Mostly, skateboards are a disposable tool and not much to get too attached to. Skateboard decks have apparently re-placed furniture as the largest factor in maple deforestation in North America. The wheels are made from toxic polyurethane that is never going anywhere but a landfill. Both of which might last months, weeks or even a few days depending on how much one skates. But the trucks, well the trucks aren't so disposable and a the key piece of equipment most skateboarders will hang onto to the bitter end, especially if you get a good pair. Not all trucks are created equal and I'm no brand whore so I won't mention what I ride, but even with the same brand you can get a sketchy pair of trucks or luck into a pair you'll never want to part with that simply get better with age.


Everyone has their preferences. Mine is the 149. 8.5". What you see above is a hybrid/ bastardization of a popular brand truck made in San Francisco CA, mix-matched hangar and baseplate with upgraded bushings and cracked pivot cups, loosened as loose as I dare go. Everyone wears trucks in differently according to how they ride and the tricks they do. When you've got them dialed in, as you want them, you could step on several boards, blindfolded and know instantly which board is yours.


I'm particularly attached to this pair. Perhaps, 'attached' is an unfortunate term in this context but, after nearly three decades of skateboarding, this is quite simply the best I've ever had. The baseplates came from a shitty pair I bent the hangars on too soon and these new hangars were given to me by my friend and aren't even in production anymore. I've had them for about two years and within the last two years, I've learned more tricks than I have since I was a teen. I even recognize the squeaks and groans they release with each turn.


The aluminium hangars are now worn down to the steel axles. I'm not sure how much longer they'll last. I'm almost tempted to quit the whole game once they're gone and perhaps take up lawn bowling or Tai Chi instead. 


Usually, I tend not to get too attached too material goods, tools or toys. I've got my surfboards and bike tweaked to exactly how I want them but apart from the financial loss and guilt over material resources and pollution of production of replacements, I wouldn't get too choked up if they were robbed from me. But these trucks, I'm not sure... Brand new their worth about $40. I couldn't sell them on Craigslist for $5 at this point but I simply can't put a price on these turning devices, for it was on these set of trucks that I finally learned to change direction and recover balance. 


In saying that, if they've really done their job properly, by the time they inevitably break, I should just be able to let them go.

Take me back to the grey, damp filthiness of ages

I've had a soft spot for PJ Harvey since I ran into her in a tiny health food shop in Bridport Dorset in the mid-90s but I've never been so taken aback by her music as with 'Let England Shake.' Not sure, why it took me so long to listen to this album but it is perhaps some of the greatest commentaries on war, in pop culture in recent years. Without being didactic protest songs, these songs come across as incredibly personal narratives with a deep sense of roots and place. They just make you nostaligic for a time and place, you may or may not have known. To complete the expereince even further, war photographer Seamus Murphy made an incredible collection of short films to accompany each song, that are all well worth viewing.

Beauty in the filth.

Endtimes: We're halfway there

AP photo

ChuckBuk

"I've convinced myself — I hope I'm right — that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth."

Piss Boot

Illustration by the multi-talented Ammon Bonham

Well, as you can probably tell, I never did write the great American novel and sales of Foulweather aren't putting much healthy food on the table. Therefore I am embarking on a new venture, Surf apparel. First some background:


Let's face it we all piss in our wetsuits, unless you are a rich kook who can afford a Patagucci suit and insist on paddling in for a bit of urea release every time you feel a tinkle in the winkle. Personally, I've always loved pissing in my wettie. Sometimes, I briefly worry about the potential shark attraction of my leaked pee pee but then I'm usually comforted by the warm cozy embrace of my own urine soaking into my rash vest and gently trickling down my leg into my awaiting 5mm thick booties. Admittedly, after surfing having one's body doused in piss doesn't feel so great  but in the moment, ahhhh... it just feels right. Now, I usually try and give myself a good flush before exiting the surf so as to minimize post-surf stench but one of the downsides of modern wetsuit technology is the absence of 'ease of flush.' On more than one occasion, while struggling to remove a wetsuit boot while standing precariously on the slippery pebbles of one Oregon's finer surfing locales, I have ended up offering a face full of piss to one of my surfing companions, while freeing my fetid foot from a saturated neoprene boot. We call this, Das Pissen Booten. It makes no sense and doesn't mean shit but it is funny as hell. Just like the way you surf. Lots of people are making a bollock-load of money selling you pap, so why can't we?

Das Pissen Booten Euro Inspired Surf Wear.

Why? Because we're tired of green washing, all over print t-shirts and a general lack of taste  and honesty in surfing inspired casual wear.

And mostly because surfers are entitled whiners who couldn't poor piss out of a boot even if the instructions were written on the heal. Many thanks to Ammon, Chris and all the other wankers I surf with for helping me realize my vision, especially Sean for taking a face full of piss the last time we surfed.

Stay tuned for our 'Summer Collection' of T-shirts, beanies, stickers, plastic water bottles and yes, Yangtze River dolphin-skin wetsuit booties*.

*(Conceptualized by thirty-something cool guys in Portland OR, stitched by seven-year-old children in India, then shipped to China to be glued and sealed by thirteen year olds, then off to Germany to be branded by Turkish immigrants  and finally shipped to our warehouse in Portland Oregon to be wrapped in single-use protective plastic sheeting by undocumented non-union workers from Central America.)

SW 15th and Taylor

Very exited to cycle past this, this morning.

Journalism still exists

Do you fantasize about this type of thing also?

Cow shit for breaky

Got a little taste of cow-shit at the spot we've been scoping over the last few weeks with a side-order of rather tasty early a.m. rights with no one in site. Oregon, sometimes it is shitty, sometimes it delivers, sometimes at the same time.