The Bones Brigade made me human.

There's usually a time in everyone's life in which they feel like an outsider. Even if just for a minute, We all feel like we're not up to par with the status quo, either because we don't want to be or because we were thrown into the middle of something and are forced to adapt.


When I a kid-I began to see skateboarding-what is was then and much even, if not all, of what it is now, in tiny increments. It started off small, my friend across the street had a board and a small launch ramp. He told me about this group of professional skaters called the Bones Brigade, and showed me an issue of Thrasher Magazine, which had pictures and articles about certain BB skaters, like Lance Mountain, Mike Mcgill, and Tommy Guerrero. He had a heap of Thrasher back issues. We used to stay up late and read thrashers, drink cokes, and play nintendo games to the wee hours. I soon got a board and joined him on the ramp. We'd bring our boards everywhere. We would ride up to the corner store and get the new issues of Thrasher and Transworld Skateboarding whenever we could. We'd make our parents take us, at first to the bike shop that also sold boards and skate paraphernalia, and before long we were making them drive across town to skate parks-My dad even built me ramps that we could skate on in the drive way. We'd go to the video store and rent Future Primitive, The Search for Animal Chin, and The Bones Brigade Video Show nearly every weekend, watch them 2, sometimes 3 times, and it never got old. I'd go through issues of Transworld and Thrasher and cut out logos and art that I thought was cool, I'd hang stuff on my walls, I'd do anything just to have skateboarding all around me, as much as I could. 

Knowing that not everyone at my school was in to skateboarding made it seem dangerous, and even though it should've made me feel like an outsider, it didn't, It made me feel complete. It made me human.

I was 10.

My obsession, which was anything but mild, soon gave way. When you're a kid, sometimes you just see the world a mile a minute...and certain things fade into obscurity and get smaller and smaller in the rearview. I was also growing tall and becoming awkward and clumsy, that obviously didn't help either. By the time I was 12, Hip Hop and basketball had taken over-Skateboarding was in my periphery.

About a month ago, I caught wind of the trailer for Stacy Peralta's Bones Brigade doc. I've been intermittently going through the online press for the feature with, (obviously) child-like excitement. It didn't bring back memories until today. I had an epiphany about this time in my life that I was probably too young to realize when it actually happened. Skateboarding was just fun. That's all. It didn't matter how much I did it, how little I did it, how bad or good I was at it. It was about getting on the board, being with my friends, and just being a kid. There wasn't any pressure. I didn't feel shitty after skating because I wasn't competing. I bugged out hard when I began thinking about this earlier today and literally almost started crying. I loved it then but I didn't understand why. 22 years later...I get it.

Everyone lives and regrets not doing something or not being somewhere or not saying something at the right time. I don't think there's anything I regret more than giving up skateboarding. Not because I could've been the next Tony Hawk, or Lance Mountain, or Mike Mcgill-but because I may never get to go to that place again.

The place where you can grind on coping and come back down for the first time. and you feel like you've just came down from space.  Or the place where you can cross a busy suburban street in the dead of rush hour just to try and ollie onto a picnic table. A place where everything was......

Right.

-Marty.

Breaking up is hard to do.

Hello, Chucksters. 

I am not here to make excuses, or shed any kind of indignant neuroses I have about status, or lack thereof - as a writer within the past year, but speak from an introspective space, simply because, as selfish as it sounds, I think I need it. 

I last posted within the confines of All Grey Chucks on August 29, 2011. One of hottest, dumbest, and uneven summers was finally coming to an end. I was tapped out financially, emotionally, and artistically, a funk in which, nearly a year later, I’m finally starting to come out of. Last year at this time, I was working a dead-end job, and struggling with some personal issues, and overall just not enjoying life. I guess it’s kismet in a way that post was about a claustrophobic, jerky, and neurotic movie called Slacker, and it’s encompassing redux; it somehow mirrored how I felt. That was one of the easier posts I’ve ever written, simply because watching the original print of Slacker while researching put my head at a level playing field with everything going on around me. 

As a writer, you start to believe in the art. You also start to think everything is profound, and that puts pressure on you. All of the sudden I felt like brushing my teeth had to have some kind of resonance. It’s sometimes not the easiest thing to deal with. To say that it freaked me out a little is probably about par for the course. 

People ask me about my writing a lot, and I’m glad to talk about it, simply because I never thought it’d touch the lives of as many people as it did-and for that, I’m forever grateful. I started onlyhiphopblog to have some fun and share my knowledge of what, in my opinion, is the halcyon period of a particular genre. The response was much more than I had ever foreseen. 

Did onlyhiphopblog get bigger than real life? Yes and No. I don’t have millions of readers and don’t make any money off of it...but I did make a lot of new friends, not only in the blogging community, but in the Hip-hop community as well. I got into music festivals for free, and got a chance to do something a lot of people don’t get to do; express myself creatively.I am a writer, and. It’s something I’ll always be and I’m happy to do it, with or without any platitudes or financial gain. At the end of the day it goes back to two core ideals: Art and expression. 

I’ve done a lot of thinking re: my future as a writer, I’ve thought about phasing out onlyhiphopblog and just incorporating everything in to AGC; I’ve thought of re-vamping onlyhiphopblog with a new name, I’ve also thought of just trudging on like I have been, committing to it, and making it a point to update these as much as I can. All I can say this that I’ve chosen door number 3. I can’t predict the future, so I can’t say whether or not these blogs will again fall by the wayside. My goal is to have a new post on each one every month or so. I also want to beef up my social networking presence, If we’re friends on Facebook you may get a request to like a page in the near future. 

For now, onlyhiphopblog will continue to report on/spread knowledge in reference to Hip-Hop and Rap of the golden age and beyond, and All Grey Chucks will continue to have a much looser definition, and report on anything music, sports, food, life, and culture. 

To all my friends and family here in Austin, Ohio, Michigan, and everywhere...those that have supported me in these endeavors, continue to support, and believe in art, substance, and nostalgia...I love ALL of you. a lot. 

Thanks isn’t enough. 

Onward and Upward, 

-Marty.