This Halloween, "Return to Oz"

Forget “Psycho.” Never mind “The Exorcist.” This Halloween, skip “Halloween.” Instead, cue up a little horror called “Return to Oz.”

Yes, Oz, as in “Wizard of.” Yes, Oz, the adorable and beloved children’s book that became an adorable and beloved movie. Which someone apparently watched on acid, and then wrote this.

As our story opens, it’s six months after the tornado. Dorothy apparently went back in time when she returned to Kansas, because it’s now 1899, she’s dressed like Laura Ingalls, and she lives in the Little not-yet-completely-rebuilt-after-the-tornado House on the Prairie. She’s also plagued with insomnia, so Aunt Em does the logical thing and drops her off at a spooky house where a doctor plans to cure her with electro-shock therapy.

So there’s cute little Dorothy in her cute little Half-Pint pioneer girl dress, strapped to a gurney and about to get her brain zapped, when a thunderstorm causes a power outage. Another little girl helps Dorothy escape, and together they fall into a raging river and are swept away. Dorothy wakes up in the “deadly desert” with a talking chicken. She realizes she must be in Oz, because animals talk there, so she picks up the chicken and steps carefully on some well-placed rocks to cross the deadly desert into Oz proper. Then it gets weird.

The recession has apparently hit Oz, because the place is run-down, there are no munchkins in sight, and the yellow brick road is in bad need of some stimulus funds. Dorothy and the chatty chicken nevertheless head up the shovel-ready yellow brick road, and along the way they realize that most of the inhabitants of Oz have been turned to stone, including her old pals, the lion and the tin man. The place is also over-run with “wheelers” – evil clowns (and aren’t they all, really?) with wheels for hands and feet. She needs some sidekicks, so she picks up a copper wind-up robot who looks like Wilford Brimley. Then it gets weird.

Her search for her old scarecrow buddy leads her to a princess with a gallery of interchangeable heads. Sounds handy – one of them is bound to be having a good hair day, right? But in practice it might not be so practical. At one point it’s suggested that she only has the memories of whatever head she happens to be wearing. I mean, you’d NEVER find your car keys.

Anyhoo, the princess takes it into her head – her current one, anyway – to lock Dorothy up so that when she grows to a suitable size, her noggin can be added to the collection. In lock-up, Dorothy gets another sidekick in the form of a stick man with a carved pumpkin for a head. Dorothy escapes, goes to the princess’ hall of heads and steals the magic powder that brings inanimate objects to life. With the help of robot Wilford and Pumpkinhead, she takes down a stuffed moose head, attaches it to a sofa, adds big palm fronds to the sides, sprinkles the whole thing to life and makes it fly. Dorothy, robot Wilford, chatty chicken and Pumpkinhead all escape in the flying moose-sofa. Then it gets weird.

They fly to the mountain of the Gnome King, who has imprisoned the scarecrow. He’s ticked off because he considers all the gemstones in all the world to be his rightful property. I mean, who does the think he is, the CEO of de Beers? Occupy Gnome Mountain! Mr. “I get all the sparkly rocks” Gnome King was ticked off about all the emeralds in the Emerald City, so he locked up the scarecrow. Plus he has those ruby slippers, too. He’s wearing them, which looks kind of drag-queeny on a king who’s essentially a pile of rocks with a face.

Dorothy & company may be able to free the scarecrow if they can guess which one of the items in the king’s trinket collection he’s been turned into. If they guess wrong, they get turned into ornaments too. One by one they head into the king’s big room of tchotchkes, never to return. Dorothy goes in last, correctly guesses that the big fat green emerald would be, you know, the king of the Emerald City, and poof, it turns into the scarecrow. They figure out the other green ornaments must be their pals, so they turn them back into robot Wilford, moose-sofa and Pumpkinhead. Then it gets weird.

The evil princess shows up in a chariot pulled by the wheeled evil clowns, blathering about “Ozma.” The Gnome King puts her in a cage, then realizes Dorothy has guessed correctly and freed the scarecrow and her pals. He doesn’t care for this turn of events, so he tries to eat Pumpkinhead. But hiding in that hollowed-out jack-o-lantern is the chatty chicken, who’s so distressed by this turn of events she lays an egg, which falls into the mouth of the Gnome King. In the single most unbelievable plot development – yes, more unbelievable than the flying moose-sofa – eggs turn out to be poison to gnomes, and the big rocky king dies. Or melts. Or smelts. Or something. Dorothy grabs the ruby slippers, no doubt thinking “Hey, I’m always grabbing these things off some dead evil creature,” and they skedaddle.

