Patch's Diary
May 2005
Two Gesundheit! Hospitals Proposed for Austria
Dear Friends, It’s good to be up in communication again.
The most exciting news I have to report is about the initial talks we have been having with major hospital builders of Austria, V.A.M.E.D., including a conference with the Austrian Minister of Health to consider their building one or two of our hospitals in Austria. This thrilling prospect has our community a-buzz! I’ll tell you more below, but first, I begin my report with last June, 2004.
The School for Designing a Society held a month-long school at Gesundheit! in West Virginia and I was privileged to teach there for a week. I brought Judy Wycks of the White Dog Cafe and Ralph Bronner of Dr. Bronner's Soap as two examples of wonderful ways to do business—as if everybody matters (and not profit)! It is thrilling that the School has decided to lead a month-long class in June of this year and that this might become a tradition.
In July I had my tenth annual two-week visit to Camp Winnarainbow in Leytonville, California, where I have gone for 10 years with my son, Lars. This performance art camp creates a wonderful opportunity for children of all kinds to learn performance art skills in the context of a language of peace and justice. I teach clown philosophy, which really is an open discussion on the subjects that are most fresh on youthful minds: Of course, we also make deep explorations into love and friendship, and explore issues around peace and the environment, the sweet love of diversity, and an encouragement for Wierd Pride. I try to radiate to the children that all their dreams are possible.
Sandwiched on either side of the camp is the National Youth Leadership Forum for Medicine in the Bay area, and I always lecture for them. Each time I am there, I get with 400 high school students from all over the U.S. and tease them with the vision of beautifully delivered health care. In the 10 years that I have done this, it has led to a thick and juicy correspondence.
For the first two weeks in August, 18 of us went to Peru. Many of us were high school students who had been on Gesundheit!'s first organized high school clown trip over spring break to Cuba in 2004. We're really interested in finding ways to interest teenagers in caring for all people and using things like spring break and the summer to volunteer and explore the needs of the world. I'm thrilled to say that both my sons were on both of those trips, as was Terra, the daughter of one of our other physicians, John Glick. This was our second trip to Peru, hosted by wonderful, young Peruvians, mostly medical students, and a clown group called Bola Roja, led by one of their TV stars, Wendy Ramos. On this trip we toured the southern part of Peru with bus rides and stops along the way. So many engagements as we wed the two groups in fun and love. Like the trip to Tibet in May 2004, several of our members got altitude sickness as we wound our way towards Machu Picchu. It was exciting to have Zappo on the trip, the first of three trainers from Camp Winnarainbow to join us in clown travel this last year. Together we went to many hospitals and orphanages, to ghettoes and of course wherever we stopped, we made a party. Sometimes it's those spontaneous stops that are the most memorable.
After being home a couple of days, six of us (John, Terra, Lars, Wildman, Susan and I) went to Japan. The Junior Chamber of Commerce invited us to come and clown around the country for 10 days, centered around a 3-day event in Kobe. Susan and I had suggested that this Junior Chamber gather 400 high school students from all over Japan for a 3-day symposium to begin designing a curriculum for teaching love, and they responded. The curriculum on teaching love is for children K-12, an hour a day, like math and science. The gathering was electrifying, and points to something we have been promoting wherever we go.
I don't really have time to name all of the one-night stands that I had throughout this period. They each were special. They each involved large audiences with either Susan and me, or me alone; on subjects such as love, joy, community, service, and delightful and all-encompassing health care delivery. This activity builds a richness of friends and connections that live in many ways throughout the year. It's a way we connect with health professionals and workers that could staff our hospital when it is complete. September, and much of October were filled with these events. It was great to go to Susan's home in Urbana, Illinois in that period and engage in the School for Designing A Society
As I mentioned, the highlight of October was a meeting Susan and I had in Vienna with the major hospital builders of Austria, V.A.M.E.D., including a conference with the Austrian Minister of Health. They are considering building one or two of our hospitals in Austria; or one in Austria and one in one of the poorer countries of Europe, such as Moldavia. Certainly having several models for exploring these concepts makes for a healthier evaluation and exploration.
