Little boats, Big Ideas

You Can’t Handle The Truth!

Little boats, Big Ideas

There are reasons behind my longstanding dislike for Rob Reiner. Good ones. Let’s just say this: November 7, 2000 –  Nashville. You know what you did, Meathead.

However, I can divorce the man from the medium, and I find myself coming back to the pivotal scene in “A Few Good Men” more often than what may be strictly necessary. It’s such an all-purpose one liner for sticky situations where a little truthiness is required (big hugs, Stephen Colbert. I quote you quite a bit as well).

The truth about the truth is it’s often uncomfortable. A writer I’ve been getting into lately, Sharon Ellison, devoted a large portion of her book “Taking The War Out Of Our Words” to this idea of ditching confrontational or passive/aggressive language and tonality in favor of direct and truthful dialog. So I think we all agree that the goal is admirable and necessary.

Necessary, but uncomfortable. I’ve found this idea bumping up against another fact of life… that convictions are easy as long as you don’t have to live by them. Here’s an example. I believe that Alabama, where I grew up, is actually one of the easiest places in America to be a liberal. Take just a second to stop your head from exploding and I’ll explain. In Alabama, there is so much red meat conservatism (not judgin’, just sayin’) that it becomes very easy to espouse liberal ideals, because it’s also very easy to rest assured that you will never, ever have to live by them. Long after our sun has burned away and we are subjected to the cold vastness of an empty universe (yet still with new seasons of  Grey’s Anatomy in production, I suspect), Alabama will always be the reddest of red states.

Do you really want to live day to day, side by side, with the consequences of a left of center… very left of center… ideals? Then buckle up, my friend and move to San Francisco. That’s where the rubber meets the road. You’ll find yourself facing the mindset that comes with living in the bluest of blue states.

You will face challenges to your convictions as you wake up one morning to find not just the tires, but the wheels of your car have been stolen overnight, and the response you get from your friends and neighbors is “well, just remember that whoever took them must have needed them a lot more than you.” This happened to a filmmaker friend of mine. Can you handle the fact that there is an active anarchist element in your neighborhood? Actual anarchists. Honestly, I don’t know how they manage to organize, what with the anarchy and whatnot, but there they are, and during the Occupy era, they pretty much took over the protests in Oakland. Speaking of Occupy, can you handle the idea that as protestors were breaking the shop windows of minority owned businesses in downtown Oakland while railing against the one percent, the world headquarters of Chevron in San Ramon, less than 30 miles away, were left unscathed. Can you really handle the idea that total freedom means looking the other way or even laughing about the fact that on any given day in the Castro, there are men walking around 17th and Market Streets completely naked and that when police try to encourage them to put clothes on, it’s the police who are yelled at and mocked as fascists? Where you can often find people openly lighting a joint on the public transit system. We haven’t even talked about the taxes for a public school system that is, let’s face it, failing. Now, I must say, for all that, I like it here, but can you handle the truth? I’ve had a hard time with it, because living up to your principles means living up to them even when it’s tough. Especially when it’s tough.

Bear with me, I really am going somewhere with this.

As I wrote in the previous post, my personal challenge has been living by the logical conclusion of what I’ve been advocating from the film director’s chair, that anyone with a handicap has the right… no, the duty… to live with the same freedoms, the same rights, the same opportunities as anyone else.

As Dennis, Samuel, Otis and Katy set sail into the heart of the Cook Strait, I was quite sure that if and when something went wrong out there, somebody was going to get hurt. Someone could possibly die. The reporter in me, the professional observer struggled with this, as I hope anyone would. Sometimes, as a reporter, you have to ask yourself how inviolable the rule of nonparticipation is. Even though we would be heading back to the United States before the crossing was officially finished, leaving New Zealand’s TV3 to capture the mid-crossing footage to coordinate with our preps and launch footage, I felt a certain degree of responsibility. Was I tacitly signing on to a mission that was just too dangerous? Let’s say someone died. Just how much ownership would I be bearing for this by having held out the carrot of media exposure, always a powerful incentive.

Well, here’s what happened. Spoiler alert: they made it.

The fleet set out early on the morning of the tail end of their launch window. They had given themselves seven days of opportunities to launch before the window closed. On the day of the crossing, the weather was, on the surface, perfect. Perfect for the Cook Strait means temperatures in the forties or fifties Fahrenheit with 40 knot winds and twelve foot swells. So not a pleasure cruise, is what I’m saying.

It was risky. It was dangerous. Samuel did get cold but his core temperature did not drop below critical levels, always a big concern for someone with Brittle Bone Syndrome. Dennis was able to track the fleet and the rescue boats, an essential ability for someone who is visually impaired, although in the roar of the winds he was often down by two senses, not just one. Otis did lose feeling in his lower abdomen (not permanently, I should add), but he made it. Katy did keep her cool and acted selflessly to guide the team through rough waters.

