Existential Thoughts

Laying in bed feeling super sick leads to existential thoughts, apparently. I guess coming face-to-face with mortality will do that to you. Here we go:

When you die, what will you have been known for?
Did you make a mark and affect someone?
If you answered those questions, does that mean you live for others and not yourself?
If so, who is living for you?
Who is making life decisions with the intention of shaping your thoughts of them postmortem?
Are soul-mates real?
If so, did you find yours?
Is that role finite and can it be tarnished?
When were you most happy?
What must you change to make that last answer "now?"
When is it that you feel most comfortable? Why is that?

People say to live everyday like it is your last, but is that really sustainable or even enjoyable. Frankly, I enjoy the reassurance I have from "assuming" each day is not my last. I can also assure you that if I literally lived every day like it was my last, each day following would start off that much more terribly.

Have you ever felt that each day you have gone without love, is a day wasted? When I say "you have gone without love," I mean you have gone without actively receiving love (no, not talking about sex). Because, I would think, that most of us never go a day without loving someone else...perhaps multiple someone elses. If that is the case, how do you know who to love most? Does free will exist or are we programed to love one person?

Feel free to comment.

Passing out in 5...4...3...

Photo: Alison Scarpulla

Wake Skating Legitimacy

A couple weeks ago this "wake skating" video was posted on Vimeo and I had some mixed feeling about it, and still do. While it is obvious that skateboarding is the raddest of all "board sports" (hate that term, but whatareyagunnado?), all the others are all trying to imitate is as closely as possible. First you has snowboarding introducing skateparks and halfpipes, and eventually taking it to street spots by hitting handrails in snowy towns. Next you had surfing, which is ironic since that is what skateboarding spawned from in the first place, introducing shuvs, 360s, and now kickflips with smaller boards. Then of course there was the snowskate. But now wakeboarders seem like they got tired of being a 5th tier board sport and wanted to get in on this skateboarding thing...so they introduced the wake skate, which is basically a big, weird skateboard deck they are not attached to, getting pulled behind a boat. They do flip tricks that, up until now, only skateboards do.

To be fair, it is pretty impressive. They are doing some legit tricks that are hard to do on a skateboard or otherwise (frontside big heel & frontside bigflip & 720 biggerspin!) and they have the added factor of having to managing a rope in their hands (transferring it from hand to hand and not getting caught in it). It is very impressive, especially upon first view. It also makes you wonder about their consistency and how long it took them to land those trick.

Once you really begin to think about it, however, most of that is the equivalent of skating flatground to them. That have wakes to boost things off of and their landing are relatively soft (minus maybe getting some water up your nose). It is probably annoying that you have to go through the whole process of the boat coming back to get another start and with only one boat, only one person can go at a time.

There were lots of flashy thing and some pretty cool tricks, like the bigspin over canoe. But, regardless of the initial thought of it being pretty inventive, it all comes down to it simply being rich kids doing rich kid things. This is not something that anyone can do, it is a "sport" of the privileged with zero rawness and soul to it. Water sports tend to be reserved for the upper class in general, so this is not something that a kid in the hood can watch and relate to at all. It is something that is done for the simple act of impressing their peers (upper class competitive nature) and showing off to those less fortunate. I will give the dudes a pat on the back for being a little more creative with their money that others of their status, but I do not back wake skating. It is a slap in the face to the pure act of skateboarding...extreme sports jocks.

Whoomp Whoomp

American Juggalo from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

There was this 23 minute short that has been circulating around the internet for the last couple days, but I just got a chance to check it out. I am super interested in Juggalo culture, as it is so bizarre and ridiculous. This doc gives a give look at what these "ninjas" are like, though I had no idea that there were straight edge juggalos. Here are some quotes that I found worth noting:

“I want to find a skinny ass little bitch, and make her fat, and we can lose weight together. And we’ll bond.”

“I’ll tell you what. A juggalo and a juggalette is someone that is down with a clown until they are dead in the ground. Ughhhh. That’s what’s up.”

“I meet this girl, who is here with her boyfriend, baby daddy…but she likes me better.”

“I’ll be here all fucking day, doing the same shit: drinking and blowing stuff up.”

“I met a brain surgeon here. He was tripping on acid.”

“I heard an old man tell me that there was nothing good left in the world. And I actually believed that shit, until I came here and seen alllllllllllllll the titties. All the weed. All the fast food. I mean, this shit the bomb.”

“It says titties for a dollar. My boyfriend wrote it. Yeah, I show my titties to everyone.”

It's All About ME!

Watch me digitally beam right now...well, kinda. Been having some things happen, like getting my first (and probably last) cover on a skateboard magazine! Focus Magazine decided to use a photo that Ben Kilpatrick shot of me and sent in. Click on images to view larger.





We went to this spot one day because I figured someone could film a trick from one bench to the next one (I think Tim Bennett was on deck), and I started playing around on it, trying some trick, then realized that I was getting my ollies easily past the first bench, so I hucked a couple at the far bench, over the middle one and wasn't too far off. It got too dark that night to see what I was doing, so I went back the next day and ended up getting rained out, then went back another time and kept trying until I got too tired, then went back again and just as I was about to give up for the day, I stuck it. The landing being made of plastic made many attempts just slide across, which was tricky.

