FUN FACT OF THE DAY
March 18, 2009
75% of this nation’s elderly poor are women.
L’Elizabeth’s Ignorant Waiter Causes Undue Hardship
March 16, 2009
| U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division Disability Rights Section |
Americans with Disabilities Act
ADA Business BRIEF: Service Animals
Service animals are animals that are individually trained to perform tasks for people with disabilities such as guiding people who are blind, alerting people who are deaf, pulling wheelchairs, alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure, or performing other special tasks. Service animals are working animals, not pets.
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), businesses and organizations that serve the public must allow people with disabilities to bring their service animals into all areas of the facility where customers are normally allowed to go. This federal law applies to all businesses open to the public, including restaurants, hotels, taxis and shuttles, grocery and department stores, hospitals and medical offices, theaters, health clubs, parks, and zoos.
Caption: Businesses that serve the public must allow people with disabilities to enter with their service animal.
- Businesses may ask if an animal is a service animal or ask what tasks the animal has been trained to perform, but cannot require special ID cards for the animal or ask about the person’s disability.
- People with disabilities who use service animals cannot be charged extra fees, isolated from other patrons, or treated less favorably than other patrons. However, if a business such as a hotel normally charges guests for damage that they cause, a customer with a disability may be charged for damage caused by his or her service animal.
- A person with a disability cannot be asked to remove his service animal from the premises unless: (1) the animal is out of control and the animal’s owner does not take effective action to control it (for example, a dog that barks repeatedly during a movie) or (2) the animal poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others.
- In these cases, the business should give the person with the disability the option to obtain goods and services without having the animal on the premises.
- Businesses that sell or prepare food must allow service animals in public areas even if state or local health codes prohibit animals on the premises.
- A business is not required to provide care or food for a service animal or provide a special location for it to relieve itself.
- Allergies and fear of animals are generally not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people with service animals.
- Violators of the ADA can be required to pay money damages and penalties.
Caption: Service animals are individually trained to perform tasks for people with disabilities.If you have additional questions concerning the ADA and service animals, please call the Department’s ADA Information Line at (800) 514-0301 (voice) or (800) 514-0383 (TTY) or visit the ADA Business Connection at ada.gov.
Duplication is encouraged. April 2002
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last update April 26, 2002
I Want to change my Life
March 15, 2009
It isn’t a place, or person, or job. It isn’t a mindset, attitude, outlook. It isn’t unhappiness, frustration, anger, sadness, boredom. It isn’t the weather, lack of vitamins, unruly hair. All the previous may have some effect on my desire to change my life, but not completely. It may be more that I am aging, slowing down a bit, and realize that my rocking chair isn’t suitable for a long term rock towards death. But even that is not the whole story. As I’ve mentioned before, I have died several times during my life, recently when my mother passed away, and then I return, half heartedly, to continue on what I know to be the wrong path, with no idea of how to set it right. It’s that life of quiet desperation mentioned by Thoreau, a life I was determined to avoid, and now I find myself in the middle of it, lost again.
These are good times for road trips, but at our age we know the road trip takes us to the same place in a different state or country. Youth adds and subtracts easily, moves through, under, and around the unpleasant, buoyed by hope fueled with innocense. I am no longer innocent, but I think I’m still dumb enough to make mistakes that won’t lead me to either an early grave or a jail cell. When one is young, there is nothing to lose because there is so much to gain. When one is older, there is again nothing to lose, for there is little to gain. The young and old share that freedom from over-earnest choices fraught with conditions and heavy consequence. Maybe that’s why I am feeling something other than a mid-life crisis. The standard crisis, in my mind, includes the sketch of an old dream gone sour and the determination to give it another try.
My present crisis is not rooted in the past or even the future. It does not contain a plan or a dream, a hope or a direction. It is just an internal dis-ease with the way my life has invented itself over the years, and the wrongness in the nowness of it. It is PRESENTLY, very presently, wrong.
