qu un Goot to talk to people brought out such wonderful
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conversations you wouldn't have otherwise now I year a couple years later one of my next trips was um I went
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to Southeast Asia and um on my own I went to Burma me andar and you know that
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place was really kind of difficult to get to and oh and again you know that was a bit rougher because it was sort of closed off politically but I remember
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sitting there on my own and all I had was what paperback I did but I met so
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many people because nobody was looking down at their phone they would see a stranger they would see a single
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traveler over there and was always being vited over because I was sitting there alone so you kind of when you have no
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other distractions invar you look around you and you work with the world that's in front of you so I met so many
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lifelong friends that way that I probably wouldn't have if I had my nose buried and I was reading the New York
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Times absolutely absolutely and and not not only that I think there is a whole fact of I don't know I'm I'm from a
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generation that not directly from kid but at some point we start growing up already with with smartphones and
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everything it's like digital and and we embrace it so fast so early
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and I don't know I feel sometimes like if someone like it's a matter of trust
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also or like of of discomfort when you are traveling around and you don't have a phone because I don't know you don't
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have internet and you're not looking and someone is saying hey come here we invite you to tea I I don't know if a
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lot of people from my generation will feel scared actually more than than well
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invited and I'm I'm generalizing of course you know like of course there is a lot of people but we have also this
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sensation of like being scared of of a lot of things or the human interaction
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part at least yeah exactly questioning certainly
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I think with Americans in the Middle East particularly or even anywhere it's kind of like you question people and it's easy to scare yourself as you would
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anything you know you get a diagnosis you have a you have headache and you know invariably you start googling and
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you have brain cancer you know because all roads lead to the worst possible thing that's the danger of the rabbit
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hole of it if you Google what is life like in downtown Cairo invariably you come across some crime statistic that
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will scare the [ __ ] out of you we always look for the worst you have no knowledge you accept the people on good faith and
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you know again that's how I met these wonderful people stay at people's houses when I got stuck and you know when the
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train didn't arrive or whatever or just people other tourists that I met along the way and I may not have taken those
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risks if I had known more quote unquote naiv is a wonderful thing yeah to a
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degree to a degree certain certain point yeah yeah yeah sense education is
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good too you should definitely do a little bit of research you said that you went back
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actually like after running out of money and then it's when you studyed documentary uh film making um I suppose
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that took some years of of studies and then you start traveling again but was
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that also like you start traveling for doing documentaries at that point it was already that uh that thing or like how
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how do you divide traveling for doing documentaries versus traveling for uh pleasure and and well I still do travel
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for pleasure but now I'm my late 50s so you know now I do want a comfortable bed and I'm okay to you know you know to get
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the Uber and you know I like that the creature covers a little more than I did when I was you know a man half my age
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age but yeah there was a Great Divide when I came back from that trip I again it's eight or nine months I forget how
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long I was gone I resolved to somehow as I say get in this business and come back and have somebody else pay the dime or
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and that's less cynical I just love the culture I met archaeologists and I met stonemasons and these local peoples
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along the way and I want to tell their story so I went back and I went back to grad school for film Mak but this time
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documentary and one of the people that I had met in Cairo was a friend ofine whose father was on the Antiquities
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board and um I kept relations with him and then for my thesis film for my
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graduate school in Chicago I did a documentary about the Great Sphinx of Egypt the restoration of the Great
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Sphinx because my friend's father was on the board and he was able to get me free permits it's quite expensive to as you
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can imagine to shoot in particularly in places like Egypt and Pompei and some of the real expensive real popular tourist
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sites I did it all for free on a on a cheap Visa so I went over there and I made my graduate film with the student
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cameras that shouldn't have been taken out of Chicago I took him to the Giza Plateau for like a month never did tell
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him that and I made my film about the great s and about and you know we talked
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a bit about you why I love Kyo why I went back there and lived for a while why I love
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it so much when I got over there I very early realized for me anyways the story was not the egyptologist and
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archaeologist as great as they were my story became the stone masons who were building the Sphinx restoring it so
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context wise in the late 90s the Sphinx was falling apart and if you've been to the Great Sphinx one of the things you
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might be surprised to see is that it's carved in the living Rock but has a bunch of cladding Stone around it which
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actually goes back to Antiquity the New Kingdom they put it up and then it fell apart Greco Roman times ottoman times
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they kept trying to restore it well was falling off again in the 90s and largely
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because they had a really bad botch job and got some Italian Engineers to come and they use modern-day cement in the
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late 80s and the thing just it's like the thing shedding an unwanted skin was just pushing these blocks out and was
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crumbling and falling apart so they tried to figure out how are we going to save this four and a half thousand year old it's the Spinx you know it's the
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oldest statue in the world it's iconic so they they went back to the original methods that they believe the fonic Sten
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M instead just using sand and lime um and they carved everything to the hand
