Hey everyone, welcome to my home. It's Wednesday night, it's book club.
It's Wednesday Night Book Club. I'm your host Andy Rice.
With me today, I actually have people here.
Not just those imaginary people that I talk to while I'm doing the home.
I have Austin Farrell.
Check me out on Quibi.
And I have Sean Perry.
The book we're reading today is...
The Stranger by Albert Koume.
Koume. When did this come out?
1947 I believe.
1947.
Uh...oh, 1946.
1946.
Now this was recommended by Sean.
And uh...
Well, it wasn't what I was expecting.
Because I had no idea.
I had just finished a book recommended by Austin.
Stranger in a Strange Land.
So I had already finished a book that was written a long time ago.
With the word stranger in it.
So going into it, I'm just thinking, maybe this is another alien book.
I don't know. Okay.
It is not. This is a...
Who done it? Well, not a who done it, but a...
I guess just a...
Is this guy going to go to jail?
It's a philosophical...
Like, uh...you know...
The whole book is kind of like a philosophical take on like, absurdism and nihilism essentially.
Okay.
The basic plot point is a man on vacation.
With some friends.
He's not on vacation. He lives there. He's in Algeria.
He's in what is a French colony at the time.
In Algeria, which is a country in North Africa.
I thought it was...
I thought the place he went to was a vacation spot.
Like, that one dude's house.
A friend's beach spot, correct. But they took the bus there.
He, like...
They weren't gonna stay. They were just like, just one night.
They were hanging out at the beach house.
Like, they might have stayed the night. I don't know.
But it just...yeah. They didn't like, leave their town or their country or anything like that.
And his mother dies.
Yeah. That's the beginning of the book.
Mother dies. He's at her old folks home that he put her in.
That he's feeling a lot of guilt about.
Well, no. He's not feeling guilt about it.
Even before that.
So, like, the beginning of the book is, uh, he gets a telegram.
And telling him that his mom died.
And he can't even remember...
At the beginning...the very first thing in the book is he can't even remember when he got the telegram.
When his mom died.
That's how indifferent...
This guy is completely indifferent.
He has...he doesn't have the same kind of connection to feelings that a normal person has.
Yeah. He hasn't...
He can't nail down how old his mom is or was when she died.
Throughout the whole book, he doesn't know.
Even when they're using that against him in court, he still doesn't know how old she was.
So he's the most indifferent person.
Which I guess...
It wasn't...
So is that just supposed to be a blank canvas?
Or is that...
That's the...the main character is essentially the tool used to portray the author's idea about his belief in absurdness.
And how life is essentially meaningless.
And that's essentially the whole take.
Is, you know, this guy, he's going through life not reacting in a way that we would all normally react.
Because his take on things...
And throughout the whole book, he'll mention, right?
Even in the beginning of the book when he first finds out that he has to go to the funeral home to go see his mom after she passed away.
He's like, you know, talking about why...
First of all, why she's even there.
Why she doesn't live with him anymore.
And she's like, well, I don't have the money. I can't take care of her.
And we didn't kind of ran out of stuff to talk about.
At first she was sad about it.
But then she ended up being...it would have been the opposite.
If he would have took her out, she would have been sad.
And then he's like...
And I didn't like going to visit her because it was just kind of annoying to go.
The bus.
I have to get on the bus.
He's very indifferent about everything.
And it's so cutthroat.
And I relate to him way more than I'd like to admit.
You know?
There's some relatable aspects.
One of the things that is like when he's with his girlfriend.
Who is just a girl he...
Just in the moment decides to kind of hook up with.
And then she sort of latches on a little bit.
They work together.
Yeah. She asks him, do you love me?
And he says no.
And she's like, well, would you want to marry me?
And he's like, sure, why not?
Doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
Tax breaks, baby.
That's what matters.
Tax breaks, baby.
That's all a marriage contract really is.
It's tax breaks and being able to make end of life decisions for somebody.
I mean, really, marrying for love is...
Silly.
It kind of is.
You could just be with somebody for love.
Just signing a contract saying you get all my shit when I die.
That's all.
Yeah, you could write a piece of paper that says that.
Which...
Anyway.
Yeah.
So he...
His mother dies. He goes there.
They...
He lets the funeral director do everything.
And he doesn't step in to have any personal touch whatsoever.
He falls asleep a lot.
He's always tired.
Which is a sign of depression.
But...
So is he depressed?
Is that why he doesn't care?
Or is that just...
Is he sleeping because nothing interests him?
So this guy...
From my take on it is like...
If you remember towards the end of the book,
the reason why he murdered the dude essentially
is because he just couldn't take the sun anymore.
If you realize...
If you remember going back to that scene that whole time...
He's like having mid heat stroke basically.
He's like, god it's fucking... It's so hot.
He complains about being hot.
The entire book.
And from my perspective, it's like this dude
only wants... He only cares about...
What? Hanging out with his girlfriend.
Fucking smoking cigarettes.
Chilling on his balcony. Going to the beach.
That's all he cares about. Even after his mom has died.
Even after he has responsibilities and obligations
that he needs to be doing.
What does he do after the whole funeral home thing?
He goes back to his house.
He gets back and the first thing he says is like...
Sunday was... Or after he goes back...
He goes back to his house, chills, smokes cigarettes on the balcony like I said.
And he says like... Sunday was over.
That mom was buried now.
And that I was going back to work and that nothing really had changed.
Yeah.
Nothing had changed.
He got what? A day off of work?
Yeah. And he felt guilty about that.
Essentially. And he's the name of the...
He's like, oh wait no. I had nothing to feel guilty.
But he had to remind himself that... You know what I mean?
What does he do for a living again?
I don't remember it specifying exactly.
Sounds like he works at our fucking old job.
He has to tell my mom fucking died.
I have to go to her funeral and his boss is all pissed off about it.
Right. Right.
Yeah. I thought that was very interesting.
You know.
And I love the way he talked about
wandering around his apartment.
Because he wakes up that next morning
and he's like...
Oh yeah. I remember why my boss was annoyed.
It's like... You know it's Saturday.
And naturally that means I'm going to get four days off.
I was already going to have these days off anyway.
You know what I mean? He's going through these internal battles.
Because he just doesn't understand why he should feel the way they're expecting him to be.
You know. Yeah.
It's very interesting. I don't know.
Does this book have...
I'm mixing up the books.
I...
Does one of them... Does somebody tell him a story?
Does the host at the Beach House tell him a story about somebody else?
I'm not missing...
I'm not thinking of anything right now.
Or does Marcos... Marcos tell him
a story about something
happening to somebody else?
Marcos. Is that not his buddy's name?
No. I think you're...
There's a couple of M's. The French...
M's that I think you're...
I mean I heard it on audiobooks.
So...
And I don't know which translation you're reading.
Oh. Mason.
You mean? Mason? Or Marcon?
Yes. Yes.
I'm reading it as Mason in my head.
Or Marcon or whatever. It's the Beach House owner.
Oh. I thought he was the friend of the Beach House owner.
The one that brings him to...
Raymond. Raymond is the neighbor.
Okay. Does any of them tell him a story?
At all? Like a parable?
Sort of deal? I can't remember at the moment.
I'm missing it. I wrote it down somewhere.
It doesn't matter.
It's important.
Okay. Yeah.
So he...
So Andy, what was your favorite thing about the book?
I'm curious about that.
What did you enjoy about it? Did you like it? Did you even like the book?
We're gonna get...
