strangerdawn

[strangerdawn]

Hip Hop Cocktails

Hip Hop Cocktails is a recipe book for all the cocktails shouted out by the greatest rappers. I wrote the introduction to the book in addition to all the recipes. The book is available here.

[strangerdawn]

Self Publish Today

Self Publish Today is a step by step guide I wrote that takes you through each of the stages of self-publishing, from idea to marketing. Available here.

[strangerdawn]

Antipodean Adventures

The city sleeps as I arrive. I walk over to the taxi rank in a battered pair of Vans. The air is dense but cool. The taxi drives through the darkness and I enter the unknown. The taxi stops. I pay the driver, walk to the door and knock. Noone answers but I can hear the tv on inside. I nervously step inside, 'Beau?'. Two dogs bound down the hall to meet me. Mewing and barking as they scamper up. I walk down the hall with the dogs in tow. Beau and Char greet me as I enter the lounge room. We talk and laugh and smoke and drink. I know I'm in the right place.

Skateboarding has always been a community but the welcome I received in Adelaide was better than I would've ever thought. One of the magical things about travelling as a skateboarder is being able to interact with the places you visit. Most people would go to a new place, visit the landmarks and take photos of themselves in front of a famous monument posing like an asian tourist. As a skateboarder you'll still visit the icons of a city but might be more inclined to spend your time skating the ledge or stair spot round the corner. Skateboarding will lead you to meet the locals and take you into the underbelly of a city where the real character of a place is found. You get the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life united by a common love of shredding. Everyone I met was lovely.  Mark's a great dude and an excellent photographer who balances work, the magazine, spending time with his kids and still has time to throw down some killer heelflips. Jack is a ripper with a silky smooth style. Him and Jarrod are always down for a skate and bump some dirty rap music on the way. Beau's a passionate dude with a heart of gold and love for Liverpudlian football.

Every city has its own character. A character influenced by it's people and the environment they're placed in. Adelaide is a small city with a big community. Life ticks by at a comfortable pace. The best example of the scene in Adelaide was the SBA competition. Everyone was just stoked to be skating together. High fives all round before runs and clapping each other throughout. It felt like a massive session. Adelaide skate videos show this vibe too. I had the pleasure of watching around a decades worth of footage from Adelaide from Teleskate to the Dailies video. Great skate videos serve as a time capsule of a place and its skaters and you can see how the people and the place have evolved over time. The spots long lost and older skaters in their hayday. It was awesome to see these pieces of the local history and getting a glimpse of what the younger local skaters grew up watching. With SAF2 and Streets Made Us on the way it'll be rad to see that legacy continued.

Skating can put you in some bizarre situations. The day I shot the front noseslide photo I went out with Cale, Jarrod and Evans. Cale wanted to get a couple of tricks filmed for the Cliche video. We hit up a couple of spots, but the first had an awkward run up an we were kicked out of the second after only a few tries. I got the above shot of Cale's frontside noseslide just before we got the boot.

We drive around for a while afterwards and Cale spots a little gap by the highway. A curb cut with a gap over a rock into a little car park. We park in the car park and get all the gear out the car. The run up is across a road. Jarrod and I were take photos while Evans films. Jarrod is shooting photos sitting on a divider in the middle of the road, and I perch up in a tree trying to get a good angle. Cale has a couple of tries backside flipping it and starts to get the feel of the spot. A car speeds up to the intersection driven by a stocky shirtless dude with his grizzly looking girlfriend in the passenger seat. 'Get the fuck out of the road! I'll run you over next time!', he shouts at Jarrod as he stops. Jarrod is a good 4 foot from his car. He just shrugs it off. The dude looks amped up and goes to get out of the car. Cale sees whats happening and runs over. 'What the fuck are you doing? We're just trying to have a skate, get the fuck out of here!'. Cale is right by the drivers door and the meathead jumps when he sees him. The dude shouts something at him and drives off. A yellow car drives into the carpark and parks up next to Evan's car. Jarrod, Evans and Cale start walking back to the car. I figure they're just going to get another lens or something so I sit in the tree and wait for them to get back. I look over the road and see the shirtless guy running full belt across the highway with his girlfriend in tow. I clamber out the tree and run over to the car. Everyone's already in. The driver of yellow car parked alongside us is a skater from back in the day. Cale greets him briefly but we see the shirtless dude is getting closer. As he gets to the edge of the car park Evans slams his foot on the accelerator. The car speeds out the carpark and we peel up the road. The dude chases after and looks as though he's about to kick in the door. He loses interest fast though and turns back to the yellow car that was parked alongside us. He runs over, reaches in the window and tries to pull the keys out of the ignition. He's clearly not in his right mind and just looking for trouble. The yellow car reverses back fast and knocks the monster off balance. It speeds off in another direction and the monster and his ghoulfriend are left angry in our dust.

