Dave is…
in Epcot.
Despite the fact there were no facists to wake me up I was still awake by 7am as I learned that sleeping in a car in Orlando heat is not easy. It didnt matter much as Max had to take his truck in for repairs by 8am and I had to follow him to pick him up.
On the way back from East Bumblefuck we cruise through Celebration. Celebration is a town that is populated almost exclusively by Disney execs. It looks like something out of Pleasantville or Leave it to Beaver. All the houses have picketfences and perfectly manicured lawns, the cinema is right out the ’50s all that is missing is the local malt shoppe and a meathead yelling “Hey McFly”.
Seriously this place is really damn surreal. Its eerie, its too perfect, or rather it is trying to hard for perfection. Just like everything else in the Fascist empire Disney has carved out it tries to hard and ends up being disturbing. Max did stop me from leaning out the car window and yelling “Facists” at people as we drove out of town.
We ended up back at his place intending to relax after a late night and rest for tonight’s show but I couldnt access Max’s internet without the access code he didnt have and since he can get us into all the parks for free it seemed a shame to waste the day. I almost changed my mind when I learned there was a 36 hole frisbee golf course nearby complete with pro shop (PRO SHOP!!!) but it will be there when I am back in December. Today we headed to Epcot the one world of Disney that I remembered not being paticularly impressed with when I was there years ago. Although one of the funniest moments of my entire life happened there when my Dad was pulled out of the crowd to be part of an improv comedy street performance. He was King Arthur and the memory of him having to wave his arms with his face beat red and go “Ha cha-cha-cha-cha” everytime his name was said will forever be burned into my brain.
But Epcot blew away my expectations and did so exclusively with three rides. The first was the space mission simulator (though as memorable as the ride itself was I cant think of the name now). The ride simulates a space shuttle launch and landign and two people have already died on it. Apparently G-forces and previously undetected heart conditions dont mix well. After a briefing by Gary Sinise and a dozen different reminders that we could still opt out we climbed into the command capsule. Through a disasterous freak of fortune Max was given the commanders chair and I was relegated to the role of engineer. I see a direct result between that and our crash landing on Mars. The ride though was awesome. the simulated G-forces were so cool that the ride came equipped with real barf bags. We went from there to the 40 minute line for Soarin’. This ride puts you in seats similar to a chairlift and you sit with your feet dangling in front of a huge Imax style screen. You then simulate hang gliding over a wide variety of scenery. The realism was helped by the simulated wind, the motion of the chairs and the smellvision. When we went over orange groves you could smell oranges. I was blown away it was sooo cool. And did I mention that the introduction to the ride was conducted by David Puddy from Seinfeld dressed as a pilot? We ended up going on this ride 4 or 5 times despite the long line.
We alternated it up with a couple more trips to the much less crowded Space simulator. Each consecutive rides Max and I got more rambunctious hitting all the buttons and switches in the capsule and yelling out Spaceball and Star Wars quotes, but I am sorry to say that even when I commanded the mission we still crashed. Max’s enjoyment was tempered the third time we rode it when he noticed that you could see Gary Sinise’s eyes moving as he read his lines and Max took this a personal insult. I suggested this is why he was just Oscar nominated but Max wouldnt let it go and began talking back quite loudly to Gary much to the confusion of the people around us.
We also went to the Honey I Shrunk the Audience 3-D experience which would have been unbelievably awesome despite being very dated (On a digression arent Disney execs scared that all of their big rides and attractions are decades old or based on movies that came out before their target audience was born? Honey I shrunk the kids? Small World? Swiss Family Robinson? And when is the last time Mickey was in a damn movie? The last movie I remember him in was the Disney version of Jack and the beanstock with Donald Mickey and Goofy in the role of Jack and that was out when I was 5. Lion King appears to still be too recent to get a ride.) except for the fact that in order to see the movie which feautred a boa constrictor attacking the audience, mice brushing everyone’s feet, a dog sneezing all over the audience and several people fleeing the theater you had to sit through a 15minute ad for Kodak film that was among the most pathetic, insulting, maudlin pieces of advertising crap that I have ever witnessed and I have been watching television for years. I wouldve loved to do it again but I was not sitting through that shit a second time. We also did one trip around the World Expo at Epcot in search of food. A long boring walk established that this part of Disneyworld is stupid and that Max and I dont like foreign food facist or otherwise.
We squeezed in one last ride on Soarin’ and arrived at House of Blues with just enough time to get through the surprisingly long line and find a spot before the boys came on. I want to thank Will again for setting us up with Wed tickets cause there were NONE for sale outside which was pretty surprising considering how many tix were floating around the first two nights. In an interesting coincidence the guy checking my ID at the door looks at where I am from (Athens) and goes “Isnt that near Petersburgh?” Turns out he had some family just move there and he was going up soon to visit and was real excited about it (I am not sure why) but I thought it was pretty random that anyone in Florida could possibly know of any Illinois towns as small as these two. Though a couple years back when I visited Max in Hawaii, my first night in town we were getting dinner and waitress who checked my id turned out to have dated the brother of one of my closest friends in Athens when I was a little kid. So apparently Athens has a much larger profile on the national stage than one would expect from a one stopsign, two bar, one IGA (Hometown Proud) grocery store town.
The final night was great but Max and I were struggling so badly after long hot days and short hot nights that we could barely stand much less hippie dance. We did find a final wind for a fiery show closing stretch where the band just tore it up and then we staggered outside to sit down. We then made a Wendy’s run (we never did get food in Epcot) and I ate while Max went back to his internment camp to grab my bags cause I wasnt allowed (after 1am) and I thanked him for several enjoyable days and he went home to get some far to brief sleep before work and I went to the Courtyard Inn parking lot to get some far to brief sleep before doing a marathon drive to Washington DC. I have until 3pm Friday to get to DC in time for wedding rehearsal. Sigh.
Also the last two nights I have had the strangest dreams. Yesterday I dreamt that I was at a concert and I kept going to the bathroom and the bathroom kept getting dirtier and dirtier to the point that the last time I went in it there were decapitated bodies in the urinals. Then last night it was like a cross between The Village and that old tv miniseries V. I was living in a colonial style town and all these new people showed up and moved in. They were all really nice and friendly and in fact they even put out a bunch of pumpkin slices in the town square that people could just help themselves to and munch on (which once I woke up sounds disgusting) but it turns out that all these new arrivals are really demons from hell that are here to murder us all. I woke up before they sprung their evil plan but somehow I just knew that is what was going to happen. I dont know if I should be worried by dreams like these.
Dave,
This truly sounds like u had to much fun at Disney…anyway I wanted to comment on your Athens comment, apparently Athens is THE school for Biology in the high school. Yesterday I received the right to go to the booming metropolis of Macomb and home of Western Illinois University. The occassion was biology bowl/day. Anyway our biology bowl team had to square off against Athens…we got trounced 90-20. Athens went on to defend their Biology Bowl dominance for the 7th consecutive year. Unbelievable!!!! I told my students that they shouldn’t worry because people from Athens only wind up becoming retards that go to Disney World on a crazy trip…Athens! damnit it is hardly Greece