I...
It was...
It was pretty...
Almost pointless.
Like it was pointless. It was a pointless book.
Nothing got solved.
Nothing got figured out. Nothing happened.
Like he killed someone.
He got the death penalty. That's it.
And...
But my favorite part was the...
When the lawyer gets involved.
Right when he gets his public defender.
And the public defender is like a young go-getter who like actually
wants to give a shit.
And he goes and he tries.
And the trial... You just have...
The one guy just...
The prosecutor just...
Going after his personality.
He didn't really have any facts of the case.
I mean, well, because the case was already done.
So it's just like...
Attacking him for the death penalty, right?
Trying to get him to the death penalty.
And the battle was good.
I liked him in the courtroom.
Just responding when he had to.
And not adding anything.
Which was like a good note for them.
Because every time he opened his mouth, he sounded like a fucking serial killer.
Uh...
Yeah.
And at the end, it kind of gives off a vibe of like...
Did he get the death penalty?
Or didn't he?
100% did.
But it's got some... The end words were a little like...
Where he really kind of expels his philosophy.
Just straight up.
You know?
Yeah.
I'm not one of those guys where I relate to...
Nothing matters.
But I will say this is a French book, right?
Yeah.
The guy who wrote it is French.
The only other book I've written from a French author that's been translated to English was Perfume.
Have you read that one?
I've heard of it but I've not read it.
That gives me the same kind of vibes.
Where it's this...
The main character is so indifferent.
But...
He has extenuating circumstances.
He's just disgusting.
And no one really wants to be around him.
Like he's born... His mom's a prostitute.
And she gives birth to him in a fish market.
And then leaves him there.
Because she's like... Eww.
Like she picks him up and there's no maternal love.
And just leaves him there.
That's a good book.
But what do you think, Austin?
I was enjoying it.
Like in the beginning.
Not as much as the second half.
Because it just got so interesting in the second half.
You're just like...
Alright, this guy, he went to his mom's funeral.
He doesn't really care.
He's hanging out with this chick.
Goes to a movie with her.
Grabs her tits. Takes her home.
He goes to a comedy movie with her.
Which is important. He goes to a comedy movie with her.
And he doesn't understand why people are laughing.
And that's brought up in court.
Which is interesting.
He went and saw a comedy movie after your mom died?
That's another thing.
And then he's dealing with these other people
that he doesn't really care about.
The guy with his dog.
And his dog is all mangy like he is.
And he beats the dog and calls it a stinking rotten bastard.
Over and over again.
The other neighbor that smacks his girlfriend around.
He just thinks it's amusing neighbor stuff.
He just sees that.
He thinks it's an amusing little cycle.
The dog owner and the dog.
And when the dog runs away, he doesn't care.
He just thinks it's an amusing little cycle.
And he's not going to be able to beat it in one way or another.
It doesn't mean anything to him.
He doesn't even think the beating is wrong.
He just thinks it is what it is.
Which I think is...
We don't really get into politics too much on the show.
But is that kind of the libertarian view?
Or is it just like...
I don't know.
Because I heard some guy on a libertarian thing.
Like they just had the conference recently
that Trump spoke at.
And it was covered by a lot of people.
Because he made some promises to free the guy that created Silk Road.
You know that black...
The guy who made the dark web Silk Road thing.
Which led to people trying...
Buying drugs and hiring hitmen.
Like it was a real bad...
Like it was a bad dark web stuff.
He made one of the worst ones.
They arrested him.
And the libertarians at their conference,
a lot of them were like,
free this dude.
Literally like free hat from that South Park movie.
Like, they were like,
free hat from that South Park movie.
You've seen that.
But anyway,
he promised to free him.
But that's not the point.
The point is the guy I saw,
he was like,
we don't want government to deal with fucking anything.
Like, we want way less government.
Way less whatever.
Just let us do our shit.
And it's like,
so what about gun rights?
We want people to have nuclear rights.
to have nuclear weapons if we can build them.
Like just an everyday person at home having a nuke.
Which kind of, it's different,
but in this book it feels like this dude,
his viewpoint is just let people do
whatever the fuck they want.
It means nothing to him.
Let him live his life.
If he dies, he dies.
If someone dies, they die.
It doesn't fucking matter.
Do your own shit.
I did mention that he doesn't like cops at one point
when the dude's beating the girl or whatever.
The girl's like, hey, call the cops.
He's like, I don't like cops.
Yeah. Anyway.
Also, this is like the second thing we've done in a row
that features animal abuse.
We just did the spawn episode
and now it's this guy beating his dog.
But that was like such a,
it's like a really sad story within a story
is that this guy hates this dog all the time,
but then it goes into detail how he puts the cream
on the dog every day.
And ever since like his wife died,
and now it's just him and the dog.
And then he goes back to his room and he's like,
I could hear him through the walls crying
about his lost dog that he ate so much.
And I was just like, oh my God,
that like hit me really hard.
So it feels, yeah, that's a good story within a story.
Yeah, it definitely is.
You could follow that.
If he just did a book about that guy, right?
Just following his story, it would be sad and tragic
and even shorter stories until he gets one sentence.
And then the other roommate, or roommate,
the other apartment, whatever guy.
The neighbor. Neighbor.
What are you calling him, Ruben?
Raymond. Raymond.
Yeah. And everything in this,
in this little bizarro world where,
like you were saying before we started this,
that he's like, oh, I'm just gonna say she was cheating.
And then they'll let me off the hook for smacking her one.
And he literally, he's like, he's like, well, yeah.
I mean, I would beat her, but, and she would scream,
but not like, come on, I was just doing the,
I was doing the 1946 beat down, you know?
Like this is, this is what we do.
Exactly.
And then the cops were like, okay, right on.
Back to your. Yeah.
And then that also reflects later in the courtroom
where they're like, he, of course he murdered that guy.
He got pussy after his mom died.
Like it just, the logic in this world.
You saw a comedy show.
You don't know how old your mom is.
He helped write the letter for Raymond.
He helped write the letter to send to the girl.
That didn't help his case at all.
I feel like that would have been the more damning evidence.
He didn't care that his mom died.
But see, Raymond, his girlfriend cheated on him.
And so he beat her with really bad.
Yep.
The cops got called.
And when he, when he had court, our boy shows up.
Yep. And testifies.
Testifies and says that she was cheating
and that's all they needed to let them off the case.
Oh, she cheated this fucking bitch cheated on you.
Like she was, oh, well then fuck her.
You know, like, yeah, you're going to prison, bitch.
Yeah, I don't know if that happened.
Yeah, no, I don't know.
Yeah, but it's.
I don't know.
How did the Arabs get involved?
Who did he fuck that was the Arab sister?
Oh shit.
Okay.
That girl he beat her brother is the one, is the Arabs.
Arabs, yeah.
He's the leader of the Arabs.
Essentially.
He's one of the Arabs.
He's an Arab.
Yeah.
Yeah, he, they keep kind of stalking Raymond
and because he's with, that's why he buddies up with our guy.
Essentially.
Yeah.
He's like, Hey, you're my buddy.
You're my pal.
And they, he's like, okay, whatever.
I guess you're my pal.
Fine.
And they, now he's got protection a little bit.
The Arabs don't mess with them.
They find him at that beach house.
They track him there.
Yeah.
There's a little bit of a kerfuffle down at the beach.
Everyone kind of walks away from it.
Because Raymond gets cut.
Raymond gets cut.
Okay.
