The Art and Science of Disney Adulting

So I have notes that we're going to follow, and we're going to talk about... kind of fun lighthearted stuff because it's been a really rough week news watch Like, so let's not do that. And as a change of pace, escapism, I want to talk about the art and science of Disney adulting. Disney adulting, which of course can be generalized to other. Yeah, escapism. But I mean, it is kind of specific to Disney because...

As an example of things that people kind of look down on, that... are effective for some people yeah i mean we we use as an example in burnout um something having meaning being connected to something larger than yourself is really important for well-being. And we use as an example of that a Trekkie, somebody who feels connected to a whole community of other Trekkies.

what the idea of star trek represents in terms of like a kind of future utopia like and how The thing that gives you meaning doesn't have to be... God or service to mankind. Like it doesn't have to be something of value to other people. It can just be something that's meaningful for you. It can be knee-high boots and a miniskirt and a wig and winged eyeliner and dressing up as Uhura and going and being, you know, like jaw drop gagged, awing the children with the car.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Disney is another thing that kind of gets poo-pooed. Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Park. What I used to think was, can't you go someplace real? Like, if you're gonna spend all that money to travel, don't you wanna go? someplace real to actual France instead of like France the beast's castle. Right. Um, I definitely thought that. And probably in the past in my life, I would have rather do that. But A, it actually is more expensive to do that.

than Disney World. Disney World's expensive, but it's not as expensive as Paris or Tokyo. Right? Right. And I also want to talk about one of the reasons I particularly enjoy going to Disney World now is because of the mobility. It's the most accessible place on earth. And the more they change, the more accessible they make it. And they constantly change. It's constantly different. And they're always making it more.

There were not nearly as many really accessible bathrooms. A lot of the old bathrooms were built to like the 1970s or 80s code when you didn't have to have, you know. a stall wide enough for the wheelchair next to the toilet. Which means that if you take your wheelchair into that tiny little stall, your wheelchair faces the... Anyway, what I'm saying is they've upgraded and updated and because it is unlike a normal city...

It is constantly being invested in. The infrastructure is constantly being upgraded. And since I've been a wheelchair user for any kind of walking more than a hundred feet... I have been to Boston. New York, Philadelphia, London, Baltimore, Ocean City, London. I've been to a lot of places. Providence. I was just in Providence this weekend. Being in an actual real place in a wheelchair sucks big floppy donkey dick. It is the worst. And at Disney World...

90% of everything. I really expected New York City to be easier than it was. It sucked. It sucked ass. It sucked. Yeah. It is. I mean, and I like last summer, our mom was like, hey, should we go to Paris together? And you're like, I'm going to be in Amsterdam. Maybe we could do a thing. And I was like, no, no, that's not possible for me. Like I. I wouldn't enjoy it. It would be just a lot of work. I want to go. That would be amazing to do. Having been in Amsterdam, it would have been so hard.

Yeah. Based on my experience in London, I went to London for work, right? Yeah. And I can... If I have to, if I'm there like to do a job, but I'm not going to go voluntarily because it's not relaxing. It's not fun. It's not vacation to have to deal with mobility. Accessibility. So thing number one about Disney World is that it's physically accessible to a lot more people than quote unquote real places.

Another thing that is really valid about why people wouldn't want to go real places and why they want to go specifically to a Disney park is reparenting. And I wonder if you may be more capable of talking about this in a smart way than I am. I don't know. It's complicated. But so for Gen X, there's a very. Strong narrative around folks of our generation. Yeah. Sort of 1965 to 1980, very roughly.

Our childhoods were characterized by a lot more parentification. We were given a lot more responsibility for ourselves and our siblings at a much earlier age than... than millennials were. Yeah. And the younger the millennial, the more the difference is clear. how you grew up. Yeah. And part of it is the way we were grandparented. Because our grandparents were alive, our grandmother was teaching us to cook and to sew before the age of 10.

Yeah. Like we were taught the skills of how to run a household. Yeah. We were not paid to do like cleaning chores in our house. No. Yeah. No, there was no like weekly allowance. Other kids we knew had allowances. Part of that was because of like the low income in our family. Yeah. But we also learned how to grow a garden and grow food in our yards, all of which are skills that...

are extremely valuable. And the more difficult the world gets, the more valuable it is to be able to have the skills that you know, grandparents who grew up in the depression definitely had to cultivate. So part of it is how we were grandparented and part of it is how we were parented. And it means that... But also at a population level, we are of a generation. Where that is an extremely common story.

even more true than it was for us. The phrase latchkey kid, it's described a lot of people who like when they got home, their parents were not there because. Both their parents had to work because this is the beginning of Reaganomics when... Single income, no longer enough to... No longer enough to run a middle class. And that's not the fault of feminism, which is the narrative that they would like to sell, but rather the fault of...

Trickle down economics, the idea of like corporate welfare. Yeah. So the reason why our generation was parentified is because the economic world changed and we were given all this responsibility to take care of our. essentially yeah which is it means that as adults now like as we approach 50 There is an extent to which we are recognizing the ways we were not cared for, mostly like emotionally and in terms of access to play.

Yeah, there wasn't a lot of childhood in our childhood. And that's true for a lot of Gen Xers. They're now looking back on their childhood. Exactly. When I say us, I don't mean you and me. I mean like our generation. Yeah. And it might be less true for millennials than this is for us, but like it's for sure true for us. And the whole idea of a childhood, honestly, like boomers. Yeah.

They were the first generation of like, they have a protected teenage years space. Yes. Right? Right. And that didn't last... And of course, that's not just true for people amid a generation at a population level. There are individuals of all ages now who had kinds of childhoods where they were parentified or they didn't get much joy. And so like trying to just sort of access that as an adult.

is a valid thing to go to a place that is literally the happiest place on earth, right? Yes, designed specifically to... We talk about polyvagal theory, ventral spaces, sympathetic spaces, and dorsal spaces. Disney World is designed to be as ventral a space as it can possibly be, which people find difficult. Not just ventral. But playful, yeah.

Playful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's talk about the ways that Disney – you and I are most familiar with Disney World. I've never been to Disneyland, so you'll have to talk to Disneyland. Okay, I can talk. Okay, but first I want to talk about, in terms of polyvagal theory, the sympathetic activation, simultaneous activation of sympathetic and ventral together is... And the environment is... really safe feeling it is ventral and it starts with the i mean just the landscape

Everything is clean and pristine. There are literally trash cans. I think it's every 10 feet. Yeah. Like there are rules about how. Regularly people need to encounter a trash can and a recycling bin so they don't drop their shit on the floor. Yeah, the story is that Walt Disney bought a hot dog and walked down Main Street, USA, eating his hot dog, and when he finished his hot dog, he said, there needs to be a trash can here. Yeah!

