Free to download in July for 10th anniversary: a book with an eco message showing the nice side of wolves to counter the historic demonising, with a Wizard of Oz fantasy theme mixed with the factual forced migration of British children around the Commonwealth for a century, which had recently been told in the book/film Oranges and Sunshine.
Book summary blurb on Smashwords:
Rebel without a cause, werewolf without claws, Grey travels across all regions of Oz (Australia) in a comedy-fantasy parody of the Wizard of Oz. It is not witches that hunt the protagonist for a ruby slipper, but monotheists desperate to get their hands on an emerald cork hat. There’s no scarecrow, tin man and cowardly lion searching for brain, heart and courage; instead, we have Elle McPherson, Angry Anderson and Bon Scott inspired characters needing a body, mind and spirit confidence boost. Will Grey and the intrepid travellers elude their pursuers and reach their destination? This book provides amazing action and surreal comedy in poetry and prose before reaching a cohesive and thrilling ending.
Smashwords explained: The ebooks on Smashwords can be read online using online readers, or they can be downloaded to other reading devices such as the iPhone, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, or to other ereading devices.
Holly Willoughby Celebrity Juice fans had some bad news this week, with HW pulling out of the show, putting it at risk of ending. This blog post provides similar humour, that I thought of before that news.
Introducing Holly Wallaby (Willoughby):
A combination of posting about Holly Willoughby and the Werewolf of Oz (WoO) ebook being free to download on Smashwords until the end of the month; and Frank Skinner reminding me of Shaggy, and how the real town of Humpty Doo in Australia became a combo of Humpty Dumpty and Scooby Doo in WoO inspired me to think of combining Willoughby and wallaby for Holly Wallaby!
WoO did of course star another hoochie coochie Holly: Miss Valance, who became Mrs. Candy that year (2012). The Wizard of Oz theme travellers encountered a Simpsons/South Park-style Holly Valance in the real town of Riddell’s Creek, inspiring the Best and Scrumptious Bubble and Squeak riddle storyline, previously posted on this very website.
Best of luck to them all, and I hope you enjoy the image/book if you hear of them!!
Ozzy Osbourne’s animal welfare crimes were the main reason I supported Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio during when the two sides went to war in the early 1980s. It was mainly Ozzy who was vitriolic in public, including hanging a Dio effigy on stage.
Ozzy history (Ozory)
I liked Ozzy’s voice, especially his stuff with Sabbath, but also a lot of his solo material, such as on the Blizzard of Oz album. Unfortunately, tragedy followed, as guitarist Randy Rhoads died in a plane crash.
I was down the front at the Monsters of Rock, 1986, when Ozzy headlined. Although I was mainly there to watch second-on-the-bill The Scorpions I loved Ozzy’s set, and especially his endearing stage manner. There was no animal welfare crimes, or other shenanigans, just good humour warmness.
Children of the POP Quorn Sea (or POPSeacorn?)
Ozzy’s reality TV is a mixture of funny entertainment and cringe-inducing stupidity; a big inspiration on me to cut down on my partying; but his dogs show he can be an animal lover too. Tony Iommi should be the media role model from the band, having had a couple of finger tips cut off in a work accident as a youth, and then using thimbles to play the guitar that drove the band to success.
I was glad Black Sabbath animosity declined over time, and to be able to see them back at Donington in 2016. Before that, I included Ozzy in the epic classic Kerang-Kerrang Werewolf of Oz book; part of the biggest sub-plot in the Australian adventure.
However, Ozzy’s affairs were another negative to me, and now I saw this week he’s (or whoever’s controlling the business?) cashing in on his animal head biting by selling a bat with a detachable head.
Batting for Bertie Bat
While ‘influencers’ make fortunes blogging about free products they get, I’m happy to offer an alternative to Ozzy’s bat in Bertie, already sold out at the Dogs Trust charity, but available at the PDSA and Amazon:
YouTube has many videos offering theories for the real meaning behind the Wizard of Oz, with most considering the book to have been an allegory for the economic situation in the U.S.A. at the start of the twentieth century. This video is an example, and also has some great greenYgrey scenery… at the start, before green takes over!
