This kid goes around in a wheel chair and once I grabbed onto his backpack and he futily pushed those little wheels. I felt like shit after I laughed like a madman.

Don't feel guilty. The crippled are funny.

for shame, droopy.

'twas all that guinny and bushmill's made me say it. i love cripples.

Donny Morrow had cerebral palsy. One badass motherfucker. He would drink vodka from a big gulp cup with a straw while juggernauting down 112th Street hill from Pacific to Park in his wheelchair, head lolling off to one side, grinning and drooling and pissing. Traffic? Bring it on! Where is he now?

Where, indeed. Having had a brush w/the the mind-bending concept of being handicapped for the rest of my days/I can honestly say that I wd make a lousy disabled person. I wd be pissed off ALL the time. I wd be the one in the wheelchair at the subway station screaming abt why the fucking elevator wasn't working/or how come there wasn't an automatic door sensor to swing the gate open at the turnstile. And I wd definitely not be above standing in front of The Carnegie Deli or The Strand bookstore w/a cup in my hand/begging the affluent ambulatory for spare change. Which I wd spend on freebase. [True Story: Back when I was living on L.I. & still getting high/I knew a quadraplegic basehead. Before I met him/he'd had a stroke hitting the pipe one day & ended up paralyzed from the neck down. Cdn't even pee or shit on his own. I'm talking catheter & colostomy bag/the whole nine. Zero motor funtion. But his mind was fine & he cd talk as well as anyone. Once he got out of the hospital/he went thru half a dozen private -duty dozen nurses before he found one who wd agree to provide all the care he needed/& hold the pipe for him when he wanted a hit. But even she drew the line at cooking up his rock for him. I met him thru my homeboy who lived down the street. We used to go out & cop his blow for him/them come back to his crib & cook it up. And we'd smoke for hours. This guy had lungs like an opera singer. He cd take a hit & be exhaling smoke for a full minute. His rationale being that the worst that cd happen to him from smoking base had already happened -- short of dying. And if his ticket got punched/at least he'd die w/a monster buzz.]. I cd tolerate blindness/but not deafness. (Becuz blindness cuts you off from things. But deafness cuts you off from people. And I've never seen a painting that make me cry/but I've listened to lots of music that has moved me to tears. But I don't know how I'd do w/out being able to watch movies.) I cd tolerate ending up in a wheelchair/so long as I was still able to speak. Persent-day voice recognition technology wd allow me to use a computer so I cd still write/& hang out here & whatnot. I cd handle whatever Stephen Hawking has/becuz even though he's lost all mobility/his brilliant mind is untouched by his illness. But if I had never come out that coma/or had ended up w/irreversible brain damaged to the point where I was no longer able to express my self to the larger world/I'd just as soon be dragged out back & shot. What abt you folks? If faced w/ the horrific choice of losing yr site or yr hearing or yr mobility (but keeping yr mental faculties intact)/which wd you choose & why?

Jeez, RC, nice choices. Hmm. Toughie. I'm gonna go with same answers as RC for some reasons. Except I think I'd be a wondeful wheelchair bound citizen. I think my favourite thing to do would be to spend hours plotting how to torture 13 year old boys on skateboards in minor ways...oh, wait. Heh. Ok, I'll have to come up with a new population to traumatize. I have to admit that though I'm anti-cartesian to the max about everything else, I consider my body a disobedient meat puppet and think of myself as trapped inside it.

If I had to choose between being blind and being deaf (which I've thought about before. For some reason, other afflictions never seem to enter the equation. I never think "blind, deaf, or legless?"), I'd probably rather be deaf. That's just paranoia, though. I'm in love with my privacy, and I couldn't stand being blind and never really being Sure if I were alone. (I'm sure my other senses would be improoved and I might be able to hear people who're nearby, but I could never really be SURE!) At least if I were only deaf (only?) I could look everyfreakingwhere and be a little more secure that I was alone, so I could do the freaky things I don't want anyone else to see me doing. Not that I do freaky things. teehee.

Plus, my memory doesn't really work so well on a visual level. I tend to forget what things look like if I haven't seen them for a while. Faces get fuzzy, colors get blended. Things just get screwed up. But music...voices...those linger. Those stick to me like glue. It'd be a lot easier for me to remember a song I loved and "listen" to it in my head, than it would be for me to remember a beautiful sky, or a certain color, or (most of all) the faces of the people I loved.

There's one important aspect that needs to be addressed. This is having a disability from birth vs. later on in life. Think about that. I would rather be deaf. Just because there's the cochlear implant:)...this may sway some of you, I know. Let's compare... Blind: reading would be the same but limited. Not all is printed in Braille. If you wanted to read something obscure I'm sure you'd be SOL. Deaf: everything printed is at your finger tips. Blind: listening to music, conversations and the like would be wonderful. Never missing a step. Deaf: limiting one's self to lip reading while gaining a most or partial understanding of what's said. I'm sure it's very hard to do in a crowd situation. Music would be a travesty almost. Always feeling the beat, but never hearing the melody, harmony, inflections, etc,. Music to most people is taken in part of the time. Unlike conversation that is on going as breathing itself. Blind: cooking would be a stretch. This is sight dependent along with smell. Come on, there is no such thing as a box of Bagel Bites with Braille on it. I am sure there are many, who are blind, that have strengthened their cooking abilities thru the years and are quite good at it. I still say to do stir fry, grill out and go balls out for the ultimate dinner you have to have eyes. Deaf: you wouldn't be able to hear the sizzle of the bacon--that's all. I could go on and on. And I will. Think about never driving the car again. Think about never feeling safe about who's around you--if they are really there. Think about the coming of autumn, never seeing the leaves turn. Think about the snow( as much as I bitch about it )...the poorly decorated houses with shitty X-mas lawn displays and lighting. Think about your child growing up, never seeing the physical changes. Think about sports, dance, art, nature and the lot. It would suck not ever seeing what's going on around you. You decide. Seeing is believing...so I have heard( pun intended ).

