I used to skate dude. The "I" starts deep in my gut, "used to" forms somewhere in my in my throat and comes out nasally. "Skate" and "dude" are both shortened, practically chopped in half as though I grew up in "The Valley", to which I've never been. And herein lies the problem, acting as though I'm something I'm not nor ever could be while thinking of myself in terms of things I once was or the grand delusions of what I will be as  opposed to the things I am. For some reason I was never able to embrace myself for who I am and where I'm from, thankfully that has changed over time.
     I don't entirely blame skateboarding for the my ill-spent youth, I think I was predisposed to obsessive behavior and addiction, but god damn if the cult of the idol "they" created didn't make it seem necessary to fulfill that role if I wanted to be accepted.  Getting sponsored in my first year at high school by a local shop that shared the space with a tattoo artist helped me misrepresent myself the way I wanted to by being the first kid at school with tattoos, building the exterior armour to protect the scared child within. Armour I relied heavily on my entire life instead of addressing the swirling abyss of emotional turmoil in my underdeveloped mind.
   The first and last time I went to Slam City Jam in Vancouver I was taken over by a board company I was riding for based out of the east coast at 17. It was a pretty loose affair and I was still in high school but somehow convinced my folks it would be a wholesome weekend with my pals. The details remain a bit hazy but coming off the ferry from Victoria with my arm in a cast I somehow got dropped off at the house that the Piss Drunks were staying at. Greco, Dollin, Trainwreck and this little dude name Steve that was an industry player that kept rapping Funkdubiest. The haze thickens and Trainwreck an I are in a Triad bar well past a wholesome time to return home, I think he was convinced one of the girls was a prostitute; she was not and it ended up with the window of the house we were staying at being shot out and me without a cast. If this is skateboarding sign me the fuck up!
    The  Trainwrecks, Jamers and Mateos of the world were people I adored. From a previous generation where tattoos were sacred and somewhat taboo, cocaine was only cut with baby laxative and rat poison as opposed to fentanyl and beer was a breakfast drink. I certainly wasn't the last of that cool generation to get tattooed, more the first of the posers pretending to be as tough as we thought those before us were, which I now see as more of an inability to address emotions and communicate in a healthy way. I hope I'm not doing a disservice to those I've named or anyone else as I don't put their short comings on them, rather the male psyche as a whole. I can only speak for myself of my experience, but I never had another male teach me how to recognize my emotions. After bumping a knee as a child it's ok to cry, how to express anger in a non physical way, talking through trauma, all things I wasn't aware of growing up and into my 30's. I can't imagine my great grandfather sitting my grandpa down somewhere on the Alberta prairies as they were making their way west to talk to him like a snowflake as I so greatly needed, and I'm sure that conversation was never had anywhere along my family tree.
    During my youth I was embarrassed of who I was, a sensitive upper middle class kid whos parents were worried sick about him and wore my armour to protect myself from being found out or hurt, by a word or a look or lack there of. Today I'm embarrassed that I still wear pieces of that armour and the old "Fuck you, why don't you get out of your car and come get a taste" reaction pops up in the middle of a lovely day, and I'd like to apologize to the guy in the parkade this afternoon and his girlfriend who was really embarrassed for us both.
   I'm generally happy these days which is a long way away from the phsyc ward, and I'm happy to be a work in progress.