http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/432108/10_classic_adlib_and_offscript_movie_moments.html
10 classic ad-lib and off-script movie moments
Karla Healion
Not every moment of movie genius is written down in the script. Take this collection of ad-libs and off-script moments, for instance...
Mar 3, 2010
Sometimes, the genius moments of a film weren't in the script, and happened in an off-the-cuff moment on the shoot itself. Here are 10 examples of when an ad-lib or off-script moment went very, very right...
Taxi Driver: "You talkin' to me?"
(Martin Scorsese, 1976)
Arguably the most famous cinematic quote of all time, "You talkin' to me?" was actually improvised. Even though the film's screenplay was written by the brilliant Paul Schrader (who also wrote the adapted screenplay for Scorsese's Raging Bull), it's this line which has gone down in the annals of pop culture history.
Director Martin Scorsese has always encouraged Robert De Niro's creativity, proving that actors can contribute more than just their performance, and in this instance it paid off.
In the original script Schrader had simply written "Bickle speaks to himself in the mirror." Alone in his grubby apartment, De Niro's loner sociopath character Travis Bickle is planning to shoot a politician. In the mirror he is practising with the sleeve-holster he made for his gun. Catching his reflection, he postures, repeating "You talkin' to me?" before whipping out his gun and taking aim. It is a moment of stunning personal insight into a character as flawed, intriguing and complex as you will ever see on the big screen.
The Shining "Heeeeeere's Johnny!"
(Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
Adapted from the Stephen King novel of the same name, The Shining is one of Kubrick's best known and most commercially successful films. The shoot was a famously difficult one, as Kubrick was notorious for being a controlling, sometimes cruel, filmmaker.
It's common knowledge that the fear displayed by Shelley Duval (playing Wendy Torrance) in the film was genuine. Kubrick would scream and shout at her, and allegedly even slapped her across the face during one take. So the spooky, tense and horrifying atmosphere we see on screen is often authentic, and perhaps inspired Jack Nicholson to ad-lib one of his most famous lines.
Jack Torrance (Nicholson's character) slowly loses his mind when stationed to mind a remote hotel with his wife and little boy. At a pinnacle stage in the narrative, he chases his wife (Duval) through the hotel with an axe. She locks herself in a bathroom, and when Torrance chops through the door, he pokes his demented face through the hole and wails, "Heeeeeere's Johnny!"
Nicholson was mimicking the catchphrase used by Ed McMahon to introduce Johnny Carson on The Johnny Carson Show (a hugely popular show at the time). It is this juxtaposition, in terms of connotation and context, that gives it such a magnificently dark, creepy, yet disturbingly humorous, effect.
Despite the screenplay being adapted from a book by one of the best horror novelists of all time, "Heeeeeere's Johnny!" is certainly the most easily remembered line from this uber-stylish classic.
Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark: Jones shoots the swordsman
(Steven Spielberg, 1981)
The story behind this scene is almost as famous as the scene itself. Harrison Ford, playing our protagonist explorer Indie Jones, got a bad case of food poisoning and dysentery. He was due to shoot a big fight scene with a skilled swordsman the next day. Not able to take on the action, Ford suggested to Spielberg that he simply shoot the over-zealous antagonist, in a quip that sums up the ethos and feel of Jones' character perfectly.
So, following an arduous journey through the streets of Egypt, the crowd parts to reveal a sinister, threatening swordsman dressed in black. He faces Jones, but straight after he cuts some impressive pre-fight moves in an attempt to intimidate his opponent, Jones draws and shoots him down in one. And off-script movie magic is made.
Blade Runner: Roy Batty's final soliloquy
(Ridley Scott, 1982)
With Harrison Ford in the lead again (this time as Rick Deckard) we come to Ridley Scott's revered sci-fi epic Blade Runner. The screenplay was based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?.
Hollywood legend has it that Martin Scorsese was originally interested in the adaptation but never optioned it. That would have been interesting. But we all love Scott's dark, moody, original and highly influential shoot which launched a thousand mimics. And we especially love the Aryan, cold, violent Roy Batty, the perfect replicant (android).
Played fantastically by Rutger Hauer, Batty is LAPD Officer Deckard's nemesis. In the end Batty's life is drawing to a close, and like so much in the film, it makes a social comment on all kinds of issues.
So, sitting on a rooftop in the pouring rain Hauer takes the first few lines from David Peoples' script and adds a couple of very memorable closing lines as his character's last words. "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in the rain. Time to die."
Mad to think Bladerunner is set in 2019. Doubt we'll have such perfect androids in only ten years' time.
The Third Man: Lime's cuckoo clock maxim
(Carol Reed, 1949)
Carol Reed's The Third Man is a film that constantly appears on 'best film' lists. It's a beautifully shot and scripted testament to the art of film noir, starring notorious movie heavyweight Orson Welles. It also has one of the most ferociously famous theme tunes in film history (even if it doesn't come to mind right now, you do know it).
One of its most memorable moments comes when Harry Lime (Welles) is trying to convince his old friend Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) to join him in some dubious dealings. He's explaining that to make omelettes you need to break eggs.
Illustrating Welles' absolute cinematic brilliance, he includes the cuckoo line. It was not part of the original screenplay, adapted from a novel by reputable writer Graham Greene, but is perhaps the best known quote of the film: "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
Midnight Cowboy: "I'm walkin' here!"
(John Schlesinger, 1969)
Okay, it's been disputed as to whether this was off-script or not. But it's not past the methodical Dustin Hoffman to ad-lib such a brilliant line.
Midnight Cowboy won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director (John Schlesinger) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Waldo Salt). It's the only X-rated film to have won any Oscars, and the only other X-rated nomination in history was Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971).
There is a scene in which Hoffman's unforgettable 'Ratso' Rizzo is walking our midnight cowboy Joe Buck (played by a young Jon Voight) through the streets of New York. He's coaching him about becoming a successful stud and gigolo, and while crossing a street nearly gets hit by a yellow cab. Hoffman beats the hood with his fist and shouts, "I'm walkin' here!" in his unique New York parlance, yhen quickly retorts to Voight, "Actually, that ain't a bad way to pick up insurance y'know."
"I'm walkin' here." is often cited as one of the world's best movie quotes. It's usually thought of as an improvised line, which Hoffman has claimed. And he is certainly more than capable of this kind of fleshed-out character portrayal. But producer Jermoe Hellman has always maintained that it was in the script. The romantic film buff in me likes to believe the former, but I guess we may never really know.
Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb: Dr. Strangelove's sporadic involuntary Nazi salute
(Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
Apparently, so many of Sellers' lines in Dr. Strangelove were improvised that he is often cited as an uncredited co-writer. And it is considered a study of retro-scripting, ie. when ad-libbed lines are later written into the final script. So, it's difficult to know which one to pick, but perhaps the most ingenious and intuitive is when his title character performs sudden involuntary Nazi salutes in the company of the US military (Sellers plays three characters in total).
Dr. Strangelove is a wheelchair-bound German nuclear weapons expert, who has a past association with the Nazis. In one of the best comedic performances of all time, Sellers' Dr. Strangelove sometimes accidentally refers to the US President as 'Mein Fuhrer', and strangles himself with his out-of-control right arm. This is as well as having to use his left arm to push down the Nazi salutes his right arm frequently and uncontrollably lapses into.
This was entirely Sellers' creation. So much so, in fact, that the novel from which the film was adapted (Red Alert by Peter George) didn't even have the character Dr. Strangelove at all. The word genius does get thrown around but, good lord, Peter Sellers really deserves the moniker.
Goodfellas: "Funny how?"
(Martin Scorsese, 1990)
Adapted from the Nicholas Pileggi book Wiseguys, the Goodfellas screenplay is not without its share of memorable moments. It is one of the best loved films of all time, and displays a darkly humorous side to the Italio-American gangster genre, largely absent in Coppola's The Godfather series.
People always remember the crazy Joe Pesci character, Tommy DeVito, who defined and inspired a million mafia-esque archetypes. Such is the unstable and changeable world of mafia relationships that in one scene DeVito is sitting with our protagonist Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), sharing a drink and having a laugh. When Hill comments, "You're a funny guy," DeVito's face turns stone cold and he replies, "What do you mean I'm a funny guy. Funny how? Funny like I'm here to amuse you?'" The entire room stops dead. A couple of wiseguys mumble, "Hey, Tommy, calm down," as Hill looks worried and tries to explain himself.
The tension is just about to turn into what we think will be bullets, when DeVito cracks and says, "I'm just fucking with you," and everyone laughs. With relief, might I add.
It exemplifies beautifully how crazy Pesci's character is. His friends believe he may turn that easily, and also how volatile and suddenly hostile their world can be. It's thought that Pesci ad-libbed quite a lot for this role and that lines such as this were often retro-scripted into the final draft of the screenplay.
Silence Of The Lambs: Hannibal's hissing
(Johnathan Demme, 1992)
Playing one of the most iconic cinema villains ever, Sir Anthony Hopkins immortalised the cannibalistic Dr. Hannibal Lecter in this classic performance. Although he only has under twenty-five minutes of screen time, Hopkins won an Oscar for Best Actor. Jodie Foster also won for Best Actress, and the film won Best Director, Best Screenplay (Ted Tally) and Best Picture too. Not bad.
The American Film Institute named Lecter the number three screen villain ever in their top 100 in 2003, next to Norman Bates, with Darth Vader in the top spot.
Lecter is an incarcerated serial killer cannibal whom Foster's character, FBI agent Clarice Starling, interviews to help find another murdering cannibal, still at large. All in a day's work.
At one point Lecter tells of an unsavoury incident, describing a now-famous meal: "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." He then hisses and sucks at Starling in a truly revolting and disturbing manner, forever putting an entire generation off that particular varietal of wine.
Hollywood rumour says that this hissing was just a joke thrown in by Hopkins. He never intended it to be so frightening, not to mention appearing in the final cut and becoming so utterly conspicuous.
Casablanca: "Here's looking at you, kid."
(Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Ah, Casablanca. What can we say? If it's not your favourite oldie, and the final scene doesn't make you cry, then I'm sure you don't have a reflection in a mirror. But more than the emotion of the story, the coolness of Bogie and the beauty of Ingrid Bergman, it is a technically superb and incredibly entertaining film.
Regarding the script, the famous line, "Play it again, Sam", is not actually in the film and is probably the world's biggest cinematic misquote. Then, to our ad-libbed moment.
During the last scene and their final interaction, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is doing the right thing and letting Ilsa (Bergman) go. Crying, she tries to convince him to let her stay. He refuses but consoles her, saying, "Here's looking at you, kid." And there isn't a dry eye in the house.
The American Film Institute often calls it one of the most memorable lines in film. It is often quoted and parodied. Yet, legend has it that this is something Bogart used to say to Bergman as he taught her to play poker in between takes on set. It was never in the original script at all.
Showing posts with label Stephen King. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephen King. Show all posts
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Stephen King on J.D. Salinger
http://shelf-life.ew.com/2010/01/28/stephen-king-j-d-salinger/
Jan 28, 2010
Stephen King on J.D. Salinger: 'The last of the great post-WWII American writers'
I wasn’t a huge Salinger fan, but I’m sorry to hear of his passing — the way you’d feel if you heard an eccentric, short-tempered, but often fascinating uncle had passed away. Not as great a loss as Beverly Jensen (her marvelous The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay will be published this summer), who wrote only one book before dying of cancer at the age of 49, or of Raymond Carver, who was barely into his 50s; Salinger was, after all, in his 90s.
But it is a milestone of sorts, because Salinger was the last of the great post-WWII American writers, and in Holden Caulfield — maybe the greatest American-boy narrator since Huck Finn — he created an authentic Voice of the Age: funny, anxious, at odds with himself, and badly lost.
Salinger’s death may answer one question that has intrigued readers, writers, and critics for nearly half a century — what literary trove of unpublished work may he have left behind? Much? Some? Or none? Salinger is gone, but if we’re lucky, he may have more to say, even so.
Jan 28, 2010
Stephen King on J.D. Salinger: 'The last of the great post-WWII American writers'
I wasn’t a huge Salinger fan, but I’m sorry to hear of his passing — the way you’d feel if you heard an eccentric, short-tempered, but often fascinating uncle had passed away. Not as great a loss as Beverly Jensen (her marvelous The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay will be published this summer), who wrote only one book before dying of cancer at the age of 49, or of Raymond Carver, who was barely into his 50s; Salinger was, after all, in his 90s.
But it is a milestone of sorts, because Salinger was the last of the great post-WWII American writers, and in Holden Caulfield — maybe the greatest American-boy narrator since Huck Finn — he created an authentic Voice of the Age: funny, anxious, at odds with himself, and badly lost.
Salinger’s death may answer one question that has intrigued readers, writers, and critics for nearly half a century — what literary trove of unpublished work may he have left behind? Much? Some? Or none? Salinger is gone, but if we’re lucky, he may have more to say, even so.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
King fan publishes Shining's Jack Torrance's novel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/07/stephen-king-shining-novelStephen King fan publishes Shining's Jack Torrance's novel
Alison Flood
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 January 2009
A Stephen King fan has published an 80-page version of the book which novelist Jack Torrance obsessively writes during King's The Shining, where his descent into madness is revealed when his wife discovers that his work consists of just one phrase, endlessly repeated.
Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson in terrifying form in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film, is a frustrated writer who goes with his wife and son to spend the winter in the isolated Overlook Hotel in an attempt to get the novel he has always wanted to write started. But the hotel's grisly past and unquiet ghosts have their way with him, and his wife Wendy eventually finds that the manuscript he has been working on actually only contains the phrase "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", typed over and over again.
