First Person Arts

Gary The Storyteller told this story at “On the Road”–last month’s Story Slam–about his descent into abject addiction:

Next Slam: Tuesday July 22nd @ L’Etage Doors at 7:30pm. Theme: “Caught”

Check out our ad in this week’s City Paper and come out Tuesday the 22nd ready with stories about getting caught, or doing the catching:

Hosting this month will be former slam winner and one of last month’s guest-storytellers, Katonya Mosley. Here she is, telling the winning story for May’s “Secrets” StorySlam:

Remember, the doors open at 7:30 and he Slam begins at 8:30!

Angela Madsen is a paraplegic from California who recently completed a trans-Atlantic crossing via two-person rowboat and is now training for the Beijing Paralympics here in Philadelphia:

My journey to Beijing and the Paralympics

I haven’t written in a while and my friends have begun to worry about me. I could write an entire chapter on my experiance here so far but I am just going to summarize. I set out for Philladelphia quite a while ago and it has not been going so well. Some parts have gotten better and some things are just plain stressfull. For those who do not know, there is more to my life than being a disabled veteran, than ocean rowing, running an adaptive rowing program or even surfing. I have competed on our national adaptive rowing team since 2002 and my US rowing partner since 2002 is Scott Brown. Scott lives and works in Philadelphia. Since we don’t recieve a great deal of money, sponsorship or support as disabled athletes I decided to relocate to Philadelphia for training with Scott. This enables Scott to remain employed while we train. We get on the water before he goes to work and then again after his work. It just seemed to make more sense than both of us leaving our home, our family and our work to train. Scott and his wife Sandy are appropriately appreciative of the sacrafices I have made for our national team and for our sport.I searched on Craigs list, called the Disabled Veterans Organizations, the Veterans Hospaital and even affiliate churches to my church in Long Beach to find an accessible room or apartment to rent here in Philly and had no success. After living in my van for almost 2 weeks I finally found a place to live. After spending 67 days in the small boat at sea with no plumbing, living in the van is a piece of cake. The van, by comparrison is a mansion with its many amenities , I could do it easily, but why?

. . .

Read the rest of the story on Angela’s blog: RowofLife.net

Blognettes are true stories blogged around the web and excerpted (unedited except for length) here at the First Person Arts blog. See (or blog yourself) a compelling, funny or revealing true story? Send us a link, and we may feature it as a Blognette!