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Girls Gone Wild (For Cheryl Strayed)
31 Plays2 months ago
Take a walk in the woods with Gen & Em as they discuss ππͺππ₯, by Cheryl Strayed. Gen discovers who stole from her personal book shelf and Em discusses how to go on a months-long hike with specialty medications in tow.
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Transcript
Reuniting for 'Book Club, the movie, the podcast'
00:00:01
Speaker
Two nerds went to college and found each other in the English department basement and became instant friends. Eight years and three degrees later, they're reunited.
00:00:12
Speaker
You're listening to Book Club, the movie, the podcast.
Diving into 'Wild' by Cheryl Strayed
00:00:41
Speaker
Well, shall we get into it? Yeah, let's get into it. Let's get into it. All right, so I'll start with a synopsis. Okay. Cheryl Strait, brilliant author, brilliant person, top 10 icon for me personally. Anyway, so wild. In this book, she explores major themes like grief, poverty, addiction a little bit, maybe comically, like her feet are a big part and her like foot health. Her feet are their own character. Yeah, yeah, they kind of are. The book is nonfiction. It's memoir. um Memoir is different from personal essays because memoir focuses a lot on memories. With it being nonfiction, you know, we get two writers, right? We get the writer who experienced the thing and then we get the writer at the desk who's reflecting back on the thing and giving us wisdom and insight. And it's Cheryl Strayed, so it's beautiful wisdom and insight. And also funny wisdom and insight. I think she's hilarious. She is hilarious. She's she's a goofball a little bit, but also will break your heart.
00:01:39
Speaker
And she'll do that in the same sentence.
Cheryl's Life Challenges and the Pacific Crest Trail
00:01:41
Speaker
So the book covers the loss of her mother due to cancer when her mother was 45. So that's pretty young.
00:01:51
Speaker
And then it covers um kind of the the few years after that, more briefly, but just how she handled that grief and loss. And then she just, she put her mind to something. She decided she was going to hike the Pacific Crest Trail or rather, you know, a large section of the Pacific Crest Trail. And that was going to help her get back to herself and who she was supposed to be and someone who her mother could be proud of.
00:02:18
Speaker
Because in the four years after her mother passed, she Struggled. She struggled a lot. She wrecked her marriage with her first husband. And she, I mean, by cheating on him several times, you know, she fell into using heroin. So, you know, drugs, infidelity. It seems like she dropped out of school, although I think she later did finish school. We just, that wasn't in the book. I just know that from everywhere else that I follow her. Yeah.
00:02:49
Speaker
That didn't sound creepy at all. I really just want to be her friend and like have some soup with her because I really like soup and I really like Cheryl Strayed. What did I miss, Em?
Impact of 'Wild' and Jean-Marc VallΓ©e's Direction
00:02:58
Speaker
I mean, that pretty much covers it because there's a lot of walking.
00:03:03
Speaker
The book involves a whole bunch of walking. That's the that's the the overarching theme is that she is taking a very long walk and figuring herself out along the way. Yeah. So...
00:03:13
Speaker
It's a great book. It's really not like that long. You know, I mean, it's a little over 300 pages, but it flies by. so the director, what else has he done? Yeah. So the director is Jean-Marc VallΓ©e. think I'm saying that right. Apologies if I've messed up his last name. um But so he also directed Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects, which are both HBO series. And I could, i got like the same vibes from Wild, while watching Wild that I did. get I mean, he has a style. um i don't, I don't know enough about film probably to be able to be like, it's the post-colonial form style or whatever. yeah.
00:04:01
Speaker
but It's him. like it's it's it's it It definitely has his signature on it. I also love that like Big Little Lies has Laura Dern in it. um Love Laura Dern. Right? And she's also she's in Wild. She plays the mother. Mother's name is Bobby. So... um um Yeah, she, I guess if she likes working with a director, she's going to work with a director. So um she's Laura Dern. She can do what she wants. um Well, and I mean, directors have their actors that they just like to work with for everything. True. Yeah.
00:04:36
Speaker
And you read a little bit about his style for things like about like the lighting on set, like most of it was like natural lighting. um I mean, i read about it for this movie specifically. right ah Yeah, I think if it was outdoors, it was natural light.
00:04:53
Speaker
I don't think they really used any other light sources for anything that happened outdoors during the daytime. um So that sounds a little bit tedious to try to do that in the Pacific Northwest if you're looking for sunny days. We certainly have our rainy gross days.
Cheryl Strayed's Other Works and Personal Moments
00:05:18
Speaker
So Wilde was published in March of 2012, right? And then Cheryl Strayed also published another extremely successful book of nonfiction, although not quite memoir, I would say. It's...
00:05:32
Speaker
yeah It's hard to characterize, actually. But her her other nonfiction book was published in July of 2012. It's titled Tiny Beautiful Things. And it's essentially letters sent into the Dear Sugar column on the rumpus. And then she was sugar for many years. And it was her responses to that, um to those letters. Yeah.
00:05:55
Speaker
Is that one that you sent me? The book? I mean, I want to put it past me to gift a Cheryl Strayed book to someone, especially you. Well, funny that you say that. Let me let me just show you um the stamp in my book.
00:06:11
Speaker
In your wild book? Is that where my copy went? I don't know where it came from. You bitch. I don't know why I have it.
00:06:23
Speaker
I don't know why either. Why do I have it? i had to buy a new copy. It was like, I've read this book. Why would I give it away? yeah my dumb ass just realized that the stamp was there. Because I think you even asked me about it a long time ago. You even said like, hey, do you know where my copy of Cheryl of of Wild went? And I said, no. Because I was looking at this page, the title page, where the stamp should go.
00:06:52
Speaker
and that's not where the stamp was. It was literally one page before. didn't want to fuck up the title page. i know, that but that's where it goes. And like, you can even see it. You can even see it through the paper. and I still didn't see it. I read i looked at it i'm like, no, I don't remember buying this at all. I don't know where it came from. I don't know why it's on my bookshelf. I love Cheryl Strayed. I would like to finish this book one day. And I have no idea where it came from. Turns out it's yours. I don't think I stole it. I don't think you would steal it. Let's put your mind at ease. I'm pretty certain. I was like, this book is amazing. Please read it. Borrow it. Here you go. I probably didn't like gift it to you.
00:07:33
Speaker
No, I don't think you would. i have a couple of books. I think that you did gift to me and they do have your stamp in them. yeah But I know that those were gifted and I don't even remember which ones they were. Well, yeah think like h is for Hawk. It was like stuff from your MFA. Yeah. Those are books i was like, this was great. I'm probably never going to read you again, though, because I had such a hard time reading you in the MFA program. um I don't want to relive that. Wild, I probably would have kept. But yeah it's all good.
00:08:02
Speaker
Well, like I remember even like reading this last week and I was like, oh, somebody already made notes in this.
00:08:13
Speaker
And like I even Oh god i which ah
00:08:20
Speaker
I was in the gifted program But not for my common sense Oh my god Oh, where are we?
Nick Hornby and Reese Witherspoon's Roles in 'Wild'
00:08:35
Speaker
So we haven't talked about Nick Hornby. So Nick Hornby wrote the screenplay for Wild. um And the fun fact about him is that he is also an author. He wrote Fever Pitch, High Fidelity, and About a Boy, among other books.
00:08:52
Speaker
um And I think all three of those, Fever Pitch, High Fidelity, and About a Boy, have been made into movies. yeah. Nick Hornby, we're coming for you. You'll be on an episode in the future. So yeah, I mean, you know, he wrote the screenplay. I think he stuck pretty close to the source content, to the memoir. That's, you know, well done. Well done, chap. I think he's British.