But also they invest not just in the infrastructure to make it accessible, but in maintenance people so that it is constantly cleaned. Yep. The buildings are cartoonishly pretty. In ways that no city can. maintain like i live on cape cod in one of the least developed towns with really strict i live north of 6a which means that It's, you know, close to the shore of Boston Bay. And there are real restrictions to like keeping sandwich quaint.

the that's true for a lot of towns like in some towns it's like only a certain strip in sandwich it happens to be particularly required like you can't have a big corporate plastic sign you need to have like a a wood sign with like gold paint like you got to keep hand lettering yeah you got to keep it clean

If you want to have it in sandwich. Like the size of the windows of your own home was limited. Yeah. The house I live in. Yeah. We were not allowed to change the size of the windows like on the exterior. Like so anyway. Disney World does all of that work. and is constantly renewing and refreshing. And it's you know, they're making the landscape, the environment.

safe and clean and polished. There's also music everywhere. Everywhere. And it's always setting a certain mood. They create. It's so deliberate. They have speakers that play bird sounds. Because you can't rely on a bird to be pretty every moment of the day. So, I mean, you just walk around and there's pretty animal noises. And music that evokes a very specific mood. Very specific. Depending on where you are, every hotel lobby has their own playlist of custom music.

Yeah. If you search the internet for Disney resort loops, you can go listen to them. the specifically the poly the disney's polynesian village and resort and like hashtag problematic like hashtag 100 like it's so it's It's kind of not okay, but man, it's from the 70s when tiki culture was a big... And even in the 70s, that resort loop, they made an effort to get...

Native Hawaiian performers. Yeah. And like it's that loop is so good. It's one of the ones I rely on on airplanes. Yeah. To just like keep me totally chill on an airplane. Yeah. Yeah. And also the food as part of the environment is also designed to feel very, the majority of the food is familiar comfort food. And there's familiar comfort food from a lot of different cultures.

primarily American. I mean, it's burgers and chicken tenders and pizza and the kinds of things that like kids will guarantee. A six-year-old will eat. Yeah, exactly. So that you don't have to, there's no, so that, I mean, a lot of Disney is like, we're going to help parents. manage their kids by making there be something your child will eat. Yeah. But there's also, if you're an adult and you want some comfort food, here you go. I got to say one of the most.

In life for me is like a half a roast chicken with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Yeah. This is a thing I order at hotels. When I'm feeling like me, me, me, me. And I get a half a chicken with potatoes and vegetables and it's like, okay, that's it. And you know where you can get that at Disney? Frickin' everywhere. Yep. Like you can get jerk chicken, you can get barbecued chicken, but you can get a half chicken with potatoes and vegetables at a lot of like.

quick service. It's their version of fast food where you go to a counter and order a thing and it's right here right now. It's delivered to you. And here's your plate with half a chicken, a pile of mashed potatoes. Pop Century. Pop Century is one of the value resorts. Yeah, it's one of the least expensive places to stay. It's one of the least expensive hotels that you can stay on Disney property. So it is within the quote unquote Disney bubble.

I was there solo back in like 2019, maybe 2018. And I just wanted like comfort food because I was there because I was exhausted from book tour stuff. And I walked into the food court and I ordered. Yeah, pot roast with mashed potatoes and green beans, and I just sat there by myself. eating with the like spork that i had brought myself so i wasn't using plastic knives and forks and it was this fall apart delicious with this gravy that was just like

evocative of my childhood in a way like how could they possibly have known that this was the flavor of my childhood pot roast gravy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But there's also... There is also access to novel foods and super sophisticated. gourmet food yeah which is not i think part of like the ventral but it's part of the play for people who are foodies Novel and gourmet, beautifully made food is playful.

They're like four hour dining experience. No, that's $250. I'm not spending $250 on sushi. I live on Cape Cod. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure Japanese sushi, because it is a Japanese sushi place in their Japan pavilion in Epcot. But I just can't imagine spending $250 on just me eating one meal. That seems crazy to me. Which is not to say I've never paid a lot of money for a meal like I've had. But you do love sushi and you are a person who enjoys novelty and food.

If anyone could truly get $250 worth of. Pleasure. Extraordinary experience. Yeah. Joy. Yeah. Out of a meal. It would be you. Whereas I don't like sushi. Yeah. It would be dumb for me to go. It would be rude for me to go. For you to go. Yeah. Because I'd be like, I can't eat. I'm not interested in anything on this menu.

So what I like to do, how I get pleasure from sushi is I go to a real... sushi restaurant like i the most the best sushi experience i ever had was me doing what i usually do with sushi restaurants which is where i go i sit at the bar and i tell the chef make me whatever you want While we were writing Burnout, actually. I just sat at the bar. Make me whatever you want.

And he started with like little lightweight, low key stuff. And you're like, uh-huh. I'm like, yeah, this is great. You know, should I put soy sauce on this? And he kept giving me stuff and it ended with like a whole fish. on the plate eyeballs bones everything and i was like how do i eat this

And he was like, oh, you just you just pick it up and eat it. And I was like, could you just cut it for me so that I could. So he graciously cut it up into pieces. But like I was like big fish head with eyeballs. Sounds great. Like it was delicious. It was freaking delicious.

Yeah. Yeah. So like he knew, like, let me be this white lady and let me be a little hesitant. And like, just as I was like, yeah, I'm good. Give me more of that. He like escalated. He escalated to like, I'm going to give you a whole fish. Are you going to eat the head? yeah yeah yeah and I was like yes please I will eat that head that sounded wrong please don't take that gross sorry

Anyway, anyway, yes, I enjoy food novelty and I find that fun and playful. And when I go to new places, that's the thing I enjoy doing is like, let me try something that I've never had before. Let me try something that's local, you know. And I'm willing to spend money on a risk of a thing I might not like. Yeah. Just for the pleasure of having said I tried this thing.

So, yeah. But $250 is... It did not cost me $200. It didn't even cost me half that. In New York City, just getting whatever the chef decided to give you, it didn't even go out. Right. Like, that's... I mean, I think, like, if you're going to get sushi, it doesn't need to be Disney. Sure. Though there is like a service aspect, like a big part of what you pay for at fine dining. Like there is a big show.

And I don't mean like, like there's like a performance with song and dance. I mean, like the waitstaff is a show. Yeah. And it's true at all of Disney that the employees are called cast members and they are... Putting on a performance. Even housekeeping and janitorial services. They're cast members. They're all expected to do emotional labor of being nice to people who are rude to them. Yeah. At Disney, they're not allowed to get snippy with you if you are a, you know, total dick.

Right? Right. Which means when someone like us shows up and is like super nice. And ready to play the game. Yeah. They love it. It is so great for them when they meet an adult who's like. Ready to play along. Yeah. And it means that when you like have something that doesn't go quite right, but you're sort of like.

nice about it. You were very impressed with me one time when we had trouble with like our reservation and housekeeping coming when we had a like a do not disturb sign and like we still like we still had our room we should not be being i felt like we were being kicked out of our room right when we had a reservation for another night Yeah, it felt it felt bad. And so we talked to us. I talked to customer service. Yeah.

