Tom Hanks In Conversation With Gabby Wood

[Applause] thank you very much everybody thank you on a school night to come out this side of the river it's a great great pleasure to see you all this fabulous socialist architecture of 1951 something inclusive about it no skyboxes for the luxury bigwigs just one ticket one price for everybody a charm machine that's all right every now and again in movies I go Oh boo-hoo-hoo and it all works out just to know I will tell you just enough of the truth to escape with my life that's that's what I just feature and I think every story they are a typewriter appears somehow like an easter egg in every story some are built on typewriters about but other times we might have to look a little deeper in order to find yeah I uh I was looking for some sort of not mnemonic but I was looking for some sort of device to spur each story in my head when I sat down to do it and if I if I had no other challenge in front of me I said well Whitman where can I put a typewriter in this thing and I actually was a marvelous marvelous tool in order to in order to foment getting into the work [Music] well you got the Oliver over here kids and that you'll notice it has what is called the butterfly keys you see the keys that you know look like bookends there it has the QWERTY keyboard it was a damn good idea it was a very good typewriter I make a slight reference to a typewriter like it in the story called a month on Green Street and it was but for all the tits and purposes that's a fine working typewriter just a little big and a little little complex and then over here on my left you have a royal that looks like a modern typewriter and is more or less be the the granddaddy of all sort of modern the machine made by it at the office work on it at home typewriter and if you were that one not so much but if you were to simply get this serviced oiled adjusted make sure the bill goes ding and put a new ribbon in it it will last you for another eight hundred years and it will work exactly as it worked the day it came off the assembly line in the factory this is what this is what thrills me about typewriters is that they are meant to do one thing and one thing only and with the tiniest amount of effort maintenance it will last a thousand years now that means somebody could have written typed out a receipt or a lease on it in 1935 or someone could have written slaughterhouse a slaughterhouse five on it 1965 and in the Year 3509 someone will write a story on that that has absolutely nothing to do with binary code or emojis on that very typewriter if they so want to and the I get this question a lot because I will tell you this collecting typewriters are a lot cheaper than collecting cars cuz they take up space and/or piano is very large objects pianos Wurlitzer organs don't start collecting those guitars are nice to collect because they hang them on the wall look at me but if you don't play the guitar what's the point that's what I was looking for [Applause] I believe about 40 people here tonight are cracking up and what that guy just said with his hands so typewriters then I I have some that are just objects of art that do nothing but sit out and slow together rust but most of them I have in working order that I rotate into use because you must use a typewriter the same way you should play a piano or fly a plane put it into a sand and here's what I get from a typewriter if I am if I am sending a note or a letter or thank-you or a memo or even a shopping list the ink is not applied to the paper and IBM Selectric applies like a decal to the letter like offset printing but a typewriter a hammer with the key with a letter on it is hits a wet damp rag of ink a ribbon and imprints that letter and that word and that sentence that paragraph that thought into the actual fibers the rag content of the paper so it's not on the paper it's in the paper and in that state provided you don't burn it or set it out in the Sun or crumple it up and throw it away it will last as long as the stones of Stonehenge think about that I have been and I have been in a number of people's houses and I've seen so once somebody had a framed thank you note from Ian Ian Ian Fleming and it said Goldeneye on it and it said take it dear darling thank you so much for a lovely lunch what goes better in the afternoon and a couple of delightfully code Pimm's cups please invite me back again love AUV Ian and very grown-up and that was and that was something that was probably 60 70 80 years old now so I like the permanence of what you create with a typewriter even if it's got typos and it doesn't really say much of anything other than avocados quart of milk shoelaces but even there there's a bit of a that's a beautiful poem as a matter of acardo's I was gonna ask about the shopping miss you make all your shopping lists on the typewriter I do yeah shopping lists memos reminders I didn't write I only wrote I wrote a few pages of the story a month on Green Street on an actual typewriter because I was in Atlanta and when when I visit a new town the first thing I do is have my crack staff find the typewriter stores and we had gone out to a place that was the size of an aircraft hangar and and truly 97 percent of the of the space was taken out with busted piles of typewriters in various states of disrepair but in their showroom they had some absolute gems and I bought a smith-corona electric Select o matic typewriter the Select O Matic was a gorgeous typewriter if you had it over here in your kooky not a UK land but you you it had a cartridge it was electric and you've had a cartridge that had the regular ink in it Reb your ribbon a new type type up oh I made a mistake and he would take that cartridge out and get the correcting cartridge and slap that in backspace back with fix fix fix fix fix pull that back out again put the it worked like a lightning I tell you it was the fastest way fastest way so I bought that and I said you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna see if this will work out so I rolled then I started typing and after about four and a half five page it was just such a such a disaster that I gave up but you know nonetheless that was the beginning of one of the stories on an actual typewriter yeah about Betty that's automatic smith-corona I paid about 50 bucks for it it's worth about 50 bucks how many do you have I have what I have I have well over I have a like a hundred and fifty 160 typewriters I know it's it's absolutely insane and then trying to slowly get rid of them yeah if someone says can you give a an item for auction I'll sign the back of it making a fifty dollar typewriter worth fifty two dollars and I'll send that off and they'll auction it off with some some friends of mine want them I'd say well should I get a typewriter I said here's where you should get a typewriter on your front door in about 24 hours and I am sending you one right now I don't want to be a burden to my kid you know I don't I don't want to be buried with my typewriters yeah cuz I don't know how many you know cemeteries can hold 140 typewriter so it's slowly getting rid of them I'm sure I would my ideal collection would be to work it down to say twenty five of my favorite machines and then just rotate them into use do you have 25 oh I know actually I have about ninety two of the remainders of objects of art but I have German typewriters you know they you know been here from Germany okay so you know that you see it uz and your Y key is exchanged it's qwertz not QWERTY qwe RT z in German because the Z is used much more in German than the Y and so when I get a German machine the first thing I have to determine and I've got some Erica machines thank you very much a fine Grauman's I've got some grown as a fine German typewriter or communist typewriter than they put it that way and I have to do I had to find out can I can I move the keys can I literally take the Y off the hammer and and sometimes you can't do it yeah I'll try to fix it so that I can ride it because otherwise you just you know you're writing you don't write the word shy you type the word shoes you know too wild drives you nuts Did you touch type I mean are you a fast typist my father in high school who by the way I don't think you really knew where I went to high school we moved around a lot so my joke is my dad would take me out on a driveway of our new house or apartment building it's a Sun I think your school is somewhere in that direction let's