My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - Celebrity Hometowns with Patton Oswalt

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

For a special treat, Karen and Georgia sit down with celebrity guests to hear their stories, from hometown murders to personal accounts of mayhem to legendary family lore. Today's guest is Patton Oswalt.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music, Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder, the celebrity hometown mini-soad. That's right, it's a little extra, a third episode because we need more jobs for you where we talk to our reliable celebrity friends who agree to this that we love. The famous ones that still show up for you, some of the best in the biz, and we're so excited to talk to our guest today. You've seen him at clubs and colleges all over the country, of course. You also may have seen

him on AP Bio. He's on tons of stuff. You know him, you love him. His name is Patton Oswald. Patton, welcome to the show. Hi, my favorite murderers. It is so good. There is nothing more. I have a bit now where I mentioned you guys' podcast. It is organically mentioned, and whenever I say the name of the podcast, the murderinos in the audience just go nuts. It's the best. It is like, this feels like what it must have been like to make a Star Trek reference in 1974, so the people in there are like, ah, that's hot. They all start calling at each other and calling out. It's fantastic. The audience goes nuts. It's fantastic. That's amazing. I love that we have crossover fans. Who would have thought that a murder podcast and the very funny Patton Oswald

would have crossover fans? I love that. Yeah, exactly. It's crossover appeal. It's all those people from the Sunday Night Punchline, you know, the walk in and stand at the bar and hope you get picked. Showcase night. Is that your San Francisco days? Yes, it was all stand awkwardly in that weird hallway that led back to the kitchen, which by today's standards was so insanely unsanitary because you had me and Karen and Laurie Kilmartin and Blaine Capac and Byron Yee, like with one foot in the kitchen where they're running back to get people's nacho plates, and we're just back there smoking weed and yacking. It was just, oh my god. How was that place not shut down? I mean, for real. For real. It's been a long time, so it's thrilling to have you here.

It's thrilling to get to talk to you for a second. Patton, you have your own podcast now. I do. With your wife, Meredith Salinger. Yes. Meredith Salinger, star of Stage and Screen. Well, not really Stage. Big screen, little screen. That's her. Never really actually did any stage stuff, now that I think about it. She's never done Broadway? No, she never did Broadway. So she and I basically live in a house together, but spend half the day texting each other, even though we're never more than 60 feet away. And then it's a chance to get together once a week and go over the text, some of which are very cryptic and weird, because we'll send them at odd hours. Like, what did you mean by this? Oh, I needed you to go get

this. So it's like two people solving the mystery of their ongoing marriage through texts. And that's here's how bad it's gotten. One night, a couple of weeks ago, we were both in bed. We had watched a show and then we're like, okay, good night. And then she like turned away, but she had found this absolutely perfect position with all the pillows. And then I'm next to her, but I saw this really cool picture on my phone. I'm like, oh, hey, sweetie. And I wanted to show her to her. And she goes, I just landed in such a perfect position. You have to text it to me. I'm not going to roll over and lose. I got all the pillows right where I want them. And she goes, you're going to text it to me and I'm not going to be ashamed about it because I'm not giving

up this position. So we will text each other from inches away. I love that as a bed and sleeping and nap connoisseur, I fucking respect that so much. It's not laziness. It's pure delight and enjoyment. And I respect that. And pillow architecture. That's important. Kind of like you, it really does take a while because if you, I was making the mistake where I bought fancy pillows and then was just laying on them, however the pillow would have me. And I would wake up in the morning with like a super fucked up neck. And I was like, Oh, I don't like these pillows. I just think that I'm supposed to just be on them as they will have me where it's like, no, no, no, it has to fit. It has to be helping me. Yeah. I can't just take it as it is.

Yes, you have to, it has to work for you. I remember one year I hosted a video game awards competition in Vegas. And it was the year that video games broke big where it was suddenly overnight, it was a billion dollar industry. And all these game designers who in the past just wore basketball shorts and T shirts and wrote code on the back of pizza boxes or suddenly they're all billionaires. So they all are at the awards ceremony and they've got their bespoke suits on, but it was clear that it was their first ever nice suit because they had put it on at the beginning of the evening and no one had told them that as the evening goes on, you need to stand and adjust and shoot your pops because they thought it was like a computer

program. You put it on and it just runs and does its function. So I was giving awards to all these new billionaires all going up with the jankiest, most expensive, like the sleeve was all jammed up and then the waste was wrong because they just sat and just forgot. They didn't know how to work a suit. They didn't know how to do it. It was new, but reached gamers man. It was all new, but reached billionaires in there. Incredibly bespoke cut suits looking like they may as well have gone to Jonathan S. Banks or whatever that place is for you. You buy the suit and it comes apart as the evening goes along. Men's warehouse. Men's warehouse. Yes, exactly. Tear away. This actually goes along with my idea and I can't remember. I don't think I've ever told you because

