The end is near - if not already here

When I was little, Christmas couldn’t come soon enough. Now, increasingly, it comes all too soon.

Yes, time does go by faster as I get older. There is also the fact that Christmas comes earlier and earlier each year. I used to complain about seeing Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. Now I spot them before Halloween. In fact, it feels more and more like, once November 1 comes, Christmas and the year-end holiday madness, with an endless list of things to do and get done, is more or less here.

Perhaps more significantly, I love Fall, and I never get enough of it. Autumn is my favorite season, with its cooling temperatures and its glorious, bright colors in the face of death and the growing dark, but, unlike the long, hot summer, it always zips by, and, before I know it, Christmas is here, and another year is over. What’s more, here in Southern California, the summer heat lingers - it wasn’t until this past weekend (when, appropriately enough, a friend arrived for a visit from Vermont) that it got really chilly, at least at night - so I feel I am short-changed, getting even less of the fall.

It could be that I’m just not getting enough of a favorite thing. As I feel like I’m hurtling towards the end of the year, I suspect there’s something more to it. I like the image I was recently given - that of the year being like a roll of toilet paper which unravels more and more quickly.

T.V war

Okay, I went and did it. I bought a T.V.

Faithful readers will know that the new digital converter box has been a bane of my existence. Last month, the picture on my screen broke up, and it turned out that a wire on the converter box was impossibly loose. If I bought a new box, it would be my third in less than five months, and the government coupons are pretty much gone. So I bit the bullet, went to Target (NOT Walmart, even if it’s cheaper!) and, after sitting there for an hour, bought a 22-inch LCD high-def television (plus an extended warranty) for a good price, putting it on my credit card, figuring I’ll pay it off.

I have to come out (again!) and say that I love the T.V. The picture is stunning! For the first time in my life, I have a T.V (on its own) with a crystal clear picture, with no static or fuzz at all, even on PBS. Period. (Yes, I have friends who say I shouldn’t watch T.V - "Kill your T.V" as the bumper says - and others who say I should watch it on my computer, but there are shows I like, and I like to watch them on a television in my living room.)

There has been one big problem, though. I can’t record. One of the things that drove me crazy with the converter box is that it severely limited my ability to tape programs. I tend to tape programs and really like being able to do so. With my V.C.R, I can watch videos and D.V.Ds, but I can’t record. It took at least five hours and exactly five lesbians (at one point, they were all here at once - yikes!) to figure out that my V.C.R couldn’t do the job and that I need something else.

The something else isn’t at Target, so I went to Best Buy - twice - and got very confused - twice. It doesn’t help that Best Buy is a confusing, loud place. Many of the devices that record - D.V.Rs - require a monthly service, like TiVo, that come with a bunch of stuff (football games, movies, whatever) that I don’t want. I did buy a TiVo device, because it wasn’t too expensive, but, despite the guy at the store answering my many questions and assuring me otherwise (I guess I shouldn’t trust a guy dressed up - it was Halloween - as a superhero who looks like a weeks-old balloon), it turned out that it worked only with cable T.V, and I had to return it AND cancel the service. (I was just glad my attendant didn’t murder me!) The TiVo device that doesn’t require a cable T.V (no, I don’t want cable!) is considerably more expensive, and it turns out that a plain D.V.R - without a monthly service and which will record programs later or while I’m watching another one - is even more expensive, costing more than what I paid more for the T.V.

Do I regret getting the television. No. I can watch videos and D.V.Ds, and I don’t have to put up with the converter box. But I still really want to tape, and I will keep my eye out for a D.V.R and may well bite the bullet again and buy one. Also, I can’t help thinking there’s something I’m missing, wonder if people on fixed or low incomes just can’t record programs and wish that I just had what I had before we had to get digital T.V.

Giving the disabled a bad name and a bad time

I got the notice. I wasn’t sure when or how it would come, but I knew it would come. My attendants - those who I pay with funds from the state-funded, county-operated In-Home Supportive Services program - also got it, and they didn’t know it was coming and were confused and unhappy.

I knew that, over the summer, as the California state legislature and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger struggled to pass a budget, it was discovered that, lo and behold, the I.H.S.S was riddled with fraud. It turned out that people were getting money to take care of people who were dead, to take care of people who don’t exist, to take care of pets. There was one guy who was getting money to take care of his father and was using it to feed his own meth habit. It turned out that all this fraud was costing the state millions, if not billions, of dollars.
This was bad. No doubt about it. Clearly, people were taking advantage of the program, and the already broke state - not to mention the taxpayers - was getting cheated of a load of money. Something had to be done, so Arnold, the governator, gave out the order to crack down.

Thus, the notices that I got and that my attendants got in the mail.

Because of the fraud that has taken place, my I.H.S.S-funded attendants, according to the notices, are now required to fill out a form and hand-deliver it to the county office, be finger-printed and get a background check, attend a training and sign a paper saying they will abide by I.H.S.S rules. This goes for all new attendants as of November 1 and my current attendants next July.

Giving them time to quit.

