Ouch Podcast #27 – May 2008
bbc.co.uk/ouch/podcast

Presented by Mat Fraser and Liz Carr

The Ouch Podcast is a download from the BBC. For more information, and our terms of use, go to bbc.co.uk/ouch.

[Jingle]
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The Ouch Podcast

FRANK SINATRA	[music] It’s up to you, New York New York…
	
LIZ	Grab my legs Mat, I want to kick ‘em higher!

MAT	Hi, I’m Mat

LIZ	And I’m Liz

MAT	And we’re in New York! On your Podcast this month from west twentieth street, Manhattan: What’s it like to live here if you’re disabled? Plus some tips for tourists. 

LIZ	Are you a born freak? I followed Mr Fraser in a yellow cab to where he’s been performing in a good old-fashioned freak show down in Coney Island, and it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. More later.

MAT	LD humour hits your podcast in about 20 minutes. No we’re not talking about the Liberal Democrats, we’re talking about learning difficulties. We’ll be catching up with two guests from the incredible How’s Your News? Crew, currently filming a new series for MTV.

LIZ	They’re handy capable, and so is the contestant on our popular quiz Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable.  So, did you know that over here an aubergine is an eggplant and a courgette is a zucchini?

MAT	Did you say music, Liz?  You’re listening to the disability station WOBL, your wobbly FM, and we’ll be finishing off with the au-tastic band Flame, live in the studio. That’s in about 50 minutes.

LIZ	It’s your podcast from BBC Ouch. We’re live on the web at bbc.co.uk/ouch where you can also find photos of us here in the Big Apple. 

MAT	Welcome Laurence Carter-Long. Now, Laurence, we are mates anyway, we’ll out that in a while I suppose, but for the purposes of the Podcast, you are the Director of Advocacy for the Disability Network of New York City – hello Laurence!

LAURENCE	Hello, hello! That comes with a cape and a utility belt, it’s pretty fantastic.

LIZ	It’s not a podcast without a Laurence, so we’re glad you’re with us.

LAURENCE	Well I’m glad that I can sit in and fulfil that need. 

MAT	And while we’re fulfilling the needs of Laurences, would you like to tell the audience your poor crippled condition?

LAURENCE	Well I think you people across the pond would call me a spastic, is that correct?

LIZ	Oh, nice! I like the way the language is catching on.

MAT	Well done, team.

LAURENCE	I’ve been listening.

MAT	You’ve managed to keep the same impairment and the same name, I like it.

LIZ	You’re a New Yorker.

LAURENCE	I am a New Yorker. 

LIZ	And so what’s it like as a New Yorker?

LAURENCE	It depends. If you’re not interested in taking the subway, it’s pretty good; if you’re not interested in finding a taxi, you’ll do all right; if you don’t need housing, you’ll probably do OK.  But if you’re interested in some of those things it might be a little difficult. 

LIZ	Is it a better place to visit, maybe, than live?

LAURENCE	Very nice place to visit. Although the buses, however, are accessible, so if you’re a wheelchair user you should be fine on the bus. 

MAT	Just for the British listeners and readers of this podcast, our accessible buses are OK, when they work, you know, half the time they’ll break down it seems to me, but in America you’ve got a more autonomous way of getting on the bus if you’re a wheelchair user, haven’t you? Front or back, isn’t that right?

LAURENCE	Well they have front entrances, primarily, and so what the bus will do is it will stop, it will beep, it will lower down to the sidewalk level, and the ramp will come out and you can generally get on. 

LIZ	So we don’t have to get on the back?

LAURENCE	The back of the bus? We’ve tried to move beyond that here. 

LIZ	That’s civil rights for you.

MAT	What other aspects of being disabled in New York do you want to highlight at the moment? I mean, it’s your world – you live and breathe this stuff all the time, it’s part of what you do.

LAURENCE	Well, I think most of the people when they come to New York, a lot of things come to mind. You would anticipate maybe riding the subway system that we have here, but the subway system is around 100 years old and I’m sad to say it’s kind of showing its age. At the current rate at which we’re going it’ll take about 150 years before the subways are accessible. 

MAT	But that’s good progress for disability!

LIZ	It’s better than it is in London.

LAURENCE	Oh, 250 there – we’re still ahead.

	
MAT	What about – OK, I’m an electric wheelchair user, well, I’m not obviously, but if I was… [makes a noise]

LIZ	What, is that how I speak?

MAT	Yeah. That’s you Liz. Your mum. No – I want to go to the top of the Empire State building, I want to see the aquarium.

LIZ	Life’s not that bad.

MAT	And then I want to go and eat soul food in Harlem. 

LAURENCE	Well let’s see, where do you want to begin?

MAT	Don’t mind. Can a disabled person do all those things?

LAURENCE	Well you know that theoretically, a disabled person can do all those things. I don’t know about the aquarium, but I can tell you that there is a lawsuit – soon after the Americans with Disabilities act was passed, the ADA as we call it here – not the American Dental Association – done by one of the local groups Disabled in Action, forced the Empire State Building to make itself accessible to disabled visitors. After a bit of a battle they won that fight, so theoretically you can get to the top of the Empire State Building. What was the second?

LIZ	Soul food in Harlem.

LAURENCE	Soul food in Harlem – as a vegetarian that’d be pretty tough, I don’t know whether I’d be able to give you the entire scoop.

MAT	We are of the same persuasion Laurence, you and I are both veggies. I went up there and managed to get something called Collared Greens but even that had meat in it.