I had another strange experience when I went to visit Dan Ivett. I spoke to him in the evening and it was already getting late and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get there in time. I was ready to leave it and head back to chill but with every push I realized how much I wanted to skate so I texted him, said I'd be there soon and waited for the bus. Dan met me at the station when I arrived. We grabbed some McDonalds then headed to the park. It was just us and two bmxers. By now it was dark and the lights were on. We skated the mini for hours. Dan said he hadn't skated much recently and started off the session taking it easy but in no time he was throwing heelflips out of switch blunts. It was rad to see. About 20 minutes into the session a carful of girls pulled up by the skatepark. They were singing along to 90's pop blaring out the car speakers. We kept skating and for the next half an hour they serenaded us with various Spice Girls classics as the bmxers shouted at them to get their tits out.

Sometimes it's important to remember why we skateboard. Fuck footage and photos when all you want to do is ride your plank of wood forget about the rest of the world. When I was staying with Mark, we went out for a family skate session at the Blackwood park. Mark's wife, Tess, and his youngest, Elsie, walked the dog while Lily, Mark and I goofed around at the skate park. Lily starts off the session on a scooter. Mark and I skate the bowl section while she scoots across the park. She slams pretty hard trying to go down one of the quarters there. Mark goes over to console her. She's upset. She sits down for a bit, stops crying then perks back up. Mark and I joke about how dangerous scootering is and how skateboarding is much safer. She grabs a spare board at the park and starts riding down the little banks with a big grin on her face. She looks at the quarters and considers dropping in but Mark tells her not to just yet. She scampers back to the banks and keeps rolling down with a grin plastered across her face. We start to lose the light, grab our stuff and head back to the car. Lily is still skating around and doesn't want to leave. It's only when Mark teases her about leaving her there that she comes back to the car. Even as we're packing away the stuff she's still pushing around the car park, and on the drive home she kept asking when was the next time she could go to Flaggies.

Thank you to Mark, Tess, Beau, Char, Jack, Jarrod, Marcos, Dan, Andy, Michael and all the rest of the lovely rippers of Adelaide.

This piece was originally published in Bigspin magazine (2013).

[strangerdawn]

The Pioneer

The Pioneer was a dream come true for a kid with scuffed knees and a ragged skateboard. I'd spend all week in class drawing old Flip graphics in the back of my exercise book and daydreaming about skating. My feet itching for my weekly pilgrimage to the park. I'd arrive at the park and skate until I couldn't. I'd injure myself or my parents would be parked outside honking the horn. Nothing else would stop me.

The first time I went to Pioneer, I didn't even drop in. I stood at the top of the flatbank, looked down, and thought about all the different ways I could hurt myself rolling down. Glued to the wall, I watched the older kids tearing around the park and stood in sheer awe. The videos I'd seen simply couldn't compare to seeing the rawness of skateboarding in person. I was fascinated by their speed, power and the mental strength they had to shrug off a heavy slam and try the same trick again. I barely moved from my spot all day and left without having even rolled down any ramps. I was disappointed in myself. I'd so desperately wanted to take part in the session but I had been overcome by fear.  

