Chewing on some wires in the Normal library, I ran across this old news clipping about Travis Opal.  Sorry the edge is a bit frayed (hee hee).

Watching One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

The inmates are running the asylum

OK, maybe I’m biased. I mean I did risk life and limb to escape the confines of that mad hatter’s den of iniquity.  But over at Wako, crazy is the new Normal.

First off, the inmates patients are – hmmm, how can I put this nicely - INSANE! I mean bonkers, don’t even bother inflating a life raft.  They stare off in space, they pace in circles, and they mumble with all the soft cadence of tin cans clattering on pavement.

And those are the good days.

Sure, exec director Adam Tessler keeps things tight as a drum. The patients prisoners have that screwy computer chip in their brains designed to keep ‘em mellow yellow.  But that’s more for if they escape. In-house, there’s an array of tasty side dishes on the menu, just in case things go psycho haywire, which is kind of common, like every day:  wild sessions involving new age barfaroni hologram crap, and spa workouts using water torture therapy.

All I can say is it’s a good thing the staff are on pharmaceuticals.

Which leads me to that flame-haired deviant Nicky Sanders. Nicky’s heroin of choice is Mr Heartthrob himself Adam Tessler, and she controls access to him like she’s holding down Fort Knox with an Uzi. Just memorize these fine points and it’s all you’ll need to know:  (1)  She can’t stand any female within a 100 mile range, and (2) she can’t stand any man, woman, child or PIG who gets in her way.

Dr Sara Hobbs, the esteemed (?) psychotherapist of the joint, puts up with Nicky – or maybe Nicky has the goods on her.  Either way, the fireworks are a-comin’ – cause this firecracker’s gonna blow.

Watch out - she's gonna blow!

WAKO - It's all in who you know

All right, I over-reacted.

I hate Wako

So why am I secretly crouched in the wheel hub of Dr Adam Tessler’s BMW heading back to that torture chamber I escaped from?   It sure seemed like a good idea at the time. Oh geez, now we’re passing the security guard, the tower, the rifles, the electric fence. That nibble on Kira’s brownie crumb, what was I thinking?

Oh, if only to feel the grass on my feet one last time.  Walls closing in.  So very small, so insignificant… Goodbye cruel world.

The more things change the more they remain the same.

Let’s see, we have one LOSER, one DREAMER, one A-HOLE.

Or let’s put it this way:  If we’re the BEATLES (and I’m the cute one, natch), well then George is in a transcendental state of mumbo-jumbo, John is his ascerbic self-loathing self, and Ringo’s just… well, Ringo’s just shaking his mop of hair, hoping maybe someday someone’ll let him write a song.

Personally, I’ve always been partial to The Rolling Stones.

Colby Stone: What a piece of work is man

What a piece of work is man?  My BFF Phinneas the Rat used to say that over in Wako, until… well, you know, ‘nough said.

Sure Colby’s a billionaire, yada yada, but what half-brained techy isn’t these days?  He is creative, I will give him that, and his long-running feud with Bill Gates gave rise to lots of innuendo, and a big waste of ink, as far as I’m concerned.

But Colby never leaves well enough alone. He likes Normal, ‘cause he can, as he says, “live like a regular bloke” in his palatial, energy-guzzling efficient manse up on the hill.  It’s not enough to be Mayor of the Pick Me Up on Foursquare – the guy has to be Mayor of the whole bloody town.  He’s got a Clint Eastwood complex going on, but can’t keep his trap shut.

He’s thinking he wants to keep everything natural – so grabbed  the “Do Not Disturb” tagline from his obnoxious hotel-chain commercials – and made it his campaign slogan.

See that “Do Not Disturb” sign swinging on his bedroom door?  Well, it sure ain’t  part of the public mantra (if you get my drift). Just ask Honey Reins…

But I digress.

Chief Watts has a big…

All right, what do you get when you cross a mild-mannered law enforcement officer with an off-the-grid survivalist?  Answer:  Plenty of weekends shot to hell.

That’s the low-down on the hoe-down between Chief Darrell Watts and Travis Opal.  (OK, I sound like a hick, but I just got out of prison for f**k’s sake.) Point is, Travis is always yanking the Chief’s chain.  A bear kills a deer out on a trail – you’d think it was the x-rated version of Jaws 7.

In Ring #1:  Chief Darrell Watts, a congenial dedicated cop who worked the hardscrabble streets of L.A. until he moved to Normal five years ago for a little peace and quiet.  As luck would have it, he became Police Chief a year later after the former Chief was killed by a rabid deer.  Tough break for the dead guy.

In Ring #2:  Travis Opal, an OCD-type and de facto leader of the survivalist compound, living out at the old army barracks near Calgary Rock. Travis is always kickin’ up a dust storm.  Some people like his attitude, a lot of people don’t.

Me?  I’m just the narrator. I don’t like confrontation. It puts me off my nuts.  Chief Watts has a big problem.

Chief Darrell Watts

Travis Opal, leader of the survivalist compound

Search for Normal and you will find it.

Tesla, pot, and an anonymous donor

Trying to stay on the down-low here, but this chick Kira Benson, who works at the Pick Me Up, saw me – ooh’d and ah’d - and fed me some of her homemade carrot cake.  She’s a good one to know because everyone comes to the Pick Me Up and she hears it all.

Colby Stone, our esteemed Mayor, is hot for her – just don’t tell his wife.  He uses his Tesla to seduce young things the way Tiger uses his wood.

But enough about testosterone – or maybe because of it – the BIG NEWS in town is the spanking new, still under construction, Normal Historical Museum, funded by an anonymous VC.  There are a couple of new hires related to it:  Donatello Stefani, the whiz kid who’s designing state-of-the art holographic/CGI displays set to blow a few minds. He’s been here a while, straight from Pixar.  And now Hadley Reese is relocating from SF’s Museum of Modern Art, as head curator.  Question #1: who the heck hired her?

Call me psychic:  Hadley’ll be up in everyone’s grill trying to unearth relics for her museum, and the fur’s gonna fly, I guarantee. Question #2: who’ll be the first to call foul?

In the here and now, I suspect Kira’s carrot cake has her not-so-secret special ingredient, as I’m definitely feeling the love and moving into a state of altered consciousness.  A giddy guinea with the munchies coming on.  Not good.  Need grass – the regular kind.

So while I’m still sure-footed -  over and out, from the land of Nod.

Kira Benson, waitress at the Pick Me Up

Colby Stone, billionaire Mayor of Normal

Donatello Stefani, special effects wizard

Hadley Reese, curator, Historical Museum

The founder of Normal

I  was rummaging around the library basement and found this photo of Horace Jepson.  He had a vision all right.

Pleased to make your acquaintance

OK, here I am. Let’s just say it wasn’t easy, but I managed to escape from my cage over at the Waiklund Institute (known to the locals here as Wako) and have situated myself nicely within the confines of Normal.

When I say normal, I mean normal in two ways:  first, my sanity is restored, and second, it’s the name of the town.  Population 4,360, give or take a couple of dead bodies.  Normal is up north in California and is known world-wide, not only for Wako, but for its breathtaking beauty, the fancy pants University of Normal Tech and Neuroscience, and of course, the nut-job survivalists that live out by Calgary Rock, those Night of the Living Dead rejects the town folk, and our MAYOR Colby Stone, never talk about.

Yeah, Colby Stone, the billionaire techie who spreads love and goodwill.  He’s our Mayor.  Go figure.

Anyway, glad to make your acquaintance.  The name’s Hewey.

You were expecting maybe Morgan Freeman?