He gets sliced by his face.
His eyelid and his arm.
But his gun, but a gun is pulled, right?
No.
Before, that's before.
So what happens is when they get to the beach,
they come across the Arabs, they realize,
oh shit, they followed us.
All right.
And at this point, Raymond pulls out his gun and he's like,
should I, should I smoke them, whatever?
And then out.
Don't they find them just chilling?
Yes.
They, they go, oh shit, they found us.
So they go down and they find these guys just laying down.
Yes.
And they walk out.
But they walk up on them, right?
With the gun.
Gun's not pulled yet.
This is what happened.
So Raymond pulls his gun out and he's like,
should I smoke them?
Should I smoke them, whatever?
And Al, or Marisol is like,
give me the gun.
If he, if you guys, you know, go through shit,
I'll smoke them.
He has to come at you with the knife
in order for you to shoot him.
Exactly.
So if he pulls it on you while you're fighting him,
I'll shoot him.
Exactly. Thank you.
And then, so that the fight happens, whatever,
whole thing, he ends up not shooting them.
They end up walking away from that.
And when he, and they get back to the house, they go up.
He tells the girls, whatever, that what happened.
He didn't like talking to the girls about what happened.
He just didn't like how they were reacting.
Didn't want to deal with all that.
They went to the hospital or went wherever they went
to get fixed.
Yeah, the doctor up the road.
Yeah, that's, thank you.
And then, so then he went back down to the beach
to get away from the girls, got all hot and sweaty,
got all like fucking delirious and annoyed.
Tried to go back to the house.
He was like, nah, I'm not going to do that.
Went back to the walking on the beach
because he didn't want to go up talking to the girls.
And then that's when he came across the other ARAB guy
by himself.
He wanted to go back to a certain rock or something.
You're right, yes.
And there was like a shady spot on the rock.
You're right.
And then that's where the Arab was.
And then it's a little cloudy to me how it got to,
the Arabs started approaching him or he walked up.
So yeah, exactly.
He walked up, he couldn't,
he wanted to get out of the sun so bad,
but the Arab guy was under the shade
and he wanted to get to the shade.
And he sat there and thought about it.
He's like, should I go back or should I go to the shade?
He's like, I really want to go to the shade.
And so he walked forward a little bit.
The Arab guy pulled out the knife
because he knows who he is, he recognizes him.
And that's when he, because he pulled out the knife,
that's when he grabs his gun and he's got it in his pocket.
I can't remember if he pulled it out yet.
He at least has it in his hand.
And then he gets closer and closer,
takes one more step and then the reflection of the blade
hits him in the face.
And the way it's written in there is like it cuts him,
the reflection cuts his face like a blade or whatever.
And then he just gets annoyed of it
and squeezes and shoots him.
And then he waits, stares at him for a second,
shoot them four more times, which we never find out why.
Well, I think it's, yeah, we never do,
he never explains it.
He never explains it.
We never get a reason for that.
I wonder why, I mean, I wonder what would drive,
like I think, is it the not carrying?
You know what it is to me, it doesn't matter.
That's the, that's his philosophy.
So it's like one shot, well, four more doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
You guys remember the part the guy asked him,
I can't remember, I think it was the guy interrogating him.
He was like, why did you shoot a lifeless body four times?
And then he, I can't remember how he answered,
but like that question is what stick out to me.
It's like the point of that question
is the pointlessness of it, right?
It's explained the point of why,
cause he can't, this guy, the cop, whatever it is,
he can't understand because this guy is so indifferent.
You know, he's like, why would you shoot a lifeless body?
This guy's like, your guess is a good mine.
You know what I mean?
I don't know.
Like it's-
It is what it is.
Yeah.
I shot him four times.
That's what, that's what,
that's what it speaks so highly to me about the book.
It's like the reason why I relate with it
is because I do, I, I feel so,
this is obviously a much exaggerated version, you know,
I don't, but it's just like,
there's a lot of things that in my life
where things will happen and I can tell
that the people around me are surprised
that I'm either underreacting or overreacting,
whatever it may be.
And so I relate with that concept of this book so much.
And I, and I've dealt with weird tragedies in my life,
my mom hasn't passed away,
but I've dealt with other things, you know,
Sierra and I have been dating for a long time, you know,
her family, whatever.
And I've like experienced things where I'm like,
very surprised at the way I react.
Like I would have, if you would have told me beforehand,
like, oh, I'd be a blubbering mess.
But then the thing, the thing happens and I'm like,
very stoked.
But I'm, it doesn't mean I don't care.
You know what I mean?
Like-
You're not an outwards reactor.
Yeah, I can be, but my outwards reaction is when I'm angry.
You've seen it here tonight,
when we have our little scuffles, you know?
Well, I don't, that's not real anger, I hope.
No, no, no, absolutely not.
Let me just say that's an example.
But the one time I've seen real anger is
we were doing a standup show and you,
this guy heckled you and he made you really upset.
And then afterwards you were just wound up and you're like,
where's this motherfucker?
The guy left, but you went outside to go find him.
And then I sent people after you because I was worried,
but he had already left.
Yeah.
You know, I had an anger problem.
That was anger.
You were fucking pissed.
I have an anger problem.
That guy sucked.
Yeah, he did.
I can relate to the being stoic around tragedy
kind of thing.
It was like, I was at work when my grandpa died.
He had been in the hospital for like a week or so.
And I've already visited like a few times when I could.
I was working and then I get the call that he's dead
and they're like, you need to come down here.
And I was like, okay, I guess people want me there.
It'll make, you know, it's not gonna help him.
Right.
And they're like, do you want to go see him?
And I'm like, not really.
Right.
But they're just like going there and see him.
And then I've just had to, everyone else is crying.
I'm just like looking at this dead guy.
I still open everything.
It's like he's dead now.
He's not there anymore.
I don't know why we're doing this.
And I had to watch him get like bagged up and everything.
Yeah.
And everyone else.
And I'm just like, I'm not, you know,
people grieve in different ways, but.
Exactly.
No, I totally get it.
I, yeah, that's crazy, dude.
And that's why I love the last sentence
of this fucking book.
I'm sure.
I don't know if that's how I worded it,
but I really enjoy it.
When he,
basically,
yeah, he just says,
for everything to be consummated,
for me to feel less alone,
I had only to wish that there'd be a large crowd
of spectators the day of my execution.
And if they greet me with the cries of hate,
which like, he just wants these people,
like he at the end of the day,
like he realized what he's done.
He, before I even finished that,
there's a meme I sent to Austin,
which I love, is basically like,
this section of the book is like,
nah, nothing matters, my guy don't give a fuck.
And then right here, he's like,
oh, you're starting to feel something, huh?
Because it's.
The very last part.
Exactly.
Right before he's supposed to die,
when he's having that exchange with the priest,
or the, when he's, he gets angry with him,
he yells at him.
Yes.
That's the only sign of emotion
that we see from the whole time
is when he's yelling at the priest.
I think it's another sign of like,
was it, was it a Catholic?
It's Catholic priests?
Yeah, I believe so.
And it's just how that religion tries to like,
seep into this story of like,
how nothing matters, absurdity, nothing matters.
And then they just keep trying to get you to,
he keeps, the Catholic priest,
he just keeps coming back trying to get him.
And he finally like, fucking explodes on him,
like just, I don't agree with this shit.
Yeah.
It doesn't fit for me.
Fucking knock it off, go away.
Yeah.
And it made him cry.
