Episode 670: Father's Day w/ Stephen King & Joe Hill

There's no place to escape to. This is the last talk on the left. [laughs] [chatter] That's when the cannonball some started. [chatter] [music] [music] [music] You ready for this? Big day here boys! Big day! Big day! Massive day! This is a such a. Jay, let's just say, a victory. Yeah, this is a victory for LPN. This is a victory for last podcast on the left. Validation. Validation, we got him the white unicorn. [laughs] First of all, welcome to the last podcast on the left. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with Henry Zabrowski. Pink unicorn. The pink unicorn. Henry Zabrowski. Filled with shrimp. And the Harry unicorn. I was going to say illiterate unicorn. [laughs] Just your beard is looking quite nice. Have you been trimming? I have a person who trims. He looks great. Thank you. I appreciate it because I was worried it was looking bad, but now he gets another week like this. You really look good in that way. But the thing is, the guy who trims your beard definitely. That's a woman. Wow. But he makes you look like a Narani and Lord. You know what I mean? I'll take that. Yeah. Yeah, you do look like a Lord of some kind. Hey, you want to get through the straight? You come talk to me. [laughs] You alright? I'll get you through the straight. I'll get you through the game. We're doing fantastic. How are y'all doing today? I'm good. First question. First question. At the gate. Doing well. Wow. This is really watching this. I just want to say, I hate the disappoint. I know one's giving me their asses yet. I was at a, I was at a signing at a library and like, Boise. This was years and years ago when a guy came up to me. He was one of the last guys in line, sort of a decrepit O'Fella. And he said, you know, I loved heart shaped box so much. And your dad's books have meant so much to me. And I just wanted to give you something to express that. How much those books meant to me. And he lifted up this leather bag. It looked like a doctor's bag. And I, I accept that. That's a thank you. And I opened it in this stink just rolled out like there was, you know, I don't know, like a rotten piece of meat in it or something like that. And a chemical odor as well. And I said, what is this? And he said, my dad involved people for 40 years. And that was his, that was his bag. That was the bag he did for his work. And I was like, boy, you should enough. Thank you so much. You know, and I will say, I will say that I had him, I had him chuck it as soon as like, I left the thing. I'm not bringing fucking bag like that on an airplane. No, you can't even bring it to the help. You can, you know, yeah. It's always the last person in line when you're really tired. And you just want to go back to your hotel and. Yeah. Well, just somebody that shows up with, with that. Yes, Stephen, what was what was something that sticks out in your mind that a fan brought to you that you were just immediately revolted by? Well, it wasn't so much that, but I was at a place one time signing books. And this fat kid comes up to me and says, hey, kid, where's the Nazi books? And so I took him to the Nazi book. I'll tell you what, you just can't tell what people are going to do. One guy came up to me and said, you know, about Salem's lot. He said, you know, you ought to write a squeal in that gender. And I said, yeah. What are you talking about? He said a sequel in that genre. You know, you know, one thing it, speaking of grotesque gifts, you know, disturbing gifts, John Wayne, Gacy sent my dad some art. Today from prison. And actually, I found that so disturbing. That's in the first paragraph of heart shaped box. Yes. And I was kind of hung in my mind because the other thing is his Gacy wasn't terrible. I mean, he was obviously terrible. He was, I can't, I can't underline enough how terrible he was. Well, he was a funny guy. Yeah, he was a funny guy. He already singled it out. You're a screwed. Yeah, that's gotta be the clip to sell this episode. John Wayne Gacy was pretty good. You know, but what he did was really much from here to fun guy. He could do a passable, he could do passable like Disney characters and stuff. Well, he used to do paint by numbers. He used to go and get the like, he would have a whole system of other serial killers, including one of the, the guys from the Chicago rippers. And he also had the guy that killed everybody to avoid the earthquake in Southern California. Yeah, the Herbert Mullin. Herbert Mullin. He had other serial killers working for him on an assembly line, painting these paintings for him. That's not true. Yes, is that true? Yes, because he's, he literally was a job creator. He was a executive manager. He was a project runner. That's what he did. He was a project manager. So they had an art club in prison. It was a kind of like a chain gang. Like literally you need to kind of force them to do stuff. And then they would bring in. There's a whole story about how John Wayne Gacy was sort of game by this young man that called him and pretended to be really into him. And so these young man started arriving to visit with John Wayne Gacy. And then the two of them would talk to the other serial killers like they were his little like crew. Like it was like his little brothers. So don't feel that honored about the art. Is it like that? It was like hair come from men, but with art. Yes, yes. Do you find that in speaking of terms of collaboration? Because you guys worked together because of John Wayne Gacy can really run that type of collaboration. I'm sure you guys really, you guys put some really good stuff together. Like because in the tall grass is a great thing. Like how do you guys feel like when you're together working? Uh, we've only done it twice. We've only done it twice. We we wrote in the tall grass when we wrote throttle and. You know, I mean, I feel like when I the times I've written with that. You ever see in like the the Warner Brothers cartoons. When while he coyotes climbs on an acme rocket and lights the fuse and then suddenly it takes off under him. That's what it's like right and with my dad. I feel like I'm just kind of hanging on for dear life, you know. I I'd sort of like sweat and pull my hair out over like three pages or something. And then I'd email it to him and like 45 minutes later. He'd be like, it was great. Here's five more pages. She's crying. I wrote five. I think I'm going to keep it up. Well, you know, those those are a time when I was chemically assisted by some of those things. And the books with Peter Straub in the early days, but those days are behind me now. Yeah. Now it's just what sialis. Lot of lot of snap. That's what I do. I crush up my sialis. right