06 2011 UL 5 /J UN J ANDEL M OWIE H 70989 35509 $4.99 ISSUE 06-11 0 $4.99 MAGAZINE VOLUME 2011 HOWIE MANDEL JUN/JUL THE VOICE OF OVER 50 MILLION AMERICANS 2 ABILITY ABILITY 3 MANAGING EDITOR Gillian Friedman, MD MANAGING HEALTH EDITOR E. Thomas Chappell, MD EDITORIAL DEVELOPMENT DIR. Pamela K. Johnson CONTRIBUTING SENATOR U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) HUMOR WRITERS Jeff Charlebois George Covington, JD Gene Feldman, JD EDITORS Dahvi Fischer Renne Gardner Regina Hall Molly Mackin Howie Mandel interview p. 40 Josh Pate David Radcliff Denise Riccobon, RN 6 HUMOR THERAPY — Jockey: A Horse Tale (Pt. 1) Jane Wollman Rusoff Maya Sabatello, PhD, JD Romney Snyder 8 WIN WIN — Tickets to Ride HEALTH EDITORS Moses deGraft-Johnson, MD 10 ASHLEY’S COLUMN — Let the Racing Begin! Larry Goldstein, MD CONTRIBUTING WRITERS ENATOR ARKIN Hamill p. 18 Ashley Fiolek 12 S H — Where Are the Jobs? Paralympic Games Beijing Gale Kamen, PhD Laurance Johnston, PhD 14 DRLC — Rescue 411 Andrea Kardonsky Deborah Max Myles Mellor - Crossword Puzzle 16 BAD BOYS — United Airlines, H&R Block Paula Pearlman, JD Allen Rucker Kristen McCarthy Thomas 18 HAMILL — Bodyslamming a Theater Near You Betsy Valnes WEB EDITORS Recipes p. 38 FRANKENTONGUE — How I Licked Tongue Cancer Music Within Stan Hoskins 22 Mary Shafizadeh GRAPHIC ART/ 28 PARALYMPICS — A Leg Up on the Competition ILLUSTRATION Scott Johnson Melissa Murphy - Medical Illustration 32 UNITED CEREBRAL PALSY — The Power of Play Anna Blagovidova PHOTOGRAPHY 35 ZAMBIA — Advocates for African Children’s Rights Nancy Villere— CrushPhotoStudios.com 38 RECIPES — Tasty, Cancer-Fighting Dishes Zambia p. 35 TRANSCRIPTIONIST ABILITY’s Crossword Puzzle ABILITY’s Sandy Grabowski 40 HOWIE MANDEL — Showered with Riches DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS AFFAIRS Ryan Brown, JD 52 DYSLEXIA — Tangled Up in Blues MARKETING/PROMOTIONS Kayla Cherry Stan Hoskins 6O CROSSWORD,EVENTS & CONFERENCES Andrew Spielberg CONTENTS Ashley Fiolek p. 10 ABILITYJOBS.COM ABILITYMAGAZINE.COM Casey Mims ADVERTISING DISTRIBUTION CORPORATE SHIPPING EDITORIAL For advertising Warner Publishing Services 8941 Atlanta Ave. [email protected] information e mail A Time-Warner Company Huntington Beach, CA 92627 [email protected] Faxon - RoweCom Library Tel 949.854.8700 or call Services TTY 949.548.5157 NON-PROFITS 949.854-8700 ext 306 Ebsco - Library Services Fax 949.548.5966 ABILITY Awareness Swets Blackwell PUBLISHER/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Chet Cooper ABILITY Magazine is published bimonthly by C.R. Cooper, 8941 Atlanta Ave. HB, CA 92646 (ISSN 1062-5321) All Rights Reserved. Subscriptions: $29.70 per 1 year (6 issues). Periodicals postage rates at Irvine, CA and at additional mailing offices. The views expressed in this issue may POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ABILITY Magazine, Attention Subscriptions Manager, not be those of ABILITY Magazine PO Box 10878, Costa Mesa, CA 92627; Howie Mandel - Jun/Jul - 2011 Library of Congress Washington D.C. ISSN 1062-5321 Printed in U.S.A. © Copyright 2011 ABILITY Magazine the father got the child hooked on cigarettes at the ripe age of three, in hopes of stunting his growth. By eight, the boy was up to three packs a day, and had stopped growing completely, which pleased his father to no end. “You done good, mijo,” he’d say. And Felipe would just smile, flashing his yellow-stained teeth, trying to suppress an emphysemic cough. Over time, it was obvious that the boy’s destiny was to become a jockey. Each night, he would watch television from the back of the couch, his butt reared in the air. Every so often he’d slap the cushion and yell, “Hi-ya! Home stretch!” His favorite show, of course, was Mis- ter Ed, starring a palomino horse who could talk; and, it wasn’t unusual to find the boy pos- ing on the front yard, with a lantern in his hand, his jockey underwear giving him a bit of a wedgie. elipe grew up around stables, where his father trained On his tenth birthday, the boy’s father took the horses for more than 25 years. But Felipe’s dad was little munchkin out to the barn for a surprise. Standing never considered a success, perhaps because of the in front of a new colt, his father said: names he chose for his thoroughbreds. (“Laggin’ Behind,” “Trottin Too Much,” and “Too Lazy To Run” “Happy birthday, son.” were just a few of his brainchildren.) Even though the horses more than lived up to their names, the stables “A brand new horse!” Felipe exclaimed. were not well-known, and the elder Felipe yearned to be taken seriously in the racing world. He longed to be a “No, the horse is mine. But this whip is for