Month: April 2019

Reality Check

… Good morning to all of my blind peeps; it’s post Easter, so peeps is no longer a dirty word.

When I’m 60, I expect to still be working. By then, I should be back in Colorado, my first million cooling in a bank account in the Caymans. I’ll live in a small town in the Rocky Mountains somewhere. I’ll take my self-driving car to work every day, kick my employees around all day, stab them in the back when they are not in the room, and set them against each other for my own amusement in my own little micro version of Game of Thrones. But they’ll all love me anyway because I give them incredible cash Christmas bonuses every year that they don’t have to claim on their taxes.

I’ll go home to my wife at night. She’ll be at least 30 years younger than I, but I’ll have lots of money, so no one will care. In fact, she’ll be a trophy. She’ll slip some Viagra in my beer, wait 30 minutes, then we’ll devour each other on our palacial patio in full view of the neighborhood. The hired help may be offended, but I won’t know it because they’ll all trash-talk me in Spanish. Many of my male neighbors will secretly envy the fact that I can bag a former porn star. Later, she’ll nail the gardener, but I’ll be too exhausted to care. In fact, I’ll be disappointed if she doesn’t catch at least one bone on the side.

Since polygamy will be legal by then, my other wife (the older, wiser one) will bring me a cigar and a snifter of brandy later in the evening, light it for me, and then we’ll discuss the events of the day. She’ll think she is the dominant one in the marriage because, “Girls rule, boys drool.” I’ll think I’m the dominant one because, “Men think, while women feel.” Like most typical marriages, we’ll lie to each other and ourselves, but the status quo will be so comfortable as we live behind curtains of hundred dollar bills, none of us will care.

This is pretty much what I expect my life to look like when I’m 60, which will be in 2035. So… What are y’all’s plans when Social Security becomes insolvent?

Join the Club

Today, my thoughts are with a man named Coby Mach. Most of you who live outside of the area of Lincoln, NE wouldn’t recognize the name. Coby was the host of Drive Time Lincoln, an afternoon talk show on AM 1400, KLIN radio. He was also the president of the Lincoln Independent Business Association for many years. Mr. Mach passed away this past Friday afternoon, a victim of an apparent suicide.

I didn’t know Mr. Mach personally. I never met him during my 14-year residency in Lincoln. I did speak to him several times when I would call into Drive Time Lincoln to voice my opinions on an issue, which was usually the inadequate state of public transit in the city. I found his attitude toward me and my views to be contemptuously dismissive. He ended one phone call with me by saying, “Ryan, the only thing that is a waste of time here, is this phone call.”

That served as the extent of my interactions with Mr. Mach. My only other vivid memory of him comes from a public hearing for Startran in June, 2007. The purpose of the hearing was to discuss sweeping changes to Startran bus routes that were being proposed. Mr. Mach was the first speaker at the hearing. He got up, delivered his remarks on behalf of LIBA, which took all of two minutes, then walked out of the hearing. The essence of his remarks were thus; those who rely on public transit should move into the core of the city so that they may still avail themselves of the service. I was dumbstruck by Mr. Mach’s cavalier attitude to an issue that impacts so many of us with disabilities in such a profound way. Even Dr. James Nyman, who recently passed away as well, and who was gifted with a razor-sharp intellect, voiced his bafflement to me at how someone so educated could be so oblivious to the effect of his own words on others.

In reading of Mr. Mach’s death, I discovered that he was afflicted with tinnitus, which is a disorder that affects one’s hearing. This disorder is very common among those who work in radio, due to the fact that they must wear headphones for long periods of time every day on the job. Mr. Mach’s passing is only about 48 hours old and there is still much we do not know about the circumstances surrounding it. If Mr. Mach did indeed take his own life, and if tinnitus was a major factor in his decision, then this is a tragedy beyond all measure. It is a tragedy that I find sadly ironic. When Mr. Mach chose to dismiss those with disabilities, he didn’t know that he was dismissing a club to which he would ultimately become a member. But then, every able-bodied human being eventually becomes a member of the PWD club, merely by getting older.

It may seem as if I am dancing upon Mr. Mach’s grave. I don’t mean to give that impression at all. I wonder if we in the disabled community ever reached out to Coby and others in the community to educate them on the richness of life that can still be experienced when one is disabled. He delivered his remarks in June of 2007. Three months later, I left Lincoln for a life in Denver, so I certainly didn’t try to initiate a dialogue with him. I doubt any of my brethren in the National Federation of the Blind of Nebraska did either. Sometimes, we are as guilty of an ‘us and them’ mentality as we accuse our opponents of being. It can cause us to entrench ourselves and harden our hearts toward others, forgetting that they are three-dimensional human beings with their own lives and burdens to carry. This short-sightedness is our failure and our cross to bear as well.

