Downhill Love Sandwich

At one of the later Eastbourne downhill races (think it was the last one) i was tired out like a dog in the sun. Sweat leather loving in the uplift bus with all these Euro freaks and Gazillion Brazillians and Wank Yanks. I walked past this group of three kids 16-18 maybe just standing by my van really as all these zoids were funking around the car park doing skate things, swirly around the tarmac in a kind of chill out zone. I think Mike Stride had cones out, there was slalom stuff going on. In all it was a kind of breather an oxygen boost after the madness of the loud hailers and the testosterone that was flying around the race groove on top of the hill….

I had a sandwich in the van that i had bought at some shitty shop, pre packed tomato and cheese or some shit, brown bread and totally dead. I was cool, leathers off sitting on my van step yamming my zombie bread catching the soft light happiness and warm fuzz of the day. These three youth stood a few yards away watching the action going down clutching these skateboards…a Lush Spooky, some Mindless deck, i think some Landy skate as well…they had the gloves the pads and the helmets and the obligato kit one needs to skatey happy fuzz gatherer stylee. As i ate my sandwich people came over to love my food, my tobacco, rizla, my coffee my custard and cream sweeties. I saw that one of the youth (gyaldem) was grooving to my deck and set up inching forward slowly to check it and report back to the group about whatever….

I was in Mikey Happy space with the warm glow of the FuzzGod nestling in my heart…i called the group over…”Yo fondle the deck thy see before thee and bask in the glow of its happiness” i said to them. Which meant..”hey if you want to look at it get a closer look touch see feel smell” etc. Forsooth and verily they did approach and asketh questions. I’m sorry that my technological explanations about my custom trucks and wheels etc weren’t very techno…”why are your trucks so wide?” they asked….”i dunno” i mumbled ” because i like wide trucks” through mangled cheesey tomato on brown bread. They were students from Exmouth College up for a days freeride dropped off by Mom. I chatted to them as i rolled a mighty spliff (for it was decreed that one is FORBIDDEN to utilise Jah Herb for medication upon the mighty start line and ramp).

They had been here for a few hours, it was cool, they were happy seeing all this shit, yeah it was cool and gnarly and all this shit. I asked them if they had skated the hill yet?

“No”

“Why not?”

“Its a little intimidating….” The Gyaldem said. The two lads with her nodded that much that their heads nearly fell off. The three of them had paid cash money to skate the hill on the freeride grooves but hadnt actually skated. Wow. Why not waasamatterman? The noise and confusion, the leather madness, the people getting ready for heats, the soundsystem playing rubbish music, the crowds, the stoke sapping shit that goes on.

Mikey spent some time easing their little hearts into downhill mode…it’s cool make your way to the ramp, queue up get to the top of the ramp and go down it, then skate how you like down the road, get the bus back up and then repeat. Yes there are some very fast skaters who will be going down the hill with you, chill out dont worry about them, they are good enough to stay out of your way. Skate like this skate like that, enjoy the groove…..ok for me to say it but these kids had been inched out of the hill by the madness of the event. Eventually i grabbed hold of a reliant snotnose and put them under their care and verily they enjoyed the rest of the day…even the Mom came over as i was de leathering to thank me for my kind words…alas i am a Mom fan and couldn’t stop looking at her tits.

Kids….i’m riffing on my Kids Skate For Free groove. Can we have some kind of buddy system for snotnoses? Is it a rite of passage that sometimes we treat them like little fuckers that are in the way? Do we treat them like that? Is downhill skateboarding too arsey for youngbloods? Especially young kids who are a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing? Can’t we have a Kids Hour where they take over the hill for a while as older riders rub liniment on sore knees?

I dunno….

Freeridal Tendencies

I remember talking to Si Tibor an Austrian sometime skier and often downhiller at Aviemore way back in time, he loved vert skating too and i was giving him a lift as far as Birmingham so he could get a flight to the US for a holiday. He moaned and groaned about the fact that people often told him as part of an ‘event’ when he could skate and when he couldn’t…which is kind of a mountain thing i think. A big slice of whatthefuck and fuckyou inhabited Si’s timespace and he was pissed off with the loud hailers and the shouting and the shit that goes down when a downhill skatey race goes on…thats cool, he just hassled me for five hours about it.

