(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, we visit the new Tucson Military Vehicle Museum.

The wild and weird world of one Tucsonan who's embraced his inner fool.

(Chris) I think it's important to find lightness and go back to some very basic things that make us feel alive.

(Tom) Scientists and patients are still trying to understand the lingering impact of long COVID.

(Janko) While we're doing all of this research, people are miserable.

Many people were told, oh, this is, you cannot have all of these symptoms.

Well, of course you can.

(Tom) And providing care for those who need it.

(Monica) We're kind of like the distribution Amazon center for the who's who of nonprofits in Tucson.

(upbeat music) Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

And we're joining you from the new Tucson Military Vehicle Museum.

Located just east of the Pima Air and Space Museum, this new space has a wide range of military vehicles from a variety of eras and conflicts.

As a visitor, you can touch the machines and sit inside history.

Stay tuned till the end of the episode to hear more about this new museum from advertising manager Brad Elliott.

The Tucson Military Vehicle Museum is an underwriter on AZPM's radio station NPR 89.1.

The sacred fool is an archetype that's existed for centuries, seen as an eccentric with behavior that provokes, disrupts and inspires.

Speaking of disruption, since 2024, actor, filmmaker, performance artist and musician, Chris Carlone has been holding workshops and inspire others to channel their own inner fool.

My name is Chris Carlone and... cut!

My name is Chris Carlone and I am a musician... ♪ INTENSE GUITAR MUSIC a filmmaker... [ STATIC NOISE AND INAUDIBLE VOICES ] I am a photographer, I'm a movement artist, performance artist, actor.

You like Linguine and Clams?

I mean, do you really like Linguine and clams?

And I've been doing all these things since I was 17.

That's always been a part of me is dressing up and seeing what I've got to use right in front of me and creating something.

It's always been an exploration of myself to create these characters that I wish I was more like with a character like Bortz Miorts.

It was just sort of channeled into me.

It's almost like a blackout.

It's like I step on stage and then all of a sudden it's over and it's like Bortz just took over.

And I think we all have the potential of channeling like that creatively, artistically, whether you're doing a character or whether you're putting it into your art.

It's like turning off Chris Carlone and turning on Borts Minorts.

He is the embodiment of the fool with absolute power.

It's actually very serious.

I'm having a hard time putting words to it, so I think it would be best if we just asked Borts.

Borts, can you explain who or what you are?

[ INAUDIBLE FRENCH AUDIO ] There you go.

Because I am a performer, most people think I im like super extrovert like type of person, but if I go to a party I'm like quiet and like to observe and like dont want to bring attention to myself, and thats what I love about having found this and It's like it gives me confidence when I need it.

When I get on stage as Borts, it might be the one thing in the world that I do where I don't question anything for even a millisecond.

And that's a great feeling to have at least one thing in the world like that.

Even if it's like wearing tights and a wig and like playing a ski, you know.

I think it is a response to having to play the part for our whole lives as ourselves, as fitting into society, as not pushing people away, as not being too wild and too absurd and too out there.

So that I feel like all these characters are a response to who we're supposed to be and to feeling free.

It gives you an excuse to get to do something that you've always wanted to do.

For instance, I've always, for some weird reason, wanted to be a newscaster.

And I feel like I would just rock at it.

I don't need any training.

I feel like if I got a call today, I could go on site and just deliver what they needed about the story.

And... reports are coming in that people are embracing absurdity in record numbers.

I'm Sid Bluffniven for KGUN9 News.

Details at 11.

See what I mean?

It's really funny how on a whim I just might create this character and he all of a sudden has this lifespan of 20 years.

And so, just...

It's interesting, I've never thought of myself in this light.

What is self?

That is a really good question.

Yes, quite.

What is self?

Because I feel like that's sort of inspiration for sharing this knowledge with other people in a class type setting.

Thank you so much for coming.

This is the Sacred Fool Workshop, and let us begin.

♪ INTENSE TRUMPET HORN Giving them a reason to come to put away for a minute who they are in this world and get to dive into the magic and absolute wonder of creating with our bodies, with movement, with our imaginations like we did when we were kids.

It's kind of experiential and experimental and spontaneous.

The ability to play is a healing thing to do and it creates a community where without words, through movement, it's a communication.

♪ OLD MEDIEVAL MUSIC It involves both individualism and collective mindset.

It is the only time that someone asks me to play.

I find it immersive, and in that way it's meditative.

As I feel so much more connected to parts of myself, I don't get to experience.

