Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've got authored Dave Wedge in studio and this is
strange the way that's happened.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Okay, So your buddy, who is the chef, Andy recently
and said you need to connect with a Boston author
named Dave Wedge and got you write about true crime,
and we love true crime. Here we just came off
the heels of the Karen Reid trial. And I know
that you're working on a Karen Reid book. But people
(00:24):
if they don't know Dave Wedge. Dave Wedge wrote Boston
Strong with Casey Sherman, which was turned into Patriots Day
starring Mark Wahlberg.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Yeah. Yeah, Casey and I wrote that book back in
twenty fourteen. I was a reporter at the Boston Herald
for fourteen years and led the Herald's coverage when that
all happened. I was out there in Watertown that night,
in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
And you were there when they were searching for the
guy on the boat.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
I got sent out as soon as Sean Collier got shot,
and over at MIT, I get sent out, and as
I was on my way there, I got diverted from
there to Watertown because we heard on the scanner of
the bombs wow in the shootout, so I was stuck
out there. Actually was actually trapped in the crime scene,
and I got stuck out there through the night.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
You were that close. I was in the crimes so
what was going down? That must have been a crazy
time because they were looking for the guy, right, They
were everywhere. And then all of a sudden, the story
popped from Mit and the MIT cop was shot, and
then you hear it, you're running out. It was it
was not sign.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
My son, who's now twelve, was two weeks old, and
my wife, Jessica has had the baby on maternity leave,
and I came home after covering the bombings all day
and then we heard the shooting of Sean Collier on
the TV. When I finally sat down, I was trying
to help with the baby finally, and I said, you know,
this doesn't happen. Something's wrong, and I kind of knew
right away it had to be connected.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Then I got sent out. So God, I've seen the
movie five or six times, so they get to the
scene at the boat. Like I'm getting chills now just
thinking about it.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
It's amazing that more police officers weren't killed in that.
It was it was really an incredibly intense moment.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Wow, what made you write the book?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Well, as I said, I've been a reporter for fourteen years.
I was always wanted to do a book. I was
a report of twenty years. Actually. I had a few
opportunities with a couple other stories over the years, but
nothing that really jumped out at me and made me say,
you know what, I want to dedicate a year or
two of my life to this. But when the bombings happened,
I knew someone was going to do it. I knew
there probably be a bunch of books, and I was like,
you know what, I'm in the middle of it. I
(02:18):
have access to all these people. I know I can
do a good job on it. In Casey's an amazing writer,
he had just come off The Finest Hours, which is
a beautiful booking movie, and he's a friend, so I
knew we would do a great job together.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
So it was kind of a no brainer for me
to jump in. Now, at least a couple of seconds ago, mention,
Karen Reid is your Karen read book, the one they're
talking about the big film.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Unfortunately, know that's Karen Reid herself with her attorney Alan Jackson.
But this is another one. I was thinking about doing
a book on the Karen Read case way back before
the first trial when it all first started happening, and
I kind of tabled it to write this book that
just came out about Marvelous Marvin Hagler. When the second
trial came up, I jumped back in after I finished
(02:58):
this one, and I've been working on my can reybook
for the past six months, seven months.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
It seems like in Boston we have a lot of
true crime stories.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Oh yeah, it's you know, it's there's so many great
stories in the world where a culture of storytellers just
humans in general. But in Boston we're really good at
telling stories and a lot of really incredible stories come
out of it. And the bombing is a great example.
You know, there was books about the terrorist. You know,
there's books about different people Involvemo.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
But we wrote the.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Story about the survivors and how they overcame and that
redemption moment and some of the survivors that lost limbs
and then ran the marathon the next year. You know,
That's that's what Patten Strong is and that's why we
wrote it.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
You know, were you happy with the way the movie
came out. I think it's a great movie.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
You know, it's they did they did. When it first
came out, it was raw, so it was a little like,
you know, I wasn't sure, but I watched it for
the ten year anniversary last year, and I think it's
held up well. I think it captured the spirit of
what happened. I think Mark Wahlberg did a great job,
and Peteburg's.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
A great film.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Did they have you on the set?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
We were on set a good amount.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Yeah, and you know, wow, we didn't write the script,
but you know, they kept us in the loop and
we worked with them to make sure things were write
and accurate. And you know, I couldn't say better things.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
About Pete Burg and Mark Wahlberg.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
The wonderful d with Berg is amazingly talented, very talent.
And that was a difficult story at a difficult time.
