Gabe Newman's Blog

Imagine being angry in a moment, after the moment before you were perfectly calm.  Also, imagine this happening several times per day, for most every day you lived.  Imagine further, you took that anger and lashed out against others with violent stikes against those you ‘love’; or at least against those you love to hate... only it's not you, it's someone else.  Do you know anybody like that?

You decide to polish your car, only to run out of polish half way through, and use a different brand to finish the job.  As it turns out, one part of the car comes out shinier than the other part.  Your Grandfather, who raised you and gave you more than you deserved in material possessions, and who also beat you on a regular basis, as well as beating your Grandmother, comes home admires the job you’ve done, but then notices one side shinier than the other sending him into a violent rage directed only against you. 

After the beating, with your nose still bleeding, you tell him that one of you is going to hell tonight.  Then, you kill him in his sleep.  Afterward, you find $600 in his wallet and decide to take care of some bills that need to be paid, post disposal of the body.  You get caught.  You go to court and are given a reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter, instead of murder, and you get a five year sentence for that, but against the will of the jurors, you get a life sentence for armed robbery for taking the money out of the wallet and doing what you did.  You’ve now been in prison for ten years.  Stop imagining and now realize this is the story of Billy Crowder, a kid who got fed up, and rightfully so. 

I walked into the room with a television blaring on A&E where they were running this story that I proceeded to look up online for further details.  I urge you to do the same, and then follow the instructions at the end of the brief story listed on this website: 

http://www.billycrowder.com/

Well folks, here I am sitting in another public library, in another town, only this time I arrived by bike.  It's my mission to visit all fifty states before election day.  I have my work cut out for me.  One problem I have encountered this morning is that My Space is blocked from these computers.  So, whereas I would typically blog there and repost here, if appropriate, I cannot even get to My Space this morning. 

One thing I've noticed about this small town, is I have yet to see anyone sleeping in the bushes, and sitting on the square looking 'po'.  As I pulled out of Athens, GA last week, I left behind a scene of many players and paupers, and I was again reminded of that eternal question, "Why?"

Rick, the stroke victim survivor, still sits there left to himself, his cigarettes, and his coffee, I am sure.  I only mention that in hopes that somebody will cover his story.  There isn't anybody in that town that doesn't already know his demise, but nobody steps up to give a place to live in what could very well be his last days.  He had a place, but that time ran its' course, and there he sits again waiting for his fellow downtrodden to join him at the table for what usually amounts to a certain download of information on pretty much any topic as it relates to Athens, GA.  He is a walking (or should I say "shuffling") encyclopedia of information on anything Athens, as he drags himself around doing as much for himself as he can with one side of his upper body still paralyzed.  He's just been left there to himself as the "community" who always greets him as they walk by do nothing to give him a little bit of comfort in what appear to be his last days.

Last night, I was fortunate enough to watch Extreme Makeover.  This a show I haven't watched in sometime, but exemplifies to me, what America is really all about.  The Community has lost its' sense of identity as we have seemingly left everything to do with anything humane and community oriented in the hands of the government.  Otherwise, why is he still sitting there?

I mean, there is hardly a soul in that town who doesn't know who that guy is and still he sits there as if counting the ticks and tocks of the clock.  And, then faith in community is restored when you see a show like EM!  There's no government  agency there to demolish a home and rebuild it.  There are only people from that community, and corporate America, pretty much.  What's wrong with that?  I can't think of a single thing wrong with that. 

CVS pharmacies and everyone altogether got up enough cash to not only pay off the mortgage on this new home built for a family with two kids in wheelchairs suffering from a disease I had never heard of called Spinal Muscular Atrophy.  Two girls, sisters, one eight and the other four, both have been trying to maneuveur a bi-level household to no avail for years.  Extreme... came in a leveled the place replacing it with a one level mansion of sorts with high end accents and a level floor running continuously throughout the house.  This is truly community in action, not Washington is distraction. 

Rick shuffles along jumping through beaureacratic hoop after hoop.  Of course, these hoops are local hoops, but still it seemsridiculous that a stroke survivor has to go through this.  He says, he has nobody who will take him in.  I didn't ask any questions after he made that statement to me, but I don't doubt it.  Word is that Rick never "wanted" to work.  He just wanted to drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and that's why he is where he is.

Regardless, it's a damned shame that you even witness this scene in America.  It doesn't really matter what the circumstances are at this point, and "how" he got to where he is.  The fact of the matter is that it's wrong for US to just leave him sitting there.  I hope that some member of the media will pick this up and do something about it.  At least call some attention to the situation and somebody put this 'man up' in peace for a minute.  Does he deserve it?  Has he earned it?  Is that really the question?  It's something called grace, and that's just what he needs. 

