[Music]
there we were 125 miles northwest of
Honolulu Hawaii beautiful day were
flying on just the sort of cloud surfing
I’ve got a full crew of eight all of our
weapons systems are operational and
we’re gonna be out here on station for
about the next eight hours or so
depending on fuel and wind and so forth
our mission today is to locate and track
Russian submarines report those
submarines their locations in and wait
borders those orders will be either to
continue to shadow them or to engage and
destroy we start to let down now to what
we can actually see the ocean and in the
kind of haze there I see a really dark
long object sitting on top of the water
we’re looking for submarines now this
thing’s up on top of the water and I
it’s a Russian submarine effect it’s
it’s it’s something called a tornado
clasp Russian sub which gives loaded
with nuclear weapons and I yell out into
my microphone target 12 o’clock and
before I can say another word all hell
breaks loose we are hit by a tremendous
blast fire smoke I’m literally blown
strapped to my seat right out of the
aircraft and I’m tumbling down and
there’s debris falling with me down and
down and off in the distance of this
darkness I can hear a woman’s voice
it vaguely sounds like my wife’s voice
but well that’s ridiculous you wouldn’t
be out here and then suddenly I’m hit
I hit something else BAM like that and I
can hear this crunching in my neck going
and my back is gone and I taste
something warm in my mouth there’s blood
in my mouth I can taste it and now my
wife Sandy is there
she’s right next to me and she’s saying
honey honey wake up wake up what’s
happening wake up and I realized that
I’m not out on patrol I’m in my bedroom
I’m right there next to my nightstand
I’m all curled up around this thing and
I
what happened she said well you were
standing up in bed screaming something
about a target and then you jumped off
headfirst right into your table well a
couple of days later I was at my
doctor’s office and I told him the same
story I just told you and I decided to
I’ve been keeping a laundry list of some
other things that were giving me a
problem and I decided to voice them some
of these things I’m just kind of ashamed
of I mean I I I wasn’t proud but the way
some things were going wrong in my life
for example I was starting to get a bit
of a tremor in my left hand I don’t want
to be old and have a tremor I’m having
problems with my computer in the left
hand also my keyboard the left side you
have to really go on it I got to get a
new keyboard for sure when I’m out with
my wife when we’re walking I’m having a
hard time keeping up with her now I’m
the man of the house I got to keep up
with my wife right when we went to
parties and in social situations it
seemed like I was invisible I would say
something and nobody would even the
conversation would continue without me
my voice I realized it’s kind of raspy
and it’s getting softer and I realized
there’s a problem they’re not quite sure
why you know everything was making me
crazy I don’t know if it’s happened to
you have you noticed that buttonholes
are getting smaller yeah really
I mean I’m like those guys are that must
be an economic thing so I told these
things to my doctor and I said to him
you know honestly I’m wondering whether
I’m I’m finished maybe I’m just maybe
this is the end maybe this is the way I
in my life I just kind of wind down and
he’s got a great sense of humor he said
I’ll Patrick wait a minute
before you start making plans for your
funeral let’s go get you a reviewed by a
neurologist and then we’ll take it from
there so we did all I went to to a
neurologist now this guy turned out to
be one of those people with absolutely
no personality whatsoever a big zero and
he examined me and he flatly said yeah
yeah
you’ve got Parkinson’s disease
Parkinson’s disease come on that’s that
thing that Muhammad Ali had or that the
actor Fox you know who I mean Michael J
Fox That’s not me
no there’s might be a mistake here yes
you have Parkinson’s disease it’s
there’s no cure for it we don’t really
know exactly why people get it but
there’s no cure and oh it’s progressive
it will get a lot worse
but don’t worry I’ll give you a
prescription get my help and it might
not more good news huh so I’m I’m still
a guess and I’m looking at him and he
holds up his hand like no more questions
now hands me this little booklet and he
says the answers to all your questions
are in this booklet come see me in three
months right I I have to tell you there
was two parts of meat-eaters you know
the Irish in me the dander was
definitely up I’m a fighter I’m come
from the school of refused defeat and I
don’t give up easy that was one channel
and the other channel was I felt like a
little kid
I want my mom to be there take care of
me
well we took the book home and we read
it and we went on the internet we
research this whole thing and by the way
just the way Parkinson’s works is you
have these connectors that are in your
brain there’s sending units and
receiving units and if you think of them
as having a little window on the front
of each they send a signal through and
