Firstly, Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, was beautiful. I mean that in the spiritual/groovy "yeah it was a beautiful day, man" sense, as well as in regard to the weather. It was in the forties and sunny, and mostly everyone (even the employed) had the day off. What a top notch day for skateboarding! But I had no thought like that in my mind because since I had written my last post I had called Newburyport Youth Services, who informed me that the skatepark was indeed closed for the season because it was "too cold for the kids to stand out there." "The kids" meaning the skate guards--the skateboarders who get payed to hang out at a skatepark. So I'm on my way to a friend's house to do stuff that's not skateboarding when I see two of my skate friends in a pickup truck all psyched that the park was open and that I had better get down there cause there's only an hour of daylight left. So we get to the park and the park is not open, but the gate is locked by a padlock whose chain is too long to serve the lock's purpose, and we thusly pushed the gate back far enough to walk in, and did so. It wasn't like we were poaching the skatepark (i.e.-breaking and entering--I am on probation so assault would be piled on that [long un blog-worthy story]), there was already a few old guys there with their kids who had apparantly done the same thing as us and walked right in. It was reassuring to see that these people who didn't even skate themselves agreed with me that the park's being closed for the season was a dubious oversight on the part of Youth Services. I know that they agreed with me along these lines because the fact that they walked through the locked gates proved so. My "illegal" skateboarding and paranoia about getting busted for doing some stupid shit and ending up with an assault charge due to probation, had been validated.
The session that day was sick. Some other dudes showed up and ripped with me and my friends and I didn't feel paranoid about being there. The next day I went back there alone. Fuck it, I emptied my pockets of anything that might complicate legal entanglements and skated there by myself for a solid hour, undisturbed. Truth be told, I'm pretty sure that the cops don't even know that the park is closed yet, so if a cruiser drives by, kids in the park doesn't even look weird. I guess it's just up to us to break their stupid rules and make it happen for ourselves. I take it back. Newburyport is still rad. In fact, I think I like it even better when it's closed.
I skated Exeter, Nashua, Fitchburg and Rye the next four days after that.
Exeter's not much to mention other than the fact that there were alot of heads from Newburyport the day that I was there and everyone was ripping and had a good time (I think). Just a good day with a monster skate crew and people were hyped to skate a qurterpipe or box or whatever, just to be around each other and the vibes a session like that can yield.
Nashua was a real rough ride (as I had heard) but there were still a crazy amount of lines to be found there. Plus, they had the legit skatepark vibe: dudes were getting baked and drinking Old Milliwauke in plainsight. It sounds childish, but that makes a park all the better to me, if it's a place where people can basically do what they want.
Fitchburg is nutso, but ghetto as fuck. On the drive there I saw a cop putting some dude in handcuffs in the back of his car in downtown Fitchburg while the pedestrians walked by without giving the scene a second look. If that shit was happening in downtown Newburyport, a Puerto Rican dude getting arrested in front of Richdales at noon on a Saturday, you bet your ass thered be six cruisers and a newsteam there. In Fitchburg, it weren't no thang. The park itself was sick, but the kids there were like throwing garbage in the bowl and just trashing the place up with cigarette butts and empty Big Gulps. An opposite scene from that of Newburyport on the surface, but these Fitchburg youth were taking their amazing skatepark for granted, just as the white (collar) kids in Newburyport. People are people. Kids are kids, I guess.
Yesterday, it snowed. It seemed my little skatepark tour was over and I never made it to Worcester. So I went to Rye. Alot of people hate on Rye, and with good reason. The first thing is that you have to pay to get in: shitty. Not only that, the place is slippier than a convenience store floor at closing time. Slicker than whaleshit. So nobody wants to go there. Wah. I know it sucks to pay and slip around, but wouldn't you rather do that than not skate? I would...When I got there yesterday it was 1:30 and the kid wanted me to pay fourteen dollars to skate for an hour and a half. I told him I'd be back from 3-6 for my money's worth. Plus there was some weird BMX comp taking place there and the place was crawling with weird emo Christian Rock BMX kids and their parents and stuff. So I went to Gilleys in Portsmouth and had an awesome cheeseburger and then went for a ruthless ride before showing back up to deal with Rye.
My shitty attitude aside, it was really fun. All the BMX weirdos stayed away from the pools and all the little kids there wanted to watch the BMX weirdos do their thing, so I basically had what I wanted to skate anyway, all to myself.
I skated for awhile and then asked some kid what time it was. He was with his dad and they were there to watch the BMX show. "Four Twenty" he told me, and we both kind of chuckled, he with his father there, and I with myzelf. Fourtwenty. Indeed it was.
So now I'm typing all this boring shit with no photos or real descriptions and there's snow on the ground and it feels like it's fifteen degrees outside. What the fuck is next? Keep giving loot to the Christian rocker fruits at Rye? Tuff it out in Haverhill under the parking decks? Probably not, it's supposed to be 45 tomorrow and 58 the day after that. Hooray for Global Warming. I'm sparked.
2 comments:
dude, so good to read your writings. Keep it up doggy.
i've read everyone of these shites. and enjoyed them thoroughly. do work.
Post a Comment