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- [00:02]
Mark Ellis
Every day as a small business owner feels like solving a puzzle. One moment you're cruising along, and the next there's a shipping snag that has you scrambling. But here's a surprise you will like with progressive. Small business owners save 13% on their commercial auto insurance when they pay in full. So go ahead, surprise yourself. Get a quote in as little as 8 minutes@progressivecommercial.com progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates. Discounts not available in all states or situations. Garagelogic isn't just another podcast. It's a trusted voice with a loyal audience. Every day, listeners tune in and pay attention to the businesses we feature. When you advertise with garagelogic, you're putting your brand in front of people who listen and act. We're number one in Anguilla, and we'll make your business number one with G Ellers. Here's what one of our clients had to say.
- [00:52]
Kevin Kling
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- [01:06]
Mark Ellis
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- [01:49]
Podcast Host / Narrator
My name's mishke hooty hoot,
- [01:57]
Kevin Kling
Hootie hoot.
- [02:05]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
Ho ho.
- [02:33]
Podcast Host / Narrator
For this podcast, in this cast, we're going to go back to an old road show, one that featured an extraordinary gentleman named Kevin Kling. A person can interview the author, the playwright, the storyteller Kevin Kling without talking about his motorcycle accident, without talking about his disability. And I can imagine that Kevin Kling might prefer such an interview these days. After all, it's been quite a while now since that hot August day on Lake street and Lindale in Minneapolis when that car turned right in front of him as he was riding his motorcycle and turned him into a different person than he was before. Turned the page of his life story to a new chapter, one that's still being written. Yeah, Kevin Kling is interested in many topics outside of the topic of himself. And yet that's the topic I'm most interested in for this show. But not Kevin Kling. The Playwright, the author, the storyteller. Those are all fine categories and they speak to some pretty fine talents. But I'm here interested in Kevin Kling, the human being, and specifically how he comes by this version of human being that he presents to the world these days. And that version can't be talked about without talking about the accident and the disability, because it's a big part of how this man became the man he is today. You may know Kevin Kling from his stage work, you may know him from his writing. He's probably reached the most people with his commentaries heard nationally on npr.
- [04:39]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
It all started because I wanted to fly. I remember watching the barn swallows on my grandparents farm. Fork tailed acrobats of the sky darting in and out of rafters, following roads only they could see. Living life just ahead of their bodies.
- [04:55]
Kevin Kling
God wanted to feel that.
- [04:56]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
A foot in two worlds. So I got a motorcycle. I love riding in the early morning before the earth stirs to life. I'm going to the store to get ice. Take the car, she would have said
- [05:07]
Kevin Kling
if I would have woke her up.
- [05:09]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
And I'm off riding in the cool morning, catching insects like a swallow. Each gear takes me further from myself, ahead of obligations and administrations, clocks and committees.
- [05:20]
Kevin Kling
So alive.
- [05:22]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
And then I see the car in the intersection. I hit the brakes and from my body I flew.
- [05:45]
Podcast Host / Narrator
Prior to Kevin's motorcycle accident, he was living what he would have called a charmed existence. It's rather surprising to hear this if you don't know him real well, because he had a congenital condition that had left him with a shriveled left arm. One that had no radius bone and no wrist and no thumb. A limb that frankly didn't look like it could do a whole hell of a lot. But in fact it did damn near everything. I mean, Kevin skied and raced motorcycles and ran marathons and tore it up like any young man living for the moment and loving life. He was disabled officially, but he didn't see himself that way. He loved that strange little left arm of his. Wouldn't have traded it for the world. I'm serious. These are the kind of things you learn when talking to Kevin Kling that make him so interesting. The things he says that you don't see coming. After the motorcycle accident, things got a whole lot worse. The right arm, which had once been the good arm, was left paralyzed, absolutely useless. He had a traumatic brain injury as well, and his face was a mess. Had to be surgically reconstructed. He was jettisoned into that dark world of intense pain and Long hospital stays and multiple surgeries and scars everywhere and stitches going up and down and rehab and post traumatic stress and depression. And nobody but Kevin can ever really know what that was like. Pain of that degree can't be conveyed and few out there would be up for hearing about it if it could be. Few of us are really built to listen to that degree of human suffering. So you get it from Kevin in shorthand, in a line here and there, in a look on his face, or in some throwaway aside imbued with a dark weight, perceptible but fleeting. The doctor told you something along the lines of, here's your life, Kevin. You'll have pain all the time and you'll have pain intermittently.
- [08:12]
Kevin Kling
Yeah, he said your pain will be both intermittent and ever present. It always hurts, unless it really hurts.
