Skateboarding: Figure Skating with a Death Wish

Ex-skateboarder Turned Iron-lung Daredevil

What is skateboarding after all? Isn’t it really just figure skating on a board with four wheels? Instead of wearing cute, sequined suits skateboarders wear baggy pants with their underwear showing and dorky knit hats but the concept is the same. Skateboarders think they’re tough and rebellious because instead of doing their thing on ice which is hard but allows you to slide when you fall, they skate in parking lots and on sidewalks. The first law of physics states that any collision between the human body and asphalt results in damage—sometimes irreparable—to the carcass. Everyone but skateboarders seems to know this innately but as Voltaire pointed out a few years ago, common sense isn’t too common.  

Here is a another rule that skateboarders should adopt immediately: if someone films you breaking half the bones in your body as you attempt to slide down a steel handrail on concrete steps (why would anyone think of doing this?) as soon as they cart you off for medical treatment or an autopsy little Martin Scorsese with the camera has to try the same stunt. I can’t bring myself to watch skateboard accident videos…and aren’t all skate videos about horrific accidents? I also don’t watch snuff flicks which fall into the same category and are illegal to make for obvious reasons. So why don’t they ban videos of terrible skate accidents?

Many of these skate accident videos are basically suicide attempts, or partial suicide attempts (whatever that means), at least from what I’ve seen. I imagine that the dialogue between a skateboarder and his psychiatrist would go something like this. “So, doctor, I’m thinking about launching myself on my board down a long flight of stairs while I try to balance on the steel hand railing.” The doctor takes a few notes and replies, “So, tell me about the feelings of abandonment you have concerning your father. Isn’t there some other activity besides skateboarding that would allow you to act out these feelings of resentment without damaging your body in such a way that you’ll walk with a pronounced limp for the rest of your life? Have you tried figure skating?” The skateboarder calls the doctor a “homo” and runs out of the office without paying.

I’m guessing that there’s already a new sub-culture of mangled ex-skateboarders who now do tricks in their wheelchairs, or hospital beds, or iron lungs. Check on Youtube for the videos.

Kids and the City

I grew up in a medium-sized town in the middle of America, a place where most people lived in individual homes with big yards and lots of space. Most of my adult life has been spent in the confines of big cities and I’ve lived in apartment buildings. My apartments have been big and very small but always smaller than the average American house…and forget about having a yard. This has been a great life as an adult but a lot of Americans claim that the city is no place to raise children. I think that millions of urban families in Europe would beg to differ. 

 

Back when I lived in the downtown area of Seattle there was hardly a family to be found as they preferred to nest out in the residential or suburban confines of the city. I can’t say if things have changed since I moved from Seattle seven and a half years ago. I can say that the dense urban environment where I now call home is loaded with families. In Seattle I would see families coming and going to the Seattle Center and other tourist attractions but it was just plain odd to see children in most of the places I frequented. Minors aren’t allowed in bars in America and in Seattle they weren’t even allowed in the bar area of restaurants. Here in Spain bars have a lot more functions than just handing out alcoholic beverages and children are welcomed everywhere.

I bring this up because I was at a sidewalk café yesterday watching the Barça-Valencia football match and along with the adults there was a strong contingent of kids in the crowd. I think kids here have a completely different kind of life than most American children. For one thing cars aren’t a part of their lives until they reach 18 years old and then only for a small portion of those with the means to own a car. Kids either walk, or ride the bus, or take their bikes, or they are passengers in their parents’ cars. I personally don’t think that people under 18 have any business behind the wheel of a car so this suits me.

I think that what urban kids miss in having wide open spaces to play they make up for in culture. I wouldn’t try to argue one way or another about which sort of life is better for children. These days I hardly think it makes a shred of difference one way or another whether a child grows up in the city or the suburbs. Most young boys only want to play video games and little girls are hypnotized by their iPhones.

Rank Offenses: Military Insignia Explained to Non-Veterans

First of all, I’d like to state once and for all that I was honorably discharged from the United States Air Force and my leaving had nothing to do with a certain incident on a Greek island involving two topless Swedish tourists (consenting adults), a huge sheet of plastic, and four gallons of high quality olive oil—any rumor to the contrary is a horrible slander instigated by Al Qaeda. Next, I’d like to say that nothing irks vets more than to see movies screw up U.S. military uniforms.  Every veteran is an expert on how a uniform should be worn. This isn’t because vets are all fastidious dressers, but simply because the military puts a LOT of emphasis on the uniform. If you showed up at your post with your uniform looking like it does in many movies and TV shows, you’d be escorted directly to the nearest military prison while given ample opportunity to review current dress code norms. It’s time to set the record straight on military insignia and dress.

In the short version explaining military insignia, enlisted men and women have their rank (in the form of stripes) on their sleeve while officers have it on their shoulders. Although the insignia are different for each service branch an easy rule to remember for enlisted people is that the more stripes the higher the rank. For officers rank progresses with silver trumping gold from bars, to clusters, to an eagle, and then stars.

As far as the medals and decorations military folks wear on the uniform, things can get a lot more complicated. Most of the ribbons you see above the breast pocket of uniforms are given out simply for doing your job. As Woody Allen once said about life, showing up is about 80% of military decorations. Then there are other badges, tabs, and patches that elite units pay for with blood, sweat, tears, and usually enormous amounts of alcohol, at least at some phase of the operation. Quite often when dealing with decorative ribbons and uniforms it’s difficult even for military people to tell the difference between a true hero and someone who was just along for the ride.

 

Everyone should remember that just showing up for military service is a hell of a sacrifice and merits respect. At least that’s the opinion of this pacifist (mostly), peace-loving vet.

In Praise of Acting Badly

I'm rooting for the half-naked guy no matter what he did.

KEEP SCREAMING; HELP IS ON THE WAY!

You can keep your stiff upper lip and your chin held high and your bitten bullet; when I’m faced with even the slightest bit of adversity I find that getting completely hysterical is often the best course of action. When the shit hits the fan the last thing I want to do is keep my composure, whatever that is. And even if I did have composure why on earth would I be interested in hanging on to it? It’s just going to get covered in fecal matter. Weren’t you listening? The excrement has struck the fan, man! Now it’s all over your stiff lip because I used you as a human shield and ran for it like any sensible person would. The Youtube video of my rather undignified retreat is a small price to pay…and I don’t have to take a shower like some people I know.  

Keep calm you say? You keep calm; I’m too busy trying to throw a couple of these women and children out of the lifeboat to make room for me and my luggage. I’ll calm down as soon as we row away from all of these poor slobs dog-paddling around us trying to make their way on to my boat. I paid a lot of money for this cruise and there’s no reason why hitting an iceberg in the middle of the night should get in the way of my comfort.

It is my personal opinion that unrestrained panic is way under-rated as a problem solving device. Panic unleashes lots of pent-up energy and adrenalin, sort of like being high on PCP.* I’d like to see a calm person lift a parked car off their own foot, pretty much child’s play for someone high on PCP or a panicky type. Panic gives us superhuman powers like the ability to outrun the cops while half-naked…or at least panic makes us think this is possible.

There is an old saying that goes “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” To bring this into modern times replace “squeaky wheel” with “hostage pleadinging for their life like a spoiled child” and “grease” with “the only adult male passenger released by the terrorists” and you have a happy ending to your story. If you don’t hysterically beg for mercy how will they even know that you don’t want to be shot on the tarmac?

*You just don’t hear much about PCP or “angel dust” these days. It kind of went out of style like acid-washed jeans. Sic transit gloria mundi. I probably cite this Latin quotation too often in an effort to show off but I think it’s truly appropriate here.