If I didn't have a disability, I might be a jerk

A free-form poem


If I didn't have a disability...

I might not be as sympathetic to the needs of others.

If I didn't have a disability...

would I be as patient when things don't go the way I planned?

If I didn't have a disability...

would I be as willing to socialize outside my culture?

If I didn't have a disability...

would I mind if I were the "minority" in the room?

If I didn't have a disability...

would I know how to empathize with the kid who got picked on for having pimples and wearing glasses

and would I know what it's like to be judged by stereotypes and  for people assume I can't have a normal life: a wife, kids, a vibrant social life or a normal job?

If didn't have a disability...

would I feel so attached to human rights and the Dream of Dr. King so much so that I put a poster of him on my wall while, of course, I am still white?

If didn't have a disability...

would I see a gay couple and think of how horrible it would be if I were told I couldn't get married because I have Cerebral Palsy or because my lady is Filipino?

If didn't have a disability...

would I be a jerk?

I may never know these things --

 yet I indeed know the blessings that my "disability" brings!



Roll on!

Help give crutches to diamond mine victims in Sierra Leone, Africa

 Hey, guys. thewhole9.com artist community is planning to donate 10,000 pairs of crutches to the diamond mine victims in Sierra Leone, Africa.



Here is the flyer I received in my email:

From the website:

Please visit www.morleymusic.org for more information about Morley, her performance dates and her inspirational music.

lyrics

BE THE ONE

I want you to be the one to find a way out of no way
Be the one to open doors and stand, head held high
Stand! In pointed places and make them round
Be the first in the place over hushed voices to make a sound
Make a sound child

I want u to be the one to feel the rhythm in the room
And never deny what lives inside of you
Be the one to listen, be the one that hears
Possibility without fear, possibility for u my dear
Be the one

(Chorus)
It’s alright alright Take your rightful place
Its alright alright Spread a smile across your face
Its alright alright Believing in you
Bada bada .. feel it like u do
Feel your power in the way u do what u do

I want you to be the one to find a way out of no way
Be the one to open doors and stand, head held high
Stand! Those pointed places, go on and make them round
Be the first in the place where theres no choices to make a sound
Please heal the ground child

Its alright alright Take your rightful place
Its alright alright Spread a smile across your face
Its alright alright Believing in you
Bada bada .. feel it like u do

What if u are one with the one who sends the rain?
What if u are one with the one who turns the page?
What if u are one with the one who sends the rain?
What if u should never apologize?

Never never apologize for the light that’s in your eyes never never
Never never apologize for the dreams in your mind never never
Never never apologize for the love that’s in your life never never
Never never apologize for the gentleness in your stride never 


Roll on!

I say, Bradley Cooper, Kindles and iPads are much more 'limitless' and handicapped accessible than laptops!

In light of a certain movie that was just released on DVD this month, I have had a Wheelchair Philosopher epiphany: is it just me or do the smaller Kindles and iPads of our modern Universe seem better suited for people with fine motor impairments than traditional laptop computers? As a guy who has never used a wheelchair tray or a cup holder --two things I probably could really use for just about every day of my life-- the bigger buttons and touch screens on the large tablet devices are just that much easier to do the "hold with one hand and type with the other" shtick -- you just can't do that with a Macbook no matter how bedazzling and beguiling its functions and number of Gs -- even if it could video conference with the Good Lord or something. A laptop will fall off a wheelchair user's lap faster than a squirmy four-year-old on Fun Drip. Plus, don't we all feel more "able-bodied" and limitless, disability or  no, when we can do stuff one- handed? I do declare I think so.

Am I crazy? Do you find Kindles, iPads and tablet devices easier to use when dealing with certain disabilities? Let me know.



Until then... roll yo' self fool!

Wheelchair fencing freakin' rules!

Oh yes! methinks this be the shiznit! It's wheelchair fencing! Oh! You didn't know?

For more on the rules and schools of wheelchair fencing go to wheelchairfencer.org.




Roll on!

Avoid duplicate titles when blogging

mrwhoa.com

While admin-ing my friend's blog last night, I came across one post which claimed that search engines are confused by duplicate titles on blogs. As much as I love having signature titles, apparently, the mavens who perfect search engine optimization (SEO) say that this idea is in truth, very much Bad News Bears.

