APB-sides part 2.

OK, last we left you I had just posted the long-lost profile of Brian Wyland and I stated that it was my least favorite of all of the seven unreleased team profiles that I had written. I was wrong. There are two more of them that I would rank ahead of Brian's in terms of how shitty I think they are. This latest one is Jarold Webb's unreleased profile. At the time it was written, we were involved in some heated dice rolling sessions going down at the old APB shop location on College Walk across from the skatepark. I mean there were some real crazy games of threes, craps, and every other kind of gambling that you can think of. To me, it looked like Jarold had the most serious problem, I mean the guy just couldn't walk away when he lost and he couldn't stop talking shit when he won. That's kind of how we all were, actually, but I thought that dude had it a bit worse than the rest of us and I thought it would be funny to incorporate this in into his team profile. Ha ha. It wasn't funny. Jarold has everything so easy, I mean the dude doesn't ever really have to try things on a skateboard, he just does them. Why should he get the awesome team profile too? I don't know if I consciouosly wrote it this bad to fuck with him or if I actually thought that this was good at the time. It had to be that I was fucking with him because this thing fucking sucks.




By the way, this action photo of Jarold was taken by Atiba Jefferson and it looks MUCH better in the new issue of The Skateboard Mag, (issue #49)in shops and newsstands now.

Hawaiian shit up in there! I wrote the intro and the captions, but Atiba killed it with the photos. YOU NEED this issue. Buy it. Buy two!

Okay.
Back to this retarded profile shit.
Here:

Jarold Webb:

He walked through the door to the office and saw three people in the waiting room. He scanned their faces one at a time to make sure that there was no one who recognized him. Middle-aged guy with the golf cap and the gut, negative. The geeky young bookworm that was furiously tapping on the PSP, no way. He quickly looked the last person over, an attractive and slender older woman who looked to be near his mom’s age and seriously smoking. Nope. He didn’t know any of these individuals and there was no way that they knew who he was. He had been extremely cautious on the way over as well. He didn’t need anybody knowing about this, this was the kind of shit that the less people knew about, the better. He walked up to the reception area and conjured up his most casual sounding speaking voice. “Jarold Webb. I have an appointment to meet with a counselor.” “Ah, Jarold. We’ve been expecting you. I just have a questionnaire for you to fill out first.” the lady behind the desk responded. She reached into a drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to him. “Just answer these twenty questions and return the paper to me when you’re done.” she instructed. She sounded like one of the den mothers that he used to hate back when he was a Boy Scout. That was a long time ago. Back in his younger days, when he was still pure and uncorrupted. He walked over to where the other three were waiting and found himself a chair. He sat down and began to look the paper over. As he perused the questions he was to answer, the nerdy kid next to him stopped playing with the PSP and gave Jarold’s leg a slight tap with his right hand. “Hey…don’t worry about it…you and me, we’re gonna get through this…” he said in a low voice that bordered on a whisper. Jarold looked up from the paper and gave the kid a weird look. “Do I know you?” he asked. “No, you don’t know me and I don’t know you, but if you’re here you must need help too.” the kid replied. “What makes you think I need help?” Jarold shot back. “Why else would you be sitting there with that questionnaire in your hand? You’re an addict, right?” the kid continued. “If you answer yes to seven or more of those questions, then you’re an addict.” he added. Jarold said “Hey, I ain’t no frickin’ addict, okay? I’m just curious to see what they’re all about down here.” “Okay, buddy…” the kid began. “Go ahead and read those questions. See how many you answer yes to. My guess is…you’re an addict.” “Shut up, dude. Get back to your frickin’ Harry Potter game or whatever nerd shit that is and leave me alone!” Jarold was starting to get annoyed with this kid. “Whoa. Serious denial…usually one of the first stages of addiction. You’re totally an addict, man.” The kid rambled on. “Shut the frick up, you dork! Get away from me, weirdo, and let me fill out the paper, jeez!” Jarold fired back at him. He was super mad now. Who was this little dweeb to call him an addict? He didn’t know him. Jarold had always been careful and was sure that his family and most of his straight and narrow friends had no idea about his problem, how could some egghead stranger he’d never met before peg him as an addict? He looked back down at the paper. There were twenty questions, and he carefully went over each one:

Did you ever lose time from work or school due to gambling?
Has gambling ever made your home life unhappy?
Did gambling affect your reputation?
Have you ever felt remorse after gambling?
Did you ever gamble to get money with which to pay debts or otherwise solve financial difficulties?
Did gambling cause a decrease in your ambition or efficiency?
After losing did you feel you must return as soon as possible and win back your losses? After a win did you have a strong urge to return and win more?
Did you often gamble until your last dollar was gone?
Did you ever borrow to finance your gambling?
Have you ever sold anything to finance gambling?
Were you reluctant to use "gambling money" for normal expenditures?
Did gambling make you careless of the welfare of yourself or your family?
Did you ever gamble longer than you had planned?
Have you ever gambled to escape worry or trouble?
Have you ever committed, or considered committing, an illegal act to finance gambling? Did gambling cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?
Do arguments, disappointments or frustrations create within you an urge to gamble?
Did you ever have an urge to celebrate any good fortune by a few hours of gambling? Have you ever considered self destruction or suicide as a result of your gambling?

Jarold took a deep breath and looked over at the kid again. Twenty questions and twenty answers yes. Shit. That nerdy little twat was right.

TO BE CONTINUED…