Lots going on with the DSoD crew these days! Here’s a bit of what we’ve been up to:

True to my New Year’s resolution, Pentakis and I went on a trip that didn’t involve anything having to do with Disney, although it certainly did involve the “Dark Side”…. We went to Amsterdam! It was honestly one of the best vacations I’ve ever been on. We did it in style, flying Business Class and staying in a nice hotel, since Pentakis had never been oversees and I wanted her to have a good first impression of International traveling. We also did a day-trip to Paris via the high-speed rail, and both came to the conclusion that the EPCOT version of the city was nicer than the real thing. In addition, we took a day-trip to the Efteling theme park, as well as a Windmill park outside of the city. And, of course, we saw a sex show at Casa Rosso, smoked lots of (legal) bud, and drank lots of genevers.

Here are some of the videos from the trip (more to come!):

I honestly think that if EPCOT ever opens another World Showcase pavilion, it should be a Dutch one. The Weenie could be a big windmill that’s the entrance to a canal boat ride, there could be an hourly clog-making demonstration, and there could be lots of cheese and genever tastings. And you know, there’s already an entire Dutch section in it’s a small world, so obviously Walt agreed that The Netherlands are awesome. Get on it, Disney!

And in a weird sort of synergistic timing, after coming back from Amsterdam, Bamboo Forest teamed up with Rolly Crump to release signed, limited edition prints of his infamously hilarious Doper Posters!

These are 11″x14″ prints of the four original posters, professionally scanned at 4K DPI directly from Rolly’s slides, and printed on thick 100# Cover Matte Card paper. Each poster has been hand-signed by Rolly at the bottom. They were displayed in the Disney Studios Library in 1954, and were seen (and enjoyed) by Walt Disney himself. Rolly tells it like this in his autobiography, It’s Kind of a Cute Story:

I got a call from the librarian one day and she said, “Walt came in and saw your exhibit today.”

“Oh, Jesus,” I said. “Did he say anything?”

“Well, he walked down the hallway…”

I started to panic a little bit now. I wasn’t sure how Walt would react to those posters!

“…did he see my doper posters?”

“Oh yes!” she said. “In fact, he laughed!”

“He laughed?” I was so happy to hear that.

That just shows you how the Old Man accepted anything. He wasn’t critical about anything you did, as long as you were doing your best.

The bottom line was, 5 years later, Walt remembered my exhibit when they were looking for more people to work at WED.
–
Of particular significance is the Marijuana poster, which features the politically incorrect “wetbacks” saying. Rolly has since revised the poster (the revised version is also for sale separately), but we felt this original version was of historical significance, because it is the version Walt saw and enjoyed. However, per Rolly’s instructions, this is the only time this version will ever be printed, so it is truly a rare limited edition!

Also available is a print of Rolly’s “Oars for Rent” painting, which was purchased by Sharon Disney (Walt’s daughter) in the 60s!

Okay, that’s it for now. Plenty more videos coming soon, as well as some awesome announcements about future Bamboo Forest releases. So keep checking back, and be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter, which I tend to update a lot more regularly than this blog!

-Leonard

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been a piss-poor blogger as of late. And while a lot of my absence had to do with an insane amount of admittedly awesome stuff going on, part of it also had to do with some crappy stuff that happened which I felt people were waiting for me to comment on…. But fuck that. I’ll write what I want, bitches!

First of all, the Disneyland Resort is amazing, and it makes WDW looks like a big pile of shit in comparison. There were so many little things that I didn’t realize I missed or that were lacking in WDW until I saw them in DL. But now that the veil has been lifted, I can’t look at my home parks the same way again. Here’s hoping George Kalogridis can turn things around down in Florida. He has a big job ahead of him. In the meantime, all of my trips to Florida will be solely devoted to hanging with friends and going to the Universal parks. WDW isn’t getting any more of my money for the foreseeable future.

So, without further adieu, here are some videos from my Disneyland trip. I think they speak for themselves….