the other one receives and back and
forth it goes and everything works just
fine but when those windows start to get
dirty they get cruddud up by something
then it some things don’t work quite so
well and eventually you know they don’t
work at all so that was kind of the
situation I was in however it occurred
to me that there were two channels here
to defeat this or at least to fight back
one of those is on the physical side on
the medication side so I was able to
gather together a different neurologist
than this guy I got a great neurologist
from LUMMA Linda University Medical
Center I got a great craniosacral
therapist I have a person to this work
with me on a program called big and loud
and when I think to do that I get bigger
and louder and then people who come to
parties know now I’m here you know so
that that channel seems to be working
over there I’m now we walked for a
couple of miles every morning vigorously
I I trained three days a week in a gym
I’m going to yoga two mornings a week
you know yoga stretching of type yoga
and I’m doing everything you can
possibly think of with my left hand I’m
squeegeeing off the you know the door
and the shower everything I can do
because I’m right-handed and I learned
to throw a ball also with my left hand
and I’m getting pretty good at it it’s a
four pound ball I throw it at the gym
and it bounces back and I do that and
it’s actually fun I also tried to teach
myself to eat with chopsticks of my left
hand
it is a great way to go on a diet so
that’s that’s that channel over here now
there’s another piece to this program I
come from a place where I I believe that
everybody is born with some talents some
some I call it a gift and that gift is
usually not quite finished it needs to
be kind of fully developed here and I
looked at my own life and that gift for
me has always been creativity creativity
as it relates to art or a design or
architecture I’m I’m a gum a creative
guy and when I graduated from college I
took that creative urge and I instead of
going into being a fine artist and I’ll
just tell you just momentarily here I
never had a desire to be a starving
anything so the idea being a starving
artist just did not appeal to me so I
went into the advertising world now
there my creativity and so forth was
helpful and I had a great run and
eventually I ran an advertising agency
for over 30 years we did some great work
I’m very proud of the work we did and we
introduced a lot of nice products that
you all use every day of your life I
could give you a laundry list we can
talk about it outside so it was fun and
I enjoyed doing that but I put off this
the art I put off fulfilling that piece
so now here I am a lot of people have
this package not everybody opens it for
good reason we say well I’m too old I’m
too young now I don’t have enough money
my parents said no you can’t do that
so now I’ve decided that I am going to
do it I’m going to develop this then the
question became how I didn’t have
anybody to call and say how do I become
an artist at this age so but then I
thought well I’ll think of the
I’ll read the life history of two of my
favorite artists and one of those is Van
Gogh I love Van Gogh’s paintings when
you see them in person they’re very
there’s a lot of texture to it there’s
no question that there’s a storm brewing
here you can hear the wind can’t you
going through that we free field so it’s
very visual it’s very active and I
thought that you know I want to do stuff
that’s like that I don’t want to copy
him but I want to do stuff like that and
the other artist that is that a great
impact on me is Georgia O’Keeffe I love
her flower I enjoy flowers anyway I love
her flowers and I always feel like I can
peek through that I can just pull that
petal back and I can look through there
and see what’s going on inside and see
the beauty of what’s inside so that was
I thought you know and then I I found
this quote from Picasso he said you
should always learn like a pro so that
you can break the rules like an artist
and that appeal to me – I have to tell
you so I started visiting museums and
and galleries in Southern California I
think over the next six months I try I
was everywhere and I was starting
experimenting with watercolors and
different media I took a lot of
photographs started learning how to use
Photoshop just a wide array of things I
spent about six months on I had a good
time but I at the end of that I really
didn’t feel like I quite had a direction
yet and then I went to clean out my was
gonna dump my waste paper again and
there was a colorful paper that I had
wadded up by something I had tried and
decided I didn’t like and I threw it in
there and now suddenly it had magic I
looked at I I opened it up partially and
I laid on a piece of white card and I
actually signed underneath it just to
see and I went that’s cool I like that
it’s um it’s dimensional it’s got
texture it’s got movement
I think this is it I think I’m going to
become a dimensional fine artist no I am
a conventional and fine artist
dimensional fine artists I was a stake
in the ground that’s it it’s done
so I thought I’d show you today a few of
