Podcasts about Long Walk

Kennedy Has a Disappointing Wicked Long Walk Update full 439 Thu, 17 Sep 2026 13:02:09 +0000 9D5L6RBvLljSW9RHIdQCRUYeejLDAyiQ society & culture Karson & Kennedy society & culture Kennedy Has a Disappointing Wicked Long Walk Update Karson & Kennedy are honest and open about the most intimate details of their personal lives. The show is fast paced and will have you laughing until it hurts one minute and then wiping tears away from your eyes the next. Some of K&K’s most popular features are Can’t Beat Kennedy, What Did Barrett Say, and The Dirty on the 30! 2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Society & Culture https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed

K&K Full Show - We Have a Huge Wicked Long Walk Announcement 09-17-26 full 4181 Thu, 17 Sep 2026 14:12:42 +0000 dzWZz1sOhkBJN3vgkG8dXpPHnzdxIYvF society & culture Karson & Kennedy society & culture K&K Full Show - We Have a Huge Wicked Long Walk Announcement 09-17-26 Karson & Kennedy are honest and open about the most intimate details of their personal lives. The show is fast paced and will have you laughing until it hurts one minute and then wiping tears away from your eyes the next. Some of K&K’s most popular features are Can’t Beat Kennedy, What Did Barrett Say, and The Dirty on the 30! 2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Society & Culture https://player.amperwavep

Wicked Long Walk with Beep Dennis full 394 Wed, 16 Sep 2026 12:57:48 +0000 woYiqN7qHvsgKwpqjZgLP7t1SfOWaps3 latest,wbmx,society & culture Karson & Kennedy latest,wbmx,society & culture Wicked Long Walk with Beep Dennis Karson & Kennedy are honest and open about the most intimate details of their personal lives. The show is fast paced and will have you laughing until it hurts one minute and then wiping tears away from your eyes the next. Some of K&K’s most popular features are Can’t Beat Kennedy, What Did Barrett Say, and The Dirty on the 30! 2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Society & Culture https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed-link=https%3A%2F%

Governor Maura Healy Talks Wicked Long Walk full 430 Tue, 15 Sep 2026 12:46:08 +0000 LXEQwj5uGKDYQZw8ZPQLMzlzYqoPEpZX latest,wbmx,society & culture Karson & Kennedy latest,wbmx,society & culture Governor Maura Healy Talks Wicked Long Walk Karson & Kennedy are honest and open about the most intimate details of their personal lives. The show is fast paced and will have you laughing until it hurts one minute and then wiping tears away from your eyes the next. Some of K&K’s most popular features are Can’t Beat Kennedy, What Did Barrett Say, and The Dirty on the 30! 2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Society & Culture https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed-link=ht

Wicked Long Walk! full 390 Mon, 14 Sep 2026 13:08:16 +0000 DAC3dXirkQwzMfaeQFZura5lIA4e5ARQ latest,wbmx,society & culture Karson & Kennedy latest,wbmx,society & culture Wicked Long Walk! Karson & Kennedy are honest and open about the most intimate details of their personal lives. The show is fast paced and will have you laughing until it hurts one minute and then wiping tears away from your eyes the next. Some of K&K’s most popular features are Can’t Beat Kennedy, What Did Barrett Say, and The Dirty on the 30! 2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Society & Culture https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed-link=https%3A%2F%2Frss.amperwave.

Wicked Long Walk Announcement full 252 Wed, 09 Sep 2026 13:09:23 +0000 vlfHwAcsdZE2hZIB2efZxw1TP9BEtowZ latest,wbmx,society & culture Karson & Kennedy latest,wbmx,society & culture Wicked Long Walk Announcement Karson & Kennedy are honest and open about the most intimate details of their personal lives. The show is fast paced and will have you laughing until it hurts one minute and then wiping tears away from your eyes the next. Some of K&K’s most popular features are Can’t Beat Kennedy, What Did Barrett Say, and The Dirty on the 30! 2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Society & Culture https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed-link=https%3A%2F%2Frs

The Long Walk - “You're Men Now”It's Stephen King's Birthday Month and we are kicking off our celebration with THE LONG WALK (2025). This adaptation goes hard & really leans into the brutality of this dystopian story. We watch these guys grow from strangers to friends and boys to men as they take this harrowing journey. We hope you enjoy this conversation about one of Julia's most beloved King novels!Support the show

Gregory, Justin, Lyndon, and Steven return from Fan Expo 2026 with tales of Eye Collector readers travelling from afar for a signature, vendors complaining about too many people at the con, and Justin and Gregory sending one customer on a long walk around the massive convention floor several times.Transition clips are from The Long Walk (2025) - https://youtu.be/vAtUHeMQ1F8?si=8pUleRellF-1mAqMBuy us a coffee: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ko-fi.com/superpulpscience⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow the gang online:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/gmbchomichuk/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/chasingartwork⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/stevekaulart/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/danwatchesmovies⁠⁠⁠⁠GMB Chomichuk's online store: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.gmbchomichuk.ca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chasing Artwork's online store: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.chasingartwork.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Production: Dan VadeboncoeurTitles: Jesse Hamel & Nick Smalley

Brendan is back for episode 200. He's coaching 10U tackle football and his defense still hasn't given up a touchdown. Chris just headlined a comedy festival in Portugal and has his first trip to Paris coming up. The guys get into Brian Callen missing the Monday show, why none of them have ever missed a flight, how much therapy is too much, a therapist who bragged about a client to his golf buddies, and not wanting to talk to barbers, chiropractors or Uber drivers. Then it's real fighters beating up online tough guys, Brian Callen's friend who supposedly fought Cheick Kongo on a beach, the fake Amy Poehler podcast scam, a custom steering wheel order that's been "in transit" for weeks, and the $300 estate auction couch Rachel bought. After Brendan leaves to get the kids, Chris and Erik cover Calvin sleeping in their bed, The Long Walk and every Stephen King book that became a movie, self-publishing success stories like The Martian and Wool, the Tupac verdict, GTA 6, and Tim Dillon on the women showing up to support Lindsay Clancy at her trial.Get two extra episodes every month at https://Patreon.com/TheGoldenHourPodcastTo submit to the show email: thegoldenhoursubs@gmail.com or Dropbox Link: https://www.dropbox.com/request/fqtbexhxyaky9X8f8MV1In the subject line, specify whether your submission is King It or Sting It, Debate Club, Rip My Drip, Relationship Advice, or Flaunt My Aunt. In the body of the email, include the attachment, your name, where you're from, and in the case of Flaunt My Aunt, the name of your relative.SUBSCRIBE to The Golden Hour Podcast: http://www.youtube.com/c/KingandtheSting Get your King and the Sting merch at https://thicccboy.com/collections/sale-home-pageFollow #TheGoldenHourInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.golden....Twitter:https://twitter.com/the_golden_hrFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/KingandtheStingAnd check out Brendan, Chris, & Erik on social media!Brendan Schaub:https://www.instagram.com/brendanschaubhttps://twitter.com/BrendanSchaubhttps://www.facebook.com/OfficialBren...Chris D'Elia:https://twitter.com/chrisdeliahttps://www.instagram.com/chrisdelia/https://www.facebook.com/chrisdeliaof...Erik Griffin:https://twitter.com/ErikGriffinhttps://instagram.com/erikgriffinhttps://www.facebook.com/erikgriffinc...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this fourth and final installment of “Everyone is Stupid Except For Me”, Austin enters the fray with Kevin Smith's divisive 2011 film, RED STATE. Will we finally approve or disapprove a movie in this theme, or will the Patrons have their say over all of them? Find out inside! Also: Spider-Man, The End of Oak Street, and awards plus our next theme brought to you by Cody!   Go to patreon.com/SHUDcast where you can sign up for all kinds of extra goodies!   00:00 - 9:20ish - Intros: Tinder and how to make money online   9:20ish - 1:03:00ish - The other stuff we watched this time!   Austin - The Odyssey   Cody - The Mandalorian and Grogu, The 13th Warrior, Predator: Badlands, The Sheep Detectives, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, The Long Walk, Cold Storage, The Odyssey (again), Wake Up Dead Man, Remarkably Bright Creatures, Caught Stealing, The End of Oak Street, Onward, Forbidden Fruits   Curtis - Spider-Man: Brand New Day, The End of Oak Street, The Martian, Twisters, The Devil Wears Prada 2, Masters of the Universe, The Devil's Mouth, Exit 8, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Troy, The Frighteners   Lucas - Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Friendship, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, 300, Warcraft, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie, Eyes Wide Shut, Behind the Candelabra   1:03:00ish - 1:30:00ish - RED STATE - SHUDdown and discussion!   1:30:00ish - End - “Everyone is Stupid Except For Me” Awards and our next theme and movie selected by Cody!

Check out Cam's latest novel / audio drama here! Indie horror is an endless stream of new ideas, new voices, and scrappy, ingenious storytelling — and "It Ends" is the latest hidden gem delight that we're here to break down and celebrate. Think of this one as an intoxicating blend of The Long Walk, The Blair Witch Project, and Six Feet Under. Topics include: naturalistic dialogue, sustained metaphors, the relationship between runtime / music / sound design, genre innovation, restrained creature design, and an extended, spoiler-filled discussion about the film's ending, title, and central metaphor. LINKS: Patreon, YouTube, Spotify, Instagram Feedback & Theories: secondbreakfastpod@gmail.com 00:00 Introduction 01:53 First Impressions 07:41 Runtime & Music 12:36 Stephen King 15:18 The Blair Witch Project 17:51 Six Feet Under 22:04 Backrooms / Hadestown 24:57 Genre Innovations 31:08 Creature Design 33:03 SPOILERS: Ending & Title 35:26 SPOILERS: Central Metaphor 43:39 Punctum 46:55 Closing Thoughts

The Long Walk movie review for horror and tea fans alike! For our tea sippers, brew a cup of tea, sit back, relax and we hope you enjoy the review! We would be honored if you liked and subscribed!   Please comment on what you thought of the movie! If you'd like to recommend a movie, game or tea and keep up to date with our content, all of our platforms are listed below:

ABRAHAM: THE LONG WALK | Week 1 | Who Is Abraham?

To mend lands and dispose of evils, Oats has a plan: take a walk with friends, and spin a few yarns.

