Open Streets

Even more fun than Supercrawl (Hamilton's art-music-culture event on James St. N.), Open Streets saw James Street closed to car traffic from Wilson all the way down to past Burlington St, from nine in the morning to three in the afternoon today. The event comprised of seven or eight blocks of neighbourhood-produced entertainment, socializing, sport, food, sales (both in stores and driveways), art and culture. I brought my skateboard, the use of which was encouraged by the greeter in the tent at Wilson St. It was so amazing to have all that urban space, normally simultaneously used and ignored by car traffic, made available for recreational, local and self-produced activities.



The Kiwanis Club's mobile skatepark was set up just past Strachan, and my array of oldschool trickery provoked one kid to ask just how old I was, and how long I'd been skating for.
Then there was my friend's two kids, who were duly impressed as well that their dad's old fogey of a friend
could actually bust so many moves on a skateboard. I only fell once, and that was because I was trying to show off to my girlfriend, who says "I'm such a kid", probably because of my need for attention. The middle of the road is amazingly smooth and pleasant to skateboard on...a nice change from the pitted, rugged curb-side that I nomally navigate on my way down James. And I didn't have to watch out for any car doors suddenly opening!












DJ Mathematica was spinning some awesome remixes at the corner of Burlington and James. I really like James St. N., and so seeing all the life and activity on the road itself was extremely uplifting.






It was as if all the life that one knows is flourishing on and around the street, all the human energy, talent, feeling and practices that one catches piecemeal glimpses of in the everyday navigation of a place, was given a venue to present itself all at once--a veritable flowering of the street and its people. The weather was perfectly cool and sunny. It was a fine afternoon in a summer that keeps offering unexpected surprises and delights, even now that the summer is officially over.

Getting Radish in Toronto

I find one of the best places to be alone is in downtown Toronto, where one can wander amidst the sea of humanity with relative anonymity. When I used to live in Toronto, there was a slightly higher chance of bumping into someone that I knew. But that was over ten years ago, and so now when I hit the T-dot, if I don't have a friend with me, the chances of running into a familiar face are slim.

So I was surprised when, upon rolling up to my favourite downtown skate spot--the large skate park near Bathurst and Dundas--I was greated with an enthusiastic "Hey, how's it going?!". I looked up to see my old skate pal Greg, a fellow who used to hang out at Beasley park but moved to Toronto a couple years ago. Greg is tall, and the last time I saw him, at the second day of the Beasley Skate Jam, his arm was in a sling due to a dislocated shoulder. But that was over a month ago, and his shoulder was more or less better--just so long as he didn't fall on it again.

I really like the large, flat expanse of ice-smooth concrete upon which I believe the city of Toronto pays to have a number of obstacles installed for the duration of the summer. There are two manny-pad/slider boxes, a couple slider bars, an angled box and a mini ramp (which I never skate). And that's about all there is, but it's more than enough for an afternoon of fun.

So Greg and I skated for a good two hours. I decided to bring my oldschool Mark Gonzalez deck, which was a good decision. All summer I've been skating my skinnier street deck, but I have big feet, and the Gonz is more to my liking. It doesn't flip out from under me, and I actually have no problem doing kickflips and the rest of my semi-oldschool repetoire with it. I'm also a little more confident with grinding obstacles, as the board has more weight and so sticks to the ledges better. The pointy nose is fun to skate too--one can do the no-comply shove-it much easier than with the kicktale shaped nose of modern boards.

Anyhow, Greg and I had a good time; skating with a friend is always so much more enjoyable and relaxing than going solo. I was happy that I managed to do a few wallrides on the vertical skirting around the ice-rink. It's been a while since I did one of these but I think that riding the vertical wall of the Jersey barriers at Beasley has got me in the right groove for the more difficult "transitionless" wall ride. Back in high school, learning how to do wall rides signified a major accomplishment: taking a skateboard from flat, onto a wall, and back again seemed like a feat of pure magic, and leaving wheel marks on walls that did not seem like they should have had them was akin to the thrill graffitti artists must feel when they hit up a wall.

[This reminds me of an odd episode from my youth. When I was about seventeen or so, my parents took us kids on a vacation to Aruba. I was pissed for most of the trip there, because I had wanted to go to California where all my sktateboarding heroes lived. In Aruba, we stayed at a hotel by the beach. I was kicked off from skating on the baordwalk, but because I was a hotel guest, they let me skate in the parking lot. I had just learned how to do wall rides, and so practiced on a wall out in the parking lot. I made quite a few wheel marks on the wall (skateboard wheels get dirty, and wallrides is one method to clean them). When I returned to the parking lot the next, day, my wheel marks had already been painted over with new whitewash. I think I must have put some new marks on the wall, only to have them painted over againt the next day. I was never prohibited from skating, or even vandalizing the parking lot wall in a minor way (Aruba's economy, at least at the time was based on tourists and an American military base), but I never got to leave a lasting mark on the island either. I did skate with some local kids, who showed me the downtown spots and a rickety half-pipe they had built. They were really great people and fun to skateboard with.]

Greg told me about his recent housing adventure in which he came very close to moving into an apartment that has bed bugs. Thanks to the Bed Bug Registry on the internet, tenants now have a bit more protection from sleazy landlords than they did in the past. Another kid who was at the Bease comp and threw his wrist out on the first day was skating at the park on Saturday. He's an amazing technical skater who can do any number of crazy flip tricks. Somehow, riding my older-style board makes me less concerned with proving myself by attempting the latest combo (which I could never land in any case). Instead, I've been working on getting my ollie grabs on flatground back. I used to love the backside "nosebone" (now called "melon") grab off flat, and could do them with a great deal of "tweak" back in the day. I've managed to do the mute and indy grabs on my Gonz, but the backside grab remains elusive. Maybe I can no longer jump that high, or compress my backbone enough to get it, but I'll keep on trying until the summer is through.

Tonight was a beautiful evening, so I headed down to the Bease. There was a small crew of regulars there, and some crazy sh**t being thrown down. Matt did some freaky antics in the bowl and off the quarter pipe (like heelflip to fakie and such). Scott was trying to get the delicate front-foot impossible out of the bowl. All manner of crazy grinds were being applied to the Jersey barrier. I was particularly thrilled at the way Matt just rode up the transition of the sloping barrier into a backside grind that he rode right off the end. I would try something like that, but I'm afraid of falling on my ass. I think the best line I did was a fakie airwalk down the runway followed by a fakie grind, 180 out on the newly-minted ledge. But I get a real kick out of carving the transitions on the Jersey barriers.