Three Of My Favourite Things About Oz

(1997-2003)

Alaska* and I recently plowed through all 6 seasons of the prison show, Oz. While I love the show in its entirety, here are 3 things in particular that enhanced my enjoyment.

1. Adebisi's little hats.

   I just have so many questions: How does he keep it on his head, even during a fight? Does he ever keep snacks or "tits"(drugs) up in there?(We do see him stash a note from Shirley Bellinger on Death Row under there at one point in season 2) Where did these wonderful miniature hats come from?(I like to imagine Adebisi knits them himself, with toothpicks stolen from the cafeteria)

2. Charles Busch as Nat/Natalie.

   I adore Charles Busch, and was beyond thrilled when he just popped up in an episode in Season 3. Playing the HIV positive Nat, he kills Mob Boss Nappa, which then gets him sent to Death Row( he passes in Season 4 from the disease, not execution) Despite being in prison, Nat got to doll himself up a couple times, in full drag with his signature flaming red hair.

3. "Crazy" Beecher.

Sane Tobias Beecher.

Crazy Beecher(as evidenced by the facial hair)

   Poor Tobias Beecher. A well-off lawyer from a good family, with a wife and kids of his own, who just happens to have a drinking problem. When he runs over and kills a kid in a DUI offense, he's made an example of and sent off to Oz. 

      How to make a Crazy Beecher

      

      1. Take one sane, well-mannered attorney and throw him into a maximum security prison.

      2. Cell him first with Adebisi, and then the leader of the Aryans, Vern Schillinger. 

      3. Brand with a Swastika, beat, rape, sexually humiliate, and then discard Beecher into the

          recesses of Oz with no protection(and wearing a Confederate Flag t-shirt)         

      4. Load him up with "tits."(which is still drugs)

Beecher being branded by Schillinger

Beecher made to drag it up at talent show

      

      Consequences of creating a Crazy Beecher

      ~Partial blindness(as done to Schillinger)

      ~Beaten down and then shit on while other prisoners cheer(including shit in the mouth-also   

      done to Schillinger)

Beecher's ass, poised for action

      ~"No means no." Bites off the tip of a penis that is shoved into his piehole(as done to Robson, 

      one of the Aryan Brotherhood)

Robson looks like a dickhead, anyway

Beecher bites it off, then spits it out

      ~Kills the guard(Metzger) that allowed him to be severely beaten by the Aryans(both arms & 

      legs were broken. Metzger's death is actually a thing of beauty-Beecher allows his nails to 

      grow while in the hospital ward, and, basically, it's kill or be killed when he's released back

      into Emerald City. Metzger mistakenly thinks that he will handle the situation, and gets

      Beecher alone, only to find himself suddenly slashed to pieces and bleeding out. After this, 

      Beecher calmly goes back to his pod and clips his nails, thus destroying the "weapons," and 

      the evidence)

      

Before Crazy Beecher

After Crazy Beecher

      There is, of course, many other Crazy Beecher moments, but too many to list and too many  

      to find pictures of. It's worth noting that when Schillinger tries to get someone to off Beecher in 

      Season 2, no one will touch him.)

Bonus- Jericho

      I have never been more creeped out by a puppet than Cyril O'Reily's friend, Jericho. The one

      scene that, literally, sent chills down my spine was when Cyril was on Death Row. Father  

      Ray is walking down the darkened hall of Death Row, and he glances to the right to see 

      Jericho framed in a shaft of light. And then the voice- "Good evening, Father." Nothing 

      at all like Cyril's little boy lisp(he has brain damage from an accident, and is mentally between 

      10 and 12, I believe) Jericho starts out as a friendly little outlet for Cyril, and then turns into 

      Cyril's "bad side," for lack of another way to put it. This was never more evident than when

      Cyril/Jericho calls Sister Pete a cunt.

*my husband

      

Three Hot Chicks In Horror(Whose Posters Hang In My Office)

1. Ginger- Ginger Snaps(2000) Katharine Isabelle

   Up until a few years ago, I wasn't all that into werewolves. An occasional appearance by one here and there was fine, but I never actively sought them out. One night on the Sci-Fi Channel(when such a thing still existed, natch) I happened upon the movie Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning(2004) And I watched it, with commercials and pretty chopped to hell(because, Hey! It's a hot redhead and "Beverly Marsh" from the IT tv miniseries!) After the movie was over, I logged in to Amazon and purchased all three movies. I watched them, and I loved them, so I bought the movie poster.


