TIH 587: Robert P. Ottone on Approaching Life Fearlessly, The Triangle, and Early Life Lessons

This is the transcript for the video version. Add around 3 minutes for the audio.

00:00:01.17
Michael David Wilson
Robert, welcome to this is horror podcast.

00:00:04.96
Robert P. Ottone
Hello, hello, hello. Thank you for having me.

00:00:08.34
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, I feel that this one has been a long time coming because we've known each other a fair while now, maybe five or so years, but today is the day that we decided to get together and to talk horror fiction.

00:00:25.97
Robert P. Ottone
Well, I'm excited. I've been a fan of the show for a long time. When I first started writing, I you know, I was like, oh, I want to listen to some podcasts. And it was yours was one of the first ones that I found. And the Lovecraft easy and was the other one. And I've been a faithful listener ever since. And yeah, so I'm excited to be here.

00:00:48.43
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, that's a hell of a introduction to horror fiction as well, listening to the Lovecraft easy and alongside us with so many presenters that they could practically put an anthology together just of presenters of the Lovecraft easy.

00:01:08.20
Robert P. Ottone
It's not a bad idea.

00:01:08.35
Bob Pastorella
Mm

00:01:08.96
Robert P. Ottone
You should tell Mike Davis to do that. He would probably do it in a heartbeat.

00:01:12.39
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, but I want to go all the way back to the beginning of your life because I want to talk about what some of the early life lessons were that you learned growing up.

00:01:28.03
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah. Some of the earliest life lessons I think was to, you know, if you're going to try to do something, try to do it the best that you can.

00:01:34.67
Bob Pastorella
-hmm.

00:01:39.79
Robert P. Ottone
And it's not, you know, it's less about like what you do, it's in how you do it. And I just, you know, kind of always grew up with like, I knew what my strengths were, whether it was academics, or, you know, socially, or whatever the case may be.

00:01:57.46
Robert P. Ottone
And I leaned heavily into those growing up. I'm not a math guy. That's probably why I teach English. I'm just not Mr. Math. like I'm not good at that. I'm better at it now. Specifically, I'm good at finance math.

00:02:14.58
Robert P. Ottone
I'm not good at like algebra, you know, any of that advanced nerdy stuff. Like, I'm not good with the geometry. I don't even know really what that is. But like, you know, I can, I'm comfortable with doing other things. So the life lessons that I always, you know, kind of come back to it's like, you know, if you love what you do,

00:02:37.75
Robert P. Ottone
like it doesn't feel like work which is why I like teaching so much and I like being with the kids so much because it's like it just doesn't feel like work especially Fridays in my classroom Friday we play games like I really only have the kids work three or four days a week and then Fridays are just like a fun day because I believe in the four day work week number one even though I don't have one but I also believe in the fact that they do enough and I guess just believe in what you do but also at the same time like do it if you're gonna do something and whatever it is that you're doing is difficult just do it the best you can and you know maybe it works out maybe it doesn't but at least you tried like many people have said to me like oh I've always wanted to write a book I I've got a novel in me and it's like okay so write the fucking thing

00:03:31.67
Robert P. Ottone
And they're always like, oh, well, how do I start? You press, you know, like letters on a keyboard. That's usually how one begins a sentence. And it's always like some excuse about like, oh, well, I don't do this, well, I don't do that. And it's like, well, then you're never going to get it done. Like, don't say that you want to write a novel if you're not willing to put in the time and the work, you know.

00:03:54.44
Robert P. Ottone
And so much of that too is like stuff like this, you know, doing podcasts and talking about your work and talking about yourself. And so many people are uncomfortable doing that. And I've never been uncomfortable doing that. Like I used to have a radio show when I was like 12 years old. You know, I like talking. I like moderating panels at conventions, like being on panels. I like, you know, all that stuff. I don't, I'm not uncomfortable in front of, you know, people or an audience or anything like that. And that's like, that was a big thing I learned growing up too is like, never shy away from the spotlight and never shy away from anything like that. Because at the end of the day, it's only going to make you better. So those are some of the things that I always think about and I come back to.

00:04:45.68
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, was there ever a time early on where you did shy away and then you thought, right, I'm never going to do that again. I'm wondering specifically with that lesson, what it was that really brought that into focus for you.

00:05:00.52
Robert P. Ottone
I have to be totally honest, there never was a time where I was afraid of like getting up in front of something or taking point on something. I wasn't raised that way. My mom like fostered, she fostered a love of the arts in me and so did my dad. my mom kind of fostered a love of like an appreciation of nature.

00:05:24.96
Robert P. Ottone
and whatnot as well. Whereas my dad fostered the ability to get in front of people and not be afraid to speak and not be afraid to like perform or do whatever you need to like when called upon. And so I never I can't think of a single time where I was like demure and mindful and getting out of the spotlight or anything like that. Like there was never never a time and in fact like quite the opposite it like I can do this like you want me out there you know like I would see like classmates and friends struggling with those things and I would go to the teacher or the coach or you know our drama teacher stuff and it's like you need me out there like I'm not trying to talk about my friends badly behind their back but like you don't leave your prize horse at the stable you know what I mean like you gotta run me out there

00:06:18.10
Robert P. Ottone
And like, it's just how it is, like, I'm not, I don't see it as like, it's just confidence, you know, but there's plenty of things that I'm not confident in either, you know, like, academically, I was always very solid, the exception of math, but math got better as I got older, but like, you know,

00:06:37.61
Robert P. Ottone
I wasn't, ah ah you know, I'm not a skinny person. I'm not a little teeny tiny skinny person. So like I was never going to be on track. You know, I was never going to do ballet. I wish I had. Dancing is something I've always loved to do, but like I was, I never took classes. I should have, but like I've got terrible knees. So there are physical limitations that I've always dealt with.

00:07:00.64
Robert P. Ottone
ever since I was a kid because I was always really heavy when I was little and I'm heavy now but like other than stuff like that and knowing my physical limitations of like okay well I can't I know for a fact I can't do that like I played basketball up until like junior high And then my knees started exploding on me. Like anytime I would come down, I was a rebound machine and I would come down and my knees would explode because it's just too much weight coming down on my legs. And then I went into football and the same thing was happening and I was going to do rugby, but then I had a heart murmur. So I wasn't allowed to do it. And like, it just like when I started noticing my physical limitations, like towards the end of high school,

00:07:46.89
Robert P. Ottone
beginning of college that's when I sort of had the realization like okay well I could still do the things that I want to do I just can't athletically keep up with where I mentally am so I guess in some ways I would shy away from like oh hey we're gonna go we're gonna go play baseball or football or whatever because in my mind I'm like if I run too hard or I take a turn too quick I'm gonna blow out my knee which happened all the time. like, still could happen. Like, I'm very careful with how I move. I'm 40. And I'm just very, very careful with how I move physically. Because I like, if I felt like I was joking around that my wife is gonna push me down the steps of our new house, and she probably will. And I'll literally just shatter like a porcelain doll. Like, I just I feel like that's exactly how I'm gonna go, which is fine. Because then the house goes to her and it's her problem.

00:08:39.48
Michael David Wilson
Oh, yeah. And I mean, it's interesting as we get older, how there can be like more physical limitations, but I sometimes find that our mind doesn't catch up or doesn't realize that.

00:08:48.68
Robert P. Ottone
Bye.

00:08:56.59
Michael David Wilson
And so like I frequently injure myself because I'm, I mentally want to do it and I'm pushing myself, but the body is saying, no, that's not a good idea.