Yeah.
And then there's a book called Things Fall Apart,
and I think it's written by someone in Africa,
and it was translated.
And the, it's Africa,
and it's like tribes of African people,
and they're dealing their own inner politics,
they have their own thing going on,
and then white missionaries come in
trying to impose their religion on the tribal people.
And it starts working.
And the main guy is losing control.
He's the chief of his tribe,
and he's losing control of it.
His son gets, blah, blah, blah.
And it comes to a point where he very dramatically,
like walks out in the middle of a public sermon
or that the missionaries were going,
he just chops off one of their fucking heads
with a machete, and then runs off,
and they hunt him down.
And,
there's a reason for me bringing that up.
It's not that he didn't care, he cared too much,
but it's, if we're just talking,
it's an allegory for religion being where it's not wanted,
that last scene.
If like every part is something to dissect,
if that last part is this guy's indifference
to what's going on around him,
and religion trying to make something out of nothing,
you know, like he just doesn't care,
but this religion guy wants to keep pushing
and pushing and pushing,
get something out of him,
which he did, mission accomplished,
but it wasn't the right thing to get.
I don't know.
Yeah, I agree.
And this is cool for me,
I mentioned earlier, like this is like,
I just started kind of really reading, you know?
I wanted to get into that.
So, okay, when, how many books prior to this
do you think you've done recreationally?
Recreationally, I probably read, prior to this,
I probably read maybe two books on my own time.
Okay.
And there were two books for the giver
by Lois Lorry.
Cool.
Amazing book.
And As They Lie Dying by William Faulkner,
also an amazing book.
I haven't read the second one.
Giving, the giver's good.
Great book.
That's the, boy gets access to all the previous knowledge.
Okay.
Old guy touches his back.
Oh, also I forgot, three,
I read very similar plot to Anne Ryan,
I mean to the giver,
which I think he might be thinking of as Anne Ryan,
the anthem, which is that's where he gets access
to all the previous information or the previous world.
Wait, the giver is, isn't that his?
Oh wait, it's the same thing.
The giver, okay, if I'm thinking of the movie.
The giver and the receiver.
Yeah, there's the receiver.
There's the, the movie at least, it's Harrison Ford, right?
No, Jeff Bridges.
No, you're right, you're right.
It's the same plot.
Well, I was also mixing up with Ender's Game a little bit.
No, you're right, it's just the same plot.
It's just a very similar plot.
The anthem is very, very similar.
Have you read Ender's Game?
No.
It's a little tough of a recommendation
because that guy's a wacko, the guy that wrote it.
I feel like he's a super religious nut job,
like real hateful dude, but holy shit,
is that one of the better young adult sci-fi books
of its time?
Right.
So, okay, so you seem to pick big thinker books.
You're not really into the casual fiction.
You're not into like a Stephen King or a Dean Koons
or anything.
I haven't had any interest in those yet.
I'm not that big on Stephen King stuff.
I like The Shining.
Well, okay, we can't judge him off his movies.
No, yeah, no, absolutely not.
That's the only reason why when I say I'm not big on it,
I just mean like it has, it's not something
that has ever interested me to like,
it's like one of those things that just for whatever reason,
I've grouped it together with like,
I guess more or less mom books or like things like that.
So 100% I do understand that.
I did that too for the longest time.
I held on for dear life that my favorite author of all time
was Robert McCammon because no one had ever heard of him
and he does write my favorite books that I've ever read.
Okay, they're amazing.
Swan Song, Wolf Sour, if you know, you know,
like he's a very good detailed author.
Like every scene he paints, you're there.
You know, everything about it.
Like you're sitting there.
He has one called Wolf Sour,
which is about an American or a British spy
who's a werewolf and he could change into a giant wolf
at any time.
So it's not like moon related.
And he uses that ability to fight Hitler, you know,
to a degree, you know, it's not like,
it's not like Hitler versus a wolf.
It doesn't get that cartoonish,
but it's like him doing shit where it helps
that he can turn into a fucking wolf and escape, you know,
but one of the best, just one of the best books ever.
But I always thought of Stephen King is like,
you're right, like mom books.
Like my mom liked a lot of Stephen King.
And I was just like, ah, okay.
I've seen the movies, whatever.
Then I started reading them and honestly,
he's one of the best authors I've ever read.
There's a reason why he's so big, you know?
Yeah, I've made it my mission to read every Stephen King.
And now I've done, I think I'm about 90% through
out of his 70 something books, right?
Because there's a lot.
Yeah, I don't even know.
I've also read, like, I just read the one
that came out two weeks ago, right?
The, his short story collection, which was phenomenal.
And a little bit of a spoiler,
but it has a secret sequel to Kujo in it.
So you're a fan of Kujo.
I've heard a lot of people talk about The Stand.
The Stand is, yeah, there's a,
you gotta get the director's cut book, the author's cut.
That sounds funny.
Well, there is, it's like, it's,
they had an abridged version.
You have to get the unabridged
because there's just a lot more stuff.
I'm, I think that they, I read, I read the unabridged
and I think there's an entire, probably 20, 30 pages
dedicated to the dying, like, fever dreams
of someone going through the Captain Tripp's virus.
And he's thinking about this young boy
that he was in love with when he was a young man
and having like all these sexual fantasies
about this, about this kid.
I bet you they cut that just for sensibility sake.
And then Stephen King's like,
no, I put that in there for fucking reason.
And so now you, when you buy it,
you get the full final cut of it.
But are you familiar with Cormac McCarthy?
You ever read any of his books?
No, I haven't.
I think you'd have really enjoyed it.
I, the first book I read,
I think it's a great place to start,
it's called The Road.
It's a really good fucking book.
Is that about a boy and his father
in post-apocalyptic time?
Okay, so there's a movie that I wanted to watch
that I haven't.
But that's something I would watch,
I would listen to or read.
I highly recommend it.
I say don't even bother with the movie, in my opinion.
I've read, I've read and watched both, you know.
That's tough though, because a lot,
I could say that for almost every book to movie adaptation.
Sure, and I have no,
I have no other expertise in that other than
this particular book and The Giver,
which I really loved both movie and book.
Okay.
You know, when I read this,
I read this for the story straight all the way through.
I didn't get into the philosophical part,
like towards the end.
Like The Priest was one thing.
Yeah.
Another thing was that he talks about Maria?
Yeah.
Not writing him anymore.
And he's just kinda like,
yeah, she stopped writing me.
Maybe she's dead.
Oh well, anyways.
I'm gonna stare at this wall every minute detail of this wall.
Didn't even think of actual her,
just thought of an idea of a woman, right?
When he was talking about that.
Yeah.
That's real though.
I mean, like how many times have you fallen in love
with the idea of a woman?
Right, that's very funny.
I have.
Also about two years has passed
since he shot the guy, right?
Or one year?
It was like 11 months or something like that.
Yeah.
About a year, I guess.
But yeah, dude, I don't know.
I think that's really sick.
Like how many books, like you've been reading a long time.
Like you've been reading like your whole life
or whatever, like been into reading.
Yeah, like I mentioned in the podcast
that we filmed earlier, recorded earlier.
But yeah, when I, I would do,
I would have an in-school suspension
just so that I could sit back and read a book.
You know, I would, yeah, all the time.
My buddies, and what helped was my best friends growing up,
at least one of them, Michael, and to a lesser degree, Andrew.
They were big readers.
That's cool.
And they recommended stuff.
