At midnight Friday I received a text from my deeply excellent friend Eric Shea that he and his band Hot Lunch were just hitting the Grapevine on their way to bandmate Charlie’s dad’s place in Venice, for they had a GIG at the Volcom warehouse Saturday night for the Volcom/Baker collab. As far as man brands holding hands under an apple tree full of teen boys pooping money into their pockets, I don’t give a shit. As far as rad bros playing heavy space jam rock and skateboarding anywhere a tank of gas can get me, I’M IN. I was lying on my couch when I received this missive, drinking a cocktail and inexplicably watching Jimmy Fallon’s last show before his next twenty billion shows that I know will see me to my angry grave. I enjoy the whole affability/enthusiast standpoint he so wholly embodies, but I’m never going to fully love anything that seems like such a marketing coup to every rich dick involved.

I drove to Venice Saturday morning and met the doodz. It may be spiritually unfair that everyone who cares about freaks and not growing into a boring adult whose maneuverings can best be described as plate dildonics cannot see Charlie’s dad’s home in Venice. It is a robust level of street art insanity. WHO buys all the bonkers fringe art from the muppets on the Venice boardwalk? Tourists? Probably. But also one magnificent local who raised his kids there: CHARLIE’S DAD. WHOSE REAL NAME IS JERRY. Many iterations of doll parts and crappy toy bits diving about in painted foam sealant (Yoda in a frying pan full of yellow foam? Yep. Big doll head peaking out of foam sea with disproportionately small doll hands sticking out too? Handled.). There was a very tall mushroom that was too big to be a stool, so it was just a big mushroom hanging out in the room. Which happened to be under an old landscape painting with piles of foam at the bottom and “POLLUTION” written in tall letters across it. Just in case your imagination is too bogged down in beer and ludes to really GET why such a bucolic setting would play host to so many dark grey mounds of sad!!

After taking in this visual riot we headed down to the Venice skatepark. I generally avoid that joint on the weekends because it is crammed with people who like the IDEA of skating more than skating itself. Tons of tourists watching and taking photos (as a skater who doesn’t particularly want to be watched it helps if you’ve been forced to dissociate or ignore large presences in the past…maybe you know some alcoholics?). We rode for a bit, and when a (not skating) guy with a video camera crawled into the large bowl to film people he didn’t know (while his gf hollered to him from the ledge where she was sitting), we left to eat fish on rice on a curb with the TeePee Records label dudes, who are both kind and visually pleasing.

We drove to the Volcom warehouse. I helped the Hot Lunch bros load in, then skated the warehouse with them and a few others… as sometimes happens I just had to decide not to care that I was the least skilled rider there. Not because anyone puts that pressure on me but because I have these Big Ego David Lee Roth moments in which I want to sweep kick off a semi truck and SHOW OFF. I know that’s dumb. I just want to get better and better at skating. That said, the most important thing to me really is having fun and fellowship with other skaters. I love the dudes smiling and laughing and chatting with me and just plain loving the shred. If you’re one of the FIVE people skating and you won’t even say hello, I think you’re a bummer. If you’ve developed any kind of arrogance with regard to your status as a paid skateboarder, you’re just a fucking golf pro. If you’re polluting a rad dork sesh with your video camera which focuses exclusively on BIG TRICKS and PROS, you’ve also lost something (the game of life).

ENOUGH OF MY CRUEL ACCUSATIONS AND POINTED SLURS.

Kristi was killing the front smiths and front rocks as always. I love having a friend who is as obsessed as I am with skating all the time. A little after 7:00 three 9-year-old (looking) kids came in wearing helmets and Kristi said, “It’s officially over.” and then the place was swamped with groms and dudes. A couple hours later Harsh Toke took the stage (oh the stage with the grind-able monitor enclosures at the front of the room, yes) in a snarl of hair and sonic booming stony space jam heavy greatness. I loved it. Next Hot Lunch got up and slayed the joint. Eric is exactly designed to be the front man you want to watch and hear. His velvety wail and throaty howl is a delight to behold. And I want to sincerely tell you that every dude in that band is a kind, warm human. Rob, Aaron, Charlie and Eric are the Real Deal in the realms of talent and humanity. Buy their freaking record. Buy it in the yellow vinyl incarnation. Get fucking pumped.

I mostly dig the renaissance people are having with cameras and photography. I salute and embrace your sunset photos. I like the texture you saw when the sun hit that wallpaper. But something is a little dumb when a room full of people is stoked to experience a rock show (I wish THAT happened more often in this INTERNET AGE AM I RIGHT?) and we’re all just supposed to be deferential to the twenty photographers climbing around and blocking the proletariat’s view. Then there are all the people holding up their cell phones. I don’t really want to get knee-jerk judgmental about it, because it’s kinda great that people are recreationally having this art making knit into their lives. But maybe yet again it’s time to re-read some Susan Sontag and check your voyeur stance.

(Barely related tangent: if you have ever participated in society or had a naked lady on your skateboard or face, you do not have permission to make fun of “selfie” culture. YOU want to root around in a bin of pretty ladies/go to a bar? Then step off and let the selfie rats run free. You hate it? Do your work to take down the diet industry and whatever other attached businesses/endeavors profit from an oppressive aesthetic experience divorced from health. I’m not objecting to beauty rituals, I have lots, and I choose them. I’m objecting to hating on gals for posing for John Singer Sargeant.)

I had an hour drive home from Costa Mesa so I left after that. Which was rude to final band Zig Zag, and for that I apologize. The Waze navigation application on my telephone gave me about five incorrect routes, so an extra half hour was added to my drive. FUCK YOU GOOGLE BUS!