More Skate Adventures

Last Friday I went to this town Geelong, which was about an hour train ride outside of Melbourne. I managed to make the 12 noon train at Southern Cross station in downtown Melbourne with only a few minutes to spare, sat back in the comfy chair. After leaving downtown we passed through western Melbourne, through the industrial area, and then got out into the country, passing the occasional factory. Geelong is a little over 100,000 people, which I think takes into account the surrounding suburbs but I'm not sure. Theres a Ford factory here (Ford is considered an Australian car in this country), a wool museum, a cool small downtown area, a foggy pier, and a skate plaza next to the pier. I skated the plaza for a few hours, talked to a few of the locals, but didn't take any photos. One of the locals told me which bus to take to get to the old sketchy bowl from the 80's which was one of the main reasons I wanted to come to Geelong (other than the wool museum which I ended up skipping).


Geelong Bowl. This thing is steep and deep, about ten feet high. I couldn't do any lip tricks but it was fun to carve.


Another angle, the photos can't translate its size and shape perfectly.


There was this drainage hole in the center of the bottom that had to be avoided.


Here was one of the other parts of the park, a "paint tray" thing. Steep, rough trannies. A kid on a scooter was trying to drop in on the corner. I'm always surprised I don't see kids on scooters eat shit more often, I mean, it was actually pretty gnarly. He was there with his friend, both aged somewhere around 10-14, although I'm not great at judging ages. They both had "wog" accents, which is a type of Australian accent kids whose parents are from Italy, Greece, Lebanon, or sometimes Asia talk with. Heres a journalist/linguists translation I got from The Age, a Melbourne newspaper:

"Ah fugen kehller maht."

"Whahr? Woihr?"

"Uhh, whahmah farghen sposadouh?"

The translation, as best as I can manage, is:

"I'll f---in' kill you, mate."

"What? Why?"

"Well, what am I f---in' supposed to do?"

I'm not really sure what the context of that specific statement was, other than it being some school kids getting off the bus. After a few exchanges of conversations, they detected my accent and correctly identified me as American. They lived nearby and hung out at the park often, riding there bikes and scooters. After a bit they went over to talk to some nearby school girls who looked quite a bit older than them but who knows.

A little after they left, the sun started to go down, and I was getting ready to leave, taking my final runs, when another guy on a scooter came up the path. He was coming slowly, stopping every once in awhile, and talking or singing to himself. At one point he stopped about fifteen feet from me, so I called out 'whats up' or something like that. He had a strong accent as well, but also something about the way he talked didn't seem quite right. I don't know if he had just been down by the creek huffing glue or if he wasn't quite right in the head, but this guy was strange. At first I had judged him to be about 18, maybe a bit of a short guy, although it was dark, and think maybe he was more around 14 or 16, at least a bit older than the previous kids. The kids from before were one of our main topics of conversations, although he'd occasionally interject with something slightly random. He kept wanting to know what the kids were talking to me about, but he didn't ask me repeatedly in any sort of hostile way, but it was more as if he needed reminding of what I had said a minute earlier, or thought there was more I could divulge. He even asked me if they had been "picking" on me (my response was "naw, there just kids!"), although I then realized he was a kid himself, and judging by his character and the questions he was asking me, I'd guess this kids probably made fun of him quite a bit. I told him they said it was their hangout spot, and his response made it seem like he thought they had some sort of gang (maybe this kid watches too much tv, or those kids just give him a hard time, which wouldn't be surprising).

I can't remember his name, but he later told me I could call him 'Scoot' or M&M/Eminem (I don't know which he was referring too). I told him I lived in Melbourne and was about to head back there, but he'd ask me 'so do you skate here a lot?' or something similar every few minutes as if I lived in town. We both happened to leave at the same time so he scooted along next to me as I walked to the bus stop. He seemed worried about getting in trouble for being late because he had told his mom he was going to Safeway, and she said he had to be home by six. He had just wanted to get out of the house and ride around on his scooter. I guess I'm glad to have met him, since he was interesting to say the least, but I was relieved that he didn't hang around while I waited at the bus stop.


