You’ve crushed your toes into ledge after getting drunk outside family mart, squashed your bollocks on a skate park handrail during your 2 minute finals run in the poser of the year competition, or ripped the tendons out of your knees trying to do a helicopter spin off a moving bus while filming a sponsor-me tape for a hot new shoelace company. Loser! Now you’re coming to me all watery-eyed, hoping for a shoulder to cry on. Well you’re not going to get any sympathy from me because you (skateboarders) are mentally ill. Your trauma is self-inflicted. You are sick. And you need help.

Lucky for you I am also currently wounded and can offer some advice. I already know that you have sold your soul to skateboard Satan and are far beyond redemption. As soon as you make a recovery, you’ll be straight back out there asking for more pain and I’m sure you’re counting the days already. But for the time being you’ve got more free time than you can handle so listen up. Here are some dos and don’ts of being injured.

DON’TS

 
DO’S

Rule number one – go outside. Leave now before you get sucked into the time warp of social media, skate videos and porn. That shit will ruin your attention span, imagination and motivation. Listen to me you monkey. You’re not 13 anymore… (Unless you really are 13, then enjoy…) So stop sitting around scratching your balls and go outside. The sunlight is going to release chemicals like endorphins and dopamine in your brain, easing the pain of your boo-hoos and making you feel dope. There are other ways to get similar reactions in your cranium, like exercising and having orgasms, so move yourself and make sure your love muscle gets plenty of use too….

Unless you want to drive yourself crazy thinking about how you need to get back on board, spend time with people outside of the skate scene. Guess what, they’re all talking about people you don’t know and things that you don’t understand. This is because you are stupid. You live in a fantasyland. Wake up. While you were spending countless afternoons working out how to do no-comply bigspinflips, the rest of the world was doing something worthwhile. You have a lot of catching up to do so you might want to start by reading something (if you can even read). Maybe a newspaper would be a good start, but anything will do. The best reading material is that which can give you some knowledge or skills that will help you deal with reality like social science, history, languages and business. Or you could learn how to - start a pyramid scheme, pick locks, catch snakes, travel for free, survive in the wilderness, make furniture, hypnotize people, manipulate women etc… Whatever. Knowledge is power fool!

You are also going to need a new hobby or interest. Choose something (anything) and get good at it. What are you good at besides skateboarding? (Probably not even skateboarding if you hurt yourself…) If the answer to that question was ‘uuuuuuuh….’ or ‘nothing’, it was the wrong answer, you piece of shit. Do something. Skills are everything, and skateboarding isn’t enough unless you can make enough money from it to buy a house with a swimming pool in LA, support a family and retire before your 40th birthday. Guess how many people in the real world give a shit about how consistent your 360 flips are, or how high you can kickflip… None. Nobody cares, so learn how to do something else before you get old and shit. You only get one life, and you’re ruining yours.

I spent the last two hours learning how to Photoshop the geek photo from the DON’TS section above. It’s rubbish but at least it made me laugh and now I know how to do something. I’ve already updated the ‘other skills’ part on my CV to ‘proficient in Photoshop’. What did you do in the last two hours? Nothing. You’re useless. Get out of my office.

Rant over. End of transmission.

Laurence Keefe
@laurencekeefe