The Body (from Different Seasons) by Stephen King – Episode 5
The buddies discuss Stephen Kings Novella (not short story) and dive into their favorite characters. They talk Good Will Hunting parallels (in their Boston accents), and the importance of cooking raw meat before it hits the danger zone. The buddies also touch on lighter topics such as physical abuse, the NRA, serial killers and projectile vomiting/shitting.
Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂
Hi. Welcome back to the Buddy Book Club. I’m Dylan here with my Treehouse teammate Keith. And each episode we’re going to be diving into a popular book, but we’re here to talk about the important stuff like is peeing your pants cool. What happens in Treehouses? And why the hell would anyone lay a five to one bet on Bill Travis to win the hiding contest? That sounds about right to you, Keith. Yes. This is not what we cover on every podcast, but this pertains for this actual book. Yes. Yeah. Well, for this episode, we’re going to be reading The Body by Stephen King virtually. So we’ve read if this is your first foray into Stephen King, this is like a short story he wrote. That was part of a
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collection. It was called Different Seasons. It’s along with Shawshank Redemption, which I’m sure a lot of people are familiar with Apps, Pupil and the breathing method. Keith, this is your first take into Stephen King, right. Correct. Yeah. I’ve read the Stand and some of his gunslinger stuff. So more of his like fantasy than Horry kind of suspense that he’s going for. And this is kind of neither of those. This is a coming of age story featuring 413 year old boys in southwestern Maine. The book takes place over a particularly hot summer weekend as the boys go on an adventure to find the body of another young boy who was lost in the Woods and presumably hit by a train. How fun. It’s kind of light reading material, right. Does that resemble your childhood? Yeah. Totally. I mean, you were like, this isn’t going to be a horror book, but it kind of has a horror book plot, or it could have been, at least. Yeah, it definitely could have been, but it’s not. It’s definitely coming. Yeah, for sure. Well, before we get deeper into this episode here, we like to start us off with a libation from the book itself. Sometimes we have to make these up based on the things that are happening in the book. Other times, the authors will just hand them right to us. I mean, the hunting party, which we did the last two episodes. There was endless options for drinks. This book was a little bit less, but I think we did find a winner. Some honorable mentions. Pop off vodka. Maybe it’s a Northeast thing, but that was definitely our shitty College vodka of choice. Did you ever take Pop off vodka and put it in a Gray goose bottle and tell people that you are high class? I didn’t. I mean, totally definitely didn’t do that. I definitely didn’t do that at all. No, we just mix it up into a delicious jungle juice. Pop up isn’t something you want to have on its own or mix it with something or it’s disgusting, for sure. But, hey, it’s cheap. If you’re one of our listeners that doesn’t particularly like alcoholic drinks, you came to the right place because Moxie, which is a delightful soda. Moxie is gross. Are you serious? Thing ever in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 18 years, it’s an interesting taste. I don’t want to hate on Massachusetts, Massachusetts soda producer, I apologize. I didn’t realize that. It’s great. It’s kind of bittersweet. Not for everyone. Great can, though. I mean, a bold Orange. Oh, got you. What else do you need? But I think our winner will be the purple Jesus. One and a half ounces of vodka, plus some grape juice, splash of ginger ale and some red grapes for garnish. I’m having one now. It’s interesting and delicious. I love grape juice, and I love ginger ale. So this works for me. Enjoy that. Down your gullet. While we get deeper into this show. Let’s start off because the book pretty much focuses on four main characters, Teddy, Chris, Verne, and Gory. These are the guys who were with the entire movie or the entire book. Excuse me. Out of these four, though, you have to pick your favorite child. Most parents say, oh, I don’t have a favorite child. We don’t have to worry about that because we don’t have any children. So out of these four boys who drove you the most. Yeah, I think Teddy was my number one. Him running away when they kind of got into a fight, and with the lightning going on, kind of soured me to him. So it’s between Chris and Teddy. I got to say, probably Teddy, just because everything he’s been through, basically, his dad treated him like a grilled cheese sandwich, fried his own that and him just being still respecting his dad. Still, like, kind of being one of the gang. I got to go with Teddy. What about his death tendencies? Aka running into traffic and trying to Dodge cars like that’s your boy? Listen, I always gravitate towards the wild card. The guy that’s kind of a sicko in their mind. That’s the person I kind of align with most. Not because I don’t know why that is, but that’s kind of character, I always think, is interesting. Someone that’s a fucking crazy person that wants to get hit, potentially by a train or by a car on the freeway. Just normal day stuff. He would have been great at Truth or Dare from the last book hunting party. He would have been like, they would have been like, Truth or dare. He’s like, I’m down, dare me. I’ll do anything. No problem. I like Teddy. I think he’s up there. He’s not a real mention for me. Okay. I love his zeal for the military. I mean, this book takes place in 1960, so World War II is 15 years in the past. These kids are 13. They’ve pretty much been growing up with war stories, war movies, all that kind of stuff. Teddy’s favorite person in the whole world is Audi Murphy, who was the most decorated us. I think American total combatant, not even an Army American combatant in World War II. He took a machine gun at one point and engaged an entire company of German Infantry single handedly. There used to be this great site. You’re talking about this guy? No, Audi Murphy. I mean, there was this old website that was great. It was a badass of the week. Com, and I used to read it every week. Audi Murphy was one of them when you were their age, or this was like yesterday. No, this was like yesterday. Okay, but Audrey Murphy fun fact that’s who Tarantino based Frederick Zoller, his character on Inglorious Bastards, swapped it from us to Germans. Okay, so I like Teddy, Teddy’s up there. But I think even though Gordy, who’s kind of the main character in this whole thing because he’s the one that’s writing the story, he’s a good shit. Smart guy, loves his friends much respect, but doesn’t really have that wild card aspect, which I agree with. And we have Chris as well. All these guys have some troubled family stuff that we may or may go through over this podcast. But Chris is just a good guy. You know what I mean? He as troubled as his home situation is. He just loves the shit out of Gordy and the rest of his friends, but especially Gordy. I don’t know. It’s tough because I want to say Chris here because he’s like, the Ben Affleck to Matt Damon in Goodwill Hunting. That’s exactly what I have. I think Goodwill Hunting stole this relationship from. They really did. Yeah, because that the whole time. He’s saying, Gordy, your writing is amazing. Like everyone else, like, oh, it’s a decent store. He’s like, Gordon, your writing is great. What are you going to do, stick around here with us? Bumps like, no, get out of here. You got to take your writing and go places. I am almost certain Matt Damon and Ben Affleck took this relationship to Goodwill Hunt. If you’re around here and you were fucking coming up by watching the Pats on Sundays, I’ll fucking kill you. That’s not a threat. I’ll fucking do it. Kim the best part of my day. So I show up to your house for 2 seconds before I have. I think you might not come outside. You might have done a better boss and accident than the affluent right there. That was good. That scene is essentially like, Chris pulls him aside and does the Goodwill