LAURENCE	Did it have a bit of pig in it?

MAT	I maybe chose the wrong example of food – ok, I want to go to a vegan restaurant in Brooklyn.

LAURENCE	Vegan restaurant in Brooklyn? You’ve reached Mecca. Liz has got a problem. You haven’t eaten the food yet, Liz! Why are you gagging?

LIZ	Seven days of food poisoning on a vegan dinner, that’s why.

LAURENCE	Yeah, but where were you eating this stuff?

LIZ	England.

LAURENCE	You see, that doesn’t compare.

LIZ	 You can eat soul food in Harlem – I’ve done it.

LAURENCE	Vegan soul food?

LIZ	Oh, who cares. Who cares? I want to ask you Laurence,  you’ve got a show called Gimp?

LAURENCE	Yes I do. That means something very different in the UK, doesn’t it? Now keep my private life out of this. 

LIZ	Is Gimp the crip equivalent in the US?

LAURENCE	Similar – if you look at the dictionary definitions of gimp, what we get is ‘one who limps or hobbles’. But I particularly like the word because another one of the definitions is ‘fighting spirit or vigour.’ And then there’s also ‘trembling with ecstasy’ which might follow more along the lines of what you’re talking about.

LIZ	We’ll talk about that a bit later, because we’ll be coming back to you. Hmmm – gimp.

MAT	Nice to meet you Laurence, talk to you later. It’s your Ouch Podcast, May 2008 in New York City, bought to you by the good people of Larry’s Legbags – bathroom confidence doesn’t need to be biological with one of Larry’s rubber doozies in your pants!

LIZ	We all know that Mat likes getting his kit off and displaying his non-standard body whenever he can. Well you can see why he likes to do an annual pilgrimage to the freak show in Coney Island, where at this time of year they put away their people with extreme piercings and bring on the born freaks to entertain the masses.  I’m not at all sure what I think about this, so to help me make up my mind I took a yellow cab down to the historic holiday resort last weekend to find out what goes on.

	
LIZ	[from Coney Island]

We got to Coney Island in record speed, the taxi driver flew here – a bit hair-rasing! Now we’re here and it’s not quite what I expected. It is an incredibly derelict area. There’s the Coney Island Museum, which is just covered in metal shutters and graffiti, there’s arcades everywhere; it’s a really cold and grey day as well, so that probably isn’t helping. There’s the Cyclone, a very famous rollercoaster, there’s people of restricted growth around every corner! It’s true. We’ve heard that there might be somebody called The Angry Midget performing in the freak show – I’m dying to meet him. I think I just have – he’s not looking too impressed with me.  It just isn’t what I expected. I tell you what – it’s just seedy. It’s really seedy, and I feel a bit dirty just being here to be honest.  I’m about to go in and soil myself even further.

[Announcer]
Everything you see depicted on the banners above you, you will see in this Temple Of The Weird. Come see the show, if you dare!

I’ve got to whisper because we’re in there now, watching the show, surrounded by about twenty people. The whole of the front row is disabled – it’s weird. At the moment, Jimmy’s talking about all the difficulties he has being short, pressing buttons in a lift, that kind of thing. I thought it’d be a bit more freaky than that – I didn’t think they’d be talking about discrimination, you know? 

[music in the background]

He’s doing robotics! There’s now a midget on the stage, doing robotics. He’s taken his white bow tie off. He’s dancing about, kicking his legs.

DICK	Dick Ziggen here, founder and director of “Sideshows by the sea shore”, Coney Island. Nobody is exploitative here, we are performance oriented, so anyone who is handicapped working here does so very assertively and by free choice. Mat Fraser, London’s own, is here visiting, Jennifer Miller – not just any bearded lady but a radical lesbian feminist bearded lady, Coco the killer clown, the neighbourhood little person. It’s a choice, and just as there’s nothing holding somebody handicapped back from becoming a doctor or lawyer, you choose to become a performer and this is the venue to do it. 

	
ANNOUNCER	Mat Fraser, all the way from London England, give a round of applause!
[audience applause]

LIZ	He’s not wearing a spangly shirt or anything! He’s just wearing jeans and a black shirt. 

Mat’s routine:
You may not know this but pharmaceutical medicine is the fourth biggest killer in the Western world. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen.

This isn’t what I expected either, because he’s now talking about Thalidomide. Yes, Mr Fraser’s favourite subject.  But – he’s talking about the medical companies, the pharmaceutical companies, slagging them off. Talking about his condition and the politics of it. I just thought he’d get on stage and be doing freaky things with his hands. 

I’m just stood outside the theatre and I’m going to try and catch some people coming out to see what they thought of the show.

Why did you come?

AUDIENCE MEMBER	Why? There was an announcement on the website.

LIZ	And what did you think you were going to see?

AUDIENCE MEMBER	Something concerning art. I didn’t expect to see a show for amusement only, but also with some intention.

AUDIENCE MEMBER	I think most people probably have that mythical idea of freaks, like these posters here, these vibrant pictures of what freaks are in their minds, until they actually see one in person, it’s like going to Calcutta – it takes a while to get your head around it.

LIZ	So this is it. A bearded woman’s just walked in and offered him a coffee. [audience applause]
The person’s going on stage and she’s a crip, which is fantastic, so she’s wobbling her way up the steps. She couldn’t get up all the way so she’s actually lying on the stage now, it’s great. What better freak weekend than to have a freak winning the competition. She’s now lying with her head between Mat’s thighs and the cards are being pushed down her cleavage. I just want to know what the audience are thinking.
	
