How We Do

This is Croquet:














This is Bocce Ball:


















This is what we play:




























Refer to the white circles to find the balls.

It's kind of a mix between Bocce Ball, Horseshoes, and Shot Put.

It started out simply enough.
Throwing the jack a modest distance from our feet.
Bowling the ball gently towards it.
A subtle "yes" or "how about that" when one of us would get closest.

But as soon as the field we were playing in started to open up we found ourselves unchallenged when we were able to easily see our target.

And as the ball went farther we got noisier.

The sheer force of throwing the ball that far conjured up grunts involuntarily, but getting even somewhat close to the jack entitled nothing less than a battle cry.

We played over fences into other fields. Up hills onto plateaus where we couldn’t see the balls or who was winning until the end of the game. Back down hills. Off tree roots. Over blankets and plates of food (that was an accident).

It was a great time.
I think Mcash is slowly becoming a bocce ball fanatic, which is awesome. But when we go to an actual bocce court I’m scared it might be tough to break him of his freestyle bocce ways.

Like reigning in a wild stallion.
Like trying to house train a lion.
Like telling the cookie monster that no, you need to eat the whole cookie instead of spraying it all over the room.

Oh god.

What have I done?

It was a beautiful day

A gentle breeze tumbled across the court.

Carrying with it, the trivialities that nature discards.

Swimming above the concrete, it reminisced briefly with every obstacle but quickly and effortlessly resumed its flighty waltz from crack to crack, chain link to link.

Perusing board bases, winding through spinning wheels.
Kissing the metal of flexing trucks, and moving on.
Instantaneously forgetting each brief tryst in favor of future endeavors.

The world was in harmony.
Each component cooperating diligently and beautifully to create the masterpiece God so fastidiously conceived in his vision.

A swift crack split the air.
Debris was churned into chaos. Tendrils splintered.
Zephyrs ripped to pieces.

And as the tail of his board departed from the unbridled display of apathy, contemptuous clouds of dust saw him off.
6 inches into the air.
Michael Cash’s first ollie.

He landed as haughtily as he had launched.
And the gentle breeze scattered violently from the scene.

SSSSSecret Skate Sesh

What’s that?
No, theres no pictures. This was a secret.

The plan was to meet up with the rest of Stoked and shred a tennis court, because apparently that’s not illegal anymore.

But, it rained the night before, so I got a foreboding call that it was canceled.

However, I’ve learned never to trust a weather man, so I made plans with MCash to go skating anyways. In Harlem, where he lives.

It was feeling very nyc skate-core all of a sudden.

So, I met him in front of the projects, and this was honestly my first visit although I had mouthed many a rap verse about living there and gettin’ paper.
Whatever that means.

I met his brother upstairs, who takes care of him and his other brother and it was a pretty nice set up, I’ve got to say. A beautiful view of the city, and of central park.

And right outside their window was a huge, open park with vacant basketball courts, perfect for skating. However I was informed that it was a mecca for gun play, so we decided to take our boards to the happy rolling hills of central park.

Which ended up being just that. Not the best place for busting 180 nollie kickflips.

So we scoured the city streets and it was actually pretty cool to see Mcash start to understand the skate culture a little bit more in the process.

We went from fenced-in playground to parking lot, until Mcash threw his fingers through a chain link fence, keeping us out of a perfectly vacant school yard and said “Man, why’s it so hard to find a place to skate?”

And just the fact that he could relate to the persecution of skaters was enough to make my day, but we ended up finding an open parking lot and skated for the next two hours.
Because it was perfectly sunny and dry. (Shake fist at weather man)

Not only did he land a few little ollies on his first day skating, but he was already trying to manual, and bombed a huge hill later on in the park without ever dropping a foot.

Oh the recklessness of youth.

It’s definitely going to pay off for him in this program.

I honestly can’t wait to see what he accomplishes this Saturday at our next Skate event.

There will be pictures.

Skate = Bowl

There was no skate kick-off this weekend
No assembly required
No scars compared

But ice was broken
Generations were introduced
Names were signed
Balls were rolled

Let me explain.

