HTDE: Carsickness And Traffic Jams

Speaker 1 This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics. How do three friends who dream big stay old friends?

Speaker 1 Merrily we roll along from Stephen Sondheim and Maria Friedman, starring Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez. Only in theaters starting December 5th.

Speaker 2 Hey, it's your old friend Peter. Coming up, we've got a special Thanksgiving-themed episode of How to Do Everything made by Weight Weight producers Mike Danforth and Ian Chillog.

Speaker 2 Now, if you're currently listening to this podcast while, say, driving somewhere for the holidays and you're starting to feel car sick, then make sure to keep listening.

Speaker 2 Once again, everybody, how to do everything will not live in this feed forever, whether that makes you happy or not. So be sure to follow them at their own feed.
Okay, Mike and Ian, take it away.

Speaker 3 Hey, Ellie, what can we help you with?

Speaker 4 So as a kid, I remember riding roller coasters. I remember my parents had a Volvo station wagon where the back seat you could face backwards.
We're riding the subway, everything.

Speaker 4 I never got motion sickness never got car sick

Speaker 4 now as I've gotten older like I'm 26 but I noticed like I can't do roller coasters the same like I remember one time going to Disneyland as a kid and doing California screaming like six times in a row and I could have done more but we had to go to dinner or something and I guess my question is just sort of like is there a way I could build up that stamina again now can't look at my phone in the car or I feel like I I get kind of ill feeling and just sort of like

Speaker 4 what changed from childhood to now. I mean a lot of things, but in terms of motion sickness.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Ellie, I've noticed the same thing.
I loved roller coasters when I was a kid, but I recently went to Disney World and I rode Space Mountain

Speaker 5 and I needed two hours to recover. Driving home from the park, I was just leaning my head against the window and moaning.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and it's, I should point out, this was a work trip. So there were people, this wasn't like in the privacy of your own family.
This was at, this was a work event.

Speaker 5 Yeah, a co-worker was like sitting next to me in the car on the way home, patting my back, but also positioning her body. to be out of the way if I threw up.

Speaker 3 And I think you left early from Disney World. No.
You You had to leave. No, but

Speaker 5 everybody else just kept riding rides, and I just had to stand outside staring off into the distance.

Speaker 4 You're just the party pooper.

Speaker 5 All this is to say, Ellie, I feel your pain.

Speaker 3 And I would say, Ellie, things are only going to get worse.

Speaker 4 That's what I'm worried about. And that's what I'm like, I'm still in my 20s, which is where it's like, you know.

Speaker 4 Hangovers I know are only going to get worse as I get older. Motion sickness.
There's a lot of stuff that I like. I'm still in.
My body's still on the younger side.

Speaker 3 You still have elasticity in your brain, I think. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 Oh, man. What if we go away to find an answer to this question? And what we come back to you with is,

Speaker 5 Ellie, enjoy this moment while you can.

Speaker 5 It's only going to get worse.

Speaker 3 Ellie, we actually have terrible news. You only have six months.

Speaker 5 You know who could help with this? Beloved Hollywood superstar Kevin Bacon.

Speaker 7 Kevin, when you guys were getting ready to shoot Apollo 13 you prepared on the vomit comet right well not just preparing we actually shot on the vomit comet we shot quite a bit of the movie because back in those days you really couldn't recreate weightlessness using VFX you know special effect I mean, you could try to take out a bunch of wires and have people flying around on harnesses like Peter Pan, but it was never going to work very well.

Speaker 7 Yeah. Yes, after we did the test run

Speaker 7 on this airplane, Ron came to us and said, Ron Howard, the director, said, you know, so we're going to build the sets up on the Vomit Comet and try to shoot stuff up there.

Speaker 3 Wait. So what do you remember from that? Like, tell us about what that experience was like.

Speaker 7 Well, I'm always grateful for all the crazy experiences that I get to have just by the nature of the work that I do, the places that I get to go and the characters and the shoes I get to walk in.

Speaker 7 But this one was really, really kind of nuts.

