More flattery.

"I don't like disliking things! I'm just good at it!"

- Me, in a debate on Facebook.

"If we deleted everything else you've ever written, that line would be enough information."

- My friend, Alex.

Flattery.

I saw this, and thought of the story where Walt took his daughters to a dirty park, and became inspired to make Disneyland.

Is this a commentary on the decline of Disney culture, or just a shitty t-shirt?

Man, I’ve been reading your blog too much.

- My friend, Joe.

Go where you need to go.

The people who love you may not go with you.

Don't be dissuaded.

You're too important.

And they'll still love you.

Return of the mass grave jokes!

Some literary places for a mass grave:

beneath the corpse that's beneath the floorboards,
in an enchanted wardrobe,
under Yertle the Turtle.

Some Shakespearean places for a mass grave:

at the end of every fucking tragedy,
dressed as women onstage,
buried amid Kenneth Branagh's ego.

Some poetic, American places for a mass grave:

at the end of the road less traveled,
dragged through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
in the icebox to probably save for breakfast.

I put the "erotic" in "neurotic."

Or anyway, I would, if "neurotic" was spelled without a U.

And I was a better in bed.

And my penis wasn't frail.


On second thought, I'll leave "erotic" where it is.

A simple word.

Dirgedicate, v., To sympathize with sad music so thoroughly that you start to feel better, since there's someone who's as sad as you...

...but you get sad again when you remember that they've made music and you haven't done anything.

AT NIGHT

leaves fall on the tennis court.

BEFORE WORK
a tennis coach sweeps the court.

AT WORK
the tennis coach guilts me.

DURING WORK
no leaves fall on the tennis court.

AT NIGHT
leaves fall on the tennis court.

seventeen syllables

tear away your shedding skin
like the tablecloth under
the dishes

Poor, unfortunate ride.

Here's a ride-through of the anticipated dark ride, Ariel's Undersea Adventure.



Wow.

"Hey! Remember that Little Mermaid movie we made, a few years ago? Yes? Well, just in case you don't, here's a synopsis of its major scenes! Now available on Disney Blu-ray™!"

I'm of the opinion that when you make a dark ride, its content should dictate its form. Peter Pan's Flight, for example, uses miniatures and a suspended ride vehicle to simulate flying like Peter and friends. You could just as easily make Peter Pan's Flight into a Dumbo's Flight ride, and it would be just as affecting.

Peter Pan's Flight isn't interested in telling the story of the film it's based on. It prioritizes the experience of flying over London and Neverland more than re-telling the film's story. It gives you an experience you can't get in front of a television set. It gives you an experience you can only get in Fantasyland.

Following this ideology (like WDI once did), I can think of two options for a Little Mermaid ride.

A submarine ride (a dark ride that's actually underwater). Since dance and fluidity of movement are so important to the movie, the challenge would be building animatronics that are graceful underwater, and not clunky like the ones in (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea / Finding Nemo's Submarine Voyage).

A dark ride that simulates being underwater. The challenge would be building animatronics, sets, and ride vehicles that believably adhere to underwater physics, while still maintaining the grace mentioned above. WDI has already toyed with this, set-wise, in the queue to the Seas with Nemo and Friends, so this isn't a revolutionary suggestion on my part.

Projecting a few bubbles on the walls and hanging metal overhead to look like currents don't quite cut it. Also, Ariel's beehive, lol. A for effort, fellas.

Ariel's Undersea Adventure is a soulless exercise. Its only successes are the movie's successes. Fortunately there are ample successes, since the Little Mermaid is a great film, but it's a shame that all of WDI's effort went into xeroxing a great film.

I shouldn't be harsh. I can't imagine how many Imagineers had to move to Ursula's garden after building this ride.

The wind knocked over my Red Bull can.

It spilled on my script notes.

I had a fuckin' paroxysm.

It only spilled on a few pages of notes. These notes were typed. These notes were saved on my computer. These notes could be replaced by pressing Ctrl+P.

But I took the can and whipped it around my head until the remaining Red Bull was marinating me, my chair, the sliding glass door, and some palm trees.

And I grabbed the notes--both the wet pages and the dry--and flung them into the pool.

And I crushed the can against a wall, and then I crushed it width-ways.

And this tantrum was directed at the wind.

The fucking wind.

I'm in therapy, and I exercise, and I meditate, and I keep myself very well occupied. I don't quite know how to cope with wanting to beat up a meteorological force.

If you have any ideas, you can find me taunting Poseidon's bullshit son, Aeolus.