Now New York artist Phil Buehler, who describes himself as "a big fan of Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King", has self-published a book credited to Torrance, repeating the phrase throughout but formatting each page differently, using the words to create different shapes from zigzags to spirals.
"The idea has probably been marinating for years, because I loved the movie and the Stephen King book," said Buehler. "I'd just finished my own obsessive art project [and] it was an idea I had over the Christmas holidays."
He said he decided to stick to type and formatting that could have been created on a typewriter, with the first ten pages duplicating shots of Torrance's work from the film. "I thought 'if he continues to get crazier, what would those pages look like?'" he said. "I hit writer's block about 60 pages in, and I had to get to 80 - that went on for about a week." His fiancée, who had neither read the book nor seen the film, became a little concerned about his actions. "I finally showed her the movie, and she realised I wasn't really losing it," said Buehler.
He's included a spoof review from the blog OverThinkingIt.com on the book's back jacket, which compares it to "the best of Beckett" in its "lack of forward momentum", and considers the struggles of the author, "heroically pitting himself against the Sisyphusean sentence". "It's that metatextual struggle of Man vs. Typewriter that gives this book its spellbinding power," the review says. "Some will dismiss it as simplistic; that's like dismissing a Pollack canvas as mere splatters of paint."
So far, Buehler says that around 1,000 people have viewed the book, for sale on Blurb.com for $8.95 in paperback, or $22.95 in hardback, and he's sold "a few" copies, with sales now starting to pick up steam. "A few people have asked me to sign it - they're looking it as a piece of art rather than a funny thing to give to a Kubrick fan," he said. "If you're not a Kubrick or King fan, you might not even get it."
Monday, April 14, 2008
Bible is America's favorite book
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080408/lf_nm_life/reading_survey_dc
Bible is America's favorite book: poll
Tue Apr 8, 2008
When it comes to literary pursuits in the United States most people agree on at least one thing -- the most popular book is the Bible, according to a new survey.
It came in first in a Harris Poll of nearly 2,513 adults but the second choice in the survey was not as clear cut.
"While the Bible is number one among each of the different demographic groups, there is a large difference in the number two favorite book," Harris said in a statement announcing the results.
Men chose J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and women selected Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" as their second-favorite book, according to the online poll.
But the second choice for 18- to 31-year-olds was J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, while 32- to 43-year-olds named Stephen King's "The Stand" and Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons."
Picks for second-favorite book also varied according to region. "Gone With the Wind" was number two in the southern and midwestern United States while easterners chose "The Lord of the Rings" and westerners opted for "The Stand."
Whites and Hispanics picked "Gone With the Wind" as their second-favorite book after the Bible, while African-Americans preferred "Angels and Demons."
"Finally, they may not agree on candidates, but one thing that brings together partisans is their favorite book. For Republicans, Democrats and Independents, the top two books are the same -- the Bible followed by "Gone With the Wind."
Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown, "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand and "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger rounded out the top 10 favorites.
(Reporting by Julie Mollins; editing by Patricia Reaney)
Bible is America's favorite book: poll
Tue Apr 8, 2008
When it comes to literary pursuits in the United States most people agree on at least one thing -- the most popular book is the Bible, according to a new survey.
It came in first in a Harris Poll of nearly 2,513 adults but the second choice in the survey was not as clear cut.
"While the Bible is number one among each of the different demographic groups, there is a large difference in the number two favorite book," Harris said in a statement announcing the results.
Men chose J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and women selected Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" as their second-favorite book, according to the online poll.
But the second choice for 18- to 31-year-olds was J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, while 32- to 43-year-olds named Stephen King's "The Stand" and Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons."
Picks for second-favorite book also varied according to region. "Gone With the Wind" was number two in the southern and midwestern United States while easterners chose "The Lord of the Rings" and westerners opted for "The Stand."
Whites and Hispanics picked "Gone With the Wind" as their second-favorite book after the Bible, while African-Americans preferred "Angels and Demons."
"Finally, they may not agree on candidates, but one thing that brings together partisans is their favorite book. For Republicans, Democrats and Independents, the top two books are the same -- the Bible followed by "Gone With the Wind."
Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown, "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand and "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger rounded out the top 10 favorites.
(Reporting by Julie Mollins; editing by Patricia Reaney)
Friday, December 21, 2007
FeedBack: The strange death of Jerry Garcia
FeedBack: The strange death of Jerry Garcia
Matt Beal
palomine55@yahoo.com
Tue Dec 18, 2007
I read somewhere, I think it was an article by you that was posted on the Internet, that Jerry Garcia was an advocate of the theory that The Committee of 300 controls the world, and that his death may have been linked to his political views.
Can you tell me where I could find more information about this?
Thanks
Robalini's Response: There used to be a Website dedicated to the "Jerry Garcia Was Murdered" theory, but it was closer to "Bert Is Evil!" (i.e. a joke site) than "Stephen King Murdered John Lennon!" On this site, there was a quote from Jerry claiming he believed in the 300 Committee conspiracy theory (ironic since Lyndon Larouche claims the Dead were a British intelligence operation tied to LSD.)
I can't find it on the web, nor can I even find an old link to it via the now defunct Conspire.com (I believe that's how I first heard about it) through Archive.org, but someone may have it, as I did pass it around. If I find the old URL, I'll look for it on Archive.org for you.
The quote is tongue-in-cheek mentioned in passing in the October 1997 Beast of the Month Award for Queen Elizabeth:
http://www.konformist.com/botm/volume01/botm1097.htm
Then there is Dr. John Coleman, who writes about THE COMMITTEE OF 300, an international secret society that rules the world with an iron fist. (Ironically, Jerry Garcia, shortly before his "overdose" - yes, that's right, another potential conspiracy - reputedly became a big proponent of the Committee of 300 theory, which proves that, as far as reputed British mind-kontrol operatives go, he was one of the most unwitting.)
This is probably how you heard about it. That little tidbit received a lot of interest back then, and I would later pass around text from the Jerry Garcia site in response. One of the people who received it was R.U. Sirius of MONDO 2000, and he passed it to Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow. In response, Barlow vehemently denied there was any truth to the quote, and also denied there was any truth to the claim Garcia was murdered. What a spoilsport! John Perry Barlow, don't tase me, bro!!!
As a final note, check out the 1997 movie Conspiracy Theory, with warm and cuddly Mel Gibson playing a conspiracy theorist (ironically named Jerry.) Here's an exchange between Gibson and Julia Roberts:
Jerry: You know why the Grateful Dead are always on tour? Because they're all British intelligence agents. They're all spies. Jerry Garcia himself has a double 00 rating, just like James Bond.
Alice: Jerry Garcia is dead.
Jerry: That's what they want you to think.
Matt Beal
palomine55@yahoo.com
Tue Dec 18, 2007
I read somewhere, I think it was an article by you that was posted on the Internet, that Jerry Garcia was an advocate of the theory that The Committee of 300 controls the world, and that his death may have been linked to his political views.
Can you tell me where I could find more information about this?
Thanks
Robalini's Response: There used to be a Website dedicated to the "Jerry Garcia Was Murdered" theory, but it was closer to "Bert Is Evil!" (i.e. a joke site) than "Stephen King Murdered John Lennon!" On this site, there was a quote from Jerry claiming he believed in the 300 Committee conspiracy theory (ironic since Lyndon Larouche claims the Dead were a British intelligence operation tied to LSD.)
I can't find it on the web, nor can I even find an old link to it via the now defunct Conspire.com (I believe that's how I first heard about it) through Archive.org, but someone may have it, as I did pass it around. If I find the old URL, I'll look for it on Archive.org for you.
The quote is tongue-in-cheek mentioned in passing in the October 1997 Beast of the Month Award for Queen Elizabeth:
http://www.konformist.com/botm/volume01/botm1097.htm
Then there is Dr. John Coleman, who writes about THE COMMITTEE OF 300, an international secret society that rules the world with an iron fist. (Ironically, Jerry Garcia, shortly before his "overdose" - yes, that's right, another potential conspiracy - reputedly became a big proponent of the Committee of 300 theory, which proves that, as far as reputed British mind-kontrol operatives go, he was one of the most unwitting.)
This is probably how you heard about it. That little tidbit received a lot of interest back then, and I would later pass around text from the Jerry Garcia site in response. One of the people who received it was R.U. Sirius of MONDO 2000, and he passed it to Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow. In response, Barlow vehemently denied there was any truth to the quote, and also denied there was any truth to the claim Garcia was murdered. What a spoilsport! John Perry Barlow, don't tase me, bro!!!
As a final note, check out the 1997 movie Conspiracy Theory, with warm and cuddly Mel Gibson playing a conspiracy theorist (ironically named Jerry.) Here's an exchange between Gibson and Julia Roberts:
Jerry: You know why the Grateful Dead are always on tour? Because they're all British intelligence agents. They're all spies. Jerry Garcia himself has a double 00 rating, just like James Bond.
Alice: Jerry Garcia is dead.
Jerry: That's what they want you to think.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Stephen King Murdered John Lennon!!!
Stephen King Murdered John Lennon (and Kenn Thomas in a Previous Life)
http://home.pacifier.com/~dkossy/lightfoot.html
Steve Lightfoot: Who REALLY Killed John Lennon?
Donna Kossy, Kooks Museum
Introduction
Steve Lightfoot is one of the first kooks that I became aware of during my stint in San Francisco during the mid-eighties. I would occasionally spot Lightfoot in downtown SF, with his signs and his guitar, singing tuneless, but heartfelt renditions of old John Lennon songs. He sometimes passed out flyers to passersby. Lightfoot is the guy who thinks that there was a conspiracy to kill John Lennon, involving Nixon, Reagan, various police departments, and Stephen King. King, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mark David Chapman, supposedly pulled the trigger.
I hadn't heard anything about Lightfoot since I'd left SF, until 1992 or so, when a friend claimed that he'd seen him in Harvard Square. Lightfoot was apparently on his way to Stephen King's home town of Bangor, Maine, much to the chagrin of Stephen King. Lightfoot hung about Bangor for several months while receiving media attention as a dangerous celebrity stalker, much like Lennon's real killer, Mark David Chapman.
Below you'll find Lightfoot's version of the story, as found in a xeroxed bundle donated by Tim Cridland.
SANTA CRUZ POLICE CHIEF, STEVE BELCHER IN F.B.I. CONSPIRACY TO MURDER ME!?
In this news letter you will learn many things. I will show you the big picture of John Lennon's assasination, who is covering it up and why and you will learn that last October's arrest of me for setting foot in Santa Cruz Bookshop was a Soviet style sting to set me up for murder in the near future. You will learn the backround of police abuse I have suffered under ever since Terry Chodash of the Secret Service tracked me down to interview me. Abuse that includes kidnapping, pistol-whipping, food poisoning, guns aimed rignt at me the night of Reagan's re-election, multiple instances where I have been summoned to appear for charges I had nothing to do with, the hundreds of falsely issued parking citations and several moving violations I have received including the falsely issued ticket I received just weeks after my Santa Cruz arrest when a Santa Cruz officer was seen stalking my parked van. You will learn that, In my opinion, the Santa Cruz police are exactly corrupt enough to be partly and directly responsible for many of the dead hippies in your mountains that earned you the title murder capital of America. That, in my opinion, the U.S. govt. is encouraging the destruction of the hippie movement, especially in the hippie haven; Santa Cruz. You will learn of the threat letter I received from a horror writer just two weeks before my Father was killed in a plane crash, a crash tnat occured on the tenth anniversary of Nixon's resignation. You will actually see Stephen King's handwritten letter to me in 1992 where he accidentally signed his name; "...the man who really did kill John. Best, Stephen King". You will see how he used that letter and the book it was signed in as a veiled threat to kill me as well as an offer of '. . . anything. . ." if I would quit with "that picture of me getting John Lennon's autograph, anything." You will learn of my five months in his home town of Bangor, Maine and the several instances King declined to deny my charges when he could have, including here in Santa Cruz when he admitted that I'm a stone in his shoe. You will learn of the time undercover S.F. police dislocated my shoulder and broke my nose on Haight St. a week before my advertised rally at KRON TV and how the assailant said to me only "We don't need the publicity." You will learn that 95% of the people peddling decoy Chapman just happen to be Jewish and that Stephen King repeats the italicized phrase; "beware the Jewish Communist plot against the U.S.", in at least one of his books. lncidentally, I am not an anti-semite. I am merely aware that a small, evil group of Jews want the destruction of America and are using the media and violence to bring about a hasty disintegration of our morals. I, in fact, think Moscow is behind this media monopoly under 90% Jewish control and that America's harboring of Nazis after WWII is one obvious reason. I do think that 99% of Jews are as good as anybody. You will learn that america's moral breakdown and skyrocketing statistics of violence and social disfunction are directly attributable to the murder and coverup of John Lennon and that people like John Lennon are the only thing that stands between a corrupt government and the people. Mostly, I hope you will learn that each of you are in a state of fear, cowardice and masochism regarding the emergence of the truth of John Lennon's assassination.
It was the evening of Dec. 08, 1980 when we all heard the horrible news that our beloved John Lennon, co-leader of the most loved musical group of all time and the most prominent and influentlal peace activist in the world was murdered like a dog. The National Inquirer finished their report with the closing sentence; ". . . and Lennon was the evil that had to be removed." The media at large put forth the proposition that Lennon was the anti-Christ in the kilIer's mind and before long parents all across America were displaying their hypocracy and cowardice as they explained to their children that it was no big deal. The same culture that excused J.F.K.'s murder and R.F.K.'s and M.L.K. murders was now justifying the government's evil role.