Like I wouldn't have found out about Robert McCammon
if it wasn't for Michael.
And,
God, those are phenomenal.
I mean, if you want like a good apocalyptic
or post-apocalyptic book, go with the Swan Song,
which is post-nuclear.
And it's just so good.
Too much to get into.
They might make a, finally, for the first time ever
of all of his properties over the last 30, 40 years
he's been writing, they're finally doing
a, they're talking about doing a series of Swan Song,
his post-apocalyptic one, which, cool.
That's really cool.
But I like, if you're gonna catch me with a book,
it's most likely gonna be either Stephen King
or I love Jim Butcher.
You heard of Neil Gaiman?
Oh yeah.
You heard Neil Gaiman, guy?
Yeah. American Gods, I read that.
And that was an interesting book.
Have you read that or heard of that?
I've heard of it.
I only read one of his books.
I only read it because the girl I work with
recommended it to me. Never will.
Because she saw that I read, no, it's Anantiboy.
Anantiboy.
The guy, Charlie, the main character of that book
makes an appearance in American Gods.
Well, Anantzi, right?
The spider god?
Yes.
The spider trickster god?
Yeah. Okay.
That whole book is about the spider trickster god
or whatever.
You might really like it.
I might, yeah.
I enjoyed it for someone who doesn't-
That might even be a seek, no, it's Anantzi in what?
It's Anantzi, it's not just Anantzi, it's Anantzi-
Called Anantiboy.
That's Anantzi, there we go.
Yeah, that's the name of it.
It's the brothers, it's the two sons of the spider god.
Okay, so it's a sequel then to American Gods, or no?
It's not technically a sequel, no.
It just happened.
Came on after that.
It just, I don't know the order.
I read up about it when she first gave it to me
because I was really curious what it was
because I didn't know if I wanted to read it or not,
but I read it because I wanted to be polite
and I'm glad I did, it was an experience.
I'm not a fantasy book type of guy,
it was really something that I had to step out
of my realm for and I powered through it
because like I said, it's not something that I was into,
but I'm glad I stepped out of my realm for it.
Okay, so it's just in general like,
you don't like the fantasy element or you don't like
the, you don't like the supernatural stuff?
It's hard for me to get on board with stuff.
I'm really, I'm like a base in reality type of person.
I like things that I feel like that I can really,
either relate, I don't have to relate to it,
but I just like things that I feel like
it could actually happen, you know what I mean?
Like, no, I don't know.
I get it, I mean, yeah.
One of the more interesting books I read was Salt,
A History, and it was just this guy who wrote
just interesting anecdotes and true stuff
about the history of salt.
Like, you know the salary, sol is salt.
They used to pay Roman soldiers in salt,
and that's where we get the term salary from.
That's the one thing I remember from it,
but then there's also like a bunch of historical stuff.
That's one aspect.
I'm trying to think of like, would you read a grounded,
realistic, like murder mystery?
Yeah, 100%.
I would, at this point, I'm in the point
where I read almost anything
because I really want to figure out what I'm into still.
Yeah, because I think you need to put a Stephen King book
in your repertoire.
Yeah, I have a Dr. Sleep in my library that was given to me.
You have to read Shining first.
100%, yep, I was told.
Yeah, like you can't just jump into Dr. Sleep.
No, I know, I'm aware of what the story is,
so I'm fully aware of that.
Now, what's great about Stephen King, though,
is he has taken all of his works
and weaved him into a very cool multiverse story,
the Dark Tower series.
So, like, he has seven Dark Tower books
that he wrote over a course of 40 years,
and by the seventh one, it's fully blending in
all of his previous works to some degree.
Like, characters from different books make appearances,
they bleed through this, like, multi,
it's just a lone gunslinger
who's hunting down the man in black
and across a multiversal divide.
And what makes that really interesting
is there's a point where, in real life,
Stephen King, and this is real real life,
like, our real life, Stephen King,
who was told many times not to go hiking up this hill
because a car could hit him,
went hiking up a hill and a car hit him.
A van hit him and fucked him up,
and to the point where it was reported
that he was dead for like two days
or like a day or whatever until it got fixed,
people were saying, nope, Stephen King's not dead.
But he got fucked up and almost died.
So he wrote that into one of his books.
He wrote that Stephen King, the author,
is walking up, he gets hit by a van.
And then Roland, the gunslinger,
bleeds through the dimension
and helps Stephen King stay alive.
And then in return, Stephen King writes him some stuff
in his storyline that helps him later on in the book.
So Stephen King, he's not just a mom book.
He's like, he's clever, he's smart, he's funny.
Like, if you want a well,
if you want just a straight, good, pre,
like, I don't know, he's great.
What I like in most of my stories,
what makes me enjoy a story more than anything
is if it's pre-cell phone.
And I think that works with movies too now.
That's funny, cause I was gonna say
I was gonna pick up a Stephen King book.
It's probably gonna be self.
That was not, dude, that was actually,
I know you're joking.
No, no, I'm serious.
Like if I was gonna read one,
that's one that like sticks with me.
Cause my grandma had like a whole collection
and I would like study them
cause there wasn't shit to do there.
And I would just look at them
and cell was just the one that stuck out to me.
It was the cell phone covered in blood.
Oh dude.
The crack screen, I was like,
that looks like it might be interesting.
Do you know what that's about?
It's, it's, it's, don't spoil it.
I think I might read it.
No, no, no, but this is just the,
this is just the literally the first.
If you spoil it, I'm never gonna read
a Stephen King book in my life.
No, no, no, this is just the first 30 second thing.
This is what you would see in like the trailer.
The back of the book when it's literally just
at like 12, 15 on a Saturday American time,
every cell phone in the entire world,
whoever was on it gets hit with a fucking
shock through the phone or whatever.
And it turns them into zombies.
So the zombie plague is caused by that.
So it's not everybody, but it's,
it's a lot of people that got hit all at once.
Interesting.
But this is Stephen King's take on zombies.
And it is not your standard fucking Dawn of the Dead.
His take is so much, it's so weird.
It's so different.
So like, you don't know what the fuck is happening,
what these zombies are, what they're,
what they're doing.
I thought it was great.
I thought the movie was John Cusack,
Sam Jackson, whatever.
It's fine.
They couldn't cover the complexities of the,
of all the shit that King was trying to do
with those zombies.
Sounds way different than what I thought it was gonna be.
If, if you really want, if,
if you're a new Stephen King person
and you want something that's not heavily tied to Dark Tower
or the Mr. Mercedes series or any of his other
sort of things that you need to have more backstory to,
read either 11, 22, 63, which is his time traveling,
saved JFK from getting assassinated book, which is great.
Or Under the Dome, which is a,
which is the Simpsons movie, but it,
that came out the same year, but it's,
he says he didn't know anything about it.
It's funny.
Some people came up with the same plot of giant dome
gets dropped on a city and you just kind of,
they just have to now live in this microcosm,
which is crazy.
Nobody tries to dig under.
Oh, they try everything to get out and then nothing works.
And then the ending of that's nuts, but,
I don't know.
They don't have running water?
What about water getting to them?
Yeah, no, they run into all that problem,
all those problems.
They run into everything.
There's a, there's a used car salesman
who everyone kind of refers to is like,
I think big Dick or something like he's a,
or big Tom or big Bob.
Like he's like the main guy who kind of is a half politician,
half, you know, runs the town because he has all the jobs.
Like he then takes the position of, all right,
I'm going to run this fucking town
now that no one can tell me otherwise.