Not only are these requirements a big pain, they treat my attendants as suspicious, if not criminal. Also, the notices my attendants got state that, by state law, they must pay for the finger-printing and background check.

Here’s something else: I have enough trouble finding people to work as attendants. Now I’ll have to tell them, "Oh, by the way, you also have to do these...."
Thanks to the cheaters. Wish me luck!

I recently read that people are protesting these steps, saying they make things harder for I.H.S.S as well as its disabled clients. Who knows if this will get anywhere. Oh, well, at least a judge ruled last month that thousands of disabled people can’t be dumped from the program, as was being planned to save money.

And then there was the recent report on 60 Minutes on Medicare fraud. I wonder if this has anything to do with Medi-Cal now taking more than two months to approve new motors for my chair.

Living with passion

Cleve Jones says he was once as cute as Emile Hirsch, the actor who played him in Milk, last year’s bio-pic starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk. For about three months.

But, as I saw when he spoke here last week a few days after being involved in leading the October 11 gay rights march in Washington, D.C, he has no regrets. Mr. Jones is not bitter about being an older, somewhat sagging gay man, past his prime, so to say. In fact, he insisted that he is having a wonderful time now, perhaps the best in his life, telling the many college students in the audience to enjoy their youth but not to despair about getting older.

And what a life Mr. Jones has had! Not really a wonderful life, or a charmed life, but certainly a life lived with passion. And he spoke about it, quite generously, with considerable passion.

I am sorry I can’t recount all the details, but they are not so important. What grabbed me was the force and emotion with which Mr. Jones spoke of leaving his family as a very young man, going out to San Francisco and meeting and working for Harvey Milk; seeing Milk as he laid dead after being shot by fellow County Supervisor Dan White and taking part in the huge, silent, candle-lit vigil following the murder and the violent march after White got off with a light sentence; meeting a man who would be his best friend - "only a friend" - and then being devastated but embraced by the man’s family when the man died; starting the AIDS quilt with a friend and being amazed by how it grew and how beautiful and eloquent the panels were/are; being diagnosed with AIDS and almost dying.

Clearly, such a full, dramatic life have left him full of strong feelings. Indeed, he ended his formal talk with a full-throated demand that GLBT people have full, equal rights - not one right there and a different right here. I heard him saying that queer folks should be accepted as they are and not have to assimilate, and I suspect he’d agree with me that it was wrong that the No on 8 campaign here in California last year never mentioned the word "gay," furthering its shame.

By the way, the talk took place at Claremont McKenna College, a couple weeks after hosting RuPaul, the super drag queen (see "Playing with all the colors in the box" below). I was also impressed to learn that C.M.C was the first college to display the AIDS quilt years ago, which I remember attending. Not bad for a school known for conservative jocks!

Parks for all

I almost feel sorry for Ken Burns. His films, shown on PBS, are almost parodies of themselves.

Even before I watch them, I know them. They are so familiar, like the back of my hand. Yes, always, always, there are the lovingly presented black and white and sepia photographs; the haunting, repeated, folky music; the letters and reports read by the best actors; the talking heads who are actually engaging; the narrator with the perfect, sonorous voice; the interest-piquing section titles and the thousands of fascinating, poignant, charming and humorous details and anecdotes. And then, although Burns has made shorter films, there is also the marathon, Wagnerian length of his documentaries.

Although he started out with a number of shorter films, this all really began with The Civil War. The trouble was that he started off with the perfect film, setting the gold standard, and his subsequent mega-docs - on baseball, jazz, the West, World War II - have almost been let-downs. Many other film-makers, including his brother Ric, have copied him with multi-part documentaries on everything from the Mormons to New York City and with varying degrees of success.

Last week, I watched Burns’ latest opus, the six-part, twelve-hour The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. Sure, it got stodgy and exhausting, and I did roll my eyes, but I adored it.
Certainly, there was all the spectacular scenery, including in some parks I had never heard of, such as Arcadia in Maine, and there were all the juicy and sad and funny and incredible tales and tid-bits about the people involved in the founding and development of the parks. And there was the inspiring message, hammered over and over, that these parks belong to all of us taxpayers and are thus, as is also seen in them being wide open and breathtakingly impressive, a reflection of our democratic ideals (if not our society).

But what really struck me - and this relates to the concept of the parks belonging to us all - were the stories of families having their most cherished times and precious memories in the parks. Not only that but of children being introduced to the parks by their parents and then, later, introducing their own children to the parks. There is something powerfully profound and touching about this.

I thought of the amazing amount of time I spent in Yosemite when I was growing up, with my father’s parents living a short distance from the park and my family going there at least twice a year until I was about 15 when my grandfather suddenly died of a heart attack while up on a ladder, and I thought of how incredibly lucky I was to be able to become so familiar with such a gorgeous and literally awesome place during my childhood. Even more, I marveled at being able, with my parents’ help and encouragement, to get so close to such wonders as Yosemite Falls and Mirror Lake and to wander through meadows with deer not far - all in my wheelchair. No doubt, I realized, this is a big part of why, today, I am quite adventurous, not afraid of going out (often on my own) and trying new things, and why I love to travel.

