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KINGCAST episodes
After tuning in to Bev’s informative and well done interview yesterday, i checked out a couple more KINGCASTS.
DAMIEN ECHOLS:
The one with Damien Echols was interesting. It wasn't as smooth and organic as Bev's, but it was still good. He talked about the Dark Tower and how it helped him get through his prison years. He doesn't speak too much about the case at all, so if your curiosity to listen is driven by that, you won't get much. And, I was really happy about that -- for him. Of course I'm curious about it all and would have hung on every word he said about the crime, but he wants to move on in his life. So, I think he very much appreciated Scott and Eric just treating him like a reader. And the fact he was a Stephen King reader was used in the case against him. In court!
What was interesting to me though, he spent almost 20 years in prison. Half of that he said was in solitary confinement. He is now having troubles with facial recognition and voice recognition because of that. He is involved in a study with the leading scientists about how solitary confinement affects the brain. He's working with the same guy who studied football players and brain injury.
DAMIEN ECHOLS:
The one with Damien Echols was interesting. It wasn't as smooth and organic as Bev's, but it was still good. He talked about the Dark Tower and how it helped him get through his prison years. He doesn't speak too much about the case at all, so if your curiosity to listen is driven by that, you won't get much. And, I was really happy about that -- for him. Of course I'm curious about it all and would have hung on every word he said about the crime, but he wants to move on in his life. So, I think he very much appreciated Scott and Eric just treating him like a reader. And the fact he was a Stephen King reader was used in the case against him. In court!
What was interesting to me though, he spent almost 20 years in prison. Half of that he said was in solitary confinement. He is now having troubles with facial recognition and voice recognition because of that. He is involved in a study with the leading scientists about how solitary confinement affects the brain. He's working with the same guy who studied football players and brain injury.
Comments
Okay, Wil is an interesting guy. He's very smart, polite, charming, has a sense of humor. But he's been roughed up in his life. He's a bit damaged and I felt his need to talk about it. Some people hold stuff in. He is one of those people who needs to get it out. But, before he allowed himself to acknowledge the pain, he held it in and for a little boy -- breaks my heart. Now he's living the life.
He has a loving family, a great career, surrounds himself with good friends. That little boy in him wishes he would've had loving parents, but he didn't and he's coming to terms with it.
So, talking about Night Shift brought up a lot of personal stuff and he was open and honest. He drew out the hosts with a hint of their own stuff.
Most of you know Wil from Stand By Me. He was adorable and so good in that. And his stories about that were eye opening for me. Many of you know him from his Star Trek work. I watched him for a couple seasons with the show. But where I know the adult Wil Wheaton is from a show he does called Tabletop. If you are familar with Tabletop, have watched episodes of it -- you are truly and sincerely a geek.
Lots of topics were touched on, some politics -- which if you don't want to hear it, don't listen. Will is a strong presence with a lot of stories, ideas and opinions to share. And he took over. I don't mean that in a bad way. He's just a force, that's all. He had a lot he wanted to share. The guys sat back and let him do so.
Night Shift, like any Stephen King book, took this conversation to many places. And that's why Stephen King is so good. He writes our stories. We relate to them. And off we go to talk about how we connect.
I hope to someday start at the beginning.
I was familiar with his work but not his name. Writer/director Rian Johnson (Knives Out, Looper, Some Return of Jedi thing) comes on to talk about On Writing.
I was little more disappointed with this podcast. Not that Rian wasn't interesting, he was. But the focus was on his stuff, his writing, his process. And for sure, they were interviewing him and that stuff would come into play. But, I was hoping the conversation would be more focused on King and this book, why the podcast was titled ON WRITING. As in Stephen King's, (Kingcast, duh) ON WRITING -- one of my personal top ten King's.
I wanted them to discuss King more and Rian Johnson less.
But, having said that, I did find Rian's process interesting. Obviously good sense of humor, smart and how he comes to the blank page is still worth your time. They definitely talk about the book, but we did a lot of drifting from the source material.
Which I am seriously thinking about getting a subscription to. For my year of cemetery dance, I had a Fangoria book in my list. I really enjoyed it.
This was a good podcast because I love Storm of the Century. Top ten Stephen King.
What I found really interesting, and I have on all the podcasts, is the age of participants. I find it very interesting to hear "young'uns" talking about Stephen King. What they focus on. What they see. Where there disappoints are in the story. What spoke to them. What stood out, good and bad.
I would have loved for them to have a panel of young, middle age and older Stephen King people talking about this one. I think the discussion could have been so rich with what various age groups thought about it.
Meredith and I were totally in sync when it came to hating Molly. I hated her and I did not like the woman who played her. And yes! She couldn't get the kid's head unstuck? She needed a man for that? Her hubby is running a store with a big storm coming, he's also constable, and she's calling him to come pull the kid's head out of the stairs. But like one of the boys said, "apparently he was the only one who knew where the magic button was."
All three of them were unhappy about the kid's roles in this. They felt like they were the focus, we should've liked them more, we should've seen them participating more. I think they missed that completely. The kids were the end game, but the focus was how these adults, how this town, how this island dealt with Linoge. The interesting stuff was their dynamics and thought processes. The kids were just a means to an end. Paraphrasing a stephen king sentiment, the kid's were the car but the adults were the engine. The kids were a set piece to me. I'm so glad we didn't get any more of the kids than we did.
Something interesting Meredith discusses is Stephen wrote this for ABC. And she said, apparently Stephen did that on purpose because he WANTED the constraints of TV. He knew he would have to write himself out of situations instead of putting a bomb in the closet because he didn't know where to go with the story. He was forced to write it out with the screenplay. The books they adapt, everything is there already. They use what they want. Here, he had to write it and make it work directly for TV. I'm not explaining this right. Go listen to Meredith talk about it.
At the end of Storm of the Century, we see Mike seeing Ralphie again on the city streets. I always felt that wasn't an accident. Linoge did that on purpose because Mike had said, paraphrasing, "he will never be yours". And Linoge tells him, paraphrasing, "he may come to love me, he may even call me father." Which sends Mike through the roof. I think Linoge purposely gave Mike that glimpse all those years later to show him, "f*** you buddy. He is MY son, not yours. I did win. He does love me." It was a horrifying ending. The panel discussing this ending was really worth listening to.
The one thing they didn't talk about and I am terribly terribly bummed about -- Mike fought hard to keep his head while those around him were losing theirs. But, when Linoge chose someone to act, they acted. EXCEPT FOR BILLY SOAMES. He tries to get Billy Soames to kill Kat Withers and he doesn't do it. He beats Linoge in that single moment and Linoge is in his jail cell, furious! So, he had Kat kill Billy. Billy still lost in the end, but something in him was able to deny Linoge. How? What? Why? Why is he the only one that truly breaks Linoge's grip? Even for just a moment. How was he able to fight that urge when no one else could?
I have been asking this question from day one and nobody has given me a satisfactory answer. So I was really hoping on this Kingcast podcast, they would see this anomaly.
@Bev Vincent -- if you have contact with any of these 3 people, can you put this question to them. Please. I'm begging you. I would love love love to hear what they think about this.
Good podcast. I recommend it.