Celebrity Hometowns with Patton Oswalt

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] And welcome to my favorite murder.

[2] The Celebrity Hometown Minisode.

[3] That's right.

[4] It's a little extra.

[5] A third episode because we need more jobs for you where we talk to our reliable celebrity friends who agreed to this that we love.

[6] The famous ones that still show up for you.

[7] Some of the best in the biz.

[8] That's right.

[9] And we're so excited to talk to our guest today.

[10] you've seen him at clubs and colleges all over the country.

[11] Of course.

[12] You also may have seen him on AP Bio.

[13] He's on tons of stuff.

[14] You know him.

[15] You love him.

[16] His name is Patton Oswald.

[17] Patton, welcome to the show.

[18] Hi, my favorite murderers.

[19] It is so good.

[20] There is nothing more.

[21] I have a bit now where I mention you guys' podcast.

[22] You do.

[23] What?

[24] It's a lot.

[25] Yeah, it is organically mentioned.

[26] And whenever I say the name of the podcast, the murderinos in the audience just go nuts.

[27] It's the best.

[28] It is like, this feels like what it must have been like to make a Star Trek reference in 1974.

[29] So the people in the eyes like, ah, back, ah!

[30] They all start, like, calling at each other and, like, calling out its fans.

[31] But, like, half the audience goes nuts.

[32] It's fantastic.

[33] That's amazing.

[34] I love that we have crossover fans.

[35] Like, who would have thought that a murder podcast and the very funny Pat and Oswald would have crossover?

[36] Like, I love that.

[37] Yeah, exactly.

[38] Crossover appeal.

[39] It's all those people from the Sunday night punchline.

[40] Oh, my God.

[41] The walk in and stand at the bar and hope you get picked showcase night.

[42] Is that your San Francisco days?

[43] Yes, it was all stand awkwardly in that weird hallway that led back to the kitchen, which by today's standards was so insanely unsanitary because you had me and Karen and Lori Kilmartin and Blaine Capatch and Byron Yee like with one foot in the kitchen where they're running back to get people's nacho plates.

[44] And we're just back there smoking weed and yacking.

[45] It was just, oh my God.

[46] How was that place not shut down?

[47] I mean, for real.

[48] Yeah.

[49] It's been a long time.

[50] So it's thrilling to have you here.

[51] It's thrilling to get to.

[52] talk to you for a second.

[53] Patton, you have your own podcast now.

[54] I do.

[55] With your wife, Meredith Salinger.

[56] Yes, Meredith Salinger star of stage and screen.

[57] We're not really stage.

[58] A big screen little screen.

[59] That's her never really actually get any stage stuff now that I think about it.

[60] She's never done Broadway?

[61] No, she never did Broadway.

[62] So she and I basically live in a house together but spend half a day texting each other, even though we're never more than 60 feet away.

[63] And And then we, it's a chance to get together once a week and go over the text, some of which are very cryptic and weird, because we'll send them at odd hours.

[64] Like, what did you mean by this?

[65] Oh, I needed you to go get.

[66] So it's like two people solving the mystery of their ongoing marriage through text.

[67] And it's, yeah, here's how bad it's gotten.

[68] One night, a couple weeks ago, we were both in bed.

[69] We had watched a show.

[70] And then we're like, okay, good night.

[71] And then she like turned away, but she had found this.

[72] absolutely perfect position with all the pillows and then I'm next to her, but I saw this really cool picture on my phone.

[73] Oh, hey, sweetie.

[74] And I wanted to show her to her, she goes, I have just landed in such a perfect position.

[75] You have to text it to me. I'm not going to roll over and lose.

[76] I got all the pillows right where I want them.

[77] You're not.

[78] And she goes, you're going to text it to me and I'm not going to be ashamed about it because I'm not giving up this position.

[79] So we will text each other from inches away.

[80] I love that.

[81] As a bed and sleeping and nap connoisseur, I fucking respect that so much.

[82] It's not laziness.

[83] It's pure delight and enjoyment.

[84] And I respect that.

[85] And pillow architecture.

[86] That's important kind of like you, it really does take a while because if you, I was making a mistake where I bought fancy pillows and then was just laying on them however the pillow would have me. And I would wake up in the morning with like a super fucked up neck.

[87] And I was like, oh, I don't like these pillows.

[88] I just think that I'm supposed to just be on them as they will have me, where it's like, no, no, no, it has to fit.

[89] It has to be helping me. I can't just take it as it is.

[90] Yes, you have to, it has to work for you.

[91] I remember one year I hosted a video game awards competition in Vegas.

[92] And it was the year that video games broke big, where it was suddenly overnight, it was a billion dollar industry.

[93] And all these game designers who in the past just wore basketball shorts and t -shirts.

[94] and wrote code on the back of pizza boxes are suddenly they're all billionaires.

[95] So they all are at this award ceremony and they've got their bespoke suits on.

[96] But it was clear that it was their first ever nice suit because they had put it on at the beginning of the evening and no one had told them that as the evening goes on, you need to stand and adjust and shoot your pots because they thought it was like a computer program.

[97] You put it on and it just runs and does its function.

[98] So I was giving awards to all these new billionaires all going up with the jankiest most expensive like the sleeve was all jammed up and the waist was wrong because they just sat and just forgot they didn't know how to work a suit they didn't know how to do it those Nouveau -Rish gamers man It was all Nouveau -Rish billionaires in there incredibly bespoke cut suit looking they may as well have gone to Jonathan S. Banks or whatever that place is for you just you buy the suit and it comes apart as the evening goes along.

[99] Men's warehouse.

[100] Men's This actually goes along with my idea, and I can't remember.

[101] I don't think I've ever told you because now that you're saying this to me, it would be the perfect idea to pitch to you, which was when all of that stuff was happening in like the early 2000s, I had the idea to make a show about nerd finishing school where basically all these new billionaires have to go and learn, like, how to use the fork, how to pretend to be interested in what other people are saying.

[102] Like basically they're being treated like debut, taunts from the 50s with books on their heads, but yeah, right?

[103] But that is absolutely true that there is a culture now of people who just either talk to screens or hit run on a program and there's no back and forth interaction and adjusting.

