Eight Great Skates

I have had the pleasure of putting my wheels on alot of different concrete in my lifetime. Any time I've left the house to get on a plane a train or bus I brought my skateboard with me and managed to get some decent sessions out of nearly all the trips I've taken. Here are a few really creatively designed concrete skateboard parks across the USA that I've been to that I really think take the cake as far as line selection and overall flow. Don't drive past these ones...

Stamford CT

Stamford is Grindline's Northeast masterpiece. Located about an hour north of New York City on the commuter rail, (the park is within a hardy skate distance from the train station) Stamford is ideal for a day trip for the Big Apple skater who's craving some tranny action that the streets can't always provide, or for anyone who finds themselves anywhere near this burly gem, like Tim Cowie did when he ripped this powerfisted backside 50/50 in the polar bear/combi thingy. Me and Tim skated here for hours on end, then got some cold Foster's and headed back to the City for a night of who knows what. By the way, you have to be twenty-one to browse the Foster's website. Weird world run by lawyers and beer barons, right? Thank God for skateboarding...

Louisville KY

Duh. The 24-Hour, public, free, padless, basically lawless "fracture factory" is where the fuck it is at. Go there. Now. Stop reading my goofy blog and get the fuck on it. This is probably about as close as you can get to skating something like the SMP park without leaving the country. (And again, I can only blog about the parks that I've personally skated, but I'm tellin' ya, Louisville is one of the best on the planet.) Yella is free.








Nashville TN

Skated Nashville in passing while driving across country. One of the most unique parks I've ever skated with so much space and obstacles to try out different lines. This place is right up the hill from Dukes of Hazzard Cooter Museum. I forget if it was before or after I skated, but I got my picture taken with the General Lee. I hope it was after.







San Francisco, CA

Potrero Del Sol! The Roy Brothers took me here one night while I was half in the bag after a Shakin' Michael J show. We had to hop the fence which I guess is pretty illegal but when Ben Roy's leading me on a skate mission (no matter how rag-tag and brief) I'm not trying to fuck around. To skate the "street" section of this park (which is basically a converging pit of various transitions) you have to bomb into the area from a large incline above. The park was basically built on a hill which they incorporated into the design. There are also some of the burliest pools outside of a backyard that I've ever skated. I wouldn't go there drunk (like me) and think yer gonna be all casual and shit. If I ever go back I'm bringing knee pads and I'll be sober!



Battle Ground, WA

Moving to the Northwest afforded me ample opportunity to skate Grindline and Dreamland
parks and Battle Ground is Dreamland's crown jewel. It doesn't even seem real. I showed up here at 9AM on a Sunday morning thinking the place would be deserted but it was actually pretty crowded. The word is it's always crowded, and rightly so. Not that I'd want to live in Battle Ground but it is ideally placed in the midst of the 1-5 Pacific Northwest Shred Corridor, being about 45 minutes from Portland and two hours from Seattle, with fabulous skate destinations sprawling in both directions. (Portland probably needs a separate blog)

Seattle WA

Seattle has its good share of skateparks but I think the most creatively designed with the best line selection is the Lower Woodland park at Green Lake.The first time I took Andrew Nelson there some kid was getting lifted out of the combi pool in a stretcher. I was proud to tell my fiend that Green Lake was now my home park.




Whitefish MT

This park is pretty well known and with good reason. I was astounded at the possibilities that exist within this skatepark. Lines for years. They built the shit right into the mountain that it's on, using elements of the original rock pilings in some of the park design. On some Lord of The Rings Shit, I thought Gandalf the Grey was gonna drop in and shred the bowl the whole time I was there. This skatepark filled me with mystical wonderment.


Ft. Pierce FL

This place is fucking sick dawg. This is the reason why I decided to write this blog entry. I just got off the phone with Tim Cowie and I was telling him (you can't really see from the photo) that in the snakerun it bowls at the end and when you hit the coping there is another steeper transition that goes up to another coping which is the actual lip of the pool. Confusing and weird to talk about but this place brought out the best in my skating. It felt GREAT to be there. You can flow the whole thing and if you go in the morning (when you should because it's hot as fuck by 11am or so) you'll have the place to yourself. I'm pretty sure Animal Chin is lurking somewhere around Ft. Pierce. Go find him. Team Pain!

PHOTOS: I took the photo of Tim Cowie at Stamford. I also took the shot of Whitefish from the parking lot. Lucie Anderson took the one of me at Louisville and the rest I stole from the Internet. I spend all my time at skateparks skating and not taking photos. Shit...

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

Montana

In May of this year I finally made it to Montana--Big Sky Country. My buddy Tim has lived there for over a decade and has extended an invitation to me since he arrived. We always talked about doing an epic skate/camping trip, but I could never make it. Jobs, girlfriends, and various debilitating injuries kept the idea for the trip just that--an idea, like many others, unfulfilled and on the shelf until further notice. Well when I found myself living in Seattle, I said fuck it.

My girlfriend let me borrow her car for five days or so and after watching the Red Sox lose to the Mariners at SafeCo Field, I went home for some sleep and woke up, a little hungover, around 1am, made coffee and hit the road. I drove into the night, through the Wenatchee Pass, and hit Spokane, WA around 5am. Got out to skate Spokane's park and found some lurker/partyer/skater dudes sleeping in the middle of the deep end! I almost carved into their sleeping bag-covered heads! They basically had no choice but to get up and skate with me for an hour or so. It was a weird session but Spokane was sick and after bidding my farewells I peaced out and headed for Deer Lodge, MT, where I would meet Tim and his crew of skate droogs he had assembled for the camp/skate trip.