00:09:15
Speaker
it it It felt like a really good, i think it was a really good representation of the book. I think so, too. Yeah. I mean, obviously there were a lot of differences, but right you know because of the format, it had to be. And then, of course, the lead actor and one of the producers was Reese Witherspoon. Actually, yeah. So ah Reese Witherspoon was the lead actor in it and also the producer. This was the first movie that her production company actually made, Hello Sunshine, which I think she sold Hello Sunshine a few years ago. oh really I didn't know that. Yeah. She doesn't, she doesn't own it anymore. And hello. Sunshine is actually a production company with a focus on stories by women about women, yeah you know, to kind of break up the industry a little bit, which I think we can totally get behind that. Obviously. But Cheryl actually sent an advanced copy of wild to Reese Witherspoon before it was ah even published. ay
00:10:13
Speaker
And she did this because if there was ever going to be a movie, made of Wild, she wanted Reese Witherspoon to be the actor to play her, which originally, i didn't know this. I'm glad that I found it because I i was getting very ah suspicious. I'm like, how in the hell was she able to have a bestselling book in this month and then seemingly just 12 months later now it's this Oscar nominated movie. I think the movie came out 2014. It was just immediately after, immediately after, whenever it was. But no, it's because Cheryl did her homework and is a go-getter. So she went in and got her and Reese Witherspoon read it and was like, yeah, dibs. And then immediately got the rights to it to produce the movie. That's awesome. Which is, it's just cool. It's it's like, get it.
00:11:05
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah. No, it looks like the movie was released December 5th, 2014. So we're looking at like a year and a half, give or take. Which nothing. year and eight months from the book coming out to the movie being released.
00:11:25
Speaker
So that's a wild time. Way to go, Cheryl. Yeah. Yeah.
Personal Encounters with Cheryl Strayed
00:11:31
Speaker
Just go after what you want. I'm sure that she had help from her publicist and her agent and all the people. I'm sure. Also, not to mention her husband, her second husband, her now husband, Brian Lindstrom. Like he's a documentarian, like he's in the film industry. So I'm sure even like her husband was like, you should send a copy out to the people you like. Like, if you want this made into a movie, it's a great movie topic, you know. is kind of interesting that, like, he didn't direct it, but also he's not that kind of director, so.
00:12:06
Speaker
I mean, I wouldn't want Jason to direct my movie, I don't think. Depending. That's fair. I wouldn't want Adam to direct mine, but also he's not. Bless his heart. He's not a creative.
00:12:17
Speaker
He's a science boy. Great cast. I mean, honestly, not that big of a cast. Um, like not that many people. guess there were like a lot of, I guess, small roles, um, throughout, but just a lot, a lot of Reese Witherspoon. Love her. and then, um, you know, i i was content with the amount of Laura Dern. Would have been happy with more. Love Laura Dern. Glad there wasn't less, but i I love Laura Dern. She's great. And Laura Dern and like overalls, adorable. Laura Dern in Jurassic Park with the cargo shorts and the boots.
00:12:54
Speaker
That's a look.
00:12:58
Speaker
So, Jen, ah you have actually met Cheryl Strayed, right? do you want to tell me about that? yeah Life level unlock. Okay. So yes, I met Cheryl Strayed June, 2023 in Astoria, Oregon. She came for the premiere showing of a theatrical version of Tiny Beautiful Things. The play was put on at the 1015 Productions Theater in Astoria. And the director of the play was a friend from the MFA program. She was a fiction student.
00:13:33
Speaker
Her name's Deanna Dublechain. She's a brilliant director, awesome writer. but She's had a few careers and like I'm pretty sure she's directed like Broadway shows. Like she's the real deal. Deanna's incredible. Just like what they did with the set and the actors were amazing. It was just a gorgeous, gorgeous, amazing production. It was a sold out show. it was a tiny theater, but it was sold out because the word got out that Cheryl Strayed was going to be there in person.
00:14:03
Speaker
So anyway, we we all had dinner with Deanna before the production. Then Deanna was like, will you guys go get Cheryl from the hotel and then walk her over to the theater? Because it was like a block and a half. And we were like, sure. um Or at least I was. I think Sierra and Ben were like, yeah, whatever. It's fine. And I was like, oh, my God, could I please do that? ah yeah I won't be weird at all. I promise.
00:14:32
Speaker
I'll be totally normal. The entire time I was like, don't be weird. Don't be weird. Be cool. Be cool. Be cool. Like, ah anyway, so yeah, me and Sierra and we walk over to the hotel and we wait in the lobby and we tell the, we tell the receptionist like,
00:14:49
Speaker
um hi you're the front desk attendant you know hi we're here for cheryl straight you know we don't want to be that like loud about it or whatever and then we just hang out we're just chill oh and deanna also had a friend visiting from out of town she was with us too i don't remember her name though she lives in texas um know what remember about her she wasn't a writer or anything but she was just she was just visiting i mean that's pretty big for deanna you know i don't know felt big yeah um so yeah cheryl comes down she's in the elevator she comes out and she's like hi you know just normal person oh my god
00:15:27
Speaker
internally i'm just like hello and she shakes all of her hands and i'm like fuck i shouldn't have had my hands in my pockets because they're like too warm right like they're the wrong temperature uh so bless her heart i mean she didn't do or say anything and it's not like that they were like what but they were like approaching wetness um I'm sure she's shaked worse hands in her life, but um she's, you know, she yeah shakes her hands and we're like, hi, how are you? How you doing?
00:16:01
Speaker
And she's like, good. Shall we go? You know? And so then we, we walk. but We walk over there and it's just casual conversation. Honestly, we talk about Deanna a bit.
00:16:12
Speaker
I don't know. We're kind of like, not that we need to hype up Deanna, but like, that's what we're talking about. We're there to talk about the planet. not there to talk about Cheryl so much. So that's what we do. And I'm just like, oh my oh my God, I have your book in my purse and I want you to sign it.
00:16:28
Speaker
You were being a weird little fangirl and I totally get it. But I'm not going ask you to do that because that's shitty and you're just another person and you're trying to enjoy this night because it's an opening night and it's close enough to home that you could drive here and, you know, the hotel room was donated for you and I'm sure you brought your husband. Like, and you just want to get back to him or whatever. Yeah. You know, like, hmm.
00:16:50
Speaker
So yeah, we walk walk her over. you know She meets a few people in in the front lobby area.
Themes of Grief and Personal Growth
00:16:55
Speaker
Then we sit down. The play starts and the play is heartbreaking. It's heart-wrenching. um And it it goes into like like, Cheryl was sexually assaulted, right? And so like the entire time I'm watching this, I'm thinking about like, oh my God, is this uncomfortable for her? Is this weird? I'm sure she's used to it by now. I mean, she's a nonfiction writer. She's a memoirist. She's got her whole life out there. i Yeah, I feel like that's...
00:17:20
Speaker
That's just part of memoir in general. Like you make the decision to use parts of yourself. Right. For your art. We know this. Right. We've done it. Not to her magnitude. Right.
00:17:32
Speaker
Yet, hopefully. Not with that level of audience. But then to see it turned into a play and be watching that live with other people around you who are all like, what's she doing? Long story short, she's the only person who brought tissues in our row. So she just gave us all tissues, which was awesome. So yeah, she was just, she was great. We all cried, um like a lot.
00:17:54
Speaker
And I mean, again, Tiny Beautiful Things deals a lot with like grief. That's a common theme in her work, I think, because she's had a lot of grief in her life. And so like at that point, like my grief journey with my losing my dad was still, like it was fresher than I'm feeling today right now, you know, yeah even while I was reading this book. But You're able to talk about it now, which I think is is a good marker. Talk about it without crying. And creppable.
00:18:21
Speaker
Pat on the back. Thank you to my therapist. Anyway, after the play, Cheryl's invited on stage to do a live interview with questions both from the moderator moderator and from the audience. And the moderator, like the lowdown dish on her, is she's like a local author, like children's book author. And she's published a lot of children's books, you know, so some might say prolific children's book author. I've never heard of her. I'm also not a child anymore.
00:18:50
Speaker
but um And I have no children like actively in my life, really, you know, day to day. Yeah. But ah she went to VCFA and we know shitload of people who went to VCFA.
00:19:03
Speaker
So that's like where she got her MFA and everything. And she might even teach a class or two or, you know, somehow be connected still with VCFA. She's the one who spilled the beans to everyone that Cheryl Strayed was going to be there in person so that like she could get more clout or something like she posted that online. no um Weird. Yeah. Interesting. And also was like, let's do a book signing. And they were like, no, Cheryl's coming here to watch the play. She's not coming here to sign books. that's why I didn't have her sign my book um or ask her to, even though I'm sure she would. yeah um But i didn't want to I didn't want to be about it. Anyway, so, you know, she...
