on everything. but for example, i think we would be really hopeful. all americans agreed that we're endowed by our creator with an animal rights. we're not rights by government. and because if government gave you rights, it has the right to take them from you. but if government didn't give them to you, if a higher authority gave them to you, they can't. and jefferson is the one who said that if those were given to us by our creator, we can't take them from you because they're his gift. and i think that's a much better place to be as a nation and as a people. even if you don't believe would argue if you're an atheist. and that's fine, you can be an atheist. that's part of religious liberty is to not believe. but even then i think you would find comfort in the idea that the populace believes that you have these rights that are essentially inalienable you can't sell them, you can't have them from you, they are yours stuck with them. and that's that's think a great place to be. you also quote c.s. lewis, by

the way, what is c.s. lewis appeal to conservatives and libertarians? well, i think a lot of it is, at least to me, there's a faith component to him and he is also very smart. so he explain certain things, i think very. deeply. he was a smart man and i think there's a certain level of appreciation for the way he expressed things because he made his concepts vivid and bright in the minds of his hearers or his readers. here, see, lewis quote of all a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. it would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. the robber cruelty may sometimes sleep. its cupidity may some point be satiated. but those who torment us for our

own goodwill torment without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. yeah, i think there's some of that that goes on. there are people out there feel that violating people's constitution of rights is a good thing and that they're doing what's right. and so therefore they don't feel guilty about it. whereas if they were doing something they thought wrong, they might have a certain, if you will, limit on what were going to do. an example be them. if they're really angry, they might strike that they're angry with, but they wouldn't them because they realized that's going too far. i can do that. but if you're if you approve of your actions, then there's no limit on what you do. you just go as far as you want to, because after all, you've given yourself. and so i think it's important that we get back to this idea that our are god given and that we cannot take the rights away from others without incurring his wrath. and we ought not approve of any action that we engage in that does. that's to, you know, borrow on

what jefferson said. george landrith the third is the author of this book, let freedom ring again in self-evident truths save america from future decline life. and he's been our guest on booh. hey, afternoon and welcome to the first edition of the miami book fair. all right. i am patrick phillips. i work here at the college and event is possible due to the miami dade college and our family and volunteers. and let's give a round of applause to all volunteers that are helping us today.

so the room is full. we an exciting session coming up. i have a few words to offer about sponsors and then i will introduce introducer so let me just say thank you to the family foundation, the nicholas child children's hospital to amazon and to the j.w. marriott and brickell and markey and the of the fair. do we have any friends at the fair right. give yourselves a round of applause and. we always need friends. everyone. more friends. so talk to our friends about what the benefits are. and we love for you to become a friend of the fair. and in departure from our normal procedure we're not going to have a q&a after this one. and there is no book signing. so we're going to spend all of our time enjoying the rock

bottom remainders. and right now, i'm going to introduce our introducer mark cass. mark grew up in connecticut, the son of a librarian mother, and he's been a resident of miami and a practicing for 40 years. he and his wife, donna, who's an avid reader, are the proud parents of three children, jordan brianna, alicia, whose who have been book fair volunteers for many years. his in-laws myrna and sheldon paoli were lifelong supporters of the arts in miami and in particular, supporters of the book fair. and he is proud to be the presenter of tonight's program on behalf of the palace family, including his wife, donna katz, and lisa here. let me introduce mark. afternoon, everyone. as i expected, a very poorly attended event. it's my pleasure and honor to.

introduce our guests this afternoon. i may be dating, but i feel like a little bit of a taller and modern day version of ed sullivan, who 60 years ago introduced to america another historic rock and roll band. so. so without any further delay and with the caveat that parts of this introduction supplied to me by dave barry. please welcome on bass ridley pearson. and on guitar stephen king on harmonica sam barry on keyboards. mitch albom on guitar. dave barry on wig. scott stroh the emcee of the band, roy blount. on awkwardly standing around alan zweibel. on backup vocals and attitude dancing. mary karr and on whip amy tan

and joining them joining them in conversation is moderator lisa napoli. ladies and gentlemen, the world's smartest and most literate rock and roll band, the rock remainders. hi, everyone hi. hi. oh, my goodness. dave barry me into this because i'm a long standing groupie of this, which means i know all their secrets. i even have a copy of the only they've ever written that's been remainders which is this. but 1992, i think it's from. yeah. so you can mug me for this later on and get everybody to sign it for. you tonight. i wanted to start by asking even though i've been hanging around for about 15 years, because i live with the group's manager, ted, who i still haven't

married, much to dave's chagrin and promise that the band would play if i did get married. amy. dave's stephen ridley. roy blunt. roy blunt. okay you got a fax and then of a sudden this came about. so how did that happen? stephen, you can you tell the story so well. that dave dave. so wonderful woman named cathy goldmark who was a literary escort. san francisco. which means when you are caught, literary escort when you're a book, she would take you around to the interviews and get you back to the airport. whatever was also a rock musician in san francisco had this idea that she would get a bunch of authors to play one time. one time a fundraiser for

literacy or some cause. and amy once said we would do this to kill the whales just when we but but the idea was we're going to do one time. but she sent faxes out to whole lot of people and all the people who they would be in this band became the rock bottom remainders. and and we we did our one show. we were not good. we had a musical director, al, who we're still not good, i should stress that. well, our music director was guy named al, who is a very well respected rock and roll producer and musician and after our first rehearsal, he you got us all together at the end of the day and said in the morning, just when we started today, we stunk and now we stink a little bit less. maybe eventually we'll just be a faint odor and that so we played a show and at the end of that show, stephen king. i, i sat in the lobby of this

this place where we played i guess there was a lobby there. it was cowboy boogie or maybe went back to the hotel. it's a long ago. it's hard to remember, you know, the fog sets in. this was 1992, believe it or and we were all we had black hair and our hair. we had hair, too. and i said to dave, you know, this is really too good to just do it. one time i mean we could do it again or we could do it a bunch of times and write a book and that would be, you know, like my wife says that lobster's excuse to eat butter. okay. and the way that i feel like it is that the book was an excuse to play -- rock and roll, you know. the other thing that al said

that first time was we something i guess it was read song six, four, three, two seven, eight, nine or whatever it is. and al said, let's do it again. try to make that quantum leap to palatability. so that's, that's how it happened. and so we did a rock and roll, right? and it was really one of rory's old busses. yeah, it was his old bus man. ahead, the most amazing kitchen. and that's that's what happened. and roy, you were part something called are still the critics. what's that? yeah you know how you can tell a writer who can diagram if he doesn't know how to turn the mind. i'm. oh, i don't know. yes. the critics chorus they want joel selvin and matt groening and me and i don't know. and then local de dave.

