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Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
As a gimp, I watched the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon with disdain -- until Jerry's real kid said she felt "sad" for her daddy.
Sep 4, 2002 | "Go back to your TV, you fucking loser!" the guy yelled. Then came a click and the distinctive buzz of a disconnected telephone.
And I did. Geez, I thought, I wonder if a weirdo can be psychic. My telephone friend had called Labor Day afternoon from three states away to share his thoughts about an opinion piece I'd written for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. My essay encouraged people to rethink their support of the techniques employed by Jerry Lewis during his annual Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, but Mr. Eloquent thought $50 million plus was worth more than respect for people with disabilities.
And that was the show I was watching when he called -- the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon 2002, the annual extravaganza we gimps like to call "the Pitython."
It was a first for me. I've never been able to stand more than a few minutes of Lewis and his MDA crew. The maudlin pleas for money, the pathetic references -- "My kids" -- give me the creeps. This was the 37th tear-jerking pitython, a record-breaking run for the nutty professor -- and that's in spite of the hard work of a good number of crip activists attempting to push the MDA away from the pity party program and toward a more enlightened attitude about people with disabilities.
I've used a wheelchair for 40 years, but I'm late to the anti-telethon party. I got my first invitation a decade ago when Jerry Lewis called me a "half-person." That kind of pissed me off, especially since Lewis doesn't know me personally, and I was into sex and rock 'n' roll as much as the next guy. But I continued to ignore him.
Then things got worse. Last year, Lewis made some very unfunny comments during an appearance on "CBS News Sunday Morning."
"I'm telling people about a child in trouble," Lewis said, responding to a question about criticism of his telethon techniques. "If it's pity, we'll get some money. I'm just giving you the facts. Pity? You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair, stay in your house."
That pushed my hot button. I hate to be pitied simply because I use a wheelchair. Pity is a tolerable emotion if you can keep it to yourself, but once you put it into words, you're going to castrate someone.
I wasn't the only person, crip or not, who got angry last year. In fact, the outcry was enough that the MDA felt compelled to apologize. But it was no surprise to the veterans of the anti-Lewis pitython movement that the apology centered on the use of the world "cripple" rather than the idea that people with disabilities are not objects of pity put on this world to generate cash.
I like to think that I am reasonable person, a gimp without a grudge, and so I decided to watch as much of this year's telethon as I could stomach. Sunday evening I picked up the remote and packed away as many of my conflicting emotions as possible.
I harbored no illusions. I knew I'd be spending hours with a guy who'll never change. To Jerry -- and the honchos at the MDA, for that matter -- it's all about the money. Dollars equal cure. And if it takes dragging some kid on stage so that Jerry can tell him he's dying and only money can save him, that's what will be done. I suppose, if you look at it that way, money can be more important than people.
And that's why the pitython has always been the antithesis of entertainment to me. I'm the kind of guy who gets embarrassed when other people are put into awkward situations. We all project our own feelings and reactions onto others. And I know if I was asked to parade my body before a national television audience and shill for cash, I'd be damned uncomfortable.
The telethon began in my neck of the woods at 8 in the evening, with Lewis opening the broadcast talking about the 9/11 terrorist attack, the "Mideast cowards" who perpetrated them, and the heroic response of firefighters. Firefighters and their union are, it turns out, one of the major supporters of the MDA.
Lewis, 76, has been in poor health recently, and he's gained significant weight as a side effect of the steroid drug prednisone he takes to combat pulmonary fibrosis. Jerry, the zany, pratfalling bellboy, lurked unobserved in a large man who mostly sat as he talked about "my kids," genetic therapy and the cure around the corner.
I fell asleep after Jerry opened the telethon with Norm Crosby, who I last remember seeing on the "Ed Sullivan Show." I think Nancy Sinatra and Andy Williams were next on stage, but I drifted off. When I awoke before dawn on Labor Day, Lewis was gone. No more all Jerry, all the time.
The telethon droned on, of course. Jann Carl, Cynthia Garrett and Wayne Brady rotated as hosts and kept up a barrage of pleas that alternated with interviews with people with neuromuscular diseases. A parade of Las Vegas lounge acts and celebrities of yore punctuated the pityfest. The television and the telethon became a portal into the past: Andy Williams was joined by Glenn Campbell, Roy Clark, the Lennon Sisters and the Oak Ridge Boys. And then there was Charo, accent unimproved, and Steve Lawrence, Jack Jones and Julius LaRosa, tux-clad and gamely soldiering on.