It helps not to answer the telephone, but even that is an active choice to continue with the wrongness of the telephone. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a telephone per se, but in the context of choosing to answer or not answer it, it becomes a repository for questions regarding the people who exist, presently, in my life, and want to talk to me about something that I have no interest in discussing. My present interests are shifting so rapidly and haphazardly that they are impossible to acknowledge, let alone enjoy.
Instead, I am fascinated with the shift itself, in this nowness, every moment, of every day, this interior shake-up. It is a dream-like state, where everything is intensified. My blue curtains are very blue, the walk I took in the park, a very very walk in a park. The sweet potato for dinner, quite a potato, the only one in the world. So orange.
Now you’d think I was drunk, writing in this way, but no, it’s just a very now afternoon wherein I have erased all of the past and future and ideas and opinions and plans, in order to make the inner shift necessary for my sanity. The shift away from this life that I want to change.
It is a busy time. The business of a leaking life, spurting out and making a mess – the business of cleaning it up and plugging the holes, as I await the shift. The muscles in my body seem poised and ready for a heavy climb. There is a sense of the ominous and the sacred. Something’s up.
One Life to Live
March 13, 2009
Maybe it’s all a continual re-run of the soap-opera you never watched — your life at present. If that were so, the TV day time series would have been canceled long ago. Actually, I think it was. In order to prevent your life from being canceled, there is one precaution to take into consideration: You vs. your Zipcode. If your Zip code is overwhelming you with boredom, high rents, low rents, pot holes, bad air, clean air low I.Q’s, etc. you must not ignore the ramifications. After all, you are three, four or six full gas tanks away from a place where you will not be humiliated, bored, frozen, stifled, milked, invaded. There are places in the world that better suit you and there is only one way to discover them. A Road Trip and about 1,000 bucks.
Running away has always been my option of choice when I had to either shit or get off the pot. Hey, I get off the pot, thank you. I can shit somewhere else. Don’t threaten me. If a certain geographic location fails to provide me with sustainance, I move on, bringing my alcoholic and borderline personality issues with me. Of course, all my good qualities come with me as well, in a small fanny purse of good intentions and integrity.
Then again, you can stay right where you are and reap the benefits of an escape. Since we are with ourselves mostly when we are with others, email all your friends and tell them that you are moving to Mexico or Alaska tomorrow. No time for a going away party. Something has come up. They won’t often come to your apartment or house and check to see if your car is in the drive-way. If it is, and they call you, you can always say you left your car behind. If they see you in the window, you can always say that your sister or brother must be cleaning up after you. If they continue to pressure you, say with a banging on the door, a loud cursing at your window, rest assured that if you do not respond, they will leave you alone. They will be in a rage with rejection and punish you with avoidance which is exactly what you desire.
I know and you know that geography is a cop-out, but moving yourself from one location to another is a thrill. Meant for fight or flight, I feel that if I am not flighting I am fighting, don’t you? Before agricultural methods were employed by man, we were all on the run. It’s in our genes and our dreams. When you are lying in bed at night thinking, “I’ve got to get the hell out of here”, that’s not cowardess but insight sent to your from your ancestral bed of wisdom. Why do we ignore it? Gas is cheap now. Go.
March 12, 2009
The Trip-letts Revive after a 7 year nervous breakdown.
Yes, there was a big cat-fight and I lost. But it’s time for middle aged White ass, here, to get off her big thin white butt and fight back. Thanks to ALL my fans and cheap tricks, I have revived myself and dusted off my pink wig. I am ready to MOTOWN it again to a city near you or in your living area. Please take the time to fill out the invisible form below and a representative will meet you in your bedroom on one dark and misty night.
Reduction Sauced To Boredom and Insanity in Providence
March 9, 2009
What is going on around here? A full page ad for Karaoke as the entertainment offering at the hippest new downtown restaurant, open-mike nights at places too cheap to pay entertainers. To Do Listings for meatball nights, wine tasting, Tapes bars, singles nights, Donny Osmond or another truck tour of “Grease” at Providence Center for the Performing Arts, and oh dear, not another Salsa night!