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they used the same stones and the same quaries the Pharaohs did and they hired local masons all guys from Cairo there
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was no westerners involved at all and that became my story I realized that was
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far more interesting than talking to some Oxford or Yale expert about what
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they think the Sphinx was we had those people in there but to me the story was these modest wonderful Egyptians who
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just lived and breathed this culture and they're the ones who restored the thing so I followed with them I got up every
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morning and went to the followed them from their trucks in East Cairo all the way to the Sphinx and got to know them
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very very well and um and I think I I I I was able to create a story out of that
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that no one else had so I was able to sell that to the Discovery Channel my thesis film was actually sold Network
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which is a big thing back in the day and I've been doing it ever since because I was able to sell my first film to
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network television I skipped a bunch of a bunch of steps went right into producing that's pretty much what I've
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been doing since 97 nice very cool and and has I mean I
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assume Egypt has been the place that you've been back and forward most times you not only to the documentaries
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because you also generated relations in there and you met people but also probably because it attracts to the
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lifestyle and the way of doing of of kaido for example um how is living in Cairo I suppose it's so many years that
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it has changed so much probably that that it's difficult to say but and you get nostalgic for the old days
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but I remember I'm so glad I did it one of those first shifts to Egypt I was probably shooting the Spinx or doing a
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Recon for the thing of scouting and I had a day or two so I just walked across Cairo it's just like a seven hour walk
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whatever I walked to East Cairo so you know the pyramids and such on the west side by the Nile and then where my
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friend's family was staying in their upper class and that's a nice area and I just wanted to see old Islamic Cairo so
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rather than taking a crowded bus or a cat and you know Cairo was one of the most
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polluted and crowded cities on the planet I decided to walk it and I walked
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it all the way there and went through all these neighborhoods and I mention it now because most of those neighborhoods are
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gone you this was 30 years ago so things changed in then but I'm so glad I had that experience of what Cairo was like
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from beginning to end from East Cairo to West Cairo because I look at it today it's just ugly tower blocks or old
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Islamic architecture is taken down there's byways and highways invariably like New York City or London
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or Athens the cities change how no matter how old they are um so the city today doesn't have quite that absolute
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wonderful exotic moldering charm it did because Time Marches on so I'm glad I
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saw it um but yeah I would like to have G wish I recorded more of it I wish I'd gone back and visited more times
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then one of my favorite areas um was where stonemasons lived and I got a
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chance to spend time out there it's a place called the city of the Dead have you been to Cairo no not yet you've been
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toity the dead oh yeah planning to go next next
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year actually Soh all all my stories hopefully will inspire you there's an area uh of KIRO
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called the city of the dead and they call it that because that was all the Islamic uh mums were built in the Heyday
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in 12th 13th century ad so all the rich people from those periods would have
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huge mums and hundreds and hundreds of them just on the edge of the desert um
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and then over time of course overcrowded Cairo those became housing for the
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poor they the bodies were taken out entire families moved in including say
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El Nashi the Le Stone Mason who I followed in my show so I went to visit him um after the shoot wrapped and I'm
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walking around this beautiful area of all this again motoring architecture they're all tombs but there were
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families living in it and they had great took great care they had little gardens out back and and they had very house
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proud um and it's all been destroyed it's all been taken down the last 10 years there's probably a bulldozer
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knocking down one of the last muzzle as we speak because they need housing and now you know ugly cement concrete's
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going up instead that whole area is gone forever and it's probably healthy there
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was no there was no plumbing and you know it definitely had its major drawback
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yeah I can imagine at the same time it has history you
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know yeah but I mean that's the biggest problem right now no like the whole destruction also of of of places versus
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conservation and modernization of the things it's just like it you lose the history in sake of like okay fitting
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more people into into a city great uh not not not the biggest fan but but I
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can imagine that in countries like Egypt these things are
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done rather quick and it's just like okay we need space and then building houses and then they don't really care
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too much they have so much Arch you know most ancient stuff that it's kind of like you know here in in you know
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America if there's a house from 1870 we preserve it because one of the few things we have that's old over there
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they got so much bloody stuff it's like and you know they're a poor country and they need space and I understand why
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progress has to move on they can save everything and the tourists didn't go to the Islamic areas they went to see Giza and
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Sakara and the pyramids which are absolutely amazing but there's so much architecture post fonic that was
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destroyed in Cairo um merely because it's the largest city in Africa and uh
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you know people got to live somewhere one question that I had in the
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back of my mind while we were talking about it it's also different times so probably you were one of the few people
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or there was of course other foreigners living in Cairo but it's not it's not as common as it is nowadays that you will
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go everywhere and there is always an expert Community or uh a bunch of international people living there that
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are relatively connected to one each other due to technology Facebook and all of these again no um how was it for you