 For more on this and other blogging tips, you can hit up this link:

http://www.techiemania.com/optimization-of-blog-titles-for-better-seo.html


Roll on!

39 Pounds of Love (2005)

Meet Ami -- a 34-year-old, 39-pound man who lives life from his wheelchair. He's a 3D animator. He speaks three languages, drinks whiskey, rides his custom motor cycle and lives like there is no tomorrow. But then again, Ami had been being told there was no tomorrow for him from over 30 years at the time this film was made.

Watch 39 Pounds of Love on  here at  --->Hulu.com



Roll on!

Wheelchair Freelancing: I will send a singing telegram over the phone as Batman for $5 on fiverr.com

I'll serenade you... I'm Batman.

Sometimes, my disability and not being able to drive to a job makes me think of creative ways to make a buck or five. This is one such Bat-tastic instance.

mikeywrites0010: I will send a singing telegram over the phone as Batman for $5 on fiverr.com

Video Sidebar: Mike Reader's wheelchair golf swagger has me contemplating a new hobby

I saw this piece earlier tonight and had to share it with my blogospherical minions! Enjoy and leave comments!


http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:6784180

Check out the newly improved format of the blog!

Feed back is welcome! I hope you enjoy!


Roll on!

The Wheelchair Philosopher has some new topics upcoming

Romance and Disability

Disability Fetishes

I hate political correctness

The Top Five TV Characters in Wheelchairs

Timmy and Jimmy: Are they giving disabled people a bad name?

Stevie Wonder is my hero

Movie Review: Murderball (2005) 

Roll on!

Re-blog: 'Angels Without Wings' calendar features nude women in wheelchairs -- what's your opinion? (18+ only)

Drop by this blog and take a look at  the latest in artistic nude controversy/intrigue:

http://www.beautyability.com/2.0/2008/01/10/angels-without-wings/comment-page-1/

 Tell Tiffany that Mike sent you.

Roll on!

Wheelchair Philosophy #1: I'm different, so is everybody. (Section 2)

When I first wrote the poem in my previous post, (Click here to read Section 1.) the year was 2006: I had just returned from a poetry reading by poet and actor Saul Williams at the State University of New York at New Paltz where I had recently enrolled at the slighly further ripened age of 24. I went back to my dorm with William's words smacked across my ears steadly making a home inside them. He spoke with such a blatent, boisterous and yet learned ferocity -- an earthy, visceral, and instantaneous spiritual force that just about two weeks after hearing it, inspired me to write "Perpetual Motion." It's the type phenomenon that many artists I've met describe in nearly the same way. It's as if God put the words in you -- as if they possessed  your soul minus the spitting up pea soup bit. In that moment, mountains move from here to there and nothing is impossible (at least such was the case for me in those first 30 to 60 minutes  that I started writing).

This poem was different. It had a percussion and kick to its free verse rhyme scheme with each successive word punching the page. But this was not the type of punching begets road rage at a busy inter section in Omaha, Nebraska, but the make and model you get from doing the exact opposite thing. It's a peaceful, repose-filling voice that says quietly yet distinctly, "Be still and know that I am in control." Within a few days I had finished what would remain 90% the same five years later.

I took it to my Poetry group at my college and read it part nervous and part as evangelicals term it, filled with the Spirit. The paper shook in my hand a bit As I started to read from it.I gripped it firmly as my tone grew in ferocity. I felt myself inexplicably running out of breath slightly as if I were running from a demon in a spiritual 5K.  But by the time I was finished reading, my fellow poets looked at me as if I were Jesus on the Mount  after his sermon.. I didn't know what to make of their reactions. But I knew in my heart it was the greatest thing I had ever written, yet I had zero ego about it -- it was too good for me to have written it. It was so well received that deep friendships have since grown out of just that one piece. I was most aware of this after seeing a  comment young girl on DeviantArt.com who told me that the poem was going to be found one day after I'm long passed away and studied by English Lit students as one of my great unpublished works. Comments like this along with hearing things like, "Easily one of the best things I've read in my life..."
are more validation then any worldly riches could ever give me.