The killer was wisked away for a 60 day psychiatric evaluation that turned into a year and 60 days of absolute silence. Then a tiny clipping buried in the back of the nations newspapers reported that Chapman had plead guilty days before his trial. There was no followup. It was treated like any other murder and not the murder of a cultural giant. I knew then the government was covering something up. And so it was on July 26, 1982, a year and a half after the crime that I turned to my local library to re-read the murder reports to find out whatever became of Chapman. I wasn't looking for government codes about John Lennon's murder in major magazines. It was just hard not to spot the strange behavior in the headlines of Time magazine especially since the magazine I happened to pick up came out the day of the murder. The bold print headlines, with almost every turn of the page, seemed to plug into the murder of John Lennon and not just the more obvious intent of the article. When I turned to page 16 and saw tne ominous headine "Who's In?""Who's Out?" above just elected Reagan I began to think I was stumbling on to govt. codes and that the double meaning of this headline translated to "Reagan's In""Lennon's Out"
I looked closer and noticed the smaller headline below the photo read "Fitting together the pieces of a complicated jigsaw puzzle..." I looked at the picture and saw a vase of lillys, symbolic of death, and Richard Nixons book The Real War sitting at Reagan's right hand side and in the very foreground of the picture. Knowing that Nixon was John's biggest enemy in life who tried to illegally deport him because of his "Tricky Dicky" lyrics and peace activism, I read relevant passages where Nixon explains why certain "..rock stars.. who say 'Peace' is 'good' and 'war' is 'bad' . . . must be removed from the stage of public debate by whatever means are needed. . ."
About ten pages explain why people like John bennon must be assassinated showing me that this was no ordinary photo. In fact I found the same photo also in Newsweek above the caption 'Head hunting in Pacific Palisades..." In the Dec. 08,1980 issue of Newsweek, released a week before the murder, I discovered consecutive headlines; "Odd Man Out-Bad Blood-The Nixon Factor-Stay Tuned-Intensity" and passages like; "...abruptly withdrew under rising enemy fire... after he was shot down he graciously withdrew ...caught in the crossfire of Washington politics. .in the bad graces of Richard Nixon. .he intimidated some of the elders with his brash brilliance..." Then I knew all this was too much to be mere coincidence. In fact I discovered that up to 75% of the bold print messages in Time and Newsweek issues surrounding the nignt of Lennon's murder read like govt. codes all about it. That, in fact, these magazines had intelligence ties to our govt. and documented secrets via bold print coded messages.
Eventually, I discovered Mark David King Chapman attached to a letter to the editor of U.S. News & World Report where Chapman explains that he is armed waiting for the giant hand of Reagan to move him to some hostile square.
Finally, I discovered the killer's face and true identity, Stepnen King, in Time magazine three months before the murder advertised; "One great big Zippo lighter." which describes the murder scene of a man at night firing a gun with the flame blazing from the barrel. I didn't know who Stephen King was then as he was not yet really famous. A quick read of the book review where King; "...dubs this infammatory force 'pyrokinesis' a combination of the Greek words meaning 'fire' and 'movement'" clued me to the real possibility that not only did Nixon have John Lennon assassinated, he let a famous horror writer pull the trigger besides. My thoughts then were that Nixon was a criminal genius as no one would ever believe such a truth no matter how provable with facts. Subsequent readings of other King novels confirmed that, indeed, this was the killer. Years before the murder King was already writing about Johnny and a political assassination plot, shooting a man between the shoulder blades and getting "down there with the Oswaids, Sirhans, Bremmers and crazies of the world. There was no shortage of sufficiant evidence I would find.
That is how the biggest true story since Christ was discovered. It is absolutely the biggest story since Christ that can be proved. it is a story guaranteed to topple Time, Newsweek and U.S. News, the worlds biggest magazines, a story guaranteed to reveal all of us naked in all our blindness and brainwashed state and all the evil of covering it up we have already demonstrated, a story that will ultimately prove Nixon had the Kennedy's killed as revealed in 1963 codes and a story that will revolutionise all our lives and expose the world conspiracy to destroy the United States. Just like Jesus was killed by the government of the day so will Lennon's murder be also proved. Most of all we the people will be exposed for buying into tne evil of coverups period and how that accounts for the moral disintegration of America as evidenced in our headlines of the last decade and a half. This story will bring more truth and justice to our lives than our parents ever dreamed of and will alter the course of human history. It is precisely because this story has so much potential power that the U.S. govt. has enlisted the help of the corrupt Santa Cruz police dept. and a city council member, Neil Coonerty to set Steve Lightfoot up for assassination.
When I was on national television getting arrested in handcuffs preliminary news footage was obtained to later demonize me after I am dead. In other words, a propaganda campaign is being built for future purposes after I am killed to portray me as a stalker and a criminal who probably had it conning. A recent encounter with officer T. Barry suggests to me that the Santa Cruz police are planning to plant a gun on me or in my van and kill me and then lie to the public that I was threatening an officer and had to be shot. As many of you now already know I was arrested for tresspassing for entering the same bookstore where Stephen King was lying to the media about me regarding River Phoenix's death and how he claims that I said the U.S. Dept of Agriculture had Phoenix killed because he was a vegetarian. I never said that to begin with. I was not allowed my free speech rights to alter the outcome of what the media would do to my reputation later that week. I was immediately handcuffed and arrested and jailed and not just jailed but also deliberately slandered. I was put in the nutcase wing in solitary lockdown and was even corralled into a three minute interview wIth a psychologist during the one time in three days I was given my hour recess. After the media told King's lie about me all across America I was released three days later. In fact I am told by my public defender that the charge against me will be dismissed on Dec 02, 1994. It turns out that a journalist witness contradicts the police account of my arrest and they didn't have a case. In fact I was never told to stay out of that bookstore to begin with. It was a conspiracy to defame me as a stalker and a criminal. It just so happens that Neil Coonerty is a former mayor of Santa Cruz. He was the one that gave the undercover police permission to let me in so I could be arrested. A week before the arrest he told me "The police and I have discussed you and we'll be watching you carefully. King doesn't know anything about it but we just don't want to go through the hassle. l'm not going to sell you a ticket to the Civic Auditorium, King has done a lot to help independant bookstores, this is a privately owned store now please leave." It was a trick remark to be used as a false reason to arrest me if I dared to confront King with my accusation. And more it was censorship of the highest order or the lowest order if you please. Had I been allowed my right of free speech the media would not have printed King's Phoenix remark without it being challenged by me and they would also have been obligated to include that I accused him of being Lennon's real life killer.
And so it was that chief Steve Belcher became an accessory to a murder coverup and guilty of aiding the escape of a murderer. He became an enemy of the people of Santa Cruz and the lone messenger trying to bring about justice. He became a criminal helping another criminal and stopped being a protector of the public. Like the New York police who were in on the murder of Lennon in 198O Steve Belcher became an extention of the same murder coverup. He also became a violator of my rights and a willing conspirator in the defamation campaign against me. Since my release the police have parked next to me while I was distributing literature to scare off tbe public and gave me a false citation based on an unwarrented and unreasonable search of my parked van. My garbage he viewed after he stuck his head in my car. When I reached to get my drivers licence he said to me "Don't pull out a gun." It made me think the police are trying to shoot me as if I would ever pull out a gun or possess a gun in the first place and then lie to the public about the reasons I was killed. The police had my car keys for three days and can plant anything at any time they want and I'm telling you now not after they kill me.
Though Coonerty discussed me with the police before King's arrival and my arrest made nation wide TV chief Belcher denies that he has ever heard of me. Not likely.
In the summer of 1993 his dept. harrassed me no less that twenty times and falsely cited me for a peace disturbance that was ultimately not pursued by the coffee shop owner they solicited to help make the complaint. Way back then I knew the Santa Cruz police were hostile towards me and my bombshell expose.
My life came under police assault In 1983 wnen I received a summons to appear for charges of "breaking and entering and attempted grand theft" that I had nothing whatsoever to do with. I wound up with the lawyer who unsuccessfully represented mass murderer Juan Corona and he corralled me also into an interview with a psychiatrist who tried to write in the answers to a test himself after I told him I'm not going to participate. After months of court appearances where I was the only one in the court room it became obvious that they were terrorizing me. I made the newspaper then accusing the govt. of practicing state terrorism against a U.S. citizen. And they were. I was released as not being a suspect only to be confronted with guns pointing directly at me the night of Reagan's re-election by S.F. police the next year. My belongings were searched but my I.D. was never requested at all.
In 1984 also my father was killed in a plane crash after I received a threat letter (SEE SUPPLEMENT) from a horror writer. The F.B.I. refused to even accept the letter or the matter at all. Two weeks later my father was dead. Months before he died his dog was found dead, hanged from a drape cord with all the eirie connotations of a mob threat. Incidentally, included in the phony summons I received already mentioned was a line out of King's then recent movie Christine "I'll get you!"
In Berkeley I was the target of multiple police attempts to arrest me and violent attacks with a baseball bat and strangers kicking me in the back from behind and these attackers were released as suspects after positive I.D. was made and these youths were also seen often talking with police besides.
In the year of 1987 undercover S.F. vice officer and martial artist Thomas Decker and his tall accomplice dislocated my shoulder and broke my nose on a sidewalk for no reason after he said "We don't need the publicity." He was released by D.A. Costello after I made a citizens arrest and a positive I.D.
Earlier that year I was confronted six times in five days by S.F. police who threatened to shoot me up with thorazine while I was displaying my signs on Van Ness Ave. No amount of complaints I made did any good as I would find Frank Jordan was behind the campaign. When chief Casey replaced Jordan the harassment, literally stopped. Like night and day. When Jordan was chief my signs and P.A. system were constantly being seized.
Two months after my nose was broken I was invited to the Lennon art exhibit by the manager of the DYANSEN gallery who let me in ahead of over a hundred people in line apparently to insure that Yoko Ono and I were there together. I gave her my literature and told her to please read it. She said she would and then went with her security to a room to immediately see what was inside. She left the gallery and her security came back a half hour later and violently pushed me down the exit stairs into the waiting arms of four police who kidnapped me, handcuffed me, said "We're going to beat your ass", drove to a seedy neighborhood and then pistolwhipped me unconscious. I was then delivered to the General Hospital where officer Kevin Hall said "I'm going to break your nose." Instead I was delivered to the Psych wing and strapped, bloodied and bruised, to a table. The report said that I was yelling death threats to Yoko Ono. It was a complete lie yet I was evaluated for 48 hours and released as completely sane and only physically beaten. My body was later placed in a tunnel to photograph my internal organs. The officers were Kevin Hall and Steven Rist. I filed a 12 million dollar suit only to find no willing attorney.
A year after meeting Michael McCartney, Paul's brother, and imploring him to tell Paul I need help Paul yelled out my name in front of 60 thousand fans at the 1990 Berkeley concert: During the instrumental of one song, and I have it on tape for proof, he yelled out; "Yeah Steeeeeeeeeeve! That's right. I don't know about you Berkeley but I want you to know we like it and we need you as a people to get to the promised land..."
That plug got all police off my back for two years.
In l992 I took my evidence to King's home town of Bangor, Maine. I was cited the minute I hit town for a red light violation I didn't commit and was branded a stalker in the media. King would not deny my claims then and said "I just want to say this guy has been doing this for ten years." Two weeks later I was again falsely cited. Both tickets were dismissed after officer Keith Mercier admitted under oath that "Stephen King gives me five grand a week to harrass you."
It was during my five month stay there that Stephen King had a young man deliver a letter of bribery to me contained in a book called LET ME TAKE YOU DOWN. It was also a veiled threat considering the fact he had already taken Lennon down. On the inside cover of the book was a page long handwritten letter by Stephen King to me. (SEE SUPPLEMENT) Taik about a freudian slip! He unwittingly signed his name to me, his accuser, "...the man who really did kill John - Best, Stephen King" insIde the book was not only a book marker but also a smudge mark parallel to some amazing passages where Chapman is begging Paul Goresh " . . .anything for that picture of me getting John Lennon's autograph..."
I took it as a veiled bribe since my case is based in part on matching photographs of King and Lennon's killer getting the autograph. You be the judge (SEE SUPPLEMENT)
Both Stephen King and I are in this book about Chapman and I am demonized as a stalker and wrongfully portrayed as being barred from King's home town. (SEE SUPPLEMENT)
So, you see folks, Stephen King IS more than casually aware of me and has offered me millions if I quit my story. After two years of not biting he decided to give Santa Cruz a shot at trashing my reputation. He advertised his Santa Cruz stop knowing I would confront him. In the past he kept his schedule secret. In fact the major book stores he derides may have told him he is not welcome at their stores because of my evidence. In fact, he may be looking for a new home as Maine knows all about me and has thousands of my articles of evidence. Maine also knows that King was found guilty of having sex with a minor in a Belfast, Maine court case and that he was ordered to pay a fine. Maine knows he killed Lennon and that he is also a child molester.
During the 92 election George Bush admitted twice on TV "Nobody likes who shot John... I know the media is fascinated with this story but..." I even have the N.Y. Times transcript where he mentions my story "EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS: WHO SHOT JOHN LENNON?" during the Richmond, Va. presidential debate (SEE SUPPLEMENT) as one reason he is losing in Maine.
So you see even the President has discussed my story on the most watched TV event of the year.
