Stephen King's Genius

You know he became, he was it once for Stephen King's movie It. He was the It. Oh really? Yeah yeah. I'm afraid to watch those. Have you ever seen the original, the original TV one? Which it was, it wasn't as scary as the, yeah. That's Tim Curry as Pennywise in the 1990. Wow. Yeah, I would never watch that. And it's a good example, but it's not. I like him over there. I know, but that one, the TV 1990, It is not that scary. Any of them are scary. My mom used to read the book and she'd have it, it was like this thick. And we would always tease her like, did you finish It yet? Like what is that about? Like we just, we didn't understand it. And then the movie came out and we were like, yeah, we're not watching that. I used to have to take the Tea from my house to Boston. I lived in Newton and I'd take it to Boston when I was a teenager. Okay. What do you mean the Tea? The Tea. It was like the Boston version of the transit system. Oh, the Tea. Jesus, Joe. That's what they call it. I drink iced tea. I'm literally like, what, the Boston Tea Party? Where are we going? Sorry. I thought like, you know, the other side. Okay, I'm sorry. We have the L. Sorry, we have the L. Stephen King books. And I read like basically every Stephen King book from like Lawn Mower Man. I read like some of the short stories. Yeah, my mom's obsessed. All the Richard Bachman books. I read all of them. It was one of the weirdest ones. It's a weird. Yeah, and it's giant. It's like, what is going on here? It's a weapon for you on the Tea. What's going on in your head, man? Wow. What's going on in your head that you're inventing this fucking clown that eats kids? Yeah, if you look into that, would that, I don't know, that's scary. Stephen King had so many books like that. Didn't he have a lot of trauma around him? For sure. Well, you know, he grew up in Maine. It's hard living up there, okay? And he grew up poor. He didn't have any money. I've read Stephen King on writing. It's an amazing book because it tells you not just how he writes and what he thinks about writing, but also it tells you about sort of the history of his career and how difficult it was. And when he sold, I think it was Carrie. It's been a while since I've read the book. But I think Carrie was like the first big sale that he had. I think it was. And all of a sudden, he was wealthy. And the fact that they were trying to look at the numbers and they thought the numbers were wrong on the first check they got, like what is happening? Oh, wow. Yeah. It's a crazy story because he was struggling. He was teaching and he was writing these books. That's how writers do. They struggle like that. But then you strike gold like he did. Carrie was great. Dirty pillows. So funny. Did you ever? I read when she went to the prom and her boobs were out. Why have your dirty pillows out? Dirty pillows. The fuck? That's one of those things that it's almost better if you just read it. I used to think that was a stupid idea. Yeah. But there's a way that he describes things in the books that's open to the imagination. My mom says the same thing. She's like, oh, this whole scene lacks because blah, blah, you know. And I'm like, whatever, lady. I'm not reading. If someone could capture it all visually, that's better, right? But can they capture it visually the way that we... I don't know. I think there's certain things it's like... The way a writer writes, like a guy like Stephen King, you feel the... You have access to the thoughts that these characters have. You have access to everything. You have access to not just their actions and how it plays out. You can't even actually see it, so you have to imagine it, which sort of stimulates your imagination. But you're also getting access to their very thoughts. There's weird parts of writing that are almost more descriptive than seeing it. Because when you're seeing it and hearing it, it's pretty cool, right? You watch a great movie with great effects and shit, and you're seeing it and hearing it. It's cool. But when you're reading it, there's a weird thing that's happening where you have to fill in the blank and it stimulates your mind in a different way. And Stephen King was the master of that. If you read his shit and then you watch his movies, you're like, the movies are... He made some goddamn amazing movies. No doubt about it. Carrie freaked me out. To me, Carrie was detailed enough. But if I was reading the book, I probably would never sleep. I think that was a book, rather, he doesn't remember writing. Oh, really? I'm pretty sure. Was he on Adderall? No, he was... Sorry, that was a callback. He was drinking like crazy. I think that was one of the ones. I think it was Carrie and maybe Christine. Oh, Christine's great. Maybe it was Kujo. Maybe the C word. It's a C word. I think it was Kujo. I think it was... He got stuck on C's. I think I got stuck on a C. But there's so many good books, man. But I think it was Kujo. I think Kujo he wrote when he was so high and so fucked up, he literally just doesn't remember writing it. It is funny, just to get stuck on a letter. Listen, I'm not a fucking... I'm not the person to come to. What could we call this? What could we call the dog? There it is. Stephen King discusses Kujo on writing, referring to as a novel he barely remembers writing at all. That's it. There it is. King wrote the book during the height of his struggle with alcohol addiction or killing it. Right. Daniel Sundisay, he likes the book and wishes he could remember enjoying the good parts as he put them on the page. Wow. It's a great fucking book, though. That's amazing. Reading that book, I think, would be insanely crazy because even watching the movie, you get frustrated. You're like, do this, do that. The movie's not good. No, yeah. It's not good. It's not the best. But you're like, why didn't they just do this? Or why didn't they do this? But maybe in the book, it had more tension or something. What I was going to say is the movie's not good at expressing the layers and layers of fear and recognition that this dog who was your lovable pet is now going to kill you. It's too hard to do. It's too hard to do in a movie. It's too hard to do. It takes too much time. If you're reading a book, it's like, what's the average amount of time it takes to read a book like Cujo? Like, how many pages is Cujo? I'm going to say, let me guess, 396 pages. No. 309. Really? Damn. Oh, maybe I'm- I was off by 100. It's terrible. Five percent off. I knew I was getting to the 309. To be honest- 309. It wasn't that bad. I was thinking higher. I was thinking like five. I don't know why, but I was thinking it was way higher. Well, then you get into like the stand. Right, because I'm thinking of all those books on my mom's shelf. The stand is really long. How long is the stand? Have you ever read that? I've never finished that. I'm not a big reader. I've read quite a bit of it, and then I bail. Yeah, I don't- 823. 823. Yeah, no way. That's what I'm saying. I'm not gonna cut versions, so 300 more pages. Holy shit. You know what got me into reading, though? Like that kind of story, that style of book is The Hobbit. My mom or my stepdad, I can't remember which one, gave me The Hobbit in like the 70s. Okay. And I read that and I was like, whoa, what a crazy book. And then there was a movie. There was like a Hobbit animated movie that came out in like the late 70s. It's like whack old school animation. We can tell people who draw on it. You can see their hands. You're like, why are we- That's what got me into those kind of books, though. But I remember going through puberty, my mom gave me Little Women, and I was like, is there a movie? I can't. Little Women. Yeah, right. I think I did read Little Women. There was like a three box set or something. Well, when I was a kid, when I was stuck on the train all the time, headed into the city, there's no phones. You didn't have a phone. Right. So you had to read a book. Like there was no other options. So it was like for me, it was always like either Stephen King shit or whatever I could find that was interesting. Watch the entire episode for free only on Spotify.