Skatingboarding in Atl is cool. There’s a bunch if concrete parks and even though they’re spread out, it’s better than nothing. There’s a few well known street spots here, but they’re spread apart to. The whole city is too big.

So I’ve decided to move back to San Francisco. I don’t even have to talk about skating in SF because everyone already knows how amazing it is. I have some things to square away here before I leave but my plan is to apply to some school out there and use my GI Bill.

My goal is to be outta here in June or July. I can’t wait to be back in The City.

I’m doing my best to stay positive. 2009 has been a fairly shitty year. My wife left me right at the start, and then 9 months later I got laid off. Not to mention the financial woes that have come along since then.

Next year I’m going to start school. I got accepted to GA State, but I’m gonna switch to Gwinnett Tech. The school is shorter, cheaper, and more geared towards what I want to do. Besides, I hate school.

I’m hoping that decision alone will help make 2010 a better year. This past few months of not working and going skating everyday has been awesome. Dating is still a headache sometimes. But it’s better than sitting home alone. One day I might blog about my trust issues and why I may wind up single forever, but not today.

I have decided that Im going to to college. I was dead set against going for years but I’ve come to the conclussion that I hate the work I do and if I ever want to do anything else Im going to need a piece of paper that says I can. (Thanks Susan)

I haven’t ridden BMX since summer. I’m pretty back into the groove with skateboarding and it’ll prob stay that way for at least a year. Who knows, maybe even permanently.

I’ve also decided to stop ignoring this website. I have a laptop now (even though i’m writing this from my iPhone) so I’ll be sure to start posting more often.

That’s it for now. I’ll have more soon.

Its Sunday, and in a week I will no longer live under my mother’s roof. It will have been 19months.  In the beginning it was only going to be 6-12months, And before that it was supposed to never ever happen again. I will no longer live in Clayton County. I’ll still be OTP but at least its on the north side.  Due to the end of my relationship I’ll be starting over with no furniture, for the second time…

Its Sunday, its also the end of July. Which is also around the time everything started to go to shit with my marriage. Hmm… It is what it is.

How does all that make me feel?

Angry, And you wont like me when I’m angry.  Ive made a lot of compromises in life.  Ive done a lot of sacrifice in order to make others happy. When I start to think about the custody in case in which i tried to get my daughter, I fall apart. Her mom was on meth, and had just been evicted from her apt. My daughter was sleeping on her aunts couch, her mom wasn’t working, and she evaded being served twice before finally showing up to court.  And she got custody. She lied, she got my witness to lie and the law sided with her. Now she lives her her Fiance.  He has 4 kids that he cares for full time, She had another kid with him (in addition to the one she had after my daughter)which brings the tally up to 3 adults (his mother lives with them) and 7 kids. My daughter still sleeps on a couch. I’m still paying my lawyer.

Georgia…. Georgia….Just that old sweet song…keeps Georgia on my mind. I fucking hate this place.  I moved to Atlanta in 1993. In 1998 I graduated High-School and a few months later I left. And I told myself that I would never live in Ga again.  9 years later, I came back. My wife at the time wanted to go to grad school and it wasn’t happening while we were living in San Francisco, so I told her if she could find a school in Atlanta, we could go and live with my mom till we got on our feet. She was down. We moved here, She started school, 8 or 9 months later things went to shit. Now I’m here, trapped in Atlanta due to the economy. Trapped in my moms place due to finances, my daughter visiting,  due to life being a bitch.  So what was supposed to be half a year turned into almost 2 years. And at the same time its made my relationship with my mom sour.

I don’t even want to get into my marriage and how any of that stuff went down. All I can say if I feel more like myself than ever.  Little things that I had decided I could live without I no longer have to. Its nice being able to do what you want.  Even simple things like getting tattooed again or stretching my ears back out. Not having to wonder if what I want to do is going to have an adverse effect on anyone other than me.

I feel more than anger, but it doesn’t matter if I’m sad, lonely, or happy when I start to think of what led to that feeling i can’t help but getting pissed off.   I think i do a damn good job of keeping it inside for the most part, I mean I haven’t punched any walls, or peoples faces so I think I’m doing OK.

Speaking of tattoos I got this a couple days ago.

Oh and I dig this song.

Thats all I got for now. This blog has steered from being bmx, skating, and  other-brother orientated to just me talking about my life. I’ll get it back on track one day but for now I gotta do what I want.

On the BMX side of life things have been slow.  If i try to ride flatland with my daughter around she will bug the shit out of me until I stop trying tricks and agree to play tag or ride around the block. So, in order to avoid frustration, I don’t even try to do tricks around her.  I have been riding with he regular Atl flatland dudes every Thursday. Last Thursday was dope. Jon Dowker came out from Athens and ChillyO stopped by to check out the scene and say whats up to some old friends.

When you decide to not keep secrets and make your life available to everyone on the Internet, things can  get a little awkward sometimes.  I’m not sure exactly who is and isn’t reading this but it doesn’t really matter.  I continue on in my semi-single life. I only say semi-single because i need to finish my divorce paperwork, something i should be doing now.  I have been meeting cool and interesting people, however I remain jaded and emotionally unavailable.  I have a knack for sticking my neck out, and just dealing with the consequences, but it wears on you after a while.  I actually went out to eat with my kid and my ex the other day. I was already in a shitty mood so I’m sure i looked like an asshole but i don’t really care about that either.  My kid wanted to see her, she wanted to see my kid, and she offered to pay.  I won’t be doing that again.

MJ died. I found out about it on twitter.  I was just checking on my phone and the rumours were just starting. I then followed twitter on my phone and watched the news to see if it was true.  It was the first time I’d used a social networking site to follow breaking news.  It was amazing, everyone was popping off with updates. It happened again but on a way smaller scale yesterday when Steve McNair was shot and killed. I was bummed when MJ died.  I love music more than anything, and Ive been listening to him since i was born.  I went to get a MJ tatt the other day but my dude at the tattoo parlor was booked.  We’ll see whats up next week.

