The trail never goes cold.

THEY SAY YOU SHOULDN'T go to the mountains on opening day of hunting season. You might get mistaken for an elk. Most of the people you see up at 6,000-feet plus elevation wear cammo gear with bright orange vests and hats--we had shorts and sweatshirts. They also say you shouldn't go to the mountains once it's snowed for the first time of the season, due to closed, snow-packed roads, black ice, avalanches, bears...and frozen temperatures at 28-degrees fahrenheit. Well, we didn't listen as usual but we were prepared for the worst, because we have learned through hard fought experience of what not to do and how to do it right...cold or not. No more spreading the gospel to arouse perked up ears, like governmental suit-types gathering electronic intel on you and me via the 'Net or neighborhood watch programs, vying to catch the next terrorist subject and getting cash money rewards for turning on thy neighbor--a little taste of national socialism.

MAYBE JELLO WAS RIGHT, they wanna keep you down and uneducated so you too can commit racial suicide. But we ain't talking politics. We are talking about the risk of government trespassing for which there is no future, because of 18 mutherfriggers who came from the other side of the world to give us a message. Nowadays every major water installation in the US has 24-hour guards, new bright and shiny silvery chain link fences topped with strands of razor wire, motion sensors, and 24-hour surveillance cameras connected to every major law enforcement in the vicinity. They have taken down all the placards regarding spillway dimensions, tunnel technology, conduit size and circumferences, and put concrete jersey barriers near spillway entrances so a well-placed bomb does not take out the whole damn valley below. Scary stuff. Their fences boast of "US Property: No Trespassing" signs that try to keep away blatant localism. Once they get their six-billion dollar national security fund for home defense we will all be do omed; the common folk, the middle class, the immigrant, the poor, and especially...the skater.

The skater pays the price of yesterday's tragedy. For the skater is the only true Hellion left on Earth these days. They will stop at nothing to practice their craft on any cement structure they scour the world for. The trail never goes cold because the skater grapevine word-of-mouth always thrives, whether intentionally giving away secrets of joy or bringing the despair of the eventual bust that awaits you on top of the Stilling Basin's 60-foot tall walls.

Sitting in the long jail house hallway of shame thinking of all the do and don'ts I coulda-shoulda-woulda done plain sucks after eight hours. So be thankful for the suburban, sprawl beneath you. Cement is critical. Where most see concrete as impractical, the skater relishes the fact that without the modernization of the civilized world he would not exist. Like the ancient Egyptians worshiped their man-made accomplishments of stone, the skater worships inanimate technology that resembles their gods. Skating is a religion whether we accept or not, and the accomplishment of man's making of cement objects rivals no other. Man's technology has expanded our senses and minds and has created skaters' temples and churches in the forms of empty pool worship where names like Blue Haven and Sunset, Paddock and Anthony are highly regarded and held as tokens of appreciation. Board graphics sport homages to these gods and other water sign carriers. Other religious monuments like the Glory Hole and various other tube-like th eology attract yearly pilgrimages from devoted followers who rabidly wander the globe in search of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, Their work will never stop and it is getting even harder to do nowadays. Only if skateboards existed back when they made Hoover and Grand Coulee and Glen Canyon. Dam it!

What I am getting at is there is no cure for the dreaded blue tile fever. There is no cure for pipe dreams and there is no cure for the trespassing skater who will stop at nothing short of death to kill himself in order to live. It is the axiom we all live by--to go where no man has gone before. You don't see suit people getting rad and jumping out of planes or throwing themselves down from 10:30 to the flat on a missed thruster in a 20-foot fullpipe. The straighties can't comprehend the mental adjustment it takes to skate; the balance, physical coordination, and the balls to get splatted on the ground like a swatted fly scares the normal populace. They cannot understand the need for speed or the thrill of the hill. Rolling Thunder they used to call it in Vietnam. I call it thunder rolling. Perpetual motion or locomotion? Leave no stone unturned. But watch out for the booby traps left around to break your will, And they will try, It was us against them.

The dreaded "No Skating" signs are posted all over the school yards, the shopping malls, the park where moms take the kiddies, courtyards, empty swimming pools, scavenged apartment buildings and the like. No skateboarding. No skateboarding. No skateboarding. No skateboarding. They try to keep us out but we keep coming back the like Energizer Bunny. Skater attrition. We will never stop our transgression to skate anywhere we want and no, skateboarding is a crime, I am a criminal, for skateboarding. I have paid the fines, endured the ridicule of being a punker/skater riding in the back of the police car for almost 30 years now. I have been in jail before and it all stems from skateboarding. Will I try to do it more? You bet your sweet lil' ass I will. Some rules need to be broken and the sky is the limit. I'm not going to let those friggin' terrorists get me down even though they did make things a lot harder this time around. Skate Commando will endure and Team Virgin will go where no skater has gone before. It' s in the blood. Nothing to it but to do it!