Enough meandering. I had something to write about and I better get started before I forget it. I’ve been skating since the 4th grade, since I was five if you count the time my brother put me on a fiberglass board and gave me a push that resulted in me falling face first onto rough concrete and running inside the house bleeding. I’ve seen a bit of skateboard history. More than most of you that come to this blog, I’ll wager. But even though you’re young and I’m old, I think we can relate when I talk about “that skater we want to be.”

For me, the first one was Matt Hensley. H-Street came out with Shackle Me Not, which started out with Matt riding a board along a sidewalk doing no-complies and a nosepick on a bench. Something about the music, his skating, and that board with the two pointy parts on the side (skateboards weren’t as focused on pure functionality back then) resonated with me. I wanted to be Matt Hensley. I dreamed about skating like him. I watched the video over, and over, and over, and over again. I copied the music onto an audio tape and listened to it over and over and over on my sister’s portable tape player/stereo. There was something about Matt that made him amazing, yet attainable. Well, not that he was attainable, but it was as though, as good as he was, somehow I believed I could be that good too, and have that much fun skating. There were plenty of other good skaters in that video, but nobody made me feel like I felt when I watched Matt skate. I can remember the feeling to this day, and I cherish it. Gullwings, man, those were the most desirable trucks around at the time.

By contrast, as much as I loved watching Danny Way, he didn’t make me feel that way. The guy was too good. Too amazing. Same with Tony Hawk and a host of others. Their skating was unattainable. I couldn’t imagine ever being like them.

The next shot of “hope” I got was with the Blind video, Video Days, probably still my #1 skate video pick of all time, in part because it was so real, so raw. It was just a bunch of guys skating. I would watch the video and think “I could get my dad’s VHS camera and film my friends skating like this.” Not that any of my friends could do noseblunt slides or one-foot ollies to lipslide on a handrail, but…well, maybe they could. I mean, if Guy and Rudy could do this stuff, why can’t I and my crew? None of the stuff was staged, it was just as if a bunch of friends grabbed a camera and went skating around LA for a day. I watched the video and saw myself in Guy’s shoes doing that frontside 360 ollie, backside bigspin, and then fakie boardslide at that bank with the angled ledges.

After that, things got kind of crazy with Plan B, Girl, and progress in general. The first time I saw Mouse I didn’t know what to think. Guy did a switch backside bigspin flip that I haven’t seen equaled for style and ease to this day. It was over ten years before someone did a switch frontside shove it to switch crook on a handrail like Guy did first try and perfect. It would be a while before I got that feeling of “Hey, I could be that guy” again.

The next time it hit me was watching PJ Ladd’s Wonderful Horrible Day, or whatever it was called. PJ was sick. Amazing. And yet there was that feeling of him being a normal kid, just some guy who liked to go out and skate by himself. I liked to skate by myself too, and as I watched PJ I would think “Hey, I could be like that.” And there was something about it that you knew he wasn’t skating to be sponsored, or to make money, or any of that stuff, but just because he loved skating and was having a blast. Sadly, I haven’t gotten that feeling watching PJ in anything since. Maybe it’s just me, but nothing I’ve seen him do since looks as fun. I always get the feeling PJ would prefer to quit being a professional and just go back to skating by himself for fun. But again, I could be wrong.

The point is, there was something about PJ’s part that set it apart from all other video parts from that era. Something about him coming out of nowhere, being an unknown, and just killing it with that part. The soundtrack definitely helped.

I don’t think I’ve had that feeling since. I don’t get it watching P-Rod, Sheckler, or Ortiz, as much as I love watching those guys. I don’t get it watching Cole or Slash or Koston or Puds. I’m sure they’re all having fun, but it’s just not quite as raw, something not as natural. When I think back to those skaters I really connected with on video, what’s the common thread? I think it might be that the videos didn’t seem like they happened on purpose. Shackle Me Not, Video Days, PJ Ladd–all those videos kind of seem as though someone just threw together a bunch of footage for fun, filming skaters who were skating for the fun of it with no expectation that the video would do anything for them, but barging just for their own sakes.

Well, there you go, some thoughts. Can you relate?

In a nutshell, universal healthcare means everyone has healthcare. It is paid for by taxes. You know how when you get your paycheck there’s always money missing from it? Those are taxes and the government uses that money to do what the government does. There’s no doubt that if the US gets universal healthcare then somebody is going to have to pay higher taxes. Maybe it won’t be your mom or dad, but somebody’s mom and dad is going to being paying out a lot of money to cover those alleged 47 million people who currently don’t have health insurance.

The problem is, no matter how much the government raises taxes, it won’t be enough. The government already provides healthcare to a lot of people through two programs called Medicaid and Medicare and wouldn’t you know it–they’re bankrupt. They’re out of money to pay for these programs (not that this has ever stopped our government from spending money, they just borrow it), and it’s getting worse. The same thing will happen with universal healthcare, but at some point the government is going to recognize they can’t pay for it and they can’t borrow enough money to pay for it, and that means rationing. What’s rationing, you ask? Well, if the government were rationing food, it would mean the government would give you a certain amount of food per day, and if you wanted more you wouldn’t be able to get it, even if you were willing to pay for it. The same thing will happen with healthcare. And it will be compounded because it’s not all that fun to work for the government, so we won’t have as many people going into the professions of doctors and nurses. This is going to make healthcare very, very expensive for the government to provide, and so they’ll provide less of it.