Up next, three excellent reviews of Our Kingdom of Dust! Even though the book has been out for nearly a year now, it still finds new readers, and for that I’m really grateful. I’m very proud of this book, and it’s always cool to hear from people who enjoyed it.

Food, Fitness, Fantasy says “…there are a lot of expansive, dark themes — pain, violence and emptiness. Walt Disney World isn’t simply the setting, it’s a catalyst, practically a character.” Read the rest of Katherine’s review of OKoD and DSoD here!

Between Disney, longtime supporters of Bamboo Forest Publishing, also did a big write-up: “For a first fictional offering, I really have to applaud Kinsey. In the first ten pages he hooked me as a reader, in a genre I would typically never read.” Check out the rest here!

Finally, Mighty Men of Mouse recorded an entire podcast just about OKoD. They really enjoyed it and had a lot of very insightful and interesting thoughts and comments. Listen to the whole episode here!

Okay, that’s about it for now. As usual, if you run a podcast or website and ever need someone to talk about Disney, indie publishing, booze, guitar playing, or whatever, I’m always up for interviews. Also, a heads-up: Pentakis and I will be in Amsterdam at the end of March, with a brief day-trip to Paris. If you’re in the area and want to hang out, please shoot me an email via the Contact Page!

P.S. Visit Ron Schneider’s new site, Theme Park University! The site just started, but there’s already some fascinating content on there. If you have any interest in Themed Entertainment, or enjoyed Ron’s book, you’re going to love this site!

I wanted to let everyone know that Bamboo Forest Publishing has a new storefront. It makes for a much nicer shopping experience, and definitely looks more professional. But, even better, it’s the only place where you can buy signed copies of the hardback version of Ron Schneider’s From Dreamer to Dreamfinder! They make excellent holiday gifts, so head on over to the store and pick up a few for your theme-park-loving friends and family!

Also, here’s a video I posted last week of a crazy Monorail Bar Crawl we did over the EPCOT 30th trip. All of your internet podcasting favorites were in attendance, including members of the WDW Fan Boys, WDW Kingdomcast, Communicore Weekly, WDW DIS-Cussion, and The Wakefield Report!

Wow, what a long, strange trip it was! Here’s a recap of some of my crazy adventures at EPCOT’s 30th:

Got in mid-day on Saturday 9/29, received my WeGoShop delivery (12-pack Sam Adams light, 6-pack Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, shit ton of tonic, limes, 4 frozen pizzas, mozzarella sticks, and a bunch of other stoner/drunkard food), met up with my buddy Hackett and his girlfriend (they brought me a box I’d shipped down to them that included a 1.75L bottle of Kinsey Gin and an Iolite vaporizer), and then bolted for the Communicore Weekly event that night, with guest star Ron Schneider.

The Communicore Weekly event was very cool. When we got to the Norway Pavilion nobody was outside to greet us and take us up, so we called Jeff Heimbuch and bitched until he came down to escort us up to the VIP lounge. Once there I finally got to meet George Taylor, of Imaginerding fame, as well as a whole bunch of other people from Facebook. The event was jam-packed with fun Disney Geeks!

The highlight of the evening was being able to see Ron Schneider in person again – I hadn’t seen him since the DSoD party last October, and SO much has happened between us since then. We gave each other a big hug, he got to meet Pentakis, and I gave him a proof of the newly released hardcover edition of his book.Yes, that’s right, a HARDCOVER edition of From Dreamer to Dreamfinder is coming out, just in time for Christmas! Signed copies will soon be available at the Bamboo Forest Store, and it’ll make a great gift for any friends who are into theme parks. Not only that, but the audiobook version has also just been released, and is available on Amazon, iTunes, and Audible. Listening to Ron do all of the voices of all of his characters is just an amazing experience, and I’m so glad we were able to make it come together and get it released.