into the right into it. I just do it. I do it line by line each day just to get me going to do podcast. Yeah, and under the lid of those snapples, they got funny little things. You can just slide right into the book. You know, if you wanted to. (Laughter) It's so, man, if you say so. (Laughter) We had a pretty good movie made out of In The Tall Grass. Oh, it was so good. It's so good. Yeah, that was pretty cool. That was pretty cool. And for a while, for a while, Sylvester Stallone was talking about doing throttle behind the scenes. And like, as a guy who grew up and then, you know, I mean, me and dad went to go see all those rocky films and everything together. And, wow, what a blast that would have been, but it didn't happen. I just want to say right now, Sylvester Stallone, as the gunslinger. Can it just like, let's just do it. Expandable. Make it expendables. (Laughter) I don't think that would really work. (Laughter) I mean. Chuck Norris could have done it. I mean, Chuck Norris could have just wiped that shit out in time. No guns at all. He could have just used his hands. I always saw Daniel Day. Daniel DeLewis was my gunslinger in my mind. Who do you have a gunslinger that you wish besides. I mean, I love the address. But you got a gunslinger in your mind that you wish you could see walking around? Clint Eastwood back in the day. Yeah. Back in the day, it would have been great. It would have been great. I mean, I got the idea for those books in a large part because they're those Sergio Leone Westerns. You know, I saw them in the theater because I'm old. (Laughter) And so, you know, they were just wide-screen men. And it was. Eastwood was so quiet in those movies. You know, he wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful. So that was great. Yeah, the name would give him a name. The name was literally the man with no name. Right? Yeah. How did you respond, Joe? Do you. Are you as big of a fan of the Dark Tower as the rest of us? I'm sorry, Marcus. I'll get you your questions. I'm just sorry. I just started with the Dark Tower. It means. It actually means the whole world to me. But you've seen a lot of fat guys and say this to you, Stephen. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm doing this at you. I'm just. Well, I love those. I'm a big Stephen King fan. I love all those books. And I mean, the thing about the gun slinger books is. I always think of them as the gun slinger books, not the Dark Tower books. You know, and they're kind of like the unified theory of the Stephen King world, you know? And because it picks up so many threads from all the other books and. And it's almost like a nervous system running through the whole body of Dad's work. And they're just such great reads. They're just so much fun and such a terrific cast of characters. And it is a little bit. In some ways, it is a little bit surprising. There haven't been. At it. And you know, well, there was no. There was the interest. There was the interest film, but it didn't do very well. It's because it needs to be 25 hours long. It has to be. It's a good. It's a good. I love the video. But they talked for a while about "Havier Bardem" doing. That's sexy. That would have been great. Yeah, he's sexy. That would have been good. I mean, I think there isn't a attempt right now to try to make it five seasons, you know, to try to do a TV thing. But I'm not sure how far along it's gotten. If any of you guys seen "Cape Fear," the new one where "Havier Bardem" plays the bad guy. I'm very excited for it though. I am too. It looks really great. "Havier Bardem" is scary as hell, man. Well, Steven, earlier you mentioned that, you know, the spaghetti westerns were a big influence on the "Dark Tower" series. When, you know, you were writing all those iconic works. How much inspiration did you take from other mediums and other genres for your own stories? Well, I mean, I was a big fan of western movies period. And I tried to get in a lot of the things that those books and movies were based on, you know, the idea that the guy has to be alone. He has to be a hero. And although in the early books, Rowan isn't very much a hero, he's actually kind of a bad guy. Yeah. He is. He is. And then he changes. Yeah. Go then. There are other worlds in these. And think about that. I'm so happy that you brought that back. I'm so happy you brought that back for the next book. I'm so excited, Mr. King. I'm going to go. I'm going to show up at your house. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, sir. Can I do that? Sorry. I'm joking. I've been watching a lot of interviews to prep for this between between you and your day. And I got to say one thing. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm getting a taste for them. But Joe, my question is you seem like your father seems so proud of you. What's that like? I'm sure there's a joke here somewhere, but I can't find it. You know, um, you know, um. Just just pretend I'm not here, Joe. Yeah. I know. Right. I mean, I don't know how to talk about it. I have a great relationship with my dad. We love a lot of the same things. You know, Owen and dad and myself, my brother Owen, Owen is a wonderful writer. He wrote sleeping beauties with that. And, and Owen's last novel, The Curators and absolute, you know, stunner. The first two pages of the curator are better than anything I've written in my whole life. That's great. Um, you know, and the three of us have have both a playlist and a message thread. And we talk to each other every day. And mostly what we talk about is rock and roll. And sometimes what we're watching on on TV and. Yeah, then Bob Dylan and me loaf. We talk about meat loaf a lot. We talk about meat a lot. You know, we're ready to get. And he loves meatloaf. One time meat and and Jim Steinman showed up at some place where I was shooting commercial or something like that. And they were wearing these white gloves. Man, like like like Disney characters, you know. And now they're they're both dead. But I didn't have anything to do with that. The white glove should have been a sign of the afterlife. It should have been. Yeah. But Joe, you say that you and your dad love a lot of the same things. Did you have to watch the shining in a friend's house or something? Or could you watch that at home? I saw dad took me to a screening of it before the film was theatrically released. Like a day or two before. Or maybe it was the premiere night when it opened in Bangor. And I was just like six or something. When I came out, I was gripping his hand and I said, I know, I know. I know, I know. I know. You know, when I came out, I said, who wrote all the great dialogue? And my dad said me. I just thought that was that