The time is coming when he will be exposed and jailed and he knows it. King has been advised by his attorney's not to sue me because I have the proof to back up my claims and to instead derail me if he can with propaganda to defame me and my credibility. In coming to Santa Cruz to conduct his charade he has fingered whose police dept. is corrupt enough to kill me. The surly disrespectful demeaner of the police here match the behavior of the S.F.P.D. and suggest to me they are plotting to kill me. In fact, both King and the police are trying to get me to move here. My last citation requires that I change my address to Santa Cruz. I had recently been interviewed as a guest in San Diego's biggest talk radio station and I an making headway. King's in a hurry to to let Santa Cruz police kill me apparently.
In the past King has never denied my claim. He has responded instead with comments like; "That's not worth discussing... well guys there is the other side of me, he's been doing this for ten years..." and, usually, "No comment" as he did here and in a N.Y. paper when he added; "You guys in N.Y. can keep Lightfoot."
He has never denied my claims. He can't afford to sue me beside.
W h a t k i n d o f p e o p l e a r e w e i f
w e c a n ' t d e f e n d J o h n L e n n o n ?
What kind of parents are we if we can't even admit that we never saw a trial for John Lennon's killer or that our children are paying the price of our neglect? How can we not admit that that attitude in the past encouraged the murders of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King and now John Lennon? How can we not admit the fact that Tricky Dicky has been hurting us our entire lives much like Susan Smith who pushed her kids into the lake, we have strapped our kids into the lie of Mark David Chapman and pushed them into the lake of another coverup guaranteed to spawn yet more evil. How can we not grab the wheel now when one of us, me, has not only discovered hard, incontrovertible evidence that cracks open the real picture of our lives, but has also honored you with the courage to bring it to the public? Don't you have a duty to people like me-and there's not many to rescue them when the courts and the police and the media have sold all of you out already and are only trying to put an early lid on my casket? Don't you know the media is an extention of the military and not just a bunch of people making money? Don't you know that if you don't pick up a sign and help me no one else will? I've been a loyal, humble watchdog guarding all of you from evil assassinations. You should have seen me that day when King had to pull his Harley on the other side of the block to pretend he didn't see my huge sign; "STEPHEN KING IS A MURDERER: IT'S TRUE OR HE'D SUE" You should have read the pamphlet I put out before he arrived exposing his child molestation conviction and his face getting Lennon's autograph and even daring him to sue me or deny the charge. He couldn't. All he could say Was; "No,,,,,comment." and "Lightfoot is a stone in my shoe but more importantly let's lie about the messenger have him arrested and make him look like the bad guy..." or so many words.
We live a lie. Our orgasms are unholy under these perverted sheets. Lennon's killer is molestIng your kids everybody! Even the animals seem bored with humans lately. I think it's time we picked ourselves up off our face and break "Who shot John Lennon".
We live in a world where N.Y. police and prison officials and journalists like Walters, L. King, Goldman, People magazine, the Enquirer, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN etc. all stalked, murdered, laughed, and lied to us after they killed John Lennon. A world where scumbags like Chapman accept a million dollars to cop to the crime because Stephen King and the govt. need a decoy lookalike. I can't wait till Chapman and King both go to jail. Reagan is already claiming Alzheimers disease. Maybe Yoko's no good either. Let the pieces fall where they may, I say. Clean our lives up. While Chapman was waiting in the police station King was murdering Lennon. Corrupt cops et all arrived and buried the truth and King and Chapman were let out hours later. It's all the truth about our lives and it's not good enough for me, not when a simple gathering of ...fifty people at the Sentinel Dec, 08, 1994 can change everything, one news, spot at a time. Please be there, people.
My own mother and brothers and sister and friends would rather let the govt. murder me than carry a sign for even one day with me. Even McCartney has lost what little nerve he once had. I am carrying thIs story all alone and I need your help people of Santa Cruz. Dec. 08, 1994 I will give you people a chance to do the right thing and rescue me and expose Stephen King. I will conduct a rally in front of the Santa Cruz Sentinel from noon to six PM.
As John would say; "DON'T LET ME DOWN." Please support me. I can't do it alone. Let's confront the media or they won't tell.
THANK YOU, STEVE LIGHTFOOT
http://home.pacifier.com/~dkossy/lightfoot.html
Steve Lightfoot: Who REALLY Killed John Lennon?
Donna Kossy, Kooks Museum
Introduction
Steve Lightfoot is one of the first kooks that I became aware of during my stint in San Francisco during the mid-eighties. I would occasionally spot Lightfoot in downtown SF, with his signs and his guitar, singing tuneless, but heartfelt renditions of old John Lennon songs. He sometimes passed out flyers to passersby. Lightfoot is the guy who thinks that there was a conspiracy to kill John Lennon, involving Nixon, Reagan, various police departments, and Stephen King. King, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mark David Chapman, supposedly pulled the trigger.
I hadn't heard anything about Lightfoot since I'd left SF, until 1992 or so, when a friend claimed that he'd seen him in Harvard Square. Lightfoot was apparently on his way to Stephen King's home town of Bangor, Maine, much to the chagrin of Stephen King. Lightfoot hung about Bangor for several months while receiving media attention as a dangerous celebrity stalker, much like Lennon's real killer, Mark David Chapman.
Below you'll find Lightfoot's version of the story, as found in a xeroxed bundle donated by Tim Cridland.
SANTA CRUZ POLICE CHIEF, STEVE BELCHER IN F.B.I. CONSPIRACY TO MURDER ME!?
In this news letter you will learn many things. I will show you the big picture of John Lennon's assasination, who is covering it up and why and you will learn that last October's arrest of me for setting foot in Santa Cruz Bookshop was a Soviet style sting to set me up for murder in the near future. You will learn the backround of police abuse I have suffered under ever since Terry Chodash of the Secret Service tracked me down to interview me. Abuse that includes kidnapping, pistol-whipping, food poisoning, guns aimed rignt at me the night of Reagan's re-election, multiple instances where I have been summoned to appear for charges I had nothing to do with, the hundreds of falsely issued parking citations and several moving violations I have received including the falsely issued ticket I received just weeks after my Santa Cruz arrest when a Santa Cruz officer was seen stalking my parked van. You will learn that, In my opinion, the Santa Cruz police are exactly corrupt enough to be partly and directly responsible for many of the dead hippies in your mountains that earned you the title murder capital of America. That, in my opinion, the U.S. govt. is encouraging the destruction of the hippie movement, especially in the hippie haven; Santa Cruz. You will learn of the threat letter I received from a horror writer just two weeks before my Father was killed in a plane crash, a crash tnat occured on the tenth anniversary of Nixon's resignation. You will actually see Stephen King's handwritten letter to me in 1992 where he accidentally signed his name; "...the man who really did kill John. Best, Stephen King". You will see how he used that letter and the book it was signed in as a veiled threat to kill me as well as an offer of '. . . anything. . ." if I would quit with "that picture of me getting John Lennon's autograph, anything." You will learn of my five months in his home town of Bangor, Maine and the several instances King declined to deny my charges when he could have, including here in Santa Cruz when he admitted that I'm a stone in his shoe. You will learn of the time undercover S.F. police dislocated my shoulder and broke my nose on Haight St. a week before my advertised rally at KRON TV and how the assailant said to me only "We don't need the publicity." You will learn that 95% of the people peddling decoy Chapman just happen to be Jewish and that Stephen King repeats the italicized phrase; "beware the Jewish Communist plot against the U.S.", in at least one of his books. lncidentally, I am not an anti-semite. I am merely aware that a small, evil group of Jews want the destruction of America and are using the media and violence to bring about a hasty disintegration of our morals. I, in fact, think Moscow is behind this media monopoly under 90% Jewish control and that America's harboring of Nazis after WWII is one obvious reason. I do think that 99% of Jews are as good as anybody. You will learn that america's moral breakdown and skyrocketing statistics of violence and social disfunction are directly attributable to the murder and coverup of John Lennon and that people like John Lennon are the only thing that stands between a corrupt government and the people. Mostly, I hope you will learn that each of you are in a state of fear, cowardice and masochism regarding the emergence of the truth of John Lennon's assassination.
It was the evening of Dec. 08, 1980 when we all heard the horrible news that our beloved John Lennon, co-leader of the most loved musical group of all time and the most prominent and influentlal peace activist in the world was murdered like a dog. The National Inquirer finished their report with the closing sentence; ". . . and Lennon was the evil that had to be removed." The media at large put forth the proposition that Lennon was the anti-Christ in the kilIer's mind and before long parents all across America were displaying their hypocracy and cowardice as they explained to their children that it was no big deal. The same culture that excused J.F.K.'s murder and R.F.K.'s and M.L.K. murders was now justifying the government's evil role.
The killer was wisked away for a 60 day psychiatric evaluation that turned into a year and 60 days of absolute silence. Then a tiny clipping buried in the back of the nations newspapers reported that Chapman had plead guilty days before his trial. There was no followup. It was treated like any other murder and not the murder of a cultural giant. I knew then the government was covering something up. And so it was on July 26, 1982, a year and a half after the crime that I turned to my local library to re-read the murder reports to find out whatever became of Chapman. I wasn't looking for government codes about John Lennon's murder in major magazines. It was just hard not to spot the strange behavior in the headlines of Time magazine especially since the magazine I happened to pick up came out the day of the murder. The bold print headlines, with almost every turn of the page, seemed to plug into the murder of John Lennon and not just the more obvious intent of the article. When I turned to page 16 and saw tne ominous headine "Who's In?""Who's Out?" above just elected Reagan I began to think I was stumbling on to govt. codes and that the double meaning of this headline translated to "Reagan's In""Lennon's Out"
I looked closer and noticed the smaller headline below the photo read "Fitting together the pieces of a complicated jigsaw puzzle..." I looked at the picture and saw a vase of lillys, symbolic of death, and Richard Nixons book The Real War sitting at Reagan's right hand side and in the very foreground of the picture. Knowing that Nixon was John's biggest enemy in life who tried to illegally deport him because of his "Tricky Dicky" lyrics and peace activism, I read relevant passages where Nixon explains why certain "..rock stars.. who say 'Peace' is 'good' and 'war' is 'bad' . . . must be removed from the stage of public debate by whatever means are needed. . ."
About ten pages explain why people like John bennon must be assassinated showing me that this was no ordinary photo. In fact I found the same photo also in Newsweek above the caption 'Head hunting in Pacific Palisades..." In the Dec. 08,1980 issue of Newsweek, released a week before the murder, I discovered consecutive headlines; "Odd Man Out-Bad Blood-The Nixon Factor-Stay Tuned-Intensity" and passages like; "...abruptly withdrew under rising enemy fire... after he was shot down he graciously withdrew ...caught in the crossfire of Washington politics. .in the bad graces of Richard Nixon. .he intimidated some of the elders with his brash brilliance..." Then I knew all this was too much to be mere coincidence. In fact I discovered that up to 75% of the bold print messages in Time and Newsweek issues surrounding the nignt of Lennon's murder read like govt. codes all about it. That, in fact, these magazines had intelligence ties to our govt. and documented secrets via bold print coded messages.
Eventually, I discovered Mark David King Chapman attached to a letter to the editor of U.S. News & World Report where Chapman explains that he is armed waiting for the giant hand of Reagan to move him to some hostile square.
Finally, I discovered the killer's face and true identity, Stepnen King, in Time magazine three months before the murder advertised; "One great big Zippo lighter." which describes the murder scene of a man at night firing a gun with the flame blazing from the barrel. I didn't know who Stephen King was then as he was not yet really famous. A quick read of the book review where King; "...dubs this infammatory force 'pyrokinesis' a combination of the Greek words meaning 'fire' and 'movement'" clued me to the real possibility that not only did Nixon have John Lennon assassinated, he let a famous horror writer pull the trigger besides. My thoughts then were that Nixon was a criminal genius as no one would ever believe such a truth no matter how provable with facts. Subsequent readings of other King novels confirmed that, indeed, this was the killer. Years before the murder King was already writing about Johnny and a political assassination plot, shooting a man between the shoulder blades and getting "down there with the Oswaids, Sirhans, Bremmers and crazies of the world. There was no shortage of sufficiant evidence I would find.
That is how the biggest true story since Christ was discovered. It is absolutely the biggest story since Christ that can be proved. it is a story guaranteed to topple Time, Newsweek and U.S. News, the worlds biggest magazines, a story guaranteed to reveal all of us naked in all our blindness and brainwashed state and all the evil of covering it up we have already demonstrated, a story that will ultimately prove Nixon had the Kennedy's killed as revealed in 1963 codes and a story that will revolutionise all our lives and expose the world conspiracy to destroy the United States. Just like Jesus was killed by the government of the day so will Lennon's murder be also proved. Most of all we the people will be exposed for buying into tne evil of coverups period and how that accounts for the moral disintegration of America as evidenced in our headlines of the last decade and a half. This story will bring more truth and justice to our lives than our parents ever dreamed of and will alter the course of human history. It is precisely because this story has so much potential power that the U.S. govt. has enlisted the help of the corrupt Santa Cruz police dept. and a city council member, Neil Coonerty to set Steve Lightfoot up for assassination.