00:09:07.37
Michael David Wilson
And. You know, it's so bizarre as well. Like I've gone to the doctors a few times about things and it's like, you know, why, why is this shoulder hurting?

00:09:18.11
Michael David Wilson
And it's like, well, because you're getting older. and like, what, what?

00:09:23.16
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:09:23.36
Michael David Wilson
I'm not, I'm not that old. What, what is going on? And it, this seems to be something people are even told from, I guess, even their early thirties.

00:09:33.42
Michael David Wilson
It's like, well, I'm, I'm a baby at that point, but

00:09:36.61
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:09:37.08
Michael David Wilson
You know, it it it only gets worse, but I, I suppose though, if you look at professional athletes, yeah, when, when they're in their early thirties, they come into the end of their career.

00:09:48.18
Michael David Wilson
So I don't know.

00:09:50.92
Robert P. Ottone
It's interesting.

00:09:52.81
Robert P. Ottone
I've had COVID twice and I had it right at the beginning because I got it while I was teaching. The biggest things that have happened is I have a ah ah nerve that's in this shoulder that's deteriorating or has it kind of atrophied to a point where don't have a ton of strength in this side of my arm.

00:10:14.88
Robert P. Ottone
I still push myself too hard. I take medication for it, which does help. But i i I have to take medication now for it. And like I literally just today filled up my pillbox for the week. And it's like, cool, I'm 40. And now Sunday through Saturday on my plastic pillbox, I've got a variety of medication that I have to take migraine pills, too, as a result of having COVID that take care of my headaches, that if I don't take this, I have to take six Tylenol a day, this thing from my nerves, two allergy pills to help me put me down to sleep at night, and then more allergy or more knockout pills that I take to put myself to sleep because I can't

00:11:00.45
Robert P. Ottone
like sleep anymore. Like I just I don't fall asleep in any natural way. Like it's a five pill routine that I take to knock myself down for the count. And I don't know if my body's always gonna need this stuff, but I remember being a kid, or being my 20s, not in the hell with 20s, even my early 30s, and just like, cool, I'm gonna go until three o'clock in the morning, and we're gonna dance on the beach, and I don't know where I'm gonna wake up. And it's like, cool, sleep no problem, wake up at 10 in the morning on Saturday the next day, great.

00:11:39.45
Robert P. Ottone
Now it's like, no, I'll like tonight after we're done recording, I'm going to go downstairs. I'm going to put on ghost videos that are so fake. It breaks my heart on YouTube. I'm going to take my night night juice, as I call it, and I'm going to sit there until I fall asleep on the couch. I'm going to wake up at two in the morning, turn everything off, go upstairs, go to bed, probably sleep until seven, wake up and do some writing. Like it's just, it's weird how the body changes and it's like,

00:12:07.74
Robert P. Ottone
something i've been thinking a lot about after this move because now i have all these new aches and pains from carrying stuff so much and i'm using this like cbd tincture that my brother-in-law made me and it's like this stuff is great it's helping you know all these like new aches and pains as one gets older and i shouldn't be complaining because i could be dead but it's just weird dealing with these like nagging things as one gets older and it's like body horror. It's like, oh cool, this is what body horror is. Just these absurd pains that other people deal with all the time. So now one can relate to it, I guess. It's just bizarre.

00:12:46.44
Bob Pastorella
Mm-hmm. I'm going through the similar things, but I mean, I'm 57. and and And for the most part, I don't feel 57. Um, I feel pretty good.

00:12:57.79
Bob Pastorella
Uh, especially I've lost, uh, close to 60 pounds over the last year. So I feel like, Oh no, thank you.

00:13:03.64
Robert P. Ottone
Congrats.

00:13:06.19
Bob Pastorella
I feel, you know, a lot better. I didn't realize I was actually feeling bad. So it's one of those things, but I'm also at the age that, you know, I I'm at that age, what do they call it?

00:13:17.74
Bob Pastorella
I hurt my back, putting on my sock old, you know, and so, uh, you know, it's.

00:13:25.47
Bob Pastorella
And like I said, for the most part, I feel fine. I've always had bad knees. They've gotten worse. Um, I work at a place that, that likes to put things low to where, if you want to grab them and give them to a customer, you literally have to get down on the floor.

00:13:38.04
Robert P. Ottone
professional.

00:13:42.76
Bob Pastorella
And sometimes they're so close to the floor that it's like, Hey, why is Bob lying on the floor? Oh, he'll get up in a minute. He'll be fine. Yeah. he He's just, he got real close and he just, he felt it that he should just lay there because I mean, I'm just like, I can't, I can't get up. I tried to get up the other day real fast and ended up on my butt.

00:14:02.83
Bob Pastorella
And, uh, fortunately no one saw me did he open, you know, and I looked around and no one's there and I'm like, whoo, Dodge that bullet, you know, but, uh, then it took me five minutes to get up.

00:14:13.93
Bob Pastorella
I was like, God damn, what the fuck happened to me? You know, and, um, but it's, we, we wear and tear ourselves to, to the point that we don't realize what we've done until years later.

00:14:27.14
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:14:29.99
Bob Pastorella
And I think that's, you know, because we, we have this constant need to push, push, push, push, push, push, push. When we really don't have to do that, you know, I think, that think it kind of boils down to you. We, we have the, the tendency to push ourselves too hard physically.

00:14:48.70
Robert P. Ottone
some of it's pride, I think, too.

00:14:50.79
Bob Pastorella
Mm-hmm.

00:14:51.59
Robert P. Ottone
And maybe it's like a toxic masculinity thing, a part of it could be as well, like, well, I am a man, and thus I'm going to sacrifice my body to provide or to, you know, whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:15:05.95
Robert P. Ottone
Like, I think And I'm thankful that I'm realizing like my limitations I'm thankful that I'm seeing these things with greater clarity, especially now that we're in the new place and stuff and and realizing that you know going up and down these stairs on one knee that has no cartilage and the other one that has very little cartilage is not the most fun. So I think about how okay, how many times do I have to go up and down the stairs in a day? And it's and now and my mom does that and she's in her 70s. And she's like, I try to go up and down the stairs twice a day. And in my head, I'm like,

00:15:52.10
Robert P. Ottone
I could do that. like if I don't have to go upstairs more than let's say four times a day. My knees won't hurt as much. Or specifically my one knee. The other one that has a little bit of cartilage is fine. But the fact that something I used to love to do, like play basketball, football, baseball, did this, and also being heavy, did this to my body is especially infuriating.

00:16:16.32
Robert P. Ottone
because it's like, I used to love these things. And now it's like, oh cool, I get to pay the price for loving those things and and wearing so much of myself out so early in my life.

00:16:28.99
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, I think there's something interesting there too, because I mean, you know, would you rather go full out, wear yourself out, but know that you had a life fully lived or just have a life half lived. And I feel for real satisfaction, even though we hate the pain, we hate the injuries, we hate the future limitations.

00:16:54.30
Michael David Wilson
I don't want to regret what I didn't do and the opportunities that I didn't take. So I think as well, I mean, it's especially dangerous really to kind of just go over regrets of the past anyway, because we literally can't change them.

00:16:59.100
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:17:10.12
Michael David Wilson
So we might as well embrace this is what's happened. And then we do what we can going in forward.

00:17:17.03
Robert P. Ottone
I think about regrets and stuff like that a lot and You know, I don't have that many. You know what I mean? I don't have too many things that that I dwell on and think about in terms of I wish I had done this, or I wish I had done that.

