NO FOOL LIKE AN OLD FOOL by Peter Nolan Smith

Outside the Pattaya Tai Big C Shopping Center there was a skateboard club. Some Thai kids tested out tricks on rails and ramps. Some were good. I tried a few moves to be surprised by an unintentional wheelie by putting too much weight on my back foot. The Thai kids applauded my move and I handed back the skateboard, happy not to have taken a fall.

Making contact with hard objects can be quite painful, since I was closet to 80 than 20.

But I started thinking. “I’m not that old. I can still grind.”

Royal Garden had a few boards; 600 baht and 4000 baht.

I bought the cheap version and practiced on my street. My daughter liked being pushed on the skateboard. It was harmless fun, until one day I was watching the Winter Olympics. It’s been years since I skied and I thought skateboarding down a hill might satisfy my downhill needs.

I mentioned to my ex-wife that I wanted to skateboard down Jomtien Hill.

She asked, “How old are you? I know the answer. Do you?”

“It’ll be fine. I’ll wear a helmet and go in the new park. You’ll ride behind me so no one will run me over.” Thais have a finely honed disregard for pedestrians and it’s always open season on fallen farangs.

“Bah.” She thought I was crazy, but realized it was my own life. “Som nam nah.”

We drove over to the new park and I got out of the car. The road was smooth. The high speed descent might rival the thrill of skiing. I wore a helmet for protection and flip-flops on my feet.

Sneakers would have been a better idea, but I wasn't planning on creaking the speed limit.

“Sure you want do this?” My wife wouldn’t think me any worse for backing out.

“Yes, I’m fine.” I signaled I was ready. My daughter was in the car too.

I got on the board and pushed off.

I picked up speed.

I was soon rolling at 20 kph, then 30.

I was out of control and deboarded in a panic.

My flip-flops failed the test of hitting the ground running.

Two steps and face plant.

My helmet thunked the pavement and my shoulder crumbled under the weight of a man's middle-aged body. I got up slowly. Nothing was broken, but my cellphone was squashed in my pocket.

3500 baht down the hole.

I had plenty of cuts and bruises and blood seeped from open wounds.

My daughter cried thinking that I had really hurt myself.

In fact Angie was right and for the next two weeks I felt like John Gotti’s Mafia collection agency had beaten me with a baseball bat.

Pain was a way of letting your body was not yet dead.

Then remind you of your age by not letting you heal quickly.

Snow was definitely softer than the street.

Everyone in Pattaya upon hearing this story asked the same thing, “How old are you?”

I think I’m 25 but act 15 sometimes.

My friend Jocko Weyland was a well-known skateboarder. He wrote a history of the sport THE ANSWER IS NEVER. Jocko considered my effort commendable.

“Dude.”

So I was a dude to one person in the world.

Better than none, although three months after the crash I’m still sleeping on my right side and the skateboard is gathering a fine veneer of dust.

“How old?”

VERY OLD, but still young at heart. In other words stupid too.

The Now World

Skateboarding never gets old.

Skateboarding in the White House

GW Bush was very straight on protocol in the White House. Everyone had to wear a tie. Humor was used to manipulate the public's perception of the president's likability factor. Clinton's regime was also rigid when it came time to maintain the imperial mantle, although Bill was a little remiss with his hitting on Monica Lewinsky.

Barack Obama is not either of those guys.

First he swats a fly bead during an interview and now he allows Tony Hawk to skateboard through the White House.

This is no longer GW's White House and I love saying to right-wingers.

"Shut the fuck up."

Rock on Obama.

I only wish it had been Jocko Weyland instead of Tony Hawk.

The Answer is Never.

The Death Of Baseball

Three years ago I was invited to a Red Sox-Yankees game at the Rich People Stadium. Our seats were behind home plate and I wanted to show my gratitude to my host and ordered four beers and hot dogs. The bill came to $70. At least the Red Sox won the game, but despite the taxpayer picking up the bill for new stadiums major league baseball has priced itself out of reach of the common man and every evening thousands of seats are empty in the new parks. The game's fall from grace has extended to ballfields across America, as boys have rejected the National Pasttime in favor of skateboarding or playing murderous video games.

Baseball is in danger of becoming extinct.

The games start too late for young viewers.

The games last 3-4 hours thanks to TV ads.

And the play on the field is uninspired.

Empty seats.

Players saying what the fuck.

Nothing could get me to go to New York's Rich People Stadium, although I wouldn't mind watching a few games of little league or sitting on the wooden seats of the Cape Cod League.

That is baseball.

And that kind of baseball will never die in the hearts of the eternally young.

Even in the land of the dead.

Mirrors Don't Tell All

We look in the mirror thinking that's how people see us but it's how we see ourselves. At one time I stopped looking in the mirror and only viewed myself as a shadow at sunset. Now I look in the mirror and no longer see who I was or am or will be. I only see a reflection.

Foto Kilimanjaro 2019

A Quiet Place To Drink

Luis Bunuel wrote in LAST GASP "I also remember a bar at the Plaza Hotel in New York, a busy meeting place which at the time was off limits to women. Any friend of mine passing through New York knew that if he wanted to find me, he had only to go to the Plaza bar at noon."

Like Luis Bunuel I long shared the Spanish director's perchance for drinking in the early afternoons. With no one, but the bartender and the handy man. Quiet solitude, a double gin-tonic, half the ice, twice the gin. My locals in this century the 169 Bar on East Broadway and Frank's Lounge in Fort Greene. The solitude sheltered from the day by stygian shadows served by Dakota at the 169 and Tim at Frank's. The music guiding the way through the afternoon. Paradise.

Dmitri Turin - Still On The Road

Dmitri Turin was born in Russia. His mother was a mathematician. His father was reputed to have been KGB. Natalia Dmitrievna Svetlova left him to marry the legendary Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Politburo exiled the writer and his family in 1974. They moved to America.

Vermont to be exact.

Dmitri left the family compound and moved to Boston.

He drove taxi there.

So did I, but we never met in my hometown.

By the late-1970s everyone was in the East Village.

Indian Larry loved bikes.

He drove almost naked in the snow.

Dmitri did wheelies in the white powder of East 6th Street.

No one could get Indian Larry to put on some clothes.

Demmie liked racing.

So did his partner Hugh Mackie.

They opened East Street Bikes beyond Avenue B.

I helped put in the ramp.

Everyone liked riding with them.

English bikes only.

Things were going good.

It was all too good to be true.

In 1994 Dmitri passed before a trip to Russia.

Heart attack.

I was in Thailand.

I said my goodbye at his grave.

It was in New Hampshire across the river from Vermont.

I miss riding with him.

And my old Yamaha XS 650.

Dmitri left before his time.

Many bikers do.

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Bikers.

My son Fenway thinks there is nothing like them.

Same as me.

It's just the way things are.

Anon recently commented that the snow wheelie with the purple helmet is BSA Chris from 8th St.

I stand corrected.