now that you're saying this to me, it would be the perfect idea to pitch to you, which was when all of that stuff was happening in like the early 2000s. I had the idea to make a show about nerd finishing school where basically all these new billionaires have to go and learn like how to use the fork, how to pretend to be interested in what other people are saying. Like basically they're being driven like debutants from the fifties with books on their heads, but yeah, right? But that is absolutely true. There is a culture now of people who just either drop the screens or hit run on a program and there's no back and forth interaction and adjusting. Oh my gosh, that would actually be a profitable business for the new will reach. How

to speak without food in your mouth. Yeah, exactly. Right. Use a fork and knife properly. I feel like that is that somehow my mom, even though we were eating breakfast for dinner because she's still somehow new to teach us how to properly and we get, you know, scolded if we used caveman fucking hands or forks, you know what I mean? That's an important skill that not everyone knows. Yeah, just for clarification, I don't want to actually start a finish. I just want to make a TV show about it. Nothing real. I thought Karen was like, you know, you'd go to their house and you sit down with them and I'll be driving all over Silicon Valley. It's going to be amazing. It's going to be like these shoes, you need to actually tie these. I know that you're

used to stepping into your shoes. You only walk like eight feet, but in the world, you can't have shoelaces whipping around. There's other people moving around. You need to, yeah, we just, Meredith had our daughter Alice go to a politeness school, like a, not a term for like a weekend, once a week, manners dinner where they learned proper way because she just didn't, there's no examples of that anymore. And obviously she's not trying to make her be like a little debutant, but there was this, Hey, your dad is a horrible example of how to eat and how to comport yourself because I look, I literally, I eat like a monkey just learning to use a tool for the first time. So she's like, yeah, maybe learn to actually sit and not have stuff swapping all over the place.

And so that was, that was amazing. I appreciate that so much. It's, oh yeah. Yeah. We got busted all the time for pushing rice onto our fork with our thumbs. And we would, it was like, my mother's favorite thing to make as a side was minute rice. And so we were always just trying to like get a pile on there. And my parents would go insane. We're just like, okay, but no one's around. It's like the queen of Spain isn't here for dinner. Can we just, it's the last pile of rice. It's really hard to get on a fork. Right. I mean, Meredith's argument is if we teach it now, when it doesn't matter, then it'll be second nature, which is out in public. And based on the other people that seem to be coming up, she's going to seem like a Kryptonian with her manners.

Like, I can't, I can't believe this kid is actually knows how to, is it using her fork like a weird scoop shovel, like her dad does? How about, can we bring back the spork is my thing? Like, is there classy spork? Well, bring back the spork or is the spork where we're all eventually going to like in another generation, will it be like in 2001 where all food is just kind of a mash, kind of a slurry of protein and carbs. And you just use the, the spork to kind of scoop now. Can we still have minute rice on the side? That's all I ask, please. Should we pivot into hometown and see what Patton has to say about his random, it could be anything. What does he, what does he associate the word hometown with?

Here's what I associate my hometown with. And this is very much about how and when I grew up, because I got ready for this podcast. I grew up in Sterling, Virginia. I read up on Sterling, Virginia, not no real crazy murders, anything that. So then I went a little further field, more out of Virginia. Yes, there are some good Virginia murders, but they are way, way, way down in the deep South of Southern part of Virginia, down 81 near Roanoke near Blacksburg. That's where, you know, Henry Lee Lucas was born and like, that's where, so, but what I would love to talk about are the hometown crimes and killings that never get written about because growing up in the seventies with no internet and no social media, there were the kids in your

high school that would blow off their hand with an M80 or get drunk and scrape the top of their head off driving home, but they just vanished into their hometowns. They never got out and became a bigger story. Whereas I feel like now when these little tragedies occurred, there's a narrative and there's, there's something told. So I just want to do a tip to three people. One, I'm not going to say, I'm going to make up names because if they're still out there, they're so far gone that they will track me down. And also I imagine that they have, they've either fallen down a QAnon hole or a MAGA hole where God knows what. Right. Of course. First, I'm going to talk about John X, who, John X was this kid who lived over on, I lived on Sugar Land Run Drive. He lived up on

Crescent Court and he was obsessed with the idea of explosives. I think we watched that movie Force 10 from Navarone where they were going to bomb a dam or a bridge or something and he was trying to make like a time bomb or something. And he blew off most of his left hand in his garage. How old was he? He was, I think he was 16 when he did it. He was older than us, but he was like, he was at the time, I remember I was like 10 or 11. He was the cool older kid that were like, this is so awesome. This older kid wants to hang out with us. You realize later, the reason he's hanging out with the 10 and 11 year olds is because the other kids, his age, want nothing to do with him. So he's like, well, I get to be a king to these little dipshits.

