So I’m kind of procrastinating these days. I have a pile of homework, and I’m avoiding it like Wayne Carey avoids reality. Turn off the laptop and turn on the Opiate of TV I say! Cruising past Law and Order Special Elevator Unit and CSI Cranbourne, I made it to Channel 31… and Skate 2 Death.

Bummer.

This show sucks… Badly. Its one of those things that makes you ashamed to call yourself a skateboarder, like Blue Crush did to women surfers, Skate 2 Death does so for skateboarders.

Imagine if you’re struggling for your civil rights in the ghettos of Soweto and Nelson Mandella comes on TV with a goatee, his hat backwards and pretending to be ‘street’ with a bunch of awkward gang signs and jeans big enough to hide rollerblade pads? Imagine that Nelson hollers out ‘Yo yo yo! This is what’s up with Civil Rights… It’s SICK!’. You’d be bummed right?

So was I. Welcome to Skate 2 Death.

If you haven’t seen it, I’ll give you a run down. Skate 2 Death is a 30 minute TV show constructed by a couple of dudes who lurk around skate parks, demos and comps with a two-bit VHS camera. Couple that with some stolen footage from legitimate videos.. and you have your half hour show!

I’ve pushed myself through this half hour of water torture a few times now, and I was secretly hoping they would get better, or go away… but apparently they did neither. God bless public access television.

The problem is that the production values remind me of a year nine video that my pot head friends and I made to appease my media teacher. The dichotomy lies in the fact that it’s been running for several years now! HOW?

The production values are what hurt me the most. There are wipes, fades and crazy negative/positive screen switches that remind me of an episode of Countdown. Come on guys… Invest a little cash in a decent camera and editing program… stop building a half hour program with two VCR’s and an AV cable.

Imagine a half hour of these guys.

Now we’re getting close.

Tonight’s episode featured some bad rap metal flavoured ‘extreme highlights’ of random skate action. There were pro ‘spotlights’ on Gareth Stuhr and Don Nguyen, which were just ripped from the latest Foundation video. However the bit that stung the most was the footage from Mornington skatepark. Now I’m not going to shit on Geoff Cook and his bro’s, cos they all rip… but the footage nearly gave me a seizure.

As a matter of fact, I have a feeling the guy holding the camera was having a seizure! For a whole afternoon! It was jumping around worse than Dave Keating on deadline day!

There’s only so many times I can watch somebody do a frontside feebs down a handrail. Let alone in slow motion three times and then with the positive/negative ‘feature’ going back and forth!

Imagine if Fred Durst was given his own public access show and decided to dedicate it to skateboarding. He did it all for the nookie… but nobody asked him to did they?

Yeah you got it. Its like a bunch of frat boys filmed themselves smashing beer cans over their own heads, slamming Jeager shots, and getting naked for no reason. Within that they found a link to skateboarding… and somehow were granted their own TV show…. Oh wait… some moron already did that.

So right now you’re hoping I can provide some kind of youtube link for Skate 2 Death.. Well guess what? It sucks so badly that the show doesn’t even rate on the worlds biggest spit bucket of ill conceived ideas and aborted screenplays. There’s no link!!

So the choice is now yours… Do you make the effort to find out for yourself and post your snide remarks underneath this article telling me to shut the hell up?

Go ahead! I’m not going to bother to make something better. I’m studying hard to make sure these crimes never take place again. Don’t stress… I’m doing my part for the cause.

I can’t imagine what the Snowboard version of this show would look like. It would have to involve some sort of white kid in a bright jacket, rapping like a gangsta doing ‘switch cabs’ over a man made bump to the sounds of ‘Souls of Mischief’… Oh wait… Never mind.

Um… Boy is this awkward… How do I wrap this up now… Uh, I hear there’s snow on Buller already, so load up dad’s Range Rover, grab the keys to the chateau and disregard everything I’ve said. Sorry if I offended you ‘brah’……

It’s been a while, I know. I’ve been busy! I have a life outside of this blog you know! I’ve been busy with my new collegiate lifestyle, and have spent the last few weeks sewing leather patches onto my tweed jacket, or is that tweed patches onto a leather jacket? Either way I’ve ruined two perfectly good jackets.