Chuck and Justin take a long walk through Francis Lawrence's adaptation of Stephen King's The Long Walk. The hosts compare the film to The Running Man and other King adaptations while digging into its pacing, directing choices, performances, and bleak social commentary. They praise the cast, question the film's deliberately static cinematography, and explore its themes of poverty, spectacle, and exploitation. Plus, they debate the meaning of the ambiguous ending, and whether it ultimately changes anything about the dystopian world King has created. Hosted by Charles Phillips Co-hosted by Justin Morgan Mixing and Music by Scratchin' Menace Follow us on Facebook and Bluesky for updates. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and all major platforms. Please subscribe, rate, and review. We appreciate the support!

When the conversation turns to the titans of horror, Stephen King inevitably rises to the top — a storyteller whose shadow has stretched across six decades, ever since his first published tale hit the world in 1967. Among the curiosities of his early career were the novels he released under the Richard Bachman pseudonym, one of which, The Long Walk, has finally marched its way onto the big screen with a wide 2025 release and now reaching VOD.IMDB distills the premise with brutal simplicity: “A group of teenage boys compete in an annual contest known as ‘The Long Walk,' in which they must maintain a certain walking speed or get shot.” That stark hook sets the tone for a story that blends dystopian dread with the slow‑burn terror King has always mastered.Directed by Francis Lawrence and scripted by JT Mollner, the film leans on a cast of rising talents — Cooper Hoffman, David Johnsson, Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Charlie Plummer, and Ben Wang — who bring raw intensity to the ordeal. Critics praised the adaptation with near‑unanimous enthusiasm, even as audiences failed to turn it into a box‑office success. Now, your co‑hosts finally sit down with this bleak, propulsive vision of survival and offer their take on King's long‑awaited march to the screen.

On today's episode, we'll meet a 12-year-old walking a verrrry long way for a good cause, and we'll attend the world's sloooooowest concert!Quiz Questions1.In what state is the Cape York Peninsula?  2.What is the name of the charity Dusty is helping?  3.What is the name of the song being played by the organ in Germany?  Answers1.Queensland2.Little Wings3.As Slow As Possible News NoodlerWhy do you think someone would write a song that would take more than 600 years to finish? For more great kids podcasts, download the free ABC listen app (Australia). There you'll find more kids news podcasts, educational children's stories and storytelling, podcasts from your favourite characters like Bluey and Hey Duggee and plenty more of the best podcasts for curious kids like Imagine This, Dino Dome and News Time. For all ages from 0–4-year-olds, 5–8-year-olds, 8–10-year-olds, tweens and teens. And you can watch our kids shows on ABC iview and on the ABC Kids and ABC Big Kids channels of YouTube kids.

2026 - 0816 - The Long Walk Of Faith

Hello! We're back to record an episode as one host gets back from Europe and another gets ready to leave. We catch up about the difference between existing in Paris and the States, Long Walk, Tears of Metal, and more, and answer some of your emails. This week's music: Lady Gaga - Alejandro

Duji Hater Dave 72 had a meet & greet with Charlie's dad's dog. Rover is locked in for the next 20 Powerball drawings. Charlie watched The Long Walk. Rover has been thinking about what he will do after he retires from radio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A missed connection. Stenographers. Norah O'Donnell. Duji fell for an ad about a bracelet to help with menopause. Rover feels JLR is bringing down his mood. Dumb things Rover has bought with his money. Duji Hater Dave 72 had a meet & greet with Charlie's dad's dog. Rover is locked in for the next 20 Powerball drawings. Charlie watched The Long Walk. Rover has been thinking about what he will do after he retires from radio. Walking around naked. Being more health conscious. Rover is not fond of women wearing moo moos. Damon Darling has been banned from Walmart for trying to help people. Man confronts Walmart over their scales being incorrect. It is written in Argentine. Man had to resign from the country club he went to for faking a hole in one. Miller's ex-wife is suing them sharing a picture of their toddler without her shirt on. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Duji Hater Dave 72 had a meet & greet with Charlie's dad's dog. Rover is locked in for the next 20 Powerball drawings. Charlie watched The Long Walk. Rover has been thinking about what he will do after he retires from radio. 

A missed connection. Stenographers. Norah O'Donnell. Duji fell for an ad about a bracelet to help with menopause. Rover feels JLR is bringing down his mood. Dumb things Rover has bought with his money. Duji Hater Dave 72 had a meet & greet with Charlie's dad's dog. Rover is locked in for the next 20 Powerball drawings. Charlie watched The Long Walk. Rover has been thinking about what he will do after he retires from radio. Walking around naked. Being more health conscious. Rover is not fond of women wearing moo moos. Damon Darling has been banned from Walmart for trying to help people. Man confronts Walmart over their scales being incorrect. It is written in Argentine. Man had to resign from the country club he went to for faking a hole in one. Miller's ex-wife is suing them sharing a picture of their toddler without her shirt on. 

SynopsisThe broadcast begins with a dismissal of failed “plasma apocalypse” rumors and a general critique of “doom boofing,” where the host argues that doomsday predictions are often a lack of sincerity that can be tested by asking the claimant for a loan. The central theme of the episode is the “metascript,” the theory that history is prefabricated and synchronized with mass entertainment.Ozman provides several key examples of this “predictive programming” and “concurrent programming”:* Stephen King as a “Meta-scriptor”: The host discusses King's novel The Long Walk, noting parallels between the main character (number 47) and Donald Trump (often referred to as 47), framing the political narrative as a “dead man walking” script.* The “Simulated” Death of Charlie Kirk: A significant portion of the show is dedicated to deconstructing the death of Charlie Kirk, which Ozman claims was a “simulated death” involving squibs and crisis actors (including Erica Kirk and a “palm gun” subplot) rather than a real assassination. He critiques “Trutherville” for accepting the death as real while only debating the culprit.* Political Archetypes: Ozman analyzes the shifting media portrayal of “Trump-esque” and “Musk-type” characters in shows like The Boys, Civil War, and The Madness, noting a transition from these characters surviving attempts on their lives to being killed off in 2024.* The Mandela Effect and PSYOPs: The Mandela Effect is characterized as “cognitive sabotage” or a government mind virus used to gaslight the public into questioning reality rather than fake news.* Media and Alienology: The host argues that “alien invasion” narratives are used to condition the public for a “one world system” and that the demonization of both extraterrestrials and terrestrial “aliens” (immigrants) are parts of the same bifurcated psyop.The host concludes by discussing his “off-world stage perspective,” which seeks to provide a map out of the “Truman Show” of mainstream and alternative media. He also mentions technical efforts to use AI for “press release” automation to ensure this perspective is cataloged in search results and announces the upcoming second edition of the Handbook for the Recently Deprogrammed.How To Support The Invasion:

SynopsisThe broadcast begins with a dismissal of failed “plasma apocalypse” rumors and a general critique of “doom boofing,” where the host argues that doomsday predictions are often a lack of sincerity that can be tested by asking the claimant for a loan. The central theme of the episode is the “metascript,” the theory that history is prefabricated and synchronized with mass entertainment.Stephen King as a “Meta-scriptor”: The host discusses King's novel The Long Walk, noting parallels between the main character (number 47) and Donald Trump (often referred to as 47), framing the political narrative as a “dead man walking” script.The “Simulated” Death of Charlie Kirk: A significant portion of the show is dedicated to deconstructing the death of Charlie Kirk, which Ozman claims was a “simulated death” involving squibs and crisis actors (including Erica Kirk and a “palm gun” subplot) rather than a real assassination. He critiques “Trutherville” for accepting the death as real while only debating the culprit.Political Archetypes: Ozman analyzes the shifting media portrayal of “Trump-esque” and “Musk-type” characters in shows like The Boys, Civil War, and The Madness, noting a transition from these characters surviving attempts on their lives to being killed off in 2024.The Mandela Effect and PSYOPs: The Mandela Effect is characterized as “cognitive sabotage” or a government mind virus used to gaslight the public into questioning reality rather than fake news.Media and Alienology: The host argues that “alien invasion” narratives are used to condition the public for a “one world system” and that the demonization of both extraterrestrials and terrestrial “aliens” (immigrants) are parts of the same bifurcated psyop.The host concludes by discussing his “off-world stage perspective,” which seeks to provide a map out of the “Truman Show” of mainstream and alternative media. He also mentions technical efforts to use AI for “press release” automation to ensure this perspective is cataloged in search results and announces the upcoming second edition of the Handbook for the Recently Deprogrammed.

Pappy, Stevie, Josh and Shad participate in a grueling high-stakes podcast where they must continuously talk or be shot by their military escort. (This is a patreon request movie review — THANK YOU, Madison!) ******** Teens participate in a gruelling high-stakes contest where they must continuously walk or be shot by a member of their military escort. Release date September 12, 2025 (USA) Director Francis Lawrence Running time 1h 48m Story by Stephen King MPAA rating R Screenplay J.T. Mollner

