SK8

Wadsworth Skate Park 03-25-06 Photos by Amberjane Emery.





On this day there was a little guy at the top of one ramp, 7 or 8 maybe, a little freaked out about droppin' in. I felt like he was never gonna do it, or he was gonna eat it with that timid approach. I told him, "either you do it all the way or not at all, you can't drop in 50%, you have to want to do it." He actually listened and it freaked me out that he took me seriously. Most kids act cool and try to keep that nonchalance going around us "old folk." So I got a lump in my throat then too, "shit what if he eats it?" I thought; but he made it and was stoked. I saw him later when I was leaving and he seemed to be building up to say something, "Good job!" I said first. He was grinning ear to ear when I said that. It made my day.

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Psalms 33 (remix)

Today's my birthday. I'm 33. I can't figure it out. I'm still in the back seat. If you're not driving though, you get a better view. As the driver you gotta watch the road and keep from crashing. Blinders on. Ever notice that? Child like flashbacks in the backseat, the road and it's flashing by at mach 1.9347325, and the dancing shadow on the concrete and tree scattered banks, all the same, keeping up, the shadow of a car on the interstate, with a window, and you, waving in a setting sun, trusting the parent who drives to get you there. Used to sleep on the back dash of the Monte Carlo. Dad's silver machine. Red felt velvety seats. I got hypnotised by the rhythm of the road and watched the milky way paint itself on the glass regardless of the gone rattling highway. My breath spread itself out on the night like a cloud and then swallowed itself up. Part of me is still there now. That's why I can't be all me here now, not anymore, not without total memory renunciation, or value on the memory, something, gotta let it go. Got a lot of stuff I can't let go of to keep me there instead of here, remembering like a drug.

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God

My girlfriend's family is Southern Baptist and I've been hanging out around them lately. I was raised Southern Baptist. I had questions since I was a little. A lot didn't make sense, just the concept of hell as the main thing. People who are never reached by those who could "lead them to god," or were reached, and then reject "salvation" with their >god-given< brains are going to hell to burn forever, and a lifetime within the space of all time is too short to figure this out in most cases. It just makes God out to be far more sinister than any picture of Satan I've ever had drawn out for me. They’ll tell you to go to church to have a personal relationship with God – doesn’t that seem backwards?

When I was 16 I studied with Jehovah’s Witnesses for a while. They didn't succeed in getting me to join but they did show me how pagan the whole lot of Christendom is, only with nature removed as natural and made to feel like guilty sin. I think the story of Adam and Eve describes the split between Nature and Human Nature. This isn’t because of JWs teaching me this, but it is because of how they dislodged me from the literal thinking that I was brought up in when it comes to the Bible and God. A lot of what I learned I still feel today. The Roman Catholic Church was seen as evil by Baptists, and by Witnesses alike, so I've never seen the Pope and all beneath him in a good light. I'll be seeing Da vinci Code soon too. Hmm.

I got into the Eastern stuff almost 10 years ago now, Buddhism mostly, Taoism too. I find it the most agreeable conceptually, but how to be good in this mode from one minute to the next day to day is far more difficult. Finding the good at the core within yourself takes much more diligence than having someone who supposedly has authority over you in a religious capacity telling you how to act. For instance the Tao in an angry moment is harder to reference in ones head than say, the 10 commandments are.

In the end I believe in God because I do find myself feeling spiritual. It's not something I can usually initiate. It just happens. Being around children or animals seems to be a good kindle. Nature in general I think. Many mornings in liquid solitude sitting and waiting for a wave and just watching the clouds sun birds and horizon interact is enough for me. I feel least spiritual in a church. I used to joke with people on this subject that I “…was an atheist until I took acid and found God.” Too many don’t get it though and think I’m trying to tell them acid is God. This is what happens in a richly materialistic society. The quantifiable stuff is the only reality. Consciousness becomes nearly fake.

So by strict definition I'm not an agnostic, I'm a non-religious spiritualist I guess, but most people see what I describe as agnostic, I don't care, call me what you want.

