I headed over to Autumn today to have the final session of 2004. I called Sam and Dylan and got to the Autumn Bowl at about 10 a.m. It was dead quiet and I was the only one at the bowl. It was a great sensation - sitting quietly sipping coffee alone with an amazing birch bowl edged with pool coping at my disposal in this zoo-like 9 million person strong megalopolis. It almost didn't seem fair. I felt like Charlton Heston in The Omega Man - the last man on earth getting ready to drop in. I carved a few runs and collected my thoughts of the year. Come to think of it I couldn't carve a bowl at all until this year! I skated alone and mellow for about an hour and Dylan showed up. He plugged in his iPod to the sound system and cool reggae poured out of the speakers. It was a perfect vibe.

We had a great session. Dylan gave me a bunch of pointers to get better balance and came up with all of these hilarious analogies. He said, "You have to get low like Special Forces" and bent his knees and mocked holding a hand gun. He later added, "When you need to move your feet, it's like squashing bugs. You don't want to lift them, just squash the bugs" and he ground his skate shoes with a twisiting motion into the grip tape on his board. To keep your arms in front of you while skating, Dylan said to "point and shoot" and took a run as if holding the same hand gun from the special forces analogy. As funny as it all was everything he said was really good advice and I will slowly adjust and tweak and become a better skater. It's nice to skate with all of skate brothers. Dylan, Sam, Kevin, and Armando have all given me great tips this whole year and all of them knowingly or not have changed my life in a great way - they helped me to do something better that I really wanted to learn.

So mock the old skateboarder if you will, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find a golfer waiting to play through to take time out of his game to give you lesson, and after that lesson offer you a beer and a ride home as the skateboarders I have met have done for me...

See you next year and skate on!!!!

The Omega Man - alone at the amazing Autumn Bowl...

I am so honored and stoked to be on it! Please click here to order this CD as well as a bunch of cool stuff right from the UK! Carl and Tim are the guys who run the site and they are both the most excellent people anybody would want to meet. They have supported me since the very beginning of my return to skateboarding journey and are always quick to give me advice and help. Way to go UK dudes can't wait to hear it!!!

Buy this record now!

I had a really great Christmas with my soon to be wife and daughter, I hope all of you did as well!!!

Who's up for a pajama skate?

Pain is just fine by me. I read a quote from a skateboarder which said that if it were not for the pain, he wouldn't know he was alive. I guess I kind of agree with this badge of honor mentality because I keep dragging my butt out there to try and improve and eventually land that elusive frontside air. Speaking of which, I received a really nice email from a skater who reads this blog named Charlie who gave me an extensive list of tips for executing said trick. That is the coolest thing about the internet - guys miles away can communicate with you after stumbling across your blog. The interests you have no matter how obscure can be instantly shared with those who have the same interests - what is this brave new world we live in?

I tried some touch and go 50-50's (in which you just kind of stick your front truck on the coping and then pull it off quickly) in the shallow of the bowl which feel totally different from on a mini-ramp because the way the coping sticks out and wouldn't you know it - POWWW!!! I fell right on my sore knee. Man it hurt! Two more tries with the same result, athough I think I can land it the next session when my knee is in a more healed state. To reiterate - skateboarding + pain = a way of life...

The big news from the Autumn Bowl is that the Mini-Ramp is being totally rebuilt it is now going to be higher and wider! I saw Patrick there working on it and it is truly a masterpiece. I love the way ramps look during construction, sort of like those dinosaur skeletons in museums. The strength of the creature is evident by the well built skeletal stucture which lies underneath the muscle and skin. Dang, that's just poetic...

Sam walking the rib bones of the new Autumn Mini-Ramp...

Nelson was supposed to pick me up today but he called around 7:30 a.m. and said he was just to sick to skate. I hopped the train and had very good connection times. As I rode the L train, Dylan of all people hops into my subway car! Interesting how 2 people coming from entirely different places can bump into each other. We caught the G train and got to the Autumn Bowl before 10 a.m. Dylan and I usually warm up on the mini-ramp but some of the members are taking the time to reconstruct it. They are making it wider and adding an extension. It is going to be an amazing ramp when they get done. I wish I could find the time to help them in the true co-op spirit, but I can barely find the time to skate...

