Respect Authority

The weather in the Windy City of late has been reasonably tolerable, which means little in a place where a few short months ago we were graced with -20 degree icy farts that Jack Frost routinely blew in our faces whenever we stepped outside. Nonetheless, it’s still a bit too brisk to convincingly call it “Spring” — in fact, I feel almost as if Winter is sadistically dangling its successor in front of my face, a juicy morsel of hope hovering just out of a starving man’s reach.

Fuck the April showers, just gimme my mother fucking May flowers.

Here’s the simplest Q&A ever conceived:

Q: Should I live in Chicago?
A: No.

On any given Sunday (not to be confused with the overly dramatic football movie) I find myself lounging on the loveseat, talking absently to Godzilla and watching all manner of awful television. During the cold winter months, when snow or even the mere threat of it was enough to keep everyone indoors, this sort of sloth seemed at peace with the greater population’s proclivity for, you know, DOING things on the weekend. I could claim exhaustion, or illness, but most rewardingly I could just say - to my friends and indeed to myself - “Fuck that, it’s just too fucking cold.” In other words, winter is one big scapegoat for homebody potheads.

Yet these days, as the temperatures inch up and there’s not a cloud in sight I find myself anxious about the climate’s good fortune. For how long can I justify sitting in flannel pants and a clashing sweatshirt, munching on leftovers and lowering my cinematic standards with every new Lifetime movie? The answer appears to be - approximately one hour, after which the sounds of wildlife outside (my rambunctious neighbors included) begins acting as a 50-degree guilt trip over my inability to get out and appreciate the much-anticipated change in seasons.

I don’t even have any particularly riveting activity ideas, or wads of cash with which to spend a day on the town, but spring has the power to make even my refusal to  just go for a walk — among the overflowing trash bags and halfhearted stoop parties of Bed-Stuy — feel like an affront to Mother Nature. I get it, bird chirping right outside my window, it’s not quite winter anymore. The onus is on me to get up and out and enjoy these beautiful days before summer sneaks in and makes it okay to lounge around at home again, sipping ice-cold beers and saying things like “Nah I can’t go out. It’s just too fucking hot.”

Despite the fact that I don’t shave all that often and drink heavily on the weekends, surprisingly, I still don’t know the secret to being a great skateboarder. After all, if I did, I’d be one by now and would be getting sent fat checks for drinking Mountain Dew and acting like an asshole on MTV. But I can tell you that whacking off a little less often and actually going skating instead can only help. And I can also tell you the secret to staying in love with skating after years and years (especially if they’ve been spent being a not great skateboarder). It takes, go figure, a little something called “heart.” Like, duh.

Over the past week, most of the country has been experiencing a weather phenomenon commonly referred to as an “Indian Summer.” Apparently India has its Summer in February? I have no idea… I’m not an Indian. Nonetheless, with even the drifting iceberg of a city that is Chicago reaching temperatures around 60 degrees Fahrenheit, a whopping 60 degrees warmer than it usually is this time of year, every respectable skater has been taking to the streets. And as for all you little fuckers living in LA where it’s always 60 degrees, well, I just hope cars full of laughing teenage girls run over your legs. Read More ›

Typically, I honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day the best way I know how: by smoking wacky for hours in the early afternoon, eating Chinese food since I’m pretty sure MLK would have liked Chinese, and then playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City until I pass out, usually around 5:30 PM. It’s my own personal form of reflection on one of the greatest men of the 20th century, who was an inspiration to millions, and were he alive today, I’d like to believe that we would play video games together, having heated tournaments to see who could last the longest before getting killed by the FBI Vice City police department.

But MLK never showed up to chill yesterday, and I was all alone. So instead of inspiring my couch to better conform to the contours of my asscheeks, I decided to instead attempt something approaching the realm of productivity and actually left my apartment to go shoot photos in the Yukon Territory. It was almost like a vacation since it’s actually warmer there than in Chicago.