00:19:51
Speaker
I don't think she asked very good questions in the interview, but also my view of her was tainted. I'll admit that. But I do remember some people from the audience were trying to like stump Cheryl is what it felt like. There was one person in the audience who asked something along the lines of like, so why did you agree to do an anonymous advice column and then turn around and publish it?
00:20:16
Speaker
Like not anonymously. And her response that was just like, well, I was always intending to publish it. I was never going to do it for free without any recognition. It's like, hey, writer lady, why did you write this and use it as written word? why did you Why did you word it so that we could read it, writer or lady? And she's like, because I'm a writer lady, you dumbass. I'm writer lady. That's what I do. That's my job. That's my profession. But um it was actually in that interview where she connected the dot for me or I mean, i don't know. She she talked about how she got this deal at Knopf for Wild and then like essentially turned around and was like, hey, I also have another book.
00:21:02
Speaker
We should publish that too. um And her, you know, publicist editing whatever team was like, Cheryl, you can't publish two books in the same year because one book's going to steal the other book's thunder. Like, what the fuck? You can't do that. and she was like, I don't care. Do it. We're doing it. Let's do it. You know, not like in a diva way, but just like that. They're ready. Let's go. Yeah.
00:21:25
Speaker
So that's why Wilde was published in March. And then Tiny Beautiful Things was published in July is she was just like... She's like, I am Cheryl fucking strayed.
00:21:37
Speaker
Right. Well, I think it coincided with like how she um she like revealed her identity or something on the rumpus. Again, when this happened, I was too young to like be yeah following it, I guess. um Probably not too young to have been following it because it would have been when I was like in high school. um But I wasn't I wasn't yeah in tune with it then. um And so like in tune with the rumpus Dear Sugar article. Um, uh,
00:22:06
Speaker
Yeah. So, um, dear sugar column, I should say. Um, so wasn't, wasn't following it, but apparently when she would like go into the kaop offices for like wild meetings, like all the interns would be whispering like, that's dear sugar, you know, like they all knew about it anyway.
Film Adaptation and Audience Interaction
00:22:25
Speaker
so yeah, she was lovely. She was brilliant. We cried together. i was one person away from her, so we didn't like brush elbows or anything. She was just like, so classy and elegant and even when people were trying to be bitches and stump her with mean questions she was just I don't understand wanting to be mean to somebody that I don't I don't get it i don't yeah and I'm a mean I can be very mean I try to keep that in check because it doesn't feel good ah but I don't I don't get why would you want to do that why why would you want to do that to Cheryl Strait of all people yeah yeah
00:23:01
Speaker
I don't know. I don't think I would want to be mean to any writer. i don't think because it's such a vulnerable thing. And I don't if I ever get the you know, the chance to like talk about my writing in a public setting that's not at a writing retreat in Missouri. If I ever get that chance, I would really hope that people wouldn't be mean to me, especially if it's like memoir or anything like that's not straight up fiction, even in fiction, because I feel like all of my fiction stuff is still Nonfiction. Nonfiction-ish, at least. It's adjacent to it. It's ah some kind of hybrid thing. So I would just really, really hope to God that they wouldn't be mean to me while I'm on stage. Because if you want me to say some really awkward, out-of-pocket shit, try to make me feel embarrassed because I'll do it.
00:23:48
Speaker
yeah yeah Yeah. I will give you not the sound bite that you were looking for, but it will be a sound bite. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:59
Speaker
So it was just it was great. It was grand. And then after the play was over, you know, um the same little group of us plus Deanna, we walked Cheryl back to her. We escorted her back to her hotel and um outside the front door. She was just like, you all behaved extremely well. Yeah.
00:24:19
Speaker
And you could you could be author escorts like you could be the people who like pick the author up from the airport and take them to the all the events and make sure that they have their water and their latte. And I was like, she was like, you could put that on your resumes. And we were like, yeah, my gosh. Well, that's funny because in the book, actually, ah whenever she was sitting after she like got the heavily discounted Snapple Lemonade and ah she was sitting out behind the store and just people were coming up and just talking to her about it. And a woman ah literally told Cheryl, oh, you need to put this on your resume whenever you're done. Like, this is the kind of thing that it shows that you have character. recruiters and stuff love that so that's really funny but basically what how i take it basically what she was telling you by her saying that you guys should be author escorts you should be the you know the the donkey that keeps the racehorse calm basically what she was saying was uh you guys didn't creep me out at all i know you felt totally normal so you faked it really good you didn't let her see how weird you were feeling inside at all Internally. i kept it all internal and kept my cool. She probably didn't even know that I admire her so much. And she's, I i can hope and dream she'll listen to this episode someday and be like, oh, I would have signed her book.
00:25:47
Speaker
So, Em, do you think that the friendships that Cheryl made on the trail have the same impact in the movie as they did in the book? Not at all. Okay.
00:25:57
Speaker
And it's, I mean, for time's sake, this movie could have been 10 hours long. It could have been three hours long. They kept it five minutes under two. You know, I mean, it was still a decent length movie. ah So they there was no way they were going to be able to introduce the relationships in the movie like they were in the book. It just wasn't going to happen. Also because there wasn't like an overarching na narration. Like there was no, ah or there wasn't enough of Cheryl's like inner monologue happening in order to make those work. It would have been weird. I don't think audiences who hadn't read the book would have watched her meeting and becoming friends with these people and, and understood it or gotten anything from it. I don't think it would have translated well, period. But
00:26:44
Speaker
I kind of wish that they'd done a little bit of a little bit more with it yeah because camaraderie connection, all of that. It's a really big thing on through hikes. I know quite a few people, they haven't done the PCT, but they have done like the Appalachian trail.
00:26:58
Speaker
Uh, And they made like a couple of lifelong friends on there, which I think is a little bit more rare. Like you don't talk to the people that you met at day camp, you know, or at sleepaway camp forever. But while you're there and while you're seeing these same people and you all have the same goal, you're all doing the same weird thing together, you know.
00:27:21
Speaker
You become friends with them very quickly. it's That's just to how it happens. That's the culture of it, of you know most outdoor activities, I would say. like there there is a There's a level of connection that just happens whether you want it to or not. Actually, whenever I was on Reddit looking at things, ah one person said, like I tried very hard to keep this individual and to not make friends and it did not work.
00:27:45
Speaker
So even whenever it's against what you set out to do, you meet people. Yeah. And and you do make connections, whether you want it or not. It just happens. um And I mean, she even tries to hike alone and she still ends up doing some sections of it with other people. And that doesn't happen.
00:28:04
Speaker
in the movie. i Yeah. She doesn't really hike with anyone in the movie. Not really. or And I think part of that, yeah. Frog with them, you know? Yeah. And I think part of that too, is that the movie was trying to really depict her isolation. ah Cause that's a really common theme. Like she, you know, she wasn't doing so hot in her life. She had lost her mother. She'd lost or messed up her family.
00:28:30
Speaker
Her relationship failed. her So she didn't have her husband and she had a toxic relationship. And so they were, they definitely got the feeling of isolation down. That was absolutely present in the movie. And I think that was an important theme, but yeah, they didn't it didn't show any of the,
00:28:50
Speaker
trail buddies that she made and she made quite a few. i mean, they showed a couple. Yeah. But literally only a couple. Like we kept, we got to keep Greg. We did meet one female hiker. I can't remember what the movie, what name the movie gave her, but I think they sort of like rolled Stacy and Trina into kind of one composite character that represented like there weren't that many women on the trail. She met yeah one woman and she met a couple women and then other women who were part of couples. Um, in what she included in the book, not to mention that i'm they there were more people that she met along the trail who weren't in the book at all. So yeah a lot of people got cut from the story in general. This is why I want to sit down with her have a big pot of soup. Have some tea on the stove, you know, getting ready for our dessert. It's a dessert tea. I don't know. And I want to hear about all the people on the trail and what are all of the things. Yeah. anyway You want every single detail. I want all.