The ruby slippers have the amazing power to transport them all to the Emerald City and tie up all the loose plot points. The Oz inhabitants who were turned to stone are suddenly whatever they were before – people, lions, tin men, whatever. The evil princess is there, too, still in her cage. “Ozma” turns out to be Dorothy’s little pal from the psych ward, who was the queen of Oz before the wizard showed up. The evil princess had imprisoned her in a mirror and Dorothy pulls her out. She gives Ozma the ruby slippers and asks to be sent back to Kansas, because damn, she’s had all the “WTF?” one person can take.

Dorothy goes back to the Little now-more-finished House on the Prairie and is reunited with Aunt Em, Uncle Henry and Toto too. She can still chat with Ozma in her mirror. Just in case that ending should strike you as a little too normal for this fevered acid-dream of a movie, Ozma is holding the talking chicken, who’s helping her rule Oz. Or laying eggs to poison gnomes. Or something. The End.

Did I mention this is a Disney Movie?

The price of fame

Dean’s been working in radio in this market for eleven years. Most people don’t know him by sight unless they’ve been to a live remote or some event he’s emceed, but he often gets recognized around here by his voice. “Hey, you’re the guy on the radio.”

So this morning shortly after Dean got to work, the part-timer on the overnight shift went outside to empty a garbage can in the dumpster in the parking lot. He came back in and looked at Dean with awe. “You’re the guy with the Z!”

Dean had driven his 1979 Datsun 280Z to work. “Wow, my friends and I talk about that really nice maroon Z we see around town. We were wondering who owns it. Cool car – wait ‘til I tell them I know the guy who owns the Z!”

So now we know the price of fame. No, it’s not working your ass off in radio for years. It’s $3,000 – that’s what Dean paid for the Z in 2005. 

Summer People

The other day I ducked into the local discount store for a quick errand. I only needed one thing I could get from their outdoor garden center which has its own checkout. Just take a minute. I grabbed a bottle of rose aphid spray (wet spring, the damn things love that) and went to the checkout. Only a couple of women ahead of me – great. Then I noticed . . .

1. Neither one had a cart or was holding anything to ring up.

2. Each held a sale flier. One had what appeared to be a shopping list.

3. Both were dressed casually but expensively in designer summer chic.

Oh crap. Summer people.

And yes, we know at a glance you’re summer people. It’s not just the head-to-toe designer labels, from the Chanel sunglasses to the Prada sandals. It’s not just the flashy second-wife jewelry or the fact that you drove up to the local Wal-Mart in a Jaguar convertible. It’s the way you look at us, the little people who live here year-round. As if you’re mentally storing up amusing anecdotes about the “colorful locals” for the next time Martha invites you to the Hamptons.

I first ran into summer people at the grocery store the first year we lived here. This customer, at a small store that serves a blue-collar town of about 4,000 people, was incredulous that the butcher counter didn’t stock Kobe beef. “Look, just get me some. I don’t care what it costs. Hundred bucks a pound is fine. Just go get me some Kobe beef.” The kid working the butcher counter just shrugged in helpless resignation.

At the bakery, another summer person was aghast.

“You mean you don’t make your own homemade ice cream cones here?”

Clerk: “No ma’am.”

“That’s ridiculous. My kids HAVE to HAVE homemade ice cream cones.”

Clerk: “I’m sorry ma’am.”

“Well, where can I get them?”

Clerk: “There’s a bakery on Main Street. They might have them there.”

“Well, CALL THEM and find out!”

Clerk: “I can’t. I don’t have a phone or a phone book.”

“There’s one on the wall right behind you!”

Clerk: “That’s just a store intercom.”

“Well, FIND a PHONE, find a PHONEBOOK, and FIND OUT where I can get HOMEMADE ice cream cones!”

I resisted the temptation to tell her to go home, Google up a recipe and make some herself, since that would surely be the proper definition of homemade anyway.

So fast forward a few years. By now I know what to expect, and I know my quick errand won’t be quick. I’m in line behind summer people.

The clerk at the garden center looks a bit confused, as the summer person isn’t holding anything to ring up. “May I help you?”

Summer person, holding out sale flier: “I want one of these, two of these, four of those, one of these, two of these, but only if you have them in red instead of blue,” as she jabs the flier with her French-manicured fingertip.

The sales clerk, who is all alone in the garden center, looks helplessly at the lengthening line waiting to check out. “Ma’am, if you bring those things up here, I’ll be glad to check you out.”

The summer person merely holds out the sale flier again. “One of these, two of these, four of those, one of these, two of these in red not blue,” then walks off a couple of steps and whips out her cell phone. As she’s dialing, she tosses back to the clerk, “Oh, and some ice too, of course.”