ah, he's actually right. right, right. real greil marcus. joel selvin. joel, i think, huh? matt groening we've now said joel and matt twice, which i think is their right cause this were our job was to make clear that we were not pretending to be a good band because anybody who had us as a critic of course would was, you know, well, reasonable, bold in its ambitions, tell them the that you named us our it was, you know some kind of. yeah why wasn't it hard listen hard listening yeah have a little i have that in to these days hard of listening you know as long as i've been hanging around you i've never really understood how amy came to become dominatrix in the band

well, that's. that's a through line and there's so many stories. but amy how did that happen? you're such a well i know, but when can they ask me to join, i thought it was just about cost points. i didn't know i had to sing and. i was freaked out. and so in the beginning the first show, i sang this really sweet bye-bye love song. and then when it came to the second show, al kooper. said, i picture, ah, he said this. in fact, i picture sweet young amy wearing thigh high boots, leather a and a cap, and she's the and i said, that is the most thing i've heard. and then kathy wisely said well, we could always sing something sweet like bye bye. and i realized that you know this is about being really and that you'll see if you come to the show it's they're really

they are really bad and need a lot of discipline then and it turns out that's become my signature song. oh that's supposed to be a surprise so you don't know that you come to the show you say singing in public is akin to public execution is what you said in this book. yes, i did. yes, you did. it's been a long time. yeah, we had we had a really good compliment. i remember bruce springsteen. do you remember that? and we were at the rock roll hall of fame and and somebody said to me to freak me, nancy sinatra is in the audience, and i really did. she wasn't. but bruce springsteen said that that later he was in the back and he said, you guys are not that bad. but then he said, but if you get any better, you'll really be bad. and that is the difference.

bad and really bad. i want to ask ridley and mitch there too, and are real musicians, but let's talk about the rock and roll hall of fame a little bit more first, because it's my understanding that you got is before my time, you got busted at the rock and roll hall of fame. i think that was because of mitch impersonating elvis against, the rules or something like that, you know, yeah, what happened? we were, we, we have played twice at the rock and roll hall of fame, which is sad, right? yeah. how did that hootie the party that opens the rock and roll hall of fame and the thinking there every major rock musician in the world was going to be there that night. and if they picked one of them to play it sort of be a death on all the others. but if they picked us, nobody would even have to listen. so they picked us and i'll know. we watched. stephen walked in, stephen sing by me and walks in and who's right in the front? betty king.

i'm the guitar i'm carrying a guitar case. boom. hit this guy really hard and apologize. and he's like, and it's steve cropper who's a really good guitar player, professional. but anyway, that was one time we played. another time we played. we're in cleveland and us that night were frank mccourt great. frank mccourt, the great late frank mccourt and roger mcguinn of the byrds who used to play regularly with us. why me and we were in somebodys room after the show and were drinking wine and beer and frank and roger both irish start to sing irish folk songs, and they were singing and singing and, pounding on the door. and this comes up and tells roger mcguinn and frank mccourt to shut up, man, did you get arrested? i hope no, they but they threatened that if we didn't, you know, which would have been it would've been good but the the at, the rock and roll hall

of fame at that fundraiser the manager of the building came to me and said, you're contract specifically, says noel impersonators. i know that. and i said, i we're not coming back. you should probably context that for everyone who wasn't there. okay so and i was very young man i, i was a musician and i lived over in greece or ended up over in greece, in ireland of crete, in a little fishing village village goose nickels. and i ended up getting a job singing there. and it was so remote that i did elvis songs and i think they thought they were original. and so i kind of got used to doing these elvis songs and i were going to dance around the tables and everything like that. then when we got to the band, dave asked me to be in the band and somehow they asked me, you know, do an elvis or i do an.

and then came a jacket and a wig and i didn't know it was illegal, though. i didn't know that i had actually broken any any laws. bob i do it so badly that i really don't think it qualifies as an actual elvis impersonation. if you come tonight, i would encourage you to leave before that song. it's like three songs from the end so you can, you know, scoot out. but that's how i, i still end up doing the elvis. you got to look up mitch and burt bacharach google, mitch albom and burt bacharach and you can see him interviewing him. it was an amazing night at live talks l.a., which ted runs a little plug for ted ridley. you are a real musician, too. so what was your thinking about? musician well, i same way. got a fax from cathy and said, i have no idea who's going to be in the band at that point. i think i'd sold about 12 books, but i was out on author tours and i it was three or four weeks

later i received a fax back and she said, so you're going to be bass player and here's your band amy tan, barbara kingsolver, stephen king, dave barry and i about fell out of my office chair and i said, hey, what? you know? so. so i struggle on bass behind everybody, but it's been a ton of fun. we have one. you mentioned a legal and we did have actually an against the band, and that's because there's a certain creative writer in the band and he likes to improvise lyrics. so we would repeat sing this one song that it's illegal me to mention and as he got into the as got into the lyrics, he would begin to make much more horrific. there were mentions of spleens on the ground and other things. well, this got around somehow to the people who licensed this song and they you may not mess with our lyrics. and we said is stephen king, we

can mess with anything. and they filed injunction against us. but we had a secret weapon. we had dave barry well okay, i used to do this. it was the, the, the was, was the name of the company. i don't want to name. okay. acuff-rose i used to get the whole audience to say instead of acuff-rose a bodily part that's very bad. say that was our revenge to them. but stephen the lyric the one not this is not the one we got sued about. but stephen, i don't know if you ever remember this. we're doing a song called last kiss or, you know, one of those teen death anthems. do you remember what you sang? teenage when i awoke, you know that line? when i awoke, she lying there, i. i don't remember. this is what he sang one night. and we're like, when i woke, she was lying there.

