I like to like, you know, complicate the issue of human thought when, you know, you know
that there's three primary colors, and there's nothing else, and then all of a sudden a new
color comes in and just messes up your whole world.
I had a motorcycle accident in 2006. I hit a guard rail, went over, or hit a pole, and
then went over a 40-foot embankment and crashed on the side, off the side of the freeway.
I don't know how long I was there, maybe 10 minutes, and then when I woke up I couldn't
move my leg, couldn't move my other leg, because my pelvis was broken, tried to move,
and that didn't work, so I pulled out my cell phone and called 911 to come get me.
I've been riding motorcycles since I was four years old, so it's not really a matter
of like, you know, something done wrong or something you could have done differently.
It was just a matter of going, oh, and that was it. Anyone who knows motorcycle riding
is, there's only two types of riders, ones who have crashed and ones who will.
That's it, there's nobody else. So this was just my event, I think. A car ran me off the
road, it was a hit and run, and we never found the individual.
After the accident, it was a long process, you know, so it was the accident, and I spent
three and a half months in the hospital. They removed my left leg below the knee because
of compartment syndrome, because my body basically had so much else wrong with it.
So a lot of the recovery in the beginning was, you know, just slightly moving, you know,
having body parts moved for you and whatnot to keep some circulation going and just trying
to not do anything that's going to injure anything further. Then probably six months
worth of time went by while it was just basic rehab, and I did that all on my own.
I went to one day of rehab and it was more like geriatrics more than it was anything
kind of helpful. So I just kind of did it on my own. There's a lake called Lake Merced
up in San Francisco, and it's like a seven mile loop, and I would go out there when I
couldn't even walk yet and push myself around the lake, seven miles, and that's just kind
of the stuff that I would do. So you have to go through, I think, the seven stages of
denial, almost, you know, you have to just go through the whole recovery, you have to
say, okay, this didn't happen to me, this isn't happening, okay, everything's fine,
hahaha, you know, and then you go through the real pain of dealing with the situation,
working through a new identity, a new physical identity, like you're like, this is now my
body. I think that there's a physical sense to it, like you have to push yourself through
a certain type of pain in order to advance. If your leg hurts, most people will just
take it off. Oh, it hurts. No, leave it on. Leave it on as long as you can stand it. Walk
as far as you can. If today you walked a mile, in three days, walk two miles. Even if it
hurts, bring a cane just in case so you can kind of get off it a little bit.
I'm the first amputee to pull a backflip, I guess, in history that I know of. No one
else has come to claim it, so I'm assuming it's true. But yeah, on that and then on top,
adaptive BMX in the world right now, I went to the X Games, I can do tailwish, backflips,
360s, bar spin, you know, every trick. Pretty much a ride with most everybody.
I rode BMX since I was a kid as well. Like I said, I rode motorcycles since I was four,
and my dad had a cabin up in Paradise Pines, which is north of Chico, and we'd go ride
motorcycles all the time out there, and it was so much fun that I would ride BMX every
day of the week when I was not at the cabin, you know. We had a field behind our house
that I built jumps at, and the jumps were one mound, which turned into doubles, which
turned into bigger doubles and further and further and further, and then I'm doing jumps
over 40 foot jumps. But you see a long process of figuring out how to relearn to ride, because
it's not just pedaling the bike, it's weight distribution, it's pressure distribution,
it's, you know, the fact that I have less muscle on the left, lower half of my body
than I do on the right side. So not only do I have less power, but I physically have less
weight on one side now. So where this used to be even on a bike, this is now level.
I despise being afraid of something more than being afraid of the thing. You know what I mean?
So was I afraid of you on the bike? Yes, but I knew that getting on the bike would get
rid of that fear, and I don't want to be afraid of something, so that's what I have to do.
And the only way you can get rid of a fear is by doing the thing you're afraid of.
And that's it. I don't really ever feel like I have a problem when I'm on set.
Like a lot of people are like, ooh, that's Ron Perlman, I've got to act against him, you know.
I'm like, okay, just give it to me and I'll do it, fine. I have the hardest problem with
just basic memorization for an audition. Because when I walk into an audition room,
and there's all this new stuff, like it's like a picture of, you know, let's say it's your office,
and it's your family, and your friends, and you know, little doodads, and a penguin,
and I wonder about all these things, and all these thoughts are going through my mind,
and I need to focus on what I'm doing. When I'm on set, I go early on my own time,
and just sit in the space, and just kind of get to just be it, you know.
So working is easier than getting the job for me. Acting for me is liberating.
It's a little more like, almost like therapy, I guess, because I grew up in a blue-collar environment
where you're not supposed to have feelings, and it's very freeing to be in a safe place,
like a TV set or a film set, that you're supposed to discover feelings.
You're supposed to be open, and honest, and fair, and just with everybody, you know,
while exposing the weakest parts of you.
But being behind the camera, you know, you have control, you have the ability to make decisions
for characters, for where the storyline is going to go, how you want to put it out there,
how you want to edit it. Acting is like being the canvas, and being behind the camera
is like being either the paint or the paintbrush. They both create and do things,
they have two different functions. One is control, and one is the base to which you build that control.
I lost my leg. I was thrust into a new world, and I was completely blown away by what I saw.
I don't know everything there is to know about disability rights collectively.
I still say the wrong thing. Some people, like, you know, I say disabled people,
some people like people with disabilities, or people who have a disability.
Sometimes the terminology can get you all turned around, but one thing I'll never forget is
I was doing this scene with this lovely girl named Allison, who has a CP, and she,
and we were doing an acting scene together, and she, you know, her disability was pretty involved.
Like, she didn't speak very well, you know, she had a hard time getting the words out.
It was a little hard to understand her. And the scene was, you know, probably three or four pages long,
and we were going to perform it for 300 people. And so we did a couple of practice runs on it,
and then she asked me in her way, can I write you about the scene?
And I'm like, sure, this is how I talk to her the whole time. Absolutely, honey.
Anything you need, Allison. Anything you need.
And I treated her like a little kid. When she wrote me the email, I realized, you know,
I didn't know that she was working on her second degree. I didn't realize that she was more eloquent than I am,
and that she was just plainly smarter. She just had a hard time getting it out.
So I felt like a complete jackass, you know, and, but that's the thing is like,
I want to be clear to everyone out there that you don't have to know everything about it.
You can screw up, go step in it. You don't know, you know, until you know.
But go learn, go figure it out. Like, like when I saw someone rolling down the street
before my injury 10 years ago, I'd been like, oh, man, that sucks.
And not thinking that's probably a brilliant person that doesn't have an opportunity,
just because of people like me and my thought processes.
And then I became, I realized I was the actual jerk that I thought I never was
once I got disability and then learned about it.
