Summer Starts with Skateboards

It’s the best feeling getting back into skating. I didn’t have health insurance for a while, a vague amount of time somewhere around the oneyearthreemonthfiveday mark, but who’s counting? Inspired by a thrift shop complete that ran me $3.99, I still waited patiently for the day (which one was it now? I can hardly recall…) that my benefits kicked in. Then they did. One week after I took a trip to the ER, unrelated, I went Westbrook Skatepark to relight the fire.

First thoughts? It’s hard to remember what exactly I was thinking, but I’d only seen the mini-ramp from afar and I do recall it thinking it seemed smaller. The chunky transitions were spent, no cheap gasket to keep cinderblocks of quarter-pipes together. Patrick was there with his camera so the pressure was high. The sun was setting after a cloudless day, a big front rolling in from the west to disrupt the color-changing canopy. I dripped sweat after dropping in and my fifty-fifties were shaky quake cakes. Time to get air for the camera so I pull out an old school stand-by, the frontside fast-plant, bringing my feet to the board the first time but bailing. Patrick had the timing down so the second try I had to stomp it. I wasn’t leaning back in to the tranny enough on the last one and would’ve slipped out onto my ass, so what do you think I did on the next one? The same thing. I really committed to rolling away and the board did just that, only I wasn’t on it. I took a little chunk out of my hand and elbows and sprained my wrist. The photo is worth it.

Seconds before impact.

Then I went to R.I. and hit up OMF. Sunday afternoon solo sesh. The park got a new flow. The custom floated craftsmanship made it a memorable skate just because it was basicaly a virgin session at a new park, only I learned to skate there pre-Jus, when the men were men and the graffiti was penises. Now the hubba and the corner bowls, like we dreamed of on hot summer days, looking out over the rink, past the field and the court, across the street and the parking lot at the bowling alley. Knowing Benny’s and the Heritage Mall were close by.

We were so young when we put our first set of trucks on triple-layered risers, squishing the hardware tight so the screw-head pierces the grip tape. The rails were 4×4’s with PVC screwed down, get good and slide some bricks under that sonofabitch. Who can boardslide the whole thing now?

I dropped in on the customary entrance qp, over the spine and funbox, around the corner bowl to the smaller funbox, over that one to the smaller corner pit-of-a-bowl, zzooomm over the gap behind the wallride and boom, I was back at the entrance quarter-pipe. Got my first good flips on the bank ramp, kick and heel. The miniramp session was the best, always my go-to; long gliding 50-50’s and blunt-rocks, one blunt-fakie on the minimini, ten good laps around the park and I was back in the game.

Now I’m hooked again. Feels good. Always miss it. Adrenalin. Fast-plants and pre-grabs. Smiths and feebles. Nose stalls, cab blunts, the coveted 5-0.

Today I went to the Portland park and got some speed in the peanut bowl, over head high in the deep end. A smooth 5-0 grind around a corner in a well-shaped pool is soul food.

How to make a Jacob’s Ladder in less than 100 confusing steps

Where there is a will, there is a toy to be made.  If you have never heard of a Jacob’s Ladder, you suck.  If you had one as a child, you should have one again.  The only difference this time around will be that you might come close to understanding how it works because, that’s right, you’re making this thing.

Step 1: Gather yourself.

Step 2: Gather all this stuff:

(The wood is balsa. It’s easy to cut, non-toxic, and available at your nearest rain forest.  These pieces are 12″ x 2″ x 3/16″)

Step 3: Mark off 2″ sections. I marked off both sides of the wood so I could cut from each side and come close to meeting up in the middle like Malcom. You will need 12 of these to beat this level and carry on with your life.

Step 4: Cut them with your razor blade.  Keep your blood out of it.  Bloody toys are for freaks and aliens. And the English.

Step 5: Make em curved.  Just two sides on each.  A mellow curve from the top on down to the bottom, like so.

Going with the grain when you’re shaping them makes way more sense than anything else, so that’s how I recommend you do it.

You may make a mess.  That’s awesome. I love a good mess.

You may get a little tired. Don’t.  This will definitely be worth it, I bet.

Congratulations! You have completed the first hard part of creating a Jacob’s Ladder! Go outside for a while, have a smoke or a martini.  We aren’t kids anymore so why not?