So, as the wheels of my Trek 1100 have burnt rubber for the time being on Athens, Rick is still there.  I'll get back around there eventually, and I hope by the next time I pay a visit to that town that somebody will have taken care of the situation whereas if I could I would.  Days on the square of Athens, might be one of the most pleasant of experiences, but for Rick, it's just another day at the office, and we all know how that can get to be.

For now, I will ride on to the next town.  We got a long way to go and a short time to get there, before November.  Somehow, and only by grace, I always end up finding a place to stay.  Maybe it's because I bathe regulary, and don't really look homeless so it gives me some sort of advantage over a shuffling stroke survivor, but I just know it's not right that he's still sitting there.  This is a call to the Community... not Washington.

5 months later the issue has come up again.  I am not a big fan of PDA, but I don't see anything wrong with a couple holding hands, or even giving a quick kiss to each other in public.  In this country, we're all Liberals compared to much of the rest of the world.

Shilpa Shetty, the Indian princess whom Richard Gere kissed on stage, in public in India, five months ago was detained momentarily at the Mumbai Airport because she was still wanted on obscenity charges.  She was released when it was confirmed that the court had thrown the charges out.

I am a person of conviction, with not so much an open mind as a realization that as long as God hasn't destroyed the world, then I wouldn't try to destroy someone I disagree with.  That doesn't make me a moral relativist, it just makes me peaceful. 

There are a lot of things I don't understand about our society, including why people cover their bodies with tatoos these days, or how anyone can actually claim to be an atheist.  I just cannot understand these phenomena for the life of me, but it doesn't make me want to kill them.

It must be a hard bridge to cross from a society where woman are covered up, and not even allowed to touch a man, besides their husbands to one where a peck on the cheek is considered profane.  What an age we live in where PDA is a hot debate topic in other countries that we can see immediately through television, or the Internet!  Forget publications that contain nudity, we're talking about a kiss on the cheek here.  I would like to know how difficult that bridge is to cross, and I bet somebody like Suchita could give us some insights.

When leaving the Michale Vick Town Meeting the other night, I witnessed a Japanese woman trailing behind her husband at three or four paces dressed entirely in traditional garb as her husband was in western attire.  She might as well have had shackles around her ankles as the kimono, if that's what is properly called, barely allowed her to stride.  She walked briskly behind him as if to keep up, as he casually strode along.  Their actions were traditional, but why wasn't he wearing traditional attire?

Strange times we live in where it seems we are leaving the era of black and white photography where not one smiled in a picture wearing the most uncomfortable clothing you can imagine to an era of color and where you don't have to where a three piece suit to fight bulls!  We are crossing a bridge for sure, but where are we going?  I don't want a tatoo... but a kiss from Shilpa Shetty wouldn't be so bad, would it?

On Tuesday, September 25th, that's next Tuesday, ESPN will be holding a Towne Meeting on the topic of Michael Vick, entitled The Vick Divide!

If you would like to attend, and are in the Atlanta area between 6pm and 7:30pm next Tuesday, this ESPN Towne Meeting will be held at the Georgia World Congress Center.  You can reserve tickets simply by calling 1-800-690-1135.  Supplies are limited.  Tickets are FREE!

The panel will include members of the Atlanta Falcons, the Humane Society, and other relevant guests.  Come speak your mind and make your feelings known on The Vick Divide; an issue that has to some extent divided Atlanta, if not the nation!

Take a break from the TRAFFIC!  We'll see you there!

-Gabe

A quick web search yielded one listing for this local artisan of Athens.  Michael Davenport may not ring a familiar bell for Atlantans, in general, but in Athens everybody knows Michael; just not everybody knows his story.

Imagine thousands of volts of electrcity surging into your body until you see nothing but a beautiful cloud, in a beautiful sky, and you have no more worries, or fears, only a certain peace that came with the charge...

Twenty-eight years ago, Michael Davenport was playing outside as teenage boys should be doing, only he found a copper wire lying behind his Grandfather's shed.  There was a creek out back that he wanted to swing over so he threw it over a nearby tree branch hoping to create a vine or sorts.  He wanted to be swing across the creek like Tarzan, as every 13 year old boy wants to do.

What a rush, it would be to build your own swing and fly to freedom over the waters that seemingly separated you from the land of milk and honey!

Michael was soon to learn his flight would not be without turbulence and the charge of electrcity.  Behind the branch he cast the copper wire over was an electrical wire that immediately sent a dose of ENERGY through not only his being, but also through his soul.

It might not be easy for a black man to succeed in this land of freedom but for that matter, as a former rode clown and the NEXT Hugh Hefner, it's not easy for anyone to succeed in this land of freedom.  Michael Davenport is a living testament for that fact.

Nobody would blame him if he just sat at home all day claiming there was nothing he could do.  Instead, after losing most of both arms in the "initiation of his life", he STANDS on the street corner of Jackson & Broad in Athens, GA drawing, and painting pictures holding the brush, or pen, only with his mouth while passers by stop to either gaze at, or purchase one of his pieces.

