The one where I went on a date with David Schwimmer
He knew nothing about dinosaurs. This is a tale of evolution with a radical pivot.
My life is a fever dream of ricocheting clusterf*cks. Memories come in fits and, sometimes, literal spurts. This week’s flashback comes courtesy of a date with David Schwimmer, the real Ross and a radical pivot. Plus, some rabbit holes.
I forgot I went on a date with David Schwimmer. Some memories fossilise. Others resurface without warning.
It was around twenty years ago, perhaps 2006. We met at The Lansdowne pub in Primrose Hill, a Sunday staple. He was with a handsy David Walliams (the recent allegations have surprised no one) and an old mate of mine, an actor who was in a film Schwimmer was directing. Run Fatboy Run, with Simon Pegg. I’ve never seen it. I don’t like running.
Apparently Ross from Friends was looking to meet “a nice Jewish girl, someone normal”. Ahem. A date was on the cards.
At the time I was living in a small studio flat overlooking Primrose Hill – on the wrong side of the tracks, opposite Chalk Farm Station. I thought I’d made it. Working as a producer at MTV in Camden. DJing (loosely) up the road at the experimental Tuesdays at Bar Tok. My apartment had speakers in the ceiling, which impressed all the boys but not the neighbours.
My happily single twenties were spent rampaging with artists and musicians, IRL and online. First on MySpace, later on Tastebuds, a dating app for music obsessives.
That flat saw a lot. Including the time I tried to impress Russell Brand by microwaving a lightbulb. It cycled through the rainbow spectrum – ROYGBIVed twice – exploded, then set the kitchen on fire.
My landlord made me buy a new microwave. Then kicked me out.
Kids, don’t try this at home.
(The sticky Brand chapter is coming soon. I know that’s why you’re here.)
Back to Schwimmer. We went for dinner at the ludicrously gilded Gilgamesh in Camden. He had his baseball cap pulled down low, fooling no one. Almost as soon as we sat down, a glamazon – who I assumed was a Pussycat Doll at the time – strutted over, meowed in his ear and stormed off.
He’d stood her up that very night, claiming he was sick.
Other than that, he was kind. Polite. Seemed stoned. Not remotely funny. When the conversation ran dry, I did what anyone would do.
Introduced dinosaurs.
Specifically, Dinosaur Pompeii and T-Rex CAT scans.
He knew eff all.
We never saw each other again. Some species just aren't compatible.
Nearly twenty years later, I finally got my answers – from Jurassic Park’s dinosaur consultant, Steve Brusatte.
The real Ross.
In 2023, I launched a podcast called Cosmic Chats from the Jungle as part of a bonkers magazine I created after my brain exploded.
Somehow, I convinced iconic ‘90s MTV VJ Simone Angel to host. She was living with howler monkeys in the Belize jungle. We bonded over our wild lives and wanting to create a kind of Party Zone for sapiosexuals – posing questions that would have fried clubbers’ brains in the ‘90s.
Like asking the world’s leading palaeontologist:
What came first, the chicken or the egg?
Finally, I got the answers I’d waited twenty years for.
The egg. Obviously.
Pivot! An evolutionary tale
Lately I’ve been feeling like a dinosaur hit by an asteroid.
My hormones are staging a coup. Sleep is scarce. My rare brain is still a ticking time bomb. I’m having chemo on my actual face. (Wear SPF, kids.) Last week we got news that we have to move out of our Barcelona oasis. I turn 50 next year. Oh, and the world is f*cked.
There’s often anger in my very bones. But here’s the thing: the asteroid didn’t kill everything. Birds evolved and kept flying.
I’m not ready to go extinct. It’s just time to excavate my mojo.
Because somewhere under the rubble, she's still in there – the woman who crossed Australia with Slipknot, paid off the Policía in Buenos Aires to throw parties in graveyards, got tangled up with Assange, escaped a hijacking in Serbia, ditched marching powder at Bolivian border control, voiced Playboy TV to pay for a penthouse in Argentina, built treehouses with endangered gibbons in Laos, drove off a cliff naked after triggering every fixed speed camera in New Zealand – and was later deported for wrap party antics.