This is before I was a really a Disney adult. I was just along for the ride. Like you had not understood like what the game was quite yet. And the lady on the phone asked like if there was like anything else you could do for me. And I was like. I know this is a big ask, but it has really felt not magical to have this intrusion on our vacation. And I was wondering if we could have

check out at two o'clock tomorrow instead of 11. And she was like, That's not something that we would ordinarily do, but I'm going to go ahead and make that happen for you. Yeah. And it's because like, it's the most magical place on earth. Yeah. Disney world is supposed to be, especially magic kingdom is supposed to be the most magical place on earth. And when I say it doesn't feel magic.

I was here on vacation with my aunt and my cousin and my mom and my sister. And it didn't feel magical. They were like, we're going to help you feel magical. Yeah.

In January, I went. And my wheelchair... and rich your husband came down to help me because you you physically couldn't do it to help me he's physically capable he's also an annual pass holder and could just like pop down and get a huge discount on his hotel room and stuff at the end of the trip it was it was so bad and so hard and it was raining so helpful and it was a huge sacrifice on your part to give up anyway so like i needed all the help i could get

So I was accepting help from everyone who could offer it. And at the end of the thing. We wanted to get back so that Rish could get back to you as early as possible. So we had booked an early morning flight out of Orlando. Crack it on. Yeah, crack it on. I had to return. I had rented a wheelchair, so I had a wheelchair to use.

a power chair because my chair was broken and we had to return it to the thing. And if you're staying on Disney property, the rule is that you have to be present when the rental company comes. to drop off or pick up your rented mobility device. Yes, just to clarify, you're not renting the chair from Disney. You're renting it from a third party and they're going to show up at the resort to get the chair and you're supposed to be there to meet them. Yeah, that's Disney policy. That is the rule.

But we, Rich, went and asked, like, here's what's going on. We have this because the chair is broken and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The whole miserable situation. And this is another like. This is not a thing we would ordinarily do, but we're going to make this. And like. And the amount of magic that it does provide when like you really need a thing. I really needed this. And you needed. We needed. I mean.

We were leaving so that he could get home so that you could have your husband back. And so that you could go home. And so that I could go home. Yeah. Yeah. And they made it happen. And they made it happen. Even though it was like not their policy and they just like went out of their way. They go out of their way. They go out of their way. And the emotion they bring to it, right? Because, like, I have stayed at so many hotels. Yeah. I have stayed in so many hotels across.

This continent. Bookstores are no joke. Yeah. I've stayed at a lot of hotels. And I have had a lot of people behind a lot of desks roll their eyes at me. When I very gently ask for some sort of accommodation or when I talk about how like as a person with limitations on my. mobility, like there was this barrier I faced and I wanted to let you know that I had that experience so that in the future, maybe that could be.

Right. Like made a little better. And whoever's behind the desk will roll their fucking eyes at me. And I will say. I see that this is, you know, beyond what you're able to do. I'm just saying if you could pass this on to anybody, like your manager or anyone, just to let you know this is a disability accommodation issue. It made my stay. much less comfortable and would make me choose somewhere else.

So if you could just pass it on the chain so other people don't run into this problem, like, fine, I guess so. Actually, what almost always happens when I do that is, like, they talk about their disability. Like, I crack into, like... I'm disabled. This is a problem for me. They roll their eyes and I'm like, I'm trying to be kind. I'm not.

Being a like white lady complaining, I'm letting you know that this was a thing I experienced here at this place where you work. And then they tell me about like, well, everybody struggles in their own way. And here's the way I struggle. And it's like. yeah so you and like they don't expect me to be like so you get it so you understand that having these sorts of things it's not about yeah yeah

So like, I don't, so that's so much emotional work I have to do on my side of the counter. Whereas at Disney, if I have the same sort of like, I want to let you know that I had this experience. They show, it's like a yes and of kindness and support. They yes and my like, I had this difficulty and I just wanted to let you know about that. And I'm so sorry you had that experience.

And so since we're talking about the Disney bubble and the magic of having cast members who do emotional labor, they don't get paid enough for that, right? They do not get paid enough for that. There's almost... no amount that they could be paid that would be worth the amount of emotional labor they are doing, especially because not everyone is like us. Some people show up and are entitled and bitchy because they're spending a lot of money. A lot of money.

For a lot of people, this is like a huge expenditure that they will only make Once in a lifetime? Yeah. Yeah. And they want it to be perfect. They expect it to be perfect. They expect it to be perfect. I've paid for all of this. It needs to be freaking perfect. And why isn't it perfect?

And yeah, like I get people feel like they're under a lot of stress. Yeah, especially parents who are bringing their children who are like, I expected this to be perfect, which means I expected my children not to behave the same as they behave everywhere else. Right. Yeah. Disney does everything they can to make it as clean and as smooth and as comfortable as possible. In addition to all those environmental things. The sound and the pavement and the trash cans. Yes.

And the familiar IPs, the intellectual property of your childhood. Disney owns your nostalgia. Stop having Snow White. They're never going to stop having Cinderella. Right. No matter how, like... garbage those stories are, they're never going to stop it because So many of us have that as part of our childhoods. Exactly. And it does something for us to meet those characters. And if you're a parent, it does something for you for your child.

To meet that character. There is, I'm sure you've seen the YouTube video. Of a child who had survived cancer, like a little child, like a four-year-old child who had survived cancer and had a Make-A-Wish trip to Disney World. And she had watched. Mary Poppins on a loop through her cancer. Oh. And she got to meet Mary fucking Poppins. Yeah. And when you're a face character, when you're a character. Your training is you don't stop hugging the child until the child stops hugging you. Uh-huh.

tiny child whose hair is still growing in from the cancer treatment met mary poppins and just put her arms around her yeah and held on oh it is like if you want to go find the video you can find it it is Like, just like, I don't know how this Mary Poppins kept her shit together. But she was like, they're so good. Yeah.

Yeah, they really are. And they are not paid enough. They're not paid enough. Considering the magic they are providing. Yeah. Like, we've been to Disney. Disney does exploit these wonderful employees who... Like, it's a cool opportunity. To have that job, put it on your resume. Yeah. It's a professional acting gig is what it is. Yeah, they employ a lot of professional actors, professional musicians, professional dancers. It's nice work if you can get it.

The live entertainment is my favorite thing. It's my favorite thing too. The walk around characters. It includes the shows. Yeah. The dapper fucking Dans. The dapper fucking Dans. But it's a barbershop quartet who sing live. in Disney. In Magic Kingdom specifically. And they tell dumb dad jokes. Silly. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so these familiar IPs... Hey! When I say hey, you say what? Hey! What? And then they'll tell a stupid Disney...

Which I can't think of one right now. Yeah, that's fine. Anyway, so these familiar IPs that are, you know, you go and you immerse yourself in something from your childhood. And it feels so amazing to be, I mean, even... Everything at Disney World is someone's favorite thing. Everything is someone's favorite. Yep. I once had a driver.