i brushed her liver from my. he just just declared. i think it was vile of crack and teen angel. i'm allowed to say that you're going to get now. i'm going to get sued sam. i want to talk with sam a second about cathy. the foundries of this group, because sam actually married cathy everybody loved cathy, but sam married her the late cathy. yeah. i love, too. so i married her. yeah, i would. well, what i have to say about that is, i mean, i love this band is so much fun. i just got to tell you, this is family. and and he actually family. but this band is like family and i love playing with this band. i've always told people that know i married cathy. my brother's and i got into the band via double nepotism, you know, so but cathy was just a wonderful person and she i don't

think i've ever met anybody wanted like if she would get of you up here to do something, she could. she just loved getting people up, singing and playing, whether they were good or not. and thus we have the right bottom remainders. okay, scott, let's talk about your antics because they're kind of fun and, sort of surprising if you've never seen the how did you develop your character since you have no musical talent whatsoever, right. it's all right. it's from the emphatic need to make it clear to everyone that these people not take themselves seriously. if they let me on stage them and so i originally was recruited and i was so desperate to be member of the rock bottom remainders when. they said, well, you know, the only opening we have is for another chick singer.

and i said, okay, i'll be the chick singer. so i started appearing in wigs and feather boas, and you, the rest is history. i like that. yeah. you know, but alan came along and he sort of outed with a lack of rhythm and lack of musical talent. i wrote a with dave and the course of writing the book, he said, hey, would you like to become a remainder? and i said, well, i can't sing or play an instrument. he said, already, you're over. and to this day i would be shocked if. my mic was actually turned on. okay yeah, i don't think ever has been. it's actually not turned on and literally shocked mary somewhere in the middle of all this or edge of all of this but she's better looking than alan so i was the reason we were here? no i mean, amy and i were friends.

let's face it, everybody there's too much testosterone alone in this band, and i'd be a lot more, actually, i have some. i have some dominatrix tendencies and i think, amy, i don't know why you ask me to do it. i mean, i you know, it's too much to too much testosterone, but i also am gravely untalented, musically speaking, and probably every other way that i say that. but. you know, i had such a crush everybody. and just on the expense allowance, it is a hairbrush band. it's not it's not a it's humiliating, you know, but i've been humiliated before. look at my. but i know mean when people say it's family, i've got to say we don't see each other.

that often. we when we cross paths, we, we see each other in pairs and, in triples. and, you know quartets troubles triples. i'm trying to be, you know, just great. but yeah, i, i always had go go dancer tendency i think if you have any dirty dancing experience then this is the place for you let's talk about the real mavens played with you like bruce springsteen i'll tell the story okay because i've told this a lot of times so we were in l.a. it wasn't a rock and roll hall of fame. it was l.a. and we're in a little club and we were playing. there were maybe a thousand people there, right? dave okay, that's big for us. and we finish and we run

offstage and they're still clapping remarkably. and someone we should do an encore because they often don't clap after we or have left the stage. and so we start back on the stage and i see guy in like a reddish pink shirt and i thought he was the janitor he was skinny and he was kind of rag d looking and we go running back out and he takes a guitar. i thought, well, that's weird. the janitor's the guitar, but you know, that's probably better than us. so and he comes running out and we all run on the stage. and i was standing on the riser because that's where the keyboard is. and dave's in front of me and he comes out now this guy's got this guitar. my guitar? yeah. okay. took dave's guitar and he's got it on and like, fiddling with it. and so lean over today and i go, dave you know, who's this guy? and dave turns around, he goes, bruce springsteen.

you know, you could have fooled me. i mean, they had cap and all that. well, i had to ask him. we only had one song left. we don't that many songs. and our encore always gloria, which is very simple song. if you take a guitar and throw it on the ground, it will play. gloria right, right. but i asked bruce, bruce springsteen, bruce, do you know gloria. you know, i had to sing backup with with bruce and. oh you're so who are you singing? backup tuesday. i'm the lead on that song. steve just want to confirm who bruce and stephen king sang backup to. well, it was dave barry. thank you. yes, bruce was great. and yes it was dave barry and that a very simple song. it's only three chords and i'm looking at bruce springsteen's uvula in his throat as he's

singing yellow riaa and i -- up the chords i did. there's still this. there's three chords, but i got them all out of it was crazy i was totally starstruck. well, he you i don't know if you remember this. you introduced him and we have been playing for a thousand people and they had been nice us. we thought we were doing really well. and steve goes, we don't usually people come on stage with us. we're going to make an exception because this guy says he's pretty good. ladies and gentlemen bruce springsteen and he only got to the t of stick and those thousand people b can 10,000 people that. it was right. it was it was the loudest. we've ever heard anything. they all mobbed the stage and we do. gloria which dave says this is i didn't know there were three course i have to learn the other two. i do it only one chord in that song. and so and bruce would just know

dave would sing the lead and then bruce would rise up and go, gloria like that. and he brought back gloria and we finished each and we're so elated with our finishing that we run off stage never remembering the bruce springsteen's famous for doing like three and a half hour long concerts. he had no place to go. we would have out there. we could have done anything. yeah, we ran off stage and missed our opportunity to do another song with him. and then word had gotten out that he was there. and so we got locked in the basement of the place with him while the cops to clear the club. so we were stuck for he was stuck with us and that's when all gathered. i have a picture. we're all gathered around him and we all look like we're five years older. like. and that's when he said, amy said it should. go. well, you guys aren't that bad. but i wouldn't get any better because if you get any better, you'll just be another lousy

band and we took that as gospel and have lived by that. but the other that the other really besides roger bruce springsteen one time were it's zevon for whatever reason loved us and for like ten years he played every every time he could he would play gigs with us and but it was different because like his he had like, you know, a small fanatic fan base. but we could go anywhere with warren. and most of the time it was like, there's a bar in coconut grove called the taurus. i don't know. yeah, some of me with it anyway. one night we used to play at the book fair and we sometimes we would to play a gig the night before to try to learn the songs. and so i called tom, the owner of taurus, his friend, and said, can, you know, do think we can complain? he said, well, there's a band that's going to be here that night. i'll ask him if they don't mind. and he said no, they'll let you use their stuff.

