Bringing It All Back Home (a semi-epic photographic journey to northeast roots and full-on trees)

Look, when I'm doing stuff, I forget to take pictures, but then sometimes I randomly do:



Me and Jeff.
Been all up and down the East Coast with this kid over the years, and no trip to NYC would ever be complete without a Wizard Juice sighting. Somehow me and Mike talked him into one more beer. I was stoked to kick it with the kid, Deejay Kinetic. Homeboy's been killing it on the turntables since long before you ever heard of Kanye West, real talk. Dude's all about dedication to the craft, and as an infrequent blogger I can definitely look up to that.






Me and Mike.
G-E-T-L-I-V-E! Hanging out with Mike is cool because somehow we always manage to turn the mundane into the epic. Unfuckwithable. Been knowin' Mike in MA, loosely in VT, and then I moved to New York City (years after him) and eventually we were neighbors (like, around the corner neighbors, I'm not talking about different boroughs).



Mike and Jeff.
When we were all hanging out at a bar in Park Slope swapping stories and stuff, my friend Lindsey goes, "Funbags, do you just collect crazies?"
Yep.







The (New) Old Highway.
I've skated Newburyport and the surrounding area for years. I remember March's Hill Park. I remember the Rupert Knock halfpipe. I skated the Blue Ramp at Cashman, Hampton, Salisbury and of course the Old Highway. But you know what? I never took the initiative to build my own spot like the younger skaters are doing nowadays. And I never ripped like them...


Brad and Porter.
Known the dude for around twenty years. Known the dog for around four (his whole life). Did this one portrait style on the last night of my trip. Porter knows his name. Brad knows his game.




My Parents.
They are one in a million. I think I kind of caught 'em off guard when I busted out my camera and took this photo, but I like it. Probably caught them off guard in much more distressing scenarios in the past, too.

Screeching Seattle

Last Friday (a week ago) I went to see Screeching Weasel (Screeching Weasel Myspace) in my hometown? of Seattle Washington. It was awesome. Over the years this band's music and aesthetic has influenced me musically, philosophically and lyrically. I really like Ben Weasel's tongue-in-cheek snotty yet highly intelligent take on punk rock and that's basically why they're still one of my favorite bands. I had never seen them play before and apparently they hadn't played in Seattle (or much of anywhere really) since '91, so this show was kind of a big deal.

My friend Evan had to jet back East for family reasons so he couldn't make it to the show so he had to bail on his ticket. I tried to sell it for him, but nobody wanted it. I couldn't even give the thing away on the bus, it was fucked up dude. My friend Taylor the wino came over and drank beers and red wine with me but he didn't want to go to the show because he had fucked himself up at Slayer like a week before. C-Lo had to work, Buzz was broke, etc. So I went it alone.
When I arrived on the scene I bumped into some old associates of mine from my days as a media minion. We hit the show, the pit and the bar in various rotations for the entirety of the Weasels' set, which began promptly.

They were great, they played alot of stuff from Boogadaboogadaboogada, and My Brain Hurts and Anthem For A New Tomorrow. The bouncer told me not to do windmills and shits during the breakdowns. He wasn't a dick about it and I think he actually respected the New York style but it was an all ages show and he was like, "dude, yer gonna kill someone." I didn't get in any fights or arguments like sometimes happens to me at shows, especially in Seattle, but the band did cut their encore short because there were some idiots in the front row apparently going at it in the second row or whatever.

Here's a link to a video of "Slogans" from that show that I stole from some kid on youtube (I didn't film it, I'm a rocker, not a blogger): Screeching Weasel at The Showbox in Seattle, Washington on Sept. 17th, 2010.
Two side notes that are kinda funny: When I was taking a piss right before the band started playing I saw my friend Rob in the bathroom. What's interesting about this is that as far as I know, Rob's not into punk and I don't really know how or why he was there at that show, but there he was. When we first met I half-jokingly told Rob that "I Hate Led Zeppelin" in tribute to the Weasel song mostly. It's not like I really do, but if you asked me if I liked them or Screeching Weasel better I wouldn't say Led Zeppelin, and I just think it's a funny thing to say to people because everyone expects you to love them, and I don't. Anyhow, Rob got kind of pissed and got all up in my face, it was pretty intense actually. We worked it out and became homies but I was shocked to see him there at the show of the "I Hate Led Zeppelin" band.

