King puts things into perspective, with specific regard to when the film first appeared: ‘This
was the black vision a young filmmaker named George Romero sprang upon an unsuspecting public in
the post-Kennedy ’60s, a nightmare in grainy black and white that changed the course of horror films
forever.’
He closes with the movie’s importance in the history of both film and the horror genre: ‘ Night of
the Living Dead energized-galvanized a generation of young filmmakers (Sam Raimi and John
Carpenter among them), and opened up the horror film in a way that suggested it could do a lot more
than just administer a few polite scares. Romero’s groundbreaking film was like a box of rattlesnakes
delivered to a tea party, and all the shrieks of surprised horror have not yet died today. It is a VERY
important film, perhaps one of the most important to be released in the years since World War II, and
it is good to have this definitive edition. Just one word of warning: “They’re coming for you...there’s
one now.”’
This piece first appeared in the booklet for Night of the Living Dead: 25thAnniversary
Collector’s Edition laserdisc released in 1994. Laserdisc is pretty much a defunct technology;
therefore tracking down this original appearance is difficult. Fortunately, King’s notes were reprinted
in the 2002 DVD release, Night of the Living Dead: Millennium Edition. This edition is freely
available.
Untitled (1994)
King opens these liner notes, ‘Let’s get the only thing that really matters right up front: this is a
great record. I knew it might be when Al told me the concept—thirteen trax, all music, no waiting—
because I’d heard him play with Jimmy Vivino’s band at Downtime in New York (Jimmy plays guitar
on most entries in this scenic selection of soul souvenirs).’ Always an observer and critic of the
music scene, King notes, ‘There’s not much soul of any kind to be found in the video graveyard of pop
music these days, I’m sorry to say.’
He closes with an obscure (but completely apropos) Kooper reference, which then turns into a
compliment: ‘A lot of years ago, Al Kooper played on Tom Rush’s first electric album, and penned
the liner notes. Of the song “Too Much Monkey Business” he wrote simply, “Just a helluva lot of fun
—God bless Chuck Berry.” The same could be said of ReKooperation: just a helluva lot of fun. God
bless Al Kooper.’
This piece appears only in the liner notes to ReKooperation—A Nonverbal Scenic Selection of
Soul Souvenirs, an album by Al Kooper. It was issued on compact disc by BMG in 1994 and is freely
available.
Kitschin’ à la King (May 12, 1995)
In this article King talks briefly (two paragraphs) about the programming he watches on
television. ‘I watch sports and sports. Let me see, do I watch anything else? Sleazy USA suspense
movies...I’ll also watch MTV Unplugged and Beavis and Butt-Head. Sometimes I watch that show
on Fox, 902-whatever...I like stupid TV like that or Baywatch.’
This piece appeared in the May 12, 1995 issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine. Copies can
be obtained from used magazine and King dealers.
Untitled (1996)
King writes about his own introduction to Michael McDermott’s work in these liner notes,
saying his son Owen bought him a copy of McDermott’s second album, Gethsemane as a gift. ‘My
first listen to Gethsemane is one of the great events of my life as a rock music fan. It wasn’t so much
the record itself, good as it was, as the man on the record.’ King has the highest compliments for
McDermott’s work: ‘I have listened to some of the songs on this new album go from rough demos to
finished tracks, and the result—I’m only speaking for myself, you know—is one of the three or four
most remarkable albums I’ve ever heard. That’s not a critical judgement (sic), mind you, but one that
comes direct from my heart—and my nerve-endings. Like the man said, “I ain’t no monkey and I know
what I like.”’
He closes: ‘I’m always startled by the inability of words to express how good really good rock
and roll music can be, but I always know it when I hear it...and besides, words are all I have. So let
me say it simple: Michael McDermott is a great artist, and this is a great album. Listen and see if you
don’t agree.’
This piece appears only in the liner notes to Michael McDermott, an album by Michael
McDermott, issued in 1996 by EMD/Capitol on compact disc. It is freely available.