the pieces that I’ve been doing over the
last three years this is my first piece
now it’s hard to see the dimensionality
I’m sorry that this is a your you’re
dealing if with a camera here and you
which is only has one eye and you need
two eyes but I do have some pieces in
the outside that you can view afterwards
this was the second piece I did if it
starts to get a little more a little
bolder and I started making these
gigantic flowers I’m making all these
petals from sculptured paper that I have
figured out how to make that work in
pastels and I can just make flowers as
big as I want great fun then I wanted to
try some different techniques I thought
the the Dutch masters I wonder how that
would look if I did something kind of in
that vein and so I did and I’m really
building up confidence as I’m going
along here I’m really convincing myself
that I can do it in many different ways
see that these are dimensional that the
dirt is not only in the picture but it’s
also outside the picture they’re kicking
up dirt this is called kicking up dirt
on opening day and I’m not just making
pretty pictures here it’s very intricate
putting these pieces together I’ve had
to learn a lot of new things and so in
that process I’m growing new channels of
communication the idea here is that okay
over here maybe it was a problem I don’t
know if I could do anything about that
I’m trying but over here maybe if I can
outgrow this thing as fast as it’s
destroyed maybe I can stay out ahead of
it so that’s what I’m trying to do here
this was a piece that I did for this
couple they wanted something from with
the national flower Puerto Rico and they
which are huge about the size of
basketballs and to give it some sense of
size I decided to put in a hummingbird
and it turned out when we delivered the
piece the woman started to cry and she
said I was like what what’s wrong and
turned out that her father-in-law had
recently passed
he was a birding aficionado that turned
out to be his favorite bird now I had no
idea but it just happened it was a cool
I was commissioned to do a piece by an
interior designer in New York and he
wanted certain colors and he sent me
pieces of fabric and paint and so forth
and so I did this piece here and while I
was working on it sandy went by and she
took her iPhone and took a few snapshots
of me and afterwards after we had
delivered the piece we were looking at
those pictures and it was like you know
it’s pretty cool the hands in there so I
did a second piece and actually put my
hands in and put all the samples in and
I entered this in the first big show
that I was ever in this was like a real
major show and I and I was chosen best
of show how do you like that boy nobody
was more surprised I can tell here and I
also entered it in the San Diego County
Fair last year there was 1,600 entrance
and I’ve got a first prize there so I’m
just going through and show you a few
other pieces there’s been a lot of them
it takes me about 60 to 70 hours to do a
piece here’s my tribute to Georgia
O’Keeffe so here I am I’m going along
I’m getting some awards I’m getting some
attention people like my work I’m
getting some commissions since I’m
having a good time and then I got an
invitation to come and speak at the loma
linda has a big conference every year on
parkinson’s disease so I had a chance to
go out and talk to about 300 or so
people who have Parkinson’s and their
caregivers as well as the surgeons and
medical staff it was very interesting
and afterwards a man came up to me and
he had a really bad shake and he shook
my hand and he said I want to thank you
it was really very inspiring and he said
you were also very depressing
and so we pursued that for a minute he
said to me I said why it was depressing
he said I want to do what you’re doing
and I can’t do it I’m sorry and so I
said what do you do he said well I’m a
woodturner I make these things out of
wooden and make these beautiful things
and I can’t do it anymore and so I just
I said could you teach somebody else to
do it using your equipment he lit up it
was like oh I could his wife was there
with him they were so excited they went
off to do this and I felt such joy and
that he had been inspired to go and
actually do something with that time so
here’s what I’ve learned from this
adventure that I’ve been on for me a
wake-up call was like a permission to
just go for it to make it happen and the
second thing is when you say I’m gonna
go for it doors just fly open all kinds
of things that have happened that I
would have never guessed would have
happened if I hadn’t make that put that
stake in the ground and then I guess you
know this but time is really precious
part of the issue here for people with
Parkinson’s or other issues is that the
the span of life that maybe if quality
is getting is shrunk so that time B is
very very precious and so my hope my
wish today is that when you’re thinking
about a wake-up call don’t wait for some
terrible thing to happen in your life to
get it my hope today is that you will
find right here at TEDx Temecula your
wake-up call
[Applause]
[Music]
there we were 125 miles northwest of