- [08:20]
Podcast Host / Narrator
What does hurt?
- [08:21]
Kevin Kling
Right now it's this odd, I guess you would call it phantom pain, but again, that's another word I don't like much because it's very real to me. When I got in my accident, my nerves were pulled from my spine. They can do a lot of nerve repair, but you can't put nerves back into a spine. So when your brain sends out signals, if nothing comes back, it automatically registers as pain. So my arm is always sending back, no, I'm okay, no, I'm okay. No, there's no pain. But my brain isn't getting that signal. So my arm to my brain is always in pain.
- [08:55]
Podcast Host / Narrator
Do you suffer from depression?
- [08:57]
Kevin Kling
Oh, yeah. And it isn't even associated with physical pain. It comes and goes on its own schedule as well. When I was in the hospital, I'm in the elevator and there's an 8 year old kid and he was in the hospital because he'd hit his head on a fence post and he had to get eight stitches and he pointed to the back of his head and I go, oh, yeah. I had to get stitches from here to here. I go ear to ear, down my chest, down one arm and down one leg to the floor. And the kid looks at me and goes, yeah, but mine really hurt. Oh God. I go into this store up north, it was a convenience store, and there's a guy who just had a stroke. And I can tell he's just had. He's still really working through it. And he probably doesn't know how much of himself is going to come back yet because it takes a while to stroke, but he's clearly got a long ways to go. And I was pretty recent out of the hospital too, so I didn't want to have anything to do with that guy. I just, you know, it was like, that poor guy. And it's like, God. So I'm staying away from him, staying away. Sure enough, I get to the counter and there he is right next to me. And he looks over at me and he goes, huh, I guess it could have been worse. I'm like, no, no, you're the guy. It could have been worse. He got the line out before I could. He's like, I was the guy that could have been worse. So it's totally perspective. You know, you can't judge another man's pain. You just can't. Whatever it is, I really don't buy into that not as bad theory in terms of pain and suffering. Whenever you're going through something and somebody goes, oh, yeah, well, that's not as bad as. Or I get in my motorcycle accident, right, and I lose the use of my arm. Somebody's always going, oh, yeah, well, this is what happened to a buddy of mine. As if one has more value than the other because it was worse or that it was better. You know, you get a million stories after a motorcycle accident about guys who, you know, we rolled 17 times. He got up and got right back on the bike. Not a scratch. You hear a million of those, too. And so for some reason, people have places. They put your accident because of their own context.
- [11:05]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
If stories are medicine, then like all medicine, they can either heal or they can harm. When an angel arrives, sometimes it's to wrestle. Recently, I got on the bus and a woman got aboard in a wheelchair, and when she spun around, there was a bumper sticker on the back that said, I am a strong woman. When I get up in the morning, the devil says, oh, shoot, she's awake. When I first joined Interact Theatre Company, I had recently been in a motorcycle accident and had lost the use of my right arm. Now, Interact is a theater company of performers with disabilities, and as soon as I arrived, I felt like I was home. The first day, we were in a large circle, about a dozen performers or so, all kinds of disabilities, and the question was posed, if there was a pill to take away your disability, was, would you take the pill? I was surprised to hear I was the only one in the whole circle that would take the pill. I looked around at my fellow performers, and I wondered if one day I would feel that way about my new self, that who I'd become would be more familiar than the person I used to be. Over the years, I've learned so much from this company. Daily I laugh to tears. And the shows are often personal stories of triumph or heartbreak. There are signs up all around the space that say, work your quirk, or dancing with the scars or hurt till it laughs. There's a group of four performers with down syndrome, and they call themselves the Downbeats. They are amazing and hilarious. In fact, each performer brings a form of catharsis to the stage that you cannot train. The place of honesty that many professional actors seek and is the starting point at Interact, one company member named Ingrid has aphasia, a condition that makes it difficult for thoughts to become words. One day, Ingrid told me, before her aphasia, she believed, I think, therefore I am. But now she knows we come from a much deeper place. Now she feels I am, therefore I think. When I hear this, I think of the Sufi poet Rumi when he wrote his beautiful love poem long before right, doing, before wrongdoing. There is a field, and I will meet you there. Shakespeare combined the lunatic, the lover and the poet in imagination, all one. Because each goes beyond their grasp, beyond what we see in the mirror, to that point before right, before wrong. That place a lover is taken through, another, that place a fool goes. A fool has a foot in two worlds.
- [13:54]
Kevin Kling
It can't help it.
