skateboarding isn't life.
It's not an identity.
It's not your parents.
It's not your god. Though some make it one...
People aren't skateboarders, any more than the potbellied forty-something drooped over his glory days was never actually a football player. He was just a person who got tricked into thinking that he was a football player. When life, and the truth that things down here don't last forever, caught up with him, he wasn't ready and despair set in.
"That'll never happen to me." you may say.
but it will if you're not ready.
You're not a skateboarder. You are a person.
you need to grow as a person, and consider the kind of character you're developing. Are you going to be okay with all this when you're 60? 45?
What? you don't want to live that long?
Well, then, glad you brought that up.
are you going to be okay with the choice to identify yourself with what you did, when your're dead, and there's no doing anything, only living in the who you are of what you've done?
Are you digging your grave with overfocus on learning tricks, fitting in, and being praised by people? Aren't you becoming an whore to people's approval, justlike the person you swore you'd never become?
Are you going to be okay with that after you die?
We are people.
People are people.
Skateboarding is just a game.
it's a game of skill and chance
a gamble.
Our games don't define us.
...cannot fulfill us.
are you addicted to gambling?
gambling your ankles for glory?
Skateboarding isn't a full enough expression of the human spirit
to be the life that it's retailers are selling us.
"Core" guys, you're just pushing a retail lie.
Wake up.
you're a human being.
That's way more than being a "skateboarder".
you are human.
you have soul.
human souls need to grow
stretch out in choices
and thinking about life beyond
the boundaries
of a retail segment.
or gambles on tricks they do...
the gamble on ankles and glory.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Vehicle for Lives...minds...
Skateboarding is vehicle.
skateboards are vehicles.
vehicles for lives...
...actual lives,
of people
who can know who they are...
...what they are...
...who could.
who should.
skateboarding isn't only "outlaw" or "punk", "gangsta" or "core".
...attributes to some (ultimately strictly conformist) movement.
self-proclaimed masters of
self proclaimed cultures
pushing molds on minds and hearts softer than theirs...
skateboarding is the freedom
of wheels
under feet
for anyone,
from every background,
on paths to many destinations
on paths to many different deaths...
skateboarding is the feeling of
being
the roller coaster
for the price of wood and wheels...
the sense of flight...
available to all.
no kidding.
kids on the street could hustle up a plank in an NY minute.
its the possibility
of vast possibilties...
...of poetry in motion.
skateboards carry lives around
minds around
on a ride
as varied or regular
as dangerous or safe
as lives desire...
as minds desire.
skateboards are vehicles.
vehicles for lives...
...actual lives,
of people
who can know who they are...
...what they are...
...who could.
who should.
skateboarding isn't only "outlaw" or "punk", "gangsta" or "core".
...attributes to some (ultimately strictly conformist) movement.
self-proclaimed masters of
self proclaimed cultures
pushing molds on minds and hearts softer than theirs...
skateboarding is the freedom
of wheels
under feet
for anyone,
from every background,
on paths to many destinations
on paths to many different deaths...
skateboarding is the feeling of
being
the roller coaster
for the price of wood and wheels...
the sense of flight...
available to all.
no kidding.
kids on the street could hustle up a plank in an NY minute.
its the possibility
of vast possibilties...
...of poetry in motion.
skateboards carry lives around
minds around
on a ride
as varied or regular
as dangerous or safe
as lives desire...
as minds desire.
I live in Cincinnati
I live in Cincinnati, and there's a good movie I caught up with... Thanks to Nick Accurso at Anonymous for giving me a copy. That was kind.
The movie is THE STREETS IS TALKING by Eric Girgash. Eric's all over the place now, doing stuff with filming and whatnot...
...anyway this movie is about Cincinnati street skating...
here is a link to the google page I got for that title... you can see a myspace from a fan, buy the vid off bobby, or hear nick's writeup of the premiere...
and here is a link to the blogging world of girgash, hisself...
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
On Pushing Mongo
FROM FIRST HIT ON GOOGLE FOR MONGO:
"You need to ditch your mongo style quickly or else you'll never reach your maximum skating potential. Pushing mongo is a weak way to ride and will open you up to major flack from your fellow skateboarders (if it hasn't already.)"
Definition of "Mongo" (Click here)
Let's get real:
1. the REAL first reason to not push mongo has to do with not being made fun of.
2. The second reason is setup time.
3. The third reason is difficulty achieving top speeds.
let's talk from the bottom up:
Number 3:
Well, just push harder, or switch to regular pushing if you're having trouble getting fast enough. how many of us have ever seen someone who "just couldn't get fast enough" all because they pushed mongo? There's a terminal velocity on a skateboard that you can reach, no matter how you push. When this becomes a real, actual problem, let me know.
Number 2:
Get faster at setup.
Leave more space for setup.
...or switch to regular pushing.
maybe someone would push regular only at certain times. Like people who can use both hands...
Number 1:
Ridicule.
here's that dynamic that really drives the whole "mongo" debate.
Somewhere in the collective human mind lies a strong drive to assert ourselves in a movement toward conformity. Somehow we want others' way of skating (or whatever) to affirm our own way.
There has always been a race to set standards of measurement, so we can know where we lie in the order. That way, we can curry favor with those "above" us, and have power over those "below" us.