They have these vans called minivans. They're like red with white polka dots. And they're like, it's like a, it's a lift, but it's a lift with a Y. But it's driven by a Disney cast member who is telling me that his favorite IP, this thing from his childhood that meant so much to him, was Splash Mountain. And like the rare rabbit story, which was like the origins of which are so pretty racist. Yeah. And the movie they made of it is was they sought input from.

the black community when they made it and then they ignored the advice they got and did the exact opposite so like yeah that splash mountain This guy was like really sad that they replaced it with Tiana's Bayou Adventure because it was so meaningful to him when he was a child. The story that it told just was really inspiring for him.

Even Splash freaking Mountain was this guy. Though let's just say we have both been on Tiana's Bayou Adventure. It's better than Splash Mountain. It's so much better. It's so good. Yeah. Yeah. Mama Odie shrinks you down to the size of an insect and then like increases your size back up to normal human. It's amazing. Yeah. So the familiarity of all the intellectual property. And they replaced the racist IP with the so far only. No, that's not true. There's now two black Disney princesses. Yeah.

Yeah. And let me just say for the record, Ariana DeBose deserved a better princess story. Yeah. I haven't seen Wish. Wish was not what it should have been. I haven't seen it. I don't care. I'm sure somebody loves it, though. And if you want to meet the princess from Wish, you can remember her name. You can. Yeah. So the familiarity of all the like you get to go be in.

Cars land in Disneyland. If you love cars, you get to go be in Cars land. In Disneyland. In Disneyland. They recently added a Star Wars land, both at Disney World and at Disneyland. And as an annual pass holder, Rich got to go to a preview day, which means it was much less crowded. And it was just full of people who were like.

really interested in being there um and rich was born in 1977 which is the year the first star wars movie came out he loved han solo as a kid he loved star wars and when he walked around a corner A life-size Millennium Falcon. Yeah. It did something to his heart. Me too. He had an experience. Me too. Like, these IPs.

I know it's capitalism. And also it's just like the way we receive our entertainment is filtered through capitalism. And holy moly, when they can nail you getting to have access to this experience. Yeah. Even when it's just the exterior of the show building. My God. yeah the like i also love me some star wars and when the first time i saw i was like we walk around a thing and there's the actual millennium falcon it like overwhelmed me like oh my god that's it's right there yeah i can just like

Who doesn't want to walk around inside Star Wars? And that's what you do in Galaxy's Edge, which is the name of the Star Wars land. Like, it's this little Black Spire outpost in this town of Batuu. Like, it is... All of which is original and not part of a specific existing story. But it feels... Like Star Wars. Everything about it feels like Star Wars. The bathroom feels like Star Wars, right?

It's an unbelievably playful experience to go like be in this IP that you love. There's also a Toy Story Land that like. Andy's backyard is the setup and everything's huge so you feel like you're the scale of a toy which I can imagine for a kid in particular who loves Toy Story you get to go be a toy size person living in this, like... Huge scale back with like giant sneaker footprints in the. Yep. Anyway.

It's the familiar IPs is another part of the ventral immersion. And the extreme detail orientation that they have in the design of the spaces so that you feel like Rich forgot he was in a particular part. He was just in Star Wars because you can just disappear into it because they block sight lines so that no matter where you look, no matter how high up you look, all you see is where you are. Yeah.

Can I talk about the color go away green? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So one of the things they do in order to make these environments seem as immersive as possible is hide the infrastructure. And one of the ways that they hide the infrastructure, like the speakers and the light. If they don't want you to notice that stuff, they paint it the color of the grass where the speaker is hiding. Or in the case of like an enormous show building, they'll paint it three different shades of blue that grayed.

depending on like how high up they are, which changes the shade of blue of the sky. So this enormous show building is virtually in. So they paint things this color go away green, which is a variety of shades of green, depending on where. but there are fences that are go away green. So you don't notice there's a fence there. There are fire hydrants that are go away green so that like they're conforming with all the safety standards.

But you don't even notice that it's there. Like you do not see because it's painted go away green. Your brain just ignores it. Yeah. So in addition to all this like ventral, ventral, playful thing, they also give you opportunities and access to intent. And not just like, this is fun and happy, but like they claw your heart out with especially shows.

And yes, there are stage shows and live performances that are fun. And then there's firework shows. And I don't mean like it's like the 4th of July with a big bunch of fireworks. There's music and projections and a story at the peak of which is usually like a musical medley. We're like, I will find my way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Even if you don't give a shit about Hercules, go the distance?

When it's at the midpoint of the story, it's about to transition into, uh-oh, here come the bad guys, and you're going to get a montage. of bad guys and a medley of their music and the sound of Ursula laughing. And you're like, oh, and then Scar comes on and there's like all these drums and you see the fire and. Happily Ever After, controversial opinion, Happily Ever After is the greatest fireworks and projection nighttime show. Oh. My. God. To be clear, I have tried to see it, but I have...

Severe limitations in terms of my mobility and my energy levels and getting to a nine o'clock performance of a firework show is hard for me. Yes. I've also never seen the Main Street Philharmonic. Oh my God. I've tried so many times. It was like top priority on my January trip. They don't make it easy to see the Main Street Philharmonic. The Main Street Philharmonic is a fucking marching band.

And I'm so into like marching. So into marching bands. And they're like the most entertaining marching. Like I, there's a lot of different ways to do a marching. And the way they do it is as comic actors. So when I was at Disneyland, for example, and they transitioned from Luke's theme from Star Wars to Darth Vader's theme, like the Imperial March, they start doing the...

And like all of their knees melt and they almost fall over and they're like, we're all going to die. And then they stand up straight and they do like the celebratory music at the end of. They're so good. During the firework shows in particular, they aim for your heart. Oh, they're getting you. Yeah. There's a reason Disney movies are successful, even they are so hashtag problematic. It's because they're fucking masters at stories.

At storytelling and using every element. Every element. The projections, the fireworks, the lights, the environmental lights in the park. everything is live actors 60 degree all around like and so so many people cry at these firework shows Because they are good. Because they are well told. Because they are powerfully told. And you are so deeply immersed in the music and the story and the visuals. They powerfully move you into a heightened emotional state. And that is...