LIZ	Do you think there’s a place for freak shows, not just at Coney Island, do you think there should be more freak shows?

AUDIENCE MEMBER	I think there should be one in every town. I think it shows “normal” people that they’ve got nothing to cry about, and, yeah, work harder!

MAT	[back in the studio] Wow.

LIZ	Are you all right there?

MAT	I’m fine, but it’s really weird hearing it from I suppose an outsider’s point of view. I’ve got so used to it, doing it for so many years now, that they’re like my extended families.

LIZ	So how did you get involved in it?

MAT	It started in 2001 when I was researching for the documentary “Born Freak”, and doing my play “Sealboy – Freak”. I heard that this guy Dick Zeegan, who you heard there, actually had a signed photo of the real Sealo the Seal Boy. And I wanted it as part of my research, and I remember I went down and we’d spoken on the phone, and I felt the same way when I got there – oh my god, it’s all boarded up and it looks really sleazy, an out of season thing, you know? Knocked on the big metal door, opened, and he looks at me, he’s got a warrior’s t-shirt on, which is Coney Island cliché anyway, it’s fantastic, looks at me, looks at my arms and says “Welcome home!” That was the first thing he said to me!

LIZ	Before you did the programme, when you were at that stage as well, were you sure about the freak show? Were you certain what you were doing, were you very clear?

MAT	Not at all, and I was not only ambiguous, I had trepidation, because I wanted to critique it, and I didn’t take it at face value that it was the pornography of the disabled, and the exploitation, I thought there might be some room for working it artistically.

LIZ	Why do you do it?

MAT	I do it because I enjoy it, it gives me an opportunity – I like to do live art, to me it’s an extension of the live art stuff. I get to be really weird, I get to tell a freak show audience about the evils of pharmaceutical companies, and then drum, or sing Elvis songs like I did last year. Or pretend to be Sealo the Seal Boy. I get to do a lot of free things, and have my own choices and do what I want. And always, I feel, I have the power over the audience; I give them what they want, I give them their two penneth of mutant flesh, as it were, for the ten bucks that they’ve paid.

LIZ	So money aside, you’d still do it.

MAT	Money aside I’d still do it and I’ll tell you why, I’ll put it into one good soundbite – there is a glass ceiling to being an actor as a disabled person, I haven’t had the career I’d have liked to have had, and I do get denied opportunity because I’m disabled. All of those things are the opposite and quite not the case in a freak show. I can be top of the bill, and there is the potential to earn good money, although I don’t earn money when I’m doing it, and I enjoy it and I’m going to keep doing it until I see a reason to stop, and I haven’t seen a reason yet. What did you think, Liz? I want to know what you honestly thought, when you went recording.

LIZ	I still don’t know. A lot of people have said well, now you’ve been, is it any clearer, and it’s almost no clearer. It certainly wasn’t what I expected at all. I couldn’t believe that you and Jimmy were on stage, he was talking about discrimination as a short person, you were much more political talking about thalidomide, then it’s quite funny because you go and do your novelty bit, and that almost seemed a bit pandering to the audience. You’ve got to give them your freakish bit – “I’m going to strip and I’m going to play the drums”. But so many people’s interest was there, you were captivating them. There was nobody in the audience sniggering, I didn’t feel like there was a collusion there and that people were laughing.

LAURENCE	But there’s something unique to Coney Island and to Brooklyn that makes the audience just as interesting as the performers on stage. So you’ve got a bit of sociology and anthropology going on no matter who you’re looking at, and that of itself adds a whole new dimension to the show.

LIZ	The freak show where it is in Coney Island, go and see it and make up your mind, I’d say. If you want a Coney Island freakshow t-shirt, we’ve got some. Mail us and tell us why you should have one in 50 words or less.

MAT	No rules apply, our decision is final and is probably totally unfair. Only our terms and conditions apply, and we aren’t going to tell you what they are. Beg now by emailing ouch@bbc.co.uk .

LIZ	It’s Mat and Liz in the USA where Mars Bars are Milky Ways and Milky Ways are Mars Bars. Fact.

MAT	This is a real treat. If you’ve not seen or heard How’s Your News, then you can’t call yourself a proper cripple.

LIZ	How’s Your News started as a project at Jabberwocky, a summer camp for people with learning disabilities here in the US. They’ve now made several roadtrip movies where they interview politicians and members of the public in their own inimitable style. Here’s a clip of their signature tune.

[music]

Try and get that out of your head!

MAT	That’s amazing. With us today on the line from Los Angeles is director Arthur Bradford and How’s Your News-er Jeremy Best, hello guys.

ARTHUR	Hey, how’re you doing?

MAT	It’s great to have you.

LIZ	It’s going to be a good idea if you start by telling us a little bit about How’s Your News in more detail.

ARTHUR	Sure. How’s Your News is a news team made up of reporters with various physical and mental disabilities, and the DVD features a trip across America with 5 of these reporters and basically they interview everyone they meet and the interviews are often funny and always funny in a nice way. The questions come from places you wouldn’t expect.

LIZ	OK, and how did it begin?

ARTHUR	We all met at a summer camp for people with disabilities. This project started ten years ago now. I was teaching a video class at the camp and we were trying to figure out a way to make compelling videos with people of all levels of ability, and we hit upon this news show theme. We quickly decided it would be most fun if we left the camp grounds and went out into the public and conducted interviews with unsuspecting passers by on the street. And that was the beginning of How’s Your News.