hunting scene. I thought about that relationship beforehand. I was like, oh, this is kind of like Goodwill Hunting. And then when he does that speech to him, I was like, oh, this is word for word. Right before that, court had gone to the convenience store and was doing, like, math, equations and shit being the smartest dude in the room. And I was like, oh, right then I thought, wow, this guy’s kind of like, Will Hunting. And then the next scene is that he’s given that speech, I was like, Wait a second. Yeah, but unfortunately, neither one of those guys gets my nod. I’m going with Vern. Oh, my God. You know what? I’m a Vern guy. Vern is a sweetheart. All right? Vern is a sweetheart. He might not be bright. He might not be bright, like, Gordy, but the kids got a good heart. He’s the first one to console Teddy. After the junkyard incident, he goes up to Teddy, and he’s like, fucking hugging him and just being such a sweet kid. So that’s one, he’s got that childhood exuberance that you need on this trip. Everyone’s kind of, like on a mission. And he’s like, running over the track, paratroopers over the side. He’s having fun with it, which we respect. And the most important one is that he’s the only one of them that takes a minute while they’re walking to kind of look around and just say, how awesome is this? Like, guys, this is amazing. Look what we’re doing. This is so cool. And we need more of that in our lots. We need more of it, like, enjoying the moment, taking a break and to have someone in your crew that’s doing that for you. That’s my ride or die. Yeah. All right. I can give you that. But then again, at the end, my one criticism of Teddy was he’s actually not a rider, died at the last minute, whereas Burn is, like the first one out of the group. He threw everyone on the bus as soon as he possibly could. Teddy said it was because he was scared of lightning, right? As the boys would say, Fern is a pussy. Okay, but they grip on them, but they know they need them, at least for this adventure. And speaking of the adventure itself, this is a short story. It’s still, like, what, 200 pages. So, yeah, it’s no death of a salesman. Like, this is a legit book, in my opinion, but at the same time, there’s pretty much, like, maybe six or seven scenes. Which of those did you find to be your favorite? So best scene? Your favorite scene. I feel like it kind of comes down to when we meet the guys at the beginning. Then the whole junkyard incident, the train, them trying to run over the bridge before the train gets there. Leeches, the leeches is the worst. But my favorite was the interaction with the store clerk. I know I touched on the goodwill hunting vibe there, but just in general, this whole book is really about kids kind of being kids and wanting to be treated like adults, but not having the privileges of the adults. How they don’t have cars. They have to basically do everything in their own interaction with the store cloak of that guy being a fucking asshole, trying to fucking basically Rob this kid. That kind of really stood out to me and him kind of one upping this dude and giving the big fucking fuck you as he left the big middle finger. That was like, my favorite part. I was so fucking aunt up after that, being like, let’s fucking go team Gordon all the way after that. You know what I mean? That kind of resonated with me. And this is a reason that I don’t treat kids like kids. I don’t talk down to them because I don’t think we should do that as society, you know, made Deem even babies. I fucking talk to them like they’re normal. But that’s how we should treat. Yeah, I hate talking down to people. I think more adults should treat kids like adults, and more adults should act like kids. It should be reversed. Everyone should enjoy life more as an adult. And kids should be treated more like adults. You’re very. Yeah, I look at it. Yeah, exactly. Treat everyone equally. Everyone should have a bit more fun in life. That’s all I’m about here deep, man, if you had kids, you’d be like, So did you hear taxes done? They like, in a high chair. Let me tell you about taxes, child. Excuse me, human. I’m not going to degrade you by calling a child. Well, it’s funny you say that because to tell you the truth, out of all the scenes in this book, my favorite was also the grocery scene. Wow, we love that. Yeah. I mean, Mr. Dusett, Gordy goes into Mr. Dusett store, and at first it’s like, amicable. They’re just saying nice things. Oh, you look like your brother. I think Gordy starts to get a little turned off when the guy is kind of like talking about his brother reverentially and not even paying attention to Gordy. Kind of like, what happens in Gordon’s own home. Yeah, but, yeah, Gordy’s quick enough to realize the guy’s got his thumb on the scale when he’s weighing up the hamburger. And then Additionally, the guy can’t add and Gordy’s quick with that math. And it’s like, Actually, dude, that’s not right. I read the quote that Gordy says to him. Unfortunately, it has some racial epithets in there about the Japanese people who are good people. But this is post World War II grapes. Hey, what’s your major dude to him? But the guy, Mr. Dawson, just takes immediate offense to his intelligence. He’s like, what are you like, who are you? I’m just trying to not be shipped off by this guy and agree with you on the final point, too, that Gordy has a fuck you chambered. And even though it’s a 13 year old kid, he’s walking out of the store, the store clerks buried being an ass to him. And he just says, hey, fuck you. It’s like, Whoa, 13 year old kid coming at you like, that the most deserved fuck you I’ve seen in the book in a long, long time. Yeah, there was definitely some pride there, but we had the same point for the scenes. I thought for me, it was obviously the leeches one is memorable. Maybe the most memorable, but because someone gets a Leach stuck to their nuts, and that’s a big deal. Gordy years later, has a scar from a leash attached to his nut. The lead scene was maybe one of the most horrific things I’ve read in the book. Your balls or whatever you have as a person didn’t go up into your intestines reading. That was I didn’t even know Eels existed in the Northeast. I didn’t know that they’re leeches. Leeches. Oh, what’s the difference? Eels? Yeah. Leeches are like, slugs. Okay. Anyways, either way, I didn’t know either of those existed. The things that suck up your blood from you aren’t those Eels. It’s a Leech. It’s a slug. It’s basically are they not the same? No. An eel. What? Eel and leeches are probably the same. And I learned today that is horrifying scenery for no reason. They just add that in, like, Jesus Christ, Stephen good coming of age story. I’m not going to be all sleep tonight. And then especially how he takes it off. And then the Leach, like grenades in his hand and just explodes with, like, blood and Leach guts everywhere. It’s like, oh, my God. That’s a big ask for your friends there. He’s like, yeah, you want to take us off from me? Like, no, but are you serious? Yes. I respect that. He’s like, hey, Chris, I can’t do this myself. I need a hand here. You know what? Keep add to that for you. I would pull Leech off your name. I wouldn’t ask that of you. That’s the type of person I am. Yeah. So that was a little taste of the weird Stephen King in that scene. But I will tell you this book, which was, like I said, written in 82. It was made into a film stand by me in 86. The movie you haven’t seen it. I have does not show an exploding Leach. Okay. Yeah. And the boys are wearing their under roofs. He just kind of reaches in and pulls out a leash with some blood on it and then passes out, which is probably better, more family friendly. Yeah. But for me, it was really between the grocery store and the story within the story of The Revenge of Lard S. Hogan, because that’s a great little story. It was a good story. The problem I have with it is that we’re already in a short story, quote unquote. Right. And then he just puts another short story in the short story, a part of a series of short stories. Right. So this guy, he’s inceptioning us a little bit. Right. And then within the short story, there’s a little short story of everything, which is kind