EMPTY POCKETED CITIZENS OF TOMORROW

The Blue Light Special had set the alarm for 6:30 a.m. so that we could get an extra Magic Hour" at the Animal Kingdom which opened at 8 a.m., an hour early, for resort guests. Breakfast at the World Premiere Food Court cost me as much as at the Island House where we had gotten a lot more. On the plus side, the legions of fat guys kept their shirts on while we ate.



Nothing like standing in line behind a cute guy and speculating about his relationship to the 20something heterosexual couple he accompanied to provide some welcome distraction in breeder land. Or going backwards on a roller coaster for the first time. Hands up, Expedition Everest offered more thrills than any other attraction at Disneyworld.

Let's do that one again! I exulted.

We picked up a Fast Pass and went to DinoLand U.S.A., where on the Primeval Whirl, we had to share a car with a young mom and her son. Watching the kid's wide-eyed enjoyment of the fairly tame ride enhanced my own. I would have loved to see his reaction to Dinosaur! As we sped along a roller coaster track, an animatronic T. Rex lunged at us while his gentle cousins grazed placidly nearby.

After completing Expedition Everest a second time, I purchased a commemorative photo that shows our car in the clutches of a Yeti mostly because the camera had caught how much fun we BOTH were having. I ordered a 5" x 7" print for each of us. They were ready almost as soon as I used my Disney card to make my first and only impulse buy.

Chilly weather had forced the closure of the Kali River Rapids. Although this meant we wouldn't be able to check off everything on our list, I didn't mind because Fodor's had advised that it would require a change into dry clothes afterward.

We killed the hour before our Fast Pass would admit us to the Kiliminjaro Safaris by boarding Rafiki's Planet Watch without knowing exactly where it would take us. But the destination became moot when a good looking high school kid kept glancing in our direction, even though he was with his family.

Instead of the usual seating arrangement you would find on a train car, this one had a double row of bleachers facing in one direction so that everybody aboard would have a good view of the passing scenery. The Blue Light Special, who usually wants to sit in the front row, chose the back one so he could sit next to Jail Bait. With spiky hair, multiple rings in his pierced ears and a guitar button on his sweater, he looked a little like an aspiring punk musician.

Leave it to Disney to turn a lemon into lemonade. The ride offered little more than a look at the operations behind the safari attraction, including clearly marked cages for the various animals. Once you got to Planet Rafiki, a couple of monkeys, a petting zoo and an environmental center awaited you. Definitely a bide-your-time kind of experience.



The Blue Light Special began sulking as soon as we got separated from Jail Bait. The petting zoo cheered him up a bit. I love to watch his gentle interactions with animals. They really bring out his sweetness.



On our way out, the Blue Light Special asked me to photograph him against a crocodile mural. Because he so rarely has the opportunity to ask me to take a picture of him, I was a little surprised until I realized that Jail Bait was leaning against a display case directly opposite, alone.

Would you like me to take a picture of the two of you? Jail Bait asked as I composed the shot. With my back to him, I decided to let the Blue Light Special respond.

No, it's not necessary he said.

Jail Bait quickly walked away. I decided to wound the Blue Light Special for making it pretty clear he didn't want the kid to think we were a couple. His lack of empathy provided an easy weapon to use against him. As they say: don't get mad, get even.

You blew it I taunted. That was Jail Bait's attempt to engage us apart from his family. If you had said yes, instead of being embarrassed about our relationship, you could have found out a lot more about him.

You mean he might have given me his e-mail address? he asked, jabbing back.



The Blue Light Special pouted all the way back to the Kiliminjaro Safari where we boarded a large flatbed truck that had been outfitted with benches. Behind the wheel sat a young cast member who drove us along a rutted road into very impressively recreated African bush country, pretending that we were in hot pursuit of poachers. Every time we turned a corner, she announced a new animal species, each appearing to live in its natural habitat.

You're really lucky this morning she said, pointing out a pair of lions on a rock outcropping. The male lion was pacing and yawning. They're usually asleep for much of the day.

Wide moats separated the animals from the road but our interaction seemed much closer than it would have in a typical zoo. Nor did it seem quite so exploitive as swimming with the dolphins.

We made our way back to the gigantic Tree of Life, which like Cinderella's Castle in the Magic Kingdom, helps visitors find their way from one land--or in this case continents, mostly--to another. Before leaving Africa, we stopped to watch a group of gymnastic dancers in animal prints. They were among the very few African Americans that we saw during the two full days we spent at Disneyworld.