Speaker 7 The KC-135, also known as the Bombay Comet, is a plane that NASA uses to simulate no gravity on Earth, which a lot of people think there's such a thing as

Speaker 7 an anti-gravity chamber, but that's literally impossible to do.

Speaker 7 So what they do is it's a large plane. It flies out over the Gulf of Mexico, and the pilot makes it climb straight up.
and then straight down.

Speaker 7 And as you go over the top of what's called the parabola, the centrifugal force balances out with the gravitational pull of the Earth. And so you create weightlessness for 26 seconds.

Speaker 7 So if you've ever been on a roller coaster and you go over the top of that roller coaster and there's a big drop, you know what that feels like.

Speaker 7 Your stomach goes up into your brain. And so

Speaker 7 we went out and once the sets were built up there, we did it 600 times.

Speaker 3 What? 600 times? What?

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 7 We would do 20 in the morning, then we would break for lunch.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, because you need something to barf up later.

Speaker 7 Exactly, and then we would do 20 in the afternoon. And it was kind of a miracle of film ingenuity.

Speaker 3 So, Kevin, that's a pretty stacked cast. Were any of your castmates, could they not handle it? Did any of them have trouble up there?

Speaker 7 Well, no. NASA was giving us some serious anti-nausea medication.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 7 Which definitely helped.

Speaker 7 I know that Tom and Bill, you know, the drugs were kind of a drag because, you know, I don't know if you've ever taken an anti-nausea medication, sometimes they work because they sort of, you know, make you sleepy.

Speaker 7 You know what I mean? They come you

Speaker 3 in a way.

Speaker 7 And so to combat that, we also had to take a stimulant. So like it was like a combination of two, and you never really knew which one was going to kick in.
But one day, both Bill and Tom

Speaker 7 decided that they were going to cowboy it out and not

Speaker 7 take it.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 they were both pretty green. There was

Speaker 7 something that's kind of funny. They call it an airman's corsage.
When you went up, now we were in our costumes, but everybody else that would go up was required to wear a flight suit.

Speaker 7 On the chest are two pockets, you know, with zippers. And so you take the vomit bag

Speaker 7 and you stuff it in there and then you leave it you know you leave the opening kind of poking out and they called it an airman's corsage so that

Speaker 7 so it's right there now I did so I did never I never I never threw up I did get thrown up on keep going well

Speaker 7 okay so if you can imagine when you're floating you can't really use things like dolly track or whatever basically it was it was all handheld yeah because the cameras the cameras would float And so the camera met the guy was operating

Speaker 7 and

Speaker 7 it was a shot of me and

Speaker 7 I'm watching him and all of a sudden he sort of pulls his head across from behind the lens and putes.

Speaker 7 Now the thing about that is that

Speaker 7 it's floating too.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 7 there was nothing for me to do about it. I just saw the pew coming and just tried to kind of roll out of the way, but it came right down.

Speaker 5 Well, Kevin, we'll let you go, but I guess, having been through all of this,

Speaker 5 these 600 flights, do you have any tips for Ellie?

Speaker 7 I can tell you one thing, Ellie. We were actually trained in this.
On our very first flight, we were told not to swivel our head,

Speaker 7 not to look from side to side, but to keep your focus

Speaker 7 straight ahead. And they say the same thing about being on a boat, that if you keep your eyes on the horizon,

Speaker 7 it'll help with the nausea. So what's funny about that is I remember now,

Speaker 7 especially on the first few flights, when we went up and down in the parabolas, they kept us strapped in, like we didn't leave our chairs.

Speaker 7 It wasn't until we had kind of gotten used to it that we started taking off our seatbelts and started flying around.

Speaker 7 But the first few flights, you were supposed to just, you know, keep your seatbelt on and stay in your chair. And

Speaker 7 Tom Hanks was in front of me,

Speaker 7 and I stared a hole in the back of his head. I just remember,

Speaker 7 I remember the back of his head so well because I was just sitting there, you know, white knuckling it out in the chair, you know, before I got used to it, and just

Speaker 7 staring right through him.

Speaker 7 I could probably draw you a picture of the back of Hanks's head.

Speaker 3 Well, Kevin, thank you so much for helping Ellie out.

