Bizarro World

Bizarro World.

Everyone has some notion what that place must be like. It's a place where things are almost normal, almost status quo. But at the same time, things just aren't quite right. They're a little off-kilter. Things are, well, bizarre.

I was in a Tucson Bizarro World today. I really wasn't expecting it. And if my meeting had gone all day, I probably would have missed it entirely. But my meeting ended early, about 3 PM. I had time on my hands but not a lot. I figured a movie would be just the right thing. I discovered a theater about 9 miles from my hotel. It was showing Good Night and Good Luck, a movie I've been wanting to see. Google maps showed me the way and off I went.

When I got to where Google sent me, there was no theater. At least none that I could see. What I found was a shopping mall.

A nearly empty, almost deserted shopping mall.

Wandering around inside I saw vacant store after vacant store. Boarded up, curtains drawn, overhead doors pulled down. Opaque, white paint on nearly all the windows. There was a Penny's and a jewelry stand but not much else. "This is a bit unusual," I thought.

I then found a sign directing me to the left: "Century Theater just past the food court," it read. When I got to the food, I discovered no Taco Bells, McDonalds, or Nathans but rather total emptiness. Every spot in the court had been bricked over. The food court enterprises weren't just vacant, mall management had cinder-blocked all of them as if trying to blot out a bad memory. "Good thing I don't want something to eat." Most startling of all: on the bricks had been painted happy food court servers providing food. I hustled through the court and found the theater.

I didn't expect there to be a lot of people at this movie. It's an indie, directed by George Clooney, about Edward R. Murrow. Not a big draw under the best of circumstance. And here I was at the 4:55 showing on a Thursday night. I bought my ticket, found the theater, and went in.

No one.

"OK. It is 25 minutes before show time. There'll be others." But time passed and no no arrived. Nope. Not a one. Me. Alone. Watching those ads. Only for some reason there was only one ad. A single ad that never changed. There I sat, alone in the theater watching an ad for "Dr. Jaws", a local Tucson orthodontist. (Check him out at www. drjaws.net.) Finally, the house lights dimmed, the previews started, and there I sat, a whole theater to myself in the middle of Tucson and its 1,000,000 inhabitants.

On the way back I turned on the radio. My rental came with XM and I had on channel 110: XM Classics. Nice music as I headed back to the hotel. I stopped at a Burger King just up the street from where I'm staying, not a mile from Tucson International Airport. I walk in and not a soul was in there. Just me and the guy behind the counter with... Channel 110 XM Classics blaring - loudly - from the speakers overhead.

"OK, things are getting a little weird," I'm thinking. But I press on.

"Whopper meal, please."
"We're out of Whoppers."
"You're kidding? This is a Burger King and you're out Whoppers?"
"Go figure."
"OK, Angus burger."
"Out of them, too."
"Junior Whopper?"
"We're just out of hamburgers."
"Well, what do you have?"
"Chicken fries and fish sandwich."
"I'll take the fish."

I got back to my hotel half expecting to find police and Sam Spade in my room investigating the murders of The View. But my brief sortie into Bizarro World had ended. My room was empty. Things were normal.

And I return to Howard County tomorrow.
K-

P.S. The movie was great even watching it by myself in a huge movie theater.