Clubs with half a dozen TV sets blaring third tier sporting events, throbbing, faux leather ultra-lounges; pricey, overly designed theme restaurants suggesting Paris in the ‘20’s or Rome during Nero’s reign. We’re all dressed up with nowhere to go, unless we want to eat. And eat. And eat.
Who doesn’t like a good meal, but how much can a person consume without exploding? We’re being reduction sauced to death, meatballed to madness. Swimming through olive oil en route to the gym, we are still starved. Starved for stimulation.
Why is Providence such a bore? Its sum continues to remain smaller than its parts. Lodged between Boston and New York, with easy access to moneyed Newport and the ocean, an Ivy League school and a top School of Design, it seems improbable that the mainstream restaurants, theaters and nightclubs continue to thrive, while those attempting the unique soon close up shop.
The artists are here, I’ve seen them. The intelligent are here, I’ve spoken with them. The misfits, rebels, and bohemians who might be in Paris, or New York, if they had more money- they’re here, too. Gay men keep the nights alive despite the cold and recession, forgotten musicians keep music alive despite exploitation and lack of venues. The mayor, a lover of arts and beauty, stands firm against corruption and ignorance. The journalists and columnists wrestle with silent censors; the students and youth rehearse their garage bands and provide us poetry slams and they are adorable, but it is not enough.
The Renaissance that Mayor Cianci inspired several years ago has left us a beautiful waterfront, loads of calories, struggling artists and little else. In 1998, Buddy said in an interview, “Cities have to breathe. They have to smell like a city, feel like a city, sing a song of a city with symphonic proportions.” It breaks my heart, but Providence is singing the blues. How can we shake it up again, bring back the gritty edge, the unpredictable eclecticism that makes art worthwhile?
It’s common knowledge that the general population, called general for a reason, doesn’t like surprises. These dull minds, with a taste for status they can never achieve, crave the nouveau as packaged by Madison Avenue. Scurrying around like desperate squirrels in search of a fat nut, the masses demand suggestions from glossy magazines and the local rags. They need to know what and who they should worship and in what order. The fewer choices, the happier they are. Their limited imaginations avoid challenge.
The monstrous Providence Mall, front and dead center, is the cities beacon. The pastel mausoleum still hums with activity, even during this recession, in the middle of an ice-storm, with glassy eyed hoards spending 10 dollars on a movie ticket and 4 dollars for bottled water before they head to the food court for pizza, Chinese food and ice-cream. Down the street, next to a busy hair and nail salon is a bawdy sports bar, a proper coffee shop, a near empty Jazz club offering, again, Vinny at the keyboard or Bob on guitar.
Why is Providence the East Coast’s answer to Toledo? Is there a secret organization of inbred plebeians undermining our efforts? A good old boy network invested in hiring cousin Vinny or Uncle Bob so that Aunt Brenda can keep her Jaguar?
Who or what continues to suppress the avant-garde within these city limits? Pawtucket offers us more sophisticated alternatives.
I need to know. I love this city very much, and keep returning to it again and again, as many artists do. We need to save it from the timid minds who suffocate the spirit of this great place. The recession may be a good time to do it. With nothing to lose, proprietors may be willing to take more risks. It is written that this should occur. It is, after all, Divine Providence.
RECESSION FALL – OUT
March 5, 2009
Are you feeling sad lately? Confused? Broke? Paranoid? Victimized? Do you have a nagging sore throat or sinus infection that will not respond to an anti-biotic? Is your cell phone off the hook? Is your computer slow? Are your library books and video’s overdue? Are you chewing your fingernails? Is there a hole in your sock or underwear that keeps expanding? Is your waist expanding at the same rate?