So they made it. And they made it for different reasons. Dennis to reclaim his heritage, dating back to the first of his ancestors to sail into the region where even today, a bay on the strait is named after him. Samuel for the memory of his friend, one of only six in the entire nation of New Zealand, who shared his disease, but who died from complications. Otis for seizing the freedom even he says was more abstract than ironclad until this day. And Katy for the sake of her guidepost, that disability is no limit to adventure and for the conviction that this would be a better world if nobody should have to hide a disability or a differences..

But this is the truth, and I’m still learning to handle it. I’ve sworn an oath in my profession – be the storyteller, not the story. No matter what the story is. I’ve also made a promise… to advocate for the rights of people with handicaps to do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want. The challenge of that chain of thoughts is whether I really believe that includes the right to risk your life as a consequence of those rights. To die for what you believe in.

The truth of the matter is this. Nobody on this crossing really believed that they were going to die out there. This conviction was expressed to me a number of times, and was backed up by months of preparation and years of training. But it’s a rough world out there in the elements, and they could have died. Easily and quickly. Anything could have happened at any time. A four meter swell that turns into a ten meter swell. A sudden squall that tossses everyone overboard, even with a rescue boat twenty five yards away. Pitching and yawing and hypothermia. It was all on the table. Yes, anything could have gone wrong in a hurry.

And we have to be okay with that, because it’s none of our business.

I think we as a society talking the talk about equal rights, myself included, have to handle the truth. that if a handicapped person says they have to do something, and they say they’ve taken all the consequences into consideration and that they’ve prepared as best they can, it is not our job to give them permission to do what they, as an intelligent and mentally competent adult say they are going to do. It’s not our job to agree with the decision, and it’s not our job to paternalize or punish grown men and women.

There is a consequence to this. A blind hiker has climbed Mount Everest. A blind sailor has crossed the Cook Strait. A blind pilot has landed a plane. Someday, someone is going to die trying this or something similar. And there’s going to be a lot of finger pointintg. Somebody should have stepped in and stopped them, it will be said. Somebody should have done something.

Well, I say that when that happens, what we did was give a person the same chance and the same choice to make a responsible decision as we would give anyone else. Life has consequences, and this is the truth I, along with everyone else, have to handle.

Thank you, Dennis, Samuel, Otis and Katy for reminding me of that.

The Cook Strait Crossing

Walking the Walk:  Revisiting This Idea On the Cook Strait

Disability and danger meet head on in the middle of the roaring forties
Disability and danger meet head on in the middle of the roaring forties

It’s been more than six months since the Cook Strait crossing, and I’m just now starting to figure out what to think about it.

Let me tell you about Dennis. He went to sleep one night and woke up visually impaired the next morning. A viral infection did the deed, and he tells me that his local ophthalmologist basically told him there was nothing that could  be done and gave him a card for a regional rehabilitation service on the way out. “well, there were a few days of a very depressed Dennis,” he told me when I met  him in person. I still have trouble buying that, but I do buy what he’s selling – that the only way to deal with a setback is to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep moving.

Let me tell you about Samuel. He has a condition called Brittle Bone Syndrome. He’s also what is called a little person. If he trips on a curbside, it can mean weeks or months of recovering from fractures. You can usually find him in a wheelchair, because that’s just a safer way to live. Sam often carries something warm to drink because in this part of the world, closer to Antarctica than most other continents besides Australia, it gets cold quite a bit, and with his lighter bone density and smaller stature, core temperature is a very big deal.

Let me tell you about Otis. He has Spina Bifida. He’s been in a wheelchair since he was a year old. He’s just turned eighteen and knows that the best case scenario for the rest of his life is never feeling anything below the waist.

And let me tell you about Katy. She’s spent most of her life around people with disabilities, and she knows a little something about prejudice and preconceptions. She trains disabled men and women to accomplish extraordinary goals. Her motto, which I heard so many times I can recite it by heart is “Disability is no limit to adventure.”

Well.

Now I want to tell you about the Cook Strait. This is the channel of water that separates the north and south islands of New Zealand. If you have ever heard the phrase “the roaring forties,” this is the pocket of the globe where it comes from. It describes the wind conditions through the channel, along the fortieth parallel, not the wind speeds themselves, which can indeed be forty knots but this would  be a low number on a good day. There are gusts up to 120. It’s such a dangerous body of water, rental car companies on the north island prohibit you from using the interisland ferry services to shuttle their vehicles across to the south island, and vice versa. Because there accidents, you see. Ferries as large as an office building are routinely benched. Oh, you can cross, but they would prefer you leave their cars behind.

When my sailing coach in San Francisco told me that his buddy Dennis in New Zealand was going to be crossing the Cook Strait in an eleven foot dinghy, my first thought was that we had to add this to our shot sheet. When Dennis told me that Samuel, Otis and Katy were also part of the crossing, it became what we in television news used to call a “must cover.” In news, “must cover” usually meant a story dictated from the general manager’s office… his wife getting a community service award, for example.

