Kinky Boots

Photo credit:  Aida Zuniga I’ve groused aplenty about how the world doesn’t have blind folks at the top of its A-List, so now it’s time to give credit where credits due.

More and more devices and services are coming online that enrich the lives and experiences of blind folks and those with low vision. Technology is moving well beyond computer screen readers and talking thermometers, especially in the world of entertainment.

Several years ago, the first round of “video described” movies made it possible for blind folks to know what was going on between the dialogue. The original Star Trek films and Pretty Woman were among the first few titles where narration, carefully synchronized with the actors' words and motions, was added to the soundtrack after the film was shot. This made blind movie fans aware of the nonverbal action on the screen. I recall a specific narrative in Pretty Woman when Richard Gere is first driving with Julia Roberts in his rented Lotus: “She reaches over and feels his crotch.”

There are now thousands of films and TV “described” shows available as MP3 downloads. (All you really need is an MP3 player and the sweetened audio track of the film unless, of course, you are watching the video with your sighted girlfriend.)

Methinks in a real sort of way, the added narration is a show unto itself. One can only imagine the colorful narrative to the Game of Thrones. Yup, it’s all there.

Even my local movie theater complex offers video description for those first run films that are released with the pre-recorded narration, though the technology can be a bit finicky and doesn’t always work.

Comcast now has its X1 Entertainment Operating System which speaks aloud the channel, current program, and reads the TV guide and controls for programming your DVR. For those TV shows offering video description, many from PBS, blind and low vision users get increased access to the action on present-day TV.

And now, like Santa, Broadway with audio description has come to town.

On any given Sunday matinee, Florida Grand Opera, the Miami City Ballet and many of the musical roadshows presented at the Arsht Center in Miami are audio described with a live narrator. Unlike recorded films and TV, describing live shows has some synchronization challenges since the pace of the action may vary from performance to performance. It requires the narration to be matched to the action in real time by a breathing person via a FM transmitter to a receiver headset worn by the patron.

I just attended the national tour of Kinky Boots, a Broadway musical based on the film of the same name, The inspiration for which came from a true story about a young man (Charlie Price) who inherits his family’s shoe factory and, in order to save the business from bankruptcy, converts it from making fine men’s footwear to producing red thigh high boots for drag queens and fashionistas.

So, how did I know the boots were red? Read on, Macduff.

First off, a pre-show backstage ‘touch tour’ of some of the props and set pieces offered up the first sense of dimension for the blind experience. Grabbing hold of a pair of kinky boots was, well, kinky.

Steve smiling with kinky boot

When there’s dialogue, you have the sense of what’s happening, but when there is silence between the actors, or the actors are singing or dancing, the action is totally lost on blind folks.

As a pumped up Charlie sang about the steps he needed to take to make the prototype boot to serve his underserved niche market, he pulled a piece of leather out of a bucket and began to fashion the first boot; there was a sewing station and a production area on stage around him. I knew all this because of the narration I heard through my earpiece as he sang. The driving tune suddenly became three-dimensional with the descriptive imagery planted squarely in my mind.

After a few false starts and some helpful design tips from the lead gender bender, Lola, singing “The Sex is in the Heel,” the factory workers later raised the roof as the first pair of "kinky boots" was finally completed. The sexy lyrics were even sexier knowing that one of Lola’s backup drag dancers, one of the “angels,” did a full split in heels and another did a backflip; the excitement was more exciting knowing that dancers shimmied and swiveled in “halter tops, short shorts and work boots” as the first completed boot was revealed. Everybody (me included) shouted “yeah, yeah!”

The spoken cues indicated more depth of character when factory worker Lauren “moved in close to Charlie’s face and was reluctant to remove her hand from his thigh” as she sang of her history of choosing the wrong guys, even while falling in love with Charlie. Descriptions of the subtle gestures and facial expressions between Charlie and Lola added an emotional dynamic as they discovered their similarly complex feelings toward their fathers. Knowing that Lola exited the nursing home “straight and proud” in her white dress, after singing to her estranged wheelchair-bound dying father to hold her in his heart, added the otherwise missing element of both love and defiance.