I thought about the park all through school that week and begged my parents to take me back at the weekend. This time I was determined to ride down that flatbank. Saturday finally came around and my parents dropped me off at opening time. I paid my entry, walked over to the bank and scampered up it's lumber skeleton. At the top of the ramp I stood and looked down. I was terrified but I knew I couldn't leave without at least trying to roll in. I rolled up to the edge of the ramp and peered over. It looked like a hell of a long way down. I followed this routine over and over and over again. Each time inching closer and closer to the edge but never quite having the balls to let myself roll over. There came to be a point where I knew I couldn't take one more attempt without rolling in. It had to be this go.

When I eventually I mustered up the courage to go down. I pushed off, put my feet on the board, and felt my wheels roll over the lip. As I picked up speed I began to wobble and I got about halfway down before I slipped out and slammed hard. I shook as I felt the unforgiving concrete connect with my knee. It hurt, but not as much as I expected, and once I'd got that first slam out of the way my fear evaporated. I could do this. I knew I could do this.

I clambered back to the top of the ramp and waited for the right time to roll in again. My heart pounded in my chest and my knees shook from the adrenaline. I saw a space begin to open up and took a few dummy pushes like a bull preparing to charge. I took off with the last push and hopped on my board. My wheels rolled over the lip and into the bank. Time slowed as I felt myself pick up more and more speed. I braced myself for a fall but before I had time to think I was rolling along the flat. I couldn't believe I'd made it. My face lit up. Fuck. I had actually done it. I'd expected to fall but I didn't fear the pain. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. All it had taken was the balls to push off, the strength to get up when I fell, and the belief that I could do it when I tried again the next time. I got hooked on skating from that point onwards and since then I've always been trying to chase that next challenge to push what I am physically able to do on a board.

I lived a town over from Pioneer growing up and found the scene in the local area to be a constant source of inspiration. There was everything a grom could dream of. The town had a local pro, a skate shop, an indoor park, a few skate crews, and a local video.

In a country notorious for it's damp and dark seasons living by an indoor skate park is important. England is a place where sunshine can all too often seem to be a mythic creature and the weather can snake you in a way that a child on a scooter can never match. The days where you watch a skate video and get excited to skate only to look out the window and see puddles forming on the pavement outside. Pioneer provided a level of security and a skate sanctuary on those drizzly days. I knew that when I felt that itch to skate there was always a place I could go bomb around on my board and empty my mind.

The park was originally set up when Rodney Clarke and Andy Willis approached the Pioneer Youth Club to see if they could store their homemade ramps there. They were tired of them getting ruined or vandalized when they left them elsewhere. They moved the ramps into the club and over time were allowed to build more and more additions. The park has been running and expanding ever since.

Andy Willis has been involved with the skate park since it's inception and was instrumental in the recent redesign and rebuild of the park. He has also been involved in a number of other skate parks around the UK. Most notably he was at the forefront of the Frontside Gardens project in Hackney Wick, a skate park built for the local community exclusively with materials left over from the construction of the London Olympics stadiums.

Andy's recent redesign of The Pioneer reflects the current state of skate culture. Modern skateboarding was birthed by surfers carving concrete banks but now the possibilities of what can be skated and how it can be skated have blossomed to include almost anything you find in the urban landscape. When these elements are placed in a skate park setting, skaters are able to practice their tricks in a safe space free from the interference of pedestrians or other difficulties found on the street. A great skate park architect will include a great deal of variety of obstacles in an arrangement that provides creative opportunities for fluid movement through the space. Not only that but a park needs to cater for the mixture of styles in contemporary skate culture. The new layout of The Pioneer has moved away from the traditional skate park structure of a few big simple obstacles arranged in a formulaic manner to a more complex range of small objects which provide greater creative opportunities for experimentation on a skateboard.