When I was on national television getting arrested in handcuffs preliminary news footage was obtained to later demonize me after I am dead. In other words, a propaganda campaign is being built for future purposes after I am killed to portray me as a stalker and a criminal who probably had it conning. A recent encounter with officer T. Barry suggests to me that the Santa Cruz police are planning to plant a gun on me or in my van and kill me and then lie to the public that I was threatening an officer and had to be shot. As many of you now already know I was arrested for tresspassing for entering the same bookstore where Stephen King was lying to the media about me regarding River Phoenix's death and how he claims that I said the U.S. Dept of Agriculture had Phoenix killed because he was a vegetarian. I never said that to begin with. I was not allowed my free speech rights to alter the outcome of what the media would do to my reputation later that week. I was immediately handcuffed and arrested and jailed and not just jailed but also deliberately slandered. I was put in the nutcase wing in solitary lockdown and was even corralled into a three minute interview wIth a psychologist during the one time in three days I was given my hour recess. After the media told King's lie about me all across America I was released three days later. In fact I am told by my public defender that the charge against me will be dismissed on Dec 02, 1994. It turns out that a journalist witness contradicts the police account of my arrest and they didn't have a case. In fact I was never told to stay out of that bookstore to begin with. It was a conspiracy to defame me as a stalker and a criminal. It just so happens that Neil Coonerty is a former mayor of Santa Cruz. He was the one that gave the undercover police permission to let me in so I could be arrested. A week before the arrest he told me "The police and I have discussed you and we'll be watching you carefully. King doesn't know anything about it but we just don't want to go through the hassle. l'm not going to sell you a ticket to the Civic Auditorium, King has done a lot to help independant bookstores, this is a privately owned store now please leave." It was a trick remark to be used as a false reason to arrest me if I dared to confront King with my accusation. And more it was censorship of the highest order or the lowest order if you please. Had I been allowed my right of free speech the media would not have printed King's Phoenix remark without it being challenged by me and they would also have been obligated to include that I accused him of being Lennon's real life killer.
And so it was that chief Steve Belcher became an accessory to a murder coverup and guilty of aiding the escape of a murderer. He became an enemy of the people of Santa Cruz and the lone messenger trying to bring about justice. He became a criminal helping another criminal and stopped being a protector of the public. Like the New York police who were in on the murder of Lennon in 198O Steve Belcher became an extention of the same murder coverup. He also became a violator of my rights and a willing conspirator in the defamation campaign against me. Since my release the police have parked next to me while I was distributing literature to scare off tbe public and gave me a false citation based on an unwarrented and unreasonable search of my parked van. My garbage he viewed after he stuck his head in my car. When I reached to get my drivers licence he said to me "Don't pull out a gun." It made me think the police are trying to shoot me as if I would ever pull out a gun or possess a gun in the first place and then lie to the public about the reasons I was killed. The police had my car keys for three days and can plant anything at any time they want and I'm telling you now not after they kill me.
Though Coonerty discussed me with the police before King's arrival and my arrest made nation wide TV chief Belcher denies that he has ever heard of me. Not likely.
In the summer of 1993 his dept. harrassed me no less that twenty times and falsely cited me for a peace disturbance that was ultimately not pursued by the coffee shop owner they solicited to help make the complaint. Way back then I knew the Santa Cruz police were hostile towards me and my bombshell expose.
My life came under police assault In 1983 wnen I received a summons to appear for charges of "breaking and entering and attempted grand theft" that I had nothing whatsoever to do with. I wound up with the lawyer who unsuccessfully represented mass murderer Juan Corona and he corralled me also into an interview with a psychiatrist who tried to write in the answers to a test himself after I told him I'm not going to participate. After months of court appearances where I was the only one in the court room it became obvious that they were terrorizing me. I made the newspaper then accusing the govt. of practicing state terrorism against a U.S. citizen. And they were. I was released as not being a suspect only to be confronted with guns pointing directly at me the night of Reagan's re-election by S.F. police the next year. My belongings were searched but my I.D. was never requested at all.
In 1984 also my father was killed in a plane crash after I received a threat letter (SEE SUPPLEMENT) from a horror writer. The F.B.I. refused to even accept the letter or the matter at all. Two weeks later my father was dead. Months before he died his dog was found dead, hanged from a drape cord with all the eirie connotations of a mob threat. Incidentally, included in the phony summons I received already mentioned was a line out of King's then recent movie Christine "I'll get you!"
In Berkeley I was the target of multiple police attempts to arrest me and violent attacks with a baseball bat and strangers kicking me in the back from behind and these attackers were released as suspects after positive I.D. was made and these youths were also seen often talking with police besides.
In the year of 1987 undercover S.F. vice officer and martial artist Thomas Decker and his tall accomplice dislocated my shoulder and broke my nose on a sidewalk for no reason after he said "We don't need the publicity." He was released by D.A. Costello after I made a citizens arrest and a positive I.D.
Earlier that year I was confronted six times in five days by S.F. police who threatened to shoot me up with thorazine while I was displaying my signs on Van Ness Ave. No amount of complaints I made did any good as I would find Frank Jordan was behind the campaign. When chief Casey replaced Jordan the harassment, literally stopped. Like night and day. When Jordan was chief my signs and P.A. system were constantly being seized.
Two months after my nose was broken I was invited to the Lennon art exhibit by the manager of the DYANSEN gallery who let me in ahead of over a hundred people in line apparently to insure that Yoko Ono and I were there together. I gave her my literature and told her to please read it. She said she would and then went with her security to a room to immediately see what was inside. She left the gallery and her security came back a half hour later and violently pushed me down the exit stairs into the waiting arms of four police who kidnapped me, handcuffed me, said "We're going to beat your ass", drove to a seedy neighborhood and then pistolwhipped me unconscious. I was then delivered to the General Hospital where officer Kevin Hall said "I'm going to break your nose." Instead I was delivered to the Psych wing and strapped, bloodied and bruised, to a table. The report said that I was yelling death threats to Yoko Ono. It was a complete lie yet I was evaluated for 48 hours and released as completely sane and only physically beaten. My body was later placed in a tunnel to photograph my internal organs. The officers were Kevin Hall and Steven Rist. I filed a 12 million dollar suit only to find no willing attorney.
A year after meeting Michael McCartney, Paul's brother, and imploring him to tell Paul I need help Paul yelled out my name in front of 60 thousand fans at the 1990 Berkeley concert: During the instrumental of one song, and I have it on tape for proof, he yelled out; "Yeah Steeeeeeeeeeve! That's right. I don't know about you Berkeley but I want you to know we like it and we need you as a people to get to the promised land..."
That plug got all police off my back for two years.
In l992 I took my evidence to King's home town of Bangor, Maine. I was cited the minute I hit town for a red light violation I didn't commit and was branded a stalker in the media. King would not deny my claims then and said "I just want to say this guy has been doing this for ten years." Two weeks later I was again falsely cited. Both tickets were dismissed after officer Keith Mercier admitted under oath that "Stephen King gives me five grand a week to harrass you."
It was during my five month stay there that Stephen King had a young man deliver a letter of bribery to me contained in a book called LET ME TAKE YOU DOWN. It was also a veiled threat considering the fact he had already taken Lennon down. On the inside cover of the book was a page long handwritten letter by Stephen King to me. (SEE SUPPLEMENT) Taik about a freudian slip! He unwittingly signed his name to me, his accuser, "...the man who really did kill John - Best, Stephen King" insIde the book was not only a book marker but also a smudge mark parallel to some amazing passages where Chapman is begging Paul Goresh " . . .anything for that picture of me getting John Lennon's autograph..."
I took it as a veiled bribe since my case is based in part on matching photographs of King and Lennon's killer getting the autograph. You be the judge (SEE SUPPLEMENT)
Both Stephen King and I are in this book about Chapman and I am demonized as a stalker and wrongfully portrayed as being barred from King's home town. (SEE SUPPLEMENT)
So, you see folks, Stephen King IS more than casually aware of me and has offered me millions if I quit my story. After two years of not biting he decided to give Santa Cruz a shot at trashing my reputation. He advertised his Santa Cruz stop knowing I would confront him. In the past he kept his schedule secret. In fact the major book stores he derides may have told him he is not welcome at their stores because of my evidence. In fact, he may be looking for a new home as Maine knows all about me and has thousands of my articles of evidence. Maine also knows that King was found guilty of having sex with a minor in a Belfast, Maine court case and that he was ordered to pay a fine. Maine knows he killed Lennon and that he is also a child molester.
During the 92 election George Bush admitted twice on TV "Nobody likes who shot John... I know the media is fascinated with this story but..." I even have the N.Y. Times transcript where he mentions my story "EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS: WHO SHOT JOHN LENNON?" during the Richmond, Va. presidential debate (SEE SUPPLEMENT) as one reason he is losing in Maine.
So you see even the President has discussed my story on the most watched TV event of the year.
The time is coming when he will be exposed and jailed and he knows it. King has been advised by his attorney's not to sue me because I have the proof to back up my claims and to instead derail me if he can with propaganda to defame me and my credibility. In coming to Santa Cruz to conduct his charade he has fingered whose police dept. is corrupt enough to kill me. The surly disrespectful demeaner of the police here match the behavior of the S.F.P.D. and suggest to me they are plotting to kill me. In fact, both King and the police are trying to get me to move here. My last citation requires that I change my address to Santa Cruz. I had recently been interviewed as a guest in San Diego's biggest talk radio station and I an making headway. King's in a hurry to to let Santa Cruz police kill me apparently.
In the past King has never denied my claim. He has responded instead with comments like; "That's not worth discussing... well guys there is the other side of me, he's been doing this for ten years..." and, usually, "No comment" as he did here and in a N.Y. paper when he added; "You guys in N.Y. can keep Lightfoot."
He has never denied my claims. He can't afford to sue me beside.
W h a t k i n d o f p e o p l e a r e w e i f
w e c a n ' t d e f e n d J o h n L e n n o n ?
What kind of parents are we if we can't even admit that we never saw a trial for John Lennon's killer or that our children are paying the price of our neglect? How can we not admit that that attitude in the past encouraged the murders of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King and now John Lennon? How can we not admit the fact that Tricky Dicky has been hurting us our entire lives much like Susan Smith who pushed her kids into the lake, we have strapped our kids into the lie of Mark David Chapman and pushed them into the lake of another coverup guaranteed to spawn yet more evil. How can we not grab the wheel now when one of us, me, has not only discovered hard, incontrovertible evidence that cracks open the real picture of our lives, but has also honored you with the courage to bring it to the public? Don't you have a duty to people like me-and there's not many to rescue them when the courts and the police and the media have sold all of you out already and are only trying to put an early lid on my casket? Don't you know the media is an extention of the military and not just a bunch of people making money? Don't you know that if you don't pick up a sign and help me no one else will? I've been a loyal, humble watchdog guarding all of you from evil assassinations. You should have seen me that day when King had to pull his Harley on the other side of the block to pretend he didn't see my huge sign; "STEPHEN KING IS A MURDERER: IT'S TRUE OR HE'D SUE" You should have read the pamphlet I put out before he arrived exposing his child molestation conviction and his face getting Lennon's autograph and even daring him to sue me or deny the charge. He couldn't. All he could say Was; "No,,,,,comment." and "Lightfoot is a stone in my shoe but more importantly let's lie about the messenger have him arrested and make him look like the bad guy..." or so many words.
We live a lie. Our orgasms are unholy under these perverted sheets. Lennon's killer is molestIng your kids everybody! Even the animals seem bored with humans lately. I think it's time we picked ourselves up off our face and break "Who shot John Lennon".
We live in a world where N.Y. police and prison officials and journalists like Walters, L. King, Goldman, People magazine, the Enquirer, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN etc. all stalked, murdered, laughed, and lied to us after they killed John Lennon. A world where scumbags like Chapman accept a million dollars to cop to the crime because Stephen King and the govt. need a decoy lookalike. I can't wait till Chapman and King both go to jail. Reagan is already claiming Alzheimers disease. Maybe Yoko's no good either. Let the pieces fall where they may, I say. Clean our lives up. While Chapman was waiting in the police station King was murdering Lennon. Corrupt cops et all arrived and buried the truth and King and Chapman were let out hours later. It's all the truth about our lives and it's not good enough for me, not when a simple gathering of ...fifty people at the Sentinel Dec, 08, 1994 can change everything, one news, spot at a time. Please be there, people.
My own mother and brothers and sister and friends would rather let the govt. murder me than carry a sign for even one day with me. Even McCartney has lost what little nerve he once had. I am carrying thIs story all alone and I need your help people of Santa Cruz. Dec. 08, 1994 I will give you people a chance to do the right thing and rescue me and expose Stephen King. I will conduct a rally in front of the Santa Cruz Sentinel from noon to six PM.
As John would say; "DON'T LET ME DOWN." Please support me. I can't do it alone. Let's confront the media or they won't tell.
THANK YOU, STEVE LIGHTFOOT
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
FeedBack: Kenn Thomas on Stephen King
Konformist FeedBack: Kenn Thomas on Stephen King
Warning: Spoilers Below
Let's stop conspiring with the wretched Stephen King and let the world know: at the end of The Mist, the hero shoots and kills the only four people left in a heroic struggle against the monsters of the mist, including his own son. A moment later he discovers that the military has saved the world from the horrors that he thought he had spared his companions by mercy-killing them. King himself has called for the shooting deaths of anyone making this revelation to people who haven't seen the movie, as if the trite horror cliches he trucks in might actually come as a surprise anyone. Now King wants to offer up what he thinks is healthy in popular culture? I don't think so. As a writer, he's always been a muddled bore, and his fantasies about waterboarding Jenna Bush provide some measure of how his mind has been deadened from being a TV junky.
Kenn Thomas
steamshovelpress.com
Robalini's Response: Kenn, what did Stephen King do to you in a previous life to earn so much anger?