Nine years. Five hundred episodes. The tools changed completely and the distance between a patient and their care barely moved. For episode 500, Chris Boyer and Reed Smith wrote a book about why, then spent an episode arguing with it. They also explain how they built it, including the part where AI went wrong. The archive did what no human could, sorting nine years of transcripts into threads neither host could hold in their head. Then it started deciding what any of it meant, and the drafts got smoother and less true at the same time. Chris describes it as walking toward the edge of a cliff, where the view keeps improving right up until it doesn't. The rest of the episode is self-scoring. Some calls held up. A guest argued in 2018 that the value of telemedicine sat in asynchronous messaging rather than the video visit, five years before the industry agreed. Another said your website was no longer your website, and has been repeating it almost yearly since. Being right early turned out not to change anything, which is a harder finding than being wrong. And they were wrong in places they name out loud, including a tracking pixel they treated as an optimization question years before it became one of the largest privacy failures in healthcare marketing. In this episode: Where AI genuinely accelerated nine years of archive work, and the exact point it stopped being useful Why the cliff metaphor describes an organizational risk and not just a writing problem Three calls the show got right early, and why early was not the same as useful The consumerism frame that described a market most of the country does not live in What it means that the front door moved onto property health systems do not own The access admission, said plainly, and what it costs to say it If the right people heard the argument and agreed with it and nothing moved, then knowing was never the thing standing in the way. Healthcare's Long Walk Toward the Patient is free. Ten chapters, 26 guests. Mentions from the Show: Healthcare's Long Walk Toward the Patient, the free eBook, Touch Point Media, August 2026: https://www.touchpointpodcastbook.com/?utm_source=touchpoint&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=tp500 TP55, "Pixels and Vertical Videos: Is Facebook Forcing Us to Advertise Correctly?" February 2018: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp55-pixels-vertical-videos-facebook-forcing-us-advertise-correctly/  TP73, "Deep Learning in Healthcare" with Abhi Sharma, June 2018: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp73-deep-learning-in-healthcare/  TP80, "A Telemedicine Tell-All" with Dr. Justin Smith, August 2018: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp80-a-telemedicine-tell-all/  TP115, "Your Website Isn't Your Website Anymore" with Carrie Liken, April 2019: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp115-your-website-isnt-your-website-anymore/  TP342, "When Does 'Patient Access' Actually Begin?": https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp342-when-does-patient-access-actually-begin/  TP483, on hospital market competition, drawing on Health Care Cost Institute data: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp483-the-market-that-competition-forgot/  TP488, on marketing and patient activation, drawing on the Forum for Healthcare Strategists and Digital Health Strategies CMO survey: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp488-what-if-marketing-owned-patient-activation/  TP493, "Ghost Networks and the Reflex to Automate" with Chris Hemphill and Heather Nairn: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp493-ghost-networks-and-the-reflex-to-automate/  Health Care Cost Institute, Health Cost Landscape, April 2026: https://healthcostinstitute.org/all-hcci-reports/what-is-the-health-cost-landscape/ AJMC on the HCCI Healthy Marketplace Index: https://www.ajmc.com/view/nearly-75-of-us-hospital-markets-highly-concentrated-hcci-report-shows Reed Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reedtsmith/ Chris Boyer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisboyer/ Chris Boyer website: http://www.christopherboyer.com/ Chris Boyer on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/chrisboyer.bsky.social Reed Smith on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/reedsmith.bsky.social Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we bounce from questionable kindergarten teaching techniques and a tour through old movies to a pile of upcoming sci-fi and superhero projects. Then, in Future or Now, AI gives hurricane forecasters a potentially huge advantage, NASA pulls off another bit of engineering wizardry to keep Voyager 2 alive, and the cast of The Pitt boldly goes where plenty of actors have gone before. Real Life Steven is officially over summer. Heat, summer schedules, summer in general—it's time to move on. Meanwhile, Ben has been watching OLD MOVIES, including Kindergarten Cop. Ben calls it an "exceptional film," but watching Arnold Schwarzenegger take control of a classroom in 2026 raises some questions. How would Detective John Kimble's teaching methods stack up against modern school employee safety training? How many policies would he violate before lunch? And perhaps most unsettling: just how old are all those kindergarteners today? That sends us down the inevitable road of examining an old movie through the lens of people who now have entirely too much experience with how schools actually operate. Steven also has a pile of upcoming genre television and movie news to talk about. Neuromancer is headed to Apple TV, while Blade Runner 2099 is coming as a limited series on Prime Video. San Diego Comic-Con also brought news about Ghost Rider and Black Panther 3, along with more X-Men casting news involving Cyclops, Emma Frost, Beast, and Professor X. Trailer Links: Neuromancer: Watch on YouTube Blade Runner 2099: Watch on YouTube Devon has been doing some family movie watching, working through the Jumanji movies and eventually arriving at Zathura. Technically part of the larger Jumanji family, Zathura doesn't quite live up to its predecessor. It doesn't help that Dax Shepard's character has to exist in the shadow of Robin Williams, which leads to the assessment that Shepard comes across as "a block of wood" by comparison. Things get considerably darker with The Long Walk, based on Stephen King's novel originally published under his Richard Bachman pseudonym. Devon found the adaptation interesting and well done—but extremely bleak. That conversation somehow takes a detour through Time Runner before eventually landing on Hokum and its supernatural layer. Future or Now AI Gets Better at Predicting Hurricanes Ben brings us a potentially enormous development in weather forecasting. Google DeepMind's WeatherNext AI system has demonstrated an ability to improve hurricane forecasts, potentially giving forecasters and emergency planners an additional day of warning. The system predicts both storm tracks and intensity and can rapidly generate thousands of possible scenarios. During Hurricane Melissa, it reportedly identified major intensification earlier than conventional forecasting models. That's potentially life-saving extra time for communities preparing for a major storm. But there's an interesting wrinkle: like many sophisticated AI systems, exactly how the model reaches some of its conclusions isn't always clear to the scientists using it. That makes WeatherNext another fascinating example of AI producing useful results while simultaneously raising questions about how much we need to understand a system before we're comfortable relying on it. And despite the improvement in modeling, humans aren't leaving the process. Meteorologists still have to interpret the information, communicate uncertainty, and turn forecasts into useful warnings for the public. Read the Ars Technica report on DeepMind's hurricane forecasting breakthrough This Week in Space: Voyager's "Big Bang" Nearly half a century after leaving Earth, Voyager 2 is still going, and NASA engineers are once again finding creative ways to keep it alive. In an operation nicknamed the "Big Bang," engineers simultaneously shut down power-hungry hardware and transitioned to lower-power alternatives while carefully keeping the spacecraft warm enough to survive. Voyager's dwindling power supply has forced NASA to make increasingly difficult decisions about which systems can remain operational, making every additional bit of usable energy precious. It's another remarkable chapter in a mission launched in 1977 that is still returning scientific data from interstellar space. Read more about the Voyager 2 operation at ScienceDaily Explore NASA's Voyager mission And while we're talking about space, we check back in on New Asgard and ask the important question: is Devon still going to space? The Pitt Goes to Star Trek Finally, there's an unusual crossover coming for fans of The Pitt and Star Trek. Noah Wyle and members of The Pitt cast are participating in a Star Trek table read benefiting the Writers Guild Foundation. It's not a new Trek series and it's not some bizarre medical-drama crossover episode—but it is an opportunity to hear a completely different cast tackle Star Trek material while supporting the foundation's programs. Read more about The Pitt cast's Star Trek table read at TrekMovie   From aging action comedies to AI-powered hurricane forecasts and a spacecraft that refuses to die, this week is a reminder that the future has a funny way of colliding with the past. Join us next time for more science, sci-fi, and whatever unexpected detours we stumble into along the way.

House of the Dragon Season 3 ended with Sunfyre back from the dead and Rhaenyra executing the High Septon inside his own sept, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day gave the MCU its darkest Jean Grey yet. Frank, Thomas, and Jonathan break down both, plus the Marvel Hall H panel from San Diego Comic-Con and why Ghost Rider got announced with nothing behind it. On the House of the Dragon side: the Episode 7 resurrection that flipped the board, Helaena's tapestry and what it was quietly spoiling all along, where the show splits from Fire and Blood on her death, why Rhaenyra was never built to sit on a throne in the first place, and a final score for the season from each of them. Then a full spoiler conversation on Spider-Man: Brand New Day covering Sadie Sink's Jean Grey and the road to Dark Phoenix, the Hulk and the Punisher as mirrors for where Peter Parker could end up, the ending that made a handshake hit harder than a kiss, and whether Marvel has its footing back going into Doomsday, Secret Wars, and X-Men. Network news and picks of the week close it out. 00:00 Intro: Three Weeks Off, Alaska, and Missing Comic-Con 03:11 San Diego Comic-Con and the Marvel Hall H Fallout 05:53 Project Hail Mary Is the Movie of the Year 07:02 House of the Dragon Season 3: Rhaenyra's Turn and the Finale 18:53 Sunfyre, Helaena's Tapestry, and Book vs Show Changes 25:02 Season 3 Final Thoughts and Scores 28:00 Spider-Man: Brand New Day Spoiler Talk 33:00 Sadie Sink's Jean Grey and the Road to Dark Phoenix 41:02 What It Means for the MCU: Doomsday, Secret Wars, and X-Men 50:16 Network News and Picks of the Week All news discussed comes from GeekFreaksPodcast.com. Follow the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and leave a five star review if this one hit. Share it with someone still arguing about the House of the Dragon finale and tag us with #GeekFreaksPodcast. Instagram and TikTok: @GeekFreaksPodcast Threads: https://www.threads.net/@geekfreakspodcast Twitter: @GeekFreaksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thegeekfreakspodcast Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GeekFreakspodcast Got a take on the finale, a theory about what Jean Grey becomes next, or a show you want covered? Send it in. We read listener questions and topic suggestions on air. Key Takeaways Rhaenyra spent three seasons trying to be her father and the finale is the moment she stops. Frank frames it as her Anakin-to-Vader turn, right down to killing the realm's holy man and walking back out to claim she is the savior. Episode 7 and the return of Sunfyre lands as the season's biggest swing. Jonathan calls it a genuine plot twist with no setup, and it resets who is actually holding power going into Season 4. Helaena's knitting was spoiling the show in plain sight. Her tapestry lays out everything she has seen, and nobody in the story looks at it until it is too late. Both Frank and Jonathan score Season 3 an eight, with the caveat that Episodes 4 through 6 drag badly. Thomas, who bailed on the season early, gets talked into going back and finishing it. Spider-Man: Brand New Day works as a character study more than a clean three-act movie. The guys argue it is structurally strange on purpose, closer to picking up a random issue mid-run than a typical MCU installment. Jean Grey's power set is used in a much more specific and much darker way than expected, which the guys read as deliberate setup for Professor X's mental blocks and the eventual Dark Phoenix story. Quotes "She's now in her Darth Vader era." (Frank) "She was never meant to actually sit on the Iron Throne. She was always meant to capture it." (Frank) "The dragon fire ripping through a city is going to kill the good and the bad alike. It's not justice. It's just suffering." (Jonathan) "So many parts of this shouldn't work. But it does." (Thomas, on Spider-Man: Brand New Day) "I can't believe how much relief I suddenly felt from a damn handshake." (Frank) Apple Podcast Tags House of the Dragon, House of the Dragon Season 3, House of the Dragon finale, Game of Thrones, HBO, Rhaenyra Targaryen, Sunfyre, Helaena Targaryen, Targaryen, Fire and Blood, Spider-Man, Spider-Man Brand New Day, Marvel, MCU, Tom Holland, Jean Grey, Sadie Sink, Dark Phoenix, X-Men, Punisher, Jon Bernthal, Avengers Doomsday, Secret Wars, San Diego Comic-Con, Hall H, Ghost Rider, Ryan Gosling, Project Hail Mary, The Long Walk, comic books, movie review, TV review, pop culture, geek culture

Send us Fan MailThe Spore Four finally make it to Hagegraf.  Music: PremiumBeat Code: DODEVR4WFCGWZAFC"Nostalgic Place" by Myuu All other music by Tabletop Audio Thanks for listening! You can find us on Twitter @25northpodcastYou can join our Discord community with this invite code "nBTZzTGZdA"You can send us an email at 25northpodcast@gmail.com if you wish

Usher body double. The Long Walk. Krystle got a compliment from William Shatner. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who would Rover layoff between Duji, Krystle, and JLR? Charlie is looking for a home for his dad's dog. The University of Michigan says there is a mental health crisis with new students, so they will not send out grades for their first semester. The blue bunny. Drama in the WNBA. Sophie Cunningham blasted in the face during a game. Caitlin Clark called on a technical foul. Enes Kanter Freedom is confirming his eligibility to play in the WBNA. Kids on planes. Alaskan Airlines had to lock down a plane because passengers were threatening the flight attendants. Brittney Griner. AI ads. Family claims they spent $250 on pizza and drinks at a restaurant and got yelled at for asking to use a knife to cut a birthday cake they brought. Usher body double. The Long Walk. Krystle got a compliment from William Shatner. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Usher body double. The Long Walk. Krystle got a compliment from William Shatner. 