So, yeah dude. Twitter.  I’m all about it. If it weren’t an app on my cell phone, id never use it.  But then again I’d never use facebook either, or check my email. My fave thing is to find people to follow.  I follow a few celebs, bmx pros, rappers, and porn stars. but my fav people to follow are just normal ass people.  As long as they seem interesting and don’t post a bunch of links to other shit, i’ll follow them. 

Dueces

Before my daughter arrived I found myself riding less and less bmx. First i let someone borrow my helmet so that canceled out all the skate parks that require helmets, add to that I was hanging out with friends left and right. Learning new tricks takes time and doing the same tricks over and over again at the same place over and over again was getting a little boring. On top of that its hard to coordinate riders sometimes. I hate riding street/park by myself. I get unmotivated and I wind up leaving the park hella early. I’d rather just ride street but its hard to get people together to ride street often.

I met a friend through twitter of all places that was a new flatlander living in PA. It kinda pumped me up and reminded me that I started out riding flat. And that I could ride flat alone for hours. So, I ordered a flatland frame. I got a Hoffman Strowler and it will be here Wednesday. I’ve had 2 other Hoffman flatland frames before, the EP and the Momentum. I also had a volume mid (Andrew Farris where are you!?) and before that A Hoffman complete that I started riding flat on. Oh I also bought a DK signal when i got back into riding flatland when I lived in San Francisco.

So In light of recent events, heres some pics of my former flatland setups and a video of The Man; DAY SMITH. The flatland other brother himself.

Here’s a new video of Day Smith riding flatland with a helmet cam.

On a positive note, I do have some stuff to post once I get it done. Chilly-O and Freako Rico interviews. I need to do a op 5 with Edgar and take some pictures of all the dudes that chill at Deshong park.

In my otherbrotherly world I’ve been playing kickball, I had a Mohawk for about a month, I’m thinking of getting my head tattooed, and I want to learn to play the bass. In my BMX life I’m back to four pegs. Hooray for opposite grinds and flatland tricks.

If you haven’t seen Motherlover yet, you’re slippin.

Watched a dude get pissed off and storm out of work.

Cut my Afro into a Mohawk.

Turned 29!

Watched that same dude try to come back to work the next day and saw him get escorted off the property with his toolbox.

Went out to eat at Fuego and had Brazillian champagne poured down my throat by the bartednder.

Went to MJQ for the first time. One of the best clubs, in my diluted laidback ghettofabpunk opinion, in Atlanta.

Rode BMX at Deshong with my pegs on. (I keep taking them off and putting them back off.  I hae to play headgames with myself to get me away from doing the same thing.  I need to take them off and give them away to progress the way I want right now) Slammed super hard on all kinds of stuf, had way too much fun, and almost hopped off a ledge straight into a skater.

Rode my motorcycle

Went to a going away party, started drinking at around 8pm stopped at around 2am.  Soo awesome!!  Gonna miss you Chris!!

Sat at a friends apt waiting for the direct TV guy to show up to do the installation. Dude shows up with his 8yr old son and has the kid working side by side with him.  Started making me wish I knew my dad.  It was pretty dope.

Ran off the road in my motorcycle trying to avoid some kinda animal (it was dark) hit a bunch of wet grass/mud and went down.  Laughed to myself, picked up the bike, and continued home. Not a scratch on the bike, bruise on my leg.  Not bad if I say so myself.

Took my cat to the vet, he had a fever and an infection, he got some shots and I got some medicine to give him. Set me back over $100. And the ungrateful bastard tries to kill me everytime I have to put a pill down his throat.

Added like 5 friends to facebook, got my twitter on hardcore, oh and did I mention my MOHAWK!!

NYT on Death: “This Band Was Punk Before Punk Was Punk”

The Hackney brothers: David, Bobby and Dannis

A very good and extensive article on Detroit punk rockers Death by Mike Rubin in today’s Times.  Here’s an excerpt:

The group’s music has been almost completely unheard since the band stopped performing more than three decades ago. But after all the years of silence, Death’s moment has finally arrived. It comes, however, nearly a decade too late for its founder and leader, David Hackney, who died of lung cancer in 2000. “David was convinced more than any of us that we were doing something totally revolutionary,” said Bobby Sr., 52.

Forgotten except by the most fervent punk rock record collectors — the band’s self-released 1976 single recently traded hands for the equivalent of $800 — Death would likely have remained lost in obscurity if not for the discovery last year of a 1974 demo tape in Bobby Sr.’s attic. Released last month by Drag City Records as “… For the Whole World to See,” Death’s newly unearthed recordings reveal a remarkable missing link between the high-energy hard rock of Detroit bands like the Stooges and MC5 from the late 1960s and early ’70s and the high-velocity assault of punk from its breakthrough years of 1976 and ’77. Death’s songs “Politicians in My Eyes,” “Keep On Knocking” and “Freakin Out” are scorching blasts of feral ur-punk, making the brothers unwitting artistic kin to their punk-pioneer contemporaries the Ramones, in New York; Rocket From the Tombs, in Cleveland; and the Saints, in Brisbane, Australia. They also preceded Bad Brains, the most celebrated African-American punk band, by almost five years.

Jack White of the White Stripes, who was raised in Detroit, said in an e-mail message: “The first time the stereo played ‘Politicians in My Eyes,’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. When I was told the history of the band and what year they recorded this music, it just didn’t make sense. Ahead of punk, and ahead of their time.”

Here is one of thier songs.

My fav song by them in Snappin Necks.  You can hear it here but the video is just a still of  some dude holding a guitar.