Carl Hiaasen Read Online Free PDF Page A

breathtaking drama is unfolding within stalking distance of Adventureland. A full-grown African lioness has escaped from a roadside zoo called JungleLand, on State Road 192. Also known as the Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway, it’s one of Florida’s all-time unsightliest thoroughfares, crammed with T-shirt shops, fast-food joints,cut-rate car rental lots, bargain motels, and souvenir kiosks. The road looks like this for one reason: It’s on the way to Disney World.
    The escaped cat is called Nala, named (predictably) after a lioness character in Disney’s animated blockbuster
The Lion King
. The real-life Nala has vanished into a stretch of heavy woods off 192, not far from an International House of Pancakes. Teams of armed searchers and wildlife officers are trying to track the animal, while journalists from all over the world cluster in safety along the shoulder of the highway. Even the major TV networks are keeping tabs on the slapdash safari. Like other Florida newspapers, the
Miami Herald
has published a locator map showing the estimated proximity of the fugitive lioness to the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and the Disney-MGM Studios. Presumably this information will help tourists weigh the risk of a visit and plan their routes accordingly. Indeed, much of the news coverage deals with speculation that the big cat is making her way toward Disney property.
    Sweet Jesus, just imagine: the hot-blooded 450-pound namesake of a Disney cartoon lion, bounding down Main Street U.S.A. (perhaps during the nightly SpectroMagic Parade!) and with one lightning swipe of a paw taking downGoofy or Pluto, or maybe one of those frigging chipmunks. A harrowing primal eruption—and Disney could blame no one but itself!
    Because Nala wouldn’t be loose in Orlando if there was no JungleLand, and there would be no JungleLand if there was no Walt Disney World.
    So the escaped lioness has a secret fan club that believes a split second of raw predation might be good for Team Rodent’s soul. And while it is being widely reported that the big cat is declawed, I choose not to believe it.
    Forgive us our fantasies.

The Puppy King

    I N DECEMBER 1997 DISNEY chairman Michael D. Eisner exercised company stock options that brought him $565 million in a single swoop. The notion of attaching such a sum to one man’s job is both obscene and hilarious on its face, yet it’s pointless to debate whether or not Eisner deserves it. He got the dough.
    It happened in the same month that
Business Week
chose Disney’s board of directors as the worst in America. The reason: Many seemed to have been handpicked not so much for their business expertise as for their loyalty to the autocratic Eisner. Among the company’s directors are his personal architect, his personal attorney, the principal of his children’s elementary school, and sevencurrent and former Disney executives. “Fantastic” is how Eisner has described his choices for the board, but critics say it’s a meek and malleable group. That’s precisely what was needed to sit still for the ludicrous $75 million platinum parachute given to Michael Ovitz as compensation for fourteen whole months as president of the Walt Disney Company. Hiring the Hollywood super-agent had been Eisner’s idea, but the decision to part was said to be mutual. Eisner is so hyperactively involved with Team Rodent’s many enterprises that Ovitz had been left with not enough to do.
    As exorbitant as the mistake turned out to be, Disney could easily afford it. The company has experienced astounding growth in the fourteen years since Insane Clown Michael’s arrival, and he’s not shy about rattling off all the new ventures: radio and TV stations, cable systems, newspapers, books, home video, theatrical productions, computer games and programs, professional sports teams, and of course Times Square. Of all the new endeavors, the most expensive and ambitious was the acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC and its affiliated broadcast