[104] Oh my gosh, that would actually be a, that would be a profitable business for the Nouveau -Riche, how to speak without food in your mouth.

[105] Yeah, exactly.

[106] Right.

[107] Use a fork and knife properly.

[108] I feel like that is that.

[109] Somehow my mom, even though.

[110] we were eating breakfast for dinner because she's still somehow new to teach us how to properly.

[111] And we'd get, you know, scolded if we used caveman fucking hands and forks.

[112] You know what I mean?

[113] That's an important skill that not everyone knows.

[114] Just for a clarification, I don't want to actually start a finishing show.

[115] I just wanted to make a TV show about it.

[116] Nothing real.

[117] I thought Karen was like, you know, you'd go to their house and you'd sit down with them.

[118] I'll be driving all over Silicon Valley.

[119] It's going to be amazing.

[120] It's going to be like these shoes.

[121] You need to actually tie these.

[122] I know that you're used to stepping into your shoes.

[123] You only walk like eight feet.

[124] But in the world, you can't have shoelaces whipping around.

[125] There's other people moving around.

[126] You need to.

[127] Right.

[128] Yeah, we just, Meredith, had our daughter, Alice, go to a politeness school.

[129] Like a, not a term for like a weekend, once a week, manners dinner where they learned proper.

[130] Oh.

[131] Because she just didn't.

[132] There's no examples.

[133] of that anymore.

[134] And obviously, she's not trying to make her be like a little debut time, but there was this, hey, your dad is a horrible example of how to eat and how to comport yourself because I look, I literally, I eat like a monkey just learning to use a tool for the first time.

[135] So she's like, yeah, maybe learn to actually sit and not have stuff slopping all over the place.

[136] And so that was amazing.

[137] I appreciate that so much.

[138] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[139] We got busted all the time for pushing rice onto our fork with our thumbs.

[140] And we would, it was like, my mother's favorite thing to make as a side was minute rice.

[141] And so we were always just trying to like get a pile on there.

[142] And my parents would go insane.

[143] We're just like, okay, but no one's around.

[144] The queen of Spain isn't here for dinner.

[145] Can we just, it's the last pile of rice.

[146] It's really hard to get on a fork.

[147] Right.

[148] And Meredith's argument is if we teach it now when it doesn't matter, then it'll be second nature, which is out in public.

[149] And based on the.

[150] other people that seem to be coming up, she's going to seem like a Kryptonian with her manners.

[151] Like, I can't believe this kid is actually knows how to, isn't using her fork like a weird scoop shovel like her dad does.

[152] How about, can we bring back the spork is my thing?

[153] Like, is there classy sporks?

[154] Well, bring back to spork or is the spork where we're all eventually going to?

[155] Like in another generation, will it be like in 2001 where all food is just kind of a mash, It's kind of a slurry of protein and card.

[156] I'd love it.

[157] And you just use the spork to kind of scooped up.

[158] Can we still have minute rice on the side?

[159] That's all I ask.

[160] Should we pivot into hometown?

[161] And see what Patton has to say about his random.

[162] It could be anything.

[163] What does he, what does he associate the word hometown with?

[164] Here's what I associate my hometown with.

[165] And this is very much about how and when I grew up.

[166] Because I got ready for this podcast.

[167] I grew up in Sterling, Virginia.

[168] I read up on Sterling, Virginia.

[169] No real crazy murders, anything like that.

[170] So then I went a little further to field, more out of Virginia.

[171] Yes, there are some good Virginia murders, but they are way, way, way down in the deep south of southern part of Virginia down, 81 near Roanoke, near Blacksburg.

[172] That's where, you know, Henry Lee Lucas was born.

[173] and like that's where so but what i would love to talk about are the hometown crimes and killings that never get written about because growing up in the 70s with no internet and no social media there were the kids in your high school that would blow off their hand with an m80 or get drunk and scrape the top of their head off driving home but they just vanished into their hometowns.

[174] They never got out and became a bigger story, whereas I feel like now, when these little tragedies occur, there's a narrative and there's something told.

[175] So I just want to do a tip to three people.

[176] One, I'm not going to say, I'm going to make up names because if they're still out there, they're so far gone that they will track me down.

[177] And also, I imagine that they've either fallen down a QAnon hole or a MAGA hole or God knows what.

[178] Right.

[179] Of course.

[180] I'm going to talk John X, who John X was this kid who lived over on, I lived on Sugar Land Run Drive.

[181] He lived up on Crescent Court, and he was obsessed with the idea of explosives.

[182] I think we watched that movie, Force 10 from Navarone, where they were going to bomb a dam or a bridge or something, and he was trying to make like a time bomb or something, and he blew off most of his left hand in his garage.

[183] How old was he?

[184] He was, I think he was 16 when he did it.

[185] He was older than us, but he was like, he was, at the time, I remember I was like 10 or 11.

[186] He was the cool older kid that were like, so often this older kid wants to hang out with us.

[187] You realize later, the reason he's hanging out with the 10 and 11 year olds is because the other kids, his age, want nothing to do with him.

[188] So he's like, well, I get to be a king to these little dips kids that are on the same time.

[189] King of the fourth graders as a 16 year old.

[190] Exactly.

[191] In the 70s and 80s, there's always the kid in your neighborhood who's endo explosives.

[192] I think it was my brother, actually.

[193] He got the anarch.

[194] Remember the anarchist cookbook?

[195] Oh, God.

[196] Yes.

[197] He had it, my mom.

[198] Of course they did.

[199] Took it away.

[200] It's terrible.

[201] Okay, so that was John, John X, upon Crescent Court, blew off most of his left hand.

[202] And then I remember, it was weird.

[203] His parents didn't move away, so he was, I assume he was still in the neighborhood, but we just didn't see him anymore.

[204] Like, I think he just stayed in the house.

[205] So I feel like there were many years of me and my friends growing up where if I had looked over at the house, I would have seen like his eye maybe like peeking out of one of the front drapes or one of those.

[206] Yeah, I know.

[207] It's horrible.

[208] But there you go.