Honolulu Hawaii beautiful day were
flying on just the sort of cloud surfing
I’ve got a full crew of eight all of our
weapons systems are operational and
we’re gonna be out here on station for
about the next eight hours or so
depending on fuel and wind and so forth
our mission today is to locate and track
Russian submarines report those
submarines their locations in and wait
borders those orders will be either to
continue to shadow them or to engage and
destroy we start to let down now to what
we can actually see the ocean and in the
kind of haze there I see a really dark
long object sitting on top of the water
we’re looking for submarines now this
thing’s up on top of the water and I
it’s a Russian submarine effect it’s
it’s it’s something called a tornado
clasp Russian sub which gives loaded
with nuclear weapons and I yell out into
my microphone target 12 o’clock and
before I can say another word all hell
breaks loose we are hit by a tremendous
blast fire smoke I’m literally blown
strapped to my seat right out of the
aircraft and I’m tumbling down and
there’s debris falling with me down and
down and off in the distance of this
darkness I can hear a woman’s voice
it vaguely sounds like my wife’s voice
but well that’s ridiculous you wouldn’t
be out here and then suddenly I’m hit
I hit something else BAM like that and I
can hear this crunching in my neck going
and my back is gone and I taste
something warm in my mouth there’s blood
in my mouth I can taste it and now my
wife Sandy is there
she’s right next to me and she’s saying
honey honey wake up wake up what’s
happening wake up and I realized that
I’m not out on patrol I’m in my bedroom
I’m right there next to my nightstand
I’m all curled up around this thing and
I
what happened she said well you were
standing up in bed screaming something
about a target and then you jumped off
headfirst right into your table well a
couple of days later I was at my
doctor’s office and I told him the same
story I just told you and I decided to
I’ve been keeping a laundry list of some
other things that were giving me a
problem and I decided to voice them some
of these things I’m just kind of ashamed
of I mean I I I wasn’t proud but the way
some things were going wrong in my life
for example I was starting to get a bit
of a tremor in my left hand I don’t want
to be old and have a tremor I’m having
problems with my computer in the left
hand also my keyboard the left side you
have to really go on it I got to get a
new keyboard for sure when I’m out with
my wife when we’re walking I’m having a
hard time keeping up with her now I’m
the man of the house I got to keep up
with my wife right when we went to
parties and in social situations it
seemed like I was invisible I would say
something and nobody would even the
conversation would continue without me
my voice I realized it’s kind of raspy
and it’s getting softer and I realized
there’s a problem they’re not quite sure
why you know everything was making me
crazy I don’t know if it’s happened to
you have you noticed that buttonholes
are getting smaller yeah really
I mean I’m like those guys are that must
be an economic thing so I told these
things to my doctor and I said to him
you know honestly I’m wondering whether
I’m I’m finished maybe I’m just maybe
this is the end maybe this is the way I
in my life I just kind of wind down and
he’s got a great sense of humor he said
I’ll Patrick wait a minute
before you start making plans for your
funeral let’s go get you a reviewed by a
neurologist and then we’ll take it from
there so we did all I went to to a
neurologist now this guy turned out to
be one of those people with absolutely
no personality whatsoever a big zero and
he examined me and he flatly said yeah
yeah
you’ve got Parkinson’s disease
Parkinson’s disease come on that’s that
thing that Muhammad Ali had or that the
actor Fox you know who I mean Michael J
Fox That’s not me
no there’s might be a mistake here yes
you have Parkinson’s disease it’s
there’s no cure for it we don’t really
know exactly why people get it but
there’s no cure and oh it’s progressive
it will get a lot worse
but don’t worry I’ll give you a
prescription get my help and it might
not more good news huh so I’m I’m still
a guess and I’m looking at him and he
holds up his hand like no more questions
now hands me this little booklet and he
says the answers to all your questions
are in this booklet come see me in three
months right I I have to tell you there
was two parts of meat-eaters you know
the Irish in me the dander was
definitely up I’m a fighter I’m come
from the school of refused defeat and I
don’t give up easy that was one channel
and the other channel was I felt like a
little kid
I want my mom to be there take care of
me
well we took the book home and we read
it and we went on the internet we
research this whole thing and by the way
just the way Parkinson’s works is you
have these connectors that are in your
brain there’s sending units and
receiving units and if you think of them
as having a little window on the front
of each they send a signal through and
the other one receives and back and
