Well, it's nice to go places, but it's nicer to be back home. I can't say much about where I've been for the past week, except that I needed some time to ride the rails, skate the truck stops, and think things over. I'm sorry that in my absence you had to be introduced to that improbable freak of nature, the Endtime Adjuster, and I'm sorrier still that he saw fit to rummage through my papers and back pages and post some of them on the net. But I guess it's good to air one's dirty laundry from time to time, and both drinking and psychotherapy are too expensive for this author.
Now that we have gotten the Star Wars files, poetry attempts and old time religion out of the way, I feel the path is clear to get back to basics and focus on the activity that gave birth to this blog in the first place. It may be somewhat shameful to be an unemployed thirtysomething unattached kind of fellow with an internet connection and a 7-ply habit, but over the past week I've had to come to terms with the fact that this is me. I'm not a rapper, or a scratch DJ, or a major Canadian poet. I'm not a parent, professor, gumshoe, taxi driver, stock clerk, freight loader, barrister, soliciter, telemarketer, ladies' man or puff pastry cheff; but I landed a crisp ollie caspar stall to fakie on the hump at the Bease tonight, and my feet didn't touch the ground for an instant.
So what if I've never been sponsored, never travelled to California to get chased off all the hotspots by police helicopters, never really met or skated with a pro, never had my picture in a magazine and never landed any skateboard trick involving sliding down the handrail of a set of stairs? So what if I'm doing pretty much the same thing I've been doing since high school--with the exception of a few years lost to higher education--and that four wheels and a piece of wood are about the only things keeping me moored to this swiveling orb we call planet Earth? So what if I've never made a blessed penny doing the thing I love most, and so what if I've pretty much lost all drive to attempt to fit into the nebulous beast we call society or support myself or my skateboard habit with any sort of even part-time employment?
I don't ask for much, and I'm not ashamed of being who I am. This evening saw me cutting up some gnarly lines down at the Bease, once the sun had set and the concrete was pale and purple in the dim street lamps, like the slick, graffiti-emblazoned back of some great ossified beast of the sea.
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2 comments:
I live in Cali and it's not all as it is cracked up to be.
I have also met a couple of pro skaters and they are not all they are cracked up to be.
Tom Knox is the biggest skate pro out of this area. There are a few others, like Bobby “G” who was a pro and had is own deck for about 2 minutes.
Anyhow, I remember one of my last moments skating, I was skating behind the old courthouse downtown with some friends. Tom Knox (pro) showed up and schooled us like no ones business and he wasn’t even nice about it. I remember thinking,. one, he was a dick and two, how bad I sucked and there was no hope for me ever to get any better. So I quite and directed my efforts in learning to play the guitar.
My point is I think you one of the best blogger/writers I have come across. And I thing you should send your stuff out and get published.
I've actually met one pro. Last year Mark Appleyard showed up one night at the Bease. He's a local boy who made good: the Thrasher skater of the year, 2004 who is now in all those jean ads. He was a chill and modest fellow, and landed a righteous blunt to kickflip-out on the near-vert quarter pipe. At one point I chased his board for him, but was too starstruck to say something witty like "Trade ya" as I handed it back--I was riding Em's old everslick Streetfighter board and I bet Mark would have been tempted to at least try the thing out.
Thank you for the kind words. I probably should send my writing out, but to whom? I also play guitar: those vibrations close to one's chest cavity are very comforting.
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