The Oz Journals - Entry Two

“Oh the world of Oz is a very funny place where everyone has a funny funny face and the streets are paved and golden, and no one ever grows old, in that funny land lives the Wizard of Oz.” – the theme song from an abysmal animated 1960s television series. In the most popular volume of the series of the Oz children’s books by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy Gale, a bored and frustrated pre-teen girl finds herself wishing she could get far, far away from the Kansas farm where she resides with her stodgy aunt and uncle, and gets her wish when a tornado transports her by scooping up the entire farmhouse to a weird and wonderful land called Oz, which is ruled by a reclusive but benevolent wizard.

When she first arrives the farmhouse inadvertently crushes and kills a witch, which pretty much puts her on the shit list of the witch’s surviving kin, a sister who is also in the witch business. In fact, the crushed witch’s sister is so pissed off with Dorothy, she and her squadron of weird monkey birds fly into Munchkin land just to scare the bejesus out of them with threats of retaliation and violence. Most of the rest of the tale everybody knows from the Hollywood film adaptation, which was a favourite of mine as a child. The monkey birds still give me the creeps if I watch it now. What a vivid imagination Mr. Baum must have had to create the many strange and terrifying creatures that inhabit his Wonderful World of Oz.

The Land of Oz that I landed in is no less terrifying and strange than Dorothy Gale’s. Suffice to say, I didn’t kill anybody on my arrival, landing not on a witch but on an airport runway in a device that they maintain handles better than your average, airborne Kansas farmhouse - a contraption known as an aeroplane.

Judging from the non-stop turbulence of my journey down here and our dodgy landing in crosswinds in this machine, I might seriously consider flying Air Wichita next time around. They call this land ‘Oz’ for short, ‘Oz’ being a shortened word for Australia. They also spell “tire” like the Brits do (tyre). Evidently the spelling hasn’t improved among the populace since the days when this place was a Penal Colony.

This land of Oz is ruled not by a shy wizard but governed by a gentleman by the name of “honest” John Howard. I don’t know his politics yet, but he seems a nice enough fellow. My stepdaughter met him, and I have decided to ask him for a new brain, should I be granted an audience. Truth be told, the official ruler of this continent of Australia is her majesty, Queen Elizabeth the second of England, whose face leers haughtily at you from banknotes here, just as it does in Canada. (Note on the banknotes here: the Australian currency is almost impossible to tear. That is because it isn’t made from paper, it is made with plastic).

Speaking of Her Majesty the Queen, her son Charles has just finished up a whirlwind tour of Australia. Most of the news media ignored him and his ears, excepting the occasion when two women flashed their breasts at him. Apparently this happens every time he visits here, which is probably the only reason the guy comes back. What else has he got going for him? The television cameras instead devoted their attention to the rather fetching Princess Mary of Denmark, a formerly plump girl, hailing originally from Tasmania, who somehow managed to catch the eye and win the hand of Denmark’s Crown Prince. They make a storybook couple in comparison with the jug-eared Prince Tampon and his tyre-biting wife to be, Camilla Parkyour-Bowels. The lovely young Danish royals were showcased on the television every day for a full week as they shook hands here and cut ribbons there, opened this and attended that. The Australians seem to be as infatuated as the rest of the planet by the antiquated custom of monarchy, they just prefer their Princes and Princesses to be good-looking. Poor Charles, the once and future king. You’d think that the British Royals, with all their money, might invest in some cosmetic surgery in order to secure attractive girlfriends.

I have just read a news report which I will copy here: "A deckhand on a luxury charter boat was killed by a shark when he went snorkelling with tourists off the West Australian coast. The 26-year-old was taken by the six-metre shark while snorkelling with tourists off the Abrolhos Islands group about 2pm (WST), police said. He was killed instantly and his body was yet to be recovered. A police spokesman said the charter vessel, the Matrix, was on its maiden voyage from Perth to the Kimberley when the tragedy happened. It was moored at Wreck Point, in the south-east corner of Pelseant Island, which is part of the Abrolhos Islands group, 60km from the port of Geraldton.

Six metres is roughly 20ft, give or take a few inches, about the size that we were to believe the mechanical and rubber shark was in the movie JAWS. I thought they might have exaggerated the shark’s dimensions for dramatic effect in that film, but I guess not. These suckers grow to be large, and I don’t think they get that way eating kelp. According to most reports, an attack of this nature is apparently extremely rare. Yeah, as in “medium rare”. I don’t care what most experts say, they don’t grow their teeth like that for no reason. No shortage of strange and terrifying creatures reside here in the wonderful land of Oz.

“Here’s three sad souls, Oh me, Oh my, No brain, No heart, He’s much to shy. But never mind you three, Here’s the wizard as you can see, He’ll fix that one two three in that funny land lives the wizard of Oz.”- Same theme song.

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