thought had never crossed my mind. That was kind of like this unbelievable realization. You know, that my that my dad was a guy who invented fictional people and then put them in a terrible situation. And stuff. Somehow I hadn't really realized his connection to that material. Yeah. I mean, I also saw I saw he also we also lost Williams lot together when I was way too young. What? Which window? Oh, there's a Salem slot. Yeah. But you know, Joe played a part in in Creepshow. You know, he was the little kid. Yeah. And he was the little kid who stuck pins into the doll and his father was kind of an abuser and beat him up. It wasn't on the screen, but it was off screen so that when he shows up, they had done makeup so that there were a couple of bruises on his face. And one night the shooting wrapped late. And Joe said, could we get a hamburger? Yeah. And so we drove through McDonald's and here's this little kid that's that's up at 11 o'clock at night. And he looks got all these bruises all over his face. And he drives through called the cops. That's so funny. That old is because of Creepshow is father's day of thing in your home like because of that like is there a where's my cake? Like is that does that come from your own personal experience, Mr. King? Like is that the did you not receive your cake? Well, yes, but I didn't get my cake, but nobody came out of the grave. You know, brought me the cake. So, you know, that didn't happen. Okay, guys. I know. I know. I know. I'm not doing documentaries. You're ruining my life, Mr. King. You're ruining my life. So you were also in Creepshow, the Lonesome death of Jordy Verrol. Now, your performance in that was that intentional or did we won't even talk about that. [LAUGHTER] You want to rip it? It's a terrific comic turn. I love that. Thank you. When I watched that the first time as a little kid I got teary. Oh yeah. So sad what happened that what happened to Jody Verrill. You're just too young because you were a better actor than your father. A lot of times people will come up to me and autographed lines and say, "Stay media shit." Honestly I just watched sleepwalkers the other day and as a comedian your commitment to that awful joke is it bombed in on-screen over and over again? I love a comedian that really sticks by a bad joke. So I appreciate you, Mr. King. The mother and son relationship in sleepwalkers. Is that anything similar to what you experienced in real life? Oh yeah. I was just like my head. Yeah. Yeah. Did you Mr. King? Did you get with Tabitha to breed authors? Is the goal was for you guys to get together? Was this like a program that was like a King based program to install? Let me just rephrase. I just want to remind you guys that I'm sitting here. Yeah. I just asked was Steve did you get together with your wife and breed? I don't know what you're saying. That question is going. It's already gone someplace. I don't want to think. It's science. We're talking about Southern Freud chicken here. Yeah. But still you know the thing is my wife is a writer and I'm a poetry seminar. And so we come by it quite naturally. We're both writers and she's as good as I am or better in some ways. So she's like what five Joe five books seven. I think six. Everyone in the family takes the manuscript to her first. Yeah. And tell you a story about my mom. My third novel, Nosferatu had a really bleak ending dark and dark ugly ending. You know where you know hopeless. And I'm like and I'm not changing a word because I'm a fucking artist man. I'm just rubbed their face in the hopelessness and futility of life. You know what I was dead set like I'm staying with it. And the first person I sent the book to was mom and she blasted through and she called me up you know a week later and she said Joe I finished the book and it's just so wonderful. But that ending really won't do. And I said okay mom I'll change it. So that's how long my artistic integrity. And you know the other thing about mom and it's I think it's given us everyone in the family sort of tough skin when it comes to reviews and stuff. But she writes all the bad reviews first. When that finished it she said the critics are going to say you left off two letters. And she finished and saw me. She said oh I can see the reviews already Stephen King's insomnia. Cures it. We talked a lot about misery too. She said the critics will say the whole review is written in that one word misery. Well I mean was she the one who came up with the phrase it sounds like it came with the phrase kill your darlings because for me that that is one of the best pieces of writing advice that you've given is that you know kill your darlings. It's so difficult. Is there like a darling that you have like something that you felt was just so beautiful but just didn't quite fit that was you know that you had to kill that sits out in your mind. Going back to tabby again I wrote a book it was published last year called Never Flinch. And there were three main stories in it. There was a dog napping which I finally got in another book which is forthcoming. And there was a serial killer and there was a dope thing. And tabby came to me and said this dope thing has all been done before you know this is no fucking boring. I fought for it. I fought for it but in the end she was right she usually is. I've seen that a few times too. I've seen dad Nash's teeth for 48 hours because mom said something didn't work. But then he always makes the changes you know you've really never you've really always felt in the end that actually she was probably right and that was the right direction to take stuff in. So there's been a there's been a 50 year collaboration of ideas there you know. Yeah she changed the whole lending of other worlds in these. In fact there was a point where I thought to myself I would really like her to write a chat book about all the sub characters in that in that book. But she said you know somehow you have to bring it back around to the kid that he was you know because Jack Sawyer starts in the Talisman all those years ago. And yeah. What a great opening that first book had to the talisman is the beach outside and running in. It's my favorite. It's one of my the first times I ever cried in a book was reading the talisman when the I'm not. Yeah. Yeah. I how do you feel like because you've said this like you don't know what's going to happen. I'm like you guys are both kind of said similar things where you don't quite know what's going to happen to the characters you create when you start to kind of go in a way. But when you write something like that like in the talisman when you kill somebody beloved like do you laugh like do you laugh to yourself like are you like I got these