And so it becomes like a power structure, like power play.
There's like, I don't want to go too much into it.
Read it. It's fucking great.
So you're a big story guy.
Like you're not, you like Bukowski or no?
See, I wouldn't go into more philosophical stuff.
Like, I guess the most philosophical guy
that I'll read is like Chuck Palaknik.
Am I even familiar?
Chuck Palaknik, I don't know that, Fight Club.
Oh, okay. Got you, got you.
Choke.
No Kurt Von Gitt or like anything?
Yeah, no, I've read, I've read Cat's Cradle
and I've read Slaughterhouse Five.
Okay.
I like Slaughterhouse Five.
I like that too.
I need to read Cat's Cradle. I want to read it.
That's a short story collection.
That one's interesting.
English teacher gave me that to read
when she noticed that I actually liked reading
in English class, no one else.
Like my book reports were a little bit more,
like I just had more fun with it
because I was like, all right, fuck it.
Which book did I read this week?
Let's talk about it.
I had fun in English class, but you know,
who's top of my list is Michael Crichton.
I'm a big Crichton guy.
That's who you might like.
Okay, because you weren't grounded in reality.
Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park.
He wrote Lost World.
He wrote Andromeda Strain.
He wrote, what's his other big one that he wrote?
Timeline, but like take Timeline for instance, right?
That's his time travel book,
but his time travel book is the first 150 pages is,
let's explain quantum physics to a casual book reader
and the way that they can understand it.
Great.
You now know what quantum physics is.
We have this whole setup.
Great.
Here's some time travel now where you can go back
to this one specific place in France
and do very limited shit because it's time travel.
It's realistic.
You can't just bring back whatever you want.
You can't just play around.
So, you know, whatever.
It's like so realistic that it's problematic for them
because if they had a fucking time machine
that could go back in time and they, whatever.
Like it's realistic sci-fi among them.
Very realistic sci-fi.
Just like Jurassic Park is supposed to be realistic sci-fi.
It's supposed to be, we cloned these dinosaurs.
We have them on this island.
We're working on this and then shit just goes wrong.
Something that could theoretically happen.
You know, something that we can see theoretically happen.
Yeah.
I think one of them, he makes,
he makes like a, there's like a lab
that makes like a self-sentient,
microscopic robot type of thing
that then just starts multiplying
and then starts doing whatever the fuck it wants
because it can go anywhere and do anything.
It's like the big hero six,
those big hero six robots that he uses the, you know.
Yeah.
No?
Big hero six.
Remember?
The Disney movie.
Yeah, his power or his thing that he came up with
to win the science fair.
All those little nanobots that he controlled.
Is there like a big robot guy in it?
Big white robot guy.
Yeah, big white robot.
Kind of looks like the Hitchhiker's Guide.
Yep.
Yeah, yeah, a little bit, yeah.
I haven't seen it but I've seen the-
Oh, the Hitchhiker.
It's very sad, very sad.
Hitchhiker books are great.
Actually, yeah, I do want to read those.
I heard about those.
They're funny as fuck.
Yeah, I heard that too.
Those are really, oh, you know what else is
really, really, really funny?
Like just a silent killer funny is like Roger Rabbit,
who Puppa plugged Roger Rabbit,
who censored Roger Rabbit and who,
there isn't a frame, that's the movie.
And then I forgot the other one.
Who something Roger Rabbit.
But the books are great.
It's like he shows up
and one of the dude he's talking to is smoking.
And so he takes his smoke and he grabs it
and puts it in a bag or whatever
and then tosses it out the window
so it doesn't flood his office.
Very funny, very funny stuff.
And they were written before the movie,
like based on the movie.
Back to the Stranger though, funny thing.
Sorry, I mean-
Sorry, nope, that's good.
I wanted this to be short anyway too, so.
I was in the middle of reading
Running the Light by Sam Talent.
And I'm like halfway through the book, way bigger book.
Sean hits me up, tells me,
I'm gonna do the podcast that Saturday
and we're doing The Strangers, you should read it.
So I go pick up a copy, I read that,
then I finished Sam Talent's book
and I start reading A Clockwork Orange.
I just saw it because I was grabbing books
at Barnes and Noble and I saw it,
oh yeah, I love that movie.
And I started reading that.
Clockwork Orange, basically The Stranger,
if Marasault was a fucking piece of shit.
And it's three parts instead of two, seven chapters each,
which there's like a, in the beginning it tells you
there's like a reason behind that.
Do they say he goes out for a little bit of ultraviolence?
Oh, all those things and more, a lot more.
Goes to the milk bar full of drugs.
The Grova milk bar with the Dread and Crumb,
Synthemes, all that, all those things are in there.
It's just like the movie except maybe if you watched it
with like deleted scenes included.
And more, a lot more like, oh, all through your gutty what's
and you know, the Malachicks like me
and you know, gave him a tallachuk and that means fight.
And like you don't know what any of these fucking words mean
but the more you read it, it's like you're kind of learning
just how to use all of that.
I, one of my favorite things to do
is movie to book adaptations.
This one, it doesn't matter whether you saw the movie first
or not, I think, you know, you read the book,
you could watch the movie.
You could watch the movie and then read the book.
It's a different, it stays generally pretty much the same.
There's extra stuff in it.
I would say.
But there's a whole missing chapter from the movie.
Sure.
The American version had 20 chapters
and he needed the money so he just let them make it
however they wanted.
And then Stanley Kubrick made the movie.
On the American version with the extra chapter?
No, no, no, no, no, no.
The original book, 21 chapters by Anthony Burgess.
Then when he went to sell it to America,
get it published out there, they took away the last chapter.
Oh.
And he was just like, whatever, I need the money.
And then Stanley Kubrick made the movie
and like also kind of added his own changes to it.
Okay.
So it's slightly different in the book
and there's a whole extra chapter at the end.
Okay, interesting.
I might have to put it on my list.
But I like that you guys are getting passionate
about reading.
Some of the best,
there's been some egregious book to film adaptations,
just some really fucking god awful ones.
Then there's been some that have been absolutely stellar.
Like Fight Club is a 10 out of 10.
They changed one thing,
one minor little tiny insignificant thing.
And then also they didn't start each scene
with a different way to make Homemade Napalm.
Would you count the crow along with that?
Because they really didn't change too much.
I'll count any comic book adaptation too,
but that's a little bit different.
Like a book and a comic book are different
because you're getting your images told through,
you're getting your story told through imagery
or you're getting it told through like words,
but dialogue, inner thoughts.
Pure description, you have to go by your own idea
of what description is.
You know what I mean?
Everybody pictures a different thing.
Yeah, I mean, when I read Harry Potter,
my mom, her friend got back from England
and she's like, hey, these are really popular over there.
And my mom ordered them and I read the first three
and holy shit, that's what got me,
one of the first few books that got me passionate,
really passionate.
I read it, I'd read Hatchet by Gary Paulson.
And that's a cool book about like a kid who,
in fifth grade, I read Hatchet on my own just for fun.
And it's a kid who gets trapped in the Canadian wilderness
with just a hatchet and like a few bear supplies
and he like survives for a few weeks.
It's fucking cool, or he dies I think at the end,
but it's like he makes it for a few weeks.
Thanks for ruining that for me.
Sorry.
No, I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding.
But then what's crazy about that,
just the side story is when they made a sequel,
he wrote a sequel to it because he was strapped for cash
and he needed money and he's like,
that was my best selling book,
so I'm gonna write another one.