Also, I was drunk and it was raining and I got really soaked walking all the way to Belltown to 1st ave by myself high on adrenaline and booze and weed. When I finally got home it was real late and I had work at 7 in the morning at a shitty job at a convenience store that I had just given my two weeks notice to. I guess I woke up and just turned my phone off and never went back to that shitty job. I didn't care. It was awesome.

The City That Always Sleeps

Well, haven't "blogged" in a while. I've been writing some scrambled fiction, not really much of a narrative, just jotting down prose and not really caring if it's true or autobiographical or whatever. They say (whoever They are) that you're not really supposed to necessarily know what you're writing about at first when you're writing fiction, (which until recently I haven't really attempted that much) that you're just sort of scraping notes from your brain and you'll be lucky if you get something to eventually work with. Well I tried writing some fiction and ended up getting all autobiographical...
So here's a rant on some of my opinions on the geographical and environmental factors at play in one lazy skateboarder's life:

"There’s a possibility it might not rain today. A POSSIBILITY it might not rain--There are no guarantees. There is a guarantee that in Seattle it will rain 90% of the time during the “winter” (which seems to last from October to April) but there will be some sunny days here and there, and I’m determined to skate whenever I can during these tiny windows of opportunity.

Today the sky looks promising. The streets are soaked and it’s almost noon but there is a light in the sky that suggests that today we might elude actual rainfall.

When I moved here from New York City I took a lot for granted. In the city that never sleeps it can be pretty easy to let the world pass by. There’s always a later show to catch, the trains run 24 hours and the constant hustle and bustle and sense of urgency can become a complacency. In New York I would sleep ‘til 2 or 3, smoke some weed and then go skate SOMETIME before it got dark. Plus in New York, I could step out my sidewalk and be skating some of the best street spots in the world. Sure, there were parks that I would take long train rides to get to, but there was also a whole world of skateboarding that was vastly untouched, and due to the sprawling, all-encompassing nature of the City, there was this feeling that these spots weren’t going anywhere.

Seattle is a much smaller city, obviously, and therefore options in all things, including skateboarding become limited. On the West Coast it’s all about driving to the skatepark, stopping at Starbucks on the way, getting there, bullshitting with the other bullshitters, padding up and taking a few runs in between sips of your grande latte. So when I moved here I was used to the skateboarding style of New York and the East Coast which, while skating is often put off, demands that once you’re in it, you’re in it. People don’t have cars in New York. There’s no Starbucks on subway platforms. When you hit the streets or get to the skatepark, you’re fucking skating.

In Seattle I find I have become complacent and at the same time unused to the very small windows of skate opportunities that are available. I have squandered many a sunny day smoking weed in the house and looking at porn on the internet. I did the same in NYC, but there I somehow felt I could afford to do it. It was just as relevant to leave the house at 10pm as it was at 10am. In Seattle, you better be up with the sun, push your way through the lurkers and old man bullshitters at the skatepark and get your fucking runs in, because, you really don’t know when the next time you’ll skate will be, at least in the wintertime anyway. The summers out here are gorgeous and perfect golden days filled with exceptional weather and epic skateboarding. But in the wintertime this is the city that always sleeps, so when it is awake, you’d better be awake with it."

P.S. I really should've posted this immediately after writing it, when it was still winter around here, because the weather in Seattle is getting wicked nice and there's really no excuse not to be out there.

Photographs: Seattle Skyline by Lucie Anderson, NYC at Nite by Jon Hanks, and Me Skating at Owl's Head Skatepark in Brooklyn, NY by Mike Jourdanais