This is from my post at Hotelwomb.com on the existence of God.

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Highlands

Ever been outside with your eyes open, but in a place so dark it was like they were closed? Felt I aged 10 years in a single weekend, walking toward my fears. Seemed I aged a lifetime in a year. I went to the mountains for a few days, Highlands North Carolina, when my brother got married. He had taken a vacation with Michele there, and they agreed to return for the occasion with vows. I walked to the top of one mountain which featured a popular trail near my hotel in the small town. I came to the clearing where the path ended. I was high up like a cloud looking out over a horizon that reached forever and it seemed impossible that I couldn’t see the ocean. I felt I was seeing the whole earth. Most of the family came for the wedding. People I hadn’t seen in years but I climbed the mountain alone. My divorced parents shared poses in photographs for one last time.

On the night before going home, it was a full moon, and I knew that the view from that spot would be incredible. I left my room and took off up the path alone without a flashlight. It was dark but I knew the moon would rise soon, a day or two after true full, an hour or two of no moon darkness. The sky was rich with stars and the humidity was none. I saw a sky I may never see again. No human light pollution, just me the path, the stars, and a destination - my plan. I made my way up the winding side and gravel yanking hard in my head on the rope that should deliver the needed memory to find my way. The trees made a shroud as I came to the thick part in silence. There was only my breathing, steps, heartbeat, and the distant unidentified sounds of sylvan movements that pulsed through me and telling me to freeze, and to keep going, simultaneously.

In the thick of trees that blocked the sky I became disoriented. I had gone off the path and didn’t know how. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I stood motionless listening. It was as if my heart had moved into my skull as I could hear it thumping loudly. With the distant noises I imagined becoming a food chain beacon for a larger creature. I saw a documentary about Akira Kurosawa on PBS years ago, or maybe it was Bravo. After the bomb, his big brother led him through the blackened earth at dawn and told him to look. “Don’t turn your head away Akira.” Nature vs. Human Nature – different only in our minds, the purest conscious dilemma.

I crouched and listened for a few endless minutes thinking of ancient times, of ancient men, and how they shared fights and flights with animals on the same level till then finally a beam of moon light creeked the wooded cracks and led me to an eastern ledge. The giant ball lifted and lit the night throwing long arms into white shapes in the black forest and my black sky sister became crystal blue. I stood there watching with my eye whites glowing and thinking how it could be 1776, 1492, 2000 B.C., or even some time after my death. I beat the old beast for a moment, and breathed the old breath for a spell. I passed through, but I will come down.

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Stale Clues

i cut my little toe on the corner of an open door
i cut it too quick
i stood in line at the auto parts store
i listened as the guy before me took up my time
to complain about how long it took for him

i had lunch with my girl
i ran errands while she worked
i drove 80 miles
i dropped off rentals, picked up papers, left the courthouse
and took to the beach

a fag took a drag of a fag not in drag
a wink he gave me
a smile, and he's always over there on a bench by the pier
i'll have to walk by but i don't have to get near
the bathrooms, or his lug wrench

a notary at city hall was still out to lunch
so a minute i talked to my mom on the phone
a cloud came at two and was followed by hundreds
as they gathered like sheep,
in the dream of a child

and i drove up and over the bridge back to Colbert
and i listened to music, to talk, and to news
and i watched the sky thicken as the sun cooled it's gases
and you sat in your hammock and read parts of stale clues
and wondered as you puffed what to do or to ponder,
what is next, what is best, how shall i pass thru?

so i figured the maze of trapped steel and flat horses
so i climbed up the mountains, jumped off and i flew
so i toiled with the passive the angry and massive
the tiniest creature is still the foot in my shoe
tipping and cracking the bones and the blood veins
throwing and jarring the soul from her flesh
gouging and daring the last of the deep breath
to be all that i tasted in the moment I knew




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Bike Week Daytona '06

The grass crunches when walked on. The wind is shoving through the curve of our sphere and throwing up sarcastic dust. The bluest sky. So dry it's hardly there. A moon shows itself in the afternoon. Wait till night children. A roaring interstate monster just miles away. Anyone going anywhere in the mainline metal box blood stream. If only Jack and Neil really were the inspiration for all this. Instead we have fond memories of Walt Disney, Harley Davidson, Dale Earnhardt, and President Eisenhower's beatific vision, in bastard fruition, sprawling blacktop with lanes in to 4 then 6, then 8! We got lost causes and probable mundane inevitabilities. We wait for the light. We're the free and the brave.

