Severe Foot-in-Mouth Disease on the First and Last Ever 'Eleven Parks to Parkes Mechanical Snowboard Tour' 2013
Throughout my life I've been known to put my foot in the shit, physically and metaphorically. People that know me well enough would all be aware of my propensity to put said shit-covered foot in my mouth. They'll sit back comfortably, laughing in delight and enjoyment over the fruits of my misfortune. I came to terms with my foot-in-mouth disease when I was much younger. I'm so used to involuntarily insulting people and generally making a fool of myself in public that I've just stopped giving a shit. I'm well aware that my sense of self-censorship and ability to pre-think out a phrase cease to operate in direct conjunction with my mouth. It doesn't really bother me any more how blatantly belligerent my bullshit can be. It often has an instant and dramatic effect on my life and the immediate situation's I'm in, but my acceptance of this tendency has led me to be pretty blasé and laissez faire about what other people come to think of me. I just go with the flow, and if my mouth decides to take me down the wrong fork in the river, then so be it. I'm a man. I can take it.
Never has a bout of my foot-in-mouth disease been so severe as when I was recently sent out to Parkes with a mechanical snowboard for a winter party at some hotel. I was solo the whole trip. I don't mind driving solo, especially with lots of good music and a bag full of weed, but this time it seemed that my oratory affliction continuously left me with baffled locals staring at me like I'd just dropped my filthy guts or as if they were considering slowly torturing me.
The drive out to Parkes is pretty, mainly because of the fact that the towns you drive through on the way – Bathurst, Orange, Lithgow and the Blue Mountains – aren't utter shitholes. There are two types of country town in Australia, and it's easy to immediately decide which type of town you're in moments after you've hit the main drag. Not only are the towns on this route fine to drive through, stop in, eat at and use the public toilets in, but they each offer awesome skateparks. I love the fact that so many little towns have sick little, well-made, smoothly-surfaced, shreddable, concrete parks. The only undeniably negative impact that I can think of that comes from having good country skateparks is that it opens the door for so many kids to start riding a fucking razor scooter. I mean, if they are having fun and getting outdoors, I'm happy for them, but there is just something about a kid over ten riding around on a scooter that not only shits me to tears but just doesn't look right at all. Country parks are riddled with a rife razor infestation. It's disgusting!
So my plan was to stop off at all the above mentioned towns and skate each one of their parks. I expected to encounter a fair bit of congestion, as it was a Saturday, but there was eight good-looking parks to check out, and another three which were slightly out of the way. Some looked better than others, and some I knew I'd only want to skate if I had it to myself, but I planned to play it by ear and see how I went. I definitely wanted to make sure I at least laid eyes upon them all.
The snow party began at 8:30, so I had all day to make it out to Parkes. An early start would see me leaving the outer suburbs of Sydney before midday. With a fresh, super-size, multi-flavoured, Starburst Rattlesnake-filled Slurpee and a packet full of pre-rolled doobies, I captained the decal emblazoned Hyandai up into the mountains at high revs. In every town I went through (the reaction being exponentially more exagerated and comical in relation to my proximity from Sydney) my vehicle would draw much local attention. I'm sure I'd be mesmerised by a white van covered in a big, colourful Earth and spaceship graphic with 'Planet Entertainment' scrawled on the side too if I lived in a town with less than twenty beer taps and only one drug-dealer/prostitute.