00:17:39.40
Robert P. Ottone
there's a few things and they're very personal but like beyond that in terms of like living and experiencing and doing things my students ask me know some of the more interested students ask me like you know what what did you like what was this like for you what what was this era of your life like and one of the things i think i was i say to them like i have seen and accomplish beautiful things and horrifying things that I hope you guys never experience. And then they're always like, oh, tell us more. And it's like, well, I can't tell you all of the horrible things, but, and then we'll tell them one or two stories about whatever, eating scorpions or doing other weird shit that I've done in my life and whatever. but

00:18:33.03
Robert P. Ottone
They always are curious about that because that I deal with today are especially fearful of things out in the world. like They're very wary of things. And I try not to live my life with any kind of real regret ah ah other than the the handful of ones that I do have. But I try to put that in them too. i I think it was Billie Jean King who said, don't die wondering.

00:18:57.61
Robert P. Ottone
And I think that's a good motto to live by. Like, just don't die wondering. Like in the writing world, you know? Having won the stoker, that was insane. Like, it was such a huge honor and it was great. And I can't be more thankful than that. I never thought it would happen and it did. But, you know, having the vile thing sell so many copies in the first two months, that was crazy too.

00:19:25.44
Robert P. Ottone
And now I just kind of sit and I'm just like, huh. Okay, well, and then I signed with an agent. And that's really cool too. And that's a thing I never thought would happen. And now we're shopping two books. And I've got this job that I love working with kids that I care about in a school district that I would like to stay in and retire in 18 years. But I don't feel any kind of regret because I feel like with the writing stuff, especially, I already feel very blessed with the successes that I've already had, even though I'm not a New York Times bestselling author or anything like that. Like I'm not Paul Trembley. I'm not Stephen King or any of these dudes. I'm not Rachel Harrison. Like I'm not any of these people. But at the same time, it's like, I'm just me.

00:20:19.31
Robert P. Ottone
And it kind of goes back to that early life lesson of like, whatever it is that you're gonna do, do it your way and do it the best that you can. And when people talk about, oh, I have such a, what is it? Imposter syndrome, I have such imposter, it's bullshit. Imposter syndrome is in your own head. You're not an imposter because there's seats at the table for everybody. And however everybody does something, your point of view is valid. And it's not, you're not an imposter.

00:20:49.34
Robert P. Ottone
Like you're not, nobody's gonna be as successful as Stephen King is or was or any of that. Like it's just never gonna happen. So whatever slice that you can carve out for yourself, that's great. And you should be happy, you know? And so again, like ah that ah that kind of goes back to the early lessons of like, do whatever it is that you wanna do, just do it the best that you can and get whatever it is that you can out of it. As long as that's nurturing to you,

00:21:18.25
Robert P. Ottone
in some way. Because moment writing for me becomes daunting is the day I say fuck it and walk away. Because at the end of the day, writing's not putting food on daddy's table. It's not. My real job is what pays the bills. So I'm very happy with everything that's happened as a result of the writing life.

00:21:44.55
Robert P. Ottone
Um, but at the same time, like I don't ever like think I'll ever be a full-time writer. I don't know that I would want to be. I can't say no to that New York state retirement system. I'd be crazy. I'd be insane. Retire with 60% of my salary? Cool. Thanks. Why? I'd have to be an idiot to just turn that away. You'd be crazy. Especially here. Like I got a But yeah, I don't know. I'm just happy with everything that I have. And I think that's ah ah another lesson people should learn too, as opposed to constantly pursuing things and and not constantly pursuing things. like The pursuit is often the most exciting part of life. But at the same time,

00:22:33.08
Robert P. Ottone
Pursuing things so obsessively that it negatively impacts other parts of your life is not healthy and not a good thing at all. I don't know, maybe you guys don't agree.

00:22:45.54
Michael David Wilson
I do agree. I think it's definitely necessary to strike some sort of balance and obviously what that balance is, is going to be. Highly specific to the individual in question you know we can't unfortunately say it to listeners and viewers this is the the formula for what life balance but. You know i mean from my experience you test things out and sometimes you get it wrong and then if you've got it wrong you've got to alter a little bit but.

00:23:17.05
Michael David Wilson
It's looking at what's important to you and who's important to you and then what do they need, what do you need and... Yeah, we, we tried things out and as Josh Malaman has said before, life has different seasons and new seasons are exciting, but as we go into new seasons, there might be okay for this season.

00:23:40.29
Michael David Wilson
I'm working a little bit more obsessively on this project, but then for the season after, actually it's more about family time and it's more about friends and we're dialing the writing right back.

00:23:44.83
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:23:52.45
Bob Pastorella
Mm hmm.

00:23:53.47
Michael David Wilson
So. Yeah, I think balance is good, but I don't get it right quite often, but I'm striving to, and I think that's all we can do really.

00:24:02.42
Bob Pastorella
Mm hmm.

00:24:05.18
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:24:07.23
Bob Pastorella
I'm not a very, uh, competitive person. And I think, I think that, that a lot of people have this, this overwhelming desire to be competitive when in, especially in things that they really, that really don't matter. Um, when it comes, you know, I'm not competitive at work, you know, they talk about, well, this store's doing better than us. Great. Just give them a round of applause. That's great. I care about me.

00:24:34.61
Bob Pastorella
When it comes to writing, when it comes to horror fiction, I wouldn't be doing this if ah wouldn't have been inspired by the people who came before me. And I like it when I find new people that can inspire me. And so I can't compete with them. They inspire me to do what I want to do and create my own stories.

00:24:58.60
Bob Pastorella
And so the only time that I ever feel competition is if I do encounter something that I don't know, I try to be nice about everything, but occasionally you'll read something or you'll see something and go, I can't believe that somebody paid money to make this. And I could have done a lot better. That is also a form of inspiration. It doesn't happen often, but occasionally I do.

00:25:26.12
Bob Pastorella
Wonder where the people with the money with their thinking and I'm right here guys. I'm right here So that that's that's the little that and to me that's that's about as as as competitive as I'm gonna get but we as a society everything is is is so competitive and it it just really I think that gets in a way of, of creativity. It gets in a way of your natural progression into, to whatever you want to do. You you can become so obsessed with jealousy and envy and all of that. And of that stuff has any place and in what we're doing. It just, it, to me, I just don't believe in it. Be inspired by those that came before you, you know, that's, that's, that's what made me want to do it.

00:26:19.27
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah, that's the whole reason I started writing horror like as an adult is I i read Langan. And I read Tremblay and Linda Addison and people like that. And I was like, Ooh, I want to, I want to do this. You know, I want to try my hand at writing some spooky stuff. And I started and I published two collections of short fiction. And, uh, the second one did better than the first and the second one still sells, which is nice, but, um, it's like,

00:26:55.66
Robert P. Ottone
It's fun. It was fun at the time and I didn't know where it was going to go. And, uh, I, but I wasn't ever comparing. I don't ever compare myself with anything. I just, like Bob said, you find inspiration in other things. And even in stuff that's terrible, you could find inspiration in, in a lot of ways. Cause it's, I try to, as I'm, as I'm getting, becoming an older gentleman,

00:27:23.63
Robert P. Ottone
I'm trying to find positive things in everything that I consume. Like I watched a YouTube horror movie that's making the rounds. Everybody's going crazy for it. I watched it last night and it was overly long and it was a little boring. But at the same time, I'd be interested to see what that particular filmmaker does next. And I thought it was at the very least interesting in the beginning.