One of the other highlights of the Communicore Weekly event was being able to have free rein of the Norway VIP lounge. I explored that place from top to bottom – video forthcoming! Unfortunately, I missed the “Spaceship Earth with the lights on” ride-thru at the end of the evening because I had to retrieve the acoustic guitars being used by the band; Hackett had generously allowed the Communicore Weekly guys to use them. But luckily Nomeus took this awesome video of it:

The next day was filled with the D23 seminars. For the most part they were entertaining and informative. The two standouts were a panel with a bunch of the Imagineers who had helped build EPCOT Center, and, of course, Ron Schneider’s appearance onstage with Tony Baxter to discuss the Imagination ride. Ron had specifically been told by the D23 organizer (Steve Vagnini, I assume) that, “We will not publicize anything put out by that publishing company!” If the dude had said that to me I would have told him to eat a bag of dicks, but luckily Ron played along… at least until he got up on stage. He probably had them shitting themselves through his entire appearance, because he repeatedly mentioned From Dreamer to Dreamfinder and even gave a shout-out to “backstage exploring”, which received a bunch of cheers from the audience, much to the dismay of the panel host. Ron is such a cool guy.

That night I organized a very successful and fun Monorail Bar Crawl. Unfortunately Mizner’s was shut down (until December), so instead we closed out the bar at Narcoosees and then closed out The Wave. It was an awesome time, I met a lot of cool fans, got a piece of the Spaceship Earth Millenium Wand from Matt Marooney (which I fully intend film myself shitting on for a future video), and there were a ton of shenanigans involving monorail pole dancing and stolen towels. Again, video forthcoming.

The following day was the big day: EPCOT’s 30th Anniversary. Months ago I decided to create a secret Facebook group and invited people who I knew would be down there at that time, and who were cool with our type of shenanigans. One purpose of the group (aside from organizing the Monorail Bar Crawl) was to sign people up for a big “Leonard Kinsey Retirement” event. I created a text group via SendHub and anyone who was interested was added – so all I had to do during the event was send out a single text, and everyone in the group would get it. I had approximately 30 people signed up by the time the trip rolled around! Nobody except me knew where we’d be going, because I didn’t want it to leak somehow. 30 minutes before each event I’d send a text out, saying where to meet next.

As planned, we all met at the Chase VIP lounge in the Wonders of Life Pavilion. Chase was letting each of their cardholders bring 9 additional people into the lounge. Unfortunately, within 10 minutes a bunch of us got kicked out when we tried to board the elevator to get to the 2nd floor lounge. Here’s Adam the Woo’s video of that incident:

That lady was pissed!!!!!

The rest of the day was a flurry of pulse-pounding adventures. All told, it was a memorable experience for everyone involved, and a great way to wrap up my years of backstage exploration.

Which leads me to… my official unmasking!

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still be doing lots of cool and crazy Disney stuff and posting stories about it. For example, during the past week at WDW I:

• Saw the Horizons Resurrected virtual ride-thru, to which I’d donated a bottle of Lorange fragrance (the simulation was spectacular, by the way).
• Was interviewed by FOX 4, along with Nomeus and Adam the Woo, for a segment they’re doing on DSoD that will come out during “sweeps” in November.
• Got drinks at La Cava de Tequila with a multi-millionaire/pilot/consulate/playboy who had some very intriguing business ideas….
• Laughed as a bunch of people got completely blitzed off a vaporizer at The BoardWalk (no smoke or smell – highly recommended!) and later hit a gravity bong and coughed like maniacs in an off-property garage.
• Ate my first Citrus Swirl…. Dole Whip, move the fuck over, because we have a new contender for best on-property dessert that should be mixed with booze!
• Played an impromptu set on drums during a rehearsal for a local band. I only sucked a little, which was nice.
• Saw the most number of boobs I’ve ever seen in one room (outside of a strip club, at least). They ranged from the biggest I’ve ever encountered (double-H!?!?!) to one of the nicest A-cups I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing. Thanks, ladies!!!

All told, it was a helluva week. I met SO MANY insanely nice people, and wish I could have spent more time with everyone. To be honest, I didn’t even do the parks much this trip, and I didn’t really miss them. What I do miss now that I’m back home is hanging out with great the friends I’ve made over the past year. But, hey, I have plenty more events planned for the coming months, so hopefully that’ll mean more fun meetups!