#LastDisneyDay

(A restaurant review of the Carthay Circle at Disney’s California Adventure.)

I’ve had a long, and let’s admit it, complicated relationship with Disney and specifically Disneyland. I suppose that’s just what happens when you are born in Orange County.

Which I was. Forty years ago tomorrow.

F-o-r-t-y.

We’re not supposed to talk about age in America, and men — especially childless, unmarried men — who like going to theme parks. It’s sad. Hell, I look at other, older dudes who are here by themselves and I think “Really, guy, that’s just — oh, right.”

But life is a series of choices, and refusals to make choices, and thus I find myself in the swankiest restaurant in the parks with the best cocktail program half a drink into a two drink lunch writing you about how tomorrow is my birthday and this is all very, very weird.

Do I have regrets? Of course. Just not so much about my weird relationship with Disney and Disneyland. Most of the regrets have names. Human female names. A couple of them are probably reading this and yes: I’m sorry. Sorry I spent the first four decades of my life as an indecisive shit. They let me read Hamlet too early, it seems, and didn’t explain what “to be or not to be” was actually about. Hint: it’s not actually about indecision being the defining trait of humanity. Or maybe it is. I dunno.

See. There. I fucking did it again.

The thing is: I come here to see the great DELTA that exists within the Imaginarium of Man. (You can beat me up for sexist language later, I’m pulling #birthdayprivilege here.)

There is the WONDER that radiates from children. The WEARINESS that follows their parents around like a fog. The sad desperation mixed with hope of those who — like me — wear our fandoms literally on our sleeves as if they were religious icons. (Because, of course, they are.) All of this bound within the concrete, plaster and steel confines of physicalized illusions crafted by the High Priests of Middle Brow Culture: the Imagineers. Workers of wonders in light and forced perspective. The true wizards of our age.

Here they condense both magic and magick into artifacts you can purchase for a half-hour’s wage. Tass that operates through the medium of time on the principles of contagious magic. Each piece a hotline to our incredible ability to live in two places at once: the physical world and the one inside our mind’s eye. Embedded with the siren song and secret handshake of Walt’s World: that if you seize the means of imaginary production you too can be ruler of your own Magic Kingdom.

See, I fucking love it here.

The Manhattan is finished. Time for drink number two.

Look, while I temporarily sober up here — which is a damn shame — I want to be clear about one thing: it is my secret hope that everyone alive privately harbors a sense of duality. Of a deep recognition of the absurdity of their predilections and a firm grasp of how potent their convictions are.

Oh good, the second course…uh, drink…arrived.

My great fear is that the vast majority of Humanity is divided into two great factions: those that are oblivious and a smaller one which is painfully self-aware. Only a small fraction have the privilege of riding the line between those two. I know I’m not one of them. I’m the painfully self-aware type.

Fucking hell, this is meanadering.

Then again, I used to let myself do this all the time. Before the Dark Times, before the Mass Internet. Before my painfully self-aware brothers and sisters started dissecting everything in sight with the insight of a third year English major. Before very real social ills metastasized into cultural neuroses. We mean well, we just botch the job. All the time. (Who’s “we” in that line? Go get a mirror. It’s okay. I’ll wait. How’s my hair, by the way?)

Where did this start?

Oh yes, Disneyland. The Carthay Circle restaurant. Sure.

I tried treating the menu like it was tapas. That was a mistake. The “fried biscuits” are interesting, but they are also, basically, jalapeño poppers. Get an entree. You’ll be happier. Probably. I dunno. I didn’t get one. Maybe the salmon.

My real waiter was very good. He probably could have saved me from the tapas mistake. I had someone pitching in and she clearly didn’t care. Or know the difference between a martini and a Manhattan. Which, while this is a Disney property, is kind of appalling. Walt must be shivering in cryo right now. I’m sorry.

You can’t go wrong with the Vintage Coffee, however. It is made of pure magick. Magick being both the Art and Science of Change in accordance with Will and what happens when you mix booze and coffee.

Both of which are why I self-identify as a wizard.

Congratulations. You made it this far. You’re a real friend.