Anthony Tusler and Evelyn Thorne

Recorded September 20, 2014 Archived September 20, 2014 40:43 minutes
0:00 / 0:00
Id: sfb002914

Description

Anthony Tusler (67) talks with Evelyn Thorne (25) about growing up as a person living with disabilities. Anthony describes his activism work, embracing a disability identity, and his advocacy position at Sonoma State. Anthony also talks about his photography projects, being a cultural competency consultant, and the importance of accessible substance abuse treatment for people living with disabilities.

Subject Log / Time Code

AT describes the attitude growing up where it was up to the person living with disabilities to adapt to an ableist environment
AT talks about being the only visible kid living with disabilities in his school and how he pretended he didn't live with a disability
AT describes trying to avoid disabled people in high school and college
AT shares about how the mainstream views people living with disabilities
AT talks about the cost of being closeted
AT shares about going to an event at San Jose State and seeing a room full of people living with disabilities for the first time
AT describes getting hired at Sonoma State University through his disability activism work
AT talks about the birth of the disability rights movement in Berkeley, CA and the creation of The Center for Independent Living
AT shares the ways ableism is perpetuated
AT shares about his perspectives on life and some of his experiences of prejudice
AT talks about working in the area of disability culture through photography, lecture and consulting
AT describes about his work as a cultural competency consultant and his background in substance abuse treatment

Participants

  • Anthony Tusler
  • Evelyn Thorne

Recording Locations

SFPL

Venue / Recording Kit

Partnership Type

Outreach

Transcript

StoryCorps uses Google Cloud Speech-to-Text and Natural Language API to provide machine-generated transcripts. Transcripts have not been checked for accuracy and may contain errors. Learn more about our FAQs through our Help Center or do not hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions.

00:05 My name is Evelyn Thorne 25 years old. Today's date is September 20th, 2014. We are in the San Francisco Public Library and I just met Anthony as a volunteer.

00:18 I'm Anthony Trosper 67 years old today is September 20th 2014 and I'm in the storycorps booth in the San Francisco Public Library and I just met Evelyn Sitting out the table there.

00:36 Alright well in our we got to talking and I know that you are involved the disability rights movement, and he said that it kind of dovetails the Civil Rights Movement. So if you wanted to start off there that be great or generally where I'd like to do is start off.

00:55 Growing up as a kid and when I was injured in 1952, I went back to school about nine months later my Elementary School fortunately the first three grades were on the ground floor and my mother fought like mad to get me to be able to go to that school and it wasn't easy, but they did allow me to and that's really what it was like in the 1950s. If you want had a disability if you could get through the front door, generally, they wouldn't throw you out but they wouldn't provide anything else to be able to make it easy for you to be able to go to school for something like myself go to school. So what happened to me when I got to the fourth grade, which was on the second floor.

01:41 I have learned to use braces and crutches to be able to climb the stairs to get to the fourth grade.

01:48 And that's in a perfect example of what was happening in those days in the United States while round the world probably been the United States for people with disabilities is it was up to us to figure out a way to get upstairs. It was not the responsibility of the environment of the school to be able to deal with the stairs either put in an elevator or if they do these days just move the fourth grade down to the first floor rather than have it on the second floor.

02:18 If I hadn't done that I would have been able to keep using my wheelchair and been able to go to school but instead it's been a couple of years.

02:25 Learning how to use braces and crutches and climbing stairs. And so that's really the reason I talk about that is because that is the shift that happened in the disability rights movement. And that's what we brought to the table in the really in the early 70s was that shift from if you have stairs, what do you do with him? Do you design a better wheelchair?

02:49 Do you do another operation on the person so that maybe certain muscles or work better?

02:57 That's the way it was at 2.

03:00 Maybe put in a ramp. That's how we do was stare at these days is either an elevator or ramp and we start designing thing so we don't need so many stairs.