fuckers or are you like or are you sad? How twisted do you think I am? I don't laugh. Joe do you think ahead do you know then characters are going to die or does it sometimes I know I'm working towards a big scene sometimes I sometimes I have like a set piece in my mind and so I'm working towards that. A few characters died in the last one King sorrow. Yeah. And when when one of them died it took me by surprise I didn't realize that was going to happen. And I felt a little bit shaken up by it. What's funny is when Ryan my 22 year old read the book he said oh I knew that character was going to be the first one to die. You you really gave that one away way in advance and I thought I did because I had no clue. Yeah. Fascinating how how far along in the writing career did you get when it was like that or is it a thing that you have to have like the idea that you get to the point where the characters just live where you create the characters and they just live in your brain. Is that just natural or is there a thing or is there a craft in that way that you learn I know you guys went to school and so it's like how do you guys get to that point where you could just be like yeah I don't know what the character is going to do. How do you write books? How how write books. One of the things that you know we talked about characters that that died a little boy died at the end of of Kujo you know in the novel in the in the movie he's a spoiler. Joe the book is fucking 50 years old almost. Go read Kujo. Anyway the little boy dies at the end of the book but in the movie he lives but he got met by the rabbit dog so I think he died horribly of rabies after the fade out but you know the thing is when children die or adults die in books that's one thing don't let a dog die you know I have heard more about that I mean Greg Stilson kicks a dog to death at the beginning of the dead zone I've never heard the end of it. Yeah that's that's an automatic one-star off your good retrading. You killed I killed a cat in a story called Jackknife and I have eaten so much shit about it online. You know my my mother's dog who I took in Tutsi she actually passed away yesterday out of complete you know randomness she was only 19 years old so you know why did she get almost by a beer. So we did a wonderful thing with her we took her up and we put her up we brought her body up a hill and then you know we put her in the ground and there was a beautiful rock structure on the ground it was like some kind it was just gorgeous and then we were putting her in the ground and there was a thin soil it was sour and and so I'm hoping when I get home she'll be there waiting for me. That's cemetery yes Go down that road. How loud is that? I don't think that's better. I'm sorry. Was that your jug crangle? Sometimes that's better. I hope that your routine doesn't depend on the quality of your impersonation. He was good at it. He was great. He was great. He was the best. I have to ask about Pennsylvania because like you, I am a massive Ramones fan, massive, massive Ramones fan. And the story goes that it's been told that you invited them over to your house when before Pet Sematary was being made and Didi Ramone took a copy of Pet Sematary, disappeared for an hour and came back with the song fully written. Did it actually happen that way? No. Okay. How did it actually happen? Yeah, I love getting past Amesia's and stories. I said, would they would they write, you know, my idea was that they would do the soundtrack for Pet Sematary and that didn't fly, but they did do that song. I don't want to be buried in a Pet Sematary and that was what you talk about a great line buried in a living cemetery. I don't want to live my life again. That's such a sad little, sad little, you know, but every Lanky nerd boy knows that feeling. They're all just like, I don't want to go through junior high again. That's what it's about. Yeah, you always get a whole album out of AC DC. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, they did the whole soundtrack to Maxim overdrive. I just saw that movie to prep for this. Do you remember directing any of that, Mr. King? Uh, yeah. I remember too much of it. Yeah. You know, the thing is I didn't know and Dino said, yes, even this is Dino Dino Rennas. He's a, Steven. Uh, I think, uh, what we want to do is make a movie and, uh, you're going to direct it. But I'd never done anything before I hadn't been in, uh, film school or anything. I learned as I, as I went along, I could actually do a pretty good job. The, the next time, but it was a blast. I have. I also feel a lot of it because you have such a deep understanding of movies because you guys were both big media had you guys watch a lot of movies when you guys are writing novels versus like our screenplays like easier than a novel or is it like like, because sometimes you're retrofitting from one of your other previous works. Like what's the hardest thing that you do? What's the thing besides getting up in the goddamn morning? That's right. I mean, going to the dentist, I think. Yeah. Yeah. We're having a proctological exam, but those are, I mean. So is it easier to write scripts or books, which one is? I mean, books I'd want to write books any day of the week over writing screenplays, but I do write screenplays because that's how I get my health care. So I try to write at least one script every year. You know, but you've had a lot, you've done a lot more in that space. You've written whole TV shows, you know, like not just like the pilot or something, but like every, literally every episode. I think you wrote every episode of Golden Years, you wrote every episode of Leacy story, you wrote every episode of, uh, story of the century. But does it suck to go from being able to be Lord and creator in your own world of writing a novel to like having to go talk to a bunch of suits in a building and try and tell them what your ideas are? Do you just, you just not care? Or they just like, oh, whatever you want, Mr. King. No, I mean, it, it isn't that way. Really, but what I do because I have this wonderful cushion that I don't have to write for the rent every month and that's a big fucking deal. As you guys probably know, the thing is I can write a script on, on spec and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I did a, a series of scripts, uh, for a show called, uh, Storm of the Century. Yeah. And that's, that's my favorite one. Really, you know, that really turned out well. And because I had a good relationship with with director, you know, well, I'm, I'm, I'm, it's also really glad. I'm glad to hear that the only fans is really working out for you guys. And then that is really paying the bills. And I just