Once upon a time in a magical kingdom in southern California, there was a terrace. A beautiful terrace, immersive in its decor, where dancers would dance, and guests would sit down for feasting and merriment multiple times per day.
For 31 years, this terrace used fantasy and spectacle to rule over Adventureland, beckoning weary travelers to stop and rest.
And many dollars were spent.
Then, one day, some bean counters drunk with adrenaline after riding a wave of a cinematic surprise decided that the terrace was an artifact of a lesser, less synergistic time. These bean counters were convinced that while riding the waves, that they had found the magickal elixer of endless dollars. This magickal elixer was mysteriously named "I.P."
Sadly, for the beloved ancient terrace, it had non of this "I.P," just a slow rotation of corporate sponsors and faint hints and memories of an interest in tropical escapism and merriment embraced by a long-forgotten, mysterious mustachioed rodentiphile.
So they closed the popular terrace and replaced it with a performance dinner theater built using the magick of "I.P." Surely, the path to riches lay ahead.
And then, just two years later, after declining guest interest, the show element was cancelled. And the I.P Oasis became a sit-down and then a quick-service restaurant. Then a year later, as the fickle public's mind drifted even further from the temporal magic of the "I.P." the bean counters had bet the farm on, the oasis shut operations. It was thereafter relegated to stand empty and serve as a backdrop for meet and greets and photographs.
Word is that it sits, rotting, to this very day, but that on clear, moonlit nights one can sit and still hear ghostly echoes of drums, steel guitars, and see brief spectral trails of flame and detect the smell of pineapple on the wind as the memories of the long-buried terrace haunt travelers' thoughts.
For 31 years, this terrace used fantasy and spectacle to rule over Adventureland, beckoning weary travelers to stop and rest.
And many dollars were spent.
Then, one day, some bean counters drunk with adrenaline after riding a wave of a cinematic surprise decided that the terrace was an artifact of a lesser, less synergistic time. These bean counters were convinced that while riding the waves, that they had found the magickal elixer of endless dollars. This magickal elixer was mysteriously named "I.P."
Sadly, for the beloved ancient terrace, it had non of this "I.P," just a slow rotation of corporate sponsors and faint hints and memories of an interest in tropical escapism and merriment embraced by a long-forgotten, mysterious mustachioed rodentiphile.
So they closed the popular terrace and replaced it with a performance dinner theater built using the magick of "I.P." Surely, the path to riches lay ahead.
And then, just two years later, after declining guest interest, the show element was cancelled. And the I.P Oasis became a sit-down and then a quick-service restaurant. Then a year later, as the fickle public's mind drifted even further from the temporal magic of the "I.P." the bean counters had bet the farm on, the oasis shut operations. It was thereafter relegated to stand empty and serve as a backdrop for meet and greets and photographs.
Word is that it sits, rotting, to this very day, but that on clear, moonlit nights one can sit and still hear ghostly echoes of drums, steel guitars, and see brief spectral trails of flame and detect the smell of pineapple on the wind as the memories of the long-buried terrace haunt travelers' thoughts.
)... happy that there was a happy ending to this story.