forth it goes and everything works just
fine but when those windows start to get
dirty they get cruddud up by something
then it some things don’t work quite so
well and eventually you know they don’t
work at all so that was kind of the
situation I was in however it occurred
to me that there were two channels here
to defeat this or at least to fight back
one of those is on the physical side on
the medication side so I was able to
gather together a different neurologist
than this guy I got a great neurologist
from LUMMA Linda University Medical
Center I got a great craniosacral
therapist I have a person to this work
with me on a program called big and loud
and when I think to do that I get bigger
and louder and then people who come to
parties know now I’m here you know so
that that channel seems to be working
over there I’m now we walked for a
couple of miles every morning vigorously
I I trained three days a week in a gym
I’m going to yoga two mornings a week
you know yoga stretching of type yoga
and I’m doing everything you can
possibly think of with my left hand I’m
squeegeeing off the you know the door
and the shower everything I can do
because I’m right-handed and I learned
to throw a ball also with my left hand
and I’m getting pretty good at it it’s a
four pound ball I throw it at the gym
and it bounces back and I do that and
it’s actually fun I also tried to teach
myself to eat with chopsticks of my left
hand
it is a great way to go on a diet so
that’s that’s that channel over here now
there’s another piece to this program I
come from a place where I I believe that
everybody is born with some talents some
some I call it a gift and that gift is
usually not quite finished it needs to
be kind of fully developed here and I
looked at my own life and that gift for
me has always been creativity creativity
as it relates to art or a design or
architecture I’m I’m a gum a creative
guy and when I graduated from college I
took that creative urge and I instead of
going into being a fine artist and I’ll
just tell you just momentarily here I
never had a desire to be a starving
anything so the idea being a starving
artist just did not appeal to me so I
went into the advertising world now
there my creativity and so forth was
helpful and I had a great run and
eventually I ran an advertising agency
for over 30 years we did some great work
I’m very proud of the work we did and we
introduced a lot of nice products that
you all use every day of your life I
could give you a laundry list we can
talk about it outside so it was fun and
I enjoyed doing that but I put off this
the art I put off fulfilling that piece
so now here I am a lot of people have
this package not everybody opens it for
good reason we say well I’m too old I’m
too young now I don’t have enough money
my parents said no you can’t do that
so now I’ve decided that I am going to
do it I’m going to develop this then the
question became how I didn’t have
anybody to call and say how do I become
an artist at this age so but then I
thought well I’ll think of the
I’ll read the life history of two of my
favorite artists and one of those is Van
Gogh I love Van Gogh’s paintings when
you see them in person they’re very
there’s a lot of texture to it there’s
no question that there’s a storm brewing
here you can hear the wind can’t you
going through that we free field so it’s
very visual it’s very active and I
thought that you know I want to do stuff
that’s like that I don’t want to copy
him but I want to do stuff like that and
the other artist that is that a great
impact on me is Georgia O’Keeffe I love
her flower I enjoy flowers anyway I love
her flowers and I always feel like I can
peek through that I can just pull that
petal back and I can look through there
and see what’s going on inside and see
the beauty of what’s inside so that was
I thought you know and then I I found
this quote from Picasso he said you
should always learn like a pro so that
you can break the rules like an artist
and that appeal to me – I have to tell
you so I started visiting museums and
and galleries in Southern California I
think over the next six months I try I
was everywhere and I was starting
experimenting with watercolors and
different media I took a lot of
photographs started learning how to use
Photoshop just a wide array of things I
spent about six months on I had a good
time but I at the end of that I really
didn’t feel like I quite had a direction
yet and then I went to clean out my was
gonna dump my waste paper again and
there was a colorful paper that I had
wadded up by something I had tried and
decided I didn’t like and I threw it in
there and now suddenly it had magic I
looked at I I opened it up partially and
I laid on a piece of white card and I
actually signed underneath it just to
see and I went that’s cool I like that
it’s um it’s dimensional it’s got
texture it’s got movement
I think this is it I think I’m going to
become a dimensional fine artist no I am
a conventional and fine artist
dimensional fine artists I was a stake
in the ground that’s it it’s done
so I thought I’d show you today a few of