03:10 An exciting thing that happened with that is that once we start putting ramps we start to realize it work for all kinds of people not just wheelchair users but people pushing baby carriages delivery people whoever the ramps work for them as well.

03:27 Were you the only person living with a disability and your school? I was the only person that I knew and there was I'm sure there were others as Eva and I were talking earlier.

03:38 From what I can tell about seventy-five 80% of people with disabilities It's Not Invisible. So I'm sure that there are kids who had something going on with them. But certainly I was the identified disabled person in the school.

03:53 And that's pretty much the way it was for me.

03:56 All the way until I got involved with this Boyd rights movement in the early seventies, and that's why I wrote down in my car that I've been a disabled a person with a disability since 1952, but I really see myself as a disabled person since the early 70s, so

04:16 As I was growing up.

04:18 I was as independent as possible as mainstream as possible. And I pretended that I didn't have a disability even though it's obvious that I did cuz I used a full leg braces and crutches aluminum crutches. Obviously, I was disabled but I pretended that I wasn't.

04:37 Because I didn't want to be one of those people one of those people of one of those poor pitiful group that didn't have any fun that would be shut away. In other wouldn't be a part of life because that's what happened to a lot of disabled people is that they were warehoused they were out of the public gaze and they weren't allowed to participate in life the way I wanted to unite me when I was a child a 60 time of a baby boomer. I'm at the beginning of the baby boom. And I'm the 60s word for a phenomenal time of change both political as well as socially and I was a part of that and I grew my hair long I start smoking dope, you know, I was one of those

05:23 That help change out society that help change society both politically and socially I mean I went on there any War marches. I was part of a group called Vietnam summer where we are advocating for ending the war in Vietnam. I work with some civil rights groups around African Americans right to immigration, you know, so I had plus I came out of the classic liberal middle-class white American family, you know, that was didn't believe in racism even though we were and I couldn't believe in sexism although course we were but you no good liberals. And so I grew up looking at the world partially through a political lens for a liberal political lands.

06:18 And so by the time I got involved with this buddy Rights Movement, I had all this experience and worldview that suddenly came into focus and it was like, oh my God, I'm one of these people

06:33 And this it all made sense at all fit.

06:37 And so I spent

06:39 I spent the sixties avoiding other disabled people.

06:46 I went to high school with mainstreamed what they did allow me was to park in the faculty parking lot and I didn't have to take gym and I got to leave class 5 minutes early so that I could get to the next class because it was one of those huge Southern California schools. Now, we're just took for it forever to take to get from one class to the other and there wasn't my braces and crutches in on the Southern California smog and heat, you know going from class to class and like everybody else in this mug in heat and so

07:18 And there weren't any disabled students that I knew that that that high school, you know 4200 students and I didn't see any other disabled students are you know, I know I saw a handful of African-American students and there's maybe 20 Latino students, you know, it was just a passing is an incredibly segregated town in terms of where people live and so that's when busting a that's one of the places they did busing

07:44 Marshall the school across town was a no wasn't Marshall you are was the the black high school and went to PHS the white high school, you know, there's incredible separation of races.

07:59 So I thought was was white people and no disabled people.

08:05 Eventually, though. Well, I graduated high school went to Pasadena City College for a couple of years.

08:11 And continue to be involved in political and social activity. We formed a little

08:19 Clan of people

08:23 The Name Escapes me at the moment. I'll get back to it. I went to Pasadena City College for a year, but then came North I wanted to get out of LA and what does no State College and they're there were a couple of wheelchair users and I avoided them. I really didn't want to want to know them. I didn't want to be a part of them to me. If we were seen together that would blow my cover that would mean that I was one of them.

08:54 You know, it's it's it's like I saw.

08:59 Back in the 80s when women were coming into the Work World pretty you know in the managerial positions, you know, I go to a conference and women would avoid each other because if they saw two of them together, he would be like, oh there they are there they are.