The first park I planned to stop at as I got properly into the mountains was Lawson. Lawson is one of the smaller towns in the Blue Mountains but it boasts a sweet Convic built bowl. Unfortunately for me, the scene I rocked up too was hideous with bikes, scooters and shitloads of young skaters. Instead of trying to wade my way through a wash of little mountain-grommets, I thought this might be a good place to smoke my first joint of the day. I sat near enough to the bowl so I could see it, but obviously not far enough away for some parents to not smell my ganja burning. Choosing where to sit and watch a skatepark full of young kids is a dicey game. If one sits too close – right in amongst the throng of children – without a skateboard to at least sit on, it can look creepy. If one sits so far away that they obviously aren't interested in watching any skating, then all parents see is a rock spider looking at their kids. Always have a board with you, even if you don't intend to skate. With a board in hand or under your arse there's
never a worry, unless, of course, you happen to do what I've advised you not to, and like me, possess a seedy, pedophilesque moustache and insist on smoking weed around strange kids. I sat there with absolutely legitimate, non-pedophilic, skateboarding-enthused intentions, and I enjoyed smoking my joint until some butthole parents decided to get involved. This was the first confrontation I found myself in on the 2013 Mechanical Snowboard Tour. It may not have been my desperate disease that caused the event to occur, but it definitely didn't help the situation.
It's quite obvious when somebody is smoking a joint in public. Not only does the smell give it away almost immediately, but so does the action one takes in placing said joint in ones mouth. Most people don't hold joints like they do a cigarette – with the ciggie butt nestled firmly between two knuckles. Joints can be held in the same manner, but mainly they're held between the forefinger and the thumb. As it is smoked, potheads inhale deeper and sometimes consecutively in an effort to garner more of the THC's intended effect, while ciggie smokers take small, quick, hard drags, ripping the fag away from there mouth as they suck in small amounts of air to wash the smoke down with. If these factors don't give you away in a public space, then certainly that look everyone gets on their face when they smoke a doobie will. People always tend to squint, furrow their brow and purse their cracked, stinking, stoner lips when they're smoking weed. I don't know why, but I do it as well. As far as I can tell, every person who smokes pot does. I guess it just looks cooler.
So these mountain parents, sitting back with their prams, smoking durries (in the way that durries are meant to be smoked, i.e. see above) and watching their kiddies scurrying around on their scooters or cheap skateboards, noticed that it was not the legal type of cigarette I was smoking. They must've seen my 'cool' face as I sucked in the smoke or something. I couldn't really tell how they sprung me, but they were pissed!
“What do ya think ya doin 'ere, mate? Ya can't smoke that shit 'round me kids, dickhead!” said one mum with a beer belly and an adam's apple. Despite her manly appearance, I could tell she was a female by the outstanding gunt visible through her shiny, purple, pink and black trackie-dacks.
“At least try to hide it, mate,” said one parent who probably smoked a bit of pot himself. “You could've gone up into the bush or something. Not around the bloody kids!”
“Put the FARCKEN thing out, right FARCKEN now, before I call the FARCKEN cops on ya, ya FARCKIN idiot!” said the most horrible, seediest, shrewiest, most gnarled up. mother of the group (and probably the whole of NSW) This woman scared the tar out of me, so I pulled the almost finished joint from my quivering lips, stubbed it out on the bottom of my shoe and flicked it away from me. Not only did the thing not fly very far at all, but it skewed in the wrong direction, and landed right at the she-beast mother's feet.
I got to my feet, quickly, and headed towards my van.
“FARCKIN Sydney prick! Pick this shit up ya prick!” the she-beast yelled at me. I wish I did pick the thing up, but I expected her to grow horns and fucking trample me or something – the bitch was wild! The second I'd shut myself inside the door of my van I felt a bit more safe. Safe enough to be a smart-arse, apparently. I drove right back past the group of mountain parents. She-beast mum was at the centre of their horde, smiling me a smile that would terrify Freddie Kruger. I slowed down to a crawl, hung my arm out the window and offered to the group, “Well, I think it's safe to say you've saved your kids from a life of marijuana addiction. Well done you fucking yobbo's. Good luck keeping them off the heroin!” With that I peeled out as best I could in a shitty, weak as fuck van, but they got the point. Fueled by hatred and marijuana my foot-in-mouth disease had actually been used in a way to positively effect my well-being, as opposed to the complete opposite. I drove away from Lawson skatepark with a massive smile on my face. Not because I was stoned, but because I'd just written off the most vile Medusa I'd ever come across in my life, and even though I didn't skate the park, I still felt fulfilled.