The Friday previous to my Geelong excursion, I went to check out a backyard pool in western Melbourne, amid suburban homes and industrial buildings. A guy from New Jersey who skates Fitzy a lot gave me directions to this one on a Thursday evening and Friday morning I dragged Simon along and managed to find it. The guy told me it was a low bust factor (you could skate there all day drinking beer without the cops or neighbors complaining). It was supposedly an abandoned house, missing the back section, but it seems they have recently started rebuilding. Luckily, the construction crew wasn't there and the pool hadn't been touched by the them yet, so we deemed it still cool to skate, until we saw the water in the deepend.


At least I got to skate the shallow end sort of. Barely any run up and a steep tranny is my excuse for only getting halfway up the wall.


Simon, lurkin'.

meh

Lately I've just been doing the same old stuff, reading stuff for school, making quesadillas, kicking it at the lodge, cooking kangaroo steaks to put inside my quesadillas, etc. I went skating around town tonight, but most of downtown was too busy with foot traffic, but I skated the museum, which has some nice flatground and stuff. I bought an Australian skateboarding magazine and saw a spot (curb cut to tall flat bar) with a street sign in the background so I was able to locate it in Chinatown. Its too tall for me to skate, although I might be able to get into a front nose on it, but it was too busy tonight. Now I'm staying up late waiting for it to be 9am in California when two more spaces in Advanced Painting will be opened up. I signed up for classes this morning, and there wasn't space in it, but they open a couple spots a day at various times. I did get into metal sculpture though (welding), which should be fun.

The highlight of my last weekend was going to a show in St. Kilda (a beach neighborhood south of Melbourne City). It was at the Espy which was a cool place, spacious yet intimate. We were able to save some money by drinking wine on the tram ride over, and heading over to the bottleshop and drinking beer on the beach. The show, however, was free, so I bought a drink at the bar. $4 for a pot, not bad, relatively (a pot is a glass, less than a pint). The bands were good. Loud, fast rock and roll. Most of them were Melbourneans, although the headlining band was from Tokyo (The Gimmies). Tomomi came along, and she generally listens to pop music, but was dancing and rocking out just as much as anyone (actually only about ten people in the crowd were moving at all).

My classes are winding down. Next week is the last week of classes, then I have a week off (to write papers), then the next week I have three final papers due, then another week off (maybe a skate trip to Canberra?), then a final exam, then I'm off to Queensland. So basically right now I'm mainly preoccupied with research for my three final papers, which seem interesting enough, except for my renaissance class, but I was expecting a worse topic (the only class with an assigned topic, sort of, my modern art class gave us at least 11 choices). For renaissance we could choose between:

How would you rewrite the history of the 15th century Italian Renaissance for a book entitled Donatello to Leonardo Da Vinci?

or

Write an essay about the importance of gift giving on the occasion of weddings in the Italian Renaissance?

Anyways...I've probably already bored you enough with descriptions of this class. Next week for my last Australia Now class were going to watch a movie. The lecturer wanted to show "The Rescuers Down Under", but apparently in previous semesters students had complained about watching a cartoon in a college class. I think theres still a chance he'll show it, but either way, I trust this guy to put on something highly entertaining. He wanted to show the Disney film because its a very American take on Australia, stereotypes, inaccuracies (the kangaroo has a cockney accent, because after all, what American child will know the difference?), etc. so he thought it would be good to see it through "Australian Eyes" now that we know something about Australia.

A week from Friday there is a local skate video premier. My friend Sacha who I met in my philosophy class who I skate with sometimes told me about it. Its his old skate crew's video, and originally he was going to have a part in it, but its been in production for almost four years now, and he rarely even skates with them anymore. It sounds like overall, thy'll be some good skating, some mediocre skating, and fun random stuff, kind of like our skate videos (Schpoofed, Step it Up, Bootysweat). They're even premiering it in a theater. Also, while I'm talking about skate video premiers, the new Zoo York video is going to be having a Melbourne premier in a few weeks in St. Kilda. That seems to be the thing nowadays, having multiple premiers. Zoo York has maybe changed a bit from its roots (they're now owned by Marc Ecko), but they still have a good skate team, so it should be cool.

Until next time.

