I’ve recently been reading the original Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum and have been struck by a few things.

First off, it is a really good book. It is simply written to be sure, simpler even than the Chronicles of Narnia books by C.S. Lewis, but yet it is very good.

The second thing I notice is how vastly different it is than the movie version. Of course this can usually be said about books that have been made into films, but this one is different in so many ways that the movie is very much a telling of the same story from a different storyteller. Almost like 2 eye witness accounts telling their stories to the police.

For instance, there are many obstacles that Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion go through in the book that are never touched on in the movie. There are also many people they meet that are never mentioned in the film, and there are some characters in the film that are not in the book… the “lollipop guild” for one.

Another big difference between the book and the movie is the depiction of the Flying Monkeys. In the movie the monkeys are part of the Wicked Witch’s “gang.” They are her slaves, just as the Winkies, and are there to do her bidding. In the book the Witch can only call on the winged simians 3 times, and uses her last time to try and destroy Dorothy. Admittedly I like the depiction of the monkeys in the movie better… but, as I said, they are almost 2 different stories.

That does, however, bring me to the Wicked Witch. She is really only dealt with in one chapter of the book, but, as you probably know, she appears early on and often in the film. Obviously I see why the changes were made to film as they make it much more “exciting” and even help in converting it from a narrative to a musical. And now, almost finished with the book and having seen the film numerous times (as all other American children), I can say that I enjoy both a great deal! In fact I plan to read the other “OZ” books by Baum… and possibly other books and materials relating to the OZ world. That being said, one related item I have read, and now despise more than ever, is the Wicked book by Gregory Maguire.

If you’ve not read Wicked, don’t! It has got to be one of the worst, most blatantly disgusting books I’ve ever read in my life. It takes the beautiful world that Baum invented and twists it to a point of non-recognition. Have I seen the Broadway version? Yes! And I loved it!! I’m sorry that Maguire gets any credit whatsoever for the musical in fact. It is as different from his book as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat are from the Bible.

My main question to Macquire is, “Did you READ The Wizard of Oz?” His book’s sub-title is, “The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” but which west he’s speaking of I have no idea. There is little to nothing in Wicked that fits in with the story Baum sets up in the original book. It does, in fact, fit better with the 1939 movie version… but even with that it is severely flawed.

I didn’t like Macquire’s book when I first read it, and now that I’ve read the original “Wizard of Oz” I like it even less. How, or why, it became popular I have no idea… but I may just have to write a GOOD version of what happened before Dorothy arrived because Wicked is not it.

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My brother Leland sent a link to his pictures from the Hogwarts Halloween party posted on Flickr. They are really good, and there’s some close ups of a few people I know I hadn’t seen yet as well.

Leland came as “the Crystal Wizard” Sy Okzeetoo (Sigh awk-ZEE-two) from the chemical symbol of quartz, SiO2. I thought that was a brilliant name! He even had business cards to hand out!

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Okay… truth be told I can’t help but think of Darth Vader telling Luke Skywalker, “You don’t know the power of the Dark Side.” I mean for a long, long time now I’ve thought of Network Solutions as being the “Dark Side.” They’re the big-bad-corporate of the internet. But, that all being said, we are seriously loving them as our new hosting provider!

We were sort of “forced” to switch because of some horrible down time that our old servers experienced last weekend. Our sites were down for around 5 days, if you hadn’t noticed, and so, Wednesday we decided, “Enough is enough,” and moved our stuff to Network Solutions.

It was our good friend Stephen Parks that suggested them to me. And, when he first suggested it I admittedly made some remark that, in turn, made Stephen ask me, “What’s wrong with Network Solutions?” “They’re the ‘Wal-Mart’ of the internet,” I replied. “Well,” said Stephen, “I’ve never known of Wal-Mart having such good customer support or such high customer reviews.”

He asked me to give them give them a call just to see… and it wasn’t within 3 minutes of being on the phone with them that I knew we were going to be moving our sites over.

Now it’s been 4 days, and I can’t say enough good things about them. We are still very, very sad to have had to leave CWH, whom I had been with for almost 10 years, but it was obviously time… and now I’m not worried that our site may be down for 5 days again… let alone 1 day… let alone 1 hour.

So… that’s the very short (and much less stressful) story of our move to Network Solutions. And, if they are the “Dark Side” (which I would seriously argue against now) then Darth was right… you don’t know the power!

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Yes, I know, I’ve been posting a ton of videos from the TODAY show… but they had such a great Halloween day show that I have to share these!

This one is of the Mel Brook’s new Young Frankenstein Broadway production. The cast was there at Rockefeller Center and did a few numbers, this one got put online… and Celeste and I can’t stop signing (slash yodeling) it.

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If you’re like me you LOVE Stephen Colbert and his brand of humor. It’s right up there with David Letterman, Amy Sedaris, Ted L. Nancy, and Andy Kaufman. And if he’s not your kind I’m sorry… you’re so wrong as to what is funny and you need to get over it.

I also like him because he is a character… not a “character” like, “That guy’s such a character,” but a character as in a persona that he plays. Much like Andy Kaufman, Alice Cooper, and even Marilyn Manson, the “Stephen Colbert” the world knows and loves is a character. It’s a performance. It’s not the person his family knows. It’s not the person his close friends know. It’s not really “him“… it’s “him” as a part or a role.

This is something that is often so hard for many people to distinguish that they end up believing the public character version of the person is the real person also. I know it happened greatly with Andy Kaufman… and has happened to some degree or another with many of the other people I’ve mentioned here as well as countless other performers.

The thing is, often people who are so well known as their crafted persona are very reluctant to show their real self in any way shape or form. I don’t blame them really. I can see how, for instance, it could help them be famous while allowing their true selves to remain private and normal. But, it is nice, every now and then, to see one of them give an interview, speech, or appearance as themselves… their true selves…

So who is the real Stephen Colbert?
Well… here’s a clip into his wonderfully blessed mind.

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I wasn’t going to post anything about J.K. Rowling’s announcement that Dumbledore was gay, but then I read this article in TIME magazine and thought, “That deserves a mention.”

My thing with Dumbledore “being” gay is that it doesn’t change the books at all. J.K. Rowling is a genius… and she deserves ever penny (or shilling) of the fortune she has amassed from the Harry Potter books… but she might as well have also announced that Lucius Malfoy was molested by his cousin when he was 6 years old, Madam Pomfrey has always fought with her weight, and Ron Weasley’s 2nd cousin by marriage really enjoys Elvis Presley sandwiches. In other words, it does not matter!

The reason I liked this article is that the writer basically says the same thing. Rowling had over 800,000 words to give us a hint that Dumbledore’s sexual preferences were of any import, but she didn’t do it once. Sure… now you can “go back” and read a lot into what’s already written, but I could read in a lot of things she never intended if I wanted to do so.

Again, I do not doubt nor discount Rowling’s genius. But the things she DID want to relay (even ever so subtly) she did so perfectly! To say it without saying it (in case some of you reading this haven’t read them yet) there were things that many readers missed in the first books that came out in later books that astounded people! The internet was chock full of message threads with every imaginable theory on every character, circumstance, and minute detail of the stories. And, with the completion of the series, some theories were proven right and some were proven wrong. I doubt, however, if anyone can honestly say that they thought Dumbledore might be gay. If they did they must’ve been reading a different version than I was.

So is he or isn’t he? Well, Rowling says he is, and it’s her world, so I guess he is. But does anyone really care? I don’t think so.

You can also download a PDF of the TIME article here.

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