Step 6: Paint them. Or don’t. I did. It was pretty fun.  The balsa wood absorbed the acrylic paint I used very quickly so i wasn’t waiting around for them to dry.  That was a cool thing, though you may not mind waiting in which case you should consider planting grass upon each piece and letting it grow a little before moving forward with the project. Or just paint them.

Step 7: Learn about color theory while painting.

Everything’s better in color!

Step 8: Cut a bunch of strips of ribbon in 7″ pieces and get your glue out.  This is the hardest part to translate with photos but try your best not to fuck it up dude. I’m not going to put into words what I did here, just to make you try harder. Go get ’em tiger(ess)

Step 9:

Step 10: Run to the store and get some clothes pins.  It makes not being an elf a lot easier.

Step 11:

Step 12: Fold that green one under (or whatever color ribbon you used, dummy)

Step 13:

Step 14:

Step 15: Clothes Pins!!!!!!

Step 16:

Step 17:

Step 18: Holy shit! This is nuts!

Step 19:

Step 20:

Step 21:

Step 22:

Step 22 1/2:

Step 33 1/3:

Step 88: Stick that last piece on there and hope to god or ABBA that you didn’t glue your goddamn finger to your head while scratching and thinking.

Oh shit:

Well, I suppose you did it.  Now play with it, share it with your enemies, make it for your friends, throw it at the wall and see if it breaks.  Don’t use it to climb up things unless you’re ascending the tower of pride.

An Insight towards growth

Working on a new portfolio is something that I have found goes on forever. Literally. I have met some amazing people recently that have helped me realize this. At one point when we first moved to Portland I thought my portfolio was awesome. I really thought the mediocre writing and the half-assed graphic design would land me a job. This was not the case. It turns out that I wasn’t really in love with the work that I had produced.
This is the next step for me. For something to be up on my site, created to represent me, it must be something that I actually love. This seems like something I should have thought about and realized before, but I just wasn’t playing the right game. I was actually just writing what I thought prospective employers would want to see. So wrong. If they want to hire me and look at my face on a daily basis, I should probably show them how I really think, and more importantly-most importantly, how I really feel. That way they know what they are getting themselves in to.
For now, there are some place-holders on my site, but with a little more time and passion, there will be place keepers. I’m not saying the work won’t change because I know I will constantly have to improve but I’m saying that the writing will be something I love. Like a dog. Or ninja turtles. I’ll link it when I love it.

On The Cover

I’m pretty sure there are a lot of things I want to be when I finally figure out where I am and what I can do. I used to think the sky was the limit and then I learned from my family that the limit was even further away than that.
I know I like to think, I’m definitely a thinker. They may or may not be profound thoughts, but they are thoughts and I mostly enjoy them. I am really into fixing things as well. I like to think about different ways that the thing could be broken, then find the most efficient way to fix it, so I’m thinking as I’m working.
I like surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding but those aren’t things I can actively partake in on a regular basis because of the ol’ body.
I would love to be a ninja turtle, but not nowadays. I’m more into the radical and witty sarcasm of the 90’s half-shell, not the intensely violent and soulless modern warrior-turtle.
I know that writing is really something I can do for hours and still be forced to think about.

These!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

not these!

The draw for me into advertising is weird because of the commercial nature of the industry. I used to be more nature nature.
The challenge that writing poses is infinite, which is cool and also daunting. I may really need to grab the turtle by the nuts and start writing ad copy like it’s my potential career.

Life Is Life, The Rest Is Just Details.

“We are only human” is an incorrect summation of our problem.  As far as I can tell (not very far), we do have problems.  Us homowhatevers have tons of issues ranging from blind faith and stagnation to the most extreme selfishness and overzealous greed, but being human is not the problem.

Only human

I think (seldom, really) almost all problems are self-centered.  Each one of us is the center of the universe.  You reading this believe, in some rarely-considered part of your brain, that you are the most important thing to ever read, think, or act.  You may not believe you’re the smartest or the fastest, but you know that when the singularity comes, or aliens invade our planet, or doomsday arrives in some manner, that you will be saved. You will be the hero who gets to punch King Kong in the face and start the clock spinning again.  Call it survival instincts or pre-programming or fantasy, but it’s there.