My Favorite Movies (September 27, 1998)
This short piece is another of King’s movie lists. He writes a sentence or two for each of his
five favorite movies of all time. The list, from one to five: The Godfather, Part II (we’ve already
seen this one on some King movie lists), The Hitcher, Near Dark, Silverado, and They Came to
Cordura. King ends the piece with his pick for ‘favorite movie snack: Popcorn with lots of butter and
salt.’
It appeared in the September 27, 1998 edition of The New York Post. Libraries in the New York
area may have copies on file, but it isn’t likely that many out-of-state libraries will archive this
publication.
Rock Band (May/June 1999)
This is a very short piece in which King lists what he believes to be the most overrated and
underrated bands in music. He believes The Beatles are the most overrated band and that Creedence
Clearwater Revival is the exact opposite: ‘Keep it short, keep it loud, and make sure the audience can
dance to it’, he argues.
This article first appeared in the May/June 1999 issue of American Heritage magazine. It may
be archived at some libraries and issues may be available from used magazine and King dealers.
The Reel Stephen King (December 10, 1999)
In this article, King covers his favorite film adaptations of his own works. His top ten are: The
Green Mile, Stand by Me, Storm of the Century, The Shawshank Redemption, Cujo, Misery, TheStand, Dolores Claiborne, Christine and Pet Sematary. An honorable mention goes to Cat’s Eye.
It appeared in the December 10, 1999 issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine. Copies can be
obtained from the usual used magazine dealers.
Ramones (2003)
This piece is part of the liner notes for a Ramones tribute album and is written in a completely
uncharacteristic style (well, for King). Certainly intentional, it can only be described as the literary
equivalent of punk rock...specifically the type of punk rock the Ramones played.
King talks about how punk rock and disco arose at the same time, but compares disco to
‘musical kudzu’ and says the Ramones are real rock and roll artists: ‘The Ramones were about
screaming until your lungs popped out your nose and just sort of hung there pulsing on your upper lip
and banging your head until your f***in’ ears bled.’ He also quickly relates meeting and having
dinner with Joey Ramone.
The piece was printed in the liner notes to We’re A Happy Family, a Ramones tribute album
featuring various artists, released by Sony Music in February 2003. New and used copies can be
found on the Internet or at local record stores.
My Favorite Movies of 2002-2003 (September/October 2003)
This extremely short piece lists King’s favorite movies of the period. He names five films of the
past two years he likes and provides a couple of sentences about each: Wrong Turn, The Good Thief,
Spellbound, Dark Blue and The Quiet American.
For a movie list, it was published in the unusual venue of Book magazine for September/October
2003. Copies can easily be found online or from the usual sources for used magazines.
Now Hear This (June 11, 2004)
In the The Pop of King: Lines to Live By (June 11, 2004 issue of Enter-tainment Weekly), King
had challenged readers to send in their favorite lines from movies (see our Later Columns—The Pop
of King chapter). This piece is a response to that article, though oddly it was not published as a Pop
of King column. King said he was expecting a couple dozen responses; both he and the magazine
were shocked to get 3000! This will come as no surprise to King fans, some of whom buy the
magazine just for King’s column!
‘The all-time champion line, by your letters, was written by the great William Goldman175,
whose body of work was mentioned in the responses to my column again and again: “Hello. My name
is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”—Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin) in The
Princess Bride’. He also briefly introduces several different categories of lines sent in by the
readers, including: women, lines spoken by women in Stephen King adaptations, and baseball.
Finally, King contributes four of his personal favorites and closes, ‘Do we remember what we
see in the movies? You bet. But if this little landslide of responses proves anything, it proves that we
also remember what we hear in them.’
This piece appeared in the July 30, 2004 issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine, copies of
which can be obtained from used magazine dealers.