Warning: Spoilers Below
Let's stop conspiring with the wretched Stephen King and let the world know: at the end of The Mist, the hero shoots and kills the only four people left in a heroic struggle against the monsters of the mist, including his own son. A moment later he discovers that the military has saved the world from the horrors that he thought he had spared his companions by mercy-killing them. King himself has called for the shooting deaths of anyone making this revelation to people who haven't seen the movie, as if the trite horror cliches he trucks in might actually come as a surprise anyone. Now King wants to offer up what he thinks is healthy in popular culture? I don't think so. As a writer, he's always been a muddled bore, and his fantasies about waterboarding Jenna Bush provide some measure of how his mind has been deadened from being a TV junky.
Kenn Thomas
steamshovelpress.com
Robalini's Response: Kenn, what did Stephen King do to you in a previous life to earn so much anger?
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Q&A: Talking with Stephen King
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1687229,00.html
Friday, Nov. 23, 2007
Q&A: Talking with Stephen King
By Gilbert Cruz
Stephen King likes to start the conversation and so the horror author began asking questions before TIME's Gilbert Cruz could take a seat to interview him in New York City. But Cruz soon took over. Excerpts:
STEPHEN KING: So who's going to be TIME Person of the Year?
TIME: I really don't know, there's a very small group of people who make that decision.
I was thinking, I think it should be Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.
Really?
Yeah. You know, I just filmed a segment for Nightline, about [the movie version of his novella] The Mist, and one of the things I said to them was, you know, "You guys are just covering — what do they call it — the scream of the peacock, and you're missing the whole fox hunt." Like waterboarding [or] where all the money went that we poured into Iraq. It just seems to disappear. And yet you get this coverage of who's gonna get custody of Britney's kids? Whether or not Lindsay drank at her twenty-first birthday party, and all this other shit.
You know, this morning, the two big stories on CNN are Kanye West's mother, who died, apparently, after having some plastic surgery. The other big thing that's going on is whether or not this cop [Drew Peterson] killed his... wife. And meanwhile, you've got Pakistan in the midst of a real crisis, where these people have nuclear weapons that we helped them develop. You've got a guy in charge, who's basically declared himself the military strongman and is being supported by the Bush administration, whose raison d'etre for going into Iraq was to spread democracy in the world.
So you've got these things going on, which seem to me to be very substantive, that could affect all of us, and instead, you see a lot of this back-fence gossip. So I said something to the Nightline guy about waterboarding, and if the Bush administration didn't think it was torture, they ought to do some personal investigation. Someone in the Bush family should actually be waterboarded so they could report on it to George. I said, I didn't think he would do it, but I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture. And then the guy from Nightline said, "Well, obviously you've not been watching World News Tonight with Charlie Gibson." But I do — I watch 'em all!
You might be one of the few people who does.
We're news junkies in my house.
Do you actually think Britney and Lindsay should be on our cover?
Yeah, I do.
Sort of a, 'This is what the media's actually interested it, so let's just put it out there' thing?
I think there ought to be some serious discussion by smart people, really smart people, about whether or not proliferation of things like The Smoking Gun and TMZ and YouTube and the whole celebrity culture is healthy. We've switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics — trying to play a serious part in the world — to a culture that's really entertainment-based. I mean, I know people who can tell you who won the last four seasons on American Idol and they don't know who their f------ Representatives are.
But you've been well in the public eye for decades now. Is it pretty blatant how much worse it's gotten?
It's worse every year. And the guy says to me — the Nightline guy — I didn't get the guy's name. Granted, I haven't been feeling real well and it was a long day of interviews. But he said to me, "If we didn't cover cultural things, we wouldn't be covering you and The Mist, and promoting the movie." And I'm like, "Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan aren't cultural." They aren't political. They're economic only in the mildest sense of the word. In fact, if I had to pick somebody, some celebrity who has had some impact this year, some sort of echo in the larger American life, I would say Hannah Montana. That whole issue of online ticket sales and scalping fascinates me. There are [legitimate] issues there about the Internet, so that actually does seem to have some cultural significance.
But Britney? Britney Spears is just trailer trash. That's all. I mean, I don't mean to be pejorative. But you observe her behavior for the past five years and you say, "Here's a lady who can't take care of her kids, she can't take care of herself, she has no retirement fund, everything that she gets runs right through her hands." And yet, you know and I know that if you go to those sites that tell you what the most blogged-about things on the Internet are, it's Britney, it's Lindsay. So I think it would be terrific [to have them as TIME Persons of the Year]. There would be such a scream from the American reading public, sure. But at the same time, it's time for somebody to discuss the difference between real news and fake news.
True, in terms of Britney Spears, she's still fairly young. When you were young, fame sort of screwed you up a bit, didn't it?
The difference is that Britney is now famous for being famous. Her sales have gone down with almost every album, bigger and bigger jumps, so that nobody really cares about her music anymore. They care about the tabloid headlines and whether or not she's wearing panties. I mean, is this an issue that the American public needs to turn its brainpower on? Britney Spears' lingerie, or lack thereof?
I'll pass your suggestion along. So you're a news junkie?
I got hooked by my wife. You'd be surprised, or maybe you wouldn't be surprised, being that I'm around John Mellancamp a lot — he and I are doing this play. But it's the news 24-7. Always on.
What's this play?
It's called Ghost Brothers of Darkland County. It's a musical.
What's the plan with that?
Hopefully we'll open out of town next year. Maybe in Atlanta, if they have any water left.
When next year?
My guess it probably like June or July. We're at the point where we've got the director. The music's set. The book's set. We're fairly set. At least until audiences turn up. If they turn up their noses then things change. We're supposed to be, maybe in Atlanta, maybe in Boston, I've heard talk about California. But we've got to open out of town and see if people like what we've got.
What's the gist of the story?
[Mellencamp] had bought a place in Indiana by a lake, and he said that the person had told him the place was haunted. Well, you hear that — when you buy a place that's been around for a while in the woods, people are going to say it's haunted. [Apparently], there was some kind of tragedy that involved two brothers and a girl in the fifties — one of the brothers shot the other one apparently in some kind of a drunken game. Killed him. So the other brother and the girl jumped in the car to take the kid to the hospital, because they thought maybe they could save him. They ran into a tree and they were both killed. So apparently the ghosts haunted the place. So John asked me, "Do you think we could turn this into a play?"
In a way, he came to me at the right time. He's been doing what he does for a long time, and I've been doing what I do for a long time. John has tried things, he's tried to keep the music fresh, he's continued to release new music, [to] try different things and different formats. And he wanted to graze, to try this idea of doing dramatic music. I've always been up for something that was a little different — just keep turning the earth over, so you don't dig yourself a rut and furnish it, you know what I mean? That's how we got together.
So you expanded that little snippet of a story?
Yeah. That's my job, to take something like that, which is fairly generic, and make a story out of it that's unique. I [wrote a little and Mellencamp did some music] and then I went to him and said, "We've reached a decision point here. Neither of us knows s--- about theater. The only thing I know is that, at this point, it either becomes like Andrew Lloyd Webber — and everybody sings everything — or it can be like My Fair Lady, where people actually talk in between the singing. They go blah blah blah and then [he sings] "I could have danced all night." And then they blah blah blah some more.
Well, if it opens in New York, I'll check it out.
It probably will. We're a bit radioactive, because it has a subtext about homosexuality and it's set in the fifties so they bandy about a lot of pejorative words that were common coinage back then. But, Tennessee Williams got away with it.
Alright, I have to ask you some questions about The Mist.
Of course you do.
Short questions. First one...
And short answers!
This is the third movie you've done with Frank Darabont, the third movie he's directed based on your work.
Well, actually, there are four. The way I met him was, he did a short film of [my story] "The Woman in the Room." That was back when he was in his early twenties and he was trying to break into movies. Like [The Shawshank Redemption], which he did next, it didn't have so much as a smidge of the supernatural in it.
Are you guys film soulmates? Does he just do your stuff better than other people?
He does it really well, though there are other people who have done my work and I've been pleased with the results. But the only person that I can say that has come back for seconds and has really done me proud other than Frank would be Rob Reiner, who did Stand by Me and then came back and did Misery. And Frank will say, "I have the world's smallest specialty. I only do prison movies written by Stephen King." And he's been going on about how proud he is that he made The Mist and broke out of that mold. But I told him, "Frank, it's still a story about people in prison. They're just in prison in a supermarket!"
Is he going to do more of your stuff? There are tons more stories out there that haven't been made into movies.
Frank has the option on a short story called "The Monkey."
The one that was on the cover of the old Skeleton Crew paperback?
Right. And he'd like to do The Long Walk, which is one of the Bachman books [written by King under a pseudonym]. But The Long Walk is so downbeat, it makes The Mist look like Young Frankenstein.
Part of The Mist is this subtext about how fear makes people irrational. How do you think that's playing out in the world today?
Well, it's always there. What The Mist reminds me of is a big, exciting version of a episode like "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street." In that episode, these aliens did an experiment to see what fear did to human beings. [In The Mist], there really are monsters and they show up on Main Street in this little town. Granted, the situation is unreal, but an audience can say, "Here's a good, harmless place where I can actually test drive what I would do in a disaster." Particularly if the disaster was just totally inexplicable. But in the real world, if disaster strikes us, it seems to me that it's always inexplicable.
There have been so many movies and TV miniseries made from your stories and, not to be disrespectful, but some of them are stinkers. Sleepwalkers, Sometimes They Come Back and its various sequels, etc... How do you maintain quality control? Do you even try?
I'd go crazy. I don't try to maintain quality control. Except I try to get good people involved. The thing is, when you put together a script, a director, and all the other variables, you never really know what's going to come out. And so you start with the idea that it's like a baseball game — you put the best team you can on the field, and you know that, more times than not, you're gonna win.
And in my case, more of the movies than not — if we except things like Return to Salem's Lot, Children of the Corn 4, The Children of the Corn Meet the Leprechaun or whatever it is — if you do that, then most times you're going to have something that's interesting anyway. That doesn't mean you're going to have the occasional thing that's just a train wreck like Dreamcatcher, because that happens, right?
Why do you think filmmakers are so fond of your work?
It's visual. I grew up at the movies. I went to movies before I wrote. My first editor Bill Thompson used to laugh and say "Steve King has a movie projector in his head." Filmmakers react to that. They see, because they're visual creatures themselves, and they say, "Gee, I'd love to do that." In some cases they run their heads into the noose, because it's easier to make it up in your mind than it is on the screen.
You retired there for a while but then came back with a few books. What are you working on now?
When I said to that lady from the L. A. Times I might retire, I was still recovering from the accident that I was in [where King was struck by a car], I was in a lot of pain, and I was under the pressure of finishing The Dark Tower. At that point, retirement looked good. When the pain went away and The Dark Tower finished up, retirement started to look bad.
I have a book that's coming out in January called Duma Key, and there's the musical. I'm like Travis McGee, I can take my retirement in chunks.
Are you enjoying it?
I have a good time. I came in last night, after the premiere [of The Mist] and I kinda said to myself, "This is not a bad life." They give you the keys to the playground and they say, "That's your job for now on, you play for the rest of us. You're the designated kid. Make up stories," so what's not to like? Well, sometimes there's stuff. Lot of interviews, sometimes it gets you down, but, mostly it's good.
Well, we'll wrap this one up.
Friday, Nov. 23, 2007
Q&A: Talking with Stephen King
By Gilbert Cruz
Stephen King likes to start the conversation and so the horror author began asking questions before TIME's Gilbert Cruz could take a seat to interview him in New York City. But Cruz soon took over. Excerpts:
STEPHEN KING: So who's going to be TIME Person of the Year?
TIME: I really don't know, there's a very small group of people who make that decision.
I was thinking, I think it should be Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.
Really?
Yeah. You know, I just filmed a segment for Nightline, about [the movie version of his novella] The Mist, and one of the things I said to them was, you know, "You guys are just covering — what do they call it — the scream of the peacock, and you're missing the whole fox hunt." Like waterboarding [or] where all the money went that we poured into Iraq. It just seems to disappear. And yet you get this coverage of who's gonna get custody of Britney's kids? Whether or not Lindsay drank at her twenty-first birthday party, and all this other shit.
You know, this morning, the two big stories on CNN are Kanye West's mother, who died, apparently, after having some plastic surgery. The other big thing that's going on is whether or not this cop [Drew Peterson] killed his... wife. And meanwhile, you've got Pakistan in the midst of a real crisis, where these people have nuclear weapons that we helped them develop. You've got a guy in charge, who's basically declared himself the military strongman and is being supported by the Bush administration, whose raison d'etre for going into Iraq was to spread democracy in the world.
So you've got these things going on, which seem to me to be very substantive, that could affect all of us, and instead, you see a lot of this back-fence gossip. So I said something to the Nightline guy about waterboarding, and if the Bush administration didn't think it was torture, they ought to do some personal investigation. Someone in the Bush family should actually be waterboarded so they could report on it to George. I said, I didn't think he would do it, but I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture. And then the guy from Nightline said, "Well, obviously you've not been watching World News Tonight with Charlie Gibson." But I do — I watch 'em all!
You might be one of the few people who does.
We're news junkies in my house.
Do you actually think Britney and Lindsay should be on our cover?
Yeah, I do.
Sort of a, 'This is what the media's actually interested it, so let's just put it out there' thing?
I think there ought to be some serious discussion by smart people, really smart people, about whether or not proliferation of things like The Smoking Gun and TMZ and YouTube and the whole celebrity culture is healthy. We've switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics — trying to play a serious part in the world — to a culture that's really entertainment-based. I mean, I know people who can tell you who won the last four seasons on American Idol and they don't know who their f------ Representatives are.
But you've been well in the public eye for decades now. Is it pretty blatant how much worse it's gotten?
