RANT 1

Why row? It's a personal forum, it's shameless self promotion, it's some dude on the east coast who has been skating for two decades and sometimes finds himself with unpopular opinions. This isn't some money hungry kid who got into this game a couple minutes ago to try and get paid. I've spent my life riding my skateboard and I'm not afraid or embarassed to say that I loved it so much that all I wanted to do in my whole life since I was ten years old was to be a pro skater. Well congratulations chump, you made it. And now this thing you started because you didn't want to listen to a coach has decided to subject you to it's own set of rules. I've had team managers tell me that if I wanted an ad I had to grind a rail, and had the same team manager tell me "sorry dude, rails are done" when I sent in the photo. I've seen control of my passion put into the wrong persons hands. Haters, greed mongers, and networkers have their claws in my passion, and I'm not bitter, I'm taking it back. This is about my neck of the woods, it's about the affect I want to have on skateboarding, it's about not letting skateboarding have an affect on me. Do us all a favor and grab a paddle, we're headed for the rocks.

RANT 2

no matter how much i love skateboarding, or try to convince myself of its relevance in society, the fact remains that music is a lot cooler and way more able to reach the bourgeois (and not so) and rock the boulevard. when i am asked about my biggest influences my interrogator is often surprised to hear "johnny cash," "the violent femmes," "hunter s. thompson," generally expecting me to list off pro skateboarders. i guess i like the power of something that conjures emotionally first and intellectually second. are skateparks and the "big rail contest" parts of what we do killing skateboarding? i've never been to a skatepark and felt like the skateboarding had a hold over every person in there, much less looked over my shoulder to see 50,000 lighters held up in a show of solidarity for ozzy's cause. have you ever seen someone come out of a skatepark pouring in sweat, a glazed look in their eyes, throwing their fist in the air like they just had a religious experience? skateparks don't seem to elicit that kind of enthusiasm. actually, at a lot of skateparks people are more worried about checking out the crowd than checking out the skating. i can't really blame them, sometimes the energy is so dull and uninspired that i'm yawning just thinking about it. am i the exception? skateboarding is just outgunned in the battle for the senses, and we're killing what originality we do have. music provides a cultural eco-system in and of itself. there's the actual music, the lyrics with their content and politics, the style and personalities of the bandmembers and the politics implicit in their lifestyles, and lastly, their art, album packaging, and graphics. public enemy probably raised more issues in the three years after their debut than the worlds skateboarders will during their lifetimes. for a visual artist such as myself, this harsh reality provides the challenge to make my art as much of an engaging, stimulating, provocative, visceral experience as possible. to quote chuck d, "i want to reach the bourgeois and rock the boulevard." i don't want people to only experience my art in the safe, tame confines of the skatepark, which is why i put my art up illegally in the streets. i'm a populist and i look at it this way: i may not play an instrument, but i'm gonna rock it hard as nails anyway.