2012: The Soundtrack

photo by the Enbro

I will lay down my bones among the rocks and roots of the deepest
hollow next to the streambed
The quiet hum of the earth's dreaming is my new song
When I awake, the world will be born anew


- Wolves In The Throne Room I will lay my bones Among The Rocks And Roots

2012: The Slash And Grind As Prayer.

Photo by CR Stecyk


My acupuncturist has told me several times that perhaps, I don't necessarily need to do yoga or meditate because I surf and skate.


Skateboarding came out of surfing in the beginning. The fact that it evolved out of a Stone Age pursuit makes skateboarding a more interesting activity than baseball. If you look at something that goes back thousands of years in Polynesia, which surfing obviously does, that was before they had sports, it was a time when they only had activities that were spiritually and significantly important to the culture. Whatever the current manifestation of it is or how much its merchandised or marketed or being bartered about or bastardized, that doesn’t get in the way of something that has that deep a history. Why wouldn’t it return to the spiritual underpinnings? I’m not sure that it won’t or that it hasn’t already.
 -CR Stecyk Juice Magazine #69

2012 Part 1

Dinosauria, We by Charles Bukowski

Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this
Walking and living through this
Dying because of this
Muted because of this
Castrated
Debauched
Disinherited
Because of this
Fooled by this
Used by this
Pissed on by this
Made crazy and sick by this
Made violent
Made inhuman
By this
The heart is blackened
The fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder
We are born into this sorrowful deadliness
We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs
Land will be useless
Food will become a diminishing return
Nuclear power will be taken over by the many
Explosions will continually shake the earth
Radiated robot men will stalk each other
The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playground
The sun will not be seen and it will always be night
Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
The petering out of supplies
The natural effect of general decay
And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
Born out of that.
The sun still hidden there
Awaiting the next chapter.

I've got major plans for 2012

(cell phone pic by Rich)

but then, I look at my skateboard and the dry streets and that's the end of them. Move the body. Still the mind.

SE Brooklyn and 16th

In August of 2010 after a couple months hiatus from skateboarding after cracking my head open on an over vert hang up to flat bottom, I decided it was time to jump back on the four-wheeled sled of joy again. With the sun going down and not wanting to hop in my car, I decided to hit the streets and see what the city would provide me. Pushing through inner southeast Portland, I began to hit my old stand by spots that I've been skating since I moved here in 1999. These are mostly some janky banks, walls slappy curbs, barriers, curb cuts and so on, nothing to write home about but more than enough to re-find my skate legs.

Heading towards the train tracks and warehouses, I remembered my friend Jeff Fryar had mentioned a Jersey barrier had recently been 'modified' with some concrete and was supposedly incredibly easy to skate. The location was SE Brooklyn and 16th, backed up against the tracks; just around the corner from where Elliot Smith sang about scoring heroin in 'Needle in the Hay.' I found the barrier in question but at first notice didn't think it skateable.  The run-up was bone-rattling, there was no sign of any concrete work and a grizzled looking vagrant stared me down. As I got closer I finally noticed the transition on the other side of the barrier, "See what these guys have done?' The homeless guy growled. 'Yeah, mind if I ride?' I asked, remembering some graffiti from Burnside a few years back that stated, 'I don't skate in your bedroom, so please don't sleep in my skatepark.' ‘No man, go ahead.' He enthusiastically replied. However, he soon lost interest watching me trying to wrestle a frontside rock and roll into submission in the near dark. After a successful roll away, I could see this little spot wasn't your typical patched up jersey barrier, it was actually skateable for a mere mortal such as myself.