09:17 How many fortunately it's a lot better now, but it was the same thing for me as a disabled person in the world. I didn't want to be pointed to and say they're they are because the I get to have a disability identity in my mind. Was that a really negative identity, you know what Jerry Lewis kind of identity if you know this poor crippled scrapped individual is going to die soon. You know what I didn't want any part of that.

09:48 And what happened was?

09:51 What couple things kind of came together and in little ways I I asked I started noticing the curb Cuts those of the concrete ramps that go from the sidewalk to the street. I noticed in Berkeley and

10:07 I didn't realize there wheelchair users had made those happen, you know, I thought it was people, you know mothers with baby carriages cuz I didn't think disabled people could be political but I ran into a guy on the street who kind of made me start realize that there's something changing here the way you talk to me and then I went out to Sonoma State and I met Steve DS who was a dear friend of mine who died about a year ago.

10:34 Steve with a wheelchair user

10:38 He had a sardonic black sense of humor.

10:41 And most importantly he was cooler than I was and all my life growing up around continuing to this very day. I want to be cool to be uncool just to my mind is the worst possible thing. And so to find a disabled person who was cooler than I am. Then I was suddenly made me realize that I could be

11:07 I disabled person that I could take on that identity.

11:12 Be as cool as I needed to be and

11:18 I had a home a home for my heart, Idaho home for my politics, Idaho home for

11:27 Who I knew who I loved who I dated all of a sudden it all came together almost like when you have a supercooled liquid distill liquid, but you put a little crystal in it and all of sudden turns into ice. It was just like that was like that deals with that little Crystal that went and I became you know it all fit for me, you know, it wasn't always really easy, but it but it it was a phenomenal change and waited for me to put my my burden down, you know, because it to be closeted there's always a cost to be closeted. I'm there's times

12:12 And if I was gay and living in Montana and Out In The Sticks, I would probably not be out because the cost of being out.

12:22 That cost is far higher than the cost of being closeted but

12:28 There still a cost that being closeted and sober me. Is it as a closeted disabled person to be able to put that burden down was wonderful.

12:38 You know what slivering was really freeing and it for me my only ambition.

12:48 Was to get a job so that I would have enough money to pay rent to be able to go to the bar have a beer. I mean I was at one of those beer drinking pool shooting hippies who lived in Cotati and that was my ambition in life. You know, why why should I do it? Why should I want any more than that? You know, it seems like a good life, but it was because a lot of who I was with kind of blocked off from me.

13:16 When that moment came when I was able to embrace my disability identity.

13:22 Then suddenly the World opened up to me. And before I knew it I had a career.

13:28 You know and it's been a wonderful ride this last.

13:32 41 years

13:34 So

13:36 What happened to me?

13:39 Was

13:45 Steve and I start organizing disabled students at Sonoma State. We start hanging out together socially, you know, I dated a number of the women who are in that group. We had a we had a club on campus the Disabled Student Coalition and

14:05 Steve and I were getting that club established tonight. That's okay. What what what's what's what's the mission for this group?

14:13 And Steve said knock shut off the shelves. It's good way to describe what we saw is we saw ourselves, but they called here in the 2014 just dropped her. It was it was our job to disrupt how the university operated with disabled students in particular.

14:34 And so where's the disabled students Club Coalition? That's what we set out to do. And so we did we came together. We we brought other students and we advocated with the school.

14:49 We discovered other groups and other state colleges that were we're advocating. I remember going to a meeting down in San Jose and there was and I can't even remember who organized it. But with the other Disabled Student other are disabled students from the California State University system. And so there may be was 6080 people just buildings in this room and I've never been in a room with that many disabled people in my life and I was just stunned, you know, it's just my brain was fried. I probably would not the same for a couple of days because it was just it's such a night spent so long being one thing and then to be something else.

15:34 You know, I do did shifts things, you know on a deep emotional level I go to the society for Disabilities studies every year. It's an International Conference.

15:46 And it's really exciting and there's a lot of heavy intellectual stuff at SDS.

