Wow, it's our 100th video for The Tommy Edison Experience.
Not a wrinkle in it. (laughs)
(music transition)
In the spirit of the channel I asked you what you'd like to see for the 100th video
and wouldn't you know it... Benjamin O'Connor asked:
Why did you start doing these videos? How have they changed
your life? And what were some of your videos to do.
The channel started in 2011 and it was
an off-shoot of the Blind Film Critic channel where I was
posting movie reviews and you guys were curious about a lot of thing about
my life. So rather than answer in text, I thought
I'd answer them in videos. You know, questions like
'How do you cook food alone?" (clip) That's all. Uh oh.
'How do you cross the street?' (car horn honks twice)
And even 'how do I use paper money?'
(clip) I'm going to say the 50 dollar bill is this one. (wrong answer buzzer/crowd "ooh")
You guys seem to like these video so, we kept making them.
Imagine if I was editing these things. Oh my god,
they'd look like this.
(music transition)
One of the ways these videos have really changed my life is to find out how curious
sighted people really are about the whole blind experience.
Me, I had no idea. I mean, it's just my life, right?
And you guys are wanting to know all kinds of things about it.
That's fascinating to me. And I really learned a lot when I asked
sighted people questions and you guys responded
in comments, in emails, and you made some
incredible videos too trying to explain all these things that I was curious about.
For example, I learned that sighted people don't see everything
at the same time. You know what I mean? There not looking at every
single thing that's going on around them. That you really can
lose stuff. I mean, just the same way I do, you just
forget where you put something. You don't know where it is.
And even losing your own car in a parking lot of a mall.
So I can sort of - I can understand how they can look the same. You got a red mustang.
Look. There's six of them.
What are you doing at a car show? (laughs)
(music transition)
And another way it's affected my life is it's gotten me
to embrace my blindness even more than I ever have. I mean,
this is stuff I never really talked about until I started talking about it with you in these videos, you know?
This is something that as a kid I really didn't talk about too much and I sort
of pushed it aside. And, I mean, for god's sake
blind is in my name now. It's the first part of my name, so...
it's been very cool for me.
(music transition)
My favorite videos? Well, "Colors" has got to be one of my favorites. I mean,
that was a real departure for me because I was trying to explain something that I never
really explained before, you know. And I was talking about things
trying to let you get inside of my hide to see how
I experience the world and how I experience, you know, these colors
or lack there of. "What Bind People Fear" is another one.
I was just watching that this morning and I couldn't believe
you know, how vulnerable I was in that video talking about being afraid
as a little kid and covering my ears.
And I'm stilled scared of Justin Timberlake movies. (laughs)
One that a lot of people haven't see is one of
my favorites to watch. It makes me laugh every single time.
It's old fashioned ball breaking. And all it is...
is I just throw an old friend of mine Tad under the bus
and watch what happens. (Clip/Tommy) You're going to have a slice?
(Clip/Tad) Yeah, why not? (Clip/Tad) I didn't think you liked this pizza.
(Clip/Tad) Shhh. Shhh. Shhh. (Clip/Tommy) What?
(laughs) Kills me every time.
"Can Blind People Open Their Eyes" - I love that one too.
It's just sort of trippy. You know, it's kind of a cross between Firesign Theater
and I'm not even sure what.
The comments on that video have been so interesting to me. People say that
my eyes are so beautiful when I open them up. Really?
Well, thanks.
"How A Blind Person Experiences VidCon" was so much fun to make.
And because I showed a convention with my four senses
and really I got to meet so many of you, you know,
I mean, we met through comments before but to actually meet face to face.
Tremendous. (Clip/Michael) How did you know I was here?
(Clip/Tommy) I saw you. (Clip/both laugh)
So, there it is! Our 100th video. It turns out it was a clip show.
(credits music)
You know, I didn't notice but you may have noticed that the picture quality is a little
bit different on this video. And that's because, you know,
we wanted to do something special for the 100th video so... as it worked out
I'm in Connecticut and Ben is in California so we're doing it via Skype.
I don't want to hear any complaining.
I heard some complaining! (laughs)