so we go there and it's and i go, i'll never forget the place is jammed, but not for us. know. there's just the usual drunks at the taurus and the bar. and we come in, pick up our stuff, and i go, ladies, gentlemen, hi, i'm dave barry. this is amy tan. warren zevon, stephen king, and the that got bars. no, it's not. ted, why don't? you tell us about the time robin williams for you in san francisco. right. so 2003 i had written robin williams people and invited him to for the remainders and never heard anything until the afternoon of the gig. we're writing a bus from the airport and i get this call and i'm quiet and ridley is the official worrier in the band and he looks at me like there's something wrong and he goes, ted is everything okay? and i said yeah, everything's fine. would it be okay? robin williams open for the band

tonight tonight? take off. and then we ran over. we nearly ran over. could we run over dave in the van, the governor of california. i remember know we played at the fillmore. i remember. which i remember standing next to you when we were soundcheck, and we looked down on the floor and said, do you realize his played here? you know, like jimi hendrix had played there. and that's another part of this. it's amazing. well, should we play with did we go john when we with yeah, we played played with santana. lesley gore we played with gore and gloria gaynor. we sang the world's longest version of i will survive right here in miami. that's right. yeah. she would not stop singing it. we like she sang it in english. she sang it all the way through in spanish without work. it closed it up, sang it through in english again, save on it in

spanish again. it was her hit. it was her big hit. and she was not going to let go of it. then i. has there been anybody who's wanted to play with you who you didn't allow? amy says yes, yeah, no i can't. i can't say, because it's the people who said no. and kathy asked, you know, we all. yes. and there were people who were pretty big authors. now, i would never do. and then later they were asking to be in the band. or the other thing is they'll say, i'm a really good guitarist. and like, you think that's going to get you in this band. but we do miss greg. i'll side the i'll greg i was greg i was just watching who is a drummer guitarist. he played with lot of different bands and you know he was just a fantastic guy. and he said to me one time, he

said, you will sing don't fear the reaper. and said, why me? and he says, don't be -- stupid, because you're you. and i said, now wait a minute, greg, you wanted the long version. don't because you want to play that guitar in the middle, don't you? and he said, yes, i do. and i said, okay, but i will not play guitar in this in this song. what i'm to do is cowbell. i got to i got to have more cowboy. i got to have more cowbell. and so that's that's what i did, man was great. it was i was fantastic with that cowbell every. we talked about the audience reaction. steve's project, the stage, the

great, huh? yeah, that at one point. oh, you know what city were in chicago? it was very chicago. yeah. and we looked out and there were women out there holding their hands up with fire coming out of their fingernail? their fingernails were fired? no, the rest of us never got that thing. i thought so. but it really sees women standing in front of steven with their on fire and really comes over to me and goes i don't ever want to be that famous. i, i, i do. i, i believe that early on, before i was in the band that your brought large panties and threw them up on the steven wife put large panties and tossed them large size. i mean i was going to ask about the panties we can we go back to that now? we're talking about panties. can we go back to dominatrix again? because amy got a letter about inaccuracies in mixing signals with bondage in your costume and

bdsm. and i don't know anything about all that stuff, but you got some sort of letter. yeah, well, you know how would i know? a lot of people think i'm a professional dominatrix, and this is important, and i was wearing a collar and i got this letter that we had to read out loud that said, you know, dominatrix, not wear a collar. it's the submissive one that wears it. and it was it was it was a sincere letter. we would appreciate your letting know that was an accurate so yes, that was i'm schooled and i will be i'm woke now. so accuracy and just i think amy school the dominatrix the the the asylum community. right i'm a good girl to you know i write mother stories so and you've been happily for a

very, very, very long time. 54 years. yes, that's a pretty long time time. and and he's been part of the band and has nearly been killed by these guys. yeah. killed. that's true. yeah. well, first of all, i want to before i forget, greg iles is watching c-span and will say, hey, greg. hey, greg, we love you greg. need we sound bad without you, greg? we sound bad with you, but we sound worse without you. yeah but okay. amy's amy's husband, lou. is lou here? where's lou garvey? here? somewhere. anyway. lou. demetri is here. okay, lou's here. here he is. come here, lou. you. so i'm not going to give too much away of the plot here, but we do a song, and where amy does very dramatic thing and lou has to play the part of a motorcycle person who is involved in a crash and so he used to do the

crash. we would dive down onto the stage and and every time we would do it, it we would get a little more elaborate with it. hey, there we are. so finally, we're in new york city and lou does the best crash. i mean, he really goes down hard. it's very dramatic, exciting. he's writing well, this is wrinkle. he's writhing in pain now. that's we didn't do that in the act before. well, so steve and i are standing next and we to make it even funnier, we kick them. we're them. and he's writhing in pain. it's just really funny. laughs we get off stage at the end of the night. wish lou lou's at the hospital. lou. lou, your collarbone, correct? brack broke his arm and, managed to complete the tour. still doing the act, but not falling quite as hard, right? yeah, that's a perfect segue. way to the spleen story. very famous spleen story of the day. barry, our hero.