Not a thing that you get to do on the regular. If you're just a person who lives in the world, in the real world, in Paris, in London, in New York, you have to go to a theater and pay hundreds of dollars. To sit through a show that might get you to that heightened emotional state. In Disney World, it's just the thing you do at the end of the day. Yeah. Your kid's asleep in their stroller and you are crying on main street.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, so they keep outdated intellectual properties like Peter Pan, like Peter Pan doesn't belong in modern narratives anymore. And and they keep Peter Pan because. Well, I mean, not least because you can fly, you can fly, you can fly two thirds to 80% of the way through almost all of their shows. Tinkerbell. flies on a zip line from the top of Cinderella castle. She is harnessed and it's dark, but her costume is made of LED lights. Her wig is made of LED lights. Her shoes!

are made of LED lights. So this glowing Tinkerbell flies across the sky. Yeah. To the tune of You Can Fly, You Can Fly, You Can Fly. It gets me every time. Yeah. Let's talk about Fantasmic, which is at Hollywood Studios. It's in this big like water like arena with a big mountain in it. And it's Sorcerer Mickey. And like it's it's Mickey having a nightmare. He's having a dream that turns into a nightmare. And then he's like, this is my dream. And like he he like harnesses his own.

joy and positive to like turn it into a lucid dream where he conquers the villains and like It's lights and music and Mickey. Taking control of his narrative. Deciding that he has control of his, he has the power of his imagination. And everybody saw anything. People, I sob. It's powerful. Yeah, no, it's good. They're good at it. That's the thing. It's like you can be a teenager and roll your eyes at like, oh my God, I can't believe you let them emotionally manipulate you like that. But like.

That's what storytelling is. That's what every novel you ever read is. Yeah. Yeah. Every movie. That's what every movie you've ever seen is. Yeah. Even like the... 1980s teenage kid pretty in pink eye rolly like We are literally rolling our eyes at the thing we are performing in and every teenager who sees it like rolls their eyes and like is moved. Yeah. But also like sees themselves. Right? And it's all a metaphor for the self. Yeah. And it's so...

This is not a thing that exists in the normal world, in the real, quote unquote, world. Yeah. And the real world is terrible. Like, I haven't been there since October. Not least because. Florida's a fascist state. It's a dangerous place to go. If you're a member of the LGBTQIA2 plus community, you're safe at Disney. Especially among the cast members. You are safe at Disney. And you're not safe in Florida. And there could be visitors to Disney from whom you are not.

So this is my last item on my notes list is that for all Disney has made this the happiest slash magical, most magical place on earth. The one thing they can't control is the other guy. So you do still interact with... Stupid people. Mean people.

Being a person in a wheelchair who... often is alone because even when i'm at disney with you you don't ride rides so i still wait alone in line right um for things a lot and um the number of people who feel like they can cut in line in front of me because i'm in a wheelchair When I was fully ambulatory, nobody ever tried to cut in line in front of me at Disney. But like in a wheelchair, they feel like...

They can do that? Yeah, they literally don't see you. They often literally don't see me. That is a huge problem. I put little twinkle lights on my chair. Because at night, nobody looks down below their eyeline. And people compliment my lights and I'm like, oh, those are beautiful lights. I love that. And I'm like, it's fully a safety feature because people don't see me because I'm down here. Yeah. And when I told somebody that just a couple of like.

middle like late middle-aged ladies in their maybe 50s or 60s were just sitting on a park bench sitting on a bench getting ready to watch the fireworks and I was sitting on a bench you know next to a bench Because yum, maple popcorn. Anyway, they were like, oh, yeah, we met somebody once with a service dog who was covered in lights. And we were like, and she said the same thing. Like people just people kick the dog because they just don't see the dog.

And people are engrossed in where they are and what they're doing and they don't look down. And so it's because it is so crowded and people are so distracted. It is less safe for those of us who don't. Yeah. Yeah. And then, like, people who blame me because they walked into me. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that sucks. I have had to defend myself verbally a few times. But compare that to how you get treated by cast members.

Cast members go out of their way. Like when you and I are together and I'm in my chair, I get way more attention. Nobody talks to me. I'm like in full Disney merchandise. ears and pins and a t-shirt and like I am covered in Disney. You are in a wheelchair. Yeah. So I get like, I love your like.

Whatever you're wearing. Whatever I'm wearing, the skull of my thing, the color of my bag, like compliment. Oh, I love and like magical princess in a magical carriage. Yes. You are invited to go into a space first. Yeah. Princess in a carriage. Yeah. Goes first. If you too are a wheelchair user and would like to be treated as a magical princess in a carriage who goes first, go to see the live bell show. That's B-E-L-L-E, the princess. It's a show for kids. It's delightful.

And if you're an adult, you just sit quietly and enjoy children enjoying themselves and enjoy the enormously embarrassed fathers who are invited to participate in a very minimal way. And then you watch every child get their picture taken with Belle, who is the most patient and kind human being on the face of the earth. Yeah. I mean, she may not be, but she acts like she is. But Belle is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they can't control her, I guess.

And so that does make the experience more difficult because there are so many people there. I mean, when you're watching that firework show, it's you and 40,000 of your closest friends. Like that's the level of crowd I'm talking. Yeah. Tens of thousands. Tens of thousands. Even on a not crowded day. Even on a not crowded day. It's a lot of people. And because it is so many people.

I mean, it's the same percentage at a population level. It's the same percentage of assholes and nice people. But because they're all like smushed together right there. The odds of you encountering one of the mean people or... Rude people, especially people who are tired and distracted and feeling broke because they spent all this money. People literally get shirts made talking about how like the most expensive place on earth or whatever it is.

Talking about how much money they get a t-shirt made about how expensive this vacation that they're currently on was. Yeah. Like, okay. Yeah. Dude, it was cheaper than Paris. Cheaper than Paris. Cheaper than London. Cheaper than Tokyo. For sure. Anyway. Cheaper than LA. It's expensive. There's no doubt about that. It is absolutely expensive. And the reason people pay that much money.

They're not even aware in the way that we're talking explicitly about the things that they do to hide the infrastructure and to immerse you in a story that is both familiar and exciting. joyful and comfortable yeah i will never forget one of the first times i ever went to disney as an adult because you were like i love disney and i'm gonna be an annual pass holder and

I went because I was like, okay, sure, maybe. And I was standing. Oh, my God. This is when we went to Hollywood Studios. It was before there was Star Wars Land. And you didn't quite get it. This was like 2018. You didn't quite get it. And I was like, we're going to stand here on this sidewalk and wait because there's going to be a parade and you're going to want to see this parade. And you were like, we're just going to stand here and wait for a parade. And I was like.

Yes, we are. And they start playing the Imperial Mars. Yeah. And around the corner comes a phalanx of stormtroopers headed by Captain Phasma! Captain Phasma, like right there, there's Captain Phasma. Orders from Captain Phasma are being piped to every speaker. Yeah. In her droll, slightly snide. And the marching and their carrying weapons. And occasionally one will turn and look at you. Yeah. And I have a photo of you. Yeah. Just like sticking your head and your face is like.

That is when you understood why I became a pass holder. Yeah. Because they can do that. There, just a couple of years before that, I think, there had been a really dire, tragic incident where a toddler was killed by an alley. In a Disney, on a Disney resort. That was a Grand Floridian. It was a Grand Floridian. Oh, God. Like, so tragic. Just appalling. And we were staying at another resort. I think it was Port Orleans. Yeah. Where there's, I mean, there's water everywhere. Yeah.

