Put A Number On It

Photo via an old MPR story.

How much would you pay to skate your favorite spot, whenever you like, with no hassle, whatsoever? No, you can't crack coldies at will and you can't smoke things that you can't smoke elsewhere, or do things that really are outside the scope of shit you'd get away with as everyday-Joe on everyday. You get to skate. No problem, no headache. For a fee.

This is an unlikely hypothetical in Minneapolis and most of the U.S. (presumably), a maybe in Canada (I guess) and not really all that necessary in much of Europe (or maybe totally workable) and still a big question mark in much of the rest of the world. Would government allow people to skateboard on city or county owned property for a fee, a ticket, the small price of a permit?

When you get down to it, we pay taxes a plenty for many so-called public places, only to pay additional fees in-person for truly temporal use. Many, if not all, of these places exact a fine for non-payment of that temporal use, think $42 for not paying the computer to park, or the truly horrendous fines that can be exacted if one doesn't pay their LRT fare on the train to MOA for beers at Hooters.

Why not drop $3 into a machine at Government Center for three hours of hassle-free skating, if the only hassle is showing a county officer your little slip of paper, your permit? Don't have a permit? Get ready for the hassle and a hefty fine. Permit fees could go wherever, from sometimes pressure washing ledges (touché) to paying for a new Vikings stadium, which we in turn could pay to skate, assuming spot provided.

Beyond publicly held spots, let the private buildings join in. We sign away so many things (rights and such) every time we click "accept" on a terms of use agreement, that the same thing could be applied on a nice electronic kiosk, at the bottom of the Undercover 5. The risk of your bodily harm and ensuing lawsuit addressed to whoever-they-are is whisked away with a check in the box, the click of accept, and $5, because they're not the city or the county, you know?

Does this undermine your punk rock ethos of skateboarding? Yeah. Does this do much else other than making some skateboarding a little bit easier? I didn't think of anything, though I'm old, with semi-decent income and some permit money to burn. It's not like any sort of pay-to-skate-a-spot thing would ever happen, no-way for cool electronic ticket pay boxes and such, but shoot, I can dream, right?

Skate Related 2013

Welcome to mid-summer, where there seems to be very little to post about Twincities skateboarding. Skate Related will be cool.

There's money on the table for improvements at Northeast Park and a skatepark might be in the mix; it all depends on what the survey says.

E-mic drop

Filler 3 (Months), the latest Glue Factory offering is well on it's way.

In case you're not paying attention, Chrome Ball is in the middle of one hell of an E-mic drop, rounding out its existence in style with banger interviews and other revelations. I was still a bit surprised that it would go down like this right now, "The End" and all, but then again, Mr. Chops was always forthright about his finite plan:

The thing with Chrome Ball is that I'm so paranoid about taking it too far ... it was actually supposed to have ended five times over. I'm not gonna jinx it. I don't want to get to the point where it's just dudes that no one really cares about. I don't want to do that to the site. I always think it'll end in a couple months, but I've been thinking that for the last year and a half. I've abandoned the deadline thing and it'll be over when it's over.

That new Maple Grove plaza has been the talk of the town for a second, with positive to mixed reviews. The Hesh spotted a montage last week and I concur with the confusion over it's authorship.

Other things from last week: Spooner and The Sleeping Horse(s). Mike Anderson with pretty awesome board control at The Hiawatha (from FB: "See what happens when The Wall Street journal does an article on your ramp!".