Hall of Fame: The Showbox SoDo

This is going to be a bit of a stub, as I unfortunately have not been to a show more recently than about three months ago, so I will update this again when my memory is fresher. But given my recent NIMBY railing against the CHBP, I think it behooves me to bring up an example of a music venue that does it right- the Showbox SoDo.*

If you are familiar with the aforementioned post, you may recall my primary beef with the CHBP is its lack of arrangements for a designated viewing area for patrons with disabilities. These areas aren't just** a matter of making sure we're able to see the stage, they're a necessary safety precaution. In crowds as dense as those at shows, people aren't as aware of their surroundings. Rather, an accepted form of "rocking out" often involves slamming and jostling side to side, or even full on moshing and crowd-surfing. Not only is it easy for someone with a disability to get seriously injured by their oblivious neighbors in a scenario such as this, but it is likewise nearly impossible to extricate them from said oblivious crowd in order to then seek medical treatment.

And should you need a bathroom, may your deity of choice, or lack thereof, help you.

The Showbox SoDo addresses this issue neatly by cordoning off a section of the Lounge for disabled patrons, which is elevated above the show floor (accessible by ramp) and thus has an unobstructed view of the stage. There's a floorplan here, the area sectioned off is usually the tables overlooking the ramp. The view is a bit angled, but due to the height, a lot clearer than you might expect looking at the diagram. (Occasionally, some douchebags will decide to use said ramp as a vantage point to camp out on in order to take advantage of said view, thus obstructing access to, and blocking the view from, the disabled seating section. However, show security staff have noticed this trend and have started posting someone at the top of the ramp to discourage this.)

 The disabled seating section was also able to take advantage of the Lounge food and drink service. Before the show, and between sets, wait staff even came over and took food and drink orders, in case no one was able to navigate the crowd in the Lounge to get up to the bar. Outstanding!

The Lounge also has easy access to the bathroom facilities, which are located on the other side of the ramp entrance from the disabled seating section, and are equipped with accessible stalls. And as the Lounge does not get quite as crowded as the main floor during shows, I was even able to use said facilities. Afterward, I thought I might have hallucinated this experience, as a result of the excellent cocktails my brother kept buying me. But no, that actually happened.

I cannot over-state how amazing that is. I have never been to a show elsewhere where I was able to negotiate the crowd mid-show to make use of the bathroom- I always had to go before, and then wait until the crowd thinned out after.***

The set-up in this area is so sweet, that when friends join me in the disabled seating section, this is seen as a privilege. If the section is getting crowded and you brought a bunch of friends, you may have to split the party; but for the most part, the SoDo staff try to be flexible about letting friends stay together. None of this "one companion only" stuff that makes you feel like somebody has to draw the short straw and babysit to keep you from feeling bad, while everybody else runs off to party it up on the dance floor. No, man, here you get the VIP section. The short straw is reserved for those banished to the main floor to make room.

Do note- in order to avoid complications, you need to specifically buy an ADA ticket. Note that this has changed; it used to be that all tickets were general admission. Now that they have a specific seating section, though, they have to factor in its limited capacity. That said, it has yet to be my experience that it even half filled up- though that very well may change once word gets out that the Showbox SoDo is not only a safe venue, but a swank one.

Also note: if you have medication that you need to bring with you, even though this is a bulky PITA, you need to bring it in its original prescription bottles, or they won't let it in. Water bottles are also verboten. You can get a cup of tap water, but it will take you backed-up bar lag time to get it. I recommend arriving early and getting lots of water right away, so you won't have to mess with it later. I... honestly have no idea why eye drops are forbidden. Maybe some kind of drug thing? If you get a doctor's note and call ahead, they probably won't hassle you over that.



* Incidentally, The Showbox at the Market is pretty good too, but their older building imposes some architectural challenges that warrant a more detailed review, at a time when my memory is fresher. Sadly, while still accessible enough, a Hall of Fame-er it is not.


** As though that's a trivial issue, or asking for some kind of special privilege, which it is not. We paid to be here too, and we are not equally equipped to fight for a position in the crowd. And when you are in a wheelchair, unless you are right up front, pretty much all you get is a view of everyone's stupid skinny jeans falling off their ass and a bunch of elbows to the head.


***That said, between sets there does tend to be a pretty epic, and non-navigable in a wheelchair, crowd lined up for the women's restroom. Because of this, if you have to go, I recommend going during the set. Guys, on the other hand, should have less difficulties.

