Mouseland

Many many years ago a friend of mine in Rome was working as a guide on a tour bus and she invited me along for a ride for some reason I can't recall. I sat at the back of the bus while the American tourists filled the seats from the front. I was the youngster at the back, Italian in appearance yet fluent in English and as curious about these alien Americans as any European would be; they came from a world barely seen on the large and small silver screens. As the bus took us from the airport into the Eternal City with the tourists eagerly peering out of the windows at the industrial suburbs of the most romantic capital in the world the bus driver fired up the music. "Hey," one woman called to her buddy across the aisle. "I never figured I'd come all the way to Italy to hear the top forty from home." Her throwaway comment has stuck with me for three decades and still I am amazed at how far and wide and deep American culture has penetrated the world. TV music and fashion emanate from this continent and are soaked up everywhere, then and now. I was in the heart of Americana this weekend: Walt Disney World.

When I told my colleague Keith, a man with a sardonic sense of humor of his own, about this family outing he looked at me and asked with a straight face if I knew that Disney World is the happiest place on Earth, made for happy people? Well, I said, it's my sister-in-law's idea, to get the family together in Orlando in February. Who knew my hippy sister-in-law loved Disney? I could get into this I said, and meant it. Mind you the saccharine magic of the Magic Kingdom almost did me in. You can do anything if you believe? Magic happens? On the other hand the firework show was nothing short of other worldly. Every night is the fourth of July in the Magic Kingdom when they let loose the most overwhelming show of fire over the lake. But yesterday we toured my preferred park: the Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow.

The Magic Kingdom is for kids, Epcot they say is more adult themed, and the last time I came to this place, some thirty years ago, Epcot was under construction. The promised pavilions from around the world to bring culture and curiosity to Orange County Florida. Where the Magic Kingdom has a castle, Epcot has a giant silver golf ball to greet visitors. Unlike the Magic Kingdom where drivers have to park, take a shuttle followed by a boat or a monorail we arrived here early and took a gentle stroll into the park of the future.

My sister-in-law paid for our Florida all day passes, so I'm not sure of the exact cost but apparently Disney gives state residents a massive discount on the general admission to this magical place. I saw the mouse on the mouse and I needed a picture. Spot the mouse:

Employees are called cast members because everyone is on stage performing a part in the pageant that is Disney. Outside the French pavilion where Claude lived down to his stereotype and looked over our American heads, all other cast members greeted us with smiles and were excessively helpful and cheerful. It should feel oppressive but you know what? The people there really do seem okay with their lot, waiting endlessly on crowds of strangers and none of it felt forced. Perhaps they are all just excellent character actors.

Let's be clear, Disney is safe in a non threatening way, where there are no challenges and adventures have determined outcomes. This isn't Outward Bound and cleanliness is next to godliness. Gardens are perfect, floors are swept obsessively and Morocco is a movie set not a place where foreigners act foreign...I did seam with several employees in a couple of pavilions and they made it clear they know this isn't representative of anything but Disney World and they know that seeing Orlando on their days off isn't the same as seeing America.

But before we went to see the various countries set around the edge of a large circular lake we went inside the giant golf ball. Actress Judi Dench narrates the fifteen minutes journey through the geodesic dome called Spaceship Earth. The story follows the arc of human achievement from cave dwellers to modern life with hints at the possibilities for the future. The dioramas are superb if brief and the story is perforce brief - thousands of years of history, even illustrated by moving figures is a tall order for reduction into a story length of a quarter of an hour! This was the computer diorama, just feet from Gutenberg's moveable type printing press...

For some reason I was smiling out of charcter when I was photographed in the approach to the tour. My wife and I appeared in our own future storyresemted to us at the end of the ride, a fantasy promising middle class Americans a Jetson future of unlimited energy and leisure and travel like modest one percenters.

My nephews played in the Siemens sponsored energy planning game, a discussion of wind, solar, gas and nuclear energy as alternatives to cheap oil. The diorama had promised us plenty of oil for our life times as Disney is not here to pander to Peak Oil crackpots or to shake up the comfortable assumptions of the masses. My alternative living relatives were happy to discuss the inconsistencies of the presentations but it was understood by all of us that Disney isn't making a serious case: this is entertainment.

I was amused to see payhones everywhere not exactly the future but clean, not vandalized and some offering texting capabilities. Disney may be seeking the cutting edge of entertainment but the standard back up systems have their place.