King of the fourth graders says a 16 year old. Exactly. In the 70s and 80s, there's always the kid in your neighborhood who's into explosives. I think it was my brother, actually. Really? He got the anarch, remember the anarchist cookbook? Oh God. Yes. He had it, my mom. Of course they did. Took it away. Yes. Terrible. Okay. So that was John, John X up on Crescent Court blew off most of his left hand. And then I remember, it was weird. His parents didn't move away. So he was, I assume he was still in the neighborhood, but we just didn't see him anymore. Like I think he just stayed in the house. So I feel like there were many years of me and my friends growing up where if I had looked over at the house,

I would have seen like his eye maybe like peeking out of one of the front drapes or one of those. Yeah, I know. It's horrible. But there you go. John X. Can I just make a counter suggestion? Go ahead. You know, that could have been a very freeing moment for him. We're in the hospital. He met a cute candy striper and she was like, what are you doing with all these bombs? Yeah. And then he's like, I'm going to go to your school from now on. Let's just turn it, we can turn it as like the possibilities for John X to really have had a come to Jesus with that moment and then be like, I'm going to make bombs for good now. Maybe he worked for the government, maybe he went to boarding school, had he fucking flourished there. Blackstone, is that he could

have maybe started that company? I love that you found a happy ending that included love and companionship and purpose for John X. I love that. Also, deep in my heart, I know he was just peering through that front window at the neighborhood. You can feel it on your neck. Yes, but I like that story better. And if the multiverse is real, then somewhere he's out there with his cool nurse wife and his mangled hand, but she loves that mangled hand. Damn it. Ooh, yes, she does. Sexy. And let's leave it at that. Let's just stop right there. One down, one down. Yeah, one down. Then I went down to Tom X. Tom X was a kid who lived up on, there was an actual street near us named Penny Lane. It was, it was, look, our development that I grew up in, Trigland Run was built in 1970,

and it feels like a lot of the planners were like, we just need some of Penny Lane. Isn't that a song? It doesn't matter. Penny Lane, that'll be nice. Put it up there. Yeah, Penny Lane. And so Tom X was the kid in the neighborhood who got super into, and again, this is all in the late 70s, very early 80s, but got super into martial arts weapons and would send away for the throwing stars and the katana and the num chucks and something that, and now he didn't himself get hurt. No one dies in this one, but we had Kung Fu theater on Saturday afternoon, WVCA channel 20. And this diversion that I heard was that he and his brother, his brother was like a year younger than him. They're both kind of dirtbags, but good guys, you know, fun to hang out with. And they were

in the backyard and, and Tom X was throwing, throwing stars at his little brother, Tom X, parentheses A. And the little brother was trying to catch them in the air. And, and they, what I heard a throwing star went into his brother's cheek. I know I remember the brother being at school where they cut in his cheek, but Tom X got, was like punished for a long time. This one, he was a teenager. Nowadays, it would turn into we need to bomb martial arts weapons, but luckily we were still just in the phase of other adults going, yeah, there's some kids suck. Some kids are just done like, like it didn't create a weird moral panic in the neighborhood, which is nice. No. Yeah. So it was that kid is bad with martial arts weapons. Not every kid is bad.

And by the way, I don't even think it was in terms of cause, cause I also remember in the 70s, like parents really hung out with each other. Like there was just at the end of the day, the people would come out of their homes and just hang out at the cul-de-sac. And the parents didn't get shunned or pushed away. The other parents were like, oh, that kid sucked too. Like some of your kids suck. They weren't saying you're a bad parent. Like you're doing your best and I'm throwing pieces of shit. What are you going to do? You know, so that was, that was actually kind of nice. This reminds me, sorry, but we've gotten a couple emails because somebody sent in this unbelievable hometown about when they accidentally served little kids hard lemonade

at the fourth of July neighborhood thing. And it was that thing where they had to tell the other parents and all the other parents thought it was hilarious and just took the kids and put them to bed. So it was like six year olds that were walking around super drunk. And so then we were like, guys, send us your drunk kids stories. And now we're getting them. And I think there is a subset of parents who get that. And maybe it's because they're Gen X. So they're like, yeah, it's not that big of a deal. It's like, they'll sleep it off. It's not the end of the world. And it is, you have to admit it's funny. Yeah. I was caught drunk in our house by my parents one time. I was up watching a movie, wasn't doing anything crazy. I just, for some reason there

was a bunch of beers in the fridge. I said, I'm going to have a beer. I think I was 16. And I had one and I got a little buzz and I had a second one. And then my mom came down and I was, I wasn't drinking. I was having a little buzz. And then she said, look, if you're going to drink, I don't want you drinking, but if you're going to do it, do it in the house. Like don't drive somewhere and do it. Like it was that 70s thing of at least he's doing it here. Right. You know, he's not hurting anybody. So fine. You know, yeah, completely. So there was that, it was just a whole different attitude. And although now there's a weirdly different attitude, I think now with Gen X parents, because the idea of pot being any kind of thing that you

would either catch your kids with or that it would ruin your life is so a thing of yesteryear. Yeah. Now our daughter doesn't smoke weed, doesn't want to smoke weed, but I just don't ever succeed being any kind of big deal down the road. It just isn't a big deal anymore. That's just gone now. No one cares. And there's no taboo really on it. So it's not like you want to sneak out and do something your parents don't agree with because your parents don't really give a shit. Yeah, exactly. And again, I'd rather have my kids smoking weed than drinking. Yeah. Although I will say, I don't want to sound like a funny daddy. I don't smoke weed anymore, but my friends who smoke weed now are like, and these are all pot smokers and they're saying,

