Sheesh, what a title, right? Corny as it may sound its pretty spot on. Yesterday while at the beach (I’m not saying which beach because its the best beach ever and I don’t want you riff raff to spoil it) with my buddy Cliff, we found our goal for the rest of the summer: Pools.
Muhfuckin POOLS.
We gave ourselves a modest goal. Hang out at 5 public pools by the end of summer. Sounds doable. I can’t think of a better way to kill the rest of a brutal half-summer in New York. The first half of my summer was spent big. Big plans, big ideas funded by a strange set of circumstances that left me flush with cash for June and the first part of July. That’s all gone now. Spent on a pretty epic trip to Europe that ended with me running with the bulls in Pamplona, and almost getting clipped by one. Another story for another time.
Now I’m broke. I paid for that experience, in more ways than one. As Cliff says, life is an amazing contract. You have experiences, and you pay for them. Brilliantly stated. So, after sweating out a summer trip to Spain and running for my life from a pissed off 2 ton castrated murderer, its now about simplicity. I have a longboard, enough food to get by, a little bit of herb, a buddy with a car, the greatest swim trunks ever (seriously, flee in terror) and a pretty loose goal – to hang out at pools. And on beaches. But mostly pools.
Today I scouted our first location. Kosciusko Pool in Bed-Stuy. My neighborhood. A five minute walk, a 3 minute skate. The pool is clean, huge enough to accommodate ten times the humans it does now, relatively clean, well patrolled, and wet. Its a pool for cripes sake. It has so much going for it already that the rest is just window dressing.
So that one will be the first of many. We’ll be starting the weekend after next. We’re bringing a tape player to every one, with the following tapes – Talking Heads Naked; Talking Heads Stop Making Sense; Ministry With Sympathy; Ministry Psalm 69; Tom Waits Rain Dogs and Brain Tumors Brain Tumors. Those are seriously all the tapes I own. We’re going to be fine.
I’ll be documenting this whole trip because why the hell not, and I need something to write about. I’m inspired. I’ll be taking photos too, but mostly I’ll just be underwater. See you there.