15:51 But there's also because there's a lot of disabled people I end up dealing with a lot of deep emotional stuff and use it when I come back from STS. I'm a mess. I'm just I guess I got to just chill for for five days just to be able to for the pieces to come back together again. So that's what I was like walking that room was just the pieces when toss under and that was part of my coming to be

16:17 It really embracing my disability identity. So Steven, I advocated with University in the NFL and the Coalition did to find a position to coordinate Disability Services. It's no mistake.

16:33 And I suddenly discovered that I had ambition to go beyond just being a beer-drinking bullshiting happy and I wanted that job. I helped write the job description. We made sure that Steve was on the hiring committee.

16:50 We had an ally at the time I'm at the reason that so much of this came together was Thursday a woman self-identified Able Body to

17:01 She work for the dean of students and had in her portfolio a couple of different things like she had to work nice commencement and I think she she was pression enough to see that that students with disabilities were not being well sir. And so she was she was the one that kind of helpful to people together and it really all right.

17:24 She was really prescient. She pulled people together disabled students to be able to start working on these issues and she did it in a she was the best ally me because once it got it so cold when Steve and I started to get to figure out what it was we wanted to do she stepped aside and so many situations like that that able-bodied person does not step aside, you know, if they want to still continue to help and so those people are the ones who begin become the the coordinator the services but it's no mistake. She was Joanne Schecter. She stepped aside Steve was on the hiring committee and I got hired in the position. You know, I actually had a real honest-to-god job, you know it was

18:16 With retirement benefits with Healthcare a real job Incredibles 2 have and sell them.

18:27 That was the beginning. That was 1975.

18:32 Things have been happening in Berkeley.

18:35 They really the disability rights movement.

18:38 As we know what you're on the west coast and we claim to be the the home of disability rights in the United States. Boston has a good claim to it as does a couple of other cities, but

18:50 With the great man theory of disability Berkeley gets the nod. So if you read the texts, this is where it started. It was about 1968 when Five Guys wheelchair users came together at UC, Berkeley.

19:06 And when they graduated they needed to do something.

19:09 They're very political. They formed an office on their on their campus. They found some federal funds to find it. So they graduate and there's like what are they going to do now? So they form the Center for Independent Living which was a non-profit buy in for people with disabilities that provided a number of core services like peer counseling wheelchair repair housing. Advocacy Cil still exists in Berkeley, and it's the model for Independent Living centers across the United States.

19:41 So the program they started Berkeley PD SP physically disabled students program.

19:48 Just because we were just voting rights Advocates didn't mean that we were okay with hanging out with people with intellectual disabilities or emotional disabilities. So they name themselves physically disabled students program to make it clear they were not

20:04 Dare, I say it retarded. You know what they want to make really clear distinction that it would who it was and part of that was it was it was to Define ourselves because it was it was so real. I mean the only

20:19 Groups like this where

20:23 We're veterans, you know, and there's some wheelchair basketball and some things like that, but they're there was no model within just build a community of disabled people coming together and working for ourselves and being in control over of what we did. And so I think that this is just supposition on my part that that's part of the reason it was physically disabled students program was to make that clear what it was there of all about

20:54 And so me being in Sonoma and I were about 50 minutes from Brooklyn 15 minutes from Cisco Brooklyn on a regular basis. If I was I remember calling up pdsp and asking them what kind of Records they kept on their students what I did was

21:14 At some point I figured well, we better have we better know who you know who the students are that were serving. And so I had six nine eight cards that had their name their address telephone number it might have had their disability.

21:33 But that was about it and I called a PDS being I said, what are you what are you guys were records you guys keeping nice and it turns out they're keeping about that same level records unlike see if if we went to the Health Center at Sonoma State or went to the counseling department where there be much much more detailed records to my mind always and it's still true is that

21:58 The kind of record-keeping wear when you go into a doctor's office and you have to fill out endless forms. That's a model that I don't think we should have in providing disability service.