Mat	Sounds great. Jeremy, can you give me an example of a couple of questions that you might ask people on the street?

	
JEREMY	One of the questions I asked was “Have you ever heard of bands like Jimmy Buffett or Kiss or the Rolling Stones?” Everyone knows those guys, but some people don’t.

MAT 	Cool, and what’s another question?

JEREMY	Well another question that I’ve asked in the past is “Who would you like to be president, Obama or Hillary?” If they choose Obama that’s a good thing, if they choose Hillary, ah, it’s going to be OK if they do.

ARTHUR	One of the things that’s great about Jeremy and a lot of our reporters is they’ll ask these questions like his example of what bands do you like, he would ask this question if he met Hillary Clinton or anyone. We have also gone to political events and talked to politicians and it’s great to have these really unscripted questions come from our reporters.

LIZ	And how do people react when you ask these questions?

JEREMY	Well they kind of give us weird faces, but they’re really nice about giving us answers. For instance Bobby Bird who can’t really talk like we do because he has a speech impediment, people need to understand him a little bit better when he talks because it’s kinda hard to understand him. But we all understand him, we know exactly what he’s saying but they kinda don’t, so it’s different.

LIZ	So what happens, do they walk past him or do they actually listen?

JEREMY	Well sometimes, like when we went to the conventions, people were like “Get me out of here. We don’t want to talk to him because we don’t know what he’s saying” or stuff like that.

ARTHUR	But Bobby definitely carries on and you’ve gone from the filming that you did at the camp to the film that made the festival circuit, How’s Your News and the DVD, the conventions, just came out, so you’ve really done a lot of things, got your own franchise now.

JEREMY	It’s really nice because a lot of people in LA like our show and all over the world like our show, and it’s going to be a big hit I think. MTV had better pick it up.

MAT	So what is all this about MTV and Los Angeles – what’s going on? Are you going to become pop stars or something?

JEREMY	Well I want to be famous, not to be crazy or anything, but this life is great, I don’t have to stay in my room all day being on the computer or doing next to nothing. 

MAT	Yeah, why not. So what’s going to be the format of the MTV show?

JEREMY	You’re going to get six thirty-minute episodes of different locations, LA for the Grammies, Las Vegas for the Miss America pageant, Austin Texas for the South by Southwest music festival, and New Orleans for JazzFest and a couple of other beautiful events that we went to.

LIZ	To get more of an idea of what you do, we’ve got a clip that we want to play. It’s some audio talking to Chad Everett. Can you tell us a bit about the clip?

ARTHUR	Sure. One of our reporters Ronny Simonson has a really amazing fascination for an actor from the seventies named Chad Everett. And as we were driving across the country he literally asked every person he met, do you know Chad Everett, have you ever seen him? He was always fixated on him and so when the film came out and played in festivals, people would naturally ask “has Chad Everett seen this?” and we didn’t know the answer to that until one day we got a phone call from Chad Everett and he had seen the film, and was a big fan so I believe this is a clip of Chad Everett calling Ronnie, which was one of the most exciting moments of his life. 

Ronnie: His name was Chad Everett, and I got a personal phone call from Chad Everett.
[phone rings]
Hello?
Hello, is this Chad Everett?
Chad: Is this Ronnie?
Ronnie: Yes Chad! This is your spiritual brother Ronnie Simonson  - how are you chad? 
Chad: How are you?
Ronnie: I’m doing good Chad now that you called me.
Chad: I think you’re a really good legitimate interviewer. You did a great job.
Ronnie: Well thank you Chad.
[music]

LIZ	I don’t even know who Chad Everett is but I want to know.

MAT	And that’s a lot better than a lot of the playout songs we’ve had on this show isn’t it? Good stuff man, that is really good. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t seen the DVD but I really want to see it. How can we get to see How’s your News? How can the listeners of our podcast access more of your stuff, guys?

	
ARTHUR	We have a website, howsyournews.com where you can order our DVDs and we have a lot of videos online and as Jeremy says we are currently in production for six part series for MTV which will hopefully make it across the ocean, and we’d love for anyone to see it.

LIZ	Absolutely. We’d love to see it. And the guy in the Chad Everett clip, he’s not too well at the moment.
	
ARTHUR	Yes that’s right, although it’s a heartwarming story at this point. Ronnie was diagnosed with Leukaemia a little over a year ago and he was able to find a bone marrow match, so he’s been in the hospital but has been recovering quite well and a nice aspect of the story is that Chad Everett has called him I believe over fifty times, he’s called him about once a week to check in and they say prayers together and it really has helped Ronnie get through the day. Right now his Leukaemia is in remission.

LIZ	So hopefully in the next series he’ll be back interviewing.

ARTHUR	Ronnie does the narration for the MTV series since he can’t travel, so he’s been doing voiceover narration so he’s still part of the team

Mat	That’s great. Now Laurence, you’ve shown How’s Your News on your Dis This film night, haven’t you?

LAURENCE	Yes, it was one of the first things I wanted to show when we started doing Dis This – disability through a whole new lens, no handkerchief necessary, no heroism required. There’s quite a fan base, there was a cult following behind How’s Your News that keeps growing all the time but that wasn’t always the case, was it Arthur? Sundance didn’t want to show it because they were afraid it would be seen as mocking people with disabilities.
	