I can't believe I'm saying this. If my kids do smoke the weed that they have now, I would like for me to be there to regulate it a little bit because smoking a whole joint is not the same as smoking a whole joint when we were 20. Oh my God. This is powerful. It's nuts. Team roller level stuff. Yes. This is not Sems and Seeds, Shrag. This is my kid. It's intense. Also, it's this, we live in this reality and I think of it all the time. I think the three of us were super Stephen King nerds when we were kids, right? Yeah. Pat, it's one of the first things you and I bonded on, I think, is just like listing out. Nice. And I believe it was from the running man when there's that woman in her car and she's so stressed out from her day and the

traffic and she goes to a vending machine and gets joints. And I remember reading that when I was like 15 or like, that's amazing. And now like your kid drives around and there's the pot store here, the pot store there, these beautiful, they look like bakeries. Oh my God. Gorgeous. They do. They look gorgeous. Gorgeous. Yeah. Is that a lamp store? No, they sell weed there. It's like, it's crazy. It's the future. Yeah. I remember a friend of mine pointing out that there was, again, this panic about, well, if we legalize weed, this is going to be enforced. Kids are going to go in and buy it. I'm like, well, there are cigarettes and beer and gas stations. I can buy them, but I don't, it doesn't mean that, oh my God, I guess I got a bike. Just because there

doesn't mean that everyone will run in and buy it. I drive by weed stores all the time. I'm like, it's weird. You mentioned Stephen King because my daughter who is 12 has, because of stranger things has now reverse engineered herself into Stephen King. So I have to review when she was like eight, I read her eyes of the dragon, which is his young adult novel. That's a little good for kids, but she really, really likes his writing. So she's like, I want to, I want to read some of this stuff. So I had to like skim back through a lot of the stuff that I read at her age. And again, that wonderful 1970s parental neglect, I reread the stand, which I read when I was 10. Oh my God.

I was 10 and I'm like, oh my God, how was I allowed to read this? And I was like, sweetie, I can't have you read the stand, but I did let her read the Institute, which is like stranger things, but a little grittier. And now she's reading the talisman, the one that he wrote with Peter Straub. And I think next year I'll let her read Salem's lot. Like I have to now be careful about, because what was okay for me, maybe not okay for her right now. Maybe let's tease her into it a little bit. Kujo, maybe a nice doggy story would be okay. Well, except Kujo, I re-skim through Kujo. Yes, it is a really cool tense story, but there's a

whole ugly part of the middle, which makes me wonder a little bit about what Stephen King was going through at the time where the wife is having a really gross affair with this failed hack writer who doesn't even come into their house and jerk off on their bed. Oh God, I blocked all of this out. Yes, exactly. At like 12 or 13, I read Gerald's game. Yo, what? To that room.

What the fuck? That's like straight up bondage rape. Yes! Yeah. Where was my mother? Where was my mother? Yeah. So, yeah, there was, again, there was stuff that just at the time, it was, well, it's a big bestseller and it's just monsters and what's the big deal? It's a book. Yeah. Like my daughter wants to read Carrie and I was like, we're going to wait till you're out of high school because that's going to kind of fuck you up,

especially now, you know. Didn't Stephen King write Kujo when he was blacked out? Like he doesn't remember writing it. Yes. I love that. I just gave my daughter the book on writing, which is his memoir about writing, which is actually great. And there was this funny onion op-ed about 20 years ago of, I don't remember writing the Tommy knockers. Like, ha, ha, because, and the joke was, I read so many books and remember it. But in on writing, he goes, I do not remember writing Kujo, Christine or the Tommy

knockers because he was so whacked out of his head. And the Tommy knockers is a brilliant book about overcoming cocaine addiction. He just hides it as alien, but it's about being a cocaine addict. That's what the whole book is about. God damn. I got to go back and read these again. Yeah. I know I'm getting so excited about this conversation because I was going to say, what about fire starter?

Fire starter is very, that'll be one that I'll let her read. The only thing about fire starter is there's a very weird section where this psychiatrist who is studying the kid who can start fires has a weird sexual kink where he puts on ladies underwear and then jerks off while he looks at a garbage disposal running. It's this whole thing. And then, Oh, yes. That's right. And then the father does a weird mental push on the guy to make him shove his hand into the thing while he's jerking off. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to lose a little bit. It's totally stranger things. It's stranger things with a weird jerking off to a garbage

disposal fetish. I literally think about that part of that book every time I use my garbage disposal. I literally sit there and go, don't put your hand in that. Please don't put your hand in that. It's so fucked up. It's so fucked up. I feel like if you just grab a Sharpie, go through each and every one and just, I feel like it'll be half the book.

Redacted. Redacted. No jerking off. No jerking off. Don't need this. Don't need this. Well, I'm going to have her read the novella, The Body. I think that one's good. And then she'll watch Stand By Me.

The little older, I mean, fire starter is just R rated stranger things. It's just stranger things with some serious violence and sex in it. What about it? I feel like it's similar, but it's so much scarier. Guys, listen. It has aged. They basically defeat the monster by kind of gang raping the girl at the end. Why am I forgetting all of this? And I'm like, I don't know if this is the best thing for you to be thinking of.