With the Blue Light Special still brooding over his tactical error, we got in line for It's Tough To Be A Bug!, a joint Disney/Pixar production. Outside a large theatre buried in the bowels of the Tree of Life we picked up a pair of bug-shaped 3D glasses. Because we were among the people closest to the entrance, we stood aside to let the rows of seats get a little fill so that we could position ourselves in the middle.



The huge colorful curtain patterned with butterfly wings lifted and we were introduced to several different kinds of bugs, more commonly known as pests to man. Bumblebees flew into our faces, inducing a child's sense of wonder so strong that we neither of us could resist trying to grab them. These visual delights, however, were only one part of an experience that stimulated all of our senses except taste. We smelled the stinkbug. We ducked the fly swatter. We felt the spray emitted by an enormous can of bug spray. We learned just how tough it IS to be a bug.

Most surprising of all the seats had been outfitted with technology that gently recreated the sensation of being bitten on your back by a spider and feeling a termite burrow under your seat. The latter felt so realistic that the woman behind us screamed as if she had just been goosed.

No doubt about it I proclaimed as we left, completely enchanted. Animal Kingdom is my favorite park so far.



Despite a couple of reality-based thrills, Epcot did nothing to change my assessment. We arrived at the height of the lunch hour with the stroller parking lot outside of The Land jammed. The 90-minute estimated wait time for Soarin' persuaded us to get a Fast Pass. That left us with nearly two hours before our return time.

First we toured The Seas with Nemo and Friends in a clam mobile that carried us along on the search for the title character from the hit Pixar film using visual effects and puppets that paled in comparison to It's Tough to Be a Bug, which had been inspired by "A Bug's Life." The ride did leave the Blue Light Special singing the Big Blue World, however.

From there we began a long walk around the World Showcase Lagoon. We passed from one ersatz country to another, including Canada, the United Kingdom and France, marked by a dumpy Eiffel Tower, before wandering into Morocco. It was about as interesting as Pier One.

This is what I dislike most about America I said. The idea that you can experience other cultures without ever having to leave your own.

Maybe coming here will encourage people to travel overseas the Blue Light Special responded.

No, the only things this place encourages are eating and shopping.



The Blue Light Special didn't disagree once we reached Germany. I offered to pay for the $26 prix fix lunch buffet even though I feared he would piss me off by complaining about the quality of food or its authenticity. Fortunately, he refused. After he made all the cuckoo clocks chime in the kitschy sales shop, I took his picture in a village square that was the architectural equivalent of a mash up: a little Bavaria here, a little Berlin there.



Unlike the other countries, Norway actually had an attraction. The Maelstrom was a Viking take on Pirates of the Caribbean. Once again, we were deposited into a store selling theme-merchandise, including a marked-down winter jacket that I might have bought if I weren't unemployed. Then, to my further delight, we found a cafe selling reasonably priced sandwiches and pastries. For a little more than $10 we shared a salmon and hardboiled egg sandwich, and a sweet pretzel with almonds. Hooray for Norway!



By now it was nearly time to soar but first I erupted at the Blue Light Special when he told me to follow him yet again after dragging me into the Mexico pavilion where a mariachi band played. I find kazoos more melodious.

Why do we always have to do only what you want to do, when you want to do it? Twice now since we've been here, you've refused to take a look at something I wanted to see. Who put you in charge?

I'm only suggesting a short cut he said without expression.

I let him walk far ahead of me. Thankfully Soarin' elevated my mood. We were seated in a ferris-wheel like car that revolved and swung back and forth while images of the California landscape were projected on the Imax screen in front of us. Only the feet dangling from the row of seats above spoiled the illusion of soaring above Death Valley, the Golden Gate Bridge, Palm Springs and other major West Coast landmarks and sightseeing attractions. The tour ended--where else?--at Disneyland during the fireworks display that had been branded into my childhood consciousness and boosted by Sunday night repetitions during The Wonderful World of Disney.

On our way out, I reminded the Blue Light Special that he had agreed to visit Living with the Land. The line, as he had predicted, was much shorter than it had been during the lunch swell, and we quickly boarded boats for an attraction that neither of us knew anything about. For nearly 20 minutes we floated through gardens of hydroponically grown produce and tanks of farmed fish. Although a few pumpkins grew, incredibly, in the shape of mouse ears, the explicit educational component--and somewhat dubious assertion that the food was used in Epcot restaurants--led me to suspect it was a remnant of Disney's original vision for Epcot.