ARTHUR	Yeah, that’s true. When How’s Your News first came out it was hard to find acceptance because mainstream outlets were a little bit afraid of the idea of humour and disability being in the same concept. 

MAT	Well look guys, this is brilliant news – you guys are really out there. What other group of disabled people have their own series on MTV? This is really big stuff!

LIZ	Much respect as I think they say over in the states.

JEREMY	Is it OK if I give a special shout out to someone out there? 

MAT	Jeremy, you go right ahead, we’re all ears.

JEREMY	I want to give a very special shout out to that very special person of mine, her name is Wendy Grey, she’s a doctor based in Boston, Mass. I can’t wait to see you, I love you so much, you have no idea. She’s the best friend of my life and she’s awesome, awesome, awesome.

MAT	Guys thanks so much for coming to talk to us in your busy, MTV rock star life schedule, it was really great that you came to talk to us. 

JEREMY	Hollywood – people with disabilities are funny too! And God bless America’s FDNY, you guys rock, thank you so much for everything that you do. And thanks you guys for talking to me, it’s wonderful.

	
MAT	First time I ever came to New York, Bush had just got in the first time. The second time, whenever I met anyone new they had to state “I didn’t vote for him. It was nothing to do with me”. And I think New Yorkers are quite political. I’m already seeing Obama murals, like Banksy style murals of Obama on the wall and declarations of “We can begin to believe again” and things like that.

LAURENCE	We’re quite embarrassed about 43, so I think people see that change is all right, I know that’s become something of a buzz word but we’re really eager for it.

LIZ	I think New York is a great place.  If you’re visiting from England for a start it’s incredibly cheap to be here at the moment. The dollar’s worth about nothing at the moment so you get a lot of dollar for your money, people. So if you want to come over here, it is a great place. I had an amazing experience; I went out for dinner the other night. Just as I’m going into the restaurant a woman stops me, taps my legs and says “God’s cured you – get up and walk”. 

MAT	Oh you’re kidding? Oh my god!

LAURENCE	Was this before desert?
	
LIZ	She tapped my legs a bit like she was a magician. Abracadabra, now get up and walk.

MAT	What did you do with that nugget of brilliance?

LIZ	You know what? There was a margarita with my name on it so I didn’t really stop, and I couldn’t walk. So I went in, had my margaritas, had my Mexican, beautiful meal. At the end, this guy who we’ve been kind of chatting to at the end of the table put the receipt for our meal on the table and he paid for it. He paid for dinner.

MAT	I’m a bit choked up by that Liz!

LIZ	I don’t know if it’s because I’m disabled.

MAT	I think we can assume that it was

LAURENCE	No  no, I think come to New York and get your dinner paid for. Everyone should try this out, if the Mayor’s office is listening I’m doing my part right now. 

LIZ	But what was great was he did make us feel incredible. Because when we had been talking to him, and we’d just been friendly, maybe people aren’t that friendly in New York so maybe we were a welcome friendly face, and we were great to him, but then it made us want to be nice to people.

LAURENCE	It happens that way, and I didn’t grow up in NY, I’m from the Midwest, and so I’m a transplant here like most folks. And NY has a bad reputation, people haven’t been here before think about death wish and the gang wars, but you get here and there’s a different energy. People really do come together, they look out for each other and that’s why I’ve been back here for 6 years.

LIZ	Well I’ve heard that thing A New York Minute, and it’s like in one minute I’m a woman wanting to be cured and in another a guy’s buying me dinner. Anything can happen.

LAURENCE	Stick around for ten more minutes, who knows what would have happened. 

MAT	I was on the subway one time, it was school chuck out time, and never the best time for a cripple to be in public, and I guess about 55 african-american kids just erupted at my very existence, at my mutation. And it was one of those moments, it got me down for a sec, I shut my eyes and then I heard “Ave Maria”. I opened my eyes and there was a seven foot black guy in front of me singing opera to me because he could tell I looked stressed. I just thought this is totally New York. It lifted my spirits, it was wonderful. 

LIZ	New York is one of those places when I very first came here as a wheelie that I was incredibly impressed because all the buses are accessible. There were problems with the taxis, but more of them are accessible than they used to be. 

LAURENCE	Right now there are 144, they’re doing a pilot programme where you can ring up and get your taxi which is a new thing for people in New York, and that’ll be here in the fall, and then we’ll have over 200 taxis in the fall. 

MAT	How many taxis are there in New York?

LAURENCE	Right now there are 13,000.

MAT	What percentage of accessibility is that?

LAURENCE	Well right now there are 144 that are wheelchair accessible. That is less than 1%, you probably have a better chance of spotting Elvis or seeing a unicorn, but there are more coming along the way. We fought a lot with the taxis and limousine commission in the past but they’re listening, they’re making some changes, maybe it’s not as fast as we’d like but they’re certainly getting there.

LIZ	I think it’s quite an easy place to get around. I guess it depends on impairment and I use a powerchair so it’s a bit different, but it seems you can walk a few blocks and you’re at some iconic building you’ve seen before, somewhere famous. So if you’re not getting the bus, and that’s the best way of getting around, then you can walk to places.

LAURENCE	Just going around the block is a sightseeing tour, any neighbourhood to the other you’re going to see something else that you wouldn’t have seen.

