BE STOKED THAT THE STUFF YOU USED TO THINK WAS IMPOSSIBLE IS GETTING DONE.

IT'S INSANE; THERE ARE MORE SKATEBOARDERS on this planet than ever. I don't know what happened. At first, when I started noticing all the commotion, I

thought it would die out in a few months. Who wants a shiner? But it kept going. Kids everywhere have boards and the ones that are riding scooters wish they had a skate, 'cause shit's off the hook. When I was growing up, my buddies and I would sit around and wonder what stuff would be going down in 2001--it's gone way gnarlier than we imagined.

I hate to say it, but when dudes younger than me started getting crazy, I was pissed, especially if they eyeballed me after landing something. Joe Blow would start talking to me, telling me he'd only been skating for a few months and then ask me how long I'd been riding...shit, I felt like an idiot. He'd go on and tell me the first video he had ever seen was by Zero or Toy Machine. I felt betrayed. "You've never seen Video Days or the Questionable Video?," I'd say. Was I trying to stay true to the past? I wanted to tell him what someone I admired had done five years before at the same spot we were at, but by the time that old chunk of memory was dug out, he was doing something gnarlier.

Shit, I've met lots of younger dudes lately and I just have to give up. I'm lame. You can't hold on to shit--to each his own, but fuck it. Be stoked that the stuff you used to think was impossible is getting done. This one goes out to the dudes who are getting gnarly just to get gnarly. No generations, no big name sponsors, no video deadlines; just down for skating. "Here they come...here they come..."