Stephen King’s Playlist (2005)
This piece consists of King writing a sentence or two on each of the fifteen tracks to appear as
part of a personal compilation:
1. Alan Jackson—“Drive (For Daddy Gene)”
2. Slobberbone—“Gimme Back My Dog”
3. Michael McDermott—“Dance With Me”
4. Alejandro Escovedo—“Castanets”
5. The Beach Boys—“Don’t Worry Baby”
6. Chuck Prophet—“Rise”
7. Cross Canadian Ragweed—“Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll”
8. Donna the Buffalo—“Love and Gasoline”
9. Henry Mancini—“Peter Gunn”
10. The Inmates—“Turn Back the Hands of Time”
11. The Raveonettes—“Love in a Trashcan”
12. James McMurtry—“See the Elephant”
13. Spoon—“I Summon You”
14. Tim Easton—“Carry Me”
15. Ollabelle—“All Is Well”
There is an interesting story behind this compilation—it is an Internet link accessible only
through Apple’s iTunes music software. First posted on October 4, 2005, it will probably not be
available in the distant future. The easiest way to access it is to download the free software, search
for Stephen King and see if the page comes up. From there one can do a screen grab, print the page,
and file it away in your King archives! When the item is taken offline copies will be accessible
within the King community, remembering that, as the copyright is King’s, money should not change
hands.
The popular media covered in this chapter and the forms of entertainment it covers represent a
large chunk of King’s personal entertainment (along with reading and baseball). In recent years the
outlet of his The Pop of King column has served as a forum for most of his published views in these
areas but we can confidently predict he will continue to deliver opinions about these forms for many
years to come.
OPINION—
VENTURING INTO POLITICS
‘Frank Norris, who wrote The Pit, McTeague, and other naturalistic novels that were banned,
said: “I don’t fear: I don’t apologize because I know in my heart that I never lied; I never
truckled. I told the truth.” And I think that the real truth of fiction is that fiction is the truth; moral
fiction is the truth inside the lie. And if you lie in your fiction, you are immoral and have no
business writing at all.’
—From Banned Books and Other Concerns: The Virginia Beach Lecture.
King often includes political commentary, or simple statements of his own views, in broader
articles, including some of the Garbage Truck columns and even a Pop of King piece, Shut Up ’n
Play Yer Guitar.
However, this chapter deals only with seventeen pieces that are totally dedicated to politics,
very often the touchy issue of censorship. We are aware that even the definition of politics is slippery
and have tried to include here the pieces that have strong political thrust, whether they represent King
taking a partisan political position (for instance, in support of Gary Hart) or in the broader realms of
referenda or constitutional issues.
Opinion (November 16, 1967)
King’s first published political commentary, this piece was unknown to the King community until
rediscovered by Rocky Wood during a research trip to Maine in September 2005. It was also King’s
first piece in The Maine Campus, the student newspaper for the University of Maine at Orono
(UMO). He would go on to contribute letters to the editor (see our Letters to the Editor, Guest
Columns chapter), a number of articles, a western serialized satire (Slade) and forty-six columns (see
our chapter, Early Columns—King’s Garbage Truck).
Written by ‘Steve King’, this piece appeared on the ‘op-ed’ page of The Maine Campus for
November 16, 1967, and supports the American troops fighting in Vietnam. King, then beginning his
second year at UMO, would later become ‘radicalized’ by his University experience, changing from a
Republican Yankee (the New England Republicans of the 1950s and 1960s were proudly self-reliant,
and relatively liberal when compared to the Christian Right of today’s Republican Party—in fact
New England Republicans still have a strong centrist streak) to a liberal Democrat. This piece is
therefore a very rare glimpse of the pre-liberal King and is extremely valuable in that context (of
course King was not the only person whose views were changed during this critical period in
American political and socio-cultural history).