Who would Rover layoff between Duji, Krystle, and JLR? Charlie is looking for a home for his dad's dog. The University of Michigan says there is a mental health crisis with new students, so they will not send out grades for their first semester. The blue bunny. Drama in the WNBA. Sophie Cunningham blasted in the face during a game. Caitlin Clark called on a technical foul. Enes Kanter Freedom is confirming his eligibility to play in the WBNA. Kids on planes. Alaskan Airlines had to lock down a plane because passengers were threatening the flight attendants. Brittney Griner. AI ads. Family claims they spent $250 on pizza and drinks at a restaurant and got yelled at for asking to use a knife to cut a birthday cake they brought. Usher body double. The Long Walk. Krystle got a compliment from William Shatner. 

Ben Wang is best known for the titular role for Sony Pictures' “Karate Kid: Legends” where he was selected from a worldwide search of over 10,000 actors. He stars opposite David Jonnson and Cooper Hoffman in the Lionsgate's thriller “The Long Walk,” based on the Stephen King novel and directed by Francis Lawrence (“The Hunger Games.”) Ben was also the lead of the Disney+ series “American Born Chinese,” based on Gene Yang's graphic novel, where he played opposite Oscar winners Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. And Ben will rejoin Francis Lawrence as Wyatt Callow in the upcoming Lionsgate blockbuster “The Hunger Games: The Sunrise on Reaping.” Wang recently wrapped lead roles in two independent features. First is the coming of age film “Brian,” directed by Will Ropp and produced by Seth Meyers where he plays the titular role opposite William H. Macy, Randall Park, and Edi Patterson. The second film is David Wain's R-rated “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass,” written by Wain and Ken Marino, where he plays opposite Zoey Deutch, Jon Hamm, and John Slattery. Previously, Wang was part of the ensemble in the musical “Mean Girls” for Paramount Pictures, and he co-starred in the coming-of-age feature film “Chang Can Dunk” for Disney+. He is a graduate of the NYU Tisch theater program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this week's Regional Roundup, we hear a report on new cuts to water use for the Lower Basin states that rely on the Colorado River. Then, we explore how increasingly intense wildfires are affecting landscapes and their ability to recover. Next, we head to southwest Colorado to learn about expanded air quality monitoring. That's followed by a story about a Diné musician honoring the ancestors who were forced on the Long Walk. We then visit Carbondale, Colorado, where a new initiative is encouraging older adults to prepare for emergencies before disaster strikes. We round out the show with a conversation with author Heather Hansman about her new book, Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America's Love for the Wild. A report on water cuts for Colorado River users in Lower Basin states. (RMCR) A report on the impact of intense wildfires on landscapes and their ability to recover. (RMCR) A feature on expanded air quality monitoring in southwest Colorado (KDUR) A feature about a Diné musician honoring the ancestors who were forced on the Long Walk. (KSUT) A feature on an initiative in Carbondale, Colorado, encouraging older adults to prepare for emergencies before disaster strikes. (KDNK) A two way with author Heather Hansman about her new book, Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America's Love for the Wild. (RMCR)

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This week we talk about the books, movies, and shows we consumed. Mr. Pold - The Wheel of Time, The Dresden Files, Young Washington St. Jimmy - The Boogeyman, Project Hail Mary, Baron Trump's Marvelous Underground Journey, Gunpowder, Ruthless, Moonfall, Do Not Enter, The Long Walk, Werewolves, Grand Theft Auto V, Grimm, Mortal Kombat II, Tusk, M*A*S*H D'Viddy - Young Washington, The X Files, Moonfall, Alita: Battle Angel, The Man with the Golden Gun, Riddick, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, Masters of the Universe, The Running Man, A Fistful of Dollars, Mortal Kombat II, For a Few Dollars More, American Ultra, The Dresden Files Master Z - They Will Kill You, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, Tower of Dawn, Kingdom of Ash Music Provided By: Greg Gibbs / Most Guitars Are Made of Trees Monk Turner / Bad Luck

4 weeks in a row.  Matt and Jay catch up, talk alcohol, and then start discussing local comic shops.  Jay talks about the Marvel's Spider-Man: Beyond Amazing exhibition at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.  Which leads into the only realy topic of the week: Spider-Man: Brand New Day.  We give our thoughts, what's next for Spidey, and a few theories that came out of the movie.  Warning, there are spoilers. We finish with some homework, including The Florida Project, The Long Walk, Redux Redux, The Drama, Nirvanna The Band The Show, and The Madison. The beer of the episode was More Brewings Swells. The featured song is "Ellen C." from Let Me Downs.  You can find them at: Facebook | Instagram | Felony Records Don't forget to check us out at our website and on social media.  Don't forget to rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Welcome to another episode of Death Don't Do Fiction, the AIPT Movies podcast! The podcast about the enduring legacy of our favorite movies! It was recently July, so that meant it was time for our “Julygantic” series! Where we cover monster movies! In our season 5 finale, Alex, Tim, and returning guest Matt Naughton discuss the classic mockbuster that asks “what if Jaws could swim in the sewer and walk on city streets?” 1980's Alligator! Booger Alley! A monster that knows how to make an entrance! Male pattern balding! Alligator flirting! Animal sadness! Suspiciously aerodynamic eyebrows! Multiple examples of bad parenting! Bribing street kids with beer! A surprisingly stealthy-yet enormous alligator! A dark, cavernous, and beautifully-shot sewer system! A deeply committed photographer! An incredibly memorable wedding! A pool-related prank gone horribly wrong! irresponsible hand grenade use! A strategic pots and pans parade! Gator profiteering! An attack on the free market! Dramatic guestlist checking! An incompetent Police force! A fun giant alligator puppet and actual alligators walking around miniature sets! Plentiful alligator attacks, including the match we've all been waiting for: gator vs. limo! A cast that includes an iconic performance from Jackie Brown's Robert Forster and Henry Silva as an ineffective big game hunter! All that and more in this cash grab with character development that somehow succeeds in being a real movie, where the true villain is corporate greed! In addition, the gang shares their spoiler-free thoughts on Hot Fuzz, Tenet, Alan Ritchson's Motor City, and The Long Walk! You can find Death Don't Do Fiction on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. As always, if you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave us a positive rating, subscribe to the show, and tell your friends! The Death Don't Do Fiction podcast brings you the latest in movie news, reviews, and more! Hosted by supposed “industry vets,” Alex Harris and Tim Gardiner, the show gives you a peek behind the scenes from two filmmakers with oddly nonexistent filmographies. You can find Alex on Twitter, Bluesky, or Letterboxd @actionharris. This episode's guest, Matt Naughton, and Tim can't be found on social media because they don't exist. If you have any questions or suggestions for the Death Don't Do Fiction crew, they can be reached at aiptmoviespod@gmail.com, or you can find them on Twitter or Instagram @aiptmoviespod. Theme song is “We Got it Goin On” by Cobra Man.

Brennan, Jess, Nicole & Mama K are back to talk about the latest new movies (and a little TV). Spoilers for all of the movies and TV listed below: The Odyssey, Obsession, The Invite, Project Hail Mary, Supergirl, Send Help, How to Make a Killing,  Undertone, The Long Walk, Young Washington, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, Pizza Movie, The Bride, Good Luck Have Fun Don't Die, The Five-Star Weekend, The Hawk, Big Brother Season 28

Hey there, ya you, hi and welcome to our little show. This week we had a heck of a change in plans, kinda. Matt and Mike do chat about Motor City but not until the end of the pod. Ma did not get Motor City in the hood of SV so we changed the film to a thriller we missed last year, The Long Walk. Written by Stephen King and starring Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, and Mark Hamill. Extra special topics include Taco Bell, an amazing Blu-ray giveaway, and Philmont Scout Ranch. Next week we head back to the theaters to watch the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Spider-Man: Brand New Day starring Tom Holland, Jon Bernthal, Zendaya, and Sadie Sink. You can find us on all things social such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X, and Bluesky. We also have an awesome community you can join, click here to check out our Facebook Fan Group so you can yell at Mike and Matt from the comfort of your keyboard while talking about films. Lastly we have an amazing website where you can watch trailers, read the host's bios, listen to the podcast, and get a ton more info on the movies we review.  Check out the link here https://www.ReelFilmNerds.com Thanks for stopping by and listening to our podcast, we appreciate each and everyone of you and we will be back next week with another incredible episode of the Reel Film Nerds podcast.