Imagine showing up here, staying in a Disney resort and living in the sun for a week. Imagine coming here from under gray skies and snow drifts Up North. Mrs Disney didn't raise a fool for a son. The bum lying on the bench was just some woman worn out by the sensory overload of Epcot. There is a lot going on in this place.

Check out the stroller parking behind my nephew and niece organizing their kids for the car testing circuit ahead.

Reality barely intrudes in the Disney park where work seems to get done out of sight and out of mind. Disney World is notorious for being gay friendly, offering gay employees partner benefits, bringing modern attitudes to Central Florida where the "gay lifestyle" is as foreign as Moroccan food! And there are plenty of gay workers here. The ferry at the Magic Kingdom is the first place I have ever seen a deckhand on a commercial vessel sporting plucked eyebrows.

And you juxtapose this modernity with the corporate message spread by Disney and supporting corporations. You see Chevrolet at the Test Track showing off the Volt and letting the All American family take their picture with this desirable innovative car...

...and then you check out the exterior of the Test Track at the Imagination Pavilion and outside you'll see this weirdness in a fake car wash facility. A car loaded with fake ice and soap suds with boxes full of fake cokes? What's that all about? Corporate synergy...?

I love the idea of a monorail system serving the Keys. Imagine a train appearing every fifteen minutes where you could snatch a ride in air conditioned comfort to and from Key West or Key Largo...but where would the money come from to build and operate it? It wouldn't even look (too) intrusive riding above Highway One.

All that futuristic stuff aside, ignoring the sketchy future of cheap oil and the value of conservation and reuse which the capitalists fear defeats their mantra of constant expansion, the rest of Epcot was a lake lined with "countries." Take Mexico:

We skipped the restaurants as we are familiar with Mexican food already. My wife took a margarita from the ever popular stand selling the fruit drinks. The employees at these various "countries" are brought here on a one year work visa by Disney, and they give these places a touch of reality that was a bit surprising.

We did take the tour inside the pyramid and boy, that was not what I expected.it was a tour of Mexico featuring idiotic Disney characters playing insensitive gringos in Mexico, cartoon characters in sombreros of all things.

And how many mariachi groups can you stand to hear, one after another? Like this is the only music to come from this ancient and sophisticated culture?

Overall it was pretty embarrassing and made me wonder what I had let myself in for. Technically it was a tour de force but the message was simply reinforcing all negative stereotypes of Mexico as seen from the US over previous decades. Disney is stuck in the 1950s here. Then this cryptic message appeared in the sky overhead. Maybe the writer got chased off the skies by the Disney air force for all I know. Just another magic mystery.

The family wanted to eat healthy food which sounded a bit of a contradictory notion in a place like this, not impossible but rather limiting. Sod salad! I wanted to try stuff I'd not eaten before and somewhat unwillingly they followed my lead to try Norway's coffee shop. We ordered a vegetable pie and an apple and ham toasted sandwich. The servers in the café were dressed in traditional garb but they were Norwegians.

The ride was a Viking saga, and at first glance Norway was an odd choice for a country to be included in the exclusive list of pavilions at Epcot. Yet when you think about it Diseny's American-centric view of the world must have justified the inclusion of this small Scandinavian country on the ground stat Norsemen most likely from Norway settled Vinland in what is now Nova Scotia, long before Columbus crossed the Ocean Blue.

Spain and Portugal didn't make the cut but Italy did.

The courtyard was surrounded by Italian eateries and in the middle they put on a short performance that we caught the end of, some sort of medieval style Commedia dell'Arte possibly.

There was no movie, we speculated because Italian tourism authorities didn't chip in to pay for the publicity... but who knows. The statuary was sanitized for Middle America, a convenient piece of cloth covering the man's weeny. Let me say my wife noticed and pointed out the prudery to me, oblivious as I was.

China had a fantastic 360 degree movie but can you imagine how exhausting all this stuff was? For me the strongest impressions were made by places I knew and Disney's copies reminded me of them. How this parade of foreign cliche's gets absorbed by people who have never traveled there I can't say. China is a case in point for me. The pavilion was lovely but decidedly directed at a China that barely exists anymore. Modern China was shown in the movie along with fantastic flights of fancy across an amazing landscape I've never seen and it made an impression!

It was a perfect day to be outdoors. I just wished there might have been a few parks or contemplative corners to sit in and absorb all the colors and sounds and impressions pouring down about our wads. Instead the only benches in Epcot were used to line the walkways at the edges of the stream of human visitors rushing back and forth.