22:11 Because it's an individual Focus focusing on what happening what the problems reside with individual. If you if you do case the memo note notation and have all of those kinds of Records the problems not with the individual the problems the environment they live in they may not be adjusting to that environment particularly. Well, but a lot of what it's about is putting the focus on the environment and like I talked about that difference between climbing stairs to the 4th grade removing the fourth grade down to the first floor. That's a profound difference is that the problem doesn't lie without the problem lies out there in the world.

22:53 The problem is not that I need more job training necessarily. Although it's certainly not going to hurt for me to be employed it for employers to start hiring us, you know, the problems are discrimination in the workplace in a flat-out. I've worked in that unit HR department the Personnel department at Sonoma State for 3 years and I saw how the university discriminated against people with disabilities. You're not very subtle but it works, you know, when people are very sophisticated about their discrimination these days they say all the right words, but they do the same old things which is discriminate against people and exclude them.

23:35 And so that's where the problems like, you know is an individual is a disabled individual. I have a responsibility to

23:44 Take care of my own life to be in charge of my life to make sure that

23:50 I do the things that I need to do. I mean I need to pay my bills on time. I need to put a roof over my head. I need to have a job that pays the rent.

24:00 And I do that within a context of a world that doesn't make that particularly easy for me. It makes it a lot easier for me being a white middle-class male. You know, I have white privilege male privilege middle class privilege.

24:16 And so

24:19 Oh that's made it possible. But I don't have a full-body privilege. And so there's many places and time when they have a disability. It's a liability.

24:29 For me

24:31 Because of people's attitudes and their stereotypes.

24:35 It is.

24:37 It is not an easy world to be in its soft discrimination, generally.

24:43 Generally where the explosion works is just set the bar so low for people with disabilities not to keep the bar where everybody else is. So soft discrimination says that

24:56 If it's a disabled person you get a job.

25:02 And the bar is that low you're not going to get promoted cuz everybody's going to know that you don't have the skills.

25:10 You know, we do not hold people just go to the safe standards. So a lot of that happen as well as just outright explosion. You know that

25:20 The numbers of times I've seen managers unwilling to change very slight parts of the job description. So that disabled people could do the job. I mean, it is phenomenal number of times. I've seen that

25:33 Sobek

25:44 Let me get back to that cuz that

25:48 One of the things that's true for me.

25:51 Is that I tend to be an optimist when I'm out in the world. And so I was doing a training the other day ends and the director of the program said well, when do you get mad? And for the life of me? I cannot remember the last time I have been mad as a disabled person and that's because that's kind of the way that I get through the world and studies show that if you have a smile on your face and you're happy and you're optimistic.

26:20 Better things happen to you then if you're pessimistic and you're frowning.

26:25 But that also means I'm not readily in touch with the negative kinds of things. And so of course a week later day later. I was able to remember five or six times when I was really pissed off at being a disabled person in a going down to my local post office and seeing somebody you didn't have a disability parking in the blue parking space, you know it when I said to the person as nice as could be. You forgot to put your blue placard up showing that you can park there you want to know if it doesn't matter he can he'll take care of it and she was playing to her husband who is not disabled either. She was just trying to put me off.

27:02 And so I think I said something more like what you really shouldn't be parking there then.

27:07 Well when I left I went and picked up my mails. I was leaving the post office. I was so irritated by this car. I turned around with my cell phone and started take a picture.

27:18 And as I walked away as I was going away in my wheelchair, the guy yelled at me was in the car and I turned around he yelled at me so he could flip me off, you know, and so it was

27:31 That irritate that made me very angry, but when I was doing that train and I wasn't able to access that anger.

27:40 Do you think that has?

27:43 Anything to do with perceptions about the disability Community or you know, kind of external mainstream culture not having space for disability folks living with disabilities to be angry about and just things

28:01 I'm probably so dip.

