Flashback Friday: Sympathy for Generation Z, They Will Never Experience Disney's Pleasure Island

Disney is proudly family-friendly. It doesn't do, "Adult," all that much. However, there was a period of time from 1989 through 2008 when one could visit, "Pleasure Island," in Florida. Despite the name, it wasn't particularly explicit in its pleasure. It was simply geared towards grown-ups with nice restaurants, dance clubs, a comedy club, a cigar bar, and the like. I visited Pleasure Island two nights, back in July of 2007 when I was a young rapscallion all of 19. I'd concluded my Freshman year of college, and I had gone to Florida with my mother, who was down there for a convention relating to audiology/speechpathology or such. It was on the Disney property, and family of attendees could visit the park while everyone else did convention sessions. She was at that much of the day and spent time with her family who lived in Florida in the evenings. I tagged along so that during my day I could visit all the parks, ride a bunch of rides, get autographs from the various mascots for kicks (it is humorous watching a gigantic Winnie the Pooh hand try to scrawl in a little autograph book), and on the Friday and Saturday nights we stayed at Disney, I took the bus from the hotel (The Pop Century one was cool!) to Pleasure Island. I know people say nostalgia gives us rose-tinted glasses and some things people think were great actually sucked. That said, ya'll, Pleasure Island was an awesome place.

Again, I know when we see those thinkpieces/memes/whatever by Boomers (and some GenX) about how great it was to flip through a phonebook or deal with a VCR eating a VHS tape and making a mess, we roll our eyes at how they can't appreciate the cool new stuff of today. Pleasure Island has been gone nearly 18 years, having shut down the aspects that made it, "Pleasure Island," on September 27th of 2008 (it is now The Landing and host to various all-ages-friendly shopping and food establishments). It is a bummer, as this was a really cool place in the past! Picture a city block or so worth of land, with people moving between various themed businesses, all having a fun time. Thanks to how this was still a Disney property, anyone rude/beligerent was escorted off the, "Island," and that didn't even seem to be much of an issue with most folks there being on vacation; the vibe was like one big party. 

As I was merely 19, certain clubs generally only allowed those 18-20 in on certain days. Yes, the comedy club and cigar bar were always available (I enjoyed a comedy show, but I've never been a fan of any kind of tobacco), but sometimes you want to dance! That said, on Saturday, I was admitted into the BET Soundstage club even though, that night, it was advertised for those 21 or older. I honestly think the doorman was so impressed with our five-minute or so conversation about the Wu Tang Clan and how Ol' Dirty Bastard was underrated as a lyricist that he figured I couldn't be too young. So there I was, in a two-story club with massive dancefloors for an hour or so before the club closed. It was so fun to dance, take in the atmosphere, and just marvel at how cool Pleasure Island was, with the snazzy places within it. You may agree this sounds exciting or be shrugging in disinterest; either way, you just had to be there.

I never made it to any of the other Disney Clubs, even though I would have loved to visit 8TRAX and its 70's and 80's vibe. I suppose I could've planned to return and check all the places out with ease any night I wanted once I turned 21. That said, when I turned 21 in 2009...well, Pleasure Island was no more. That isn't to say my 21st birthday lacked fun, however. I went bar-hopping with friends around Cortland and only had the slightest hangover the next day thanks to being in my youth (and nowadays I have a drink maybe every two years). Pleasure Island was a happening place back when I was able to check it out, though. Pieces of what it once was remain at, "The Landing," but much was retooled or simply demolished. As a Millennial, I was barely old enough to enjoy Pleasure Island. Now, in 2026, there are plenty of people in their 20s who can go to a club, but back then were still in diapers! Woe be to my Gen Z friends who don't realize what fun they missed!

The kids these days will never know how cool Pleasure Island was! That's a mini-tragedy almost equal to how only Millennials will ever understand the secret methods used to, "Burn," a CD. I mean, would Gen Z think Paradise Island is, "Outdated?" Younger people in their 20s are drinking a lot less, and back then, the reason many went to a club was to have a drink (or socialize/dance, but a chunk of people were mostly after some liquor). If I could magically teleport some 24-year-olds back to those Friday and Saturday nights in July of 2007, would they be into the scene or declare it, "Cringe," within moments?  It's hard to know for sure, but I only went to Pleasure Island a couple of times and thought it was great, so I imagine there are plenty of others with a great fondness for it as well! Does it make sense or is it cringe? I don't know, but as, "Futurama," put it once, "Time makes fools of us all." Still, we burned CDs, ya'll; that was wild!

I Know I'm Late to Report this, but Bandcamp is Really Cool

The website (and now also app) Bandcamp has been around since 2008 or so. It started really taking off some years ago, however, and while I knew of it I had not really used it at all. I don't know why I was waiting, however, because Bandcamp is really awesome. It is a bit like Spotify-meets-iTunes but with the focus on independent artists. Singers, bands, producers, podcasters, and so forth can upload their singles and albums, offer them for free with optional payment, require a small minimum payment (with you able to pay more) and then let you stream or outright download their tracks. Many bands sell physical merchandise such as CDs, records, or cassette tapes too.

