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We spent six weeks in Boston, in an apartment in Back Bay.
After examining Tito, the neurologist handed him over to his team of doctors.
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The Boston doctors gave Tito a general anesthetic in order to inject Botox into his legs. The Botox proved useless. The Boston doctors gave Tito another general anaesthetic in order to give him an MRI scan. The MRI scan proved useless. The Boston doctors took a mold of Tito’s legs in order to make him a pair of orthopedic leg calipers. The orthopedic leg calipers broke as soon as we got back to Rio, and they were thrown out. The Boston doctors made us order a walking frame. The walking frame wasn’t right for Tito at all.
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I spent thirty thousand dollars in Boston.
Tito’s cerebral palsy cost me a lot of money.
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Despite everything, I remember those six weeks in the apartment in Back Bay as a period of intense — almost irrational — happiness.
Because we were together. Because we were united. At that moment, I had the moral certainty of a fanatic. I had given up all my personal needs for something much bigger than myself. I worshipped Tito. Cerebral palsy was my sect.
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The neurologist in Boston was useful in one respect.
He explained why, on his third birthday, Tito could still not say a single word.
He had dyspraxia.
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The neurologist in Boston was useful in another respect as well.
He recommended that, in order to express himself, Tito should start using a digital communication device.
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In the previous image: Tito and his Tech/Speak communication device.
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The subject of “T-Bone” is Neil Young’s obsessive attempt to give Ben some sort of mobility.
The subject of “Transformer Man,” which is part of his next album, Trans, released in 1982, is Neil Young’s obsessive attempt to communicate with Ben.
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Neil Young used a vocoder to distort his voice on “Transformer Man.”
He said:
Trans is the beginning of my search for communication with a severely handicapped non-oral person. “Transformer Man” is a song for my kid … People completely misunderstood Trans … Well, fuck them … You gotta realize — you can’t understand the words on Trans, and I can’t understand my son’s words.
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“Transformer Man” is Neil Young’s worst song.
It’s deformed, unfinished, scarce half made up. It’s disproportioned in every part. It’s a foul bunch-backed toad. It’s a bloody dog.
I find the very awfulness of “Transformer Man” moving.
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Neil Young’s albums about Ben’s cerebral palsy were the biggest commercial flops of his career.
Cerebral palsy cost him a fortune.
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In “Transformer Man,” Neil Young offers a glimpse of a robotized world in which a spastic child, incapable of speech, can interact by using technology.
What his spasticity prevented him from doing alone, he would, in the future, be able to do using machines and by “pressing a button.”
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In the previous image: the Transformer toy made by Hasbro twenty-nine years after Neil Young released his song “Transformer Man” and sold under the name of “Spastic.”
The future glimpsed by Neil Young was made real in the robotized world of the Power Core Combiners.
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I wrote a column about Neil Young’s “Transformer Man.”
Neil Young had a collection of electric trains. Because his son Ben was incapable of making the trains run, Neil Young invented a gadget to help. The gadget was patented as the Big Red Button. With the Big Red Button, Ben was finally able to open gates, couple locomotives, make the train change track, let off steam and whistle.
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I ended the column by speaking again about Tito:
My son was never interested in electric trains, but he has a Big Red Button connected to me. He turns me on and off whenever he wants. He makes me change track, let off steam and whistle.
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Neil Young felt “electrified” by Ben.
I felt electrified by Tito. He was my “Transformer Man.” By pressing the buttons of his communicator, he could finally talk to me.
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In the previous image: the button Tito had to press on his communicator to signal a fall.
That’s right: The Fall.
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Tito’s communicator was made up of thirty-two windows. Each window contained a symbol that corresponded to a word or phrase. When Tito pressed the symbol, the communicator would emit a recording of that word or phrase. Since the communicator had six channels, Tito had at his permanent disposal one hundred and ninety-two recorded messages.
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The messages on Tito’s communicator were recorded using my voice. He started speaking through me, distorting my words. Tito’s communicator was my vocoder.
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Tito’s therapists were always adding new symbols to his communicator. He acquired a vocabulary of more than one thousand words, which accompanied him at all times.
When Tito was in a hurry, he would press the symbol of a rabbit. When he had diarrhea, he would press the symbol of a person sitting on the toilet. When he wanted to repeat something, he would press the symbol of two parallel arrows. When he was frightened, he would press the symbol of a green ghost. When he wanted to ask a question, he would press the symbol of a little man with an egg-shaped face raising one finger. When he was annoyed, he would press the symbol of a little man with an egg-shaped face with steam coming out of his ears. When he was bored, he would press the symbol of the little man with an egg-shaped face leaning on one elbow.
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Tito could communicate only through images, gestures, symbols, metaphors and analogies.
I had to interpret this. I had to adapt to his language. If he used images, I had to use images. If he used analogies, I had to use analogies.
That is how Tito became my God, my Law of Gravity, my Auschwitz survivor, my turtle, my water lily, my Lou Costello, my Richard III, my James Stewart, my Fall of the Bastille, my Jacopo Tintoretto, my Scuola Grande di San Marco.
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Tito was the result of everything I had seen and read. In particular, he was the result of everything I loved.