[209] John X. Can I just make a counter suggestion?

[210] Go ahead.

[211] You know, that could have been a very freeing moment for him.

[212] We're in the hospital.

[213] He met a cute candy striper.

[214] And she was like, what are you doing with all these bombs?

[215] Yeah.

[216] And then he's like, I'm going to go to your school from now on.

[217] Let's just turn it.

[218] We can turn it as like the possibilities for John X to really have had a come to Jesus with that moment and then be like, I'm going to make bombs for good now.

[219] Maybe he works for the government.

[220] Maybe he went to boarding school.

[221] Had he fucking flourished there.

[222] Blackstone is that he could have maybe started that company?

[223] I love that you found a happy ending that included love and companionship and purpose for John X. Yeah.

[224] I love that.

[225] Also, deep in my heart, I know he was just peering to that front window with the neighborhood.

[226] You could feel it on your neck.

[227] Yes, but I like that story better.

[228] And if the multiverse is real, then somewhere he's out there with his cool nurse wife and his mangled hand.

[229] But she loves that mangled hand.

[230] Damn it.

[231] Yes, she does.

[232] Sexy.

[233] And let's leave it at that.

[234] Okay.

[235] Stop right there.

[236] One down.

[237] One down.

[238] Yeah, one down.

[239] Then I will now do Tom X. Tom X was a kid who lived up on there was an actual street near us named Penny Lane.

[240] Oh.

[241] It was, look, our development that I grew up in Shrigal and Run was built in 1970.

[242] And it feels like a lot of the planners were like, we just need some, Penny Lane.

[243] Isn't that a song?

[244] It doesn't matter.

[245] Penny Lane, that'll be nice.

[246] Put it up there.

[247] Yeah, Penny Lane.

[248] So Tom X was the kid in the neighborhood who got super into.

[249] And again, this is all in the late 70s, very early 80s, but got super into.

[250] martial arts weapons and would send away for the throwing stars and the katana and the nunchucks and something like that and now he didn't himself get hurt no one dies in this one but we had kung fu theater on saturday afternoons w dc a channel 20 and the diversion that i heard was that he and his brother his brother was like a year younger than him they're both kind of dirt bags but but good guys, you know, fun to hang out with.

[251] And they were in the backyard.

[252] And Tom X was throwing stars at his little brother, Tom X, Prentices A. And the little brother was trying to catch them in the air.

[253] No!

[254] No!

[255] And from what I heard, a throwing star went into his brother's cheek.

[256] I remember the brother being at school where they cut in his cheek, but Tom X got, was like, punished for a long time.

[257] This is when he was a teenager.

[258] Yeah.

[259] Nowadays, it would turn into, we need to bomb martial arts weapons, but luckily we were still just in the phase of other adults going, some kids suck.

[260] Some kids are just dumb, like, it didn't create a weird moral panic in the neighborhood, which is nice.

[261] No. It was that kid is bad with martial arts weapons.

[262] Not every kid is bad.

[263] Yeah, and by the way, I don't even think it was in terms of, because I also remember in the 70s, like parents really hung out with each other.

[264] Like, there was just, at the end of the day, the people would come out of their homes and just hang out at the cul -de -sac.

[265] And the parents didn't get shunned or pushed away.

[266] The other parents were like, oh, my kids suck, too.

[267] Like, some of your kids suck.

[268] Like, they weren't saying you're a bad parent.

[269] Like, you do your best and said, I'm sort of pieces of shit.

[270] What are you going to do, you know?

[271] Yeah.

[272] So that was actually kind of mine.

[273] This reminds me, sorry, but we've gotten a couple emails because somebody sent in this unbelievable hometown about when they accidentally served a little kids hard lemonade at the 4th of July neighborhood thing.

[274] And it was that thing where they had to tell the other parents.

[275] And all the other parents thought it was hilarious and just took the kids and put them to bed.

[276] So it was like six -year -olds that were walking around super drunk.

[277] And so then we were like, guys, send us your drunk kid stories.

[278] And now we're getting them.

[279] And I think there is a subset of parents who get that.

[280] And maybe it's because they're Gen X. So they're like, yeah, it's not that big of a deal.

[281] Yeah.

[282] It's like they'll sleep it off.

[283] It's not the end of the world.

[284] And it is, you have to admit it's funny.

[285] Yeah.

[286] I was caught drunk in our house by my parents one time.

[287] I was up watching a movie.

[288] I wasn't doing anything crazy.

[289] I just, for some reason, there was a bunch of beers in the fridge.

[290] I said, I'm going to have a beer.

[291] I think I was 16.

[292] And I had one and I got a little buzz and I had a second one.

[293] And then my mom came down.

[294] And I was clear.

[295] I wasn't drinking.

[296] I was having a little buzz.

[297] And then she said, look, if you're going to drink, I don't want you drinking.

[298] But if you're going to do it, do it in the house.

[299] Like, don't drive somewhere and do it.

[300] Like, it was that 70s thing of, at least he's doing it here.

[301] You know, he's not hurting anybody, so fine, you know.

[302] Yeah, completely.

[303] So there was that, it was just a whole different attitude.

[304] And that, although now, there's a weirdly different attitude, I think now with Gen X parents, because the idea of pot being any kind of thing that you would either catch your kids with or that it would ruin your life is so a thing of yesteryear.

[305] Mm -hmm.

[306] Yeah.

[307] Our daughter doesn't smoke weed, doesn't want to smoke weed, but I just don't ever see it being any kind of big deal down the road.

[308] It just isn't a big deal anymore.

[309] That's just gone now.

[310] No one cares.

[311] And there's no taboo really on it.

[312] So it's not like you want to sneak out and do something your parents don't agree with.

[313] Because your parents don't really give a shit.

[314] Yeah, exactly.

[315] And again, I'd rather have my kids smoking weed than drinking.

[316] Yeah, definitely.

[317] Although I will say, I don't want to sound like a fuddy -duddy.

[318] I don't smoke weed anymore, but my friends who smoke weed now are like, and these are all pot smokers.

[319] and they're saying, I can't believe I'm saying this.