When the subject of the poem first came to me I wanted to write something about how I felt/feel my Cerebral Palsy defined who I  am and that I was was shaped by it in almost every way a person can be: in my social hellos with the most random of classroom and nightclub observers to dealing with the quite literally overzealous evangelical Christian who insists my disability is a covertly and unmitigatedly  insidious plot by Satan and his minions to keep me from my divine destiny. To me it was quite the contrary situation -- one that is brought to light by Jesus in John 9:3 when he insists that the work of God is shown by way of a particular blind man's impairment ala  Stevie Wonder. It is a philosophy I've carried with me for almost two decades. By most accounts, the piece did its job.

As of this writing, "Perpetual Motion" is not in print offline. However, this post has given my an idea that could change that fact... stay tuned and roll on!

New Mobility Re-blog: Lady Gaga has a new wheelchair-using alter ego

AP Image

Apparently, Lady Gaga has gone googoo over Yuyi, a wheelchair-rolling mermaid alter-ego with a pension for gothic funerals. Click the link here to get the full salt water-fresh story at New Mobility: The magazine for active wheelchair users.


Roll on!

Support autism awareness at CafePress.com

Support, educate and advocate for autism awareness. Spread the word, buy a shirt, hat, button or more at cafepress.com. I have three autistic people in my life and right now according to a recent study posted at Geneous Biomedical's website around 1 in 20 children in the U.S. is born with autism. WOW!


T-Shirt - CafePress Product Info from CafePress on Vimeo.


Buy the cool new Tribal Tee -- my fave!

Photosophical: Did Beyoncé turn 'White' for her new album cover?

Yes, Pop diva Beyoncé's new album, 4 has garnered quite a bit of buzz by critics and fans alike. Yet the first thing that came to mind when I saw the cover is..."Why did they make her look like a bleach blonde White girl?" Did she really love MJ's look that much and for that matter did enough people on Planet Earth like it that "Be" would want to steal such infamous thunder? As this blog is largely a blog about self-acceptance, disability or no, I must say it strikes my blogging tongue a bit peculiar (as my bad grammar would indicate to you). But I'll let you be the judge.


Hmmm?


Roll on!

Wheelchair Freelancing: I will write a guest blog for $6

I will write a guest blog for $6

...because finding time to blog is half the battle.

Roll on!

And again, you can hit me up at http://thumbtack.com/michaellapenna. :o)

Wheelchair Freelancing: I will write a speech for you in long form for $100

Check it out handi-fans : I will write a speech for you in long form for $100

Roll on!

P.S. For more cool offers like this you can contact me here at http://thumbtack.com/michaellapenna at my writing, editing and creative services listing.

Non-wheel Words: What is the real value of the arts?

To answer the above question I present an oldie but goodie from an old, and unfortunately now defunct blog   that I used to call Waxing Poetically at the former Today.com (aka BlogDog.com).

Image url here

Why the Creative Thinking of Your Childhood is the Basis for All Real Learning (2008)

“I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.” -Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground





Think back to your childhood. Did you play? Did you run around your house in your underpants pretending to be your favorite hero or heroin trying to save the world from an evil scientist? Did you ever build anything: a house of cards, a tower of crackers, maybe a simple fort? Did you ever play cop and fight imaginary villains and try to thwart a robbery? Maybe you were the one who pretended to have a family of five, a beachfront vacation home and an office in the city. Even if you did none of these, back when you were six, nine, eleven years old, your mind wandered if your normal day-to-day got too boring.


Now contrast your play life with that of school. First, the adults made you go. There was no compromise, no voting and no writing to your local senator or the ACLU about how you feel your parents may have violated your constitutional right to stay home and eat Fudgie the Whale ice cream cake all day (or maybe it was Count Chocula… whatever). You had to go to school. No amount of negotiating would change that. You rode your school bus, arrived at school, and soon thereafter would learn whatever the day had in store: spelling, grammar, math and history for which you had no point of reference. Flashcards were equally monotonous— you sat in your chair memorizing each card to the point your brain would just shut off and proceed to rattle off answers like a Pavlovian pup waiting to be rewarded with that peanut butter and jelly masterpiece your mother prepared while you were negotiating the Fudgie the Whale particulars.