I haven’t been to Yosemite for about 15 years and want to go back, and I still hope one day to get Yellowstone.

Not all is wonderful about the National Parks, as the film pointed out with stories of vicious fights over the federal government taking land. During one of my last stays in Yosemite, I was very upset by how crowded it was, with the valley floor being like L.A, complete with smog - another issue brought out in the documentary.

And then there’s my wheelchair and how much it should be accommodated. I once almost got in a fight with a ranger at Zion National Park in Utah - figures! - over how wheelchair-accessible a trail was or should be. I forget the details, but I do remember my attendant practically having to hold me down when the guy opined that James Watt, Ronald Reagan’s notorious Secretary of the Interior, "was a great man."

Playing with all the colors in the box

Who knew?

I went to see RuPaul Charles - RuPaul, "the most famous drag queen in the world," the host of "RuPaul’s Drag Show." the star of "Star Booty," etc. - at Claremont McKenna College the other night, and it was no joke.

C.M.C used to be a men’s college and is still known as a school for jocks majoring in econ and poli-sci and with a conservative bent, and its Atheneum is the kind of place that usually features dignitaries and scholars at its dinners (and sometimes at lunch), so I thought it was interesting, to say the least, that RuPaul had been invited to speak there.

Wearing a black and orange checkered suit and raised platform shoes and with his black head shaved and shiny, he did literally strut into the room upon being introduced, having no doubt requested to do so, and he was clearly tickled by the whole scene and laughed when he showed slides of himself in a variety of outrageous get-ups. But what RuPaul had to say was serious. Or it was something I needed to hear, seriously.

Entitling his remarks "Observations from the Inside," he spoke of always knowing that he was different, from the time he grew up with three sisters and a feisty, ultimately divorced mother in San Diego, and his he used this knowledge instead of being a victim of it. He showed a school picture from when he was a small child and said that that small child is still in him, just as there is a small child in all of us, and that he always tries to take care of that little child, and he talked about realizing that life is about more than what we do and what happens to us, that we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

According to RuPaul, who said he grew up with a sense, encouraged by his mother, that he would be a star, a key to his development came when he was in trouble at a performing arts high school, where he went after getting in trouble at another school, and a teacher told him not to take life so seriously. Later, he came to see that such notions as one not being able to be a mainstream pop star while wearing drag were ridiculous and holding him back.

RuPaul insisted several times that he is a man and that he does not see himself as or want to be a woman, even when he is in drag. He explained that he’s not taking life so seriously, that he is enjoying his human experience as a spiritual being, having fun with his body and "playing with all the colors in the box." Nothing more, nothing less.

Sounds like what I do with all my overalls and my mismatched high-tops and rainbow laces, with my shaved head and with my long dreads flying. Is this all my drag? Mmmmm.
The best part of the evening for me, and probably for RuPaul, was during the Q & A, was when a young man, no doubt a student, in a dark suit and tie, stood up and shared his drag name. (RuPaul congratulated him and said that he had a way to make a lot of money if school doesn’t work out.) Super sweet!

Arnold to the rescue!

Things looked pretty grim. The article in the Los Angeles Times last week was about how a bunch of developmentally disabled adults were being evicted from their apartments in Monrovia, east of L.A. The owners of the Regency Court had concluded, after a number of years, that the complex had been designed for senior citizens and that people under 62 should not be living there.

This was a classic tale of the big, evil powers that be trampling over the little people, made all the more compelling and poignant with the little people here being not only disabled but mentally retarded. The story was complete with the usual tragic and pitiful but heroic and inspiring examples of disabled people trying to live independently, topped off with heart-tugging photos.
Then, a day or two later, there was another article in the Times, this one about California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger showing up at the Regency Court to tell the disabled residents that their evictions had been "terminated." There was a large picture of Schwarzenegger smiling and leaning down to talk to a smiling, dressed-to-the-nines woman in a wheelchair. In an interview, the former action star explained that he intervened with the apartment owners after reading the L.A Times story and being visited by the ghost of his recently deceased mother-in-law, Eunice Shriver, telling him he had to do something.

It was indeed a happy day, a day of celebration. The big, bad corporation had been brushed off, and the disabled folks could stay in their own homes. Then why wasn’t I feeling so good? Why was I wincing and a bit woozy?

Clearly, this pit stop by the gubinator was the coldest of P.R moves, right down to the gussied-up woman. All while thousands of other disabled people in the state are left in the lurch because of services being slashed by his administration.

Why didn’t old Eunice say anything about them to the restless Arnold? That’s where this all gets downright nauseating, with the stink of patronization. After all, Mrs. Shriver is most admired for starting the Special Olympics.

Ah, the Special Olympics, where the most unfortunately handicapped are oh so graciously allowed not to be normal - no - but to shine. As if a man wearing a life jacket and having to be guided down a swimming pool lane can be as great as Michael Phelps.

And as if he - and perhaps anyone who is anything like him - has no hope of being able to help, much less save, himself.