the pieces that I’ve been doing over the
last three years this is my first piece
now it’s hard to see the dimensionality
I’m sorry that this is a your you’re
dealing if with a camera here and you
which is only has one eye and you need
two eyes but I do have some pieces in
the outside that you can view afterwards
this was the second piece I did if it
starts to get a little more a little
bolder and I started making these
gigantic flowers I’m making all these
petals from sculptured paper that I have
figured out how to make that work in
pastels and I can just make flowers as
big as I want great fun then I wanted to
try some different techniques I thought
the the Dutch masters I wonder how that
would look if I did something kind of in
that vein and so I did and I’m really
building up confidence as I’m going
along here I’m really convincing myself
that I can do it in many different ways
see that these are dimensional that the
dirt is not only in the picture but it’s
also outside the picture they’re kicking
up dirt this is called kicking up dirt
on opening day and I’m not just making
pretty pictures here it’s very intricate
putting these pieces together I’ve had
to learn a lot of new things and so in
that process I’m growing new channels of
communication the idea here is that okay
over here maybe it was a problem I don’t
know if I could do anything about that
I’m trying but over here maybe if I can
outgrow this thing as fast as it’s
destroyed maybe I can stay out ahead of
it so that’s what I’m trying to do here
this was a piece that I did for this
couple they wanted something from with
the national flower Puerto Rico and they
which are huge about the size of
basketballs and to give it some sense of
size I decided to put in a hummingbird
and it turned out when we delivered the
piece the woman started to cry and she
said I was like what what’s wrong and
turned out that her father-in-law had
recently passed
he was a birding aficionado that turned
out to be his favorite bird now I had no
idea but it just happened it was a cool
I was commissioned to do a piece by an
interior designer in New York and he
wanted certain colors and he sent me
pieces of fabric and paint and so forth
and so I did this piece here and while I
was working on it sandy went by and she
took her iPhone and took a few snapshots
of me and afterwards after we had
delivered the piece we were looking at
those pictures and it was like you know
it’s pretty cool the hands in there so I
did a second piece and actually put my
hands in and put all the samples in and
I entered this in the first big show
that I was ever in this was like a real
major show and I and I was chosen best
of show how do you like that boy nobody
was more surprised I can tell here and I
also entered it in the San Diego County
Fair last year there was 1,600 entrance
and I’ve got a first prize there so I’m
just going through and show you a few
other pieces there’s been a lot of them
it takes me about 60 to 70 hours to do a
piece here’s my tribute to Georgia
O’Keeffe so here I am I’m going along
I’m getting some awards I’m getting some
attention people like my work I’m
getting some commissions since I’m
having a good time and then I got an
invitation to come and speak at the loma
linda has a big conference every year on
parkinson’s disease so I had a chance to
go out and talk to about 300 or so
people who have Parkinson’s and their
caregivers as well as the surgeons and
medical staff it was very interesting
and afterwards a man came up to me and
he had a really bad shake and he shook
my hand and he said I want to thank you
it was really very inspiring and he said
you were also very depressing
and so we pursued that for a minute he
said to me I said why it was depressing
he said I want to do what you’re doing
and I can’t do it I’m sorry and so I
said what do you do he said well I’m a
woodturner I make these things out of
wooden and make these beautiful things
and I can’t do it anymore and so I just
I said could you teach somebody else to
do it using your equipment he lit up it
was like oh I could his wife was there
with him they were so excited they went
off to do this and I felt such joy and
that he had been inspired to go and
actually do something with that time so
here’s what I’ve learned from this
adventure that I’ve been on for me a
wake-up call was like a permission to
just go for it to make it happen and the
second thing is when you say I’m gonna
go for it doors just fly open all kinds
of things that have happened that I
would have never guessed would have
happened if I hadn’t make that put that
stake in the ground and then I guess you
know this but time is really precious
part of the issue here for people with
Parkinson’s or other issues is that the
the span of life that maybe if quality
is getting is shrunk so that time B is
very very precious and so my hope my
wish today is that when you’re thinking
about a wake-up call don’t wait for some
terrible thing to happen in your life to
get it my hope today is that you will
find right here at TEDx Temecula your
wake-up call
[Applause]
[Music]
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