So I worked up a sweat and then jumped in the ocean. Surfed for an hour, good waves but the zipper on my full suits broke so I was out in my spring - which wasn't cutting it in my extremities so I cut it short. Threw on my Donnie, not so Darko, Billabong hoodie and went upstairs to Finnegan's. Finnegan's Beachside Pub. It's on the ocean and A1A has a deck with a nice view. It's bike week. I topped the stairs and scanned the crowd of 50 or so sitting in the sun near the bartender's island and listening to some guy belt out a Stones cover. He was about my age but somehow looking too young to be authentic.

I picked a spot at the bar and mused wit'in me rasta hed how out of place I was - and how out of place it was for me to be out of place. I'm not Jamacian. I'm a local. I grew up in fucking Flagler Beach. Amidst all the phony Bologna biker leather I had on shorts and a hoodie. Warm but for the wind and the ocean. Here were a ton of celebratory free democratic republican Americans enjoying the fruits of their bounty.Bikers aren't really rebels anymore, they're wealthy people playing baby boom cards. They are out to impress. The first bikers, the real ones, the ones in clubs, don't really want to impress anybody. They wanna wear the leather, but the FTW philosophy is gone. That's ok. Just people wanting to have a little fun. Still, I was looked at funny. The Devil Inside video. I'm old enough to know the difference between my childish paranoia and genuine out-of-placeness. A black tank-top waitress was walking by just then, "Do you have shoes up here?"

"No," I said, thinking - you must be crazy - knowing what would come next.

"Well, don't let anyone see you're feet."

I felt contempt throw itself through my veins thinking: I live here. I'm at the beach in Florida, in the sun, during a celebration of so-called-freedom, and I'm patronizing your bloody establishment, and you want me to go find some fucking shoes?! I didn't say anything back, of course, but put my feet up on the stool beside me. People like me keep it in, in public, face to face, and feel brave on places like blogs. Hide my bare feet at the beach?! Never! Viva la France!

I sat at the bar and the singer took a break. He sat a few down from me and seemed to be in the same boat as me somehow. He looked around lit a smoke and seemed to be in pure neutral. Jack Black with a white bandana. Nobody said hi to him, patted him on the back, or even requested a song. I wondered if anyone clapped when he finished his last song, but I didn't even notice when he stopped playing. He probably keeps a blog too.

I scanned, ordered from a guy. I listened to two couples talking. They were rich gold studded and in fresh leather like everyone else up there, in heaven, looking down, but in just bits and pieces of sound I heard...

"...get a job”

"they must reek...”

Who were they looking at? Real bikers? Hells Angels? I stretched to see. There were two hippie squatter kids with a cardboard sign down below. They had dirty hair bags and a dog.

Rebel bikers sitting judgment.

What’s the world comin' to?

Apocalypse?

Do I hear four horsemen riding?

On silent silver bikes?

Slowly rolling in to town at sunset, the big one?

Earth breathes itself.

Jesus was a Hell’s Angel.

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PS - (Comment suggestion - A surfer sitting in judgement of bikers? What's the world coming to?)

The Church

...the neo-psychedelic, art-rock, mood rock, guitar-rock band from Australia, that strummed and penned Under the Milky Way as was once seen on MTV (when MTV was almost cool) and can now be heard in a scene from Donnie Darko. Et cetera, et cetera.