I’m not quiet sure if that’s the problem though.  I could probably start a community-list of all the problems that each individual may incur through his/her lifetime starting with:

Alcoholism

Banana Peel accidents

Cauliflower Ear

Diabetes

Eczema

Foot fungus

Gonorrhea

Hepatitis

Insomnia

Joint pain

Ketamine addiction

Lymphoma

Migraines

Neurosis

Ovulation

Parkinson’s

Questionable judgment

Ruin

Sexual anxiety

Tuberculosis

Ugg boots

Venereal disease

Wet socks

Xenophobia

Yankee candle allergies

and

Zebra stampedes

but none of those are even a problem in the grand scheme either.

The problem is that we don’t even know if there is a grand scheme so we pretend to know.  We replace the unknown with images of the known because we are terrified of mystery.  We argue with other humans even though we are not willing to change our minds, and neither are they.  We think the world spins for us and we speak for the world, so it doesn’t matter what all the other idiots think.  We are really scared and never content.  We hope and dream and honor and believe and pray, only to never know until the final-kick what really happens. Even then, we can’t warn our family or friends, because we are dead. We deny death in our lives like it’s not staring us in the face every day, from every paved road and skyscraper.  We still, as a human race, cannot embrace death.  That will have to change when each of us dies though, won’t it?

We all have our own time here to decide what we like to eat and what kind of music is our favorite.  We all get to change our minds if we want and we all get to learn, one way or another, about different things.  Then we get to decide whether or not to retain that knowledge or let it seep out of our heads.

We all get to smoke if we want.

We all get to sleep and eat and go to the bathroom.  We all get to be born. We all get to die.  We can make our own choices about the clothes that we put on our bodies.  We decide what kind of entertainment we want, and we pay for it.  Every one of us has to work.  Maybe not for money, but for goals.  We know that the words “health” and “age” are both relative.  We all have a voice and a mind’s eye and a beating heart inside of our chest which pumps our very own blood through our very own veins.  We all get to breathe, because we all have lungs and ribcages and brains.  We all have brains. Each one of us has their own brain that powers every sense and thought and action.

It must be how we feel, think, and act that makes up our life then.  Maybe the rest is just details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Three Things

After much deliberation, I present to you…

THE THREE THINGS I REALLY HATE:

 

1. Learning to count.

2. Making lists.

10 Reasons Why I Like Portland Maine

I really love it here, and I think I will keep liking it, that is to say, I will continue to like it.

1.  There is lots of fruit and fruity people.

2.  This city smells like ocean.

3.  The people.

4.  I once had a 6th floor apartment with a gorgeous view of Back Bay.

5.  There are bars and restaurants all over the place.

6.  Old Port.

7.  There is always wind to blow the sadness away.

8.  The homeless people make intriguing eye-contact.

9.  Always prime hipster watching.

10.  The mourning dove that landed on our window-sill last week.

life at it’s fine street

I just saw a turtle turning into a teenager, a mallrat making passes at a mourning dove, a purse jumping over the moon, and a teaspoon calling to tell you that it would be later rather than soon.

When my lips smack, a certain void of technological empty-brainedness echoes through my cranium and bounces out of my ears.  “Time to take the trash out” says my stomach.

The one thing “we” don’t do as “us” is the only thing that matters…get together.

“Let’s” join up over tea and crumpets and walk the spider webbed talk of life and literature, the daily news, the only way to sprint through the greetings and hurry to the meat of a conversation.

Making a purpose is the best way I know how to be.

Nobody assigned a purpose to me.

I found it.

10 Reasons to Make Things Up

Ever wonder why some people just seem to have more fun than everyone else?  Me too!  This list is for those of us who want to be like those lucky ones who lie, make believe, utilize their imagination, and trick everyone into thinking they know the reason for zebra stripes, among other things.

1. It’s more fun than guessing.

• I like to think.  Most people do.  When making things up is plausible given the circumstances, give it a try and you may find yourself actually having fun.  What can be more fun than having fun? Nothing! So next time the opportunity presents itself, make something up and see if you enjoy it.

2. Making things up makes you seem more interesting, therefore, more happy.

• When someone asks a question that may have a boring answer, simply think of something interesting that you know and substitute it into the otherwise boring answer. Eg: “The sky is blue because dolphins are the only mammals that have sex for pleasure besides humans, so they got the honor of choosing the hue.”