And there's like little rivers and canals and lakes and stuff. And I was walking along the thing and there's this beautifully landscaped grass strip. And then like a little sign with like just a very low, like two foot high chain. You know, don't don't approach. Don't stay here. Alligators and snakes. I looked around and I was like, I totally see how you could.

Feel so safe here. Nothing could ever go wrong. And you just walk up to the water and like look at the ducks and be like right there. And it feels so safe. And I was like, I totally see how you could feel so safe. That you'd never imagine something like that could possibly happen. Whereas if you're in actual wilderness. Oh yeah, you're on alert. You know you're going to be safe. You're going to alert. And like they take away your sense of alert. And I was like.

I could see how you wouldn't be on alert. And this was a very long time ago. And obviously there's. That has not happened again since then. And I think they have upped their protocol. They have increased the frequency of the signs. Yeah. But those little chains are painted go away green. Yeah, because they don't want you to feel alarmed that something dangerous could be here. But they're not in charge of like the way alligators move through water.

Right. But if there is a report of somebody sees an alligator on Disney property, they remove the alligator to a wilderness area. Yes. To a wildlife sanctuary habitat situation. They're responsible about how they treat animals and they're also like bird sanctuary stuff on Disney property. And they're, you know, they're active about the wildlife, but I, it is so ventral. We just spent all this time talking about how safe it feels and how ventral and playful it is. And then like, like it.

It's so good that actual real threats don't feel real. And I could totally see how it could lead to this. The same thing happens to the wildlife who live at Disney. The Disney ducks are like a phenomenon. There's all these ducks and people will stop in a crowd to watch. a duck a train of ducks like and follow like a mama followed by all her baby ducks crossing a pathway and people will just stop and watch

And then occasionally you get a child who goes up and tries to kick a duck because it's a metaphor for how people treat each other. They can't control the people. And sometimes children are impulsive assholes. So on the one hand, Captain Phasma. And on the other hand, oh, like, oh, my God, this we're in Florida. It made me feel that's what made me aware that the sense of safety had been artificially constructed.

consciously, artificially constructed. And that's kind of what made me appreciate, damn, they're really good at it. Yeah, it was that moment on a bridge looking at a sign that said, caution, do not approach. Yeah, snakes, alligators. I don't want to end on that note, but that is an impactful moment that I had that I thought was important to include. I think the ending should be People get to spend their downtime and their vacation time the way they choose entirely.

In our opinion, based on this whole like stronger than the fire thing, spending as much time as possible accessing ventral stimulation. play stimulation in particular can be really powerful. Yeah. And so if there are people who can afford a Disney vacation, like let them live. Let them do it. Yeah. Yeah. So like, don't.

judge people for like buying into corporate whatever corporate whatever pays for an environment that is so the reason rich and i got started with the whole disney thing is because we'd been married for four years and every year i tried to like make a vacation moment happen And three years in a row, one or the other of us had been pretty unhappy.

With the vacation choice I made. Because the way we prefer to spend our vacations is basically opposite. Yeah. I'm a very like chill. I just want to like pause. And Rich loves to run around. Yeah. And so the year I left my job. I was like, we're going to go big. We have this one moment where I'm leaving my job. We're going to celebrate this transition in our lives. And Rich still had. brochures about Epcot from his childhood trip. And I was like...

He's still got this attachment. Let's go. Let's go stay at one of the deluxe resorts, the contemporary, which is this beautiful... modernist architecture, sort of brutalist. It's amazing. And the monorail runs right through it. And like, we'll go to these parks and like, we'll have this. And for the first time, we were able to have a vacation where both of us got to do things that we really enjoy. yes yes you can have any kind of vacation you can have more than one kind of vacation at once

Yeah. And everyone who's there. It's not like going to New York City where a whole lot of the people who are there live there and work there. And then there's a bunch of tourists. Everyone there is a tourist. Yeah. Everyone's on vacation. Except for the people who literally work there. Yeah. So that's why it started. Is that we were like, oh, we can like.

go on a vacation that isn't much more expensive than the other vacations we were taking. And it turns out there's like all these ways to do it that are cheaper than we were doing it because I didn't know. You stayed at fancy, fancy hotels. The first time, yeah. The next time Rich went, he stayed at one of the cheapest. Right, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was $100 a night instead of like $600 a night. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So if people choose to spend their vacation.

Giving money to a giant ass corporation, which in some ways has not capitulated, but in other ways absolutely has capitulated. Like, let them live. People need what they need. Yeah. I will also say that I... I paid for an annual passholder membership for one year. thinking that I live on Cape Cod. I live in a vacation area where people come to go on vacation. Yeah. I just talked to somebody who was like, oh, I went to Cape Cod. I was like, oh, where'd you go? Sandwich? And I was like...

It's a tourist destination because it's so quaint. It's so well controlled. It's so freaking charming. It's like a little mini escape world where you think the world is just charming and quaint. Anyway, I thought... I'm going to go to Disney several times this year and I'm going to figure out what it is about this Disney experience.

that seems so effective as a vacation so that then I can come home and make it Cape Cod. And next year I can use the resources on Cape Cod to accomplish the same thing. And I actively tried that. And I like tried to find like I knew what it was about Disney, what the events were, what the activities were that felt so cool. And I found equivalent kinds of experiences on Cape Cod.

And I couldn't do any of them because I needed to be in a wheelchair. And anything that was outside was on grass, through gravel. with like terrain issues that i couldn't access or you know the parking was so far away that like by the time i got and it was all outdoors and there was no place to charge my chair up again Um, or like it was a fun, cool museum that I'd love to go to, but.

It's not wheelchair accessible. Or like only half of it is wheelchair accessible and the other half is upstairs. And because everything on Cape Cod is 200 years old, it's all grandfathered in and has not been required to conform to ADA. um standards yeah so like i tried i tried to be able to like staycation myself and it didn't work and i bought another annual annual pass Because I was like, it just works. Yeah. Accessibility, man. It's a problem. That's not how I want to end either. Yeah.

But like going back to people, let's not judge anybody for how they access joy. And also let's be really mindful of the ways that. The things that do work, how they work, why they work. And, you know. A brief mention of Disneyland since you mentioned that I have been to Disneyland a couple of times. It has the same high quality accessibility involved. So like things are paved very beautifully, almost everywhere.

The live entertainment at Disneyland is... I mean, I really love the live entertainment at Disney World, but it feels like amateur. community theater compared to what you get in fucking anaheim which is right next door to hollywood community theater i'm gonna object to that There's no way. No, you're right. Those professionals. They're fully professionals. Yeah. But like, like one day you're going to go to Disneyland.