00:27:53.58
Robert P. Ottone
though it kind of had a whimper of an ending. And I also find the stuff that's trending, which is also like the stuff that we see a lot of, you know, coming after one after another after another, is in a lot of ways chasing the success of other things. And I don't find that particularly thrilling at all. Like I don't know,

00:28:18.99
Robert P. Ottone
that I'm the, I don't know that I wrote two books for a publisher that were, can you write this and can you write that for us? Like, oh you have ideas for these two types of things? And I was like, yeah.

00:28:32.82
Robert P. Ottone
And I wrote them and one did better than the other. I'm very happy with both products at the end of the day, but I don't know that I would ever necessarily do that again. I know my agent would not want me to do that ever again. But also at the same time, like I wanted to try it to see if I could challenge myself to do it, if that makes sense.

00:28:55.00
Robert P. Ottone
Um, and one of them, I mean, I'm still very happy with both, but there was supposed to be a sequel to one of them. And when I started writing that sequel, I rewrote the first hundred pages twice. And I was just not feeling it anymore because of like all the reasons of chasing something that's not really inspiring anymore in this moment, in this season. And I'm so glad you mentioned that about the seasons because I feel 2024 so far for me has been a rebuilding season with us moving from Long Island Metro New York to upstate New York to my new job teaching up here to everything. know I'm going to StokerCon next year. I went the year that I was nominated and didn't get to go last year. It was like a whole thing. But like just taking time off

00:29:50.65
Robert P. Ottone
from sort of the more social aspects of writing like conventions and stuff like that and focusing on personal life stuff, house, money, wife, friends, like all of that has been so much more, you know, thrilling than forcing myself to hit deadlines of books that I signed contracts for. And I love writing, obviously, this is what we're here to sort of talk about, but also like,

00:30:20.90
Robert P. Ottone
You have to really take a step back. And like Michael said before, like friends and family, like you have to look at these things with the same zest and love that you have for your passion of writing. Because writing won't always be there. Or it may not always be there. One day it could be gone. You made like something might happen. You're not writing anymore.

00:30:48.18
Robert P. Ottone
People get, you know, blocked all the time. I don't get to write during the week at all. So on the weekends, I go nuts. But that's not, that's not what works for everybody.

00:31:04.96
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, and earlier, you were talking about your beginnings and it seems like with your parents, you had the perfect combination really to make you as a creative and a writer, because on the one hand, you've got your mother really feeding into the literature and the arts and just giving you all that inspiration.

00:31:27.37
Michael David Wilson
And then from your father, you had the fearlessness and you can do anything and you should never be afraid of public speaking. So, I mean, let, let's talk about your father to begin with. I mean, what, what was his job and what kind of things did you see him doing that then inspired you to go and do similar things with your fearlessness?

00:31:51.33
Robert P. Ottone
So my dad was a radio DJ here in New York in the early part of his life. And then he became a teacher because radio here in the States is a very transient kind of job in order to really succeed at it. You really need to uproot your whole family and move frequently. And he was not willing to do that. So he worked for a prominent radio station in New York City.

00:32:18.29
Robert P. Ottone
Then he worked for two prominent radio stations on Long Island, and he actually broke the news the night of the Amityville Horror. That was a thing that happened while he was on the air one night. He came across the teletype and he announced what had happened.

00:32:34.81
Robert P. Ottone
and and So that was, you know, that was his job. And then he went into teaching and he became a teacher at a high school that had a radio station and he taught radio. So it was like the perfect blend of both things. That's where I had my radio show and I took the class. I took the FCC test. I got my license, my FCC license, which I still have somewhere.

00:33:02.57
Robert P. Ottone
But you know so i grew up with this announcing background and my dad was also a public address announcer for a local baseball team.

00:33:12.97
Robert P. Ottone
And it was just like, it was always there. Performance was always there, like getting getting on a camera, getting in front of a microphone. All of that stuff was just always ingrained in me. And I'm very happy about that. I spent a lot of time at the radio station with him. I spent a lot of time with his radio station friends from like more, you know, like prominent stations on Long Island and in the city. I got to experience a lot of things as a result of knowing these people in entertainment and whatnot. I felt very lucky.

00:33:41.93
Robert P. Ottone
to be able to do so and also in sports and everything. Getting to go to Madison Square Garden and sit ringside for the WWF and like meeting Hulk Hogan as a little kid. I know he's a piece of shit now, but you know, to a little kid in 1989, he was everything, or 1988, he was everything. You know, you didn't know that this hot dog skinned man was a raging anti-union schmuck in the backstage of the WWF. But nevertheless, you know, getting to meet musicians and stuff like that, like it was a cool life growing up.

00:34:21.80
Robert P. Ottone
You know, and my mom was always reading when I took her to the Mark Twain Museum to meet Stephen King. That was like the highlight of her life because she loves him. And he gave her the biggest hug. I have that picture somewhere around here. I don't know where, but it was very cute. He could not have been sweeter. And that made my day that he was so kind to my mom.

00:34:49.51
Robert P. Ottone
But yeah, my dad was always a ah ah film guy, too. He loved movies. We loved the Halloween stuff. you We grew up doing haunted houses, so that got me into performance in a lot of ways. And then I did theater, and I did writing. I wrote some plays, and they were performed in a couple of different places. They were performed in LA, which was the first time I ever got on a plane.

00:35:14.15
Robert P. Ottone
my dad got to see it when it was in New York, when it was being workshopped here in New York, the play that I wrote. you know it it was always an artistic life. I did drawing lessons with my mom when I was home from school and my dad would take me out to different movies and stuff and just music was always around. I didn't grow up with like,

00:35:39.61
Robert P. Ottone
the classic rock kind of stuff. Like that was not the vibe in the Otone household. It was more like, I have a lot, I have a tremendous love for like Motown, because my dad loved Motown. I'm crazy about that. And my mom loved folk music.

00:35:56.74
Robert P. Ottone
like Dan Fogelberg and guys like that, like John Denver. And it's just the weirdest combination of stuff. Disco, I love disco to this day because of my dad. It's just like hearing these stories about him from his friends. And it was just a very artistic life, but it was a very performative life in a lot of ways. And then there was the athletic component. Like my friends and I, we were all,

00:36:25.70
Robert P. Ottone
like into theater, but we were also all athletes too. So we had like kind of the best of both worlds in a lot of ways. And senior year of high school post 9-11 was really a big change. Cause again, I'm in New York. I knew kids whose parents fucking died in 9-11. I'm talking both parents. And like, that was a ah ah significant thing in my school. Like it was New York and in the country, obviously you guys remember.

00:36:54.38
Robert P. Ottone
But in general, that was a big formative moment because that really brought all of us closer, my friend group, our parents, everything. We all got so much closer to our friends and our families as a result of that. And the art and the love and the creation and the performance and the athletics got even, it kind of went into overdrive. I ended up not doing any athletics senior year because of the heart murmur.

00:37:24.47
Robert P. Ottone
but I was still wanting to. Like I was desperate to like continue with it, but I couldn't do, I wasn't allowed. Like they just, as much as I wanted to, I wouldn't be allowed to. But, and that was all kind of there from the beginning, but it only went into hyperdrive senior year of high school because of, you know, we all kind of had this weird outlook and it changed so much. Everything changed that morning.