Luckily for today’s Werewolf of Oz readers, our Grey explained the background to that book. It turned the witches of the Wizard of Oz around to criticise fundamentalist monotheist religion through the monotonous monotheists, while supporting the right to follow monotheistic religions in a personal worth rather than personal gain way through the mildly monotheistic Moby.
It also featured the WWW of the greenYgrey world, with strong independent women; a (were)wolf leading an animal welfare and environmentalism theme, and working class characters rising above discrimination.
It also tried to throw in a lot of comedy, while providing geographic, cultural and historical information about Australia. It is still on sale, and as relevant today as when it was written all those moons ago.
Hi, it’s Wolf Whitzer, intrepid news correspondent at GGN inspired by CNNlegend Wolf Blitzer. After meeting a koala in Sydney about the same time as our koala mirror poem reflection was due for posting on this very blog, the Mirrorreported today that the royal couple reached Uluru / Ayer’s Rock this week.
It was of course the setting for the first ever fact or fiction gig in the sky, as far as we know, inspired by the Pink Floyd song The Great Gig in the Sky.
And now, in a Greenygrey News exclusive, we can reveal that the royal couple fitted in some great greenygreying at a rock famed for its redness.
Moreover, Kate and William greenygreyed without even wearing green themselves. They ventured out into the red rock desert, also famed for its aridity, and still found some greenery to go with their grey clothing.
This pose and photo really gets the new greenYgrey rebranding:
Sensational greenygreying by the royals, and it probably even upstages the Great Gig in the Sky Grey enjoyed… but it’s still worth buying the Werewolf of Oz as an Oz royal visit memento:
This morning Stella reported that the Duchess of Cambridge was leading the yellow spring fashion charge in line with the new greenYgrey rebranding. However, I think I can trump her story with this image I brought back from New Zealand, where William and Kate visited before flying to Oz.
Kate and William Royal Tour
After William, Kate, George and Lupo gave the Greenygrey a royal send-off as it left Blighty to fly to Russia on a daring mission to find our Andy Wolfhol, it looks as if the royal couple got into the flying Greenygrey mood while in New Zealand.
Hi, it’s Paco Wolfsang, apprentice fashionista at the Greenygrey; inspired by Paco Rabanne.
Yes, it was like the scene where Green and Grey separated again in Oz, after the epic battle with Pirate Lacoste in Bass Strait, told in a classic Werewolf of Ozblog episode:
‘At the end of the meal we, Green and I, unfortunately had to announce that we would be parting again. The others were disappointed, but the Greenygrey world needed Green, and I thought I should conclude this quest on my own.
Green shapeshifted into an albatross for the long journey back to the Greenygrey world. We climbed to the top of the mast to wave it off, singing Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll meet again.’
As Green albatross reached the horizon it looked back, did a roll, and tipped its wings; before disappearing from view into the azure.’
I hope you have now recovered from Australia Day and the final thrilling episode of the serialisation of undoubtedly the best ever werewolf virtually travels Australia to a Wizard of Oz theme satirical comedy travel quest.
Werewolf of Oz Chapter Themes
Wizard of Oz (Photo credit: cjzurcher)
If you followed the book closely on the blog, or have read the book in its complete form, you might have noticed that it consists of some single chapter stories and some told over several chapters.
Here’s a breakdown of the chapters. You have been reading the original idea thrilling story first virtual Oz expedition told in amazing detail as it happened in real fantasy time in the Werewolf of Oz: Fantasy Travel by Google Maps.
It’s Australia Day in most of Australia now, with Perth and the west coast, where Grey’s werewolf Ozysseyall setoffee, set to join the rest of Oz in less than halfling a hobbit (half an hour in human time).