just start walking about 7:15 and follow all the rest of the kids but he did what he went in my dad I don't know why he got interested in me had to hit a wild hare that night so what are you taking at school next year I said you know history algebra gym he said you're gonna take a typing class and I said why because you need to learn how to type that's once you learn how to tackle an attack there is your life take a typing class I said first of all dad thanks for the investment this is the longest conversation we've had in three months and it was great advice ah there was two classes you could take typing one which went all year which is you had tested on your word speed and then you had to learn how liked the salutations and business form letters and stuff like that or you could take typing 50 personal typing in which you just kind of went to win into class listen to the typing learn how to type records did you have those when you learn editing I'm 61 years old we had records and I got a very disinterested teacher would get to get the record player wheeled in from the audiovisual Department put the record on put the needle turn it up and then sit back and smoke cigarettes and read the newspaper while we heard a with this music we play dee dee dee space that was that was like the first week and about eight weeks is like and by that time which is I'm in the back of the room just cracking up cuz I can't keep up with that dude and nobody really cared as long as you you know I got you up to the point where I could take maybe touch typing and somebody's 17 decent words a minute fine for me that's all you just you get a laptop the day you were born and you just figure it out for ya it comes out of the womb with you now that's right I think it does how old are you then I was in high school that would have been fifteen sixteen years old and were you the only boy in the class oh no no no that type in 50 was mostly boys oh really look most of that the girls were all that the the typing one that had all the future you know paralegals and secretaries I'm glad it was segregated at least at least it was that we there was always a rush for the electrics in the back they had four electrics that were in the back and you had to get to class early in order to get that because somebody would always be back there and just just like lean on the case somebody was always doing that getting in trouble for it knock it off knock it off back there [Music] there's a boy in one of these stores adjust that department there's a boy in one of these stories who does that in fact why don't we hit that may even be from that story that you're going to read I hope yes well that was that's when the latter one that was from go seek coasters I would say okay I've got that wrong and I was thinking Kenny oh [Applause] [Music] yeah is that how you remember the stories according to which typewriter well in fact yeah as soon as I said soon as I came up with the idea that oh this would be the one for the IBM Selectric yeah well you may be about to hear about the IBM Selectric you want to sure it's from shall we yeah back boy your shelf Atari this is called this is called a this is called a special weekend it was the early spring of 1970 and because his tenth birthday was in a week and a half Kenny Stoll still thought of as the baby of the family did not have to go to school he was going to be picked up by his mother around noon to spend a special weekend with her so he came to the breakfast table in his ordinary non school clothes his older brother Kirk an older sister Karen both in their uniforms for Saint Philip Neri school thought the deal was unfair they wanted their mom to come and pick them up too to take them away out of the house they had been moved into to live again in Sacramento or anyplace else as long as they were the only kids and the dark moodiness of their father and the constant sunny practicality of his second wife would not make their lives and emotional teeter-totter Kenny's three stepsisters were 17 15 and 14 years old his stepbrother had two years on him none of them had opinions as to the fairness of the birthday plan they had always lived together an iron bend that tend to the unified public schools and never had to wear uniforms this weekend didn't strike them as interesting notable or in any way special the small house they lived in was far out of town on Webster Road closer to Malina sand iron which was the county seat and where Kenny's father was head cook at the Blue Gum restaurant eucalyptus trees blue gums lied to both sides of Webster Road for most of the miles between the two towns scattering their leaves and nuts all over the two lands and both shoulders decades ago the messy imports from Australia were planted as wind breaks for the almond groves as well as in a misinformed attempt to farm the trees for railroad ties this was back when big money could be made in railroad ties as long as they were not made of eucalyptus fortunes were lost on the twisting peeling gnarly growing trees three of which were spaced across the front yard of Kenny's house the constant rain of debris laid waste to every attempt to plant decent grass there the backyard had sort of a law and a patch of weed studded green which the kids took turns mowing on occasion across the road were almond orchards almonds were a big industry then and still are now Kenny's father had found a new job an iron band a new home a new school and it turned out a new family he'd moved his three kids into the small house the very same night they had left Sacramento all the boys slept in what had been a screened-in porch all the girls were in one bedroom with twin bunk beds after two school buses had come and gone Kenny spent the morning shuffling around the house as his father slept and a stepmother quietly cleaned up the breakfast dishes he had never been at home without the other kids it was thrilled to have the run of the place his only instruction was that he was to keep quiet for a while he watched TV with a volume nearly mute but there was just one channel channel 12 from Chico and during school hours there was nothing on that interest in him he played with the model ships and plans he had made from kits using the top of the living room coffee tables of the vast sea he went through the dresser drawers of his brother and stepbrother looking for secrets but their treasures were hidden elsewhere in the backyard he punted a football tried to clear the nearest almond trees gambling that and failure the ball wouldn't get stuck in their branches he tied a covenant bedsheet to a discarded bean pole making a flag that he ran around with like he was leading a charge to the civil war he was trying to plant the flag into a hole when his stepmom called the whim from the kitchen window she had cranked open Kenny your mother is here he hadn't heard the car in the kitchen he was caught short by a sight he had never seen in the near decade of his life his dad was awake and sitting at the table with his morning coffee his mother his real mom was sitting at the table as well a cup of coffee of her own his stepmother was on her feet leaning against the counter sipping coffee to the three caretakers of his world had never been in the same room at the same time there's the Kenny Baer Kenny's mom was beaming she looked like a secretary in the TV show professionally dressed wearing heels her trim black hair neat her makeup showing red lips that left marks on her coffee cup she stood and hugged him with perfumed arms kissing the top of his head go get your bag and we'll hit the road Kenny had no idea about any bag but his stepmother had put some clothes into one of her daughter's small pink suitcases he was packed his father stood up in frazzled Kitty's hair I got a shower he said go check out your mother's hot wheels you got me hot wheels Kenny asked thinking that his birthday presence was going to be some miniature cars made of diecast metal but no in the driveway was an actual sports car red a two-seater with wire wheels the top was up and already littered with eucalyptus fallings the only sports card he'd ever seen or on television driven by detectives and young doctors is this yours mom a friend let me borrow it ken he was looking through the driver's side window can I sit in it go ahead ken he figured out how to open the door and say behind the wheel the dials and switches of the car looked like they came from a jet plane the wood paneling was like