[320] If my kids do smoke, the weed that they have now, I would like for me to be there to regulate it a little bit because smoking a whole joint, it's not the same as smoking a whole joint when we were 20.

[321] This is powerful steam roller level stuff.

[322] Yes.

[323] This is not stems and seeds, swag.

[324] This is fucking...

[325] It's intense.

[326] Also, it's this, we live in this reality, and I think of it all the time.

[327] I think the three of us were super Stephen Nguer.

[328] King nerds when we were kids, right?

[329] Patton, it's one of the first things you and I bonded on, I think, was just like listing out.

[330] And I believe it was from The Running Man when there's that woman in her car and she's so stressed out from her day and the traffic and she goes to a vending machine and gets joints.

[331] And I remember reading that when I was like 15 of like, that's amazing.

[332] And now like your kid drives around and there's the pot store here, the pot store, there are these beautiful, they look like bakeries.

[333] Oh, my God.

[334] Gorgeous.

[335] They look gorgeous.

[336] Is that a lamp store?

[337] No, they sell weed there.

[338] It's like, it's crazy.

[339] It's the future.

[340] Yeah, I remember a friend of mine pointing out that there was, again, this panic about, well, if we legalized weed, it's just going to be in stores.

[341] Kids are going to go in and buy it.

[342] I'm like, well, there are cigarettes and beer and gas stations.

[343] I can buy them, but I don't, it doesn't mean that, oh, my God, I guess I got to buy.

[344] Just because it doesn't mean that everyone will run in and buy it.

[345] I drive by weed stores all the time.

[346] It's weird you mention Stephen King because my daughter, who is 12, because of Stranger Things, has now reverse engineered herself into Stephen King.

[347] So I have to review when she was like eight, I read her eyes of the dragon, which is his young adult novel.

[348] That's his little good for kids.

[349] But she really, really likes his writing.

[350] So she's like, I want to read some of this stuff.

[351] So I had to like skim back through a lot of the stuff that I read at her age.

[352] And again, that wonderful 1970s parental neglect, I re -read the stand, which I read when I was 10.

[353] Oh, my God.

[354] And I'm like, oh, my God, how was I allowed to read this?

[355] And I was like, sweetie, I can't have you read the stand.

[356] But I did let her read the Institute, which is like stranger things, but a little grittier.

[357] And now she's reading the talisman, the one that he wrote with Peter Straub.

[358] And I think next year I'll let her read Salem's lot.

[359] Like, I have to now be careful about, because what was okay for me, maybe not okay for her right now.

[360] Maybe let's ease her into it a little bit.

[361] Kujo?

[362] Maybe a nice doggy story would be okay?

[363] Well, except Kudjo, I re -skim through Kudu.

[364] Yes, it is a really cool, tense story, but there's a whole ugly part of the middle, which makes me wonder a little bit about what Stephen King was going through at the time where the wife is having a really gross affair with this failed hack writer who doesn't he come into their house and like jerk off on their bed?

[365] Oh, God!

[366] I blocked all of this out.

[367] Yes, exactly.

[368] At like 12 or 13, I read Gerald's game.

[369] Oh, what?

[370] What the fuck?

[371] That's like straight up bondage, rape.

[372] Yes!

[373] Where was my mother?

[374] Where was my mother?

[375] Yeah.

[376] So, yeah, there was, again, there was stuff that just at the time, it was, well, it's a big bestseller, and it's just monsters.

[377] What's the big deal?

[378] It's a book.

[379] Yeah, like, my daughter wants to read Carrie, and I was like, we're going to wait until you're out of high school, because that's going to kind of fuck you up, especially now, you know.

[380] Didn't Stephen King write Kujo when he was blacked out?

[381] Like, he doesn't remember writing it.

[382] Yes.

[383] I love that.

[384] I just gave my daughter the book on writing, which is his memoir about writing, which is actually this.

[385] Great.

[386] And there was a funny onion op -ed about 20 years ago of, I don't remember writing the Tommy Knockers.

[387] Like, ha, ha, because, and the joke was, I write so many books, don't remember it.

[388] But on writing, he goes, I do not remember writing Kujo, Christine, or the Tommy Knockers, because he was so whacked out of his head.

[389] And the Tommy Knockers is a brilliant book about overcoming cocaine addiction.

[390] He just hides it as alien.

[391] But it's about being a cocaine addict.

[392] That's what the whole book is about.

[393] God damn.

[394] I got to go back and read these again.

[395] Yeah.

[396] I know.

[397] I'm getting so excited about this said conversation because I was going to say, What about Fire Starter?

[398] Ooh.

[399] Fire Starter is very much.

[400] That'll be one that I'll let her read.

[401] The only thing about Fire Starter is there's a very weird section where this psychiatrist who is studying the kid who can start fires has a weird sexual kink where he puts on ladies underwear and then jerks off while he looks at a garbage disposal running.

[402] It's this whole thing.

[403] Oh, yes, that's right.

[404] And then the father does a weird mental push on the guy to make him.

[405] him shove his hand into the thing while he's jerking.

[406] I'm like, yeah, I'm going to weird.

[407] It's totally strangeer things.

[408] It's strangeer things with a weird jerking off to a garbage disposal fetish.

[409] I literally think about that part of that book every time I use my garbage disposal.

[410] I literally sit there and go, don't put your hand in that.

[411] Please don't put your hand in that.

[412] It's so fucked up.

[413] I feel like if you just grab a Sharpie, go through each and everyone, and just, I feel like it'll be half the book.

[414] Redacted.

[415] No jerking off.

[416] No jerking off.

[417] Don't need this.

[418] Don't need this.

[419] Well, I'm going to have her read the novella, the body.

[420] I think that one's good.

[421] And then she'll watch Stand By Me. I'm a little old...

[422] I mean, Fire Starter is just R -rated Stranger Things.

[423] It's just Stranger Things with some serious violence and sex in it.

[424] What about it?

[425] I feel like it's similar, but it's so much scarier.

[426] Guys, listen.

[427] It has aged.

[428] They basically defeat the monster by kind of gang rape things.

[429] the girl at the end?

[430] Why am I forgetting all of this?