I did think more about it however in the years since but it never hit home as much as in maybe 2001 or so when downhill events started to get a bit bigger and a little more hassle for this downhill cheese monkey. Gurston down gravity sports thing was a hassle really, all timed runs and racey bugatti club madness and i would drive home grab a short board and go skate with the local youth to get the taste of RACE out of my mouth.

Now after the fallout of more IGSA races and shouty men with perma tans i’ve pretty much done with that shit…if i want to go to a timed event i can choose a load of them on the race calendar or attend Bo Peep in the UK. Freedom to be jailed if you like. Plenty of dudes love that shit, bleep, go, check times, qualify, heats, expensive equipment, definite topography of haves and have nots. I kind of picked up on an undercurrent of competition that has built up over the years into a negative stoke sapping mollusc of ungrooviness…whispered rumours and shittyness about shit. I started to get antsy and shitty myself…shitty shitty. Negativity breeds negativity, it can only take and not give anything. Thats why you get punch ups at races now and idle violence about taking people out and all that shit…enough of this crap…

What i want is an event where the only provisor for a ride down the hill is a safety aspect, dudes on the track, goats grazing, fifty riders setting off constantly to skate, up and down, up and down, skatey skatey skatey…who wins? who fucking cares, skateboards and skateboards, just skateboarding no luges or gravity vehicles or roller skates or bikes or any of that malarky, skateboards thats all just skateboards. Happiness in abundance, smiles, cheer, alcohol and drunkeness and skateboarding, as many runs as your legs can deal with, camping for a few days, standing around bullshitting with skateboarders about skateboarding. A freeride that means more than freeriding which means free your fucking head which is supposed to be what skateboarding is about to be honest.

Kids must skate for free

When i was a kid we would play football for 12 hours a day. There was nothing else to do and our only heroes were the dudes with the weird facial hair and fucked up haircuts like Slade who also played footie for local teams…maybe. I met George Best in a Manchester restaurant when i was 6 or 7 and he was at the height of his footballing career. My Auntie worked there and my dad had driven up to Manchester to visit family etc, we got a table, it was a very nice place to nosh very posh. Best came in as i was trying to suss out what this thing was i was supposed to eat, my fish had a slice of lemon on top and i was confused. George worked the crowd on his way through to a private table i daresay, working it like a pro really, just enough time to make an impression and then next handshake etc etc. People were in absolute fucking awe of this man….i forgot what the point of this shared memory was….

Over the skatepark the council spent 150,000 quid on an all weather floodlit football pitch and the skatepark was 30,000 worth of shitty quarter pipe, flat bank, rail box horribleness. Trouble is on the football pitch there was a Dad and two kids in Manchester united tops hoofing a ball around, the kids looked pissed off to be fair. Over the skatepark you could not fucking move for bikes, scooters, skateboards, inline roller thingys…all age groups, Dad dudes, thirty somethings, twenties, teens i would say 6 to well me 47 in age. Nobody ever plays football any more and nobody is much interested in it. Football has destroyed itself by pricing the kids out of the sport, theie new heroes of football are strange blinging semi morons with a shit taste in cars and women. They are false idols for Jordan Councilkid who spends half his time avoiding people who want to kick the shit out of him and his moms new boyfriend or whatever. Kids aren’t stupid, kids are clever they have to be in the world of kids and kid madness. Every dumb arse tracksuit clad kid that shuffles around shopping centers with his hood up is the kid who is scared of us, me and you. That dumb stare you get is a boy or a girl pretending adult madness doesn’t happen. They however are fine tuned to every change in mood we have, every nuance of our behaviour, vocalisations etc. So….they know football is a big fraud, the stars are liars and cheats, there is no glory for hard work only for those who have the money and the financial clout to cherry pick the best players and the best Managers…it’s all a massive con and the kids fucking know it. The death of football will be a fart of an incident.

So kids skate and fart around on scooters or whatever, it’s cool, you see….there are girls at the skatepark riding BMX’s and scooters and mountain bikes for fucks sake, they are having fun. Talking and showing off to girls is fun, having a laugh under the ramp is cool, the sun shines and the skatepark is full of love.

Our kids man…little bastards. We have to build bridges with them again and rebuild that trust we had between each other. We do that through our love of wheeled objects that we risk life and limb on….we have to keep them stoked on our pastime.

Kids have to skate at events for free man, under 16’s have to pay no money to skate at an event this has to be a fucking real thing happening in the future. Even if they just get two or three runs a day it will be worth the effort to turn up with Mom and Dad maybe and have a fucking good day out. Kids have to skate for free.