Weekly drawing: Friday night at Prahran ramp

Prahran skate park, Melbourne was such a popular skate spot it would often get overcrowed which I would negotiate with a skate or die attitude. However I discovered that on Friday evenings (maybe it was dinner time) the park was mostly empty, so this became my favourite time to skate.

I also discovered this was when some of the best skaters would skate. I'd often see local hero Chris Paine riding the big 12 ft steel ramp. I'd imagine when I get the confidence to drop-in "one day I would skate like him". He would do amazing tricks with the greatest of ease, my favourite Chris Paine skate trick was called an eggplant.

We never actually spoke to each other but he would point to me from the top of the ramp to have another go. I would start at the bottom of the ramp and work my way up. Soon all my practicing paid off and I could backside kick turn grind on a 12ft ramp and was considering attempting to drop-in. But unfortunately we moved to Sydney and skate parks were far and few between. So I became a Sydney street skater instead which I also loved.

The thing I loved about these nightly skate sessions was that it was purely about enjoying skating and not really caring about anything else in the world. I'd spent the last few years in three different schools because of my Dad's work and I was in my first year of high school in a new school again and I felt like an outsider especially at this school.

Luckily for me Melbourne is an amazing city for anyone into skating. The Alva team visited my local sports shop in Elsternwick, The Bones Brigade toured with Christian Hosoi doing a skate demonstration at Prahran ramp, I attended the premier of the fourth Bones Brigade movie Public Domain and I was happily in the middle of it all.

Tommy Guerrero deck, Bullet 66 wheels, Thunder trucks, Cockroach riser pads and Borgy copers

There's not much online about Chris Paine but I did find this which I thought was interesting.

Author	budgee ®
Date/Time	28 Oct 2008 10:13:43pm
Subject	Re: Band Called Killing Time

"...CHRIS PAINE
Before Killing Time Paine was actually a very successful skateboarder, featuring in magazines and publications across the country. Word is the three original Killing Time Melbournites were your regular skater punk kids. Paine was somewhat of a mascot for the Prahran skate shop of the time known as "Cheap Skates". The shop was just a stone's throw from the local skate bowl and many of the skater kids from the area congregated there to watch their local hero Paine do his thing. Music came along to this crew when iconic Melbourne store Fretted Instruments turned the Cheap Skates building into their Prahran store. This became the store from which Killing Time/Mantissa bought most all of their equipment throughout their career. "

http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/Message.aspx?b=3&m=334984

Weekly drawing: Narooma Kinema

Family night out to the movies

Amber and I loved going to Narooma Kinema. They sold you the tickets then they'd run upstairs and load the film, plus the added bonus was we could ask for the poster. There's something magical about the charm and homely feel of small independent cinemas. To me they are what seeing movies is all about.

Joel's favourite movie experiences:

1. Annie and all the Muppets movies at Narooma Kinema.

2. Buster Keaton with Blue Grassy Knoll playing a live soundtrack at The Valhalla. 

3. Star Wars at Roseville cinema.

4. Erik the Viking at Avoca Beach Picture Theatre.

5. Mad Max 2 and Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Bermagui community hall while Dad played a gig at the Le Marlin cafe across the road. 

Weekly drawing: My place

My place

I'd sneak through the farmer's property always fearful of a bull (which was never there). Jump the fence again and disappear into the bush following a small creek to disguise my tracks.
It was here, I'd built a secret sheltered oasis out of sticks, bark and leaves. Looking back, I rarely played there. I just built stuff. At the time Mum and Dad were designing and building our family home, so I couldn't see why I couldn't build my place too.

It was also partly inspired:
1. A picture book about a kid who wasn't allowed to help build the family home, because he was to small. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of this book.
2. The desert children's sheltered oasis in Mad Max beyond Thunderdome
3. The Ewok village in Return of the Jedi.

As children we called this the Ewok village but as an adult I've called this drawing "my place" after seeing the TV series My Place which high lighted to me that children do claim a place as their own, and that's what I did as a kid too.