30 December 2022


 

There are rules in skateboarding

But the great thing is 

you do not have to follow them.

 

There is a fine line between regiment and the absurd, sport and taking the piss,

and it must be walked. Precise technical moves for points or loose juggling in a drainage ditch. 

 

The other day, someone asked me how long it would take me to teach them how to kick flip,

I should have said, “ It does not matter. Take this (hand them a board) and do what you want with it.”

Wasn’t that how rugby was invented? Someone got tired of kicking the ball, said fuck it and picked it up and ran?

Run with it.

 

 

Remember as a child, finding a good stick, for a few eternal minutes it is anything you want it to be, anything you can imagine, a sword, a light saber or a giant pen to write poems to your dead dog on the clouds. It was an imagination liberator. The skateboard is the same thing, an imagination liberator, a freedom stick. A time dissolver. Do anything you want with it. Just don’t hit anyone with it.

 

When I was a teenager, a security guard took my skateboard from under my feet. You’re going to take the most freedom I ever experience? No. I rugby tackled him (that’s sport for you) knocked him over and grabbed my board, ran across four lanes of traffic and skated off into the sunset. I felt bad for him, momentarily and hope I didn’t injure him.

 

And so to Natas Kaupas, I read somewhere that he didn’t really skate with many people early on or read magazines. He just had a board and his environment and did whatever he felt. The end result? He redefined the whole damn activity. If you know anything about him, it’s worth pausing to ponder what that means. He re-defined what we all do in a vacuum because he took that board and had some fun with it. 

 

In the words of Peter Handke, “When the child was a child, 
It threw a stick like a lance against a tree, 
And it quivers there still today.”


19 October 2022

first frost, oct '22


 

you do not tell your most sacred stories until the first frost

and always

in the dark

 

since 2004 internet searches for the word ‘anxiety’

have gone up 300%

but there is ‘wisdom in insecurity’

sitting with the unknown in the dark

on an empty stomach

while the world sleeps

 

too much summer

the leaves are crisp kindling

and the stories are delayed 

cold air in the morning

off-set by lung-tightening wild fire smoke at daylight

 

altered states are only useful

as long as they are just that

 

will i ever come back?

will we ever come back?

 

where there is perfection

where the known is set in stone

 

there are no stories to tell

 

just stagnant wild fire smoke

hanging in the valley

for an endless summer

11 August 2022

 i saw you

walking along 82nd avenue

between the used car lots and massage parlors

in oversized jeans looking like a 90s raver

slowly but surely tearing all your clothes off

blue sky

75 degree fahrenheit

a perfect breeze


shattered

i saw you

28 June 2022




 

29 May 2022

21 Years in Portland Oregon

walking to the bookshop to pick up a Robinson Jeffers collection before I leave town for a week, 
a skateboarder, 
twenty-one years my junior blasts by taking one lane of the road 
pococurante 
grabbing my attention 

you can learn a lot about authenticity by a push 
this young man is the real thing 

inside the bookshop, I can’t find much Robinson Jeffers.
I hear that this is the case with this California poet 
I finger through one slim volume but no words grab my attention 
I put it back on the shelf and suddenly realize there are a lot of great poets between J and O 
among them 
Leroi Jones 
Mary Oliver 
I pick up a collection by Mary Oliver and read a great poem about death
and that’s me and $20
easily separated 

outside the bookshop the same skateboarder is sitting down reading Hesse’s Siddhartha 
twenty-one years ago I wouldn’t have said anything to him 
but today I say, “That’s a good one.” he grunts back “It sure is.” 

I still love this city but I can’t wait to get into the woods with Mary.

01 May 2022

28 April 2022

Sticker Packs Are In



 Order Here:

 in The US
International

23 March 2022

 pet cloning

virtual reality

nuclear war

pet cloning

virtual reality

nuclear war

pet cloning

virtual reality

nuclear war

 pet cloning

virtual reality

nuclear war

pet cloning

virtual reality

nuclear war

pet cloning

virtual reality

nuclear war 

pet cloning

virtual reality

nuclear war

pet cloning

virtual reality

nuclear war

pet cloning

virtual reality

nuclear war 

pet cloning

virtual reality

nuclear war

pet cloning

virtual reality

nuclear war

pet cloning

virtual reality

nuclear war

22 February 2022

Destroy Power Not People

Everyone wants the same thing. 

To eat well, 

have a safe place to sleep 

and pursue some fun. 

To sit on a cliff top on a sunny day 

or tell/ hear a good story 

while we waste away our days

until we rejoin the cosmic everything. 


It is pretty fucking simple.

And we want it for everyone.


Yet


From Normandale Park in NE  Portland

To the Ukraine

the wrong kind of people are set to gain

because we let them

time and time again. 

21 January 2022