Category: Occurrences

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Blog Occurrences Skateboarding Sports Writing

The Hazards of Skateboarding

So I took my skateboard out for a spin after taking a three week hiatus and no more than 5 minutes after I took off, I hit a patch of gravel that twisted my board cock-eyed. The laws of motion sent me flying off my board and hitting the asphalt road hard. My primary concern, however, was not my own safety, but the safety of my board. The last thing I want is for my board to get snapped by some absent-minded motorist.

I peeled myself off the pavement and scrambled to catch my board which was rolling backwards into oncoming traffic. After saving my board I investigated my own injuries. I shredded the palm of my right glove and have a nasty strawberry underneath it on my hand. Then I pulled up the left sleeve of my hoodie to reveal that some of the skin just below my elbow had been removed.

With adrenaline pumping through my body, I decided to persevere to Central Park and bomb the hill at 108th Street. I climbed to the top of the hill and tucked in as I carved the massive hill, my hair blowing in the wind.

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Blog Occurrences Writing

Two Roomies and a Typewriter

A couple of nights ago, my roommate Rick and I were drinking beer when we decided to whip out my typewriter, a 1964 Smith Corona Classic 12. Light Blue. Full manual. Rick and I are both writers – him the creative nonfiction type and me the reporter – so we decided to collaborate on an impromptu piece of creative journalism.

I started typing to show him how to use the metal brute. After a couple of quick lines, I plopped the typewriter in his lap.

it;s so he avy this typewriter
doyou want to put it on the floor.
nnah. it feels good.

Clacking keys on a manual typewriter is unlike any other form of writing. You realize the struggles that plagued writers of the past. Typing isn’t smooth and fluid like on a keyboard, it’s a pecking frenzy that leaves your hands twisted as they try and keep up with your mind.

Occasionally you’ll miss a space or hit half a letter in the quest to complete a sentence. But let the fingers warm up and watch the words pop as steel slaps ink on a page.

There is no delete key, only a backspace which can be used to turn r’s to n’s and p’s to g’s. When you screw up bad enough, you have to rip out the page and start anew. No wonder writers of the past were so damn good. One draft is never enough. The rewriting process is decided by the nature of the machine.

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Blog Occurrences Writing

Justice – Served Cold with a Pickle and a Side of Chips

Two month ago, myself and three friends from the Columbia University chapter of the hash house harriers were issued a court summons before a run through the Cloisters. Officers Nunez and Silvano of the 34th precinct informed us that the brown-bag shields we were using to cover our beers were no match for their detection skills. They issued me, my roommate Rick, and friends Pat and Sean summons for having an open container of alcohol. We did the crime, now it was time to pay up for our actions. Our day in court had arrived.

There was a steady rain as the four of us arrived at Criminal Court a little after 9 a.m. We shuffled to the back of the line, the first of six lines that day, which had already formed halfway down the block. Our minds began to wonder what lied on the inside of the stone temple of justice.

“I imagine it’s like a deli,” Pat said. “You get a number and then justice is served like a ½ pound of Boar’s Head, sliced thin for sandwiches.”

After getting inside the front door and through security, we were directed to wait in yet another line on the second floor. At the end of this line was a clerk who would take our summons and assign us to one of three courtrooms. Slowly we worked our way through the bureaucratic maze that is the New York City penal system.

During our wait we stood behind Henry, a career criminal, who wouldn’t say what he was summoned for. He beguiled us with stories of making fake IDs when living in Miami and driving a carload of pot to Houston. Standing about 5’7” and wearing faded jeans and a paint-stained hoodie, Henry assured us that we would pay no more than a $100 ticket.

With a worried look on his face, Rick turned to me. “I don’t like being in trouble,” he said. “It gets to my conscience.”

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