Last month I had the pleasure of meeting a rather remarkable young lady. Her name is Carly Fleischmann and she taught me a great deal. The street behind the house in which I grew up had a family with a mentally handicapped child. I admit now that as kids we treated that child very poorly. I remember that I never made fun of the child but I definitely felt that I was superior to him and that I need not take him seriously in any way. As an adult I realized that I absolutely wasn’t superior to anybody, however I came to think that people in that state simply lived differently than the rest of us and they could never interact with us in the same way as “normal” people. Ms. Fleischmann and her amazing story taught me how wrong we all are!

Carly is an autistic person who is non-verbal. Physically I think she is quite pretty. She isn’t able to sit still for very long, she hums and moans and her hands may flay about uncontrollably from time to time. If you were to pass by her on the street she would be the kind of person that I would make sure to not stare at as my parents taught me. I may have even felt a little pity for her. I will never think like that again! Carly has been able to prove us all wrong. There is an intelligent, funny, charismatic, and talented person living in that machine that is her body.

Please watch the following video to help you understand.

We met for a very cool reason. The RADD Collective, the production team that I work with, recorded and produced a song that Carly wrote along with Kaitlin Kozell, a wonderful aspiring country music singer. That was one of the most special days I have ever had. We recorded the bed tracks the day before and we were able to basically have fun with Kaitlin and Carly the following day when they came up to Chalet Studios to track the vocals. We also met  Lil Jaxe who is an incredible rap artist. He has a very severe speech impediment but when he performs he is like Jay Z.

Check out the video that we produced from those sessions.

I am overjoyed to be part of this project. It’s very important for people to see what happened and is happening to Carly Fleischmann. She is helping to educate the world about how people with autism live their lives. She is helping us all understand that they are in fact just like us, except they have the added burden of having to deal with how they were born. Carly makes our lives richer by helping us understand her. Please share her music video so her message can get out to as many people as possible!