00:29:53
Speaker
I want it all. I'd like to read the journals. No, I'm just kidding. That's a little creepy. Yeah.
00:30:04
Speaker
Anyway, i think you and I are a little bit different in that we want the boring details also because we...
Challenges of Memoir to Film Adaptation
00:30:10
Speaker
boring details are exciting. I don't know. They're not They are so exciting. I want to know all of the connections. What was the thought process behind this sentence? Right. Like all of that. We, I think we're definitely, and this is going to happen anytime that a memoir, we're really all the books.
00:30:26
Speaker
We're reading it as writers, I think. And that changes it just a little bit. Like, the background knowledge that we know is there and and we would like to have. totally um so it's a little bit different, but I think the movie was trying to show more of the isolation instead of her being like, Oh my gosh, I'm so lonely. Yeah.
00:30:45
Speaker
Right. You know? Right. They didn't want that part to be super expositional. And I think it did a really good job of showing how isolated she was. Oh, yeah. She was super isolated the entire time. Very isolated the entire freaking time until she finally gets to Portland or wherever. But...
00:31:01
Speaker
Again, trail buddies, the companionship and the camaraderie and the we're all doing this alone, but also together thing at several of the stops. There's the free box where you can leave things that you don't need behind. And that's actually how she got like her ski pole. She had planned to leave her boots, her old boots behind, and that didn't work out. Yeah.
00:31:24
Speaker
But, you know, she she does hike alone through most of the book, but she did become comfortable with a lot of people on the trail. And then she was sad whenever she realized, like, I'm never going to see these people again. Yeah. She was a little bit sad, but that's that's just how it happens. Right.
00:31:41
Speaker
Well, and the great thing about writing like a bestseller and then it gets made into a major motion picture is i think some of the people came back into her life later on. like not yeah significant roles in her life, but the equivalent of popping back onto the trail.
00:31:57
Speaker
Like I found one ah one article on, it was the PCTA.org and it was, i am Greg. And it was, his name wasn't really Greg. I think it was Roger, ah but he wrote about how he met Cheryl and yeah and everything. And there's like photos of him and ah Ed, the trail angel and just a whole bunch of really cool stuff. Yeah. um So yeah, it's neat. Yeah. So what do you think about the ah interiority from the book into the movie? How do you think the movie did of of keeping that going? It was a memoir. We were in her head. Right.
00:32:33
Speaker
I think it's really hard to translate memoir into film, right? Because memoir is so intimate and personal and interior. um And it's hard to do that in an interesting way in a movie, I think. Right. But I think that they pulled it off. um I mean, we kept some of the quotes that Cheryl includes at the beginning of different sections um and kind of throughout the throughout the book. um And the quotes are incorporated in interesting ways. They're either included in the trail register um or we hear them like read aloud um kind of like in an over β what's it called? an over β
00:33:17
Speaker
Voice over. before I wasn't sure what you were describing. i was like, the over's in it. I was like overlay. or yeah cat Overlaid kind of, you know, a voiceover read aloud by. Yeah. She, she reads aloud some of them as she's like writing them in the trail register, which she didn't, I don't think she wrote them in the trail register in the book. She just wrote her name. Yeah.
00:33:41
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I don't β it doesn't β I don't know. She doesn't β I thought it was clever whether or not really happened. In the book, she doesn't write about writing about the things. Yeah. But isn't it like there's somebody who's like Cheryl Strayed and then they quote something back to her?
00:33:56
Speaker
um i remember that happening in the movie. I don't remember if it happened in the book. Yeah. Did it? I don't know. anyway I don't know. Anyway. i only i only remember her writing her name β Either way, if they just added it in the movie so that they could still have the quotes that were included in the book at the section breaks, I think that was really neat. Yeah. I think it worked. They did a good job. I think it worked. It was cool. And it's its yeah it a bunch of small details that they were able to figure out a way to keep, and I appreciate that. Yeah.
00:34:29
Speaker
Because the quotes are... you know, intentional, obviously, and they're important um in the book. So it's great that they were able to keep some of them in the movie. um Do you think that we had way more interiority at the beginning of the movie and then it waned? and Oh, absolutely. And like, yeah why do you think they did that?
00:34:54
Speaker
I don't know, because i really wanted to stay in her head for a lot more of the of the movie, because at the beginning, whenever she realized that she had the wrong fuel for her camp stove and it wasn't going to work. And so she was eating cold mush. and And we got a lot of like her thoughts in that period of time in the Mojave, whenever she was like, I like cold mush.
00:35:18
Speaker
I like cold mush. I'm not craving hot mush or whatever. I, this is great. Right. I'm happy, you know, and, and we got a lot of that. And the first time I watched the movie, I was like, Oh, this is awesome. I hope we continue to have a whole bunch of her thoughts because otherwise it's going to be a very quiet movie.
00:35:36
Speaker
You know, that's, that was what I was hoping. And then she, you know, she gets her camp stove fixed and, and now she has hot mush and things are good. And it's almost like that part of her just kind of,
00:35:49
Speaker
goes away. It's like she stops craving food once her stove is working and that's not how it happened in the book at all. She was constantly craving like burgers and fries and lemonade and just literally anything else Throughout the whole book, like the book made me hungry.
00:36:06
Speaker
Right. Like, yeah. So we did lose it as it went on. um And I kind of wonder if that was just so that things wouldn't be muddy, because I could see the movie getting super busy and just and too much after a certain point.
00:36:22
Speaker
Right. So. I get it. Yeah. But I would have like i would have liked to have kept her in a little bit more. If they found a way to do more voiceovers or something. Yeah. And go on. Oh, no. I i just agree. I agree. No, yeah. i was I was just going to say the exact same thing twice because we aren't recording enough, I guess. No, never. hour Three hours every time. Three hours minimum.
00:36:50
Speaker
So, yeah. um I mean, so we kind of naturally can flow into the subject of want from there. um There's a lot of things that Cheryl wants throughout the book um that I don't think that same level of...
00:37:09
Speaker
I don't even want to call it desire, right? Because desire feels too, like, sexual. um But, like, there's just, like, this this subject of, like, lack um and want and need. And um i don't I don't think that all all came through the movie enough. Like, do you think she was hungry enough in the movie? Yeah.
00:37:33
Speaker
No. Me neither. i was like, the movie didn't make me want a burger or a snap of lemonade. So... No, not at all. And I mean, I like that they kept those details in, but she got the lemonade and then sipped on it and was like, I'm satisfied. And then she had like one bag of chips and she's like, yep, that's all they need is this small handful of chips. And now I'm good to go. And that's not how it was. In the book, she described like... oh my God, we would get to a stop and then i had enough money. So I just like gorged myself on chips and candy and just all this crap that I wasn't filling myself up with like pre-PCT. But like I had an excuse, so I did it now. Like she, oh my God, the food that she described in the book was sexual to me. Like that, yeah, ribs, hell yeah, ribs, smack that ass. Like i was into it. Like it was...
00:38:28
Speaker
she really wanted it. Like on a very deep primal level, she was wanting this food that she couldn't have because, you know, she's in the middle of nowhere. And that didn't show up enough in the movie. Yeah, I don't think like I was anticipating her like, do you remember those old like Burger King commercials where they had like Paris Hilton or like some other like super sexy model and they were like half naked on a car and just like are biting into these giant burgers? In my head while I was reading it, I was like, yeah, I get it, Cheryl. I understand. And so I was anticipating her like taking a big nasty bite out of something at some point in the movie. She does really dig in at, what is it, Frank and Annette's house? Frank and Annette. Yeah, she did there. But after that point, she's like, okay I'm like not hungry anymore. i am satiated. Right. No. Yeah, it's like I'm two weeks in and I'm not hungry anymore. Well, and like the you unique, not unique thing, but I guess the interesting thing is like she's so hungry and craves so much different kinds of food and everything on the trail and really writes and talks a lot about that.