of I’m guessing how Stephen King writes all his books. He’ll be like, and then Jane down the road. Jane was favorite thing was to eat chocolate ice cream on Sundays and love to go to Church. He just goes into this rant about someone that has nothing to do with anything, which I kind of love, which kind of gave me the joshing redemption or good fellows where they’ll be like, and that was like, Jimmy, Jimmy. And he did that. I kind of loved that, actually. But at a certain point, it kind of got a little bit repetitive when there was a story instead of a story instead of a store. That’s fair. That was the one thing that I thought was kind of cheating. And then on the Stud City one in particular, that’s the first story short story. He was like, wrote this story he puts in the book, and then he was like, oh, yeah. But that wasn’t that good of a story because I was in College when I wrote it. It’s just like a cop out, in my opinion, right? You can just be like, yeah, that part of this book I just wrote. It wasn’t that good because it was someone else writing it that was younger that wrote it. Like, what? That doesn’t make sense. Yeah. The Chico story played a lot into our main story, just kind of about death and mortality. And, like, living with that, which is kind of the same story as Gordy’s in terms of his brother died. It wasn’t a car accident, but it was on a race track. What’s the difference? So I think that played more to the narrative than the Lard s Hogan one, which was really just like a complete aside. That was just like, hey, there’s this crazy story. His imagination is amazing, by the way. But I was like, I have another short story, but it’s not long enough, so I’ll just throw it into this one and use it and disguise it off. There’s convenient when it comes to the revenge of Lard Ass Hogan. The thing I loved about it was its absurdity. It’s a story about a kid who gets picked on. So he enters a food contest to make everyone vomit. Like, that’s his goal. Yeah. It’s an awesome story. Hilarious story real quick. If you down, like a quart of motor oil, does that not kill you? It’s on Motorola. It’s Castor oil. Oh, what’s the difference? No, Castor oil is like vegetable oil. I was like, oh, he’s committing suicide. And then I’m like, how is he holding this in his stomach this whole time? Yeah. So I think it was like an old. There’s definitely people say there’s some medicinal aspects to it. I don’t know if it’s not like a cooking oil, but it’s based off vegetables. You’re thinking like, Castro Castro. Wait, what is it then? It’s not Castro. No, it’s Castor. You’re thinking of Castro. That’s where the audiobook kind of comes back. Then again, I would definitely read it wrong also. So it doesn’t matter either way. I would have got it wrong. But still, yeah, I thought also the great part about the revenge of larger s. Hogan was the whole gambling aspect. Bill Travis is the big hot shot there. I guess he’s the one that’s won, like, two years in a row. And I was like, okay. And then I thought for the pod, we should set odds. I was like, oh, we should set odds. I’m like, what these things are. No o contrare Montreal. Stephen King comes at you. And it’s like, all right. So Bill Traffic is a five to one favorite, and I’m like, oh, okay. He’s like, Lardess Hogan is a seven to one dog. And so I’m like, doing the math in my head. All right. Who am I betting on at this point? But it’s like, him being a five to one favorite is absurd. Like that’s Tyson versus Buster Douglas. Granted, I mean, it actually turned out like that. Tyson was actually FYI. Tyson was a 42 to one favorite against Buster Douglas. That’s insane. On the MC of the contest, he bet $10 on Bill Travis. Dude, $2. Like what? And then he tries to influence Lardass Hogan by saying, hey, slow down. Don’t eat so quick, right? It’s the guy at the party when you’re watching a football game. He’s like, yeah, I took this money line parley with all these favorites. It’s like, that’s the worst thing you can do. This guy’s betting $10 to win $2, right? It doesn’t make any sense. Yeah. Shameful. But I like the story. So it was up there for me. Yeah. It was a good story. I liked it a lot. I did love that Stephen King would kind of check in with me at times when he’s writing, he would be like, Am I right to me? Which I felt like, it’s a more personal way to talk. And he was very casual about his writing style. And he’s like, Can you dig it? And he was just like, talk to me during the book. Did you get that feeling that me and Stephen were connected like that? I did get the feeling that you and Steven, thank you. Appreciate that. He does break the fourth wall to some degree. It’s an interesting book because it’s written it’s. Gordy writing the book 30 years later, 20 years later. So he’s writing a story, but it’s almost like a story for a magazine. Like, he’s kind of embracing the reader as he’s writing it. So I like that. I don’t know from other Stephen King books I’ve read. He hasn’t done that. So I don’t know if this is the only one, but I liked it. Like you said it’s like, Good fell is where you’re kind of embracing the audience a little bit. Or Wolf of Wall Street. Exactly. And I also did like, the it’s kind of a different type of world building when he gives you a sense of instead of just focusing on the four characters and there’s all that you need to know. You kind of get it. This world built around the town of who everyone is and all these people. So even though I did criticize the fact that they would be like, There’s Mary May down the road, and she’s kind of this world building sense where you’re like, oh, I know a person like that. You kind of imagine that person right away, which is kind of cool too. So I’ll give them credit for that. Not only that, also in My Loves is cross references in books. So some people do this with their movies, like Tarantino does this with his movies where the characters throughout different movies are kind of connected in some way. You can go through some serious Reddit threads on that. I’m not going to dive into that. But for this book specifically, he mentions the dog at The Junkyard is like Kujo, who is the main antagonist of one of his other books. Kujo about this rabid dog that goes crazy. They mentioned Shawshank Prison at one point, which ties back to Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. Ray Brower, The Kid they’re trying to find. He’s from Chamberlain, which is the setting for the book. Carry and Ace Meryl are bad guy in this one. And Verne are also featured in Known, which is another one of Stephen King’s short stories. Wow. There’s more, too, like more references in here. Awesome. But it’s cool because if you were a big Stephen King fan, you see these threads and it’s like, I don’t remember what the books were when we were kids, like, Easter eggs, right? Yeah. Exactly. It’s like an Easter egg. It’s like the Superman in Seinfeld episode. But this book we read when we were kids, there was always like, the two animals were in the frame somewhere, and you kind of found them for fun. I like those kind of cross reference Easter eggs, but it’s also world building, like you said, where you think Steve and King has this whole fake Mane inside his head that he just lives in while he’s living in real Maine. So, yeah, that was one of my favorites as well. What else do you love about this book? Yeah, I thought, too. You just mentioned the dog scene where they’re, like, the dog will rip your neck off. And it’s this fucking massive thing that rips people’s testicles off first. But, yeah, that kind of reminded me of Sandlot, which I thought this kind of whole book was like a rated R version of Sandlot. It’s just kids kind of being kids, like in San Luis, although the dog across the street has the baseball and it’s the most evil dog of all time, and it ends up being a sweetheart kind of. But, yeah, that was kind of a cool tie back to this. Yeah. If Stephen King wrote Sandlot, he wouldn’t call him an L seven weenie. He’d call him a fucking pussy. Basically, they dip. Yeah. That is exactly right. Yeah. No, I definitely have some sandalog vibes as well, especially with the dog. And it shows how stories of when you’re a kid like, they just kind of