My personal distaste for this dynamic is what landed me in skateboarding as art/life-pursuit in the first place. I hated all the measuring, and I gravitated toward self-development sport/arts. I got into martial arts and skateboarding because there, there's no coach telling you to play team. You excel when you forget about all the others and develop yourself. Your best competition is what you could do yesterday!
It was freedom from being molded by fearful, mean people that attracted me to the then-punk skateboarding culture. I loved it. It was freedom.
I always stayed clear of people who took themselves too seriously, tripping on others and not just enjoying the day. Then I moved to Cincinnati, where tripping on others and losing perspective are prerequisite for acceptance into the "elite" "core" of the skateboarding culture here...
whatever.
...and pushing mongo is one of the first, most basic targets of this mentality. I think if we can get off the trips about pushing mongo, it may open minds to being a little more about the good stuff that remains, after we stop trying to compensate by pressing our molds on kids.
Criticizing kids for pushing mongo
Reminds me of nineteenth and early twentieth century,
when they stripped the mental gears
of all the left-handed kids.
Lots of artists got chewed up in that machine, man.
The Man never cared much for art, unless it could be used to fund war.
and it is shocking,
to see the freedom that wheels and a plank give us
caught up in
a wholesale push for conformity.
and this little sign of creative fascism--picking on kids who push mongo--belies an infestation of peer pressure and jock-elite culture...
it's jaws open beneath our feet...crunching up the freedom of skateboarding art...
I say that anyone who has succumbed to pressure to stop pushing Mongo for any reason outside themselves, has given up territory in their mind. They have given control and power to people who are confused about freedom and expression... they have listened to people who crave affirmation and are working it out in pushing a mold of conformity...
You can RIP mongo. Just give yourself three extra meters of setup at 20 miles per hour. two meters at ten. What? Just that simple.
PS: mongos don't ditch on pebbles as often. Think on that. Weight off the front wheels, dudes. Simple. when you catch one, it'll be on the back wheels, and the pitch of your weight will engage balance on the front wheels.
For sure there are advantages to different things. Everyone needs to just do what they do, and give props to anyone who develops to any level through perseverance...
"You need to ditch your mongo style quickly or else you'll never reach your maximum skating potential. Pushing mongo is a weak way to ride and will open you up to major flack from your fellow skateboarders (if it hasn't already.)"
Definition of "Mongo" (Click here)
Let's get real:
1. the REAL first reason to not push mongo has to do with not being made fun of.
2. The second reason is setup time.
3. The third reason is difficulty achieving top speeds.
let's talk from the bottom up:
Number 3:
Well, just push harder, or switch to regular pushing if you're having trouble getting fast enough. how many of us have ever seen someone who "just couldn't get fast enough" all because they pushed mongo? There's a terminal velocity on a skateboard that you can reach, no matter how you push. When this becomes a real, actual problem, let me know.
Number 2:
Get faster at setup.
Leave more space for setup.
...or switch to regular pushing.
maybe someone would push regular only at certain times. Like people who can use both hands...
Number 1:
Ridicule.
here's that dynamic that really drives the whole "mongo" debate.
Somewhere in the collective human mind lies a strong drive to assert ourselves in a movement toward conformity. Somehow we want others' way of skating (or whatever) to affirm our own way.
There has always been a race to set standards of measurement, so we can know where we lie in the order. That way, we can curry favor with those "above" us, and have power over those "below" us.
My personal distaste for this dynamic is what landed me in skateboarding as art/life-pursuit in the first place. I hated all the measuring, and I gravitated toward self-development sport/arts. I got into martial arts and skateboarding because there, there's no coach telling you to play team. You excel when you forget about all the others and develop yourself. Your best competition is what you could do yesterday!
It was freedom from being molded by fearful, mean people that attracted me to the then-punk skateboarding culture. I loved it. It was freedom.
I always stayed clear of people who took themselves too seriously, tripping on others and not just enjoying the day. Then I moved to Cincinnati, where tripping on others and losing perspective are prerequisite for acceptance into the "elite" "core" of the skateboarding culture here...
whatever.
...and pushing mongo is one of the first, most basic targets of this mentality. I think if we can get off the trips about pushing mongo, it may open minds to being a little more about the good stuff that remains, after we stop trying to compensate by pressing our molds on kids.
Criticizing kids for pushing mongo
Reminds me of nineteenth and early twentieth century,
when they stripped the mental gears
of all the left-handed kids.
Lots of artists got chewed up in that machine, man.
The Man never cared much for art, unless it could be used to fund war.
and it is shocking,
to see the freedom that wheels and a plank give us
caught up in
a wholesale push for conformity.
and this little sign of creative fascism--picking on kids who push mongo--belies an infestation of peer pressure and jock-elite culture...
it's jaws open beneath our feet...crunching up the freedom of skateboarding art...
I say that anyone who has succumbed to pressure to stop pushing Mongo for any reason outside themselves, has given up territory in their mind. They have given control and power to people who are confused about freedom and expression... they have listened to people who crave affirmation and are working it out in pushing a mold of conformity...
You can RIP mongo. Just give yourself three extra meters of setup at 20 miles per hour. two meters at ten. What? Just that simple.
PS: mongos don't ditch on pebbles as often. Think on that. Weight off the front wheels, dudes. Simple. when you catch one, it'll be on the back wheels, and the pitch of your weight will engage balance on the front wheels.
For sure there are advantages to different things. Everyone needs to just do what they do, and give props to anyone who develops to any level through perseverance...
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