Physical and Symbolic Challenges in 'Wild'
00:39:32
Speaker
But it's like juxtaposed with the fact that she has no money. She has 67 cents until her next box, which is, you know, X miles away. 30 miles away. Not even 30 like close 100 miles away. um Like poor gal.
00:39:48
Speaker
yeah And her feet. Oh, my God. I mean, her we did see like a toenail get ripped off in and the movie, which was graphic and gross. But only the one toenail. And I think she lost like all but two in the book. Yeah. Because at one point, she was like, ah toenails five, Cheryl five. We're tied. And then, ah yeah, she loses, I think,
00:40:14
Speaker
I mean, it was most of them. Like, she was losing after, like, toenails were winning. Right. Toenails did win in the end. I mean, I'm sure she had them all back now. I don't know. She was wearing, like, clogs when I met her. But um very stylish clogs. Not sandals. It was June. She could have been wearing a sandal. Yeah.
00:40:35
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe her toenails didn't grow back. Maybe she doesn't have toenails. It's all right, Cheryl. I don't have pinky toenails. I'll admit it. I barely have pinky toenails. and Like barely. I grow them out extra long so that I can paint them.
00:40:49
Speaker
They're like these little slivers. Like it's just they're not. I have to paint my skin. Like I just have a little crack in in my pinky toes and not really anything grows out of it. So. So, yeah, her describing her poor feet.
00:41:04
Speaker
oh They were not nasty enough in the, and they looked gross. Like they didn't make them pretty in the movie at all. um But they weren't, she they weren't hurting enough.
00:41:17
Speaker
Right. I don't think they didn't go extreme enough on that.
00:41:24
Speaker
No. Em, I know you have feelings about the dialogue in the movie. Do you want to elaborate? I hated it so much. I hate it. I just, ah God, whenever dialogue is like expositional and the characters aren't, and I'm not talking about the actors, I mean the characters, whenever the characters aren't having a real conversation, whenever an actor says a line to the effect of,
00:41:48
Speaker
dad's been dead since we were 18 years old, mother. That line, that kind of crap, whenever you're just trying to get information out to the audience, I understand the importance of it. I know that viewers need to know these things, but dear God, can we not come up with some other way to do this? Yeah.
00:42:04
Speaker
Because it's gross. People don't talk like that. And I know that most dialogue in movies are not a true reflection of how real people speak. I get it.
00:42:15
Speaker
But there's a line. And I feel like they just kept crossing it in this movie, specifically just the flashback scenes with her and her mother or even with her and Paul and just all of that. It just felt yeah it wasn't even a little bit natural. It was just like, what's the point of even having this scene? There's no um there's not the emotion in it because of the dialogue.
00:42:36
Speaker
It just it wasn't there for me. I have opinions. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't like it.
00:42:46
Speaker
I feel you. Yeah. um i it didn't It didn't bother me while watching the movie so much. I didn't pick up on it while watching the movie for some reason. I'm like looking for it at this point. I think I'm doing it to myself to some degree. Gotcha. I mean, I was fully engrossed in the movie. like Yeah. There were times where was like, oh, shit, I should write that down. Okay. So we've covered some of the tiny details that made into the movie. Mm-hmm. What are some others? So there were a whole bunch of teeny tiny things that I think are extra special whenever you've read the book because you know what they are. You know all this backstory and stuff and that's really cool. So like for example, whenever β
00:43:29
Speaker
in the movie, whenever Cheryl is visiting her mother who's dying in the hospital and she's putting on her coat and she says, I'll be back in the morning ah with Leaf. So, you know, I'll be back. I love you. And then her mom only responds, love. And if you read the book, you would know that she only responded, love, because she's too tired and doesn't have the energy to say all of I love you. So she just says, love. Oh, beautiful.
00:43:54
Speaker
Love it. oh who So sweet. So sweet. So sweet. And yeah, we have some other like...
00:44:05
Speaker
Cheryl not only writes about, like, in the book, not only writes about what she's craving hunger-wise, and she doesn't just write about the condition of her feet, but she also, like, gives us full descriptions of, like, what she's wearing. You know, like, like we're there. We see it. It's really easy to see in your mind's eye. It's not hard at all. um So, like, the movie includes but doesn't, like...
00:44:34
Speaker
necessarily go into a few details like um she's wearing a william j crockett uh prisoner of war mia bracelet um it's not talked about in the movie but it is present it's there we can see it um in the book she she loses it at one point right and she doesn't find it again um she doesn't find it she tries uh like she even described like she put like i think she put monster down and she was like digging through the brush like she was trying to find it she was like further injuring herself trying to find this bracelet and then finally she was like okay well i need to keep walking i guess and i mean she has to go she ends up leaving it behind yeah
00:45:23
Speaker
So um we don't get that scene with the bracelet, but we do get the bracelet. And that's an okay substitute, I think. um She's also wearing the necklace made from her mother's earring, although you would just think like, oh, if you look at her wearing that lovely necklace.
00:45:43
Speaker
Or, oh, interesting choice to be wearing a necklace on a trail. Which, oh God, I would have been so scared to wear that. I don't think I would have brought it with me. And like, yeah, lose it. Yeah. Terrifying. Right. Yeah. too Yeah. would have been afraid of losing it. And I don't really lose things. I do. lot times. lose things so all the time. i just, I'm constantly shedding things.
00:46:10
Speaker
Yeah. Life of a divorced kid, man. We know how to keep track of our shit because mom wants that shirt back at her house or whatever. You can't take those shoes ever to your father's. Oh gosh.
00:46:23
Speaker
ah I know where all my stuff is. It has a home. um Anyway, we also see Cheryl wearing Bob Marley T-shirt, which we don't see how it's given to her. Earlier mentioned Francisco slash his nickname is Paco. He like gives it to her in like a stoned, they're both stoned scene and he's like, you embrace the spirit of like the nature around you or something and this t-shirt symbolizes that. Something very fun and cheesy.
00:46:58
Speaker
yeah that Yeah, that only makes sense when you're stoned. um And she was also stoned and she was like, yes. um I remember she she writes something about like, and I nodded with ah assurance in my stoned certitude or something like that. Yeah. So she we get to see her wearing the t-shirt, but we don't get to see it um being given to her. And then at one point she actually leaves it behind. know it It was really wet and she hung it up on a tree to dry or she hung it up somewhere to leave it to dry. So we do see the shirt, but that's it. We just see that, oh, she's wearing a Bob Marley shirt and that's it. We don't get the importance of it. We don't we don't understand the bob the the magnitude of the Bob Marley shirt and we don't see it get left behind. It's just a shirt in the movie.
00:47:44
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Yeah. But, I mean, it's still a fun nugget for people, the book nerds. It was for us. It for the nerds. was for me and you, basically. Yeah. It was.
00:47:56
Speaker
They knew. Yeah. So, yeah. um Another detail ah that was left in the movie, kind of, was the fox, actually. This red fox appears and ah while she's in the i in the snow ah on one of the mountains. um And so this red fox shows up. And in the movie, Cheryl yells at it, come back. And if you know foxes at all, that doesn't work. They don't come back to that. um But in the ah in the book,
00:48:27
Speaker
She actually yells mom after the fox, which I feel like if she had yelled mom in the movie, I would have been like, this is cheesy. She didn't yell mom in the movie, did she?
00:48:40
Speaker
No, she didn't yell mom in the movie, but she did say, mom, yeah come back. Yeah, come back. In the book. Yes. Yeah. So she did say come back too. Yeah. But we don't understand in the movie that that the fox represents her mother.
00:48:55
Speaker
Yeah. Like that's her knee jerk reaction to seeing a fox is β Fox. Mom. Mom. Yeah. Which I think that if I had watched the movie and I hadn't read the book and she yelled mother or mom after the Fox, I'd have been like, that's cheesy.
00:49:13
Speaker
Yeah. I think that's what would have happened to me because I'm very cynical. and I can't just let things be lovely i think if they'd like tied it to like if we just had a flashback before or something about mom about her mom like with her and her mind then then we got that scene i might have been like this is less cheesy um but also I can totally understand like After my dad died, people were like, well, if you see a red cardinal, like they're supposed to be a symbol of past loved ones or whatever. And so like in like the week after my dad, I saw like 12 red cardinals. I was like, hey, dad, how's it going? Do you like being a bird? Oh, my God. So we also get another really important detail, I think, that we do get in the movie that's in the book is Cheryl has this mantra for herself, I would say, throughout the trail of just I'm not afraid, even though she most certainly is afraid. Oh, yeah. Because things crack and creak and whatever the night and you're out in the woods isolated. Yeah, you?