grow and get bigger in your mind. And at the end of the day, they’re really not that big of a deal at all. Granted, I do think Chopper the dog in this movie, although he wasn’t the beast, they expected he might have done them some damage and also PETA. What’s the deal? They like abuse. Chopper. The nose gets all messed up, like through the fence. It’s actually kind of sad. I didn’t like that part. Actually, that’s more than the owner than it is now, right? Yeah, I guess that’s true. The owner should be pulling them back, but quickly here 1960s nicknames. I love that. It’s mostly for the bad guys in this book, the older boys. But Norman, Fuzzy brackowitz like Fuzzy. Great nickname. Ace. Ace is the leader. Come on, flick and Ace are great 60s names. Great bad guy, 60s names. He probably carries around a deck of cards. Yeah, like Chris’s older brother’s name is eyeball. I don’t know. I think I said early on that one of his eyes was a little weird. In all seriousness, it’s probably from, like, his dad probably hit him pretty fucking hard when he was a kid. Yeah, dislodged his eye. But either way, your eyeball for the rest of your life. So 1960s, just like good nicknames. I dug that. And then lastly, tree houses. What the hell happened at Treehouses when I was a kid? It was all the rage. Are they no longer a sand? Talk about Sandlot. We saw it in Sandlot. Yeah, I don’t know. When is the last time you saw a Treehouse in a movie? I mean, I haven’t been hanging out with twelve year old kids as of late, obviously, because of COVID user, I would watch Step Brothers. There’s a Treehouse and Step Brothers. Okay. Yeah, I’m sure it’s still a thing. I don’t know, kids these days. I don’t know if it’s the Internet or whatever it be, but I don’t think Treehouses are cool anymore. And especially this particular Treehouse is pretty sweet. I wouldn’t be smoking cigs when I was their age, but they sure are. And you know what? All the power to you boys, but they’re flipping through some nude magazines in between games of Blackjack. Like, yes, I’m 100% in. Get me in this Treehouse. It sounds pretty awesome. On top of that, the odds of this casino, this Treehouse casino are phenomenal. Blackjack pays two to one. You’re not going to find that in any casino. What is it? Usually 125%. Three to two. Got you? Yeah. So three to two. And then they don’t allow five car Charlie at any casino. But at the Treehouse, if you get five car Charlie, you get paid two to one. Like, whoever’s the dealers losing money here. So I got to get in on this. Yeah, you’re probably counting cars at this point. They have no idea. They’re only twelve. I mean, this is probably what Gordy was doing. He’s fucking mathematician over there. But when I was a kid, we would go trick or treating for the specific purpose of once we got back, we would play poker with our I like that. So, yeah, we’d go out for the day. We’d all have a sleepover, assuming. Wait, how did you rank? Like, let’s say you got almond Joys. I mean, I know most people don’t really like almond draws. I think they’re okay, but is that worth the same as a Reese’s PCs? I said that wrong. Reese’s cup. Well, I appreciate that you said PCs
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PCs. There’s no question if you have a problem with Reese’s PCs, then call me. I’ve heard like 100 people correct me on that. So I’m shocked you’re on my side. And I absolutely love that. Yeah, 100%. But no, it’s a one for one. Okay. Almond Joy was really like a Hershey’s nugget. It was an anti because people don’t like almond joy. I particularly am fond of them. You go through your stack, you organize your candy, and then it’s a one for one bet. And if you’re going to throw Reese’s Cup out there, that’s a big wager, because those are phenomenal. Let’s talk about candy logistics. Let’s take a quick break here. Talk about candy logistics. Yeah, I want to hear about it. A Reese’s Cup compared to a full size Reese’s Cup, which is two cups is 50% of a full size, whereas all the other candies are fun size, which isn’t fun at all. And they’re very small. So they’re probably like a fifth or a quarter of the size of a real Snickers bar. Yeah, but I think realistically, it’s that the full size of a recess cup is under size rather than I understand you’re saying it’s 50% less, but it should be three cups at least. And then it’d be more realistic. But that’s just an undersized oversized candy bar. Yeah, it’s interesting. You know what? I have a lot to think about tonight. Mostly, it’s going to be I really want a Reese’s Cup person. Oh, my God. Yeah. There are those bad boys in the fridge. That’s the key. Got them a little cold giddy up. Yeah. Or in the freezer. Just go straight to the freezer. But. Yeah. So tree houses. I really like that big fan of the Treehouse that they had kind of situated. They had the pin up girls on the wall and stuff like that. These guys are 13 year old kids. Like respect. I love the trio’s aspect. So you’re out of love. What do we get for hate? Yeah. The only other thing for love I forgot was just a lingo, which you kind of think you touched on. But rank you can. You dig it that eats the meat. I kind of liked all those. I had some of those for potent potables. Okay, other thing I hated, which I think you as the chef of this pod, might be able to speak to better, but they go and they’re like, all right, let’s get some food and they get raw hamburger meat, £3 of it, and they walk around with it and it’s like 90 degrees outside in the sun, all day in the sun. And then they’re like, yeah, we’ll just put it on a stick and put it over the fire. Is that how it works, Steve? Man, I’m pretty sure if you have raw meat in the sun, one, it’s going to go bad. Two, it doesn’t just stick together and clump together once it’s fucking been melting in the back. Right? This doesn’t make any sense to me. Yeah. All right. The ground beef aspect was tough. They also mentioned hot dogs and bees. The whole book. There’s like, ten scenes with it. That’s the perfect campfire meal. Why would you not do hot dogs and beans? Those are already cooked. Couldn’t agree more with the hot dogs. It’s awesome that you said this because it was at the top of my list too. Okay, perfect. So agree with the hot dogs and beans. The hot dogs are already processed. They can probably stay out of the refrigerator for longer. Plus beans full of protein full of sugars. It’s a great like I’m on a two day hike snack, and you can Cook it over fire really easily. The ground beef, though, made no sense whatsoever. Unlike a steak, ground beef has to be cooked to a higher temperature because the fact that as you’re grinding it, you’re introducing more of the meat to air and also bacteria and also the grinding function of it, too, could have some bacteria on it. So if some bacteria is introduced now, you have more surface area of meat that could be attracted to the bacteria and the bacteria will multiply. And that multiplication process is called the danger zone, which is anytime a meat is between 40 degrees and 140 degrees, that’s when bacteria multiplies at its highest rate. They picked up the meat around 1111 30. And so you have at those temperatures, you have about an hour because it’s a super hot day in the summer, you have about an hour that the meat can be at room temperature before you really have to Cook it. And you don’t have to be too. The FDA is kind of crazy about this. You don’t have to Cook it always for the Max, but they didn’t Cook the meat until 630. This is like 7 hours, six, 7 hours that the meat has just been festering in their backpack on their back, as they’re just, like sweating in the super hot day. So you’re talking about E. Coli. You’re talking about salmonella. This is just all proliferating within the meat itself. But then Additionally, once they actually Cook the meat, okay, now you got to sear the shit out of it to Cook that bacteria off. But there is any no these kids, they even say they’re like, yeah, we just were so hungry, we just pretty much ate it raw stick. Why is there not a part in the third act of this book where everybody is shitting their brains. It’s the largeass Hogan, except instead of vomit, it’s just shit. And none of them can stop