Then it was lunchtime! Lunch was great because you could always compare the other kids’ food with yours. Even if yours was crappy, the kid at the end of the table who ate crayons for money would devour your cafeteria meatloaf like a vulture on a deer carcass! Lunch was a time to talk about your favorite pastimes. Baseball was popular with the boys and for some unknown reason, fortune telling was the girls’ thing with little paper-folded demon machines which always said something like “You smell like pee and have a hairy butthole!” Recess would follow and someone would always get maimed by a dodgeball or innocently and precociously chased by a member of the opposite sex (usually) and another kid would get inadvertently beaten with the double dutch ropes.


Next, you’d have more science work to do, memorizing ten categories of plant life or you’d learn how to type like a speed endurance champion, or maybe go to a gym class, art class, music class (These all varied depending on your school’s budget). But these were the times that seemed most free. In art class you could paint the sky purple and no one could tell you it was wrong. Music class had all those silly 1920s “flappertastic” classics that you by all accounts hated… but at least it didn’t have any long division or decimals! On the days you had gym, you ran in a circle for ten minutes and then perfected your volleyball serve to a tee while you gave your best Olympic-style grunt. Ah, those were the days, heh?


It is, without question, sadly prophetic that I should speak in the past tense about your and my collective school experience because right now as I speak to you,  only half of K-12 aged students receive regular physical education— and art classes, while the highlight of many a child’s day are now a luxury. This is largely due to the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act which brought about stricter and more streamlined testing standards for schools nationwide that focus primarily on math and literacy skills. Kids are tested three times a year and thus have to spend a considerable amount of time preparing for tests. But the evidence suggests that without the arts and exercise, U.S. Children may be actually losing their ability to process, analyze and dissect information in ways that are essential for innovation in business, science, engineering and medicine. A Centers for Disease Control study completed this past year suggests that girls who get at least 70 hours of exercise per week perform significantly better overall than those who average 35 hours per week. Boys, the study says, may need even more activity. Arts have been shown to be even more paramount to healthy brain function. Playing music for instance requires vigorous processing on both sides of the brain while creative expressions in writing and visual arts require critical thinking and an ability to view the world and its problems in new and uncharted ways for the fact that art is not usually restricted to 2 + 2 = 4. This was probably best expressed in the words of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky in his existential classic Notes from the Underground when he opined, “I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.”


What No Child Left Behind robs from children’s education is the imagination of childhood and also fails to cultivate that all important physical instinct to run, jump, climb, push and explore which physical exercise provides. Children have an uncanny and innate ability to conquer their world just by looking around it, exploring, digging, running or playing make-believe. It is just that simple. In this way, children who make art are the future architects and engineers. The most curious minds are often among those who cure diseases or build spaceships and the best actors are often the best undercover investigators on the face of the earth! Then there are the entertainers who make you and me smile at the end of a bad day, artists who allow us to look at our lives with newborn eyes, athletes who make us realize that our human bodies have oh, so much untapped potential! It is, my friends, these elements which compose the human being in all his glory and you and I have known this ever since we first began to play. So I say to you: play on, create and imagine. Imagination is after all, your most sacred tool with which to discover the Universe of possibility which lies before you!

Roll on!

Three Simple Ways You Can Be Happier and More Productive in Under an Hour

Three Simple Ways You Can Be Happier and More Productive in Under an Hour 

Take 45 minutes to one hour to do these three things:

1. Stop thinking about what you can't do and switch it to thinking about what you CAN do. Your brain can't picture "NOT", it can only picture what is. If I, for instance, say "Don't think about the color blue", you'll think about BLUE first.

2, Visualize your BIGGEST goals and write them as if they are happening already. Do this for at least a half hour.

3. Finally, make a list of things you want to do in your life in three columns with the "Things to do" in the first column and "How to do them" in the second column. Then make a list of people who can help you accomplish these goals in the third column and finally... call those people later.


Roll on!


    

Remember Mark Zupan?

Mark Zupan is that crazed Barbarian who starred as himself in the smash indie hit the 2005 Wheelchair Rugby doc Murderball. (Review coming)

Roll on!

Hari's Blog: T-Shirt Logos for Autism

Hey folks! I thought this was worthy of a re-blog:

Hari's Blog: T-Shirt Logos for Autism: "Autism Optimism Another one ------ Autism Acceptance Anxiety Reduction - Hari Srinivasan (6/2/11)"

Roll on!

