Collected Item: “Danny Black Oral History, 2022/04/21”
Title
Danny Black
Who conducted the interview? List all names, separated by comma.
Kit Heintzman
Who was interviewed? List all names, separated by commas.
Danny Black
Email Address(es) for all interviewers. Separated by comma.
kheintzman@gmail.com
Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your oral history. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?
#accessibility, #aging, #ageism, #Alzheimers, #artist, #BLM, #booster, #clowning, #disabled, #dwarf, #dwarfism, #empowerment, #entertainment, #family, #friendship, #freedom, #groceries, #gun, #healthcare, #homecare, #hospital, #imagination, #joy, #Lansing, #littlepeople, #littleperson, #lowincome, #masking, #Michigan, #midget, #multiplydisabled, #performance, #protests, #senior, #shortstatured, #surgery, #technology, #telegrams, #telemedicine, #transit, #Trump, #vaccination, #videocalls, #war
What is the format of your recording?
Video
In what ZIP code is the primary residence of the interviewee? (enter 5-digit ZIP code; for example, 00544 or 94305)? In what city/town/village does the interviewee live? In what country does the interviewee live? All comma-separated.
Lansing, Michigan
What is the gender of the interviewee? Be sure to allow interviewees to self-identify their gender in the pre-interview or interview. *Do not assign a gender identity to interviewees.*
red blooded American male
What is the age of the interviewee?
65 to 74
How does the interviewee describe their race or ethnicity? Be sure to allow interviewees to self-identify their race/ethnicity in the pre-interview or interview. *Do not assign a racial or ethnic identity to interviewees.*
I think I’m a German, Scott, Irish Caucassian.
Describe the oral history.
Some of the things we discussed include:
Hustling for work: environmental sciences, photography, working in a discotheque and DJing at a roller skating rink, selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door.
Finding a career in entertainment and deriving happiness from others’ happiness.
Being recruited to deliver singing telegrams.
Acting in different roles: effeminate ballerina, Leprechaun, cupid, Christmas elf, little ape; creating a network of dwarf performers.
Performance events shut down in March 2020.
Trying to maintain work in the entertainment industry through Zoom; the difference between performing online and live.
How the political-correctness of this moment is making working in entertainment harder, taboos on effective marketing terms like “midget”; cancel culture.
Multiple surgeries.
Hearing about the pandemic from a rehab hospital bed with a broken femur; the rehab introducing COVID safety policy, including a quarantine ward; management stepping in as frontline workers.
Rehab staff informing patients about COVID safety precautions when sent home early; homecare workers’ unsafe behavior.
Becoming an empowered patient.
Telemedicine.
Video teleconferencing vs. phone calls vs. in-person interaction.
Communications technology changing over time; norms changing over time; learning new apps.
Agency on Aging stopped sending social workers out; friends picking up slack from social services agents.
Medicaid and medical services for lower income people; for-profit healthcare.
The ending of the mask mandate (18 April 2022).
Inadequacies of services for the low income, aging population.
Maintaining a household with/without help when in crutches/using a walker.
Being a social creature; pandemic pausing Wednesday night ritual of meeting friends for dinner since 2013.
Accruing health problems with age.
Entering sunset/senior years and wondering about wants for remaining years.
Quality of life while aging; wanting a celebration of life party while still living.
Divisions between the young and the elderly.
Political division in the USA; having a reality-show host running the country.
Constant, senseless wars and war-economies.
Summer 2020 and the BLM protests, fear of personal harm.
Guns and personal protection.
Getting vaccinated + 2 boosters; listening to experts.
Unvaccinated friends dying of COVID; not having caught COVID yet.
Getting first vaccination in winter of 2021 and difficulty managing snow covered sidewalks in a scooter.
Living through smallpox and polio vaccinations.
Dwarfism as a gift.
Cultural references: Rachel Carson’s (1962) Silent Spring, Burcham Hills Center for Health and Rehabilitation, Qdoba, Medicaid, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, Skype, Zoom, Little People Conference, Yellow Pages, 1992 Paralympics, BLM, Meta, Facebook, Tulsa Race Massacre (1921), Civil War (1861), Alice Dreger, Edger Allan Poe
See also:
http://shortdwarf.com/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF7fZt9Upsu6kXUivw3yBgQ
https://www.lansingcitypulse.com/stories/danny-black-and-the-decline-of-leprechaun-rentals,37
https://anchor.fm/david-naster/episodes/38--Is-Danny-Black-a-dwarf-or-a-midget-ebpqva
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB112164966153587999
https://www.thehastingscenter.org/lavish-dwarf-entertainment/
Hustling for work: environmental sciences, photography, working in a discotheque and DJing at a roller skating rink, selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door.
Finding a career in entertainment and deriving happiness from others’ happiness.
Being recruited to deliver singing telegrams.
Acting in different roles: effeminate ballerina, Leprechaun, cupid, Christmas elf, little ape; creating a network of dwarf performers.
Performance events shut down in March 2020.
Trying to maintain work in the entertainment industry through Zoom; the difference between performing online and live.
How the political-correctness of this moment is making working in entertainment harder, taboos on effective marketing terms like “midget”; cancel culture.
Multiple surgeries.
Hearing about the pandemic from a rehab hospital bed with a broken femur; the rehab introducing COVID safety policy, including a quarantine ward; management stepping in as frontline workers.
Rehab staff informing patients about COVID safety precautions when sent home early; homecare workers’ unsafe behavior.
Becoming an empowered patient.
Telemedicine.
Video teleconferencing vs. phone calls vs. in-person interaction.
Communications technology changing over time; norms changing over time; learning new apps.
Agency on Aging stopped sending social workers out; friends picking up slack from social services agents.
Medicaid and medical services for lower income people; for-profit healthcare.
The ending of the mask mandate (18 April 2022).
Inadequacies of services for the low income, aging population.
Maintaining a household with/without help when in crutches/using a walker.
Being a social creature; pandemic pausing Wednesday night ritual of meeting friends for dinner since 2013.
Accruing health problems with age.
Entering sunset/senior years and wondering about wants for remaining years.
Quality of life while aging; wanting a celebration of life party while still living.
Divisions between the young and the elderly.
Political division in the USA; having a reality-show host running the country.
Constant, senseless wars and war-economies.
Summer 2020 and the BLM protests, fear of personal harm.
Guns and personal protection.
Getting vaccinated + 2 boosters; listening to experts.
Unvaccinated friends dying of COVID; not having caught COVID yet.
Getting first vaccination in winter of 2021 and difficulty managing snow covered sidewalks in a scooter.
Living through smallpox and polio vaccinations.
Dwarfism as a gift.
Cultural references: Rachel Carson’s (1962) Silent Spring, Burcham Hills Center for Health and Rehabilitation, Qdoba, Medicaid, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, Skype, Zoom, Little People Conference, Yellow Pages, 1992 Paralympics, BLM, Meta, Facebook, Tulsa Race Massacre (1921), Civil War (1861), Alice Dreger, Edger Allan Poe
See also:
http://shortdwarf.com/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF7fZt9Upsu6kXUivw3yBgQ
https://www.lansingcitypulse.com/stories/danny-black-and-the-decline-of-leprechaun-rentals,37
https://anchor.fm/david-naster/episodes/38--Is-Danny-Black-a-dwarf-or-a-midget-ebpqva
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB112164966153587999
https://www.thehastingscenter.org/lavish-dwarf-entertainment/
On what date did you record this oral history?
2022-04-21T12:07