Best of both worlds

I am well-known for my love of live theater and for how much I enjoy living in Claremont. Here, in my column that appeared in last Friday’s Claremont Courier, they collide wonderfully.


GROWING TO A NEW STAGE IN CLAREMONT

Too bad The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee isn’t still playing. I would say run, don’t walk, to this Claremont High School theater production.

The musical, which played for two weekends last month, certainly should be still going on. When I saw it, I was simply astounded for the entire two hours. It was the best, or best done, show that I have seen in years. Of any show, including professionally done stuff in Los Angeles and Hollywood.

Not only that. I saw the play on the next to the last night, and I told my friend who was out from L.A that he had to see it. My friend, who has seen and done lots of theater in L.A and New York, saw the final performance and was floored. He said that the show was better than many professional shows he has seen and that “those kids should be getting paid to be on stage in West Hollywood.”

Indeed, it was the kids who made the show. I had seen the play before and thought it was okay and thought I wouldn’t see this production. But because it was at Sycamore School auditorium - an unusual venue and easily accessible in my wheelchair - I decided to go, and the acting was a revelation. It wasn’t just acting; these students had grown into and were living their characters.

Although the characters weren’t much more than caricatures, the students made them real and whole. All were excellent, but two of the cast members stood out. Emerson Dauwalder was hysterical as he totally tripped out playing Leaf Coneybear, the trippy, blissed-out home-schooled hippie kid. And the way Hunter Alkonis, as Mitch Mahoney, escorting the losing spelling bee contestants as part of his community service sentence, conveyed worlds of emotions in a look or a touch was breathtaking. Both also, in brief scenes, portrayed a pair of gay dads with considerable sensitivity.

No doubt the production taking place in a funky old school auditorium, much like the musical’s setting, contributed to its perfect-storm authenticity. There was also the work of the director and choreographer, D.J Gray, returning to her alma maters (C.H.S and Sycamore) after doing much professional theater work, including on Spelling Bee. And Krista Carson Elhai, who has done remarkable work as the high school theater director, clearly had a hand in the doings as producer.

While this production was done at Sycamore School for very practical reasons - the theater at the high school was being renovated and was no doubt still torn up - the unique venue not only made the show even better. In so doing, it made the opening of the new theater a couple weeks later all the more exciting. And more meaningful.

Yes, I say “new” theater. It is true that the theater was renovated, but, on top of it being renamed the Donald F. Fruechte Theatre for the Performing Arts in honor of Ms. Elhai’s predecessor who founded the high school’s theater department and is just as legendary to those who attended C.H.S, it is definitely a new space.

While I don’t know if I can call it beautiful, the theater is certainly no longer a dingey, cramp hole with, among other features, wheelchair accommodations that were, frankly, a joke. Not only do I no longer have to maneuver through a black backstage area in my wheelchair, but with comfortable flip-up seats instead of folding metal chairs and without steep stairs and narrow passageways, the theater is now more accessible and welcoming to everybody.

Because the theater was barely accessible and not that welcoming, I wasn’t seeing most of the remarkable work that Ms. Elhai and her students were putting on. And it’s really why I went to the production at Sycamore School.

I thought about all this when I attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony and opening with a line-up of school and city officials and other dignitaries last month, thrilled to see the changes made. I was also delighted that they were the result of a great, true community effort, with thousands and thousands of dollars given, earning a matching grant from the state.

But what I was really thinking on the bright, early Spring afternoon was, these kids deserve this! For their hard, amazing work, stunningly evidenced in Spelling Bee, they deserve this community effort, this community support. Just as my friend said they deserve to be paid to play in West Hollywood, they deserve this nice, real, state-of-the-art theater instead of a dark hole in the wall.

These bright, creative students, many of whom may have trouble fitting in in other areas of the campus, deserve this place to be safe and to grow and be their best. Like the boy who could barely speak in a math class I was in when at the high school and who I was amazed to see not only in a theater production but singing and dancing in the production

As Andrew Lindvall, a 2010 C.H.S graduate in town during the week of the opening, commented, “Ms. Elhai was one of the first teachers I ever had who would give you the responsibility to do something and expected you to do it. There’s an intensity that has prepared me for everything I’ve done thereafter. You don’t just learn art here, you learn occupational skills.”

