8/29/04
Today is a day I have been waiting for for a long time. Kevin, the guy who altered his shin tattoo with a huge gash from the Tribeca coping (see 8/7/04),
hooked me up with a paid share for a key to the famed and secret
Autumn Bowl.
The bowl was built as a collective/co-op and there are a certain amount of keys that skaters pay for by the month to skate the place.
It is an unreal and gorgeous oasis! The bowl was designed and beautifully built by skaters and the construction is top notch. I like
it because it is indoors and there is a cd player
with speakers hanging so you can listen to your favorite jams during the session. Kevin can really shred and he just dropped in and Smith-Grinded the deep end on his first run! It
took me a while to get the hang of it but I finally found a line and even hit coping one time after Kevin pushed and inspired me to do so.
I always skate better with someone else on the session. I get advice and just the sheer energy a person rooting for you makes you skate better and faster.
It was one of those days I will never forget - playing music we wanted to hear in this legendary place and just having a mellow good time on a Sunday.
I am going to try and volunteer at Autumn Bowl if I can because it such an amazing resource that I will enjoy even more after the first snowfall...
Kevin, smith grinding the Autumn Bowl deep end!!!!
8/28/04
I didn't skate yesterday but I decided to meet my skate bros JD and Craig at
Tribeca.
I arrived before anyone was in the park and I hit the mini-ramp that was in the shade.
I feel like I sort of have Axle-Stalls
but I can't stay up on the coping to long. I tried some
Rock to Fakies after JD arrived, but I
just don't have the balance yet. My disadvantage is that I don't street skate, so the only time
I am on a board is in the skatepark. After getting frustrated with the mini-ramp, I hit the bowl. I
always wait until it is completely in the shade around 10:45 a.m. when the blistering sun sinks
behind the monuments to capitalism (buildings)
before I take my first run. It was
ridiculously hot and humid and my shirt was totally soaked all of the way though. Craig showed up and
skated the bowl for a while. My carving is getting better but man, the heat just got to me and I had to leave.
I am certainly not a sun worshipper!!
This wasn't my best carve of the day, but I am slowly getting better and higher!
8/26/04
Today I really had the blahs. I went down to Tribeca
and just couldn't get any energy going. I veered a little from my superman diet but I think the cause was
the several beers I had last night at my friend Jaime's concert. I like having a good time with my friends
but we tend to hit the beers pretty hard and my body ends up paying the next day. When I was young I used to be able to hang out
all night and be ready to skate at 9 a.m., but age takes it's toll. I did do a few good runs in the bowl and hit the mini-ramp
a little bit. Even though it was a drab day, I can tell my skating is getting better. Another good thing is that it was so hot that
I am sure I sweated out all of the devil's urine (beer) from my body.
I am going to head down there again tomorrow to focus solely on Rock to Fakies...
Sorry kids, no pix...
8/22/04
Today, my great skate bro Craig had a ramp jam at his place in Jersey. JD picked me up just over the
George Washington Bridge with Armando in tow and we went over to CW Ramp. It was great fun, but I must
admit I am extremely jealous of Craig! He has this great house with a yard and this perfect 6 foot
mini-ramp. The transition is sublime and it has lights for night skating. The neighbors are even cool!
I think how quickly my skating would improve if I had my own ramp. Oh well... We all skated pretty well
but JD in particular was killing the ramp. He was doing
Board Slides and even pulled off a
Nose Grind
to 5-0 Grind!
He is an awesome skater and I learn a lot just from watching him. We cooked food on the grill
(actually Ann, Craig's wife did most of the work!)
and just skated all day long and into the night. I was able to pull a few
Axle-Stalls and towards the end of the session I
felt like I was really getting some speed. I tried some Rock to Fakies
but don't have the motion down yet.
I finally met the 2 younger skaters that have been on the
Bulldog Skates Message Board
that skate the CW ramp regularly
and I named them Flounder and Catfish. I have a real gift for nicknames. A really wonderful day overall,
but I didn't get to shoot any video as I wanted to because we were just having too much funny skating and joking around...
CW Ramp Crew - Back Row: Craig, Armando, Catfish. Front Row: JD, Me, Flounder, Nick.
8/20/04
I have to admit that skating has been a lot of fun, but it can also be difficult at times. I seem to be slower at learning tricks
than most cats and just about everybody I skate with is better than me. All of my bros say don't worry about it, but it's that feeling like getting
picked last when someone is choosing sides for the kickball team in grade school. I was never last but always somewhere in the middle.
That seems to be the tone of my life - mediocrity. When I graduated from High School I was 224 out of 448, Joe Average, exactly in the middle.