Some Stuff Since Tassie

Nothing major has happened since I got back from my trip. My first week back I was busy finishing assignments, but now I'm just working on two final papers, and keeping up in classes until exams, which I only have one of, unless you count a take home paper. Since nothing is due for awhile, I've been able to relax a bit more. Although now that winter is setting in it, the sun is already beginning to set when I get out of class at 5:15, so skating after school usually means night sessions in front of the museum or the state library or somewhere around town. Whenever I go skating at night (around midnight) people in my building are like "are you going skating now?!" or "Where you out skating?!" when I return. I usually tell them I'm not tired or that night time is best for skating in the city because less pedestrians are around. Below is the main obstacle at the state library. Its a photo I got off google, so it doesn't really show the face of the bank, but you get the idea. The museum is mainly flatground, a few ledges where kids took off skatestoppers, manual pads, and some big gaps that are in a lot of videos (it says Melbourne Museum in big letters in the background).


I've been trying to go to some more shows. I went to a metal show a week and a half ago. The bands weren't great, (the screaming/growling was a little much, although it wasn't quite new hardcore), but it was fun. Simon bailed on going to the show because he was too tired/hungover from the night before, so I went alone but happened to run into a guy from the Fitzroy bowl, Pete, and talked to another guy who skated, Shorty. Pete is also the bassist of the band Team Rad that I had wanted to see a few months ago, although I didn't mention that. I saw him in the moshpit and he looked at me, must of realized he recognized me from somewhere, looked down at my shoes, realized I was a skater, and gave me a high five. I hung out with him for a bit and chatted. He was also going up to random people and saying "hey, I heard Fallout boy is playing a secret show tonight!" as a joke. During the last band I ran into him again at the front. He let me take a chug from his jug of beer, then when it was done he threw it at the band, but the singer had already opened up a scab on his forehead from jumping into the crowd a few times so it was appropriate. Tomorrow I'm going to see an acoustic Chuck Ragan show at a bar in Richmond (which is actually a heavily Vietnamese neighborhood). On Saturday I'm going to go see a The Gimmies, for free apparently in St. Kilda, a beach neighborhood a bit south of downtown. They're from Japan and are influenced by Radio Birdman, MC5 and the Stooges.

This weekend it was my friend Caroline's birthday who lives on my floor. We (me and some fellow Unilodgers) spent the afternoon/evening pre-gaming in the 4th floor kitchen and ate some pizza and garlic bread with vegemite (actually I think I was the only one to eat the vegemite, but my friend Priscilla did sing the vegemite theme song twice over the course of the afternoon). We then headed into the city to a dance club that played techno music and I was one of the few guys without gelled hair, a low cut shirt and dress shoes. So basically it wasn't really my type of place, but it was fun because I had already drunk enough that I didn't need to buy their over priced beer and I was with friends from UniLodge who I don't usually go out with.


Above: Having some fun. Below: Pure excitement


I also bought plane tickets for when I'm done with finals. I'm going up to Queensland with Simon. Were going to stay at his house on the Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane which is supposed to real nice and less commercial than the Gold Coast (there are some sick skateparks, too). Tomomi is going to meet us up there as well. One destination of ours is the Australian Zoo which is the culmination of Steve Irwin's life work. Apparently you go in a gate and get to chill in a big open area with Kangaroos and other creatures. Were going to go down to the Gold Coast as well, both the normal people attractions, and Tomomi and Simon can go off and do stuff while I check out more sick skateparks, like Pizzey! After a week and a half in Queensland I'm flying over to New Zealand, to Auckland, where I'll start my journey and work my way down the country, through Wellington, over to the south island and on to Christchurch where I'll fly back to Melbourne. I don't have many concrete plans, although I've done some research on skateparks, so I'll probably base my various destination points on where sick stuff to skate is, and get to see cool scenery on the bus/train rides and do touristy or other stuff in my downtime. Most of the people I've talked to who went to New Zealand are like "yeah bro, skydiving!" or have gone bungee jumping, or river rafting, horseback riding, etc. Tomomi fired a gun there. I'll probably avoid most of these overpriced activities unless any specifically catch my eye. Anyways, I'll end the post with a photo of my first destination in New Zealand which made me decide I had to go to Auckland. Kudos if you recognize what skate video it was in (although it could have been in others than I'm thinking of). Sorry the picture is kind of small. That full pipe is somewhere around head height and the snake run leading to it is very tight. Very.

More Tasmania Pic's

Remember to click on the photos, it annoys me that they appear cut off.


Wineglass Bay


Bicheno


Bicheno again. Forgot to do some cropping, oh well.