Say It Ain't So, Ezzy

They say a cynic is an idealist with experience. I struggle sometimes to find faith, but there are moments in a person's life when there is no choice but to accept the fact that the world isn't a place of perfect ideals and absolute truths that you might like to think it is in your more sunshiny moments. Sometimes you have to acknowledge that those you look up to, even perhaps idolize, are just flesh and blood like anyone else, nothing more than flawed human beings. Such moments, when they come, are like long, dark nights of the human soul. Thankfully they are few and far between, but that doesn't make them any easier to deal with.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an entry about this man:

His name is Ezzy Dame, and he lives in my neighborhood. Imagine my surprise upon finding out a few weeks ago that one of my neighbors is an honest-to-God celebrity. Yes, according to an article published July 16, 2005 in the Reno Gazette Journal, Ezzy was one of the original Oompa Loompas from the 1971 stoner classic "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." Why, this was the most exciting news since, well, since ever! I simply had to tell the world right away, and I could think of no better vehicle than my blog. Oh, what a fool I was. How naive my childlike enthusiasm seems as I look back on it now through the eyes of an older, sadder, and perhaps a little bit wiser man.

The realists among you can probably see where this is going. Today the whole house of cards came tumbling down. As we all learn sooner or later (even Karl Rove, God willing), the truth can be denied only so long. Pros that they are, the Gazette Journal faced reality and published a follow-up piece today on their front page: Ezzy was never an Oompa Loompa. It was all a lie. The closest he ever got to Loompa-caliber stardom was starring in the 1981 Chevy Chase-Carrie Fisher opus "Under The Rainbow."

I suppose I'm not the first person to let their need to believe in something blind them to the obvious. Sure, I thought it was a little strange when my research revealed a cast list that mysteriously did not include Ezzy's name. But no real quandary there, I thought at the time. After all, how dependable is most of the information on the internets? Surely the name of one Oompa Loompa would be easy for a website to get wrong, even a normally reliable one like IMDB.com. I must admit, it bothered me a bit that in cast photos, none of the Loompas looked like Ezzy or even approximated a much-younger version of him. Still, I never doubted the story for a second. I don't know, I guess we all need to believe in something.

So what now? How does one pick up the pieces and move on after such a betrayal? I don't have an answer for that just now. I can still barely believe that Ezzy was an 'Oom-poster'; even the words themselves have a nightmarish, couldn't-possibly-be-true quality to them. So I'm doing the only thing that I can: taking it all one day at a time.