Do Meet Your Heroes — Jack's new podcast & Maddie's amazing speech
My 15 year old son Jack has cerebral palsy. He's a kid with many passions and quite a few idols, and he's thought of a way he might get to meet them! Does anyone know Jack Black? 😀
Jack now has a podcast, because in the terrible lottery that is a CP diagnosis, he has lucked out with his communication skills. He enjoys talking, and listening, and people generally enjoy talking and listening to Jack. He’s a lover of people, and of life (I hope), and Do Meet Your Heroes is his attempt to create a show and practice his interviewing and media skills — although it’s possible he really does just want to meet his heroes, despite the warning the old saying imparts.
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Here is a clip of Jack bagging me for not doing enough episodes of Speakola recently.
Here is his series welcome.
Jack’s heroes are located mainly in the worlds of comedy, music, sport, media and family life. His first episode is an interview with footy content creator Caden Macdonald, who has made skits, parody songs, matchday vlogs, goal recreations and really every type of AFL video for his YouTube channel and instagram. Jack has been an avid fan ever since he was tiny. Caden wasn’t just available to be Jack’s inaugural guest, he’s also met with Jack before other Melbourne-Hawthorn games, and just been generally lovely to him.
After Caden told Jack in this interview that he aspired to be an AFL commentator, Jack told us he wanted to be a commentator too. ‘I want to do the Kid’s Call’, Jack said, which is a special channel 7 release a couple of times a year with underage commentators covering the action. ‘Won’t commentary be hard for you?’ I said, trying to keep things realistic. ‘Because you can’t see the game, really, can you?’ Jack has cortical vision impairment and very low vision, and relies on radio or our descriptions to follow the play. ‘Oh yeah' he said, deflated. I tried to bolster him by saying that boundary riders could be in a wheelchair, and that he could aim for ‘ground conditions and weather and that stuff’. He was quiet for a while, and then said something that really did break my heart. ‘Dad, I don’t want to have CP any more.’
Ten years ago, when she was Jack’s age, Ballarat teenager Maddie Fogarty delivered a speech at the Royal South Street Speech & Drama Society that made me cry, for similar reasons. It was something of a viral sensation at the time, and involved Maddie directly addressing her disability, as though addressing a person, and telling it exactly what she thought:
We have known each other since I came out of the womb. You have always been there, not a foot step behind me. As a young child I never quite understood what you were, let alone how much you would affect and impact my life. Now I’m an adolescent I can comprehend that you will never be gone and that I will never be able to escape your presence. I can now apprehend that you will always be suffocating me, you will always be intoxicating me with your disease.
It’s such a beautiful piece of writing and you should visit the whole speech below. A few years later, Maddie also won the Heywire regional storytelling competition at the ABC, with this piece of writing.
Maddie of course is not speaking for Jack, as much as I’m tempted to pair her emotions to his. In his podcast, Jack is speaking for Jack, and he’s often hilarious. Here is his promotion for my new picture book, The Elephant in the Room, followed by some expert show promotion by Jack. He really does love a microphone.
If you are interested in having yours or your kids name in The Elephant in the Room, fill out this form by August 20th (when it goes to print). There is a hidden idiom drawn into every illustration, as well as a surprise pregnancy (a la Dallas or Home & Away!) If you want my banking PIN, as promised by Jack in the above clip, get in touch via the usual channels. 😀
If you enjoy our first episode, pass it on, either by sharing this page or the podcast link. Liking this post will also give Do Meet Your Heroes a push along. And please read Maddie Fogarty’s ‘Dear Cerebral Palsy’ below. It’s one of the best disability themed speeches on Speakola.
Best wishes
Tony Wilson
Maddison Fogarty: ‘Dear cerebral palsy’, Royal South Street Society Speech & Drama competition - 2016
11 August 2016, Ballarat, Victoria
In this speech, 14-year old Maddie, of Ballarat, won first place in Ballarat’s Royal South Street Society drama and speech competition with her piece, Dear Cerebral Palsy. It was first published by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute web page for Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day and republished with permission on Speakola.
Dear Cerebral Palsy,
Isn’t it amazing how one’s life can be so perfect, even if it is for just a moment, even if it is stricken with fantasies and dishonesty, whether that untruthfulness lies in the form of a gorgeous imaginary boyfriend or a well-functioning, able body? Then I remember you, my worst enemy, who runs through my veins and clouds my mind. Then I remember all the rubbish that you’ve put me through, all the rubbish no young girl should even have to think about let alone experience.
We have known each other since I came out of the womb. You have always been there, not a foot step behind me. As a young child I never quite understood what you were, let alone how much you would affect and impact my life. Now I’m an adolescent I can comprehend that you will never be gone and that I will never be able to escape your presence. I can now apprehend that you will always be suffocating me, you will always be intoxicating me with your disease.
You are always on my mind, I can never stop thinking about you. The nights are often the hardest. I lay awake drowning myself in my tears. I imagine the miserable future ahead of me. I listen to you tell me that boys will not love me, that I have no place on this earth, that I would be better off dead. I think back to the countless times I have named myself the sad girl, the mistake, the girl with nothing for her. I think back to all those times you have insulted me, isolated me, constricted me.
I think about all those times you would try to introduce me to depression, try to intertwine us as one, urging me to find the highest ledge or the sharpest blade.
I replay all the cruel things you say to me, informing me with such a despised and disgusted manner, that I am useless, worthless, a waste of space, unlovable.
My life has been bombed with oceans of obstacles, skies of despair and millions of questions at the hands of your mission to make my life a living hell. My life has consisted of your taunts, your orders and your ugliness.
But you, cerebral palsy, you will not defeat me, you will not rule and ridicule my life. I will take your presence as a gift because I know that you are a part of me for a reason. I will take your presence as a gift because you are what has shaped me into the bright, bubbly, determined, caring, compassionate girl I am today. You will not destroy me, you will empower me to be the best person I possibly can be.
Sincerely,
Maddison
Race Around the World Reflections
Good one, Wilson is my personal newsletter, about family, disability parenting, sport, general observations, and most recently, the TV show Race Around the World, which finished this week. I was a previous winner of that show 27 years ago.
