Good morning world! Arkansas is beautiful – in case you didn’t know it! I don’t know that I knew it – falcons and birds circle, the trees stretch towards the sky and rolling hills stretch to the horizon. I don’t know that we’ve BEEN to Arkansas before. Looking at a map, I’m pretty sure we’ve never played here and I don’t know that our travel path would’ve ever done more than just cross the tip of this state…. But I’m not entirely sure. I GUESS I could text Heather but for the moment I’m happy with the mystery, basking in the sunshine in-betwixt trucks and tree shade and watching the last of the clouds leave the sky in favour of unbroken blue.
Last night we stayed with the parents of our old friend John Thayer (you may know him as NOMAD) and it was educational! We’re armed with an arsenal of young John stories, NOMAD anecdotes and baby pictures – and hope to harass him at the earliest opportunity. Thayer’s pretty unassailable in most ways… maybe we’ve FINALLY found some things to tease him about…
It was a wonderful stay and we had a great night chatting about art and music and business and Life, the universe and everything. We woke up to sunshine streaming and steep hills and the drive to Memphis. Our friend Sue had recommended we take a more scenic route north because, and I quote, “Bald Eagles are swarming the ice floes on the Mississippi”. With an epic statement like that I really TRIED to make it work, but we wouldn’t reach the swarms and floes till night fall and no matter how bald these eagles are, there’s no way we’d get ANY bird watching done in the dark.
And so we continue north with a mix of Primus, We’re About 9, classical music, bossa nova, Tool and… well.. whatever’s coming out of Kristen’s iPod now. It’s always an education.
Something that IS preying on my mind right now, even more than the missing of swarming Bald Eagles, is an email I got this morning from a Concerned Citizen re: the FACT that VENUE NAME HERE is VIOLATING PEOPLE’S CIVIL RIGHTS! I’d almost dismissed it as spam, but it DID reference ilyAIMY and it DID reference a venue we’re playing – apparently one of the venues we’ve got on our calendar doesn’t have wheelchair access and is in violation of the ADA and that is the personal mission of this individual and her husband.
I sound like I’m diminishing the importance of this – I don’t mean to be – I just think that her approach to this is a little absurd.
It’s a good mission. The American Disabilities Act is an important piece of legislation and I do hate the idea of having anyone excluded from anything due to accessibility issues – and unsympathetic venues are venues that I’d probably not choose to be very involved with. However, contacting me as a performer with this stern, edging on threatening, letter is…. Well, I’m not sure what it’s set to accomplish nor how I want to respond. From the tone, I’m GUESSING that any answer short of “oh my God, I didn’t realize! Of course you’re right and I’ll cancel the show immediately” is just going to drag me into a rabbit hole of anger on behalf of the other party that’s going to get both of us nowhere.
Wandering around Austin, TX and passing the one of the more retro hotels (oh, how I’m suspicious of it now…) I wonder how many people have taken this same photograph… Well-played, Octopus Project… well-played. yet another infusion of barbeque as every town tries to convince us that IT does it BEST.
I’m not canceling the show. Beyond that, unless I get to the show and see someone in a wheelchair struggling at the entrance and the owners of the venue sniggering at the top of the stairs, I don’t think I’m going to bring this up with the venue at all. We’ve played a LOT of venues that are not ADA compliant and though I have sympathy for the issue, there are too many old buildings that are small venues that will never be able to afford retro-fitting their space with elevators and / or ramps. I also certainly have sympathy for the small business owner that frankly has to satisfy the needs of the many over the needs of the few or the one… even Star Trek tells us this.
I’m not clear on the laws here – but I AM clear that at under a month before the show it’d be unprofessional for me to back out of the gig and that as a working musician it’d be financially impractical for me to back out of the gig and that as a member of the musical community it would be unwise for me to poison this well by attacking my employer. I imagine the person on the other end of the line has a day job, and I’m not quite sure what their response would be if I wrote to them and said “your employer does x, and I’ll be needing you to NOT go to work today”.
Now – IF I’m feeling optimistic, these are thoughts that I could or might fire back with – because a) I DO understand the problem and b) fundamentally agree – but I believe in working out problems, not just making noise about them and expecting someone ELSE to solve them. As a performer, I only have two options – shut up and do the show or b) cancel the gig – I can’t change anything at the venue, nor will anything happen with my expressing my displeasure. There are plenty more performers itching to take my place.
One of the house mammals gives my nose a good cleansing at the Listening Room. One of the OTHER beesties at the Listening Room. I didn’t catch this parrot’s name, but he was the subject of straaaange rumours. Getting set up at the Listening Room at Waxahachie City Limits in Waxahachie, TX. A very fun night that we hope to repeat come fall.
The venue is who has the power here – and presenting this in some way in which it’s attractive or (forgive the pun) accessible to them is the only way the problem can be solved sans just eliminating the business all together.
If you just want to apply pressure on the venue – putting together a list of venues that violate the ADA and publicizing your cause will no doubt make those venues unhappy and will certainly shame them. Perhaps venues will be moved by this highlighting of where they’re falling short and work to eliminate the problem.
If the individual has time (and probably money) on their hands, I’m sure the American Disabilities Act has provisions for suing businesses in non-compliance. Contacting bands and saying “that place you’re playing is bad” is next to useless… contacting venues and saying “you’re in violation of the ADA” will be a blip on the radar… a lawsuit gets attention with a swiftness, and presumably gets action because of the threat of punitive fines or legal retributions….
However, what I’d LOVE to see would be an individual who says “this venue’s in violation of the ADA – let’s see how we can raise the money to get them IN compliance and solve the problem to everyone’s benefit!”. Fundraising shows, kickstarters, whatever method is chosen in order to actually put together the cash to provide a ramp or elevator or whatever other accessibility options are necessary would be a cooperative and POSITIVE course forward…. Highlights the issue, gets press, music is played, music continues to get played and a couple more people get to listen to boot.
Unfortunately, I imagine that if I were to suggest this I’d just be inviting a dialog that I don’t want and I’ve grown cynical about people with causes and somehow don’t imagine that we’re looking for a constructive solution here… again, no pun intended.
I think I’ll try some sort of response after the show, suggesting the above – but having received paragraphs and paragraphs about how important their plight is rather than paragraphs and paragraphs about how they’ve tried to change things, I just bet no-one on the other end is interested in listening.
I saw a bunch of these things outside a mall… I THINK it was art…. – just not something you see everyday! Yay! A jumper practicing safe gravitational submission.
*as a side note, I’ve of course now read a lot about the American Disabilities Act – I’m no lawyer but I DO like to become at least a little educated about this stuff… since a BIG PART of Title III of the ADA is given over to the concept that buildings constructed before 1992 (which this venue certainly is) need to comply with the ADA inasmuch as this is “readily achievable” – and that the term “readily achievable” is defined solely through the court system as what a judge determines is reasonable for a given business to accomplish – it’s not for me or this email-activist to decide what the venue should or should not do, or to declare that they are violating the civil rights of those with disabilities – they are NOT in violation of anything until a court has determined what it is that is “readily achievable”. And a court doesn’t do THAT until a complaint or lawsuit is filed.
Blah. Yeah, that answer probably wouldn’t be too welcome either.