you,” Felipe’s somebody who merits mint julips at the happy-hour father said, handing the whipping stick to the child. price, any time, day or night. The whip was not actually new. Felipe had kept it from His son would be his ticket to fame, he believed. He his early S&M club days, always vowing to get back would be groomed to be a jockey. A great. Big. Little. into that hobby when time permitted. Jockey. The boy loved the riding crop, even though the colt did The elder Felipe had a special relationship with his son, not. From morning ‘til dusk, Felipe rode the colt because he had raised the boy all alone after his wife through the meadows, racing the wind until the wind was killed in a freak incident years earlier. The wife had lost. Sometimes he would gallop so fast that he would walked in on her husband as he was lip-locked with one literally break wind. Later, he would find a quiet place of his prized fillies. According to the elder Felipe, this to lie down, stare at the clouds and daydream about win- was all a misunderstanding. Man and beast were simply ning the Triple Crown. sharing a carrot—getting their antioxidants in, if you will. But when the wife confronted the filly, an argu- As the boy grew older, he began to feel inferior about his ment ensued. The mamacita fired off a tamale missile at size. Kids at school teased him, calling him nasty names the home-wrecking horse, which struck the animal in like Short Bread or Minnie Meat. Some even taunted him the nose. Ultimately, the filly got the last whinny, how- by leapfrogging over his head. It wasn’t long before the ever, as the woman was later found in a heap, with a youngster developed a Napoleonic complex, attempting huge hoof mark stamped on her forehead. The horse to lord over others to compensate for his small stature. He was put out to pasture, while the wife was buried in a became a ruthless tiger, attacking anyone who mocked pasture, after a brief eulogy by the local pastor. his size. One day, his English teacher asked: Little Felipe’s love for horses developed early. As soon “Do you know what a tall tale is?” as the boy could walk, his father crafted a wooden horse’s head and stuck it on a broomstick. Both he and “It’s a story,” was Felipe’s reluctant reply. the child would run around the barn with the contraption between their legs, each making galloping noises. “That’s the short answer, but I’m looking for a little Afraid that his boy would grow too tall to be a jockey, more,” the teacher said. 6 ABILITY Felipe sat quietly as his insecurity mount- ed. Was this old bag pushing him? “What’s a tall tale? It isn’t a short story? You’re a tiny bit off,” the teacher said. “Come on now. No more small talk.” Felipe jumped up and charged across the older woman’s desk, plowing her frail body into the chalkboard. Eventually, the alcoholic wood shop teacher came to her rescue, and peeled the boy off the bat- tered, shell-shocked woman. Staggering a bit, the teacher carried the pint-size punk out of the classroom, holding him by the seat of his pants, the child’s legs flailing as he yelled, “I’m a big boy!” Soon after that incident, young Felipe dropped out of school to concentrate on his goal of becoming a jockey. As a jock- ey, he would not be judged, he believed. Size mattered, of course, only not in the way it usually does. Every morning the budding jockey raced around the track, beating his time from the previous day. Finally, after a year, his father said, “Your times are fantastic, now let’s try them on a horse.” Felipe cheered, because his feet were killing him—he was tired of husking his own corns. When he turned 16, Felipe received a racehorse from his dad, who spent his life’s savings on the purchase. As his father picked glue out of the horse’s mane, the boy asked where his father had scored the prized animal. “Walmart,” his father said, patting the boy on the head. He didn’t have the guts to tell his son that the equine was an old Amish get-about, used to transport peanut-butter pies to roadside stands. From the beginning, the fledgling jockey and the half-ass thoroughbred were incompatible. Felipe would feed him sugar cubes only to have them spit back in his face. “You wanna piece of me?” the jockey would sneer as he got near the horse’s snout. The ornery animal would rock up on his hind legs, releasing a disgruntled “neigh.” And every time Felipe climbed up on the horse’s back to ride him, the animal would toss him to the ground, ABILITY 7 and then stand on the little jockey’s backside as if to say, “I’m king of the mountain now.” One day, the pair embarked on a trot through the country, and the jockey attempted to get the horse to gallop.