He opens by arguing perhaps ‘the main reason that our involvement in Vietnam is such a bitter
pill for many people to swallow is that America...has been weaned on the idea that America and all
Americans...are the Good Guys. We wear the white hats, or we always have. We have been a
dignified and respectful nation that does not interfere where it does not belong. The trouble is that
many have not realized that being a Good Guy takes more than a bumbling urge to live and let live—it
takes moral guts and a lot of backbone.’ He goes on that the ‘grist from the dovish American
propaganda mill...unthinkingly’ advocates ‘trying to take the guts out of the Good Guy in Vietnam.’ He
acknowledges America’s position there did not ‘look good’, that ‘innocent people have been maimed
and killed because we are there’ but that these ‘ugly facts...must be faced squarely and with courage,
not with this backdoor cravenness that says we should get out of Vietnam.../ It’s time to stop smelling
flowers and having “love-ins” and reading Allen Ginsberg and get on with the business of carrying
out our responsibilities.’
He then argues both the game and ‘the facts are brutal’: while the ‘war in Vietnam is not an
honorable war on either side...No one can believe any longer that we are trying to crush the “heroic”
North Vietnamese’ who ‘have sold out to the Soviet Government...the fact is that both South and
North Vietnam are now pawns’ in the US-Soviet Cold War. ‘Ignoring this fact may seem noble, but it
is only cowardly...’ Five of King’s last six paragraphs in this piece begin, ‘The game is brutal...,’ a
strong indication of his growing powers as a writer as he delivers his message. ‘The game is brutal,
and too often being a Good Guy is a brutal business’; ‘... if we stay in Vietnam, perhaps our children
can smell the flowers and link hands in trust and love. But if we refuse to be Good Guys and remain
content to stay mealy-mouthed hypocrites, our children may not be around to smell the flowers at all’;
‘... it’s time we realized that we are fighting for our lives, because Vietnam is only the first step in
Southeast Asia. If we don’t draw the line in Vietnam— for our own good and safety— we may never
be able to draw the line at all. / The game is brutal. It’s time we became Good Guys—real good guys
—and faced up to the fact.’
Copies of this piece may be made from microfiche at the Raymond H. Fogler Library of the
University of Maine at Orono.
A Possible Fairy Tale (May 8, 1970)
King’s next dedicated political piece appeared in The Paper, a special edition of the University
of Maine at Orono’s student newspaper, The Maine Campus, for May 8, 1970. The Maine Campus
had been published the previous day and King’s penultimate Garbage Truck column appeared in that
issue. Also on 7 May the UMO student senate, in the presence of some 2000 students, had voted 63-4
in favor of a student strike, joining campuses nationwide. While a specific reason for the strike at
UMO was not elucidated it was generally to protest ‘the war in Southeast Asia and the killing of the
four students Monday at Kent State University’, according to an article by Russ Van Arsdale in that
single issue of The Paper.
King’s contribution is wonderful satire, in the mold of Philip Roth’s now obscure but incredibly
biting 1971 ‘novel’, Our Gang (which lampooned Nixon’s administration). He opens, ‘The following
little piece is fictional—a fairy tale, if you like.’ The balance of the piece is a futurist diary,
beginning with that day—May 8, 1970 when the ‘University of Maine joins hundreds of other
campuses on strike.’ On May 9th a ‘million people sit in at the White House’, refusing to move until
America withdraws from Vietnam; by May 11 th the Teamsters Union joined the strike; on the
following day National Guardsmen at Berkeley ‘throw down their weapons’ and twelve platoons
refuse to ‘get on helicopters scheduled to fly them into Cambodia.’
Getting on a roll King has more unions join the strike, Nixon appearing on the ‘boob-tube’
claiming millions supporting his policy, and growing calls for the impeachment of Vice-President
Spiro Agnew. By May 17th, ‘a haggard Pres. Nixon goes on nationwide TV and tells the country he is
withdrawing’ troops from Vietnam and Cambodia, with all to be out by the end of June. The
following day Soviet leader, Alexi (sic) Kosygin calls Nixon to congratulate him and requests a
summit to consider complete disarmament. ‘So there’s your fairy tale, complete with happily-ever-
after ending. It would be nice if things could turn out that way, but I doubt that it will’, King
concludes. Readers will note that enormous change in King’s views since his piece supporting
America’s position in Vietnam as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism (see Opinion above).