Are you aging rapidly? Do you have sudden outbursts of anger, hysterics, psychosis? Do you check Orbitz for cheap one-way flights to Morocco? Have you stopped plucking your eyebrows? After you fork some dog food in your pet’s dish, do you use the same fork without washing it off? Are you learning to juggle?
Do you make a daily trip to the liquor store? Are you padding your resume, jockey shorts or bra? Are you eating too many beans? Is there dog turd lodged in your sneaker grooves? Is your Christmas tree still up? Are you leaving the caps off your condiments so that they dribble and leave a sticky, oozing film on the floor of your refrigerator? Did you get your fingers pinched in a slot machine?
Is there a dust ball under your bed that looks like a toupee? Are you faking multiple orgasms? Have you recently changed your name legally? Instead of Sierra Club, do you have a Dunkin Donut’s wall calendar and is there a huge dripping donut staring at you for the month of March? When you use public rest rooms, do you leave stall door ajar?
Did you forget to change the oil in your car this decade? Are you trying to start smoking? Are you building a bomb in your basement? Do you need entry into a Witness Protection Program? Did you kill somebody by mistake?
Don’t worry about it. The gift of this recession is that everyone is nuts and we finally have a good reason. Enjoy!
The Joy of Doodling Around
March 5, 2009
I tried an experiment this past week. I decided to not do anything that I didn’t want to do. I found that I wanted to floss my teeth and vacuum out my car, do laundry, go to the library, read Charles Dickens, have my dog tested for Lyme Disease, go for long walks, write a piece for my blog, talk to renters about the house in Vermont, deposit rent checks, attend weight lifting and yoga classes, have a friend over for dinner, move furniture, and doodle around with my oil paints. I did not listen to music, rehearse, learn new songs, call club owners for gigs. I did not return 80 percent of my phone calls. I did not listen to the frenetic clicking in my head, I did not worry. I did not watch the news or listen to the radio. I mostly doodled around. I loved the doodling most of all. Have you doodled lately? Doodling can be painting, writing, sewing, climbing a mountain. It is doodling because it is done only for the sake of itself, to kill time, really. Nothing comes of doodling, except more doodling and a calming of your mind. Your mind, released from the practical, pragmatic schedule of your life. Nothing to do and nowhere to go. The places to go, the things to do, can wait, at least a week. Even if you work at a job you detest, you can doodle at work. The boss doesn’t have to know it. If you are working on a project of no importance which includes filing, typing, copying and conference calls, just doodle your way through it. Typing, just watch your fingers move and press against the keys as though you are massaging the tips of your fingers. Filing, the file cabinet is a Top Secret Department of Wonders, between A and Z – there’s a message and while you’re filing, try to figure it out. If your copying you can always cut and fold some reports so that they look like clouds with words in them. Conference calls, — doodle through them — speak in different accents, or try remaining silence when the other party or parties assume you will speak. Lower the bar. Raise the bar. There IS no bar, so you can doodle with it. Better yet, quit your job and join a tent city. Responsibilities? If you die tomorrow, everybody you are responsible for will make out just fine. Let them start making out just fine now, while you’re still alive. My doodling makes me remember that everything I do is basically insignifigant, so why not doodle instead? What’s the difference between doodling and singing in a gay bar for 100 dollars? Doodling is more productive in that it is effortless, relaxing, immediate, Doodling allows your inner true self to emerge — to swim up through the muck of who you think you are, want to be, were, or never were and never will be, but who cares? Nobody. Nobody cares. That is their gift to you. Take it.Featured Article:
Dumb- Ster
The cop looked in the dumpster and noticed a picture of his wife. He had just received a complaint from the Olympic Sports store that someone had dumped bags of garbage in their dumpster. That someone was me. I’d cleaned out a few drawers of hometown memories that morning, – high school notebooks, graduation pictures, diplomas, clippings and headed into what I thought was a free-for-all dumpster tucked behind a strip mall. After I threw the bags into the dumpster I took a walk with the dog and when I returned to my car I was met by the policeman and the assistant manager of the Olympic Sports store. Read more »