Remember the FBI. There was things the FBI didn't want out,
like there was moments where Pete had to actually meet
with the FBI to clear stuff. It was a it
was a difficult, difficult movie to make, and we were
in a time where again it was very raw.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Now with the Karen Read book will you have talks
with Karen Reid.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I have met with Karen a couple of times before
the first trial.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I've talked to Alan Jackson many times.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
But you know, they're going to do their own books.
So I'm going to skate my lane and write my book,
and my book will be the definitive story of what
happened in the case from all sides.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So Dave has a new book out. It's called Blood
and Hate, the marvelous Marvin Hagler story.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
About the boxer.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
But the biggest thing is is that it's been optioned
by actor Sam Rockwell, who was just in The White Lotus.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, So this book is kind of my labor of love.
It's my love letter to the city I grew up in, Brockton.
It's my eighth book, and again it's one that I
kind of thought about doing for a few years, and
then I finally did it after I finished my last book,
which was about bikers and cops and stuff, a true
crime book called Writing with Evil. I wanted to write
this book with Marvin when he was alive, but after
(05:20):
he passed away, I was like, you know what, this
guy's legacy has never really been secured. A lot of
people think of Marvin Hagler, they think, oh, he lost
to Sugary Len and then disappeared. But to me, Marvin's
story is this story, which is him escaping Newark as
a little boy, fighting the corruption in the seventies and
eighties in the box and they're winning this fight in
London in nineteen eighty against a guy that was backed
(05:41):
by a white power group and he was pelted with
bottles after he won the fight. And that's what the
story is about.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, at least it was telling me that in the
Marvin story. I wasn't to realize this because we would
have Marvin on the show a lot, you know, right
out of Brockton, Yeah, World Channel. But he dealt with
a lot of racism.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
He did in that fight specifically, and it was nineteen
eighty and the guy he fought was a guy named
Alan Minter, and he was from London and he was
the great White Hope and there was a white power
group that loved the guy. They backed him, it was
called the National Front. Before the fight, Marvin and Alan
had a press conference and Alan said at that press
conference that no black man will ever take my title.
No imagine saying that today. Oh, viral doesn't even describe it.
(06:20):
There was no viral back then, but it stuck. It
caused a wound, and Alan Miner.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Paid for that comment. Now, Dave. A little bit earlier
on the show, I told Marvin Hagler story that I
had from an old Kiss concert and I'm not sure
you'll find it in the book though. When he was back,
they missed that. Yeah, he was. He was a man
about town. You know a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
The beautiful thing about this book is I'm out doing
events all the time now and book signings, and it's
wonderful to hear people like you come up from, you know,
from people in their you know, forties and fifties at
New Marvin sixties even, and they spent time with them.
They hung out with him and went to his fights.
And we call him the fifth Franchise in Brockton because
he was as big as the Patriots.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Red Sox back in the day. Yeah, I loved him
in this region. Justin had your hand in there.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Joe Rogan, you know, one of the biggest podcasters in
the world, grew up in Boston.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
He was a big Marvin fan.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
When I was a kid growing up in Boston. Hagler
was the Middleway champion of the world. And I used
to see they used to have video of him running.
They played it on the news. He was running on
the There was the dunes, sand dunes and Kate Cod
in the winter, freezing cold with a hoodie on, running
screaming war. It's amazing. Marvin Hagler made you want to
just get out of your house and go running in
(07:34):
the snow.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
The picture then the snow. Yeah, you know Rogan.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Rogan loves Hagler because he he knows great great it's
when he says it, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, And he was.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
The thing about Marvin again, was you know, to me,
he embodies the spirit of where I grew up. You know, Brockton.
It's resilience, it's overcoming adversity. He wasn't an insider in
the boxing game. He wasn't with Dawn King of an outsider,
and so were his trained as the local trainer, and
they fought against that very corrupt machine. And there's there's
some great.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Stuff in the book.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
I could talk about it all day, but suffice to say,
Ted Kennedy and Tip O'Neil had to step in to.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Help Marvin while his title shot. That's how corrupt it was,
and the most ripped person I've ever seen in my life.
And that's before all the crazy stuff that people are.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
You know, this is going to be another great movie,
I think.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
So you know.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And Sam Rockwell optioned the rights to it, as you said,
and I've been working with him and we've actually brought
on Rosie Perez as an and uh, Sam wants to
play Goodie Petronelli and h'd be great at it because
Goody was such a quirky, you know, wearing headbands and
ye see sat dressed up in the seventies, garb. You know,
I so happy you guys have me in. I love
(08:48):
the show. Fellow Milton night Lee, so Billy, I love
your work. Been following you for years, so thank you,
thank you very much. And you could be one of
the best dressed writers I've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
That with the greatest respect. Thank my wife for that.