I will admit something. I'm 50% church fan because of the past. The wonderful soundscape moods and non-sequitur horoscopic lyrics that often sent me to the encyclopedia are mostly pre-SA archive. I mostly support this band now because of what they gave me then.

25% of my allegiance is the fact that I dig the jam ethos and it results in 2 or 3 really good songs per album at this point. FY (and Isidore) - I just can't even stomach but maybe 2 tracks now. Used to be, in the old days, it would take 2 weeks or so for a new album to "click." So I played FY and others over and over and over waiting for the click.

The last 25% (all % as working estimates) of my attendance is the promise. The Church seem to make an unstated promise with each recording that, "we're working on a bigger scale here - just hang in there - it's coming." Meanwhile all the mystery is unraveled in the information age, and I now know more about this band and SK than I do my own family and father.

For instance I was shocked that someone else was shocked to find Peter is half Dutch on the SK blog the other day. I was thinking, "I've known that for years!" and that kind of thing happens a lot. I know too much. And it's kind of stupid. It's looking closely at the least important things about music. It's not even the music.

Marty and Peter’s songs are hit and miss for me too. IE - Peter's EMD New Season I love, Marty's Triestess - I have honestly never EVER finished it. His sugar water affectation is awful sometimes. It all makes me sad actually. I can't believe I'm even posting this.

BWTB is interesting. Not worth the money though. My non-womb church fan friend Sam that I talk to every now and then agreed that there are two good songs and a couple ok ones. But I'm back trying to make something work that isn't there. I don't even care about the Block EP. It can't be worth the money, and I'll get "uninvited" when it's in a store near me. So that's my sober confession. I would love to have my mind changed.

As an additional note. As much as I love reading the SK blog (the time being), because SOMETIMES it's really good, the comments people make to offer their love make me want to vomit. This chicken (me) hasn't quite grown the balls to comment on the comments there within the comments there, but I feel my own blog's a good spot. Some of those people need to get their own blog anyway. The most recent entry by SK "Jumble Sail," is as mediocre as anything he's posted. And that's OK - It's only a blog after all, but I figured he'd get fewer comments or at least some sober ones. But instead he got heaps of ass kiss because he mentioned lower comment numbers on previous entries. With love from florida - get real people.

As a parent, for instance, you can't make a child love you by giving them what they want. Instead they become a spoiled rotten brat and they will resent you in the long run. They know your love is shallow, or at least the expression of it is. Real love comes when you're honest enough with yourself to be honest with others. You can't make everyone happy, you can only save you're soul.

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Java Joint Pt.2

Wow. Cool. Thanks for reading my blog. I enjoyed the comments. I'll be away from the computer for the weekend so I wanted to put something up before we load up and hit the road. I'm really thinking about the JKV thing. Bloggifing it might just be the thing to make it fresh again. Adding pictures would make it pretty interesting too. I have a lot of old pictures that go with the story.

I have some new ones too. I put a couple with this entry. I put up a bunch more at myspace. myspace.com/bradleyalbertburkley. Check 'em out.

Yes I am currently sporting a Gold Afternoon Fix beard, and yes my hair is as grey as Kilbey's. Yes I'm only 32. Although I took too much acid at one point and it turned my hair color, 4 years ago, early grey runs in my family. It has been getting lighter and lighter in the sun.

As for Java Joint - well, I think it's your American right to run your business however you want. Even if you wanna run it like a communist dictatorship. Even if you want to run it into the ground. I also don't have to hang out and watch it happen either.

First thing - it's not a coffee shop. It's a vanity project. The owner has a lot of loot and I guess she always dreamed of having a coffee shop on the ocean. That's cool, I can dig it. But you can't be all things to all people while only being prepared to serve 12 people at a time, max. They have the best coffee in town, and good food (if the right cook is working), but they are running this small room with few tables like a restaurant. When it gets busy it gets so crowded and loud it sounds like a mess hall. I have been in and around restaurants and hotels my whole life, an F&B manager at the Hilton in Gainesville for a short while. You wanna be set up to run at full capacity. So there are people sitting reading the paper sipping coffee, with a line out the door!