Copies of this piece may be made from microfiche at the Raymond H. Fogler Library of the
University of Maine in Orono.
The Land of Lunacy (April 15, 1982)
This guest column is an angry reaction piece by King regarding the often-taboo subject of
abortion. ‘I don’t believe I have ever been so distressed or disgusted by an opinion column in the
Bangor Daily News as I was with that written by Terence J. Hughes (BDN, April 13).’ King is
primarily upset at the way Hughes’ article portrays his opinions as ‘Plain Abortion Facts.’
King has always been articulate when expressing his opinions on difficult or complex issues; at
the same time he respects freedom of speech: ‘I am not suggesting that Hughes has no right to express
his opinion, or even that his opinion is wrong, although most thinking Christians must support the right
to obtain a legalized abortion because of the free will concept. If free choice is removed by law the
decisions God meant us to make are abrogated by the state, and that of course is immoral—a word
which perfectly describes most of the current anti-abortion fundamentalist sects.’
He ends with a plea to the editors of the newspaper: ‘Please—the next time the editors of the
News decide to give column space to someone on either side of the abortion issue, ask them to give it
to someone who will aim a little higher than the gag reflex of twelve-year-old children.’ This last part
is in reference to Hughes’ reporting of his wife showing slides of aborted fetuses to her sixth grade
class.
The piece was originally published in King’s hometown newspaper, the Bangor Daily News for
April 15, 1982. While citations for a piece about the abortion issue had been made in various King
publications in the past, no real information about this piece (title, content, etc.) seemed to exist.
Rocky Wood was able to track it down on a trip to Maine in the Fall of 2005.
Copies of Bangor Daily News articles (there are a number in this chapter) may be secured from
the microfiche files at the Fogler Library of the University of Maine at Orono (at no charge, if you
actually visit), from the newspaper direct (at a significant fee), and from visiting the Maine State
Library in Augusta.
Giant Skull and Crossbones for Maine Yankee (September 29, 1982)
Another of King’s fiery opinion pieces from the Bangor Daily News, this is a guest column
regarding the debate over closing Maine Yankee, a nuclear power plant in Wiscasset, Maine. A
referendum was being held in regard to the plant and King wanted to make his opinion known to the
informed and voting public: ‘So I hope that when you vote on the Maine Yankee referendum, you’ll
remember that there are two issues. One is the economy. The other is poison. If I had my way there
would be a giant skull and crossbones on the side of the Maine Yankee containment, a skull and
crossbones 30 feet high. Cesium-134 and Cesium-133: poison. Strontium-89 and Strontium-90:
poison. Thorium: poison.’
While Maine Yankee didn’t close down in the early 1980s, it was progressively shut down
between 1996 and 1998 in a wave of power plant closings.
King is trying to show he understands the longterm effects that could come from the plant but
also understands that the economic issue is significant: ‘People have a tendency to vote their
pocketbooks. This is not ignoble; just practical. But people must also vote the odds and balance next
month’s power bill against transuranic wastes which will retain their killer potential for the next
10,000 years. No human society on the face of the earth has lasted that long.’
See The Land of Lunacy (above) for detail on securing Bangor Daily News articles.
A Watt Post-Mortem (October 14, 1983)
King reinforces our view of his political evolution in the opening paragraph of this ‘guest
column’ in the Bangor Daily News for October 14, 1983: ‘In the late ‘60s I might really have hated
James Watt—but the times were hotter then, and so was I. Time has gone by and I’ve moved from my
’60s position of just-short-of-radical to that of a rather moderate liberal.’
James Watt was President Ronald Reagan’s first Secretary of the Interior. His views about
environmental issues and the use of public land, and the overlay of his religious views on his public
duties were very controversial. Watt famously banned The Beach Boys from performing a 1983
concert on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on the grounds that rock concerts drew ‘an
undesirable element’! King says he may be older and mellower but he ‘never liked Watt’s
philosophies or policies’, nor what he sees as Watt’s basing decisions on ‘his belief that Jesus Christ
the Lord will be coming again soon’, which he then links to Watt’s support for oil leases on public
land.