furniture the seat smelled like leather baseball mitts the red circle in the middle of the steering steering wheel said Fiat after his mother put the pig suitcase in the car's trunk she asked Kenny to help put the top down well let the wind blow through our hair until we get to the highway ok she undid the latches of the top and kid he helped fold it back bending the clear plastic window in on itself his mother's fired up the engine would sound like a dragon clearing its throat then she backed out of the driveway she had taken off her heels to work the pedals and put on a pair of sunglasses the kind worn by snow skiers mother/son and Fiat rode away from the house down Webster Road the gum tree shadows making the sunlight strobe in Kenny's eyes the wind sounding in his ears and whipping his hair from back to front the car was the coolest most boss ride Kenny had ever seen he was the happiest he had been since he was a little kid [Applause] thank you spoiler alert he turns 10 it's great hearing manual voice I was wondering as you aredian do you read them out to yourself as you're writing to you there's a bit of a tool that you can use not not the whole story start to finish but eventually you just sit there going kinda nervous Kennedy's Fiat but not not out loud like okay i just wonder if the sound of it makes a difference to you there is the Merciless experience of recording the audiobook this thing that goes on for six hours a day for nine days in a row until you hate everything you have ever written the sound of your own voice you you only you always start off recording them in this kind of cool voice you know you start off like you know very very carefully can you turn the handlebar yoke to the rights and the playing tiptoe but by the end you can't you can't keep up that dramatic kind of life you know can't keep that you really want to be you so want to be Benedict Cumberbatch and you just cannot get there no matter how hard you try well this is this story ends well I wouldn't tell you how it ends but you know he goes on to stay with his mother for the weekend and she has a friend the friend presumably who's lent her the car also flies him in a plane and yeah um I mean journyx and there's any of this rich biographical this is by the way Esther a question you're not allowed to ask writers but I feel that you know there may be an autobiographical elements in the story of Union you can but you know I know that you grew up with it yeah you know there are some stories in art that don't have any aspect of anything I've ever done except imagine what it would be like but abide weed there's a description some of the towns some of the locations are where I grew up my parents did get divorced when I was five they there were four of us but my youngest brother stayed with my mom the rest of us went to my dad he was in the restaurant business other than that everything else is I think autobiographical in that story would really just be the sense of oddity and confusion there's a moment in that story that when I started writing great catharsis of what the whole process is I was really only thinking of the boy but halfway through I began to think much more of the mom because there's they they go and visit Kenny has only lived in two houses and so he goes can we go see the old house and for him it is half his life it's five of the greatest years of his life he doesn't have any bitterness or sadness connected to the home yeah just the opposite that wonderful patina of nostalgia and he's nine years old and that cut is compared to the mother who was seeing the house where her marriage dissolved were nothing but bitterness and Happiness came about and was a relative blip in her life a place she's so glad that she's gone from and in that regard I know it's not necessarily autobiographical but I do think of both my my my mom found the love of her life on her third marriage and he was the love of her life excuse me her fourth marriage she sorry sorry mom she laughs laughs and my mom my dad found the love of his life on to his third marriage so I know that they both my parents got to this place that they were seeking a level of of relaxation and acceptance that they it just took them a while to find that was kind of like that that's it I think an adult lesson you learn when you start doing things like well let me be honest to the mother character in this by and larger parents unless they're like sociopaths or idiots and by the way quite a number of our parents were and are but isn't it just everybody trying to get by and figuring out how to you know what's the right thing do you think as you wrote this you thought about your mother you thought differently about your own mother oh no no I was I was actually very I was very solid with my mom I had but when by the time she got it even though I was the only one that did not live with her she and I had great talks and it was I was very pragmatic about our life together and I I must say I'm lucky in that regard is that both my both my parents passed away after I had the chance and really didn't tell them how much they meant to me and when the time went by it was like it was literally either rides here it's just time for them time for them to go I didn't have that kind of Oh what you know I did tell my dad that okay not that I don't you know you certainly wish you could spend a couple of days with each one again think about it I'm saying you know like I've lost my folks I don't know if he was it you think about in some way kind of like almost every day you know something comes to you almost every day hmm but it's not as there's none of them are sad bitter memories you know hmm because there is a shift in this story you know where you you do that that scene you describe what that passage you described where you know the boy wants to go and see his old house and then you do suddenly you've seen it from the child's point of view more or less and then something you begin to see it from the mother's point of view but equally the mother is an incredibly glamorous figure you know from the child's point from a child's point of yeah it's this woman who you know she reapplies her lipstick all the time she she was to Martha she she dresses up nice yeah and you you get well you get actually a kind of split screen don't you you get the child's view of this glamorous mother but also a sense that the child must not quite half of her embracing a new life yeah grown-up life right yeah it's I will say one aspect not to get too deeply involved you're getting far too much of the truth out of me wait he's going what IIIi think I realize until later after I after by talking about it the truth is I don't think I was ever alone just me and my mom but for a handful of times all our lives it was always a sibling or somebody else around there if I was to put it together and I remember that there were times when it was just me and my mom going out for you know a hamburger for lunch or something like that it was a magical kind of moment free of guilt no agenda but not for my mom I think at the end of the day my mom was always thinking you know I should be able to do more for this child number three but doesn't live with me and I don't get to see very much and we talked about that later on yes yeah I said mom we didn't live together but I think he did a great job nonetheless this is well I'm gone I'm glad you think that you know it was very lovely she was lovely but she was very glamorous when I was growing up because she had a sales job she was like she worked in the she ran things at a hotel or a nursing home she you know she dressed up professionally and when you're a young man they do they all looked like did he have to show Perry Mason here in the UK what they she looked she dressed like the late the secretary on Perry Mason you know I always thought oh that looks like my mom and vice versa yeah amazing for kids but there's also I mean there are other stories in this book that are very much to do with a kind of father-son bond can't get away from that you know I think by and large our authenticity that I'm from from my own perspective I the the bonds that you make with your family are not by choice they just are whether they're good or bad you don't get to choose who your family is you don't get to choose who your who your parents are and so much gets can get in the way of those relationships you know they're young and they're forging ahead you know maybe the marriage is shaky in the