i was like someone. scott okay, tell us about. tell the story very quickly and then i'll shut up for the rest of the afternoon. okay? one night there are bands we've been told that practice the songs ahead of time. that's secret. that's not so much what we do. we play the gig and then we go. we sit a those songs ahead of time, but it's too late then. so we just go the bar. so we where we do a gig in new york city? go to the bar? and i i'll be honest, i had a little too many vodka gimlet and so i am trying to follow two conversations. roy blunt is on one side of me telling very funny stories, and scott's on the other side of me telling us long, long, complicated thing about his spleen. and i keep getting confused because i'm to listen to two conversations about whether he has a spleen or not. and twice i interrupt to say, you wait. i thought you don't have a it's got no, i don't have a silly next point. third time i interrupt him. scott a gentleman he takes a sharpie and on my right forearm

in big letters, no spleen. which solve the problem for the evening. then we all go to bed. not we're not that kind of band, but we all go to bed. have to get we have to get up really early next morning to catch a train to boston. we're going to do another show in boston. so i get up early in the morning. very little memory of the night before staggering to the bathroom. and i catch sight of myself in. the mirror. i see that there's words on my arm and it says no spleen. and i have no idea. that's and you know that urban legend about this salesman who's in a hotel and this woman slips him a mickey and he wakes up the next morning in the bathtub, covered in ice with a note saying, we have harvested your kidney. so for just a few horrible seconds in new york, i thought, oh my god, they harvested my spleen, but i don't know where. look, you know, i know where it is.

does anybody and gradually my brain reboots and think, oh my god, nobody. who would harvest you spleen. you don't need a spleen as whole. this god. sorry. there's probably an expression organ harvesting circles. he's so dumb he'd harvest the spleen. so anyway that. that was the worst thing ever happened to me on the tour. and it was scott toro's fault. yeah. i. because i've heard that story 100 times, and i always laugh. there's this. there's an incident. i think it was at the rock and roll hall of fame where someone came up to you, steve and i thought were steven spielberg. i saw the story tell the story. well, i've. mistaken for steven spielberg a lot. and it's very and i'm you know, six foot three and he's five

foot nothing. and and he's film director and i'm a writer but it's the similarity of the names i guess stephen and steven spielberg but actually that's an interesting to me what is an interesting story to me is we the critics cornered to start with you know we had all these these critics and none of them could and none of them could play. that was really kind of like their purpose they just kind of screamed think we were pretty good on short shorts. well, yeah, short shorts went to church. yeah we were short shorts or short shorts. yeah so anyway, we decided that we were going do that song by the troggs and wild. okay.

and we decided to. joel selvin, who is the critic for the san francisco and occurring a solo. okay he had a little thing that was like a sweet potato and it would go doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. that was middle. that was the solo for wild thing, you know, bahama mama wild thing. i think i love you. and then he played little ocarina and in rehearsal it went terrific and he gets on stage and he blew so -- hard no sound came out at and little by little i mean you had to see because he was bald and little by little this redwood rise, it was like a thermometer until his entire face was puce. and he's bowing, he's bowing his

-- off and no is coming out at all. and afterwards says, how do i do do that? i said, joel, you get. that's, that's my one remainder story. thank you okay writing. i think everybody can agree is a really isolating lonely sucky kind of profession. i do it myself. yeah it's pitiful so let's if we can just go down the road, what is it about? this band. it's fun, obviously. what's different about what you're doing with each other than when you're sitting at home working? typically? i'll have you for one thing, we never each other. what are you and where do you get your ideas ideas? the worst, of course. but steve had a answer too. where do you get your ideas?

i didn't know this. if i had known, i would have written many more books. i don't remember. it was bob's used. i was in utica, new from a little. oh, i used to say an enormous bookstore in utica, new york. and then i got into trouble from by that. but you just get you can't please everybody i could have said paramus, but you know yeah you know but the thing is about what we do is so low job i mean, every now and then some of us will collaborate on a book. it never really goes extremely well. it's always tough. you have to somebody your ego in a way. but with the band, you know, we can talk with our peers and we

get to fulfill our childhood fantasies. and so we still play like where in childhood. so, you know, it's a great a great gig to have. it's a great to have the band blow off a little steam and man, i just i love seeing you guys. i love it man. boy, were you going to say something? was i going to say to you, you look like you might say something? well, well, i mean, steve is just brought tears to my eyes. i forgot i was going to say that writing is more like playing the rock arena alone. ocarina solo. alan, mary new. but what do you get on new? but you know but and yet we old don't we, darling i'm incredibly oh yeah no i mean writing is

like butchering eels and and they say musicians do is playing and you said childhood dreams and it really is more like we just laugh all the time. mostly night with each other. i've got to say but plus everybody is i mean you guys know this you're probably this room for this reason is people who read and write are often really articulate it you know, because they spend a lot of time thinking about words and everybody on the stage is in is an inspiration as a writer both in their practice and i've got to say it no, i've got to say it. and there hilarious they're just two of one. there's not one who doesn't crack me up. they are because they're lonely, sad because no one sat at their

cafeteria table. this the cafeteria table. we. you know, samuel samuel johnson once said he was talking about women preachers, dancing dogs. this is in a time everybody got woke. and what he said was, you you don't expect to see it done. well, you're surprised to see it done at all. and we feel that way a little bit what we do. but, you know, whether you're writing books or whether you're playing music or whether you're just, you know, kind of goofing off and doing this stuff that that we do sometimes the band you'll see tonight, you know, we're entertainers, okay? this is what we we're supposed to take you away for little

while from whatever it was that you were worried about. and just kick some -- and have a good time. that's it? yeah. yeah. what i appreciate the most is that none of the members of the band has ever come up to me and said. i have a nephew who wants to be a comedy writer. can you read his 1500 page screenplay? right. that's never. oh, too bad. i was getting ready to, but i don't know. i think that you have a song prepared to play today might be a little early, but. and are we equipped to take audience questions? but do you want to do the song first to get everybody primed to or are you ready? we were thinking about doing a song for you, but we're a little nervous about it. is it okay? if we do a song.