really, I think that that's really great for you guys. It's regular. And notice that you have the same director do your stories, you know, like multiple movies. Is there a certain director you think that understands your, your, your stories better than anyone else? Mike Flanagan. Yeah. Life at Chuck's awesome. He's good. He's good, but who's the other guy I want to say he's got like a name like Jack Holden or something or like maybe he directed the Hector. You're talking about Jack, Jack Bender. Jack Bender. Jack Bender, thank you. You just saved us. Yes. You know what? You know what you're stuff bad. Jack Bender is terrific. And he's somebody who can do things that are just wonderful on a low budget and short time. And he's fantastic at both of those things. And it doesn't look phone dead. You know, that's great. Life from North Rape. Well, speaking of things that you've written for the screen, like one of the massive influence on me was the TV miniseries for the stand that came back in 1994 like that. It blew my mind when I saw that when I was a kid. But you know, with writing that and also writing the novel, which is also of course incredible, when COVID came around in 2020, were you surprised by how people acted or were you pretty much like, okay, this is what I expected to happen when a plague hits. Well, one thing that did happen is this is horrible to say, but the book went through the roof again. That story like other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the plague? We did a whole series in 2021 on the black plague, like the history of the black plague in Europe. And one of the things that really struck us was how similarly people acted back then, how they reacted to the black plague in medieval Europe as people reacted in 2020 to COVID. Do you think that people are basically the same always? In the days of the black plague, did they have like arrows in the supermarket so that people would only go one way? Yeah, that was a huge thing. It was a huge thing and they had it. It was a lot of zooms. There's a Dutch researcher named Matthias Klassen, who wrote one of the best nonfiction books about horror as a genre. It's called Why Horror Seduces. And he's really the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to talking about the genre. And he co-authored an now fairly famous paper that showed that horror fans dealt with COVID psychologically and emotionally better than people who don't enjoy horror. You know that if you consume a lot of horror films and read a lot of horror novels, that you absorb the emotional shock of the COVID years at a higher level, at better. And to me, that makes sense because we've all read the stand. And so we've already got our action plan for when Captain Tripp's hits. Yeah. And you guys seen back rooms or on our way. We're on our way to see it tonight. I'm very excited. I've seen plenty of the YouTube videos. I spoke to Kane. Joey, and we spoke to the boy himself. We spoke to Kane. I almost, I came this close to going to see obsession last night, but Gillian's got a sore throat and I didn't want to dump the kids on her when she wasn't feeling well, so I stayed home. So obsession is amazing because obsession does a great, which is what I think you guys have just destroyed. You guys have this ability to do, which is take a simple idea, like a kind of like a flatter idea and then explode it out. Like Joe, I was just re, you guys have an idea like it was a scene in an obsession where the girl smiles for about 20 seconds. It's so good. It's so, she's so frightening. I mean, so it just seems like it seemed like you still keep up on pretty much every horror movie that comes out still. There's so much good stuff out there right now, right? I mean, yeah, yeah, there's so much like, I mean, Kees Rossin had that great novel, "Coffin Moon" last year, "Nat Cassidy" had, when the wolf comes home, that was incredible. Widow's Bay is great. I love that movie, "Weapons." Yeah, yeah. And I feel thrilled by all this stuff, but also a little bit challenged and stressed out. Of course, I kind of got to step up my game to keep up with someone what's coming out now, because there's just so much great stuff. Well, I honestly wonder if that's a question you can ask your dad because like think about that. Like you you have changed formats too, Mr. King. You also do like you write some crime, you write some drama and you're like obviously Joe you're in the same way you got you go you go into fantasy, you go into sci-fi, you go into horror. One of my favorite stories you ever wrote Joe was the one where the guys trapped on the cloud. Oh, a lot. Yeah, it scared the fucking shit out of me just because it's so, but it's so simple. Like how do you take an idea that might be like as you say this? So it's like an idea might not work out. I listened to your anecdote about the ladies room story you were working on. Mr. King, were you talking about how you you spend 90 pages? You never figured out what happened inside that fucking bathroom, right? When does the idea tip? How do you know when the idea is going to tip to become a novel versus I've just been a hundred, I've just been a hundred pages doing nothing. Joe. I mean, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I can when I have a really great concept, I can usually write on that for a couple days. But if I don't have a great character after a couple days, there's got to be someone I give a shit about, you know, there's got to be a character who, who I want to spend a few weeks or a month or a couple years with, you know, someone who's got some stuff inside them that seems like it would be interesting to explore and whose way of interacting with trouble seems interesting and a little bit different. You know, if I can latch into a good character, I feel like I'm off and running. Then I, you know, then I'm really excited to see where the story goes. When stories die on me, you know, usually there was a good concept there that was some, it had a clever hook, but I just couldn't find anyone interesting to write about. It didn't seem to, you know, I don't know. What about you, Dad? I mean, you know, what? I mean, I start with an idea, something that's interesting to me sometimes is just an image, but it has to connect with something else. I mean, it's like an engine without a transmission. It's got to be two parts, you know. It's got to be an idea and then it's got to be some nuts and bolts that connect it all together. And then, man, I just go and I hope that everything's going to turn out pretty good in the end, you know, it's like shooting off an intercontinental ballistic missile. If the warhead is big enough, it doesn't matter if you really hit exactly the