Dear Smart Ass Cripple,
How come Siamese twins are called Siamese twins? And is it true that I can’t call them that anymore?
Yours truly,
Befuddled
Dear Befuddled,
To answer your second question first, yes, Siamese twins now insist on being referred to as conjoined twins. The same is true of Siamese cats. They now insist on being referred to as conjoined cats.
To answer your first question, the first conjoined twins to become international celebrities hailed from Siam. So they were simply named after the place they came from. It’s too bad they didn’t come from Spread Eagle, Wisconsin or Dildo, Newfoundland or Intercourse, Pennsylvania. God missed a golden comic opportunity with that one.
Dear Smart Ass Cripple,
My five-year old son recently said to me that Sesame Street will soon have an “autistic puppet.” Should I correct him? Shouldn’t he be saying “puppet with autism?” I don’t want him to offend anyone.
Sincerely,
Weary
Dear Weary,
There are many schools of thought on this issue. Some people are staunch proponents of what they call “puppet first” language. This means seeing the puppet first and the crippledness second. They feel it’s important for everyone to understand that crippled puppets are defined by much more than just their crippledness and that means putting the puppet before the crippledness.
However, there are others who believe that crippled puppets shouldn’t distance themselves from their crippledness, as if crippledness was a source of shame. Thus, they should embrace their crippledness as the feature that defines them most and put it first.
In light of all this, I would advise your five-year-old son to play it safe and avoid cripples altogether.
Dear Smart Ass Cripple,
I think Attention Deficit Disorder is a crock. When I was growing up, if a kid didn’t pay attention, we threw them in jail. And that straightened them out real quick! I think we should go back to doing that, don’t you?
With warm regards,
Fed Up
Dear Fed Up,
I don’t want to talk about ADD. Those people are really touchy. I once pissed a bunch of them off when I said, “People with ADD are the most broke ass cripples of all . They can’t even pay attention.”
It was just a joke, but boy did I get carpet bombed with hate mail. I was anxious to make amends so I remembered the time when a bunch of autistic people were pissed off at the rapper 50 Cent. Or at least I think it was 50 Cent. It might have been his half-brother, 25 Cent. Anyway, whichever rapper it was said something that pissed off autistic people. So to show remorse, he donated a bunch of money to an organization serving autistic people. So I decided to do something even more humanitarian. You know how some people start up camps to help kids overcome their problems? Like there are those camps where obese kids go to lose weight. Well I decided to start up a camp where ADD kids could learn how to concentrate better. I really meant well, but I made one little mistake. My fund fundraising appeal said, “Please help me send a kid with ADD to a concentration camp.”
That pissed off those ADD people even worse. So I don’t want to talk about them. No matter what I say, it’s never good enough.
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Monday, March 6, 2017
The Artificial Drooler
Well okay, I guess you can say things have improved a little for cripples over the last 20 years or so.
Twenty years or so ago, I went to see this play where the main character was a guy in a wheelchair who had cerebral palsy. I don’t remember the title of the play. All I remember was that it was written and performed by a traveling theater company that does plays about “social issues.” Yikes! That should have been a big red flag. But I went to see the play anyway, despite being fully aware of the risk involved in doing so. I guess I figured, “How bad could it be?”
This was that theater company’s first foray into the “social issue” of crippledom. Needless to say, the role of the man with cerebral palsy who’s in a wheelchair was not played by a guy who really did have cerebral palsy or was in a wheelchair. To me it was obvious from the start that he wasn’t an authentic cripple by the way he spazzed it up like Jerry Lewis on coke. From my vantage point in the back row, I could even see drool glistening on his chin throughout the play.
The sad protagonist lived a life of brutal rejection. He was rejected by his family, by kids in school, by employers, by females. It got to the point where he sat on stage alone in his wheelchair delivering a spazzed-out tragic soliloquy about how much it sucks to be him. And then he put the barrel of a loaded gun in his mouth.
The audience gasped. And that’s when the action froze and the audience participation part began. (Yikes! A play about “social issues” that includes audience participation! Any play like that should be required to have a Surgeon General’s warning.) As the faux cripple sat motionless on stage with a gun in his mouth, one of the administrators of the theater company entered from the wings and asked the audience to determine the ending of the play. Should the cripple blow his brains out or not?
A spirited audience discussion ensued about the pros and cons of cripples blowing their brains out. No one mentioned the the fact any cripple that was as spazzed out as this one probably would have shot off his nose or something while attempting to put the gun in his mouth. In the end, the audience decided that the brave protagonist should resolve to keep on living in spite of it all. I can’t remember whether it was a voice vote or a show of hands.
So the action unfroze and the actor took the gun out of his mouth and delivered a final soliloquy about how he’s going to keep on living in spite of it all. The end. The audience applauded vigorously as the actors took their bows. Of course the star bowed last and before he did, he rose from his wheelchair, much to the audience’s surprise and delight. And then he unhooked something from his lower lip and held it high for all to see. Turns out the chin drool was fake. Yep, somebody in the props department actually made him a drool prosthesis.
Like I said, that was 20 years or so ago. I’ve seen a lot of horrifyingly grating stuff about cripples on stage and screen since then. But I’ve still not seen anything as excruciating as that.
So maybe things have improved a little.
(Smart Ass Cripple is completely reader supported. Purchasing Smart Ass Cripple books at lulu.com, subscribing on Amazon Kindle and filling the tip jar keeps us going. Please help if you can.)