And you're going to see the Five and Dime band. And you're going to like... just it's they're so good And it just, it just happens. They drive up in an oldie-timey-looking vehicle. They park. They get out with their instruments. They sing and play at a microphone that is waiting for them. And then they get back in their old timey car and they sing and play the whole ride back to wherever it is backstage.

they're so good absolutely the live performances that i have also seen and heard that in like videos and stuff like the live performances and there's these dinky little so right outside of so at Disney World in Magic Kingdom at Cinderella Castle and in Anaheim at Disneyland. I think it's... Sleeping Beauty. It is Sleeping Beauty. But it's Sleeping Beauty Castle. And right outside of Sleeping Beauty Castle, there's this little covered outdoor theater.

where they put on like 20-minute shows. And they are... meta-commentary on the fact that they are doing a short, condensed version of a disney story rapunzel for example rapunzel is the one i saw and there's a live piano player like what an amazing gig that is and there's basically these like college students or very young people who are

clearly professional musicians and actors playing more than one character and they are playing to the kids and they are also simultaneously playing to the parents and the adults and it's just like Like I couldn't, it was, it was so good. It was so good. This little half hour. pantomime, essentially, of the Rapunzel story. It was, I just, like, I couldn't.

The Lion King live show at Disneyland. It is in the worst imaginable place because it's right next to where the train goes by. They're not doing it anymore, right? Oh my God. No, really? I think they're not doing that. I think that show ended. Ended January 7th, 2024. Yeah. Oh my God. I saw it just a couple of months before it closed. Y'all. It was disrespectful, the location of this show, because of the sound of the train and everything. Yeah.

It was so good. I was only there for three days. I saw that show at least three times. Yeah. Because I just couldn't take it. It was so good. This is in no way an ad for Disney or Disneyland or Disney World. This is just us exploring. We're stronger than the fire. And one of the ways we stay that way is by accessing a ventral state and a sympathetic ventral blended playful state. And where you feel safe enough.

And have access to connection. So play is the basic mammalian emotion motivational system of friendship. So when you go to a space that facilitates a playful state, and that's going to be a different place for everybody. Look, when we were teenagers, we worked at Chuck. Yep. For some people, a noisy, enclosed arcade space like that feels super fucking... For other people, it super doesn't. People vary.

Yeah. And going to a constructed environment that facilitates a play state is not cheating. Yeah. Disney made it their business. to profit from people's desire for that feeling. Need. Need for that feeling. Yeah. They're very good at it. They happen to be extraordinarily good at it because they have the budget. I think the parks are the most profitable part of their whole business. It's really expensive to make an environment ventral.

Other theme parks, they don't even try. We haven't talked about Universal, which is down the road. Yeah, they don't try. They're kind of not trying. If you look across the skyline at a Universal Park, you can see the other land. You know you're not immersed in anything, with the exception being the Harry Potter lands, which we're not going to talk about because of She Who Must Not Be Named. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joe Roe doesn't get our money. Yeah, exactly.

It's not necessarily that, oh, Disney is the answer to our stress. It's just a matter of like, these are the ways. This is how much effort it takes to create an environment that... is conducive to this state. It might be worth saying out. that because we struggle with physical accessibility, we are, we experience chronic illness and long-term pretty intense depression. Like it takes.

the biggest budget in the entertainment industry to construction environment that will get us to that place. For other people, a community theater production of a familiar musical. can be plenty if they're not fighting the uphill battle that we are. Your local pirate festival might be a great place for you to go. 100%. Ren Fairs. I 100% wanted to go to that pirate festival, man. That sounded so fun. I couldn't go. That makes it worse. That adds sadness to your nervous...

So knowing that there is a place you can get to if you are able to navigate getting there and being safe outside of the Disney bubble, which not everybody... So this was the show where we talked about a thing we do that's... or specifically a play state because a play state is very important and yeah it's very difficult to access in this world in this the state of the times yeah accessing that state is difficult and It's important. It's so important that it's worth thousands of dollars to us.

And I spent many years writing a book where basically what I'm doing is encouraging people to bring a play state to their sexual connections. Instead of taking it so seriously and being so worried about whether they're doing it right or wrong. And instead just like experiencing pleasure. Yeah. And not feeling like you have to meet somebody else's standard.

you know, perform to someone's expectations. You can just relax and enjoy it and bring a place date to it. And it's a hard sell. I'll be honest. Telling people that like, no, center pleasure. People struggle to center pleasure. They struggle to center play and friendship in their sexual connections. So like, I just wanted to like mention that while we're talking about accessing a play state, like that's another moderately accessible.

Opportunity for people to experience play if they're willing to. P.S. Read, come together. If you're like, what are you talking about? Yeah. A hundred thousand words of affective neuroscience about how to do that. Yeah. Yeah. So play. Super important. Yeah. So you got to find what works for you. But if you want the formula, Disney has it. And also, why bog down your nervous... with judgment about other people's methods of accessing that state. Yeah. You need that state too. Yeah.

It doesn't make anybody happier for you to have a negative opinion about how somebody... And harm reduction. Do we think Disney is a hashtag problematic? Yeah. Yeah. But harm reduction. But harm reduction. As Kate Bornstein says, you're allowed to do everything it takes to make your life worth living. Just don't be mean. Yeah. Some people cannot even, like, follow that rule at Disney. They can't do don't be mean. At Disney. But not many people. Yeah. And not the cast.

Like one of the most important things. Like our aunt is very aware of disability and accessibility issues. And one of the things she commented on was how many visibly disabled people were cast members at Disney. Yeah. They try. Yeah. And like, do I know what Disney World and Disneyland are doing with their policies now that DEI is not a federal obligation? I don't know. I don't know if they're choosing to hire fewer visibly disabled.

I think that one of the reasons they do that is because there are so many disabled people who come to Disney for exactly the reason that I like to, because it is the most accessible place on earth. And I think having other visibly disabled people there is part of what makes you feel welcome. I am often the only person in a wheelchair at a conference or at a thing where I'm talking or at a concert or performance. I'm the only person in a wheelchair in the audience.

I've never gone to a thing and been like, oh, here's a community of wheelchair users. But when you go to a show... Disney World, they park you in a row with all the other people in a wheelchair. And they're like, there's a whole big line of people in scooters and wheelchairs and at all levels of physical disability. And it's very just like. Yeah, we have a process. We have a place for you to sit. We have, it's just, there's signage everywhere of like. Princess in a carriage. Yeah.

I wonder what they're going to call you at the Hoopty Doo Review. Yeah. I'm sure it'll be thematically appropriate. Cowgirl on a Bronco? Yeah, I don't know. We are going to the Hooptie Do review. It's one of the things that I've been wanting to do, and I have never done it. The show closed for the pandemic for obvious reasons. Yeah. And to my delight, when they brought it back... They had removed the most obvious.

Yeah, that's nice. Like, yeah, they're trying. Yeah. And I, as a white lady who tries, I can appreciate the try. Obvious. Clearly intentional. They didn't have to change it. It's been the same live show since it opened in the 60s. Yeah. Yeah. So you can imagine. Yeah. But they changed it because they had an opportunity. And were people mad? Some people, I guess. For some people, Hoopty Do Review is their favorite thing. Yeah. And I cannot wait. Yeah.