And there was this from C.H.S Principal Brett O’Connor: “To have students leaving with employable skills is good for the school, good for the community and good for the country. This is a program we can be very proud of.”

Not what we need

Really?


Being disabled isn’t easy, and there are lots of inconveniences and indignities that go along with it. I could probably come up with as endless list if I got going. But being awaited $8,000 in a lawsuit for putting up with one?

Really?

According to the Los Angeles Times recently, 52-year-old Jose Martinez got $8,000 after being stuck on the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland for half an hour when the ride broke down and was evacuated, with the music reportedly blaring the whole time, on November 27, 2007. Mr. Martinez was visiting Disneyland for the first time since he was a child, and, according to his lawyer, David Geffen, his disabilities “hit him hard and right in the face as soon as the ride stopped.”

Oh, please!

Sure, it was Hell waiting for half an hour, especially with that damn song going on. But it wasn’t like there was a fire. It wasn’t like he was in danger.

How about getting free tickets or a free year pass from Disneyland? Once, when I took an Amtrak train to San Diego on my own to spend the weekend with a friend, as I had done a number of times, and my friend put me on the train for the return trip, he got into a big argument with the conductor, who insisted my friend had to accompany me on the two-and-a-half-hour trip. Luckily, my friend didn’t end up having to stay with me, but I was upset and traumatized, feeling insulted and made to be a burden. I wrote a letter to Amtrak and was given free tickets and was told that the conductor was disciplined. I was happy with this.

Why couldn’t something like this satisfy Mr. Martinez? Instead, he has become like the woman who sued McDonald’s over hot coffee and makes the disabled look like that. He makes the disabled look silly and greedy. He gives the disabled a bad name.

This doesn’t help now when there is much commentary and chatter about an increasing number of people getting disability benefits. Never mind that there are valid reason like more people living longer. There is the notion that disability is the new welfare. Like when Homer Simpson got on disability.

What’s more, things like this only make it harder and harder to get the services and funding I need to live independently and productively. Every year, it seems I have to submit more and more documentation to prove that I’m still disabled. I want to ask why they come and look at me and try to talk to me. And how nice it would be if I could say I’m no longer disabled!

The disabled imagine

I know all too well that, as Radi Kaiuf is quoted as saying in a L.A Times article a couple weeks ago, “there’s a stigma about being in a wheelchair, as if your mental capacities are affected as well.” Yes, I completely relate to the article saying, “In a wheelchair, he often encounters pity and condescension. When he uses a wheelchair in a restaurant, for example, waiters sometimes ask his companion for his food order, as if he were a child.” Try also having a speech impediment.


But I get so tired of news stores like this - about the disabled trying to be not disabled. This article is all about Kaiuf, who is definitely no child but a 46-year-old man in Israel paralyzed when shot in a 1988 Lebanon firefight, competing in the 10K portion of the Tel Aviv marathon by using a ReWalk robotic device that enables him to walk.

If is fine with me that Kaiuf uses the device. I think it’s great that he is happy using it. But why is it news - deserving a quarter of a page, with a large picture - on the other side of the world?

Is Kaiuf using the device to make his life easier and more enjoyable? Or is he using it to appear less or not disabled? Kaiuf is quoted as saying, “Being upright makes a big difference. People see me as normal.”

Clearly, Kaiuf feels pressure to look “normal,” knowing the “stigma” of being disabled. It may very well be that he feels that his life is easier and more enjoyable when he looks normal.

News stories like this are no doubt part of the reason, if not the reason, why he feels this pressure, why his life is easier and more enjoyable when he looks normal.

Perhaps it helps to ask yourself if it would be okay if there was an article like this about a gay man marrying a woman in order to appear normal and make his life easier.

I’m all for trying to do your best. I’m not for trying to be something you’re not.

The homeless, still

Yes, my last post was about the homeless, but, at least with the way things are, they aren’t going away. The following is my column in today’s Claremont Courier.


DO WE BEWARE THE IDES, AND OTHERS, TOO MUCH?

Two weeks ago, it was warm enough on Friday afternoon for me to take off my shirt and just wear my overalls. What’s more, I could sit and read out in my backyard.

