Moving Crap

Also known as "schlepping". I had to turn in the keys to my office today, so I cleared out some books, the famous (and priceless) Tyger Tapestry, a cookie tin of L.B.'s change (I wasn't stealing--she left it behind) and a nearly empty bottle of Herbal Essence shampoo (waste not, want less). I put everything in a sporty cardboard box and headed out into the beee-u-ti-ful summer's day. Sunlight was dancing through the tree leaves. The humidity had died down. It was great.

So, a good way for old timers to train on their skateboards is to surf around whilst carrying thirty or forty pounds of academic textbooks (including Stuessy & Lipcomb's "Rock and Roll: Its history and stylistic development -- "Stylistic"!? Give me a break!) Anyhow, if you skate around carrying a load of crap, it's like those hard-core joggers who attach weights to their ankles and wrists: when you take them off, you feel so much lighter and stronger. Carrying the extra weight improves your poise and balance too.

I also recommend trying to skate while balancing a book on your head. It's good for posture, and you will be glad for the trouble if you ever happen to run into the Queen while shredding the local park. "Oh what a marvelously upright young miscreant," she might say before a scrum of secret service men bury you beneath a mountain of cheap suits and Kevlar. This stuff happens more than you would think but we never hear about it due to the Media Glacier.

What more to say? I've got fifty pages to write about the state of skate for my degree requirements. Yes, I'm making my way in academia as a Skate Theorist. It's low impact--until it hits the bookshelves and then POW! Oprah will be all over that sh-t. Anything can be done, with the help of an open mind and Vitamin X.

Keep to the Shade

The skatepark was jam packed with kids watching the first competition to be held at the recently opened facility. It had rained on Saturday, so two days of events had to be condensed into Sunday's time slot. I arrived late in the afternoon, just in time to see the prizes for the last event, the "best trick in the bowl" category, to be handed out. There was music and commentary being pumped from the tent perched atop the "volcano"--an otherwise useless, plateau-shaped pedestal with steep-sloped sides at the street end of the park. It's as though the park was designed with festivities such as this in mind, and the carnivalesque sense of fun pushed aside questions that might arise in an old skaters mind, questions such as "is this really what skateboarding is all about?"

Without going into unseemly ideological discussions here, let me relate my response to this spectacle of organized skateboard mayhem. I can't take the modern, UV-laden sunlight in large doses. It radiates up from the concrete and undermines my ability to concentrate on the task at hand. So I took refuge in the only shade available: a laneway between the skatepark and YMCA that allowed access to the garbage bin enclosure. There were about five or six skaters likewise situated, and an exchange of skateboard maneuvers ensued in the shady patch of pavement. A tallish curb was also available for our enjoyment, and we took turns finding creative approaches to engaging with this feature. When we got too hot, the air issuing from a wall-sized exhaust vent from the Y's swimming pool cooled us.

The spot was a little oasis of shade, cool air, and chill-scale urban obstacles that offered a counterpoint to the glare, noise and crowding of the competitive skateboard comp raging just a few feet away. The situation was made all the sweeter by the manner in which systems not designed for human enjoyment were reappropriated to alternative use: the cooling system, the garbage removal lane, the tall curb surrounding the underground AC unit (ten feet down, past a protective metal grate set in its surface), and, finally the skateboard competition itself, which provided a carnivalesque background and "mirror", revealing the incorporated version of the original practice that spawned it. There in the shade a group of skaters gathered who did not feel comfortable amongst the prescribed herd of spectators/competitors and took refuge in the shady, industrial grotto inadvertently provided by the chance constellation of events and infrastructure. Thus, the spirit of street skating flourished for a moment on the very periphery of the structures erected to attempt to tame and corall it. Thank God for Vitamin X!

It's Getting Late

But not too late for Thrashin. I made it out twice this weekend. Saturday afternoon was overcast and cool enough for physical exertions. The "B" was deserted, as it has mostly been since the opening of the new municipal skateboard facility, earlier this spring. I hauled the grinder box over to the flat. It's surface was worn from a winter of being exposed to the elements. Having the park to myself, I went through some basics: ollie to tail, rail slide, various flips. Started working on the "hump ramp" -- I don't know what else to call it. Due to winter erosions, this obstacle rocks as you hit it. I was having fun just ollieing onto it and turning around, riding off. Some bikers came by, and some local kids.

When I got tired, I lent my board to the kids, who took turns surfing the park and trying to ride up the curb. They spoke a beautiful and unfamiliar language--Samolian, it turns out. I told them it sounded nice, and they said "thanks". It was great to have the park largely to myself, and to watch the kids skating when I got tired. Then Scott showed up. We skated a bit, and he told me about some physiotherapy options. He was working on blasting ollies out of the bowl, and seeing how high he could clear on flat...pretty high, it turns out. "It's all a head-game," he said. I did one ollie over the lowest part of the metal grinder bar he had configured, tapped my back wheels on it on my way over, and, rolling away, decided to leave it at that.

For a couple of old skaters, we could still hold it together. As the body wears out, one becomes more cautious and calculating. But it's hard to quit, perhaps even reckless and dangerous to do so. Giving up the expanded senses and widened reflexes that skateboarding offers, quitting outright leaves one in a reduced an vulnerable state. Skating keeps one focused and aware of the here and now, like moving meditation. It's also choc full of Vitimin X.