yeah. i just want to stress ahead of that. we haven't really practiced this a lot. this particular song i have to be able to see ridley that one. and we need erasmo to come up on our sax player and his josh around. what can you do in a context that musicians coming? erasmo our saxophone player, he's a highly trained professional, not in josh kelly's is our drummer, so there are a few real musicians who join the remainders, their secret. so anyway, and they're here now, so we're a literary band, so we want to do a literary song. this is a song about, a book we all know and love very much, and it's just a famous book we all love a lot. or at least we had to read it.

in a movie yeah, moby --, --. i want to tell you all the story about a great big whale with the he got a great big it got a great big tail, big --. the big. but that ain't the thing that him such a sight. big -- is great big body is entirely. white and the moby --. moby. well, he's the baddest you've ever seen. he's got a nancy and is kind of mean he strange plankton with baleen look at that he goes you're movie.

day hey sorry. okay. well, one day moby he swimming round about it day the day a cat named ahab tried to take him down. yeah. okay. ahab messed it, fell off the ship took and moby his leg like a pringle cheer all day. well. well, he is a bad thing you ever seen. oh, it is kind of nasty. and is kind of mean. yeah. he beat that boat like a tail.

marine. look at that. oh, moby --. --. take it. but you could take it. yeah well, ahab came back for another try and. yeah, he took harpoon and he let it fly. always take that take the things got rowdy and things got. yeah. they get it. and now old ahab with the fishes more than they get. oh well he's the baddest you've ever seen. okay it kind and nasty and is kind mean. oh he made love to submarine. look at that. oh he blew. oh moby --, fade out now we're fading out. oh, moby --.

yeah, yeah. take that from moby --. --. that you saw. that? yeah, that was the highlight. my life. just to know. just see, you know, we don't practice the songs as much of that one as you will find out tonight. all right, amy, just say. there was too much testosterone in this band, and i think that it proved you were trying to say something. i'm sorry. you were going to say something? no, not me. i'm a girl. i, i, we wrap it here. shall we take a couple of questions? yes, take a couple of questions. any questions? okay. before we have mike at somebody with a question, you're all you all complained in this book getting older, but now it's 30 years later. so you're really old and he

wisdom about aging? no, no, don't do it. okay. okay i'm. i'm just killing time trying to get to the question. is there a microphone where people are like, okay, we have so many microphones up here. all right. so no wisdom. okay. let's our question. i can't believe you sang that song on c-span either. that was pretty. and stephen king said the f-word twice. that was pretty good. only he could get away with that. okay. yes, please. thank you. hi. i'm so nervous. but my question is for mr. king. i was wondering if when you start writing some of your novels, which i've been reading since i was 14 years old, and i'm a lot older than that now. so thank you. thank you. thank you. do you know if it's going to end just kind of badly or medium

badly or like really, really, really badly? where do you get your idea? that was for me, right? yeah, i usually it's like heard about this ban. and i was kind of nervous. and when you're nervous, you kindstic missile. in other words, you you think know where it's going to land but if you get in the neighborhood and there's a big enough, it's going to be okay. so i don't necessarily really know where the book is going to come out. i sometimes have a an idea, but i don't. i'm the book tell itself mostly. yeah. yeah. thank. thank you. next, please. so first, i just want to point out that taylor swift is a lot of money at her concerts. i don't. you're a lot of smart people, but i think you should take a cue from her and go out on tour.

but last night we had the pleasure of listening to amy tan talk about her new book and she told the most wonderful story about her role tonight as a dominatrix in baraka. and i just thought, people need hear that story, amy and amy go for it. you know, i have this automatic answer when, say, what do you play? what instrument do you play? i say, i play instrument of pain, which i'll understand later. and the other thing i say is i play the dominatrix. so one night talk about namedrop i was having dinner with barack obama, president obama at the white house, seated across from him. and he said, i heard about this ban. and i was kind of nervous. and when you're nervous, you kind of don't have a filter on. and he said, so what do you play? i said, hey, play the dominatrix. and i just said, oops.

and then i said, i play the leader of the pack and i think you should join our band, because you are the leader. i got to i got to tell you a story. the first time that we got together in los angeles to, do this this first gig, which we thought was to be our only gig. we waiting for amy and amy didn't come. and at that time, you know, she was just i don't know dressed in black or something. and derek guy turned out away. she thought she was a hooker. well, that's another qualification. i think there's one story we haven't told about the reach of stephen king, which is that our bus broke down. we were traveling in one of aretha's old busses and our bus

broke. we pulled in a pull off thing and the door opened and there was a guy standing there with a copy of the stand and one of the autograph and how did he know he somehow just don't know. yeah. is it one of you said something if you died in a bus bus crash. what would the headline be dave. i think stephen was killed in. it's not his fault. another question. excuse me, mr. king. so i had. question you once wrote this you said this quote about robert e howard, the creator of columbarium, and he had positive things. say about it. the first thing he said was sparks fly off the page to thomas. a but then the very next sense you said about him, you said everything else here, it was terrible. but i don't know if you're aware of this. the del rey edition of all of his books always contain books and all this other stuff from simon can be called villainous. they only the positive part of the quote. they just cut the rest off.

how do you feel about that? yeah. yeah. in all years, when you think about that, i, i i don't. i'm not sure know. so i think we're going to go to the next question, sir. thank you so much. say hello, staff. if you ever need another dominatrix, let me know. but no, this is for stephen. so if you could play with any of your fictional characters from any book, who would you like to play with and what instrument, what they if i could pick, a fictional character to do what any of your from any of your books with an and what would play maybe a larry underwood from the stand he would be a good one. oh i can't think of anyone else right that's good. but i've got a new book coming where they say a soul singer and i would love to sing with her. she is based on mavis staples. i love mavis. she spent tastic.