English: Madonna during The Virgin Tour of 1985. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Grey’s Australia Day Tribute Song
Hi, it’s Greenygrey. We thought we’d get the Australia Day greenygrey festivities off to a musical start with Grey’s Oz version of Madonna’sDon’t Cry For Me Argentina, with lyrics adapted from the AZ Lyrics.comsite.
Madonna has supported the Greenygrey in the past, as shown in the accompanying photo, which resident archaeological comedian Tony Loboinson has unearthed. He thinks it’s one of the earliest examples of the greenygreying fashion craze in pop culture.
Here’s Grey’s song for Australia:
Don’t Cry For Me Australia
So I chose freedom
Rambling around, trying everything new
And heaps impressed me
I never expected it to
Don’t cry for me Australia
The truth is I never left you
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I kept my promise
Don’t keep your distance
And as for fortune, and as for fame
I never invited them in
Though it seemed to the world they were all I desired
They are illusions
They are not the solutions they promised to be
The answer was here all the time
I love you and hope you love me
Don’t cry for me Australia
Have I said too much?
I know you’d rather be watching the bush telly
But all you have to do is look at me to know
That every word is bonzer.
Epic may have been an overused word in the 1950s, when big budget Hollywood epics were rolled out like there was no tomorrow. Epics are not so common now, but with a cast of lots, we think theWerewolf of Oz: Fantasy Travel by Google Mapscan quite comfortably fit into the Epic category.
Werewolf of Oz Real People, Things and Creations
Cover of Let There Be Rock (Dlx)
Hi, it’s Greenygrey. As the Werewell to WoO rebranding takes over from Goodbye to WoO for the second half of the final Werewolf of Oz week, here’s the cast of 100s that Grey met on its epic Ozyssey to all regions of what you know as Australia.
Recollecting our huge Hugh, Northern Territories wordplay I think it reads like a Who’s Hugh WoO of Oz Rules!
Western Australia
Wizard of Oz, Ursula Andress, Dr. No, Joan Rivers, Wil. E Coyote, Les Miserables, Grey’s Anatomy, Collie Coalfields Museum, Babe, Fly, I’m a Celebrity…Get me out of Here, Oranges and Sunshine, The Eagles, and albums Hotel California and Long Road out of Eden, Lassie, Grey’s Anatomy, Blighty, Animals and song We Just Gotta Get Out of this Place, Pink Floyd and song Pigs on the Wing, Prince and song When Doves Cry, Sancho Panza and Don Quixote, Jo Brand, Russell Brand, Midnight Oil, Men at Work, Banksy, Rock-It Festival, Tracer, Airbourne, Rose Tattoo, Brian Johnson, Bon Scott, AC/DC and songs Bad Boy Boogie, Highway to Hell, Downpayment Blues, Soul Stripper, Hell Ain’t a Bad Place To Be, Ride On, Girl’s Got Rhythm, TNT, Beating Around the Bush, Cold Hearted Man, If You Want Blood You Got It, High Voltage, Shoot to Thrill, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Yoko Ono, Orlovs, Cool Hand Luke, Moby and songs Feeling so Real, Everything is Wrong, Sky Has Broken and Go, Dame Edna Everage, blues music, Paul Newman and films Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Hustler and Cool Hand Luke, the genie, quokkas, emerald cork hat, Robin Hood and Little John.