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like being there probably being the only I don't know white person around uh
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American probably um did you feel that the the the I feel I've never felt
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endangered in all those countries I've been to which you knock on wood is again the people took care of you and they're happy to see you there and they got
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their own things to do um there was an nextpack Community even then but unlike some other places Egypt is a tough place
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to live the it's it's it's poor it's dirty there is the Islamic uh the
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fundamentalist thing that rears his head particularly south of Cairo you gota be a little careful that again I've never had any problems but it it is not an
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easy userfriendly City so it doesn't have the xack community of of you know say you know Goa or some place where
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people go and they find Sri Lanka and return um they find Lan they find what
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you call 's what what's the the classic place anyways cut that bit out not shanga but
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they find Shang they never return yeah yeah exactly so Cairo is a tough place
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um and I saw that too and I guess maybe because it was one of my first experiences outside of Western Europe it
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tough me up a bit I'm used to kind of gritty tough in-your-face cities and I
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kind of like you know the rawness and the ruggedness of it so I fit in pretty
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well but the people themselves are still very modest and very wonderful the Egyptians have a great sense of humor
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and they're very quick to not compare you to your government and what's happening and this is right after the first war the first of the Gulf War no
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one blamed me even if they blame Bush or other people they respected you as you are I mean how could they not they were
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one of the oldest cultures in the world they've seen ramsy the greats come and go so they're used to seeing all these
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powerful people ride a rough shot over them we're just a little people little ponds who are living in somebody else's
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yard and and that's what I've always liked about the Egyptian culture there's a modesty and a quick sense of humor and
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a fac M where they are quick to laugh at themselves and uh not have delusions of
28:52
grandeur and maybe all cultures once they've reached their Peak and collapsed I don't know you know maybe once you
28:58
you're you're a former you're a dim reflection of what you did in the past maybe that changed the psyche the the
29:04
national psyche I don't know America may be going into that moment now so ask me
29:10
again in a few years and I can tell you so basically you've been back and
29:16
forward until when you were like coming back and forward from Egypt like are you
29:22
still traveling to Egypt nowadays or it's oh yeah yeah well yeah mean I mean I um you know after the after I made the
29:28
saing the Sphinx I made three or four films to there I lived there for a while got a place in a area called zalik which
29:33
is an island right in the middle of the Nile in Cairo which The Artsy area where the expats go a little more open a
29:40
little more Western I'm gay so being um gay I certainly wasn't out or didn't I
29:46
mean I was out at home but I wasn't there it was a safer space where you knew you could trust people a bit more a
29:52
lot of repression uh homosexual repression they not against me more against themselves so zalik was kind of
29:57
a place for the where the westerners and the xats live it still is okay so I made three or four films there and then
30:04
eventually I became a network executive both first for National Geographic and then for Discovery Channel and I was the
30:10
person who would send crws there and I would go for big digs almost all ancient Egypt so I think the last time I was
30:18
there was two years ago I did a trio of specials for Discovery Channel on the
30:23
100th anniversary of King touch Discovery it was found in November of 22 so we made three shows in in 2022 that
30:30
aired on the anniversary and I went over and I as a network executive you know I poked my nose and other people's
30:36
business and uh and watch the shoots UNF and then made the deals with the archaeologist and the in the Antiquities
30:44
people which is a lot of bish a lot of greasing of Palms so my you know my my
30:49
experience of Cairo in Egypt has shifted a lot because I do business there now and I kind of know Antiquities people
30:57
and I know the camera people and the sound people and how to get the permits and I've been to Giza a dozen times and
31:03
Sakara and Kyo or Valley the Kings I don't know how many times I've been there a couple dozen you know I just
31:09
love those places so I know my way around so I also have friends and colleagues and experts and filmmakers
31:15
that I can call when I get there both for work and for pleasure cool very nice I don't know
31:22
like it's incredible I I I it's it's a lot of stories and it's just like I
31:27
don't know from where to go like a little bit but uh actually you touched the point that I also wanted to ask you
31:34
about and it's uh the whole um being gay in in Egypt I I I'm sure it was not easy
31:43
as you said you were not out at that point of time but uh do you remember any any story or any moment that you say
31:49
Okay um or or has it changed during the Years also like this have you felt that
31:55
it started opening pretty repressive over there and but it's always tougher in these places it's
32:01
not just Cairo or Egypt it's turkey certainly Syria and Jordan I've been back to Iran in a long time because it's
32:08
not safe um but the repression is more on the local people than us now they
32:13
still try to inra you like you wouldn't want to use the gay apps when you're in those places because it could be
32:19
entrapment of people mostly to entrap locals from Shakedown of money and that kind of thing um but I do remember
32:28
I was out when I went there but I but I think if I talked to a few people in the business I told them but I certainly
32:33
didn't share with people but yet I was hit on all the time when I was traveling through luur and through small Italia
32:41
turkey and a lot of older men Rec crude things in the park they would do you
32:46
know things basically they were saying you know you let's go behind a tree and do it and at first I was like why me and
32:52
what do I look that gay and then I realized no I'm a Westerner so therefore we're decking it already and I leave in
32:57
a week I'm traveling a male I'm leaving a week and so there's no no risk residue
33:03
for that no RIS I'm out of here two weeks you know they can't pick up somebody the mosque but they can pick up
33:09
this American who's only here for a week doing a film or just wandering around Turkey on their run so a lot of people
33:16
you know would kind of do those kind of things and it points to their own repression where that's what you know made me feel very sad we're so many of
33:22
these people she looking for love they're looking for release but they have to do it so surreptitiously in such
33:28
a sort of like vulgar and crude way um where they I wonder if any of them have
33:34
ever found love because I don't know where you would back then in a small town um so you know the repression is
33:40
there and it was real and probably still is I still don't when I go there certainly the people I work with in
33:45
Cairo and elsewhere know that I'm gay but I don't advertise it my husband has been with me a few times but we always
33:51
just kind of treat with respect as anybody would you know with no uh no heavy pet or kissing
33:58
you know on on the the tram and that kind of stuff that's just out of respect for the
34:04
culture makes sense when does turkey comes in this whole equation because you
34:09
said to me before that you lived also sometime in in turkey and you were you were there I started making films one of
34:18
the people I met at film school was a cameraman still a good friend of mine and still a cameraman from Turkey from
34:24
Istanbul and he always wanted to do some documentaries about some sites there Ephesus and Troy and places like that so
34:30
we went over together we made a few films that we sold and he lives there in a small place I was I was just there two
34:37