- [13:55]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
And the poet. The poet, like Dante boldly stepping into the underworld, seeking the unknowable. And sometimes, when a poet gets it right, we all travel along to that place.
- [14:11]
Podcast Host / Narrator
How do you know that he assumed you died?
- [14:15]
Kevin Kling
Well, he told people he did. I actually read a couple articles in papers around the country that said I did die. One in Baltimore. And I don't know why that was, but I read a couple articles that said I was killed in the accident.
- [14:28]
Podcast Host / Narrator
You think they talked to this guy?
- [14:30]
Kevin Kling
That's what I don't know. Yeah.
- [14:32]
Podcast Host / Narrator
Do you know if he walked up to you?
- [14:34]
Kevin Kling
I think he did. By accounts. That was not a good thing to see. I was bleeding profusely from my head. There was a nurse that said, you shouldn't have brain damage because your head used your face as an airbag, I guess, was really crushed in. I had a show that night. It's actually the only show I've ever missed. And even in the hospital, and I don't remember any of this. I guess I told a nurse, call the stage manager, I'm going to be late. I didn't say I'm going to miss the show. I said, I'm going to be late.
- [15:07]
Podcast Host / Narrator
And then you ran into that guy again?
- [15:10]
Kevin Kling
Yeah. It was odd because he was looking through me, thinking I was a ghost. And he's not wrong. I can never completely extricate my foot from that other world.
- [15:24]
Podcast Host / Narrator
Tell me specifically what you mean by that.
- [15:27]
Kevin Kling
Well, in the accident, vividly, I had the choice actually to exit this plane of existence or return. And for some reason I chose to return to this plane of existence. And there was this amazing sense of peace. And you read about this all the time, about people that have had near death experiences. And now I've met several people that have. We all have the same thing in common. We're headed for this amazing place of peace. And because I've gone to that place and I know what that feels like, which again is something that cannot be put in words, but I know what that feels like. I now know of these two worlds that exist simultaneously. And how do you unknow something like that? Once you know something like that and have learned something like that, you just can't go back to the way you were. You can't go back to the old person that you were. You're somebody else now.
- [16:23]
Podcast Host / Narrator
Have you ever touched it again?
- [16:25]
Kevin Kling
I am right now. I'm never not there forever. I don't have to go there. I am there.
- [16:36]
Podcast Host / Narrator
A line of yours we live in this time where it's harder to follow a light. It's more important to find solace in the mystery. I think that's what storytelling is about. Why are we living in a time when it's harder to follow a light?
- [16:51]
Kevin Kling
I think what is the light is less universal. Our sense of what is the light is just so blurred now. The reason why we tell the same stories, the reason why myth from Greece or even before all these myths, is we still have the same questions. We haven't answered these questions. We still have the same ones. That's why stories, whether you find the answer or not isn't important. You know you're not alone. The shared suffering. There's something really important about a shared experience. Just knowing that other people have these same questions and that whole sense of mystery. We live in mystery. And every time science finds something, they open 10 more questions. We are always going to live in a state of mystery. We expect explanations for everything and there aren't explanations. And to find a comfort in that, solace, in that, finding actual joy in that makes me happy. It's like Thomas Merton said, he could never praise a God he could understand.
- [17:58]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
I'm sitting in the coffee shop, slowly digging out bus change and laying it carefully on the table. It's a strange looking ritual, but ever since my motorcycle accident. My right arm is paralyzed and my other arm has always had a congenital condition. It's much shorter, a bit crooked, and no thumb. So now my arms work like Lenny and George from Of Mice and Men. One can't catch the rabbits and the other can't seem to remember the rabbits. It takes all my concentration to manipulate both a dollar and a quarter so when the bus comes, I can spring into action. But as careful as I am, a quarter falls to the floor. Now, if I could take off my shoes and socks, I could get it. My feet have become downright prehensile over the last few months. Not that I can deal around a blackjack, and I certainly understand if you don't want me to open your can of Sprite, but I could get this quarter. What's the proper etiquette here? I feel my head and the people around me are beautiful and healthy and smoking. I that am rudely stamped like Shakespeare's King Richard III says, unfinished, sent before my time into this breathing world scarce half made up. And since I cannot prove a lover to entertain these fair, well spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain. In other words, sometimes you just lose it.
