His name is Michael Philips.
He was featured on This American Life in the Episode called ESCAPE . Mike has something called Spinal Muscular Atrophy... A condition that nobody has lived past childhood... until recently..thanks to the miracles of modern science. Mike is in his mid 20's. He can't move his body, besides maybe 2 fingers and his face. Just recently a complication made it that he can't speak anymore now because he has a tube in his throat.
Mike is so close to death everyday of his life it is frightening. Mike communicates through a computer, or through facial movements/gestures.
But what s most important. Mike has taken control of his own life. He has great taste in music.. He dress's in all black, dyes his hair. Has an assistant who paints his nails black. Mike collects tattoos with meaning, goes to tattoo conventions.. is really well read and has great taste in films. Thats a recipe for a friend to me.
Soon as I saw that episode.... I said
"holy shit. This is the coolest guy I've ever seen in my life."
I HAD to find him. It just blew my mind. The show mentioned he had a blog... so I started there. I scoured the intertoobs till I found him. http://www.lithiumcreations.com/
Then I emailed him. Introduced myself.. told him our story and sent him a link to our flickr page...I said hope you get a laugh outta them. He wrote back.. You guys are awesome.
Cool.. I wasn't sure if he was a star wars fan... but I guess you don't have to be to get a kick outta our photos. I mean.. To be honest. I really don't even like the films all that much either.
Yah that's right I said that.
anyways
Then I began to read and post on his blog. He's so well spoken.. so articulate... I envy him in that way. It's sometimes really sad.. sometimes really funny.. Its his sence of humor that really got me from the start. But he's also really well read. and by well read.. I mean he loves Chuck Palahniuk too. So when he writes about a book. I want to read it too. Then I came up with an idea.
I worte to him. I said you should start an anti oprah book club. I could make stickers and put them on all the books you recomend. Think of what you want them to say.
He wrote back:
What do you think about, "If you don't read this, kill yourself"
Fucking LAUGH! ... is this guy awesome or what? You see what I mean about his sence of humor?
So that's what I'm doing right now. making these stickers. Then I'm gonna go into every bookstore I find..The bigger the better... and slapping them on every book Mike recommends. I'm gonna take photos of me doing it... with the helmet. and then send them to him.
Its gonna be our first Project Mayhem assignment. If this goes well... then Hopefully we'll keep coming up with more little projects. I want to be an extension of him.. to go out in the world and fuck with it on his behalf.. Have some fun and make each other laugh...
I have another plan... that I havent told him about. Is when we go to the Fan Expo next weekend. I'm gonna get as many geeks in costumes as possible to say Hi Mike! on video.. put it all together, put it up on youtube and send it to him. My ultimate goal is to get some of the celebraties at the show to say it too. I'm not sure if I can get them to do it... but I'm gonna do my best to make it happen.
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