There are other authors. There are great books out today for kids. By the way, there are great Stephen King novels. I just have to be careful. Yes. I don't because Karen and I just had it all thrown right at us. Like, yeah, get a nice monster book though. There's no any better.

And now we're like, I mean, and I remember when I, even when I was reading it, which I think I read, that didn't come out to like the late 80s. I was in high school. But even then I was like, this is a little fucking weird. I don't know what's going on here. They're all fucking the girls. And also I almost like kind of expected it or knew that there was always going to be a part that freaked me out more than the scary stuff.

Yes, always. That was troubling. But ultimately the part that I was like, he did not have to make it a big giant spider. I really don't like that. Yes. Yeah. I don't like it. Not to be a big nerd, but in his first memoir, I've done from a car.

We talked about if you have something scratching on the other side of the door, but you never show what it is, the reader's mind goes insane from fear. And if you open the door and it's a 10 foot spider, they freak out for two seconds and then they go, well, if it had been a hundred foot spider, that would have been worse. Now if you then open the door and it's a hundred foot spider, they would have gone, oh my God. And then they would have gone, but if it was a thousand foot spider,

so he broke his own rule at the end of it by having it be a big spider. Yeah. Well, look, maybe he was drunk. When I get drunk, I just watch fucking trailer park boys, but apparently he writes novels. So well, not only like even his drunk novels are fucking amazing. There's a whole section about the guy with the breakfast cereal that turns kids shit red.

And he shows how it moves through the culture. Like before there were memes, he shows like it becomes a George Carlin routine. And then Johnny Carson talks about it. And then it becomes a T-shirt. Like he shows how something becomes a meme. And the fact that he was writing that during a drunken blackout, that's a level of genius. I can't even begin to imagine.

Yeah. A drunken blackout, what I guess now it would be almost 50 years before it was a real thing. Yes. Yes. It was incredible. Like a true visionary. In his memoir, he said during that time he would wake up, he would drink a bottle of Nyquil for breakfast.

That was his breakfast, it was a bottle of Nyquil. Then he would do coke all day and just. And you know, that's what he was. And he was, that's also when he was writing so many novels that his agent said, you're flooding the market. This will hurt your sales. Think of a pseudonym. And he wrote four other novels in a fucking pseudonym.

He's this force of nature. He really is. Yeah. Yeah. It was amazing. I was reading one book on a plane one time. And I remember getting this weird feeling, because I knew technically I was reading,

but it felt like I was thinking the story. That's how smooth and beautiful the writing was where. Yes. Because sometimes I think it, whether it's like an ADD thing or whatever, where I almost have to put like a bookmark under and trace it down so that I don't skip. So do I. Yeah.

And that never happens with his books, because it's like my eyes are ingesting the story. Yes. He never, ever loses you. And it's why a lot of, that's why a lot of his audio books are so fun to listen to, even if you've read the book, because they bring you in from a Buick 8, which is a novel told from like eight different points of view.

So for the audio book, they got eight different actors, brilliant like Bruce Davidson and the mom from Freaks and Geeks to do each part. And you never, like I remember listening to that book on tape, I would get to meetings and I would go in late because I was sitting there like, I can't, I need to know what happened to you. I can't like go in and I would come in like 10 minutes late

and I'm like, this is audio book. I really like it. I'm sorry. You know, so. I love that. I know that when I don't mind sitting in traffic or when I actually get my ass out and hike, that means I'm really into the audio book I'm listening to.

Yeah. That's the only way I'll hike or enjoy traffic. Like the best. This is our new Stephen King podcast. This is wow. Ladies and gentlemen, look for us. Thanks for listening to Hail to the King. And I was also, there was a bit of a,

I'm going to admit that there was a bit of a daddy bragging when I let her read the Institute because I mentioned in it. So I'm part of, I'm in the King verse now. So that was like a, hey, enjoy this. And then I was waiting for like a few days later she goes, Daddy, that's me. You know, it's weird.

I just kind of showed up in there. That is so cool. That is really bad. Yeah. But if you had told 10 year old me who was like reading the stand and like, my friends and I would argue as to who you would cast in the stand as all the different parts.

Like that would, that would go back and forth. And you know, oh, Stu Redman. That's Bruce Springsteen, man. Like everyone that has to be that person. So did you watch the most recent version? I did. I, I, it was. It'll never be as good as the movie in your head.

No, yeah. That's the thing about a writer that good is that you've already watched this movie. I, and you've watched a great movie. You're right. You've, I've watched a great movie. I don't need to. Yeah.

Yeah. You're right. And also in my mind, it is set in the late 70s, even though he has it set in 85 when he first wrote it. But friend and goldsmith always has long, Jan Brady type hair and there's a hot 70s girl. And the Laurie Underwood is that kind of Jerry Rafferty kind of rocker, like that kind of look.

Yes, exactly. Like I just had that in my head. Can't be any different. Yeah. They already look like someone. So how, and then suddenly there's someone else on the screen here. Like that's not them.