first place they had kids before they were ready to they have some degree of scars that go along with their with their lives the the other stories in the book that are that are not about family are about that other type of great union of connection that we all make and those are connections are by option those we choose to choose to invest in and when you do it well you end up you never know if you're going to start a school good start a class or go to college or be at a party or or move to into a new apartment you might meet the person who literally carries you across the Rubicon into the next next country the new country of your life that is kind of like the faith of an awful lot of the stories I have in there is that I know I have from my perspective write what you know unfortunately I know that my family I had I could not I could not make a decision on it it was fragmented and confusing sometimes but I accepted that as it was I didn't think it was out of out of the out of the norm I thought that's what every family was did see other people that ended up being the great catalyst in my life that friends that people you know the first person you see doing a show or the first person that gives you a job the first person that befriends you and said you could be something more than what you think you are and that all comes about because of truly these truly wonderful inexplicable moments of serendipity who you meet I will tell you that there is one story in here called who's who it's about a young actress in New York City in the 70s it is shamefully stolen from my own experience to a degree but if it hadn't been for the there's a character in it who is based on two men that altered my life two gay men who I met when I was a young actor who took care of me when I first moved to New York City in a way that was filled with nothing but grace and acceptance and love and it's if I hadn't met George and Michael John I would not be sitting here right now with you that's just the truth this plenty of other people you could say that about but that then end and it's those kind of connections that are not a substitute for family but they are they are definitely what's the word I'm looking for not a substitute but a help me out here look at you you literary thugs give me a word I can yes here they are they are America they are there and there are another great necessity in our lives they are the other people that affect us in stirs and and inspires and sometimes take care of us sometimes in Linda's twenty bucks you know honestly sometimes sometimes they do so it's it's that if that it's that face the father and the son thing that goes along here I think the smartest thing I ever read that anybody wrote is that there are the fought the relationship between a father and son is the most goddamnedest thing in the world all right and I think it is and I have I have three boys I have one daughter I get along with each one of them completely differently none of them are the same we have completely different references but every every relationships as a whole and complete one but I know absolutely for a certain that they need other people in their lives to come in and stir them along all I can all I can be I think to them is that that place where someone says you will figure this out and you will be okay I can't tell them how to figure it out but I think I try to get to that in some of the father's yeah okay [Applause] all right group hug everybody everybody come on [Laughter] [Applause] sometimes I saw you need young lady yeah that's right so you register with faith in people I suppose and there's a quite a lot of that that comes through yeah it's funny you meet when you start doing interviews for something like this that merciless explaining your process so so so tom tom tom tom tom so short stories Wow for which there is I can't help but notice you were your stories up this so hope this so up to misty you you present a you present a vision of America that is so America and the only I have no defense for any of those charges I guilty it's because I am I am NOT a cynic look I'm not I am pessimistic about plenty of things you know the best you can do I think is forty-nine I bet you can make the basically do is 51% decent decisions you'll screw up forty-nine percent of the time but if you can if you can make fifty-one you're okay you know just 51 go for 51 is the opposite of this at world you know 50 to 51 percent the times gonna make the wrong decision that's cynicism and I'm not a cynic I'm pessimistic forty nine percent of the time but I have faith 51 percent of the time and that turns the tide just just enough and I think that is part of what the the aspect of the book is you end up having a degree of faith that even after you you will learn from every mistake you make you will learn and therefore Bram on all forty-nine percent of them well I'm glad you an interview we can just finish off here and actually wanted to ask you but I wanted to ask you about some heroes of yours writing heroes but first maybe you should tell us that you when you started raisins I don't know the answer to that where did I start right now well down at the office which we call the Playtone world headquarters and we've had it for quite a number of years you make alliances with people and mostly I wanted to have a place where I could go and have a decent espresso machine and lean in everybody's office stories say got anything any ideas what should we do what do you think wait wait sit around wait for the phone to ring come on let's come up with something and that's what we have been doing for the last almost 20 years we just sit around all day long and try to weigh stories not so much this particular specifics of the story but the theme that it examines what is it real what is it really saying about history or current state of affairs the thing that we're always trying to find out is something that runs contrary to the standard structure of most of the stuff that's out there which is antagonist protagonist protagonist is trying to do something decent and an antagonist is trying to thwart them for reasons that may not have any logic to them whatsoever and I don't accept that I literally say this is just another one of these oh he's good and he's bad and I hate it because I'm much more intrigued by the two people that have equal equal intelligence and an equal desire to do the right thing but one wins out for reasons that are almost inexplicable a great example of this and when I saw it I kind of like left out of my chair was in the in the theatrical sensation a Hamilton I don't know if there's that translated across the country No oh you'll hear about it it's all about it's all about how a plucky group of ragtag Americans threw off the yoke of a British oppressor that's what it's about but in it Hamilton and Jefferson both have these magnificent ideas and one is not right and one is not wrong they are just competing and in that competition you get to examine themes in a way that are different from beat beat beat beat you know the page 30 event and the closing of the second act or what have you so that's what we do down at the office all the time and what is great is when you can kind of get there what with all the economic factors that go into trying to make you know filmed entertainment which is really expensive and someone has to write the check and someone has to want to do it things like that but then you can decide well the best way to do this is in the two-hour story structure best way to do this is in a ten-part in any series sometimes you can't do it you just have to make a documentary about it because in order to recreate it make it fake you're actually putting a you're putting a hat on a hat and you don't really get down to the theme that you're examining there's a couple of stories in here that have lingered around for the last 20 years because we found I could find no other venue in order to make it in order to make it work so when did I start writing I that is a form of it's writing I think I really started writing I wrote on screenplays which is a different form of writing but it is the discipline of sit down and make things happen but I wrote some pieces I wrote a piece on piece on I got this I got this letter from Gary Cooper's daughter and she said I'm I'm coming out with a book of photographs of daddy you know it's like Gary Cooper's daughter would you write a foreword to it I said I would love to so I