ouch

oh you didn't know: whalecock

I wrote an email to Dave Carnie, famed for helping the Jackass boys get out there, and more importantly, writing for the now out of print skateboard magazine "Big Brother". My letter and his response follow:

Hey Dave.

When I was a young lad at Slam City Jam, oh say 2000, or 2001, Mic-e Reyes, in all his tough guy, West-Side Story cum East LA style, got my friends and I to hold up cardboard signs spelling out "spitfire". We of course though this was great. You sat in front of us, displaying perfect skateboard observer sprezzatura, and proceeded to write funny and dirty things of our cardboard. I think you drew cocks too.

I've been a fan ever since.

Anyways, I'm reading John Gardner's "Grendel", a somewhat contemporary response to Beowulf. The term "whalecock" comes up on the second page: "I swim up through the firesnakes, hot dark whalecocks prowling the luminous green of the mere, and I surface with a gulp among churning waves and smoke."

Might this be where you saw the word? I wouldn't doubt that you have the intelligence to come up with the name on your own, without ever having to see it written by someone else, beforehand. Regardless, I am curious.

Well, thanks for you time, I'm sure you're busy trying out a new scent of Nair to rid your ass crack of hair with (I remember the raspberry scent hurt you), but if you could, let me know how it came about.

Fuck yeah, its good to write to you old man,
Alexander Munro

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the phrase whalecock literally leapt out of my mouth. i was being interviewed by a japanese fashion mag and the chick, in her broken english, wanted to know what was hot. i had been fucking with her the whole interview. so when she asked that, i said, “WHALECOCK. WHALECOCK CLOTHES ARE HELLA PUKE YO.” i told her that hella puke was how we said “cool.”

that’s where it came from.

the only thing close at the time was our friend O, guitar player for fluff, would say BIRDCOCK all the time. that may have had something to do with it.

i would immediately close a book that read “green of the mere.” -dave

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Yeah. He's a bit pretentious, but I think that is why I admired him during my teenhood; while other skateboard-magazine contributors tried to bring a semblance of insight to the sport (or art, whatever you like), Dave Carnie would rarely comment on that aspect. Rather, he would detail incidents with his cat, or his yearning to acquire Morissey to ride for Whalecock Skateboards. He's comfortable now I guess.

water bombin'

I thought I saw a seagull today, flying past the corner of my eye. Seeing how I was just outside the North Vancouver transfer station, this would well have been a normal occurrence, as seagulls love the intoxicating aroma (stench) of dripping detritus, piled high. I took a second look at it though; it was not a bird. When I got a glimps of the bottom half of the wings, I noticed they were red. Gulls don't have red wings, and funny, what's that sound?

The sound was 10,000 horsepower divvied betwixt four engines, attached to two wings with a combined wingspan of 200 feet. The world's largest flying boat was, from my perspective, not more than 200 feet above my head! I was all smiles while i banked a giant turn two kilometers in diameter, soaring over the Lower Seymour area, and Maplewood, to head back due West into the central harbour. When it passed within a hundred feet of the Second Narrows Bridge deck, I thought I was about to witness a terrorist action unfurl.

Shit is bonkers!

back back to hali

Headaches, airport hangovers and a slight time change. Then an inevitably procrastinated assignment due. The epiphany? This time I did it.

Jogging is like communism: it’s a good idea but it never works out well. The track is elevated and encircles a multitude of activities; boxer-cise, basketball, badminton and then the beefcakes. Yeah they’re there, sequestered to a pen of free weights and shameless chest puffing. I like being the underdog though, limping around and watching the robotic act of fitness scored to the random selection of my iPod.

I’ve got nothing to lose and kudos to gain! Not to mention countless justifications for my now toned down drinking and smoking habits. Fuck resolutions, I’m broke. But the leaf of 2007 has been flipped over and on the back 2008 reads SUCCESS. GO FOR THE GOLD AND REACH FOR THE STARS!

i aint to busy to be here

Ain't nothing like being soft drunk at a school pub early friday, thinking about how great your favorites are. You all best be having fun too.

some summer, somewhere, soon

I miss some people right now, though not horribly, but it is just nice to have them around. A couple hopped on an airplane headed for Asia; one went to Pacific American islands; one's cold back east. Where they are is not here.

Walking out of the car park, from underground on up the the main drag, I came into the light of the "spring semester at school". Although it did snow and hail and rain hard later in the afternoon, as I ascended the stairs the sun came upon me, standing on the cement plane. Quite apt for the first day back to a new year; new teachers saying things in courses with higher numbered suffixes than last time around.

This sun, out of the blue, ought'a come back often. It keeps every one a little brighter, and it makes the city a little nicer for our friends to come back to.

$2008

It’s the start of another year; these things sure go passed us fast. We clocked many thousands of kilometers, about half as many miles, make tones of dough, and spent 110% of it already; jobs were found, held, and then dropped. Most obviously of all, bridges were built, crossed, and burnt. Among the sayings I heard in 2007, the one that sticks with me the most is “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”

I suppose after its burnt, we could swim across, or lash a raft together of the remnants and paddle up shit creek with out a toilet paper paddle. I digress.

My hopes for the past year, your all you’s, is that you figured something out about life, not just about how to play a certain video game, or how you like your Starbucks made. If this has yet to hit you over the head, and it will, I wish it will for 2008; there is nothing more annoying then you when you don’t know shit about the biggest thing in your life (that’d be you I’m referring to.)

I know I figured some things out, I wrapped my mind around a few concepts: always dress warm if it is cold out; the golden rule too, (you know, treat others the way you’d like to be treated, unless they are shitty in the first place [that last bit is my amendment]); I like my eggs over easy, coffee strong, and women damn fine.