shitting, because without question, they got E. Coli or salmonella. Guaranteed. The ground beef made no sense to me. I also hate thank you kind of on the same page here for this book, which we love the other big thing, which this is more of a general. It wasn’t that big of a deal in this book. I mean, I don’t want to go on a rant here, but dreams in any book or any movie or any TV show I think, is the dumbest artistic tool that’s ever been created. Dreams don’t mean shit. And they had a dream sequence in here. He’s like, oh, I’m just imagining, Chris, I forgot what happens, but I’ve gone past episodes that have dreams in them because I think they’re an absolute piece of garbage. They have added nothing to the story, and they’re just a way for someone that’s artistic to spew fucking bullshit onto the screen or into a book that doesn’t mean anything. It’s fucking bullshit. I don’t want to hear anyone telling me about their dreams. I don’t want to hear anyone written about their dreams. I don’t want to see any movie about them. So fuck that fuck dreams. Okay, let me ask you this. Yeah. Do you remember your dreams? Sporadically? Yeah. Sporadically. Would you say once a week more? Yeah, I’ll say once a week. Once a week? Yeah. See, that’s your problem. You’re not remembering your dreams. You got to work on that. You got to start living in your dreams. You got to get some lucid dreaming going on. I’ve stopped shows. What was the show? Sopranos had an episode. I must stop. Oh, great episode. Terrible episode. There’s actually three or four. We need to take up time. It’s the same thing when these mean things in this book, if you can’t get across what you want to get across through the story and you have to use a dream to do it. That’s just like a cheap stunt, which I don’t agree with, and I don’t like it all. Okay, I’m going to disagree with you here because not only did Stephen King get his point across in the story itself, but the dream. He didn’t need a dream. I don’t remember. The dream was now the dream helps solidify it. The dream at the point of the dream, he’s talking about all the people pulling it’s. Gordy’s dream and Gordy is talking about all the people, especially the dead people. His brother went out like pulling him into the water to drown him. And a lot of this story is Gordy’s story about understanding his own mortality and facing death. That’s kind of one of the whole points of it all is like he wants to go see this body, to see what to look death in the face because his brother had died. He’s like trying to think, when am I going to die? Will people mourn me when I die? It’s so much about his own mortality and coming to terms with that, that the dream is about that as well, with the dead people kind of him. And then also with him writing this book after Verne and all the kids who paid you off, the English teacher pay you off for this. All his friends who he went on this journey with have died by the time he’s writing this book. And so he’s kind of looking at it like, Why did I live? It’s crazy that he remembered that dream from 20 years ago. That’s so convenient. It’s ridiculous to just have the characters say it feels like I’m being drowned by my past with blah, blah, blah, blah. You can do the exact same thing. You don’t need stuff like that. This is just another. This is just like another layer of icing on the cake. It’s simple as that. And it’s okay. We’ll agree to disagree on this. Fair enough. Another thing that I hated was when the train comes in the most anxiety ridden scene when Gordy touches the rail as they’re walking across the river like hundreds of feet up and the train comes, Gordy freezes and pees pants. Totally understandable. But then he’s in blue jeans. The rest of the day. The next day he’s just walking around in pea pants. So the whole rest of the book, I couldn’t even get involved because I was just thinking, God, it would suck to have pissed pants. All I’m thinking of is they would suck. I don’t know when the last time you peed your pants was, but I remember a time when I was probably about Gordy’s age that I was at a Buddy’s baseball game hot summer. I was also wearing jeans. There was no bathroom around. I had to pee so bad, and I just pissed my pants. It just happened. But it was hard. You said, I need to get out of those jeans immediately. It was not like jeans, especially just don’t absorb everything. Well, was it a crunching, weird, full piss? I’m saying, though, I thought it was like one of those, like, you just finished pissing and you let a little. That’s what I’m talking about. The book. No, he said all his muscles froze, but for some reason his bladder just released, so I assume he just fully peed. Additionally, piss stinks, especially these guys are dehydrated. That’s a full nitrate pee. He’s got pee dribbling down his leg and then Additionally has to hang out for 24 hours at some .1 of his buddies would be like, it smells like piss. What’s going on? Here. The smell tolerance was much different back then, so I think you could get away with it. Oh, yeah. They probably pissed in the tree house. It wasn’t a big deal. I think it was a little bit different. Tolerance level either way. Every time Gordon was talking throughout the rest of the book, I was like, oh, my God. He must be so uncomfortable in his pants. Who wears jeans on a long journey like that, too? I just missed that part. They didn’t have athletic shorts that have meshes there. And if you’re pissing meshes, they dry in, like an hour in the sun. You’re good. You don’t even notice that anymore. Dude. Messies weren’t invented. You were like, Dad’s mowing lawns in the 90s. They wore sweatshirts. That’s all you had with sweatshirts. I can’t imagine. Let’s get to the stock market here. Stock up, stock down. Who was affected by this book in evaluation perspective. What do you got? Physical abuse. So back then, apparently, you just could hit kids all the time. No one said one thing about it. It was basically normal. Everyone was getting beat up. Bullies were just beating people up. Cordy at one point said he was jealous. Chris got his ass kicked all the time by his parents, and his parents didn’t care enough to beat him up. So physical abuse, stock up should be. It sounds like it’s something that’s good in the long run. Hot takes Yikes. That’s how I read it. It’s pretty clear Gardner’s saying that because he’s got the opposite, which is no physical abuse, but also nothing. I’m saying he wanted to get beat up. He was begging for it. There’s some strong literary stuff reading between the lines there, but I’m not going to get into that, because that’s what we’re here for. The NRA, the National Rifle Association. Okay, so there’s one gun featured in this book. Chris takes it from his dad. The gun is used a couple of times, but at no point is it used on another person. And more importantly, it’s a bunch of kids holding the gun who are successfully defending themselves against knife wielding thugs. So basically it’s a David versus Goliath, but you have a gun. So at the end of this, you can surmise that if you have a gun in a situation where someone would hurt you, it’s going to be better for you. Nra stuck way up, way up. And we’ll take that check from the NRA. That’s coming in soon. Great. Well, what about the time where they just misfired into a fucking public area with the gun? No, nothing about that. Yeah, like telling your buddy it’s not loaded. But then it’s not a great look, but, hey, no one was hurt. Okay, I’ll get a stock down now. Hitchhiking. I think you might have had something similar. However, they just hitchhiked to get to places here, which, Ironically enough, awesome. Yeah. Amazing. Ironically enough, though, people like fucking Stephen King made it, so everyone was scared. I mean, it’s probably 99.9% of people hitchhike successfully without anything happening. But Stephen Kings of the world have made Hitchhiking faux PA and fucking make it scary to Hitchhike now because of books like this and books where he murders people off of Hitchhiking. So stock down. Shame on you, Stephen King. Okay, I would argue that the people who really affected Hitchhiking were the serial killers who those are written about. I don’t see any reports on those