All of my creative work seems to get similar responses: "It's OK but...". I get down on myself sometimes and my self esteem can be
quite low at times. I feel like when I try new things I am not only combatting the task at hand, but also the wall of mediocrity
that I have erected for myself. What does this have to do with skateboarding? Well today I was determined to get the
Axle-Stall nailed down. I was able to do a few back at
Chelsea Piers when I skated there, but the mini is a foot smaller and I really don't
skate there much because they don't have a bowl. So today was the day to "tear down the wall" (I hate quoting Reagan..). I woke up early
and had my bowl of Total with a banana on it, one cup of coffee and headed down to Tribeca to get the Axle-Stall. It was crazy humid today and
I was lucky that the sun was obscured by the shade of a tall building. The park was also empty as it usually is early on Friday.
I played back in my head all of the advice I have been given and just
started trying them. I must have done 50 of them wrong and then all of a sudden my board locked up onto the coping! I didn't get the re-entry
but I knew what it felt like to get the trucks up where they belong. Most skater's make this trick look so easy that it doesn't even look like a trick,
but I have had the roughest time with it. After a few more tries I was getting them pretty consistently. My re-entry is wobbly but I feel like I can do
the trick now and I realize that others will come if I just stick with it. I feel more energetic each day and and not letting my former bouts with
mediocrity get in the way of my skating goals any more. It all sounds pretty corny but sometimes the smallest goals in life mean so much -
if even only to ones self...
Mediocrity versus the Leaning Tower of Piza...Sorry, I forgot my camera today...
8/17/04
I felt much better today after my new diet and laying off some of the beers. I look back on my life and wonder if all of the time I
spent drinking was used for other things, would I in fact be a professional skateboarder by now? Or maybe a rock star? I guess there's
no looking back and I just need to moderate my vices. I took the A train down to my normal spot, Tribeca,
and headed over to the bowl. I wanted to work on my Axle-Stalls but
the mini-ramp gets so crowded. I met this really cool skater named David Paleschuck who used to be on the Alva
team, and he had a lot of great stories.
He also is working with Alan "Ollie" Gelfand,
who is the man who invented the most popular trick in skateboarding today - the
ollie. David just returned to skating
recently and he was really killing the bowl. He was doing these really great old school
Rock n' Rolls all the way to his back trucks! It is inspirational to watch
older guys still shredding and it gives me a reason to go on. Dave gave me the advice to try to use my arms more when I am carving the bowl. I tried this and got
some really crazy speed - almost too much speed. David's a great guy and I hope to interview him for the film and possibly Gelfand! David sent me this short film
that he made when he got back into skating. Pretty cool...
David's Skate Short...
8/12/04
I dragged my tired butt to Tribeca and skated sort of half heartedly.
It is obvious that if I am going to get any better at all, I am going to have to cut back on some of my vices - namely chili dogs and beer.
I tried to recall the last time I ate an actual vegtable and I couldn't even remember! I have been skateboarding for almost 5 months now and I should
feel better than I do so I am guessing it's my diet. I am also going to the doctor to get a complete check up to see if there
is anything really wrong. When I was a kid I used to just fall over sometimes. I was tested for
Hypoglycemia but nothing ever showed up.
I do need to eat every 4 hours or so or else I get REALLY grouchy. Some of my skate bros experienced this already when I yelled at them to
hurry up after a session. Not cool!!! So after the low energy session, I did some internet research to find out what was missing from my diet
and went shopping. I decided to get some multi-vitamins as well as broccoli, carrots, potatoes, strawberries, bananas, and a box of Total cereal.
I started the new regimen today and will have to wait and see if it helps my energy levels at all - it has to be better than the chili dog and beer diet!
Say hello to my new friend...Broccoli!
8/10/04
I went down to Tribeca at 10am to get some skating in and met up with Sam, a skater I met a few weeks ago. Sam really rips
and was a competitive vert ramp skater back in the day. The coolest thing I continue to discover about older skaters is that
they are always willing to help you improve. Sam totally shreds and has an abundance of constructive criticism on what I am doing wrong.
He advised me that I need to stay low as I work up the ramp or bowl. I have this bad habit of extending my front leg before I get
all of the way up the wall and this is killing my speed. I was able to almost get a few
Axle-Stalls and I see what I need to do to get them right. Your skating really improves when you skate
with dudes like Sam that rip!
Sam abusing the coping with a frontside grind...
8/9/04
I skated Central Park
again and went to a new spot recommended by my skate bro Armando. It was a very long downhill
section at the northside of the park. It is such a great feeling to just zoom down a hill. The sights are amazing
and it's a good time to just whizz by the goofy bikers and rollerbladers. Why do they wear those kooky spandex pants?
Less wind resistance? I was flying by all of them with 64mm wheels and the baggiest shorts that will only stay on my
butt if I wear a belt - and I have a big butt!!!
I'm not Mr. Fashion, but you have to draw he line somewhere and mine starts at cycling pants...
Really amazing sites on the downhill ride...
Are these pants really worth the extra 2 miles per hour???
8/8/04
The NYC Crew and I all headed out to
Sayreville
for a session. We usually go on Saturday, but Nelson our wheelman couldn't make it. It was a good session, but I didn't get my
carve grind as well as I did last time. I met even more cool older skaters, A.J. and Dan were both ripping the place up.