By now the story of Burnside is well know and many of Burnside's pioneers now design and build some of the best ‘sanctioned’ skate parks in the world. Up until the last couple of years Portland seriously reaped the benefit of such local expertise, became an international skate destination and a 'Nineteen Park Plan’ was even passed by the City. From the almighty Pier Park with its 20' full pipe to the quirky Holly Farm with brink banks and over vert clamshell that I cracked my head on, Portland skateboarders were seemingly getting spoilt. But after four skateparks and one skate plaza, the momentum slowed down and the reality of the economic recession sunk in. As time went by, skaters talked less and less of the Nineteen Park Plan and just got on with skateboarding. Every sunny day, most of these parks are still jammed full with skaters, more so than any nearby tennis court or baseball field. The need for terrain is obviously still there and no matter how good Portland skateboarders have it, its not going to be enough any time soon. The Portland skate scene is determined to set a standard for everyone. So inevitably, when city funded efforts ran dry, skateboarders once again took matters into their own hands.

The DIY ethic runs deep in this town. From coffee roasting, to self-publishing, to recording music and of course skate park building. The knowledge and inspiration has now filtered out to the wider world. Burnside sparked it off, followed by projects such as FDR and Washington Street and San Pedro and Pontus Alv's urban sculpting of Malmo, Sweden. It seems as though modifying spots and creating spots is now part of the package of being a modern skateboarder, especially as 'natural' spots become increasingly outlawed and hard to find. With this jersey barrier on SE Brooklyn and 16^th,  the DIY approach to skatepark building had come full circle in Portland.

Colin Sharp, who runs Unheard Skate Supply, tells it like this. One day after finishing a little half pipe for his kids in his backyard, he looked at the left over bags of concrete and thought of the nearby jersey barriers. Jesse ‘The trowel’ Mc Dowell who had been involved with a couple of Southern Oregon coast parks had been helping Colin and so the two of them threw up the make-shift transition on the evening of July 15^th 2010. Thereafter, plenty of other skateboarders got involved. It wasn’t uncommon for people to walk-by a build-session at the spot to just jump on in to contribute manual labor, cash donations or words of encouragement.

Brooklyn St Skate Spot’s Facebook page was set up early on and was a useful source for funding. Cal Skate, Rip City Skates and Shrunken Head Skate shop set up donation jars on their counters and several long bands threw fundraiser nights. Notably, Skaters For Portland Skateparks threw down a generous chunk of change. On more than one occasion neighborhood residents and non-skateboarding passers-by would kick down some cash just because they were stoked to see people doing something constructive and creative with this sketchy piece of wasteland. The Facebook Page was also a useful forum for design discussion and requests for labor assistance. Ultimately, the park was designed as it went along, and aided by whoever was free on build days, with Jesse serving as foreman and visionary.

It wasn’t long before this random jersey barrier spot became a full-on DIY skatepark project. There were a few early sabotage efforts by a less than pleased local business owner but tensions were eventually ironed out. Consequently, Coiln and Jesse decided to seek legitimacy, first getting the local police officer on board, then Union Pacific (whose land some of the park sits on) the neighborhood organizations, local skatepark advocates, and eventually the city planning office. In part, thanks to Portland’s skateboarding Head of Transport, Tom Miller, they were taken seriously.

Currently, the spot’s first phase is complete but there is much talk of forging onwards and utilizing as much of the easement as possible. Jesse has since become quite the concrete craftsman and has gone on the help build parks with Grindline. Meanwhile, Colin is currently in discussions about advocating for other DIY/ skater-built but city sanctioned skatespots throughout Portland.  Other skaters who got involved with Brooklyn St, have gained a serious appetite for concrete work and the skills to go on to build their own spots elsewhere.

  

To skate, Brooklyn St is no Burnside but it has its own unique appeal. Most of the walls are four foot and under but it still requires you put in your time finding the lines, reading the trannies, corners and hips, to tap into the speed pockets and link it all together as fluidly as possible. Brooklyn St can only really accommodate one skater at a time and on any given dry day, you'll find a dozen or so people there by noon.