JD and Armando met me at the bowl (Seth showed up as well) and we all stretched and padded up. Much to my surprise, JD handed me a bag and said "Happy engagement!". It was a set of Bulldog Skates Team Dub Cons! JD rules! A few weeks back Nelson gave me a Koping Killer Pool Shark deck that I have trying to trade him something for. He finally said "Just keep the Koping Killer, happy engagement!". Man, I am really cashing in on skate gear with this engagement thing. Maybe these guys know something I don't...Hmmmm...

It was a good session, but I was so rusty from not skating for 2 weeks. I just tried to get back to where I was. I was able to finally get a small carve grind in the deep end and everybody gave me a hoot. I feel like I lost some of my smoothness that I had going before but at least I didn't lose too much skill. I tried a backside grind on a shallow wall and paid the price dearly. I fell right to my knee and shoulder with a pretty big slam. The knee is starting to swell up and feels creaky and stiff but nothing major. The shoulder is another story. It never fully healed from my injury to it way back in June and I seem to keep reinjuring it. Injury is just something you have to live with as a skater. I heard a football player get interviewed on Sunday and the commentator asked him, "When was the last time you were 100% healthy and uninjured?" the player responded, "The day before I stepped onto the field of my first football game." That's sort of how it is with skating. You are always going to suffer bonks and bruises but it's something inside all of us that makes us want to drive faster, skydive higher, and skate more radically.

I had a few sliding crashes as well which make me laugh because the plastic on the elbow pads and wrist guards create a toxic melting smell. To paraphrase a famous quote, "I love the smell of burning pads in the morning...".

I met a cool guy named Dave and I saw a killer skater named Rudy who you may remember from a previous post. It's nice to have this refuge with a bulit in community that I can go for short breaks far away from the madness that is New York City. But tomorrow it all resumes, I venture into Christmas shopping in NYC - a fate worse than hell itself...

Me - Finally grinding the Deep End!!!

JD giving me my engagement present - a set of BDS Team Dub Cons!!! (Photo Credit: Armando)

This being said, I am afraid I probably won't be able to skate as much as I'd like to. My life is getting increasingly busy. I am designing all new studios at City College of New York and I am starting to work on the music for this rock musical adaptation of Boy in the Plastic Bubble that I started on over a year ago. I know, it sounds like a crazy idea, but I think it has a shot of actually getting a production! If it goes big I can buy my own bowl!

Aaron showing you how sliding birch plywood without elbow pads can burn through a few layers of skin!

Dylan and I partaking in the Crazy Stallion...

My bros Dylan, Seth, Sam, and Kevin all eventually showed up and all were skating well due to the heated session. Kevin got a set of Bones SPF Wheels and now goes even faster than he did before which is borderline criminal. I haven't skated with him in over a month so it was good to finally meet up. He is always inspiring, and cracks me up with funny observations on life and skating. After a while of witnessing the insane shredding and not wanting to drop in amongst the radicalness, I went over and worked the mini-ramp just practicing my Frontside Kickturns and 50-50's. Dylan and Seth were back there on the mini-ramp too.

Before too long, the crowd in the front room thinned out and Dylan, Seth, and I switched over to the bowl, each of us taking quite a few runs. I am feeling more relaxed each time and building up whats called "Muscle Memory" in which your mind memorizes movements made by your body and stores these as information on what to do and not do. Some of these guys I skate with must have gigabytes of skateboard muscle memory because they skate so effortlessly and relaxed. I admit I am jealous, but I think I am doing ok for skating for a mere 7 months and being 39.

Another cool thing that happened was that this skater Billy Rohan was doing a photo shoot for a magazine called the The Skateboard Mag. It was cool that the photographer also was a skater. They got a stellar shot of Billy doing what looked like a trick called a Disaster on the very top of the vertical wall in the bowl. It was nuts! Another one of their crew did a kickfilp into the bowl after quite a few tries and that was pretty amazing too. They were all very mellow and respectful of the session, not taking over the bowl. It sounds like an interesting mag and I am going to check it out. Overall a very fun session, Sam was his usually crazy self, screaming and having a great time, but also going for it on every run. He carved a 50-50 all the way around the deep end and after completing the trick was laughing so hard in disbelief that he pulled it off that he fell down! He whacked his knee pretty good a few times, but no matter how beat up he gets, Sam ALWAYS goes for it. A true skateboarder in every sense of the word...

Sam doing a 50-50 in Autumn's deep end - he actually did a much longer one later on!