Let us also say for the record that we are calling this trip that is for our 48th birthday our Thelma and Louise trip. Yeah. Because we are going to dine indoors. Right. dinner show with singing and a lot of other people there will be singers singing in the dining room like on the floor yeah there will be right there there will be on our faces there will be plumes there will be floating in the air. Yeah. And because it's Florida...

I don't know. And there might be measles because there's children. But it's a Thelma and Louise trip. We're going to go dine indoors. Because we both know that we'll have the following month without any obligations that we can't fulfill while we have COVID again. But seeing as we both recently had it, I think it's unlikely that we'll get it again. Yeah. We got fresh antibodies.

But the reason we're going when we're going is because that's when your book tour is going to lighten up. Yeah, it has already. I'm in recovery mode and my body is like collapsed. Yeah. And so like migraines every other day. But again, let's not close on that. We're being stronger than the fire. We're finding the ventral. And even if we have to go to Florida for the ventral.

You got to do what you got to do. I'm currently reading a book called Wintering, which is a book by a late diagnosed autistic woman. talking about deliberately welcoming the phases of shutdown and restoration that are required by human life. The book is pretty good. It comes and goes in terms of it's like... how good the writing and like no book is perfect. Every book is a product.

its time, et cetera, et cetera. This is written entirely from a Northern Hemisphere perspective. So if you're an Australian reader, you're going to be like, this is the opposite in terms of the actual calendar. But in terms of like, everybody has shit that happens in their lives. makes them retreat and require way more rest and restoration than in other periods. So that's like a different thing. And we can talk about that next week. In fact, I have some Q&A.

But this is when you're in a spring or a summer moment in your life. You have the energy for accessing play and your body craves it because like me, you can feel your body craving play. which not everybody can. Yeah. And that's fine.

accessing a play state in whatever way works for you. Two, not wasting wear and tear on your nervous system, having a negative opinion about how anybody else in the world access is play they're not trying to do it with you so why why can we close on the story of me leading mom on a trip to disney yeah So we were at Magic Kingdom with our mom sometime before the pandemic. She'd been going through a rough time. And I was like... Have I got news for you? Mm-hmm. Disney World.

is the place to go. So we drag her to freaking Disney World. She wasn't like slightly against her will. Disney. Yes. Like I was like, I'm going to pay for things. Like, let's let's let's go on a vacation. So we're at Magic Kingdom in front of Cinderella Castle. And there's these like parents walking by with children who are. in enormous distress at the Magic Kingdom. Right.

And I jokingly said, why would anyone waste a Disney World trip on their children who are too young to even remember it? I said, and mom goes, well. One winter when I was having a really difficult time, your grandparents bought plane tickets for me to bring you all to Disney World. When you were babes in arms, she said. And I was like... Oh, so this is like carved into my nervous system from infancy to experience this environment as a place where my body can feel at peace.

Probably because mom's body felt more at peace, even in a difficult phase of her life. Heaven. Infant twins. Yeah. Autistic infant twins. So it might be that our experience of Disney World is shaped by the fact that as tiny, tiny babies, we cannot remember this trip, but we were there. And I think it probably impacted our... But a lot of people went to Disney as children.

is aware of course disney is aware yeah that no i absolutely think try to access that in adulthood because they were like this happened to me as a kid and i want that back why do cigarette companies target children just because like you get them early and they keep coming back Yeah. Like that's how you get. Yeah. So when you take your children to Disney World, your children will want to take their children to Disney World.

Yeah. So I think the title of this episode is The Art and Science of Disney Adulting. Yep. Yeah. And I really want to like create space for being non-judgmental. of people who require the, it's a heavy lift for us to get to it. and I think that's more true of more of the population now than ever before than it has been ever maybe at least in 2030 of Disneyland 40 years yeah yeah yeah from the happiest place on earth to the most magical place on earth

They know what they're doing. Yeah. And you'll be able to feel it in your body when you go to a place that creates that and whatever that place is for you. Yeah. When Rich couldn't get to Disney World because it was closed for the pandemic. He would just like put on a couple of masks and walk around in Target and be entertained because that was a place for him where they did a good enough, a good enough job for his brain to enter that like curious.

exploration playful state yeah teens in the mall teens in the same fundamental process constructed environment very controlled lighting controlled sound controlled music Fragrances, artificially constructed sense of safety. Yeah, the art and science. It's not necessarily Disney adulting, but it's play state adulting. And for us, boy, howdy. And Disney has... mastered it and as a science yeah yeah exactly yeah through our

Yes, exactly. Artistry is kind of what it takes. Absolutely. And the more artistry they bring to it, the more effective it is. So one of the things that I enjoy... I know, we gotta stop. One of the things that I enjoy that I had to drag Rich to, they have an art of animation event where one of the illustrators...

At Disney, somebody who works for like Disney animation, leads like a 15 minute drawing class. They sit in the front with a big projector that shows what they're drawing and they're teaching us how to draw.

Teaching us how to draw a character. By the way, Rich went to art school. So it's not like he needs to be trained. Yeah, Rich went to art school. He's a cartoonist. And for him, showing up to a thing like that is not like... fun right necessarily but i did it at disney world and i had so much fun that when we went to disneyland i was like come with me to this thing you might like it and i think he did actual because they do such a good job because that person up there

has their dream job. Yeah. Of being an illustrator or animator. Yeah. For Disney. Yeah. And they get to teach people really simple tricks for being able to draw a Disney character. So you get to participate in the creation of the art. So it's not just that they bring artistry to it. There are a handful of opportunities where they invite you to participate. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hoop to Do is another one of those. They bring people from the audience, usually very embarrassed dads. Yeah, because they're the most funny. And teenage theater kids. Yeah. Who like want to be on the stage so bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. They invite you to be part of the artistry as well, as well as simply. So there's entertainment and then there's fun. Entertainment is letting somebody do it for you.

Fun is doing it, being part of it. Yeah. And so that's. Okay, I'll stop now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we've made the point. Yeah. Okay. Don't judge us. We have science to explain why we have to give our money to the man. I can justify it, goddammit. Yeah. I can justify getting on a plane and flogging to a vacation destination, even though it's terrible for the environment. Yeah, backed up by the fact that I tried to recreate all of this.

You totally tried. And in my environment, which is I am surrounded by vacation things. Yeah. People come to this place for vacation. Able-bodied people come to this place for vacation. Everywhere is more difficult with physical limitations and disabilities and as wheelchair users. But if there's any place that makes it less worse. Yeah. Disney makes it less worse.

Okay, we're going to stop now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We definitely made the point. Okay, so that's it for this week. Next week, we might do something a little heavier. Rest. We're going to talk about... No, it's not going to be... It's going to be for people who are in a winter... Okay. Being in an actual real place in a wheelchair. Alright, talk to you next week. Sucks big floppy donkey dick. Cue the ukulele. Being in an actual real place in a wheelchair sucks big floppy donkey dick.