I recently dipped into Bandcamp because I've been fiddling with my old cassette player and tapes; I joined a Reddit group about tapes and someone (a music artist named Goldkey) shared how their indie folk-pop album had a cassette for sale there along with streaming rights. I joined Bandcamp, bought the cassette with the streaming rights, and spent the following hours checking out the wide assortment of creators and their content in almost any genre you can think of on the site. It was pretty cool.

A glance at the landing page of the site from the other day.

Bandcamp is probably the best website for indie artists around, letting them make money on their works beyond the pennies-for-millions-of-streams offered by sites like Spotify (and I say this as someone who loves to use Spotify, but we're being honest here). I don't know why it took me so long to start using Bandcamp, but now I'm glad that I am and would encourage anyone else who hasn't tried the site or its app out yet to give it a browse & listen!

Mid-January 2019 Links and News to Counter the Cold

Freeze-Out

To think, this January started out so mild and warm...and then the snow came. Right as things are starting to melt the weather reports are saying this weekend may very well be nasty too, so how about we spend our time cooped-up inside by keeping warm with some assorted links and bits of news?

Interesting Things (In My Opinion)

Let's start with an article whose headline sums up my opinion on all these supposed internet-celebrities we have nowadays, "No One is an Influencer if Everyone is an Influencer." Written by Maria Sherman and published by Jezebel it perfectly expresses that all these folk who think having a couple thousand followers on Youtube or Instagram somehow makes them an important celebrity are quite often just the worst (no surprise there) and are mainly interested in little more than making money hocking various products . We all know that famous quote (which is often butchered) about how in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes? I think we need to tweak that to read, "In the future everyone with at least 15 followers will think they are famous."

The idea that a person would actually get death threats for posting a negative review of a movie (in this case, "Aquaman,") sickens me. That female movie critics seem to get a lot more online abuse for simply having an opinion is equally disheartening.

Kotaku had two recent articles involving Japanese culture and individuals that caught my eye. One was about how the mini-disc (which never caught on too much in America) still has a relatively strong degree of popularity in Japan despite the rise of iPods and other MP3 players. The other article mentioned that Marie Kondo lady who helps people organize their houses/lives and how a comment she made about trying to not keep too many books brought the wrath of the internet upon her. I mean, it isn't like she is coming into people's houses and tossing their books in the trash so I don't quite get the hate.

Watching the internet collectively crack-up like a teenager over how, "Now That's What I Call Music," has reached its 69th iteration (in America at least, they're in the triple-digits in the UK) is funny in a tacky and juvenile way, but funny nonetheless. If you don't get why people think it is funny...um, ask your parents or an older friend.

I know I am alternatively very affectionate towards the works of Tom King or incredibly hard on him for making stuff I think is hot garbage, but I will always say the guy is quite nice. He is assisting in giving-out free comic-books to Government employees affected by the shutdown, which he didn't have to do but is very kind to offer folk who don't have much positive stuff in their lives right now.

Anyone who reads this blog knows I hated when Megyn Kelly took over the third hour of, "The Today Show," and proceeded to drag the whole program down. Therefore, I had no love lost when she was unceremoniously booted from it and the rest of NBC. I like seeing her ex-boss (head of NBCUniversial, Steve Burke) admit putting her on the show was a mistake, but laugh incredulously at how he essentially tries to say nobody could have predicted things would go so poorly. I'm pretty sure I and everyone else saw it coming, Steve.

In, "A comic I never thought was coming back actually is and I'm excited,"-type news, "Sex," by Joe Casey, Piotr Kowlaslski, and (the amazing colorist) Brad Simpson is in fact going to return! I know when it suddenly ended claims were made it'd be back, but I honestly wasn't too optimistic. We are getting, "Sex," Volume 6 straight to graphic novel form, though, in an arc titled, "World Hunger." A joyful surprise like this is the best kind of surprise.

My Dad is certified/accredited/whatever the term is as an Ornithologist. That means he is someone who studies birds. An organization dedicated to that practice as well as conservation, Audubon, made a cool article about just how many interesting birds there are contained within, "Red Dead Redemption 2," and how intriguing accurate the game is at its portrayal of said birds (with a handful of errors here-and-there). I've been meaning to send my Dad a link to the article as I imagine he'd find it cool.

Lastly, President Trump served a bunch of hard-working student athletes who managed to win a championship an assortment of fast food, because America has turned into a twisted fun-house mirror version of itself at this point.

Try and Stay Toasty

I hope everyone stuck in the path of the previous and upcoming snowstorms manages to stay comfortable even with all this frozen precipitation.