The cross Mr. Mach’s family must now bear is unfathomable to me. I follow several people on Facebook who have relatives and friends who have committed suicide. Facebook offers me merely a narrow gap into their pain. Mr. Mach has set the survivors of his final act upon a long, arduous journey. Some of them may never be able to complete it. I have no words for them, or for anyone enduring such pain, other than to say that my heart is sad for you. Mr. Mach was 53 years old when he died; just nine years older than I am. I cannot believe that a man who was so vibrant and alive did not have much more to contribute to his family and his community, no matter what his physical state may have been.

As for the broader body of society, I can only state that everyone has choices. When you are faced with a disability, you can either choose to adjust to it and carry on for the sake of yourself and your loved ones, or you can surrender to the darker angels of your nature and end your journey. I believe in life. On that basis, I hope you will choose the path of living.

This was a long read. I thank those of you who chose to finish it.

Pass the Popcorn

I’m gonna write about something positive because…well…I need something positive in my life right now.

On Facebook the other night, I opined that I missed the era of appointment television. This was back in the glory days when 24, The Sopranos, Deadwood and Breaking Bad all reigned supreme. I miss the anticipation of a new episode, new plot developments and new water cooler buzz the next day after Tony would whack someone, or Jack Bauer would torture another Muslim terrorist.

That said, 2019 is an exciting year for those of us who have the recent TV nostalgia bug. Three movies are due out this year that serve as codas to previous TV giants.

The first one is a series that I already touched upon last October. Deadwood was a show that was canceled before its time. On Friday, May 31, HBO will correct that grave injustice by running Deadwood: The Movie. We’ll get to see Al Swearengen and all of the gang of Deadwood one last time before they ride off into the sunset. I’ve already shared my thoughts and hopes for the upcoming movie, but of the three, this is the one for which I’m most excited. It’s probably because fans have been waiting years for this thing to drop.

The second one excites me, though not to the degree of the Deadwood epic. David Chase is filming a prequel to The Sopranos called, The Many Saints of Newark. No, guys, it won’t explain the great black screen of doom that still frustrates many Sopranos fans. Rather, it will focus on a young Tony Soprano in the late ‘60’s when the Italians were embroiled in racial hostility with African-Americans. The interesting thing about this movie is that James Gandolfini’s son Michael is set to play young Tony. We’ll see how that goes. The thing that gives me pause is that I think David Chase is going to fuck up the timeline. I just re-watched the entire series of The Sopranos and it was stated more than once that Tony Soprano was born in 1960. At one point, Carmela tells a reporter that Tony was three when JFK was assassinated. So by the time Tony was 15, Nixon would already have been impeached. I don’t know how chase is going to reconcile this obvious continuity error. Still, I’ll go see the movie and hopefully will enjoy it.

The third movie is the one you would think I would be most excited about, but I am the least excited. Earlier this year, Vince Gilligan announced that we are going to get a Breaking Bad movie. Publicists are still playing it coy, but everyone knows that the movie will star Aaron Paul reprising his role as doomed Jesse Pinkman. When we last saw Jesse, Walt had freed him from captivity from Todd and Uncle Jack and Jesse drove off laughing crazily as Walt died in his meth lab over the strains of, “Baby Blue.”

My problem is that this served as the perfect ending to Breaking Bad. Walt died, Jesse was free but scarred for life and Walt’s family may or may not have been able to live in comfort thanks to his efforts on their behalf. Those unanswered questions are part of what makes the finale so good. Not everything had to be wrapped up with a pretty bow on top.

Whereas Deadwood feels completely necessary and welcome and the Sopranos prequel may or may not work, but can’t hurt anything, the Breaking Bad movie feels superfluous. Sure, Jesse was a compelling character, but without the presence of Bryan Cranston as Walt off whom Jesse used to play so wonderfully, the story will feel hollow. Yes, I may be selling Vince Gilligan short, but he gave us Better Call Saul and, for me, the results are mixed. Maybe Breaking Bad is that lightning that only strikes once. Yet, if possible, I will be in the theater on opening night, popcorn and Peanut Butter M & M’s in hand as the credits roll.

Even if all three wrap-up movies suck, it will be a pleasure to have something to look forward to that doesn’t involve a super hero, a transforming car or a talking CGI animal. I’ll take it, and pass the fuckin’ popcorn. If you don’t have any hot butter, I’ll settle for canned peaches. What about baked xiti?