people. I don’t know where these are. D man. Yeah, I would say Ed Kemper. He was the co Ed killer. That sounds like a made up name. I don’t know. That is actually, you should look him up. Oh, wait. Is he from Mine Hunters? Yeah. There you go. Mine hunters. Yeah, he’s jerks off in the shoe. Yeah, but he’s a real person who’s a Coed killer. He picked chicks up and murdered them. I mean, he’s one. There was also like, the Santa Clara. I think it’s Santa Clara. You’d have to look this up, but there’s lots of serial killers who are murdering Hitchhikers. I haven’t heard about them recently. That’s all I got to say. So considering this book was written in 1982, after all these Hitchhiking murders happened, I would not blame Stephen King. Stephen King, if you’re listening, this is not on you, bro. The only one I know about is something about Mary to the Ed Kempers out there. Fuck you, because you ruined it for the rest of us. I lived on the far side of town. I would have loved to hitchhike, but it was definitely frowned upon in my family. So yeah, hitchhiking is also stockdown for me, though. So there we go. I also have, though, Popeye Popeye the Sailor stock down for him throughout this book because they reference a particular skit they did on a Popeye cartoon with Salami Salami Bologna. And I looked up the cartoon and I watched it so racist. So racist. I was like, oh, there has to be something about Arabs Allah, because they said something about that. Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. And it’s just super racist. You have to watch it to see it. But, yeah, bad. Look for Popeye on this one. The Salami Saloni Bologna is also referenced in Seinfeld episode The Heart Attack episode. So I know you’re a big Seinfeld guy, but top buy definitely racist. Sorry. And by community property, community property. So is Spinach, right? Because that’s basically the biggest proponent of spinach. So anyway, stock down for spinach, too. Coming into property. Another stock down for me, the adult Gordy when they kind of interspersed between what’s happening in the book to what’s happening with Gordy and his adult life. He takes a trip to New York and he says, Fuck the World Trade Center. That sentence does not too. Jesus Christ. Sorry, Gordon, but now you would be considered a terrorist moving right along discovering girls when you’re 15. What the end of the book? He says that this could never have happened when they’re 15, only when they’re twelve, because they would have discovered girls and girls in their class by the time they were 15. When you’re at twelve, you discovered girls at that point. Let’s put it that way. Starship troopers, anyone. Which one were you? Were you the shit? What’s the main is it Dixie Daisy? I don’t know, but which one were you? The frizzy haired? The frizzy haired chick or frizzy haired? Yeah. Got you? Yeah. Okay. But at the same time, to be fair, I would say that these guys had discovered girls. They were looking at pin ups in their Treehouse. Yeah, but it was weird that they were like, we would have been obsessed with girls instead of but twelve years old. You’re at that point. But anyway, I think when they were saying was 15, they really discovered girls. Okay, by the way, discovering down. Stock down two quick ones. Kids knowledge, being able to set up camps, fixing blisters, building fire, insults. Ready at that fucking second. Middle fingers ready to pop. Fuck you is ready to go. Kid knowledge has gone way down. I was not doing any of that shit when I was a kid and then stock up quickly. Novellas. I didn’t know what that was, but it’s just basically a novel. It’s like a short story, like a novel. But it’s called novellas. It’s just like a fancy way to say that so great. Playbox. It’s a shorter story. Yeah. So a novel? I don’t know why it’s called novels, but I was like, oh, shit. This must be fancy. That’s a good play. All right. I will agree on the boys. Understand. Like, the Boy Scouts stuff in general is making a fire in the Woods and being pretty much self sufficient at 13. No chance I wasn’t there. But I appreciate that. I don’t know if that’s like a made up thing or if it’s actually true, but either way, they had a lot more freedom, that’s for sure. So respect for them on that. So read between the lines. Yeah. So I think the biggest thing here was kids. That when they’re twelve, they kind of have the perfect utopia set out. Right? So they all get together. They’re like, all right, we need to get food. Everyone piled together. Money. There’s no questions of, like, bro. You’re only bringing $0.05 to the table. I’m bringing a dollar. 30. No, here’s the money, everyone, and then pitches in for everything else. Everyone brings the cigarettes, they got, the weapons, they’ve stolen, everyone’s in it together as one cohesive group. And there’s no fingerpointing. They also have these unwritten rules of, like, basically make fun of anyone you want. You can fuck into anything you want, but there’s certain unwritten rules. You don’t cross. You don’t talk about people’s parents, and otherwise you solve it with fighting or you gamble or you do whatever you have to do to solve those problems. Perfect society. I think we give power to all these kids that are twelve years old. They will solve the world’s problems. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy theme of the book. Yeah, I’d say that’s kind of half fable and half just it being the 1960s. So I will say that they are very communicative in their stuff. Everyone seems to be willing to share with what they can scrounge together, which is like, super respectable, especially because Vern is digging for pennies every day under his stairs. I had a more literal sense to it in terms of reimagining the lines. Okay, we’re going to go get a little Scholastic in this bitch because the book had to do with transformation. It’s a coming of age novel. And so it’s about these kids becoming adults or teenagers, whatever the case may be. But it’s over the course of a weekend in the Woods. There’s a reason why this book, I feel like, takes place between summer and fall, which is summer is like the free loving, good time situation. And fall is when real shit starts to set in. The change in weather is actually even mentioned. When they’re coming back, they come back after they see the body. So they went over there was like the hottest days of the year. Now they’re coming back and it’s super cold, showing that they’ve changed since they’ve seen the body. They’re carefully walking across the train tracks over the river, whereas when they came across the first time, there’s a lot of bravado like, oh, I’m going to run across. I’m going to be the big hot guy. It’s like, no, now we’re just going to take it easy and make sure that everyone’s safe. So it’s kind of showing how they grow throughout this experience. And I really enjoyed that, even though, on the surface, this book is just kind of a bunch of 13 year old kids having fun and going on this expedition. It’s showing how they’re actually going on way more than that and aging maturing as it goes down. So I really like that to sum that up in a sentence. Once you crossed over the one part of the tracks and you come back on it, I’m trying to sum it up for you. I wasn’t reading between any lines. That was just basically like, the train tracks. You’re still on them. Get out of the box, you’re fucking inside the box. Stephen King hand feeding you what you need to be told. The train tracks were literal and metaphorical. Don’t you realize that they still went across the train tracks? They still took that risk. Yes, but it’s a metaphor. They were like, we’ll die. I don’t care at this point. So basically, your metaphorical thing is that they’ve gone through such hell that at this point they become old kirmudians that would rather die than have to deal with anything that’s tough on the way. No, I’m just saying that when they come back, it’s more of a measured approach. It’s not a Willy nilly they did say on the way back. Yeah, I’m just going to cross the train tracks. I don’t get a fuck of a train comes, so I’d rather die than have to go walk all the way around. How’s that measured? Well, it’s measured because a the train wasn’t coming.