Anyway, outside of being elbow deep in an academic quagmire, I’ve managed to take a trip outside of the cultural vacuum of Melbourne. I went to Darwin!

What this has to do with skateboarding is pretty vague, but I’ll get there I promise.

I always regret forgetting my board when I go travelling. There is nothing worse than finding the most incredible park in the most unlikely location… and all you can do is cry that ‘you would totally shred this place’.

I will never forgive myself for travelling mainland China with no board and meeting these kids…

At this spot…..

I didn’t forget my board this time, and actually got to skate a park most people will never see, and in conditions that most nancy Melbournites would wilt under. It was the beginning of the wet season, 10,000% humidity, 38 degrees, and I was out at a neat little country town called Humpy Doo! I’m not kidding…..

The park is by no means amazing, it’s actually pretty rough, but the fact that people even skate up in Darwin is mind blowing.

Everything at the top end wants to kill you. Snakes, buffalo, spiders, crocodiles and dingoes would all happily take your life. Shit, in the wet season the soil produces a particular spore that - if it were to come in contact with an open wound – would kill you. The dirt will kill you! Darwin is raw as shit.

So are the locals….

Imagine you had a big night with your bro’s and instead of waking up on your couch or on the floor of your ‘artist’ friend’s studio, you woke up here…..

Scary huh?

Darwin has skateparks and skateboarders who both manage a triumph against adversity. Imagine waiting 6 months for it to stop raining to get your shred on! Keep in mind that street skating is almost non-existent when non-stop rain and cyclones have rendered the streets to ‘cheese grater’ status. Its not like you can go surfing in the meantime… there are things in the water that will kill you faster than those on the land!

Darwin is exactly what is so cool about Australia, its scary, full of rednecks and really fucking dangerous! As if you don’t want to take your board there and try your luck!

This is the part where I take umbrage with Melbournites. Recently I took a night out of my academic toil to sink a couple of longnecks and mix with the world. Granted St. Jeromes is already a cliché, but what the fuck is up with the way kids ‘slap on a persona’ these days?

I understand the inspiration, but the uber tight jeans, pointed shoes, tucked in shirt and the ‘I don’t care about my eastern suburbs, private education upbringing… its so passé’? Their attitudes are so fucked. It’s a visual representation of the forced laughs of 1,000 art-house movie patrons.

These anorexic pricks sole their feet with K-Mart shoes that would be better employed as bloodied tourniquets for World War One shell shock veterans.

Couple this with deliberately loose fitting ‘ironic’ tees and their equally manicured girlfriends; that put any Stella at Q Bar to shame - and you have irony upon twisted irony. Who’s going to fix the broken light bulb at home when your jeans won’t let you get onto the chair?

For the most part, they look like extras in a Dexys Midnight Runners film clip. Lost, confused and weird. Did you see how many dudes were in that band? Lost, confused and weird.

Shit, some of them look like they never made it off the casting couch at Dexy’s and headed straight to the Thompson Twins instead.

Get your constricted genitalia out of those designer (yet trife) jeans and swing them in a different breeze. Return your pants and attitude to Fat for a full refund, and find out where you put your board that time you decided avant garde electro pop was a much cooler pursuit. Jump into a creek that might have crocs in it and slappy a curb you never thought you would, or try a frontside 5-0 in a place where the ambulance has to fly to…. You might feel better for it!

One of the greatest joys in life is taking the piss out of very serious people. I discovered this when I raised the very paranoid ire of Frankston City Council with a few well placed words and pull out quotes.

When Frankston Council officially opened their long awaited new skatepark in 2006, it was a big day for a lot of people. SLAM mag editor Jake Frost asked me to cover the festivities for them - Sorry Dave and Rick…. They meant nothing to me I swear, ‘cos I love YOU!.