Book Review: Sustainable Creativity by Michael Nobbs

Calling this a book review is over-stating the case more than a bit; I haven't actually had a chance to read it yet, so this is more link bait than anything else. But just as I was about to file this in my (eternally out-pacing me) "blog later" notes, the appealing irony of the situation convinced me otherwise.

So here you go- a book on how to make room in your life for creative work, written by an author coping with chronic illness, and constrained energy reserves such entails.

I look forward to reading it and reporting back, but in the meantime..

Sustainable Creativity by Michael Nobbs

Hall of Shame: Capitol Hill Block Party

The CHBP is a summer mainstay of the Capitol Hill area, however unlike its name implies, a small neighborhood community event it is decidedly NOT- no matter how much it declines to be compared to one, it is a music festival. A raucuous, sprawling, profit-driven, drunken extravaganza that spills out into the streets surrounding its black tarp barricades- this year for three days, Friday July 22nd 3pm through Sunday the 24th 2am. Though the subsequent carousing can be expected to take longer to filter back out of the many bottlenecks imposed by the neighborhood streets surrounding.

Do I sound bitter? I am, a little. I like a good party as much as the next, but this is not a party I would feel safe attending, nor would I recommend it to anyone else with a sensory or mobility impairment. So while I get the noise, the mess, the inconvenience of having one of my favorite parts of the neighborhood blocked off all weekend, and an uptick in getting hassled by drunken assholes, I get none of the fun of the bands, crafts, literary events, or drunken partying myself.

The CHBP website lacks information about accessibility, and when I emailed the organizer, Dave Meinert, to inquire about access, the reply was prompt, but confused. All the streets and individual venues were accessible,* he said, so clearly the festival was too, right?

Wrong.

What about the crowds? I asked. What about the perfectly able-bodied people who get injured by said each year? ** Are there any provisions being made to assure safe queuing and traffic flow for people with disabilities?

The answer that came back was that no provisions were being made, because no provisions were necessary. Sure, it gets crowded right up by the stage, "as at any show," and if I wanted to get close to the main stage, I could talk to the production manager, and they would "work something out." Otherwise, there were no crowds. No queues. No problems. Nothing to see here, move along.

Now, while Meinert may say that he doesn't want the CHBP "...to be Bumbershoot (or) ...to be Sasquatch," the fact stands that it is a major, for-profit music festival with an extremely high attendance in an extremely confined area. And at least Bumbershoot and Sasquatch provide explicit accessibility accommodations and information regarding such on their websites.***

Now, by some accounts, steps have been taken to improve the situation from previous years. Ticketing has been capped at 500 fewer per day than previous years, and steps have been taken to prevent people ducking the barricades and slipping in for free. (Though how effective those measures will be remains to be seen.) But still, while CHBP is a much smaller festival than either Bumbershoot or Sasquatch, it still faces similar crowd-control issues, (if anything, worse ones,) and the blithe denial that there could be any problem at all indicates either profound naïveté or willful ignorance regarding accessibility issues- neither of which bodes well for your safety or comfort in this situation, gentle reader.

UPDATE: So, the CHS Blog's wrap-up post on this year's CHBP shows some crowd-sourced pics and videos that indicate that the crowd situation on the street has indeed improved a bit this year, but inside the music venues it still looks pretty impassable / borderline dangerous for the disabled. (Crowds that packed + crowdsurfing + no designated area blocked off for people with disabilities is, in my experience, not a good combination.)

That said, if you want to attend for the literary, political, and crafting events, it looks like those might go a bit better now that the street traffic has improved.


* I would actually contest this, especially for the Comet, which lacks accessible toilet facilities, but I haven't written those reviews yet.


** Note the comment from Curtis Bigelow, from the Lobby Bar. I hear a lot of stories, but they may be getting blown out of proportion, or people may be machoing it up and taking for granted that trample injuries come with the territory. If I were a real reporter, I would wait until this weekend, and then go hassle the poor scrubs in the ER and UC units.


*** In fact, I've had exceptionally good accessibility experiences with Bumbershoot lately. In the past couple years, they've made a huge effort to improve access throughout the festival, and it really shows.

Hall of Shame: Seattle's Comedy Underground

Want to hear some outrageously funny humor, the stuff that people visiting Seattle flock to because they don't have it in their home town? Want to go to Seattle's famed Comedy Underground? If you can't take stairs, the answer would be (almost surely) NO.

I called once to ask if they had an accessible entrance, and they laughed me off. Of COURSE they aren't accessible, they're underground! Apparently living up to a cool-sounding name is sufficient reason to exclude disabled patrons. To rub salt in, the individual on the phone reminded me that because they are not federally funded, they don't HAVE to be accessible.