Who are you wearing? By the way, never mind forget
I have
We've got authored Dave Wedge in studio and this is
strange the way that's happened.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Okay, So your buddy, who is the chef, Andy recently
and said you need to connect with a Boston author
named Dave Wedge and got you write about true crime,
and we love true crime. Here we just came off
the heels of the Karen Reid trial. And I know
that you're working on a Karen Reid book. But people
(00:24):
if they don't know Dave Wedge. Dave Wedge wrote Boston
Strong with Casey Sherman, which was turned into Patriots Day
starring Mark Wahlberg.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Yeah. Yeah, Casey and I wrote that book back in
twenty fourteen. I was a reporter at the Boston Herald
for fourteen years and led the Herald's coverage when that
all happened. I was out there in Watertown that night,
in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
And you were there when they were searching for the
guy on the boat.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
I got sent out as soon as Sean Collier got shot,
and over at MIT, I get sent out, and as
I was on my way there, I got diverted from
there to Watertown because we heard on the scanner of
the bombs wow in the shootout, so I was stuck
out there. Actually was actually trapped in the crime scene,
and I got stuck out there through the night.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
You were that close. I was in the crimes so
what was going down? That must have been a crazy
time because they were looking for the guy, right, They
were everywhere. And then all of a sudden, the story
popped from Mit and the MIT cop was shot, and
then you hear it, you're running out. It was it
was not sign.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
My son, who's now twelve, was two weeks old, and
my wife, Jessica has had the baby on maternity leave,
and I came home after covering the bombings all day
and then we heard the shooting of Sean Collier on
the TV. When I finally sat down, I was trying
to help with the baby finally, and I said, you know,
this doesn't happen. Something's wrong, and I kind of knew
right away it had to be connected.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Then I got sent out. So God, I've seen the
movie five or six times, so they get to the
scene at the boat. Like I'm getting chills now just
thinking about it.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
It's amazing that more police officers weren't killed in that.
It was it was really an incredibly intense moment.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Wow, what made you write the book?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Well, as I said, I've been a reporter for fourteen years.
I was always wanted to do a book. I was
a report of twenty years. Actually. I had a few
opportunities with a couple other stories over the years, but
nothing that really jumped out at me and made me say,
you know what, I want to dedicate a year or
two of my life to this. But when the bombings happened,
I knew someone was going to do it. I knew
there probably be a bunch of books, and I was like,
you know what, I'm in the middle of it. I
(02:18):
have access to all these people. I know I can
do a good job on it. In Casey's an amazing writer,
he had just come off The Finest Hours, which is
a beautiful booking movie, and he's a friend, so I
knew we would do a great job together.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
So it was kind of a no brainer for me
to jump in. Now, at least a couple of seconds ago, mention,
Karen Reid is your Karen read book, the one they're
talking about the big film.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Unfortunately, know that's Karen Reid herself with her attorney Alan Jackson.
But this is another one. I was thinking about doing
a book on the Karen Read case way back before
the first trial when it all first started happening, and
I kind of tabled it to write this book that
just came out about Marvelous Marvin Hagler. When the second
trial came up, I jumped back in after I finished
(02:58):
this one, and I've been working on my can reybook
for the past six months, seven months.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
It seems like in Boston we have a lot of
true crime stories.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Oh yeah, it's you know, it's there's so many great
stories in the world where a culture of storytellers just
humans in general. But in Boston we're really good at
telling stories and a lot of really incredible stories come
out of it. And the bombing is a great example.
You know, there was books about the terrorist. You know,
there's books about different people Involvemo.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
But we wrote the.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Story about the survivors and how they overcame and that
redemption moment and some of the survivors that lost limbs
and then ran the marathon the next year. You know,
That's that's what Patten Strong is and that's why we
wrote it.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
You know, were you happy with the way the movie
came out. I think it's a great movie.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
You know, it's they did they did. When it first
came out, it was raw, so it was a little like,
you know, I wasn't sure, but I watched it for
the ten year anniversary last year, and I think it's
held up well. I think it captured the spirit of
what happened. I think Mark Wahlberg did a great job,
and Peteburg's.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
A great film.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Did they have you on the set?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
We were on set a good amount.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Yeah, and you know, wow, we didn't write the script,
but you know, they kept us in the loop and
we worked with them to make sure things were write
and accurate. And you know, I couldn't say better things.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
About Pete Burg and Mark Wahlberg.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
The wonderful d with Berg is amazingly talented, very talent.
And that was a difficult story at a difficult time.