Being a Mornington Peninsula native, I was naturally stoked to put my fingers to the keyboard in Frankston’s name. I grew up skating there, and most of my youth was dedicated to that shitty metal car park set up that posed as the previous skatepark.

They were awesome days; we skated with an amazing crew of people, old and young. We’d shred all day, and then spruce up and hit the Saloon bar for $10 buckets of bourbon….. Good times.

Suffice to say, while I never lived in Frankston proper, much of my youth was spent dodging beatdowns at the train station and skating the park and a loose collection of crappy street spots all across the great city by sea. You get the point, I have Frankston pride.

So on opening day, I’m late for most of the major events, giveaways and ribbon cutting – and - BRUTALLY hungover. Its so hard to remain positive at these times. Nonetheless, there were old friends left and right. It was like the high school reunion that I never went to, so unfortunately I didn’t really pay that much attention to what was happening around me. I had a writing pad in the car…. But no pen. I figured i’d just bang something out when I got home.

So anyway, I wrote the article and sent it to Jake thinking there were need to be some serious revisions required. Not so, he took my first draft and sent it to the printers.

The thing with writing for print magazines is that you often forget what you wrote ‘cos it takes a few months to come out. So when it hit the shelves I scanned over the article in the newsagent, had a little laugh, and then I noticed something a little concerning.

See, I mentioned the hangover for a reason. When I got home to write the story, I realised that I’d spent most of the day trying to control “the shakes” and hadn’t really noticed any of “the hammers” being thrown down by the famous skateboarders. So, my backup plan was to write a little homage to Frankston’s amazing skateboarding history and it’s – shall we say colourful? – reputation.

While I didn’t exactly research any official statistical data, I relied on poetic license to speak a little truth about Frankston.

So what does Jake at SLAM do? He uses a pull out quote – you know, the bit of the article they enlarge to get you interested - that made some people VERY mad! So there’s two pages of photos and words and this enlarged, highly visible quote……

“Aside from the home invasions, missing teeth, scorpion tattoos and moccasins, Frankston boasts one of the largest pregnant teen populations in the nation”

Great…. Thanks Jake!

I’ll admit I talked a fair amount of shit in the article that may not be entirely true. It was however, very tongue in cheek and I did state my love for Frankston AND I thanked the council for building the park.

So a few weeks after it hit the shelves I get and email from Jake saying he’s sent me a package that “I had to check out”.

What I received was a 500+ word letter declaring the bitter disappointment in my efforts from Frankston City Council’s PR department!!!!

The author was incredibly upset with me. I had gone and undone all of the good work they had put into improving the image of Frankston. Many of the things I had mentioned in the article were simply not true, and Frankston citizens were most certainly sick of hearing them. My remarks were declared negative and derogatory.

Ooooppps!

The greatest part of the letter however came towards the end. The author was obviously struggling to restrain their vitriol - two wrongs don’t make a right - as the words were chosen very carefully.

“Fortunately the majority of SLAM magazine readers are probably only interested in the pictures (OUCH!). Nevertheless we would appreciate that in future, if you plan to write about the Frankston Skate Park, you please refrain from creating negative perceptions about a City that does not deserve such ridicule, wether tongue in cheek or not. We all like to laugh at ourselves, but in this instance you have overstepped the line.”

So after I recover from this keyboard created cheek slap, I realised something pretty awesome. That article probably crossed the desks and in-trays of several key figures at City Hall, and more than likely, the Mayor. So naturally, I was stoked.

The cherry on the pie however was that Frankston PR had sent me a ‘Gift Pack’ with their letter of angry machine gunned saliva rage. It contained an “I love Frankston” tee shirt and sticker.

My friends and former employers had created this design concept for our skateshop to parade the very pride I had talked about in the article. They had sold thousands of them… so naturally somebody in Frankston had bootlegged them and sold them at one of those Wu Tang Wear shops that’s essentially a glorified Vic Market stall.

Guess which one the Council sent me?

The fucking bootleg version!!!!!!!