spot. Yeah, yeah. Everything blows up in the end. So I just try to do the best I can and you know, you got to try to be honest with the characters and you can't you can't bullshit. You know, like say, oh, guess what? It was all a dream. I hate it. I hate it. Shit. You know, like, like the other thing though is like, Dad's first drafts are so clean. You know, he, he, I came across something. I was cleaning out the basement. I came across an old entertainment weekly where he had written a book review for entertainment weekly, but he had written it. He was in New York at the time and he, he wrote the review on a rule yellow legal pad, long hand, and then it sent over to the entertainment weekly offices by courier and entertainment weekly was so shocked to receive the manuscript that way that they actually printed the review, but they also printed a scan of his mail days before email. I hear the wagon wheels. There's no strikeouts. There's no every sentence is clean in first draft. There's no corrections or edits or anything. It was just, it was just this sort of perfect, you know, straight from straight from your mind onto the page and maybe he's it. Maybe he's it. I never reads that way. No, no, my God. Maybe he's a demon. And he needs to be exercised. I don't know, man, because that scares me. Hearing you say that Joe scares me. Yeah. I certainly need exercise. I could. Well, with something like that, like when, when you get back a manuscript or review or something like that with, with no strike throws, you know, nobody is giving you any notes. Do you ever ask yourself, like, is this good because it's good or is this good because I'm Stephen King. No, yeah. I always think that and you know what I always think is I'm going to send this manuscript into the publisher and they're going to call me up and say, Steve, this doesn't say anything. It's just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, if you ever had that, you know, Joe, that it's not good that it's. No, no, no, no, I always figure it's, I wrote it so it must be pretty great. Every word delicious. Yeah, it's so nice to have that confidence. I love it too. I never doubt. I'm just like everything I walk out of I go, man, I was fantastic. I'm fucking now. One of the things that excites me is the audio version of other worlds and these Lewis Oswald is going to do the recording of that. And he's a character in the book who's a stand up comedian who is kidnapped into this other world. So I think that I can't wait for to hear that. Are you guys both big? Are you stand up guys? Do you guys watch stand up? Do you guys or you into stand up like do you have you go to comedy clubs? Not really. I, you know, I had some of the, you know, some soul fashion. I have some like comedy records. Oh, wow. Yeah. I was on my, I love my Milton Merrill. I was this my own. That's my favorite. Burns and Alan. I am old enough to remember. Hello, mother. Hello, father. Yeah. Yeah. I like comedy. Particularly I like lame jokes. I like jokes that make you go, oh, shit. You know, you know, it's interesting to think that stand up comedians are also writers. They're, you know, that they spend time writing and they're building up material and it is, it is the same process as, you know, writing essay or short story or piece of fiction. My dick is so small and does not work. Head's in a basket was so very small. Yeah. By the way, basketball ahead was so very. Yeah. Yeah. I had such a good time with that. And I got to, now do you have to talk, do you talk to your dad about referencing Shawshank and Derry and stuff like that or does it all live in the same world or is that just you thrown in the margin there? Someone asked me about that online and I said, I just thought it was like, you know, dad me going the backyard to throw the ball around. Not that we ever really did that because I'm not much of a baseball player. I like to watch it. Oh, one was the one. Oh, and little league team went all the way to the playoffs. There's other balls. You know, you get to get to get to the ball around. But we played games and we did a whole bunch of shit, you know, we had. We had Frisbee. I guess we throw the Frisbee around. So it's like that. So it's just, you know, I mean, we did have one thing when he was working on Doctor Sleep and I was working on Nosferatu. At some point we both realized we were writing books about vampires that steal energy from people, steal their souls. But the basically his antagonist and my antagonist operating along the same lines. And when you realize something like that is happening, there are two things you can do. You can either run from it and try to obscure the similarity or you can run towards it and kind of embrace it and just I just think it's yeah, we it's just better to embrace it. So so he stuck my bad guy and Doctor sleep. He stuck Charlie Maxx and Doctor sleep and I stuck the true knot in Nosferatu. Yeah, which is making him like sort of a way to, you know, acknowledge, you know, sort of acknowledging passing that there was a similarity there. Yeah, was there like one horrible person that both of you met at the same time that made you think like I need to write something about energy vampires? I mean, get said editor or publisher. I don't know, but you know, I I remarried in 2018 and my wife and I had twins, you know, and around about that time dad wrote a story about a haunted pram and I wrote a story about haunted pram. I wrote one called the pram. What was the one you wrote rattlesnakes? Rattlesnakes was it called? Yeah. You know, and and and neither of us knew what the other one was doing and then we found out. I remember saying that you know, what are the odds that we both write that the two of us would both write stories about, you know, haunted baby strollers at the same time and she's pushed the baby stroller back and forth with one hand to keep the twins asleep and just like, what is fires you? I can't imagine. Where do you guys come up with this story? Where does it come from? How scared are you to of cars? What does the deal? Yeah, what you guys told him that is the truth in your way. There's a lot of scary cars, a lot of haunted cars, trucks, evil cars. - The cars are part of our lives. They're just everywhere and you know that if you're gonna get into an accident, a serious accident is probably gonna be on a car. Of course, I didn't have an accident while driving a car. I just had an accident while I was walking along the road. I got hit by a car. - Yeah. - But you know, they have-- - This is before that. The cars are there before. - Yeah, cars are a part of our lives, you know. So that's it. I want something to do a good story about a good haunted GPS story. Haunted