It's worse every year. And the guy says to me — the Nightline guy — I didn't get the guy's name. Granted, I haven't been feeling real well and it was a long day of interviews. But he said to me, "If we didn't cover cultural things, we wouldn't be covering you and The Mist, and promoting the movie." And I'm like, "Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan aren't cultural." They aren't political. They're economic only in the mildest sense of the word. In fact, if I had to pick somebody, some celebrity who has had some impact this year, some sort of echo in the larger American life, I would say Hannah Montana. That whole issue of online ticket sales and scalping fascinates me. There are [legitimate] issues there about the Internet, so that actually does seem to have some cultural significance.
But Britney? Britney Spears is just trailer trash. That's all. I mean, I don't mean to be pejorative. But you observe her behavior for the past five years and you say, "Here's a lady who can't take care of her kids, she can't take care of herself, she has no retirement fund, everything that she gets runs right through her hands." And yet, you know and I know that if you go to those sites that tell you what the most blogged-about things on the Internet are, it's Britney, it's Lindsay. So I think it would be terrific [to have them as TIME Persons of the Year]. There would be such a scream from the American reading public, sure. But at the same time, it's time for somebody to discuss the difference between real news and fake news.
True, in terms of Britney Spears, she's still fairly young. When you were young, fame sort of screwed you up a bit, didn't it?
The difference is that Britney is now famous for being famous. Her sales have gone down with almost every album, bigger and bigger jumps, so that nobody really cares about her music anymore. They care about the tabloid headlines and whether or not she's wearing panties. I mean, is this an issue that the American public needs to turn its brainpower on? Britney Spears' lingerie, or lack thereof?
I'll pass your suggestion along. So you're a news junkie?
I got hooked by my wife. You'd be surprised, or maybe you wouldn't be surprised, being that I'm around John Mellancamp a lot — he and I are doing this play. But it's the news 24-7. Always on.
What's this play?
It's called Ghost Brothers of Darkland County. It's a musical.
What's the plan with that?
Hopefully we'll open out of town next year. Maybe in Atlanta, if they have any water left.
When next year?
My guess it probably like June or July. We're at the point where we've got the director. The music's set. The book's set. We're fairly set. At least until audiences turn up. If they turn up their noses then things change. We're supposed to be, maybe in Atlanta, maybe in Boston, I've heard talk about California. But we've got to open out of town and see if people like what we've got.
What's the gist of the story?
[Mellencamp] had bought a place in Indiana by a lake, and he said that the person had told him the place was haunted. Well, you hear that — when you buy a place that's been around for a while in the woods, people are going to say it's haunted. [Apparently], there was some kind of tragedy that involved two brothers and a girl in the fifties — one of the brothers shot the other one apparently in some kind of a drunken game. Killed him. So the other brother and the girl jumped in the car to take the kid to the hospital, because they thought maybe they could save him. They ran into a tree and they were both killed. So apparently the ghosts haunted the place. So John asked me, "Do you think we could turn this into a play?"
In a way, he came to me at the right time. He's been doing what he does for a long time, and I've been doing what I do for a long time. John has tried things, he's tried to keep the music fresh, he's continued to release new music, [to] try different things and different formats. And he wanted to graze, to try this idea of doing dramatic music. I've always been up for something that was a little different — just keep turning the earth over, so you don't dig yourself a rut and furnish it, you know what I mean? That's how we got together.
So you expanded that little snippet of a story?
Yeah. That's my job, to take something like that, which is fairly generic, and make a story out of it that's unique. I [wrote a little and Mellencamp did some music] and then I went to him and said, "We've reached a decision point here. Neither of us knows s--- about theater. The only thing I know is that, at this point, it either becomes like Andrew Lloyd Webber — and everybody sings everything — or it can be like My Fair Lady, where people actually talk in between the singing. They go blah blah blah and then [he sings] "I could have danced all night." And then they blah blah blah some more.
Well, if it opens in New York, I'll check it out.
It probably will. We're a bit radioactive, because it has a subtext about homosexuality and it's set in the fifties so they bandy about a lot of pejorative words that were common coinage back then. But, Tennessee Williams got away with it.
Alright, I have to ask you some questions about The Mist.
Of course you do.
Short questions. First one...
And short answers!
This is the third movie you've done with Frank Darabont, the third movie he's directed based on your work.
Well, actually, there are four. The way I met him was, he did a short film of [my story] "The Woman in the Room." That was back when he was in his early twenties and he was trying to break into movies. Like [The Shawshank Redemption], which he did next, it didn't have so much as a smidge of the supernatural in it.
Are you guys film soulmates? Does he just do your stuff better than other people?
He does it really well, though there are other people who have done my work and I've been pleased with the results. But the only person that I can say that has come back for seconds and has really done me proud other than Frank would be Rob Reiner, who did Stand by Me and then came back and did Misery. And Frank will say, "I have the world's smallest specialty. I only do prison movies written by Stephen King." And he's been going on about how proud he is that he made The Mist and broke out of that mold. But I told him, "Frank, it's still a story about people in prison. They're just in prison in a supermarket!"
Is he going to do more of your stuff? There are tons more stories out there that haven't been made into movies.
Frank has the option on a short story called "The Monkey."
The one that was on the cover of the old Skeleton Crew paperback?
Right. And he'd like to do The Long Walk, which is one of the Bachman books [written by King under a pseudonym]. But The Long Walk is so downbeat, it makes The Mist look like Young Frankenstein.
Part of The Mist is this subtext about how fear makes people irrational. How do you think that's playing out in the world today?
Well, it's always there. What The Mist reminds me of is a big, exciting version of a episode like "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street." In that episode, these aliens did an experiment to see what fear did to human beings. [In The Mist], there really are monsters and they show up on Main Street in this little town. Granted, the situation is unreal, but an audience can say, "Here's a good, harmless place where I can actually test drive what I would do in a disaster." Particularly if the disaster was just totally inexplicable. But in the real world, if disaster strikes us, it seems to me that it's always inexplicable.
There have been so many movies and TV miniseries made from your stories and, not to be disrespectful, but some of them are stinkers. Sleepwalkers, Sometimes They Come Back and its various sequels, etc... How do you maintain quality control? Do you even try?
I'd go crazy. I don't try to maintain quality control. Except I try to get good people involved. The thing is, when you put together a script, a director, and all the other variables, you never really know what's going to come out. And so you start with the idea that it's like a baseball game — you put the best team you can on the field, and you know that, more times than not, you're gonna win.
And in my case, more of the movies than not — if we except things like Return to Salem's Lot, Children of the Corn 4, The Children of the Corn Meet the Leprechaun or whatever it is — if you do that, then most times you're going to have something that's interesting anyway. That doesn't mean you're going to have the occasional thing that's just a train wreck like Dreamcatcher, because that happens, right?
Why do you think filmmakers are so fond of your work?
It's visual. I grew up at the movies. I went to movies before I wrote. My first editor Bill Thompson used to laugh and say "Steve King has a movie projector in his head." Filmmakers react to that. They see, because they're visual creatures themselves, and they say, "Gee, I'd love to do that." In some cases they run their heads into the noose, because it's easier to make it up in your mind than it is on the screen.
You retired there for a while but then came back with a few books. What are you working on now?
When I said to that lady from the L. A. Times I might retire, I was still recovering from the accident that I was in [where King was struck by a car], I was in a lot of pain, and I was under the pressure of finishing The Dark Tower. At that point, retirement looked good. When the pain went away and The Dark Tower finished up, retirement started to look bad.
I have a book that's coming out in January called Duma Key, and there's the musical. I'm like Travis McGee, I can take my retirement in chunks.
Are you enjoying it?
I have a good time. I came in last night, after the premiere [of The Mist] and I kinda said to myself, "This is not a bad life." They give you the keys to the playground and they say, "That's your job for now on, you play for the rest of us. You're the designated kid. Make up stories," so what's not to like? Well, sometimes there's stuff. Lot of interviews, sometimes it gets you down, but, mostly it's good.
Well, we'll wrap this one up.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
TOP 10 PLACES TO GET SPOOKED ON HALLOWEEN
http://www.shermanstravel.com/destinations/top_ten/Places_to_Get_Spooked_on_Halloween
TOP 10 PLACES TO GET SPOOKED ON HALLOWEEN
By ShermansTravel Editorial Staff
ShermansTravel.com
They say the freaks come out at night – and on no night more so than October 31. Our top ten places to get spooked on Halloween are a frightful blend of spine-chilling cities, weird wayside towns, and baffling bodies of water. We propose four uncanny urban settings, both stateside and across the pond, where ghosts and ghouls add to the daily hustle and bustle. Or, discover the places where legends are born, like Transylvania, Roswell, and Salem. We’ve also hacked our way through several hair-raising hotels to recommend a night where a notorious ax-murder once slashed or the hotel where Stephen King was inspired to write The Shining. So pack your best costume, vampire stake, or ghost buster, and head out for the Halloween night of your dreams (or nightmares)!
Bermuda Triangle
Edinburgh
Lizzie Borden B & B
London
New York
Roswell
Salem
Savannah
Stanley Hotel
Transylvania
1. Bermuda Triangle
We’ve all heard of the Bermuda Triangle – that mysterious oceanic abyss blamed for swallowing a slew of aircrafts and ships, and, more humorously, all of the socks that seem to vanish from washing machines. Also known as the Devil’s Triangle, the term loosely refers to a triangular sea span with its apexes at Miami, Bermuda, and San Juan (Puerto Rico). Dozens of peculiar marine and aviation mishaps have occurred at a disproportionately high rate here – among the more sensational stories, an entire squadron of 1945 Navy bombers is thought to have disappeared here, ditto several enormous merchant ships, all without a hint of wreckage or drowned corpses. Some attribute the strange occurrences to anomalous electromagnetic energy, while others believe that aliens are using the area as a portal to visit the planet or, that the lost city of Atlantis lies below. Plan on a cruise through the baffling Bermuda Triangle this Halloween and you just might get to find out more.
2. Edinburgh
Descend into the underworld, literally! A forgotten city lies beneath Edinburgh’s South Bridge – an underground maze of chambers, vaulted rooms, tunnels, and passageways shrouded in mystery and intrigue. The bricked-in city opened in 1788 (it was closed in the early 1800s due to insufficient waterproofing) but was virtually unknown to the thriving city above it before being rediscovered in 1985. It’s thought that thousands of people lived and died in these vaults, many of whom never glimpsed the light of day. Nowadays, 20 or so rooms and merchant quarters have been excavated, and tours through the cavernous hollows pass by oil lamps, leather shoes, smelting metal, animal bones, wine bottles, and other haunting remnants of the people who lived here. Not surprisingly, the vaults are famous for their strong paranormal presence, as well; many visitors swear they’ve seen wraithlike ghost shadows down below – some have even captured the haunting images in photographs. Check Mercat Tours for times and themes.
3. Lizzie Borden B & B
Good night, sleep tight – don’t let the axe murderers fright! For a bone-chillingly good scare and a guaranteed sleepless night, we recommend a Halloween getaway to the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast, a Greek Revival house in Fall River, Massachusetts (about 50 miles south of Boston). Built in 1845, the house famously became the setting for the 1892 ax murders of Abby and Andrew Borden, allegedly by their very own daughter, Lizzie! The house has since been restored with late-19th-century period pieces, which contribute to the atmosphere, especially as you can stand today in the place where Lizzie’s stepmother received 18 blows to the head – and the one where her father endured a slightly less brutal 11! While circumstantial evidence tied Lizzie to the crime, she was ultimately acquitted, and the case was never solved. Aside from the eerie happenings reported on the premises to pique your interest, there’s small on-site museum showcasing memorabilia related to the crime and a gift shop where you can pick up silver-toned hatchet earrings for yourself or that special somebody.
4. London
While it may be merrie olde England on the surface, there is a frightening underbelly to be discovered in the ancient capital city of London. Forget high tea – and head out for a spot of ghost-hunting instead, with haunted nooks and crannies in courtyards, churches, and alleyways that recall bloody and brutal London events from times long ago. London Ghost Walk covers the most frighteningly fun highlights and offers specialized tours that follow in the bloody footsteps of London’s most heinous criminal, Jack the Ripper. Hang around some of the top tourist attractions after dark, too, and you may well get a little something extra with your admission – a ghostly monk is said to wander the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, while the headless ghost of Anne Boleyn, the unfortunate second wife of King Henry VIII, is known to linger outside of the chapel at the Tower of London – apparently still upset about her beheading after only three short years of marriage.
5. New York
As if the streets of New York weren’t freakish enough all year long, on Halloween the freakiest of them all get to show off their eccentricities to applause and prizes – not social judgment – as part of the annual Halloween parade that marches up Sixth Avenue. Attended each year by over 2 million New Yorkers reveling in the spooky spirit, the village spectacle is not to be missed, but the fun doesn't end when it does. Countless costume parties abound around town – the parade crew tends to hit Webster Hall, famous for its raging all-night bash. Another popular annual event celebrating the ghoulish holiday is the Halloween Extravaganza and Procession of Ghouls at the world’s largest gothic cathedral, St. John the Divine. This unique event kicks off with a horror flick accompanied by an organist who brings the eerie soundtrack to life - it's a spine-tingling combination in the dimly lit cathedral. After the film, an elaborate procession of costumed characters and outrageous puppets strut their spooky stuff down the center aisle, to a blitz of special effects.