Send us Fan MailReboots are risky, indie horror is thriving, and somehow we end up arguing about whether you'd survive a bear-sized pigeon. We start with a few unhinged warm-ups, then get real about the King Of The Hill revival: what still feels like Hank Hill, what changes actually work, and why voice actor swaps can instantly snap you out of the story. If you care about legacy animated sitcoms, nostalgia TV, or whether a reboot can age characters without losing its soul, we've got plenty to say.Then we pivot into two indie horror standouts and why smaller movies can hit harder than glossy blockbusters. We dig into Obsession, the creepy “wish” device that drives the plot, the lead's fast switches between charm and menace, and how smart lighting lets your imagination do the scariest work. Backrooms takes us into creepypasta territory, where liminal office spaces, internet lore, and slow-building dread turn a simple idea into a full-on fandom machine.After that, it's a grab bag of pop culture and real life: Toy Story 5 and the tension between toys and screens, dad stories from the grocery aisle, a debate over Stephen King's The Long Walk, and a deep dive on Dungeon Crawler Carl as a litRPG audiobook phenomenon. We talk Jeff Hays' narration, why loot-box pacing is addictive, and what a Peacock adaptation needs to get right to survive diehard fans. Wrap it all up with quick hits on Lanterns, Neuromancer on Apple TV, and the Insomniac Wolverine game's gnarly damage tech.Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who loves reboots or horror, and leave a review. What's the one reboot or adaptation you think absolutely got it right?Support the show

Between 1863 and 1866, more than 10,000 Navajo (Diné) were forcibly removed from their lands by the U.S. Military and forced to marched hundreds of miles into present day New Mexico. Many died of starvation and exposure on the march and while in exile. Don is joined by Dr. Jennifer Nez Denetdale, professor and chair of American Studies at the University of New Mexico, and author of the books Reclaiming Diné History: The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita, as well as The Long Walk: The Forced Exile of the Navajo.Edited by Tim Arstall. Produced by Hannah Feodorov. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're back and we don't have much in the catch up.  After talking beer and whiskey, we hit the following topics: Spider-Man: Brand New Day Deadpool 4 Doomsday trailer The Batman II/DC We then hit homework, including Pretty Lethal, They Will Kill You, How To Make A Killing, Never Change, Pizza Movie, Jackass 2, Scary Movie, Supertroopers, Obsession, Wonder Man S1, Daredevil: Born Again S2, Punisher: One Last Kill, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, Ready or Not 2, Mercy, One Battle After Another, The Ballerina, The Long Walk, Americana, Undertone, Gary, The Bear, and Kingdom Come. This week's drinks were 4 Hands Voltron Vol 11 and Buffalo Trace. This week's featured track is Sun Poison from ME.  You can find them at: Website | Instagram | Facebook Check us out at our website and on social media.  Don't forget to rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