The graphic description of Lola’s provocative moves while proving that she was closer to a woman's ideal man than was Don, the foreman and her heavy-set macho antagonist, enhanced her song and dance with some tasty spice. After challenging her to a boxing match, the ‘slow-mo’ blows that Lola landed on Don in the boxing ring was the only way I knew who was winning the fight. Without the verbal cues before Lola and the angels arrived to save the day, I would never have known that Charlie stumbled more than a few times on the runway while modeling his boots during the Milan industry show.

While attending a play or musical, it’s often a big mystery to me when scenes change. When the scene shifted from the shoe factory to London to a pub to a boxing ring to the runway in Milan, I was knocked out with a greater sense on what the heck was happening on stage!

Steve with astonished kinky dancer with boot in the air

Without the narration, how else would I have known that the hefty Don, now Lola’s ally, showed up on the runway in Milan wearing a feminine blue outfit and boots?

Oh yeah, also while in Milan, one of the angels who saves the day was “dressed in a British flag, wearing 2 and ½ feet thigh high red kinky boots.”

That’s how I knew they were red.

Why Does a Blind Man Visit the Grand Canyon?

Why does a blind man visit the Grand Canyon?

To hear the sights of course.

I recently signed up for a tour from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon and to my delight it included non-stop narration over the 6 hour trek to the big abyss. Picked up some useful information and some pretty good food along the way (though I did not try the cactus fries).

Becoming the 48th state in 1912, most of Arizona’s land remains unspoiled; you pass through the desert dotted with cactus and head north through forests of pine, fir, and spruce trees. Large swaths of undeveloped land belong to many Native American tribes including the Navajo Nation. I was impressed to find that so much of Arizona’s reservation land remains casino free – unlike so many reservation hosted casinos around the country that give new meaning to “pay back.”

On our way to the canyon, we stopped in Sedona – a funky little town with metaphysical shops, talismans, vortexes, and celebrity vacation homes – a sort of Key West of the desert.

I’ll attempt to shrink the Grand Canyon’s long history into a short sentence: The Colorado River is a chisel that carved out the Grand Canyon over the past 6 million years, steadily cutting layer after layer of sediment into a channel that is 277 miles long, ranging in width from 4 to 18 miles with a vertical depth of more than 1 mile.

The outcome is a splendid example of erosion. The immense gorge is one of the seven natural wonders of the world, is visible from outer space, and boasts 5 million visitors annually. It is a wilderness of rock, light and shadow.

Bottom line: I didn’t see much.

I couldn’t see the massive wingspan of the condor, nor glimpse deer, elk, mountain lion, raven or antelope, nor any of the 2,000 varieties of plants that populate the canyon. And, of course, I missed seeing the depths below.

However, though the sights were vast, so were the sounds. I cottoned to the many languages I continuously heard floating in the air within 5 feet around me – a mashup of accents from foreign countries like Japan, Germany, France, Australia, Russia and Kansas.

I visited the eastern and southern parts of the South Rim of the canyon. The soft cool wind kept surrounding me like a garment as I moved from point to point, wearing the breeze like a linen jacket at the Desert View Watchtower and then like a spooky cape at Yaki Point. I intoned a sublime meditation at Yaki as the environs took over my body and brain.

[video width="320" height="240" mp4="http://www.insightfortheblind.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Yaki-Point.mp4"][/video]

I loved the blustering gusts at Mather Point even though I missed the sunset doing its slow dance with the vast cavern. I missed the sunrise too because I was asleep back in my hotel room.

Many visitors asked me if I felt anything awesome. I know they wanted the blind man to sense something grand. I did not want to disappoint them, so I channeled some down home Native American ideals I had just learned and waxed on about an “expansive spiritual space governed by Mother Earth and Father Sky and how we must work not ‘off’ the earth but ‘with’ the earth and how we must govern our behavior in a deep sort of way by asking how what we do to the land today will impact seven generations from now.” Some folks were mystified with my answer. So was I.

I felt a little bit like Kokopelli, the mythical formidable story teller and prankster who wanders around the Southwestern states playing his flute. (In full disclosure, while visiting a Navajo reservation I did buy a flute made of handcrafted birch wood, which sounds pretty nice.)

A friend looking at some of the pictures my girlfriend posted on Facebook said, “Holy c--p! Don’t look down.” I did look down but didn’t see anything. I’ll try again tomorrow.