I considered about 10 differing replies to this letter, one of which would discuss the theft of intellectual and design property of my friends’ work. However my Dad in his infinite wisdom, reminded me - between howling laughter - that I can’t afford a defamation lawyer.

Sage advice – I’d already shot one toe off, there was no point reloading and shooting off the rest of my foot in the process. So I let it go through to the keeper - as they say.

During World War 2, British and Australian POW’s stricken with hunger and disease discovered they could infuriate their Japanese captors if they totally ignored the rank, power and authority of their enemy. Dry wit was their only remaining tool. It helped maintain their morale and I suspect, was quite entertaining considering the horrible circumstances.

Extreme example I know, but inspiring none the less. I encourage you to take the most serious person you can find and break them down a little.

Its completely juvenile….. but a lot of fun.

So I’ve been sitting on my ass, temporarily out of work for the last few days, thinking of what to write about. Unemployment is a sweet ride, but it’s a real bummer for your motivation. There’s only so many times I can take Liverpool to the title on Xbox before my motor skills expire for the day. Still… smashing Man United 4-0 in a fantasy world will never get old.

Now that I’m finished with skateboarding employment once and for all, I’ve been thinking about all of the weirdo’s that I dealt with on the daily. The junkies, drunks, hippies, hare-krishna’s, skate-fans, sponsored prima-donna’s and has-beens.

They have a frustrating way of leaving an annoying mark in your memory like a cigarette burn on brand new duds. The worst of all however…. Is The Lurker.

Anyone who has ever worked in a skateboard shop knows what a lurker is. This ‘unfortunate’ is the kind of desperate loner who clings to skateboarding like the last life raft on the Titanic. Fucking skateboarding and its egalitarian rulebook.

At least with Snowboarding you need to have a little coin to stay involved, skateboarding takes everyone in like a ‘lost men’ shelter at 4am. Surfers have an even tougher entrance fee, because if you cant punch 15 cones on the way down the coast, you’re left holding the towel and fetching chicko rolls.

All the weirdo’s wash up in skateboarding…. And spend their lives in skateshops.

The Lurker will fritter anywhere from 1 to 8 hours making your day a living hell, and they’re either compulsive liars or social pariahs. They follow you around the shop, telling you about their fantastic lives of injuries, feats of skateboarding greatness and personal relationships with pro skaters, wether you feel like listening or not. You have no choice.

Unlike a skatepark where you can roll away, the skateshop employee is confined to the counter, and no amount of busywork, customer service or general indifference will deter the lurker from soaking up the attention, because essentially, they have no other friends.

I’ve heard every story you can imagine. Everything from unfortunate tales of contagious conjunctivitis, fictitious sponsors and friendships, to tales of social events that you know for a fact, simply did not happen.

The problem with lurkers however, is that no matter what you try, they wont be deterred. Oblivious to their own offensive personal hygiene, and a manic stare called – according to one pervious employee – ‘weird eyes’, Lurkers leave you with the feeling you’ve haven’t showered after a night sleeping on the floor at Warnie’s house. Dirty and weird.

At times I felt like John Cusack in High Fidelity. Jack Black and that other oddball keep coming in, crapping on about the most obscure and insignificant facts, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.

Like John, as yet another Lurker creeps toward you at the counter like a pervert with a pocket stuffed with roofies, you wish for the glory days when he was a daring young actor and always got the girls, despite the hi-jinks.

This story is nothing without anecdotal evidence of course. His name isn’t Warren, but its pretty close. Warren would be in the store at least once a day. He would try on 5 or 6 pairs of shoes, analysing everything from the stitching to the quality of the insole glue application, without buying a single pair. He would examine at least 10 boards from the highest part of the wall and dismiss them all for being a crap shape.

Warren would soak up about 4 hours of your life each day, leaving you to add a new punch hole in the wall in the back room.

The truth was that Warren could barely stand on a board, let alone perform a passable manoeuvre! In the countless years he’d hung around like a noxious weed, I think I witnessed him land one trick….. a nollie.