Here, though, “must cover” became a more meaningful idea. Disabled sailors crossing the most dangerous body of water in the world? Sign me up.

That was me talking the talk.

What’s taken me six months to figure out are the feelings behind what was going on. Because there’s no way around the fact that if I had anything to say about it, I would have grounded this crew before they ever came within sight of the strait, and that is me decidedly not walking the walk. This is, let’s be clear, a visually impaired filmmaker trying to do something that conventional wisdom says should obviously be left to better qualified people. Hypocrisy, anyone? However, as I watched the preparations for the crossing, and the combination of what I thought was systematic planning mixed with a  bit of Iowa ice cream social, I wondered. A lot. What happens when Dennis can’t find the rescue boat in the roaring winds? What happens when Samuel’s core temperature drops or a bone breaks? What happens when Otis gets tossed by a churning swell? What happens when disability and adventure meet head on?

What I am is a storyteller, but what I am more of is a reporter. And a reporter’s job is to observe. Participation and intervention are off the table. This is usually an easy rule to follow, especially when sharing the stories of the people we meet. The people who are questioning perceptions, raising expectations and making a difference.

Dennis, Samuel, Otis and Katy are those people, and my cinematographer and I found ourselves in a very uncomfortable place as they set out on their crossing. We thought it was possible, perhaps even likely, that they were going to die. That our footage, and the footage of the New Zealand network crew we were coordinating with for additional coverage, were going to have some very terrible footage on our hands. Two rescue boats, years of training and the Coast Guard on standby seemed like cold comforts in the roaring forties.

And the reason it’s taken six months to write about this is because on The Cook Strait, I found myself asking whether I really believed the logical conclusion to the chain of events I have been following for more than a year. I believe that anyone with any handicap has the same ability, the same freedom, the same right to do whatever he or she wants as any other adult human being. The right to film a documentary. The right to climb a mountain. The right to serve a cup of coffee and bus your table. Let me tell you, in the United States, where the unemployment rate for men and women who are visually impaired is seventy percent, especially the right to serve you coffee and bus your table.

What I’m wrapping my head around is this: does it include the right to risk your life?

Next: What happened on the Cook Strait.

ebags backpack
Hitting the road the minimalist way

Travel Minimalism: Podcast Recommendation

Travel packs
The eBags packs are becoming more popular with digital nomads

Travel minimalism is a big thing, and every now and then, I like to recommend sites and podcasts that shed some light on what makes for a good travel experience. The Travel Freedom Podcast by Tommo and Megsy has been a great resource for me, and it should be on your list also.

This week’s podcast is right up my alley, and if you travel frequently, it should be on your list of favorite alleys, too. The subject this week is all about essentials for traveling with the absolute minimum amount of gear and accessories. Be warned… the discussion and the list is of particular interest to digital nomads and travelers who are focused more  on the journey than the luxury of it al, but I love how they strip it down and explain how to get the most out of your 10-12 kilos (roughly 27 pounds) , the limit today for most carry-on baggage.

Here’s the link to subscribe to the podcast.

In the meantime, news coming up from the tail end of the New Zealand leg of our filming, along with footage from the road, so stay tuned, plus putting some travel advice to the test when it’s a mixture of business and pleasure.

Onwards!

Palette Project: Extended Preview Clip

The Palette Project is in preproduction on the Yellow and Green legs of the film. Our original goal… to shoot in Tunisia or Morocco… has proven to be a tall order, and current State Department advisories strongly encourage American film crews to avoid these areas right now. However, we are working on alternate plans in an unusual location, but one that lets us take the film in an interesting direction. Our plans call for us to shoot in Israel, and we are researching some of the cutting edge medical advances in genetic and stem cell therapies at the Hadassah Medical Center, not to mention the encouraging cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians when it comes to both medical research and treatment. I’d like for The Palette Project to be a politics-free zone, and although we plan to be working in a, putting it mildly, troubled region, the goal is to continue to show examples of accomplishment and achievement… even in this region.
As for Green, we’re running up against the change in seasons when it comes to the planning for a 200K trek around the Ring of Kerry in southwestern Ireland. Training continues… you don’t hit this rugged peninsula without a gameplan and dedicated training, visually impaired or otherwise is essential. I expect this leg of production to show off a critical aspect of what visualy impaired men and women deal with to accomadate the needs of acceptance in everyday life off the trail… mastering navigation and mobility skills, and making these acts part of the background noise of day to day life.
So I want to show, at this point, what part of the story is all about.
Below is an extended preview clip from The Palette Project. This is lifted from the Blue segment of the film, and I think it highlights what the conversation is all about. I would encourage you to please share this excerpt and extend the conversation. This film aims to speak frankly about uncomfortable topics, and there are tastes of this here, but there are also examples of what happens when we open the door to high expectations.
Onwards!

Hey, as long as you’re here, why not click on the Amazon link? No matter what you buy after clicking it (even if it’s not the subject of the link), a percentage of the sale goes to The Palette Project.

 

 

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