I made it to Deer Lodge by about Noon. I almost ran out of gas in the desert heat with no prospect of a gas station for fifty miles. Cruised in on 100mph cruise control fumes to meet up with Tim, Jed and Chad, three rippers from the Big Sky/Bozeman skate/snow community. Shakas, bro! One of their other homies ran the local A&W, so we were treated to some cheeseburgers and root beers before we hit the road. You gotta get a root beer if yer at A&W by the way...

One of the "weed men" on the trip, Jed was our fearless leader. His extensive knowledge of Eastern, MT due to his experience selling lemonade to Indians, was invaluable. Jed drove us all over in his Suburban (which was also my "tent"), drank beers and whiskey and always had a hilarious story to tell. Awesome dude with a kick ass attitude and skate/party ethic, Jed also treated us to Smashmouth and Cher technopop tunes at full volume as we rolled into Whitefish skatepark.



Chad had a unique style and was very interested in the architecture that each individual park we went to had to offer. He was psyched the whole time, down to wait out the rain and when he turned it on he ripped like a demon. Over here he's carving the helmet thingy at Polson. You had to go through this gnarly deer crossing to get to the helmet, so it was real impressive to carve it out with speed and style and make it back out into the main part of the bowl.

I was there, too. Tim Cowie took this photo at St. Ignatius and made it pretty in photoshop. St. Ignatius was probably the collective favorite park of our group. We went there twice and stayed there for like five hours each time. It's on an Indian Reservation and while we were there it was pretty much deserted. You're not supposed to drink there. There was this baby in diapers with a kool aid mustache. The locals said his family got drunk all day and just let him run around the skatepark by himself in his diapers. "Who's fucking baby is this?", we kept wondering.





Tim Cowie set the whole trip up. He planned the route, assembled the crew and skated harder and faster than anybody. He was definitely the premiere bowlsman in our crew and he kept his fists clenched the whole time. POWERFIST. When we were kids Tim told me that his ancient Cowie clan in Scotland used to come out of the woods and fuck shit up on villages with the torches and the ruthless pillaging and whatnot. Out Of The Woods!

The days blew by like spinning polyurethane wheels and gusts of smoke, and after heading back to Big Sky for a few days of downtime, skating the mini ramp there and wrecking 1800 dollar mountain bikes, it was time to head back to Seattle. BALLS!

It's Been Too Goddamn Long

My friend Jonh joked with me that my blog is a "Semi quarterly." Fuckin A. It's been too goddamn long. I haven't felt compelled to write much besides lyrics in sometime. Truth be told, I actually forgot the password to my blog account. What a goon! Anyway, I'm sitting here and thinking about how by not writing I'm blowing it. So I wanted to put this up an get back on the horse.

Above High Society

What I'm doing is fulfilling dreams and fantasies. Not long ago I jammed with my friends Brian and Jonh. We're working overtime on resurrecting me and brian's old band shakin michael j out here in Seattle, and we're having a bunch of fun doing it. Jonh's been playing bass...we're practicing some of our older tunes (J Classics if you will, and you will, mutherfucker) as well as writing some new ones. I could shit myself I'm so happy. While we were recently playing, at one point, I found myself dicking around playing bass with brian on drums and jonh on guitar. We were jamming on some art fag introspective indie rock type shit, mostly due to my lack of prowess and creativity as a bassman. I'd love to rip like Matt Freeman but my shityness only allows me to play more like a bad, paled Kim Deal. (I love Kim Deal so don't be trippin, I'm just makin a point here) Anyway I was stoked to be playing bass in some grungy space in Seattle--a fourteen year old dream realized.

The next night we went to see Brian's other band, The Chandelears play at this place called the FunHouse. The FunHouse received "best punk rock club of 2007" from some magazine out here, if you wanna know. I read it on a plaque on the wall. Punk Points.
But the place was rad. They had two dollar jello shots which friends of mine were abusing, stoking and bumming out the crew all at once. They also had a pool table where games were only fifty cents apiece. I couldn't believe! So Jonh and I played Brian and Jamie (it was a couple vs. a couple of scumbags.) Me and Jonh lost. The whole game sucked cause most people were more interested in talking to each other and checking out the live music than playing pool, myself included. Jonh eventually scratched on the eight ball and the scumbags lost.

Eventually the Chandelears played around 11pm and they were sick. They played as a three piece, without their female vocalist who is on a gnarly trip to peru or something. The band's singer Douglas rips on vox and git and I liked them live. Brian's no slouch on the bass and the new drummer, Nick was tight as fuck as well. If Nick plays his cards right he will be playing drums for the J real soon. Seattle should duck and cover...

Without Dani, the Chandelears missing female vocalist, the band's material was cut down to only around seven songs. One of the new songs they played sounded like New York Hardcore with breakdowns and stuff so I threw down some east coast moves, even though the chandelears aren't necessarily a punk band but what the fuck y'know, do what feels right. Jonh rocked the fuck out to every song, knew all the words and even got it goin on with a little bump and grind dancin with a female Chandelears fan. So I went outside to smoke a bat and when I came back the band was playing its last (seventh)song. I wasn't hatin cause I'm friends with the dudes in the band, but I was pissed at myself for going outside, and I wanted a longer set. I'm sure that will come with time and especially with the return of Dani, their other singer.



Outside at the FunHouse there's a basketball court that is illuminated by the lights from the world famous Seattle Space Needle. I went out there and told some stranger to pass me the rock, expecting him not to, but he did and I proceeded to fire off an air ball before smoking some weed and going back inside. The scene was just beautiful, man. In New York and Boston and (i guess?) Burlington, "punk rock" bars that I have been to have been dripping with pretension and holy-than-thou snobbishness. Out here these fools had the vibe goin pretty good. I can't wait to play some shows out here and take advantage of the mellow and receptive vibe. They'll be sorry...










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