Goofy Is As Goofy Does

[from 12/8/10]

Disneyfication of the world takes many forms.

I understand the impulse to Disneyfy. You want something done, but you don’t want to do it yourself, it’s too hard or too boring. On the other hand, you don’t want it done by the people who do it every day and have done it every day for years, because you don’t trust mere people. You’re a modern manager. You want it done by modern professionals. You call in Mickey Mouse.

[The above does not refer to the actual Disney Corporation or the actual Mickey Mouse. I am using them as metaphors.]

Illustration #1. Used to be when America was nation-building, we’d pick a spot and have our Army clear it of foreigners and funny-talkers, then have our Army Corps of Engineers build the nation we wanted. Now, we have to hand the nation building off to KBR and Halliburton.

Illustration #2. I am thankful to Teresa “With No ‘Aitch” Reeves for this one. Now that TSA employees themselves are complaining about having to grope travelers at airports, there’s talk of hiring outside professionals to do it. The possibilities make my head spin!

You know what they won’t do. SeaTac masseuses have been doing excellent work in this area for decades, with highly recommended happy endings. But TSA won’t hire them. They’ll hire Disney itself, and you’ll get a smelly old drunk in a Goofy suit sticking an over-sized gloved hand between your Fruit of your Looms and your looming fruit. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’m just predicting.

Or the job will be offered to clergy under the Faith Initiative, and you’ll come to think of it as part of the lingering Bush Legacy. In your pants, ha, ha, ha.

Illustration #3. What the Seattle Administration is talking about doing with Nickelsville.

The Nickelsville encampment has had as its goal a permanent site within the city for its own members to build permanent residential structures. The mayor’s office has come up with some potential sites. When one is chosen, what next?

The people residing in Nickelsville, the Nickelodeons, have always run their own affairs and done a fine job of it. But the city is talking about asking social service agencies submit proposals for the task of managing Nickelsville. They are seriously suggesting Disneyfying Nickelsville.

Even to suggest such a thing is truly insane. Nickelsville has been extremely successful as a self-run community. Its management structure is part of what it is, and it isn’t broken.

When Washington applied for statehood in the 1800s Congress required the people of this territory to come up with a constitution that was “not repugnant” to the US Constitution, and to generally respect the laws and contracts of pre-existing states. Aside from that, the settlers were expected to run their own affairs.

Perhaps that was a mistake. Maybe Congress and/or Benjamin Harrison should have called for proposals from social services agencies to manage the affairs of the new state. The Salvation Army, having formed in London in 1865 and being the biggest, most experienced social service agency of the day, in the entire world, would have surely got the job.

So instead of becoming the Soviet of Washington at the corner of the 47 Contiguous States, we would have become the only US state that was also a territory of an unestablished English church. I’m sure it would have worked out fine.

In fact, maybe we should go back and fix the mistake that was made 121 years ago. OK, probably there wouldn’t really be a lot of enthusiasm for having the Salvation Army run this state now, but maybe we can think of a good fit. I mean, the idea that people can govern themselves is a load of rot, isn’t it? We need to be managed by an organization with a track record.

I know, let’s turn Washington State over to Qatar! Second highest per capita GDP in the world, home to the 2022 FIFA World Cup!

Cartoon Mice On A Plane

Let’s engage in some Vergangenheitsbewältigung!

I’m not sure what that means, but I think it describes what Danzig/Gdan’sk-born Nobel Prize–winning German writer and artist Günter Grass, best known for novels evoking Germany’s Nazi years, was about when he announced to the world that he’d been in the military branch of the SS during late WWII.

I too know what it means to overcome the past. I grew up in a military state within the United States: I was an Army brat. As a child in the Fabulous ’50s, I regularly lived on army bases, surrounded by machines of war, and talk of war, and by soldiers, and I loved it.

That’s right! I admit it! I loved it! I loved waking up before dawn to the sound of machine gun fire from a practice range. I loved watching troops forcibly marched past me singing their songs of loose women, Lieutenants’ tails, and birdies in the sky doing that in their eye. I loved having real Army junk to help play war, like real helmets, and mess kits, and ammunition belts. The roads were paved with spent shells.

My favorite thing was when, each May, on a Saturday, the army would roll everything out of storage and put on a kick-ass Armed Forces Day show, with mock helicopter and tank assaults, mock bombing runs, and mock commando attacks on mock enemies, mock enemy cities, and mock commando attack recipients, respectively. There were tanks, cannon, and aircraft to play in. We kids got to use real radar and practice aiming real anti-aircraft guns.

There were also army tent after army tent of exhibitions of cool army paraphernalia, like small arms and mortars and bazookas, cool gross stuff like surgical equipment for fixing soldiers up and sending them back to get shot again, and even information on how to survive a nearby tactical nuclear attack. (Step 1: When you see a massive fireball, you will know that the tactical nuclear weapon did not kill you instantly. Congratulations! You have completed Step 1!)

Needless to say, I avoided the Army later in life. It’s one thing to play soldier and pretend-die in your backyard. It’s another, I thought, to die submerged face-down in a rice paddy. Have you ever smelled a rice paddy, while face-down in one? OK, try this: Have you ever smelled a water buffalo? Now, have you ever smelled what comes out of a water buffalo? That’s what a rice paddy smells like from a distance.

Still, even as an adult, I confess loving war shows. One of my fondest memories as an adult, while dressed, was witnessing a Swiss Armed Forces Day event in 1979 in Zürich that included a mock tank and aerial assault on the café and surroundings in which Thomas Mann and James Joyce used to hang together. Take that one for Tonio Kröger, this one for Ulysses! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

And how I also have loved to see how the Seafair Torchlight Parade has been almost half taken over by military troops. What a thrill.

But, seriously, I’m not only overreacting to Günter Grass’ belated revelation. I’m also overreacting to the news, last week, that a theme park company that used to try to compete with Disney World in Orlando, Fla., now wants to build an “Army World” near Fort Belvoir, Va. The proposal talks about how visitors would be able to “command the latest M-1 tank, feel the rush of a paratrooper freefall, fly a Cobra Gunship, or defend your B-17 as a waist gunner.” In other words, Armed Forces Day, every day of the year, for the price of admission.

I don’t know how America can do better than that! It combines everything that is great about our military/industrial empire. We should have military theme parks in every state to celebrate our superior military might, which the whole world must tremble before.

If only Disney itself could do them! Imagine being able to throw Mickey out of a plane!