2. Laurie- Trick 'r Treat(2007) Anna Paquin

   I first saw Laurie when I came across Trick 'r Treat on Netflix, and it was love at first viewing(I love anthologies, and also, hot chicks who are in no way damsels-in-distress) Sweet, innocent-looking Laurie in her adorable Red Riding Hood costume. And then, a little later, we have not-so-sweet, sexy Laurie all disheveled and blood-stained. I bought the awesome poster you see above this year(the artist is Chris Lovell, you can find his work on Deviantart and on Facebook) at the same time as the one below, Julie.


3. Julie- Return of the Living Dead III(1993) Melinda(going by "Mindy") Clarke

   I first owned a VHS copy of this movie(which I still have) Not only did we have zombies, but Julie was smokin' in her fishnets and little jean cut-offs. And then she got bit, and then came the piercings. Am I the only one who found her even more attractive after she shoved all of that metal and glass through her body? Anyone? No? Moving on. Anyway, the movie poster is several years old, the art poster was purchased this year at the same time as poster number 2, Laurie.

Three Recent Reads

1. Phantom- Susan Kay

A book of the life and death of Erik, the deformed man who becomes The Phantom of the Opera. We start with Erik's birth, told through the eyes of his mother, who shuns him. Move on through the teen years, told through both Erik's voice and the voices of the people he encounters. Through his adulthood, his ill-fated love of the beautiful Christine(we get her side through journal entries) and ending, not in his death, but with the idea that a part of Erik lives on.

Great book, 4 1/2 out of 5 stars, a definite recommend.


2. Sisters in Crime 2- Marilyn Wallace(editor)

This is an anthology of mystery stories, all featuring a woman as the protagonist, all written by women. I picked this book up off of the free shelf at the library a couple of years ago, and it has been sitting in my "to read" pile ever since. I opened it a couple of nights ago, and plowed through it in three days. Some stories were better than others, of course, but really the only one that sticks out at me is the first story in the novel, "Death Scene; or, The Moor of Venice," by P.M. Carlson. Our leading lady is a fantastic heroine who goes by the name "Maggie Ryan." Suffice to say, Maggie solves the mystery of some burglaries that happen to coincide with where her theatre troupe is stopped. How she deals with discovering who the robber is, and saving her own life, was a thing of beauty. I actually laughed out loud at the ending, when Maggie does something decisively "unladylike" to conceal her part in what is, technically, a crime. Either way, I liked her enough to go look for other stories, and happily found a series of Maggie Ryan books that I plan to give a go in the near future.

Decent book, 3 1/2 stars out of 5, a recommend if you like mysteries that are centered around female voices.


3. Village of the Mermaids- Carlton Mellick III

Another Bizarro story by CMIII, here. I first encountered him when I picked up his book Apeshit, which was a horribly entertaining read. Environmentally protected mermaids(who feed off humans), a dying doctor whose skin is turning to clay from a weird disease, evolution, toss in a bit of strange sex and we have  111 pages of neato.

Neato-Bizarro book, 4 out of 5 stars, a definite recommend if you like reading weird shit, or if you're interested in another take on mermaids(and you like reading weird shit)


Bonus: Odd Apocalypse- Dean Koontz

Book 5 in the series that features the fantastic character, Odd Thomas. I read this book recently, though it was one I had picked up when it first came out and just hadn't gotten around to(I have Book 6, Deeply Odd, sitting by my bed to read right now) This story circles around the goings on at the Roseland estate, the owner, Noah Wolflaw, having invited Odd and the pregnant "Lady of the Bell" Annamaria to stay there. Time travel, packs of murdering pig-people, Nikola Tesla, and a frantic ghost on a horse. Odd also picks up his new ghost "friend," and I will admit I was tickled by who it was.

Fantastic book, 5 out of 5 stars, a definite recommend, as everyone should give Odd Thomas a try.

Three Things I Liked About Sushi Girl

Starring: Tony Todd, Noah Hathaway, James Duval, Andy Mackenzie, Mark Hamill, Cortney Palm


1. Mark Hamill is brilliant. The animated Joker(and Luke Skywalker) himself, as the hair twirling, gum smacking, effeminate psychopath, Crow.

   I could not take my eyes off of Hamill throughout this movie. His performance was a thing of beauty, and if you need one reason to watch this movie, he's it.