months ago writing my new novel place called data which is down south in the aan and I ran a little place nearby and
34:44
so I spent a lot of time with him and then eventually I ran a room there when I was working on my films because that's
34:49
what we're shooting and if you do archaeology work you don't you know if you're doing independently you need time
34:57
to shoot it it's not like you're going over to somewhere and getting an interview assist on interview you have to see stuff happening so you need to be
35:03
there a lot and you need to be shooting a lot you need to be on location so I would spend weeks and weeks and weeks at
35:09
archaeological digs and Ephesus and such um hoping for them to find something sometimes they did sometimes they didn't
35:14
so that's how I already got to know turkey and turkey a little more Western than Egypt was you know we my husband
35:20
and I talk about where we we would retire and turkey is certainly on the list even though it is Islamic and we
35:26
don't know what it's like to be an agan gay couple there nothing no problems the locals but but I do love that Eastern
35:33
Mediterranean turkey is definitely feels much more Western thinking than it does
35:38
Egypt which definitely feels African and Arab and just a little rougher the the
35:44
the the religion and the the repression I suppose lack of a better word looms
35:50
larger in Egypt than it does in Turkey can I imagine never been to Egypt
35:56
unfortunately but my girlfriend uh actually worked there for
36:02
some yeah yeah I mean it's it's the next it's the next
36:07
trip for sure like uh I actually already give it to her as a present so uh I need
36:13
to I need to do it it's not a it's already set in stone but uh we'll see when when when it
36:21
will happen ough it's it's it's one of my when you get close I'll give you some tips definitely I I will write to you
36:28
for sure um yeah maybe maybe just before we we jump to
36:34
the to the second part although we've been entering a little bit back and then on film making and and now that you're
36:40
writing novels I would like you to ask a little bit of like already maybe as a
36:46
pre pre-introduction to recommendations to to kaido and Egypt uh for for myself
36:51
but also for for all the listeners um do you remember any specific uh local tradition or or practices in Egypt that
36:59
you you like I don't know that left some impression and you
37:04
like I of was culture I mean certainly I mean Cairo is a very different place if you go outside of Cairo you get into
37:11
Countryside very quickly and that's where a lot of the ruins are abidos and places like that are wonderful it's
37:16
changed so much that a lot of that Old World um Arab culture has disappeared
37:21
but what I do remember learning from Egypt is just the sense of patience the
37:26
culture it's a culture of patience things don't happen very quickly so when you want to buy something at the uh
37:32
Market at the Suk make sure you have time to sit there and have coffee and talk to people you'll eventually get
37:38
your deal out but I love that sense of slow pace they have there even in a place that's crazy as Cairo there's a
37:45
sense that recognize as a Westerner it's hard to break this impatience and all of the Middle East is
37:51
like that where even if you're frustrated about the lack of progress that is just how things happen it's the
37:57
latitude of the heat it is the chance they have very much else to do other than sell their you their t-shirts or
38:03
whatever else they're doing but there's joy in that waiting there's joy in just
38:08
those Quiet Moments which sounds a bit corny it sounds like it's a Hallmark card but it is true where some of the
38:14
best experience I had like those chickpea Farmers I'm talking to waiting for a bus they come out of not being
38:21
anxious which is really really hard as a Wester to do because we want [ __ ] done two minutes ago and I think I have
38:27
learned a lot about that part of Myself by spending so much time in the Middle East and in Egypt is that things happen
38:35
in a different pace and that's part of the joy because you're sitting there having tea in a cafe for a while playing
38:41
back gam and and that's where people get to shine that's when they get to know each other so I don't know if that's a I
38:47
guess it's certainly it's cultural but it's not like it's a Musto kind of thing you're talking about these are the places you go you know I can certainly
38:53
give you that list too um but each of there a place were it's been around for 4,000 years
39:01
what's the rush yeah no not going anywhere I I
39:06
actually have when you talk about these kind of things it it feels very close to
39:11
Athens in in certain ways of doing things and it's justan culture yeah Mediterranean culture is very similar
39:19
yeah it um I'm I'm originally from Barcelona and I think a city like
39:25
Barcelona although it's mediterran and it arve to this point of stress and and needing to rush things and everything is
39:32
like ah and everything needs to happens yes now and to be honest Athens has this
39:37
still this piece of like I don't know a lot of people a lot of experts that are interviewed here in the podcast one of
39:42
the things that they say about Athens is that you sit down for a coffee and you can live with the same coffee for four
39:48
hours and this doesn't happen anywhere else in Europe with any restaurant or
39:54
coffee allow you to be 4 hours sitting in the same with a single coffee yeah a is yeah all
40:01
Greece I would say correct me if I'm wrong but I think it has a lot of eyes towards Eastern Mediterranean and the
40:07
mid East as much so as it does Western Europe um even though they're part of that world they're part of Europe that
40:13
that that that that sense of of ancient culture and that sense of of time going
40:19
slowly it still has a grip on Greece where even doesn't even in Italy I say or certainly in Spain it still exists I
40:26
think culture people go slow because it gets 120 fraking degrees out and who wants to rush anywhere in August so you
40:33
know part of it is just your body can't do it absolutely what about music uh are you a
40:41
music person do you do you do you have any recommendations yeah I mean I do love
40:46
yeah I wouldn't be the big recommender of that because I do love the um the world music the world culture but I'm
40:52
not someone who collects it greatly you know certainly on my first trip like so many uh
40:58
first timers in Egypt I got into um kathum and all the great classic stuff you know which is the classic stuff but
41:04
and and you know when I was in college I was always into the the music that that Blended East and West like Dead Can
41:11
Dance or Aly and that kind of stuff where they kind of took the Western and
41:16
the eastern and they strung them together so I still go to those those concerts when I can and I see it but
41:22
yeah funny I'm not a big person who seeks out the music when I go I just I hear something in in a record store I
41:28
may write it down and and and seek it later but nice maybe the last question and
41:36
that is something that we all do so eating and drinking uh what is your favorite Egyptian food I know it's a
41:43
very difficult question because I mean I love that there's I
41:52
mean they they do their olive oil so well and their meat their grilled meat like turkey does and that kind of stuff I love their uh their full the beans I
41:59
could eat that all the time um so I'm a big bean guy and you they make the best beans because they have the right amount
42:04
of sesame oil and the right amount of of hummus and cumin and stuff so I love I
42:11
love when I go to Egypt I always go to the marketplace kind of KH which is touristy one but you can still get
42:17
really good deals there in Cairo and I get spices I bring home saffron and they bring home really good cinnamon and
42:23
cardamom and those kind of things because they are richer and stronger there so I think of Egypt I think of the spices that go on but it's otherwise
42:30
fairly common food grilled meat kebabs hummus and Bubba ganos and fresh baked
42:37
pea nothing's better than I I did a documentary years ago where they found a
42:43
bakery from fonic times the feet of the Spinx and they
42:48
were still able to get them going and they were to make Peter bread so I remember one of the greatest experience was eating pea eating regular bread from
42:56
a Kill from from an oven that was from the Old Kingdom Period 4,000 years old
43:01
so a lot of it is just where you're eating it you know what it's like when you eat and drink it's like it's wonderful there because you're in that
43:07
environment and you come home and you say oh I couldn't eat to drink this anymore you know yes it happens it
43:13
happens I don't know if it's always like that I don't know how to cook it the proper way or I I'm not in the correct
43:19
environment of doing that and that's also like sometimes I'm just like we mck it up I remember taking a cooking class
43:25
in like uh thail or something and I came back and I tried my own Patti and was a piece of [ __ ] I never tried again but
43:31