[431] And I'm like, I don't know if this is the best thing.

[432] All right.

[433] You know what?

[434] There are other authors.

[435] There are great books out today for kids.

[436] Let's...

[437] By the way, there are great Stephen King novels.

[438] I just have to be careful what...

[439] I don't...

[440] Because I, Karen and I just had it all thrown right at us.

[441] Like, yeah, get a nice monster book.

[442] They don't know any better.

[443] And now we're like...

[444] I mean, and I remember when I, even when I I was reading it, which I think I read, that didn't come out to, like, the late 80s.

[445] I was in high school.

[446] But even then, I was like, this is a little fucking weird.

[447] I don't know what's going on here.

[448] They're all fucking the girl.

[449] And also, I almost like kind of expected it or knew that there was always going to be a part that freaked me out more than the scary stuff.

[450] Yes, always.

[451] That was troubling.

[452] But ultimately, the part that I was like, he did not have to make it a big giant spider.

[453] I really don't like that.

[454] Yes.

[455] I don't like it.

[456] Not to be a big nerd, but in his first memoir, Donce McCarre, he talked about if you have something scratching on the other side of the door, but you never show what it is, the reader's mind goes insane from fear.

[457] And if you open the door and it's a 10 -foot spider, they freak out for two seconds.

[458] And then they go, well, if it had been a hundred foot spider, that would have been worse.

[459] Now, if you then open the door and it's a hundred foot spider, they would have gone, oh, my God.

[460] And then they would have gone, but if it was a thousand foot spider, so he would have been, He broke his own rule at the end of it by having it be a big spider.

[461] Yeah.

[462] Well, look, maybe he was drunk.

[463] When I get drunk, I just watch fucking trailer park boys, but apparently he writes novels.

[464] Well, not only, like, even his drunk novels are fucking amazing.

[465] There's parts in Kujo.

[466] There's a whole section about the guy with the breakfast cereal that turns kids shit red, and he shows how it moves through the culture.

[467] Like, before there were memes, he shows like it becomes a George Carlin.

[468] routine and then Johnny Carson talks about it and then it becomes a t -shirt like he shows how something becomes a meme and the fact that he was writing that during a drunken blackout yeah that's a level of genius I can't even begin to imagine yeah a drunken blackout what I guess now it would be almost 50 years before it was a real thing yes yes it was incredible like a true visionary in his memoir he would he said during that time he would wake up he would drink a bottle of nine quilt for breakfast.

[469] That was his breakfast was a bottle of NyQuil.

[470] Then he would do coke all day and just and, you know, that's what he's, and he was, that's also when he was writing so many novels that his agent said, you're flooding the market.

[471] This will hurt your sales.

[472] Think of a pseudonym.

[473] And he wrote four other novels under a fucking pseudonym.

[474] He's just, he's this force of nature.

[475] He really is.

[476] Yeah.

[477] Yeah.

[478] Yeah.

[479] It was amazing.

[480] I was reading one book on a plane one time and I remember getting this weird feeling because I knew technically I was reading, but it felt like I was thinking the story.

[481] That's how smooth and beautiful the writing was where, because sometimes I think whether it's like an ADD thing or whatever where I almost have to put like a bookmark under and trace it down so that I don't skip.

[482] So do I. Yeah.

[483] And that never happens with his books because it's like my eyes are ingesting the story.

[484] Yes.

[485] He never ever loses you.

[486] And it's why a lot of, That's why a lot of his audio books are so fun to listen to, even if you've read the book, because they bring you in from a Buick 8, which is a novel told from like eight different points of view.

[487] So for the audiobook, they got eight different actors, brilliant, like Bruce Davidson and the mom from freaks and geeks to do each part.

[488] And you never, like, I remember listening to that book on tape, I would get to meetings and I would go in late because I was sitting there like, I can't, I need to know what happens here.

[489] I can't, like, go in.

[490] And I would go in like 10 minutes late.

[491] and like, this audio book I really like it, I'm sorry.

[492] I love that.

[493] I know that when I don't mind sitting in traffic or when I actually get my ass out and hike, that means I'm really into the audio book I'm listening to.

[494] That's the only way I'll hike or enjoy traffic, like, period.

[495] The best.

[496] This is our new Stephen King podcast.

[497] This is, wow.

[498] Ladies and gentlemen, look for us.

[499] Nice listening to Hail to the King.

[500] And I was also, there was a bit of a, I'm going to admit that there was a bit of a daddy bragging when I let her read the Institute because I'm mentioned in it.

[501] So I'm part of, I'm in the Kingverse now.

[502] So that was like a, hey, I enjoy this.

[503] And then I was waiting for like a few days later, she goes, Daddy, that's you.

[504] I was like, yeah, you know, it's weird.

[505] I just kind of showed up in there.

[506] That is so cool.

[507] That's really bad.

[508] Yeah.

[509] But if you had told 10 -year -old me who was like reading the stand and like, my friends and I would argue as to who you would cast in the stand, that's all the different parts.

[510] Like that would go back and forth and, you know, oh, Stu Redmond, that's Bruce Brinstein, man. Like, we would just back everyone that has to be that person.

[511] Did you watch the most recent version?

[512] I did.

[513] I, it was, it'll never be as good as the movie in your head.

[514] No, yeah.

[515] That's the thing about a writer that good, is that you've already watched this movie.

[516] And you've watched a great movie.

[517] You're right.

[518] I've watched a great movie.

[519] I don't need to, yeah.

[520] Yeah, you're right.

[521] Right.

[522] And also, in my mind, it is set in the late 70s, even though he has it set in 85 when he first wrote it.

[523] But Brandon Goldsmith always has long Jan Brady type hair and there's a hot 70s girl and the Larry Underwood is that kind of Jerry Rafferty kind of rocker.

[524] Like that kind of look.

[525] Yes, exactly.

[526] Like, I just had that in my head.

[527] Can't be any different.

[528] Yeah, they already look like someone.

[529] And then suddenly there's someone else on the screen.

[530] You're like, that's not them.

[531] Right.

[532] And also, I know how Baby Can You Dig Your Man Goes.

