Kansas City Blog

In addition to celebrating her "third-annual 29th birthday," Henderson is feeling pretty good about having come this far in her battle with stage III inflammatory breast cancer, a disease that kills most of its victims in under a year. She's well enough to play -- her band, the Gaslights, played two shows this past weekend, in fact. The chemo treatments are over, and she's moved on to radiation, of which she's got four more rounds. Sometime in May, she'll go in for a mastectomy. She's got a radiation burn on her neck, but her hair is growing back, she's lively as ever, and there's no doubt in her mind that she's gonna win this. Topping it all off, thanks to her "wolverine" of a lawyer, her insurance company -- resistant as hell at first -- is finally going to pay its fair share of the cost.

"It's awesome when you've been getting final notice bills for $7,000 and now it's like 140 bucks," she says.

Brimblecom, now 32, had his own bout with cancer in 2005. He lost his left leg just above the knee to Ewing's sarcoma and now walks -- and drums -- at full functionality, thanks to a high-tech, robotic prosthesis that, like everything health care in America, cost a fortune.

Musicians take care of their own.

Williams, Henderson and Brimblecom have each had friends and fellow musicians put together multiple benefit efforts, the most famous being the one that birthed Sweet Relief: A Tribute to Victoria Williams, which Henderson remembers cranking in her Volkswagen Cabrio when she lived in Detroit in the '90s.

Last year, friends of Henderson organized the group Apocalypse Meow, collecting donations and holding concerts. Likewise, when Brimblecom needed help, friends from local bands, church, and elsewhere (including SNL comedian Jason Sudeikis) put together benefit efforts, ultimately raising the $33,000 or so he needed to pay for his prosthesis.

Henderson and Brimblecom trade notes on what it's like being young and having cancer.

"Creative people are pie-in-the-sky about illness. I wish I had known how the system works," Henderson says.

"No one is exempt from a life-threatening illness at any moment," Brimblecom says. "It doesn't just happen to old people."

Though healthy, Meck has gotten perspective from his wife's battle: "You could get hit by a car and die immediately, but apart from that ... Everybody goes through this once."

Between mouthfuls of yummy chain-restaurant Italian food and bouts of heady musician shop talk, Williams and her new KC friends discuss the plight of being sick and uninsured or, sometimes just as bad, poorly insured -- like when you've got a high-deductible plan and your carrier is doing everything it can to deny your claims by duplicitiously ferreting out "pre-existing conditions." Dr. Matthews asks if anyone saw the recent episode of Frontline that dealt with this shady practice.

"I've heard this from so many people, about having to fight over pre-existing conditions," Williams says. "Everyone has pre-existing conditions."

All agree that people in countries with socialized medicine -- Canada, Spain, Ireland, Sweden -- have it better.

"In this country, there's this notion that musicians are a lower class," Williams says.

"As if it's not a real job," echoes Henderson, who points out that dealing with a disease like cancer, physically and financially, is like being given another full-time job.

So what's the best hope?

Locally, Henderson and Meck and their friends are well into establishing an organization they're calling the Midwest Music Foundation. They've got a lawyer who's helping them apply for 501(c)3 status. When that's nailed down, they'll look into things like partnering with hospitals to provide free services to musicians.

They also want to produce an Austin City Limits-style TV show that will show folks in the wider area how good local music is in Kansas City, how it's worth supporting. They feel that the average person is more aware of our town's musical (read: jazz) history but have no idea that there are great original hometown artists and bands playing all over town, touring, releasing albums and struggling to be heard.

Brimblecom remembers playing a huge, commercial-radio-sponsored concert with one of his former bands, where, in addition to the core following, there were hundreds of people in the audience because of the radio station. "You could see this music every weekend! For cheap!" he addresses the crowd retrospectively. "I'm sure they would've loved it if we'd done a Red Hot Chili Peppers cover," he adds.

Henderson and Meck and the folks at MMF believe that raising the local scene's status is a crucial first step.

As for the health care question, this week's cover story contrasts the bleakness of the status quo with the reformative efforts of President Obama and his future cabinet Health and Human Services head, Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius. A taste of that status quo in the Sunflower State:

Insurance-company money helps bankroll the state's senators and representatives. Blue Cross and Blue Shield (which has a $200 million piece of the state's annual contract to insure its employees) has donated money to all but one of the 10 state senators and to 23 of the 30 state representatives from Johnson and Wyandotte counties. Also generous, if less promiscuous, is Humana. FirstGuard Health Plan and Preferred Health Systems (which has $22 million of the state's employee plan) occasionally throw some bones, too.

Also taking a deep interest in Kansas politics are international pharmaceutical giants such as Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer and Wyeth, which all make occasional contributions. So do the state's hospitals.

HCA (Hospital Corporation of America), which operates nine facilities in Kansas, has a "Good Government Fund" political action committee that routinely writes checks of $200 or $300 to most of the metro's senators and reps during every election cycle.

And that's not the half of it. Seriously, you need to read this story and be outraged.

Meanwhile, until there is universal health coverage, musicians like Williams, Brimblecom and Henderson will have to band together.

"I know everyone deserves health care, but I'm really worried about my people," Henderson says.

"That's how it has to be," Dr. Matthews says, "cliques of people getting together."

Maybe it could take the form of something like AFTRA, the union that has helped Henderson's mother, an actress, pay off her own cancer bills. Or maybe the MMF and other regional artist unions and Sweet Relief could work to develop a nationwide network of hospitals that provide free services to strummers in need. One thing's clear: people gotta unite and fight the greedy-ass status quo.

The clock's approaching 3, and it's time for Dr. Matthews to take Williams to pick out an amp from Mass St. Music in Lawrence and then get back in time for the evening's rehearsal -- her first with her all-KC backing band for the show Friday night.

"This is a new thing for me -- having people learn your songs and then play with them," says the spritely folk singer. "It's a gift."

Victoria Williams plays with Waterdeep and the Midday Ramblers Friday, April 10, at Liberty Hall. All proceeds benefit Sweet Relief.