♪ OLD MEDIEVAL MUSIC ♪ [ CHEERING ] (Participant) Movement, joy, a sense of community, and I think Chris is just really a cool person.

Chris is my, I'd say, creative soulmate.

Chris was energetic and nonstop.

I'm a big fan of Chris.

When he mentioned that he wanted to put something together that would involve butoh movement, dance, and expression, I was in.

He is such a wonderful, amazing, funny front man.

I had thought about whether he might ever teach a class on how to be a front person for a band.

So when he set this up, I joined immediately.

(Chris) and just keep moving I think it's important to find lightness and go back to some very basic things that make us feel alive.

It's also a way of connecting with other humans.

And just by stepping into the class you've already sort of taken the armor off and by taking a chance, you'll never know what the possibility is.

And it always doesn't go the way you want it to go, of course.

But through that, you've learned something.

You have gained an experience in life.

So it's an honor and a privilege to guide people on this journey for two hours.

It feels like my gift and what I want to share with the world and what's important to me, and especially right now in the world.

One, two, three, Victory is ours!

[ CLAPPING AND CHEERING ] Long COVID manifests in an array of over 200 potential symptoms, but there's a disconnect between the experiences of the patients and current medical understanding.

Next, we learn from individuals living with these poorly understood symptoms and the promise of vital ongoing research that validates their experiences and aids in developing interventions.

This story is part of our ongoing series, "The Long Road, How COVID-19 Changed Our World."

[CHAIR SCRAPING] (Michelle) The way my long COVID specifically functions is I have something called small fiber neuropathy.

The easiest way to visualize it is imagine a sink.

♪ TENSE AMBIENT Most people, when they're walking around doing things, their sink has a full level of reserve blood in it.

And what this reserved blood lets you do is when you're walking or when you're strenuous, your heart, if it starts to beat too hard or if it starts to get tired, it can call upon this blood to help boost it up.

And the blood serves as a backup way so that your heart rate isn't going too fast or you're not straining yourself too hard.

I don't have that reserved blood, so my sink is empty.

And so because of that, my heart is constantly working, working, working.

And, that causes stress and exhaustion and fatigue in all other parts of my body.

So, when most people would be able to do something, like stand to wash their dishes, and they would have that blood helping booster them, I don't.

It's just my heart working.

And so because of that, I get really tired, really fast.

I'm unable to do a lot of things.

And then I get things like brain fog because all of my energy is just going into my heart, trying to pump.

(Janko) Long COVID is the condition that probably about 5-10% of the people experience after having COVID.

It manifests itself in a wide variety of symptoms and issues that range from fatigue and malaise, and post exertional problems when people conduct an activity that they had no problem with and cannot recover, to issues of brain fog to more than 200 symptoms, which makes it really difficult and really frustrating for the folks that experience it to get good care for.

(Lia) I actually started feeling symptoms on the day after my 21st birthday in January of 2022.

Lab work.

I have one for the emergency room, urgent care, the recovery study in the long COVID.

I have allergy, immunology.

I'm immunocompromised ever since I was born.

Getting COVID weakened my immune system to where I was having respiratory problems, chronic migraines, fatigue.

Stairs were just impossible.

It would raise my heart rate to like 160 beats per minute, and I had severe brain fog, memory loss and I actually ended up having to medically withdraw at the end of the semester.

It really just opened up the door for me to get a whole bunch of other medical troubles.

(Janko) There's certainly a lot more evidence that there is longer, like months, and perhaps even a few years, where the viral molecules can be detected in the body.

So if you imagine that, you know, our immune system normally is alerted by anything foreign that comes into the organism, then you can imagine a protracted immune reaction that is now going, "Oh my God, you know, there's a raging viral infection here.

Now I need to go into the overdrive and I need to eliminate it."

And as a consequence, the immune system will go around and do damage to the organs and tissues that we have in the body.

And so that is the second theory—that there is this persistence of the virus that is sitting around, triggering a disproportionate reaction of our immune system.

There is also a subset of people prone to autoimmune reactions where the normal process of censoring the immune system, whereby it will not attack our own body, are weaker.

And as a consequence, they would have autoimmunity that would be either generalized against many organs and tissues or perhaps organ specific.

But the antigens against which this is targeted are a little more elusive as we still haven't figured out what these parts are.

It doesn't seem to be infecting the cells that line up the blood vessels directly, but it seems to be changing them in the long term so that they become more prone to triggering blood clotting.

Really, it's akin to small microinfarctions in a whole bunch of different organs that is happening a little more in your brain and you're having a little more brain fog or in your intestines and you're having more GI problems.