Remember the FBI. There was things the FBI didn't want out,
like there was moments where Pete had to actually meet
with the FBI to clear stuff. It was a it
was a difficult, difficult movie to make, and we were
in a time where again it was very raw.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Now with the Karen Read book will you have talks
with Karen Reid.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I have met with Karen a couple of times before
the first trial.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I've talked to Alan Jackson many times.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
But you know, they're going to do their own books.
So I'm going to skate my lane and write my book,
and my book will be the definitive story of what
happened in the case from all sides.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So Dave has a new book out. It's called Blood
and Hate, the marvelous Marvin Hagler story.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
About the boxer.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
But the biggest thing is is that it's been optioned
by actor Sam Rockwell, who was just in The White Lotus.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, So this book is kind of my labor of love.
It's my love letter to the city I grew up in, Brockton.
It's my eighth book, and again it's one that I
kind of thought about doing for a few years, and
then I finally did it after I finished my last book,
which was about bikers and cops and stuff, a true
crime book called Writing with Evil. I wanted to write
this book with Marvin when he was alive, but after
(05:20):
he passed away, I was like, you know what, this
guy's legacy has never really been secured. A lot of
people think of Marvin Hagler, they think, oh, he lost
to Sugary Len and then disappeared. But to me, Marvin's
story is this story, which is him escaping Newark as
a little boy, fighting the corruption in the seventies and
eighties in the box and they're winning this fight in
London in nineteen eighty against a guy that was backed
(05:41):
by a white power group and he was pelted with
bottles after he won the fight. And that's what the
story is about.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, at least it was telling me that in the
Marvin story. I wasn't to realize this because we would
have Marvin on the show a lot, you know, right
out of Brockton, Yeah, World Channel. But he dealt with
a lot of racism.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
He did in that fight specifically, and it was nineteen
eighty and the guy he fought was a guy named
Alan Minter, and he was from London and he was
the great White Hope and there was a white power
group that loved the guy. They backed him, it was
called the National Front. Before the fight, Marvin and Alan
had a press conference and Alan said at that press
conference that no black man will ever take my title.
No imagine saying that today. Oh, viral doesn't even describe it.
(06:20):
There was no viral back then, but it stuck. It
caused a wound, and Alan Miner.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Paid for that comment. Now, Dave. A little bit earlier
on the show, I told Marvin Hagler story that I
had from an old Kiss concert and I'm not sure
you'll find it in the book though. When he was back,
they missed that. Yeah, he was. He was a man
about town. You know a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
The beautiful thing about this book is I'm out doing
events all the time now and book signings, and it's
wonderful to hear people like you come up from, you know,
from people in their you know, forties and fifties at
New Marvin sixties even, and they spent time with them.
They hung out with him and went to his fights.
And we call him the fifth Franchise in Brockton because
he was as big as the Patriots.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Red Sox back in the day. Yeah, I loved him
in this region. Justin had your hand in there.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Joe Rogan, you know, one of the biggest podcasters in
the world, grew up in Boston.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
He was a big Marvin fan.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
When I was a kid growing up in Boston. Hagler
was the Middleway champion of the world. And I used
to see they used to have video of him running.
They played it on the news. He was running on
the There was the dunes, sand dunes and Kate Cod
in the winter, freezing cold with a hoodie on, running
screaming war. It's amazing. Marvin Hagler made you want to
just get out of your house and go running in
(07:34):
the snow.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
The picture then the snow. Yeah, you know Rogan.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Rogan loves Hagler because he he knows great great it's
when he says it, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, And he was.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
The thing about Marvin again, was you know, to me,
he embodies the spirit of where I grew up. You know, Brockton.
It's resilience, it's overcoming adversity. He wasn't an insider in
the boxing game. He wasn't with Dawn King of an outsider,
and so were his trained as the local trainer, and
they fought against that very corrupt machine. And there's there's
some great.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Stuff in the book.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
I could talk about it all day, but suffice to say,
Ted Kennedy and Tip O'Neil had to step in to.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Help Marvin while his title shot. That's how corrupt it was,
and the most ripped person I've ever seen in my life.
And that's before all the crazy stuff that people are.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
You know, this is going to be another great movie,
I think.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
So you know.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And Sam Rockwell optioned the rights to it, as you said,
and I've been working with him and we've actually brought
on Rosie Perez as an and uh, Sam wants to
play Goodie Petronelli and h'd be great at it because
Goody was such a quirky, you know, wearing headbands and
ye see sat dressed up in the seventies, garb. You know,
I so happy you guys have me in. I love
(08:48):
the show. Fellow Milton night Lee, so Billy, I love
your work. Been following you for years, so thank you,
thank you very much. And you could be one of
the best dressed writers I've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
That with the greatest respect. Thank my wife for that.
Who are you wearing? By the way, never mind forget
I have
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