I left that meeting on fire and had the great privilege to perform solo on the stage at the clown school of Switzerland's premiere clown, Dmitri, who is a national treasure. The house was packed. I think when I'm really honest with myself I feel that it is the clown me that I am most in love with. To be honored by my peers is a personal delight.
This was immediately followed by weekend workshops in Zurich, and four days in Brazil. (To show that the moss isn't growing underneath the feet!)
In November was the 20th annual Russia trip, with 40 clowns from 12 countries, ages 15 to 82. There was a sentimental tinge to the Russia trip. It was from this trip that I think my mature clown life blossomed for so much of the work we do in the world today. It was the fifth trip that my son, Zag, had joined with a film crew. We are making what for me is one of the most exciting projects I have ever had: a series of seven films documenting our adventures in clown diplomacy.
This project grew out of my frustration with people's response to September 11. Why are we not looking for loving solutions? Is it only possible to hurt someone we don't care about? If we loved everybody, maybe we couldn't hurt anybody. There is so little direct and profound messaging in the media and pop culture for loving everybody that I wanted to use my fame to try to create a series of movies that would show the excitement that can grow out of loving all people. This loving takes no skill. It simply requires action.
By this time I have seen some of the footage of Zag's films and it has exceeded my hopes. In fact, recently I have been showing raw footage from these pieces instead of the documentary "Clownin' Kabul," because they speak more to the actual delivery of loving. Be patient! We are working on the films. We are now beginning to approach public television to see what could happen. It is beautiful to see the things in Russia that have grown out of our 20 years' visits: the miracles of care that Maria Yeliseyeva and her staff have done for so many hundreds of orphans. It is exciting that people who have come on these trips and have been exposed to Maria's Children, and Maria's own radiance, have mostly made her work self-sufficient. (www.mariaschildren.org)
I might like to add here that it was at about this time that Wildman and I agreed that it would be nice to have one speaker agency do most of our bookings. We chose BigSpeak. If you'd like to consider an event, contact Paige Kearin (805) 569-0654. They feel like family!
Because of Arafat's death, we postponed the December trip to Palestine, so there was no Christmas clown trip this year.
On the romantic level (not for the squeamish), in December, Susan and I began three months of being with each other. I know you're saying "big deal!" at this point. But our many years together have always been long distance. This broke all previous records! It included a wonderful visit to her family over Christmas in Chicago. Then we spent two weeks on the island of Nevis, working on a book that we are writing together, and furthering contact with the medical school there. We are very excited about creating a book called "The Politics of Care," to make the cry of revolutionaries louder for care than for freedom.
Right after that, Susan and I went to England for a week at Schumacher College, which was created around the concerns of E. F. Schumacher. It's a university concerned with a health environment and the looting of the current style of globalization. It was great to have the same students for one week in this rustic English setting.
After a few moments at home, we really did a weird experiment! We went for a cruise on ... the LOVE boat!! That's right! Called Celebrity Cruises, this line hires us to give a few lectures on a boat that is carrying 2200 guests. We traveled from Buenos Aires, around the Horn, up the romantic Straits of Magellan, to Valparaiso, Chile. We did this trip as a hopeful fundraising adventure, knowing the very expensive price tag on the cruise, and having several thousand people able to pay this figure confined on a boat with us, at sea, for two weeks! We thought we might find support. I might as well bring that up now in this travelogue, to say that everything I do, in every way, is connected to the truth that our hospital must be built. I don't tell you of the two hundred books I read each year, and the concern I have that our society, indeed the world society, has disconnected compassion and universal care, even in countries with socialized medicine.
I have really one project. Because the funding has not come, I will even go on a Love Boat hoping to find it. We sure read a lot of books on that one! And we probably were the only two people to use the shuffleboard equipment.
We came home after a few days' stay with my older son, Zag, who lives in Santiago, discussing the film and enjoying his new interest in wine tasting.
Immediately upon our return, Susan and I had two days' meetings with the Austrian Minister of Health and V.A.M.E.D. to further the discussion of creating Gesundheit!-style hospitals there. And it continues.
After a week of one-night stands, I went to Italy for four days. Two days with the Rotary Company of Reggio Emilia, and then one day with our wonderful benefactor family. We made two house calls together. On the last day we went to see our musical clown sister, Mariana, who is conquering her cancer. Please send her your prayers. She is the violinist you saw in "Clownin’ Kabul."