3. Pretending saves money.

Smart kid, cool ship

• Two words: Cardboard box.  In these tough economic times why not save some money by stretching your imagination to make a simple possession into a life altering treasure.  Change the scenario with your mind and your words, completely make it up, and stay entertained for hours without spending a dime.

4. Everybody makes things up; join the crowd.

• I’m making things up right now! Try it. When everyone jumps off a bridge, I don’t assume that you will follow, but making things up won’t hurt so you should just go for it.

5. Zebras don’t know why they have stripes either.

What?

6. If people believe you, it makes you seem smart to them.

• If people happen to question things that you make up, you are considered a liar.  This is mostly because you are lying.  If there are bad intentions involved in the process or delivery of making things up, I am not to be held responsible for the retribution sought from victims of said lies.  If they believe you though, you are a knowledge-house and a scholar of all abstract things outside their realm of understanding.

7. Brain exercise.

• The best part about making things up is the benefit to your cerebral muscles.  It has been proven that imagination and creativity are directly linked to the growth of knowledge and the prevention of Alzheimer’s.

8. Making things up can be interpreted as creative genius.

• Look at how many fiction writers have become renowned for the one thing that so many other people are afraid to do.  Poets, screenwriters, actors, and politicians are only the beginning of the list of people praised for their uncanny ability to create from thin-air.

9. Money is made up and so is time.

• We know that time and money both have a grand purpose.  We also know that they both came from nothing and will end up nowhere.  This makes them fantastic proof that making things up can be profitable and pure genius.

10. The zebra stripe is the only stripe not to be sponsored by a fortune 500 company during the 1993 exhibition games for “Animal of the Year” which was televised live on all major networks, not including ABC, CBS, NBC, or FOX.

Remember to make things up for any other reason that you can think of.  It doesn’t even have to be a reason if you just make things up for no reason.  Just make things up.

Walt

This is a fictional tale. I have written the following story in jest, with exaggeration and complete balderdash included, because I have been truly inspired by the activities of a few real people.

Disclaimer: Any resemblance to the names, character, or history of a real person is purely coincidental.

His name is Walter Parker. He slouches at 5 feet no inches tall and has a thin grey head of hair that he sometimes lets grow in the back. It will fall to the bottom of his neck in a shabby burnt sort-of-way, but before it hits his shoulders it will curl back up towards the sky looking for relief from the greasy collar of his favorite jacket. All of his clothes are hand-me-downs. His orange shirt with the sleeves missing was the only shirt he wore for most of May last year. His Army jacket that hangs nearly to his knees off of his skinny-bone shoulders was lying in the woods in a sopping mess of leaves and deer shit. He doesn’t own a washer or dryer so he brings his laundry to the shop where he works and does his laundry there on Saturdays when nobody is around. The deer shit came out in two loads.
His biggest problem is his health. Walter has problems eating and digesting food. Eating is tough because he doesn’t own many teeth. Digestion is hard because he can’t afford healthcare to diagnose his frail little body. He can’t afford healthcare because he only works at the shop about 20 hours a week (including the time it takes to do his laundry), and he only works that small amount of time each pay-period because he doesn’t want the rent to increase on his section 8 housing.
There are good things about Walt that nobody knows. Everyone has heard about his big fat wife leaving the company Christmas party with all of the leftovers stacked as high as her triple chin, but Walt finds peace in knowing that he can support such excessive voluptuousness. He also brings a smile to the faces of his belittling co-workers when he leaves a note explaining his absence. Though the smiles are at his expense, he is still making people smile.
The only bad thing about Walter Parker is his lack of knowledge about how the world works. Like most ignorant peasants, he believes that he is always right. He considers his own opinion about anything relevant to be the only opinion that matters. This makes him hard to work with because of his lack of cooperation. He doesn’t understand the way that work ethic leads to success and that life is a huge learning process. The majority of the time he is lazy. Considering the fact that he only shows up to work for enough time each week so that his monthly salary doesn’t exceed the section 8 housing limits for gross annual income, and considering the fact that he walks slower than a drunk sloth and works slower than a blues guitarist on codeine, he is actually a pretty great guy.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Post-nap conversation and solution to a long-standing feud between Dreaming and Emptiness:

