Good news for Stephen King fans (Maybe)

A long-awaited video version of Stephen King's fantastic book, "11/22/63" is coming out in February. This is something I have been awaiting since I read the book a few years ago. The book was so good (in my opinion) that I shared it with my wife. Now, Linda and I have very diverse reading tastes. While she prefers softer, more romantic fare, I prefer the more action-oriented stuff. So far, we have read about half of "11/22/63" together while walking. She reads to me while I'm on the treadmill and and vice versa. "11/22/63", if you haven't heard, is a time travel novel about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. Only King could tell a tale about a time traveling school teacher with so many personal, psychological demons going back to Dallas in 1963 to attempt to stop the assassination of Kennedy. "11/22/63" is one of those books that I will read more than once. However, like Jamie Rubin, who wrote about the miniseries, I won't be watching it when it premieres next month. Why? I started to watch a made-for-TV version of another of King's books, "The Stand." I was about a third of the way through the book at the time. I prefer stories that are more gritty than the typical network TV fare. Unfortunately, the video version of "The Stand" I saw was so different from the book that I never finished watching it. One example: In the book, one of the characters becomes pregnant and then has to face her judgmental mother and find comfort from her loving father. In the video version, the mother does not appear, the girl is not pregnant and the parts of the miniseries I saw looked more like a soap opera than an science fiction thriller. If I were King, I would have cashed my royalty checks and then tried to forget I ever let the TV folks have their way with what is, in print, a great, sweeping story. So, that's why I don't want to see "11-22-63" on TV. I hope it is made into a real movie that maintains the integrity of the original story. The Harry Potter movies are a good case in point. They maintain the integrity of the original books, even though it meant dividing "The Deathly Hallows" into two movies that were released months apart. If the Harry Potter books were made for TV, I'm afraid they would more resemble "Sesame Street" than the grand, fantasy stories written by J. K. Rowling. Another reason I probably won't watch the miniseries is that it will be on Hulu. Which is now a pay-service. Yes, I could start my free trial but I just don't think the miniseries will be worth the hassle. Take the advice of this guy who started out in broadcasting and then moved to print media: Pick up "11/22/63" for your Kindle or Kindle app and enjoy.

'Extraordinary' is in the eye of the beholder

I’ve been watching YouTube videos of personal appearances by Stephen King and it occurred to me that “extraordinary,” like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. 

It seems to me Stephen King is pretty ordinary when I watch him in front of an audience on YouTube. He seems down to earth, the kind of guy you might find living next to you, maybe drinking a beer in his driveway.  

I have found that to be true of other “celebrities” I have met.  

One night Mitch Miller brought his music to my college campus.  

Mitch Miller, if you are less than 100 years old, had a weekly TV show. He didn’t come to town to attract a college crowd but to do a show for the older people in the community.  

My grandparents watched him on TV every week so I decided to get his autograph for my grandmother.  

I have never been shy when I wanted to talk to someone and when I found out what room backstage he was in before the show began, I went barreling right in … and caught him getting dressed with his pants down around his knees.  

I went ahead and asked for his autograph and he wrote a nice note to my grandmother. 

Nice guy.  

On another occasion, a former Miss America, Vonda Kay VanDyke, came to our campus.  

I received permission to interview her for our college radio station, to the envy of my friends who were all healthy young men.  

She dodged many of my questions. 

“Tell me about your family. Do you have a husband and kids?”

“Well, Miss America can’t be married,” she said. 

She came across in person as really nice, even though it takes an extraordinary woman to win the Miss America title.  

In case you’re wondering, I interviewed her in the living room of our college president and unlike Mitch Miller, she was fully attired.  

Bobby Goldsboro (“Watching Scotty Grow” was one of his hits) sang at the county fair and again the interview went well but he didn’t appear to be extraordinary.  

In his speeches, King tells of some of the more interesting encounters with his fans. 

One person asked him, “I’ve seen you somewhere. Are you somebody?” 

King replied, “Everyone is somebody.”  

He ran into a woman in a Publix supermarket, which is a popular chain grocery store in Florida.  

She expressed her displeasure with the literature he writes.  

“I prefer The Shawshank Redemption,” she said.  

“I wrote that.”  

“No you didn’t!” she insisted.  

I certainly consider Stephen King an extraordinary writer.  

I stayed up all night until I finished reading “Cujo.” I cannot get that story out of my head.  

Same with “The Shawshank Redemption” and other books.  

I know many, many other people also consider him an extraordinary writer but some people just do not. 

“Extraordinary” is, indeed, in the eye of the beholder.  