very. so thank you sometimes. hello. i really like of you. but i'm actually here to ask stephen king a question question. stephen, you said that tabitha took the draft of carrie and pulled it out of the trash. i was wondering, did she get like a cruise or a nice dress out of that or like, what was the reward for pulling carrie out of the trash? she she pulled out of the trash. i didn't get the rest of it. like, what was her reward for pulling it out of the trash? like, did you buy a dress or get her a cruise for that? oh, she pulled carrie out of there. yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. what the. what's your point? what was her reward like, why were you, like, she it out of the trash? and how did you reward her for that? that was what i said. oh how would i reward for that? i bought her a hairdryer and it's got no, i mean, the thing was like we were living pretty much hand-to-mouth and and and i

got to this call on sunday. my wife tabby was up seeing her mother and father in another another town in maine and he said, carrie, just. to paperback. so i said can we get a little money? he said, $400,000. and i went out to buy tabby a present and. there was it was sunday, man. it was bangor, maine. nothing was except for you guys. maybe remember this. it was an old chain was called rexall. yeah. and i went in and i bought her a hairdryer. man. she thought it was really great, but thought the money was better. is anybody in the line lined up to ask roy blunt jr a question?

anybody would back away. oh, i've got one. a couple back. come on up. come on. a oh, not that we don't love hearing from one person. and i thought i'm actually supposed to man it's the line and cut it off but since you ask so so roy your essay i may have sung with jerry jeff yeah something i always think when i see you here and he he passed away recently and you're still here. yeah. because i only sang once with jerry jeff yeah. jerry jeff walker was a. i used to make a living staying up all night with people and then remembering some of. and that was jerry jeff, who is kind of a saint of staying up all night. and i got up stage, i may have gotten up on stage and, sang dropkick jesus through the gold pole. most of life, but hence the

title. but that was i can't do that in case you going to be tempted to take me out and get me drunk and roll me and i think we have a couple more questions before two more questions before we have to go get ready for tonight's show. so my blood pressure is currently god over? --, this is for mr. steve and jane. i'm so sorry. so life has been. it's been a good one. kind like one of your horror stories. you know, we just won't really get into that. but i did have we. yeah we just. and just if you can do your question sir, because we've got to just wrap it up. okay. i have a in my pocket. can you sign my body and go get a tattoo. much better direct. okay that's fine. what what. sorry, i have a sharpie in my

pocket. what? wondering if you did sign a piece of my body and i to get a tattoo at the tattoo parlor. okay. just the reminder questions typically begin with w or an h r no. no, i won't. a piece of your body. but i appreciate the offer. okay. this is our last. good afternoon. it's been a pleasure. question is for mr. king. aside from visiting unica, is there any particular you get in terms of how you conjure dread, you know, within your, within your manuscripts, within your books. so aside from visiting unica, are there any specific inspirations you have for dread the way you kind of, you know, really bring it on most of your manuscripts and how do you conjure dread besides visiting utica books? how do you. well, you know, i think of dave

berry. it it works. it works time. i when it doesn't work with dave i try really. pearson you know know i mean listen, if the characters are real, you're to feel for them. it's as simple as that man. it's really it's really i don't know why everybody doesn't do it, but i'm glad that they don't. because, you know, i can put my kids through college and buy your wife. thanks. thank you. thank you. all. thank you all. see you tonight. i want to i want to thank you all for coming. but you know, the band is playing at 7 p.m. on the main stage, off the shelf stage. take right downstairs and keep on going through the stage at 7 p.m..

walk us through how executive agencies of the federal government grew so big, became involved in such seemingly trivial things, such as major acts and organ growth. yeah, well, you know, maybe when this started coming to my mind, i'm sitting on the 10th circuit. you know, federal court of appeals case comes before me from mexico in my circuit, seventh grader you train in burps for laughs. now, you might have been guilty of that someday, too.

i probably was. and instead of going to the principal's office or his parents being called, he was arrested and handcuffed. that's how we're dealing with these things today. and and we'll get into why. but what is the scope of the problem? it's part of its administrative actions, for sure, but it's on all levels. we're all guilty of it. all right. 100 years ago, the entire federal code board could fit into one slim volume. today, it occupies a whole wall in my office. all right. it's doubled in size since the 1980s. all right. my lifetime. many of you in this room, how how many criminal laws are there on the books? nobody knows in the reagan administration, somebody sat down to try and read them all and to count them and they're just scattered throughout. they gave up.

gave up, get estimated around 3000. all right. today, it's probably double that. it's at least 5000. the criminal laws today on the federal level. what about regulatory output? because really statutory output is just the tip of the iceberg using congress and busy did you know that on average they they enact laws amounting to 2 to 3 million new words every year? okay. federal regulatory output, many, many times that 100 years ago. the federal register which is where they write their rules and publish them, was 16 pages long in the year it started recently. it averages 60 to 70000 pages every single. how many crimes are in those regulations? truly, nobody knows the answer to that. but there are at least 300,000 of them. so that's of the scope of the growth of law in just really my

lifetime since about 1970. there are more people serving life sentences today in our prisons than there were serving any sentence in 1970. so one out of 47 americans is subject to some form of correctional supervision today. that's all new. that's not the new deal. that's our lifetimes. so that's what i wanted to really explore and write about and how it impacts our liberties, our institutions, and maybe even our respect for law itself. right. what respect you have for something that you can't understand, that you can't comply with, that you didn't know about, is that different than respecting rules that you know intuitively are right and yeah, and you lay a lot of this at the feet of woodrow wilson. why? well, woodrow wilson did many

great and wonderful things, but he also had great skepticism for our three branches of government. he believed kind of the madisonian structure of our government, you know, separation of powers. we have three branches supposed to be three third of americans can't name them. so 60% of americans are estimated that they would fail the citizenship exam that my wife took. it's not hard now filling out the paperwork to become a citizen is very hard. i know because i tried it got sent back. all right, think about that. i'll never live that one down at home either. well, at any rate, you know, woodrow wilson believed that the ideals thing we should do is allow experts to govern us instead of democracy right.

