5/28/12
A long time ago, when I was a Ventura County skate rat, I met a dude named Gavin Peters. I immediately liked him - he was a little older, way better at skating than I would ever be, and funny as hell. We started talking about music, I think it was about how GZA was the best rapper out at the time, and that conversation led to a great friendship. Along with skateboarding, Gavin was a budding artist, who would mainly work in screenprinting manipulated found objects and making either stencils or vinyl stickers out of them. Everything this dude did was cool. A few months before I started college, we took a road trip together up to Berkeley to check out the school and see what kind of scene it was. We stopped at every skate park we saw, as well as every Taco Bell - which turned into a contest. Whoever could eat the most burritos that day got to choose the beer that the other had to buy. Gavin holds the record for fourteen burritos. It makes my colon hurt just thinking about it.
While I was in college, for the first few years I would get random packages from Gavin that always had the coolest swag in it - usually a mix tape and some crazy stickers or posters to put up. But once, he sent me a huge cocoon looking thing in a paper bag with a label on it that said "Praying Mantis Egg Sac." Sure enough in a couple weeks I had about 500 baby praying mantises in my apartment. I would see Gavin every time I came home, usually to skate or chill and listen to music.
One day, Gavin called me up and was in a crappy mood. It turned out that he was really frustrated with himself because he was in a skate contest at the skatepark in Ventura and kept falling off his board on what were really simple tricks. A couple months later and he couldn't even stay on his board while riding down the street. Gavin knew something was wrong, but he didn't have health insurance, so he put it aside as just some weird thing with his ankles, and focused on art. That went ok, until he noticed he started weaving and lurching as he walked. This scared him, so Gavin actually applied for Medical, and when he got it, and finally had his doctor's visit, he was diagnosed with M.S. He was put on a really rigorous medication and physical therapy schedule, but nothing was working and he was deteriorating fast. He could no longer walk without a cane, and was constantly in pain. This is when he was 26. Then Gavin started looking at alternative therapies, at one of these sessions, a "bee sting therapy" session, the woman administering the therapy commented that she had heard of someone with very similar symptoms that was suffering from Lyme disease. Since nothing had worked so far, Gavin decided to tell his doctor what she had said.
In summary, what happened next was that Gavin was re-diagnosed with Lyme disease, more than four years after his first symptoms. Lyme disease, if caught early, can be killed with antibiotics. Gavin's case had gone unchecked for so long that the neurological damage was irreversible. Now Gavin is totally confined to a wheelchair, has lost most of the use of his hands and arms, and cannot take care of himself.
Since Gavin has been in the wheelchair, I have seen him exactly three times. The first was when he first got it, and was rolling around a department store playing with a baseball bat and acting ridiculous, like he usually was. The second time was after he had gone to India to have stem cell therapy, and had deteriorated so badly that I couldn't bring myself to see him again until today. I feel horrible for this. Gavin's mind has not been affected at all, he still has the same sense of humor, the same great taste in music, and humorous disdain for all things hipster. I don't understand why I didn't visit more often, it must have to do with my own unfounded unease with change. But after this visit, I can honestly say that I can't think of too many better ways to spend a lazy Monday afternoon than with Gavin Peters on his front porch, talking shit about hipsters and just chilling until he gets tired in the best way possible.
Beyond being a reminder that we need to spend the time we have right now with the people that we love, this has been a reminder that we as people are a very small part of our own lives, and the sooner we recognize this, the sooner we really become a part of some community or family or whatever you want to call it, the happier we will all be. Thanks Gavin, see you next week.
http://infiniverseabstract.com/
http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/a_little_help_from_his_friends/7744/
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