wrote this thing about how why Gary Cooper was the grand he was literally the grandfather of modern screen acting because he was so subtle and so quiet but everybody else was doing that he just said yep it meant everything and it got published it got published it like Vanity Fair I didn't know that was gonna happen I wrote a couple of other things as time went by and so the desire in order to translate these inexplicable stories that are kind of like the fire that fire in the belly came about and when I wrote there's a piece in here called Alan bean plus 4 which is about a bunch of a bunch of friends who literally built a rocket ship and fly around the moon I wrote that after having read like two huge volumes of the best writings of The New Yorker I read everything but the poetry huh forgive me and from that I was just stirred because I had this idea in my head I said I wonder if utilizing sort of like the inspirations in the and the investment that I put in all this for anything to come up with something and it ended up getting published and that was the first story in this collection yes yeah that's it's not the first story in the book but it's it's and I also wrote I wrote I had written a piece back in the 90s it's actually in a screenplay form so give me if you could stand that kind of like ripping off Lincoln in the bar doors or the middle yeah every wig Moby Dick took me forever to read Moby Dick I was one of those guys who had pretended I had read Moby Dick per you know well of course what Melville said in Moby Dick in the white whale and the Pequod and call me Ishmael oh I had never read it I didn't read it until I was like how old I didn't really sell it's like 50 years old and in the middle of Moby Dick a screenplay busts out you know what I'm talking about all of a sudden you're reading Moby Dick and all of a sudden it's just character name and dialogue for about 20 pages and I said Melville invented the screenplay this was amazing to me so but anyway did a screenplay form that came about from us from a story I wrote in the 90s that for an auth ology series that never came to pass I mean there's one that is in the form of not one it's actually a recurring set of stories that are in form of newspaper columns oh yes the screenplay there's you know the cranky newspaper columnist speak Wayne's about everything yeah I love I love three two we in San Francisco internet from San Francisco all right very good nothing Bernie have anybody fans of Aston Villa what's your the outer fog up the bill there huh just hang in there we'll be all right give us a couple years we'll be back oh yeah bastards what was I saying hello in San Francisco I grew up and there was this fabulous newspaper columnist named herb kane he was he was every day he had one side of the second section of the newspaper and it was just a 3 dot journalism it called he'd wax bullet he'd talk about people who are in town he'd say go try this stuff and I read it it's the thing that we would buy doughnuts and coffee on the way to junior high school and we'd sit there and read herb kane pretending we knew what was going on so he's the basis for this guy and the one he refers to our sim in themselves Oh al Sherman has a typewriter that's that was a nipper knit pileggi told me about Nick Pileggi told me about he worked for the nick colletti wrote Goodfellas and plenty of great books works a lot with Marty Scorsese rum casino he worked for the AP and his rewrite guy had a typewriter at his desk that was on hinges and says when he got kid look at his core and they need flip up the typewriter and then put it down and pull out the blue pencil and edit on there and I just thought there you go that flip uptight a doorman I got to get me one of them because save on [Music] anytime right now speaking of Nick pileggi so I was like you're gonna ask me out Nora Ephron his missus mrs. Poletti does not know because she's in the dedication to this yeah that's right because of Nora because she uh we were we were working when she first directed Sleepless in Seattle I was intimidated because of a work with Mike Nichols and of course all the writing that she had done it yeah I saw a movie that she had directed and which I really liked and she was gonna direct this movie called Sleepless in Seattle so I read it and I went into went into me with her I know is a very very very cranky actor I was a hotshot I had some big hits I was weighing offers and this new second time director was gonna come in and we were gonna talk and I was all pushed out of shape for a while I'm saying you don't know you don't know what you're a woman you wrote about a guy with a kid a man and a boy a man and a boy he the bed men don't talk to their boys like that oh he won't let me go away for the weekend oh I don't know what to do I don't know what to do my son is mad at me man dads don't give a about what their kid thanks I'm gonna tell you what the guy won't see Levon what would he say here's what he said oh you don't want me to go away this weekend with a date you know what I am gonna go away for the weekend I am gonna sleep with that lady and here's why because I'm gonna get laid that's why I'm going away I said that's what a dad says to the son when he can't quite hear what he's going to say and that ended up being in the movie and when it was Nora always said well you wrote that and I said I didn't write that that was just me complaining in a rehearsal no she says that's what it is an idea that ends up making into that's what writing is so she had always given me these kind of like writing props and bonafides and anything that we work together we approach from this kind of like writing perspective we started with that and when I began to write I would I wrote I wrote a piece that ended up in the New York Times about my makeup man who was retiring after 75 years and he and I he and I had made out of 1215 movies together I met him before I was married I mean I had known him for a really really long time and he he was the makeup man behind he was part of the team that came up with the original Planet of the Apes makeup he had done Laurence Olivier's his nose and Spartacus he had done all these great actors including Elvis Presley in in harum-scarum which cracked me up so I wrote to think on him and I sent it to Nora and as she kept she kept coming back to me with suggestions the biggest one always was a voice she said voice voice voice it's not enough to tell a story it's not enough to tell us what's going on you must you you have to find your voice voice your voice not him to tell the story yeah it was all well how do you write it and what is it how does it land upon the psyche and so it's it's because of Nora that I'm sitting here whether you're right now but you think the voice kit would come quite easily to you because you're a servable you beg so you think it would be just a piece of cake I didn't know well here's the news the thing about my day job and here's where it's different and very and very good cop comes into play acid if you're an idiot person here then I guess no I know you guys any actors who've made a movie in Morocco for a long time now they're out there I know them when you're you you are required to do this very particular thing that you don't have to report on you don't have to tell anybody about you don't even have to demonstrate you just have to have it in your pocket and that is have a backstory for your character of what's everything that happens up before the movie you have to know where they came from what they've been through how they got the job you have to you have to create all this stuff yourself which you never have to describe you don't have to write down but when you have to go look out the window at a moment in this in the movie you have to know why you are looking at them at the window in the moment in the movie all actors have to do that and that is a construct that you slowly build in your head from the moment you get the part as soon as you say yes when do I start shooting I need to be in Morocco in six months very good and that's when you begin writing in your on the tablet of your head what that is so that's that's the beast that's the imaginative juju that you have to summon up in order to get there the way it's the way it's not the same is is that you just do it you just do it in every way possible you do it fast you do it slow you do it quick you do it you might get there you might not get you invest everything you