Thursday 27 September 2012

so

so, what I am doing now is sitting, fairly contented, listening to some music I've never heard before. This is very different to sitting, not contented, and listening to some music (whether i've heard it before or not.)

But is contented really the right word? Perhaps just dumbly happy is better. Because if you, as I all too often find myself, sit and think about the various things in life, you do tend to encounter in your mind all the little shitty details which, in a similar way to how cars on a motorway jam up when theres too much weight of traffic, clog together and slow everything down. And then you feel shit. But perhaps feeling shit should be reserved for those special occasions when something shit has happened. I mean why sit and feel shit due to small details just because you thought about them all in one go? Better to reserve the feeling for when something properly shit has happened.

So dumbly happy it is then. Because im not spending time weighing up various things, or thinking about what I could have done differently in a given scenario, or the many other routes to finally falling asleep at whatever hour of the morning. During the long summer break, I was usually not asleep before 2, because of the massive long time that I didnt really fill with much apart from some really good skateboarding and a most excellent trip to Cornwall resulting in much time spent thinking in a not very useful way.

A useful way to think is one which ends up with you doing something, and recently i've been putting a lot of effort into my art, and then that is paying off. I worked hard to make painting fun, and then I finally managed to start painting things I liked a bit. And then i've spent the same time on drawing (pastilles, pencils, biro), and thats started to be fun and a good process. Sitting and listening to music at the dining room table in a zone where all you have in front of you is a nice space for putting your thoughts directly into some kind of form in some kind of media.

Music i've just found is Maybeshewill http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EkS_JotL-4
and i'm quite pleased to have found it because it's bloody excellent.

The new muse album is not for me (I dont know who it's for actually).

But yeah, thinking, thinking can be pointless and a waste of time, energy and life but thinking and then doing something useful is very good indeed. Not always very good, or even good, but at least productive. Doing stuff in the world is good. You get fuck all for sitting and thinking about how much of a twat you are, so i've realised, after much deliberation. You do not get much out of thinking how you could have done something differently, not done something, done something, not said something, said something better or not said something at all. You can go and do stuff, and maybe have some kind of positive impact on somebody elses day in the present. You can make stuff, create stuff and enjoy stuff.

Im sure by tomorrow i'll have lost whatever these thoughts are now and im sitting here listening to whatever thinking over things in a pointless way. I distinctly remember three evenings in a row I was chilling in a happy manner, and I noted this fact at the time but i've forgotten when they were. So yeah, the secret to being dumbly happy is not thinking about things in a way in which just wastes you, but doing stuff in the world, in the present that is creative and productive and useful.

Anyway, thats enough. Time to read through and see if i've made any sense even to myself.

.

Read through. I think it makes sense.

.

bla


Saw a pigeon explode on the front of a van today.

£85 to a sequel. Thats going to be £150 ish gripped and posted. Must sell things.

Im excited about skateboarding down hills. Currently its one weekend on, one weekend off due to the twattishness I havent shaken yet affecting my ability to make it to skates, but the whole thing can only get better, and when I get hold of that bledy sequel, very good things will happen.

I want to go back to houyet.

Triple 8 are making humourous half shells.

I want to go bomb a hill.

I like using the custom leather colour selector on some custom leather peoples site. Helps imagining the future or something.

Photoshopping my cat on another skateboard.

The sequel has a standing platform that is sick as eff for my lanky bastard frame, and will make toeside slides feel much less cramped up. I am going to go effing fast on that thing. Stupid fast.

Techsliding is a fun distraction for me, but for proper "gofast" type shenanigans, the list is

Heelside slide and cornering
Toeside slide and cornering
Tuck
Push
Footbrake

and thats all I really want to do. The whole soft wheel standup thing doesnt really interest me much.

Good things are imminent. If I could bottle the feeling whilst im skating I could probably go and get a job, only want a few hours, and have money, make it to every skate.

Friday 21 September 2012

more houyet

So this morning I watched the Southend crew's edit from the spring houyet event. Dunno what it was but such a lengthy edit of the event brought back a load of stuff that I remembered.



 
Gaffer tape leather "decoration", done just before I left...
 
 
Things I remember, may have covered some already.

So the weather that weekend was awful. Truly horrendous, and unpredictable too. One minute it could be lashing down with rain, the next bright sunshine. And there was this little bit of tarmac just a few metres away from the "Vandem arrangement of sinister tents and vehicles", and that bit of tarmac would always accurately reflect the condition of the hill. It was like an Oracle in tarmac form. Amazing.

There was a point when we were travelling out, after we'd got the ferry to mainland europe. Me and Pete had just driven off the ferry, made it onto the roads of france, and the metal was cranked up loud. And I just had this stupid smile that kept coming back, I remembered something said to me before I left "people would give their right arm to be doing what you're doing." And I took in where I was, what I was doing, where I was going, who I was going with, and couldn't help but sit and smile and be so happy at my life at that exact moment in time.

Oh, none of this is in any order, just how things have came into my head today.

The surface in some of the corners. The surface on the left hand side of the road about three quarters of the way to the first corner. The noise of the road I recognise from the edit I watched. When it was wet I just couldn't turn in. Also at the time I couldnt slide toeside, or barely corner that way, so i'd go into anything going right, leant out all awkward. If it was wet I was fucked. In the dry I was still fucked. Watching me must have been hilarious.