even drink you think oo is great when you're sitting there in gree but I don't drink it when I come home it's something
43:37
about looking at an ancient Greek ruin and uzo is wonderful but I don't pull that out in a bar in Brooklyn where I
43:42
live now it just doesn't fit doesn't fit doesn't taste right no well it it barely
43:49
fits here sometimes Z so when when you have it too much uh you also start
43:55
saying okay it's a hardcore one let's say absolutely
44:01
dangerous um very nice uh I would say like we jump directly to the to the
44:07
second part of the conversation because uh if you had already in super
44:12
interesting stories while you were living in Egypt and and and doing I'm I'm super curious about knowing a little
44:18
bit more about your home film making and and your the whole passion and now the
44:23
the novels that you writing also so I'm I'm definitely interested in that hey
44:28
there everyone if you're loving this episode so far and you want to stay tuned with other expert experiences make
44:34
sure to hit the Subscribe button and follow our podcast so you never miss an episode the expert expert filmmaker and
44:43
novelist actually you already said you started as a documentary filmmaker you
44:49
studied for it so but now you are kind of transitioning
44:54
to writing novels it's a pretty recent change or or what that happened yeah yeah novels out and um and I came to it
45:04
I think I didn't after you know you do anything for so long I still love television I'm still in it that the
45:09
business has changed exponentially um but after I don't know
45:14
thousand hours of Television you know I remember going back to some of these places over and over and I kind of wish
45:19
I could see anchor Watt and Machu Picchu and the pyramids when they were new I
45:24
got tired of looking at ruins clamoring over over bleached stones in the desert
45:30
or in the jungle and trying to get excited about the broken pillar so of course I always start after a while I
45:35
love to tell stories about what it looked like back in the day of course you can't do as a documentary filmmaker
45:41
so I always had an idea of stories I wanted to tell um that would take people back and of
45:48
course that means fiction now fiction was always sort of a a big negative word for a documentary filmmaker it's all
45:55
about when you work for National Geographic it's all footnotes and buttoning it up what it's not us for us
46:00
to editorialize what life in ancient Egypt was like but to me two things
46:05
happened happened fairly recently in 2016 is when I started writing my first book and I remember that year because
46:12
two things happened that got me off the uh pot and said write a book one was I
46:17
turned 50 which is a milestone when you think about it it doesn't mean that your career is over but certainly recognize
46:22
oh well I've been doing this for a while and I'm 50 and if I have some bucket list thing I want to do I better start
46:27
doing it and the other thing that happened was uh my great Muse my great
46:34
creative artist died that year talking about music was David Bowie I've always been a huge Bowie fan since I was a kid
46:40
I grew up with Bowie heard the first album like the late 70s and I'd be the guy that would buy the First Bowie album
46:46
every time it came out and he died he died in 2016 um I'm still not convinced he's dead that's that's he's too cool
46:52
for that but rumor is he's still dead but I mentioned that because if you know
46:58
anything about Bowie is he was all about change and he made 27 albums and every album was different every album he
47:04
fearlessly pushed himself and even if he failed he got back on and he he went from R&B to Industrial to Jazz to
47:11
glamrock and he was always Reinventing himself he wasn't afraid to try something different and while I knew
47:17
this instinctively by buying his albums it wasn't until I looked at his obituary and said my God this guy in so few years
47:24
look how many things he did and how many how many times you take a risk I remember thinking if David Bowie could
47:30
do it 27 times Neil L can do it once I can take one risk so I I decided what
47:37
the hell I'm going to write my bloody book you know and I did and I wrote the
47:42
book and after trial and error I realized the old adage write what you
47:48
know it's a cliche but there is some truth in it so I started writing a book about ancient Egypt it all took place in
47:54
ancient Egypt it just wasn't clicking right it just felt a bit to researchy or my my documentary Roots were coming out
48:01
so I decided why don't I tell a story about a TV film crew like I am and talk
48:06
about all what I know about the satire of television and all the cynicism and all the tricks of the trade and make
48:12
them go in the past so I so my so the books that I have are a time travel
48:17
comedic uh stories about a film crew that travels in the ancient past to win an Emmy theoretically to win their big
48:24
award so all the characters that I know from the cheesy host to the camera woman
48:29
to the the Egyptian sound guy who's tired of all the Western intervention they became my characters and my books
48:36
take them into the ancient past so I can have the modern sensibility but I can still have my cake and E it too I can
48:43
have a film crew and talk about me but now they're the book that comes out by this point is already out Crime Time
48:50
Pompei is about the film going the film crew going back on the Eva Pompeii to tell a story and they get there too late
48:56
and they find oh [ __ ] our time is wrong we have to get out of here how you know how the hell we get out of here again so it's an action adventure but it's about
49:02
a modern-day film crew in 79 ad and that opened up so much of my sense of humor
49:08
because I can tell the research I researched deeply about what pompei's explosion was like down to the hour from
49:15
younger and I know all that stuff but it's also a comedic romp about a cheesy TV host standing in front of mvus with a
49:22
drone going over trying to get the perfect shot of the explosion you know so we can still go back and win that
49:28
bafta and that Emy so I brought my two worlds together and it was a perfect timing for it because I've had such Joy
49:34
doing it I'm getting a nice audience on Amazon where the books are sold and a lot a lot of people are attracted to it
49:42
and a key thing is I made the characters gay The League character Jared who's a is's a cameraman he comes out in Egypt
49:48
and the first first book takes place in ancient Egypt they go through the 12 hours of the duat the underworld to tell
49:53
a film and he and he confronts his own sexual and then camera woman Cara his
49:59
best friend a black lesbian from the Bronx she has a chance to fall in love with a woman in the second book so I'm
50:05
always focusing on gay characters of the ancient past because one thing I learned
50:10
when I was shooting these films and traveling is that homosexuality was much
50:16
more embraced then than it is now there's a wonderful place in Tyra in
50:21
uh Sakara called the Tomb of the brothers and they become characters in my book They're the who have the portal
50:27
that allow people to go back so I'm using real life people as my sort of comedic characters the Tomb of the
50:33
brothers is this wonderful place if you go I definitely have to tell you to get there and it's in this the step of the
50:38
sakar you know the step pyramid Sakara it's the oldest pyramid it's a very very elite
50:45
necropolis from the fourth Dynasty which is four and half thousand years ago so if you were buried there you had to be
50:50
the creme de La Creme the Pharaoh had to approve you to be buried on the richest real estate for your tomb
50:57
and there's a tomb there called the Tomb of the two brothers which we'll laugh at in a minute when you find out what it
51:02
really is and you go into it today and it clearly is two gay men who went off
51:08
in eternity together because there's all these F there's all these frescos of them touching nose to nose was the
51:14
Egyptian form of kissing of them on boats together holding hands watching the the lily pads go by these are two
51:21
lovers who not only were buried together but they were allowed to be buried together by the pharaoh which means that
51:27
it was okay to be gay in that period these guys Wen hiding anything it was
51:32
only when the tomb was rediscovered in 1965 where homophobic archaeologists
51:38
caught it the Tomb of the two brothers because it couldn't possibly be two lovers yeah some Theory some guy even
51:44
said it they were siamese twins and that's why they were nose to noose they couldn't look away from one another it's
51:50
modern day homophobia so it also underscores the fact that in many ways times are better back then than they are
51:56
now so these two characters became they're they're recurring characters in my Prime
52:01
Time book series because they're the ones who allow Jared to tell his gay stories you can go in the back in Pompei
52:08
but I I want you to find at least one positive gay character and talk about it so I'm also allowing I'm also
52:14
normalizing same seex relationship books as as well as giving you an Indiana
52:19