2. This movie was very Tarantino-esque. A botched diamond heist. A rat wearing a wire in the criminals' circle. Revenge. Japanese atmosphere. Torture. A Mexican stand-off. A couple of times(in particular after a monologue by Tony Todd) I turned to my husband and said, "That was very Tarantino." Then there's Sonny Chiba, Danny Trejo, Jeff Fahey and Michael Biehn as co-stars.


3. The torture. It takes something creative to really get my attention, and the torture scenes in this movie managed to do that. There was the wine bottle in the sock(as it was Max's sock, I couldn't help but think the smell of the sock was probably bad enough, much less having it filled with a broken bottle and then smashed across your face) The damage it did was wonderful:

Then there was the chopstick hammered into the top of Fish's knee(one of Crow's contributions)

Crow then uses the end of the chopstick like a pain joystick, and twists the stick around in Fish's leg. Not especially bloody, but definitely up there in creativity. I would imagine the pain was rather exquisite, too.

Bonus: I enjoyed Sushi Girl's role in the movie, as well. Despite the name, I got so involved with the boys that I never even considered that the girl might have her own motives for being there. Everything is wrapped up in the end, nice and neat.

Three Songs I Downloaded After Hearing Them In A Movie

1. "Anything Anything" by Dramarama- as heard in A Nightmare on Elm St. 4: The Dream Master

2. "Love Hates" by Marianne Faithfull- as heard in Tuff Turf

3. "Fire in the Twilight" by Wang Chung- as heard in The Breakfast Club

Bonus. "Tempest" by Los Straightjackets- as heard in Psycho Beach Party

Three Funko Pop! Figures

I, currently, have three Funko figures in my collection. This is a collection that I really had no intentions of starting, but which has been started, nonetheless.

1. First up, Jason Voorhees. Mr. V was my first Funko ever. I fell in love with his little hockey mask, the adorable bloody machete, and that lazy corpse eye.

2. Daryl Dixon. The husband and I were late-comers to the awesomeness that is The Walking Dead. Frankly, when it originally aired, I was burnt out on zombies(which is just a horrible thing to have to say) I first loved Norman Reedus as Murphy MacManus, but his portrayal as the double D reignited that infatuation all over again.

3. The Joker. I have what I call a "crush" on the animated Joker. I have no particular idea why, other than I have a penchant for lunatics. His purple suit, green hair, infectious giggle, what's not to love? I even have a Joker background on my cell phone.

*A bonus today, because this is the only other Funko that we(currently)own. This one, however, belongs to my husband. Hubby is a comic book guy, and one of his favourites is Green Arrow. One day, he will be joined by a Green Lantern(another Husband fav) Incidentally, I named my red-nosed Pit Bull "Oliver Queen." 

Three Assigned Ring Tones

1. Super Mario Bros. Theme song, designated ringtone of my husband. I adore Mario and I adore my husband, though this was his ring tone before we were married. And, like Mario and Peach, I am a couple inches taller than my main man, and blonde to his brunette. Just for shits and giggles, I shall toss in here that Hubby and I had a semi- Mario-themed wedding complete with awesome cake toppers, a few other minor decorations, and Hubby made our Mario and Peach wedding invitations and return cards. I'm such a lucky woman.

2. "Smooth Criminal" Alien Ant Farm, designated ringtone of my baby sister, Annie. I love three versions of this song: Michael Jackson's original, AAF's redo, and Sulic and Hauser's cello blowout. The reason I chose AAF's version for her ringtone is thus: it's the only one I can hear when my phone is crammed into my purse.

I'm also throwing in Sulic and Hauser's version, purely for it's awesomeness:

3. "Tank" The Seatbelts-from the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, designated ringtone of my dad. This was actually ringtone number 4 for Dad. We started with "Son of a Sailor" by Jimmy Buffett, which was too low to hear when it rang in my purse. We moved on to  "Play That Funky Music(White Boy)" by Wild Cherry (which I also could not hear in my purse) Then I downloaded some songs after Hubby got me to watch Cowboy Bebop, both the movie and some of the series, and I hooked Dad up to "Ask DNA," also by The Seatbelts, and yet another song that did not penetrate from the dark recesses of my purse (what's stupid about this whole thing is my phone sits on top of all the other crap in my bag, I should be able to hear any song) So, at last, we have arrived at "Tank." Which I could probably hear even if my phone was in my purse, and shoved up the ass of a fat man named Stu.* 

*My apologies if you are, in fact, a fat man named Stu. I would never attempt to shove my purse up your ass, even for the expressed purpose of seeing if I could hear my "Tank" ringtone from up in there.