"Good luck?! Get in the bus motherfucker!"

The questions posed by Don and Giovanni in the vandem... shall say no more.

Following said legendary idiots over the fence to get into the campsite.

Surprisingly recieving a wise few words from one of them as to why we were wandering around the whole campsite saying hello to every one of the european riders. Something like "Everybody comes out to these skates and doesnt come and meet the people".

Not learning the track, so always forgetting where I was on it and being surprised by one of the corners. And not remembering much about where the spray painted warnings on the track were, so getting surprised by some super sketchy road every now and then.

The pizza from the pizza place. It was incredible. So, so, so good. I'd almost travel out there just to have a pizza at the houyet pizza place. Right by the campsite, right by the track. Can almost taste how good that pizza was.

We stopped off at some service station in france or belgium (I dont know where we were), and the few seconds of peace were such a contrast from being in the back of the vandem for that stage of the journey. Another time when I realised what I was doing and was so happy about it.

When Rich rolled us into houyet, and the cheer and celebration. Without a map as well. I'd of made it all the way to Germany before I realised something was wrong.

Bohemian Rhapsody, LOUD in the vandem. That will always stand out for me, that was one of those amazing moments that i'll remember when other stuff fades.

Having Don and Giovanni's tent pitched DIRECTLY in front of my door. Was awoken with a start by hurried unzipping of that tent, shuffling of feet, and a quiet chunder dangerously close to my tent. Went back to sleep.

On the first day I woke up and walked around our half of the campsite about 10 times, thinking and taking everything in. Was 5 or 6 in the morning, the area was stunning, like a small valley with a river and endless trees.

Relating my last run with Oli to the dudes in the vandem after saturdays skating. In must have sounded like such a kid, but I was psyched.
“I was just fucking dalua tucking at the end man, I got the henchest bump draft into the first corner, and was like...”
 
One run I overtook somebody. One run I didnt get overtaken by anybody. Cool moments. Oh and I overtook this drift trike, it was so surreal, I hadnt seen one before and was like "what the eff is THAT" whilst waving and tucking past.
 
When we were waiting for the ferry home, John was endlessly trying some trick on Pete's park board on this concrete thing. I thought any moment the tail of that proto was going to hell, and john with it.
 
The ferries smelled cheap. Like horrible, cheap, strange places to be. It added to the intrigue.
 
When we were on the return journey, some of us were on deck, and found this notice about dumping stuff at sea. When you're a certain distance out it's cool to dump crockery overboard.
 
When goodbyes had been said, driving away from the ferry, into the night in england and waving goodbye to the vandem. And then when me and Pete rocked up to meet my dad at some road somewhere, I got my stuff to the car, and then it was like over. That was that. I got home at some hour and didnt sleep, just sat there on my own wondering if anything had happened at all and I hadnt just imagined it like some amazing euro freeride dream. But it had happened, and I'd gone all the way to belgium and skated houyet, something i'd only heard about and seen before, with the vandem crew and the rest of the dudes. And I might not have shown just how happy and excited and pleased with my life in that moment I was.
 
And it's a bit sad that crash and burn didnt work out for me, and I skated badly and had stupid crashes with people. Before that event, I was so looking forward to it, I thought that was my moment, but I messed it up, I ruined it and thats why it sticks with me.
 
Must flog belly racer, must buy sequel, must go fast.

Thursday 6 September 2012

ha

So I dont know what I last posted on here but it was probably a rant about something. This isnt a rant.

No, whilst i've had a monumental sulk about not being able to go and skate hills recently, i've got into something else. Terms in skateboarding are a bit shit so what this is is something like "going out skateboarding and attempting to have a laugh with a little board and funny wheels and a bit of tarmac." And thats what i've been doing. Riding an inherently fun setup (Death 8.5, Rubbishy little trucks risered up and almost cored cult classics) means even the sensation of riding around is fun. Just really, really amusing for some reason. And then i've been going to a place that is just a pretty much flat bit of tarmac, and seeing what can be done. Just silly little things that build board control. And then putting these things into a line. Which currently is popping the board over, so it's upside down on my feet, flicking it over as I jump onto it, pivoting 180 to start down the little incline that is there, heelside 180 standup slide, pivoted backside 180, another standup slide, then pivot back 180 frontside. That took a bit of time.

All of this is silly little stuff that isnt really tricks, but this isnt about tricks, this is about trying to have a laugh with what i've got, which is a bit of tarmac.

So i've been doing this for several days now, sometimes going out 4 times a day because I get home and think of some other fun little thing to try.

And then today, I chuck some new shoes on that actually have grip left on them, and start popping some little stationary ollies. This is the funny bit. Way back when I first got into skateboarding, I'd try and try to ollie every now and then. Like decide "oh today im on it" and go to somewhere and flounder around for however long and go home again feeling tired and bored. And now just from having all these little things i've learnt to do, theres now fun there. From the silly little tricks, some kind of board control has developed, and thats where the ollies are coming from. I dont feel quite at home on a double kick board yet, but its getting there.

A few weeks ago, I never thought I would have any fun on a skateboard away from a hill. How wrong I was.