The guys talk about the VW product portfolio and potential model deletions, staff reductions and production capacity cuts. Heard of the Denza Z? It's the BYD electric supercar designed to compete with the 911. #cardebate 1- Taylor in Boston is a new dad who needs a second car, but it needs to have a hint of specialness. #cardebate 2-  Cole in TX realizes he bought the wrong car - what he really wants is something smaller and lightweight. #cardebate 3- William in Canada wonders what car pairs best alongside a 2010 diesel Mercedes wagon? #carconclusion 1- The old people from DE (Bill and Alice) bought an enthusiast car! #carconclusion 2 - From EP 1038, Joseph's wife now fights him for seat time in fun cars. Look for us on Tuesdays if you'd like to watch us debate, disagree and then go drive again! 00:00 - Intro 2:26 - VW Group Cutting Model Lineup, Factories, And Jobs! #vw #vwchaos 9:57 - The BYD Denza Z - A 911 Killer? #byd #denza 18:10 - Car Debate #1: New Dad Needs A Hint Of Specialness #dadcar 37:30 - Car Debate #2: Lexus Buyer's Remorse #lexus 57:23 - Car Debate #3: What Pairs Well With A Diesel Benz? #mercedes #estate 1:10:56 - Car Conclusion #1: The Old People Bought An Enthusiast Car! #enthusiastcar 1:13:35 - Car Conclusion #2: Fight For The #funcar 1:16:00 - Did You See This? The Long Walk. #thelongwalk Thanks for taking the time to watch, and remember to support our sponsors Griot's Garage, Vredestein Tires, FCP Euro, Powerstop Brakes and Autotempest.com #griotsgarage #vredestein #fcpeuro #powerstopbrakes #autotempest Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and subscribe to our two YouTube channels. Write to us your Topic Tuesdays, Car Conclusions and those great Car Debates at everydaydrivertv@gmail.com or everydaydriver.com Instagram.com/everydaydriver Facebook.com/everydaydriver Audio-only MP3 is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and 10 other platforms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens after the mission ends? For retired U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technician Jeff Truex, the most important mission of his life didn't begin on the battlefield—it began after he took off the uniform. In this inspiring episode of The Misfit Nation Podcast, Jeff shares his remarkable journey from serving 23 years in the United States Army, including 17 years as an EOD Bomb Disposal Technician, to becoming a passionate advocate for veteran mental health and suicide prevention. After losing a fellow EOD technician to suicide, Jeff helped launch After the Long Walk, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring no veteran fights their battles alone. Through peer support, crisis intervention, education, and community outreach, the organization continues to save lives by reminding veterans that asking for help is one of the strongest things they can do. Throughout this conversation, Jeff opens up about military service, combat deployments, life after retirement, rediscovering purpose, motorcycles, brotherhood, outdoor cooking, and why authentic human connection is one of the most powerful forms of healing available. Whether you're a veteran, active-duty service member, first responder, military spouse, or simply someone looking for an inspiring story about resilience and leadership, this episode is packed with meaningful conversations that matter. In This Episode • Jeff's journey into Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) • Serving 23 years in the U.S. Army • Combat deployments and military life • Transitioning from military service to civilian life • The veteran mental health crisis • Preventing veteran suicide through connection • Why asking for help isn't weakness • Brotherhood beyond the battlefield • Finding purpose after military service • Motorcycles, cooking, and building community About Jeff Truex Jeff Truex is a retired United States Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technician who served for more than 23 years, including 17 years performing one of the military's most dangerous jobs. Throughout multiple deployments, Jeff dedicated his career to protecting others by confronting explosive threats around the world. Today, Jeff serves as the President of After the Long Walk, a nonprofit organization committed to preventing veteran suicide through peer support, education, outreach, and community engagement. His mission is simple but powerful: ensure that every veteran knows they never have to fight alone. Learn more about Jeff's mission and the work of After the Long Walk: https://www.afterthelongwalk.com/ If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out. There is always hope, and there are people who care. Follow The MisfitNation for more conversations with military veterans, first responders, entrepreneurs, leaders, and everyday people making an extraordinary impact. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the podcast, leave a rating, and share it with someone who needs to hear this message. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the #amwriting podcast's Margin Notes, host Jennie Nash talks with Caroline Bicks, Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine and co-host of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast, about her book Monsters in the Archives: A Year of Fear with Stephen King. Bicks describes how she became the first invited into King's Bangor archives after King called to meet her, and how her sabbatical became a year of researching five formative works (including Carrie, Night Shift, The Shining, Salem's Lot, and Pet Sematary) to understand how horror language creates lasting fear. She explains choosing a first-person narrative that blends literary criticism, archival discovery, and her own anxiety, including eerie moments in the archive and insights into King's word-level edits, literary influences, and Shakespearean foundations, especially The Shining's ties to Hamlet.#AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Read the Book* Monsters in the Archives by Caroline BicksTranscriptJennie: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Jennie Nash, and you're listening to the #amwriting podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. Welcome, everyone. This is Margin Notes, the part of the podcast where we're talking about the big decisions writers face in their work and creative lives.I'm here today with a super special guest. I'm so excited to speak with Caroline Bicks. She is the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, where she teaches courses in Shakespeare, early modern culture, and horror fiction. And she's the author of all kinds of very cool books ... about Shakespeare, including one on cocktails.Um, and, uh, is the co-host of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast, and we are here today to talk with her about her new book called [00:01:00] Monsters in the Archives: A Year of Fear with Stephen King. Welcome.Caroline: Thank you. Thanks for having me.Jennie: So this is gonna be the strangest interview you've probably ever done. ICaroline: don't know.Because- I've talked to a lot of people around the world about this Stephen King book.Jennie: I couldn't read your book. I, I couldn't read it. I can't read horror. Yeah. Which listeners of this podcast are gonna laugh about, ‘cause I'm actually coaching someone live and they're writing gothic horror, and they're probably like, “All you talk about is horror, Jennie.”But, um, it's actually the reason why I wanted to talk to you, because you made a decision in the writing of this book that I thought was super cool. Mm. Which was you put yourself in it.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And you're a scholar.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And you've written scholarly books, and you approach this with a scholarly perspective, but you, you really put yourself in it.And, and so [00:02:00] I was reading it for that part of the story and I had to skip over huge chunks of, of the, of the work. Because what you're doing in this book is you're getting at this question of- W- what, what is scary in writing? Like, how does it actually work? How does it act- what is the magic or the function that makes us feel this thing?And you actually feel it yourself while you're going through it, and I found it quite terrifying actually. So, um, that's kinda what I wanted to talk about is how did you make the decision? Well, first of all, you were the first person, I wanna make sure I get this right, ‘cause this is very cool. Yeah. You were the first person who was invited to the archives, the Stephen King archives.Caroline: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a bit of a story, so I won't spend too much time on it, but just the mo- Oh, no, do. It's good ... when I ch- when I took this position... So I've been a Shakespeare professor my whole adult life, ba- as soon as I graduated from grad school in the late ‘90s, [00:03:00] and I was at Boston College for 15 years.I took this position at University of Maine nine years ago as a Shakespearean. Um, so it is an endowed chair in Stephen King's name because he's our most famous alum. So when I took the position, I, it was because I'm a Shakespearean, not because I'm a horror specialist. Um, I had always been a Stephen King fan since I read him when I was 12, and he scared the beje- Jesus out of me, um, with The Boogeyman story.Jennie: Right.Caroline: Um, so when I took this position though I was told, “You're never gonna meet Stephen King. Don't even make contact with him.” I'm like, “Fine, you know, this is still a great job. I'm excited.” Um- ThanksJennie: for the money. Yeah.Caroline: Thanks for... You know, no, it's a wonderful fund. It was funded by the Harold Alfond Foundation, and it's to support the public humanities, which is an incredible mission.So, um, I get to give money away to people. You know, it's a great, great position, but I was not a horror specialist. And particu- a- and as an adult, I actually wasn't reading horror because it scares me too much. You know? Yeah, yeah. Um, but it had grabbed me when I was a teenager. So it was about four years into the [00:04:00] job when I got a call at home from Stephen King, which just, uh, uh, my jaw hit the floor.And he said, “You know, I think it's time we meet.” I'm like, you know, I, I really fan-girled because I really, I have so much admiration for him and respect. Um, I invited him to come talk to our students. He was brilliant, generous, funny, kind, and I felt so at ease that I felt like I could ask... You know, and I got to know him professionally.We had a good professional relationship that developed from there. When I had a sabbatical year coming up the next year- I could have written another Shakespeare book. I had another one in my head. I've written a bunch of them but I knew that he and Tabitha had just collected all of his manuscripts and put them in a climate-controlled space attached to their home in Bangor, and I thought, “You know, this is an incredible opportunity.I would love to dig in there and be the first one in there, and just read those early drafts of the books that scared me so much when I was a teenager, and try to just explore why. Why were they sticking in my head still?” Um, again, I am not a specialist in... I'm not a cognitive scientist. I'm not a [00:05:00] specialist in horror literature, but I'm obviously highly trained in how to do literary analysis and how to do archival work, not Shakespeare, because we don't have any of his works, but, you know, I, I understand what that process is.So back to your question about why I wanted to bring myself into it, which was, you know, I had been experimenting with first-person storytelling after I got tenure. You know, ‘cause it's a long process, Kate. Right. And most of my writing had been academic writing, but I really had always loved storytelling And I got a piece into the Modern Love column.I started to have some success with publishing my first-person stories, and I was like, “You know, I love this.” So when I had this opportunity to go into his archives, they generously said yes, was amazing. I thought, “You know, I really wanna tell this story. I don't wanna write an academic book. I want this to be the story of a literature scholar, but really the story about a scared kid.”Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: You know, you, you never lose that scare, you know, I don't... This is the thing. Fear has stuck with me with those stories [00:06:00] for 40 years. So I was fascinated, and I just wanted to understand how he had crafted the language so that it was sticking in my head still. Because when I was talking to people around, you know, whenever you mention Stephen King to people, you know, if they've read him, they remember specific lines and specific words, and I was like, “That's an extraordinary, um, 50 years on to have that power.”So, um- Well- Anyway. Yeah. Go ahead. I, I could talk about this forever, so you tell me- Oh, no, it's- ... where you wanted to pick up from this.Jennie: It's so good. Well, I have to tell you this funny anecdote, which is that my college roommate was from Bangor, Maine, and babysat his kids in that house.Caroline: Oh, that's insane.Jennie: So when I went to visit her, she drove me by that house.There you go. And I was like, “Oh, hell no- Yeah ... would I ever babysit in that house.” Like, it's-Caroline: It's ‘cause it's like a gothic, it's like straight out of Haunting of Hill House ...Jennie: actually, and like these spiderweb gates that, and you describe that in the [00:07:00] book and, and the- Yeah ... archives are in that house. They'reCaroline: in the house.They're attached to the back. I know. And it, it was so, it was, it was insane. It was like a full-on 360 experience writing this book. Um, and I, I knew, like, so I did the research for a year. I didn't even know if this would be a book. I just knew I wanted to have the opportunity to be in there because it, I knew it was a great opportunity, and I was so curious, you know?Yeah. So I, I came out of the year with just tons of notes and observations, but I didn't have a book, you know? Yeah. And then I started experimenting with writing a chapter, and I just, the storytelling just came forward and then when I got an agent and she, you know, s- I, I, I was able to get a contract based on a proposal and that one chapter I had written and I was really fortunate to have a fabulous editor, David Ebershoff, at Hogarth, who is just such a wonderful writer himself, and he really encouraged me to bring my voice in and bring my story in even [00:08:00] more.Um, so that's- And- ... that's the story of that.Jennie: Was it hard for you as a scholar to do that?Caroline: You know what? It was so freeing and so fun that it actually wasn't, you know? Because I, I knew this wasn't going to be an academic book, so once I let go of that- Yeah ... um, I was like, wow, I have the, and yet I have this skill set I can bring forward, and I knew that's what would make this unique.Um, but I can combine my two favorite ways of writing, ‘cause I do actually love writing literary criticism. Like it's, I get a thrill out of it. I wouldn't be doing it this long if I didn't get a thrill out of it, but I also love telling my own stories and drawing a reader in. And so for me it was like just a circus carnival.Like it was so fun to be able to do it. Once I had the permission and I had a contract, I was like, fine, you know? I, I, who am I writing this book for? I'm writing it for me, you know? Like this is just something I wanna do because I'm so passionate [00:09:00] about it and I, and I love Stephen King. And, um, once I got into it that way and wasn't thinking about who's gonna criticize me for this, like how will academics view this, I was like, I don't care.I just don't care. I know I've got a great story to tell that people are gonna love to read because there's so many people that love not just Stephen King, but people who love reading about how great books get written, you know? Yeah. And so that was the audience I had in my mind when I, when I was crafting it.It was really, in my mind, anybody who cares about books and writing. It doesn't have to be... So when you say, you're not the first person who's said to me, “I can't read your book,” or, “I can't read-” Oh, I'm so glad. “... Stephen King books,” you know, and I'm like, “That's okay. You can skip, you know, the parts that really scare you,” because there's plenty about just like that first chapter I wrote about Pet Sematary, just his sticky notes