Nelson is getting really good at carving with his 42" Afroman El Diablo Loco
longboard. It is a serious piece of lumber to skate around and I joke with him that Busch Gardens wants their log flume ride back.
Every week Nelson picks me up at the bottom of the George Washington Bridge and takes me the 45 minutes to Sayreville - he won't take gas
money and pays for all of the tolls. He is truly a dude among dudes and loves skating.
Nelson is starting to get pretty high up on the oververt wall. It's great to see the guys I skate with progressing...
Nelson shredding on his "log"...
8/7/04
Today at Tribeca
was a day of pain. Although I met a bunch of cool skaters, Dylan, Joe, Kevin, and Vincas,
the session was not without some injuries. It was another gorgeous day, cool and just a little sun, a great vibe, and
everyone was skating really well. But Kevin, who gets such incredible speed that it looks like
there is a track along the coping of the bowl, lost his board while trying to grind and reentered
banging his shin hard on the coping. His tattooed skin opened up in an oval shape and it was bleeding.
He was done for the day and was off to get stiches. The other casualty was Joe who had a strange fall
that didn't appear to be bad, but he had dislocated his shoulder. He was in serious pain when the ambulance
came and hauled him off.
Sometimes it the simplest of falls that can take the biggest toll. The sad thing was that Joe gave me
some advice on the Backside Air and I was
able to not really pull one off, but at least get started on the technique with a few hoppy type
pseudo-airs very low in the bowl. Sorry, they don't count folks... I guess the thing I learned about skating today
was that excellent skaters
like Kevin and Joe are out to have a good time but aren't afraid to go for it. Skateboarding comes
with a huge risk factor and no matter what your skill level, you can get seriously hurt very easily.
It's sort of like making a deal with the devil - I like doing this thing so much and I know I will
eventually get hurt, but I think it's worth it. That's just gnarly...
Kevin's battered and tattered tat...
Paramedics attended to Joe's popped shoulder...
8/6/04
Tribeca
is my new home now. I am having a great time and learning a lot.
I was unable to do any bowl exits today and had to resort to the crawl.
Ugh!!! I did work the mini-ramp but I am unable to do any real tricks
on it because it is a foot higher than the one at
Chelsea Piers where I had some sucess with
Axle-Stalls and
50-50 Grinds.
I am getting better at frontside kickturns and also pulled off a few poorly executed
tail stalls. I figure the mini ramp stuff will come with time but my real joy comes from carving
the bowl! It is a total rush, like surfing,
especially when the weather is as nice as it has been. Speaking of surfing, I met a cool 43 year old
surfer guy named Randy and we had the whole place practically to ourselves. Randy did see a young
kid struggling on the miniramp and went over to give him some advice. It's cool to see the older guys
passing skills on to younger skaters, many of who seem to be lacking dads and watched by helpless
moms that have no skateboard knowledge and can only look on in desperation as their sons crash into
a heap.
Below is my first POV (meaning "point of view" for you non-film types) footage of me carving the
Tribeca bowl on a Chamber of Commerce kind of day. Crazy!!!
Do you remember Mr. Toad's Wild Ride???
8/4/4
Today, of course, I had to head to
Tribeca
to get some bowl time in. It was a great session. There were a lot of older dudes there including a
guy named Matt that had just returned to skating and after only a few weeks back,
was pulling frontside airs by the end of the session. I met another guy named Andrew from
Australia that was going to extend his stay in NYC just to ride the bowl some more.
It was a really good vibe. Casper, Twan, and Pat were there, guys that I met in
Sayreville
last Saturday. Twan always makes old man jokes about me, he cracks me up.
The only thing I was able to do new was actually get out of the bowl a few times without having
to do my patented "Curmudgeon Crawl". This is a very good thing to know because after doing a bunch
of runs my arms are sore from climbing out so often!
8/3/04
I went down to Tribeca
for an afternoon session after getting off work and when I arrived, the park was closed!
I asked some kids who were popping ollies outside of the gates what was up. They said the park
closed early for a meeting - DRATZ!! I was so bummed out! I turned around and headed home all grumpy.
After noodling around the house for a few hours I decided that I had to skate something.
I grabbed my Dogtown reissue that has soft wheels on it and hopped the A train for Central park.
I exited at Columbus Circle and
pedaled down to the loop, a road that encircles the park. I hit the first hill and it was a
blast! I haven't skated downhill since I can remember. I was getting good speed due to my
beer gut helping gravity right along. I blew by a few horse carriages and thought about trying
to do a tow-in run down a big hill ala
Riding Giants
by being pulled by a horse and buggy! That would be a good stunt
for the film and I may be the first guy to ever do it. Hmmm... we'll see...
My Dogtown BullDog Reissue - My Precious...
Nothing beats blasting by a horse and carriage on an old school board!
This page is getting way to big so I am going to archive it monthly!
Please click these links to see past months.
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004