Right. And also I know how baby can you dig your man goes. I probably could play it on the guitar. I should do a cover of that song. Why don't I, why haven't you done, you, you should absolutely do that. That will be the theme song for the podcast. This is all working out for the new podcast that we just made

for our new podcast. It's called baby, can you dig your cat? I love it. Baby, can you podge your cat? That's what you mean. Looking for a better cooking routine with meal planning, shopping and prepping handled. Hello, fresh has you covered.

Hello, fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable. So you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. Hello, fresh meals are convenient, seasonal and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly. Why stop with just dinner? Now you can enjoy Hello, fresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes

and amazing desserts. Karen January is going to be my month for Hello, fresh. I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much. I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since like early fall. So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and Hello, fresh makes it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own.

It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder 20 with code murder 20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder 20 and use code murder 20. Goodbye.

What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candace DeLong and on my new podcast Killer Psyche Daily, I share a quick 10 minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds, psychopaths and cold-blooded killers you hear about in the news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent and criminal profiler. On Killer Psyche Daily,

I'll give you insight into cases like Ryan Grantham and the newly arrested Stockton serial killer. I'll also bring on expert guests to dive deeper into the details, share what it's like to work with a behavioral assessment unit at Quantico, answer some killer trivia and even host virtual Q&As where I'll answer your burning questions. Hey Prime members, listen to the Amazon Music exclusive podcast Killer Psyche Daily in the Amazon Music app.

Download the app today. Okay wait are you going to give us your third story? What's the third one? Okay well this is one uh this is sort of connected to my family a little bit so I can name some names in this one. It's very very strange. I wrote down as much of this as I could my uncle Pete who uh sent him from schizophrenia but still a really nice guy but when he was growing up he grew up around um Mount Washington

outside of uh D.C. or he grew up in that Rainier it was some neighborhood near Washington D.C. and his priest his neighborhood priest Father Bowen suddenly left the diocese and went had to travel to the Midwest to do something and then when he came back he was really as my uncle Pete said very very messed up and clearly something had gone horribly wrong. It turns out that his parish priest also my mom's

parish priest and my you know my grandparents was the priest that went out I believe it was in Nebraska in the 50s or 60s and did the exorcism that the exorcist is based on. He is the guy he's the basis for Father Marin and he went and did something and came back and and of course the only one who remembers it is my was my schizophrenic uncle who passed away but I guess it really there was some kind of weird connection and then there was also a local case although the kid was just

schizophrenic at the time they thought it was demonic possession and he also Father Bowen handled that one I didn't know if I had the timeline correct I think he did the local one first then went out to the Midwest and the Midwest was apparently the real deal or it was something really really messed up and then he came back it was never the same that eventually just kind of vanished so there's a weird connection in my family to the case oh my god that the exorcist is based on what to me I want to know everything about what

you saw and experience yeah the fact that I messed him up is crazy it was their priest and because of the times it was way easier to just cover things up and let them fall down a memory hole back then nowadays yeah it's weird I was I was saying you know because I'm back on the road again doing shows and a lot of my friends are saying oh is it weird out there and I think no you know when you're back out on the road I'm paraphrasing Bobcat Goldpoint you go back out on the road and you realize oh Twitter and the internet

isn't the world no there's the same amount of craziness there's just way more cameras filming everything and there just weren't cameras there weren't as many cameras back then so a lot of stuff just became weird half legends or half information which makes it even more sinister and weird yeah the fact that we don't have all that chronicle yeah it's almost like all the urban legends that we in like the 70s 80s up until the 90s we all just pass them around and you know

I mean like I've told Georgia about the nights where you and Blaine would bring over the VHS copies of all that basically was beginning of YouTube of like here's the orchestra that falls through the stage here's the farting preacher here's this and it was like Blaine and Patton would bring us YouTube and we'd lay around in someone's living room and watch these these viral videos before any of that existed but once the internet started like I can remember multiple times where like youngsters that we did comedy with I would tell some story be like

that's an urban legend that's not true and they'd immediately just look it up and hold it up where I'm like you mean after retire my old story that I love to tell the children it's like no you're a liar that was never really the truth well back then instead of making it an article in The Guardian they would make a fucking fictional movie about it and just like blow it out of proportion a little bit but also I get the raddest thing ever yeah exactly I mean again I'm sure and that the real deal was the kid

was probably suffering from some insane like profound form of schizophrenia or mental illness but the parents and and whatever the medical establishment at the time wasn't able to deal with it and it passed over into what felt like demonic possession or dark powers yeah which I'm sure a lot of stuff does although now it feels like there's a big section of the population that is like I do not I'd rather not be a part of the 21st century I would like to be in an era of dark powers where I could

where I can blame things and categorize it rather than have it all laid out like it it's frightening to go into the future so some people just go nope it's there's a weird conspiracy and it's there are as we're talking right now there's people gathered in Dealey Plaza waiting for Robin Williams and Kobe Bryant to reappear and yeah and with JFK Jr because they believe that it's all been faked and we're living in a simulation when when actually what they really just want is like a meetup they're just lonely they're