This well known evidence didn’t stand in the way of a good story though. Rumour had it that he claimed to be a sponsored snowboarder (cos anyone can claim that shit), filming for international videos, bro’s with any pro that was in town at the time, and at one point he claimed to be the brother of one of our staff! It was always a really weird.

He’d bring in product with barcodes from a nearby surfshop where he worked, claiming it was from a ‘package’ from his famous pro friends. Swapping product is the exclusive and desperate domain of struggling amateur skateboarders, one that Warren desperately wanted to be part of. We later found out he got fired from that shop for stealing.

The problem with compulsive liars like Warren was that no matter how many times you caught him lying, he would simply keep lying to get out of it! I even specifically asked him once, why was he so fucking retarded. He didn’t know what I was talking about…. But continued on to tell me about the party he went to the previous night at Dustin Dollin’s house.

It always made me wonder what would happen to these guys in later life. They’re the sort of people who becomes really unsuccessful con artists, or better yet, become victims of really good con artists! I’ve seen at least one lurker metamorphose into a full time Hare Krishna.

They’re the type of guys who become Pyramid scam salesmen, and end up on a week long feature running from Today Tonight’s camera man with a towel over their head.

But I’ll leave them to that wonderful man Hank Rollins…. There’s someone much scarier waiting for them.

The worst thing is however, that while I’ve done my best to rid these weirdo’s from my life. I’ve just traded up and taken a job serving alcohol to alcoholics. I just got a job in a bottleshop.

I’m an idiot. At least I know that already.

I quit my job last week, and I have to say, it’s an entirely satisfying experience. It’s the second time I’ve quit a good job this year, and I highly recommend it! Nothing beats the feeling of whiling away your remaining days with no responsibility.

I won’t bore you with the reasoning for my resignation, but suffice to say, 2007 was the year I decided to never work for a multinational corporation ever again. If you currently give your time to a CEO in a far away Ivory Tower, you would know the disconnected sensation of smashing you budget only to raise the carat count on your boss’s new golden back scratcher.

If you haven’t been reading my previous entries (for which I don’t blame you), you may not know that I’ve worked in and around the skate industry for almost 10 years. For the most part, I have been behind the counter gripping boards and lacing shoes as a manager in a city skateshop.

Like any job, it had good and bad days. The good days were filled with fun kids, fun staff and all round good skateboarding vibes. It’s a dream job for any teenage skater. But when it was bad, it really sucked. Unstable junkies, kooks looking for longboards, mind-numbing tedium, primadonna amateurs, smelly teenage feet, cranky mums, sketchy thieving graffers, mid-puberty weirdo’s, lurkers, compulsive liars and rollerbladers can all contribute to harshing your carefully constructed mellow.

So after 10 years working on both sides of the counter, I quit.

What I did gain in these years, was a short lifetime of stories and people. I’ve met some of my heroes, and discovered that most of them are rad dudes. Except for Tom Penny, I don’t think he knew he was even in Australia. Remember that Simpsons episode when all the parents have gone away and the kids are wandering the streets? You can see Ralph in the background walking aimlessly into walls? That was Penny. He’s pretty fried.

I’ve known a lot of shop lurkers who have grown up to be well known international skaters, and some who blew it before they got the chance. Lay off the bongs kids…. Drugs are bad.

Ultimately, I hope to use this blog to share some of my better stories. But you’ll have to wait until I’m out the door because - in the words of one well known powerbroker holding an ‘influential’ position in the industry - I’d be committing ‘skateboarding suicide’ if I did so.

When quitting a job, however, there are always people you don’t want to leave behind. Have a quick look at this kid and try and tell me he wouldn’t make you day that little bit more interesting!

But I guess the whole point of this sob story is to tell you about a really old friend of mine. He was hired the day I was, and like a fatally wounded street cop, he’s just 3 days away from retirement. Old Filey, Scratchy McBoardgripper…. In 10 years I haven’t decided on a name for him, but he’s an old trusted buddy. On my last day I think I might sneak him into my bag and take him home for a comfortable retirement. Because if you look closely at his weak and feeble edges, you will understand what 10 years in skateboarding retail will do to you!

