Key West Home

I saved these pictures from last week as I knew I would be coming back from Mouseland, back to work last night and I didn't want my blog to fail to meet the inexorable deadline as I get annoying messages mixed in with the spammers if fresh pictures don't appear at midnight.

I have been thinking about Disney in the 24 hours since we left Orlando and drove home. I guess in the end all I can say is that to expectbDosneynto act as an agent for change is simply expecting too much. My sister in law explained her attraction to the place simply enough. She likes that it is clean and organized and she wanted to pass on to her grandchildren her own mother's pleasure in the place. Apparently my late mother in law loved Disneyland without reservation and her daughter has some nostalgia on the subject. The odd thing for me is that my sister in law has traveled widely, seeing more authentic poverty and misery than almost anyone you know, and yet the lack of authenticity at Disney didn't bother her a bit. Not one bit. She is a woman who works hard in her daily life to live mindfully, a physician who struggles to find meaning in life through mysticism and who lives frugally to the point of driving me crazy sometimes as I am a wastrel, indifferent as I am to money as long as there is enough of it... Yet she happily paid for us to get the family together and she herself funded the accommodations by attending a time share seminar! Did I mention she is frugal? Yet Disney enchanted her, in it's simplicity and lack of nuance.

I looked at the few corners of Orlando that we drove through and I thought to myself that this is the authentic modern Florida. Key West in its scruffy approach to life is still a throwback to the Florida of hardscrabble poverty, of disorder and inability to subjugate nature. The neat lawns, trimmed trees and clean sidewalks of the outskirts of Orlando stood in sharp contrast to what I see on the streets of Key West, and all I could feel was a certain sense of worry as I wondered what Key West would feel,like if the developers get their way and make my hometown look like Orlando. Key West has weird shit, like an adult businessman who calls himself Kermit, dresses in green and waves a Key lime pie at passers-by. And when he isn't doing it in person he runs a video of himself doing that in his store window.

Disney offers visitors food but spicy and hot aren't on the menus. Key West sells visitors bottles of pepper sauce that threaten to burn their rectums, I kid you not. Some of them taste that way too. That's an authentic experience if you fancy it. The fact is though that tens of millions love the Disney experience and it seemed churlish to me to criticize the park for not being what it does not purport to be: educational. If it has any pretensions to educate the rides go by too fast, the information is superficial and the statistics are too dense for any normal,visitor to memorize. That being said I credit Disney with sticking to science and proclaiming the Darwinian view of development and the non-Biblical science of the Big Bang Theory and for supporting their gay employees.

In a world where packaging is too prevalent and where choices are limited by our insatiable demand for everything now and seasons be damned it's hard to fault businesses for responding to the expectations of their customers. I suppose we should expect our corporate leaders to realign our expectations with reality but if Dismey were to sand up and announce the era of cheap oil is over and we should all kiss our high gasoline lifestyle goodbye I doubt anyone would care except they wouldn't go back to ride the mouse that dashed their unrealistic expectations. Key West has the same dilemma on a similar scale. How can we live a locavore's lifestyle if the only local food we have is grunts and grits and the grits have to be imported? It is unreasonable to expect people to travel to this corner of the nation and then tell them sorry we are fresh out of vegetables, have a canned carrot. So restaurants import stuff in cans and boxes and on ice and call it good.

I live pretty much half way between Marathon and Key West, the only two towns with fast food outlets in them. Yet I find fast food wrappers on the streets of Big Pine every single time I visit the largest community in the middle of the Lower Keys. Why? Because people want fast food and they will transport it thirty miles or at least the wrappers before dumping them in the streets. You can tell people fast food is bad for them and we have lots of locally owned eateries to choose among and yet the news that Dunkin Donuts is back in Key West is on everyone's lips. Joy! Real doughnuts are back in town.

It's like Disney to me, I can take it or leave it, the fast food, the rides, and if other people want it let them have at it. I know Climate Change is real and things are going to change no matter what skeptics tell us. Yet the subject fills me with hopelessness when it comes to acting on the assumption. I'm not sure what to do. I can't abandon the practice of burning dead dinosaurs and it would be annoying to prattle on about it'll the time. I have adopted the attitude that I hope for the best while hoping that the worst will come after I am dead. That seems rather inadequate but for e it's about as good as adopting prayer as an answer.

And in the face of it all I have my endless summer in a pretty place that yes, may be threatened to some degree by rising oceans and increasing human demands on the infrastructure, but for now is actually a pretty nice place to be, and that perhaps should be enough.

Cheyenne was massively delighted to see me when I got back from two and a half days away. She desperately wanted my attention which she got, and a walk which she did not. I had to go to work in fifty minutes and there wasn't time to walk my beloved hound and spend time with her as she wanted.

But walks will come and for her that's pretty much it. I doubt she is too fond of Disney as that was the reason she and I were separated but For her each new day is a new start with the promise of new exploration and more excitement. Now that I am at home I shall try to follow her example. Check out this leafy stuff for instance. Wild super abundance the like of which I saw in no one's yard in Orlando. Nor did I see such excess in the carefully modulated environments on the various rides in the amusement park. This is just foliage taken to excess, to someone's taste, pleasing themselves and anyone or no one else who sees this landscaping.

I suppose the order and certainty of Disney should be torn down to be replaced by reality but there again the parents I saw seeking solace in the park, the people smiling and not shoving, the orderly lines, the patience, and the absence of drunks despite the abundance of alcohol were all aspects of Disney we might do well to bring back home with us.

My nephews asked me after we took the Soarin' ride, simulated flight over the wonders of California, if I missed the Golden State after nearly twenty years residence there. My wife was quick to interject that she likes Florida, despite her upbringing in Palo Alto and her former home in Santa Cruz. For e the answer was more complex. I did get tired of trying to live up to the sectarians of a population where coolness is a daily requirement as rigidly codified as one's daily intake of vitamins. I like the lackadaisical aspirations of a town filled with people who try not to focus on the dreary routines they escaped Up North. California inspires envy and irritation in many people but for me I am very grateful for the years I spent there, where I learned to live and whose lessons have served me well in my travels. But we change with the passing of time and whence I'd have railed against the magic of Disney today I shrug my shoulders. Where once I railed against the vapidity of waste today I do my bit and keep recycling and shrug my shoulders when my neighbors don't bother. Perhaps it's a little bit of Key West seeping into my rigidly controlled outlook. Perhaps it's just age.

When we passed the Old Key West Resort a Disney theme hotel connected to the parks my wife joked about the notion of an Old Key West experience, hoping the guests enjoy broken air conditioning, weak plumbing, cockroaches and ants and the pervasive smell of rotting seaweed and stale cigars. She exaggerates I suppose but we both knew the old Key West was likely not any experience a Disney guest would want to pay big bucks for, especially as we few who do enjoy it would prefer to keep it to ourselves, warts and all, as visitors or residents.

Posted with Blogsy

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!

 

Posted with Blogsy