And that’s just it – many nights after I crawl into bed, I wonder if I’ll wake up in the morning being able to see. And if that should happen, I plan on racing back to the Grand Canyon, though I might just shut my eyes when I get there.

Steve Gladstone The Blind Dude

All photos and video by Aida Zuniga

Broken Glass

photo by George Schiavone

I just finished stuffing some tuna fish into a green pepper, when I bumped my dish strainer and a glass plate came crashing down on the tile floor in my kitchen. I could hear it shatter into a zillion pieces. “Don’t panic, don’t move,” I thought, “and eat your lunch.”

I did and it was tasty. The problem was that the thousand shards of glass were still there after I finished eating.

I employ magical thinking at every opportunity, and when that doesn’t work, I turn to wishful thinking. I believe these sorts of sophisticated thought strategies are practiced by most everyone. A fine example of this is the decision we all make everyday whether or not to wash the dishes right after eating, or wait till tomorrow. If we wait till morning, the dish-fairy might just get them done for us.

Usually both the magical and wishful tactics come up short in solving real problems, and then I find myself resorting to reality, which is not as flexible as the magical approach. So, the myriad slivers of glass didn’t all by themselves suddenly wind up in the garbage can, migrate to a neat little pile to be sucked up easily into a vacuum hose, nor did they find their way back together again into a useful saucer.

What to do. Blind and barefoot in a kitchen with broken glass frosting your floor is a difficult situation.

Rule 1: Obtain a layer of protection. Rule 2: Move slowly. Rule 3: First, finish your lunch.

Fortunately, within arm’s reach were some paper towels. I grabbed several, crouched low and slowly ran the paper towels along the floor, moving the sharp little slivers aside and creating safe passage out of the kitchen. All 3 of my “call-me-anytime-if-you-need-any-help” neighbors were unavailable. I put up a blockade at the entrance of the kitchen so my guide dog Billy wouldn’t wander in. Six hours later, a friend swept and vacuumed my kitchen floor. I suppose she was a fairy of sorts.

So, when you’re blind and live alone and your dog throws-up, what do you do? Yep, magical thinking aside, obtain a layer of protection and move slowly (with some Lysol spray in tow). But first, finish your lunch.

My Minnie Vacation

Thank you Thespis! I closed Three Sisters after 30 performances and was hired straight away to play King Silvio in another fantastical iteration of The Love of Three Oranges, an updated 18th Century Italian fairy tale. The number “3” has been good to me lately. A little R&R was in order before beginning rehearsals for Oranges, so it was off to Disney.

Even worse than the broken desk chair, the broken refrigerator, and the broken shower door in my hotel room, was the one bar of soap on the little glass shelf along with the hand cream, shampoo and conditioner. (I’m reminded of the time when I washed my hair with hand cream!) Of course I forgot to ask for another bar of soap and the next morning I had to take the little piece of sink soap into the shower. Then later when I needed to wash the toothpaste off my hands, I had to hop back into the shower to retrieve it. Anyway, I got everything fixed and the maid loaded me up with extra bars of soap – compensation for my troubles. The good news is now I won’t have to buy any soap for my bathroom at home for about 6 months.

First off was Fantasyland. Part of the fantasy is not standing in line. However, I may have to drop that from my “Advantages of Being Blind” list. During this round of Disney, the traditional bump to the front of the line was met by the ADA police. I was informed that: “This ride is ADA compliant.” This was code for “all you disabled customers now have the same privilege to stand in line for 95 minutes to ride for five just like the rest of the schmoes.” Of course the stop-starting when you can’t see, the more than 27 toes you step on during that winding line maneuver, notwithstanding the burden for your companion who must diligently watch you and coach you to start and stop 197 times as you inch forward, isn’t considered an ‘undue hardship’ on the blind dude. It wouldn’t be quite so bad if most of the big round eared Crime Squad didn’t have a seemingly gleeful tone in their voice when delivering the news to join the rest of the sheep in line. It’s always a bit of a shocker when Disney employees behave like the normal rest of the world. Still I love the Mouse.