And he changed the ending.
He retroactively changed the ending of the hatchet,
so now when you get a copy, the boy lives at the end.
But his original cut was he dies because in the next one,
the government hires this kid to,
they trap him in the woods saying,
hey, show us how you did it and we'll study you
so that we can help people in the future
learn how to survive.
And then shit goes wrong and he just has to survive then
for a couple of weeks again with just a fucking hatchet.
It's a little bit of a wash, rinse, or repeat,
but whatever, what are you gonna do?
Okay.
I'll read Wood Song if you want to, Gary Paulson.
Okay, so let's rate The Stranger.
We'll rate it out of what?
Do you wanna do it the same way as the movie?
Oh, never, never.
For my book club, it's always five,
whatever stands out from the books.
Oh, so out of five unnecessary bullet shots.
Out of five.
What do you guys rate this?
All right.
Yeah, for me, dude, I'm gonna go,
I have to go like a good five.
Like I love that.
You can use a five out of five.
I really do, yeah.
I think, I mean, this is a classic for a reason.
It's this shit gets taught in philosophy,
but I can't say that word, philosophy classes.
I mean, I can't express to you how much I enjoyed reading it.
It's the only book I've read twice so far in my life.
I ripped through it.
I enjoyed his take on life.
And although I don't agree with every single part of it,
it's something that has stuck with me a lot,
like his take on it.
And it's something I think about a lot.
So yeah, I think it's like for me, it's a big five
because for me to read it twice is crazy to me.
I love it.
So five bullets, five unnecessary bullets.
I'm also gonna go five just because
I thought I could read just this one book
that I was already reading and like,
I was losing interest, but I'm like,
then this one came around
and made me think totally different.
And it made me want to read even more books,
which now I'm on my third one in like, you know,
just over a week.
I'm glad that it inspired you.
I'm gonna give it a like a two and a half.
Yeah.
For no other reason than it didn't make me feel anything
one way or the other, like.
All right, Marisol.
Then you should give it a five.
Yeah, I'm just kidding.
You got it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I got the message, yeah.
No, look, there wasn't much to,
I get that this is something you could discuss
in a philosophy class.
To me, that's not something that calls,
that shouts out to me.
Like this isn't something that I would have read on my own.
Which is sometimes like a good thing.
So I thought like stranger in a strange land
that Austin recommended was a.
That one was kinda out there.
That one was out there.
That one had a lot of philosophical points of view on it.
Suggested to me by my friend's dead dad.
So RIP to your friend's dead dad.
And you could have just said your friend's dead.
No one needed to know.
Well, that's the only reason why even,
if someone just mentions that to me,
that suggested that book to me and didn't die,
I probably would have not even thought about it since then.
This is how shit is the butterfly effect of the world
where his dying wish is me making
a Wednesday night book club out of it.
And I didn't even finish it.
I made you read it.
Yeah.
But there are books out there that make me think.
This wasn't really one of them.
This wasn't something that stuck out with me.
That's something to think twice on.
You know, this is like a poor man's,
well no, it's different entirely.
But if you want a book that makes you think,
read The Alchemist by Paulo Cohen.
Like that is, that's the book.
I watched an interview, a short little like TikTok
or YouTube clip where Oprah Winfrey was talking to Pharrell
of all people, okay?
And Pharrell or Oprah mentions The Alchemist, this book.
And Pharrell's like, she's like, well,
Pharrell's like, yeah, no, no, no, no, no.
I was just like doing like nothing with my life.
And then I read The Alchemist
and like changed my entire outlook on everything.
And Oprah's like, yeah, like me too.
That's like one of the most important books
I've ever read in my life.
So I was like, okay, Oprah and Pharrell,
you two massively famous people
that have done a lot more than I've all ever dreamed to do.
I'll read The Alchemist.
And that book, I think I've now read probably four times.
Like it's a very quick read.
It's very philosophical.
It's right up your alley.
It's a parable.
So it's like just an unnamed boy, you know,
going on a journey in like, you know,
sort of ancient times, you know, and it's so powerful.
He's a sheep herder, but he gets called to do more.
And he just keeps moving from thing to thing.
But like, it's a journey.
It's a process.
He's following like his,
I think one of the most important takeaways from the book,
just like a moral would be as long as you're living
in pursuit of your life's dreams,
there's never a moment wasted in your life.
So you could die at any point,
happy in the knowledge that you lived every moment,
trying to fulfill your dreams.
Is trying to fulfill your dreams
is a form of fulfilling them.
It's just a process.
And so maybe you don't get to the end goal.
Maybe it never gets to the results that you wanted,
but you're still on your way.
So I don't know.
It's not, but it's not, it's not, but it's not like,
it's saccharin.
It's not like sugary sweet, you know,
it's a well-told parable that's been translated
into 80 something language.
It's just fucking insane.
It's like one of the most absolutely must read
if you're trying,
especially after you made me read The Stranger,
not made me, but you recommended this.
I would say-
I'd be more than happy to read it.
See the other side of the coin on that one.
A much less pessimistic view of the world.
No, yeah, I'm ready to hear all of this side of you.
That's why I'm into this, because like I'm dead inside
and I am broken and I'm trying to figure out
who the fuck and what the fuck.
Yeah.
That's, you know what I'm saying?
Sure, yeah, I get it.
And yeah, I'm interested in everything.
That's why I'm, like, the reason why I started reading
all this is because I want to become a better writer.
Like I'm obsessed with being a great joke writer
and I want to not only just write jokes,
but I want to write other things.
And the best way to do that is to fucking read.
And I just, and like, not only that,
but I want to not be a dumb motherfucker.
Like I dropped out of high school.
I never did anything in school.
I didn't listen, didn't pay attention.
Like I'm not, it's never that guy, you know?
And so I'm just doing everything I can now as an adult
to just like be a more well-educated, well-read,
not ignorant fucking human, you know?
Yeah, I love being, I love going to work
and using words that my coworkers sometimes don't,
like my younger coworkers have never heard,
because they're not, they don't go,
because your vocabulary expands when you read,
because you learn new things.
Like you can look up words that you've never heard before.
100%.
Terms that you've never heard, historical events
that you've never heard about before.
Yeah.
I, like, I had never known about,
I didn't know what a sundown county was.
Sundown town was?
Yeah, until Lovecraft Country.
Kingman used to be one.
Was it really?
Yeah.
Holy shit.
They had like signs up until, I heard this,
I don't know if it's true, I'm being recorded,
but I heard this one time fucking,
apparently there was signs up until the 80s.
Oh wow.
That they had to take, that they finally took down.
Like it was there for a while.
Like they obviously weren't enforcing it in the,
there were signs still around like from back then.
Kingman's not like that anymore, I can say.
It seems like a pretty decent little town now.
Yeah, I don't know much about it.
I like their downtown, but.
No, it's a pretty town.
Yeah.
Unless it's still secretly racist, then fuck Kingman.
I've got no allegiances to it.
I've bombed pretty hard a couple times there, so.
Fuck you guys.
Yeah, get better sense of humor for sure.
Well yeah, okay.
So two fives and a 2.5, it's fine.
You guys seem to, but it's funny.
I like that you didn't like it.
I like that you're honest opinion.
I like that you gave it a five for the fact
that it brought out a lot of philosophical thought
and it made you ponder and it gave you a lot
to chew on mentally, which is great.