After a day at home, we went on the fantasy spring-break trip. Because travel to Cuba has become very problematic, we were unable to repeat our Cuba adventures from last year. Instantly, we began thinking about tsunami relief in Sri Lanka. Our Italian friends subsidized the trip, as high school students, clown friends, and Airline Ambassadors went for a week in Sri Lanka (32 clowns from 6 countries). The trip was set up for us through connections with Airline Ambassadors. We covered 2/3 of the affected coastal area.
We worked day and night. We saw great tragedy. To see a flattened village and imagine it was created by a wave is humbling. I will never forget the strength and resilience of the people. I feel compelled to tell the audiences I have seen since then that here were people that — though their village was flattened, though most had lost many family and friends, though the displacement camps that they lived in were hellholes — when our bus drove up, 98-100% instantly and fully responded with celebration. When I have taken clowns to shopping malls in the United States I feel good to get a 25% response.
I am reminded in this experience of the complexities of outpourings of love and donations to help the tragedies of the world. Wherever we went we saw that the massive quantities of money donated had not yet made it to the people. Where was it? After three months we saw the people starting to protest as they lived in corrugated metal boxes in 100 degree heat without plumbing or electricity. Where was that money? How I wish I was much more involved than I can be at this time. I dream that were our hospital open and our school for social change in place there, we could have networks of builders that would take the money directly and build houses. I don't understand how greed and personality overrides even the most glaring humanitarian need. I'm sorry I don't have an address to give you, to help. I can tell you that one possibility is to look in your community for a team of builders and for community support. Go as a team yourselves, maybe send somebody ahead and just take one part of a village and rebuild that. I know it's so easy to put money in a jar, in a bank, or at the grocery store. Yet it might mean that the money went to the people who need it directly if a community developed its own little humanitarian team. It's the kind of little operation that could include high school students in the summer or spring break; a hands-on way for people to really get back to that idea I mentioned earlier about loving all people.
The week I got back I did seven different events in three countries. The one I feel I must tell you about is an adorable time in Santa Barbara, California. I got to meet Paige and the other great people from our speakers agency, BigSpeak, and am thrilled and honored to say that I met two comedic heroes. This was for an event for Direct Relief International, a wonderful organization that moves more than $100,000,000 of food and medical supplies to places like the tsunami-hit areas. It was started in the 1950's. I loved the organization and am already using them. (www.directrelief.org)
The person who introduced me as the speaker at their annual fundraiser was John Cleese. If there was ever a description that was most true about our early years modeling medicine, it was a "Monty Python" hospital. I loved being with John, and felt a brotherhood. And if that wasn't enough, right there at the fundraising event was one of the great masters of 20th century humor, Jonathan Winters. I loved his face! There was a constant subtlety in physical and verbal humor that required me to be alert to grab it. Each of them gave me wonderful feedback and I can only hope to see them again.
Now I'm here in Virginia for a week with Susan, anticipating building a hospital, as I feel a donation that I've been chasing for three years might now be real (I know you're laughing).
We’re hearing good things about Austria ... Oh! How could I forget?! Holy whoopee cushion! My brother had a baby! Excuse ME!! What am I? Sleeping? My brother had a baby. Yeah. How do you like them apples? My brother had a baby. Anna Maria. Well, not just my brother. My brother married Elisa and little Anna Maria was born in January. So don't give up your dreams! (He's 61). ANYthing is possible!
I feel a great privilege to be working with such deep and sweet people. I feel that we have a team of people, so ready to be a hospital, that caregivers and patients will love. I delight that in the effort to try to make that happen, we get ever more deeply involved in the concerns of the world. Please look at the reading list of the books I am putting in my library; the hundreds of them. As I read them, I'm trying to understand the problems and am insisting on making solutions. It is not a good time for "what-ever..." It is a good time to love everybody and to work overtime for care. Please turn off your TV.
Your buddy,
Patch
P.S. Last year at this time I wrote an entry and was advised that I could not use a nonprofit's forum to air partisan political views. It has taken me this long to shake that frustration. Designing my own private Web site was then proposed and I suppose I just couldn't go along with that and I dragged my feet.