[533] I probably could play it on the guitar.

[534] I should do a cover of that song.

[535] Why don't, why haven't you done?

[536] You should absolutely do that.

[537] That will be the theme song for the podcast.

[538] This is all working out for the new podcast that we just made for our new podcast.

[539] It's called.

[540] Baby can you dig your cast?

[541] Baby can you pod your cast?

[542] That's what it's going to be called.

[543] Karen, you know I'm all about vintage shopping.

[544] Absolutely.

[545] And when you say, you know, I'm all about vintage shopping.

[546] Absolutely.

[547] And when you say, say vintage, you mean when you physically drive to a store and actually purchase something with cash?

[548] Exactly.

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[565] That's Shopify .com slash murder.

[566] Goodbye.

[567] Okay, wait, are you going to give us your third story?

[568] What's the third one?

[569] Okay, well, this is one, this is sort of connected to my family a little bit.

[570] So I can name some names in this one.

[571] It's very, very strange.

[572] I wrote down as much as I could.

[573] My uncle Pete, who suffered from schizophrenia, but still a really nice guy.

[574] But when he was growing up, he grew up around Mount Washington outside of D .C. or he grew up in that rainier it was some neighborhood near washington dc and his priest his neighborhood priest father bowen suddenly left the diocese and went had to travel to the Midwest to do something and then when he came back he was really as my uncle pete said very very messed up and clearly something had gone horribly wrong turns out that his parish priest also my mom's parents parish priest and my, you know, my grandparents, was the priest that went out, I believe it was in Nebraska in the 50s or 60s and did the exorcism that the exorcist is based on.

[575] He is the guy, he's the basis for Father Marin, and he went and did something and came back and, of course, the only one who remembers it is my, was my schizophrenic uncle who popped away, but I guess it really, there was some kind of weird connection.

[576] And then there was also a the local case, although the kid was just schizophrenic, but at the time, they thought it was demonic possession.

[577] And he also, Father Bowen handled that one.

[578] I didn't know if I had the timeline correct.

[579] I think he did the local one first, then went out to the Midwest, and the Midwest was apparently the real deal, or it was something really, really messed up, and then he came back.

[580] It was never the same that eventually just kind of vanished.

[581] So there's a weird connection in my family to the case that the exorcist is based on, which to me is...

[582] I want to know everything.

[583] about what he saw an experience?

[584] The fact that I messed him up is crazy.

[585] It was their priest, and because of the times, it was way easier to just cover things up and let them fall down a memory hole back then.

[586] Nowadays, it's weird.

[587] I was saying, because I'm back on the road again doing shows, and a lot of my friends are saying, is it weird out there?

[588] And I was like, no, you know, when you're back out on the road, I'm paraphrasing Bobcat Goldpoint, you go back out in the road and you realize, oh, Twitter and the Internet, isn't the world.

[589] There's the same amount of craziness.

[590] There's just way more cameras filming everything.

[591] And there just weren't cameras.

[592] There weren't as many cameras back then.

[593] So a lot of stuff just became weird, half legends or half information, which makes it even more sinister and weird.

[594] The fact that we don't have all that chronicled.

[595] Yeah, it's almost like all the urban legends that we, in like the 70s, 80s, up until the 90s, we all just pass them around and you know what I mean?

[596] I've told Georgia about the nights where you and Blaine would bring over the VHS copies that basically was beginning of YouTube of like here's the orchestra that falls through the stage here's the farting preacher here's this and it was like Blaine and Patton would bring us YouTube and we'd lay around in someone's living room and watch these viral videos before any of that existed.

[597] But once the internet started, like I can remember multiple times where youngsters that we did comedy with, I would tell some story, be like, that's an urban legend, that's not true, and they'd immediately just look it up and hold it up where I'm like, you mean, I have to retire my old story that I love to tell the children?

[598] It's like, no, you're a liar.

[599] That was never really the truth.

[600] Well, back then, instead of making it an article in The Guardian, they would make a fucking fictional movie about it and just like blow it out of proportion a little bit, but also make it the raddest thing ever.

[601] Yeah, exactly.

[602] I mean, again, I'm sure the real deal was the kid was probably suffering from some insane, like, profound form of schizophrenia or mental illness, but the parents and whatever the medical establishment at the time wasn't able to deal with it and it passed over into what felt like demonic possession or dark powers, which I'm sure a lot of stuff does, although now it feels like there's a big section of the population that is like, I would rather not be a part of the 21st century.

[603] I would like to be in an era of dark powers where I can blame things and categorize it rather than have it all laid out.

[604] Like it's frightening to go into the future.

[605] So some people just go, nope, there's a weird conspiracy and it's, there are, as we're talking right now, there's people gathered in Dealey Plaza waiting for Robin Williams and Kobe Bryant to reappear.

[606] And with JFK Jr. Because they believe that it's all been faked and we're living in a simulation.

[607] When actually what they really just want is like a meetup.

[608] They're just lonely.

[609] They're lonely and they want connection and they want someone to go, I understand why you're afraid.

[610] I am too.

[611] I can't remember my password and I'm using an iPhone 4.

[612] Like that's really what we're dealing with.

[613] But the media keeps going, no, no, no, you know, let's keep on filming these people grouped up.

[614] And it's like, to me, it's such an expression of kind of like modern loneliness.

[615] and once you fall behind, you feel like you are obsolete.

[616] You're a living ghost.

[617] Like, do I even exist in this world right now?

[618] If I don't have, if I didn't do the latest update on my, with my acts, do I exist, am I part of this?

[619] Yeah, it is really weird.

[620] And also, Michigan, it sounds a little dark and weird, but just follow me. Stay with me on this for a second.

[621] I wonder how many of the famous serial killers and mass murder in history would not have gone down the serial killer mass murder tunnel if they had had some social media.

[622] Even if it was a poisonous form of connection, I will bet you a lot of the people on these QAnon threads and these alt -right threads, if they didn't have those threads, we'll be doing way worse stuff.

[623] As it is now, they're just participating in a creepy larp, and it is creepy, and it's false, but maybe the good in it is that they're not feeling completely isolated.

[624] and killing people.