- [19:29]
Podcast Host / Narrator
There's an ancient tribal proverb in India. It says, before we can see properly, we must first shed tears to clear the way. Helen Keller wrote, character cannot be developed in ease, and only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened. John Keats wrote, don't you see how necessary pain and trouble are to school an intelligence and make a soul? And Bob Dylan once remarked how people who suffer together seem to have such a stronger connection to one another than those who are content together. Back with more of my conversation with Kevin Kling after this. Is your AC making noise it didn't used to make? Running all day and still not keeping the house cool. That's not something to ignore. That's your air conditioner telling you something's wrong here. Do something about it while you still have time. Don't wait until it quits completely. That's always the more expensive way to go. Right now through the month of August, MSP Minneapolis St. Paul Plumbing Heating Air and Electric is offering 50 bucks off any AC service. Get it checked, get it fixed, get it running right for less. But that's not the fun part. No. Book your AC service in August and you're automatically entered into MSPs Beat the Breakdown Giveaway. One lucky winner walks away with a four pack of Minnesota State Fair tickets plus a $250 Visa card to spend on everything the fair offers. So take care of your A.C. now, save yourself the headache later, and give yourself a shot at one great day at the state fair. Schedule your service today. Go to callmsp.com for a small business
- [21:43]
Mark Ellis
owner, every day is full of surprises. Some great, some not so great, like when a client cancels their order at the last minute. But here's a surprise you will like. Progressive provides small business owners with 30 customizable coverage options to help keep their business going strong. So go ahead, surprise yourself. Get a quote in as little as eight minutes@progressivecommercial.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. And coverage is not available in all states or for all vehicles and coverage selections.
- [22:13]
Podcast Host / Narrator
Memory care is not one thing. It changes stage by stage. And most memory care centers treat it like it doesn't change. The Wellshire has always operated differently. At the Wellshire Memory Care center in Bloomington and Medina, the building itself is designed around this truth. Memory changes. They break things down into four households. Four different households, each one built for a different stage of memory care. Not just different wings, different environments, different rhythms, different levels of support, different everything. Because what someone needs in the early stage is not what they need later on. That means your mother, your father, your grandpa, your grandma, your husband, your wife. They're never in a space built for somebody else's stage of this trip. They're always exactly where they belong. The well shire find them.
- [23:13]
Kevin Kling
When I was in the hospital, crows kept coming to me. I'm in the hospital having all these hallucinations on crows, and it was really worrying me because I know they're like harbingers of doom. They're messengers to the underworld, all this stuff. And my buddy Jamie, who's a shaman, came in one day and he goes, you have it completely wrong. Crows take away things we don't want. That's their job. And they do, you know, whether it's on the side of a road or things. And he said, so next time the crows come, load them up with your fear and they'll fly away with it. And so the next time crows came in one of my morphine states, I did that. I put my fear on them and they flew away with it. And it actually worked. And so now when I see crows, I'm ecstatic. And he also talked about that word dis, which is dis, which was what? Dante. Dante, in his Divine Comedy, the Inferno, talks about dis as the underworld in Latin, that was the word for the underworld, dis. And so when we attach that towards, like, disability or Dis ease. It's not the anti. It's not like, not able. It's able through the world of the underworld, which I completely agree with, because the world of the underworld really is. It's where we work through our desires, our shames, our things that we need to, like, hone down. I think of it as a rock tumbler. We're taking those edges off. The word dis, then, to me is going through things through the world of the underworld. Not that we can't do it. It's we do it through another way, through shadow and reflection.
- [24:43]
Podcast Host / Narrator
Give me an example of how one would operate that way with a disability.
- [24:48]
Kevin Kling
In other words, what people take for granted in a lot of things that you do. Whether it's to me, like, there's certain doorknob. There was a doorknob in Istanbul that I thought they were going to find my bones behind. You know, I could not get this thing going. So it didn't mean I couldn't do it. But I had to reflect. I had to take it to the shadow side of yourself. These other sides where you're frustrated, you're going through all these things. And then I figured it out. And I did it so often in disability, it's not that you can't do it. It's you have to do it another way.
- [25:19]
Podcast Host / Narrator
And the other way often comes with having to go through the frustration, the anger, the why me, the why does this have to be set up this way? And by going that way, something happens.
- [25:34]
Kevin Kling
You never learn from success. It's just a truth. You learn by failure. We always learn through failure. You always learn through risk and failure. And when you're disabled, that's daily. You're always having to figure stuff out.
- [25:49]
Podcast Host / Narrator
I often think about the not wishing suffering on anybody, not wanting it, not enjoying the prospect of seeing it tomorrow again in the news, and yet knowing it's going to play a role that if played a certain way, is going to make things more beautiful than if it wasn't there.
- [26:07]
Kevin Kling
I do agree with that. And depending upon your level of curiosity, it's either going to kill you or take you further. Like my injury does not exceed my level of curiosity. I'm still more curious than what has happened to me. And because of that, I think it has really helped me.