00:50:26
Speaker
Have you ever been outside at night? It's not okay. Walking my dog at night. Like I won't do it on the road that's by our house. Like I won't take him for a proper walk after dark, which is sucks for him because it's gets dark at like five now or four 30.
00:50:42
Speaker
um Adam does it. Bless his heart. um But yeah, no, I mean the yard's fine, but ah I don't trust people after Dark Knight. Yeah. So, um but yeah, so she has, we get to see that refrain or that mantra. state it It comes in the movies. um And, you know, in the movie, we do get to see her being...
00:51:08
Speaker
you know, super confident one moment and then she's, you know, scared. Like we get to witness both of those like emotions and that ebb and flow. um So I think they did a great job of rounding her out in that way.
00:51:21
Speaker
I kind of wish it was a little bit more severe because it was like almost in the same sentence in the book where she would be like, it kind of, I don't want to bring up Disney, but I'll bring up Disney. Kind of like, do you remember the movie Tangled? Yeah.
00:51:35
Speaker
And how ah she's walking outside with Flynn Rider for the first time. And she's like, this is amazing. And then she immediately turns to, i am so, this is bad.
00:51:45
Speaker
Woohoo, I'm having fun. Oh my God, everything sucks. That's how Cheryl in the book felt. And I kind of wish that it was a little bit, I wish that the peaks and valleys were just a touch more severe. Not a lot, because I think it wouldn't translate as well. I don't think it would have been as believable had it been as severe as I was taking it in the movie. But I kind of wish it was just like just a little bit more, just a touch. Because she was feeling like supremely confident one minute and then just immediately like, I am i am stupid the next. Right. ah Like she used the ah the phrase like, I am a big dumb idiot. Right.
00:52:23
Speaker
even like she feels so ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. So it was there, but I would have, I would have liked a touch more.
00:52:36
Speaker
right, Em, why were there so many mean people in the movie? I think a lot of it was just like the portrayal and the choices that the actors made. um um But even in the book, like she even says the line whenever she ah gets back on the trail and she meets ah this couple that's like taking care of the campsite and and she just needs a place. It's nighttime. She was setting up camp and she didn't have money to pay for it. And they like basically ran her off. more or less. I mean, the one woman yelled at her and was like, we're not saying you have to leave. We're saying you have to pay. ah You know, so I mean, she was mean in the book, but immediately in this scene, Cheryl says like, you know, before these two, everybody that I met has been nothing but kind. And I feel like the kindness ah that she experienced in real life in the book wasn't portrayed well in the movie. Cause every, and even like, so the scene with the Hobo Times guy,
00:53:33
Speaker
jimmy carter no relation uh right in in the book he was annoying ah and it was kind of funny funny it was a funny scene and then in the movie it was just like who does this guy think he is like it was just straight up oh it made me see red i was pretty angry about it so i mean i was so mad about it in the movie that i forgot that it even happened in the book I was like, this is ridiculous. And yeah, you had to remind me. And and then we found it again. ah So yeah, it didn't bother me in the movie, but I don't think that they made it as funny in the movie as it could have been. And that's where like, I feel like the Cheryl in the movie is...
00:54:15
Speaker
She's a full character. she's Like, she's a full person. She's fully, like, she's well-rounded. But they really focus on the, like, loneliness and, like, maybe the anger that comes with, like, grief and loss and everything. Yeah. And not so much like the humor and like the openness to letting like the world and people like delight you, which in the book, that's how I feel. And that's how I feel about travel a lot of times. Like when I went to Australia, I just was kind of like I approached Australia with like an open mind. And honestly, it just felt like the country, the everything I did was just like trying to like romance me and like delight me. And, you know, i
00:55:00
Speaker
didn't really face any hardship or anything. I mean, I wasn't through hiking anything. I wasn't in the outback that much, but like, it was just a really magical trip for me. um travel period. And i think that's,
00:55:15
Speaker
The magic of like through hiking and like the kinship with everybody, like we're missing a level of that. Yeah. You keep using the word magic. It's missing the magic of it.
00:55:29
Speaker
It is. Yeah. so that's it's. And I think it's because they wanted to focus on the grittier aspects, you know, of of the same source material, right?
00:55:41
Speaker
Cheryl's book is magical, but it is also extremely gritty. It really gets into grief and loss and loneliness and... uh, you know, the grittiness of drug use and infidelity and, and destroying a marriage. Um, and they chose, it's it's hard to make a movie that does that and is also like, la you die I'm on this trail and I'm the queen of the PCT and people just give me things because, I am the queen. In the movie, we were experiencing 1995 Cheryl. We were experiencing that. We weren't getting the, you know, years later writer Cheryl who's had time to process things. so Yeah, but even 1995 Cheryl still, I mean, the three young bucks gave her the trail name of...
00:56:31
Speaker
queen of the PCT because people were just giving her stuff left and right. and they're like, nobody's giving us anything. And it's like, well, yeah, you're three young bucks. They don't think you need anything.
00:56:41
Speaker
She's a single lady before cell phones were really a thing. I think it's just, oh, and then there was that lipstick sales lady. Like in the movie, she was straight up rude. She was so mean. I'm like, don't you work on. And in the book, she was just like, don't you you work on commission? Yes.
00:57:00
Speaker
In the book, I'm sure she was thinking the exact same things that she said in the movie. Because in the movie, she was like, I think you need to focus on your hygiene, you disgusting troll. But in the book, she was like, yeah, it's a really great color on you.
00:57:14
Speaker
And then in her head, she was probably thinking, you're so well, she wasn't even dirty in the book. She had taken a shower first, hadn't she? i don't remember. Yeah. Right. In the book, she'd already been to the hostel and she'd cleaned up. I don't know if she'd had to redress in her trail clothes or if she'd been able to redress in or get dressed in fresh clothes. I can't remember which it was. But regardless, um she'd at least had a shower and that helps.
00:57:41
Speaker
So, um you know, she was but unnecessarily rude. Yeah. I think what the movie was trying to do was, I mean, along with like the pain and everything else that they were ah showing us, I think they were trying to remind us that she's really gross right now. She's not Reese Witherspoon who had a shower the night before and then showed up to work and got in makeup and stuff. She's Cheryl Strayed and she hasn't bathed in three weeks. Cause whenever she gets picked up by Frank,
00:58:13
Speaker
and goes to Frank and Lynette and Annette's house and they feed her at the beginning. and i And in the movie, Annette lays down newspaper for her to put her dirty butt on it at the kitchen table. And like, she didn't do it. Like, I mean, like, I think she even said like, no offense and then put it down. And that's so damn funny. But that didn't, at least it wasn't mentioned in the book.
00:58:39
Speaker
um So just I think part of it was that they were trying to remind us the audience that she's really gross right now. Right. Right. Just remember that you can't smell through your TV, but if you could, we would have added that.
00:58:51
Speaker
um Right. Well, and I think it's also like a level of suspension of disbelief. Like that's a factor in films as well as in writing. And in nonfiction, you know, you have to earn it.
00:59:03
Speaker
You have to earn the ethos with your readers. And she certainly does that. I believe her that so many people were so kind and gave her all the things. In the movie, you've got less time. And it's harder to like show that and build that ethos, I imagine. Yeah. Yeah. So it'd be really hard to suspend our disbelief that she walks into a store looking like she did and somebody wasn't going to be a mean bitch about how she smelled or something. So it'd be harder to suspend our disbelief that instead she was like, oh, that's a lovely shade on you.
00:59:42
Speaker
So let's talk about accessibility and hiking and outdoors.
Addiction and Accessibility in 'Wild'
00:59:46
Speaker
um So, Em, how do you think you would hike the PCT considering your medications? Okay. So I have a lot of things going on.