can in it and then somebody else goes off and puts it all together someone alters your hair they tell you what to wear you act off of other people and they always feed you something else but then an editor and a director and a and musician you know whoever writes a score they really present it in the way that you gave them the bones for it but it's actually their decision and that's without about how it's it's not the same because these are all comes out of one place one place only which was you know my my fingers and I was lucky that my editor I was I was willing for it to listen to anything that they had to say good or bad because I'm used to that process of saying what would you like how can I make this better interesting and it's not the collaborative process really oh dear Lord no so it's a lonely hideous yeah this is this is this is how you this is how you do an awful lot of writing okay let's see here's the fact yeah that's how you're doing awful lot of writing in a room all by your sails kids you could take that home we all know anybody who knows it knows how to do this Rice's anybody gone right to the coffee place the Starbucks are that whatever it is and sat there and pretended to be revising your stuff I just I just love that you know you have a pencil you go yeah hoping against hope that you might actually revise something but you don't really get to and writing because there's a kind of empathetic aspect to it isn't that where you're sort of imagining yourself in there in a character I think it's I think that happens in my day job is that there are moments where you have to literally get there and it's not easy and it's not real I mean it happens in both comedies and dramas or some days you have to be wildly convivial and happy and and charming and it's the last thing you feel like you want to be and there's other times where you you have to get to an emotional place that is so artifice so obviously not there that it's all part of an artificial construct but you have to get there it's literal you know you'd call them like red-letter days we are going to be shooting this scene on this Thursday 7 and a half weeks from now and if I'm not there for that we will never get it and the reason the movie exists is for this reason so you end up sweating and degree bullets for all that time in order to make sure that you're loaded and ready to go when you get there likewise you are typing a story and it's not there you have not been able to land on the thing that you know you can't imagine it you just know that there's this there's this there's this moment there's this beat there's this blow to the solar plexus that I haven't yet to make happen and you can't walk away from that until that occurs and you got to throw it you got to put it away for sometimes what's I've done you know you put it away for a month or two and then you come back and and revisit and maybe it's there and maybe it's not so what about other rights is the admirer Ephram but it's a real hero see I read a lot of nonfiction I love the Bill Bryson Bill Bryson could write about Forks you know what I've learned you know they learn from Bill Bryson you know why a fork has four times because the other ones don't work two tines do not work three times they don't work it needs to have four times and this has just been proven since from the millennia and it's he could he could write a house you could write a book about a chimney and I think on I'm there so so he wrote one of his books forgive me I can't remember it off and but he wrote about the Crystal Palace and why that literally altered architecture in the entire western world because of the mortise and the glass and the concrete that they used so he could write about that stuff and just Spurs me on and I love I love a writer and a man a funder who wrote she's fantastic Stasi land and all that I am his two main I got to know her and I had she's one of the first writers I wrote a fan letter to because she put on papers something that I thought was going to be incomprehensible to someone who did not grow up in East in East Germany which is you know how the Stasi operated but she did and I loved William Manchester I think there's a magnificent historian and I'm not I really I read the books of and forgive me the pronunciation I am Potok who wrote my name is Asher lives and the chosen and DeVita's harp he wrote about people that were so far removed from me but I thought I thought I'm recognizing everything that they went through those are those are some of mine someone by big huge heroes David McCullough is another guy but I know him he's a pal but he can write about what it's like living in Paris in 1876 and I feel like I'm living in Paris in 1876 Oh Dave yeah damn yeah Dave writes this I mean his first book which was a heartbreaking work of staggering genius which like is you know that's like the hipster granddaddy of all memoirs he were I asked him I except read almost everything Dave Dave is written you know as I tune which is amazing book maybe where do you uh how far how far in advance do you start working on a book he said about three years I said what is that what gets you going I mean is it a curiosity it's a thing you want to learn he said no outrage he's outraged by something and then he writes the end up writing a book about I just love his volume he puts out he just writes continuously yes does his wife Vendela they're always working on something the true literary heroes is there a book you wish you'd written okay would have the talent to do so though III will I will I will say this by way of because I've read them over and over again mm-hmm the William Manchester wrote a book called the world lit only by fire as anyone ever read that it's about it's this something about the dark ages and it's how people lived in the dark ages and it is fascinating and you learn so much about not just about the dark ages but to learn about Martin Luther and you learn about in the Gellin and you learn all this all this kind of stuff that puts it into purely human terms that has no nostalgia for the era it's not like Knights and chivalry and you know oh let's have on me yeah it's not that it's about literally how people struggle upon a day-to-day existence to have enough to eat and to know about enough about their world and so that they can feel some brand of connection to something other than their hunger climate and he does that you know in that book that I think that it's a way that's just absolutely absolutely astounding like a little bit of a little bit of a time machine and a novel well it's not so much a novel another well actually is a novel in fact I've read and it's one of the inspirations for the story called because the past is important to us I can't forgive me I can't remember I'd scream his name out in a second but he wrote 1939 the world of the fair and it's about 1939 and a couple that goes to the World's Fair for a day and everything that happened before them and after that and it's just the most complex gromek I wouldn't I would like to just rattle off all the books by friends of Mines I don't know either of those two people and those if I could have written either one of those I'd come here and talk to you about it okay we have some questions actually sourced from Penguin Books Facebook page so they are kind of like audience questions I'm maybe we should go through these a little bit quicker because I also want to leave time for you to read from go see okay all right um and you might have to tell us a bit about that in advance I will so actually you refer to this is whether this is from Matt URI you you asked our failed and unfinished pieces better safe for future reference or discarded well I think no you should never throw away anything you wrote throw it in a drawer keep it on a in a folder on your on your on your screen because you will come back and find something in it that is worthwhile yeah so you mean Mike you might never do anything with the idea but I can't tell you how many times I've gone back to her search for something I said I wrote something sort of like this where was it hmm I never thought was useful but I might become something else soon yeah um who would you like to write a biography of us Paula skillet wow it's quite good zoom oh wow think about that I do I do love I do read a lot I like the by I love the biographical process I do I'm gonna put a pin in that he'll come back he'll come back um and then just Scott asked whether you