As a kid I'd occasionally see Rodney Clarke at Pioneer. He had great energy and composure on and off his board. Not to mention monster pop and the ability to conquer every obstacle in sight. Being able to see that level of skating in person blew my mind. I was amazed by the skate videos I saw coming out of America but I couldn't relate to the environment. The smooth concrete and seemingly endless sunshine was far removed from the grey skies and cracked pavement that surrounded me. Seeing Rodney skate completely demystified the other worldliness of LA skating and I was able to see that even in my hometown you could teach yourself how to skate to a high level. He was just some guy from my area who had put in the time to teach himself these incredible things. You would never see Beckham having a kick around in the local park but I could go to Pioneer and I might catch a glimpse of a professional skateboarder showing me the huge amount of creative possibilities with a skateboard at your feet.

This brought on the realization that on a skateboard, everyone is on a level playing field. Being bigger or smaller doesn't matter, it's simply how much time you have put in to learning the skill and what tricks or obstacles you have spent your time skating. When you see someone able to push themselves to such a high level it changes your perception of the possible and your ideas of what a person is physically able to do. The act of skateboarding instills the ability to learn within you. You understand what steps you need to take in order to teach yourself a new skill and gain the patience needed to learn something new. You become aware of your strengths and weaknesses on a skateboard and set yourself mental and physical challenges in order to be able to play with your board in a more sophisticated way. There is no glass ceiling in skateboarding and there is always something new to try. Can you learn a new trick or do an old trick longer, higher or faster?

Another inspiration for me at the park was Ben Rafferty. I grew up skating with Ben who is now a proud member of the Pioneer staff and lent a hand with the recent rebuild of the park. He's a ripper and a firm fixture in the local scene. I knew him when his skateboard looked taller than him and it'd didn't make sense how someone so small could throw himself down stairs so high. Ben started skating after he caught glimpses of his neighbour skating behind his garage and got his first board when Santa hooked him up with his very own Rhino deck when he was 10. Growing up he was one of those skaters you'd see every other week and in that time he'd learnt 10 new tricks. He looked completely unified with his board and it was almost impossible to imagine it any other way. His familiarity with the park shines through and he can attack the park like noone else. He sees lines that others would never notice and his bag of tricks on the course is seemingly endless.

I no longer live near the park but I still travel there when I get the chance and the place will always hold a place in my heart. Skateboarding can be a cruel mistress but we will always strive for those days when you're surrounded by friendly faces and everything is new and fun.

The Pioneer was first published in Radulthood (2014). Illustration by Otso Perasaari.

[strangerdawn]

Primer (2004) Review

In a quiet suburb in America, two friends accidentally build a time machine. While working on superconductors for their start-up hardware business, Abe and Aaron realise that they have stumbled upon a device that can unhinge objects from time. As many scientists have done through out history, they secretly use themselves as guinea pigs, hoping to test the capabilities of the machine and figure out it’s commercial possibilities. They’ve been duped before, and don’t want to under-sell their invention before comprehending it’s power.

Primer (2004) is a small scale examination of how two men deal with the power to travel back through time, and the consequences their discovery has on their friendship, their bodies, and time itself. The time travel is confined to a small space and time. The travel itself takes place in quaint industrial settings, a home garage or a storage facility, far removed from the regular sci-fi tropes of huge hidden government labs or the remote lairs of eccentric scientists. This isn’t a case of what would happen if you went back in time and killed Hitler, but what it would mean for you to be able to redo today with hindsight. How many times would it take for you to get it perfect? Would you ever be able to stop? And how would you make sure you don’t change the future in unanticipated ways?

The film is a disorientating journey through a multi-layered timeline, and Carruth throws the audience in the deep end as they eavesdrop on technical conversations between scientists who themselves are struggling to comprehend what they have found. As you stare into the screen, you are watching an experiment, each man tests the machine for their own ends with their own motivations. Paradoxes come to light and some questions are simply unanswerable.

Primer tells a story that has already happened but is constantly being changed. It is a dense puzzle box for you to step within, but don’t expect to fully comprehend it after one watch. If you enjoy films that challenge you to keep up, or if you’re just curious how a time travel film could be made on a micro budget of $7000, this film is for you.

Originally published by Eyes On The Screen.