The Not-So-Super Bowl?

Where’s the pomp? Where’s the circumstance? Where’s the nachos?

Each year, the fervor around the Super Bowl reaches such a crescendo that by the week of the game, I am OVER it. The kind of OVER it I usually reserve for fads that have dragged on for just a little too long— like manbuns and Justin Bieber’s career.

However, am I the only one that has noticed that the nation’s excitement for the Super Bowl this year seems somewhat muted? Where’s the endless news coverage? Where are the beer commercials and the scantily-clad models eating dripping, fatty burgers that they would never, ever eat in “real life?”

This is not a complaint, mind you. After all, I like professional sports about as much as I like Hawaiian pizza. And, trust me, I do NOT like Hawaiian pizza. It’s gross and unnatural. Whoever thought of putting pineapple on a pizza should never get to eat pizza again. In any state, including Hawaii.

But, I digress.

Is the excitement for the Super Bowl as fervent as usual? Maybe it is and I’m just intentionally living under a rock. Sometimes I do that. Like that time 15 years ago when I refused to accept that the television show, Friends, was really ending? Or that time last week when I didn’t want to accept that Barack Obama wasn’t our president anymore?

There’s no way that football’s popularity is waning. After all, a testosterone-driven culture, like ours, doesn’t just change overnight. America doesn’t just wake up one day and say, “Fuck Football— I’m going to sit here and knit myself a sweater, instead.”

We aren’t that evolved… or that crafty.

Unfortunately.

#januarying

When the Romans weren’t busy building aqueducts and drinking lots of wine, they took time out to create a unifying calendar system. After all, it’s impossible to run an empire if everyone can’t agree on something as basic as what day is Wednesday. Can you imagine the chaos? It would’ve been like the U.S. Congress, only more Italian.

January is named after the Latin word for door— ianua. Since the month is the door into the new year, the Romans thought Ianuarius was a fitting name. While I’m not inclined to disagree with the dead guys that created the calendar, I must say that I don’t think that January is the most forgiving of months.

I have several reasons for this assessment. First of all, if you’re like me, your body is still recovering from the holiday food onslaught which seems to begin earlier each year. While I eagerly inhale a pumpkin spice muffin in October, by the end of December, my colon makes me drop the damn sugar cookie and back away from the cheese ball. And it really doesn’t take no for an answer. Just like Donald Trump.

I’m sure you feel that post-holiday sluggishness, too. That knot that forms in your stomach when you force down that last stuffed mushroom off the plate. But, you have to eat it, right? It looks lonely on the platter all by itself.

These cold and dreary January days don’t inspire feats of achievement, either. You may tell yourself to go to the gym, but you’re more likely to sit on your ass and watch The Bachelor while wearing the ugly Christmas pajamas your in-laws gave you. No need to hide it, I know you want to see how many girls Nick Viall can shag before the season is over.

Yes, January inspires laziness. Last week it was rainy and gloomy— like much of this month has been— and I decided to drink milk that was three days beyond its expiration date just so I could avoid going to the store. (Don’t worry, I did smell the milk first.)

But, for me, the biggest challenge of the month is of the cold and flu variety. I find it distressing to know that there are enough cooties floating around in January to fill the Hindenburg. It’s not unusual to find me shirking away from hugs and kisses during this time, and cleaning my cell phone with rubbing alcohol and a Q-Tip.

I realize I sound obsessive-compulsive. But, if you only had one functional lung, you’d be just as freaked out as I am. A little cold can quickly turn into pneumonia for the elderly, or disabled folks like me. So, think about that when you venture out into public when you are sick. You never know how far your germs may reach.

And on that uplifting note, have a happy January. But, for goodness sake, wash your hands!

The Surreality of 2016

As I sit at my keyboard, I try to think of a word to encapsulate the year 2016. I do my best thinking while consuming coffee or sugary dairy products, so I had decided to combine the two and make a homemade eggnog latte.

Before I continue, I’m fully aware that eggnog can be controversial. It’s something that people either love or really, really hate. Much like Hillary Clinton. There’s no middle ground. But I’m one of those people that adores eggnog. I don’t care if my cholesterol takes a 15-point hike during the holidays, I’m still gonna drink it.

Sipping my beverage, I find out that dictionary tycoon Merriam-Webster already announced its Word of the Year – “surreal.” An adjective, it describes something “marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream.” From happenings in politics, sports and culture, to local news around Patterson, it seems like an apt summation of 2016.

In national politics, we began the year with roughly 14 presidential candidates from the two major parties – among them former governors, U.S. senators and even a brain surgeon. Yet, of all those candidates, the eventual winner was a wealthy former reality television star with a questionable haircut.

The Olympic and Paralympic Games were the sport highlights of 2016. When the world descended upon Rio de Janeiro, we were treated to many feats of athletic prowess. Our local Paralympic hero Danielle Hansen earned a silver, while superstar Michael Phelps brought home 6 medals – including 5 golds. We haven’t seen that much gold pillaged out of South America since the 16th century.

If that wasn’t enough excitement, we also got to witness four-time Olympian Ryan Lochte’s performance as a drunken and idiotic man-boy destroying a Rio public bathroom. Good times.

Anyway, in terms of pop culture, I would like to discuss the dominance of superhero movies and why the hell we need so many television shows featuring zombies. I’m sorry to break it to you, but superheroes and zombies are fictional. There’s more of a chance of me leaping out of my wheelchair and dancing the Macarena than there is of anyone getting attacked by a zombie. I don’t care what you read on the internet.