00:59:56
Speaker
And one of the medications that I take is actually a biologic called Humira. Okay. And even though I'm not planning a through hike and I haven't even, I haven't even gone on a hike in a few years. I have been using the fact that I am on Humira as an excuse for me to never plan ay hiking the PCT, even though that's totally up my alley. I was, i was an outdoor child, ah you know, so it's, it's something I'd like to think about. So I actually, when I read it, because Reddit's useful for this sort of thing. And I went on the ah PCT subreddit and I asked a question about refrigerated medications um and what other people have done or seen done. ah Because my medication, it has to be, it can only stay in a certain temperature range. It can only be out of the fridge for 14 days before it can't be used anymore. And I did get some answers and they were varied. ah One commenter said, oh, you could probably just use your sleeping bag because they were able to keep cream cheese.
01:00:58
Speaker
rep for I don't know why. you That's not what I would pack to go hiking for days. But they just wrapped the cream cheese in their sleeping bag and they let it sit out in the cold air at night. And and then they would dunk it in ice water, I guess, or something to keep it in temperature. And ah they said it was delicious.
01:01:18
Speaker
the entire time. And I'm like, that doesn't sound safe for my Humira. And it also grosses me out food safety wise. But it did give me hope for the other options. i Another commenter, or actually several commenters, all talked about this thing called the Frio wallet. ah It keeps medications within a temperature range of 66 degrees Fahrenheit and 79 degrees Fahrenheit. And I would just have to be careful because Humira has a like maximum temperature of 78 degrees and it also can't freeze.
01:01:49
Speaker
um So i would there's these little like paper things with dots on them. It's called a temperature dot. So I would probably keep a temperature dot in there with my medication. And then if it turns red, that means it's out of temp and it can't be used anymore. um But quite a few people ah know somebody with diabetes and they use the Frio wallet for ah their insulin and stuff. And then they just stop at different pharmacies ah at different like towns and stuff along the way.
01:02:18
Speaker
But unfortunately, biologics... are considered a specialty medication and you don't pick them up at regular pharmacies. ah It's a specialty medication, so you have to get it from a specialty pharmacy and it gets mailed to you. You just don't really pick it up unless you just so happen to live next to a specialty pharmacy. And I don't. um So I would have to have the medication mailed to me along the stops and I would need to pick it up every 14 days. And that's terrifying because packages get lost in the mail all the freaking time.
01:02:52
Speaker
um And i I mean, I double check the cost for my meds. I do a shot every week, not every other week. So it's around 12 grand every month. And if I lose one or it goes out of temperature, then i I'm pretty much out of luck. It's not going to happen.
01:03:09
Speaker
Um, a nurse actually commented on the post. Uh, she's on biologics and she did get them shipped to her while she hiked the Appalachian trail and it worked fine for her.
01:03:20
Speaker
um I'm just worried because unlike the movie, uh, it was not a smooth process for Cheryl to get her boots from REI. It got a little bit funky. Like she had to make adjustments to accommodate for that. It wasn't,
01:03:34
Speaker
like in the movie where she immediately showed up and they had it and it was cool. It was great. The book was like getting kind of spooky and I don't think I would be able to emotionally handle that with my medication.
01:03:49
Speaker
yeah. So it makes me really wary of receiving the super expensive medication to several different locations that I've never been to before. um Anyway, the best answer was my favorite answer. And it's not going to work for me. I'm not smart enough. ah Best answer was from a man.
01:04:08
Speaker
who met another man who he suspected was probably an engineer. He had a really big Stanley thermos and it was rigged up with an internal thermometer and just cold water. And the thermometer, it was wireless and it actually like communicated with his cell phone. So it would send him a text whenever the water was like getting like approaching unsafe temperatures. And he knew that he only had a few minutes and he had to get more cold water to put into the thermos to get it back to the correct temperature. um So that's really cool, but I think it's above my pay grade.
01:04:42
Speaker
A touch. um I'm not stupid, but I don't know. i just don't trust it enough for myself. um All that to say knowing what I know now and that people have made it work before, I think it kind of takes away my excuse to not do a through hike.
01:04:57
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there's also accessibility barriers like cost to participate. yeah. um I did a lot of research into the costs and like a little bit of planning into what it would take to through hike the Colorado Trail, um which is like 485 miles um in Colorado.
01:05:19
Speaker
and <unk>s expensive shocker yeah i mean a good sleeping bag could be two to three hundred dollars a good pack could be 300 plus dollars a good sleeping pad is a couple hundred bucks potentially or you can get a cheaper sleeping pad and deal with it um camping stove over a hundred dollars boots close to two hundred dollars depending on your boots and i'll Oh, I still have my boots. If you want to be a light packer or ultra light, like there are different classifications for what those mean. But if you want an ultra light sleeping bag, that's even more money because it's still supposed to be rated for the certain temperature range, but they had to use more expensive shoes.
01:06:03
Speaker
products. I don't know. Sometimes I think there's just like an ultralight markup type of thing. um Of course, there's all your food, which in the book, Cheryl writes about how she learned how to dehydrate her own like tuna or whatever. um yeah So either you're learning how to make your own food and pack your own like dehydrated meals or you are buying those. And those aren't cheap.
01:06:28
Speaker
Like, it's like $12 per serving or something insane like that. um i don't know. Don't quote me on that one. It might only be like $8 per serving. But it's not cheap. um It's a lot. meals And you've got fuel to consider. Yeah.
01:06:47
Speaker
Not to mention hate your rent back home or your mortgage, your bills while you're gone, um your student loans, etc. Right. And then like the cost of mailing all of these things to yourself um or, you know, having somebody mail it. Obviously, you don't want them to have to pay for that. It ends up being a big ordeal. Oh, bear spray? That needs to be a budget line in your budget because if you're hiking anywhere with bears, and it's like $50 for a can of bear spray, or at least it was the last time I had to buy bear spray. I'm still on the same can. I don't know if it expires or not.
01:07:23
Speaker
Thankfully, I've never had to you use it on a bear. Yeah. so No, its cost is definitely β and it's it's a lot of things that you wouldn't necessarily think of. Right. It all adds up. So it's a lot. So, yeah, all the gear, all the the hiking clothes. You know, you want quick dry stuff. You want enough socks.
01:07:44
Speaker
um Cheryl makes a pretty good list in the beginning of the book. does. Yeah. She over packed. But also was for the 90s. And like there's different gear out now.
01:07:56
Speaker
um Yeah. And potentially like better suited gear out now. um So. I love shopping for this kind of stuff. i I don't really. I mean, I have like some hiking and camping gear. i love just looking at it.
01:08:09
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, that's one of me and Jason's like favorite hobbies. We'll like be at the mall and he's like, do you want to go into Dick's? And I'm like, oh, I want to go into Dick's. And we'll just go in there and look at stuff. Right. Oh, buying camping gear and buying hiking stuff is its own hobby separate from the actual camping and hiking.
01:08:28
Speaker
Right. It is. Yeah. um Do you want to talk about i the accessibility of the outdoors to people of color? Yeah. I mean, ah unfortunately, the outdoors are not safe always for people of color or perhaps rarely safe for people of color. um There are just numerous hundreds upon hundreds of stories of especially like black people out in nature, just enjoying nature, living their lives. They're in a public place. They're allowed to be there.
01:09:02
Speaker
They're not trespassing. They're not doing anything wrong. They're fishing or looking at birds or, God forbid, hiking. Or camping. Or just trying to be. yeah Just trying to be there. Doing the exact same stuff as everybody else around them. Right.
01:09:17
Speaker
And then assholes are like, im going to call the cops on you. m And it's like, no. No. You shouldn't be doing that. I have every right to be here just as much as you do. So, yeah, that's another barrier to accessibility. um i would hope that major trails like the PCT and like the Appalachian Trail um or a.k.a. the AT, I would hope that those are safer. But honestly, I don't know. Yeah.
01:09:45
Speaker
I don't know. Every article that I've looked up had something along the lines of bad things happen in the woods. Well, shit. So I think it's no matter where the woods are, historically, it's been proven to be a pretty dangerous place. Yeah.