That could give rise to a whole variety of different symptoms that then are very frustrating both for the patient, of course, but also for the physician who's supposed to diagnose it.

(Michelle) I was 25 when I got long COVID.

They weren't seeing it a lot in younger people at that time.

I was extremely, extremely active and fit.

And so a lot of what I struggled with was communicating to doctors that even though my body still showed some physical conditioning from when I was a runner, that I could feel changes that were wrong and scary.

It wasn't until two years in that I found somebody who was seeing an influx of patients for pulmonary issues and the correlation was just too strong to just ignore.

He was the first person to ever sit down and say, "This isn't in your head."

And that was hugely empowering for me.

(Lia) You would make tea for me.

Doctors would look at me and they're like, "Well, you seem fine.

You seem to be smiling, and you're cheery.

You're talking back.

You're aware of everything."

And that was a huge struggle for me.

How's your coffee?

I am so thankful that I had my family to support me and they believed me because they would encourage me to go seek help somewhere else.

(Janko) While we're doing all of this research, people are miserable.

Many people were told, "Oh, this is— you cannot have all of these symptoms."

Well, of course you can because people are not eager to misrepresent their health condition, to not be able to work.

But there's a number of very promising studies telling us that defining all of this is actually possible.

There's always a substantial lag from understanding what a new entity is and being able to treat it.

(Michelle) Right now there's no treatments, no way to really cure, specifically, the long COVID that I have and how it's manifesting.

There's times where I really feel the helplessness and loss of what I've gone through.

Like, I can't run anymore.

I can't go out to hang out with friends anymore.

I'm lucky that I can still work.

There are people who have lost their jobs, their homes, their families.

There's people who've gone through divorces.

I think people are desperate for anything at all that can help them.

And as science catches up, which it will do, COVID is still a thing.

Long COVID is very dangerous and that there are people who are living with it that still deserve compassion and attention and help.

(Lia) You're not alone.

It is a struggle, and it is a battle that you have to fight to stand your ground.

Finding a good support system, whether that's your family, friends, resource group, online, whoever it is, find a support system.

(Janko) Beyond the individual stories, beyond the tragedies of losing one's health, it is really a national economic issue and a national security issue.

These people not only are not imagining that this is happening, they need help.

And it is really in the interest of all of us to provide it.

♪ UPLIFTING AMBIENT ♪ (Tom) To learn more about the lasting impacts of COVID-19 five years after the start of the pandemic and to watch all of the stories in our series and read additional stories from our news team, go to azpm.org/longroad For more than 60 years, a nonprofit organization in Tucson has been providing hope to people in need by giving them shoes, clothing, and other essential items.

Now this year, the group begins a new chapter under a new name, but their goal remains the same.

(Narrator) This popular thrift store in Midtown Tucson is a favorite place for people who are seeking something special at a bargain price.

For retired nurse and social worker Linda Kenny, it's part of her frequent shopping sprees.

(Linda) I've been going to this thrift shop since the 1980s when I moved here from Boston and I love it I go here every week.

My whole house is filled with things that I've bought here over the years.

So it's a real pleasure coming here.

(Narrator) Not only that, she says, but the money she spends here is going to a good cause.

-One, two, three.

(Narrator) The store is operated by Viva Pima, formerly the Assistance League of Tucson, which has been serving the community since 1959.

Thanks to funding from this operation, or grants and donations from other sources, thousands of residents have been helped for more than six decades.

(Monica) Our largest program is our Viva Pima Kids, and that's where this year we believe we're going to be dressing our 100,000th child with brand new clothes.

So that's huge.

But each year we dress anywhere between four and five thousand kids.

(Monique) We are here in the Viva Pima Programs building, and this is where we do our Viva Pima Kids program.

We will work with over 20 uniform schools here in Tucson.

We will outfit children with brand new uniforms for school.

We will also meet families and children at designated times at Target for the children that do not wear uniforms.

They will get brand new school clothes at Target.

(Narrator) Amanda is a single mother who works full time, but she still struggles to make ends meet, especially with the skyrocketing cost of housing.

Both of her children attend Prince Elementary School at Amphitheater Public Schools.

(Amanda) They've been there since preschool for my youngest and kindergarten for my oldest, and we love that school.

The teachers are amazing.

They genuinely care about my kids.

That's basically why I go there.

The principal is amazing.

They don't have no regrets.

(Narrator) The majority of students at Prince Elementary qualify for free or reduced lunch.