lonely and they want connection and they want someone to go I understand why you're afraid I am too I can't remember my password and I'm using an iPhone 4 like that's really what we're dealing with but they but the media keeps going no no no you know let's keep on filming these people grouped up and it's like to me it's it's such an expression of kind of like modern loneliness and once you fall behind you feel like you are obsolete obsolete yeah you're a living ghost like do I even exist in this world

right now if I don't have if I didn't do the latest update on my with my apps do I exist am I part of it yeah it is really weird and also this is going to sound a little dark and weird but just follow me okay stay with me on this for a second I wonder how many of the famous serial killers and mass murderers in history would not have gone down the serial killer mass murder tunnel if they had had some social media even if it was a poison this form of connection I will bet you a lot of the people on these QAnon threads and these alt-right

threads if they didn't have those threads we'll be doing way worse stuff as it is now they're just participating in a creepy lark and it is creepy and it's false but maybe they're the good in it is that they're not feeling completely isolated and killing people is that a weird thing to say or well no camaraderie is a huge part of our the social fabric right and it's necessary so that makes total sense yeah there's there's very little like you can

you can find common groups right online no matter what your thing is so if it's like the it's Stephen King obsessives we could have all found each other and then if it's the thing where I need you to theorize modern life down to this insane thing and make me get fired up about it and try to fight what I think is one singular evil as opposed to the entire scary awful world where bad things happen constantly exactly or stuff is just random and it's and sometimes totally nice people have horrible things happen

to them and we're seeing again because there's cameras everywhere we are now seeing that a lot of blatantly evil people just absolutely don't get punished no and never face a consequence so it really makes especially like action movies and superhero movies look like the prayers they are you know can't something come out of the sky with superpowers and punish the evil people and lift up the good people because it ain't happening in our reality I'm watching people openly breaking the law and nothing's happening to you know

and that's scary I mean a lot of the stories we tell on the podcast there's there is no justice or there are you know such huge gaps in people getting you know what they deserve in terms of punishment that it's just like where do you find that in the world to make you not feel like everything is a fucking mess but I think and we've talked about this before I think the good part of that is that there is something to opening your eyes to the fact that this is a real thing so

no longer do black people have to try to tell anybody else cops pull us over for no reason and threaten our lives that used to be a okay easy you know the rationalization of that kind of daily like abuse of rights and justice is now inarguable yeah and it should have never been argued but no longer does anyone get to say anything about it other than holy shit this has to change and it just started you know that awareness yeah we're just at the beginning of it and so what

we're seeing I think right now is the beginning of this massive truth is being shown to everyone and just like human honors and and climate deniers sometimes that truth is so massive that it's easier and makes us a better go I think it's all fake I just I don't think it's I know people that I grew up with unfortunately that are on Facebook that are like this is all this is all fake footage it's not real because it's too big to accept it's so scary way too

big and same with climate change feels so massive but what you can control is but I can control who goes into a bathroom and maybe if I do that Jesus will fix the other thing if I do this weird ritualistic thing and by the way I'm just as guilty of it if I have a massive writing deadline never are my bookshelf it's more organized than what I have pages to turn in I had writing to do this morning I don't know if you can see but I basically might wait my daughter has this

thing of like costumes back here so I organize all this to donate to a school and didn't write a single page of what I was supposed to write today so there you go did you bring the steamer over there and like this snow white dress has wrinkles in it let's fix this no I didn't do that I probably could have done that but no I have a friend who works with like you know public schools and stuff like that we're just going to donate this and she just collects Halloween costumes and she makes stuff and I'm like you've I've grown everything let's donate them so there you go yeah well

that's an important thing too I feel like that writing is important but you know you're doing something for the greater good here dear god I'm havin yeah you're accomplished but that's the same thing it's like I you know you can't there's something big I'll do this little thing that I can control yeah can I just say one final thing because you telling your story about Uncle Pete yeah and I believe this is I know this from your book although it could be just from watching you do stand up for fucking 40 years

no offense wow a little hurtful but okay you're you told a beautiful story that your uncle Pete had a spot that he used to sit at on the front porch and kind of just sat there silently and he was basically a fixture in this spot and when your uncle Pete died people came and oh god it killed me on your book they came and put 711 cups of coffee or wow a little no it was a it was the 711 little cup of coffee that he had and they put a little cup of coffee there because that's where he was

yep like strangers that the family didn't know but people who walked by who knew him as the guy that sat there there he is found out he died and gave him this little tribute and this honor and it got me it's such a beautiful story of like that's the kind of thing those are the kind of connections that people have to remember and we don't we don't get them now we've all been locked up in our houses for so long but like that's the key right there I think yeah this halloween

someone put a flyer in our mailbox saying we're gonna attempt to do trick or treating in the neighborhood if you want to leave your lights on or put a decoration so we know and I got so fired up not because and then like like three groups of trick or treaters came by in that two hour window but it was talking to the other parents where do you live oh you're late three and it was good to see everyone and it felt like if anything that's gonna bring back sanity way quicker than anything that move on

dot org or the Lincoln project will do online it's just he is knocking your neighbors and I'm for some of those neighbors were probably Trump voters but when it comes down to it I just wanted my kids to go trick or treating it's fun I'm like yeah this is great like put some decorations out and here we go like yeah I don't know it's really nice so yeah yeah especially in this fucking in the past two years do you guys live in good trick or treating neighborhoods or no I live on like so when