Participant #1:
You got to figure out how to reach an alliance. I mean, I can give you a course on it, but that was not great from you. All right. What about potent quotables? Best quotes from this book. What have you got? Yeah. So I’m not great at reading, so I’m probably going to mess some of these up. But excitement trembles in him. Some stupid Bozo in a spring love, maybe as divine as the poet say, but sex is Bozo, the clown bouncing around in a spring. How could a woman look at a wrecked penis without breaking off into mad girls of laughter? Oh, is that the cheapest star? Yeah, that was a quote which I don’t really get because do women not typically laugh? Not for me, I don’t know. Yes, totally. Must be nice. What about you? Well, I know there’s some great disses in this book, so these kids are obviously they’re pretty crass and they’re down to say whatever. So fuck your hand, man. Eat me raw through a flavor straw. Nice. That guy’s. Odd as a cod. Like all those are really good there’s, like, more distance than that. Those are just the ones that popped off. But when they were talking about the train, Gory says, My balls crawled up so high, I thought they was trying to get back home. That’s really good. That’s good. I like that one. And then Additionally, when they were talking about girls that their older brothers were seeing. And he said, you ain’t never seen such gross looking Broads outside of a Carnival show that just read to me in a Boston accent like, you ain’t never seen such gross looking Broads outside of a catapult show would have been great and good. Will hunting would have been great when they’re making fun of the guys. The older guys at the end, because once again, they had heard them under the porch and they were saying, oh, you should see the body. Like, we don’t want to go out there. They were all scared. So they’re making fun of them. And he says, oh, Billy, I think I just turned my fruit of the looms into a fudge factory. Good stuff, good stuff on the floor. I like that one. I also had the same thing with insults. The other ones I saw were Your mother Blows Dead Rats, which I liked wet end was used often, which basically, I look it up. The first section of a paper machine delivered into a slurry form. But it’s someone who is incompetent. And then bite my bag and suck my fat one, all ones I’ll be using pretty soon when I get into customer disputes with Amazon. Bite my bag is pretty good. Quick. I bite my bag. Also, the leeches, the Leeches. Buy this bag.
Participant #1:
Let’s go into some buddy mail. You’ve got mail? Okay. This is Blake from Reno, Nevada. Hey, buddies. One crazy thing stood out to me in this book was when Gordy was handed a loaded pistol as a prank. Boys will be boys, I guess. Right. Question Mark. What is the craziest thing you did in your childhood? Looking back now I’ll hang up and listen, craziest thing in my childhood, boys will be boys where it’s like at the time, you’re like, yeah, this is fine. This is normal. And then looking back like, Holy shit, I was dumb. The first thing that comes to my head was that we had a couple of skateboards, and we lived on a big Hill. And our friend’s Stepdad said we asked him if he could put the skateboard wheels onto one of our sleds because we wanted to go sledding. But it was the summer, and he was like, yeah, no problem. So we basically put a piece of plywood to the bottom of a sled, like a toboggan type sled. And then we put the skateboard wheels, like, all throughout, all throughout it on the bottom. And these weren’t like, your regular skateboard wheels. These were like the long rubber ones that go really fast. And he built us what we ended up calling the sledboard, and we would just ride it. Me and two friends. Only two people could fit on it. But we had a third person who was just in the back, like the bobsleder, the third one that stood up kind of we would ride it down our Hill, which was super steep. And there was two crossroads before you got to the main road at the bottom. So there are stop signs there. If a car is coming, you’d be screwed. And we rode that thing until because the only way to break was to put your shoes down on the asphalt and just rip the rubber off your soles. Because you’re going so fast. And we wrote that thing a bunch of times. Somehow no one got hurt, like, really hurt there’s, like bruises and scrapes. But, yeah, that was probably the dumbest childhood thing we did. Yeah, we did something similar, but I was on a street that was dead end. It wasn’t dead end, but it was a cubicle circle street. What’s that called cubicle street. Cul de sac. There we go. So it was like, not nearly the same risk, but it was still a big Hill. We went down anyways. The Statue of Limitations, I believe, has passed from my story, but probably incriminating myself. But back in the day of forts and tree houses, my buddy and I went to his house, and he lived in those, like, big wooded area. And if you walk like, a mile into the Woods, there’s a camp, a summer camp there. So we would dress up in Camo, go out into the Woods, spy on the camp. And eventually, when people leave, we sneak in and steal their bow and arrows, which weren’t like lethal bow and arrows. Or kids bow and arrows. But they would actually hurt or hit people. And then we built a Fort next to the Woods and anyone that would come, we’d shoot arrows at them. What? So, yeah, that was something we did. You didn’t actually shoot it at them, though. It was one of those, like, warning shots, like, we have, like, an arrow type thing. And there were their arrows. Yeah. Because I was going to say either you didn’t actually shoot at them or you got sucked in shooting arrows. Yeah. If someone got hurt, that would have been weird, like Navy Seals. We were like, we had full camel in hiding in fucking trees and Leafs. But anyway, now looking back at that, I’m like, oh, shit. But it was still awesome. Sounds phenomenal. Kids do crazy shit. I respect that, Blake. Thanks for bringing that memory back to my life, because I would not have thought about it otherwise. And holler to my boys. Marc Hyatto for sledboarding. Good times. Let’s cast this movie. This book was obviously made into a movie like we talked about before. Stand By Me, which came out in 1986. River Phoenix. Corey Feldman. Keep forgetting the guy’s name. He’s in Sliders. Donald. Oh, Donald. Yeah. It’s funny that I know sliders. Do you actually know Sliders
Participant #1:
O’Connell? Yeah, I’m Jerry O’Connell. So it’s tough for me because I saw this movie. Well, I read the book for the first time this time around, and I’ve probably seen the movie, like, four or five times throughout my life. It was tough for me to cast this one, so I’d be interested in what you had. Yeah, I did my All Stars of kids, so I can choose kids from any error any time point. Obviously, they’re like kids now. So for Gordy, I went with Charlie Conway from Mighty Ducks, who I think is Percy from Dawson’s Creek. Dawson Creek. There we go. Yeah. So I thought he was a good leading man who’d you end up going with, or did you stick with the I didn’t. I really only had two. It’s tough for me, but I really did. I did think that Ben Affleck would have been a good Chris. Yeah. Ben Affleck was in Voyage of the Mimi when he was about this age. I think he was like, twelve. He was between ten and 14. Do you ever watch Voyage of the Mimi? No. The first time I saw Ben Affleck was some anti steroids video that we watched. Interesting. No. The Voyage of the Mimi. He was like a legit child actor, and it was like half science it was like four school. So it was like half science, half an actual story of him joining the ship’s crew and going to the Galapagos kind of and doing stuff. I don’t know. It’s a weird fucking show, but at one point, even it got weirder because some guy got hypothermia and everyone had to get naked and get in the sleeping bag. And he was a twelve year old boy. But either way, he could have played a good Chris. He had the vibe. And we’ve already talked about the Goodwill hunting stuff. So yeah, he’s my Chris. Okay. I had to put my boy Shia LaBeouf in there from even Stevens because he’s my favorite kid actor of all time. And I think he could play, like, the we know about Shy. We talk about him in the holes. Great actor. I think he can play the guy that gets beat up by his parents, but also which happened in real life, but also can be the sensible one. Shia could be literally any character in this except for and I would believe it. Yeah. For Teddy. I had swintz from Sanlot, who I think is like, the picked up. Yeah. So I thought that would be a good one for him. I looked at the movie images and they didn’t show the guy with fucking grilled cheese ears. So what was going on there? It was Corey Feldman, and he just had long, dusty hair. I don’t think they want to spend the money to, like, do the prosthetic. They did, like, mentioned. I don’t remember. Do you have a hearing aid? I don’t remember. It was funny, but the book began and he had a hearing aid that was like, obvious. I was like, that’s super nice of these kids back. And then not to make fun of a kid that has a hearing aid, and then the story goes on to be like, oh, yeah. And then he gets his fucking head put up against a grill. His ears are all fucked up. I’m like, oh, wow. Awesome thing. I like about these characters is like they would shit on him for that. Not like being like, you have retarded ears because they say retarded is what I’m saying. But the fact that they would say they would kind of poke fun at each other to show their friendship. It’s not personal. It’s real. I like that. But yeah, it wasn’t like that. But it wasn’t like that in the movie. From what I can remember, I will also say I didn’t watch the movie beforehand, obviously, because I wanted to kind of experience the book and truthfully. Vern I couldn’t possibly cast because Jerry O’Connell at twelve is like, the perfect Vern. He’s so good. You should watch the movie just because Vern is like, perfect. You would think, oh, yeah. Probably change my opinion of them. The only thing I could say is like, Chunk from the Goonies could be Vern. Okay, this is probably not going to be liked or received, but I had Anakin from Star Wars The Kid. I think he’s the most hated actor child actor out there, but I don’t know. The Girl in Homeland is probably my least favorite. Yes, that can tie right into also my side characters who I think are great kid actors. Tj Henderson from Smart Guy, Great Actor, and then The Kid from $0.06. But he’s too dark to play on this. I didn’t cast him. Stranger Things has a lot to do with this book, so you could really just take that Stranger Things cast and put them in this book and they’d be perfect. They each have their own thing. My last one was just I put Nic Cage as a Smaro. Yeah, you’re right. I also forgot to mention in The Lards Hogan, this is like a big like the vomitorium, like literally just this huge, which actually isn’t a vomit. But this idea a year later came out in Monty Python’s movie that they came the meaning of life. I don’t know if you’ve seen that skit, but they have the guy who just can’t stop eating in the restaurant and it’s just vomiting the whole time. I’m not sure how big vomit humor was at the time, but it feels like between this and that. I don’t know if there’s any references to either, but they definitely put vomit humor on the map, so props to them. Yeah, that was just a quick aside, but all right, what do you like best about this book or would you recommend it? I would recommend the book. First of all, it’s an easy read, and it’s an interesting coming page story, so I think that’s good. I don’t think if it were 500 page book, I don’t know how much I’d love it. I think by the time it was over, I was ready for it to be finished. Great story. Great overall book. I would recommend it. So you’re down you’re down for Stephen King in the future. Yeah. The thing is, most Steven King’s books are super long. Yeah. So that’s why I’m like, I don’t know if I could do this for it felt much longer than a five hour rate. It felt like there seems like way more going on. He definitely writes a lot. He definitely writes a lot, but everything I’ve read from him in terms of especially The Stand, which is a 1000 page book. It’s like, oh, my God, this is such a huge book. It’s such a page Turner, and it’s so invested in the characters. It’s so good. He definitely writes long and writes deep into situations. Yeah, I’m fine with that. It draws you into it so much. This is definitely a great book for getting into Stephen King. If someone’s like, hey, if you’re in a Stephen King, it’s like, oh, we’ll start with this because you noticed how the writing was. Good for sure. There’s a lot of detail. That’s interesting. And the way he writes is super fun. Yeah, I really liked. And I think to that my favorite thing about this book was that it felt like the conversations between the kids. It felt like they were conversations happening between 13 year old boys because it was being written by a 30 something year old man who didn’t experience this stuff. Like he’s just writing for the it sounded like 13 year old boys talking to each other. I thought that he got that across so well, and I didn’t ever feel like, okay, this is some guy writing about some kids, even though Gordy is writing about them. I really liked it. Definitely recommend this book to listeners, to friends, whatever. Like I said, it would be a great intro into the Stephen King universe, which I think we on this podcast should dive deeper into.
Participant #1:
So what’s next? What’s next for us here? Yeah. So next book is Artemis by Andy Weir. He wrote The Martian, which I’ve heard of really good reviews about The Martian as a book. And obviously the movie I’ve seen, which is great. This one’s going to be more of a futuristic, I believe book, which is, I think, mine in DMan’s Alley. Bonus fact, the audio book, if you’re so inclined, is read by Rosario Dawson, the actress. Oh, really? Yeah. So it’s interesting. All right. I love it. So you can check us out on Instagram on Twitter at email. Keith, what have we got? What are our contacts? Yes, buddybookclubpodcast at gmail. Com at Buddy Book Club on Twitter. Buddy Book Club podcast on. Ig shoot some recommendations for books where I was looking for fun stuff to check out. Ideally, something that’s popular that people have read. And if you have any comments, questions about the podcast. Hate mail. We love hate mail. Please send us hate mail. We’ll read it. We’ll definitely read it. We’ll read it and we’ll incorporate it into the podcast. So send it our way. Any new segments? We’d love to hear it otherwise, buddy, this has been fun. I really like this book, and I’m glad we got to discuss it. And onto the next one. Let’s do it out.