After visiting EPCOT and connecting with Figment, eating several chocolate covered frozen bananas, and riding through the Maelstrom and purchasing a new troll to add to my excellent collection of supernatural beings, I was off to Hollywood Studios. While at Guest Services there, I was offered a descriptive audio device which automagically described some of the action inside the rides. For example, during Pirates of the Caribbean, instead of just hearing a clunk on a table, a descriptive character voice told me that “Jack Sparrow raises his mug of rum, drinks it, and puts it down on the table.” Nice! Years ago I only heard a machine gun rattle, roaring propellers and felt the heat from a sudden burst of a fireball during the finale of the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. This time through my little device with headphones, I learned that “Indiana Jones was trying to rescue his partner Marion, who was shooting at the bad guys with a machine gun from the cockpit of a plane that was spinning out of control, while flames were racing toward the plane from an ignited gasoline tanker which exploded just as Jones and Marion leap to safety.” Über-cool.

Now we just have to train all the employees at The World to offer these handy-dandy devices. No one offered me the audio description machines at The Magic Kingdom nor at EPCOT. (Perhaps the very thorough ADA Crime Squad trainers need to be recruited to train the customer service reps at all the parks.) These nifty headsets will be on my list for Santa next go-round.

Now off to another magical land – Lugubria – and the search for three oranges.

Rehearsal and Opening

Our director Stephanie “blocks” the show, positioning the players to fit the action of the dialogue. In my case with “Three Sisters,” I’m playing Ferapont, an 80 year old messenger who is hard of hearing (according to the script) and whom we made visually impaired to boot. So in my case, my blocking was for 2 characters – me and the maid, the faithful Ana, who leads me wherever I need to go.

Usually I play sighted characters, keying off set pieces, changes in flooring, other actors, to get my bearings, but when I have the opportunity to play a blind character, I’ll have a timely cane or a sighted guide. (I’ve never used my guide dog on stage, though once I forgot to tie him down backstage and while dancing in the streets of Paris in “Hunchback of Notre Dame” came the familiar jingle of a dog collar and suddenly, there was my guide, bouncing in the streets of Paris with the ensemble. The audience loved it. After the show, the director said, “Let’s keep it in!”

Stephanie, an attractive brunette with piercing eyes behind rectangular glasses, sees and conveys a clear image of the “where, when and why” of each action for each player, choreographer Octi often assisting on the “how to get there.” With 16 actors, set pieces, flower arrangements, books, a smashing clock, toys, bottles, glasses, and dishes, which all move, there is a lot of constant traffic during the 4 acts of this show, both on and off stage. Everything is blocked precisely by Stephanie so the show runs like a well-oiled machine with no interruption in the action, and with no actors bumping into each other or the set. For this special show, the audience is also on stage on a movable riser which is repositioned 3 times during the play for different views in and around the Prozorov house.

The Candy Set

In order to get a sense of the surroundings on stage, Ana grabs some of my leftover Halloween candy and creates a model set, a colorful array of Jolly Ranchers, Twizzlers, and Sweet Tarts. She puts my hands on it so I can feel the set pieces, giving me a real sense of the space. My cell phone plays the part of the audience riser.

Miami Shores isn’t Flat

I have to remember that the 3 different staircases in the theatre I use during the show all have a different number of steps leading up and down from the stage – stage left has five, stage right has four, and the steps at the back of the house have six. As I go up and down these suckers, sometimes quickly, I gotta concentrate. I’m happy to report so far so good.

Costumes

The costumes, designed by multi-tasking Fernando (who is also the set and lighting designer), are quite elegant, the ladies in corsets, beautiful floor length dresses, boots with heels, the men bedecked in military garb, the maids in formal servant dress, and that messenger for the chairman (yours truly) looking a bit disheveled.

Lights and Sound

Once the entire play is blocked, we start back at the top and do a “cue-to-cue” where each action starts and stops so the lights and sound effects can be added to the action on stage. With doorbells ringing, a violin playing offstage, fire truck bells sounding, birds chirping, barking dogs and over 170 different light cues, this process alone takes 2 weeks to conclude.

All Hands on Deck

Once the show is blocked, lit and sound-synched, it’s time to work the transitions from act to act. The 5 Stage hands, including the lovely Tammy who does double duty as a maid on stage, strike and add the massive amount of set pieces and props during the transitions between the acts,and pivot the 49 members of the audience on the movable riser, smoothly and efficiently.