Not everyone was here to lern about foreign cultures, even in the most superficial way. This crowd was here for a bachelor party (!) and they drank with a will and got louder and louder as they went. But this is Disney and no one got out of hand. Safety is all aspects is the rule; there is nothing remotely edgy here.

The big new ride is called Soarin' and we did get in eventually booking a fast pass for after dark before we left Epcot. That was pretty exciting, "flying" over California in a simulated ride that was quite remarkably exciting. The big ride I remembered from 30 years ago in the original park called Space Mountain was on everybody's mind Friday evening but the ride broke! An actual Disney failure! I wonder what happened to those on the ride at the time? Space Mountain was exciting enough I have never forgotten being thrown around in the dark on a spidery roller coaster simulating space flight...

 

We also took a tour of Disney's experimental farm where the grow fish and plants and sometimes in unison. The ride showed off hydroponic agriculture and tropical fruits growing in a large greenhouse. It was interesting but I wonder where the energy will come from to develop this stuff on a vast scale.

We were finally wrapping up an incredibly long day so we gave our neighbors to the north a chance with a visit to the movie called Oh Canada! It was a chance for Americans to learn about Canada and the film played to Americans willful ignorance of this friendlest of neighbors.

My wife and I wanted to give Marocco a shot, we've both been there and we enjoyed our plate of lamb in the cafe.

Had I had the room and the energy I'd have washed down our meal with mint tea but as it was we had water and hummus and tabbouleh and flat bread. Not bad for thirteen bucks.

We met the family who was noshing vegetarian at the Japanese pavilion where drummers were drumming. I was toast and ready to go back to the hotel. It had been a long couple of days and it was worth the visit. Sure, I'd like more adventure and far fewer safety warnings but I am amazed how efficiently Disney moves people around and figures out how to limit lines. Magic Kingdom is too childlike for me and Epcot could use less cliches if that were possible but human ingenuity is a wondrous thing, and worth admiring up close.

If, from one short visit I can offer any advice I would say get to the park early and ride the popular rides first. Disney apparently has kennels for visitors' dogs but I wasn't going to put my Cheyenne in a cage so we elected to leave her with my wife's best friend who agreed to house sit. I got this phone photo of my dog as the guest of honor at a picnic back in the Keys and I miss her terribly. I am hoping she misses me as well.

Homeward bound today! Six hours in the car, with time I hope for a long hug for my Labrador then off to work for a twelve hour shift tonight. From Mouseland's unreality, back to my reality tonight - with a vengeance!

 

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Black And White Waterfront

Henry Flagler is hidden in that shadow at Key West Bight, the man who built the railroad that brought the world from Up North to Key West. When I used the flash on the bust, Mr Flagler ended up looking like he had verdigris leprosy. He visited Key West just once on the first train, I shall have to revisit his likeness and try again.

It was an unsatisfactory start to a morning walk but as usual my misery was not shared by my happy dog. Her only problem was which way to go. I wanted to stop a minute and think but Cheyenne needed to keep going, so we went.

This part of the Key West waterfront is about to undergo some major changes, but for now it's the same slightly shabby collection of junque stores and fried fish restaurants it's been for a long time and I wanted to make my own record of the bits and pieces.

Cuban Coffee Queen was getting ready for the day. The nice lady inside called out to be careful they had burned some pork and the had put it out preparatory to throwing it away. She was worried my dog might get indigestion. However my dog is as smart as you like so she ignored the burned lumps of coal that smelled of bitumen and we walked on, the hunt for scraps continued.

I wonder what will happen to the little shed that sells coffee and sandwiches, good ones, and Buddy Owens' shack so popular with tourists face an uncertain future I'm sure, as a vast spacious new resort hotel rises up next door and Caroline Street gets a face lift, flower beds and bike paths and all sorts of stuff to make the place pretty.

This is the real thing, this shack and I don't think it's compatible with a tidy new future that planners want.

This absurdly powerful Yamaha has been hanging around here for a while so when I'm tickled by my new/old Vespa I am moved to wonder how one rides a V-Max, a machine that was once the fastest in the straight line anywhere. It's been superseded by more modern rides but in a town with the highest posted speed of 35 miles per hour it seems a bit much. Of course my new/old Vespa is a bit underpowered but that's good for my driving record.

I wanted to say something to the man with the mop, doing the old fashioned job of holystoning the deck. He turned his back on me, unwilling to play a puppet in this tourist's Key West vacation drama.