Next was the May issue of Thrasher! Ben Kilpatrick got a Skater's Eye feature and submitted a bunch of photos for them to choose from. One of the ones they selected was my 5-0 fakie in Philly from the Naysayer Tour last summer, which they ran half a page of.





Also, in the January issue of Focus, there was a tour article from our trip down south last summer, in which they ran a half page of my frontside wallride in Charlotte, NC. Here are the contents of the article.





I put together a full-length video for Naysayer called Know No (you can see it in parts here) and ended up having a little part myself:



Lastly, here are a couple other pictures Ben shot of me this year. This one is a super steep bank to wallride in Paris shot back in May.



This one is a woodjammer to fakie he shot in April, right after he moved to NYC.



Okay, that was kinda embarrassing. Enough about me, what's up with you??

Bought some Alex Pardee Prints

I have gotten into buying prints lately. It started off in January when I was in Santa Monica and bought a few prints from the Multiplayer art show and continued to this past Friday when I bought four prints from Alex Pardee. The latter stemmed for wanting the Charlie Sheen "Winning" print and seeing the others that I felt I needed to acquire too. I am not yet sure where I will hand them or if I need to frame them and stuff. If so, that can get pretty expensive. We shall see. Anyway, I am actually working on an Alex Pardee feature for the Complex Art blog for next week and will post that once it is up. Here are the prints that are on their way to me now...click them to view larger.


"TIGER BLOOD"
Giclee Print
17" x 22"
Printed with Archival Inks on Acid Free Velvet Cotton Rag


"I HATE MONDAYS"
Limited Edition (of 200) Giclee
12.25" x 12.25"
Printed with archival inks on Epson Velvet Cotton Rag Paper


"URKEL JERK"
Unlimited Giclee Print
8" x 10"
Printed with archival inks on Velvet Cotton Rag Paper


"DOUBLE RAMBO"
22" x 17"
Printed with archival inks on Epson Velvet Cotton Rag Paper

New Years Resolutions

I know, New Years resolutions are lame and most people give up on them within the first month (once the hype dies down). However, I have never really been one for making them and didn't feel like I really needed to. Perhaps I still don't, but I am going to do it anyway. I want to stop being so jaded to everything and take life a little less serious. I am going to be more open to things I thought were lame in the past. Sometimes lame things can be rad if you expand your mind a bit. So I settled on 10 resolutions that I am hoping to accomplish in 2011.



1. Stop missing flights.
I really need to stop doing that. I've missed 5 this year, and 3 of those were just since October. I need to start off the year right and make my flight back to NYC (I'm in Virginia Beach right now) tomorrow morning. I am so over missing my flights. Hopefully the one from 2 days ago will be my last.


2. Start making better decisions.
I've made some pretty bad decisions, I need to stop doing that too. Typically that is in regard to girls and money. This may be the hardest resolution because I tend to know that I am making a bad decision and still follow through with it. I probably won't be able to correct this 100%, but I need to try.


3. Land a frontside nosegrind in the KCDC ramp.
This has plagued me. I learned frontside nosegrinds in tranny a few months ago, but have been struggling to land it in the KCDC ramp. The ramp is quick and not very wide, which makes it a bit difficult. But I have been on it a million times and should be able to land it if I fully commit. Basically, I just need to man up and commit.


4. Travel abroad, at least once.
I haven't been out of the country in over 3 years. I need to do that this year. I am aiming for France, Indonesia, and/or Japan. If anything, Canada should count. I've never been there and it is really close.



5. Move out of Queens.
I love Queens and all, but it is about time I move on and experience another borough, such as Manhattan or Brooklyn. I've lived in Queens for a while and it is just too mellow for what I need right now. I would like to live somewhere where I can do some stuff in my neighbor hood and not have to always go to another borough to get into something.



6. Celebrate holidays more.
I used to celebrate holidays and make them into something fun, but the last fews years have seen a lack of participation from me. I might have celebrated some of them a little, but nothing too significant. Well, Valentine's Day & Halloween always got me pumped, but the others were lacking. Speaking of, I should start figuring out who is going to be my Valentine...that's the next holiday, right?


7. Learn how to play my banjo, finally.
I've had this thing for 2 years now and have made hardly any progress with it. I need to get a lesson or two and spend more time practicing. It deserves more than to sit around being neglected all the time. I always wanted to play and have the opportunity to, but just don't. Lame.


8. Get a car.
I need an escape route from NYC. I love the city, but sometimes I just need to get out. Even if it isn't far. I want to just be able to randomly decide to get in my car and drive somewhere, even if it is just PA, Jersey, Connecticut, or Upstate. I do have my grandpa's old van waiting for me in Charlotte, NC, at my mom's. At the very least, I am going to get some work done on that and use that as my mode of transportation.



9. Go snowboarding, at least twice.
I've only been on a mountain snowboarding twice ever. I have gone snowboarding in Central Park a couple times, which is fun, but not the same. I spend all the money on gear a couple years ago to motivate me, but that never happened. It is time I put that money to use and go have some fun speeding down some mountains.



10. Start a 'zine.
I know, it is going to be tough to make a good 'zine because, well, frankly, I don't have the time. But so long as I have some good help and don't try to do everything myself, I should be able to find some scraps of time between everything else to work on one. It could be a really fun project and I have been talking about doing one for years. It is time I put that into action.