Cast Member Confidential:. Chris Mitchell

a simple matter of being let go from Disney. If a Cast Member gets fired from the Kingdom, there’s a chance she or he may never be allowed to visit the park again. Disney reserves the right to prosecute that person to the full extent of the law as a trespasser. In other words, you could be banished from Eden.”

      I’ve never been a fan of team sports—the sweaty male bonding, the common goal of victory over another group in different color jerseys, or the locker rooms. Which is not to say I didn’t try: Little League, AYSO, flag football, Red Rover. I participated in everything, dutifully lining up on one desiccated field after another with a bunch of kids in the same color shirt. That’s what I hated first about team activities—the ridiculous costumes that defined the tribes. But I quickly learned to despise the Rules of the Game even more. That was what first attracted me to skating: the total lack of structure meant I could participate any way I wanted. From the moment I got out of bed, I could be on my skates: out the front door and down the steps, up the driveway and onto the street. When the street got boring, I could move to the sidewalk with its never-ending obstacle course of pedestrians and baby strollers and dog shit. I made my own Rules. I wore my own uniform. It was the same feeling with surfing and skiing and later snowboarding—activities that empowered a person to blaze a unique trail through a constantly evolving landscape.

      When I graduated high school, my brother Michael gave me a copy of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It was like a fuel dump beneath my teenage bonfire. Here, at last, was adult justification for my rebellious angst, an ethos that celebrated my individuality as a philosophical given (as opposed to organized religion that subjugated the individual impulses using tools like sing-alongs and vigils and, yes, even costumes). Atlas Shrugged, in general, and John Galt, in particular, was all the justification I needed to devote my life to the one thing I truly cared about: skating.

      This decision was not popular with my father, a principled man of sensibility and reason who grew up during the Depression. But my mom made a successful appeal on my behalf to allow me to pursue my dream with the compromise that it would not disrupt my education. By my sophomore year in college, I had my first skate sponsor. By the time I could legally drink in the States, I had traveled to sixteen different countries on four continents as a pro rider.

      My first tag was GALT. I’d paint it on walls in every city I visited, customized with a Celtic T and four circles that represented the wheels beneath my feet. I was fiercely loyal to the principles of individuality, vigilant against the comforts of polite society and anything that could be summed up with “-ism.” When I was twenty-two, I bought my first camera and started a skate zine. This was back when print was still relevant, and it thrilled me to get letters from places I’d never heard of, to know that there was a global community of individuals devoted to the same principles I advocated. I imagined a secret society just like the one in Atlas Shrugged, made up of people who eschewed the Rules in favor of something better. This invisible web of independent thinkers replaced the Disney Dream as my idealistic vision of the future.

      I left the park that day feeling as if I’d just finished cramming for a final exam. What had, at first, seemed like a whole lot of inane regulations was, in fact, a corporate lifestyle that bordered on autocratic fascism. It’s no secret that the most restrictive societies in the world germinate the most vituperative rebellion. The despotic regions of the Middle and Far East produce the choicest heroin; an abnormally high percentage of diagnosed sociopaths have a military history; and everybody knows Catholic schoolgirls are the most mischievous adolescents on the planet.

      The Disney Rule Book was a manifesto of totalitarianism, a recipe for deviance as certain as the countdown of a live hand grenade. It was everything I had fought against, all the principles that opposed my John Galt ideal of freethinking and counterculture individuality. But there was something glorious about it too, the genetic code of a seed that had been dormant inside me since my teenage rebellion. Accepting Disney in my heart meant surrendering myself to a beautiful truth that was far more seductive than my philosophy of earnest insurgency. Like the supernatural suck of an undertow or gravity’s insistent tug, I could sense an irresistible comfort in Disney’s unyielding order. The holy spirit of Walt was offering me a big, furry bear hug, and I was rushing to his bosom.

      I Wan’na Be Like You

      The most memorable Disney stories involve an ordinary person becoming part of a magical world. This is usually achieved through the assistance of a “magic broker” of sorts, a being who identifies the regular girl or boy as special, and somehow worthy of something more, and so blesses her or him with magical ability. Pinnochio had the Blue Fairy. Cinderella had her Fairy Godmother. Aladdin rubbed a lamp and brought forth the Genie. In The Little Mermaid, Disney reversed the formula and introduced a magical creature to the real world using an evil squid queen as the broker. The concept of a magic broker is a marvelous one, but ultimately dangerous. Anyone who believes a puppet can become a freethinking boy with the wave of a wand or a girl can find her prince if only she has the right accessories will have no problem marching off to fight an unwinnable war or going under the knife for questionable cosmetic surgery or toasting a glass of cyanide-laced Flavor Aid and stretching out to wait.

      The night was still young and I wanted to test-drive my new look, so I drove over to Pleasure Island where, Orville had assured me with Red Bull–edged enthusiasm, I’d have a sizzling time. “You’ll love it,” had been his exact words. “Jazz, comedy, live bands, beautiful girls…or alternative lifestyle. There’s a little something for everyone.”

      Pleasure Island turned out to be a series of bars, a theme park for adults where every drinking hole had its own identity. In addition to Orville’s suggestions, there was Technoland, Discoland, and Two-Guys-Singing-Funny-Songs-on-a-Pianoland, each theme reinforced by interior design and costumed bartenders. The best part was, you didn’t have to commit to any one theme. For a simple cover charge, you were 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