Race Week is over and the signs are coming down. In a way the sailing regatta starts a year of events and attractions ad things to do, with the food and wine festival coming up next. Check Are You Ready For Some…Wine??????? - Prissy In Paradise for details of what that was like. I am not one for standing around balancing food in my hands after standing in line and making small talk with strangers who stick to the weather as a topic of conversation. I'd rather pay to sit at a table and be served properly. And small talk better be big or I'll get bored.

Someone was making deliveries on Lazy Way Lane and Cheyenne was finding breakfast and I was taking pictures. Doesn't Key West look pretty? There are cheaper places to live but more evocative? Prettier?

Yeah and how manynofmyou stroll your dogs past Jimmy Buffet's recording studio? I do.

 

How about them apples?!

 

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For The Huddled Masses

Look out the window at the snowdrifts, the rain on the window panes and darkness closing in around you like a wolf circling the dying pioneer. Then think of me strolling Smathers Beach in a t-shirt watching my dog chase smells in the fresh green grass. Mind you it's not all beer and skittles own here. There are lots of weirdos, and none of them wear pink Crocs.

Oh it was a glorious morning, my wife dropped off at work, her car dropped off for a check up and my dog and I dropping out for an hour as we strolled along smelling the fresh sea air.

So they won't let you camp here, they don't want you to "tresspass" (sic) and God forbid you bring a bottle of beer to this delightful place known as the Bridle Path, the place where horses used to exercise, they say. Nowadays it's dogs that exercise and their owners walk, alcohol-free.

Like this one. Some lady from Indiana or Iowa or Kansas or someplace where she has much loved grandchildren who probably would cringe to see her in spandex, spoke to my doggy in condescending English, much as she speaks to human year round residents of these islands. Stay out of the road now, d'you hear? she said, glaring at me while simultaneously smiling as though at a mental deficient. She didn't wait for me to tell her my dog is smarter than her grandchildren and Cheyenne is safe off a leash when I deem it to be so.

On the subject of altered mental states what the bloody hell is this:

Boing-boing-boing, she trotted like an astronaut lining up a golf putt on the moon. I don't watch TV so I'm at the back of the line when it comes to trends. What the hell is this woman wearing on her feet? Springs? Really? Monsieur Hulot's daughter no doubt. When I saw a dude walking backwards next to his wife on Washington Street I just thought he was absent minded or temporarily insane or angry with the woman he was walking next to. But when a spandex wearing grand mom nearly walked backwards into me and Cheyenne the next day on Big Pine Key I figured this must be another trend that has passed me by. If God had meant us to walk backwards wouldn't we all have eyes in the backs of our heads like elementary school teachers? What is wrong with people? Isn't life hard enough as it is without taking it on backwards?

Some regular dude riding by on a regular boring cruiser was looking pretty good after an enforced spell of crossing paths with weirdos. But they are doing their weirdness in the southern sun. Smart weirdos.

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Walk Time!

She lets me know what she wants. She stands by the car door looking like a bulldog, legs planted, a demand in her eyes: I want a walk. I let her wait in the car while I finish my chores.

Then we walk. I was getting food at the bar at Square Grouper picking up my to go order when my former boss, who happened to be sitting on a stool, asked me: I see you walking a dog on Big Pine sometimes. Don't you live on Ramrod? Well yes, I replied as I signed the credit card tab, but my dog doesn't like the same walk twice. God forbid. My former boss looked at me in a way that I am learning to recognize. They think I indulge my dog. The thing is, in these islands you never know who sees what. I haven't worked at Fast Buck Freddie's in nearly nine years yet she remembers me...

Sometimes Cheyenne bites off more than she can chew on hot days when the walk goes on too long. On those occasions she sits down as is her right because her walks are her time. If the car is in sight she won't get up until I walk to the car and bring the chariot back to princess.

It's good to spoil your dog because your dog will always love you and won't take advantage of you. Your dog is forever yours and she deserves every little thing I can do for her. We should all get retirement like this.

 

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Vespa Trials

I spent the past couple of afternoons covering my hands in black grease, smelling like gasoline and giving my Labrador an inferiority complex. While Cheyenne napped under the house, ignored by the scooter mechanic, who twiddled with the carburettor settings and exchanged incredibly helpful messages with a group of enthusiasts on the Modern Vespa forum. I am such a nerd.

The Vespa was strangled. The factory said in 1979 that it was good for 63mph maybe more and this one wasn't breaking 50mph. Shit. In desperation I got online and worried I'd get contradictory advice from people who couldn't get down to my level. I was wrong they came down to the dirt and showed me the way out of the no-performance hole.