back and forth with his copy editor, which is so fun I think.You know, it's just like, wow.Jennie: Totally. Yeah. But the thing that you do is you- Allow yourself to confront that fear-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: [00:10:00] that, that I feel that the people can't, that can't read horror feel. You know, anybody that even allows themselves to be scared feels. And-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: and you, you do some very specific things, um, which I, I found fascinating, including tracking down on eBay the original copy of that book you read as a- Yeah, I wanted-as a teenager.Caroline: Yeah, that was part of the process for me, was I wanted to make sure I was reading... So before I would go into the archives for each work, and I'd spent like two... I only picked five, because I wanted to... First of all, I knew I wanted to make this personal. Um, and those were the five that scared me the most when I was a teenager.So I grew up in the ‘70s and the ‘80s as a teenager, so for me, it was in real time when the books were coming out practically. So it was- Yeah ... Carrie, Night Shift, The Shining, Salem's Lot, Pet Sematary. Um, I'm forgetting one of course. Uh, but I went -Jennie: The other one.Caroline: The other one. Had a huge impact on me. [00:11:00] So it was those five, and I, I knew those were the ones I was gonna do a deep dive into, and that I wanted to really re-engage with, and bring my whole self to.So I wanted to find the copies that I had read in the ‘70s and the early ‘80s. And fortunately, it's pretty easy to find them. Uh, so yeah, but eBay sometimes I had to go on, or go into a used bookstore and, you know, find the like actual 1979 paperback, you know.Jennie: Um- I mean, that- Um ... I just, there's some, there's so much to say about that because-Caroline: YeahJennie: like, I just, um- We, we just had a new bookcase built, um, which is something I've wanted to do well for eight years in this house. But it's a thing I've always wanted to have, which is like a grand bookcase, and it just was finished last week, and we had all the books packed up in storage, and we brought all the books back.Then we went through this discernment process of what goes [00:12:00] on those shelves. And I, you know, I had all those books from when I was a kid, even when I was a kid-kid, and they're yellow, and moldy and falling apart, and the covers aren't on, and they're taped and-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: eh, but I cannot let them go-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: because those...that was the object.Caroline: That's the object. This is what I feel sad for kids now, because they're not gonna have those same memories, um, of books. Yes. You know? And I don't think they stick in your head the same way if you don't have the full sensory embodied experience with a book.Jennie: Right. You know? Even when you open...I read on Kindle, which I love for so many reasons. Yeah. But you don't even see the cover.Caroline: You don't see the cover, right. And for me, it's so much. Like, I remember going to the Scholastic Book Fair and being like- Yes ... “I'm getting Summer of My German S- Soldier because Christy McNichol's on the cover,” you know?Yes. Yes. So yeah, that was part of the journey for me was I did wanna just [00:13:00] reconnect with those books again, try to h- and as much as you can, you know, reexperience the feelings of f- like The Shining, I actually... the only one I still have from 1977 is the actual Shining that I read. Um, and that's, for me, that woman in room 217.Well, I know you haven't read it ‘cause you're probably... What? But, um, it, that particular one I still have from, from when I was growing up. Um, and I love that I still have it, and it still has the photo... You know, it's the version that has the photo inserts that includes the Kubrick film photos. Oh, okay.Jennie: Okay.Yeah, yeah.Caroline: And I read it before I saw the film, so I remember being- 15 reading it and then seeing the pictures and being like you know? And that's part of the experience, but it wasn't, it's different than seeing the film, you know? And I really, I wanted to write this book as a love letter to language and to books, and not to film.Like, there's, that's a whole other category I think that enters people's brains in totally different ways. It's a very different experience. For me it's about, like going back to your original question [00:14:00] about like why, why, why do stories cause fear, and like what's the value perhaps in that? Yeah. That was something I came to after this long journey really, and talking to people and thinking about why.And also by understanding and reading more about Stephen King's books and talking to him about them, and realizing for him how much these stories are rooted in personal experiences or fears of grief and loss. And- Yes ... that was really profound for me. And like The Night Shift, which is the ur-text that I start with, ‘cause that's the one I read when I was 12, and that's his first collection of short stories.It came out in 1978. It's 20 short stories. But he ends it with a story about his mother dying, and it's, I mean, it's thinly veiled autobiography. It's about a man who's watching his mother die in the hospital. Um, but it's clearly a mirror of his own experience losing his mother when he was 26. And I'm like, wow, what's that doing in a collection of horror stories?[00:15:00] And it's like, what? ‘Cause that is of course, at least for me and I think for a lot of people, that's the core fear we first have, is that where's mommy, right? Yeah. Right? You lose the person who's in charge of taking care of you, and if you're lucky, does it well and with care. Um, but even if it's not, like Carrie, you know, the more I was looking through the Carrie drafts, I was like, right, he's really homing in on Carrie calling out for her mother even though her mother's terrible and abusive to her, right?So it's, there's just this, I don't know. It's a long way around to say I think horror, and he writes about this really eloquently, is a way for us to metabolize our deepest fears. Um, and to look at trauma not head-on but sideways. Um, and he writes about that, um, a number of different places in a really powerful way.He's just such an extraordinary human. You know, he's been thinking about this and for so long.Jennie: Yeah. Yeah. So, so your willingness to [00:16:00] confront that, those particular fear, fears in your own self and on behalf of the reader, really puts you in it. I mean, like you, there's a really lovely moment where you are reading I think it's, I think it's Pet Sematary, reading the actual book, and you have to turn it over so you- Yeahdon't see, like on your nightstand so you don't see the cover. I'mCaroline: scared, I'm scared of the cover, right, still.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And then there's moments, se- several where you're driving And you're sort of holding your breath while you drive past a place that he writes about or, or- Mm-hmm ... you know, um, well you have to tell the story, I'm sure every interviewer asks you about the, um, the doorknob in the archive.You have to, like, I was-Caroline: Yeah, not too many people have asked me about that, but I'm like, that to me was the scary moment-Jennie: Wait, shut up ... the most, theCaroline: most sturdy. I'm like, wh- uh, why did that happen? But of course, I mean, there's a reason why it happened. It's, it's, it [00:17:00] automatically locks if, you know, the, if you- Okaydon't lock it So let's, let's play- So but it just happened that we were inside the archive room. It was me and, and Julie Ugli, who is their assistant, who was helping me through this whole process. And I know, and I was, like, literally holding the first page of the first draft of The Boogeyman, the story that had scared me so badly when I was 12, about a monster that comes out of closets, and we're like in this room.And the, the archive room, it actually, it almost feels like a closet. It's not huge at all. You know, it's just-Jennie: Yeah ...Caroline: top to bottom, ceiling to floor stacked shelving with, you know, boxes of materials. And yeah, and we were in there, and I'm holding the first page, and the lock closes on its own. It just goes...And I'm like, I'm looking at Julie, I'm like, “What is, what's happening?” We don't have our cell phones with us. I'm like, “Are we stuck in here? Like, what's gonna happen?”Jennie: In the scary archive- In this, I was terrified ... in the back of the scary house. Like-Caroline: I know, I know. It was like, you can't make this stuff up.That's why I was like, I [00:18:00] couldn't wait, when I finally got a chance to write the book and sit down and write, I was like, I can't wait to tell these stories, because they just... I, I'm not a fiction writer. Like, I, I have such mad respect for- I don't know about that ... well, I've m- We'll see I don't know. I have mad respect for people who can write fiction.For me, I only can write what I know and exper- So I'm like, ah. But these stories were just so amazing. Or like when I was reading The Shining, like the first draft of The Shining, which is crazy. I mean, it's so different from the published version. And like getting to the woman in room 217, and like reading th- and literally my head w- like I thought I was having a stroke.Like it was like, like... And it's like, and then I find an interview where Stephen King writes about how he was scared to go back to that scene when he was revising it, the book, because he was dreading it. And I was like, oh, my God, have I just like had some kind of telepathic experience with Stephen King?Like- Right ... across time, space, and yeah, it was amazing.Jennie: Well, yeah. I mean, [00:19:00] it's just, um, uh, I actually made myself go through the whole book skipping giant chunks.Caroline: I feel so badly I put you through this.Jennie: I know. I, I feel like why, I kept saying, “Why? Why did I think this was a good idea?” Um, and it- I mean, even just tangentially, I, I don't know.It's interesting. I have, I'm sure you have this too, anybody who reads a lot or spends a lot of time with words, you have a capacity to sort of pay half attention, if that makes sense.Caroline: Mm-hmm.Jennie: Um, like you c- could sort of look at it without letting it all the way in. Yeah. But I, I just was, I just was riveted by the thread of, of your story and your putting yourself through that as a scholar and a human.But, but then some really cool things happen, and I, and I have flagged, um... Do you, [00:20:00] w- would you mind reading a tiny piece? It's- No, not at all ... it's on page 82, and it's the p- the paragraph that starts, “These manuscripts.”Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: That would be amazing.Caroline: Absolutely. So this is actually the moment I just described to you, where my head was like, I got...Oh, actually, I had just discovered the last 150 pages of the original Shining manuscript in a random folder in the archives, and I was like, “What is this doing here?” And I was getting obsessive about the manuscripts at this point, clearly- Yeah. Yeah ... just like the main character in The Shining, Jack Torrance, who gets obsessed with the manu- with the papers in the basement of the Overlook Hotel.But here we go. “These manuscripts are definitely getting into my head, and not just its rational part. In his memoir, when King describes books as being a uniquely portable magic, he doesn't specify what kind of magic. What if manuscripts can absorb and store more than just ink and words? [00:21:00] What if their pages can pass on dark energy along with dark stories?Ghosts have more than one way of making sure their stories are heard, of ensuring that the past is not forgotten, but rather pressed into our minds, even if we wrench our heads off the pillow and refuse to listen.” And that last is a reference to my, I used to see a ghost when I was five, and I write about that in the book too.Jennie: I mean, when I read that, I was like, “That's, that's me.” Like, these ghosts and horrors are pressing themselves into my mind, and I'm refusing to listen, and they still, they still do. And, um, King's stories in particular are so iconic, you can't really escape them. Like, you, you know the scenarios, you know the characters, you know-Caroline: YeahJennie: you know. And, and so it was interesting for me reading this book that that described my [00:22:00] experience where I was both repelled and magnetized at the same time.Caroline: That's beautiful the way you just put that. I mean, I think that is exactly our relationship also, of course, to our own fears. You know, again, what makes these stories endure, and I didn't go into this book thinking like, “This is a book about promoting Stephen King,” and, you know- Rightlike, I don't work for Stephen King. I just want to put that out there. Right. He, you know, he graciously agreed to let me go into the archives. He's been very generous about answering all my questions I had about the manuscripts, but he never at any point was like, “You can't say this,” or, “This is how you're supposed to say this.”So, but what I came away with after this process was exactly what you're describing, why we need these stories, why they endure, actually, is because they tap into our very real human fears. It's not about the monsters. It's about the grief and loss that's coming for all of us if we live long enough, you know?So you, and you have to at some point confront that, you know? So if it's- Yeah ... you can [00:23:00] try to run away from it, but it's coming, and that's part of being human. That's the human experience, obviously. Not to be glib, but it's like-Jennie: Yeah ...Caroline: you will experience loss. You will experience grief. And if these stories help you metabolize that or have a cathartic experience with that feeling without having to actually experience your worst fear, right?Um, like Aristotle says, it's cathartic, right? It's you watch a play, a, a tragedy because you experience a catharsis.Jennie: And did you, did you get to that in your own process?Caroline: That's a really good question. Um- You know, I, I think I became more aware of it. You know, I am, you know, and I write about this very openly in the book, that I was an extremely anxious little kid, um, which is part of why I think the boogeyman triggered me in the particular way it did, you know.Um, and that I grew into a pretty [00:24:00] anxious adult, you know? Yeah. I think anxiety is one of those things that, you know, I... Again, I was born in the ‘60s, so we didn't have this language for this back then. Like, my parents wouldn't have known to call me an anxious child, you know? Right. They probably would've said, “Oh, she's shy,” or, “She's whatever.”Um, so I think I, you know, like, and I as an adult, I think I've, I've found ways to manage it pretty well, but I am definitely a control freak. Like, that's part of how I manage it. I shouldn't use that language, but you know, it's like I, I like to just control what I can control, and that makes me feel that I can put the anxiety at bay.So I will say I think it's been interesting for me, Nick, now when I have those moments that are my worst fear moments that sometimes still will creep up on me just even though when I think I've figured it out, like doom s- doom scenarios. I tend to go to doom scenarios. So, like, if I can't reach... Uh, I will say Life360 has been, like, the best invention on the planet for me-with my two kids [00:25:00] and my husband. I'm like, “I know exactly where everyone is.” Yeah. It has saved me a lot of worry. Sometimes Life360 doesn't work, or sometimes a person still doesn't answer the phone, and then I have to manage my anxie- And then it's like... So I will say it's been interesting going through this process and having to confront or revisit the core of what scares me and, like, why that impacts, you know, why certain moments come forward for me still.So I think, yeah, I think it has helped me to a degree. Like, I can recognize it more clearly now. I'm like, “Oh, right, that's why I'm scared of that,” you know? Um-Jennie: That's so cool.