Chris Mitchell by Cast Member Confidential: A Disneyfied Memoir Read Free Book Online

allowed access to every dance floor on the property.
    I couldn’t believe the indecency: pop music, racy dancers, and wide screens projecting Ricky Martin videos. Bright colors smeared across the horizon: electric Midori shots sparkling down glowing blue ice blocks, dark Brazilian girls in raspberry miniskirts with warm butterscotch eyes. I wove through a carnival of sensations, anticipation crackling in the air around me like a Rice Krispie Treat. Pleasure Island was naughty and tantalizing, but somehow still came off as steadfastly wholesome. How did Disney achieve such a sexually charged atmosphere and still maintain a G rating?
    Walking into this social atmosphere without my jewelry and hair felt awkward, like window-shopping in scuba gear. As I wandered from bar to bar, I struggled to understand how I could fit in at Disney World. Back in LA, I had been certain of my identity: a counterculture, atheist anarchist who sat in the VIP room sneering at how affected everyone around me was. It may not have been entirely consistent , but it was comfortable. At Disney however, I had no frame of reference. I was an animated wooden boy caught between two realities, not quite the creature I had been, but nowhere near the one I would become.
    Eventually, I settled on the Beach Club, a live music venue decorated with surfboards and beach paraphernalia. The place was packed with groups of tourists: college grads in mall brand T-shirts, convention attendees drinking imported beer and slam dancing as if it were still relevant, and a retinue of goths, sipping pink cocktails. I scanned the cliques, hoping for some kind of connection, an anchor point to make myself less irrelevant among the throng of drunk strangers, then gave up and went to the bar. I bought a Corona and sat down on a stool where I could watch the chino-clad convention groups mosh to the band’s rendition of “Mony Mony.”
    “I hate it when they change the lyrics!” the guy next to me shouted over the music. “Don’t you?”
    “I never understood the lyrics in the first place,” I shouted back.
    He was a rumpled Columbo-looking man, somewhere in his thirties. He smelled like gin. “They’re supposed to hold out the microphone so the audience can sing, ‘Hey Motherfucker! Get laid! Get fucked!’ But since this is Disney property, they’re not allowed.”
    So that explained it. Pleasure Island was sexy, but not sexual . Provocative, but not so much that it could be considered lewd or lascivious. It was just another variation on a classic Disney theme. They took you up to a certain point and then left the rest up to your imagination.
    “Name’s Brady,” he slurred, extending a hand. “Do me a favor and watch my drink while I go take a piss.” He fell off his barstool, picked himself up, and then stumbled to the bathroom. Sipping my Corona, I tried to relax into the atmosphere. I was a Cast Member now. I had the haircut and a nametag; I knew how to point with two fingers and smile on cue (sort of). All I had to do was catch the Magic and ride it in. But something wasn’t clicking.
    Brady returned with a new drink in his hand, which he set down behind his original cocktail with enormous concentration. As he maneuvered back onto the stool, I noticed he was favoring one leg.
    “You okay?” I asked.
    “What, you mean my pimp walk? That’s nothing. Old battle scar, that’s all.” He tossed back his first drink and picked up the second. “To tell the truth, it makes for some real authentic show, if you know what I mean, a nice nuance for the performance.”
    I stifled a yawn, and scanned the room. “So you’re in production.” In LA, this line was the basic starter of any bar conversation; either you were in the Industry or you were aspiring. There were six versions of the Hollywood dream, and I’d heard them all.
    Brady looked over his shoulder like he was checking for spies, then leaned close. “I’m a friend of fur,” he whispered. “Mike