It should have been dreary, trying this and trying that and worrying about seizing the two stroke motor and stopping and burning my fingers to pull the spark plug and check its condition. Luckily the weather was lovely, breezy, low humidity and eighty degrees.

They told me to drill holes in the air filter box. "There's a heart shape..." they said in printed messages. Drill a seven millimeter and a five millimeter hole, to " allow proper airflow," they added. Of course I did as I was told and of course the spark plug color became correct all of a sudden. From black and oily to dry and brown. Well bugger.

I'm a silly bugger, I should have known some silly people put a PX200 filter box that lacks the holes, on a P200E like mine that needs the holes, seen under the really big hole in the picture above. Make sure all bits of aluminum swarf are washed out of the box, they said. I washed the air filter like a madman washing blood off his hands. Then I went for a test ride.

It was lonely out on Dorn Road on Big Torch Key. The road winds eight miles through the mangroves and by the end there aren't even telephone poles. Just me and the Vespa and the poorly maintained asphalt with ripples. There was a deer momentarily but it didn't like the popping of the two stroke motor. An iguana got confused by the sound and I was enjoying the ride so much I chose not to even try to kill the bright green, flower eating bastard. Besides the lizard was a long way from my house.

Actually I was a long way from my house and if the intermittent electrical short that stopped the lights occasionally also stopped the motor it would have been a long walk home. At 230 pounds the P200E is considered a lightweight. Maybe, but try pushing that for ten sea level miles. I liked the steady popping sound of the twelve horsepower two stroke motor.

I should have stopped and checked the spark plug and all that stuff but the ride was fun, the wind was in my face and the grim visages of passing snowbirds dressed in spandex on bicycles twice as expensive as my antique were unable to get me down. I rode Vespa-style puttering at 45 miles per hour, wobbling through the corners and admiring the views.

The engine isn't perfect yet and there is some fiddling left to do but the Vespa nerds have pointed me in the right direction. And that electrical short has to be fixed though I'm buggered if I know how. Perhaps someone on Modern Vespa's Not-So-Modern forum will have an idea. For now I just want to enjoy knowing I own and can ride a piece of actual history.

Yup. That's my Vespa.

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Night Watch

I took advantage of sleeping in town and walking Cheyenne before dawn to play with my phone camera. My pocket Canon takes pictures these days that my blogging applications for my iPad can't seem to digest, so I take my pictures with my phone and upload them to Picasa and from there these wretched iPad applications are happy to accept my pictures. I have no idea why this is but I have had to learn to adapt, and struggle to understand the camera in my Android phone. Sigh.

But I have to confess it's been interesting because I have learned that cellphone cameras have astonishing capabilities.

There are a huge number of effects one can induce at the push of a button, and some of those effects are bizarre and apparently without purpose. However I am learning to manipulate the camera and the desire to learn makes the instrument fascinating. The flash tends to be weak, with limited spread but it can be used to illuminate back lit subjects, just like a "real" camera.

Black and white is but a button away, as is sepia effect and Key West especially at night lends itself to these effects. The phone camera operates more like the human eye than any camera I have known. It has the ability to adapt astonishingly fast to an enormous amount of variety in the light and focal distances in all directions. This picture of Don's Place, a dive of a bar closed but with the televisions still flickering as the janitor prepared for a seven am opening. Yup you can sit at the bar and buy a beer at seven in the morning! I used to work with a woman who did just that. Key West was not good for her.

Crisp clear pictures as long as Cheyenne isn't tugging at the leash...

And the flurry of motion through the dark night captured as though by a proper camera.

So I have to ask myself: is this a proper camera?

I guess so. It has amazing depth of field, too much some times and I have trouble adapting the "close up" function to give pictures the depth of image that I want.

Yet I can take a picture of a For Rent signs with the greatest of ease and make the whole crazy message entirely legible in this format. $3000 a month pets considered, if you're a really good renter. For that price they should consider a menagerie.

Amd with the arrival of the dawn the funky all seeing eye of my telephone shows bright blues in the sky above and clarity of image in the world below. I have found contrast the hardest difficulty to overcome with this camera. A bright day plunges shadow into darkness and burns the sunlight or makes the darkness visible but the focus then overexposes the sunlight behind... I am coming to the conclusion some over or under exposure is inevitable in some pictures.

But learning to adapt to my telephone has been a wondrous journey, and now I hate to be without the Swiss Army Knife of the electronic world. I make calls, send texts, read websites, listen to distant radio stations carry a flashlight, navigate and take pictures.

And some come out quite nicely. What an electronic world we are privileged to live in. Imagined only in comic books when I was a boy.

 

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