[625] Is that a weird thing to say?

[626] Well, no, camaraderie is a huge part of the social fabric.

[627] Right.

[628] And it's necessary.

[629] So that makes total sense.

[630] Yeah.

[631] There's very little, like, you can find common groups online no matter what your thing is.

[632] So if it's like Stephen King obsessives, we could have all found each other.

[633] And then if it's the thing where I need you to see.

[634] theorize modern life down to this insane thing and make me get fired up about it and try to fight what I think is one singular evil as opposed to the entire scary, awful world where bad things happen constantly.

[635] Exactly.

[636] Or stuff is just random and sometimes totally nice people have horrible things happen to them.

[637] And we're seeing, again, because there's cameras everywhere, we are now seeing that a lot of blatantly evil people just absolutely don't get punished.

[638] and never face the consequence.

[639] So it really makes, especially like action movies and superhero movies, look like the prayers that they are.

[640] You know, can't something come out of the sky with superpowers and punish the evil people and lift up the good people because it ain't happening in our reality.

[641] No. I'm watching people openly breaking the law and nothing's happening to them.

[642] And that's scary.

[643] I mean, a lot of the stories we tell on the podcast, there is no justice or there are, you know, such huge gaps in people getting, you know, what they deserve in terms of punishment, that it's just like, where do you find that in the world to make you not feel like everything is a fucking mess?

[644] But I think, and we've talked about this before, I think the good part of that is that there is something to opening your eyes to the fact that this is a real thing.

[645] So no longer do black people have to try to tell anybody else, cops pull us over for no reason and threaten our lives.

[646] that used to be a okay, easy, you know, the rationalization of that kind of daily, like, abuse of rights and justice is now inarguable.

[647] Yeah.

[648] And it should have never been argued, but no longer does anyone get to say anything about it other than, holy shit, this has to change.

[649] And it just started, you know, that awareness.

[650] Yeah, we're just at the beginning of it.

[651] And so what we're seeing, I think, right now is the beginning of this massive tree.

[652] is being shown to everyone.

[653] And just like human honors and climate deniers, sometimes that truth is so massive that it's easier and makes us a better go, I think it's all fake.

[654] I just don't think it's...

[655] I know people that I grew up with, unfortunately, that are on Facebook that are like, this is all fake footage, it's not real.

[656] Because it's too big to accept.

[657] It's so scary.

[658] Way too big.

[659] And same with climate change feels so massive, but what you can control, is, but I can control who goes into a bathroom.

[660] And maybe if I do that, Jesus will fix the other thing.

[661] If I do this weird ritualistic thing, and by the way, I'm just as guilty of it.

[662] If I have a massive writing deadline, never are my bookshel that's more organized than when I have pages to turn in.

[663] I had writing to do this morning.

[664] I don't know if you can see, but I basically, my daughter has this thing of like costumes back here.

[665] So I organized all this to donate to a school.

[666] and didn't write a single page of what I was supposed to write today.

[667] So there you go.

[668] Did you bring the steamer over there and like, this snow white dress has wrinkles in it?

[669] Let's fix this up.

[670] No, I didn't do that.

[671] I probably could have done that.

[672] But no, I have a friend who works with like, you know, public schools and stuff like that.

[673] We're just going to donate this.

[674] She collects Halloween costumes and she makes stuff.

[675] And I'm like, you've grown everything.

[676] Let's donate them.

[677] So there you go.

[678] Yeah.

[679] Well, that's an important thing too.

[680] I feel like that writing is important.

[681] But, you know, you're doing.

[682] something for the greater good here.

[683] Oh, dear God.

[684] I'm hoping.

[685] You're accomplished.

[686] But that's the same thing.

[687] It's like, you know, you can't, there's something big.

[688] I'll do this little thing that I can control.

[689] Yeah.

[690] Can I just say one final thing?

[691] Because you telling your story about Uncle Pete.

[692] And I believe this is, I know this from your book, although it could be just from watching you do stand up for fucking 40 years.

[693] No offense.

[694] Wow.

[695] A little hurtful, but okay.

[696] You're, you told you.

[697] the beautiful story, but your Uncle Pete had a spot that he used to sit at on the front porch and kind of just sat there silently and he was basically a fixture in this spot.

[698] And when your Uncle Pete died, people came and, oh God, it killed me on your phone.

[699] They came and put 7 -11 cups of coffee or Wawa.

[700] No, it was the 7 -Eleven little cup of coffee that he had and they put a little cup of coffee there because that's where he was.

[701] Yep.

[702] Like strangers that the family didn't know, But people who walked by who knew him as the guy that sat there, found out he died and gave him this little tribute and this honor.

[703] And it got me, it's such a beautiful story of like, that's the kind of thing.

[704] Those are the kind of connections that people have to remember.

[705] And we don't get them now.

[706] We've all been locked up in our houses for so long.

[707] But like, that's the key right there.

[708] Yeah.

[709] This Halloween, someone put a flyer in our mailbox saying, we're going to attempt to do trick -or -treating in the neighborhood.

[710] if you want to leave your lights on or put a decoration out so we know.

[711] And I got so fired it up, not because, and like three groups of trick -or -treaters came by in that two -hour window, but it was talking to the other parents, where do you live?

[712] You're like three of them.

[713] And it was good to see everyone.

[714] And it felt like if anything, that's going to bring back sanity way quicker than anything that MoveOn .org or the Lincoln Project will do online.

[715] It's just, can use Macle your neighbor's store.

[716] And I'm for some of those neighbors We're probably Trump voters But when it comes down to it I just wanted my kids to go trick -or -treating It's fun I'm like, yeah, this is great And I put some decorations out and here we go Like I don't know It's really nice so Yeah Yeah especially in this fucking in the past two years Oh my God, yeah Do you guys live in good trick -or -treating neighborhoods or no Mm -mm I live on like So Vince and I sat we do like Our neighbors know us now Because we do garage beers We're just sit in our garage and drink beers and then they walk by and we make them talk to us.

[717] And if they don't talk to us, we judge them.

[718] So everyone knows our dog.

[719] Now we know everyone's dog.