00:37:53.88
Robert P. Ottone
And it was like, what are we doing? We have to live to enjoy each other and enjoy the things that we do a little bit more, as opposed to this, like, I am going to college next year. I am going to study this. And it's like, I was going to study something I wasn't even that interested in. And then that happened and I had a conversation with my dad. I was like, dad, I don't, I don't know that I want to do this. And he was like, so what do you want to do? And I was like, I kind of want to write. And he was like, so write, get a, get a degree.

00:38:23.47
Robert P. Ottone
in English and get a degree in writing. And I ended up getting a degree in a bachelor's in English and creative writing. And then I got my master's in education and I got master of fine arts and children's literature as well. I have three masters altogether. But, you know, education was always a priority. The arts were a priority. Athletics were a priority.

00:38:51.02
Robert P. Ottone
reading was always a priority, so as it was always there. And my parents fostered it, they didn't put any restrictions on anything. There wasn't this, and I kind of believe in this now, one contact sport, one no contact sport for a child to play.

00:39:07.01
Robert P. Ottone
There was none of that when I was a kid. It was like literally basketball, football, hockey. Not hockey, but baseball. and Play everything. Play whatever you want until my body started falling apart.

00:39:19.03
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. And I mean, so you decided that you wanted to study and pursue creative writing seriously and academically from university, but I'm wondering what were some of the first stories that you wrote? Where did that storytelling interest stem from? And then related to that was.

00:39:45.12
Michael David Wilson
horror or at least genre always a concern for you.

00:39:49.93
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah, I was always interested in genre work. Towards the end of my bachelor's, I was kicked out of my thesis creative writing class that I was taking. I was kicked out of it because I didn't believe in critiquing someone else's work when they themselves were not comfortable with being critiqued. And there were a couple students in the class who were like, I don't know, this makes me uncomfortable, whatever. And I was like, all right, if you don't want anybody to critique your stuff, I'm not going to critique it then. So I got in trouble with the professor and he kicked me out of class. And then I wrote a screenplay for my final.

00:40:27.65
Robert P. Ottone
And he loved it so much. He tried to get me an agent. He got it to producers. He invited me back to class. And we became friends. And he blurbed my first collection. So that was a really cool formative thing. And he didn't put any restrictions on genre writing at all. So I wrote that particular screenplay was like a science fiction family fantasy kind of thing.

00:40:50.58
Robert P. Ottone
And I wrote some haunted house stuff that I was really interested in. And I wrote sort of like a revenge story because Old Boy had come out.

00:41:01.44
Robert P. Ottone
like are sort of around that time I guess I think it's 2004 so it would have been my second year of college yeah so I wrote a very similar to old boy kind of revenge thing because I've been obsessed with that movie forever because it's the best South Korean movie of all time and then he was very supportive of genre and then when I went into my MFA program they really pushed back on genre writing. And it was the same cliche, kind of like, we want you to write this kind of stuff. Like, oh, Rob, we don't want you writing genre because it it doesn't sell, number one. And you we look down on that. We want literary. we We want you writing about yourself and all that. And it's like,

00:41:54.02
Robert P. Ottone
I'm not fucking interested in any of that. So I'm going to write this story about a girl in a dystopian flooded world. who fights Lovecraftian monsters. And my whole goal with this book is to introduce younger readers to Lovecraft Lovecraft's writings and the Cthulhu Mythos and all of that stuff through the lens of sea level rise, the environment, and a young girl who is on the spectrum. So I wrote The Triangle during my MFA program.

00:42:33.67
Robert P. Ottone
The triangle was published and won the Bram Stoker Award. And in my MFA program, I'm still the only one who's been published. So I guess genre does have a place in the world. And of course, when that happened, of the first emails I got was from the professor who had told me that genre doesn't have a place in their MFA program. And I was like, thanks. Thank you so much.

00:43:00.49
Robert P. Ottone
Here's a picture of me with John Langan, who wrote the best horror novel in 30 years. you I get a little petty about it because I hate the idea of these and MFA programs telling people what they can and can't write. I'm paying you. I tell you what I write. How's that sound?

00:43:20.33
Robert P. Ottone
bothers me. See, I just got really New York there for a second. to try not to get Italian New Yorker on you too, because it might freak you out a little.

00:43:31.78
Michael David Wilson
You do what you need to do, but I mean, it kind of reminds me of some of my own experiences with English literature and creative writing.

00:43:30.54
Robert P. Ottone
I ate pizza.

00:43:42.46
Michael David Wilson
And not all of the professors, there were quite a few who were very encouraging of genre or at least encouraging of experimental, but Yeah, there was one in particular and I've said this on the podcast before because he was like, oh, you know, you read a lot of that genre stuff, but what you need to read is some Pablo Neruda. I remember because it's such a niche and such a specific recommendation, but yeah, he was trying to.

00:44:15.40
Michael David Wilson
get me away from genre and suggest that it's kind of a lower art form, whereas it it just isn't. It's a different art form.

00:44:25.23
Michael David Wilson
And sometimes it's not a different because literature and genre can be the same book. Hello, Stephen Graham Jones, for example.

00:44:32.100
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:44:33.85
Michael David Wilson
But I mean, the thing with your, pro yeah, the thing with your professors,

00:44:35.60
Robert P. Ottone
Correct.

00:44:40.71
Michael David Wilson
Again, not exactly understand, but I'm familiar with people saying they think that they don't like genre. Okay, fine. That's your opinion. But to say genre doesn't sell, it's... It's like, what the actual fuck are you talking about? I mean, it sells far more than literature. That's why I believe there's a lot of really disgruntled creative writing teachers and poets, because they see that art form as higher, but it just isn't selling in the numbers that genre is. So it's just a false statement. It's an absurd statement. It's

00:45:25.01
Michael David Wilson
A perplexing one what what have they been smoking and perhaps can i have some good stuff.

00:45:34.21
Bob Pastorella
Well, they they sit back in there with their you padded suits and with the elbow patches and smoke their pipes and they take their diplomas and roll them up into little shoddy sabers and say, no, no, no, you shouldn't write genre. You need to be writing literature. That's what you should do. And the reason why is because we've got 100 years of critiques that we can use to build a curriculum.

00:46:00.47
Bob Pastorella
Now that has been, it's been changing. Why is that? Because there are now 50 to 60 years worth of critique, literary critique on genre. So that's why you're seeing genre slowly working its way in MFA because now they can build a curriculum from it.

00:46:21.30
Robert P. Ottone
Yep.

00:46:21.42
Bob Pastorella
You know, there's still some old guard out there that'll stab you with their diploma.

00:46:22.38
Robert P. Ottone
That's true.

00:46:25.21
Bob Pastorella
No, no, no, it's literature, you know, genre is king.

00:46:28.56
Robert P. Ottone
but Yeah.

00:46:31.21
Bob Pastorella
It makes the money. It, especially with horror horrors, the original genre, cautionary tales told orally in front of a campfire, the bear will kill you.

00:46:41.93
Bob Pastorella
I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's crazy shit, but it's true.

00:46:46.76
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:46:48.32
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, in terms of the triangle, I mean, you won the Bram Stoker for it. It was published only a couple of years back now, originally. But, you know, you said that you wrote it during your program. So that's quite a gap between initially writing it or at least writing the first iteration of it and then publication. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that story and perhaps what was happening in the years between first draft and publication.

00:47:28.05
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah, so I wrote it actually during COVID. I got my MFA during COVID and I worked on it, I think about Yeah, it would have been about a year, a little over a year and a half, I guess, maybe. i was writing it in the program and refining it and working with the two mentors who were both genre, by the way, and they were both incredibly supportive and kind and they both blurbed it. They were very amazing and the loveliest mentors I could have asked for.

