The World at
His Feet: Mark Goffeney
A fledgling flame
winks and flirts inside a stained glass cylinder on the table. A blonde
college student runs around, trying to collect cover charges from java-drinkers
filtering in off the sidewalk. Mauve walls display hanging area rugs,
surrealist paintings and photographs of past performers. Soon Mark Goffeney’s
picture will join the collage.
Goffeney, lead guitarist and vocalist for the band Big Toe, loves playing
at coffee houses like Le Stats in his hometown of San Diego. But he’s
not limited to cafés. Just as varied as Goffeney’s attire—black
silk shirt, construction-worker-orange shorts and brown sandals—are
the venues where Big Toe rocks and the roles Goffeney himself has played:
actor, advocate and artist. But in the same way that a coal-black top,
tangerine shorts and sepia shoes can jive together in just the right way,
this musician’s diverse endeavors are the proverbial roads that
all lead to one cause: unity among people.
Born without arms, Goffeney has been a performer as long as he can remember.
Some of his earliest performances were between ages eight and thirteen,
when he helped host Easter Seals and March of Dimes telethons. “I
was their poster child,” he laughs. “So I think I got over
the fear of performing. Well, actually, I never really got the fear of
it.” He always knew he wanted to be a musician, but playing trombone
in the school band didn’t satisfy his desire to rock. So a friend
gave Goffeney a guitar demonstration, and he just imitated what he saw
his friend do—only he imitated with his feet.
And his passion was stirred. From a ninth-grade band called High Octane
that played pizza joints on the weekends, to a KISS-flavored hard rock
group, to the debut of Big Toe, Goffeney has immersed himself in music
however he could get it. He’s played solo. He’s played in
retirement homes. He even learned to play the bass to increase his chances
for joining a group. “Everybody was playing guitar in the ‘80s,”
he explains. “And everybody wanted to play lead guitar, so it was
hard to get in a band. So I started playing bass.”
Eventually, though, getting in wasn’t enough; Goffeney wanted to
set his own pace. With another guitarist, he founded Big Toe in 1992,
and seven years later PSB Records signed the band to a CD deal…on
one condition. Goffeney had to work with Steve Dudas, former producer
for Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne and Ringo Star, to refine the songs for the
band’s self-titled album. “I got to sit on the same chair
that Steven Tyler sat on when he was there,” says Goffeney. “Steve
Dudas was very professional, very good. He let me know in no uncertain
terms that I was an amateur and I needed to listen to him.”
Several years and many record sales later, Goffeney is no longer an amateur
performer. He has appeared on television as an actor and a musician, and
has spoken to audiences all over America advocating for the rights of
people with disabilities. He played the principal role on FOX’s
Emmy-nominated commercial Feet. The advertisement, aired during the 2000
and 2001 Super Bowls, was for the NFL website, and it told the story of
a character named Roger who was so obsessed with the website that he did
everything else with his feet—including changing his baby’s
diaper. As a father of three, Goffeney is an expert at caring for children
sans hands, so he played the feet. When the director announced the baby
would wear cloth diapers, Goffeney didn’t bat an eye; his first
diaper-changing experiences involved his baby brothers in the ’70s.
But some mothers of the auditioning babies got jittery about the safety
pins, which cost their children the role. “They waited for a mother
who had nerves of steel,” Goffeney remembers. “They picked
the baby based on the nervousness of the mom.” Because of his rare
ability, Goffeney could command his salary for the role—quite a
bit higher than the Screen Actors Guild standard FOX originally offered.
Cash is not always easy for musicians to come by, though. To pay the bills,
Goffeney has worked in various jobs: as a telemarketer, in roofing, with
adults with disabilities, with teenagers in transition. But his passion
for playing didn’t die, and he eventually quit his day job to pursue
performance full-time. “I would play anywhere they’d let me,”
he remembers. As Big Toe scored more and more gigs, Goffeney moved his
practice venue to Balboa Park, famous in San Diego for street entertainers.
“We are actually licensed to play for tips,” he explains,
and some days he brings home $200 to $300 in one day. “Sometimes
I get a complex because some people might think I’m panhandling.
But had I been born with arms, I still would have wanted to do this. I’m
not going to not do it because not everybody gets it.”
More than just a place to practice, Balboa Park has been an interactive
business card for Goffeney and Big Toe. His biggest break came when a
producer for Europe’s Lippe Blofft, a David Letterman-style program,
caught Goffeney’s park bench act. He got in touch with Goffeney
later, flew him to Germany, and put him on-stage opening for LeAnn Rimes.
Goffeney spent the money he earned on an extra week in Deutchland, playing
and partying. But the vacation was a mixed bag for him. The tourism aspect
was entertaining, and he made some good contacts professionally. But he
also battled stereotypes he had never come up against in America. “I’d
heard there was kind of a carry-over from the Nazi era, that disabled
people were very much shunned, and it was kind of like that there. Eating
with my feet in a restaurant, even if I washed them first…they were
very stare-y, German people. I felt a little bit uncomfortable with my
disability for maybe the first time in my life. So I rebelled against
that. I noticed that people’s reactions to me were different once
I quit worrying what other people were thinking.”
One incident that was particularly key in changing Goffeney’s attitude
in Europe from awkwardness to advocate involved the boyfriend of a worker
on Lippe Blofft. “He started busting my chops,” as Goffeney
puts it. “We almost got into it.” The guy harassed Goffeney
about his disability and his career, insinuating that he only got gigs
because people felt sorry for him and that he could never make it in Germany.
“I’ve always been very comfortable with myself, but I went
through a real crash course in what I think people go through who acquire
a disability later in life. But I got over it in about a week. I became
a champion of the people with disabilities over there, just by being an
example.”.…Continued
in ABILITY Magazine
ABILITY Magazine
Other articles in the Fran Drescher issue include Letter From The Editor,
The Cruise Controversy, Gillian Friedman, MD; Humor: Baseball for Lawyers;
Headlines: Lung cancer, MS, Harry Potter, Hearing Loss; Toys Theater:
Russian Performers Who Are Deaf; Hearing Loss: Role Models in Medicine;
NFB-Newsline: Phone Delivery; Recipes: Spice Up Your Life; Endometrial
Cancer: What All Women Should Know; Employment: On the Road With Ticket
To Work; Sixth Annual Event: World Ability Federation; Events and Conferences...
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