Northern Territories
Kermit the Frog, Herman’s Hermits, Siddharta, Scooby Doo, Humpty Dumpty, Baloo, AC/DC and songs It Ain’t No Fun Waiting Around to be a Millionaire, Dog Eat Dog, Up to my Neck in You, Have a Drink On Me, Let There Be Rock, It’s a Long Way to the Top and Gimme a Bullet to Bite On, Alice in Wonderland, Elle McPherson, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Bat Out of Hell, The Ghan (a train), Waltzing Matilda, Warren Zevon, Werewolves of London, Sade, Great Gig in the Sky, Skippy, butcher’s dog, Ramones, Atomic Rooster and song Head in the Sky, Rush and song Fly by Night, Joey Tribiani, Smokin’ Joe Frazier, Jo Guest, Joe Pesci, Injured Wildlife (road sign), Heath Ledger, Crocodile Dundee, Hugh Jackman, Knowing Me Knowing You, Abba, Blackfoot and album/songs Marauder, Good Morning, Searchin’, Dry County, Dream On Fly Away, Highway Song, red kangaroos, red foxes, red-necked wallabies, red-back spiders, Halloween, Meditations in Green, Animals, Shropshire Lad, Alfred Edward Housman, walkabout, Ajna and Chakra VI (Ajna is the sixth chakra), End of the Rainbow, Purple Rain, Jimi Hendrix and song Purple Haze and the Australian aborigine dreamtime.
South Australia
Homer and Marge Simpson, Rainbow and album/song Rising, Santa’s Little Helper, Jane Eyre, Russell Crowe, Sheryl Crow, Bob Crow, Ted Hughes, Crow, Jim Crow, Charlie Crow, Brandon Lee Crow, Blackport, Nipper Lawrence, Crow Nation, AC/DC song She’s Got Balls, Neighbours (Harold, Charlene and Scott), Motley Crue, Angry Anderson, Rose Tattoo and songs Rock n’ Roll Outlaw, Butcher and Fast Eddy, One of the Boys, Nice Boys, Bad Boy for Love, Remedy, Tramp, Assault and Battery, Out of this Place, All the Lesson, Let it Go, Scarred for Life, Gonna Work Itself Out, Who’s Got the Cash and We Can’t be Beaten.
Tasmania and Islands
Rose Tattoo songs Blood Brothers, Slipping Away, City Blues, Once in a Lifetime, Nothing to Lose, On The Road, Tazzy , Hotel Tazmania, Bushwhacker Bob, Hugh, Jean, Jake, Molly, Constance Koala, Dog the Turtle, Didgeri Dingo, Willie Wombat, Wendell T. Wolf, AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock, Basil Fawlty, Sybil, Fawlty Towers, Manuel, Polly, Bart Simpson, Tasmanian Tigers, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Belinda Emmett’s Rebecca Fisher, Pirates of the Caribbean, Treasure Island, Lacoste, Captain Ahab, Moby Dick, Davy Jones’s Locker, Vera Lynn song We’ll Meet Again.
Victoria
Ian Thorpe (Thorpedo), Cathy Freeman, The Shire, Waldorf Salad, VB, Queen Bess, Duck and Drake, Guns N’ Roses and Sweet Child O’ Mine, Gillian Taylforth, Pink Floyd’s Pied Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Beavis and Butthead’s Cornholio, Lara Croft, Mists of Avalon, Holly Valance, Easy Riders, Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Mel Gibson, William Lamb – 2nd Viscount Melbourne, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Railroad Song, Castlemaine 4X, The Code, Terrence Malick, Kerrang, spaghetti westerns, Ronald ‘Bon’ Scott, Angus Young, AC/DC songs (Back in Black, Hell’s Bells, Have a Drink On Me, Given the Dog a Bone, Shake a Leg, You Shook Me All Night Long, Shoot to Thrill), Faster Pussycat and House of Pain song, Dizzy Reed, The Terminator, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Rainbow, Saxon, Iron Maiden, Reading Rocks, Monsters of Rock, Waterloo, Uriah Heep, Kurt Cobain, Seasick Steve, Frankenstein, Pearl Jam and album and songs: Ten, Alive, Even Flow, Jeremy, Love/Hate and songs Blackout in the Red Room and Wasted in America), Ratt, Out of the Cellar, Round and Round, The Cult, Little Angels, Wildhearts, Thunder, Dogs D’ Armour, The Doors and songs/connections: Strange Days, My Eyes Have Seen You and The Changeling, Moonlight Drive, Roadhouse