Jones like Adventure I I really love that you're capable of like jumping from one to the
52:26
the other and still give it like and and being the capable of have the capacity
52:31
of saying oh I'm writing something but I'm doing it oh [ __ ] take this step backwards to say oh it's too documentary
52:39
and being yourself who are telling yourself like no no I don't want this to be a documentary I want to be a fiction
52:45
and and you actually say it no actually I assume like being a documentary
52:51
filmmaker for so many years has marked you in a lot of ways and inside of the documentary you cannot give that much of
52:59
room to imagination and and and creativity outside of what it should be
53:04
real no like um maybe taking a step backwards before
53:10
the novels again I I wanted to ask you H what is day life of a of of a producer
53:16
or a documentary uh filmmaker of of doing a uh documentaries for National
53:22
Geographic for discovery for you work for BBC you work for for a lot of the big networks what it's the day life
53:30
because everyone sees the result of it but nobody sees the work behind camera
53:35
know I mean there's a lot of behind the scenes and of course you know funny I just I'm doing lectures I just did a
53:40
cruise lecture um where one of the com was called Confessions of a TV producer and all he did was tell 10 stories about
53:47
behind the scenes of what you don't see on camera and people loved it because they're always curious about how you patch it together and it's it's not easy
53:53
some are smooth some are difficult you know I've gotten dissenter in three countries I've been chased by a bear I
54:00
was arrested in Spain uh by the Guardia cille you know
54:05
none of that [ __ ] makes it on camera that's the stuff behind the scenes so lot L stuff I could kind of bring into my book and you know it's it's it's
54:12
definitely a very privileged career but people always say oh I'd love to carry your suitcase and come along it's
54:18
fraking work because in most cases you only have a short amount of time because the budget a very expensive crew you
54:24
have to get and get out and get your story you got to make everybody happy as a producer or showrunner that I am
54:31
you're working you you might be in in Machu picu for three days telling a
54:37
story but you are dealing with all the headaches oh it's raining now and we have to fly home tomorrow when the
54:43
expert wants extra money at the last minute remember I was shooting at Edinburgh in Scotland when Western
54:48
Europe and years ago about um Roslin Chapel which is a lovely little strange
54:53
site up there and I I spent this all day with his expert has showed me all around and then you have to get them to sign
54:59
the release form which means we can use you yeah without it you can't do it and
55:04
he refused to do it until I gave him 20,000 pounds he didn't tell me that before I
55:10
flew over and I'm calling back to National Geographic and says we have a problem we have spent four days
55:15
interviewing this guy who gave me amazing footage and now he's bribing me they said pay it because we need that
55:21
footage so all those headaches come up you are on the job a lot of the time
55:26
but again people were opening tombs for you that you wouldn't see you were I climbed to the top of the Sphinx which
55:33
no one's allowed to do you definitely have these great privileges when you uh are making films because it opens doors
55:40
but it ain't a holiday it's is why I still take my holidays with my husband and my friends because it's nice not to
55:46
have a camera in my hand can imagine I don't even put my phone up
55:52
when I'm on a holiday no freaking way because I'm I'm off clock I can imagine
55:58
I mean it has marked you for sure like it is a lot of work of doing production
56:05
but also like recording the whole preparation getting the things done and yeah I sometimes feel like producers and
56:13
the people who are around no everyone knows who are the famous actors everyone knows who even the famous directors
56:19
sometimes but even you you've been nominated multiple times for for Emmy
56:24
and I don't you need to be really passionate to be doing the background work of all these
56:31
yeah filming and I because come on I have a podcast it's it's I'm sitting
56:37
here home I don't have a big deal of of of but it's still work it's a lot of work I cannot imagine what it means big
56:45
Productions like going to Egypt or to Machu Picchu or to whatever it doesn't really matter even if it's like in next
56:50
home but you need to contact experts you need to get in touch with local people you need to do everything and there is
56:57
not that much recognition from the audience to the work that you
57:02
do p anonymity for TV producer you know yeah and you know we make a far less than a feature film and no one knows
57:09
Neil lair's name unless you Google when IMDb or whatever but you know it's not like you become famous do this um
57:15
because I'm not in front of the camera behind the camera and keep in mind too let's say I shoot a two-hour special
57:21
about King touch or Machu Picchu that's
57:26
10 12 days in the field another nine months of pre-production and post- production making it so the production
57:32
part is a very small slice of the pie people think all you do go over you make
57:37
it and then it airs you have to do a month or two of pre-production Ling things up and then you're in the edit for many then you're cutting it and
57:44
cutting and getting Network notes shaping it that's I love storytelling so
57:49
I like that part as well and researching but you know it is is not all just about being in the field that is one week out
57:55
of nine months yeah no no I get it that part is the part that I get it because we're
58:00
recording here and this episode will go live what three months afterwards and it's in a small
58:07
podcast I cannot imagine doing the pre-production of of the of the
58:12
documentaries that you've been in that's that must be insane I would love it but at the same time it must be insane you
58:19
actually touch a point that I also want you have help it's not one person but you know of course of course of course
58:25
it's it's not a one month show which which is the difference also that's why I take three months to edit episodes
58:31
because I'm the one show you um I actually wanted to ask you
58:37
about the the storytelling part actually and and and how do you find the whole um
58:42
because you you actually touch something that it's it's probably that you have um
58:48
something inside uh calling to to discover new stories and discover new things and discover everything but how
58:55
is the process of Storytelling in there like who comes first like does the network come to you and say I want to do
59:04
this episode or it's the other way around that you have something in the back of your mind and you push it to the
59:10
network it's both it's both I mean a lot of production companies because G the networks in most cases don't make the
59:16
shows they buy them the buyer and the seller to make them and I work on both sides of it um I'm back in production
59:22
now so we I just got a phone call just before you talking about pitching a project about the naans in Saudi Arabia
59:29
with the Saudi Arabia producer so we're trying to shape that idea that then I will take it to the networks on their
59:34
behalf because I know the people there um and then sometimes they say yes usually they say no and then in the
59:40
additional times and I was the network side we say well we know we need a show you know something rates really
59:46
well you know uh Civil War is rating really well let's go a civil war show and we develop the idea internally and
59:52
then we go to the production companies we think would do a nice job they have a relationship so it happens both ways um
59:59
but usually it comes from outside because the networks rely on the production houses to come up with the
1:00:04
ideas and the exclusivity and all that stuff and if you came to me and says I can get you in the baron because I know
1:00:11
all these Greek people that are working up there and I have an exclusive then i' take your meeting you know so a lot of
1:00:17
it's about what you have to offer the network that allows you to be the one that we would choose to make that film
1:00:24
because you get pitched all the time no there's no story that's new there's no there's no story I haven't pitched that
1:00:30
I haven't heard a hundred times but it's a question of ah well you have this actor or you have this exclusivity or
1:00:36
you're gonna open this tomb or whatever it is that what gets you in the
1:00:41
door and that takes time that's that preprod yeah yeah makes sense also
1:00:47
getting all everything ready to be the best uh beat in the basket no let's say
1:00:52
like this EXA exactly how much of this world is
1:00:58
context because it's everyone has a camera nowadays no so everyone can start their own Productions and everything but
1:01:05
um not everyone has the right context to get as you said inside of the partner for example no um exactly you need the
1:01:12