Downtime

You become a family when you work on a show. You nap backstage when you’re not working, eat together at the local bistro, and play with Billy the Dog whenever possible.

Opening

Once we open, Stephanie turns the show over to the stage manager Naomi, and the assistant stage manager Amanda, who “call” the show from top to bottom, making sure that the actors are in place and the almost 300 cues for lights, sound,set changes and actors goes off without a hitch.

It’s show time!

The Airport

The Airport

The airport for blind folks presents a unique environment of inconsistencies and some people who take themselves way too seriously. The Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport offers some fine examples.

Seeing Eye Dogs

The curb-side sign outside the FLL Airport reads: “No Pets Allowed Except Seeing Eye Dogs.” This sign begs some clarification of terms. All dogs trained to assist blind folks are not “Seeing Eye” dogs, like all tissue is not “Kleenex” and all soda is not “Coke.” The correct generic is “Guide Dog.” So when people ask me if my dog Billy is a seeing eye dog, I get cranky and resort to education. To be fair, New Jersey based The Seeing Eye was the first school in America (1929) to train dogs to help blind people navigate the obstacles they face every day while moving around their neighborhoods. There are now a dozen or so schools producing guide dogs, Billy being Florida-trained. This airport sign demonstrates the depth of unawareness for the right term even in the chain of command at an international level. The situation was about to be remedied when the check in guy asked me if I got my dog in Jersey. I offered to buy him a Coke.

Maintaining Visual Contact

I cannot maintain visual contact with my personal belongings. In the past 6 weeks I’ve been to New York, L. A. and Nicaragua. While waiting for my flights, I heard the recurring announcement to “please maintain visual contact with your personal belongings at all times.” I considered turning Billy to face and stare at my carry on suitcase but that cliché was even too much for me.

The Shoe-Nazi

I always get my ticket at curb side and take an escort to the gate. It’s clean and efficient with the only obstacle being that one in ten shoe-Nazi who insists on me removing my shoes. Just to be clear, since they always pat me down anyway, why take them off? They can swipe my footwear with a chemical and analyze it with their goggles and science kit. On my latest trip to L. A., I got that thug that behaved like Cerberus at the gates of Hades, growling at me to take off my shoes. After removing them and walking through the scanning arch, he said, “You can’t see without your dog, right?” I said, “I can’t even see with him.” Whoosh—flutter! I could hear his ears flapping as the comment zoomed past his head. He patted me down like the nefarious guy I was and I was off down the corridor once again.

The Dictator-In-Waiting

When I was sighted half my life ago, we always got our tickets at the front desk. Now checking in at curb-side as a blind dude, I missed the part when the technology changed to the friendly kiosk where you print your own ticket. On our way to New York for my son’s college graduation a couple of weeks ago, my daughter grabbed my credit card and printed our tickets to LaGuardia. Cool. When we arrived at the gate, the attendant asked for Billy’s papers. Papers? What papers? He indicated that I needed to produce “proof that he was a seeing eye dog” (snicker snicker) along with a history of his vaccinations and current blood line. The dictator-in-waiting also informed me that Billy should be wearing his certified vest. I asked dictator-in-waiting why he wasn’t wearing his certified jacket. “What jacket?” he asked. “The white straight one,” I mumbled. Whoosh—flutter! I explained that I travel a lot and have never been asked for my dog’s complete record at any airport. He said that I could not board the aircraft without it and I dropped the guy to the mat in a full nelson in my imagination. Then he noticed the service animal box wasn’t marked on my ticket during the kiosk check-in maneuver. I figured out the curb-side folks must always have check marked that box for me. My daughter was upset that I took the gate guy to task.  I think she thought he was cute.

A Cautionary Tale

When you’re blind, be careful when the guy sitting next to you on the airplane is being rude, ignoring your questions or not returning the obligatory ‘thank you’ to your ‘god bless you’ when he sneezes. Though no one needs to be tolerant of the insolent, he may be wearing headphones.

Steve Actor, Music Critic, Blogger

Steve's reviews for MiamiArtzine can also be found in the "News" tab of Insight's website.  Many thanks to Steve and Roger Martin for permission to post them, here.