have a favorite library to sit in like it's to go and sit in that I have there is a there's a reading room at the New York City Public Library that is just quite frankly it's so beautiful you can't do any reading in there it's just absolutely absolutely gorgeous I don't need to be in a library in order to read but there is there is something just magnificent in order to to sit around just surrounded by all that scholarliness all those literary how do you start a new story else Robin Michelle and more importantly hang on what is your biggest challenge about finishing a good idea so you start and then finishing it is just you know that's just time and wherewithal and perseverance I will say most of the stories here began with the title I would come up yeah there was just I'm kind of like trying to find a little bit of prose poetry and what a title would be and have that I wanted to write I wanted to write about buying my first good typewriter yeah I knew that was going to be one of the stories in the book and I didn't want it to be at another confused guy so it's about a woman she and I it's not exactly how I got my first typewriter but I wanted to write I wanted to have her see a typewriter and have something be about it that made it like glow like Raiders of the Lost Ark or something like that you know it's just she's just at a swap meet you know it's a flea market whatever you call it and there was going to be this typewriter I and I wanted it to jump out at her somehow and so I came up the title I had where these are the meditations of my heart and somebody typed it out on a little adhesive you know label and applied it to the typewriter so if it hadn't said these are the meditations of my heart she would never have bought the typewriter so a lot of the a lot of them begin that way and then at and finishing him is just kind of like getting them close and sending them in and having my editor say not there yet keep going all right send it back rewind saying oh ya know that that's just fun admit it's not a chore it's what the it's what it is do you know Kirk Douglas says everybody knows so I remember being I was in college or something and Kirk Douglas had written his autobiography which is pretty good autobiography it's called the the ragpickers son and I didn't even know Kirk Douglas was Jewish but it's that his real name was something like you know fifl Yehudi or something like that a very non Kirk Douglas a Jewish name and and he was on the Johnny Carson show a chat show and Johnny Carson said so yeah so did you did you did you enjoy riding the Burton Kirk and Kirk Douglas said well you know Johnny the secret of writing is rewriting and I remember being college to say well I just learned something from Kirk Douglas man let's see what the writing is real a thank you perk and by the way I love the war wagon and you were great in Spartacus so at all someone here has asked this is Audrey Haney if you could spend one day with a favorite author dead or alive who would it be this is slightly related to my question but oh well you know I'm a lot of writers are just stark raving nuts aren't they I mean I'm widowed they kind of lied drug I would say um I would like it to have been able to pick the brains of arthur c clarke because not because if not only just about 2001 a space odyssey have a childhoods and there was a period of time where you just read everything that arthur c clarke had ever written and he just had that he had that kind of my actually spoken spoke to him on the phone a couple of times in regards to some of the miniseries that that we had put together but i would have liked to i would have liked to have set now with him and say oh so what uh what else should be for sure we'd be thinking of or if there you know what else what else came up what else should we come up with in our in our heads he wouldn't he would have been something and here's here's somebody else made bench e now I just heard she passed away alright so this is a sign of a great book is it not you're on vacation and it's a horrible vacation and you're stuck in a room you know you're on a fig and you're just dying for something to pass the time oh what's this oh they have a library and it's a bunch of you know bad paperbacks and on here's something called light up any candle by Maeve Vinci author of circle of friends well I knew I didn't see circle of friends the movie but I knew it was a movie so I said well if she wrote something that got turned in a movie she might be pretty good I fell in love with light a penny candle and everybody else on vacation read it too so we all went nuts and then I then I read Tara Road and I read circle of France so I ended up going on a massive may thing and I wrote actually wrote her a fan letter and I got a nice letter back from her and I said and I said you know I gotta get to Dublin and sit down have a nice cup of tea we have a night but you know I never did but I met her editor I met her American editors sell it maybe benches may been she and arthur c clarke those i was on the cheap today and i had this book with me and a woman said to me oh i've just bought that book he is one of my cut you know the people do you want to your dinner you'll sort of imaginary perfect dinner and a nicer two losses coming to dinner she what no I haven't got that far so but you know maybe obviously my bench II you know they imaginary dinner um I'm a little bit of time to read go see Costas you want to tell us about this story where it comes from okay um this my my father-in-law was from the old country Bulgaria and I know that I I know that I know that he came to America that after after the Second World War and he was this man loved America more than than anybody who's ever run for office or served in the military his his what what America meant to him was he was a bartender at the racetracks you know working for tips and he bought it he was able to pay for his own house that my wife grew up in he was he was retired and he he would if he had nothing else to say dad would say I told you that it's the greatest country God bless america and not long after my son was born I was I had him that we got up early and I was in my bathroom my pajamas and I was holding him feeding him and dad was awake and he was getting his morning coffee because everybody's together because we just had a baby and we were sitting around and he said he said something about he made some reference to the to the old country and I said dad how did how did you get to America anyway no no no my father-in-law I called him dad you know his real name was Al that was his anglicized name and I said how did you get to the country and he told me essentially this story and later that day I went upstairs and my wife was awake and I said that I talked to you dad this morning and that that story of how he got to America was just amazing and she said how did he come to because he had never told the story so and now I will tell this is this going to be the end of our good news folks we only have three and a half hours left okay all right okay great all right fine here we go hmm Ibrahim had it is called go see Costa Kostas that's a common Greek name Ibrahim had been true to his word for the price of one bottle of Johnnie Walker red label he had provided a son with two most certainly stolen but that didn't matter to either them in those days American liquor was more valuable than gold even more valuable than American cigarettes with both bottles clanking in his knapsack Ahsan dressed in his nearly new blue pinstripe suit searched the middie tavern taverna to the port city of Piraeus looking for the chief of the Berengaria it was known that the chief savored the tastes and effects of Johnnie Walker red label it was also known that the Baron Garry was taking cargo to America the son found the chief at the governor and Foley's trying to enjoy his morning coffee I don't need another fireman he told the son ah but I know ships speak many languages I'm good with my hands and and I never brag I saw and smiled at his little joke the chief did not ask anyone under this protocol the chief waved to the waiter boy for another coffee you are not Greek he said to Assad Bulgarian the son told him well what is this accent of yours during the war the chief had done a lot of business with Bulgarians but this one talked in an odd case I am from the mountains a Palmach is this a bad thing the chief shook his head no poor marks are quiet and tough the