But out of the goodness of their hearts, if you should naively show up without having considered these matters, prepaid tickets in hand, they will, if you don't stop them--I swear to you--send a couple of large, clumsy men ambling up the stairs who, without asking about which parts of you are easily hurt or any special ways that you can be moved, will SWEEP you from your cane or chair and thump-thump-thump CARRY you down those stairs. Only those of us ready with arms outstretched in the universal stop-go-no-further position escape.

The truly desperate who are able, and who want in badly enough, can sit on the stairs and bump their way down on their butts. This at least instills some sense of shame and discomfort in SCU management, and that's something, anyway. I myself can't get down there that way either. My tickets last time had been purchased at an auction, and rather than ruin our group's good time, I struggled down the stairs. It was bad, and getting back out was worse. I would never do it again, and SCU should be prepared to offer refunds for tickets sold without a no-disabled-entry disclaimer.

Ultimately, the only thing that can redeem the SCU from this blog's Hall of Shame is a new venue, even if it ISN'T located clear down in the depths of hell, since installing an elevator (as was pointed out to me by one apologetic staffer) involves drilling through brick, and isn't really feasible. But since they seem to be very successful with their current strategy, i.e., catering exclusively to the able-bodied, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for change. Save your money for a place you can enter pain-free. Seattle is a big city. Have fun somewhere else. (Those who can recommend comedy clubs that are funny AND accessible, please enter a blurb in our Hall of Fame posting area).

CureTogether Blog » Infographics

Another great idea whose time has come- crowd-sourcing feedback on the efficacy of popular remedies for various conditions. They then graph the results, Popularity by Efficacy, highlighting the regions that denote remedies that are popular, yet surprisingly ineffective, and the remedies that are under-used, yet surprisingly effective.

CureTogether Blog » Infographics

ClearHealthCosts

Here's an idea whose time has long since come- an online collaborative database of medical procedure costs across different hospitals and locations. So far, in its beta it seems limited mostly to New York, but they're hoping on expanding it to cover the whole US.

ClearHealthCosts | Bringing transparency to the health-care marketplace

Blogger and Screen Reader Accessibility

So, while I'm all fever insomnia-ed, (**sigh,** AGAIN,) I've been working on auditing les blogs for compatibility with ARIA standards, using FAE and WAVE- and man, this stuff is tough. While Blogger defaults for the most part are pretty ok, a lot of the templates and widgets need some cleaning up. For the templates, it's mostly just the small matter of adding a lang="en" tag and replacing the odd spacer image with CSS, but a lot of the widgets in particular generate images without explanatory alts, and I can't get at the code to add them.

The mobile version might be a bit better, as all the widgets are stripped out. FAE doesn't like it much, WAVE rates it more or less alright. I haven't tried actually navigating it with a screen reader yet, so I couldn't say for sure. If it works out, great- we'll just link it at the top. Otherwise, I may just ditch the widgets for a bunch of hand-coded sidebar, instead.

In the mean time, in the interest of at least making our RSS feed more screen reader friendly, I'm making a few Best Blogging Practices resolutions:

1. Stop abusing the alt tag for mouseover text, and use title, like we were supposed to all along, people.
2. Replace italics with <em></em> tags. Because man, if there is one thing I love, it is being emphatic.
3. Use the /emote convention instead of bracketing with asterisks, (e.g. /sigh instead of the **sigh** above, so that it reads "slash sigh" instead of "asterisk asterisk sigh asterisk asterisk".) 
4. Try to cut down on the emoticons. (Maybe I can put these in ARIA labelled blocks, so that ^_^; reads "awkward smile" or something? I'll download a JAWS demo and play around with this a bit later.)

Anyway, I've only just begun to skim the documentation on WIA-ARIA standards and markup, so I'm sure I'll find lots of room for improvement, here and elsewhere.

It Really IS Okay to Use the Store's Scooter

As a cane-walker, I have long been leery of using the little scooters in the store. For groceries, I actually prefer to order them delivered instead, but not every slow-walker has that choice. Today I went to a HUGE hardware store, wanting very much to see samples of carpet with my own two eyes before ordering something that expensive. But on top of being a slow-walker, I have recently had a painful surgery that doubles the burden of walking. Then I was struck by the recommendation of a well-bodied young friend, that I had rejected over and over...use the scooter!

