9/24/04
I am having a really tough time trying to skate these days. I am in the middle of redesigning the studios at
The Sonic Arts Center
at The City College of New York where I work.
I am so exhausted by the end of the day I can't even think about getting on the old plank, but I have such a good time doing it that I have to
predetermine that I am going to skate. I make sure my board is packed and my smelly pads have been
febrezed the night before. It reminds me of when I was a kid,
I would lay out my little league uniform like armor as if going to battle.
The weather was as perfect and I decided I wanted to skate outside. So, after my moderate toil at work, I headed down to
Tribeca for an afternoon session. It was such a great day. My skate bros
Armando and Sam were there, as well as a bunch of familiar faces. One skater Mark (or maybe it was Jack?), was just killing the pool.
I realized that I saw him read at a book release party for
Life and Limb, which was published by
Soft Skull Press. He was wearing a
The Answer is Never shirt
which refers to the influential book about skateboarding by writer
Jocko Weyland . I said "You know Jocko? I really dug his book."
He said "Yeah, he is going to come out and skate today."
Jocko showed up and I introduced myself to him. He remembered my name from when I met him at the Soft Skull reading. It was cool to see him skate,
he has great style, but the most amazing thing was that here is a guy that wrote a book that had a great effect on me, and now we are just skating.
I didn't say to much to him because I didn't want to interupt his session. He also seems like a pretty humble guy, so I didn't want to start asking him all
of these goofy questions. As the day went along the session got very intense. Guys were pulling sick tricks and it was probably the most radical day of skating
I have witnessed at Tribeca. I always try to meet somebody new every time I skate and I met this really incredible skater named Pat. I went up to talk to him after he did
an insane air variation over the hip. He said he was an actor and I told him I was also involved in theater and that I had done a lot of musical composition.
I got his email and said I would call him when I hit the Autumn Bowl next.
My favorite and most inspirational moment of the day came when I was waiting my turn as
skater after skater ferociously grinded the pool coping that rims the bowl. As I stared intimidated, Jock Weyland crossed
in front of me and said "Get in there Joe Popp". And the way a Green Bay Packer listens to Vince Lombardi, I pushed my board down and dropped in...
Author Jocko Weyland - Textbook Style...
9/18/04
When I woke up this morning Hurricane Ivan had been pouring rain on the city for hours. I wanted to head to the
Autumn Bowl,
but I really didn't feel like walking in the sideways blowing, umbrella inverting torrent. I like to get to the bowl early, but I have realized there
is no reason to do so as most skaters are not morning people. After a while the rain subsided and I emailed the usual skate suspects to try and
get a session going. Sam emailed me back and said he would meet me out there. I was feeling quite good because I didn't drink the night before
and actually practiced my guitar for many hours.
Sam skated really well. He had a bad hip injury a few weeks ago but even after a hard slam to his hip and head he was back 100 percent.
He is really helping me with my carving. The way great skaters appear when they ride pools you would think it is a simple thing to do.
They keep massive amounts of speed and it looks like they are hardly working at all when they skate. It is such a subtle art - gaining speed by pumping your knees over
transitions, when to stand up and when to crunch low. Sam is really supportive and explained the physics to me and by the end of the day I had climbed higher than before
up the side of the wall.
I packed a couple of ham sandwiches and carrots in a soft cooler I brought along and ate lunch at the bowl. I am a little more positive and I think I can improve, but it's going
to take time and a lot of advice . It's pretty cool that almost every skater that is better than me takes the time to help me out.
Once again, I was alone with only one other skater. A little slice of sanity in this wacko city...
Sam - a blur of speed at the Autumn Bowl...
9/16/04
I have not been skating during the week since the semester started at the school where I work, so today I decided to
hit the
Autumn Bowl
for a short session. Once again I found myself perched on this magnificent bowl all by myself in this insane megalopolis.
I skated a few runs and wasn't really going for it too hard. It's tough to skate alone. It can be pretty uninspiring with no one to
hoot for you or give you tips, but I enjoy the peacefulness sometimes. I usually don't play music to skate to when I am alone.
I just think about things.
After a while I heard the corrugated roll down door creak a little and I thought it was Sam, but it was a skater named Andrew whom I had never met before.
Wouldn't you know it - he dropped in and just shredded a bunch of wicked fast carves and grinds all over the bowl.
It would be nice to meet someone that skates that isn't so incredibly better than me! Almost everyone I have met has been
skating for years but, I try to remember that skating is not a competition. Watching great skaters can be inspiring but at the same time depressing. Trying to progress and being such a busy person is
difficult and I tend to forget some of what I learned from the previous session. As much as I want to skate well, I don't think I have a
natural ability that I feel that I had for music when I first started playing guitar. It
doesn't really matter, I am just trying to plug along at my own pace and not get killed in the process.
