took a trip down to the southern calif for my favorite -not contest- contest.
life was sweet. dropped off Jays paint, surfed at Swami's and skated with hero's, both new and old. and i didn't get hurt.
embarking on a zesty enterprise
rambling rose tattoo that has thorns
some many entitled honky's complaining about perfect waves and their mexican landscapers
there are times i watch this and think everything else i listen to is a compromise, untrue of course but i think of the teenager in me that first heard this, equipped with the no label for this sound, some strange melodic punk, that had me hooked within the first 30 seconds. A singer with opinions and the brains and the band to back him up.
watching this from time to time always makes me have these overpowering emotions of wanting to smash everything around, scream at the top of my lungs and makes my eyes well up a bit. It makes me think we had a chance to change the world and make it less generic and more original and creative. Popularity is a strange thing...... why do the purists feel they have to run or disown something they "liked since the beginning" when it gets "too popular". Own up to the things you love, your probably not as original as you think. If it's good people are going to want it, those same people want so much garbage too, but that's theirs to live with.
I've skateboarded since i was about 10..... theres no question that i was born to skate, it found me and the story goes from there, it was not POPULAR at the time, in a way it was just another toy... and it was free because the board was left in front of my house. But that toy quickly became a tool, a tool get lost in. A tool used for expression, releasing young angst, bullshit detector, friend maker, jock pisser offer, tribe former, pain maker, and endless possibility device. Laughter, travel, my new voice, and the narrator of my new life..... came from that fucking skateboard.
Iv'e dealt with endless clowns, hang arounds, mongo mongoloids, wanna be's, verbal vomiters, trend humpers..... but all i had to do was move around them, push down the road and look ahead. I'm using all these labels, and fuck them because they don't matter. I'm a fool for trying to explain it. Skill level never mattered.... it was the look in the eyes. Rich, poor, blessed with talent, or born a cave man.... none mattered.... lets got SKATE.
Motorcycles...... the same thing in a way, but more convoluted. More bullshit. More testosterone or that lack there of being made up for by HAWG. But once again, goddamn they can be cool, and goddamn you can express yourself with your bike. Living in the NOW is nearly impossible but somewhere right between you hands on your handlebars you can fine that place.
So that leads me to this..... I've been Surfing, and I'm horrible at it. Anonymous dork with KOOK tattooed across his sunburnt forehead. Perfecting the nose dive, the over paddle to wave passing me by technique, and the shore break body bag. Don't let me fool you though, I've caught some waves and "gone down the line" my left calf has been fully tubed and I've starred in a few of my own movies showing only inside my head when i'm in the middle of a good ride on a mediocre wave. It started as one day a week, then two, now it's three. I know locals by name, i've learned a few surf terms, i've gone through a few bars of wax. I laugh at young bohemian long boarders that look like they're trying to do ballet on their boards but really look like they're shooting the duck on roller-skates..... it's that trying to hard to be something you're not thing. Skating gave me that intense bullshit detector. Like the new biker guy in the denim vest with all the patches and the chinese chopper parts all over his 2014 harley. It's too much. Just be a KOOK, trust me its rad. Paddle out in the world, realize your a grain of sand on whales ass and go for a ride.
I don't know, this is a ramble, but this song, this band, the recording of this show.... it has something in it that was not forced, did not need to labeled..... it is just perfect to me. Beautiful and original a complete mood maker.
blah........