GPS story. Think about that guys. - Oh yeah, it just keeps leading you to John Wayne Gacy's house. - Yes. - Honestly, that's not a bad idea. Obviously, it's 'cause it comes from Mr. Stephen King. - That is pretty good. You know, every time you program the GPS and you think it's taking you one place, but it keeps taking you back to the same place and it's someplace you didn't want to go. There's something interesting there. That's not bad. - Keep working on that. - Yeah. - I like writing about cars because it's like a shortcut to letting you know something about the character. - Yeah. - You know, because when you think about it, the biggest purchase a lot of people make in their lives is their automobile, you know, after the end, and it's such a reflection of, you know, the things you think are cool or will make you look cool or will meet a set of objectives or-- - Cars and personalities, right, Joe? - Yeah, absolutely. - Absolutely. - I mean, that was the whole thing with Christine, the car makes the man. And I loved Christine, but for somebody, I became obsessed for some reason with the insult shitters that was used-- (laughing) I have to ask, man, like shitters, what's up with shitters? 'Cause I-- (laughing) - You're so good at co-ing a curse word. - I remember the best line in that movie was the guy says, "I'm gonna sell this shit hole "and buy a condo." (laughing) - I love that. - I love that. - That was popular this line. - Yeah, so good, I question, right? Now in full Dark No Stars, the story 1922, you guys wrote about Mr. King, about a father and son, hiding the body of-- - How long are you gonna call me Mr. King? - Mr. King, Mr. Steven. - Steven, baby. - Mr. Steven A. (laughing) - Is that something that you guys wanna do? Do you guys wanna-- - Very well-modied together? - Yeah, is that something that you've ever thought-- Like, if you really thought about putting your strengths towards crime? - Uh, I'd be scared to go to jail. - No, I'd be scared of how in my imagination-- - Yeah. - You don't think you do well in jail? - You know, for a guy, I have to tell you, for a guy who writes fiction for a living too, a material liar, I think I just confessed. Whatever it was, I wouldn't be able to get away with it. I just, you know, I just blab everything the first time a police officer looked at me sideways. So, yeah. - That's the shame. - Best to leave the murders on the page. - I understand. - Likely story. (laughing) - Yeah, for that before a thousand times. (laughing) - You guys are also creators, 'cause this is a part of why we had this. And I wanna say thank you guys, an incredible amount for doing this with us. Part of this was 'cause it was about, it's Father's Day. Right, Father's Day is coming up. And you have created some of the scariest fathers that have ever existed. Right, you guys have both together created some very scary fathers. Who is your favorite father figure in media? Like if there's like a visit, likely, they're up to a dad or you don't wanna be that guy. - I said to my dad once when I was a young dad, I said, I just wanted to be like Gregory Pact playing Atticus Finch and to kill a mockingbird. And I'm just, I'm just so not able to rise to that level. And dad seemed very perplexed by that. And he said, Joe, you know, Gregory Pact had a script. (laughing) - Did you tell scary stories to your children? - Yeah, I did. But I told them funny stories too, because I did-- - Loving funny. - To go to bed with a scary thought in mind. I mean, funny story would be, you know, Goldilocks and the three bears. But at the end, Goldilocks doesn't get away. She's eaten by the bears. (laughing) - That is funny. - You're the only one to me. - Would you never threaten him with like Pennywise? You're like, you know, I made up Pennywise. Like Pennywise is right here. - I got Pennywise, like, you know, Henry's dad used to say, like I got Santa Claus' number. Did you ever say, I got Pennywise' number? I'm gonna call him. - I'm gonna call him. - No, I mean, Pennywise now is out there. He's not in my head anymore. You know, I'm fine, you know, kind of like fuck you, you know. (laughing) - And actually, he used to say, he used to say when I was little, he would sometimes say, if we were just being crazy and, you know, the house was in chaos and stuff, he'd say, hey, don't let me go, put my ass kicking boots on. (laughing) And I remember looking in the class, it's trying to find them. (laughing) We were looking at shoes and boots and speculating about which were the ass kicking pair. You're off with one. >> You're going to come after me, I'm very ticklish and he would go, "Seller Dueller". [SOUND] >> No, no, no, no, no, no, no. >> I hate that. >> No, no, no, no, no. >> My dad used to go, when he was like wanting to do this. He would do this bit as a family where he'd go, you know what happens? What I take my belt off and the whole family goes, your pants fall down. And it was like a funny thing. >> [LAUGH] >> Every time, but it was a subtle threat. >> My father, the first horror movie I ever saw was Silver Bullet. And my father used to torture me. He used to, he had this furry hand and he'd grab my baseball bat and hit my window in the middle of the night with it and scare the shit out of me. So thanks. >> Yeah. >> It's wonderful. >> So you had time for one more question. And this one, it's a little large, but it's kind of a question that I've been asking myself a lot lately. Like, you know, Steven, you're one of the most prolific and influential cultural voices of the 20th century. But, you know, like, I'm not the only one that's noticed that American culture, we keep dipping back into the 20th century for our stories, for our music, for our movies. Like, do you think that, you know, like as one of those voices, do you think over the last 20, 25 years that American culture has become sort of stuck? And if it has, how do we get unstuck? >> Man, I don't really know because it's even like we have this thread and my two boys and a lot of them are about music, for instance, music and movies and TV, all that, that the cultural things that are, you know, kind of like pop culture. >> Yeah. >> And I don't follow a lot of what they say because I kind of like have lost the beat in some ways. And I don't want to be one of those people who gets into their mid or late 70s and say, well, I'm hip, you know, it's like Donald Trump when he tries to dance, you know. >> You don't do that. >> I love seeing you dance, though. It is, yeah, never seen you move like that. It's great to see it. >> Yeah, there you go. >> I don't think that we're culturally stuck. We were just talking about, I mean, you know, especially in a genre horror, we just head back rooms and