01:10:02
Speaker
So that's bleak um and unfortunate because everybody deserves to enjoy nature and participate in nature and preservation of nature. Well, mean...
01:10:16
Speaker
people of color, women of color, and then women in general, because even in the book and the movie, those two hunters showed up. And one of them was creepy.
01:10:27
Speaker
One of them was very creepy. That was not a safe situation to be in. And she was by herself. Yeah. With no so no type of like weapon to be used. Just a really loud whistle. The world's loudest whistle.
01:10:42
Speaker
um Yeah. So in your research, what else did you find that didn't make it into the book? So I found this really cool article from Oprah.com about seven things that didn't make it into wild. So these are things that didn't make it into the actual book. Um, but so therefore I don't think, I mean, they weren't in the movie either, but, um, one of the things was a scene when she was living with her ex-husband in Brooklyn and And they found a couple of kittens inside like the walls in their bedroom closet. and they like broke those kittens out of the walls and they were emaciated. And um they just look like they've been lost in there in the building for weeks and weeks. um
01:11:32
Speaker
And in the Oprah.com article, she says that just finding them was symbolic in a lot of ways about who we were and what was happening in our marriage at the time. The two of us were like those kittens lost in the innards of the building. We couldn't find our way out, but I couldn't get the scene to work within the trajectory of the story. So I took it out, which was so, so, so painful. Yeah.
01:11:56
Speaker
And yeah, I can see that. That's like a kill your, totally a kill your darlings kind of thing. um so that, that's one of them. um there was so there was a couple that's not in the book um there were trail people that she met on met people she met along the trail who fed her um so it's little surprising they weren't in the book um because it's pretty important and uh they actually came to like one of her uh book signings um and later on after the book had been published so that's pretty cool
01:12:30
Speaker
Um, she also left out details about her eating disorder in high school. So, um, and I think she kind of gets into the reason why she left that out was that it didn't evolve into mental illness requiring her to be institutionalized or, or battle it for her whole life. Um, but you know, for a time in her life, she did have a totally messed up relationship with beauty and her body. um but she feels like she has a healthy relationship with her body as an adult. So um that seemed like a less important thing to include.
01:13:10
Speaker
But um and I think really importantly, actually, because and we were talking about this, but, um you know, she does heroin for a relatively short period of time in one's life. But i mean we don't know exactly how long she was doing heroin. Yeah. Like at least a few weeks. And doing heroin daily, right? She was doing it long enough. But um this Oprah.com article says like one of the things she left out is like the reason she didn't have to go through drug rehab. And what, you know, what the article says is I'm going to just read it.
01:13:47
Speaker
I was using heroin every day, but not for a long time. It was more i really want to use it, but not I have the shakes. I have to use it. Now, if I had kept using it, I would have absolutely continued to become an addict like the guy I called Joe in the book. For 10 years, he was a serious addict. The last time we talked, he'd been in rehab for a year and gotten clean, but who knows? I was pulled out at the right moment. I dodged a bullet.
01:14:12
Speaker
So... you know Oh, yeah. i think Well, and that's so worked in the restaurant industry for like a decade. I'm familiar and I haven't ever done it. I'm not speaking from my experience. I'm speaking from everybody around me, basically. Right.
01:14:28
Speaker
It is a painkiller. It was originally used. in medicine as a painkiller, that's what it is. And it's not immediately an addicting substance the way that they described it to us in DARE. I mean, like you use it once, you're like, oh, that was amazing. And from the descriptions I've heard of it, it sounds awesome. We're not doing it. Sounds wonderful. You do it once and you're like, oh, I'm not addicted.
01:14:51
Speaker
this is fine. I can probably get away with it again. that was wonderful. So then you do it again. and and then eventually you just do too much. And then then you find yourself addicted. Nobody sets out to become an addict, you know? And whenever I read it, I didn't even know anything that you just said. I didn't find that article first.
01:15:08
Speaker
As I was reading it, I was like, oh, she was just flirting with it almost. But yeah, I didn't read it as her being a full-blown addict. And I think because we didn't have That much interiority in the movie and because we didn't have her saying, you know, giving us these details or anything. ah It made it seem like she was a hardcore junkie for a minute in the movie. And and maybe she was doing it that often and that quickly in succession. I, she was, but.
01:15:40
Speaker
We don't have a lot of, we don't have like a time frame reference for it, I guess, in the movie. Right. What's also left out of the book was the story behind meeting her husband. um Essentially, she had like had another thing, like she had casual sex with him kind of before they were like official and fell manly in love with each other. Yeah. she was like I'm past that point in my life I don't want to do that anymore so um she didn't really like include a lot about her husband at the end of the book we get this beautiful like explosion forward of like in this exact spot I won't know like four years from now this will happen and eight years from now this will happen and yada yada you know but we get we get that because as a writer she's writing it with enough perspective looking backwards that she can give that to us in a beautiful like page um and it feels just satiating summed up lovely put a bow on it
01:16:39
Speaker
Good
Unexpected Connections and Book Preferences
01:16:40
Speaker
ending. And then the last thing in the article is about the wildest thing that's happened since the book came out. And that was that she was at a reading in St. Paul, Minnesota, and she read a section that included a reference to the prisoner of war slash missing in action bracelet that she wore on the trail and belonged to William J. Crockett.
01:16:58
Speaker
When she got back to her hotel, a woman who had been sitting in the audience emailed her and was like, oh my gosh, my coworker is William J. Crockett's sister. So the sister and Cheryl got in touch. The sister told her about William's death and how important he was to her.
01:17:14
Speaker
And she said, I haven't read the book, but I take it that his name on your bracelet offered you some sort of encouragement and strength. And I'm so glad to hear that. So that's a wild, crazy stuff comes back to you in life. So just beautiful.
01:17:37
Speaker
So Jen, i have to ask our final question. Are you a book nerd or a movie buff i'm definitely a book nerd hands down just because oh same hands writing so beautiful so eloquent do love the movie movie is great in its own way but would have to pick the book every time so yeah i have to pick the book too totally it's just will be reading it again my copy yeah your copy it's all right i bought another one know you did I'm going to come and steal that one too.
01:18:20
Speaker
More shoplifting. Yeah. It's yours now. Put your stamp in it.
Podcast Wrap-Up and Pronunciation Humor
01:18:39
Speaker
Thank you for listening to Book Club, the movie, the podcast. Watch for new episodes out the third Thursday of each month. You can find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
01:18:51
Speaker
Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Book Club, the movie. You can also find us on Patreon, Facebook or on our website, bookclubthemovie.com. This podcast was created and produced by Jen Moyer and M. Lord.
01:19:05
Speaker
Our music and mixing is by Jason Lord of Studio Topaz. Voice acted by Ethan Gallardo. And we just want to give a big thank you to our friends and family for your love and support.
01:19:16
Speaker
And thank you, dear listener, for joining our book club. See you next time, nerds. And buffs. Bye.
01:19:26
Speaker
So, Wild. It's a book published by Cheryl Strayed. Yes, it is pronounced Strayed. Embarrassingly, in undergrad, before I'd read the book and understood that she changed her name intentionally to Strayed and covers that, actually, in Wild, um I thought it was some weird...
01:19:45
Speaker
yeah Norwegian name or and so I pronounced Strayed or I don't even know and I was like they were like you mean Cheryl Strayed and I was like oh so it is Strayed yes it is Cheryl Strayed that's that's okay one time i was talking about a different book it was uh the sisters Antipodes which is a Greek word and And I was at the dog park and I was talking to Greg and Julia and I was like, yeah, I'm reading this really great book. It's called The Sisters Antipodes. And I just kept talking about it. I'm like, yeah, antipodes, antipodes, antipodes. And then Julia, bless her heart, without even, she didn't say anything to me. She turned to Greg and she was like, isn't it pronounced antipodes? And I was just like, shoot me in the face. I'm stupid. Yeah.
01:20:32
Speaker
Yeah. that's I mean, it's Greek. It's a little bit harder. Mine was just like, just read the word. What's the word? The word is straight. Pronounce it like it's the word, not something else. Anyway. Anyway.