relationships and and you know you know how to tell stories too it's harder for a production company a new production
1:01:18
company doesn't have experience already making shows the networks to get in the door because the way we tell stories is
1:01:24
very unique it's not like you come back with a bunch of shortage and you sling it together and you you know Discovery
1:01:30
and Geographic and BBC we all have the different storytelling ways so we often rely on people that have already told
1:01:37
those stories for us before because it's quicker so having idea and having
1:01:42
exclusivity or the connection is only part of it you have to understand how to tell a story for American or UK or
1:01:49
european television what whoever it is and you know that's that's a big hurdle
1:01:54
not everybody can do it well oh it it's an a skill it's not something
1:02:00
that you you develop from one day to the other probably maybe going back yeah for sure
1:02:07
maybe going back a little bit to to the novel and talking a little bit I'm curious also about the fictional part of
1:02:13
it you already T said that you actually went step back when you were starting to
1:02:19
write it to say okay this is maybe too much footnote and too much historically accuracy when you wanted to write a
1:02:25
fiction does it happen the other way around also how much creative license are you giving
1:02:31
to yourself uh when it comes to I don't know you you said the second second novel happens in Pompei but do you try
1:02:37
to be historically accurate also on a good question and you know again you
1:02:42
know it's it's a different one thing I had to say very quickly is when you like anything else we're talking about making
1:02:48
films writing a novel if I knew how hard it was going to be I may not have done it if I would naively because I said new
1:02:54
language I was I was writing like a screenplay and I was writing like a
1:03:00
feature or a treatment and that's not what literary fiction is that's not what stories are so how to teach myself a new
1:03:06
language and how to tell a story with internal thinking and all the stuff that you expect in a novel driven by character not by fact so that took me a
1:03:13
while to find that sweet spot um but one of the things that I think bring I bring to both Prime Time Travelers the egyp
1:03:19
book and Prime Time Pompei and then Prime Time Troy that I'm writing now when they go back to ancient Troy is
1:03:25
that I know and I love those worlds so you can bet when you buy Prime Time
1:03:31
Pompei or Prime Time Troy that I have done my research and even though it's a comedic and adventure story it's not all
1:03:37
comedy but you know it's you can bet that how Pompei explodes and what happens Neil lar has done his research
1:03:44
so I'm I I make I create characters my characters are fictional but I try to
1:03:50
paint a picture of the ancient world as much as I can of course it's it's it's fantasy because none of us have been
1:03:56
there but when I have them walking down into Pompei for the first time after they get out of their time machine or
1:04:02
time portal I am writing about what I think those places look like when I wrote Pompei I I rented a villa for a
1:04:09
month uh in sarento and every day I would go to Pompei and I would walk around in the morning and take notes
1:04:16
then I go back to my villa and that's how I wrote I was just in turkey in a in a villa not far from Troy the ruins of
1:04:22
Troy and the same thing I'm talk to The Experts I would go around I would try to do as much research as I
1:04:28
could read all the books I listen to the ilot and the Odyssey all the way through in the evening over a wine I love
1:04:34
getting into that research so when I sit down and create the fantasy I have the facts in my hand and
1:04:41
I write to the facts as much as I can very nice and that's kind of a fun way to do it because I think that's what
1:04:47
I that's why my two worlds have Blended so well I think because I always wanted to tell stories in a different way but
1:04:53
I'm still using the the ver similitude of how what a filmmaker has to do to tell a documentary in what is otherwise
1:05:01
a fantasy cool I mean I I I need to buy
1:05:07
the books that's for sure the second part is that I I really like that you're you're
1:05:13
blending words and and and blending things that you know well and there there it's um something that I'm always
1:05:21
also curious about it's like of course like you said about the two brothers to um the historical characters for sure
1:05:29
you've taken some of them and include them in the Noels how much of the filming crew and the uh main characters
1:05:37
of the story are are also inspired by real people around quite a lot of them
1:05:43
they're an amalgamation I don't think any one person can sue me because there's no one person that is the camera
1:05:48
woman or the H but certainly all the people I worked with will recognize oh there's a bit of me in that there's a
1:05:53
bit of me in that and and you know four-person crew a sound person Indiana Jones kind of a Cheesy
1:06:00
host who finally comes in his own Jared which is very much me as a young kid and then Cara his best friend camera woman
1:06:08
and my friends and my enemies my I look at and say oh yeah I see every you got that idea um so yeah and the television
1:06:14
Executives the opening scene of Pompei the new book takes place they're watching the first film in in a network
1:06:21
executive boardroom and all the people I dealt with from from
1:06:26
um you know ad sales and advertising and marketing and all the ugly bits are there to comment on it so you know I'm
1:06:33
using my time as a network executive to kind of bring into how they see television and how they see the world
1:06:39
and how they see history so it was fun to be able to skewer that stuff um but then also tell a story that I can
1:06:44
totally make up like the impetus of Pompeii I knew I needed a new hook for
1:06:50
it and again I wanted to tell a gay story um you've been to Pompei right
1:06:55
yeah yeah multiple times if you go if you know about the if you go to Pompei you know about all the
1:07:01
plaster cast of the victims there and if you go to the one of the main gates the amphitheater Gates behind the uh glass
1:07:08
and the gift shop which seems a rather rude place to put them are the victims of maybe a dozen of the people who
1:07:14
didn't make it to the marina in time and get out and there's one uh group two people not unlike the
1:07:22
Tomb of the two brothers that has a misnomer they were long called the two Maiden and there's two people in Embrace I
1:07:28
don't know if you've seen them there's one on head of the chest of the other and they're being held and they long thought it was a mother and a child and
1:07:35
it was only CAT scan and DNA test in the last five 10 years they realized that they were both male they were not
1:07:40
related and they're between 20 and 30 years old so we don't know if these was
1:07:46
a gay couple but to me as a fiction story now as a Fiction guy not a documentary I can make them a gay couple
1:07:53
so Jared's main reason of going back to Pompei and telling the story is to find
1:07:58
out the identity of who these two men are how they died why they died and what was her name they want us to give life
1:08:05
to these two unsung uh same-sex couple so that's all
1:08:10
fantasy and I'm I'm quick to say there's no guarantee just because they're embraced it could have been a shopkeeper
1:08:16
and a metal worker who just realized the end was near and they held each other tight but if you look at those and now
1:08:22
I'm talking subjective when I look at those plaster cast I don't see two
1:08:27
strangers I see two people in love that are going out together at that last moment when that pyac clastic flow
1:08:33
catches up with them and melts their bodies they held each other tight and
1:08:39
that is the grain or that is the impetus of the second book who are these embracing lovers and that got me going
1:08:45
once I came up with that then the fantasy and the archaeological work went there and I talked to the experts who Doug and I I filled in all the stuff on
1:08:52
top of what is otherwise a Fantastical story nice very
1:08:58
cool what it's the next steps on the series it's you already said that you're already so you released two of them
1:09:05
you're working on the troan one uh is that the last one or are you planning to
1:09:11
continue doing series of everything look I mean it's television
1:09:16
term is returnable this crew could the fil crew as long as they have their their their T their their door to travel
1:09:22
they can keep going back over and over again I'll see how they sell you know the first book Prime Time Travelers came
1:09:28
out in May and that's on Amazon um and that's about them going back ancient
1:09:33
Egypt that's sort of the origin story and then Pompei is in November Troy comes out next year I could do the
1:09:40
Crusades I could do China I don't know yet you know I think at some point it may be eager to do another story tell a
1:09:47
different something else that's not them but I love these characters I know these characters so well and I think people
1:09:54