This isn't Vincent Van Gogh, or Picasso we're talking about here.  After all, Van Gogh only lost an ear lobe and that was by choice, the expressive, diseased nutcase that he was.  This is Michael Davenport, street artist with pen in mouth...

It wasn't a year, or two after the incident that Michael began to draw pictures without hands.  Within five years he was on the streets working with what he had... his mouth!

That was 1977.  Today, some twenty-five years later Michael still does his work as though it is his passion.  I mean you don't just get out of bed everyday after being struck by lightning and decide to go paint pictures with your mouth without wanting to do it.  It's no sheer act of work ethic that causes you to do that.  It's more than work ethic.  It's passion... coupled with opportunity.  Michael Davenport represents a true American story, only he hasn't been rewarded to the degree of someone like, say... Michael Vick.  Maybe the Falcons could take some of the recovered bonus money they get from Michael Vick, and give some of it to Michael Davenport instead.  They could set him up in the stadium and let him paint the Dirty Bird!

I have often thought about the Pilgrims that stepped upon these shores before the days of slavery and with nothing but and opportunity and an axe.  There weren't any pension plans, 401k plans, health insurance, or hospitials.  There was just a land occupied by Native Americans where they found themselves after being chased out of their home land as guinea pigs sent out to sea, to see if they would fall over the edge of the earth.

With a surge of electricty and a loss of limbs, Michael Davenport stepped off his proverbial boat onto the proverbial rock after traveling for a month in a coma before waking and starting his career as an artist.  Nobody would have blamed Michael if he just sat back and did nothing, but he doesn't operate that way.  Finding himself in what appeared to be a hopeless situation, it is hope and desire as though he were a former rodeo clown and the NEXT Hugh Hefner that drives him day to day.

Michael has spent his entire life in less than a Penthouse while still striving and climbing... with only his legs... to a higher state of being, even if that higher state of being is survival. 

Recently, communications have been ongoing with none other than the Oprah Winfrey Show.  Hopefully, a crew from Oprah will show up in town to show the man at work at the corner of Jackson and Broad in front of Broad Street Grill, home of the coldest canned beer in the world!  If you don't drink then have a Coke instead, but Michael will be out front making his impressions regardless. 

Georgia hosts South Carolina in Athens this coming Saturday.  So, if you're going to be in town, stop by watch the man do his work.  He'll even paint you a picture of a Bulldog, of course... one that won't bite, indeed, but it's sure to give you a charge without putting you in a coma!  Go Dawgs... and Go Michael Davenport too!  He's got a true Bulldawg Bite!

I am reminded of another one of those strange dreams I had when Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller showed up to teach me how to make baskets...  Not, the kind you carry stuff in.  They were teaching me how to shoot free throws.  I told them I wasn't tall enough to play in the NBA, and they told me to remember Spud Webb!

Now, why in the world my brain would manufacture those images and sounds, I don't know.  That's why I'm convinced that these sorts of dreams are fed from some distant place, maybe even from some spaceship, or something, as files being downloaded to a computer to form the image you see on the screen.  But, I am disheartened to hear of my coach's recent fall to an apparent suicide attempt, and I want to wish him well even though for me it was just a dream.

I heard yesterday Owen Wilson was comitted to the hospital at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles.  The article I read mentioned that he, Owen had just broken up with girlfriend Kate Hudson, and was also working on a new comedy with Ben Stiller.  Now, I know it's hard to be funny when you are down, having been fired several times in the last few years from several thankless jobs that simply wanted me to work in a suit while running around in the dirt as the bullfighter I was; but it is also often the better of two choices when the only two choices are to laugh, or to cry. 

Not to mention the fact that I suffered a divorce in the process after finding the woman of my dreams from handwriting on a bathroom wall in the middle of South Dakota, I too, Mr. Wilson, have suffered loss.  Imagine the weight of sadness upon me when not only did I lose the woman of my dreams in divorce, but I also learned from doing some research with her that we were actually brother and sister.  It was a complete mistake, as we were both orphans from our infancies and didn't decide to do the research until after we were married and bore little Paulie, our son.  Her name was Polly, kind of like Holly, or Molly, as in the Olly Girls, only she was brunette with curly hair, yet not very curly, and her boobs were in fact real!

At any rate, I don't want to dwell in the past, as there is nothing that can be done about it, and I still love my sister very much, but we're not sure if Paulie should call us Mom and Dad, or Aunt and Uncle.  It's a tough place to be, but I think I'll just have him call me Gabe.