Maybe you'll see legendary photog Bryce Kanights shooting a high profile pro. Maybe you'll see neighborhood kids getting their first grinds on pool coping. Maybe you'll see Colin Sharp, Johnny Turgesen and Brian Rensberry on a 'coffee' break from work at the nearby Unheard Skate Supply HQ. Or caretakers Kenny and Chris removing bad graffiti and saucing the coping before shredding it a new one. Maybe Jesse McDowell will be there in between building ‘legit’ parks. Maybe you'll see Choppy Omega or other Burnside legends bringing their skills to a smaller tighter arena. What you definitely will see is skateboarder's reaping the benefit of other skaters’ initiative, hard work and creativity along with the endorsement and generosity of the community as a whole. Brooklyn St isn't exactly a 'destination' park like some of the other nearby parks, but it is an example of neighborhood enhancement, community involvement and a little inspiration as to what you might be able to achieve in our own 'hood. Skateboarders build the best skate spots, now go build your own.

To the washing machine that took my poems,

Take my left arm or a fiver but never my poems.

I used to look forward to the Apocalypse

but now that it is just around the corner...

Illustration from Dark Wave a new zine by Jay Howell, coming soon from Unpiano Books




...The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless,
A lump of death, a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon their mistress had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them. She was the universe.


-Darkness by Lord Byron

Una Mary Bernadette

Mervyn and Una

Last night my little girl tells her mother and I that we have to write about her heritage for a school project. I said, that's easy 'You're half Welsh and half American.' Then, after trying to explain why as Welsh people we do not speak Welsh, I realized we should probably go a bit deeper with the heritage thing. Next thing I know, I feel like the old man re-hashing tragic and fantastical tales of family members of yore. I soon realized the one member of the family my little one really had to know more about, from, my perspective, was my grandmother. I don’t have much communication with the dead but Una is one of them.

Now, I know in America people love to claim various heritages. 1/16th this, an 1/8th that, half this, always part- Irish if you're white... Personally, I don't claim anything but Welsh. I have a British passport but I'm Welsh. End of story. But in the interest of being fair to the heritage of my little girl, I am going to tell her about my chain-smoking Irish Catholic grandmother who had had a Welsh of an accent as they come, Una Mary Bernadette York.

Una was born in Wexford, Ireland in 1926 and must have moved to South Wales shortly thereafter. I don’t have much information on her parents. ‘Gypos’ I’ve been told. Possibly. From photos I’ve seen they certainly didn’t look very conventional. My great grandmother wore a trilby and smoked a pipe, apparently.

After living through the Nazi’s attempt to flatten Swansea, Una married Mervyn in the fifties and had two kids, Mike and Kathleen, my mum. Mervyn died at age thirty-seven, when my mum was six and I don’t think Una ever recovered. Even though she was only in her thirties, she became an instant old woman at that point.

I’ll never know the truth but let’s just say I was not exactly planned by nineteen year old Kath but nevertheless I entered the picture in 1975. From the beginning Una filled the gaps where my mum and dad where unable to. She was a third parent, as I’ve always said. Una became Gran or Granny to everyone from that point on. A new identity that I believe she thrived on in her own unstated way. She was still a tragic widow but with a new purpose in life.

When we began our world travels in the 80s, Una came with us. All six of us would be wedged into a rental car, driving across some far-flung highway. While Dad snarled and sweated behind the steering wheel, my little brother, sister, Una and I would be squished into the back, trying to keep calm.

I’d often  share a room with Una, trying not to breathe in too much of her cigarette smoke as I attempted to sleep. Consequently, I have still yet to smoke a cigarette. Her bibles and crucifix’s scared the shit out of me and I partially credit them with an early and obsessive fear of death; a fear that took me years to confront in a healthy manner.

Despite the cigarettes and the morbid paintings of Christ, Una and I developed a connection. Providing less discipline than my parents, she was more of a passive guide. I now wonder how intentional it was. Well I suppose, if the boy is going to attempt to walk across this tight-rope, I’ll try and guide him across the chasm…

Probably aged twelve or so, for whatever reason I wrote a poem. It became a nasty little habit that I shared with nobody. Unable to articulate why or even what I was attempting to do, I kept my writing secret. There was no way in hell I would tell my mum or dad, let alone share anything I had written with them. It was the same with friends and teachers.