MAT	I’ve never known anything like it. This is the famous city of immigrants isn’t it? They say that nobody was actually born here, originally. We have all this stuff about immigrants in our country, don’t we Liz, and we have people saying oh, there’s too many eastern Europeans and they’re they guys who’ve just got it down so much better. Everyone’s got their area, everyone intermingles, I’m sure you have huge racial tensions sometimes but to me as an outsider it seems like the classic melting pot, you know? 

LAURENCE	And there really is an attitude of live and let live, whatever your freak might be you can have it here in New York and people don’t seem to mind so much. 

LIZ	You know when I left you at the freak show, I got a taxi there, a yellow cab.

LAURENCE	Where did you find that cab?

LIZ	Shh. I’m not telling you. But on the way back, I got the subway. I went on the subway. I felt like a real New Yorker, I did. I was chewing gum. And it was accessible. I know It’s very much like England, random stops, so you’ve got to be very selective where you want to go, but we managed to go from Coney Island to Times Square.

LAURENCE	And in Manhattan you can be within a few blocks of where you want to go. It’s a little different in the outer boroughs, but in Manhattan if you take the stations, every few blocks you’ll find them accessible.

LIZ	And I’ve been shopping. An accessible souvenir shop in my I Love New York bag, something for everyone. Matthew Fraser, you have…

	
Mat	You’ve bought me a green Styrofoam statue of liberty hat!

	
LIZ	 In a minute you can struggle and put mine on. Damon, our producer’s here, I did hear that while I’ve been away you’ve had a little addition to your family, so here’s a little I Love NY babygrow for little baby Rose, and some booties, how cute! And Laurence, this is for you. Now I don’t know if you can read this out while we’re on.

	
LAURENCE	Can we bleep it?

LIZ	OK, lets see, you read it out. This is a t-shirt I bought in a regular souvenir shop; I have never seen it before. 

LAURENCE	Liz, I’ve got one question, what made you think of me?

LIZ	Can you try and describe it for people?

LAURENCE	Well it’s got a wheelchair user with a smile on his face, most definitely a male wheelchair user, and then there’s a female wheelchair user with her chair tipped over going toward him.

LIZ	I think maybe she’s stumbled…
]
	
LAURENCE	Stumbled maybe headfirst, just sort of fell into his lap. 

MAT	Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen, I think we get the idea. 

LAURENCE	Thank you, so much.

LIZ	My pleasure.

MAT	I’m very touched Liz, thank you so much.

LIZ	What can you say about New York?

MAT	I love it. I want to move here. I might do. There we go.

LIZ	I love it, I used to live here, in fact this is where I became a crip.

MAT	Is it? 

LIZ	I thought that’d shut you up, and on that note, let’s move on.

LAURENCE	She’s talking about becoming a gang member. 
	
LIZ	The producer’s going “That’s not where you became a crip!” I think I’d know!

	
LAURENCE CLARK	And now it’s time for Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable.

LIZ	Well that’s our UK Laurence, Laurence Clark, the comedian, we’ve got our own New York Laurence, come on.

LAURENCE	Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable. How was that?

LIZ	You’re our New York spastic, thank you.

MAT	USA ADA, DOA, DDA, how’s your day? It’s time to get quizzing and inquisitive with our warped parlour game

LIZ	We get a disabled caller on the line, we ask questions, and if we can suss out what’s wrong with them we win, but usually we lose.

MAT	On the line today is Alex Brochanovic. Hello Alex.

ALEX	Hello.

MAT	Lovely to talk to you, thank you for coming on the programme.  Who are you, what do you do?

ALEX	I am Alex Brosanovic, actually, and I basically right now am a lawyer.

LIZ	And whereabouts are you in this great country, the US of A?

ALEX	In Oregon, on the west coast. 

LIZ	So it’s a bit earlier for you, you’re a few hours behind. OK, and you’ve heard the show before?

ALEX	Yes I have.

LIZ	Ok, and you’re prepared for what we’re going to put you through?

ALEX	I am.

LIZ	OK. Well, Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable is a clever disability interpretation of the parlour game Animal, Vegetable or Mineral. In the quiz, the two hosts of the Ouch Podcast have 90 seconds to guess what is wrong with the disabled caller on the line by asking a series of fiendishly intelligent questions. The caller must only answer yes or no. It is both classic and therapeutic. 

MAT	To take part in this intrusive and unpleasant quiz the rules clearly state you must be disabled. Alex, are you disabled?

ALEX	Yes.

LIZ	90 seconds on the clock, your time starts now. 
	
MAT	Are you a snapback?

ALEX	No.

LIZ	Are you physically challenged?

ALEX	Yes.

MAT	Are you handicapable?

ALEX	Yes.

LAURENCE	Are you differently abled?

ALEX	Yes.

LIZ	Are you a gimp?

ALEX	No.

MAT	Do you have the use of both thumbs?

ALEX	More or less, yes

LIZ	Are you thalidomide?

ALEX	No.

MAT	Do you own your legs?

ALEX	Yes.

LAURENCE	She owns them, she doesn’t rent them? That’s good.

LIZ	Do you use a handicapped rest room?

ALEX	No.

MAT	Do you have to call ahead to a restaurant when you want to book a table?

ALEX	No.

LIZ	Do you use curb cuts on the sidewalk?

ALEX	Yes.

LIZ	I’m giving you my best American here.

MAT	OK, um, do you have a white stick?

ALEX	No

LAURENCE	Do you have a service animal?

ALEX	No.

LIZ	Do you have any pets?
	
ALEX	Yes.

LIZ	That was irrelevant, I just wanted to know

MAT	Do you…
\
	
LIZ	OK, do you have ME?

ALEX	Yes. Um, no.

MAT	Do you have multiple sclerosis?

ALEX	Yes. No I don’t.

MAT	I can’t believe it, we’ve lost again.

LAURENCE	It was the pets, I got caught up on the pets. 

LIZ	It was my fault, I’m sorry.

MAT	I was feeling tongue tied during that one

LIZ	I was thinking we were going to be better abroad.

MAT	We’re even worse, who knew?

LIZ	OK Alex, it’s time to tell us what’s wrong with you and put us out of our misery.

ALEX	OK, I have incredibly debilitating migraines, usually about two a week, they can last anywhere from one to three days. 

LIZ	Oh.

MAT	Well I’m sorry, that must be, er, bad.

	
LIZ	That shut us up.

MAT	When people find out what your ‘disability’ is, what do they normally say?

ALEX	Much the same, there’s not too much stigma around it except for the fact that people have to deal with me on a daily basis, get awfully tired of me being in pain all the time

LAURENCE	Do they treat it like a real disability, quote unquote?

ALEX	No they don’t. 

MAT	Do you get people asserting that perhaps migrainism isn’t an actual disability, it’s a big headache.

ALEX	Yes.

\	
MAT	How does that make you feel?

ALEX	It drives me crazy.

MAT	Does it bring on another migraine?

ALEX	It can!

MAT	Well you won’t hear any such drift from me. Um… well, migrainism – I’m not being migrainist when I say that, I hope?

ALEX	No.

LIZ	Be careful what to say.

ALEX	Migraine is an incredibly painful headache, for me it’s right above my right eye and it comes with anything from nausea, vomiting, tricks of the light, for me I can’t stand to be in the light when I’ve got one.

MAT	OK, how do you get rid of them?

ALEX	Lots of drugs.

MAT 	Have you ever taken thalidomide for one of your migraines?

ALEX	No!

LIZ	It always has to come back to you.

ALEX	I take specifically Imitrex, or a new drug called Ralpex.

LIZ	Don’t give them any more PR than they need.

MAT	NO advertising for pharmaceutical companies on this programme!

LIZ	Alex thanks so much for joining us.

MAT	You’ve been a great sport, thanks ever so much and congratulations for beating us black and blue.
	
ALEX	You’re welcome

LIZ	If you want to be a contestant on a future edition of Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable, email us now. No matter where you are in the world – ouch@bbc.co.uk

	
LIZ	Matthew?

MAT	Yes Elizabeth?

LIZ	Do you remember where we first met?

MAT	I do, I believe it was a car park in the middle of a three-day action in Cardiff, from the Direct Action Network when we were campaigning for accessible transport.

LIZ	That’s the one, DAN. Well, I’ve been involved, you might know, for a few years with them, and I was really keen to see how the Americans do it, because they’ve got a similar organisation called ADAPT.

MAT	Didn’t they start first?

LIZ	They’ve just had their 25th anniversary, so, going for years now, 25 in fact. It used to be around accessible public transport, then the Americans with Disabilities act, and now it’s all about free our people and the Community Choice act, helping disabled people to live in the community. So I went to Washington to join them, Oh my goodness.

MAT	Did you go on a demonstration?

LIZ	Oh yes. 

MAT	What’s it like?

LIZ	The sheer size of it! Forget what they do, normally they do protests and sit ins and people are prepared to be arrested, they believe so passionately, in the rights of disabled people, people are prepared to go that far. But 500 people prepared to go that far?

MAT	Wow, because we’re used to 35 people, or 50. 

LIZ	There were so many of us the organisers split us up into colour teams, they just whacked a piece of coloured gaffa tape onto you and you must obey your colour leader. Very militaristic in the states as you can imagine.
	
MAT	Well any mass organised demonstration would have to be applied with a military rod, wouldn’t it?

LIZ	I guess. I think in England it’s funny because we all like to be part of it, and we all like to discuss well where are we going to demonstrate today? But no, in the States there’s the leaders that make the decisions and everyone just follows like troops. 

LAURENCE	We’re fond of that over here.

LIZ	You are.

MAT	Have you been on any ADAPT actions Laurence?

LAURENCE	Not in a number of years, but I did in the early 90s up around Chicago, and like Liz said they started out as American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, now it’s American Disabled for Attendant Programmes Today. Making it even more difficult to keep the acronym straight, but they’ve really been on the front lines since that time, really pushing the agenda, when the agenda needs to change they have changed, adapted and evolved, as the issues have.

LIZ	I think what was interesting for me – because I don’t think that size makes it better, I think you can do some really successful demos with ten people, I don’t think that’s the problem. I think a lot of those disabled people there were from strong disability organisations around the US. So they go, they do their protests, they get the attention, they get meetings with senators, they get what they want a lot of the time but then they go back home and do the work in their organisations, and it always felt that in the UK we just don’t have that many people or organisations. 

MAT	On another note, our very own Mr Jonathon Crescendo, the disability rights musician, who was the leader of DAN, doesn’t he live in America now, isn’t he part of ADAPT here?
	
LIZ	He’s part of it, yeah. So he’s learned from the States and bought that to England, but also he’s learned from England and bought that to the States.

LAURENCE	Well we needed some singer-songwriters over here, we didn’t have that many folk singers, so it was really important we had to import him

MAT	Shout out to Johnny, by the way, nice one. I’m glad it’s all going well for you.