Second thing - you gotta take suggestions. The menu(s) there are a nightmare. I was gonna offer to redo it. I actually did on my own just so I could study it when I got the job. It's all center justified and stuff, so I told a co-worker my idea. "Oh no, don't do that, they won't change the menu, don't bring it up. The inventory and computer (for entering orders) are a mess too. Now, when I wrote about Java Joint in my earlier entry I mentioned the communism thing in relation to the tips. But apparently it goes further than that. You can't be critical of the way things are being run even by the slightest comment. This couple (one is really the owner the other is her partner) has never been in the business before.

Another note - and it speaks to the pros of Capitalism I know but when you pool tips, "redistribute the income" if you will, that encourages your hard worker to become lazy and your lazy worker to stay lazy. I saw it in action. And when the owner is taking their cut from our tips without hardly being around! .....anyway, I quit. I went to pick up my last check yesterday and they said they had mailed it to me.

A couple of peevish things too - while I'm at it. They love to tell all the customers that "everything's organic." It's not. Some things are, some aren't, in fact there's Hersheys syrup in the "organic chocolate dispenser." They are conservative republicans to those customers, and liberal lesbians to those customers, drive big Suburban SUVs, have a recycle bin upstairs, but take it down and put it in the trash with the other rubbish. You get the idea. Lot's of rubbish.

One more thing - I don't intend to suggest I'm Jewish, as it may seem in the last post. I'm an all-american mutt. English/Irish/German/Dutch, with many variations depending on what family member you talk to on what day. My grandmother was unusually dark, with dark eyes and dark hair and it was suggested tongue-in-cheek that her family was Jewish.

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Curb Your Enthusiasm

Seen this show? I love it. I feel like Larry David sometimes. I feel like HBO. CYE is an excellent name for a semi-spoof street skate video too BTW. Have an older guy between scenes with a bald head and a Jewish tongue, pissing people off. Rumor has it that my mom's mom was Jewish, or partly so. Used to be a bad thing you know, in America, in the south, kept secret at times. Was Penn ever a Jewish name? I could research that one. Assuming that was her real name. Sean and Michael Penn are Jewish right?

But really, to the point, I don't get pissed too much anymore. Really! I've been nasty and foul tongued before yes. I found a lot of pointlessness in the fish bowl of human life when it comes to anger. It uses up too much energy. And I have a tendency to be a little lazy so...well there you go. It's not because I repel it, it's because I understand it. I don't know why I do, maybe I'm getting older, whatever. It's how you work with it, not how you avoid it. Conflict is gonna be there till death. I can see why people get pissed though. They're all wrong, and their all right. Anger is a symptom of a human falling under the control of ego rather than using their wisdom capacity. We could all be wisemen. Once you see that wisdom is really not matter of rank you become wise. It's just sitting there on the shelf waiting to be used by everyone.

Well, I really set myself up this time didn't I? Mr. Wiseman eh? I'm sure it will happen. I'm gonna say something stupid. It hasn't happened yet though. So far I'm spot-on. I'm flawless. I dare you. :)

Beg to differ? Then do so. If I'm wrong - factually, opinion-wise, or grammatically (i employ poetic license a lot obviously), please dig in. Throw me your dirt. See how I do. See if I can stand up. I do not use comment moderation, nor will I ever. I welcome all comments...well I will consider all comments, if your talking about something ridiculous like violence then that's not really welcome, but I'll deal with it. It won't be deleted or censored. You'll just be making yourself look foolish.

But really I'm not out to make anger. I hope only that I might entertain and/or offer an alternate perspective on stuff. Have some fun really. Pleasure. I only regret that this post (in essence) is the result of a comment I made on another post and not from something I said in my actual blog. To me that would be great! Get it going. Let's not be so placid. Praise or Raze each other. You can only be a victim if you let someone victimize you.