Speaker 7 Yeah, Ellie, good luck with that.

Speaker 5 All right, Ellie, we have another solution for you in case for some reason you can't get Tom Hanks to sit in front of you every time you're on a roller coaster.

Speaker 3 We just read this study in Frontiers of Human Neuroscience that says...

Speaker 5 We're always reading Frontiers and Human Neuroscience. We just love it.

Speaker 3 We skimmed a study in the frontiers of human neuroscience that says listening to soft or joyful music after driving reduces car sickness by up to 57%.

Speaker 5 You know who makes soft and joyful music?

Speaker 3 Me?

Speaker 5 Kenny G.

Speaker 4 Well, that research is very interesting. I was going to say just make sure you're looking out of the window, but I guess there's more to it than that.

Speaker 4 You know, okay, so I recorded a song Joy to the World from one of my Christmas records, because if it's joyful, that's going to be the perfect song.

Speaker 4 And I think that will be a, it'll probably make you feel good. Even in the middle of July, you'll probably enjoy hearing it.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Is there something, Kenny, in your vast experience that you think is key to making a song joyful?

Speaker 4 That's a good question. I don't know, to be honest, I don't know if there's a real

Speaker 4 thing that makes it joyful. I mean, you could say, well, let's make it up tempo.
Well, that doesn't necessarily, to me, make it joyful. It might make it faster.

Speaker 3 Yeah, sure.

Speaker 4 So I wish there was an answer for it, but I could say, well, if I play a D sharp, you know, five times in a row, that makes the song joyful. But unfortunately, it doesn't work like that.

Speaker 3 Do you have a horn handy there where you could demonstrate Laura?

Speaker 4 I mean, you'll have to give me a few minutes, though, while we're talking.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 Can I get it ready?

Speaker 4 I don't have it prepared, but you have to give me a second, okay?

Speaker 3 We'll give you all the time you need.

Speaker 4 Well, we can keep talking while we're doing it. I'm going to brush my teeth while we talk.

Speaker 3 So, you know,

Speaker 4 I'm going to faster unless I brush my teeth.

Speaker 3 Wait, what?

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 8 Sorry about that.

Speaker 4 You got to have clean sacks.

Speaker 3 Okay, well, now we have a whole new question. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Is that ritual or does that actually improve your playing?

Speaker 4 It doesn't improve my playing. It's just, listen, I'm brushing my teeth while I'm talking to you.
This is crazy.

Speaker 3 That's incredible.

Speaker 4 What happens is that I don't want any food particles or anything to get in my saxophone. So I've got to make sure that when I'm blowing it in there,

Speaker 4 there's no like smell of onions or garlic or any of those kinds of things or there's no food particles we don't want that in the saxophone

Speaker 3 yeah

Speaker 5 I guess it would come back to you the next time you played the saxophone that wouldn't be yeah well you could yeah yeah you might like I'll tell you

Speaker 4 I was gonna buy this saxophone look I have my saxophone this is the same one I've had since I was in high school and it has a serial number and the serial number equates to it was let me tell you when it was born my saxophone was born on March 17th, 1959.

Speaker 4 I researched it. Wow.

Speaker 3 Okay, that's my saxophone.

Speaker 4 Now, so when they made this saxophone,

Speaker 4 they also made other saxophones that day, let's say 30 or 40, whatever. And there's a serial number that's two, two more than mine.
They did it on the same day. Same day in 1959 in Paris.

Speaker 4 Saw the saxophone not knowing that it was the same day. I just saw the saxophone and it was in a

Speaker 4 green rubber case. Now, I remember mine came in a green rubber case when I first got it.
And

Speaker 4 I opened it up, he said, Oh my gosh, this looks like my saxophone. Smells like smoke.

Speaker 4 Like, I was a smoker, and I could not, I mean, I wanted to buy it, yeah, because I was like, oh, I could, I could, my, my sax could have a brother, and I couldn't even stand even having it in my on my fingers.

Speaker 3 It stuck.

