Sk8 to cre8.

The one where I sk8 back to Adolescence.

Of course this thing will be about the show we’re all talking about called Adolescence but before that, I need to tell you about a new restoration project which made me go back in time.

Okay, just so I don’t give spoilers away, I’ll talk about what I noticed in Adolescence and more importantly, things we can do as parents and humans to be a little better in this sort of stuff.

It’s okay, I’ll go easy (this won’t be a sad edition), and there will be a huge warning for you to switch off if you still have an episode or two to go.

But first, this.

From sometime around 1986 to 1999, I spent much of my time on my skateboard.

I didn’t do fancy tricks.

I just rode while listening to music.

There was that time I’ve mentioned here before when I rode through a window listening to the INXS Kick record.

There were times I would ride it across town to piss fart around with mates while listening to Dinosaur Jr or Galaxie 500 on my miraculous non skip CD walkman.

Let’s have a look at Galaxie 500 now. The makeshift stage at a school gym seems to nail that time well. It reminds me of skating to one of those loud practice rooms bands would go to back then. Just a vocal PA, guitars and deafening snares. You’re in there for 4 hours playing the same song over and over again, getting deafer and deafer, grumpier and grumpier.

You can almost smell those pizzas being delivered.

I loved my skateboard like nothing else.

It was light blue with a pink logo, green wheels and stickers — the boy floating away on a balloon from Prince’s Around the World in a Day LP, a Triple M Sydney sticker (Melb was still EON back then), and a few other stickers, maybe SIC, Clowns Smiling Backwards and Hurdy Gurdy — all bands you’d know if you hung out with bozos I liked.

The board was bought at a Sydney sports shop at around 1986, made up of the best parts they could find, an Edwards (NZ brand), deck and trucks, and beautiful green SIMS Snake wheels. I loved that thing. Never put grip tape on it. Somehow didn’t like it, and for its last few years had a big crack right down the middle.

Someone stole it in 1999, and I haven’t ridden a skateboard since… until today.

I’ve been dreaming about skating again for the past five or six years.

Actual dreams, recurring every few nights. They’ve been about finding that skateboard again or buying one like it. Like the dreams I have about fishing or going to the football, not one of these dreams involve me actually riding a skateboard.

They’re often people laughing at me as I fall off one in the shop or never finding one that I like. They’ve been infuriating.

And the kids now have skateboards. I’ve taken them out to ride them but never stood on one myself. I’ve been too scared of falling… not just falling down and hurting my twice reconstructed left knee… but falling like you do in dreams… falling, falling into an abyss of panic and old age. It’s been grim.

When the dreams started I looked to find replicas of my old skateboard or vintage parts and make a new one, but this was looking impossible, and ridiculously expensive… at least $500 for a Chinese made, cheap replica, nah not worth it.

Then last Sunday I find the skateboard of my dreams at Camberwell Market.

It was at a lady’s clothes stall under a terrible skateboard you’d buy at Kmart. I got it for $30. It’s pretty much my old skateboard, maybe a year older, and in brilliant condition. I love how the kid who bought it way back then expressed themselves with the pink spray paint.

Look at the trucks and cool wheels. Look at that wooden riser. Weird and awesome.

I cleaned the wheels, bearings and scrubbed off a bunch of gunk off the wood and took it to Evolve on Chapel Street to get new bushings (those tired black rubber suspension things you see there). The lovely fella in there couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was a relic. Everything about it was made differently to how they do things now. He gave lovely advice that you can’t get on an internet forum or FelixtheShatGPT on how to get back on the board and told me to go to Twelve in Richmond to get those parts.

They were just as thrilled at what they were seeing. Photos were taken, it was such an event. Again, service you can’t get online and genuine great vibes that this old bloke was getting back on the board. They had the parts and the board makeover was completed.

It was ready to ride.

So today I bit the bullet and took it down to Windsor siding and rode it…. the first time I’ve ridden a skateboard this century.

It was glorious.

It felt like time travel.

I met a friend an hour later. He asked what I had done to look so refreshed.

It was the skating.

Magic.

I can’t wait to get out there and skate with the kids. Maybe we can be a skate crew like Leif Garrett, Tony Alva and their mates in one of my fave movies back in the olden days 👇.

After the video we’ll talk about Adolescence so if you’re not into spoilers, watch down to the second video down there and come back later in the week.

Surely this Pavement biopic is satire.

Okay, spoiler alert etc, it’s time to talk about Adolescence.

It’s like this show was made for this Nightwatchman newsletter thingy. We’ve talked a lot over the past year about many of the themes inside that four hours of stressful and essential television.

There were bits that felt so real. Jamie talking about failing at sports. The lawyer telling the parents that it’s okay to be human. The conversation in the car between the detective and his son in the car about chips. Just listen to your kid, dude… HE KNOWS WHERE TO GET THE BEST CHIPS. The screens playing to every classroom. Tucking in the teddy bear.

We’ve talked about intergenerational trauma in an early NW, with a story about my grandfather finding his mum and dad dead in the front yard (link), and thought about the little things we can do to break that cycle.

The father in Adolescence talks about how his dad used violence and that since the murder, he’s been hard at work with a mental health worker in stopping that cycle despite what he’s already gone through.

We’ve also talked about Roblox’s blatant boosting of disgusting manosphere tropes to children from the time they get their first screen in kindergarten (link).

We’ve talked about a recent deterioration in boys and young men’s attitudes to women, and how this leads to violence with a piece about recent “Man Box” research. You can read my thing about that here.

The final episode the father thinks about all the little things he could have done to be better. You too come out of the torturous four hours of TV wanting to know what you can do to be a little better at raising a child or, if you’re not raising a child, be better at being a human.

Have a look at this by the Man Box people I just talked about.

There’s much more to do than just prevent your kids from seeing Andrew Tate videos. The world’s moved on since Tate. There are hundreds, if not thousands of terrible people who want your child’s attention. You know there are influencer people in the video game and Tik Tok world who show kids how much fun it is to BARK like dogs at women?

The Man Box researchers and other places like Respect Victoria tell us, like in that video up there, that we need to show our kids that there’s much more to women than copping off with them. Women have to be respected, employed and seen everywhere. On worksites, commentating football (there’s a certain radio station who would rather have a moonlighting horse racing caller coming in to commentate a football game than have a woman’s voice heard on their airwaves), in power, in the finance pages, on boards, in rock’n’roll’s best musician lists, bloody everywhere.

So just talk more to your kids… That’s easy for you to say, Peters!

Nah, I get ya. It’s hard. I’m not the best at this with my kids because it takes a lot of patience but you have to be curious about what your kids are doing in class, in life and online. Find out about their friends. Talk about feelings. Don’t talk over them. Don’t teach like I’m doing right here now. See, I’m doing it to you now!

But we have to talk about new ways of expressing courage, new ways of resolving problems, new ways to play, and new ways to be cool to your friends.

I don’t know.

I especially don’t know how to get them less addicted to those screens.

I’d hate to see the day they’re just as addicted to screens as I am.

Here’s a link to what you can do after watching Adolescence that’s written by people who actually know what they’re talking about.

It’s by Respect Victoria, a mob who are doing some excellent work in this stuff. It covers a lot of what I just said but much clearer.

Have a read then go out for a skate.

You’ll feel better for it.

Let’s have another look at that skateboard…

Corrr..

Yum.