By the way Droopy, my sister-in-law is in a wheel chair( since the ripe old age of 16, and doin' fine at 36 ). Now isn't that funny. I hope and pray that you'll never be paralyzed, you silly fuck! I wouldn't wish that upon anyone. Nuff said.

why, you make being paralyzed sound so terrible.

pink eye, you are way, way out of line. that's all i'm going to say. actually, i changed my mind. that is not all i am going to say. this whole conversation irritates me, because it implies that we would actually be able to choose our disability so easily. none of us, with exception to one or maybe two in our midst, has any fucking idea what it is like to have a disability. how could we ever choose? why are we even trying to think about this? people adapt to their disabilities in ways that we could never, in our currently semi-healthy states, hope to comprehend. the idea that anyone would even have an inkling of what it is like to be deaf, or blind, or whatever, really irritates strikes me as presumptuous. just my two cents. hope i didn't alienate anybody, but fuck it. i feel better now. (end of vent)

I would be rich and beautiful if it were up to me. Alas, not everyone can be rich and beautiful so here I am. I am nothing more than something to benchmark from.

fuck you, you ass

Why am I out of line? Droop-- Being paralyzed, terrible? People choose to be in a chair, right? Don't be foolish. Sure people adapt and live with the condition, but they'd rather be walkin'--I'm sure of that.

what's better than winning a gold medal at the special olympics? not being retarded.

don't know what got into me, pinkeye

Either slacker is my bassist, or my bassist is reading sorabji.com w/out telling me, cuz he told me the same rude-ass joke yesterday at practice.

i'm no bassist

I am, but I've never heard that joke before. I thought he meant he had won the special olympics.

How about a free-bassist dude?

I like to free bass. dude.

Shut up, Nate.

Aggie, jeez -- it was just a question I tossed out based on one of those weird late-night ideas that we all get sometimes when we're online. I know people don't get to 'choose' their disability. But what if you *had* to choose? What if you owed some shyster big $$ & you cdn't pay/& one of his goons got a hold of you & said "Okay, here are yr options -- I can either take this icepick & puncture both yr eardrums/or put out both yr eyes. It's yr choice." It's no stranger than asking if someone cd choose to be another race/what wd they be. (But I won't *even* got there.) I think PinkEye made some pretty good points.

asking someone what other race they would choose to be is pretty strange.

Strange is my middle name, ba-bee! And it's no stranger than asking someone if they'd wanna be the oppostie sex for a day/or whatever.

damn, girl. you should go back to making bombs for a hobby. dangerous and disturbing things happen when you let your mind wander.

LOL! My bombmaking skills are sorely lacking. (I wonder if any of those chicken innards are still there...) P.S. How was yr stay @ The Alexis? Didja get massaged & facialed & take home a nice robe & all that?

i thought we were all the "human" race. although i do think i would like to be a chick for a while. i'd probably just stay home and play with my tits.

they screwed up my reservations so i stayed at the Hotel Monaco instead (which is more a corporate-oriented upscale business hotel, while the Alexis is more like a semi high-dollar little getaway.) i sure as hell didn't get massaged and "facialed". massages are cool, but i don't think i could walk into a place and ask for a "facial" without falling out and laughing my ass off. and if i woke up one day as a woman, i'd be too freaked out to enjoy playing with my tits.

if you think all the above is strange, keep yer eyes out for a little book called "Would you rather..?" I obtained it on the book table at Urban Outfitters (please don't throw things at me for going in there), and it's full of really absurd situations, like: Would you rather appear as Saddam Hussien in reflections, or have the sound of children playing emerge at random moments from your crotch?

a girl needn't stay home to play with her tits. doing yourself just isn't the same. and I'm sure I would be terribly disappointed if I could actually kiss my own neck.

you'd have to stand on a chair to do that, cyst.

But if I woke up tomorrow as a guy/I wd be playing w/myself CONSTANTLY. Esp. since it's so much easier for a man to do so discreetly in public vs. playing w/one's jugs. Sweartagod/I still don't see how men are able to walk around w/all that meat in their pants & not end up bowlegged. Even w/out a woodie. What can I say -- Balls fascinate me. And I love the idea of being able to piss out the window of a moving vehicle. Or waking up every morning & choosing btwn shaving my face or going for the rough-&-ready look for a few days. Or going all out & growing a beard -- if I were able. No Periods or pregnancy scares! Never having to wear hose or heels again. Not to mention earning $1.00 for every 74¢ my female counterparts make. [You fellas don't know how good you got it!]

I think guys get pregnancy scares too. and I'm so glad I don't have to shave my face. or try to hide a hardon. or have to leave pacific northwest-cold ocean water after 10 minutes.

if anyone would like to try my pouch out for a while, just ask. i'm willing to share. just remember to wash it off when you are done with it.

Well, lets see... I have started this so I guess I'll say somehing more... I never want to be disabled, and I don't wish it on anyone, but the fact reamains, they don't want our pity. Or our judgement, "oh poor guy, he's diabled" so I gues, they are just guys or girls that got a bad break in life. (no pun intended.)

Some of them DO want pity. Some of them don't. They are human and succeptable to the SAME foibles that ANYBODY is capable of. Hatred, drunkenness, murder, envy...you name it.

:-)