Nostalgic for 2016? That year alone, I broke my ankle falling down a volcano in Guatemala and got headbutted by a gangster in Mexico.
A gang beat my fella with his own Nike trainer and then nicked it.
Just the one.
Once conscious, I grabbed a knife and took to the streets to find it. Antony followed waving a frying pan.
Probably for the best we both no longer act like we did in 2016. But we are keen to shake things up.
We’ve had good innings with our apartment in Barcelona. A decade living inside a picture perfect postcard with front-row seats to the slowest mic drop in history – the construction of the Sagrada Família. Just this week we watched a milestone in the history of architecture over our morning coffee.
That's why, instead of a stressful hunt for an overpriced apartment, I'm putting my health first. Twelve years in this city has wreaked havoc.
So we’re going on the road. Perhaps a wild move, but look mum no kids. This isn’t a gap year. It’s a temporary migration. I’m hesitant to use the words digital nomad.
This freaks me out less than living a mediocre life. I’ve been working remotely since before it was a thing, writing scripts for MTV US while quaffing Malbec in Argentina in my thirties, creating indie magazines and video productions in Barcelona in my forties. Eight years ago, my former publisher – the mastermind behind the ‘illegal’ pro-independence referendum in Catalonia – created a corner office for me in Time Out Barcelona. He’d say: “Getting you to sit at a desk is harder than creating independence”.
He should’ve given up on both.
A very loose plan, that’s likely to go awry as soon as we hit the first destination:
Summer chilling up north in the Basque Country, Galicia, Asturias – or France (told you it was loose)
Autumn in Madrid, Valencia, Sevilla or Granada
Winter of white therapy in the Sierra Nevada or Pyrenees
Spring exploring island life in the Balearics
If anyone has a place to rent in Spain, from the Costa da Morte to the Costa del Sol, please holler.
I’m obsessed with formats (too much time working in TV), so I love the idea of 42 days – sometimes even 42 hours – somewhere new. Forty-two is the answer to life, the universe and everything. I was 42 when my brain staged a Big Bang, Our car’s reg? 4242 ETC.
In hindsight, we should have bought a bigger car, but the VW Polo’s teeny boot shall force us to live minimally. Polo Yolo!
Now, anyone could drop dead at any point. But imagine knowing your brain could bleed at any moment – you might never walk, talk, or breathe again.
How would you live?
The Earth has gone through so much but will endure for a long time. The question is, will we?
– Steve Brusatte, American palaeontologist
I’ve never seen Jurassic Park. Is it good?
Goldapple x
Goldapple Studio • LinkedIn • Instagram
Digital Detours
A few rabbit holes, just because.
How to see if your LinkedIn contacts are in the Epstein Files. One for the more technically minded. The dinosaurs will get their dues.
Window Swap – Proof the grass isn’t greener. Stare out of strangers’ windows worldwide. Today it’s snowing in Toronto.
Radio Garden – Interactive globe filled with radio’s past and present. I headed to Marseille, then took an accidental balloon ride to Russia.
Strange Maps – Frank Jacobs has been collecting bizarre and revealing maps since 2006. Cartography as culture, argument and art.
Conserve the Sound – Endangered sensory delights as an alternative to the overwhelmingly visual world of the internet.
Zigzagg.fm – Electronic music as a non-algorithmic map. Travel sideways through micro-labels. Fun to discover people you know. Hi, Swayzak.
Horstman Studio – A new space exploring cultural standouts by Bobby Aaron Solomon, who’s responsible for coaxing me onto Substack.
Death Is Not The End – Nostalgic London-based imprint for those into obscure records. This was written listening to the wax cylinder recordings of Iivana Mišukka.
I dig grit and crackle, not just in music, in life. Lmk what you enjoy.
Read these yet? One went viral on LinkedIn, of all places:
» The white lie that landed me a job at MTV
» Mind Blown: The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes
Disclaimer: If there are typos, I blame brain damage.
Brilliant as ever. Wanna come say hi to me in ibiza in late June??
This made me laugh. I love the way you tell stories, Lisa! I'm glad I've found you on here.