But more to the point, I just want to wish Mr. Wilson well, as when we face dilemnas and things bring us down we can often be brought to the edge of despair and just want to end it all, knowing full well if we do, then we will only miss that which is to come.  Considering you might feel as though you've jumped out of an airplane with a parachute that refused to open landing solidly on your back, but instead of dying you bounce and then find yourself looking up into the bright blue sky.  It is in these moments of life we see heaven and hell all at the same time, and then we just learn to breathe again without hyperventilating.

I am the world's worst when it comes to movies and names and faces.  I rarely go to the movies and I don't even own a VCR, or a DVD player.  Being on the road all the time didn't allow for the accumulation of much stuff, but when Polly and I discovered our close relation, I was out of town at a rodeo and she up and decided to have a garage sale and sold all our stuff (well, mainly my stuff) and took off never to be heard from again.  So, I can't give you a list of the movies that I have seen because of a lack of frequency in viewing, but of those that have made me laugh, Owen Wilson has been part of the cast, in many cases.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is keep your chin up Owen.  Life comes at us hard sometimes and the mind can start to play games with you, but don't ever give it another thought to end things because you do have a lot left to offer and you would only deprive your fans of what's coming from you, and Ben, next. You guys make for a good team.  Focus on that, and realize that heck... at least you didn't marry your sister!

Be well Coach!

-Gabe

I saw the news story this morning reporting that Kia Vaughn, one of the Rutgers basketball players that Don Imus was referring to when he made his "mountain from a mole hill' comment calling them "nappy headed hos", has filed a lawsuit agains CBS and Don Imus for Defamation of Character.  If you read the article you would have wanted to gag as she makes herself out to be some damaged soul for the mean words Imus used to describe the Rutgers team. 

The charge is absurd and the lawsuit is frivolous, but it is oh so typical of a greedy and lustful spirit capitalizing on an opportunity.  I posted a short blog about this on my My Space page this morning at www.myspace.com/wickgraves, and I wasn't as nice as I'm being here, but suffice it to say that if she wins this case, it will be nothing short of a travesty. 

If Kia Vaughn is as sensitive as she makes herself out to be, contrasted by the hutspah she has shown by filing this lawsuit, I can't see how she ever had enough gumption  ever to become a collegiate athlete.  Of course, maybe that's exactly what it is.  Pure gumption... and her view is purely materialistic and not in good faith.  It's just another game to her and she wants to win!  It's an opportunity to score and she's taking the shot.  Al Sharpton will be sitting right there beside her cheering her on as he has edified the victims mentality among many black americans for years creating his very reason to exist.  Keep people thinking they are victims and helpless and you'll be their leader, right Al?  That's what they call smoooooove!

When MLK had the vision of children of all colors sitting side by side in peace, I don't think he was trying to turn people into victims.  He saw a better future where people actually might just get along.  The Imus comment was in jest, and when I heard it, it simply connoted the idea of some tough girls bouncing the rock.  Are they not?  How tough is Kia Vaughn if three little words have damaged, and scarred her for life?  Give me a break.  And, while you're at it, give Kia Vaughn some thicker skin, or at least a consicence.

Good Day!

I heard this story from the UK of little Madeleine on Fox 5 News yesterday.   On the brief clip played on the air, I was immediately disgusted by the fact that this couple left their child in a hotel room while they went to have dinner.  After reading an article in more detail, I learned of the circumstances that actually almost justify the situation, although I'm still a little uneasy about it.

It brings to light a bigger issue.  How many of us each day let our children walk home from a school bus to an empty house without any presence of supervision?  I am certain this happens countless times in around this country each and every day.  What is a bigger atrocity.

A friend of mine, divorced and father of four children, has been without steady work for the past five years due to the extreme circumstances existing when a family of 6 goes through a divorce.  He has no power in the matter as his income has been reduced to almost nothing and he had no savings to fall back on, and lost his share of equity in the family home when he fell behind on child support payments. 

Money is power.  He is made to look like a dead beat dad, while his ex-wife has a closet full of new clothes and a fresh new boob job.  He can't even afford the gasoline it would take to go to the city for interviews since he is now living with family in a small town outside of the city because he had no other choice besides the streets.  It was either that or shack up again, and that had already failed twice.

The good news... his oldest child just graduated from High School with honors and received a scholarship to cover the vast majority of the costs involved with a college education.  He believes God has watched over that house even though it could have crumbled very easily because the kids have basically raised themselves. 

When I hear of stories like the one where the little girl goes missing, it only makes me think of all of those who have not gone missing when it would be no surprise if they did.  It is truly amazing how so many of us willfully abandon our children each and every day and nothing happens.  Then, one night and one dinner, not too far away at a family gathering leads to one Madeleine disappearing.  What irony that is for all of us to glean.

So, while we are in pursuit of our wildest dreams, and becoming the NEXT... whatever, hug your kids and cherish them because it is very thin ice that we live on during this mondern day "pursuit of happiness".  Oh, and one more thing... thank God too!