00:48:02.63
Robert P. Ottone
at that time we were working really hard on it and they they they gave such amazing feedback and such amazing critique and everything they said I was like yes great and I you know added to it and took things out and then it was maybe about maybe at most eight months after that I was able to sell it to Raventail was the original publisher and they were just starting out

00:48:32.99
Robert P. Ottone
And they had, they saw the success of Her Infernal Name as small as it was. That was my second collection. And that had made the, I don't remember, I think it had made the preliminary ballot for the stoker, which was very sweet to see. And then saw that, they saw, know, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And I had a whole bunch of short story sales in the meantime.

00:48:59.03
Robert P. Ottone
And they reached out and they were like, hey, you know, we're looking for longer fiction. Do you have anything? And I was like, well, I have this YA book that I just finished, uh, not, or finished not super long ago. And they loved it.

00:49:11.89
Robert P. Ottone
And they published it and I published the sequel with them and I published a Bigfoot horror novel with them. And they were, you know, it was nice to be published by them. I was very lucky that they were interested in what I was doing and everything. But they they also felt very much like.

00:49:32.68
Robert P. Ottone
they just wanted content to put out as opposed to like giving things the attention they deserved and really trying to you know because they publish a lot of really good stuff but like you'd never know it because they're just putting something new out constantly and it's like pump the brakes a little bit and they just weren't really vibing with that so It got nominated and it won. And I was over the moon. I still am over the moon. And I just I wanted to see the book go somewhere to a publisher that would celebrate it a little bit more. So I was able to get the rights back. And it's just been republished this past June.

00:50:14.32
Robert P. Ottone
um by Undertaker Books and uh they're out of upstate New York and they did this beautiful version of it. They put the sticker that it won the stoker on it which is something Raven Tail refused to do even when Todd Kiesling offered to do it for free. Um you know there's little things here and there that just made me want to take the rights back but the the time that was spent like having the novel was really time for me to think about what I wanted to do with it, but also in that time from finishing the triangle to the publication of the triangle, I had started work on the vile thing we created in that time. So I wasn't ready to like to do anything with that because I was still focused so much on writing the vile thing.

00:51:06.23
Robert P. Ottone
And I also, once my MFA ended, I started a mentorship with the HWA, the Horror Writers Association. And my mentorship was with Michael Nast, who is a Stoker winner himself. And he could not have been more supportive. And as were sort of coming out of COVID and those early coming out of it times, he and I were able to get together in person and spend more time together and really knuckle down on the vile thing.

00:51:34.94
Robert P. Ottone
So right around the time, The Triangle actually sold to Raventail and I got my first advance and I had a, you know, I was like, wow, this is great. I never imagined this would ever happen. That's really cool. Then it got published and, you know, what I could tell, like it did fine. My royalties on it were fine. Like I have no complaints. I don't really, it's not why I'm doing this. Like I just kind of like to do it.

00:52:04.20
Robert P. Ottone
Um, but at the same time, like they were very supportive. And then when it got nominated, they were like, Oh, that's really great. And then when I won, it was like, Oh, cool. The vile thing had come out. Two, no. Yeah. Two months prior, uh, the vile thing came out April 18th. Stoker Con was June. No, Stoker. Yeah. Stoker Con was June, middle of June. So it was about two months at that point.

00:52:32.28
Robert P. Ottone
So it was already like I had already transitioned into the new thing because, you know, the triangle was already out almost a year, a little bit less than a year, I guess, at that point. And I'd had the follow up come out three months later. So I wrote the sequel like right away. And the thing that I wanted to do with the triangle and the deep specifically was I wanted to tell two very different stories. Like the first one I wanted to be more of a survival horror story.

00:52:59.20
Robert P. Ottone
The second one I wanted to be more of an action horror story. So I guess in my mind part of me was thinking like alien to aliens or you know, whatever whatever. second one was very Lord of the Rings inspired. I'm a huge Lord of the Rings nerd. That's my wife's fault because she's a Lord of the Rings nerd, but I just love that story. So in my mind, I started thinking more about the lead character, Aslan, who's named after my niece. I was thinking more about how Well, she should have like, she's turned so inward by the end of the first book. In the second book, she needs to open up because she needs to have a group around her. And that's what I wanted to do with the second book. So you sort of see like, if you think of it in terms of Lord of the Rings,

00:53:46.25
Robert P. Ottone
She's sort of forming the fellowship in the second book that's going to carry them into the final engagement with the cosmic nightmare that's lurking just beyond the veil. And I was able to put the first chapter of the third book in this new collection. That's something I was really excited about. When they asked if I wanted to do that, I was like, well, just so happened to have it right here. And so that was really cool. was a lot of fun.

00:54:16.04
Robert P. Ottone
So I still love that series. I'm gonna be filming, ah Jesus. I didn't say that. I am gonna be finishing that trilogy with Undertaker books and I'm very happy to finish it. But it's very, it's daunting in a lot of ways to have like a trilogy of books or like the third one in a trilogy to write, especially if since the first one won the stoker.

00:54:44.37
Robert P. Ottone
Because it's like, well, if that third one sucks, like, did the first one actually suck? I don't know. So I just want to do a good job. And the people who like it, I just want them to still like it. I don't know. It's weird. I think I feel like I got so far away from your question. I'm sorry.

00:55:03.44
Michael David Wilson
No, no. I mean, it's all good stuff. And I realized, you know, quickly on as you were answering it that I guess I'd got my timeline a little bit muddled because you did the initial English and creative writing program.

00:55:18.74
Michael David Wilson
You said your second year was in 2004 and then apropos of nothing. I just decided your MFA was back to back, which is why I thought there'd been a much kind of longer

00:55:33.35
Michael David Wilson
Gap between writing the triangle and the publication but what this does perhaps highlight and i'd be interested in so after.

00:55:44.13
Michael David Wilson
You're finishing the English and creative writing undergraduate program and then starting the MFA, COVID, all of the writing that you did in that time.

00:55:45.82
Robert P. Ottone
Uh-huh.

00:55:56.88
Michael David Wilson
Does that mean there was a gap between you actually writing or were you always constantly writing, but there was a kind of drive for you to then be like, right now I'm going to get published.

00:56:08.66
Michael David Wilson
Now I'm going to put these things out in the world.

00:56:11.82
Robert P. Ottone
There was no fiction being written at all because I was an executive editor for a mortgage magazine, which was obviously the driest, most boring thing in the world. So there was that. So all the writing I was doing was focused on the mortgage world and I was doing like I was kind of moonlighting as an entertainment reporter for a local magazine here on the island or not here on the island but on Long Island and that was kind of like scratching my entertainment and like fun itch was getting to do that stuff so everything was nonfiction that I was working on

00:56:50.17
Robert P. Ottone
Um, and these are the days like post financial collapse in America. So post 2008, 2009 ish, uh, in that realm. And then I went back to school for my educational masters. I believe in 2015, graduated in 2017, got my second educational masters not long after that. And then during COVID, which would have been 2020, 2020 was, um,

00:57:20.54
Robert P. Ottone
I got I started the MFA and got the MFA at that time, which would have been the third Masters. So I'm collecting these pieces of paper that have little to no ah actual meaning, these like degrees and whatnot. But I'm very thankful that like during the MFA program, I was able to write the triangle because it really was like something I wanted to tell and I wanted to talk about and my niece gets teased or was getting teased at school and she's like yeah there's a character in a book named after me and it won an award and everybody would be like no there isn't you don't know and she's like okay like I have it it's here

00:58:00.23
Robert P. Ottone
But it's, you know, there was not a, the writing that I was doing, like the journalism stuff, I did some crime reporting also at the time, which is how I sort of got involved in like true crime stuff, which is something I do to this day. I do true crime lectures. It's how I got involved in the Long Island Serial Killer investigation, which is one of the only times I've ever been threatened on the job as a reporter.

