MISCmedia for 12/7/99
The Animatronic Bill

ST. PETER TO GENE RAYBURN: "If I'd known you were coming I'd have prepared your (blank)."

YESTERDAY, we reported about Kentucky developers' plans to build a 100-acre "Great Northwest" theme park south of Tacoma. They claim it will "highlight the 'rugged outdoors' elements of the Northwest, as well as its history."

Today, we continue our imagined trek through what we think an NW-themed tourist attraction ought to be.

Having already witnessed Seasonal-affective-disorderland, Clearcutland, and Sprawlland, you move on (very, very slowly) in your SUV-replica tram car on the Ex-Country Road Traffic Jam Ride, on your way to your next destination--

• Gatesland. After the long Traffic Jam Ride, the kids will rush for the chance to stretch their legs and run through the Office Cubicle Maze.

  The grownups, meanwhile, will be corralled into a cavernous meeting room to hear the Animatronic Bill robot (surrounded, as always, by a dozen animatronic yes-men) either (1) praise his legacy of innovation, or (2) map strategies for "embracing" other companies' ideas and running said companies out of business.

  A short corridor leads into the next meeting room, also known as--

• Processland. You're now watching a two-part dramatized farce. A panel of animatronic city bureaucrats sit with the stoicism of London palace guards while animatronic activists rant on and on (via electronically speeded-up voices) about assorted social ills. Suddenly, two human actors (playing the only characters in the piece the producers choose to depict as human) rush on stage, demanding hefty municipal subsidies for a new upscale-caviar store. At once, the bureaucrat robots spring to "life," shuffle some papers, and promptly approve the proposal on a voice vote.

  The victorious upscale couple invites everyone in the audience to come celebrate this important victory for the city's future, and leads everyone off toward--

• Condoland. Nosh at the Gourmet Hummus Snack Bar. Partake of the finest no-host beverages. Eavesdrop on upscale costume characters chattering about what a crime it is for government to dare interfere with business, and why citizens who don't support caviar-store subsidies are lacking the will to greatness.

  In the corner of your eye, you spot a pair of nose-ringed beverage servers walking down a hidden passageway. You follow them down what seem like 10 flights' worth of stairs to--

• Boholand. You can see the faint remnants of a painted-over "Grungeland" sign at the entrance; next to the sign announcing the area's new name.

  You can also see people you've run into earlier today. Previously, they were ride operators, tour ushers, and snack-counter servers. Now, they're dressed in art smocks, Beatnik-chick black sweaters, ballet tights, leather G-strings, BSA-logo biker jackets, or drag gowns. They invite you to share their Triscuit-based hors d'oeuvres and wine-in-a-box, while they explain to you how everything in Boholand used to completely suck, but now it all completely sucks in totally different ways.

  As your eyes adjust to the dim lights, you can see signs posted around the black-painted room. The signs announce that various corners have been condemned for an expanded Condoland. Eventually, you also see a sign that promises "Only Way Out." It turns out to be a short cut back to Seasonal-affective-disorderland.

  It's not that you can't leave the park, but that you're not supposed to ever want to.

(Suggest your own surefire tourist-attractors at our gregarious MISCtalk discussion boards.)

TOMORROW: Imagining life after Microsoft.

ELSEWHERE:

• This story gets it a bit wrong. The culture-monopoly issue isn't really the U.S. vs. the rest of the world, it's Hollywood and Madison Avenue vs. the rest of the world, including the rest of the U.S....
• "The more you play with them, the more they learn." (found by Grouse)....

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• The first part of our visit to an imagined Northwest theme park. <
• Parts one, two, three, and four of our WTO protest post-mortem; a list of WTO-protest links; and the earlier preview piece.
• The "new secessionists" somehow think business still has too little power vs. government.
• The new Coldwater Creek store sells the fantasy of living on the land but not off it; while the new Ballard Fred Meyer hypermarket tries to look like the steel plant it replaced.
• Parts one, two, and three of a look back at Ed Bellamy's Looking Backward, which promised that by now we'd have complete socio-economic equality but not computers.
• Imagining a newspaper for the Net age.
• Some of today's more perverse, ephemeral "art forms."
• I still kvetch about arrogant San Francisco; but is Seattle now no better?
• Wacky emails received here lately, plus other fun short stuff.
• Can you tell me how to get to Coronation Street?
• Guys who fight aren't necessarily copying Fight Club.
• The history of trying to get away from it all.
• Does postmodern fiction trash old hierarchies or just build new ones; can't we just get past PoMo yet; and can we imagine a more proactive future?

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