Not bad for March 1. And it was yet another reason, or perhaps the reason, we love it here in Southern California. We have all heard the stories about people calling their relatives or friends in the frigid Midwest and gloating or of people getting up on snow-bound New Year’s Days and turning on the television to watch the Rose Parade in impossibly sunny, balmy Pasadena (and how many then move here?).

But it was still winter. Even as I enjoyed getting an early start on my tan, I knew that winter wasn’t over and that it would be cold and wet in a few days. Sure enough, a couple storms came through last week.

That, as I learned when reading an article in the Los Angeles Times late last month, didn’t stop Los Angeles from closing its Westside winter shelter for the homeless on March 1 “for the season.” Never mind that the next week was forecast to be wet and cold. Never mind that, even now, “the season” isn’t over for another week. And never mind that, even in sunny, funny SoCal, the first month or so of spring can bring rain and chilly weather (after all, “April showers bring May flowers”).

And what about the summer heat and smog? Never mind giving the homeless shelter from that.

The article I was reading was about a storage trailer made available in a pilot program in Venice Beach where the homeless could keep their stuff not allowed at the overnight shelter. The unit was accessible for two hours each afternoon and was, like the shelter, slated to close down on March 1.

“We’re going to bag and tag [their items],” said Los Angeles Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents Venice. “We want to make it inconvenient but within the law.”

How convenient - or inconvenient - will Claremont make it for the homeless on its streets? Will we put up with them until a certain random date no matter how cold or how wet or how hot it is and then that’s it, we kick them out....to where (they’re already on the street)?

I’ve been wondering about this as Claremont has been discovering its homeless in the last year or so. That’s right - “discovering” - for, after declaring that there were three homeless people in Claremont, the City, with the assistance of people involved in Occupy Claremont, saw that it was off by a factor of 10 and that there are thirty people at least living on Claremont’s streets.

Not only that, but the City has been discovering that it has to do something about the homeless, other than throw them out (to Pomona, to Ontario, to L.A’s skid row, if we really want to answer the “to where” question). Back when the City presumably thought that there were three homeless people in Claremont, it passed an ordinance outlawing public camping and sleeping, essentially banning the homeless, but there was a court ruling saying that such a law is unconstitutional.

Since then, there has been another court ruling, stemming from Los Angeles, decreeing that a homeless person’s items, left unattended, cannot be discarded. Los Angeles has been wrestling with this, recently requesting an appeal, and it appears that the storage trailer in Venice was an answer.

Another answer in Los Angeles has been something called S.H.A.R.E, in which a small group of homeless people live in a house, made available by its owner and with rules, where they get the services they need to regain or gain stability in their lives.

Maybe one of these houses can be in Claremont. The City Council has recently decided to make the homeless a priority, and as it ponders what to do with them (other than kick them out), is there a reason why there can’t be a house like this here?

Or will the focus be on getting the homeless out of Claremont? Will the City do everything it can to deter the homeless, certainly not to attract them, and not to reach out to those who are here and try to help them?

There are those who argue that offering services attracts the homeless. Yes, “beware the Ides” may well be good advice, but compassion and charity are also known for good results. Making the homeless more of a problem may well only make the homeless more of a problem.

Something like this happened about ten years ago when L.A County came up with a proposal to have five regional service centers for the homeless rather than having so many of the homeless funnel into Skid Row in L.A. However, there was so much of a NIMBY outcry that the idea was shelved, and now Skid Row has become even more of a sinkhole, with, probably as a result, a rare strain of T.B being the latest problem.

I wonder if such a service center or a S.H.A.R.E house here is even possible when there was a commentary in these pages last week stating that “many neighbors are vehemently against” hospice, assisted living and community group houses in northern Claremont. The worry is that these residential homes for the dying, the elderly and other “challenged” individuals, regulated and monitored by the state, are a threat to “our treasured neighborhoods.”

Dying people. Foster kids. People in wheelchairs. A threat? Really?

And this is the homeless we’re talking about here. We’re not talking about convicted sex offenders who have completed their prison terms and are listed in a public registry and who are trying to be constructive members of society. They are being driven out even in L.A, where small “pocket parks” are being put in. Yes, it’s good that some areas are finally getting parks, even if they are only a swing set and a bench on a patch of grass. But, as was pointed out in a recent Los Angeles Times article, these new parks also have another, perhaps primary purpose: convicted sex offenders can’t live within 2000 feet from parks, as well as schools and other such places.

