Stephen King Dunks on 'Price is Right' for Giving Away a Vacation to Rhode Island

I don't happen to be a "Price is Right" viewer, so I wouldn't have known they gave a trip to the paradise on Earth) that is Rhode Island (the entire show is here but the video is weirdly edited and I can't guarantee it's not a corrupted file), were it not for the most prolific fiction writer of the last century taking a big, Cujo-sized dump all over the idea to his 6.5 million Twitter followers. 

Wow. All I can say is, WOW. It must be nice. It must be really, really nice to sit up their in the mansion that "Carrie" and "The Shining" bought you up in Maine and look down your nose at humble, lovable Rhode Island. So much for New Englanders sticking together. Just because Stephen King lives in a state where the license plate says "Vacationland"  gives him no right to lord it over the Ocean State like he's their better. So he's got the lobster rolls at the Maine Diner, the beautiful village of Strong (which is just outside of Farmington where the Thorntons used to go with our cousins every summer) and the pristine beauty of Acadia National Park. That doesn't mean he has to disparage The Ocean State. Which I would take over Aruba any day, any time of the year (all due respect). 

Let me turn it around on King and ask, who wouldn't want an all expenses paid trip to Rhode Island? I mean, it's not like you can just drive there and find a place cheap. OK, I suppose you can. Rte 95 runs right through the heart of Providence. But still. That doesn't mean it's not a tourist mecca. 

Talk to me when you've experienced the high octane excitement of a Pawtucket Red Sox game. (Or did, before Larry Lucchino moved them to Worcester.) When you've been to Providence Bruins game. Or taken in the unique scene at Rhode Island ComicCon. Enjoyed the mouth-watering buffett - and entertainment - at The Foxy Lady's "Legs & Eggs" breakfast show. Sat by the frigid cold waters of Narragansett Bay in a beach chair sipping an even colder 16-ounce beer named after it. Strolled by the river during WaterFire, which is actual wood fires in baskets set up on the river, and not like the time in Cleveland when Lake Erie went up in flames. 

You want tourist destinations? Rhode Island will give you tourist destinations. How about the waterfront mansions of Newport, where my 6th grade class went on a field trip. And I will never forget how educational it was, putting in perspective for me just what low-rent, white trash Irish stock I come from. Then there's the Roger Williams Zoo. Which, while full of sad animals all summer long, closes for a pumpkin festival in the fall, where you can actually walk around with beer. 

So go ahead, King. Sit up there in your ivory tower and act all superior to the place that gave us HP Lovecraft, Miss Universe Olivia Culpo, James Woods and Peter Griffin. 

I'm not from Rhode Island. But I stand with those who are. And I will not sit quietly and let this anti-Ocean State slander go unanswered. A prize package like that must be worth hundreds of dollars and if I couldn't drive there for free in under an hour, I'd be overjoyed to have it. I'll take Rhode Island over a tropical island any day.