Skatepark parking lot review: installment 1: skatepark of Austin.

I GOTTA BE HONEST WITH YOU I get kind of bored reading reviews about all of these new skateparks that are popping up all over the world. Reading about all their bowls and rails and loops and shit. It's not that I don't want to check them out. It's just that I already know what I'd do if I rode them. I'd skate for about an hour and exhaust my bag of five tricks and then I'd get bored and I'd go drink beer in the parking lot until my friends were ready to leave. I'm not trying to sound jaded or anything like that. I mean, I truly enjoy all aspects of what I just described. But it got me thinking: I probably spend more time in skatepark parking lots than I do inside the actual skateparks. So shit, if you're anything like me then maybe you'll enjoy these reviews. And if you're not, well, then I guess you're probably under 30. Ain't shit wrong with that either.

SO THE FIRST skatepark parking lot I'll be reviewing is the parking lot in my town, the Skatepark of Austin's parking lot. You're probably thinking I'm being lazy by reviewing a parking lot that's only about ten miles away from my house, right? Well shit man, email the dudes at Thrasher and see if they'll fly me out to that Cayman Islands place and I'll review their shit out of their parking lot. I'll need a few days notice though because I'll have to find somebody to watch my cats. But back to this parking lot.

One of my favorite features of the lot is that it has a nice little wall that runs along the side of it and it makes a great place to piss because it's blocked from the main road. So if a cop drives by he won't see you hanging out with your dick in your hand. It also has some pretty nice bushes that you can pee in. They're pretty decent too. Oh, there's also a big industrial-sized trash can out in front of the park's door so you don't have to feel bad about leaving all of your beer cans piled up next to somebody's truck. Oh, and speaking of trucks, since this particular parking lot is in Texas, there's no shortage of tail gates to rest your old ass on. And all of those trucks have at least one Willie Nelson CD in them that you can request be played while you're sipping those Lone Stars. If you don't relate to that then just replace the previous items with Budweiser and Slayer.

I would say that some of the drawbacks to the lot are that there really isn't anywhere within walking distance to buy cold beer. That's pretty sucky. The parking lot surface is pretty rough too, so you can't really play drunken games of skate after the park is closed for the night. Maybe that's good though. Old drunk dudes trying to do 360 flips always makes me kind of sad anyway. Man, and I guess another thing kind of shitty about the parking lot is that since (as I already mentioned) it is in Texas, it's literally hotter than holy freaking shit about half of the year. But probably the suckiest thing about this parking lot is that when I bring a six-pack along with me I only get to drink an average of two of those beers myself because all of the others get bummed within seconds. What's up with that shit? Did you dudes forget that you liked beer on your way to the park? You remembered to buy that damn quart of purple Gatorade. Anyway, now I'm just bitching. Sorry.

So, man, I guess overall I'd say this particular parking lot is about a six or a seven. I'll go with seven. There's also a pretty fucking awesome wooden bowl inside the park, but I'll let some other magazine talk about that. They could even get a picture of a dude doing a stale fish in it so it would look like a photograph of a dude skating a bowl. You know what I'm saying, right?