Summer person turns to her cell phone conversation, leaving the clerk nonplussed. She looks at the line waiting to check out, back at the summer person now deep in conversation but obviously expecting her order to be delivered. She reaches for her store intercom, but just then a manager walks by. “Aaron, thank goodness! Can you get these?” She hands over the sale flier and repeats the summer person’s order, down to “red, not blue.” Whew. Crisis solved.

So the next summer person is at the till. She hands over both a sale flier AND a shopping list. “One of these, three of those, I want this if you have it in green, four of these, plus this list . . ” I put the aphid spray back. I can get it at Ace Hardware. Summer people don’t shop at hardware stores.

I asked Dean to get some rose aphid spray at the hardware store the next day. He came back with it, but said, “Damn, that took forever. Only two people ahead of me, but damn.”

Me: “Summer people?”

Dean: “Yup.”

Me: “Sale flier, one of these, two of those, yadda yadda yadda?”

Dean: “Yup.”

I guess summer people do shop at hardware stores.

Sometimes they get it right

File this under "even a stopped clock is right twice a day." Faux News accidentally gets something right. 

This Week in Stupid

Oh you teabaggers. You know how to bring the crazy and the stupid. Here are five gems from the past week:

5. Bat-shit crazy Revolutionary War "expert" Michele Bachmann places the battles of Lexington and Concord in New Hampshire.

4. Freshman GOP Rep. Tom Marino says of the Libyan no-fly zone, "Where does it stop?" he said. "Do we go into Africa next?"

3. Then there’s House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who apparently needs to be not just schooled, but Schoolhouse Rocked, on how a bill becomes a law.

2. It wouldn’t be fair to leave our local folks out of the fun, so here’s Montana Rep. Alan Hale on drunk driving. In favor of it.

1. And finally, a hat trick of stupidity from another freshman GOPer, Rep. Sean Duffy. He fretted about making ends meet on his $174,000 a year salary. Bonus: due to higher health care costs. Double bonus: as a Senator he gets his socialist government health insurance paid for by taxpayers. Triple score: his costs are higher now because he used to have a better package when he was on the state payroll in Wisconsin. You know, as one of those freeloading government employees who should have their exorbitant salaries and benefits cut and their collective bargaining rights stripped.

Note that the link to Duffy’s video may not work. His staffers have been working overtime trying to scrub it from every site on the internet.

Since Sarah Palin is only pretending to be interested in a presidential bid to gin up interest in her inexplicably highly-compensated speaking appearances, I’m really rooting for Michele Bachmann to ride her teabagger horde all the way to the GOP nomination. Because Obama-Bachmann debates? Pure comedy gold.

What time is it? It's stupid time!

Yesterday one of Dean’s coworkers went on a rant against daylight savings time.

“I don’t see why I have to lose an hour every spring. That’s just stupid. Arizona doesn’t have daylight savings time, because they have enough sunlight and they don’t need to save any. If they had an extra hour of sunlight, they’d just use more electricity for air conditioning. The government shouldn’t be telling me how to set my clocks.” I think it goes without saying that the guy is an avid fan of Fox News.

I gotta give Dean credit. He boldly waded into the deep, murky waters of stupidity, trying to explain. The guy cut him off as a great idea occurred to him.

“We should just change in the fall and not in the spring. I don’t mind gaining an hour in the fall, but I hate losing an hour in the spring. So we should just change the clocks once a year instead of twice.”

He saw absolutely nothing wrong with this plan. In fact, he thought it was brilliant.

Dean knew when to give in.

Thanks again, sweN xoF

Okay, they didn’t exactly get this one backwards. More like sideways. Need to show the “union thugs,” AKA teachers, policemen, firemen etc. in Wisconsin being violent? Well, here’s just how bad these union thugs are. They refuse to act thuggish, even when the Fox camera crews schlepped all the way to Wisconsin in the dead of winter. Couldn’t they kindly oblige them and show some true Midwestern kindness and hospitality by cracking a few skulls? No?

Fine, you jerks. Be “nice.” We’ll just show some other footage. Pay no attention to the palm trees in the background. They were . . . uh, planted in Wisconsin by those damned global warming hoaxers.

More fun facts: how many right-wing union-bashers are union members? Well, for starters there’s Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin, all members of AFL-CIO-affiliated unions.

“In the same segment where O'Reilly blamed government financial woes on union benefits, he not only said he was an AFTRA member, but that his membership had benefited him in the past:

‘On a personal note, I'm a member of a union, AFTRA, and when I was working at Inside Edition some years ago, the King World company tried to renege on pension benefits," said O'Reilly. "AFTRA took them to court and the case was settled. If the shop had been non-union, we might have been stiffed.’”