Andrew and I talked a lot between skating. He told me he was from Austrailia and is going to school. We exchanged skate histories
and he ended up telling me some very funny stories about skating with friends when he was down under. Andrew (as well as almost
every skater I have met to date) share the same political views and taste in music that I do. I have still yet to meet a skater that
thinks George Bush is a good president or a skater that doesn't like the band DEVO.
What attracts people to the same likes and dislikes? Is it learned or genetic? Maybe it's that skateboarding is really more of an art form
than a sport and I would guess that skaters have more in common with artists than atheletes. Perhaps I will uncover the truth while making this film -
maybe not...
Andrew gave me some advice and I was able to push myself and get a few grinds on the coping. We were both done after a while and he asked me if
I needed a lift back to Manhattan. I took him up on it and we drove over the Williamsburg bridge, listening to a new band he liked.
We both agreed they sounded like The Descendents but that was a good thing.
I told him I want to get better at skating but I feel like an out-of-balance goofball. He said to just stay at it and in a great
Autrailian accent quipped: "try to keep yer bum down...". That made me laugh! Andrew dropped me at the F train and I couldn't help
but thinking that 2 hours ago I didn't know this guy and now he had just told me stories, given me advice, played me some music, and
saved me about and hour waiting for trains. All of this just because we happened to occupy the same time and place while riding skateboards...
I forgot my camera but here is a stock pic of the Autumn Bowl...Sweet!
9/12/04
Once again mistakes were made...
I am pretty handy with
Macintosh computers so whenever any of my
friends have a problem or need a software install, I begrudgingly help them get stuff
configured. My dear friend Jaime who is a composer, musician, and writer (also the man behind
Enstereo)
needed some help with his iBook. After a 3 1/2 hour tweakathon and a sixpack, he bought me dinner at
Hooters.
I really just like the wings there - no, I swear!!! The women that work there wear these tight shirts,
orange shorts, with thick panty hose that make them look like they are compressed in a sausage skin.
I don't really find it attractive but man, I love the wings there. We also had a pitcher of beer. After that,
we went to Pier 63
(a real pier not a bar) where you can bring your own beer, sit on the water, and play free
foosball! So once again my weakness for beer and bad food has caught me, and these monkeys that
I have been trying to shake seem to keep climbing on.
I know I will never progress as a skateboarder unless I start living much cleaner.
I have a lot of work to do on myself and all I can say is I am trying to lengthen the time between abuses.
I partied the night before knowing that I had a session in
Sayreville
with Nelson and Armando. I woke up at 6 a.m. to take the train to the bus and
meet Nelson on the Jersey side of the
George Washington Bridge.
We got to Sayreville around 8:45 a.m.
and I started out skating ok, but my tired body and hung over brain couldn't even produce the slightest
scrape on the coping. I am falling backwards and I am going to make a conscience effort to moderate.
It's amazing that skateboarding is the inspiration to straighten out a 39 year old man who is finally
realizing the price of his bad habits...
Am I turning into Bukowski?
9/11/04
Every year on this day we are reminded of the horror that happened in 2001. I was working very close
to ground zero and had to walk over the
Williamsburg Bridge
to get home the day it happened. I was working at
City Sound Productions
at the time and even had a session scheduled for a musical I was working on called
MAXWELL.
I continued to go to work the very next day and even had to walk from
Union Square
to downtown because the trains stopped running below 14th street. Union Square had so many candles burning
that the wax must have been 3 inches thick.
The city eventually had to replace the bricks where the micro memorials to loved ones burned for so many days.
One thing I will never forget is the smell. The air had an acrid odor like burning electrical wire with some other toxic
substance mixed in with it. Knowing that people burned to death didn't make it any easier to inhale - inhaling what could be
the remains of those tortured by the attacks. Everyone had to wear masks downtown because the smoke
hung in the air as if some giant ghost had descended on the city. It was so creepy and each person dealt with the event
in their own way. My father always thought that if you were sick, you would feel better if you just tried to get up and go to
work. I guess I believed him because that is what I did.
Each year I see New Yorkers mourn as the world puts our city under a microscope to see
how we are recovering and getting along. New Yorkers are tough customers. We pay high rents and work hard
to just survive in this city, but you will find most people that stay after the first year say it's worth it.
Even with the evilness of 911 we press on in this city, trying to convert our far flung dreams into realities.
So today, I thought it was more important than ever to skate and shoot video - and to just go on with living.
I met Kevin and Sam over at the
Autumn Bowl
for an early session. I got there at about 9 a.m. and skated alone for
about an hour. I know I keep saying it, but it is amazing that I can skate this place in NYC all by
myself. Kevin Showed up and Sam joined us shortly after. Sam is coming off of a bad injury and
insisted that he was going to take it easy, but still ripped
Frontside Grinds
and tight carves - so inspiring!