Vince and I sat we do like I never know us now because we do garage beers we're sitting in our garage and drink beers and then they walk by and we make them talk to us and if they don't talk to us we judge them so everyone knows our dog now we know everyone's dog so we did that and had a couple people walk by and I got more excited and probably than I should have and scared them right but yeah I live on a like a quiet street but all I want is it is a block party yeah I want to live in a block party neighborhood yeah party for God's sake

by the way you're on a cul-de-sac so no one comes around probably cul-de-sac and a hill the old combo where it's like if someone came to my door I'd be like here let me just write you a check for a hundred dollars because you made it son you've earned it yes goodbye you buy yourself some art support you made it up here man you could need some knee braces some copper based knee braces after this how excited and nostalgic did you guys get when the the great our modern version of the trick or poison trick or treat candy

popped up this year where everyone thought that people were gonna hand out edibles with all my friends who do edibles were like I would not buy edibles and give them to a bunch of sons of kids what the hell are these people making I mean uh yeah there was a genius tweet where someone's like no one likes your shitty kid enough to give away 40 dollar pot dumb sour patch kids or whatever it was so hilariously this thing that sucks of also about always being on twitter

I remember the tweets and I do not remember unless it's a friend of mine I don't remember who yeah who wrote it and not when I was like your shitty kids no one's gonna no one's gonna give your shitty kids some free edibles don't worry about it no one's interested there was an actual true crime story and I don't know if you guys covered this in the vaults of uh my favorite murder but a fatter did yeah I believe in the 80s tried to poison this kid with candy and used the cover of oh he was given poison Halloween candy not

realized that even the police were like this is a myth no one does this and that's how they caught the guy yeah pixie sticks he tried to Georgia did that one pixie sticks yeah oh you did it yeah he tried to perloin letter it and hide it in plain sight and backfired and actually my husband Vince who's you know from five years younger than me so 70s 80s they had to a couple years had to take their candy to the police station to get it x-rayed or what is it like metal detected

because around this time until everyone was like this not real yeah literally he tells a story every year it's like that's what it was like back then paranoia we had a genius story of going up and it was like someone's older girl cousin who was the like standing at the end of the walkway waiting for us as six and seven year olds walked up to trick-or-treat and this one house it was the littlest old lady and she was like hello oh don't you look so cute and she was talking to us and she gave

each of us like a powdered sugar covered homemade cookie and so we walked back with it in our hands like we kind of didn't know what to do and we walked up to the cut the teenage girl of like she gave us this and she hit both of our hands in the cookies hilarious like the most apathetic teen and suddenly she like slaps him out of our hands like you're not eating that oh my god i hope that didn't happen all night in the next morning this old woman goes down to like get the cookies everywhere like the neighborhood

hates me oh god no that's what i was thinking too she didn't pre-wrap her cookie she didn't think it through she's very old she was from the 1800s she was a she was a ghost she was a ghost she was a ghost we have kept you so much longer than we said oh i'm sorry this i could we went down to the best rabbit holes and i love this just wonderful yes i will update you guys as to where alice is on her um steven king ring but please she's just started the talisman and then uh more stuff is on the way so

yeah love it that's so exciting well of course everyone knows your netflix special pat and oswald i love everything but you want to talk about real quick your um your upcoming tour it's so exciting yes my upcoming tour i am going to be on uh december third i'll be at the uptown theater in kansas city and the following night i'll be at the pageant in st louis and then after that that's uh the next weekend i go out on a friday i come back on the sunday that's it i cannot do

the long bob seager you know just the train of an engine for weeks and weeks i can't do that anymore we got it we got it yep the guy we can i'll be at the clarnikeet music hall in pittsburgh pennsylvania uh that dude built halls everywhere i guess and then of course yeah the fabulous agora in cleveland ohio so lovely nice so go to pat and oswald for dot com for tickets and then of course listen to the incredible uh did you get my text with maribeth and pat and podcast yes yeah in 2022 um baby can you pod your cast

it'll be the old we have to do we have to have some creative meetings we have to uh get through some contract stuff but once we get to our own network and make sure we can't get it by ourselves are you getting it we have to pitch it to steven king himself we gotta get the handwritten approval this was a delight thank you so much thank you so much have me on i love it yay amazing bye elvis do you want a cookie

this has been an exactly right production our producer is hannah kyle creighton our associate producer is alahondra keck engineered and mixed by andrew eban send us your hometowns at my favorite murder at gmail.com follow the show on instagram and facebook at my favorite murder and twitter at my fave murder for more information about the podcast live shows merch or to join the fan cult go to my favorite murder dot com and please rate review and subscribe goodbye