‘All the same I’m not glad Watt’s gone,’ King writes in response to Watt’s resignation (over an
allegedly racist and offensive jibe), as ‘there’s no assurance that President Reagan won’t replace him
with a man whose views are even more Neanderthal’. True to his own beliefs, he is concerned that
Watt was dismissed not for his policies but for making an offensive remark. King has a total belief in
freedom of speech and wonders how many of those calling for Watt’s head had themselves told
tasteless or racist jokes. ‘I support not a single thing that James Watt stood for as Secretary of the
Interior...but please don’t number me among the smarmy neo-Victorians who brought him down.’
Here we see an almost visceral King—a man who stands for all his beliefs with consistency. It
has become the fashion to decry the political views of one’s opponents by the use of personal attack
rather than through reasoned debate. King argues cogently here for free speech; even for a person
whose political views are as far from one’s own as is possible.
See The Land of Lunacy (above) for detail on securing Bangor Daily News articles.
Why I Am For Gary Hart (June 4, 1984)
This opinion piece, sub-titled ‘Only one man can beat Reagan’ appeared in the liberal magazine
The New Republic for June 4, 1984. King relates that he and his wife Tabitha had voted for one of the
1984 Democratic Presidential nomination’s dark-horse candidates, ‘in his first canvass for national
office back in 1974’: ‘That man was Gary Hart, and he was running for one of Colorado’s two Senate
seats. / We were transplanted easterners who had gone to Colorado so I could write a novel called
The Shining....’ In 1984 the Kings ‘wanted a candidate who could beat the incumbent President
[Reagan]’ because of what they perceived were his Administration’s ‘shortsighted and cruel
domestic policies, its dangerous foreign policy....’ Considering only Hart of the Democrat contenders
to have the ‘octane’ needed to beat Reagan they contacted the Maine Hart organization and King
ended up ‘introducing and endorsing Hart at a Bangor press conference’. 176
Questioning Hart directly as to whether he could beat Reagan in the unlikely event he secured his
Party’s nomination King was convinced by the look on the candidate’s face and his self-belief: ‘It
was impossible not to believe him. I can remember feeling a sense of great excitement coupled with a
surprising sense of fear, because I suddenly felt I might be close to something that might actually
make a difference.’ Drawn in by the man King campaigned for Hart in New Hampshire (Hart won the
primary in a major political shock). At the time of writing King went so far as to compare him to
Kennedy and Lincoln as disinterested campaigners and said boldly: ‘Gary Hart merits serious
consideration simply because he is not interested in winning the Presidency; he is interested in being
President.’
King concludes that if the Democratic Party nominated Hart’s opponent, former Vice President
Walter Mondale, he would ‘carefully place a MONDALE FOR PRESIDENT bumper sticker over the
Hart sticker on my car the very next day’. His reasoning for becoming involved in the political
process was, ‘simply put, that Ronald Reagan is a bad President and must be turned out of office.’
Then again, since his University days it is hard to find a good word King has written about a
Republican President or presidential candidate, so this view is totally consistent with nearly forty
years of political thought. As an historical aside it should be noted that Mondale did win the
nomination and went on to one of the greatest political defeats in American presidential history. One
of the front-runners for the 1988 Democratic nomination, Hart’s candidacy was derailed by ‘the
Donna Rice affair’, which effectively ended his political career.
The New Republic is an important magazine and many major libraries will hold back-copies or
microfiche, so copies can be easily accessed.
Say ‘No’ to the Enforcers (June 1, 1986)
This article first appeared in the Portland Maine Sunday Telegram for 1 June 1986 and was
reprinted in Castle Rock: The Stephen King Newsletter for August 1986.
King has always been against censorship and this piece makes reasoned argument against an
upcoming initiative promoted by the Maine Christian League. He sees why one might be opposed to
the ‘plague-zone in a lot of Maine bookstores and newsstands, a plague-zone where for a ten-spot you
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