(audience applauding)
How you doing?
Oh my God.
I'm totally freaking out.
It's so nice to see you.
You know when the last time we met was?
I remember it,
well, it was on a set and.
It was in St. Elmos's Fire's set, yeah.
And I had a huge crush on you,
but weirdly I decided to tell you
that I had a huge crush on Corey Feldman.
I mean, you must have had girls like falling at your feet,
what was it like to be that guy?
I don't think I was, I think Rob Lowe was that guy.
I was the other guy, you know,
I was very shy person and suddenly I was very in the public
and present and people were coming up to me
and stuff like that,
that all kind of weird and bizarre.
I've heard that you felt like
a little bit of an outsider sometimes with The Brat Pack.
Like, what is your relationship now,
what's going on with the other members?
Well, the last meeting was canceled 'cause of COVID
but we're going to have our
next Brat Pack reunion next month.
I'm so excited, are you kidding me?
I am kidding, you.
No, but I was just doing Rob Lowe's podcast last week
and Rob was like, we got to get everybody together,
one room, big dinner, lock the doors.
And you know, we do 'cause it was such a odd singular time
and it happened to a small group of people
and it's so effected our lives so thoroughly.
And you know,
you've lived your life in public your whole life.
You're more public than me in that way,
but it totally alters who you become as a human.
Yes, absolutely.
It's a very blessed thing, I mean, who are we kidding?
It is a blessed thing.
And I think you make a very conscious decision
somewhere along the way of, you know,
how you're going to handle and receive that kind of energy
and how you're going to treat people
and how you exchange energy is a very big question
one must have to come up with an answer for.
You know, I realized a long time ago
I just got too tired to just try and be nice to everybody.
Were you able to maintain that
or were you more like I'm human, I'm honest,
you're catching me.
You know, I have three kids
and my kids have melted down in public
and I have melted down in public so badly with them
that at certain point it's just like,
oh my God this is so humiliating.
No matter whether you're in the public eye or not, you know?
So you just sort of, there we are, warts and all.
I'm so with you,
I've had my daughter like on the pavement
like pounding and screaming, people walking by
and looking at you and you're just like.
Somebody said, I heard, you know,
if your children haven't embarrassed you recently,
you're not paying enough attention to your children.
So I identify with that.
Mine is seven year old and when he melts down,
the world is ending you know.
At least I know somewhere, this is going to pass.
In the moment it doesn't feel like it, but you know,
we have that perspective or as young people just,
they haven't lived at the time, so they don't.
Did you know that growing up?
Because I will say growing up in this business,
you're expected to be an adult when you're a kid
and my relationship with my mom was like totally backwards,
she wasn't a parent.
Was yours backwards and turned upside down as well?
Well, I started to become successful
whereas my dad was sort of having a challenging time
and so it changed the dynamic.
My becoming successful changed the dynamic
of every relationship that I had.
How did you manage the relationship with your dad?
I'm only curious because
I had to really navigate things with my mom
and it took many years to figure it out.
It took decades.
Like a lifetime.
You know, I think I ran, you know
and our relationship dissolved for a number of years
and then, you know, it sort of came a little together
as we were older and I started to have kids
and then it was, my dad was dying, we sort of,
I went to be with him and, you know
we kind of put down the baggage of our past
and had sort of a beautiful thing.
And you know, that was more for my own kids
to be a better parent, you know what I mean?
'Cause I needed to reconcile with my dad.
There had been a lot of baggage that I carried around,
whether it was real or not for years and decades,
and to be able to just go dump it and say, you know,
I love you was a powerful thing.
I just love that.
But I have to say one thing,
my entire life I've had one wish
when people said what would you do
if you didn't do what you did, occupationally speaking?
And my entire life I've had the same answer,
and it was to be a travel writer.
And you became a travel writer.
Yeah, it's the best thing.
Yeah, it's absolutely great.
I stumbled into that.
Traveling changed my life and so I started writing about it
and it sort of took on a life of its own
and became this second career
and it has been an amazing journey for that.
And you're right, it does change you.
(upbeat music)