obsession open up, you know, to enormous, you know. And they're new and they're being directed by 20-somethings. And, you know, and there's, you know, there are all these, you know, terrific. There's been just, you know, an avalanche of great books in the genre written at a really high level. >> But that opens up another interesting question is that like it's, I do agree that like horror is, you know, across media is where like all the best comic books coming out right now, horror, the best movies, the best TV, like it's all, like horror seems to be the one thing that's doing new stuff. Why is it that seems like the 21st century has chosen horror? >> Because it's a scary time to, I think, in a lot of ways because the media, you know, to get clicks, you want to get something that's really horrible. Joe, do you agree? I mean, yeah, I mean, it's like in the 50s when there were all those great horror movies. about nuclear war, like try and dance being created by the nuclear test blast and stuff like that. People have these feelings. I mean, maybe it's cathartic to go scream in the dark, especially when the times are really stressful and you can go to a movie and sort of let it out. Yeah, and audiences go to two movies. This is the great thing about movies when they really work. Somebody screamed behind me in in in back rooms last night. That was really good. And it just it brings you together, you know, you can laugh together like in a comedy. Remember three amigos, Joe? How much fun we had at that time? Yeah, I remember Martin Schultz on the X-Sat one time. I mean, you go Montoya. It's time for you to die. What is that mean? That's right. That's right, which was so great. I mean, the thing about the horror film, you know, going to a horror film is we're so politically divided these days. But when we're in the dark and something, there's a really good scare. Nothing brings everyone together like that because we're all frightened together at the same time. That's powerful. Yeah. Yeah. Also, I'll say you guys, you said something, Joe, about your dad's work and I'll say it about yours too, where you tell you about how people saying, oh, you work so frightening. And you said something along the lines of like, my dad's works about bravery. It's about standing up to things despite insurmountable challenges. And I actually think that what we're finding ourselves now is almost like we sci-fi'd our way in 80s dystopia sci-fi. We sort of sci-fi'd our way into this reality. And now it's up to sort of like us to create the next version of the future, which seems, which we need a hero and we need the works of you guys because you're making heroes and putting them into the world when you do, when you write what you do, you do put heroes in it. That's a beautiful thing. Yeah. You said it well. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Hey, thank you all so much for joining us today. This has been a true honor and just a lot of fun and thanks for let me talk about shitters for a second. Yeah. And remember, next time you see me, none of that Mr. King shit, I'm Steve. Yeah, Steve. You got it Steve. And how wonderful was that? Oh, man. I hope it was okay. I hope so. I'm still I still am scared. Yeah. Should we do a boner check? No. There's at least I'll say you're watching this on Netflix. You can obviously see we're all wearing different clothes. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. It is a different day, but he deserved an outro. I came. Yes. Hey, you're already calm. It was right after I shripped off real hard my card in the parking lot. Just thinking about how I got to look at him. Yeah. Hear that, Steve. Henry, I'm looking at you when I go. Oh, man. Oh, wow. I can't believe we got him to do the obsession face. Well, we actually didn't even have to get him to do the obsession face. He volunteered. That was he wanted to. He wanted to so bad. I'm angry. I didn't see it at the time because I would have loved to have talked with him about obsession. And honestly, he did a great obsession. You really did. Patreon.com/lastpodcast on the left is where you can go to support us monetarily and get ad free episodes. If you want to watch last podcast on the left, if you want to see that obsession face that Stephen King made, you can go watch us on Netflix.com. Is that that what does you know what I think was watching on TV? I don't know why I felt compelled to put the dot com in there. You're sitting at your computer. You would have to write it that way. Yeah, if you're at the bus station, you're on your phone. Yeah, yeah, we even your phone has a map. Yeah. And don't forget to follow us on all of the socials at LPL on the left TikTok and Instagram. That's where you can find us in all the live shows. We got coming up. We got Grand Rapids coming up. We got Tulsa and Oklahoma City coming up. Those are on our website last podcast on the left.com. The JK Ultra Tour is winding up. Yeah. And we're working on like a live stream situation for one of those right? Tulsa. Yeah. So we can say that it will be live stream. We are working on it and we don't know how. Yeah. We're staying right now. There it's in the works, but we don't have any general information. And our manager told us to run with that. Yeah. Yeah. But if you are in that area, come see the show live. Come to actually check it out in person. If you have to see it on the live stream, that's great. But if you can see it live, make the drive. Make the drive new, new Mexico. Make the drive from the panhandle. Make the drive from anywhere. Just get out. Get out of there. Get out of the dust bowl. Leave the farmers' daughters alone. Let them have a break. Yeah. Come to the big city, Tulsa. Yeah. Your air conditioner is in your car. Get in your car where it's cold and come where it's show. I bet you'll find food closer to where the place is in Tulsa than you will wherever you live. Tulsa's got food. Tulsa's got love. Tulsa's got all kinds of food. You want to go to Best Buy? Tulsa's got it. Yeah. You need any inoculations. Yeah. And if you drive to Tulsa, you can take I-40. You can stop at the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere. Yes. They have a fantastic statue of Jesus holding an aborted baby. Oh. That is nice. And we have to find the largest man to nail to it. And they have a replica of Jesus' tomb that you can go and sit in. Oh, I'm going to go. How do you like up screaming? How do you like your aborted baby? I like mine sunny side up. Oh, see, I like mine rare. I don't like them around. Whoa. In the toilet. I like mine bronzed. Eee. permanent. It's bad on your teeth, but it's delicious. Well, enjoy. I hope you go enjoy to our interview with Stephen King. Thank you. Bye.