Living with the Land began in the dark and the Blue Light Special put his arm around me. But when we floated into an illuminated area, he didn't remove it. I didn't say anything even though it made me uncomfortable. It also made we wonder what was up with these sudden displays of public affection in the mecca of family values. I might have been able to take them at face value if I hadn't remembered how he had reacted during our first movie date, when I put my arm around the back of his seat at a crowded movie theatre on the Upper West Side.

What are you doing? he said, recoiling.

Once burned, twice shy as they say. After Sideways, I never tried again. Perhaps his strategy has shifted now that he realizes that companionship and affection rather than sex are the things I value most in our relationship. If so, his gestures would mean a lot more in a gay environment where their cost to him--the perception of being "off the market"--would be much greater.

Joining the testosterone-heavy Mission Space Orange Team didn't permit any displays of affection but it did significantly reduce our wait to hear flight instructions from Gary Sinise, another fish-out-of-water celebrity. The line for the Green Team, for the faint of heart or at least people who were more susceptible to motion sickness, was twice as long.



The Blue Light Special seemed a bit shaken by the simulated blast off of a rocket ship, zero gravity, a hard landing on Mars and atmosphere re-entry. I was just relieved that I had managed to follow our fool-proof flight instructions during our seven-minute flight and press the flashing red button when, as engineer, I was told to do so by mission control.

What more appropriate place to use a Fast Pass than Test Track? Like most of the major attractions at Epcot, it had a corporate co-sponsor, General Motors in this case. Before actually climbing into our prototype convertible, a GM representative rather than a celebrity, explained each of the tests that the company routinely administers before introducing a new model. Test Drive climaxes in a speed test when the very low-to-the-ground vehicle reaches more than 65 mph on a banked track. It felt like we were going a hell of a lot faster than when we had been driving almost 90 mph on the Florida Turnpike.

Around 5 p.m. Ellen DeGeneres trapped us in the Universe of Energy, a labored attempt at education that lasted 37 minutes and included a lame dream sequence. We both were able to catnap as we sat on a floor stage that moved between dinosaur animatronics and a triptych of screens featuring two Jeopardy contestants besides Ellen: Jamie Lee Curtis, playing a high achieving classmate of Ellen's and an Albert Einstein lookalike who never pushed his buzzer once despite his reputed knowledge in each of the categories.

Slightly refreshed and more than a little relieved that our theme park marathon was finally drawing to a close, we headed to our final stop: Spaceship Earth, the huge globe attached to the now illuminated Epcot sign which looked lovely in the twilight. Stupid me--just as I hadn't realized there was anything inside Cinderella's Castle at the Magic Kingdom until the Blue Light Special insisted there must be, I wouldn't have known that Siemens had sponsored a communications exhibit in the guts of what looked more like a golf planet than our home planet.

We stepped into yet another moving car without having to wait even a minute and soon began a slow ascent. It took us from the caveman's first use of language to teens in the U.S. and Japan instant messaging each other from their bedrooms. I wondered what communications advances in the 90s had displaced from the original animatronic timeline.



Spaceship Earth also raised a question that had been bothering me all day: what does Epcot mean? None of the several cast members we asked could answer, though one did tell us that he had been instructed to say he didn't know because it would raise too many other questions. Finally a photographer told us that EPCOT is an acronym for Experimental Prototypical Community of Tomorrow.

It was supposed to be a completely self-contained community where people lived and worked and produced all their own food, but after Disney died the whole concept changed he explained. Yeah, I thought, capitalism transformed utopia into a branded money-sucking machine leaving all who entered Empty-Pocketed Citizens of Tomorrow.

We finally left the park at 7 p.m., two hours later than we had planned, too tired to begin our journey south as the Blue Light Special would have preferred. Instead we picked up our already loaded Beetle from the resort parking lot and drove straight to Joe's Crab Shack. Say what you want about restaurant chains, it was the tastiest meal of the trip and ended with a slice of key lime pie better than the one we had at the Blond Giraffe. The too-friendly waitress took a shine to the Blue Light Special when she discovered he was from Chicago.

We must look funny in our Milwaukee t-shirts, huh? he asked when she left the table. Maybe they think we're cheeseheads.

I prefer theme dressing to public displays of affection. He wore green and I wore blue.

The waitress had told us where we could find a decent motel for $75. We did even better at the Rodeway Inn, just across the street. For $49 we got a lot more than we had at Disneyworld albeit without mouse ear towels on the cheap, sateen bedspreads.

Which one do you want? asked the Blue Light Special.

Aren't we sleeping together?

Why should we when I can have my own bed? he answered.

So much for the cuddling that had been the only evidence of a something more than a subsidized friendship. He actually fell asleep before I did even though we had planned to check out the gay nightlife in Orlando.