Annie Oakley In Tomorrowland

Hey, welcome to July everyone!

We’re getting into the sunny and warm part of Seattle’s summer, but just as a final sort of “F you” to the old man, we got a nice dose of humid rain on Friday. I was telling a coworker that the all that sort of tropical and close air, the low, dark ceiling of clouds and fat drops of rain that seem to have been heated before making their money shot on your face reminded me of my first misspent weekend in New Orleans. He stated that it reminded him of his misspent youth in Southern California.

I cursed him for taking my fond memories of dampened French Quarter sidewalks, fried okra and blackened catfish nuggets, and the sort of drunk that seems to have been gifted to you from Dionysus himself, and sullying them with images of strip malls and smog, bored housewives with more plastic injected into them than soul…

And then of course the conversation turned towards Disneyland, as all conversations eventually will. Disneyland or Ethel Merman…

I stated that one of the downfalls to having a child was the inevitable visit back to Disneyland. Having lived in Orange County, I have been to Disneyland a few too many times. Some family member is there to visit and what do they wanna do? Yup, Anaheim’s version of Xanadu – and not the roller skating movie complete with ELO soundtrack. This coworker had not overdone it on Disneyland on his sentence in SoCal, so didn’t quite understand my discomfort. We did discuss the old Universal Studios tour, which I can get behind completely.

The Universal Studios tour, back in the days of yore, contained no sort of roller coastery rides, but was a delightful tram trip through corny attractions that sort of related to Universal films. There was a flash flood that threatened the mysteriously stalled tram, also a runaway train which threatened the mysteriously stalled tram. There was a house on fire, there was the Psycho house and there was an ice tunnel that rotated so that it looked like you were in a rotating ice tunnel. There was also this B rate television show version of the parting of the Red Sea that I’m almost positive was never used in a film, however I think I did see it in an episode of “The A-Team”.

And, my friends and neighbors, there was the Jaws pond. This was the thing for which I had a hard on at Universal Studios – well that and the oversized telephone from The Incredible Shrinking Woman. The tram would pull up to a body of water where a fisherman sat serenely with his line cast. Up comes a ginormous shark fin, and soon the fisherman is yanked from the boat and replaced with an expanding pool of blood. Then, oh hell yeah, then a really fake looking shark jumps out of the water and towards the tram:


Pretty much the definition of awesome.

Come Sunday, on a shopping trip to Costco, Riley was apparently having the time of his life. He would not stop giggling and it definitely took the sting out of gas huffers waiting on line for artery hardening snacks prepared by surly retirees. I realized that if I was going to get that sort of soul stirring sound by a trip to the Happiest Place on Earth, I’d put up with a few days in Disneyland.

I'd put up with it but good.