Frank Phillips is a reporter for The Brazil Times. 

Being Frank on the "social" in social media

I wrote about social media (a.k.a. Facebook, and Twitter) recently and how great it is. This week I have been thinking about the underlying foundation of social media -- the social part.
I am re-reading Stephen King's novel about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
King has said in interviews he carefully researched the history of the assassination and then he wove a fictional story about time travel into the true story for his novel, "11/22/63."
The premise is, "What would you do if you could travel back in time and stop the assassination?"
I don't want to give too much away, but his main character actually stops Lee Harvey Oswald and saves Kennedy's life. How is that possible? You will have to read the book.
This weekend, I was reading about the Cuban Missile Crisis in King's novel. I was 9 or 10 at the time and didn't remember too much about it; only that I walked home a different route after school on the day after Kennedy spoke to the nation on national TV about the crisis. I wanted to be with my friends, especially if there would be one last time we could be together.
My friends and I were convinced the best case scenario was that our world would be turned upside down and we would be at war. The worst case scenario would be something our minds could not comprehend -- nuclear war.
At Westside School in my home town we had been taught to duck and cover. Those drills were conducted as often as tornado drills (sit in the hallway on a hot spring day with your face on your knees while teachers walked past with clipboard in hand, making notes.)
I often wondered what those notes said.
"Mrs. Phillips, your son was caught whispering twice during tornado drill. He will have to repeat fourth grade!"
The nuclear drills were worse. We were in our classroom, on the floor beside our desks.
Our school building was of a modern design. Every classroom's outside wall was filled with aluminum cased windows that overlooked the playground or the front yard and the flagpole. Yeah, in case of a nuclear attack on Chicago, those windows would offer a lot of protection. Brilliant!
I did not know what went through adult minds during the crisis. Looking back today, I'm pretty sure King nailed it.
His time-traveling character, "George" was in a bar in Dallas, Texas, when Kennedy spoke on TV, calling Soviet leaders liars and giving the Russians an ultimatum.
George was killing time until he could prevent the assassination that was less than two years away.
In King's novel, the people in the bar were, to say the least, emotional when Kennedy spoke. Most opposed the President anyway. Many feared for their lives as Walter Cronkite showed pictures of missiles near Havana.
George got into his car and drove to see his girlfriend, a school librarian. She was wasted, in part because one of her other boyfriends convinced her that the world would soon end in a nuclear holocaust. He had sent her photos of human bodies partially destroyed by The Bomb at the end of World War II.
She nearly died from an overdose of pills and booze and George pulled her out of it.
The point King makes is that from our viewpoint, the Cuban Missile Crisis was over in a few days and scarcely a blip in American history. Nothing to worry about. But from the standpoint of people living through that time, it did seem like it would result in the end of the world and people sought solace in the best place they could -- the company of friends and family. Social comfort before social media.
It's still that way. Each one of us faces potential crises that could result in death or financial calamity. If we could look back on our situation from 50 years in the future, no matter how our crises turn out, they wouldn't seem as bad, is the point King makes.
"It's not knowing that is scary," we often hear. That's true.
Technology has always linked people together and people will always find a way to be with people. Even those folks in nursing homes, who seem to be only semiconscious are wheeled into a community gathering where a TV is playing every day and human voices can be heard as nurses and aides go from resident to resident.
When I was 6 years old, I had an emergency appendectomy. My nurse told my mom, "Talk to him, even if you think he can't hear you. I've seen children slip away because no one was there to talk to them when they were coming out of the anesthesia."
We may use telephones (landlines or cellular), Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Snapchat or Pinterest, but we will find a way to communicate with others about what we're feeling and what we fear.

Frank Phillips is a reporter for The Brazil Times.

Book review: "A is for Alibi"

Sue Grafton introduced us to P.I. Kinsey Millhone in "A is for Alibi" in 1982.
Although she is one of the writers Stephen King says he reads, I did not find her until 2007. (One of those projecting down through the years things King talks about in "On Writing" no doubt.)
Would I read the whole series? Probably not. Did I like the first one? Yes -- with reservations.
The last third of the book kept me up longer than I intended. I had to find out not only who did it but would they get away and what price would Kinsey pay for exposing the murderer?
The story progresses very nicely. But it does go on a bit. It may be a guy thing, but I'm really not into all the description of everything. I don't need to know what every bit of clothing looks like nor do I need to know whether Millhone turned right or left to find someone's office.
Would I recommend the book?
Well, sure.
Any writer who is up to "T is for ..." in a series has something going for her.