So if you’re so over your job you’re turning prematurely grey…. Quit! I did and it’s the best!

Stay tuned for skateboarding suicide!

I was at the Lakai Fully Flared premiere last night, and all I can say is Guy Mariano. The Lakai team have produced a film that is so fucking amazing that skateboarding just got a whole lot harder for every other skater in the world. If you look at the names in this video, you would expect nothing less. But Lakai have produced something better.

I have to premise though, that I utterly despise skate video premieres. I very rarely attend them, as I can usually watch these videos at my own pace at work, free of the hindrance that awkward conversation provides. While it is often a good chance to catch up with a significant majority of really good dudes, premieres are for the most part, a celebration of the historic art of handshaking and small talk.

Testosterone levels are at all time highs at these events due to the unfortunate male domination of skateboarding. Its nothing short of a dick forest, a brodeo or your average sausage sizzle. To those women who were at the premiere; rest easy in the knowledge that you unknowingly kick started the puberty of every underage skateboarder in the room.

However a gratuitous thanks must go to the handsome gentlemen at POP Magazine for stepping up to the plate and putting a premiere on when it looked as though nobody else would. This video was worth the potential danger of grasping enough hands to contract a venereal disease! Please don’t fire me guys!

I do digress, lets talk about the video. Its awesome. You can almost guarantee that the Girl and Chocolate family will produce amazing videos, but take that crew and add a few selected amazing skateboarding ‘relatives’ and you have some frightening talent on show. Ahead of all of these however is Guy Mariano.

To help you snow bunnies and surfers understand, Guy Mariano was and now is again, The Man. Back in the day he rode for Powell Peralta as a teenage prodigy alongside Bones Brigade luminaries Tony Hawk, Cabalerro and Lance Mountain. He went on to produce some incredible video parts for various World Industries companies and then for Girl.

He had the dopest, most effortless style, and then somewhere after the ‘Mouse’ video, he disappeared. For several years he didn’t have a board, a shoe, or any coverage whatsoever. Where he went lay in the hands of hearsay and conjecture, and while those are ‘kinds of evidence’, you can rest assured that he is back.

Mariano’s part was so rad that it will hasten the retirement of a lot fledgling pros. In a time when skate team line ups are so geared toward marketing an image that they begin to resemble boy bands, Mariano has reminded us all that style and substance together will triumph over fashion and flair. Its like the second coming of Jesus, Mohammad, Buddah or L. Ron Hubbard.

Take note the Ryan Shecklers of this world. All the beni-hanas, back tattoos, reality shows and obvious steroid abuse will never put you in Mariano’s league. You will be forgotten just as quickly as Chris Branagh.

I won’t ruin it for you by telling you what Mariano did, or by posting the youtube clips – go pay for it you techno savvy Gen Y tightarse! These guys worked on this for the past three years, show some fucking respect and blow the cobwebs off your wallet and buy a copy! It’ll make you shred a little bit harder.

Enjoy!

Why do people still push mongo? Everywhere I go, I encounter somebody pushing themselves forward with a looping front foot. It’s the most unsightly crime you could ever commit on a skateboard outside of a serious benni-hana. But for some reason it survives. It’s a lingering herpes sore for every right-minded skater around the globe.

Australia is one of the biggest havens for mongo pushers. Perhaps our geographical isolation is to blame, perhaps we need to be realistic and face that fact that our national gene pool has some seriously shallow areas. Who knows? All I know is that it’s disgusting to watch. Hey, even God hates it.

In America they call it ‘shit-foot’, and rightly so. However if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll do a little explaining. Basically, a ‘mongo-pusher’ is a skateboarder who uses their lead foot to push, leaving their back foot planted like tree trunk squarely over the back truck. In mid flight it looks like a fully spread eagle preying mantis flying horizontally across your path. It’s weird and fucked.

Like polio, leprosy, scabies and botulism, mongo pushing is a disease that somehow manages to defy all attempts at eradication. It needs some sort of telethon to raise research funds for a cure, like ‘Out with gout 88’.