- [26:25]
Podcast Host / Narrator
More curious about my suffering makes me
- [26:28]
Kevin Kling
more curious than it does make me suffer more. In other words, when I can't figure out that door in Istanbul, I get kind of excited. I kind of go, all right, I'm beating this. I'm Beating this. And I'll start thinking or like I travel so much, every time I come to a hotel or motel, I go right to the bathroom and look at the shower because it's always. That's going to be one of the things. And I've had shoes off and belts off and everything.
- [26:57]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
Like making these like rube gold like
- [27:00]
Kevin Kling
things to get a knob to turn and they're wrapped around just to get a dang knob to turn. You know, I'll be like a dog on a bone, man. I'm not letting that beat me. And sometimes it beats me and I get really mad. I get super mad when it beats me. And so yeah, that sucks. As much as I prefer the person I am now, I do have greater anger issues. I know because of the head injury. I do have sleep problems. I have these things that again are these balancing factors. And so I prefer the person I became. But I wish there was another way to get here. My eyes are open to more different kinds of people, more kinds of situations. I cry easier. You know, things that would have gone unnoticed now, especially in people would have gone unnoticed before. Yeah, that now I notice things. Smaller, more insignificant things give me greater thrills now. It's like to me, grace. I just love that word, grace. But a lot of times people think it's a touch with the divine. And I believe it to be recognizing the divine in the everyday. The idea of listening for what is really there instead of what you think or what you hope or what you are looking for. If you're really listening, like bird watching. They say you go into bird watching with two energies, disturbance and awareness. And disturbance slowly gives away to awareness. And then you start hearing the birds that are there. I remember reading about one guy who went into an environment. He went for four years before he heard this bird. And he knew it was there the whole time. But it took four years for that bird to finally sing while he was in the area. And the idea of listening, true listening is when you're hearing what's really in a situation. Because so much of us listen for something and we're looking for that thing instead of just hearing what's really there. And I think that's the secret to grace is that see what's really in a situation and the divine will make itself known. Compassion. Break the word down. Compassion means with. With the. You're going with the person on the journey. It is really going on another's journey. When you are compassionate with another person and you're going down their road, down their pain. With them, that can really wear you down. And when I was thinking about the difference between compassion and empathy, compassion is going with someone. Empathy is going as someone. And how would you go through that as you? That's why empathy, to me, has a healthier feel to it than compassion. I'm not going with you. I'm going as you. After you have a trauma part, after you have a loss, you spend so much time trying to retrieve what you've lost, and that's not who you are anymore. So part of it is going back and saying, okay, what can cross this river? What can I bring? So often we try so hard to bring things that can't cross the river. And that point where you have to choose to become the person you are instead of the person you were. People look at as giving up. It's not giving up. It's completely the opposite of giving up. It's saying, no, this is who I am. Man, it's such an elation.
- [30:30]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
When I first joined Interact Theatre Company, I had recently been in a motorcycle accident and had lost the use of my right arm. Now Interact is a theater company of performers with disabilities. And as soon as I arrived, I felt like I was home. The first day, we were in a large circle, about dozen performers or so, all kinds of disabilities, and the question was posed, if there was a pill to take away your disability, would you take the pill? I was surprised to hear I was the only one in the whole circle that would take the pill. I looked around at my fellow performers and I wondered if one day I would feel that way about my new self, that who I'd become would be more familiar than the person I used to be.
- [31:19]
Podcast Host / Narrator
I wanted to explore this topic with Kevin. That particular commentary was delivered years ago. Much has happened to Kevin since then. I wanted to learn about the changes in how he viewed his disability. Would he still take the pill if it were offered now? Or was he more like those fellow performers at interaction who would not take it? And who were those performers and what were their disabilities?
- [31:51]
Kevin Kling
Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, people in wheelchairs from accidents. Brain injury. That's one of those hidden disabilities. There are days that I have now where I would take the pill, and there are days when I wouldn't take the pill. You know, there's days when I say, man, frustration will just get me to a point or pain or something where I just go, oh, I'm tired of this. But I prefer the person that I am now, and that's because of the accident I've been given. So Many gifts that I didn't even know existed in the world. And this isn't bs. There's stuff that I notice now that I would have never noticed. It's like, I remember this great show on PBS where a guy lived with turkeys, and he raised these baby turkeys, and they got to be adult turkeys. And he started hanging out with these
- [32:43]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
turkeys and all the wildlife. He goes, what's going on?