Speaker 4 So, all right, so I'm now trying to take my sax out of the case now that my mouth now that my mouth is nice and fresh

Speaker 3 you did such an impressive job of talking to us and brushing your teeth at the same time like you can also do you're circular you're a circular breather right that's something you know how to do of course i know how to do it right

Speaker 3 so it could you could do all these things and breathe continuously the whole time so let's see

Speaker 4 all right so what happens when you put a sax together is the reed has to kind of find itself on the mouthpiece so it doesn't necessarily play beautifully right off the bat for a minute or two.

Speaker 4 Okay, so anyway, um, I've got it out, and I'm

Speaker 4 just kind of doing um

Speaker 4 wow, if I was going to play something like

Speaker 4 a minor key would be something like

Speaker 9 so, you see, that's kind of sad. Now, we can do something major, so that'll be happier.

Speaker 8 And Ellie,

Speaker 9 I think this is what you need to listen to when you're feeling carstic.

Speaker 9 There you go, Ellie.

Speaker 6 That'll do it for you.

Speaker 5 Hey, if you've got a question for us, you can get it to us at howto at npr.org.

Speaker 3 We promise no matter how big or small, we will do everything in our power to address your question.

Speaker 5 And we can can do everything in our limited power to help you.

Speaker 3 Just send us an email at howto at npr.org.

Speaker 6 This message comes from AT ⁇ T. AT ⁇ T believes that hearing a voice note can change everything.
Sometimes a familiar voice can bring back a memory, a moment, or a feeling of connection.

Speaker 6 This holiday season, AT ⁇ T celebrates the voices that stay with you and the ones that continue to connect even when miles apart. Happy holidays from ATT.
Connecting changes everything.

Speaker 1 Support for NPR and the following message come from Hydro. Don't let the holidays derail your fitness.
Stay on track with Hydro.

Speaker 1 20 minutes rowing on a hydro targets 86% of your muscles as Olympians guide you from incredible locations worldwide. GQ named the Hydro Arc the best rower of 2025.

Speaker 1 And every hydro comes with free shipping, a 30-day trial, and warranty. Go to hydro.com, code NPR, save up to $600 on your next rower.
Hydro.com, code NPR.

Speaker 6 This message comes from Solventum.

Speaker 6 For decades, healthcare professionals have trusted their solutions to help provide exceptional care, from wound care therapies that can accelerate healing to dental restoratives that preserve smiles.

Speaker 6 Today, Solventum is building on that legacy by listening to your needs and imagining new possibilities, ushering in a new era of better, smarter, safer healthcare to improve lives.

Speaker 6 See how they're shaping the future of care at Solventum.com.

Speaker 1 This message comes from GiveWell. When you give to a nonprofit, how do you measure success? What is the real impact on people's lives?

Speaker 1 GiveWell researches the highest impact opportunities around the world. Over 150,000 donors have confidently used GiveWell's research, collectively saving an estimated 300,000 lives.

Speaker 1 Make a tax-deductible donation at givewell.org. First-time donors can have their donation matched up to $100 as long as matching funds last.
Select podcast and NPR at checkout.

Speaker 6 This message comes from Michelin. More than a tire company, Michelin is an innovation company.

Speaker 6 From connected mobility to clean materials, and now taking on one of the toughest mobility challenges, space.

Speaker 6 Developing an airless wheel for space exploration designed to withstand the extreme conditions at the moon's south pole.

Speaker 6 Michelin isn't just making exceptional tires, they're helping build a better future. Motion for life.
More at michelinman.com slash y-michelin slash innovation.

Speaker 5 It's entirely possible that you are listening to this episode of How to Do Everything while stuck in traffic on your way somewhere for Thanksgiving.

Speaker 3 Happy Thanksgiving.

Speaker 5 It doesn't.

Speaker 5 What I just said suggests it is not currently a happy Thanksgiving.

Speaker 3 Fair enough. Sorry.
Yeah, well, you've got this Thanksgiving. We can't do anything about the traffic, but we might be able to help make you feel a little better.

Speaker 5 We read about in 2010, there was a traffic jam in China that lasted 12 days.

Speaker 3 Li Jiajang, you were actually stuck in this traffic jam, right?