Blues, Venice Beach, Italian Job, Beatles and songs: Help, I’ll Get You, From Me To You, Italian Job, Black Sabbath, Rolling Stones and album/songs: Exile on Main Street, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Emotional Rescue, Gimme Shelter, Let it Bleed, Rip This Joint, Mamas and Papas and California Dreamin’, Jimi Hendrix and songs: Crosstown Traffic, Wild Thing, Hey Joe, Freedom, All Along the Watchtower, Valley of Neptune, Janis Joplin and songs A Woman Left Lonely, Bobby McGee, Mercedes-Benz and Summer, The Italian Job and song Getta Bloomin’ Move On (Self-Preservation Society), Andrew Wood and Mother Love Bone songs: Temple of the Dog, This is Shangri-La, Stardog Champion, Man of Golden Words, Captain Hi-Top, Heartshine, Thru Fade Away, Gentle Groove, Blade Runner (Replicant Roy Batty soliloquy: ‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe: Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion; I’ve watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.’), Axl Rose, Seasick Steve, Alice in Chains and songs Down in a Hole , Sea of Sorrow and Man In The Box, Def Leppard’s Rock of Ages, Nirvana, trash metal, Ozzy Osbourne/Blizzard of Ozz songs Bark at the Moon, Steal Away the Night, Crazy Train, Goodbye to Romance and No More Tears, Prog Rock, Wemba-Wemba, Pink Floyd albums The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon and Animals, ELP and records Black Moon, Love Beach, In the Hot Seat, Yes records Close to the Edge, Union, Fly From Here.
New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory
Perishers cartoon creations Crunge, Wellington, Maisie, Marlon, Baby Grumpling, Boot, genius contraptions (Marlon catchphrase), Grizzly Bear Adams and Ben, bush telly (Aussie slang for fire), Lord of the Rings, Smeagal/Gollum, snakes and ladders, The Partridge Family, Deliverance, Swan Lake, Paddington Bear, Spit the Dog, Tiswas, Mothman, Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Barangaroo, Darling Harbour, Norah Jones, Sirens, Guiness toucan, Monty Python and Life of Brian, Eric Idle and song Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Halfling , Question of Sport, the Baggy Green hat and Golden Wonder crisps.
Queensland
Winston Churchill, Pancho Villa, Francisco Goya, Abba and song Waterloo, Wolfsbane, The Elysian Fields, Harpy, Barry Humphries and creations Sir Les Patterson, Dame Edna Everage and giga-star.
Werewolf of Ozfinal week is going on so long that we’ve got time for a satirical comedy rebranding, parodying our own work along with lots of other things in modern society.
Scooby Doo Werewolf Rebranding
Hi, it’s Greenygrey. We think Goodbye to WoO has lost its appeal and impact, so once more inspired byScooby Doo and in line with our werewolfism, we’re rebranding it to Werewell to WoO Week for the second half of the epic farewell.
One of my oldest and biggest inspirations Scooby Doo pronounced its Ss as Rs, which was a lovable characteristic, as explained on scoobydoo.wikia.
Grey was of course lucky enough to meet the Humpty Doo in Humpty Doo, Northern Territories.
Darwin the whistler duck from Darwin, Northern Territories, hypothesised on the origins of species that the Humpty Doo was descended from Scooby Doo and Humpty Dumpty. It certainly looked like them.
Grey’s ghost writer, Marc Latham, thought it was a classic episode when he was editing Grey’s rambling rambles.
Rebranding WoO
Our rebranding Farewell (to WoO) to Werewell (to WoO) combines our Scooby Doo inspiration along with the W that has become an important letter in the Greenygrey world: second only to the G.
This is of course in line with the WWW inspiration that brought the Greenygrey into the human world, although picky buggers might argue it’s a WWWW, or at least WwWW.
mistYmuse 