28:04 I'm bicultural in that I I'm confident in the disability culture as well as the able-bodied culture but I am actually more competent the able-bodied culture cuz that's where I grew up. That's where I socialize and I would guess that part of my inability to access that anger is that I don't want to be characterized as that angry cripple cuz that's one of the stereotypes, you know, when the stereotyped I want it access to be able to get through the world is to be The Confident happy smiling outgoing disabled person cuz that's a stereotype that is I got a lot more out of that than being angry crippled is going to be exploded. And so yeah, that's that's part of the compartmentalization. The probably happens with me is because how I was socialized.

28:55 So it's happened to me.

28:57 Eventually, I broke through the glass ceiling at Sonoma State. That's why they end up working in HR got a nice pay bump and didn't work on that much disability stuff and hated it because by this time, you know, another mid-nineties my heart was in disability my heart my stomach my head was in disability.

29:20 Rights disability cultured

29:23 I was not particularly interested in doing other kinds of things, you know injury and illness prevention training didn't interest me a whole lot. So I lasted three years in that position and I was able to retire out of Sonoma State at 8:50. So I did I went to work at the local community college for 3 years doing just barely technology.

29:48 And found it. I I was really spoiled. It's no mistake. I had been able to find a way to be able to do my job really efficiently. I had three people working for four people working for me. They did their job really efficiently. We we were able to do a really good job have the highest percentage of disabled students in the CSU system and it gave me enough time to be able to be on National Committee to go off and do this do the other thing all while being paid at Sonoma State University and it was also a time and universities where that was more thought favorable. You know that if I went off to a National Committee

30:33 I would bring something good back to Sonoma State and it's not true and universities anymore. But it was a wonderful time. I got spoiled. I'm still completely spoiled. And so that once I left well when I was at the Santa Rosa Junior College, I just it was way too small box. They know who they are hiring. But once I got there, I think they what I know. They ain't really had second thoughts. You know, it's like oh,

30:59 This guy really is who he said he was which is a troublemaker, you know, I died nachshon off the channels. That's what I do and I lasted there three years and moved on and since then I've taken on a number of jobs. Mostly Consulting. I work for the world Institute on disability, which is an international policy organization. I'd always wanted to work for a think tank and I got two and I discovered there really made my head hurt, you know, there is always work for the whole bunch of people who are a lot smarter than I was in at the end of the day. I was just I was toast, you know, it was really exciting and it was from play training. There's a lot of fun for for five years the money ran out. It's real hard to find money to do technology policy. Advocacy, you know, it's a lot easier to find money to defend a lab to train disabled teenagers. Then it is to find money to pay somebody to go to Washington DC and knock on doors and say we need for for Broadband.

31:59 People disabilities so the money ran out. So since then I've been doing taking on a number of things right now, the two major parts of of of what I'm doing.

32:11 Is one is is I'm working in the cultural Arena of disability and it's something that is very strong and England.

32:20 England does not have very good civil rights for people with disabilities, but they're really strong on the cultural. I mean, they've got plays and performances and an art shows and films all about disability from a A+ disability perspective of a just what we would call in the USA disability rights perspective and that I find enormously exciting and so I try and work with an arena both within my photography as well as supporting others. I had a lecture series at the DeYoung Museum for a three or four years. Where are we tied the the current exhibits into a disability perspective. So I did a lot of research on already toulouse-lautrec and did an hour lecture at the Dion on to list all colors to attract very cool and I was able to read his paintings through

33:19 Disability eyes

33:22 You know, I may not be accurate, but I saw a disabled person who was living in a able-bodied world.

33:30 He was rich. I mean he had privilege he was white male, but it was obviously disabled he found living in brothels around.

33:43 Women are prostitutes to be a more comfortable environment than out in the world. And I understand that I'm in that kind of living in that woman's world has a disabled person. It's more comforting in some ways. It's less is less threatening.

34:00 United

34:02 Projecting through what I read about him. I was able to see how you know, he has his wonderful gaze upon women is really tender view of women that I hadn't realized until I saw his paintings.