and he his ideal was the prussian bureaucracy. now, think about that prussian bureaucracy as your model for government. all right? and i don't doubt experts have a very important to play in increasing complex world. they do. but one thing our founders knew is that no men are angels. none of us is perfect. we all have our flaws. and the way to deal with that is to counter balance power against power, as madison put it, balance power against power and bring to bear all ideas and in debate and discussion, and that there is more wisdom in this room than in any single head. right? might call it the wisdom of the masses we call it today. francis galton, who was a cousin of charles darwin, put it this way. he went to a county fair in england and there was a guess

the weight of the ox contest, and he looked at all the guesses by the experts and then he averaged up all the guesses by the ordinary people and he found that the average of the guesses by the ordinary people was closer than any guessed by the experts. and that's how our system of government was designed right was that we would make our laws in the legislature where our representatives come together and they debate, they disagree. they hash it out and the best ideas trust will emerge from that process. and that's something that i think that woodrow wilson didn't value enough. he denigrated democracy and said we need a fourth branch of government or really, in his mind, maybe one superior branch of government. and again, i'm not here to second guess that we need expertise in our world. but there is another kind of wisdom that we can forget about to. and i think daniel halberstam put it maybe in a way that we

can all relate to is relating a story of lyndon johnson talking to sam rayburn, then speaker of the house, the beginning of the kennedy administration, and johnson's bragging on all of kennedy's appointees. they all went to harvard. the phds. one's brighter than the next. and sam rayburn replies, yeah, that's great, but i wish one of them, just one of them had run for sheriff. so my question is, to what extent do you think that sanctions have an intangible if to what extent? one, i'm sorry. oh, sorry. to what extent do you think sanctions could have an intangible effect as opposed to a tangible act either positively or negatively, for example, by undermining public support for a regime, by making on the ground conditions a lot worse or on the other side, possibly strengthening the regime's cause, a belligerent cause against our own interests. and yes, just what are the

intangible effects? maybe i'm not sure i entirely understand your question, but i think some of the programs we run, for example, which seem in a way to me to run somewhat parallel with the american foreign policy council, that we run a democracy promotion programs or programs that encourage looking at broader political questions and ideological questions. these these are all to the good i was taken by, i suppose i'm a bit compromised in a sort that i've been involved in quite a lot of republican institute projects and some of their trips to talk about democracy and elections and all that. the the the current president, dan twining, happens to be a good friend of mine and one of the characters i often invite as a guest lecturer by the way and so i think there's a role

certainly for what you call public diplomacy, which. not based at all on economics, but based on trying to teach other ways to think about how you organize yourself or how you're run up political party, how you run a campaign, how how you do elections. i'm not sure if i touched at all on what you were asking. i yes, i think so. well, you know, so i think a very big role for you know, for places like the council to cause you to think more deeply and and and to look at what might be the real factors involved and why things happen the way they do. and there are sometimes that are economic, but sometimes are not well and to that point, you can when you talk about economic sanctions right there is an outcome. and iran is a perfect example where sanctions can be an

economic success. i mean, tactical success, but a strategic failure. right. they they can draw down resources, but they don't necessarily change the long arc, right, of a country. right. and that's sort of what we've seen time, as you sort of point out, the. but yeah, that's exactly right. and it and simply. giving iran $6 billion for five. i mean some of this just boggles your mind that somehow you're going to change the iranian regime by handing out this chunk of money to them. i mean, this is ridiculous. and so i agree. you can certainly generate some suffering in another country. but whether that results in change policies of the regime, it seems like the kind of regimes we want to punish are the ones least likely to suffer from our sanctions in the sense that the, you know, kim jong un lives pretty well. he thinks what he wants and it's actually too much of an and so

also the iranian regime and the russian regime, the all these regimes do, the elites don't really care all that much of what their population and sick and therefore it's obligatory on us as we think about them and what motivates them to try to understand what they're and again just at the risk of being a broken record, it's not always all about economics. oh, it's just not so. thank you. thank you, thank you. yeah. just curious, in selecting your four pilots, are those based on real life characters? and so how did you do the research into them? they're all real life. okay, so it's history. yeah. so every bit of yours is all true story. yeah. yeah, that's so the trick is to take a true story and make it sound like it was made up. so, in other words, take these people who did such amazing things. amazing things that you and i could not comprehend, and then telling the story in such a way

that people go. that never happened. you know, that guy never flew head on into a messerschmitt, you know, playing chicken at 5000 feet, 300 miles an hour. that would never happen. all those things, if you can do that and at the same time being true to their own written word, how their own descriptions about what they did, their, you know, their own squadron logs about the events that took place. if you can take that fantastical experience and make it something that the reader goes, no, it's it's all made up. that's that's magic. that's i'm doing my job and then my last question, i'm sure perhaps a suggestion. have you ever thought doing a children's series, something that makes it more powerful and only because what got you into history was when you were a kid? and i think that when you discuss how boring history can be and how they just it's a grind, i think that is true for many children and so i'd just i

thought maybe you'd and that's a no here's i think i, i yeah when i was a kid my dad will tell you i think he feared that i was just going to become one of those kids who never left the house. and just read books all the time because i was one of those kids. you know, i did little league and all that kind of stuff. but that was a book. but i don't have it really is a special skill to write children's books, and i'm not saying that to be pandering. it really is. you you have to know how to tell a very, very broad story in a very limited number of words, but i go back to this this quest. i'm on. history is not boring, but most history books are boring history the way history is taught in the school, its history should be taught as if it was, you know, it was a big story. yeah, great. you know, like something that people should to history class saying what's going to happen today, you know, and they should leave. like, i never believe that that's what real history is like. and so