Being cautious and on guard is all well and good, as the Ides of March remind us. But I wonder if the upcoming season of renewed life and hope, of newfound freedom and peace, has a message for us as we consider how to deal with the others in our midst.

Those inconvenient people

“We want to make it inconvenient but within the law.”


It was all good when I was reading the article in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago until this quote came up. I was glad to see that a storage trailer was being made available at Venice Beach where the homeless can stash their stuff. Then Los Angeles Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents Venice, opened his mouth. He also said this: “We’re not going to let [homeless people] keep items on the beach anymore. We’re going to bag and tag [them].”

What’s being bagged and tagged here? The homeless?

I couldn’t help wondering, as Mr. Rosendahl made it perfectly clear that the storage program really wasn’t about being compassionate and charitable towards the homeless, making their lives easier. The pilot program was about tolerating the homeless and co-exist with them and their stuff - and not necessarily in a way that is easy for them. People could only store things for a week at a time, and the trailer was only accessible from 3 to 5 and scheduled to close today, March 1, when the city’s homeless shelters close, now that winter is supposedly over.

I thought about this on a recent Sunday morning at the close of Quaker meeting when the children reported learning about the homeless and not thinking that a person who is homeless because of a drinking problem is any worse or less worthy than a person on the streets simply due to dire financial straits.

Then there was the news yesterday that Los Angeles asking the Supreme Court to throw out a lower court ruling that the City can’t throw away items left unattended by the homeless. The City says it’s a public health issue.

Seeing things on a visit

Shortly after the new year, I got a large envelope in the mail from my brother who lives up north in the Bay Area. Inside was a colored-in paper doll cut-out with a letter signed by my six-year-old nephew. The letter was a form letter clearly written by a teacher and explaining that the paper doll was Flat Stanley, a character in a children’s book who loves to travel, and part of a class project. I was asked to returned Flat Stanley along with a letter and photographs and other memorabilia.


I had never heard of Flat Stanley, but the project sounded cool, and I was happy to do it, although it did get to feel like homework or even a take-home final after a while. My contribution was about my life with a disability as much as it was about Claremont. I also had fun with Flat Stanley in my column which came out in Wednesday’s Claremont Courier and appears below.

The project was also a nice way for me to be more involved with my brother and his family that I don’t see much. In addition, it made me think about maybe writing a children’s book about being disabled. Mmmmm...



FLAT STANLEY TOUCHES DOWN IN CLAREMONT

Dear Flat Mom,

I don’t need to tell you that, like being green, being flat isn’t easy. You’ve been telling me this since I began life as a little paper cut-out. Especially when 3-D has been all the rage - although I recently heard that those movies aren’t quite so popular now. There was this one guy, a grown man, who saw me a couple weeks ago and couldn’t stop laughing. Ouch!

But, as you also told me, being flat makes it a whole lot easier to travel. I don’t need to worry about getting a seat or paying those insane fees for baggage. I am baggage! Just put me in a suitcase or a backpack or even an envelope and I’m there. For a guy like me who loves to go places and see new things, this is one sweet deal and sure beats bumming rides!

An envelope was what I was in when I arrived here in Claremont, where I’ve been staying with a man named John. In fact, I was mailed here from the Bay Area in Northern California from his younger nephew along with a letter. I guess I’m part of a class project. Whatever. As long as I get to be out on the road.

John was very surprised when I showed up at his house. It wasn’t that he had to have a bed for me or to feed me or anything. I was happy just laying on the couch. (Another advantage to being flat and an easy traveler!) But he said that he had never heard of me.

Maybe I’m touchy, but this bugged me. But on the first day that John took me out, a woman who walked by said, “Oh, you’re with Flat Stanley!” It was nice to hear her talk about how there’s a very popular children’s book all about me. So much for that man who couldn’t stop laughing at me!

Actually, other than that laughing man, Claremont has been a really nice and interesting place. I think what I like best about Claremont is that it is a small town but has a lot going on and a lot of interesting people.

For one thing, there are eight colleges here in town, and they are all pretty well-known and regarded. John took me all around the campuses and showed me a lot of great buildings. There is the ornate Little Bridges and the gigantic Big Bridges at Pomona College, and Scripps College has Garrison Theater with awesome mosaics of scenes from Shakespeare’s plays on its facade. John said there are lectures and concerts going on all the time at the colleges - often more than one at the same time - and he loves going to many of them.

