TRAGIC
MORNING......and King of the Corn
We landed at John Wayne International Airport, where we were
greeted by the biggest collection of freaks outside the Special
Olympics. There was the Elephant Man and PanchO-E-PanchO. There
was also King of the Corn, my mom’s friend Judy’s
husband. And let’s not forget the woman holding a sign that
said, “So who’s in?” I saw her hugging the
Elephant Man. King of the Corn and Judy followed us to the
baggage claim, then to the gigantic John Wayne statue that
I’m sure Cary still fantasizes about. We got our rental car
(which was 10 times nicer than our real car), then spent about an
hour getting lost on the freeway to Anaheim.
We finally found our motel, the Anaheim Apollo. King of the
Corn and Judy were waiting there for us. They eventually left and
we all went down to the hot tub (California or not, it was too
cold for the pool). However, just as Brady always gets the
windowseat and I get the last of everything, Cary has a
gravitational pull towards water. He bumbled into the pool on
accident. Later, we went up to our room to rest and watch an
“I Love Lucy” marathon. That probably marked the
beginning of Brady’s now famous hatred of Lucille Ball.
King of the Corn and Judy were going to take us to the
Medieval Times dinner show. We all got ready: Brady gelled his
hair again, and Jerry put mascara in his mustache because
everyone down in Redondo was doing it. I found the first of my
now infamous Monster Dandruff.
8:00 pm
Medieval Times sucked. We had to wait forever to get in, and
they made us wear stupid paper crowns. The only cool part was the
torture chamber. The food was bad: the soup looked like diarrhea,
the meat looked ready to get up and walk away. All we did was
watch a bunch of long-haired metal band rejects prance around on
horses. We were supposed to cheer for the villainous green
knight. I had to sit next to Jerry as he chanted, “Green!
Green! Green! Green! Green! Green!” over and over,
accompanied by a “yayyyyy!” or two.
We did not
get back to our room until very late.
Tragic Morning
Saturday, November 27, 1993
We had to get
up very very early to pile onto a shuttle bound for Disneyland.
On the way there, I had a very strange feeling. Once we were
there and got out of the shuttle, I knew what it was. I took off
running, made it about 20 feet or so, then hurled a couple of
times. That done, I felt much better. We had paid extra to have a
Magic Morning (meaning we and 300 other people got in early and
had a free breakfast). Mom and Brady bounced through the
turnstiles, followed by Cary and I. Jerry was behind us
somewheres.
We walked through the crow infested Main Street USA to the
train, which would take us to Tomorrowland. Inside the train
station, Mom remarked that this was where it all started. Someone
needs to tell her that Disneyland wasn’t built around a
pre-existing railroad, especially one that goes in circles. On
the train, that funny feeling came back. It could’ve been
the guide’s corny jokes, but I was pretty sure it was my flu
coming back. When we passed Toontown, Jerry and most of the
people on the train sounded almost orgasmic. We reached
Tomorrowland and I puked the minute we got off the train.
Brady bought a Goofy hat, which remained welded to his head
for the next week. Characters were lurking everywhere- well
knowns like Tigger and Genie and nobodies like Don Karnage. We
had our free breakfast then went on our first ride, Matterhorn
Mountain. Soon we were zooming through the mountain, which is
home to the Abominable Snowman (which scared the living piss out
of Cary). The air was filled with Mom and Jerry’s demented
screams and Brady saying hi to everything we passed. We liked it
so much, we went on it twice in a row.
We found ourselves wandering into the zany mayhem that is
Toontown. Jerry was more excited by the “fuzzy look” of
the buildings there than he was when he became a grandpa.
Toontown is a strange, backwards place: irritating cartoon music
on an endless loop, too many sight gags to mention, and a Jolly
Trolley whose occupants never looked very jolly. It was new at
the time, so there was fanny-pack clad tourists all over. Mom
must’ve forgotten my age, cause she couldn’t understand
why I didn’t want my picture taken with Minnie. I swear to
God I saw Roseanne in the crowd, calling her husband. Problem is,
she was calling “Dan!” and her real husband’s name
was Tom something. 
My biggest problem was that Toontown is prejudiced against anyone
not in grade school. Thus, there are way too many screaming
children there. It’s just a big den of inequity. We got to
go through Mickey’s House, which was pretty cool. Once. In
order to meet the big rodent, one must wander through his movie
barn a.ka. waiting area full of kooky stuff to look at while you
wait. We got to meet him and have a picture taken. When we got it
back, my eyes were closed. I don’t know, the idea of meeting
Mickey is much less thrilling at 14 then at 4. 
We also toured
Minnie’s house and Jerry asked Minnie why she didn’t
live with Mickey. A better question would’ve been just what
is Goofy supposed to be? Minnie’s kitchen was a clattering
collection of cute cheese products (but they stole my idea for
Cheezanaise). I think Ragu ended up doing something with that a
few years later. All 3 of us kids were attacked by some psycho
dressed up as Gadget from Rescue Rangers. She stole Brady’s
hat, blinded Cary, and came onto me. Crazy mouse bitch. But even
she wasn’t as bad as the woman going around screaming,
“JJ! JJ!” 
We fled Toontown and wisely did not return for the
duration of our trip. After all that, we returned to Tomorrowland
to go on Space Mountain. I don’t have much to say about it
besides that it was awesome. Then there was Star Tours, a
monumental letdown. We had to meet up with Jerry’s friends,
Donny and Susie. Brady called them the Bright Eyes Duo, probably
because they both tended to stare. With them, we saw Captain EO.
This was a few weeks before the Gloved One went on TV to tell us
that they probed and photographed his genitals. We did the Jungle
Cruise thing, probably the phoniest bologni-est ride in the
entire park. 
We
went on two of the best, Pirates of the Carribean and the Haunted
Mansion. Pirates has great atmosphere, and gives you a good
chance to rest because it goes on forever. The Haunted Mansion is
really creepy- until you get into your so-called “doom
buggy” and the ride gets all slap happy. They need to make
it alot scarier. At the end, a ghost hitched a ride home with me.
It was the fat one. I always get the fat one. We left Disneyland
and went to the Godfathers Pizza next to our motel. By now, my
flu was gone and now Brady was sick. I got the pizza buffet:
there was a table with all kinds of pizzas on it. The dessert
pizza was delicious.
After a few hours of napping at the motel, we rode the
Monorail back in. By now, it was dark and all the Christmas
lights were turned on. We went to Fantasyland and walked through
the inside of the Sleeping Beauty Castle. That’s where they
have the Sleeping Beauty dioramas. It’s a bunch of miniature
robots re-enacting the well-known fairy tale. When I was in third
grade, I thought it was awesome. The magic was gone, though, when
I realized Princess Aurora was following a blinking cotton ball
up the stairs to the ‘pinning wheel. If I wanted that,
I’d go to Enchanted Forest.
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