relate to them um because they're us and the tricky thing about historical fiction sometimes particularly if you go
1:10:00
in the ancient past it's hard to see us in the Egyptians it's hard to see us in the ancient Greeks you I was just
1:10:07
watching again just a few nights ago because um I'm still so deep in research I'm watching the uh the film version of
1:10:14
Troy you know the the Brad Pit thing which I knew was not a good film and then watching again I realized why that
1:10:19
film doesn't work besides seeing Brad P buffed out is um the characters even
1:10:26
though we know we know Manus and aysus and achilles and pre they didn't bring
1:10:33
life to them they didn't make him full-fledged characters they made him they they kept them historical figures
1:10:39
so while we know Achilles is goingon to die when Patrick l is killed and we know all this stuff's going to happen
1:10:45
Hector's gonna be dragged around the uh the walls the filmmaker's fault was they
1:10:50
didn't make them real characters they didn't make us characters that we believe are flesh and blood
1:10:56
and I think by having characters that time hop and having characters that are very much us that live in Brooklyn and
1:11:02
and go to the same cafes that I go and take them in the past it makes them a lot more relatable in many regards so I
1:11:08
think a lot of readers are reacting the fact that they see themselves in Cara and Derek and Jared the lead characters
1:11:15
where it's harder to see themselves in Achilles and Patrick because they're icons yeah they are this figure of
1:11:23
demigod kind of although they are not that but yeah yeah yeah it's it's the
1:11:28
illusion of like who are these people and they are so many ters so many times
1:11:34
told their story that okay you know most of what it's going to happen
1:11:40
yeah maybe the only thing I mean it's it's good because you find the kind of a way of like you could history is
1:11:47
everywhere so in every corner of the world you could write a book about um probably the only problem would be TV
1:11:54
and then you would need to switch to a to a YouTube crew or or something I don't know if the the television crew is
1:12:02
it's probably the thing that will die the sooner in the whole story what's a TV
1:12:10
crew H there is already kids who doesn't know what the TV crew is so that's for
1:12:16
sure showing my age I'm already writing ancient Pi even when I'm in the present
1:12:21
day you don't need a or yeah yeah exactly that's what I'm saying like
1:12:27
it's just I mean it's changing so much also the formats um are you're still
1:12:32
working though like you're doing writing novel and then at the same time you're still writing uh doing yeah novel writing is not enough to pay all the
1:12:38
bills right now so I'm I'm doing History Channel project right now and then um I'm developing projects with friends
1:12:45
Almost mostly the Middle East and Egypt and archaeology um mostly history ancient history that's sort of been my
1:12:51
baile we but then I've done freelance you I just I did a series this summer uh
1:12:56
for a friend who has a show on History Channel called food that boat America and it's about the rise of popular foods
1:13:02
in the 20th century show okay so you know I'll do that too because you know once you understand storytelling for TV
1:13:09
doesn't all have to be history I've done Weight Loss shows and I've done
1:13:14
engineering shows and all manner of stuff over the years so why I'm known for the adventure archaeology mystery
1:13:21
stuff you know it's fun to write a show about the rise of 7-Eleven I did it one by the rise of xerox machine versus IBM
1:13:29
it's kind of cool it's still history and research 20th century so you know I I still have my my feet very much in the
1:13:35
TV world for as long as it lasts cool so you're planning to to
1:13:41
continue writing and doing both uh so that's like next for you be plan exactly
1:13:50
as long as I can financially afford to do both and the reason you write the Books very quickly and get them out there is you build an audience and you
1:13:57
the so when book one comes out and you get book two you know it takes a while
1:14:02
to kind of create a series to find so hopefully let's say when Pompei comes
1:14:07
out it'll convince people to go back and read the first one again and then I can repackage them as a box set so you know
1:14:13
it's it's it's a lot of marketing and it's a lot of um it's a long runup to
1:14:19
start seeing a big profit in novel writing it's another reason why I'm going to keep my day job
1:14:25
absolutely I don't I don't think it's easy to become a I mean you're already succeeding one
1:14:32
if you succeed in too that's that's a a very good one up a lot aren't I right
1:14:37
rather presumptuous of me so maybe the last question before we
1:14:43
close the episode it's what like as a person who has done all of these and succeed also a lot come on multi multi
1:14:52
and Nomine that's not that's not easy set uh what would be your advice to any
1:14:57
aspiring filmmakers or writers who are trying to get their stories out there
1:15:03
and and trying to to to go out of the of the comfort zone certainly do I mean
1:15:09
don't read don't you know I mean take your classes if you want but but particularly creative Pursuits you only
1:15:15
learn by writing and by making the film I you know Film School helped me and
1:15:20
that I met a lot of people but it wasn't until I went out lived when I started backpacking and found my uses and found
1:15:25
my stories and become a little Fearless go back to David Bowie and don't be afraid to fail you know you don't have
1:15:32
to be a giant like him but try it once and see and talk to the right people listen
1:15:38
to people and it's it's remember when I was a discovery we had a um internship
1:15:44
program and every year interns from schools would come in and we'd see all these young kids come in for a couple
1:15:51
months and I was shocked at how few people knocked on my door and asked question like what are you working on can I sit in can I go to this meeting
1:15:58
what are you doing and one or two people who did say oh you know I really love I see you did that thing on uh whatever on
1:16:06
ancient Mesopotamia can I just see what a rough cut looks like those are the ones that are in the business because
1:16:11
they had that Curiosity and they were there and they were asking questions so find those people look for the mentors
1:16:18
and listen and ask questions don't assume it's going to happen to you you have to work for it but you have to you
1:16:25
have to again be a little bit out there you got to throw yourself out of your comfort zone to do it you're not going
1:16:30
to learn how to become a novelist to osmosis or by reading a book on how to be a novelist you got to write it and
1:16:36
fail and then rewrite it and fail rewrite it and fail rewrite it and fail and then eventually someone says oh you finally got it so doing doing and asking
1:16:43
questions is one thing I recommend anybody in any career do and certainly if you want to travel like you don't
1:16:49
wait until time is perfect in Cairo because it won't be book that book that ticket to
1:16:58
nice um Neil has been an incredible episode thank you so much for sharing
1:17:03
your your experience I think the mandatory last um question that I need to ask to you it's where my listeners
1:17:10
can find uh both your novels uh where they can find you where they can where
1:17:15
they can get in contact even like uh um yeah my books are available at
1:17:22
Amazon and Kindle so you if you got Amazon and type in my name Neil l or um
1:17:28
all the books at Prime Time in the title Prime Time Travelers Prime Time Pompei and they will come up um the first two
1:17:34
will already be out by D this airs NE air.com best thing to do if you're curious anyone listen to it join my
1:17:40
mailing this at ne.com and then I'll send out free copies and short stories and then you'll know when the books are
1:17:46
coming out um and that's the best way to kind of keep in touch of what I'm doing because part of writing these books is
1:17:52
getting the feedback from the people and saying what did you like about the the last book who is your favorite character in Pompei where do you like to see them
1:17:58
go next time so I love talking to readers who have actually picked up the book and have some to
1:18:03
say cool very nice so all as always for
1:18:08
every listener the links are will be in the description of the episode and you can uh get uh a newsletter follow Neil
1:18:18
and also get uh books in Amazon Kindle and read and get get give feedback to
1:18:24
Neil uh and if you give feedback saying that you come from the episode uh uh do
1:18:29
that also and if you want me to send him uh I have direct contact now yay uh so
1:18:36
if you read the books and you have feedback also get in contact with me um again thanks a lot for your time today
1:18:43
and for for for taking the time to explain both your life and and your your work um has been a very very interesting
1:18:50
episode not at all not at all thank you for having me a great discussion
1:18:57
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