6. Roswell
The year was 1947, the place was an unassuming desert town in New Mexico, and the event was perceived as so extraordinary that, some 60 years later, Roswell remains a household name. U.F.O. enthusiasts today relish this tiny town as the U.F.O. capital of the world, citing the “Roswell Incident,” in which a craft carrying four large-headed alien beings purportedly crashed, followed closely by an entourage of military and government personnel, who swooped in to collect the wreckage. Conflicting newspaper reports came out in the days following the event – after releasing a statement confirming that they had indeed collected debris from a spaceship crash, the US military later retracted it, and dismissed the flying object as nothing more than a downed weather balloon. Decide where you stand on the issue with a visit to Roswell’s International UFO Museum and Research Center, where photos, documents, and dioramas shine some light on where conspiracy theorists got their ideas about government cover-ups and alien autopsies. You can also arrange to tour the crash site with a local guide for an out-of-this-world Halloween – just be sure to keep your eye on the sky.
7. Salem
Home to the ill-reputed witch trials of 1692, Salem, MA, today is, according to legend, still haunted by the women executed as part of the hysteria. Every October, Salem milks its gruesome past with its annual month-long Haunted Happenings festival of ghost tours, street fairs, and costume balls. Be sure to stop by The Witch House, one of the oldest buildings in Salem and the onetime home of Jonathan Corwin, the judge who ultimately sent 19 women to their doom. Also worth joining are the eerie tours led by Salem Historical Tours: one visits the local cemetery, thought to be the country's second oldest, while another heads out for a nightly stroll past haunted houses and more.
8. Savannah
There’s no way around it – a saunter through the Southern city of Savannah is just plain spooky. Forget sightseeing: With dozens of tour groups dedicated to showcasing haunted Savannah, you’d best be prepared for some fright-seeing instead! Try strolling the cobblestone streets of Georgia’s oldest city on the nighttime Ghosts of Savannah walking tour, rolling around town with a narrated guide on Carriage Tours of Savannah, or opt for a Creepy Pub Crawl, if you wish to sample some spirits while you look for them. So just what is it about this deceptively pretty city that makes it so ghoulishly grim? Believers cite a long history of violence and bloodshed dating back to the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, not to mention widespread diseases and fires here. As if that weren't sufficient, many parts of Savannah's historic section were built over old cemeteries, to boot. You can literally eat and sleep with ghosts here - grab a bite to eat at the Pirate House, a popular centuries-old local restaurant with a ghostly clientele, then rest up (if you can!) at any number of haunted bed and breakfasts; a particularly creepy choice is the 1851 Marshall House that once served as a hospital for many Civil War soldiers and yellow-fever victims.
9. Stanley Hotel
Who hasn’t gotten the goose bumps from reading (or watching) Steven King’s haunting thriller, The Shining? Test your tolerance for the terrifying by spending a night in the place that inspired the novel, the Stanley Hotel. Built in 1909, the hotel is in fact a grand estate, with a spectacular Colorado mountainside location, old-fashioned rooms with impressive vistas, top-notch amenities, and an award-winning restaurant. What makes this place truly unique and a tad creepy, however, is the presence of otherworldly residents. Flora Stanley, the first owner’s long-deceased wife, can still be seen and heard, late at night, either tinkling the piano keys in the music room or wandering around the lobby. Plus, the entire fourth floor (once the servants’ quarters) teems with strange after-dark commotion: if you stay in room 418, you might hear children playing outside your door, but find nary a soul in the hallway. For the ultimate scare (or inspiration), stay in room 217 – where King himself laid his head.
10. Transylvania
It’s hard to deny the fright factor of fanged, bloodsucking vampires who awake from coffins in the night to hunt their prey. So why not up the horror ante this Halloween and visit Transylvania, the alleged birthplace of these dark and fearsome creatures? Indeed, this western province of Romania is considered to be the home of Count Dracula; to wit, you can even tour his alleged keep, the daunting Bran Castle (more commonly known as Dracula’s Castle), an eerie 14th-century bastion about 20 miles from Brasov, in the shadows of Mount Bucegi, that’s said to have briefly housed the Romanian prince on whom the great fictional vampire is based. If that doesn’t leave your blood cold, head for the hills above the town of Miklósvár to explore bat-filled caves or, tour medieval villages in a horse-drawn sleigh.
TOP 10 PLACES TO GET SPOOKED ON HALLOWEEN
By ShermansTravel Editorial Staff
ShermansTravel.com
They say the freaks come out at night – and on no night more so than October 31. Our top ten places to get spooked on Halloween are a frightful blend of spine-chilling cities, weird wayside towns, and baffling bodies of water. We propose four uncanny urban settings, both stateside and across the pond, where ghosts and ghouls add to the daily hustle and bustle. Or, discover the places where legends are born, like Transylvania, Roswell, and Salem. We’ve also hacked our way through several hair-raising hotels to recommend a night where a notorious ax-murder once slashed or the hotel where Stephen King was inspired to write The Shining. So pack your best costume, vampire stake, or ghost buster, and head out for the Halloween night of your dreams (or nightmares)!
Bermuda Triangle
Edinburgh
Lizzie Borden B & B
London
New York
Roswell
Salem
Savannah
Stanley Hotel
Transylvania
1. Bermuda Triangle
We’ve all heard of the Bermuda Triangle – that mysterious oceanic abyss blamed for swallowing a slew of aircrafts and ships, and, more humorously, all of the socks that seem to vanish from washing machines. Also known as the Devil’s Triangle, the term loosely refers to a triangular sea span with its apexes at Miami, Bermuda, and San Juan (Puerto Rico). Dozens of peculiar marine and aviation mishaps have occurred at a disproportionately high rate here – among the more sensational stories, an entire squadron of 1945 Navy bombers is thought to have disappeared here, ditto several enormous merchant ships, all without a hint of wreckage or drowned corpses. Some attribute the strange occurrences to anomalous electromagnetic energy, while others believe that aliens are using the area as a portal to visit the planet or, that the lost city of Atlantis lies below. Plan on a cruise through the baffling Bermuda Triangle this Halloween and you just might get to find out more.
2. Edinburgh
Descend into the underworld, literally! A forgotten city lies beneath Edinburgh’s South Bridge – an underground maze of chambers, vaulted rooms, tunnels, and passageways shrouded in mystery and intrigue. The bricked-in city opened in 1788 (it was closed in the early 1800s due to insufficient waterproofing) but was virtually unknown to the thriving city above it before being rediscovered in 1985. It’s thought that thousands of people lived and died in these vaults, many of whom never glimpsed the light of day. Nowadays, 20 or so rooms and merchant quarters have been excavated, and tours through the cavernous hollows pass by oil lamps, leather shoes, smelting metal, animal bones, wine bottles, and other haunting remnants of the people who lived here. Not surprisingly, the vaults are famous for their strong paranormal presence, as well; many visitors swear they’ve seen wraithlike ghost shadows down below – some have even captured the haunting images in photographs. Check Mercat Tours for times and themes.
3. Lizzie Borden B & B
Good night, sleep tight – don’t let the axe murderers fright! For a bone-chillingly good scare and a guaranteed sleepless night, we recommend a Halloween getaway to the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast, a Greek Revival house in Fall River, Massachusetts (about 50 miles south of Boston). Built in 1845, the house famously became the setting for the 1892 ax murders of Abby and Andrew Borden, allegedly by their very own daughter, Lizzie! The house has since been restored with late-19th-century period pieces, which contribute to the atmosphere, especially as you can stand today in the place where Lizzie’s stepmother received 18 blows to the head – and the one where her father endured a slightly less brutal 11! While circumstantial evidence tied Lizzie to the crime, she was ultimately acquitted, and the case was never solved. Aside from the eerie happenings reported on the premises to pique your interest, there’s small on-site museum showcasing memorabilia related to the crime and a gift shop where you can pick up silver-toned hatchet earrings for yourself or that special somebody.
4. London
While it may be merrie olde England on the surface, there is a frightening underbelly to be discovered in the ancient capital city of London. Forget high tea – and head out for a spot of ghost-hunting instead, with haunted nooks and crannies in courtyards, churches, and alleyways that recall bloody and brutal London events from times long ago. London Ghost Walk covers the most frighteningly fun highlights and offers specialized tours that follow in the bloody footsteps of London’s most heinous criminal, Jack the Ripper. Hang around some of the top tourist attractions after dark, too, and you may well get a little something extra with your admission – a ghostly monk is said to wander the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, while the headless ghost of Anne Boleyn, the unfortunate second wife of King Henry VIII, is known to linger outside of the chapel at the Tower of London – apparently still upset about her beheading after only three short years of marriage.
5. New York
As if the streets of New York weren’t freakish enough all year long, on Halloween the freakiest of them all get to show off their eccentricities to applause and prizes – not social judgment – as part of the annual Halloween parade that marches up Sixth Avenue. Attended each year by over 2 million New Yorkers reveling in the spooky spirit, the village spectacle is not to be missed, but the fun doesn't end when it does. Countless costume parties abound around town – the parade crew tends to hit Webster Hall, famous for its raging all-night bash. Another popular annual event celebrating the ghoulish holiday is the Halloween Extravaganza and Procession of Ghouls at the world’s largest gothic cathedral, St. John the Divine. This unique event kicks off with a horror flick accompanied by an organist who brings the eerie soundtrack to life - it's a spine-tingling combination in the dimly lit cathedral. After the film, an elaborate procession of costumed characters and outrageous puppets strut their spooky stuff down the center aisle, to a blitz of special effects.
6. Roswell
The year was 1947, the place was an unassuming desert town in New Mexico, and the event was perceived as so extraordinary that, some 60 years later, Roswell remains a household name. U.F.O. enthusiasts today relish this tiny town as the U.F.O. capital of the world, citing the “Roswell Incident,” in which a craft carrying four large-headed alien beings purportedly crashed, followed closely by an entourage of military and government personnel, who swooped in to collect the wreckage. Conflicting newspaper reports came out in the days following the event – after releasing a statement confirming that they had indeed collected debris from a spaceship crash, the US military later retracted it, and dismissed the flying object as nothing more than a downed weather balloon. Decide where you stand on the issue with a visit to Roswell’s International UFO Museum and Research Center, where photos, documents, and dioramas shine some light on where conspiracy theorists got their ideas about government cover-ups and alien autopsies. You can also arrange to tour the crash site with a local guide for an out-of-this-world Halloween – just be sure to keep your eye on the sky.
7. Salem
Home to the ill-reputed witch trials of 1692, Salem, MA, today is, according to legend, still haunted by the women executed as part of the hysteria. Every October, Salem milks its gruesome past with its annual month-long Haunted Happenings festival of ghost tours, street fairs, and costume balls. Be sure to stop by The Witch House, one of the oldest buildings in Salem and the onetime home of Jonathan Corwin, the judge who ultimately sent 19 women to their doom. Also worth joining are the eerie tours led by Salem Historical Tours: one visits the local cemetery, thought to be the country's second oldest, while another heads out for a nightly stroll past haunted houses and more.
8. Savannah
There’s no way around it – a saunter through the Southern city of Savannah is just plain spooky. Forget sightseeing: With dozens of tour groups dedicated to showcasing haunted Savannah, you’d best be prepared for some fright-seeing instead! Try strolling the cobblestone streets of Georgia’s oldest city on the nighttime Ghosts of Savannah walking tour, rolling around town with a narrated guide on Carriage Tours of Savannah, or opt for a Creepy Pub Crawl, if you wish to sample some spirits while you look for them. So just what is it about this deceptively pretty city that makes it so ghoulishly grim? Believers cite a long history of violence and bloodshed dating back to the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, not to mention widespread diseases and fires here. As if that weren't sufficient, many parts of Savannah's historic section were built over old cemeteries, to boot. You can literally eat and sleep with ghosts here - grab a bite to eat at the Pirate House, a popular centuries-old local restaurant with a ghostly clientele, then rest up (if you can!) at any number of haunted bed and breakfasts; a particularly creepy choice is the 1851 Marshall House that once served as a hospital for many Civil War soldiers and yellow-fever victims.
9. Stanley Hotel
Who hasn’t gotten the goose bumps from reading (or watching) Steven King’s haunting thriller, The Shining? Test your tolerance for the terrifying by spending a night in the place that inspired the novel, the Stanley Hotel. Built in 1909, the hotel is in fact a grand estate, with a spectacular Colorado mountainside location, old-fashioned rooms with impressive vistas, top-notch amenities, and an award-winning restaurant. What makes this place truly unique and a tad creepy, however, is the presence of otherworldly residents. Flora Stanley, the first owner’s long-deceased wife, can still be seen and heard, late at night, either tinkling the piano keys in the music room or wandering around the lobby. Plus, the entire fourth floor (once the servants’ quarters) teems with strange after-dark commotion: if you stay in room 418, you might hear children playing outside your door, but find nary a soul in the hallway. For the ultimate scare (or inspiration), stay in room 217 – where King himself laid his head.
10. Transylvania
It’s hard to deny the fright factor of fanged, bloodsucking vampires who awake from coffins in the night to hunt their prey. So why not up the horror ante this Halloween and visit Transylvania, the alleged birthplace of these dark and fearsome creatures? Indeed, this western province of Romania is considered to be the home of Count Dracula; to wit, you can even tour his alleged keep, the daunting Bran Castle (more commonly known as Dracula’s Castle), an eerie 14th-century bastion about 20 miles from Brasov, in the shadows of Mount Bucegi, that’s said to have briefly housed the Romanian prince on whom the great fictional vampire is based. If that doesn’t leave your blood cold, head for the hills above the town of Miklósvár to explore bat-filled caves or, tour medieval villages in a horse-drawn sleigh.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