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One Blue Wheel

got new wheels, one blue, and i hate gainesville. i had to call an old boss, from an old job, about my W2 in 2005, givin' him my old address so I can get a "return." he acted like i was his long lost buddy. my mind tried to find the memory to make it so.

see, my wheels wore out. i had the same longboard since november 1998 in gainesville. one of my best ever investments. when my car was stuck, wouldn't run, no license anyway, tickets, and my 5th bike was stolen, i skated to work, or wherever, met up with friends. same board. even that job i had gettin up at 5am to make the breakfast banquet @ holiday inn in 2003. me , the cops, criminals, cabs and street-sweeps, 0445 hours and there you have it.

5 black ones, and a blue one. like nut shells on stage with a little ball beneath one, or a card game in Vegas - "I'll take these four," I said.

"Well here, take four black," the man said.

"No, if it's OK, I want one blue one...you know, for fun, to be artistic."

An eyebrow went up, "Ok."

so today i got some money. i tore off the two back set of wheels, off their rim the other day, poor two piece construction, so with the new cash I got some wheels, one blue. a great friend that board, yes, amen.

i been messin' round with "my space." 'f ya must know - www.netspace.com/bradleyalbertburkley. eye came across a "friend request" from a person in Gainesville. connnected and bounced and clicked around. i took a look at, checked on, a lot of people i used to know, it's been almost over a year. and there they are. on the net-vehicle, all of em would know about my longboard.

seeing these kids again, it wasn't much different than seeing them in person. the facade of friendship for convenience, the ultra-temporal interface, the shallow comments. I hate fucking Gainesville. made me think of "You Me And Everyone We Know" - a good film about the wall we use to connect with within technology. everybody's in a band, or wants to tell you about who is, at least in the psudo-punk crew i was adjacent to. So - Hi to all at "The Top!" - all - including my drunken ghost!

i'm hungry still. but the worst part of the fire is nearly out. i finally found a way to care about someone other than myself. i'm caring for other people. smoke out? no, i'm wearing an ointment that guarantees a cure from the narcissism. i'm entitled to nothing, none of us are. and it's a pleasure to learn this. happier to know this i am. yes, indeed. we all once were young though. i'm growing up, maybe. wether i like it or not. so be it.

i can't wait to try out my new wheels on the skatepark tomorrow.

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The James King Version

I'm thinking of doing a retro-active version. A blog with my final version of my book: The James King Version. AKA - A Posthumous Autobiography of Good Confusion, Trapped In The Escape Pod, and For Days On End. My Library of Congress cert. is as The James King Version.

I would like to re-publish the book as a blog one section at a time and include pictures scanned and uploaded to go with it since, by my definition, the book is non-fiction and pictures of the actual people events and locations would add a lot.

I haven't even looked @ JKV in a great while. I got sick of it at one point. But since I have either sold or given away all but one copy of the final version, I am reconsidering doing something fresh like this, and it would be fun too eh? I might even turn Versa Vice into a book at some point, and then back into a blog? Hmm.

Well I'll keep those out there who are out there posted. And thanks for the recent increased interest in Versa Vice!

As for Hana - whatever, she is who she is. Perhaps not as deep in the directions I projected, and deeper in dimensions I missed. Nonetheless I really like meeting strong character types. People who are mysterious in some capacity. There are a lot of shallow mundane people and I fight to stay awake while trying to be courteous in social situations sometimes.

As for pot smokin' - as in my "Religion is Blasphemy" entry - a friend of a friend over the weekend and hell, what do I find myself doin'? Tokin' the with the joker! I enjoyed the second half of it. In the first half of it I have that "what am I doing?, what should I be doing?" anxiety. I just think people who are smoking it everyday and tell you about it with pride, and pretend to be peaceful but are high strung and delusional because of it should be avoided. I find in my area, that pot smokers are most often conservative republican meat eatin' hot-head construction-worker beer-drinkin' rednecks, so perhaps I need to get out of town a bit. Well, of course I do - get out of state, out of country, out of mind.

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