Una and I would often be the last ones up at night, often watching Peter Falk as Columbo on the telly before going to bed. I might be hacking out some story about surfing in outer space, vampires or being a social retard, and she’d be smoking away reading women’s magazines, drinking endless cups of tea. On one such night I decided to share some of my writing with her. I’m sure it was painful to read but the result was probably one of the most crucial boosts of self-confidence I ever had. I want to think she was just glad I was even pursuing literature and also that she had been the first one to be let in on it. My next story about surfing in outer space ended up in a school literary magazine.

She never gave me shit when she caught me stealing my dad’s beer, or sneaking in the house at three in the morning, or when she caught me taking the car out for a spin, or found used condoms wrappers under my bed. She kept calm when I called her from jail, never once judging my fuck-ups, there was never even a sigh of disappointment.

By my late teens Una was in her early seventies, and she was breaking bones, on what seemed like a monthly basis. The smoking and poor diet had already contributed to what was a nasty does of osteoporosis. Combine that with the mentality of someone who had assumed the role of old widow for the last forty years and the deterioration was quick. Each time I’d come home from university, she appeared more withered, hunched and pale. It was hard to see her resembling a child, barely able to walk, feed herself or talk but still able to smoke. Her delicate hands shaking as she tried to light a cigarette that looked eerily long as it shook between her quivering lips. She stopped dying her hair but still applied lip-stick, a comi-tragic effort to… I don’t know what… she was trying to do…

She eventually quit smoking when she ended up in a nursing home. I went to see her every week or so but sometimes I would go a few weeks without visiting. I remember telling myself, I was going to step up my visits. Of course, I was caught up in my own shit in my early twenties and barely keeping it together myself, let alone in a space to help someone’s last months on earth be a meaningful transition.

I was one of the few relatives that lived closed to her. My mother, who struggled with the nursing home decision, lived half way across the globe at that point. It never occurred to me that Una would die so quick. She kept telling me, she’d get better and would be living with my mum again soon and I believed her. Perhaps, soon I’ll start visiting her twice I week, I’d say to myself…. at least until she’s back living with Mum again.

She soon died in that nursing home, asleep, and alone. I felt terrible, of course. I felt like our family had just given up on her and had just sat it out waiting for her to die. That was an unfair assumption but back then I believed that we were no better than any other modern western family, unable to cope with this inevitability.

At the same time, her death opened a window for me. A gust of Autumn air rushed into my stagnant bedroom that night. Cold reality rushed up through my nostrils and deep into my lungs and it was good. That night, I slept hard and had the most vivid dream I have had to date. It was as if Una was at the foot of my bed. An overwhelming sense of peace overcame me as she told me, ‘Everything is OK, now.’ That’s all she said. She seemed calm and happy. I woke up and started a new stage of my life the next day and took my first confident steps towards death. 

Entanglements of unnecessary complications

The life of savages is so simple, and our societies are such complicated machines! The Tahitian is so close to the origin of the world, while the European is close to its old age. The contrast between them and us is grater than the difference between a newborn baby and a doddering old man. They understand absolutely nothing about our manners or our laws, and they are bound to see in them nothing but shackles disguised in a hundred different ways. Those shackles could only provoke the indignation and scorn of creatures in whom the most profound feeling is love of liberty.

-Denis Diederot (1774)

Taken from the indispensable anthology Against Civilization

Art by Travis Millard

Remember when you were fifteen and you'd place your skateboard in sight, so you could get one last look at it before you went to sleep? Remember that one punk song you played over and over, because it described your life to a tee? Remember feeling weird about writing poetry but you'd do it anyway? Of course you do.