And a book that, any book that gives you a lot to chew on,
like even in this most recent Stephen King short story,
there was a few times where I had to stop
after a short story was over instead of just going straight
into the next one so that I could digest
what he just, what I just heard.
That's important.
Yeah, it is and it's, and it,
there's some thought provoking stuff in there.
Actually, I'm just gonna start recommending
more and more books, but well I will say this
if you're listening at home, which you should be.
Don't, don't, well listen anywhere you want, I don't care.
Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian,
which is that wonderful Matt Damon movie
if you haven't seen it.
I have seen it.
Which is a great movie, books 10 times better,
but Project Hail Mary, which they haven't made a movie yet.
I don't know why, it must be in the works.
There has to be something,
because that's one of the most,
it's a first contact book.
It's like a guy in space all alone, his crew is dead.
He's now 40, 50 light years from home.
He got sent to study some star,
some planet that might be Earth-like.
Yeah.
Another alien, similar situation.
Doing the same thing.
Came out to the same star.
They find each other and then just slowly
throughout the book find a way to communicate,
find a way to know each other's culture a little bit.
And that's one of the few books where
I don't want to be inside the store.
I want to just get right back out into my car
and just keep going.
That's cool.
Because it's so good.
If we're talking about just engaging story-wise.
What were you finished with your thought?
You were saying you liked that I chose five stars.
Oh yeah, because it was so philosophical
and made you chew on it.
And then I liked that Austin, he's like,
I didn't think about the philosophy once.
I just liked the story.
Later going back, because now I can talk to other people
who read the book.
I don't know a lot of people who read books.
Yeah, me neither.
If you met my family, oh yeah, okay.
Shout out to Austin's mom.
I liked going in.
She has these perfect weed beanies.
Don't talk shit about her.
Well, yeah.
But The Stranger, I kind of just read it
for the story straight through.
And then all the philosophical stuff came after that.
After talking to people about it.
And the reason I gave it a five is because after that,
I started reading Clockwork Orange,
which turns out to be another thinker.
What makes a guy good?
There can't be good without bad.
If you're trying too hard to be good,
you're ignoring your bad instinct.
It's more, I do like a good thinker.
Gave you further insight on the book even.
I really liked Sam Talent's book.
I really like these books.
So I'm also at the same time still trying to figure out
what I like the most.
Right now I just like these thinker books
more than this one fictional story book.
So further down the line.
I think a shorthand to finding out what you might be into
is think of a movie that you like that has a book
that it was based on and read that one.
And most people when you say Clockwork Orange,
you don't think about the book.
You're thinking about that movie and what the fuck.
It's just a crazy weird movie.
But unless you've read the book.
Because now a lot of times people mention it
and I don't think of the movies at all.
I think of the book which has one of the most hilarious,
it's never going to ever be in a movie ever scenes, ever.
So Cormac McCarthy, the guy who wrote The Road.
He wrote No Country for Old Men.
You guys are familiar with that movie I'm sure, right?
Great movie, amazing book apparently.
Tommy Lee Jones, right?
Or no, Tommy Lee Jones?
No.
Josh Brolin.
Yes, yes and Javier Bardem.
Yeah, that's a good movie.
But see that's one of those movies that the plotline
isn't really that gets me.
It's the cinematography, the slow build, the kills,
the action, the acting is what made me go,
oh this was a good movie.
I need to read the source material of this.
That's great, I love that you said that
because I agree with every single thing that you just said
and that's why when I found out it was a book,
it actually made me more interested in reading it
for that exact reason.
Because I was like, oh that story isn't,
I'm telling you, you said it so well.
It wasn't the story that I necessarily was obsessed with,
it was the vibe of the movie, it was the main killer,
it was just, and then I thought about the dialogue
that I liked and I'm like, well dialogue, that's writing.
That had to come from somewhere.
So I'm like, and then I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road
and then I realized how much I love his writing
and then I was like, oh now I really wanna read that book.
I bet you the plot will make more sense to you
on a rewatch of the movie after reading the book.
Because then you'll be like, I understand who this guy is,
what his motivation is, what his story is,
what his thinking during all these things.
Is that, okay, so, sometimes what makes a movie great
is the opposite of what makes a book great
because take Hunger Games.
Hunger Games is a book that I,
I heard the movie was coming out and I was like,
oh it's based on a book, okay.
I found it on Kindle, I read it in one night
because it's a quick little, it's not that quick,
but I couldn't put it down because I was like,
these kids killing each other,
what a great fucking storyline.
Battle Royale, but futuristic, it was great.
Then I immediately watched the movie.
I was like, oh shit, it's nine o'clock in the morning,
there's a movie starting in an hour, let's go.
I watched it and I noticed the biggest difference was,
and this is the biggest difference in movies and books,
is that you don't know what the character's thinking
when you're watching a movie.
So you just have to rely on their acting
and Katniss Everdeen, you could tell,
you don't know all the shit, it doesn't matter
that she's thinking about her sister,
thinking about her boyfriend, or thinking about whatever.
It's just, she's on the hunt and she's quietly in the woods
and there's beautiful scenery
and you see the hunt happen.
And it's just like, that makes it a good movie moment.
But then in the book, when you're reading that same scene
and she's contemplating all these fucking complex feelings
that she's having about this futuristic world
she lives in with the Hunger Games as a fucking thing.
And she internalizes the thought of like,
it's not just in the movie where I volunteer as tribute,
there's a moment where she's thinking about it.
Where she's like, I don't know if she questions herself,
but there's definitely not just an immediate I volunteer.
There's a moment where they say Prim's name
and she's like, fuck.
And she's stressing and there's panic
and there's all this stuff that you get
from her performance in the movie.
But you get-
It's just different.
Yeah, so it's like, I think that's what,
I think they go hand in hand.
I think sometimes it enhances the other one.
Cause now if I were to reread Hunger Game, which I wouldn't,
but if I were to reread it,
I think I would picture the kind of vibe that they gave
for the actual Hunger Games, which is pretty cool.
Like the actual arena that they built.
But anyway.
Cool.
Cool, I hope to have you guys back on.
I'm down.
Yeah, we'll do this again.
Just anytime we can find a book that we all want to read.
Well, I guess, you know what?
It'll be-
Burning the Light.
It was your book this time.
Yep.
So I guess we'll go with,
oh, you already had one, Stranger in a Strange Land.
Yeah.
Which you didn't participate in.
He made me read, but I already did that.
So I think I'll come up with the next one.
I'll hit you guys up with the book when I,
I might even be one I've already mentioned.
It could be The Alchemist.
It could be-
If you read that one though, we should do it for that one.
We already read this one.
Both of us have already read that.
So I'll do it as you, Running the Light by Sam Town.
Well, if you guys can make it next week,
well then we'll do-
I can't do next week now.
I'll be-
Oh, then we'll do the week after.
Cool, we'll do Running the Light with Sam Town.
We'll be two episodes from now.
Next week's book is,
wait a minute.
Am I gonna do Stephen King before this?
Okay, well, shit.
I didn't think about this.
You know I can make the episodes.
I'm already gonna be here.
So just if Sean wants to come do one then-
Yeah, I think, no, I'm just in my mind.
I'm trying to think where this episode goes.
Because I think I'm doing the Stephen King episode
before this.
So I don't know what my next book is gonna be.
That's okay, they'll find out.
You know what?
Look in the comments, you'll find out.
Sorry guys, I don't have my next book lined up.
There's so many of them.
All right.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
Later.