Just kidding, of course, but you know I had to throw some jokes about the cold in there. If you couldn’t already tell, Winter is by far my favorite season — and one of my favorite activities to do during this exasperatingly long annual expedition through the depths of Season Affective Disorder is hang out at the beach. Because truly, what could be more ironic than going to the beach in the middle of January? And that’s what we’re all about here at RA: cliché irony and only liking bands before they get popular.
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Did you know that at the height of World War II, Soviet Russia would send its prisoners of war to brutal forced labor camps buried deep in the tundra of Chicago, Illinois? The inhospitable environment there lent itself to the demoralization of the inmates and provided a general atmosphere of hopelessness and dread. It’s true, and maybe you’d know that if you read a book once and a while, hm?

Fast forward to the present, and it’s not hard to imagine what those conditions must have been like. It snowed Tuesday and Wednesday. I can’t really remember if it snowed Thursday, but it snowed yesterday. And, oh, get this, the weather forecast has just informed me that it will snow for the next four days in a row as well. Looking out my window into the white abyss, it’s easy to feel like a prisoner myself, hot tears streaming down my face like rivulets of spilled borscht.

Having a lot of snow on the forecast in Chicago doesn’t hold quite the same meaning as it does in a cramped, sweaty Williamsburg party. Fortunately, Chicago’s only advantage in this arena is that I can at least sleep through the nightmare, which is, absolutely, my intention. Frankly, I’ve really grown an appreciation for this whole “hibernation” thing our mammalian cousins enjoy this time of year.

Granted, even when it’s all you ever see, snow has a kind of desolate, serene beauty to it. And everybody is always thrilled at the first magical snowfall of the year (even when that happened to take place in October, and is, more importantly, a dark portent of the next six months of your life). But let’s not get to fooling ourselves — femmes fatales are beautiful too, it’s precisely where they derive their power. If you want to see the true side of snow, think about the slop of ice, slush, and mud you have to trod through on the sidewalk every day while you’re going to work. Doodoo water. That’s what I call it.

Also, a surplus of snow only makes it easier for the Abominable Snowman to hide. NOT GOOD.

Honestly, I don’t care if each individual snowflake is unique. When there are this many of them falling at once, they all just look like the same pain in the ass.

Santa can skateboard all the way up at the North Pole, so exactly what the fuck is your problem?

“This must be what fun feels like,” I thought, failing to come up with any other reason why I would be skateboarding back and forth in 30 degree temperatures under a bridge where there exist only two smells: the rotten remnants of spilled beer and, naturally, human shit. Of course, I was wrong — turns out it’s actually what the onset of mild hypothermia feels like. But hey, freezing to death, fun… they’re practically the same thing.

It’s easy to fall into the self-congratulatory (also known as self-high-fiving, or in other circles, clapping) trap in such circumstances. When your frozen nose falls off and you accidentally shatter it with a misplaced ollie, the skaters of the Frozen North (read: anywhere in the continental United States that isn’t California) really do seem pretty dedicated. They’re like the postal service — neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the many wind-burned skaters from their appointed rounds. Beer though… now that’s a worthy adversary. In fact, maybe I’ll take six of them on now and see if it changes my mind.

In all seriousness, what else would an East Coast or Midwest skateboarder do in the winter? I mean… other than smoke weed and play Halo 3, of course. Just because there’s snow covering every patch of smooth pavement in your area code and the bone-chilling gusts of wind are like Jack Frost himself slapping you in the face with his frozen dicksicle, doesn’t mean you’re suddenly not a skater anymore. It’s not a seasonal sport — one of the most attractive aspects about skateboarding is the fact that you can do it almost anywhere in the urban/suburban landscape, at any time. Fuck, I’d do it right now if I could, but I’m sitting in my boxer shorts, and like I said… it’s cold out there, man.

So it’s not particularly admirable or even surprising that the skateboarders who aren’t privileged to live in the fairytale land of curling smog and stop-and-go traffic that is Los Angeles are willing to put up with horrendous weather conditions all for the sake of doing what they love. Other people go through much worse for their hobbies — hell, pedophiles go to jail for doing what they love, so a little bitter cold here and there really doesn’t seem all that bad. Plus, there are other upsides, such as not being a kid-toucher, which is always nice. Unfortunately, you’ll still have to deal with being a social outcast… that is, unless you live in New York City’s Lower East Side, where carrying a skateboard around when you go to bars is as chic an accessory as a Louis V handbag or a super ironic mustache.