If you do push mongo, you’re probably reading this searching for some sort of salvation from your shame. It’s not going to happen here. You’ve probably already googled it and found the other weirdo’s banding together in secret chat rooms telling each other “its ok“.

Right now I’m guessing that you feel that same sinking dread that evangelical preacher Ted Haggard felt when everyone found out he really preferred to smoke a lot of crystal meth while chilling with male prostitutes. Yeah…. Uncomfortable huh?

You need to face the fact that you are personally responsible for holding back the natural progression of skateboarding with your flat foot propulsion, early grabs and pressure flips.

You need to live in the now….. please.

Thankfully shit-footing is unseen in today’s professional ranks, there have been however, some pretty famous mongo’s in the past. 80’s legend Bill Danforth was one.

I’m pretty sure Bill’s contemporary Rob Roskopp pushed weird too. The funny thing is, Bill Danforth remains a bit of a cult hero among these marginalized lepers. A lot of guys still shave their heads and roll up their Levi’s just like Danforth, pushing mongo just like he did.

The problem is that back then Danforth was a really punk rock dude. I suspect most people were a little scared to tell him what he was doing wrong. Its like facing up to Philadelphia’s scariest skateboarder - Stevie Williams - on pushing mongo while skating switch. Corey Duffel crossed him once, and barely survived the encounter by the skin of his spray-on jeans.

Some mongo pushers try hiding their shame, but most learn the error of their ways and move on. One of my best friends is a reformed mongo pusher. Like a heroin junkie coursing the trials of methadone treatment, he gradually placed his foot further up the board every day until he could skate normally switch and regular!

There is hope. If you need to intervene with a friend who pushes mongo, help is out there if you seek it.

Lets all band together. Lets make mongo history.

Oh yeah, mongo is so entrenched in our modern psyche, that stupid kids posting their video game show reels on the net push mongo…. its serious everyone…

As far as I’m concerned, the internet is for pasty weirdo’s who never leave the house. The type of shut-ins who harbour contagious skin diseases so severe, that 20 minutes of sunlight a day is considered a diabolical health risk. It’s a view I held for many years. Until now.

I’ve been asked to write a blog for the friendly gents at POP Mag, but I’m not sure what that entails. My mum asked me to write a holiday blog for my recent jungle odyssey in Borneo, so I asked my Nuevo-tech mother what a blog was. She didn’t know, and neither do I.

I’m led to believe it’s a license to shoot my mouth off; a slightly uncomfortable thought considering I’ve spent so long training myself to think before I open my sailor’s mouth. Its like I’ve been handed a live hand grenade. The fuse is burning, and on one side are a group of disaffected Rollerbladers, on the other, a group of slightly more disaffected Emo’s. The opportunities are unlimited, and the grenade is likely to go off in my hand before I find a target.

Dave at POP asked me to take a skateboarding angle to the blog, and given what I’ve seen over the years, I guess I have a few good stories. In a self imposed exile from the real world, I’ve found myself living and working in skateboarding for over 15 years, with varying degrees of spectacular failure. I’ve been an annoying skate rat, a shop monkey and a shoe salesman, all under the loose banner of skateboarding. In 9 years of labour for the skate industry, I’ve encountered the best and worst of teens, mums, dads, bosses, lurkers, junkies weirdos, stoners, has beens and primadonnas. I’ve laced their shoes and cleaned up their vomit.

I’ve gripped so many boards that I no longer have identifiable fingerprints. Which in hindsight would be great if I had the moral flexibility for a full time gig as a cat burglar.

For the most part though I’ve been a giggling observer of skateboarding, gifted with the ability to store a mountain of trivial facts and stories. All of which I will unload onto you… if I ever make it past this entry.

But as I said, I’ve done my best not to say anything stupid. So now that I have a blog, all of that goes out the window, and you get to witness the “Crash and Burn” that Maverick should have had with Goose. Strap yourself in and feel the G’s!

Ben