One night recently, John went to see Charles Krauthammer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and commentator, speaking at Scripps College. It was part of an annual program to bring conservative voices to campus. The young woman who was ushering asked John, “You here to see this guy?” and then rolled her eyes and said, “Should be interesting.” John told me that it is important to hear people who have different viewpoints. That way, he said, you know how to talk to and argue with them.

Even so, John was surprised at the warm reception that Mr. Krauthammer got - there was a thunderous standing ovation when he appeared on the cozy office set on stage - and when all the questions people asked him were soft balls. John, who is disabled, said that if he had had his wits together, he would have asked Mr. Krauthammer, who also uses a wheelchair, how the disabled would get the expensive equipment and help they need if the government offered fewer services as he and other conservatives advocate.

The colleges aren’t the only things that make Claremont interesting and unique. There are a lot of artists and musicians living here, and the downtown area, called the Village, is full of nice, creative shops, as well as good restaurants. If you’re ever in the area, you should check out the Folk Music Center. And there are also a lot of incredibly active older adults, including the not-so-retiring retired church workers living at Pilgrim Place.

One weird thing, though, is that there is a City Council election going on that looks to be not much to do about nothing. The vote is on March 5, in less than two weeks, yet there has hardly been any discussion or debate, because, apparently, nobody thinks that the guy who made a late entry to run against the two incumbents for two seats has a chance of winning or something. I don’t know. I don’t live here, but it looks pretty silly, not to mention like a big waste of money.

Speaking of weird, John can’t get over the fact that, as of March 1, the newspaper in Claremont, the Courier, will no longer come out on Wednesdays and Saturdays, as it has for as long as he can remember. We’re talking decades here. The paper will come out once a week, on Friday, because there will no longer be Saturday mail delivery. John says that he is happy that, unlike with some other newspapers, the Courier will still be coming out in print but that this all (including the part about no mail on Saturdays) is about as shocking as a pope resigning for the first time in 600 years. Times do really change.

Perhaps the best thing about Claremont, at least at this time of year, has been the spectacular weather. The Bay Area was wet and cold when I left, and most of the country has been frigid and snowy, most days here have been sunny and bright, relatively mild, with snow magnificently capping Mt. Baldy nearby. John still laughs at the guys at the colleges, probably from freezing states, walking around in shorts and tees and flip-flops on chilly nights and even in the rain.

On a drive up on Mt. Baldy after a recent storm, the little village up there was covered in white, and John said that he keeps forgetting that there is another world up there so close by. His friend, who was also from out of town, commented that Claremont he it all, with the mountains barely half an hour away and the beach and Los Angeles about an hour away.

I couldn’t agree more, but it’s time for me to be moving on. You know how much I like to travel!

Your son,

Flat Stanley

But what about me?

I recently saw The Impossible, the powerful, harrowing and ultimately inspiring film directed by J.A Bayona about a family that survives the huge Indian Ocean tsunami on December 26, 2004 while on a Christmas vacation at a luxury beach resort in Thailand. Naomi Watts is up for the Best Actress Oscar for playing the mother.


There are horrific scenes of the mother and the oldest of the three young sons (breathtakingly played by...I forget who!) surfacing after the initial wave and thrashed about by seemingly endless subsequent waves and debris as they frantically try to swim toward each other and a place of safety. I couldn’t help but be struck by how much courage and gumption they had.

I also found thinking myself that I’d be out of luck, to say the very least, strapped as I am in my heavy wheelchair, even if I could swim.

I have the same thought every time I’m in an elevator and see the sign saying not to use the elevator in case of fire. How will I get downstairs and out of the burning building alive? Can I count on someone, perhaps a stranger, to carry me?

There was recently an article in the Los Angeles Times about an earthquake warning system, like the one that saved many lives in Japan, being developed here in California. People will theoretically be notified a few or perhaps more seconds before an earthquake. Would I be able to control my nervous spasms enough to maneuver my chair to a safe place, if not to open the door and get out (if I’m home, not in bed, alone), in time?

But, although I have gathered some emergency supplies, I often wonder if I want to survive “the Big One,” when all will be chaos, to say the least, and my attendants may not be able to come.