Kevin shredded it up as usual. Watching Kevin is amazing because he laughs when he crashes after trying
some impossible trick he conjures up, only to hop on his board and land it after a few tries.
The best part was that I got to interview them.
Both were reluctant at first, which is common with many people when you stick a glass lens in their
face asking them personal questions, but after a while they talked with
me loosely about skating and general background information of their lives. Neither one of them Sean Penned me!
I am still scrambling to find the heart
of the story in this film. I think it is really about the people that I skate with and not so much
about me returning to skating. People that committed their lives to skateboarding as a culture
seem much more interesting than a 39 year old guy trying to do a
Backside Air.
I am going to try to shoot a lot of footage of all of the people I skate with because
although I believe there is a common voice among true hardcore skaters, there is also a lot of individuality.
I don't think any of us mentioned 911...
The memorials at Union Square
The mask I wore following 911...
9/6/04
I drank way too much the night before this session! An old friend of mine got stuck in NYC because the Florida hurricanes were blowing
the trailer parks around, so we met for some drinks and dinner. I paid the price today. I was supposed to meet up at the
Autumn Bowl
with some skaters at 9am and I didn't get
there until 11:30. Man, I really need to moderate!!! It's hard with old friends in town because you fall into the same nasty traps
you did the last time you saw them. They expect you to be a certain way and you try to act that way. I wasn't too hard on myself though,
I mean I have to live my life... It was a great session with Kevin, Vincas, and Dylan.
I sweated out most of the Devil's urine
that poluted my body and ended up having a few good runs. The rest of the crew was killing the bowl and really
inspired me to try to get my act together. I have a long way to go before I am a good skateboarder but truth be told, it's still
really fun even if you stink!!! Which reminds me that my pads really stink and I need to wash them!
The industrial beauty outside of the Autumn Bowl...
9/4/04
It has been too long since I skated but I have been busy at work. I work at a college and this was the first
week the students have been back since the summer break. I have been too exhausted to even think about picking up my board.
This week also marks my last week of summer Fridays that were great uncrowded skate park days for me to improve my skills.
It has been a summer of change; I quit a theater project I have been working on with a collaborator for the past year.
I felt like my heart just wasn't in it and the scope of the project was honestly too much work and beyond my skill level.
I don't have the musical fire I had when I was young. New opportunities used to mean new hope, only to never achieve a working
living from the only thing I could ever imagine I wanted to do - play music. I am not saying I have quit music forever but this summer
I just gave it a break. The starry eyed dreams of being a rock star were gone 10 years ago, and the small joys of composing for theater or film
rarely outweigh the massive amounts work I need to put into project. It's always been tough for me to compose because
I never had a proper education. I am at a severe disadvantage to musicians that had the drive to get through college. I have to work
5 times as hard to say what I want musically than a schooled musician does. I have no regrets
about what I have done musically, but I decided this summer to not agonize about it and just try to have some fun. Skateboarding has given me
a fresh perspective on life as well as a new social outlet that doesn't revolve around drinking. I have met so many great people that
think differently than people I am used to meeting in the music or theater business, although a
surprising amount of skaters are also musicians, artists, actors, or involved in production some way, there seems to be such a competitive tone
to the creative business. Critics say what's good and bad and awards shows are supposed to tell society what they are supposed to be enjoying.
It's all just a bunch of hype. Skating to me represents a real thing. When I am skating it's not about beating the other guy or awards, it's about doing
better than myself. Today I went over to the
Autumn Bowl. When I got
out of the G train I called Kevin and he said he would meet me at the bowl in about an hour. I walked over the rusted irons plates that once
served as the pavers of the working class factory employees that previously inhabited the warehouse where the birch plywood bowl now lives. I unlocked the corrugated gate
and flipped on the lights. As the lights slowly glowed to full intensity, I looked down into the bowl and I realized for once in my life
I was in the right place. I wasn't doing this for notoriety or fame, but just because I wanted to skate and skate better than I did than
the last time. I had a few runs and stretched my 39 year-old-worn-out-from-jumping-off-guitar-amps body to try to get it moving. After a while Kevin
showed up and hooted as skaters do with approval as he witnessed a very slight improvement over the last time I skated there almost a week ago.
And early in the morning, as the Republicans had finished celebrating their convention, the Jewish honored Shabbos, and families were trying to squeeze the
last rays of the sun from the summer by vacationing through the Labor Day Weekend, 2 guys in a city of 8 million people skated alone in a dilapidated warehouse
and all was right with the world...
The 2 out of 8 million people in NYC that skated at the Autumn bowl one early morning...
This page is getting way to big so I am going to archive it monthly!
Please click these links to see past months.
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004