1990

Tom Olin's famous photo shows Adapt activists crawling up the steps of the U.S. Capitol building in support of the ADA.
photo by Tom Olin

cartoon drawing shows the imaginary Ed the Hothead, editor of Mouth, with a pencil for a brain.

Mouth was launched in 1990, just as the ADA was passed and the real George Bush signed it into law. Your editor was newly disabled and had not yet read the ADA, let alone fought for its passage.

Still, freedom was on my mind. Just months before, I'd escaped from a scary joint where I had been serving a life sentence for the crime of getting banged on the head. Go on, picture munchkins in cheap suits dancing out to welcome you to second class citizenship.

That New Medico CRS Facility (translation: "community reentry systems" -- my fellow inmates called it "Can't Remember Shit") was nothing but a tarted up nursing home. And not even licensed.

Gathered wisdom: If you get hit on the head, go crawl off under the bushes until you feel better.

During my weeks in captivity I saw that when any of us is caged, our world shrink-wraps to fit. No longer do we worry over whether the global is warming or even our long-lost freedom. Instead we fret about whether the only nice attendant is on duty and what's for dinner.

To save the size of my world, I made a list of Things To Do When I Escape. Making a magazine was on that list. The clips on this page are from the first This Brain Has A Mouth. I also had in mind to put New Medico out of business. (That's why I went incognito as Ed the Hothead, to keep from going up in flames; certain enemies of New Medico had fallen victim to mystery fires.)

Helping to get everyone free from disability lockups was on my list too. New Medico did go down, but I'm still working on that liberty thing. And today we have the law to do it with. That same beautiful ADA we won in 1990 is freeing us all at last. And we will get the freedom job done, together, all of us.

Oh yes we will. I promise you. -- Lucy

cartoon entitiled "The Consumer Guide to Voodoo Rehab" shows a therapist with a giant scary African mask by the bedside of someone in a rehab center.

another cartoon of a guy with a sawed-off skull and a big yap advertises the Big Mouth Little Brain Awards.

political drawing shows a fist breaking a wall. You can see stitches on the wrist, as if it had been badly cut. The caption says, "Sure Cure for Depression: Don't take it personally. Take it politically."

 

onward to the year 2000
with clips and quotes from the Mouth

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cartoons on this page by Ed the Hothead