war was hard on the paw marks the war was hard on everyone the son said the boy brought the chief his other coffee how long have you been under this portico that she fasts six months now you want me to hire you so you can jump ship in America the chief was no idiot I want you to hire me because you have the oil fuel the fire hadn't checks the bubble in the tubas all he doesn't shovel the coal too long with his shovel and it becomes all a man knows the chief lit a cigarette without offering one to Assad I don't need another fireman the Sun reached into the knapsack between his feet pulled out a bali bottle of Johnnie Walker red label in each fist and set them on the table beside the Chiefs morning coffee Here I am tired of carrying these things around three days out some of the crew began giving the chief trouble the Cypriot steward had a bad leg and didn't clean up after meals fast enough the seaman Soriano's was a liar saying he had checked the scuppers when he had not checked the scuppers the awesome kalimera says wife had left him again so his hot head was even faster to flare every conversation with him turned into an argument even over dominoes a son though cuz no worries he was never idle with the smoke in his lips but was always wiping down valves or taking a wire brush to the rust he played cards and dominoes quietly and perhaps best of all he stayed away from the eyes of the captain the captain noticed everything the chief knew but he did not notice a son past Gibraltar the ship met the heavy seas of the Atlantic at sea the chief rose early every morning to wander the burned area looking for possible headaches this day as usual he climbed up to the bridge for the coffee that was always there then worked his way down he found all was well until he came to the fuel station and heard Bulgarian being spoken Hassan was on his knees rubbing the legs of a man bleeding on the bulkhead a man black with oily grime his damp clothes sticking to his skin I go walk now let me stir that said the filthy man taking wobbly steps back and forth on the steel back he too spoke Bulgarian ah feels good the man drank deep from the bottle of water then wolf down a thick slice of bread from a wrapped bandana we are in the ocean now Hassan said I could feel it the rocking the man finished the bread and drank more water how much longer ten days maybe I hope it's less all right you better go back in citizen here you can assign handed him an empty ten that once held biscuits taking from the filthy man a can that was once for coffee but was now the chief could smell filled with sewage Hassan covered the tent with the bandanna have been handed over a corked bottle of water and the filthy man crawled back into a hole a narrow gap in the decade from where a plate had been lifted with some struggle the filthy man squeezed through and was gone Hassan used a bar to lift and slide the steel plate back into place like a puzzle piece the chief did not report what he saw to the captain instead he went back to his cabin and looked at the Johnny Walker red label two bottles one for a son the other for his friend hiding in the half metre of space between the steel decking on ships heading to America stowaways were not uncommon and life was easier if eyes saw nothing and questions were not asked of course sometimes a full coffin was offloaded as a result now the world was a mess but it seemed a little less messy after a drink from the first open bottle if someone else discovered the filthy man crawling around in the black space between the decks there would be hell to pay plus all the paperwork for the captain that was up to a song if the captain never found out well you never found out two storms at sea slowed down the Berengaria then the ship had to wait two days at anchor until a harbor pilot finally came out in the little boat climbed at the pilot ladder and made his way to the bridge to guide the ship into the port it was night by the time she was tied up at the dock one ships of so many the check the chief saw us on at the rail looking at the skyline in the distance that is Philadelphia Pennsylvania America where is chief goggle past the Bulgarians farther from Philadelphia than Cairo is from Athens so far son-of-a-gun Philadelphia looks like paradise a but when we talked in New York New York you will see a real American city assan little smoke offering one to the chief better cigarettes in America the chief smoke eyeing the Bulgarians who had caused no problems for him not a single one tomorrow they search the ship whoo American big shots they searched the ship high and low looking for stowaways communists at the mission of Communists asan spit over the rail they count heads the chief continued if the numbers don't match up it's trouble if they find nothing we offload and then go to New York New York I will take you for shave they're better than the Turks can shave the Sun said nothing for a moment if there are communists on this ship I hope they find them he said spitting over the rail again asan lay on his rack faking sleep as the other crewmen came and went at 4 a.m. he dressed quietly and slipped into the passageway checking around each corner to make sure he was not seen he made his way to the fuel station and use the iron bar to lift one play to the steel decking and slide it open yes now the son said Ibrahim climbed crawled up from below his elbows and knees rubbed raw and bleeding from living in the low dark space between the deck and the ships in her hull how long he had he been down there 18 days 20 days didn't matter let me get my god Abraham whispered in a crook leave it we go now ii plead us on my legs a son massaged ibrahim sh legs for as long as he dared that helped his friend to stand Ebert had been on his feet only a few minutes each day his back ached horribly and his knees were actually shaking we have to go Hasan said follow me by 2 meters we went at every corner you hear me speak to someone hide where you can even to him nodded taking small steps following a ladder led to a latch that led to a room that led to another hatch and either the passageway in another ladder at the top of it another passageway at one more ladder though this one was more like a stairway the son pulled on a heavy steel door that opened inward and halted Ibrahim smelled fresh air for the first time in 21 days that's how long he had been since the bear and Gary had left Piraeus with Ibrahim hiding under the steel decking yes ok EBIT n stepped through the doorway and was finally outside the night a blessing as his eyes tried to adjust the air was warm the air summertime they were at the port side rail facing away from the dock the water 12 metres below hours earlier the ship's fireman the ship's pull mock fireman had tied a rope anonymous as any on deck to the lowest rung of the rail climb down this swim around to the dock and find the way up I hope I can still swim even am said he was laughing like it was a funny joke there are bushes nearby hiding them until I come tomorrow but if there are dogs make prints with them that made even a ham laugh again as he swung over the rail the rope in his hands the chief was with the captain on the starboard wing of the pilot house taking their morning coffee the longshoremen had offloaded most of the cargo and the docks were busy with trucks and cranes and workers will gulp the Waldorf Hotel the captain said just as the chief saw a son walking down the gangway and off the ship with his knapsack that once held bottles of Johnny Walker red label he was carrying to a parcel under his arm crewmen returned to the ship with parcels filled with the goods they could buy only in America under their arms but here a son was leaving with one big stakes like this the captain held up his fingers showing the thickness of what his steak would be now waldorf-astoria they have they have the steaks that's a good place that chief said as a son disappeared into some bushes [Applause] [Laughter] like thank you so much thank you so much thank you for coming [Applause]

Channel: Penguin Books UK

Views: 19,323

Rating: 4.7083335 out of 5

Keywords: Penguin Books UK, books, Tom Hanks, Southbank Centre, Uncommon Type, 1785151517, 978-1785151514, short stories, fiction, Gabby Wood, hanks, hollywood, famous, news, tom, talk show, forrest gump, big, saving private ryan, actor, typewriter, booker prize

Id: 8wwMn1_Gf2Q

Length: 78min 59sec (4739 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 03 2017