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And it feels like that's the, the, um, the transformation in the book is you're exploring how that actually works and the language and the stories.Mm-hmm. But you're, you're also exploring how it works in your own self, how it did when you were young, how it does now- Yeah ... these moments when you're scared. So it- Mm-hmm ... there's such [00:26:00] a depth to it and, I mean, I just, uh, even in my half reading of it, I just loved it. Thank you. And, um, there's something that happens That's kind of crazy, which is, so you're a Shakespeare scholarCaroline: Mm-hmmJennie: And I ha- I, I know from reading Steve, a- about Stephen King, from reading his book On Writing, of course, and, um, interviews and such that, uh, I'm, I'm probably gonna say this in a disrespectful way, and I don't mean it to be so, but the, the easiest way I can describe it is that he's always had sort of a chip on his shoulder that he's just a popular writer and not taken seriously in a literary way.Mm. I don't know if that's, if that is fair to say, but that's how I'm saying it. Uh,Caroline: yeah.Jennie: And, um, what, what I found incredible was that [00:27:00] here comes this Shakespeare scholar into his archives doing proper scholarly archiver, arch- archival work, and there's this moment when you begin to see Shakespearean themes in his, in his work, and you can't ignore it, and particularly in, in Carrie and- Yeahparticularly around exactly the thing you were wrestling with, which is like a young girl's- I don't know, sense of, of not being fitting in the world or, um-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: right? And so that, um, there's, on page, since you have the book in your hand, um, I think it's pageCaroline: 202. Mm-hmm.Jennie: And it refers back to that passage you just read about portable magic.It's the one that's I remembered.Caroline: [00:28:00] Right. Okay. So this is going back to when I first was, um, I was in the final round of the job for the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, and I was working on a book about Shakespeare's, the girls in Shakespeare's plays and world and teenage girls and their cognition.Like, the how were people during Shakespeare's day thinking about girls' brains? Yeah. So I'd been working on this for 10 years. Um, and then I was getting ready to give my job talk. This was the first time Stephen King and Shakespeare came together for me, and it was getting ready, and this, again, this is an authentic story, like write what you know.So I was getting ready for the job talk. I remembered that King's 1974 novel, Carrie, featured a 16-year-old girl whose telekinetic powers are unleashed when she gets her first period in the school shower. I started rereading it, and within a few pages came across an uncanny phrase. When she's walking home after being dismissed early, Carrie feels her brain flexing in a new way, [00:29:00] as if her powers have been waiting below the surface for her to reach, quote, “mental puberty.”I couldn't have wordsmithed this dynamic cognitive change better myself. In the last part of my job talk, I used the phrase to connect the brain work of Juliet Capulet, who's described as being two weeks away from seeing the change of 14 years, to Carrie's newly activated adolescent mind. It felt like a moment of pure portable magic between Stephen King, Shakespeare, and me.Jennie: Ugh, so beautiful.Caroline: Oh, thank you. Yeah. I mean, that was just so gobsmacking. Like, when that happened, I was like, I ca- I can't believe it, but yeah.Jennie: And then, now I may be getting some of the things wrong here, but then you- You realize, is it Carrie that, that you realize he was, you thought he was emulating a play, a Shakespeare play?Caroline: I think you're thinking of Shining. I mean, definitely at the end of the Carrie [00:30:00] chapter I return to, I did notice echoes of Macbeth, and I was convinced that that must have been what he was thinking about. And, and what's funny is, so one of the conversations I got to have with him, I mean, he's so generous with his time, one of my last conversations with him was about the end of Carrie, and that's a book that he actually doesn't like very much.You know, it was his first published novel, he was 26, and he's like, “I think that was written by a young man who thought he knew more than he did.” So he's, it's not a book that he goes back to. He recognizes it's important, and it's important to him, but, ‘cause it started his whole career, his whole trajectory.Um, but he didn't particularly, he hasn't returned to it. Yeah. So that was a fun chance for me to sort of talk to him and say, “Hey, you know what? I think you should maybe go back,” ‘cause it's it's, there's a lot of Shakespeare in there. Anyway, but the Shining chapter, what was fascinating, so there's this first draft, which I, I write a lot about, called The Shine, that's in the archives, with a totally different ending.Um, and when I looked at it, [00:31:00] he'd also divided it into acts and scenes, like Roman numeral acts and little- Mm ... Roman numeral scenes. And I was like, “This, what is this? This is like a Shakespeare play.” Like, that's what it looked like. And then sure enough, I found out he was imagining, he was thinking of a Shakespeare tragedy when he wrote The Shining.And that was the first moment where I was like, “What? This is insane.” Like, this- Yeah ... like, ob- obviously that became, for me, the story I wanted to tell about that particular set of manuscripts, was sort of uncovering, like, what's the Shakespeare play? Like, what's the tragedy? And I didn't wanna ask him because I didn't want- I wanted to go in with my mind clear, like, of any outside influence.I just wanted to see what my Shakespeare brain, because I'm so embedded in Shakespeare. I also have a Shakespeare podcast I do with my best friend. Like, we're, I'm always thinking about Shakespeare and how it relates to everyday life. You know, and so I'm like, “Well, how does it relate to The Shining?” Which is, like, an ur-American text.Like, this, like, say what you want about horror, [00:32:00] like- I'd be shocked if people don't know what The Shining's about, even if they haven't read it even if they haven't seen the film. Like, you probably know something about The Shining, right? Right. So I was like, if there's a Shakespeare tragedy at the foundation of this, you know.And here's the thing about Stephen King that I came to learn, again, reading all of his notes and finding these edits, and I did find traces of Macbeth in the first draft of The Shine, um, that he ended up taking out. So I was like, “Oh, is it Macbeth? It feels like it could be Macbeth.” There's so many things it has in common with it, with hallucinations and with baby bashing.And, you know, all of these horrible things that are in Macbeth are certainly in that book. Um, but I really wanted to go in, like, just on an adventure, like, see what I saw. So I didn't ask him which chi- tragedy until I was fully done with all my research and I felt like I had it all done. And that's when he drops that he was thinking of Hamlet.And once he said that, of course, it became so ... I mean, I [00:33:00] had seen traces, there were references to Ophelia that also didn't make it into the final published draft. So you wouldn't know this. This is the beauty of archival work, like you're gonna see things that other people will never know about unless you tell the story.That's why I felt so passionate about this. Like, “I need to tell people-” Yeah ... “that Ophelia was in the first draft, that he was thinking of Ophelia.” ‘Cause of course, you know, again, even if you don't know The Shining, the woman in the tub, the woman in the bathtub, like a drowned woman in a tub, like ah, Ophelia.Yeah. Like Ophelia's another one of those ur, like she's so, she's such a part of our cultural air, right? I mean, like no matter what country you're in. Right. There's a reason Taylor Swift has a whole, you know, song The Fate of Ophelia. Like people know what that means. Um, so I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is, this is incredible.This is even deeper than I thought it was gonna be.” Um, but also it made me appreciate how much that book is about intergenerational trauma. Um, and it's not ... So he doesn't like the Kubrick film [00:34:00] for reasons that, you know, a couple different reasons. One is that it flattens out the character of Jack Torrance, and Jack Torrance is an abused child himself, and he passes on that abuse to his son, Danny, right?Um, but you wouldn't know that from Kubrick's film. While Hamlet, of course, is about a father's ghost coming forward. Like, “The past is a ghost,” King writes, which is so f- powerful, right? Um, here's this ghost saying, “You need to kill for me.”Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Yeah. And that's what happens to Jack. Yeah, so anyway, that's a long way to say that wasEach chapter was my favorite in different ways, but that one I loved being able to do the deep Shakespeare dive.Jennie: And was that ... You know, so I started that question by saying I, I had heard or understood or maybe inferred that, um, you know, King himself had this sort of desire- Okay ... to be taken more seriously.Was that, that must have been, I don't know, powerful for both you and him, uh, to [00:35:00] come to that? Not like, “Oh, you're the only person that's ever made him feel that way” or-Caroline: Yeah,Jennie: no,Caroline: I agree ... or agree with that, but. Like I, yeah. And, um, I mean, I will say I think part of the reason he was always really ... I mean, first of all, he's just so generous, and any writer who's ever worked with him has the same experience.Like he just gives his time. He just loves writing and writers so much that he will just, he'll just t- like any email I would send him, he'd write back in like an hour with a response. The part about how he feels about academia, you know, and I never directly asked him that because I didn't wanna ... You know, if he wanted to bring it up, great.But I think- Yeah ... my, after going on this journey with him, he clearly loves talking about- literature. He's the most well-read person I've ever met. I'm just gonna say that hands down. Like, the guy reads- Really? ... cons- constantly and if you read his early works, like even when he was 17, he wrote The Long Walk, okay, which just came out as a film, [00:36:00] and in that, he's citing T.S.Eliot, he's cit- he's citing Poe at 17. Okay? So he's, he, he, this, he comes by this honestly. He's not just trying to seem smart. Like, he literally is constantly reading and it's clear when you read his manuscripts or when you read his published books, he's making references to all, whether it's Shirley Jackson or Wallace Stevens or, you know, uh, he's so capacious in his knowledge of literature.And, like, just a couple months ago, he sent me an email, I don't, I can't remember, we were talking about something about Salem's Lot, and he was like, “Yeah, when I was writing Salem's Lot,” which again, this is 1975 when he's writing Salem's Lot, so that's a long time ago. He's like, “I was really into James Dickey's poetry.”Jennie: Whoa.Caroline: You know, who was an American no, you know, poet laureate. Uh, he's like, “And I was reading everything I could read of, of his and then I read Deliverance, and then I went back to his poetry, and that really impacted how I wrote the chapters [00:37:00] about the Lot,” which if you've read Salem's Lot, has some very lyrical, poetic chapters about the town, like, “The town knew about darkness.The town had its secrets and knew how to kept it.” And then he, like, sends me the entire poem that he was thinking about that James Dickey wrote. So I mean, it's, he's, and it's not performative. He's not, like, he has nothing. He doesn't need to prove anything to me, you know?Jennie: Right, to anyone, yeah.Caroline: He just literally loves, he loves literature.Like, this guy, he loves poetry. I mean, he actually writes poetry. He wrote poetry as an undergraduate. Uh, it was actually the core start for him of The Stand, was a poem he wrote called The Dark Man one day when he was, like, hungover in the school, like, cafeteria. Like, so it's like he, he's been thinking about literature and living with literature and, uh, since he was a teenager, if not earlier.His mom brought him, uh, Bram Stoker out of the public library when he was nine, so I mean, the guy- Whoa ... ‘cause he asked for it. He asked for Dracula. [00:38:00] I wasn't reading Dracula when I was nine. Were you? I mean-Jennie: No,Caroline: no. I was reading Little House on the Prairie. I mean-Jennie: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Wow. So- I mean, this book, again, it's called Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King by Carolyn Bicks.It's just incredible, whether you're a King fan, whether you're a horror fan, um, but for sure for all writers, which are all our listeners. If you can, if you can bear it.It's very specific, um, a very specific- specific exploration of, of how good writing works really. Yeah. Right. And, and how you... You know, there's always that perennial question of how do you get emotion on the page? How do you make your reader feel something? And you, you show it very specifically, and I wanted so badly [00:39:00] to, to get into the details, and I, and I, I just, I just couldn't.Um, maybe someday, but, um, I just, I just can't recommend it enough for, for, um, this audience and, um, you know, anyone who's interested in any of these things we've talked about.Caroline: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And I will say, like, the Pet Sematary chapter, which is the first one, that was the first day I was in the archives.One of the things I discovered about him day one was how much attention he pays to word sounds. So I think for any writer interested in sort of doing a deep dive into, like, how one word change, right- Yeah ... can make a difference, you know? Yeah. And I didn't appreciate that about his writing until I went in there and saw his notes to the copy editor where he's like, “Nope, the word's clitter, not clatter.This is why.” You know? Like,Jennie: he's- There's a, um- Yeah ... yeah, there's a book I love, it's probably right behind me, um, called The Artful Edit by Susan Bell, in which she [00:40:00] shows examples of that kind of very careful change in, um, The Gre- The Great Gatsby and The English Patient and various works of, of literature, and your, your whole book is like that.It's, it's just amazing. Um- Thank you ... so is the next book gonna be the Shakespeare one you had thought of before? Or are you gonna- ... go in the, in the personal direction?Caroline: You know, it's such a good question. I think right now I'm just taking a break, you know, because I'm the kind... Like, I immerse myself in a project, and this has been so all-consuming.Um, and I'm back to doing my Everyday Shakespeare podcast, which I love and I missed. Um, so I'm doing that. And I, I really don't like to think too far ahead about what I'm going to write. I like to have it come organically.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Um, so I could go back into the archives. I could write another one of these kinds of books, but I don't know if that's the [00:41:00] right thing for me right now.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Um, I want to make sure whatever I write next- You know, I loved writing this book so much. It's my favorite... I mean, it's, it was such a powerful experience for me, um, because I could bring my personal experiences into it and my scholarly self into it. I don't... You know, it's gonna be hard to recreate that.Yeah. I think it can be done, but I don't wanna force it. Yeah. So I'm gonna wait and see what the next, what the next oneJennie: is. Don't you, don't you love the interviewer who's like, “Hey, congratulations. You wrote a book. What, what's your nextCaroline: one?” What are you working on now? What are you doing now? I know. And I get that.I'm like-Jennie: So mean ...Caroline: I'm just, I'm just reading books I wanna read. I'm doing my laundry. I'm getting to know my dog again. You know?Jennie: Oh, wow. Well, thankCaroline: you. But, you know, it's a fair question. Yeah.Jennie: Yeah, yeah. Thank you for coming and chatting about this, and for writing such a cool book. And- Thank you ... um, I'm looking forward to seeing what you do next.Caroline: Thank you, Jennie. It was a [00:42:00] pleasure.Jennie: Well, for our listeners, until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters.The #amwriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday, was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output because everyone deserves to be paid for their work This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe