Falling in Love with the Arts

King Kong

As kids, my brother and I tapped into movie making with the help of our grandfather, who supplied us with a Bell and Howell 8mm camera, tripods, lights, editing equipment, a projector and paid for all the film processing. We recruited the neighborhood kids as our actors, wrote scripts, explored camera angles, employed special effects, and learned how to tell stories through film, including the epic “Water Boy,” lampooning the 1960s Batman TV series. I played Water Boy and was a natural in front of the camera, even leaping over a cement fence in a single bound!

Our love for the cinematic arts ran early and deep. We were both awed by the 1933 film “King Kong.” Brother Frank was struck by just how Kong moved, planting the seeds for a career for him in animation, first with his own studio, then with Disney, Warner Bros and DreamWorks, and I created a stand-up bit where I acted out the entire story in 60 seconds, playing all the characters, including Kong.

At the age of 10 while watching the movie “Carousel” and hearing Gordon MacRae belting out "Soliloquy," I was gobsmacked. Somehow it struck me even then how words could be insufficient to express emotions, and when words fell short, people bursting into song to fully express themselves was for me a natural thing to do. The musical propelled me into a different level of being. Crushing on Shirley Jones also helped me fall in love with that world…every time I hear “If I Loved You,” time still stands still.

My gateway role onto the stage was the old Shakespearean actor Henry in “The Fantasticks.” I was 17 at a summer camp in Georgia and the drama director approached me for the role, as I was a lanky dude with a character face. It was love at first part.

Returning to that same summer camp as the drama director for several summers, I staged musicals including “Carousel,” “The Music Man” and “West Side Story.” One morning while I was chatting with the camp director, he asked me about my future. I said to him that I was thinking about giving acting a shot in order to get it “out of my system.” He said, “Or get it ‘into’ your system.” Prophetic.

One afternoon during my first year as a psychology undergrad at the University of Florida, I glanced at an audition notice tacked up on the student union bulletin board for “Paint Your Wagon” being held at the campus theatre. I landed a part. I went on to perform in several productions over the next 4 years, including hoofing it second from the right in the chorus of “Anything Goes” (tap dancing was not in my wheelhouse). I graduated from the university and hit the road in a southeastern U.S. tour of “Waiting for Godot,” my first paying gig. Theatre was now running steadily through my veins.

After graduating, I was stoked to follow a path in the musical theatre and tripped the boards in “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off,” “Minnie’s Boys,” “South Pacific” and “Godspell” and then left the stage for 21 years to work a full-time day job and raise a family. During that time, I turned my attention to film, landing some bit parts in movies and TV shows and was the principal character in numerous commercials. It was easy enough to leave the job to be a day player on a shoot but holding a full-time job during the day and acting in a 6-week theatre gig at night was burning both ends of the candle.

At this point, my creative bent took a turn inward and I started writing for the stage, collaborating on 3 musicals, my bailiwick being book and lyrics: “Max,” “Billion Dollar Sandbar,” and “South of the North Pole - A New Holiday Musical” which garnered an ASCAP Musical Theatre Award.

Beginning around the time of my first camp gig when I was 17, I began slowly losing my sight from retinitis pigmentosa and became totally blind by age 35. Regardless and Undaunted, my mind persistently kept driving me to continue to live in the creative world, and I kept landing jobs, always grateful to those artistic directors who focused on my abilities first, rather than my blindness. It became a collaborative process of counting steps, turning a certain way, reacting to a voice rather than a face, keying off stage and set pieces and the like, in order to appear ‘sighted’ on the stage and screen, since the lion’s share of roles I played were sighted characters. Actually, the stage and set turned out to be an ideal workspace (small and confined) for a blind person to negotiate. 

1776

Of course, having a day job all those years to maintain reliable cash flow was critical to my family. Then after 21 years in retail, I began to wonder “what’s next?” Hmm. The thing that kept coming to me was my first love, the musical theatre. But now I was a blind actor and wondered if anyone would hire me? I figured the way to find out was to audition, and if no one gave me work, I would just do something else. I did and I did. After runs in many musicals including “The Rocky Horror Show,” “1776” and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” I had opportunities to mine a few dramatic parts. I landed a plum role In “Blind Date,” finally playing a blind character for which I received New Theatre’s Hindman Award. I went on to perform in several seasons of New Theatre’s Shakespeare Festival, culminating in playing Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice.” It was here where I refined my classic chops.

Blind Date

Shylock taking his pound of flesh - Merchant of Venice

I went on to play characters in “Amadeus,” “Three Sisters,” “Our Town,” and recently I came off “Antigone,” where again I played a blind guy, the soothsayer Tiresias.

Tiresias and Creon - Antigone

What has kept me in this world of the stage and screen for all these years? Love. As children, we loved to “play!” So, I’ve just never stopped playing.

Steve Gladstone

The Blind Dude

Dost

cartoon by Frank Gladstone

The time was 9:26 PM on a cold February Cleveland night. I was finishing up a perfunctory email when the smoke detector sounded. It wasn’t the small one up high on the apartment wall but a large one which rang out and echoed outside my 18th floor apartment window.

All of us have experienced numerous false fire alarms over our lifetime and have been consequently conditioned to ignore them. After about 3 minutes, we wish them away. I remember once taking the batteries out of the one in my Florida condo because it kept going off whenever I cooked fish.

I was in the first week of rehearsals for an acting gig and in my temporary housing in downtown Cleveland when the alarm sounded. This was quite different than the environs of my familiar condo in Hollywood Florida, a layout I knew well and which was solidly on the ground floor.

Familiar environments are important to me, a blind person with serious balance issues. Guys like me rarely move quickly, and when we unexpectedly have to, it ain’t pretty. Adrenaline kicks in, you stumble a bit, and, at least I do, begin to shake uncontrollably like a skittish dog when thunder suddenly cracks overhead.

Of course, my first impulse was ‘another false alarm’ and continued finishing up my email when I smelled smoke. Commotion quickly filled the hallway outside my door and it struck me that I had never met a neighbor since moving in a week before. Some banging on my door turned me instantly into the dog at thunder’s first crack. I angled to the door, opened it and after a blast of smoke shrouded my head and filled my nostrils, a neighbor said, “You gotta get down the stairs right now – the elevators aren’t working.” It was no time for ‘howdy neighbor’ intros. It was cut to the chase. I said, “I’m blind and f**ked-up.” He called out to a friend, they grabbed me and said they would help me down. After noticing how long it took me to navigate 14 steps, one of my saviors politely said, “Do you mind if we carry you down?” I thought, “One slip and we are all dead people.” Considering all my options, I said, “Sure. Let’s go.”

My arms went over their shoulders, they each lifted a leg and immediately began rhythmically pounding down the steps like soldiers heading out to battle. The fellow to my right kept asking me if I was ok and I said, “I’m ok as long as you’re ok.” Truer words have never been uttered.

The sensation down the stairs was both terrifying and exhilarating – it was like being on a ride at Bush Gardens or Disney World, sort of a hybrid of Montu and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. By the time we reached the 10th floor, they were huffing and puffing and my sweatpants were sliding off my otherwise naked body. My four-legged conveyance briefly put me down, switched sides, hoisted me up again and suddenly behind me I heard the voice of an angel – it was our stage manager rattling down the steps from the 22nd floor who now had caught up with us. She had my back. Literally. Appearing like some well-rehearsed urban dance move, she reached in and pulled up my sweatpants just as the 2 guys schlepping me downstairs began stepping lively once again.

Step, step, step, step, turn, step, step. One more brief breather on the 4th floor, and we were outdoors. It wasn’t so much that it was 16 degrees outside, nor that I was only in socks and sweats, but I was a 70-year-old Florida boy who was conditioned to shiver when the temp hit anything below 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

I was ushered into the arms of some paramedics who guided me into the lobby where there was a chair and warmth. I also connected there with my friend Peter who had heroically soldiered up the stairs from the 6th floor to help me, though we somehow didn’t cross paths on the staircase.

When you’re blind for many years, you don’t think much about your blindness. You just carry on with your normal life and don’t think about people who first meet you and don’t recognize that you can’t see. This is especially true when you were just carried down 18 flights of stairs (and we were indeed flying!) into the arms and hands of unfamiliar paramedics. They noticed my shakiness and started questioning me as to how I was feeling and if I was hurt. As a normally irreverent person, I was tempted to say, “Well, I’m blind,” without offering up that I’ve been this way for 35 years. But I chose to be appropriate and explained my blindness and consequent anxiety when I find myself in stressful situations.

For the record, once it comes up in conversation, people often tell me that I “don’t look blind.” This is possibly due to the fact that I had sight into my early 30s, and out of habit, I look at people when I speak to them. I’ve also been told that I “don’t sound blind” when speaking on the phone with someone whom I’ve never met. I’m still not sure what a blind person is supposed to look and sound like.

Other than being jacked-up from the ride, I was ok. Several other EMTs queried me again. Either they couldn’t believe that I wasn’t worse than I appeared to be or just didn’t buy that I was ok. Two of them asked me if I wanted to be taken to the hospital. “Nope, I’m cool,” was my answer each time. A nice young lady later asked if I was sure that I was feeling alright. With a wink and a nod, I said, “Nothing that a small tablet of diazepam wouldn’t fix.” She giggled. I said, “You know from diazepam?” She said, “Yes. I’m Dr. Levine.” We had a laugh and it was then that I realized I must be looking pretty funky. The long grey beard I was sporting for my character no doubt added to my curious look. The paramedics still wanted to take my vitals: blood presh was 138 over 80 and my oxygen count was 98%, vitals I could sell to any senior in Cleveland.

It turned out that someone had tossed a cigarette butt into the trash shoot near the elevators causing a fire. The billowing smoke was so thick that another actor from our company, whose apartment was near the elevators on the 22nd floor, was unable to find the stairs. She called 911 who advised her to stay in her apartment and put a wet towel across the floor by her front door and open her windows.

In short order, the fire department got the blaze under control by dumping a massive amount of water down the trash shoot. The only thing that remained out of control was the alarm announcement.

“Attention please. Attention please. We have an emergency. The elevators are not working. Please proceed quickly down the stairs and out of the building.” Apparently, when the alarm tripped, it automatically shut down the elevators. Remarkably, nobody was able to disarm the alarm. I lost count after the 47th time I heard the announcement.

I later felt a hand on my knee. Kneeling by my side was Shivam, one of the two fellows who ferried me down those 18 flights. He asked if I was ok. I covered his hand with mine and asked him where he was from. He explained that He and his roommate Yash were exchange students from Mumbai. “Are you sure you’re fine?” he asked. I asked him how you say friend in Hindi. “Dost,” he said. I patted his hand and said, “Dost.”

After 2 hours, I contemplated making the trek up the stairs to the 18th floor when security suddenly produced an elevator override key. As Peter and I stepped in, icy water quickly seeped into my socks. The elevator floor was covered with the water that had spilled over after being poured into the trash shoot to quench the fire. While the elevator was lifting me back to the 18th floor, I experienced PTSD – Profound Thankfulness for a Sudden Dost.

Steve Gladstone

The Blind Dude

Human Nature Waits

cartoon by Frank Gladstone

When you’re 17-years-old and told you’re going blind, you ignore it. That’s what I did when I was first diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP). And why not? I could see just fine at the time.

I’ve noticed that I’m not alone in waiting to the last minute to prepare for a storm. After all, I live in South Florida and have ridden on the backs of several hurricanes. Whenever a big one is approaching, I hear the buzz saws and the hammering, though everyone knows that is not the best time to install shutters. The best time to do that is before hurricane season begins. Most of us are last minute people.

It appears that the nature of Human nature is to wait to take action on a vital predicament until we actually experience it firsthand – not until something pricks us to wake up and act.

It’s no surprise that folks who refuse to wear a mask during our present pandemic have not been infected with the coronavirus, nor has anyone in their immediate sphere been infected – a parent, sibling, friend, or neighbor. They haven’t been rife with fever, fatigue, nausea and shortness of breath caused by the virus and remain psychologically numb to the reality of it. Some even deny its existence.

England’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson didn’t seriously address the pandemic in his country until he got sick with COVID-19. Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s cavalier attitude to the coronavirus, seen smiling and shaking hands with citizens while infections were dramatically rising in Brazil, made a 180 degree turn once testing positive for the coronavirus, even donning a mask when announcing his condition on state TV.

People tend to act only when infected themselves, or come within 6 degrees of the thing, or come face-to-face with it before slapping on a mask.

Some of us even wait until what we’ve encountered gets pretty bad before taking serious measures to mitigate the problem. Besides a little night blindness at first, I literally paid no attention to my deteriorating condition, even after I crossed the line into my 30s. Totally blind by then, I was depending on other people to get around. Still I had no strategy to investigate the available tools to better deal with my compromised world. It was not until I was in my 40s that I sought independence through assistive tech and wound up on the campus of a guide dog school.

What prompted me into action?

I was a businessman that kept my notes on two different micro-cassette recorders, going back and forth between them to crunch my daily notes and to-do list. It was labor intensive. Then I met John, a blind grad student, who put a little box with seven keys in my hands. It was an electronic Braille notetaker. Since I was a serious knucklehead and had never learned to type, I figured it would be easier to master seven buttons rather than the 26-plus keys of a keyboard. But what actually resonated more in my bones was the fact that John was headed off to team up with his first guide dog before beginning a doctoral program in assistive technology. I asked him why a guide dog? He said he wanted to be able to walk around campus with “more dignity.” Dignity. Hmm. I hadn’t been feeling very dignified moving about my world for too many years.

Another Aha! moment was connecting with Alice, a client at the Lighthouse for the Blind, who was off to get her first guide dog as well. She mentioned that her 5-year-old daughter was starting to feel responsible for her and she didn’t want that sort of relationship with her young daughter to continue. I had a 5-year-old daughter at the time who was starting to feel responsible for me. Off to dog school I went.

I got my first guide dog, Recon, and started moving independently through my world, obtained a Braille notetaker, a PC and a screenreader, and my possibilities exploded. I could write, read and edit documents by myself and my time became my own; I didn’t have to wait for others to assist me in getting out-and-about and doing the stuff of life.

Sure, I could have begun doing better 25 years earlier, but it took a couple of blows to the head to see the light, so to speak.

More daunting than tackling an internal challenge can be addressing external forces. Proximity plays a role here. The more distant you are from a crisis, the less you are likely to react to it. It's possible to live in a blissful bubble, denying, for example, climate change because things just haven’t gotten hot enough for us.

The challenge always remains how to light the collective fuse for doing the good and right thing; how to bring it home. Beyond the tendency to wait till the last minute to put up the shutters, we would all be well served to lean more mightily into what is happening around us; seeing it, hearing it, smelling it, touching it, thinking more deeply about it, bringing us far closer to acting for the betterment of ourselves, others and the planet.

Since we can’t be everywhere things happen, photos, video and audio recordings do help spark action. The images of George Floyd's last moments lit a collective fuse and ignited a meaningful nationwide response. Seeing is believing, minimizing the effect of doubt and spin.

It is the actions of individual people who collectively improve the wider world. We must bristle a little first and let the outrage build inside us until momentum drives us to act. We can choose to sit back in the bleachers and be a spectator or get onto the field and compete – we can’t win if we don’t play.

Of course, it is folly to think that all people can be stirred into action, especially without direct experience. And the deeper we must dig to motivate our actions, fewer still will join the fight. We can only hope that the majority of us are willing to dig deep enough to identify and overwhelm the problem well before we approach the edge of a cliff. We can limit the spread of coronavirus with a mask, recycle plastics before they reach our majestic oceans, stop accelerating the melting of the polar caps by reducing our carbon footprint.

Taking action without being in the direct path of the problem is a heavy lift. Yet, lifting up ourselves and others is when we are at our best.

Steve Gladstone

The Blind Dude

Practicing Social Distancing in the Dark

cartoon by Frank Gladstone

I suppose we are all on high alert. I started rehearsal for “Antigone” at the Cleveland Play House on March 3rd and the show was cancelled ten days later on Friday the 13th due to the looming coronavirus. (Hark! Is that the sound of a Greek chorus I hear?) I boarded a flight back to Miami a day later and while taxiing to the runway, someone about 4 seats in front of me sneezed 3 times in a row and, without missing a beat, 20 collective voices rose in unison with a rousing “Oh no!” The tension in the air was palpable. This invisible, silent, odorless, tasteless menace was getting traction.

It was a curious 3-hour flight home. I thought I heard the flight attendant sniffling, so, though tempted since I hadn’t eaten lunch, I didn’t touch the little bag of pretzels he put on my tray table. He asked if I’d like him to open my can of Ginger Ale and I said no thanks. I slathered the can with my hand sanitizer, popped and poured, and nursed the drink all the way home. 

Since I don’t drive and spend a fair amount of time in my house under normal circumstances, I figured spending 14 days in isolation was no problem and might be a reasonable precaution since I had just been interacting with a plucky bunch of wonderful actors. I also had recently shaken hands with a friendly cashier at Susys Soup & Deli. (The corned beef on rye was excellent.) And then all the airport personnel and the plane ride and, well...you get it.

Now that I’ve passed the 14-day suggested stay-at-home plan and developed a bit of cabin fever, I’ve been reflecting on just how a blind person effectively practices social distancing. It’s difficult to measure 6-feet away by sound only. You can’t always rely on others to practice proper distancing for you. Based on a voice, are they 5-feet away, 4 or 6-feet? Or when that breath ball hits you from someone laughing at your joke, just how far can laughter-breath travel before evaporating into not so thin air?

I thought I might keep a 6-foot wad of string in my pocket and toss it out to anyone talking with me and then ask them to back up until the string was taut, but decided against it as it might launch some laughter and another breath ball that could swiftly waft my way.

I am 6 feet tall and try to keep people at a distance based on a projected factor equivalent to my height. At best, a questionable calculous.

And navigating the out of doors? When you don’t work with a guide dog or use a white cane but rely on a sighted guide, how does a blind person and the guide get 6 feet apart whilst taking a stroll? Or if you’re a wheelchair user, how to go for a roll in the park? Wow! What perfect aim if the person pushing your chair coughs or sneezes – you’re right in the line of fire.

I continue to do my pushups and deep knee bends at home and look forward to the day when I can take a peppy walk with a sighted friend. Until then, I’ll tell my jokes on the phone.

Keep smiling and wash your hands.

Steve Gladstone

The Blind Dude

Blue Fingertips

The Classic Bic Cristal

Though I can’t see it, I imagine the tip of my left index finger is often blue.

Most people who use my ballpoint to help me sign a document, write out an address on an envelope, or pen a handwritten thank-you note, do not put the cap back on, twist it closed, nor mash the spring-mechanism to retract the point when they are finished with it.

I imagine most of you think you close your pens when you’re done using them. And maybe you do with your own ballpoint – but you don’t when your using someone else’s pen, perhaps unconsciously figuring the owner of the quill might want to use it right away to write more stuff.

I’m here to report that upwards of 80% of the time, my pen helpers leave the point exposed to the universe, to lay waste anything it touches, possibly leaving a stray mark on the tablecloth, a stain on my pants after rolling off the open envelope, or depositing a permanent design on the carpet after blitzing my pants.

Folks that do close my pen after helping me, sometimes take umbrage if I ask them if they closed it up, as if to imply “my mother taught me to do that, you knucklehead.”

Other things that our parents teach us that don’t necessarily hold together in the good habit section of our brains, include turning off the light when you leave a room, making sure the fridge door is closed, putting your dirty clothes in the hamper, wiping your feet before entering the house, washing behind your ears and cleaning your tools after using them. 

So, for better or worse, I just check the pen point myself and wind up more times than not with an indigo blue fingertip. Sometimes it’s just a dot, and other times a small jagged design, as I do have to move my finger a little bit to see if it’s the tiny circular socket rim I’m feeling, indicating no exposed point, or if it’s that little pasty metal rollerball tip having its way with my digit.

It struck me the other day, after washing my finger and wondering if the ink was gone, that someday in the not too distant future, inky fingers won’t be an issue. We won’t be writing anything by hand; all our correspondences will be tapped out on a keyboard or dictated into an app. No more pens. No more blue fingertips!

Handwriting will disappear as will moving “clockwise” become an obsolete direction.

The ancient analog clock

I was driving to the film set the other day with a 27-year-old production assistant and I was describing to her a situation where someone was “moving counterclockwise.” Five more minutes into the story, she asked, “What does counterclockwise mean?” I decided to grasshopper this one so that she might discover the answer for herself, and said, “How do you tell time?” She said, “With my iPhone.” Ah! A smartphone doesn’t have a round face with hands that rotate in the same or opposite direction like the movement of the hands of a clock. Got it.

I have, no doubt, entered the final third of my life; my past is expanding and my future is shrinking. I’m having robust conversations with adults who are not familiar with “The Graduate,” cannot name a single George Harrison tune and don’t connect with the concept of clockwise.

As a blind dude, I may be living in the dark, but our past sheds so much light that, if we live long enough, it darkens with time.

So, as pens disappear and faces of clocks vanish, say bye-bye to words as emojis co-opt our vocabularies…and here come driverless cars around the corner and before we know it, “Beam me up, Scotty” will be the normal sort of command that we’ll use to scramble our molecules for traveling from point A to point B.

Until then, as you boost a pen from the bank or your hotel room, make sure the tip is closed before you stuff it into your shirt pocket or purse.

👍😎

Steve Gladstone

The Blind Dude

Born to Be Wild

When I was a callow kid, I was drawn to some questionable activities. There was a tall pine tree growing in the center of a cement wall separating my house from the neighbors, the tree bifurcating the wall into two substantial segments. There were long sturdy vines hanging down from the pine and I would often grab hold of one and swing from one side of the wall to the other. Certainly, that vine might have snapped anytime during the 3-second sweeping arc as I flew, flinging me to the soft earth below or possibly impaling me on the sharp edge of the other wall section as I made my approach. But vine-swinging looked safe enough on Saturday afternoon TV when Johnny Weissmuller was swinging from vine to vine with aplomb.

“Tarzan” - Johnny Weissmuller

Certainly, more questionable was jumping off the roof of my house into our swimming pool. There was an 8-foot wide concrete walkway between the pool and the house – I could easily step onto the pool's pump housing, climb the trunk of the melaleuca tree that grew next to the house, step onto the roof…and jump. The trajectory itself into the pool was a straightforward modest leap outward – easy enough. However, just one loose shingle of any one of the dozens of shingles that fanned down to the edge of the roof, and the 10-foot drop to the concrete would certainly have cut short my writing career.

Let’s be clear. At this time, I was not visually impaired. I was a full sighted clueless youth having a love affair with questionable choices.

Reaching 90 miles an hour on I-95 in my stepfather’s Oldsmobile Delta 88 after accepting a challenge from some high school chums who pulled up alongside me, or zooming the Olds down the 6-second drop on Thrill Hill, a 55° sloped street that abruptly ended at a stop sign smack dab on the corner of the hill and Bayshore Drive in Coconut Grove – one failed brake away from a serious collision – added to my flirtations with sudden death.

Delta 88

After becoming totally blind, my zest for edgy adventure mellowed. I turned to parasailing and riding on the back of a Jet Ski to get a whiff of a thrill.

As both a sighted and blind dude, roller coasters always factored into my history of thrill-seeking – the Great American Scream Machine (Six Flags Over Georgia), Space Mountain (Walt Disney World) and Montu (Busch Gardens Tampa) – a few of my faves. I was totally blind when I rode Montu, at the time, the world's tallest and fastest inverted roller coaster. While I was on line to board, I accidentally bumped my head on an iron gate. After leaving the 3-minute, 150-foot-tall, 60 mph, 3.8 G-force maelstrom, a man called out to me, “Hey, your forehead's bleeding!” I wryly replied, “It was a tough ride.” I’m not certain, but I believe the man stepped away from the line as I strolled off.

As a young father, on a trip to Washington D.C. with my wife and 2-year-old son in tow, we visited Busch Gardens Williamsburg and we happened upon the Loch Ness Monster. My wife casually mentioned that it looked like a roller coaster ride I might like. Oblivious to the description that it was classified an “ACE Roller Coaster Landmark,” boasting two lift hills, a 114-foot drop, two interlocking vertical loops and a helix tunnel, I got on line. I wound up in a car with two young ladies seated in front of me. When the attendant lowered a thick rubber harness over my head, I suddenly developed a sense of foreboding. As we slowly ascended the noisy 130-foot lift hill, feebly looking for some reassurance that I would survive, I shouted to the girls, “Have you ridden the Loch Ness before?” And they said, “Yes, but our boyfriends are too scared to ride it.” Shallow breathing kicked in at this point. The rest of the ride was a blur; after the car rounded the peak of the lift hill, dropping at a vertical angle of 55° in what felt like a free fall, launching into the first interlocking loop, then accelerating through a descending tunnel where the car made 3 spiraling revolutions, and finally ascending and plunging into the second loop, coming to an abrupt stop at the finish, I had lapsed into a complete daze. An attendant helped me out of the car, the fog in my head lifted and I wobbled away. I immediately took an oath: I was glad to have taken the ride and now I never had to do it again. I pledged never to take any similar ride in the future.

Fast forward 35 years and on a trip to Niagara Falls, my girlfriend wanted to ride the zipline, a dangling seat soaring 2,200 feet along the edge of the gorge at 40 mph towards the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. She encouraged me to ride as well, but I remembered the oath I took 35 years earlier and said, “I’m good. You go enjoy.” She insisted, but I stood my ground. There were two young ladies in the elevator with us as we were rising several stories to the top of the incline where one begins their “zip.” I asked the girls, “Have you ridden the zipline before?” And they said, “Yes, but our boyfriends are too scared to ride it.” I smugly smiled to myself, my oath validated.

Lest you think I’ve entirely abandoned my calling for a thrill, I couldn’t resist taking a recent solo ride on a beach motorbike; should I tumble, I figured, sand is soft.

Steve Gladstone

The Blind Dude

I'll See You in My Dreams

Zzzz….

When you can see for the first 34 years of your life and then become totally blind, your memories and imagination often kick in and serve up a visual landscape in your head.

Let’s be clear. I didn’t go to bed on April 9th and wake up on April 10th blind. When I was 17, I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a degenerative disease of the retina. And when you’re 17 and told you are going blind, you ignore it. I was told that I would slowly lose my sight and it was questionable whether I would retain any usable vision long term. I didn’t. By my early 30s, everything was dark, save for a dim glimmer of light in my right eye.

It became all about getting stuff done by other means. Gradually I adjusted to my environment – I got some orientation and mobility tips from the Lighthouse for the Blind (why isn’t it the Darkhouse? Too dark?), acquired cooking skills from a blind girlfriend, and started traveling with a guide-dog so I could move through the world with a bit more zip in my step.

It’s all about adapting. Work arounds. Doing things differently. You actually get used to it; blindness just becomes part of you. It’s not a lack of sight that’s a problem, but a lack of access to visual information.

Nevertheless, I’m not a super-blink – I do miss being able to see.

Now it’s my memory and imagination that serve up sight.

After being totally blind for a while, I took delight in dreaming because I could see in my dreams. The images were sometimes familiar and sometimes fabrication, like a fictitious character in a novel. Even though going blind didn’t improve the plot lines of my dreams – they’re still obscure and opaque – it’s the visuals I focus on and so enjoy.

And there are times when I dream in color. Color is certainly a major part of the visual landscape and losing it is something more than just losing your sight. Color pricks the emotions, offering dimension and depth beyond the paint brushed onto a black and white image in front of you. So too, when people describe a scene in real time, I tend to rapidly imagine and fold in the people and the local environs being described, perhaps like sighted folks do when hearing a story on public radio or listening to an audio book. My imagination rolls like a film with images, actions, nuance…and technicolor!

Ah! To sleep: perchance to see!

Steve Gladstone 

The Blind Dude

Building Blind Audiences

Photography by Aida Zuniga

Playbill for The Lion King

Broadway and the West End are the center of the theatrical universe. Theater lovers flock there to see premiers and the best talent on the planet.

Regional theaters, those venues outside the two big Rialtos that dot many of our cities, in order to continue to thrive amidst a plentiful backdrop of movie complexes and a booming industry of storytelling on our TVs, computers and smart phones, must constantly market their shows, staying in touch with their audience and building the next generation of theatergoers. And now that includes the blind and visually impaired community.

Blind and visually impaired theater enthusiasts now have more accessibility to live shows on Broadway and in regional theaters with some of the major venues offering audio description – a hidden narrator describing in real time the action on stage between the lines of the dialogue.

Of course, the best way to build new audiences is to bring children to the theatre. And certainly this includes physically impaired kids. The Arsht Center in Miami is beginning to build the next generation of visually impaired patrons, partnering up with the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute to create opportunities for their blind and visually impaired pediatric patients to attend their mainstage musicals.

The program is called FAB: Feel the Art Balkan, sponsored by The Samuel & Ethel Balkan International Pediatric Glaucoma Center at Bascom Palmer. The recent Lion King musical tour kicked off the FAB program at the Arsht. 

CHILD TOUCHES ZAZU'S BEAK

Several of the visually impaired children started off the matinee with a backstage touch tour, comingling with stagehands and visually impaired adult patrons, touching and exploring some of the masks, costumes and puppets used in the performance. 

STEVE AND CHILD FEEL HYENA'S TEETH

STEVE FLUFFS SIMBA'S MANE

PUPPETEER EXPLAINS THE WORKINGS OF ZAZU AS STEVE EXAMINES IT

After the touch tour and everyone had claimed their seats, wireless headphones were distributed to the kids and grown-ups. And the narrator went to work.

At top of show, Pride Rock was described as “pre-dawn with mist and clouds. A huge orange paper sun rises and goes up out of the scene as Pride Rock glides onto the stage. It is about 20-feet tall, rising to a rock platform at the top with stairs going up around the back of the rock.”

As the animals enter, the narrator continues, “An Elephant, operated by 4 ensemble members, 1 person in each leg, is followed by a baby elephant. The two giraffes are portrayed by one actor apiece. They each wear a patterned body suit, with a long neck headdress. The actor’s back legs are on stilts about two feet tall. The actors are bent slightly forward and their arms are leaning on sticks about four feet long that serve as the front legs, complete with hooves on the ends.”

This is all detail previously absent from the mind of a blind member of any Lion King audience.

Now the jungle: “Green, lush fronds and palm trees appear, made out of people, and four “grass dancers” with a ride of green grass on their back. Later, a lush jungle of jewel tone flowers, palms, and ferns appear, also created by dancers in elaborate costumes with tall headpieces.”

Speaking of costumes, the audio description brought more color and dimension to the ear.

“First to appear is Rafiki, a baboon, who is spiritual guide of the Pride Lands. She wears a colorful outfit with a raffia skirt with streamers and various implements on a belt...She has very long fingers, which she uses to make dramatic gestures. On her head is a tall headpiece, and she walks with a tall walking stick, with a round gourd tied to the top.”

Mufasa, Simba and Scar “have masks which are worn as headdresses. This makes them taller and more regal when the actors stand up straight, but when they bend forward, the headdress/mask leads and makes them look like they are stalking or pouncing.” 

“Zazu is a white hornbill bird puppet with a long moveable and extendable neck and wings. He rests on the arm of his human handler, who is dressed in tuxedo-like robes in shades of blue, black and white that look like feathers, including tails. On his head is a dark blue bowler hat, and he wears pointed bright orange shoes.”

We hear that the three hyenas “wear gray suits with darker gray spots. The hyena heads are on sticks pocketed on the costume front. They have a mangy, intimidating appearance, except for Ed, who is more cartoonish, with a long pink tongue hanging out of his mouth.”

Of course, short single sentences between the dialogue help in visualizing the action on stage. We know the hyenas start a wildebeest stampede into the gorge threatening Simba, we become aware that Simba blocks Scar’s attack as Scar falls from the cliff and we realize when Rafiki presents Simba and Nala's newborn cub.

STEVE GROWLS AT SCAR

So, blind and visually impaired children and adults get the picture!

The Lion King musical now sports the crown of Broadway’s highest-grossing show. If the audio touch tour and description technology will be brought to more visually impaired children and adults, then we will indeed have hakuna matata.

Steve Gladstone

The Blind Dude

A Role Tailor-Made for a Blind Actor

When you are blind and a professional actor, you always think your last gig is your last gig. Truth be told, most middle-class actors who are not blind generally feel the same way. We are delighted when we win a role, and always have our eye or ear out searching for the next audition and opportunity.

Since 99.58% of all scripted characters can see, most of the characters I’ve played over my career have been sighted.

The Miami New Drama production of Antigone reached approximately 10,000 students in Miami-Dade County.

A student recently asked me how long I have been acting (I told him since Jesus was in third grade) and mentioned to him that it’s easy to “see” on a set or stage because they are confined spaces, where I can count steps or key off a chair, table or accessible set piece, or another actor, in order to hit my mark. I use my ears to focus on my scene partner and with rehearsal or another take, it doesn’t register to the audience or viewer that I’m blind.

These days, however, when I call for an audition appointment, I float a trial balloon to see if the director might consider the role for which I’m reading to be played as a visually impaired person. If the director seems hesitant, that’s ok. He or she might be uncomfortable working with a blind fellow or may just lack the imagination to picture it. Other directors welcome the slant, finding that it might add an additional layer to the character.

What always works to my advantage is that the descriptions for roles listed on the cast break-downs never include language like, “Joe - married to Heather, in his mid-50s and is not blind.”

Once in a blue moon, a part for a blind character appears. I still must compete with sighted actors for the role. It's pretty easy to pretend you are blind, but I do have a competitive edge in that situation.

But, when the stage direction reads: “Enter the blind Tiresias, led by a Boy.”…that’s my jam!

And that recently happened. I was hired to play the blind soothsayer in Miami New Drama’s production of “Antigone.”

Steve Gladstone as “Tiresias”

This time I didn’t have to move much on stage. However, the stage itself did move on me. The production was an adaptation of the iconic Greek tragedy, geared as a traveling show to be performed at high schools and various venues throughout Dade County.

A look at the many venues for “Antigone”

Over the course of one month, we performed 31 shows at 20+ schools and venues in Miami-Dade, reaching around 10,000 students. Waking up in the wee hours of the morning, driving together somewhere around four-thousand miles to parts unknown, we played in every imaginable type of venue, from huge auditoriums to classrooms, cafeterias, a spectacular Fisher Island condo, to Lummus Park on South Beach. Each playing space was different, sometimes a floor, sometimes a stage and once even a grassy knoll – all transformed into the city of Thebes.

Tiresias issues a warning to King Kreon

When you’re blind in this situation – an actor walking on unknown territory, adapting to new topography every day — you cast your fate to the wind and trust your dramatis personae to have your back. I relied on my steadfast pal Dave to safely get me to and from and in and out of each venue, whilst my scene partner, Cherise, reliably guided me to center stage where I hit my mark and issued my stern warning to King Kreon. All my castmates kept their eye on me; it was no sweat.

Now it's onward to the next gig…or will there be a next gig? We’ll “see, or not see.”

Steve Gladstone, The Blind Dude

Space Sickness

Shortly after losing all my sight, I came across a story about how nausea was a common problem for astronauts in the Space Shuttle program. There was a theory circulating that it might have something to do with hand-eye coordination. I thought, hmmm…they should send a blind guy up on the shuttle as a control subject. If the sighted astronauts got queasy and the blind person didn’t, Voila! Evidence to support the theory.

I wrote the Kennedy Space Center with my idea and volunteered for NASA’s Space Shuttle program as a payload specialist. I was ready to be an astronaut and do my bit for the agency. Truth be known, I loved outer space and wanted to be in it. I wanted to experience g-forces, float in space and drink lots of Tang. Oh yeah, to be the first blind guy in space would also look good on the resume.

After several weeks turned into several months without a response, I wrote again, and again, no answer. Then, through a lucky contact, I was introduced to Florida Congressman William Lehman, who took interest in my quest and who held sway with authority. When you have someone in your corner who has an elementary school and a causeway named after him, and is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, you’ve got game!

True to form, it’s not what you know but who you know. Congressman Lehman leveraged his considerable contacts and I got a response shortly thereafter from some official NASA person in Houston, thanking me for my interest in the space program and who clarified that I would not be considered at this time.

Actually, I was sort of relieved. After receiving Congressman Lehman’s endorsement and my wish moved closer to reality, I recalled that when I was a kid, I use to get motion sickness while sitting in the back seat of a car. So, floating around in space might not have been such a good idea. I put the letter in my scrapbook and was happy to continue my life on Earth.

Nevertheless, I was in the habit of monitoring each Space Shuttle blastoff and was fascinated with the missions; loved the countdowns, loved the narrations from space, loved the possibilities that space offered. I wanted my son George to observe a live launching so we could hear the roar of the mighty engines.

In late January 1986, we visited Disney World for Georges 4th birthday and had planned to head over to the Space Coast for a scheduled shuttle liftoff at Cape Canaveral, but we were running behind after checking out of the hotel and decided to go straight home.

It was unusually cold that day and there was a buzz of excitement in the air. I quickly strapped George into his car seat so I could turn on the radio and catch the countdown. I tuned in as we pulled out of the parking lot but was 73 seconds too late for the liftoff – the Space Shuttle Challenger had just exploded.

I rolled down my window and swore I could hear a collective outcry in the air. Perhaps it was a chorus of souls. Even though we were about 50 miles from the cape, I felt we were there. I could smell the burning fumes hanging in the air and felt numb.

My mind immediately went to Christa McAuliffe, the schoolteacher who was onboard the Challenger, the first “civilian” to be approved, trained and greenlit for a shuttle mission. It took her 3 years to train to be an astronaut and I was rejected just 3 years before this disaster. It could have been me on that shuttle.

McAuliffe was to teach some lessons from space. It’s that line item on the universal lesson plan that temporarily had me spooked: Be careful what you wish for.

Now years later, I know that we can’t let fear rob us of our dreams and aspirations. Bad things happen to good people (and sometimes good things happen to bad people). We are best off taking our own bold steps forward and not measure ourselves against the fortunes or misfortunes of others. 

Certainly, risk is a big factor when realizing dreams. Risk requires bravery. It takes courage going off to summer camp for the first time, leaning in for your first kiss or strapping yourself in for a flight to the moon.

When you’re blind, you’ve got to be a little bit brave every day; living in darkness helps promote that leap of faith into the unknown.

We either choose to live in a bubble or take some risk. And it is that same risk that brings both disappointment and wonder. We never know if it will be tragedy or love that we will face until we take that leap into the void. 

Steve Gladstone, The Blind Dude

I Can See

I Can See!

Not only do movies create magic for the audience, but for the actor as well. It conjures up a brew for an otherwise shy person to become a romantic lead, a mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper to become a superhero and, in my case, enables a blind actor to see.

My previous gig was playing a blind villain in a short horror film, and this go-around I was an inventor / scientist introduced in the opening sequence of a feature length screenplay. My enigmatic character, Cornelius Proctor, has invented a device that will allow him to transfer his “being” into it just before shuffling off his mortal coil. I’m dressed in a Henley style collarless shirt, suspenders, some pinstriped trousers and wearing some cool wire rimmed glasses. Yep, I can see.

Proctor gazing out the window

Confined to an authentic 1930s wheelchair, the sequence shows my character pondering the final deed whilst gazing through my window at a storm raging outside. Resolved, I approach and activate my device just before dispatching myself, transferring my essence into this nifty retro sci-fi apparatus the size of a breadbox.

So, how does the blind man “see” to wheel from his window to his radio for one last listen before heading over to his work-station where sits his device and his destiny?

Magic my dear Watson. Actually, watching an off-set monitor, my director prompted me as the action unfolded in real time. I spin my wheelchair away from the window, the director shouts “Stop!” – my cue to now wheel straight across the room to the old-fashioned Zenith. The tricky part was to land on a dime 12-feet away from the window, just left of the radio, in order to reach down and switch it off before wheeling over to my makeshift worktable in the center of the living room. With the director’s cues and a little practice, I roll to the radio, stop, listen briefly to the music, bullseye the knob and switch it off and, taking one last look around my room at tacked up blueprints and a mysterious photo of a woman on the wall, I wheel away to the workbench. Nailed it. 

Director Fareed Al-Mashat watching monitor behind set

Taking direction

Proctor close up listening to radio in the dark

Like all shoots, there were long, medium, close-ups, as well as overhead shots of the same action, lensed separately, so there would be enough coverage to give the director and editor optional ways to cut the film.

Director of Photography Frank Martin lining up device shot

What I didn’t actually see, but what dressed the stage, was the storm raging outside, accomplished by a behind-the-set rain-rake drizzling water down the window and an offstage fan blowing palm fronds as if they were fluttering in the wind. Inside on the set was a copy of a vintage Life magazine resting on a straw couch, an old-school oscillating fan, a dozen blueprints tacked up on the walls, and living room furniture moved off to the side to accommodate my workspace. On the floor were boxes of various parts and covering the workbench were old-fashioned tools, vacuum tubes, a soldering iron with a small burning flame, a jar of acetone...and, of course, the device. 

The device and random tools

The device had a hand-crank, two switches, two separate dials, and a grab-handle which I had to execute in sequence to fire it up. However, before disappearing into it, I made one last entry in my journal. (I was told that my handwriting was pretty good.) Then I cranked, flipped, twisted, grabbed, trembled violently, and zap…I was a goner! Nailed it.

After two days of shooting, which will ultimately be edited to 2-minutes, we wrapped the prologue sequence, setting up the device and the action about to unfold. 

So, whenever I want to see, I simply head over to a film set – just one more magical benefit of making movies.

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a blind dude who can see!

Proctor at workbench with device and set in background

Steve Gladstone

The Blind Dude

Blind Dude Turns Villain

Not quite the Phantom of the Opera, but nevertheless psychologically seducing the ingénue was my game last weekend.

When a blind actor is offered the role of a menacing villain in a short horror film, he signs on.

Though the “girl” subscribes to the paranormal and reads tarot cards, she is innocent and wholesome until falling under the spell of the bad guy. The “boy” hasn’t a chance against this formidable foe. As she slowly becomes unhinged and angles to dispatch her fiancée with a large blade, the creepy blind man blissfully witnesses the event.

With a vintage top hat, long leather coat, Doc Martens boots and some nifty scar makeup, my character didn’t have to say much to get his point across. The film was framed so the viewer will be able to see what I am thinking, and my actions will be enough to psychologically manipulate the girl to attack her soon-to-be husband. Ah! The magic of movie-making!

It does take a special sort of producer and director to hire an actor with a disability, even when the actor is otherwise right for the role. It's a production team with imagination who can see that hiring a performer with a disability can add an extra layer to the character, making him or her that much more interesting. 

On the set, it all boils down to director and actor collaborating and adapting so the script can be served and the actor accommodated.

Being on a film set is actually a nice environment for a blind actor. Once in position, you usually don’t have to move very much and, as opposed to acting on the stage, you generally keep your expressions and gestures small. You always have the benefit of a rehearsal and if the scene doesn’t go well, you just shoot it again.

Before each sequence, I ask to “walk” the set to get a sense of the space I’m working in. Then I ask the director how I’m to be framed – full on, from the waist up, chest up, or just the face. I'll also ask the DP (director of photography) to clap his hands in front of the lens so I can locate it. After that simple prep, not unlike any non-disabled actor, it’s just a matter of disappearing into your character, listening and reacting to the other characters, and delivering your lines honestly.

Of course, there is the occasional outtake that catches you in a more playful moment.

Like any competent actor, I strive for a well-drawn and nuanced performance while trying not to blink and keeping my mouth closed when I’m not speaking.

Steve Gladstone

The Blind Dude

Blind Tech Makes for ‘Better Radio’

When an entertainer says, “I have a face for radio,” they’re suggesting that they aren’t very handsome or pretty or don’t have the body type that is flattering on the screen but do have a captivating voice. However, when you’re blind, all media is essentially radio. Or put another way, everybody who listens to radio is essentially blind.

Out of necessity, radio is more descriptive than film or TV – the voice artist must paint word pictures and use sound clips and effects to develop the experience for the listener.

Now blind tech is bringing everybody back to the Golden Age of Radio with dramas and comedies boasting a full cast of characters, narration and sound effects.

A little backstory here.

Audio Description (AD) was introduced on video tape in the 1980s – it was the narration added between the dialogue of a movie or TV show to inform a blind or visually impaired person of the expressions and actions occurring on the screen. Titles chosen for AD were limited to box office grossers like “Pretty Woman” and “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” With a little more time and the advent of DVD technology, more titles with AD started appearing. And now the tech has made its way to TV. With many series like “Game of Thrones” a visually challenged person can glimpse just how voluptuous the Mother of Dragons really is or picture the creepy icy eyes of a White Walker.

Daenerys Stormborn

White Walker

Tech for the disabled is gaining currency with non-disabled folks too. People without impairment are co-opting media tech to enrich their own media consumption. 

For instance, Closed Captioning, the dialogue printed at the bottom of the screen in real time for the deaf community, is also being used by folks whose English may be a second or third language. And Audio Description is being appropriated by sighted users who are turning Netflix Videos into “super radio” to “listen” to a movie or TV show while driving, cycling ,even hanging out at the beach. People who are on the Autism spectrum and those who are auditory learners have been shown to benefit from AD, as well.

Audio Description is certainly an interesting way to open up a whole new market with something Blind and low vision consumers have been requesting for years. Disability tech, like ramps & elevators, has a use for ALL humans.

Excerpts from an article by Patrick Loftus illuminates the point:

“You can listen to movies and TV shows on Netflix by turning on the audio description feature in user controls. In other words, audio description can turn your favorite movies and shows into audiobooks that you can listen to anywhere. Here’s an example of how audio description accurately narrates details of a plot from a scene in Netflix’s original series “Stranger Things.” The audio description track is italicized and in brackets:

[Sounds of Mike and Will’s friends talking around arcade games. Will wanders away, gazing out the door at white spores drifting through the air.] WILL: “Hey. Hey guys, do you see the ---” [He turns around to find everyone gone. The lights flicker off. Growth is now climbing over the walls and dark arcade games. He rolls around as the front door crashes open. Outside, the first letters of the purple-neon “Palace” sign flick on, then off again, as Will steps out of the arcade in the “Upside Down.” His bottom lip trembles as he gazes past the spinning growth covered arcade sign to flashes of lightning crackling behind thick clouds. The flashes grow more intense and he gazes up at the ominous storm, tears welling in Will’s terrified eyes.] MIKE: “Will, Will… Are you okay?” [Will spins around to Mike. He looks back, the night sky returned to normal.] 

Audio description has a vivid narrative quality in order to create an equivalent experience for the visually impaired. So naturally, sighted listeners can also use their imaginations to visualize what is happening, just like one would do while reading a book. And since you can use the feature on your smartphone app, you can use audio description while walking, running, or exercising, driving, commuting to work, traveling long distances, or listening to a show as background noise while working.

In an ideal world, both people with and without disabilities should be able to enjoy the same goods and services without having to take ‘extra steps.’ The term ‘accommodations’ would become a thing of the past as physical and digital interfaces are universally designed from the start to include everyone.

AD offers people the possibility of listening to their favorite shows and movies instead of watching them. As people begin to realize this, hopefully, we’ll start to see a lot more titles with audio description as popular demand for it grows.” 

Now to catch a glimpse of Daenerys Stormborn!

Steve Gladstone

The Blind Dude

Deaf Driver, Blind Passenger

The other day I tapped my Uber app from the dentist’s office to request a ride home. The voice on my iPhone told me that my Uber driver would be arriving in 4 minutes and also that he was deaf or hard of hearing. I thought, “Hmm…this will be interesting. Deaf driver, blind passenger.”

I experienced a pang of ‘ableism,’ which is like racism, but is discrimination against disabled people instead of ethnic minorities.

Deaf people drive? Sure, why not? It’s like when people are surprised to find out that I cook even though I’m blind. I had prejudged someone with a disability – and a member of my very own tribe no less. I had judged someone as quickly as I, a blind person, had been judged by so many others in the past.

When meeting a person with a disability, our mind tends to knee-jerk and think about what the disabled person can’t do, rather than what they can do.

I settled down and got curious on how this would unfold.

It was at that point that my thoughts got practical and I remembered that GPS isn’t accurate in my neighborhood. I live in a gated community which has only one entrance. As you approach my home, GPS indicates a different way in – Hedge Drive – as the street to turn onto from the main road in order to arrive at my street. It’s not. It leads into the parking lot of a strip mall which has no access into the community.

Whenever I’m riding home, I tell my Uber drivers to avoid Hedge Drive and to go just a little further to the gate entrance.

So, how was I to communicate this to my deaf driver when we approached my neighborhood?

Sometimes you don’t have all the answers up front and you gotta have some faith or confidence that a solution will present itself as a situation evolves. Besides, what good is an adventure if you know the outcome beforehand?

The dental receptionist led me out to the Uber car, I got in and we were off. I tapped the Google Maps app so I could follow the progress of the trip. I noticed that my driver was taking an odd route to my home, and as it turned out, he actually arrived on the one road outside my community that leads right to the security gate. Wow! No sweat. No drama.

A twist in the plot.

We reached the traffic light at the main road where all he had to do was go straight across it and pull up to security. Suddenly he turned right. Yikes! GPS was directing him to Hedge Drive.

I felt him turn into the strip mall parking lot and I couldn’t tell him not to. He began to get agitated. Then he stopped the car and I heard him tapping on his phone. Unexpectedly, I heard a “ding” on my iPhone – it was a text message which said, “I can’t find it. Where do I go?” Voilà! Communication.

We exchanged a few texts – he read mine, I listened to his – and we landed at my building. He guided me to my door, I stuck out my hand, he took it and covered it with his other hand, and we had a moment for the ages: blind dude connects with deaf dude.

Better living through tech.

Speaking of which, tech has helped me to become a better chef. I now use a digital grill to tell me when my food is done. I used to rely on my smoke detector to alert me when my fish filet was fully cooked.

Steve Gladstone

The Blind Dude

Where Is There? Part 2

A friend sent me this account by an anonymous blind fellow. This prompted me to go digging around for a poem I wrote many years ago on the subject. It tries to explore that elusive land, not so far away as Neverland, yet equally as mysterious.

Over There.

At last we can know the location of "Over There."

As my guide dog and I stood in line at the checkout counter of the River City Market, I asked the cashier what I thought was a simple question, "Where are the napkins please?" Her response was hurried but sincere, "Over There."

The next day I was at a new bus stop and I managed to catch the attention of a passer-by. "Please sir, can you tell me where I might catch bus 63?" A kind voice offered a pleasant response before disappearing into the cacophony of the early afternoon. "You can catch it Over There," he said.

So many things reside Over There: napkins, bus stops, pencils, pens, clothing racks, department stores and even my shoes! A never-ending supply of important and indispensable items and locales all reside in this place, which is shrouded in mystery and intrigue. I stand in perplexed silence after learning that something or someone is “Over There.” It is a place I have never been to and have no hope of finding on my own.

My guide dog is quite skilled in finding chairs, stairs, counters, curbs, elevators, escalators, helping me cross streets, and can even find me the pepperoni display at Food Town. However, when I tell him to find Over There, his little bottom hits the floor and a small whimper tells me that he is as confused as I am.

We will not be going Over There today.

Over There has caused me a bit of vexation, a lot of confusion and, on occasion, made my heart race. I have discovered that Over There can be a dangerous place.

One day while crossing a street, I heard a driver's irritated voice shout out a warning of a truck bearing down on me from Over There. My guide dog artfully dodged the oncoming vehicle and pulled me to safety at the curb. Our hearts were both racing as we took a few moments to compose ourselves. Close encounters with Over There can be frightening experiences.

Although many blind people have wondered as to the exact whereabouts of Over There, few have dared to venture forth in an actual exploration of the ghostly place.

Recently I entered a drugstore, and after my guide dog found the counter, I asked the clerk where I might find the aspirin. With a cheery smile in her voice, she informed me that the aspirin was located (all together now!), "Over There."

With a bold sigh, I decided that I would finally take the extra step that would unravel the mystery which had vexed my compatriots since the beginning of time. Taking a deep breath, and attempting to look nonchalant, I smiled at the clerk and asked, "Where exactly is Over There?"

I felt her concerned look. The silence grew palpable as she mulled over the possibility of allowing a blind person access to the forbidden land. The die was cast. She had no choice. She would have to tell me how to find it.

I had won! Exhilaration swept through me as I waited in breathless anticipation. A victorious smile crept to my lips, my hand tightened on the handle of my guide dog's harness. We were at the ready – we would soon be going Over There!

The clerk's voice reeked with resignation as she began to speak. She said (drum roll please): "It’s that way."

And now for my poem.

Where Is There?

Without eyes, entered a room,
a tired man, his head was strewn
with worldly words, often unsaid,
he asked where he might rest his head.

A clerk then pointed, “over there.”
“Where is there?” the blind man’s query.
“Right there, it's there, it's over there.”
The familiar strain made the old man weary.

“I cannot see, please show me where.”
The clerk then said much louder,
“I'm sorry friend, please sit right here.”
From there to here he’d flounder.

The clerk’s voice now moved a wall,
“Right here! It's here!” insisted.
The blind man said, “And by the way,
my ears need not be twisted.”

And so explained, the blind old man,
his journeys' end a wooden chair,
that “Over there, has no meaning.”
“Put it where?” the clerk was screaming.
“Where the moon don't shine,” he shared.

by Steve Gladstone, blind dude

5992 Eyes

On my recent trip to the One World Trade Center in New York City, my fingers were wedged into the grooves of a bronze plate etched with the name, Robert King. It was mounted on a great stone podium alongside the raised letters spelling out “Battalion 7.” These were two of the thousands of memorialized engravings honoring those who perished on 911, including Robert, a firefighter who rushed to aid the innocent victims in the twin towers.

All the names are mounted there and all the memories they inspire.

It was a hot day, the bronze plates were warm, and Sweat like tears slowly rolled down my chest as my fingers brailled the grooves of some of the other names of the 2996 people who perished. It suddenly struck me: “5992 eyes, suddenly blinded.”

Less than 5 years after the collapse of the twin towers, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey began construction on the One World Trade Center (1 WTC) and by 2013 the 104-floor office space and observation deck was completed, becoming the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan. It now stands as the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and quite a climb for King Kong.

The building, including its spire, reaches a total height of 1,776 feet, a deliberate reference to the year when the United States Declaration of Independence was signed – a profound “gotcha” to the terrorists.

I recall when I could still see back in the late 1970s, stepping off the elevator onto the floor of the Windows on the World, the WTC’s original restaurant and observatory. I was amazed at how small the Statue of Liberty appeared.

I’m told that on a clear day you can see the curvature of the earth from the observation deck’s vista. Standing there, you are certainly high enough and far away enough to hold Lady Liberty between your thumb and index finger, proof positive that the earth is round and that freedom reigns supreme.

Steve Gladstone, The Blind Dude

Photo by Aida Zuniga

I’ve Got My Eyes in My Pocket

Specialty smartphone apps have flowed downstream to the blind community for some time. Apps that can read the value of your paper money or tell you the color of your t-shirt have been around for a while.

"Be My Eyes" app screenshot.

And now blind folks are using the camera on their device, not as a parlor trick to snap photos of their pals, but as remote eyeballs.

For the past year or so I have been facetiming (Apple’s real time 2-way video calling feature) with my daughter to help me distinguish between my meds, neckties and the hardboiled egg that dropped and rolled across my kitchen floor. But she’s not always available. And what happens at 3 o’clock in the morning when I need some sighted assistance? So, downloading the Be My Eyes app was a no-brainer for me.

Be My Eyes is an app that claims that it “brings sight to the blind and visually impaired.”

The app engages the video capabilities of smartphones to turn them into virtual eyes. It allows blind folks to make video calls to volunteers who are ready to help them see stuff.

The good folks behind Be My Eyes explain that the sighted helpers are “friendly citizens who are willing to lend their sight as they go about their daily lives.”

The nifty network boasts that there are over half a million sighted helpers and over 35 thousand blind and visually impaired users in the Be My Eyes community. The volunteers are ready and willing to assist blind folks in every time zone and in over 90 languages. This makes it available to the user – that’s me – 24/7.

It’s an around the clock deal. Whenever you call, it keeps buzzing around the globe until it finds an available volunteer who speaks your language and who’s living in a zone where it’s daytime. If it’s the middle of the night in the U.S., for example, you might be connecting with someone in Europe or Australia.

Just yesterday at around 2:30 a.m., I reached into my freezer and pulled out a half melted (half frozen if you’re an optimist) strawberry fruit bar. So I activated the Be My Eyes app and connected with a student in Turkey. She helped me figure out that I had accidentally bumped the temperature setting on my digital fridge panel and she helped me to reset it. We then had a lively conversation about who had the more “colorful” president.

Last week I went to clean my dining room table and just before spraying the lemon furniture polish on it, I called BME to be certain I had the right stuff. I found out just in time that it was roach killer I was about to spray all over my beautiful oak-wood table. A few days later, my roboeyes helped me find the avocado I dropped on the kitchen floor. (I drop a lot of stuff on the kitchen floor.) Then the BME volunteer helped me read a message on my computer screen when my screen reader was misbehaving and stopped speaking.

"avocado, down!"

Turns out the program is good for the volunteers as well as blind folks.

Sighted helpers have reported: “…feelings of usefulness when answering a call and successfully helping a blind person,” how “awesome it felt to be able to be someone’s eyes in a time of need” and “being eager for the next call.”

And out of the mouths of users: “I do not know what I would do without this app. It has been a lifesaver for me.” … “Volunteers have looked through catalogs with me and have also helped me sort out my CD collection.” … “I had a man tell me the kind of tea and another woman tell me it was a can of tomatoes. It sounds like a small thing but I can tell you it is not! Remember it is the small things in a person’s life that make a big difference.”

The Be My Eyes team reminds us that it’s summertime. You might be going on vacation and into unfamiliar surroundings and that now “…you can feel secure and even more independent knowing that you are never really alone as you tackle new activities and places… You’ve got Volunteers in your pocket, waiting to assist you whenever and wherever you need them… Once you try it, you will never leave home, the state, or the country without it.”

I recall once being at a hotel and washing my hair with body lotion since the bottles containing shampoo, conditioner and lotion were all identical in size and all smelled like the same flower. Thermostats are always a guessing game as to which button is cool and which is heat and if the up down temp buttons move in half or whole degree steps. And the TV remote controls? Yikes! I’ll be calling BME from now on when I’m obsessing over the small stuff in my hotel room.

I was reading about Gayle Yarnall, the blind former director of adaptive technology at Perkins Products, who also experienced some anxiety when she traveled.

“I normally always read about a place before going there,” Gayle mused. “There are many cultural differences to be aware of. Like in Japan, you will find that a toilet has 8 buttons. So it’s just a matter of trial and error before hitting the right one.” Now she knows what button to push. Of course, it’s more than just bathroom management for Gayle. “A whole new world has opened for me, and I will bring the app everywhere.”

The folks at Be My Eyes stress that “with over half a million volunteers you can, and should, feel free to make calls as frequently as you wish without ever disturbing anyone.” In fact, they have many volunteers who are still waiting to receive their first help request. You can use Be My Eyes as much as you possibly want – and the service is free, no matter how much you use it.

So, until tech comes up with bionic orbs they can plug into my eye sockets, I’ll carry my eyes around in my pocket.

For info on Be My Eyes, check out Info@bemyeyes.com.

Steve Gladstone, The Blind Dude

Seeing Things Differently

by Steve Gladstone, Insight Blogger

To see, or not to see--that is not the question. With my apologies to Mr. Shakespeare, if given the option to see or not to see, I would certainly choose the former. It surely isn’t nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous blindness if you don’t have to.

Notwithstanding this obvious truth, “seeing” has many meanings. In ancient times, a seer could see into the future. (Ironically, Tiresias, the famed clairvoyant from Greek mythology, was also blind.) To try and see things “my way” is to ask somebody to take your point of view, or Saying “I see your point” let’s somebody know that you understand what they are saying (even if you disagree).

“Seeing things differently” is to have differing opinions or perceptions of the same thing.
Ask five sightlings to describe the same Picasso painting and you will get five different versions of that painting. We all know that if you ask eight people their opinion on a political issue, you will get eight differing viewpoints, some even detached from reality.

So, in a grander and nuanced sort of way, “seeing” is much more than physical sight.

Arguably, sight is the primary pathway of our senses. We take in our world first by what we see and then by what we hear, touch, taste and smell. But when you are blind, you do “see” things differently.

Several years ago, my friend Kimberly, a singer of Broadway and opera, worked a summer season at Wolf Trap, the performing arts venue in Virginia. Her hosts' 11 year-old daughter was blind. On a trip to the zoo one day, they came to an area where children could hold and feel some of the animals. Kimberly never forgot the young lady’s description of a beaver's tummy: "Have you ever seen a beaver," she asked. "Only in pictures," Kimberly replied. “Well," the young lady continued, "their tummy is soft like velvet. The softest fur you'll ever touch. They are really beautiful." Kimberly recalled how the little girl’s “…description was perfect. Lots of different ways to see things.”

How we comprehend our world is dynamic, and those lacking one or more of their five senses, reroute things toward their other abilities that are in play, employing their wit and ingenuity to interpret the world accordingly.

Tiresias obtain his info in various ways in order to serve up his “second sight.” Sometimes, like the oracles, he would receive visions; other times the songs of birds would inform him; sometimes he would ask for a description of pictures appearing within the smoke of burnt offerings.

Tiresias was considered “a complexly liminal figure, mediating between humankind and the gods, male and female, blind and seeing, present and future, this world and the Underworld.” In other words, he was one exceptional blind fellow.

Disability isn’t a tragedy – it’s just another way of living. And for some, having a disability gives them leverage — seeing things others don’t see.

To see--perchance to dream!

I echo Kimberly’s words: “Happy New Year, friend. Let's hope 2017 will be a wonderful year for all of us, the planet … and the beavers.”

Steve Gladstone
The Blind Dude

Blind Folks Get ‘Dirty’

by Steve Gladstone, Insight Blogger

If you attend a play and close your eyes for 2 hours (absurd, I know, but stay with me on this) and just listen to the dialogue, you’re gonna’ miss some important stuff. You may follow the fate of the principal characters, but you won’t know much about the costumes, lighting, details of the set (or when the set changes locales) and what is happening on stage when nobody is speaking.

Of course most people who attend the theater can see the facial expressions of the characters, the scenes changing and the exploits that are happening when the players aren’t speaking. Blind folks don’t have that option and consequently miss much of the action and information dynamic to the story. The Arsht Center set out to remedy that significant issue back in 2010 with their “audio description” program for their sightless patrons, describing the many elements essential for a blind person to get a complete picture of what’s happening on stage during the Broadway Series, Florida Grand Opera and Miami City Ballet productions.

Now blind and visually impaired peeps get a better picture knowing that Baby wore a “bright pink halter top dress for the exhibition dance at the Sheldrake Hotel and a pink dress with low back, thin shoulder straps and very full skirts in the last dance of the season at Kellerman’s.”

The recent Arsht production of the musical, “Dirty Dancing,” based on the 1987 hit film, was loaded with 1963 period costumes, flashing lights and projected backgrounds ranging from mountains to a golf course, log cabins, a lake, woods & camp fire. At the top of show, two panels on each side of the stage projected outdoor scenery of “green trees & blue sky with fluffy white clouds.” All those colorful images would be lost to blind folks without the crackerjack volunteer readers sitting in a booth inside the Arsht Ziff Ballet Opera House, describing the sets, lighting and costumes to their blind guests.

Over a dozen years ago, the original Broadway production of “Wicked” was experimenting with pre-recorded narration tied to the musical score. It had inherent technical problems and was often out of sync as every show was, of course, a little different from performance to performance. The Arsht team fixed that challenge by describing the shows in “real time,” the describer calling each scene as it unfolded. The blind patron wears a pair of headphones attached to a receiver while the narration is transmitted via an infrared signal to the assistive listening device, which can be enjoyed from any seat in the house.

Blind theatre-goers found out that Baby was “slender, medium-height with short curly hair, wearing denim Bermuda shorts and a casual white blouse, and Johnny was medium tall with a slender but well-muscled build and neck length light brown hair with gold streaks, wearing snug black pants with a black sleeveless tank shirt.”

“Penny, the girl who gets pregnant, tall and slender with a lovely figure and bleached blonde below the shoulder hair; Mr. Schumacher, an elderly resort guest who steals wallets, balding and rotund; the young men on the entertainment staff wearing a t-shirt with the resort name, Kellerman’s…” – all described so you get the bigger picture.

If your blind as the curtain goes up, all you hear is the song, “This Magic Moment” but, with those dimension-adding headphones, you find out that a couple is dancing, the woman arching her back as the man lifts her up, while Baby, in her bedroom with an open suitcase packed with clothing, writes some notes in a book she is reading, the scene quickly changing to Kellerman’s Resort in the Catskills. There’s a whole lot more going on than just a rockin’ tune!

Many scenes were underscored by music without any dialogue. Without the vivid audio description, blind folks would not know who was entering and exiting, when someone was shimmying, when a skirt bellowed, when strobe lights washed over the audience, when a sunset boasted pinks, blues and purples, when Johnny changed into his tux, when evening came and chandeliers descended from above, when Penny wrapped her legs around Johnny’s hips and the male dancers flipped and spun during the afterhours dance at staff headquarters.

How else would sightless folks know that Baby was awkward when first learning the mambo routine with Johnny? Or the point at which they were swinging their hips perfectly together? Or Johnny teaching her how to improve her balance by practicing on a log? Learning the famous lift in a lake? Or that she stopped short of making her final leap into Johnny’s arms during the show at the Sheldrake?

Baby’s memorable line, “Most of all I’m afraid of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you,” was certainly enhanced by knowing that her eyes were locked with Johnny’s as he pulled her closer, slowly carrying her to his mattress, as the first act ended.

The theme song, “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” ‘saw’ Baby and Johnny in sync, Baby springing toward Johnny, her arms outstretched, making that final, famous leap where previously she had hesitated.

In this summer of 1963, before The Beatles arrived, before the death of John Kennedy, while the civil rights movement was heating up, this coming of age love story unfolded, seemingly less profound than the current events of the day, yet touching a significant romantic nerve – and now creating a more 3-dimensional picture for blind folks.

Blind peeps were certainly not put “in a corner!”

To further the experience, visiting companies are asked to do a “touch tour” of props and costumes prior to the audio described performance. Blind guests can go cheek to cheek with the Mouse King, sample a thigh high kinky boot or grip the old school mic used at Kellerman’s Resort.

Over 60 performances at the Arsht have been audio described to date, including The Lion King, Wicked, Jersey Boys, Madama Butterfly, The Magic Flute, Carmen and The Nutcracker.

In 2014, the Arsht Center was honored with the Dolly Gamble Award from the Florida Council of the Blind for its leadership in audio description and received the national award from the American Council of the Blind for excellence in audio description in the performing arts category.

Audio description may be provided for any performance as the Arsht team has the equipment to make it happen in the Ziff Ballet Opera House, Knight Concert Hall and Carnival Studio Theater.

Interested in upcoming audio described programs? Information is on the Arsht Center website at www.arshtcenter.org, write Alice at afifelski@arshtcenter.org, or call the office at 786.468.2294, cell 305.785.3899

The Blind Job Application

- All Men Are Created Equal

So this black transgender female over 40 in a wheelchair rolls into a mosque…you get the picture. Turn on NPR or your tribal TV news outlet or boot up your smartphone at any time and you’ll catch a story on the “ism” du jour: sexism, racism, ageism, identityism or ableism.

It seems that every day there is some news item or a story about “diversity” – a word that has become a semantic tsunami that washes over us daily and, at least in this country, represents anyone and everyone who isn’t a non-disabled straight white man.

I recently caught a story about the people who did the important math calculations for NASA during the early days of the space program, from the late 50s through the Apollo missions to the moon. This was at a time when “computers” were people, not machines. They used slide rules, solved differential equations and did the calculus that sent Alan Shepard up and down and John Glenn orbiting the earth and enabled Neil Armstrong to step onto the lunar surface.

- Neil Armstrong

These computers were black women. You saw newsreel images of white men with crewcuts and chunky glasses in NASA control rooms while these women were hidden in segregated buildings with segregated bathrooms and drinking from separate water fountains. These women were crunching the numbers for the trajectories, orbits and splashdowns that made our space program possible while steeped in a Jim Crow system that told them they were free but not equal.

Why are we so surprised to find out that these complicated calculations were being made by black women? After all, it’s ability that counts, right?

Any contrary language, belief or action that targets a “group” is the product of small-minded people (hello, Donald, are you listening?) and shines a powerful spotlight on the disturbing ambiguity of the human mind. And there appears to be no shortage of those minds sloshing and squishing around in the heads of many these days.

If our inherent nature wasn’t to discriminate against others there would have been no need for civil rights legislation and the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act and heck, even the need to write down “…all men are created equal…”, the Founding Fathers ironically displaying their prejudice against women! Proof positive of who we are.

As once a sighted person and now totally blind, I can report that blindness has kept some of my prejudicial tendencies at bay. I stopped making those snap judgements that skin color or cultural clothing or body shape prompted in my behavior. All I get are the words coming out of a person’s mouth.

Yes. I do discriminate on the essence of a person – what they can bring to my table or what I might bring to their plate – and accept or dismiss them accordingly. We do need to judge what and who is good or bad for us, but we are all served well to make those decisions based on essence and keep all the isms in check. There is hardly an advantage in dismissing the better candidate.

Hiring and promoting based on ability and performance. What a concept!

Imagine a blind job application. If any and every person applying for a position could apply with their gender, ethnicity, age, identity and disability somehow hidden, what would our workplaces look like? And more importantly, what would be the level of productivity?

Of course, employers should not be asked to hire a person before meeting them. But imagine a completely objective metric being assigned to an application for employment before the boss meets the job-seeker face to face. And if that metric included not only work experience but a measure of intuition by some means as well, it would offer employers a competitive edge by hiring someone who intuits with the best of ‘em.

If we could strip away all the superficial stuff that taints the decision making process, who would we hire? Who would we promote? Alas! Who would we love?

There’s a short overweight Latin woman cleaning houses who would make an excellent CEO if we could just find her…or if she could find us.

And equal pay for equal work? Besides being a no-brainer, another stunning example of how deep discrimination runs like rich red blood through our veins. Certainly as ridiculous as drinking from separate water fountains.

Indeed. All people are created equal. Now if we could just get that woven into the fabric of humanity somehow.

Steve Gladstone

The Blind Dude