The skateboards hadn’t all arrived from Zoo York yet. And the ones that had arrived were already assembled.
So plans changed and the new class of mentors and mentees were introduced to the previous classes.
We played some ice breakers, which really only resulted in the conclusion that 6o people can’t stand in a circle, backs turned, arms linked and sit down, then get up again.
I can’t say my life is any better or worse off now that I know that.

But I can say that I know it.
And knowledge is power… And with power comes great responsibility… so I’m now a more responsible person…which would make me a better mentor.
Wow. My life IS better off now.

Well after the apparently life-altering ice-breaker, MCash and I were signing some papers and he mentioned that he never learned how to write cursive. Which I guess makes sense since we don't have to make our own handwriting beautiful now that the computer does it.

It does, however, feel like we're losing a little bit of an art even though I only really use cursive to sign my name anymore.

When I was growing up it was nice to always know that if I needed to write a love letter or forge a note, I could rely on cursive’s wondrous pomp to really drive home the idea that this was a pretty big deal.

So I spent a little while working with MCash on his signature and I think we came up with something pretty cool.
Maybe one day you’ll see it when he signs it on your face at one of his shows.

Then we went bowling.
I tried to coach MCash on how to throw a strike, but after watching me throw a few gutter balls, I noticed that every subsequent lesson on where to put his feet, or how to release the ball fell on deaf ears.
Well not as much deaf ears as ears that were covered up.
By his hands.
Ears attached to a shaking head, with closed eyes and a mouth going “Noooooo!”

Obviously the ice-breaker fell short of its lofty promise to make me a better mentor.

Muraka… NO PICTURES!

So the exhibit rocked. Murakami is a true patriot to his art form. You know who isn’t a patriot though? The security guards in front of this giant display from the man himself.

I can’t read Japanese, but I’m pretty sure the title of this thing translated into “take a boatload of pictures, cause this is awesome.”
How Un-american, that this man's wish was ignored.
Apparently the land of freedom has turned into the land of jeopardized memories.

So as you can see, all these pics are from the outside.

But it was a great time.
Very cool exhibit.

Murakami actually designed the Kanye West Album cover so that was on display along with a short animated film about the Kanye bear character getting into trouble as usual (oh, Kanye). I’m pretty sure MCash wasn’t bored cause he was smiling and laughing and pointing.
Which is how you know people are having fun.

After the museum we wandered around Brooklyn. Mainly because the train wasn’t running, but it was also a good time to talk about how it sucks when the trains aren’t running.

I had this intense craving for Jamba Juice, so we went to Union Square got some Jamba’s and discussed how every single flavor of Jamba makes you sound like a Care Bear when you order it. So we put our ego’s in our pockets and ordered a Peach Pleasure and a Mango A Go Go.

Then we hit Union Square and did some people watching. I was extremely relieved to find that MCash questioned the cerebral fortitude of anyone who would attend a Silent Rave, which had just happened the weekend prior in the square. It’s when you put your ipod on, and go dance with a bunch of other people wearing ipods… I know. The amount of logical dilemmas that concept brings up warrants us never talking about it again.

Next week is the Skate Kick- Off we’re gonna build our boards and probably compare scars and stuff. Tune in for results.

Day 1

This is it.

The start of all this madness called Stoked.

We met at the Marc Ecko building at Stoked headquarters, introduced ourselves, signed some papers about promising to be good people, and jumped right into it.

M Cash is 16, a freshman in high school, likes chillin', riding his bike and rapping with his crew the Harlem Bandits.

Our kamikaze on this city couldn’t have begun any better than with some real-life from-the-heart honesty:

Me: “ MCash, I heard there’s a great exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum right now, you wanna go check it out?”

MCash: “Yo I’m gonna be real with you for a minute – sometimes I find that stuff like, real boring.”

MCash is a straight shooter.

But he can also spell compromise. We decided to go to the museum.

Which wasn’t as much of a compromise as it was just doing what I wanted to do.
But maybe the Museum won’t be boring.

THAT, my friends is where compromise is rewarded, and patience pays off.

Dang, I’m running a clinic on life skills. Check back soon.