Additional assistance is welcome.

The vouchers that are received from Prince Elementary for the target is amazing.

We get it every August so it's right when the school starts and it truly helps.

You're able to buy socks, underwear, clothes, shoes, hair, even hair products for the girls.

It's amazing.

(Narrator) Yemen Bernal is a social worker at Prince Elementary and serves as a liaison with Viva Pima.

She says the clothing from the non-profit, food from pantries and other donations are invaluable.

The need among our families and in our community is, can be very overwhelming.

(Yemen) Resources are often hard to come by so to be able to count on Viva Pima to provide this resource is a huge relief for me and a huge support to me to be able to do my job which is to be able to help support families to overcome the barriers and give their children the best chance for academic and social success so it's wonderful.

In addition (Narrator) In addition to Viva Kids, Viva Pima also administers other programs.

-And we're going to need the can opener and the cutting board (Narrator) In this situation, the assistance goes to residents who are starting over due to homelessness or other social challenges.

(Monica) It's amazing how much we could fit in this laundry basket.

We're kind of like the distribution Amazon center for the who's who of non-profits in Tucson so there's over 40 agencies that we work with and these 40 different agencies are working on getting our people rehomed.

So our program with Viva Pima supplies is we provide a basket that's filled with over 20 items for the bedroom, bath, and kitchen.

So it's all the everyday essentials that you need.

Think about it as you know if you're starting here sending your kid off to college all that stuff that you have to buy and so by providing to buy and so by providing that they could go and work on going back to school or finding a job and not using their time and money to just buy these everyday essentials.

(Narrator) The non-profit organization is doing this with just a handful of paid staff members but more than 300 active volunteers and the mission is not lost on the shoppers here including Linda Kenny.

She speaks from experience.

(Linda) I was a school nurse at Esperanza Elementary for 28 years and we come here and buy clothes for the children and the association here would help give backpacks to the children at Esperanza and it would take them here and they would get free clothes and it helped families a lot so that's another reason why I want to come here because they've helped the society so much in Tucson and they helped my school where I worked.

(Amanda) For the Pima organization I just really want to say thank you and I really appreciate that they give us the time the volunteers and the donations.

It may not seem like they're doing a lot but they're truly making an impact and we need to continue getting those services.

(Monica) When I see the joy on these faces of these children you just keep doing it you know and there's days are long and my husband's some kind of just goes "what?

why are you doing all this?"

but, it's because of all the community that we support all the volunteers that are here there's just an amazing group of people.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC Over the years, we've provided you countless stories about people and organizations in our community that provide help to those who really need it.

And for even more on the topic, look for the Bradley Cooper Produce documentary, "Caregiving," premiering on PBS six on June 24th.

AZPM members can stream it starting May 27th on AZPM Passport on the PBS app.

Well, joining us now is Brad Elliott, who is the advertising manager for the Tucson Military Vehicle Museum.

Brad, you opened in March.

You've got a winner here, man.

It's nice.

What's the reaction been?

It's great.

It's getting great feedback.

This is a one-of-a-kind location in the region, so it's great to open this up to Southern Arizona and anyone who can get down here to see the museums that we offer in town.

(Tom) Strong ties to the Pima Air and Space Museum.

Tell us about that.

Yes sir, so it's operated by the same foundation where the Arizona Aerospace Foundation operating the world famous Pima Air and Space Museum.

So now we have the second offering on the same location, separate museum, and then we also operate the Titan Missile Museum in Sahuarita.

(Tom) Amazing collection.

How did this all happen?

(Brad) So the foundation was able to purchase the land with these partnerships that we have established with the Marine Corps airplanes from the Marine Corps Navy over at the Air and Space Museum started collecting these vehicles on loan.

The Air and Space Museum is famous for being able to offer something from every part of aviation from civil to military and experimental commercial.

We wanted to be able to offer a very wide range of vehicles here as well.

So you've got vehicles from every era and various nations on display here as well and then of course finding some rare ones as well as the iconic ones.

So you know we have a 1917 Ammunitions tractor to right next to it you'll see a M1A1 Abrams you know kind of cream of the crop as far as military vehicles go.

It's very rare to even have a museum like this in the region and one that's so accessible to the I-10.

You know, a lot of the military vehicle museums are harder to get to and not be such a travel destination that Tucson has become.

Well thanks for having us in and best of luck with this great museum.

Thank you so much yeah enjoy your time here.

Thank you for joining us from here at the new Tucson Military Vehicle Museum.

I'm Tom McNamara, we'll see you again next week.