00:58:26.08
Robert P. Ottone
Um, so there's a lot of stuff that was there. I found the investigatory aspect of reporting, specifically the crime stuff, really exciting and really thrilling. Like whether I was getting threatened or not, like I was still really like, boy, like this, like this is exciting kind of stuff. But, you know, having to go to.

00:58:49.62
Robert P. Ottone
mortgage trade shows and stuff and meeting these like soulless fucking ghouls in suits who their only goal is to separate you from your money for 30 years left a real bad taste in my mouth. I got to meet Ted Cruz at that time.

00:59:09.38
Robert P. Ottone
Bob, I know this may break your heart because he's Texas guy and I'm sure you hate him as should but was a real piece of shit when I met him.

00:59:19.15
Robert P. Ottone
met him in the tunnels underneath the Capitol building and when he saw that I was from New York.

00:59:23.46
Bob Pastorella
This is before he was able to come out into the sunlight or what?

00:59:27.30
Robert P. Ottone
ah ah Yeah,

00:59:30.56
Robert P. Ottone
he was just a real asshole. I was with a bunch of dudes from Texas, a bunch of mortgage brokers from Texas and they were fun. They were fun, uh, you know, nice enough.

00:59:40.78
Robert P. Ottone
But when we met Ted Cruz, he was like, Oh, where are you? Where are you boys from? And they were all like, Oh, I'm from here and here and here in Texas. He's like, what about you? And I was like, I'm from New York. And he was like, uh, I was like, yeah, asshole.

00:59:55.79
Bob Pastorella
Yeah.

00:59:56.31
Robert P. Ottone
So that's like, that was one interesting thing that happened working for the mortgage magazine was I met Ted Cruz and he was a dick, but yeah.

01:00:06.45
Michael David Wilson
And during that fiction writing hiatus, I mean...

01:00:11.23
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

01:00:12.08
Michael David Wilson
you feel an absence because of it? Was there a longing to get back into fiction or were you so consumed with the work that you were doing that was almost no time to miss it?

01:00:25.64
Michael David Wilson
Or I mean, sometimes when we get so involved in work, it it it doesn't feel like we're missing the fiction because it's like this is just temporary.

01:00:36.31
Michael David Wilson
I'm going back to it.

01:00:37.31
Michael David Wilson
It just happens in your case that it was a little longer. than most.

01:00:42.69
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah, I was always missing it. um there were like a little tiny bit of times where I got to do some freelance creative stuff. I worked on a couple video games. I worked on a really great horror franchise called Decay. They came out on the Xbox 360 and I think there was on the Xbox One also. Those were a blast to work on.

01:01:07.95
Robert P. Ottone
and and that was really cool so like little things like that would come through um the play that i one of the plays i had written in college had gotten performed a couple times even though i wasn't actively working on it seeing them get seeing it get performed and workshopped a couple times by producers and stuff that was really cool um but yeah i always wanted to go back to it especially as i was getting more and more into like obsessively studying film in my like spare time kind of thing and just wanting to go back to screenwriting and wanting to try writing comic books and stuff like that. I still would love to write a comic book. Nothing would make me happier in this lifetime than to actually get to write a comic book. But again, it's just, I was so bogged down with like the everyday normal work, which is kind of how I feel now as a teacher. Cause like my most creative time is in the morning.

01:02:04.64
Robert P. Ottone
And I can't, I'm not good like it's, you know, right now it's nighttime. And I know a lot of writers write at night and whatever and that's very cool like, but I can't do that because my brain is just shot, especially like, I was all day in the classroom with the kids and I love the kids but it's like,

01:02:22.42
Robert P. Ottone
The code switching takes a lot out of me throughout the day. So like I save it all for the weekend. And I do actually get to sit down and write, I'm good for like 5,000 words. Like I can get that done. That's nothing. I could fart that out in an hour and a half. But like when it, cause I'm saving it up so much. Like tomorrow I know exactly what I'm writing. I have two short stories that I i was asked to write. I'm going to write both of them probably tomorrow.

01:02:50.60
Robert P. Ottone
That'll be about 7,000 words total. But at the same time, like, do I wish I could spend more time with the creative stuff during the week? Yeah. But also that doesn't mean that I'm not taking notes for things that I'm gonna work on. Or like I'm coming up with lines of dialogue or whatever that I just scribble down on my phone really quick and I'm like, yeah, that'll go good in this scene later on. My mind's always thinking creatively.

01:03:17.33
Robert P. Ottone
Even though I don't get to do a lot of creative stuff like necessarily in the classroom, the creative stuff is still always coming. And even during that time when I was, you know, as a journalist, the creative part for me was the crime stuff and like indulging the my excitement for writing through crime and covering crime, specifically the Long Island serial killer. That shit was so thrilling.

01:03:44.86
Robert P. Ottone
at the time, it was a horrible, horrible thing that happened. Like, I mean, any serial killer is a horrible, horrible thing. But my God, that investigation in those early days when we were trying to figure out like, what the fuck happened? Like, whoa, that was insane. And I felt like I was in the midst of something that was going to be all consuming. And then it died.

01:04:13.87
Robert P. Ottone
And I was like, guys, there's a serial killer here. Like our property taxes are $28,000 a year and they can't catch this fucker. Like does this not concern everybody? And it's like, no, 24 hour news cycle. Like it was gone within a month. Like people stopped caring except for people who paid attention to it, you know?

01:04:39.80
Robert P. Ottone
And that was the weirdest thing was seeing like attentions change, but it was still like an exciting like creative time, even though it wasn't creative writing, you know?

01:04:52.28
Robert P. Ottone
I'm just thinking best.

01:04:52.86
Michael David Wilson
And what happened in terms of you being threatened? We got to find out a little bit about that.

01:05:01.74
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah, I don't think I've ever told this story on a podcast before.

01:05:06.98
Michael David Wilson
Here we go. We've got an exclusive.

01:05:11.04
Robert P. Ottone
So been in touch. I'm still actually sort of in touch. I hear from this guy sometimes. I'm not going to say his name because he's like a very like under underground guy.

01:05:23.88
Robert P. Ottone
He's a former cop from New York City from, like, the all-or-nothing days of, like, the 70s and 80s in New York. Like, this guy's a badass. That might give you an indication of how old he might be. But he... I had gotten a lot of names during my own investigation into the serial killer, and I was like, okay, just kind of looking into all of them at the time.

01:05:48.47
Robert P. Ottone
And I was like, okay, and he gave me a bunch of great intel and like unbelievable stuff that I was like, I can't believe this. Then like, ah you know, ah ah sporadically, people would send me information and whatnot and whatever. So I followed up on a lead from another source that like, I didn't vet fully.

01:06:11.82
Robert P. Ottone
And I met them at a, like, so obviously Long Island is an island, yeah. So I met them at like a ferry area a town called Seville, which is like one of my favorite towns on Long Island. And at the ferry, I met them just, you know, I didn't get on the ferry or anything. I met them at where the ferry takes off the terminal, let's say. And we met.

