In which Gavin introduces “The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindleâ€
Day 15: Saturday, 6th July Stop skating. Find a pool with water in it and swim a few lengths. Immerse yourself in the deep end, look upwards to the light or sky above and pop up for a deep gulp of oxygen. How sweet life is.
Go home: sit comfortably on your bed and think of what you have achieved so far, and prepare yourself for what is to come.
Day 16: Sunday, 7th July The tricks you have learnt so far are good, but not that good. You want to be top: silver’s no good to you. You will need three rad new tricks and two new dorky ones. Work out the rad ones first: write all the 20 tricks you can now do on small pieces of paper, throw them on your floor and then pick three of four of them up at random. Arrange them in an order that makes sense and play around until you have three new tricks. One must be for a handrail, one for a railslide and one for a bank or quarter pipe. These three tricks will be your golden tricks.
When you’ve worked out what they’re going to be, try to get a mind’s eye view of how you’re going to do them. When you’re tired of this, wrap your brain around the creation of a couple of dork tricks. They must be funny but stylish: these little idiosyncrasies will provide vital ammunition, as you will learn. Create, write down, pillow time.
Day 17-21: Monday, 8th July – Thursday, 11th July Back on board today. You must achieve your new tricks and polish your old ones. This time there’ll be no synchronisity, just brief moments of despair and delight on a sea of hard sweat. You want fame? Well, this is where you pay.
By day 21 you’ll be more confident and more determined than ever. Everything is coming together.
Day 22: Friday, 12th July Get up in the morning and go back to the swimming pool. Do a couple of lengths, then float on your back. Release your tensions and let your mind float up to a place of fluffy pink clouds. On the way home hire a video of “Dave Allen Live”, take it home and watch it all afternoon and evening. Listen to the way he speaks and copy him — you must perfect an Irish accent: an Irish accent is needed for the days ahead. (If you already have an Irish accent, get a video of your choice out and take the day off.)
Day 23-26: Saturday, 13th July – Tuesday, 16th July As things stand now, all you have is a series of tricks and an Irish accent. You must now learn to put these tricks together one after the other. Write the tricks you can do on separate bits of paper again, shuffle them, and do them in that order. When you’ve finished, shuffle them again and do that order. Shuffle and repeat for the next three days. Flow the tricks, and smile while you do them.
NOTE: As there are only a few competition-style street courses in the world, the handrail you are using is probably a bus ride away from the banks. In this case, beg, steal or borrow a small quarter pipe and a rail-slide so that you can always carry on onto another obstacle when one trick is completed. This is essential for competitions: you must flow and flow fast. You can and you will.
Day 27: Wednesday, 17th July Today is shopping day. I am presuming that by now you are wearing quite ragged clothes: the last few weeks will have taken their toll and your once-cool threads are now falling to bits. Good. You must look a state for the next few triumphant days.
If any of your clothes have brand names on them, cover them up or wear them inside out from now on. Do your shoes have holes? If not, make some. Go to the shops and purchase the following: 1 can of pain stripper, 1 can of emerald green paint, 1 tube ShoeGoo, 1 silly but stylish hat (not a baseball cap or woolly one), 1 copy of the LP “The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle” (Virgin), 1 Cassingle of the most credible, clap-able single in the current top 30, 1 train ticket to Münster.
Go home, fill the holes in your shoes with the ShoeGoo. Take the paint stripper and strip off the remaining graphics from your deck. When it’s dry use your emerald green paint to brush a convincing shamrock on your deck. Try on your silly but stylish hat and make sure it’s comfortable: you will wear this all your waking hours from now until Sunday evening. Fill the little holes in on top of your cassingle and tape on the B side the “Black Arabs” track off “The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle”. Make a phone call to Monster Magazine in Germany and ask for Titus. He will not be there. Get somebody to take an urgent message to the sports hall saying that the Irish team will be arriving tomorrow and give them your name.
Go to bed early: you will need a good night’s sleep. You are so near — yet so far.
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