Fergus Cassidy

House call

DOCTOR BEN MARBLE, who also moonlights as a rock musician and artist, was having big problems with eBay. He was trying to sell some of his paintings, along with a video download he and his friend Jay Scully put together.

The listing for the video was deleted constantly because the title broke the auction site's rules. It originally had the word 'fuck' in the title and even asterisks couldn't keep the listing live for long.

Item 7712459972 was shown as having a "listing error". It's better known as the video footage of someone shouting "Go fuck yourself" to US vice-president Dick Cheney. That someone was Doctor Ben Marble MD, a hospital ER physician.

Gulfport, Mississippi sustained serious damage from Hurricane Katrina. Marble and Scully's world was ripped apart and replaced with mud and memories. Marble's wife Lisa was pregnant during the hurricane and gave birth to Sofia Grace shortly afterward.

Three months earlier, Scully's wife, Michel, was rushed to hospital. She was only pregnant six months when their son William was born. He weighed 1lb 14ozs. The child had brain bleeds and a collapsed lung. He was on a ventilator, an oscillator and had over thirteen blood transfusions. There were many times the couple didn't think their son would make it through.

Both families survived Katrina physically unscathed and William went home last Sunday. For him, home is nothing like what it was supposed to be. "He will never know the world that I knew", Scully wrote recently on his weblog. "We will only be able to describe to him what our beautiful Coast looked like."

These six fragile lives made it through the worst US disaster in living memory and like many, many others set about reconstructing their world as best they could. Marble chirpily put on a Mr T 'I Pity the Fool' shirt and he and Scully drove off to check what state Marble's house was in.

"I arrived at the railroad tracks when the Military Police wouldn't let me cross a barricade that is literally 200ft from my house", said Marble. "They told me 'no one' could pass". Another route would have used up more precious petrol.

"Then suddenly a long line of dark cars pulls up and they start honking at me to back up to let them through. Well that pissed me off even more so I waved a middle finger at the caravan".

On arrival at Marble's house, he heard a neighbour saying that Dick Cheney was down the street talking to people. He approached two police officers and asked them if he and Scully could go and see what was going on. The police said they were "looking forward to talking to the locals".

Marble grabbed his still and video cameras and the pair walked down the street toward the vice-president. "Then right in front of the destroyed tennis court I used to play on, Dick Cheney was giving a pep rally talking to the press. The secret service guys patted us down, waved the wands over us and let us pass.

"Anyway, I was standing about 10ft away from Mr Cheney while Jay was filming. I then took a picture of him and yelled 'Mr Cheney, go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself, you asshole'. I had no intention of harming anyone but merely wanted to echo Mr Cheney's infamous words back at him."

(This was in reference to an incident in June 2004, when the US Senate was being photographed. It was reported that Cheney had directed "a profanity" at Democrat Patrick Leahy.)

Marble's remarks were broadcast around the world. What happened after, not so much.

Marble "noticed the secret service guys with a panic stricken look on their faces like they were about to tackle me. So I calmly began walking back to my house, waved to one of them and said 'have a nice day'.

"We were loading the things we could salvage and about ten minutes later two Military Police waving M16s showed up. They said they were looking for someone who fit my description who had cursed at the VP.

"I told them I was probably the person they were looking for and so they put me in handcuffs and detained me for about 20 minutes. My right thumb went numb because the cuffs were on so tight but they were fairly courteous and eventually released me after getting all my contact info".

Marble put the video of the incident and one of his paintings up for auction to raise money to rebuild his house. Whatever money he brings in will be split 50/50 with his friend. "Thanks to Katrina, Jay is unemployed and his wife lost her job at the casino because it was destroyed. So yes they could certainly use the money more than me".

He just needed eBay to get up off its asterisk.

UPDATE: The auction of the video has now ended and it's available here.