01:06:40.05
Robert P. Ottone
And this individual was not like a particularly physically threatening individual, but they spoke about not spoke about how I should not look into certain people, because it would not only be bad for me, in terms of the writing, it would be bad for me in other ways.

01:07:04.39
Robert P. Ottone
And they intimated essentially that like, not that I would be killed or anything like that, but that, you know, physically it wouldn't be great. And also in terms of legal, mumbo jumbo, it would not be great. And this particular person that they were kind of steering me away from, is a person who let's just say they are no longer living.

01:07:33.27
Robert P. Ottone
However, there are a lot of hints that they were in fact involved in this case. But at the same time, it was strange to be threatened in this way because I was not obviously anticipating this. I was anticipating getting some information and getting to know this new source that had come sort of out of the woodwork, I guess. But at the same time, I couldn't say no because I was still so new to looking into this case. and So I wanted to hear everything that I could because you never know when the next good kernel is gonna come out that you could either report on or you could use for a later date.

01:08:13.55
Robert P. Ottone
In this case, it was just a very, not even cloak and dagger, it was just a very like, you should not continue with this because these things will happen. And this is the order in which they will happen. This will happen if you do this, this will happen if you do this. So it was like a tree of of branching decisions kind of thing. And they kind of outlined this. And then they left before I left the location they got in their car and they left.

01:08:43.63
Robert P. Ottone
And I was just kind of sitting there for a while and the first thing I did was I called one of my lawyers and told them what had happened and I gave them a description of this person. I gave them the name that they had given me. Then I called my editor and the editor kind of said like, okay, we're gonna drop this now. And I said, okay.

01:09:07.63
Robert P. Ottone
But I kept all of the information in the back pocket because then I did a podcast later on that's no longer available all about the Long Island Serial Killer and my theories and stuff like that. So that was a ah ah really weird interesting time. And it wasn't even like it happened in the middle of the night or anything. Like it wasn't spooky. It was literally evening.

01:09:29.67
Robert P. Ottone
Sun was going down, but it was like a beautiful coastal Long Island sunset. It was a perfectly normal day. I went to McDonald's after, because I was so freaked out. I had to eat my feelings a little bit. I you know i was fully charged. And then I told my dad what had happened. And I told my mom. And they were happy that I was not going to be looking into it anymore. My lawyer looked into it. they really didn't come up with anything. I had a couple other guys who I actually one of them I still use to get information if I need it. These guys are one of them will say is a bit of a pipe hitter.

01:10:10.84
Robert P. Ottone
Like they're not afraid to get a little dirty, which is why I'm happy to have them in my pocket if I need them. But they didn't really uncover a lot about this person. I think in my mind, this person worked for the person that I was trying to get information about. And they were kind of sent specifically to be like, hey, don't ask any fucking questions, nerd. Which makes sense to me.

01:10:40.32
Bob Pastorella
It's like the way, oh, I'm sorry.

01:10:40.55
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. We'll go on, Bob.

01:10:44.43
Robert P. Ottone
Oh.

01:10:44.58
Bob Pastorella
I was going to say that the way that you described this guy is kind of like, um, what's his name's character in a casino when he wants his money.

01:10:56.46
Bob Pastorella
And because he's threatening you physically and in legally. And so it's like, oh, you know, I'd probably do a terrible New York accident, but the first of all, I'm going to beat your skull in and then I'm going to sue the shit out of you. You know, and it's like, Oh, I've got to get a bodyguard and an attorney. Did they come all in one package?

01:11:18.55
Robert P. Ottone
They can for the right price.

01:11:20.28
Bob Pastorella
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. You had to get out say a cold rich.

01:11:23.62
Robert P. Ottone
I joke around ah around with my buddy John, he's a horror writer.

01:11:26.49
Bob Pastorella
Yeah.

01:11:29.80
Robert P. Ottone
He's also a very physically imposing guy. Whenever I go to like an event and he comes with me, I always introduce him. I'm like, this is one of the best horror writers I know. He's also my bodyguard. You know, cause it's like, if if anything goes down, I got this guy.

01:11:44.83
Robert P. Ottone
To back me up, I like in my time lecturing, there's been weird things that have happened, like public ones. People are weird sometimes with like true crime stuff. But this was the weirdest. And this was only time where I felt like, oh, we could be in danger.

01:12:05.59
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, I think you were kind of at that crossroads as to whether there was or wasn't going to be a movie made about you later and you're probably going to ah be be a cautionary tale who had looked too far into it and was no longer about, had mysteriously disappeared and Yeah, I mean, you made the choice that nobody makes in the movies or the TV shows because you don't have a show, but you probably made the choice that the people should make, you know?

01:12:26.01
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

01:12:39.28
Robert P. Ottone
I think of Red Riding. You remember the Red Riding trilogy, the movies? Yeah, I think if the one with Andrew Garfield, where at the end his life is just fucked and he like kills himself basically or whatever, it it's like, oh good, yeah, that's how that could have gone.

01:12:50.66
Bob Pastorella
Mm hmm.

01:12:57.07
Robert P. Ottone
I'm glad it didn't.

01:12:58.62
Robert P. Ottone
But yeah, it was like a really weird time. It was like the things that I learned about sort of like the political and power underbelly of Long Island, which like,

01:13:12.10
Robert P. Ottone
You know, you don't really, I don't know, like how much do you guys know about Long Island, New York?

01:13:18.41
Bob Pastorella
Very little.

01:13:19.82
Robert P. Ottone
Amityville?

01:13:20.19
Michael David Wilson
Definitely less than you. Yeah, I mean, we how many people, yeah.

01:13:24.58
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah, like Amityville, you know, Amity Island is like loosely based on the east end of Long Island from Jaws and stuff like the real life Quint lived on Long Island on the east end, stuff like that, right? Like people just don't know a lot about Long Island. The first Final Destination movie that takes place on Long Island. But like people don't know a ton about it. So like you have a lot of it's ah really interesting diverse area.

01:13:53.17
Robert P. Ottone
And, but also at the same time, there's a lot of old money on Long Island. It's really strange. And like those roots go deep on Long Island. And these people, some of the people who are like, who have a lot of dough, obviously they have a lot of influence. And these are the people that you don't really want to fuck with. Cause these are the people who can do the things that I was threatened with, you know? So like, it's not,

01:14:20.37
Robert P. Ottone
That's kind of Long Island in a lot of ways because it's so expensive to live there that it's only the people with that old money can, or like if you're like a dot com schmuck or whatever you want to say, like those are really the only kind of people who can really still afford to stay. You know, a lot of younger people are leaving, myself and my wife included, you know? ah that we live in now that we bought would be close to a million dollars on Long Island. It was not that. I didn't pay that. You know, like the Amityville Horror House, that's 1.8 million dollars. It's a beautiful house. But is it worth that? I don't know. Fucking people died there. see who who who who You know, like I don't play that game. But yeah, it's it's a weird place. And it's like a

01:15:15.15
Robert P. Ottone
ah ah strange place and it's a strange place to be from because in so many ways like I had the Spielbergy Amblin Entertainment upbringing you know I didn't know how to ride a bike but I was out with my friends and having a good time and like it was perfectly normal and never felt threatened or anything like that that only happened when I grew up But yeah, like like it's a weird place. I'm gonna miss it in some ways, but I'm not gonna miss it in others.