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 8 We were lucky once. Some of the drivers got stuck there for days.
Yeah.

Speaker 8 Some people

Speaker 3 got some water from the stream or river whatever started having showers on the roadside wow i mean good for them like what like you can't blame them after being trapped in your car for so long yes so what did you end up doing when you were trapped in that traffic jam for so long like how did you guys kill time together

Speaker 8 We left

Speaker 8 Zanadu shortly after early lunch.

Speaker 8 We were in good spirits. My friend Tatiana she was a diplomat and she brought Brazilian biscuits and chocolates so we were happy for a while until

Speaker 8 we got stuck for hours on the road and it was so funny because and we were hungry so but as a Chinese you know Chinese people were very enterprising and Chinese people also loved food so on the roadside you'll see people setting um dumplings selling hot pot noodle pot,

Speaker 8 and people set up food stores along the roadside.

Speaker 5 So people selling dumplings in hot pot,

Speaker 5 people showering with water from the creeks and rivers. Did you see anything else or have you heard other stories of ways people dealt with it?

Speaker 8 I saw people,

Speaker 3 the

Speaker 8 lorry drivers just took their shirts off. It was hot summer.

Speaker 8 And they just sit on stones and start playing cards.

Speaker 3 Why not? Well, based on now your experience with these traffic jams, what do you bring with you now on trips in your car just in case you get stuck?

Speaker 8 Oh, I always, I always, even without the incident, I always bring food. I have nuts, I have dried fruits, I have not Brazilian, but biscuits.

Speaker 3 Sure.

Speaker 3 Do you have a deck of cards?

Speaker 8 No, I don't. Okay.

Speaker 3 Well, that does it for this week's show. What'd you learn, Ian?

Speaker 5 Well, I learned that they actually filmed Apollo 13 in zero gravity in the vomit comet.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you don't see that kind of stuff anymore. Now it really is just computer generated stuff.

Speaker 5 I feel like if whatever project I was working on, if I knew that people had brought in NASA to fly a Space Age vehicle,

Speaker 5 I would feel a lot of added pressure. I think I would blow a lot of takes if I were performing in Apollo 13.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's not funny when you crack and do a funny joke.

Speaker 2 Let's do it again. We'll just do it again.

Speaker 5 We've never seen the Apollo 13 bloopers.

Speaker 5 Tom Hanks, that was hilarious. You just cost us $45 million.

Speaker 3 I learned that before he plays his instrument, Kenny G has to brush his teeth.

Speaker 5 Do you think that that's in Kenny G's rider? Like the only thing in his rider

Speaker 5 is a brand new toothbrush and one gallon of AquaFresh.

Speaker 3 What kind of toothpaste do you use for that?

Speaker 5 I feel like he could make a lot of money if he pitched Oral B with Kenny G.

Speaker 3 How to Do Everything is produced by Skylar Swenson and Hina Srivastava. Technical direction from Lorna White.

Speaker 5 You can get us your questions at howto at npr.org. I'm Ian.

Speaker 3 And I'm Mike. Thanks.
Thanks.

Speaker 1 This message comes from Charles Schwab. When it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices, like full-service wealth management and advice when you need it.

Speaker 1 You can also invest on your own and trade on Thinkorswim. Visit schwab.com to learn more.

Speaker 6 Support for this podcast and the following message come from Humana. Employees are the heartbeat of your business.

Speaker 6 That's why Humana offers dental, vision, life, and disability benefits designed to help protect them. Award-winning service, expansive networks, and modern benefits.
That's the power of human care.

Speaker 6 To learn more about Humana's plans for companies of all sizes and benefits budgets, visit humana.com/slash employer.

Speaker 1 Support for NPR and the following message come from Rosetta Stone, the perfect app to achieve your language learning goals no matter how busy your schedule gets.

Speaker 1 It's designed to maximize study time with immersive 10-minute lessons and audio practice for your commute. Plus, tailor your learning plan for specific objectives like travel.

Speaker 1 Get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off and unlimited access to 25 language courses. Learn more at rosettastone.com/slash NPR.