- [32:47]
Kevin Kling
Wildlife just started coming out of the forest and hanging out with him that you never would even see or would never even get near you. And he figured, is it because I'm with these turkeys, or am I just noticing these things more or what's going on? And then the turkeys either left or some met their ends until finally he wasn't living with turkeys anymore, and he never saw the wildlife again. It just wasn't there anymore. And that's kind of how I feel about this injury. It's like I see things that I would have never seen that live in this world that I would never have seen without it. Do you have to go through these things to have these rewards? Yeah, you do. I was born with a disability, and the disability I was born with, that I would never trade. No. No downside at all. In fact, yeah, that was like. It was a gift. And when I went to Shriners, I went to have an operation when I was 3, and I went to Shriners, and I knew I was having an operation. But when the doctor said he was going to make my arm better, I thought he was going to make my arm like my other arm. And I said, I want out of here. I did not want my arm. You know, even then, even at three, it was a gift, and I knew it. And I was like, no, I do not. And he goes, don't worry. It'll always be special. It'll always be different. Okay, then it better be. I was really worried he was going to fix it. And I would have had the same reaction my whole life. I know. It's why I became a writer. I mean, there's a story that I tell about. When I was a kid, people would call my arm withered or crippled or say, you poor thing, or what happened. But by the words they chose, I could tell whether they blame me, my parents, God, or themselves for my condition. With that information, I could get what I needed out of them. I learned really early. When you're on the fringe of society, you learn it's not just what the word is, it's how it's used it's why it's being used. It tells everything you want to know about a person. Word choice. You can tell about the situation, how they feel, where they come from. And that's why when somebody thinks they know you because you have a disability, you already have a leg up on them, for one thing. They assume they know who you are. And so now you can either be that if you want or be something else if you want or use that. I mean, that's very powerful when somebody thinks they know you. One of the best writing tips I got was from a sculpting professor who said, a good sculpture is one you want to walk around and see the other side, but you're only presented in any time the two dimension of the side, but it is a three dimensional object. And I thought that's the way a character works. One of my favorite characters is Richard iii. And you can do the same thing with him. You can do that play by walking around his royal side and everything he does is according to that royal side. Or you can go around his side with a disability and see why he does all of his actions from that side. And the key to the whole thing for me is I think it's the third scene where Richard III seduces a woman whose husband he's just killed and she just hates him. And in three pages, he turns from being hated and spit on to seducing her. But if you go around the disability side, I find it infinitely more fascinating, because when you are of the world of disability, seduction becomes survival. And if you've ever spent any time in institutions, hospitals or whatever, there's usually a nurse, and she's seen it all. And so in order to, like, find love as a kid in an institution, you have to develop such highly creative seduction skills to find that. And so when I think of that in the world of disability, and I hit page three and he seduces that woman in those three pages, I'm like, that's a page too many.
- [36:36]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
When I was a kid, I remember my mom read the fairy tale about the ugly duckling, a story about a hideous, huge baby duck that can't fit
- [36:43]
Kevin Kling
in with the other ducks.
- [36:45]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
He steps on him and breaks everything until they finally found out he's a beautiful swan. I actually liked it better when he thought he was a uber duck that was large and superior to the other ducks. When it turns out he's a swan like all the other swans, not a duck. What's that do for me? Hope A ship of aliens lands that look like me and Says, hey, you're
- [37:03]
Kevin Kling
really one of us.
- [37:05]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
Meanwhile, I'm stuck living with the ducks. Fairy tales usually end up bad for guys with disabilities. Snow White trades in seven perfectly good small guys for one big handsome one. Rumpelstiltskin actually grabs one leg at the end of his story and rips himself asunder. Alright, I kind of like that one. But in the 70s, there were these cop shows. Every demographic had a cop. There was Shaft, Trailer Park Denizens had Rockford, tropically challenged had McGarrett, marital bliss, McMillan, cowpokes had McLeod, teenagers, the mod Squad, Bald Greeks, Kojak, Mental Illness, Colombo. Everyone had Angie Dickinson. We had Ironside. Dang. Now, I always liked Raymond Burr, like a poor man's Lee J. Cobb, Perry Mason, father figure. But Ironside's named after a battleship. I want my cop in a Lamborghini, not a van.
- [37:57]
Kevin Kling
I want chicks to swoon over him.
- [37:59]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
Then I saw Ian McKellen play Richard III and I thought, oh, there's my man.