Dreaming: “No offense, but I’m better.  I think a lot about the way I effect sleep and the sleeper.  As you have seen, Emptiness, the sleeper is always prepared for the dream to come.  I think it really has to do with you getting the sleeper ready.  If they were to instantly start dreaming, the unusual scenarios of their dreams may come as a jarring surprise which could even interrupt their sleep.  Luckily, you serve as a great transition between reality and the dream world.  I owe it to you, Emptiness.  Without you I might have been an unpleasant experience, though I still believe that I am more important to the individual.  Who would want to spend 8 hours every night with nothing but a black void to look at; no crazy stories to tell their lover in the morning; no nightmares to breed courage in young people; no nothing.  Actually, only nothing.”

Emptiness: “…”

Dreaming: “Right.”

A big imagination takes a little work

The first thing I think about when I come home from work is how dirty I feel.  No, I don’t sell my body, except yes, right now I do.  I work in a kitchen making pizza on the weekends and as a manual laborer during the week.  The dirty thing goes for both jobs.  I am continually looking for a “real” job where I make money with my brain instead of my body, but I might still feel dirty after a day of selling my soul.

As I contemplate the possibility of a shower, I also look back upon the things that I have written about.  My friends on facebook have possibly read a majority of these things, and I appreciate your leisure-time well spent.  The other people who read my mind on the computer screen as I mill and equivocate over the meaning of meanings, well… thank you as well.

I wonder just how many showers we all have left.  I wonder just when the code will be cracked and my brain will open up like a cracked egg to let in the frying pan heat of the worlds knowledge.  I actually wonder when, not if, this will happen.

Sometimes instead of wondering, I imagine.  It is really fun, and also a good way to blow off stress.  I can imagine a bunch of things too.  Do you care to join?  Read on:

Imagine an overgrown heart inside of the beating chest of a giant whose only escape from the doldrums of ordinary giant life is to paint.  He uses a canvas propped against the side of a mountain with brushes he made himself from old pine trees.  The paint is a mixture of seawater and sheep’s blood for red, dragon tears and ground up beach sand for his fiery-yellow,  and a cow’s milk churned with crushed boulder-dust and chunk of midday sky, then stirred with the feather of an albatross for his magnificent blue.

With these organic hues, he paints the throngs of peasants that pummel him with flaming oak limbs.  He paints the tumults of cloud and rain that beat across his forehead, the sunsets that break through the darkness of his inner being and light up his overgrown soul, and his favorite thing to paint… his own imagination.

His imagination is hard to describe, but it kinda looks like a three tongued dogs’ mouth with spiked lips, but really rounded spikes.  It looks like the mouth is biting into the side of a straw house that will soon be set ablaze by an oak-fashioned torch.  As his mouth soul tries to swallow the thatched roof of torture, he also paints his heart, overgrown and swollen from desperation, yearning for the next free afternoon so he can paint.

The obvious choice

Power to the product!  The list of commercials that I like is long.  The list of commercials that I resent is equal to or greater than that.  The list of commercials that determine my fate is unknowable.  My product choice is obviously influenced by my monetary security and my mood inside of the market, but more importantly it is heavily influenced by advertising.  I like the kind of advertising that seeps into my head when I don’t realize it.  The commercials just do it for me.  I don’t think about a certain product for weeks and then, for some “unknown” reason, I’m shopping and the thing jumps out at me. No specific example comes to mind.

Therapeutic Stress

We are together in the battle for control.  My idea of “perfect” is not the same as yours and may even be opposite.  Pulling on one another for eternity, these two ideals are balancing each other like an ocean keeps a boat afloat.  To me, my idea of “perfect” is obviously the ocean and you may prefer the boat, in which case your idea of “perfect” is lame and temporary and my idea is never-ending and nurturing.

The real answers to all of our questions lay in the tension of opposites and the need for a yang.  The hull of a boat will never lift out of the ocean and keep sailing, nor will the ocean separate itself from the submerged wood, but will remain splashing and soaking and keeping the boat afloat.

To be one of us means to be human.  To be a human means to be different.  To be different does not mean to be smarter.  To be smarter does mean to be different.  To be different means to be yourself.  To be yourself means to come up with your own ideas.  To come up with your own ideas means that I am the ocean because I want to be, and some people want to be the boat.