nc state

is so much better at night. no people. just some kids in the brickyard on their laptops. just some kids in the graffiti tunnel painting. no people giving you weird looks. less worries about being spotted by the police. less cars to dodge. skating into the wee hours of the darkness is way more peaceful that skating through business hours. adjust your life to fit this schedule, and you just might find a shift in how you perceive your day to day grind. looking forward to going skating, instead of thinking... fuck, i gotta deal with people.

but those thoughts are only temporary. the parking garage i once called a home away from home. now protected by the city. they've hired people my age. to wear their walkie talkies and red tshirts, and to protect an empty parking garage. i try elevator one only to be stopped by the red wearing wanna be cop. he tells me there have been a lot of break ins. i sense bullshit. with the numerous cameras everywhere i know they just don't want kids to skateboard in the empty building. i used to skate there every single night for nearly a year straight, never seeing anybody, 2 years later i'm being told it's changed, people are breaking in to cars. the strange thing was, there were hardly ever any cars in the parking lot. whatever. i try the back elevator, make it to the top, then hesitate to bomb down as i get stoked off the view.

shoulda just gone for it. red wearing wanna be cop shows up behind me. ready to call the police. ready to have me thrown in jail for wanting to roll down 9 stories or so of a parking garage. i try to convince him it would be much more fun for us to race down it. even throw some money on it. he's not feeling it. he cares more about his paycheck than the concept of fun, or freedom. whatever. your tax dollars at work. thought you could go roll around in an empty parking lot in peace? nah, you'll get narced out by somebody who is just gonna ride their mountain bike down the parking lot you used to freely skate down. whatever, times change.

sitting on top of the other parking lot where no guards reside i look down and realize how many more police cars have been added to raleighs downtown tide. damn, did i just walk straight into the hornets nest? a new police station + 50 or so new patrol cars. yikes. i didn't realize there was such a high crime rate in raleigh. more cops, less people in the streets at night, less kids on bicycles and skateboards, more kids in bars, more skatestoppers on city property, more security guards, i mean, that's why we are living right? to just go out, go spend our money on food and drinks, and then go home right? there is no point in actually utilizing the unutilized, shame on you if you dare do something different, like ride on a slanted wall that bums just piss and shit on. it's that free lifestyle, that puts fear into the hearts of all.

moving along. if you live in raleigh, there are some pretty awesome trailer roof gaps off dawson and lenoir street. some daewon song type shit. just look for the green trailers. you will see the 3 gaps, one right after another. yea, you are right across from the brand new police station, but the chances of being seen are pretty slim. unless of course they've got security cameras and eyes on em, i didn't see any, but shit, it wouldn't surprise me.

jeds ramp. so sick. all the homies i grew up skating with. well most of em, scotty, brett, justin, it had been a while since i skated with everyone together. such good times. backyard ramps, always keeping the stoke alive. billy shooting photos, sturgill screaming out the stoke, cameron crushing it. skateboarding, keeping kids on a path of awesome for years and years and years to come.

back to endless grind, the one place i can park my car at night and not worry about a cop rolling up to me for standing outside of it. they say if you dress the part, you can get away with anything. unfortunately dressing up isn't that fun. comfort is key. so if i were to skate around with a suit and tie, would that change the perception of what i am doing? would it add validity to it? who knows, ties remind me of nooses.

to the train tracks. some new graffiti. that's good to see. i like when abandoned property gets painted and scribbled on. but you probably knew that. most people don't. they fear it. which is kinda nice. most crushed graffiti spots hold a sense of peace, a sense of emptiness. the majority of society sees no value in them. but isn't rarity something that can attribute to value? there are very few places on this planet where you can freely do what you want, well, that isn't true. i'm eating my words here. what i mean to say is, those abandoned plots of land, where you aren't being sold anything, where people aren't telling you what to wear, or what to do, where you can just pee if you feel like it, especially in the confines of a city, where you can load up super soaker with paint and just spray a wall, where you can well, do whatever the fuck you want, that's gold to me. freedom from rigidness. freedom from restraint.

a freight train comes by and i think about what i have on me. a skateboard, my id, and the clothes on my back. i could run from it all. run from everything i know and just hop on this train. no plan, no nothing, no sense of anything.

i hope on and ride it for a bit. it's a freeing experience. but i've got shit to do. people to see. shit to take care of. so many attempts to run away are foiled, for right now, disappearing isn't a priority.

- tkp 7.12.11