- [38:05]
Kevin Kling
Tell me what they deserve who do conspire my death and have prevailed upon my body with that damned witchcraft. My arm is like a blasted sapling. When I was in Thailand, I was in a Hmong village, and they said, have you done the ceremony to retrieve your spirit yet? And I said, what do you mean? They said, well, in an accident like that, your spirit sees the opening and flees, and you need to do a ceremony to get back your spirit. This was like 10 years after the accident. And I was like, you know, I've always struggled for a way to describe how I felt since the accident. That was it. That was the best description I've ever heard. My spirit flew from me. And so they did this ceremony in this Hmong village, but it wasn't going to take hold until I brought it back to where the accident happened. And I would have to stand there and do the last part of the ceremony. And I did that. And, you know, it did actually have an effect somehow. It was this idea of recalling your spirit that in any kind of a trauma, your spirit takes that advantage, that sudden jolt to flee. And that's really what it feels like. It really feels like something is missing. What is that? What is that? What's missing? And you need to find a way to bring that back. I knew when I did come back that I did now have to discover what that reason was, because all I knew at that time was I decided to come back now. Why? And that's just going to be the rest of my life working toward that.
- [39:54]
Podcast Host / Narrator
And you don't have an answer yet.
- [39:57]
Kevin Kling
I could guess at one, but it might change. I mean, part of the reason I know that I did come back was now I have a gift to give to this world that I didn't have before. I have a gift to give to other people that I didn't have before. And getting the opportunity to do that is maybe, I'm guessing, the reason. It's a very selfish thing too. I mean, this has given me that word empathy. When you have empathy, people think that you're giving something when in actuality you're receiving something. And it is really true. It's surprising how much more I get than I give.
- [40:43]
Podcast Host / Narrator
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- [41:48]
Anna (Interact performer with schizoaffective disorder)
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Mark Ellis
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- [43:02]
Kevin Kling
I was working with my Dad. I was 14, and I was working on an airplane. My dad had these little experimental airplanes. It's why I'm never afraid in the air anymore. I remember one time we went to Isle Royale on a boat, and the captain had been a captain since 1948. He said he'd never seen it so rough. And they had a big buffet out for everybody to eat. And only three people ate. Me, my brother, my dad. Everyone else was hanging over the railing and we were all like, this is nothing compared to being in the air with my dad. So we were working on a plane. We were in a puddle of water and these big clouds were moving in. And my dad, I remember, had just asked for a screwdriver when a bolt of lightning hit the puddle. And I felt my organs. I could actually feel my insides when this lightning shot through me. I was like, I can't believe we're alive. And I'm screaming, dad, dad, we just got hit by lightning. And my dad said, God dang it, that does it. Let's go home.
- [44:07]
Podcast Host / Narrator
Of all of Kevin's real life stories that leave me rapt or charmed or just longing to hear more, it's his passing along to me that every male in his family, including his uncles, have been hit by lightning. Now, maybe if I would have learned this fact before anything else, I would have known immediately this was a man touched by the divine. A man destined for a very different life from the life I lead. It's like something out of a weird sci fi story. It's very odd. Stranger still, he talks about people being a three or a four or a two or a one, depending on how many times they've been hit by lightning. Yes, we're into multiple strikes with some of these men.
- [44:58]
Kevin Kling
I discovered that every male in my family at some point had been struck by lightning.
- [45:02]
Kevin Kling (Storytelling segments)
What I think it is, my brother
- [45:04]
Kevin Kling
and I were in like a shop class in junior high, you know, and this teacher had this little wire that he put in the palm of your hand and it would measure your conductivity. And my brother and I are the only two ever to put the needle in the red. I think it had to do with skin moisture. Uncle Byron said he used it four times. My grandpa said he was hit four times. He actually said he formed a fountain with himself and his tools. Everything went flying.
- [45:29]
Podcast Host / Narrator
In those cases, you have four and four.
- [45:31]
Kevin Kling
Yeah. Donald was a three, and my brother's a one. I'm a one. My brother was pumping gasoline at a gas station, and I don't know how he didn't get, like, blown up, but everybody had the lightning coming at him. Years later, my mom was at home changing a channel on a TV when lightning hit her TV and blasted her across the room. And even before mom called the doctor, she called me and goes, I knew it wasn't just on your father's side.
- [46:11]
Podcast Host / Narrator
If there were any few sentences that got me sensing the direction I wanted to take this show next, it was Kevin's description of his fellow Interact performers rejecting any pill that might erase their disability. It sent my mind in many directions, including this notion that this world of ours is so often giving in the very act of taking away that it blesses in that very moment, it's delivering its supposed curse that, as Kevin puts it, it often sends its angels our way to wrestle, and that what comes out of this is often extraordinary perspective, new realizations, awakenings, unexpected feelings of gratitude, emotional wisdom, a deeper sense of what it is to be alive. I introduce to you now 3interact performers whose disability you will not notice as you pass them on the street. But it's there. Shiraz Kevins is there. Meet Anna, Jeffrey, and Michael.