34:17 You know and it is there it is. So true. You are such a attender gays and it's wonderful, you know it and you compare that to did God really did not like women, you know, it's interesting to see the the two both on the surface look look sexualized but they God's work literally sex life and to his detractors it a sexuality and sensuality there. It's a it's a very loving gaze.

34:44 The other thing I'm working on.

34:46 Is

34:50 How much time we got can I get another five?

34:55 Okay, good. That is right.

35:03 What are things I've been working on lately is?

35:07 Doing disability competency training cultural competence is the one of the by words these days talking to service providers to be it's not just to treat everybody like everybody else. But to really recognize the differences in various cultures, you know here in California, you know, he was populations that most service providers don't share that their identity, you know, whether it's Hmong or a rich man's or ukrainians or or whatever. You know, I'm supposed to be aware of their cultural differences important. So one of the things that I've been doing since

35:46 The early 1980s is working in the arena of Alcohol and Other Drugs and disability. I got sober and in the early 80s, I'm definitely a child of the sixties and part of the Baby Boomers, you know, the sex drugs and rock and roll. I mean happy as a client, you know, I like to drink I like to do drugs, you know, it was I love the 70s. I love the early eighties. They didn't particularly love me and thank God the university had a employee assistance program that when I was screwing up so badly that they give me a choice of either going to get counseling or getting fired. I chose counseling got sober and discovered.

36:29 It that deepen my understanding of who I was and what I was and help me gain as a spiritual perspective to my life and oat me up in yet another way and I found another Community those people who alcoholics and drug addicts who don't drink and use you know, and that's another wonderful Community like the disability community and so through the 80s. I worked a lot and advocating for access to Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment for people disabilities, cuz it should people with disabilities are not intervened on they're not referred referred to treatment. Once we get the treatment there is residential treatment. There's very little residential treatment that successful Freeport people disabilities.

37:22 Many of the prevention messages are don't drink and drive or you'll end up crippled, you know, which is just not a good message, you know, you'll end up with this parking space if you drink and drive with one of them.

37:36 And so throughout the 80s and most of the 90s. I was very much involved in these issues and I was on a National Committee the center for Substance Abuse Prevention, and it was your iCloud to Washington every quarter of a great fun. I loved it.

37:55 And

37:57 It's some point I got a little too radical there and I begged guess that's the Arc of my story is I got a whole two radical wherever I go in it at some point. I had somebody shows I find the door actually. Don't show me the door, but I realize it's time for me to move on and so once again it was time for me to move on cuz I got a little too radical and I'm good at really good at starting these thing. But once I get there, I want to go further and people don't want to go further than 822. I am so

38:29 So in the back after mm in a working for we're doing technology not a whole lot in the alcohol and drug world, but always in California. I've kind of been the recognized alcohol and drug and disability guy particularly when the funding dried up in the state to it fund any of that. There's a constituent committee so

38:54 When it came time to do cultural competence training.

38:58 I was Alcohol and Other Drug Money when they they realize they should be doing disability that came in front of me. So that's what I've been doing. The last three or four years is developing this concept of disability SSA.

39:12 A cultural community and how to look at cultural competence. So it's not about just providing a ram, you know as important as the ramp is it for people with disabilities for us to recognize our own communities our own strengths and weaknesses what binds us together whether that's music or art or film?

39:36 Are the people we love?

39:39 As well as it for the people in our lives to recognize us as a community, you know, some of the United States what I've come to realize is the disability Community really Define ourselves politically. Most people disabilities would see themselves that the Ada those civil rights.

39:59 That's what they share with other disabled people unlike England where they see themselves as sharing a culture, you know, so I'm more like the English. I see both the cultural and the Civil Rights the right now that's where I'm trying to find ways to be able to present these ways of seeing to organize things to be able to bring these things to the Forefront in a deal to write to photograph. You know, what I find various Avenues where I'm able to do that and something always comes up that where I can do it. So I very rarely bored.

40:42 All right.