Speaking of fictional things, this year we also had folks roaming around looking for cartoon Pokemon on their smartphones. While the popularity of the game has waned, the surreality of it has not.

Finally, in less time than it takes to find Pikachu, the new Flying J truck stop on Sperry Avenue was completed. I’m not sure what kind of super-fast wizard built that structure, but they were clearly in Slytherin House. That’s some dark magic happening right there. I wasn’t aware that something could be constructed that quickly. I think someone should refer those folks to Caltrans.

While 2016 may have been surreal, here’s hoping your new year is not. Wishing you a happy and healthy 2017!

Speechless Does It Right

ABC’s Speechless has arrived. Finally! Hollywood gets off its collagen-loving, perfectly coiffed ass and creates a network television show featuring a main character in a wheelchair. *gasp* If that wasn’t remarkable enough, the role is also played by a real honest-to-goodness disabled actor with cerebral palsy. *double gasp*

speechless
I should note that this isn’t the first attempt to be “inclusive.” Shows like Facts of Life, Life Goes On, and most recently, the Game of Thrones, have attempted it to varying degrees of success. (Peter Dinklage is our answer to Laurence Olivier) But, it shouldn’t be such a noteworthy achievement— considering that folks with disabilities make up such a large segment of the population. According to the U.S. Census, it is estimated that 19% of Americans live with some sort of disability. The umbrella of disability includes various sensory, motor and physical impairments, as well as, invisible disabilities— like learning challenges, autism spectrum conditions, and those with chronic mental health issues.

Yet, despite the large pool of disabled folks from which to draw, 95% of disabled characters in movies and television have been played by able-bodied actors. If you’re lucky and can manage to be an able-bodied white actor playing an “inspiring disabled character” in a movie (à la Dustin Hoffman, Eddie Redmayne, Al Pacino, Tom Hanks, etc.), the Academy can’t shower you with an Oscar fast enough. You might as well get the spot ready on your fireplace mantle right now. It won’t be long before a naked, golden— and slightly androgynous— man is perched on top.

Hollywood loves to be “inspired” by stories of heroic disabled people overcoming the odds to achieve remarkable feats— like breathing, eating, sleeping, and making able-bodied people feel better about themselves. Since most of the writers and directors are also able-bodied, these roles are often clichéd, one-dimensional and firmly keep the disabled character in the box labeled “inspiration.” Since 1989, 14 of the 27 Best Actor winners have played a character with some kind of disability. And of those 14, only Jamie Foxx was a person of color. #OscarsSoWhite #NoRealCripplesAllowed

And that does all of us, disabled and not, a great disservice. The disabled community is just as diverse, talented, and multi-faceted as society at-large. By portraying us in such a limited way, we are all losing out.

This is why I am encouraged by the arrival of ABC’s Speechless. It’s quirky, messy and slightly irreverent— with an authenticity and edge that you rarely see in Hollywood’s depictions of disability. We live in a society that spawned the Kardashians, so generally we aren’t allowed to see anything on television that hasn’t been nipped, spray-tanned, and plastered with Botox. So, Speechless is a refreshing change.

Hope the show keeps to its roots and holds on to its edge. If you want to watch a show with sugary sentimentality, you can just watch reruns of Full House.

(For the time being, you can stream the first episode here: http://abc.go.com/shows/speechless/episode-guide/season-01/1-series-premiere-p-i-pilot)

Morning Routines

I’m a morning person— the perky, annoying kind that wakes up without an alarm. Night owls tend to view folks like me with suspicion, as if we’re asking them to join a religious cult like Scientology or Weight Watchers.

The key to a happy morning is making sure your routine contains at least a few minutes that you can call your own. If you have to wake up 10 minutes earlier, do it. I don’t care if you spend that time on the toilet while you play Candy Crush on your cell phone for so long that the edge of the toilet seat creates a red ring on your butt. It’s still worth it. You can get an ointment for that.

I love my morning routine. I wake up, eat an English muffin and check my email. Unlike Hillary’s lost classified goodies, most of my email is junk from random companies that want to sell me crap at 10% off. It doesn’t take much brain power to tap the delete button, so while I’m doing this, I watch the morning news on TV.

I love watching the morning news, but recently it has majorly sucked. It seems the entire broadcast is devoted to the presidential election and/or celebrity news. There are probably hundreds of children dying in third world countries— but we’d have no way of knowing because the TV anchors are too busy giving a recap from the MTV Video Music Awards.

When the media does choose to cover real news stories, it’s incredibly unhelpful. I’d like to know when debating a presidential candidate’s physical robustness became an important issue? I don’t care if a candidate has high cholesterol, has spray-tanned skin and small hands, or sometimes has a cough. I care if they are mentally prepared, capable and qualified.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of the greatest US presidents and the longest-serving, was in a wheelchair. Polio struck him as a young man and he never regained the use of his legs. The truth of his condition was known to most journalists at the time, but they chose not to make a big deal of it. They recognized that FDR was a devoted public servant that was fit to be president.

Have we now regressed? To the ancient tribal days when the chieftain or warlord was always the brawniest guy with the biggest… err, sword?

In today’s political climate, I’m very sad to say that a person like FDR would never be elected president. It wouldn’t matter how qualified he may have been. As a person in a wheelchair myself, this makes me very disappointed to admit that. But, in a culture that only values beauty, celebrity and strength, it comes as no surprise.

For the next couple of months, perhaps I should forgo watching the news during my morning routine. I think playing Candy Crush might be a better bet…