Forget walking, gimmie a space suit!

Could this be what the future of space travel holds? My original artwork: Magic Carpet Vortex.

Today was the end of a cosmological era.The now decades old Space Shuttle Atlantis "blasted off real big" (as New York DJ Funk Master Flex would say) and alas, NASA and nerds of the Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek and Star Wars ilk will have to endure until we as a planetary collective aim to party  it up on an asteroid in the Dagobah system.

Yes, our quest to perfect ear thermometers, (We invented  them after using similar tech on one of the shuttles.) tang and whatever else the spirit of  Billy Mays has left inside the nearest reaches of our space station(s) to OxiClean astronauts' suits or -- at the very least-- to serve the voyagers tiny delicious burgers -- well, that's all over. Instead, the fine folks who inspired ET to be made are reaching the point in their careers in which Asteroids is no longer most known for being an  Atari game from '81, but an actual destination to be sought after for exploration and descovery of... new uses for penicillin... or why garlic bread is so addictive.

Being at the 1983 shuttle launch is one of the few memories I have of being two years old. It was a good one. The engines rumbled and I saw a rocket fly... I think. But regardless of when it happens next, if I hit the million dollar jackpot with my career, I just might have to take up Sir Richard Branson's idea of a trip to space for my spring break with the wife and kids. Until then, I will try really hard to think of being able to walk without crutches or a walker as being entirely as big a freakin' deal is as hangin' with the wife and Brooke Burke Dancing with the Stars quite literally in zero gravity. Until then....roll on!

Photosophical: Sometimes life is sweet and delicious!

Here's a gem of a photo/quotation to make up for my lack of bloggery:

Photo from J. Philip's Active Rain Real Estate blog

Roll on!

Do our limitations define us just as much as our abilities?

The quotation above might seem ironic or what intellectuals refer to as a paradox: two opposites existing simultaneously but seeming to be a scientific impossibility like doing more things in less time or "pre-boarding" an airplane. (How exactly does one get on the plane before he or she gets on the plane?) But alas, these are the breaks and shakes life often grants us.

I often think of how many things, situations, etc. are made ever the more meaningful by even the slightest adversity. Say for instance sports were easy. Would we still play them? If the New York Yankees really did literally "win all the time" oh how boring that would be -- or at very least the other team would want to jump into a jagged Nintendo-esque, spike-filled canyon. But I digress. The more practical point: any lack forces one to look harder for that "other means." I can't drive to work, but I can work from home. There are those who cannot with any stretch of normal range sing, but they may be superlative poets and rappers. (God knows Bob Dylan made a golden goose out of whining and baahing  like a fatigued horned beast at a drawbridge in Narnia.)  And when the Japanese were left without scissors, origami was perfected.  Let's be honest, if had never had Cerebral Palsy, I would never have become the wheelchair philosopher that you barely know but really want to like.

Today's moral: find out what you suck at and do the opposite (or suck in a really grandiose, ebullient, illuminating, verve-filled, pointed yet virilely capricious way -- and get a dictionary for reading this blog. :)) 

Let's take a break from blogging to watch fireworks!

Happy Birthday, United States!


Roll on!

Upcoming posts... you know you want 'em

 In no particular order:

 - A review of the film Murderball (2005)

- The premiere  of The "My Favorite Poems" posts

 - More Wheelchair Philosophy posts

.... Of course, I'll have to start commenting more on other people's blogs too. ;0)


Roll on!

Video Sidebar: Is the Americans with Disabilities Act BS?

The video below is a TV-MA clip from the Showtime TV show Penn & Teller:.Bullsh**.  It argues against current ADA disability laws and suggests that the laws might actually be a serious legal liability. For the record, I agree with the sentiment only partly -- namely that I don't always need a handicapped parking spot  -- and for the  love of God, if you have to use the handicapped stall to leave a "defecation", I literally do not give one in most instances.

Roll on!

Video Sidebar: I am not politically correct, therefore 'Monster in a Wheelchair' has me rolling... with laughter

I discovered this brash disregard for wheat toasty good taste back in 2006, and I'm still coughing up "irony" rich blood with how freakin' hard I laugh at this!

Video by Brian Huskey