[720] So we did that and had a couple people walk by and I got more excited than I should have and scared them.

[721] Right.

[722] But yeah, I live on like a quiet street.

[723] But all I want is a block party.

[724] Yes.

[725] I want to live in a block party neighborhood.

[726] Do a black party for God too.

[727] By the way, how?

[728] And you're on a cul -de -sac, so no one comes around probably.

[729] Cullesack and a hill.

[730] The old combo.

[731] It's like, if someone came to my door, I'd be like, here, let me just write you a check for $100 because, you made it.

[732] Son, you've earned it.

[733] Yes.

[734] Go buy yourself some arch support.

[735] You made it up here, man. You could need some knee braces, some copper -based knee braces after this.

[736] How excited and nostalgic did you guys get when the great, our modern version of the poison, trick -a -tree candy popped up this year where everyone thought that people were going to hand out edibles with all my friends who do edibles were like, I would not buy edibles and give them to a bunch of just not those kids.

[737] What that are these people thinking?

[738] I mean, yeah.

[739] There was a genius tweet where someone's like, no one likes your shitty kid enough to give away $40 pot, gum, sour patch kids or whatever.

[740] It was so hilariously.

[741] This thing that sucks also about always being on Twitter, I remember the tweets and I do not remember.

[742] Unless it's a friend of mine, I don't remember who wrote it.

[743] And that one was like, you're shitty kids.

[744] No one's going to give your shitty kids some free edibles.

[745] Don't worry about it.

[746] No one's interested.

[747] There was an actual true crime story.

[748] And I don't know if you guys covered this in the vaults of my favorite murder.

[749] But a father did, I believe in the 80s, tried to poison his kid with candy and used the cover of, oh, he was given poison Halloween candy, not realizing that even the police were like, this was a no one does this, and that's how they caught the guy.

[750] Pixie sticks.

[751] He tried to...

[752] Georgia did that one.

[753] Pixie sticks.

[754] Oh, you did it?

[755] Yeah, he tried to purloin letter it and hide it in plain sight and backfired.

[756] And actually, my husband Vince, who's, you know, from five years younger than me, so 70s, 80s, they had to a couple years had to take their candy to the police station to get it, um, x -rayed, or what is it, like, metal detected.

[757] Yeah, because around this time and tell everyone I was like, this not real.

[758] Yeah.

[759] Literally.

[760] He tells that story every year.

[761] It's like, that's what it was like back then.

[762] Paranoia.

[763] We had a genius story of going up, and it was like someone's older girl cousin who was the, like, standing at the end of the walkway waiting for us as six and seven -year -olds walked up to trick -or -treat.

[764] And this one house, it was the littlest old lady.

[765] And she was like, hello, oh, don't you look so cute?

[766] And she was talking to us.

[767] and she gave each of us, like, a powdered sugar -covered homemade cookie.

[768] And so we walked back with it in our hands, like, we kind of didn't know what to do.

[769] And we walked up to the teenage girl of, like, she gave us this.

[770] And she hit both of our hands and the cookies fling out.

[771] She was like, I don't eat that.

[772] Wipe your hands.

[773] It was fucking hilarious.

[774] Like, the most apathetic teen.

[775] And suddenly she, like, slaps them out of our hands.

[776] Like, you're not eating that.

[777] Oh, my God.

[778] I hope that didn't happen all night.

[779] And the next morning, this old woman goes down to, like, get the milk and they're just cookies everywhere.

[780] Like, the neighborhood hates me. Oh, God, no. That's what I was thinking, too.

[781] She didn't pre -wrap her cook you.

[782] She didn't think it through.

[783] She was very old.

[784] She was from the 1800s.

[785] She was a ghost.

[786] She was a ghost.

[787] She was a ghost.

[788] We have kept you so much longer than we said we would.

[789] I'm sorry.

[790] We went down the best rabbit holes on this one, man. Just wonderful.

[791] I will update you guys as to where Alice is on her Stephen King reading, but she's just heard of the talisman and then more stuff is on the way.

[792] So, yeah.

[793] Love it.

[794] That's so exciting.

[795] Well, of course, everyone knows your Netflix special, Pat and Oswald.

[796] I love everything.

[797] But you want to talk about real quick your upcoming tour?

[798] It's so exciting.

[799] Yes.

[800] My upcoming tour, I am going to be, woo -hoo.

[801] On December 3rd, I'll be at the Uptown.

[802] theater in Kansas City, and the following night, I'll be at the pageant in St. Louis.

[803] And then the next weekend, I go out on a Friday, I come back on the Sunday.

[804] That's it.

[805] I cannot do the long Bob Seeger, you know, just the dream of an engine for weeks and weeks.

[806] I can't do that anymore.

[807] We got it.

[808] We got it.

[809] Yeah.

[810] The final weekend, I'll be at the Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

[811] That dude built halls everywhere, I guess.

[812] And then, of course, the fabulous Agora in Cleveland, Ohio.

[813] So, So go to Patten Oswald .com for tickets, and then, of course, listen to the incredible, did you get my text with Meredith and Patton podcast?

[814] Yes.

[815] In 2022, baby, can you pod your cast?

[816] It'll be the old Stephen King all the time.

[817] We have to have some creative meetings.

[818] We have to get through some contract stuff.

[819] We have to pitch it to our own network and make sure that are.

[820] We can't get it by ourselves.

[821] We have to pitch it to Stephen King himself.

[822] We've got to get the handwritten approval.

[823] This was a delight.

[824] Thank you so much.

[825] Thank you.

[826] So much to have me on.

[827] I love it.

[828] Yay.

[829] Amazing.

[830] Bye.

[831] Elvis, do you want a cookie?

[832] This has been an exactly right production.

[833] Our producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.

[834] Our associate producer is Alejandra Keck.

[835] Engineered and mixed by Andrew Eepin.

[836] Send us your hometowns at my favorite murder at gmail .com.

[837] Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at My Fave Murder.

[838] For more information about the podcast, live shows, merch, or to join the fancult, go to My Favorite Murder .com.

[839] And please rate, review, and subscribe.

[840] Goodbye.

[841] Goodbye.