LIZ	I’d like to say thank you to everyone we met, because people treated us amazingly. They didn’t know who I was but just on the picket line they were willing to share everything, very friendly and it was great. I loved the fact in the hotel we had over 160 rooms booked out, and every time night and day you’d hear this buzzing going along the corridor, you’d hear a beep every now and then and think, “Is that my chair?!” and it’d be someone across the room.

MAT	What were the cops like? In Britain the relationship between the demonstrators and the coppers is a pleasant one, mostly; if they have to arrest you it’s what I’d call a soft arrest: I’m sorry I have to do this, would you mind getting in this car? What’s it like in America?

LIZ	I thought it’d be really hardcore, and it’s not at all. Often in the UK, on the latter actions I’ve been on, we were surrounded by the police. If they knew we had the intention of doing something they’d surround us, pen us in. In Washington DC they’d let us go wherever we wanted. They even let us go into the major political buildings, knowing we were going to protest, but because these are public buildings they have to let you in. It’s bizarre. They actually allow you into the building where they know you’re going to protest and get arrested.

LAURENCE	And I think they’re also taken aback by seeing that many wheelies, that many disabled folks, en masse. They think it’s an invasion so they kind of step back, they don’t quite know what to do. 

LIZ	But they do warn you and then they do arrest you We were warned because we were on a tourist visa.

MAT	Don’t get arrested, you’ll never be allowed back in the country!

LIZ	Well that’s what I was thinking; I didn’t want to go to Guantanemo.  Can you imagine? 

LAURENCE	I hear it’s very accessible.

LIZ	Well I always wanted to go to that Cuba area. But not that way. 

MAT	My head is completely messed up now, just trying to imagine Liz in Guantanemo bay! For a start you’d look great in one of those little orange suits.

LIZ	Do you think they’d get one to fit my size?

MAT	No but the handcuffs wouldn’t be a problem, would they Liz? Right, so we’ve got two people in the studio, walking in, I’ve got a guy here with an incredible shirt on, all like flames licking up his torso.

LIZ	That’s because it’s our band.

Mat	And what are they called?

FLAME	Flame.

MAT	Welcome, Flame!

	
LIZ	Michelle King and David Le Grange, right?

DAVID 	That’s right.

MAT	And tell us a little bit about Flame and who you are, what you do, where you came from and all that stuff. I understand you come from the Lexington centre?

DAVID	Yes. We do. The reason why I chose the word Flame was it was named after the Olympic torch was lit at the Special Olympic games in Buffalo, so therefore I named the band Flame because we could be a special group, for who had disability and autism who do a lot of things, and that’s what Flame is all about, helping people to understand what the music is.

LIZ	And when was that David?

DAVID	I did that three years ago and I produced the band Flame, so we all took a vote and I said how would you like to have the word Flame, and they all said yes, so Flame is the name after the Olympic torch was lit.

MAT	Now I understand that you’re not the whole band, because we’re in a tiny studio here in NY and we can only fit two of you in. How many of you are there?

MICHELLE	There’s eleven of us.

MAT	What! That’s a big band.

LIZ	That’s quite a group. Now I was reading that you have your own tour bus, is this true? Tell me about the tour bus, it sounded incredible.

DAVID	It’s a big bus. We go places and we have TVs and DVDs and movies. We do a lot of stuff and we listen to music, it kind of makes the day go quicker, it kills time.

LIZ	Michelle, is it wheelchair accessible as well?

MICHELLE	Yes it is, it’s wheelchair accessible.

LIZ	That’s great, I want to go with them.

MAT	It’s fantastic, a wheelchair accessible tour bus. And how many of your members are wheelchair users.

MICHELLE	There are two of them.

MAT	And what have you got, drums, bass, the whole big line-up, brass section, what?

MICHELLE	Yes we do, we got drums, guitars and those basses and amplifiers and stuff like that and some mic stands.

MAT	Well it’s a real pleasure to have you here.

LIZ	Thank you for joining us. New York musicians in with us.

	
MAT	It’s a great way to finish off the show. I’m afraid, listeners, that is it from us here in New York, we really hope you’ve enjoyed it.

LIZ	Thanks go to the production team Damon Rose and the hardest working girl in the BBC, Emma Tracey back in London, studio manager was Paul Rouest at Argo Network, and a big thank you to Laurence Carter Long and all of our guests. 

MAT	Liz’ll be back on the Podcast in July, you’ll all be happy to know. Next month I’ll be here once again with Kiruna Stamell. 

LIZ	We’re going to leave you know with the sounds of Flame, it’s an incredible song called All For A Reason, written by Michelle King who’s here with us. If you want to find out what they’re up to then go to their website, it’s flametheband.com, take it away guys.

MICHELLE	Thank you so much.

	[music]
Rivers flow, gardens growing
Whole world turns, fires burning
Skies are blue, oceans too
Babies cry.

Singing All for a reason
All for a reason
All for a reason
All for reason

Sun comes up each day 
Even when the skies are grey
Behind the clouds you see
Shines a little like you and me
You are who you are
I am who I am
Who knows why

Singing All for a reason
All for a reason
All for a reason
All for reason

Doesn’t anybody know what it’s all about?
Don’t waste your precious time to try to think it out
Be true to yourself be true to your heart
Keep believing

Cruz it’s all for a reason
All for a reason
All for a reason
All for reason

Give it to me now

All for a reason
All for a reason
All for a reason
All for reason

Rivers flow, gardens growing
Whole world turns, fires burning