In other words, everyone will have healthcare, but healthcare will stink. You’ve got a broken arm and the bone is sticking out? Great, sit here for a few hours, we’ll see when we can get around to helping you out. Sorry, our best doctor quit because he doesn’t like working for the system, but we’ve got this other guy over here who wants to be a doctor someday, we’ll let him help you out. Painkillers? No, those are too expensive, the government won’t let us provide them anymore. You want a new cast on your arm? But you’ve only had this one for three months. Yeah, I can see that it’s cracked and I can smell the stink coming from it, but you’ll just have to make do with it for another two months. We can’t afford new casts for everyone who wants them. No, you can’t buy a new one, that would be unfair to everyone else. Oh sorry, your arm healed crooked. Well, sorry about that, just be grateful you have healthcare.

But low-quality healthcare won’t be all you have to deal with. Broken arms are expensive. The government can’t afford repairing all these broken arms. So all skateboarders will now be required, by law, to wear full arm-guards and helmets while skateboarding. If you get caught skateboarding without full protection, you’ll be fined, along with your parents. And you know all these public skateparks? That’s just encouraging kids to skate, which means more kids are getting hurt. The government can’t afford this, so we better close down all the public parks. Let’s outlaw private skateparks while we’re at it. In fact, let’s just make skateboarding illegal. Hey, if we, the government, are providing the healthcare then we get to make the rules that define your behavior so that we can keep costs down, right? No smoking, no drinking, no skateboarding. We have to make these rules to protect you. We can’t afford to provide health insurance for all these poor people and college students if we’ve got people out there skateboarding and making healthcare more expensive.

But wait, you say, Canada and England have universal healthcare, and there aren’t any rules like this in those countries, and they’re still building public skateparks and all that. What are you talking about? Yeah, you’re right. I’m giving you the worst-case scenario. I don’t think it will ever get that far, because I think the people in this country would reject universal healthcare before it ever reached this point. But that doesn’t mean we won’t get down the line a ways. Helmet laws already exist in some states. With universal healthcare you can bet helmets will be required at all public skateparks in every state of the country. Full pads won’t be far behind. And you can definitely count on the quality of healthcare being lower. We already see that in Canada and England. There may be some exceptions, but there are a lot of nightmare cases happening in these countries where people are dying because the waits are so long and the care is so bad. Sure, people die here in the US too, but you’re statistically better off here. That’s why so many people come from other countries to the US in order to get treatment–we’ve got a better system.

Here’s an alternative to universal healthcare. How about if we let people choose whether to have health insurance or not? If a health insurance company thinks skateboarding is dangerous, then they can charge more to insure someone who skateboards. If you want to skateboard and have health insurance, you pay more. If you don’t want to pay more, then don’t skateboard. If you don’t want to have health insurance, that’s your choice. The point is, you choose. With universal healthcare, you have no choice, and you might not like what end up being forced to do…or not do. So think twice before you say “Obama’s great, he wants to give healthcare to everyone.” It could end up making skateboarding even more illegal than it is.

Hi Joshua!

Check out this AWESOME skate video: Dennis Busenitz doing what he does best, landing so many tricks that it’s almost unbelievable! See Dennis kick-push: http://chunnel.tv/street/774/dennis-busenitz-pro-skater:

Dennis Busenitz puts together more tricks in 3 minutes and 50 seconds than most skaters do in a 6 or 7 minute spot.  It’s ridiculous, plus the insane amount of tricks performed over gaps, and possibly the best Kalis 360 flip ever made! This is definitely a top video spot for 2009!

Thanks, and please share this with your readers!

Best,
Carrie

The video is really good though. Can’t wait for it to come out so I can see a higher-res versino of Dennis’ kick-push.

Well, I’m sure that by closing all the public skateparks, using tazers on skateboarders, and rounding up all the skateboarders into internment camps, we can somehow get to the bottom of this. After all, every skateboarder knows every other skater and its only a matter of applying the right pressure on the skateboarding community to get us to give up one of our own. Or at least this appears to be the logic of local municipalities that close skateparks whenever someone tags them up.

Upon watching this, it occurred to me that perhaps the same way I was seeing this is how most people view skateboards–talented, but silly. And that was kind of depressing. I mean, what if most people out there in the world don’t see any difference between this guy and Koston?

Well, there you go. Not much too the article, really, but since it’s my old stomping grounds I couldn’t resist.

To contact the police department:

Baltimore Police Department
242 W. 29th St.
Baltimore, Maryland 21211-2908
questions@baltimorepolice.org

However, it’s probably better to contact their Civilian Review Board. But don’t just send them angry emails. Remember, you’re not complaining about them, you’re complaining TO them ABOUT the police officer.

By the way, anybody know who this officer is? It would help to have a name.