- [47:23]
Anna (Interact performer with schizoaffective disorder)
First, I thought, that sounds like a good idea. You know, take that pill. But then I think of all the experiences I would have missed. I have schizoaffective disorder, so I have friends in my head, voices. And with what I have, I have very friendly voices, and they talk about all sorts of things. It's kind of like an ongoing conversation, philosophy. And I kind of join the conversation, and they talk about, like, astrology. And it's very interesting, actually. So, I mean, if I took that pill, I wouldn't have all the wisdom I have from the conversations, and I wouldn't have all the company keeping all day. You know, I wouldn't have my friends keeping me company. And, you know, I wouldn't have Interact either. All the people I know here in my life's work, and I'm actually also a visual artist. I paint and draw and my voices that give me inspiration. I also write poetry. So sometimes my voices will give me an idea of something to write or something to paint. The voices kind of interrupt my daily balance sometimes. So I can get lost, or I'll start pacing, or sometimes my voices will get really loud and I'll respond with negative things sometimes. But usually my voices are positive, but I can get out of control. So I do need support because of those things. So, like, if you'll see me just on a normal day, you won't see anything until my mouth opens, my jaw starts flapping, and you can see that there's definitely something going on with me.
- [49:07]
Podcast Host / Narrator
Okay.
- [49:09]
Anna (Interact performer with schizoaffective disorder)
But all the adventures my voices have brought me on are so worth so much enjoyment, and I think I would not have the life and the experience I have having my disability. You know, I've been on so many journeys and adventures with my disability, and I've had so much inspiration from them, and I've learned and I've grown, and I think, I wouldn't take that pill.
- [49:37]
Jeffrey (Interact performer with anxiety disorder)
My disability is anxiety disorder, although I would add to that obsessive compulsive anxiety disorder. In my work, it's important to be. To be nervous, because if you're not, if you're not, you don't have a certain amount of nervousness. I would probably not be able to do the work. So sometimes the anxiety, if I can steer it in the right direction, it can serve me. You know, you need that nervous energy in order to do the work. If I wasn't anxious at all, I would probably not be doing the work. I have stage fright, and the stage fright does help me do the work because there's a certain amount of vulnerability when I'm feeling scared on stage. Playing vulnerability is really important in theater. If you can't play vulnerability, the audience isn't going to be very interested in what you're doing, what you're trying to create.
- [50:29]
Michael (Interact performer with autism)
My disability. I have autism, Asperger's syndrome, and I am pretty amazing at doing some things, some things that normal people are unable to do, and yet I can be horrible at doing other things, comprehending things. The things that I am not so good at doing can, like, put me into some pretty awful situations. But as far as my mental disability being a blessing is concerned, there's, like, this other world that is happening inside of my mind. And I often go to this other world when the real world gets to be too much for me to handle as a grown man, as an adult, I know how important it is to be able to function in the real world, be able to respond and take care of problems in the real world. But the special world that is happening inside of my brain, inside of my mind, I wouldn't give that world up for anything. I will never, ever, ever, ever give up the special world that I have here inside of my brain. Because this world that I go to from time to time, it has actually enriched my actual life in ways that people without disabilities can't comprehend. There are these ideas that I get and the ideas that I get from the special world that's inside of my mind. I end up using these ideas in the real world, and it's these ideas that enrich my life.
- [52:33]
Kevin Kling
You're talking to three brilliant performers here, and it's interesting to me. It's such a unique way of approaching performing in institutions that train performers. You could never get performances like these three actors can give you.
- [52:58]
Podcast Host / Narrator
If I could snap my fingers at the point of a child's birth and take away a lifetime of profound anxiety, would I? Of course I would. If I could snap my fingers as a human being came into this world and remove a lifetime of hearing voices, or if I could snap my fingers and take away a lifetime of dealing with autism, would I? Yes, I would. And if I could have been at Lake and Lyndale on that August day, would I have snapped my fingers? If I could have and taken Kevin's bike around that car and safely down the road, we all would have. Question. What would the world lose if all of this were possible and all of it done? Kevin Kling says, listen for what's really there, not for what you want to hear. Turn your attention to what actually is presenting itself in any moment, not to what you wish were present. And in so doing, he says, allow the divine to reveal itself and prepare to be surprised. Thanks for listening, everyone.