The Disney Parks Live-Entertainment Bracket -- Round Four, Day Three

What a week/month/year.

A handful of years ago, there was this co-worker at my day job. She was/is right around my age, and for a good chunk of the time in which we worked together (close to a year, if not more than a year), she would mention with no uncertain amount of excitement and glee that she was on the waiting list to get a Tesla.

It took me a couple weeks to realize that she was on the waiting list to not just own a Tesla, but she had to wait to even pre-order one. She was, essentially, on the waiting list to be on the real waiting list. As time passed, her place on the first waiting list was such that she was on the actual waiting list, and eventually forked over a very large amount of money to own a Tesla. She was so giddy when she actually got the thing that she drove it to work and invited me and a few others to sit in the car for a couple minutes.

What I remember most about the experience of sitting in the car for a minute — I want to say in the driver’s seat, since it was just in the parking lot — was being perplexed at the central console being replaced by an oversized iPad screen. I am far from a car guy, but it was aesthetically displeasing, especially considering how many tens of thousands of dollars the car must have cost. At that time, my fixed image of Elon Musk, such as it was (not like I spent a good deal of time thinking about him then), was that of a very effective huckster who managed to fool a lot of people into buying a slick-looking car on the outside that looked a lot less impressive on the inside.

Around this same time, I would invariably buy lunch at one of a handful of nearby restaurants to my office in the Phoenix metro area. One such fast-food-ish restaurant was Jimmy Johns. It was quick, the food tasted good, and it allowed me to fool myself into thinking I was getting something healthier than a burger or tacos or whatever. I didn’t eat at Jimmy Johns every day, but I ate there enough. One day, I read a story online much like this one, talking about how its CEO has hunted big-game animals in Africa.

Now, I am (relatively speaking) a realist. When I read the story, I thought, “Well, I’m not going to Jimmy Johns anymore.” (And that was about five or six years ago, and I have been true to my word.) I have no doubt that Jimmy Johns is doing just fine, and I also have no doubt that many other CEOs, whether they’re in the world of food, technology, automotives, etc., do things like big-game hunting that I would find particularly gross or odious. The difference is that, in many cases, they don’t make it public knowledge.

I keep thinking about that old co-worker of mine and also of Jimmy Johns, especially in the last week when we are presented with a very rich man who spent a lot of money to own a social network and is now systematically dismantling it so it only features people who tell him how super-cool and not at all pathetic he is, and everyone else can go kick rocks. I have no doubt that other CEOs are, or can be, venal and selfish and self-interested.

Rarely are they ever so public about it.

Anyway. Did you know you can find me on Mastodon and/or Letterboxd? (I’m technically on Post, too, but I have not been using it much at all.)

Let’s get to the vote.

(1) Fantasmic (WDW) vs. (2) SpectroMagic: What can I tell you, folks? On the one hand, I am a fan of chaos in non-important scenarios, and this right here? A non-important scenario in which chaos can be sown. It’s not terribly chaotic to send a one-seed to the Final Four, but the tiny part of me that wants the finale to be two different versions of the same show facing off against each other is curious about sending the Orlando version of Fantasmic ahead.

But Disney is all about trafficking in nostalgia. Nostalgia is the throbbing heart of the Walt Disney Company, no matter how many Bobs may be its temporary leaders. And the nostalgia I hold in my own throbbing heart for SpectroMagic, a nighttime show that glowed away in 2010 at the Magic Kingdom, is such that I cannot say goodbye to it just yet. The music and the shimmering lights have burrowed deep in my brain for many a moon. The memory I hold of seeing this show on my honeymoon is also something I won’t soon forget. So while Fantasmic may reign victorious again, I’m pulling for SpectroMagic.

How about you?