I had avoided this because it seemed like cheating. What if someone in a wheelchair came along and there were no scooters left, because of me? But then I noticed that unlike disabled parking, scooters never seem to run out. I had also been afraid that if I stood up in order to get a better look at a sample posted too high on the wall for me to examine seated, I would get dirty looks (horrors!). I could already feel the accusations. Hey, you! Why are you in the scooter when you can stand? You're just fat and lazy, aren't you?

Nothing of the sort happened. People were very solicitous, actually, and we (my son was with me) had to go back and forth between two departments that were NOT close together. This would have just done me in on foot, but with the scooter, it was just dandy.

So get out of your house if all that is holding you back is the size of a store or other facility that provides scooters. No one stares, they just step aside and get out of your way! I wish I had listened to my friend years ago. What a difference!

So What Makes For A Hall of Fame Venue? Wheelchair Perspective

Earlier, I was watching this video on art and architecture, and it got me thinking about the design of spaces and our interactions with them. A lot of the time, accessibility features are an awkward, tacked on afterthought, rather than an integral part of the design process. And when interacting with spaces like these, I feel just like that- awkward, out-of-place, an afterthought.

Often overlooked are issues of scale and flow. There will be beautiful panoramic views from windows whose sills are at the height of my shoulder. Elegant paintings and photos will adorn the walls over my head. Chairs and sofas will be drawn together in cozy conversational groups- with no room for me to draw my chair up next to them. Narrow hallways with sharp corners have more than once lead to someone running straight into my lap! Even the acoustics of PA systems are always subtly blurred by the time they reach my ears. And if it's this bad at wheelchair height, I can only imagine what it must be like for people with dwarfism or other restricted height disorders.

A personal case in point: the apartment I lived in previous to my current one was a unit in a modern building that had been designed specifically for ADA access. When I moved to my current apartment, in a much older (historic!) building, even though we had to jury rig a few things to make it work, I felt oddly far more comfortable and "in place" here than I ever did in my old apartment. It took me a whole month to realize that it was the windows that made the difference- my old apartment had high sills, and I had to crane my neck to look out them, much less open them. My new apartment, on the other hand, has lovely vintage French windows, and I can gaze to my heart's content.

It's no small feat to find a design style that seamlessly incorporates wheelchair height design scale with the more standard scale- which is why it's all the more impressive when I've seen it done. And, by fluke or by deliberate design, I have seen it done. Unfortunately, most of the examples that come to mind at the moment were from my time in Tokyo, (not the most accessible place on Earth, but when they design for access, they really design for access!) but I'm going to make it a personal mission to hunt down some in Seattle to post here!

Riverview Plaza Medical Complex: Thumbs Up, With Reservations !

I take one of my children (not my blog partner, LOL) to see a doctor in the Riverview Plaza. This is a large, multi-building complex near the Southcenter Mall in Tukwila. When we pulled up for a first visit, I drew in my breath. Boy, that's a big building! Here goes nothing! I parked in one of the two handicapped spots and hopped out.

My daughter and I entered two large, heavy doors there's no auto-open; my kid opened the door but a lone slow-walker with weak arms might be challenged here-, followed a curving hallway, and it took us straight to an elevator. Up. Down the hall. There we were.

Although I am writing from the perspective of a cane/slow-walker, I will note that this one office would not have accommodated a wheelchair (but then, you'd still be trying to get into the building). From my own perspective, I was happy. The chairs were high enough to accommodate my knees, and the doctor gave me his own chair when I went into the inner office with my daughter, rather than leave me with a choice of low seats. For slow-walkers, this building may take you awhile...hey, it's a big building...but they have located the elevator in the center of the building to give everyone an even shot at reaching their location. I think they did a great job!

hello world

**sidles in, waves**

"So, I suppose you're wondering why I called you all here today..."

**crickets**

"ahem"

I guess I'll start off by introducing myself. I'm the aforementioned daughter of the dynamic duo, (**points to sidebar**) and I'll be mostly blogging about wheelchair access issues. For details, check out this post on my other blog, So What's Up With The Wheelchair? A Quick Reference

Both my mom and I have primarily mobility and health related impairments, but we'd love to recruit some contributors from the local community with sensory or learning impairments. Of course, more contributors with mobility and health impairments are also welcome! Our hope is for this to become a community resource.

Seattle has a lot of excellent neighborhood blogs, but when I tried Googling "seattle disability blog" the results were, for the most part, depressingly sparse- a couple of government resource pages, a couple attorneys, one or two newspaper articles, the usual assortment of spam squatters... So hopefully, we can help fill that gap!