Carl Hiaasen Read Online Free PDF Page B

woods and capturing my own ring-tailed varmint, but shortly after college I acquired one. Picture the scene in a small two-bedroom apartment: father, mother, one three-year-old toddler, and one wild raccoon. An absolutely adorable critter, as advertised, until the day it rebelled against the mildest of discipline, climbed up on my portable Smith-Corona, and (in a gesture that transcended mischief) took a long hard piss.
    The pathetic truth is that, like millions of others, I’d succumbed to the spell of Disney make-believe. Real raccoons don’t behave like movie raccoons, any more than real dogs behave like movie dogs.
    As cynically as one might appraise Eisner’s cornball letter to Disney stockholders, no evidence suggests he was unmoved by later news reports about all the homeless and neglected puppies generated by
101 Dalmatians
. Even before the film opened, the company publicly had tried to warn people against impulsively rushing out to a pet shop.
    It was money that would have been more wisely spent on a fluffy toy dalmatian at a Disney Store, not that Insane Clown Michael was thinking along such mercenary lines. In fairness, he didn’t invent Disney’s overpowering brand of make-believe. He simply took it worldwide.

Fantasy Fantasy Island

    I N A FEW MONTHS , an eighty-five-thousand-ton ocean liner will be launched from a shipyard in Marghera, Italy. The ship is decorated like no other of its kind. Etched into the steep prow is a portrait of that renowned mariner, Mickey Mouse. At the other end: a fifteen-foot likeness of Goofy, swinging from a boatswain’s chair while pretending to paint the stern. The ship’s horn is specially tuned to play “When You Wish upon a Star.”
    The name of this extraordinary vessel is
Disney Magic
, Team Rodent’s maiden venture into the lucrative cruise-line trade. Carrying twenty-four hundred passengers (most of whom have spent the preceding days at Disney World), the ship will serve as both a floating extension of the Orlandotheme park and a marketing barge. Nightclubs, theaters, swimming pools, and spas will offer no refuge from Magic Kingdom characters; in one restaurant, “live” walls will display Disney art evolving from sketch to full animation.
    Even the lifeboats will be tricked out—painted bright yellow and styled to match the old vessels depicted in
Steamboat Willie
. Undoubtedly the workmanship will be top-notch and authentic-looking, but imagine yourself far out at sea aboard a sinking ocean liner. Would your first choice of a rescue vessel be a lifeboat whose design was inspired by a 1928 cartoon?
    The
Disney Magic
will leave Port Canaveral for three-or four-day excursions to Nassau and Castaway Cay, billed as the company’s “private Bahamian island.” Here passengers will debark and frolic in a manicured tropical setting, with separate beaches provided for kids, families, and adults (Disney is hoping for a big newlywed trade).
    While other cruise lines have purchased small Bahamian islands as quickie stopovers, not many can boast the lively history of Disney’s—a history the company is unlikely to share with its seagoing passengers. “Castaway Cay” is the newly Imagineered name for the island, but locals know it as Gorda Cay. It was a very busy place in the 1970sand 1980s, the main draw being a secluded and unpatrolled airfield, upon which many tons of marijuana, Quaaludes, and cocaine were landed en route to the U.S. mainland.
    During that era Gorda Cay fell under the control of an American smuggler named Frank Barber, who ferried the dope up from Colombia and used the island for storage and refueling. Later the stuff was flown to small landing strips in south Florida, a nocturnal enterprise that owed much of its success to Barber’s recruitment and bribery of a U.S. drug enforcement agent named Jeffrey Scharlatt. Both men wound up in prison. Shortly after their operation was exposed, a Commission of Inquiry convened in Nassau to investigate drug