A History of Skateboarding

Skateboarding magazines, at least the blatantly commercial ones, have always seemed to me eerily comparable to credit card scams. The people running those mags basically seek to give the skateboarders they cover credit so as to create interest in the magazine. That's how they make their profits. Sometimes the skaters are permanently indebted to those rags. The misguided impression taken from all this is that the industry and the magazines are actually the driving forces behind skating rather than the skaters themselves. With some notable exceptions, skateboard mags really only exist to make money off skating. Put another way, they are parasitic leeches. So, their so called "histories" of skating are, to me at least, awfully suspect.

In fact, this whole "skateboarding history" side show is a pretty recent spin-off industry. The worst of this, in my opinion, surfaced around the whole "Dogtown Chronicles" heresy a few years back that fucked up Juice Magazine. The articles' hell spawn, the rash of video "skate documentaries," soon followed. They were all pathetically formulaic and seemed to moralize skateboarding is some disturbing ways. According to Stacey Peralta, apparently everyone who ever rode a skateboard in Venice is owed a damned government pension. That is, so long as they didn't do drugs. I mean, do these people really take themselves that seriously?

Let me be the first to tell you, I'm a big Tony Alva fan. I grew up in New Mexico, for god's sake. If you don't know, there's some old school ass connected shit there. But I don't believe for a minute that Tony Alva did the first frontside air in a pool, nor do I give a god damn mother fuck who did. That type of "origin myth" pseudo-history can have only one agenda, which is obviously to profit off something that I hold dear. I don't like people who try to do that, and that's why I don't like many magazine or industry types. I mean, what other motivation could someone possibly have to make that type of claim, either about one's own self or someone else?

The official story of skating cultivated by the industry claims to be the history when it is really a history. Anyone who's been around skating knows damn well that there were people who lived pretty much everywhere (insert your town here) who were doing the same assed shit as the "magazine" guys but who weren't looking to make a buck off it and thus didn't make the official story. The magazine version was a gimmick used to sell product and now it's pushing the retro and collectors markets. Where did it all start? Who did what first? All of this inane slop can tell us what? Who's owed what, I'd guess. But skateboarding doesn't owe anybody shit.

See that pool there? There's an authentic history of skateboarding written on its walls too, and it doesn't cost you shit to add right to it. All those wheel marks are something like the unofficial ink of the unofficial histories of skateboarding that happen for all the right reasons all over the world every damn day. Those wheel marks tell a story about anonymity, about dedication and desire that doesn't need a soundtrack or editing to get the point across. If you actually skate, you're just as much a part of skating's history as anyone showing up in the puppet pages of whatever industry rag. Yeah, I could insert names here: Bam Bam Branch, GI Joe, and a thousand other people who contributed to whatever skating's supposed to "be" these days, as if it were that simple. But those dudes wouldn't care.

Not to mention that I'm not naive enough to think I can write some bullshit and change skateboarding history. Are you concerned about where skating's headed? Not quite sure things are meshing with skating's "history?" Simple: Go find something, go build something, and go skate something. No matter how much respect you claim to have for skateboarding's alleged past, skating's about what you're doing right now. If you claim to be a skateboarder, there's only one historical question of any real importance anyway. That is, "did you skate today?" If so, then, and only then, you can say you're part of the real story. Just don't be so obnoxious as to claim that you were the first, or the most innovative, or the only one doing it. Or worse, that you were the only one doing it right. On the other hand, if you do, don't expect me to buy it.

Economies of Scale

I skate a lot of small shit. That's not really anything I intended to make happen. Much like this dumbass blog, it just kind of happened in and of itself due to the circumstances in which I find myself. I figure, if I'm gonna write regularly, why not do it about complete bullshit? Same with skating. I'd rather skate some bullshit than not skate at all, especially since to me the bullshit tends to be where the depth of the matter really lies. Much like this blog, there's usually nobody there to skate the small shit with me, for example. And, when it's just you doing your own thing, there's just something more satisfying about the whole experience. If you can make some bullshit work, then you've really accomplished something, as far as I can tell.

Growing up skating, we never seemed to be at the center of anything. We were literally outcast to the geographic periphery of society. We skated out of the way places... places no one would ever have frequented if it weren't for skating or some other completely marginalized behavior: shooting heroin, smoking crack, etc. I guess it's not surprising that a lot of us started doing those things, too. It was all bullshit. But that was what made it all so profoundly interesting, strange, and fun. I guess we understood that everything else was bullshit too, except that you had to sit in an office to do "proper" bullshit: Schmooz with a bunch of tools long enough and you can convince yourself that what you're doing--wasting your life following orders--isn't bullshit at all, but somehow legitimate, responsible, and worthwhile activity.

No matter how much I embrace the idea that skating is just the good kind of bullshit, the fact remains that the small stuff just isn't the big stuff. However satisfying it may be, there's always a sense that the small stuff could be bigger, maybe even better, more important or more meaningful. But that line of reasoning can be dangerous. It often degenerates into an egotistical rationale like "more people will see" or worse, "maybe more people will watch if I do it bigger."

I don't know. I've always been skeptical of anything big. Maybe I'm just genuinely afraid of big things, but I can't help think that looking to do something on a larger scale is usually meant to prove something to someone else, not to yourself as it should be. But then there are those out of the way peripheries again. Those de-centered locations that make skating what it is. Those places that take small, large, and everything in between, hide it behind a fence and challenge you to challenge yourself. Those DIY spots that just got it right. Big is good in those places. Real good. It's that kind of place that makes small seem like bulllshit, and makes you resent what you're riding because you know for a fact that there's something bigger and better out there.

Interview: Thurgood Von Whitebread

I've known Thurgood Von Whitebread since we were both kids. He lived in a veritable castle down the block, had a vert ramp, and was always letting us party over at his place. I lost track of him after high school but after checking out some skate auction merchandise on eBay I noticed his name come up a couple of times and have since found that he has become one of the world's leading skateboard deck and memorabilia collectors. I got a hold of him for an interview recently.

DC: Yo Thurgood, what up man? Long time no see!
TVW: Ah yes, my good man. It's been some time since our destinies last crossed paths. A toast to merry old England!
DC: So, if I remember you fucking always collected mega shit. In fact, you always had a gang of mint-ass condition decks just laying around the old crib, dog. Is that mostly what you're dealing these days?
TVW: (Chuckles) Why you haven't changed at all over the years, you raucous imp! Mother! Avert your ears! The motley plebeian jester has once again graced us with his jocular mirth. Why yes, my dear culturally deprived underling, I do in fact often deal the very decks upon which you once set your morally bankrupt otic organs.
DC: Damn... I remember those bad babies were just laying all over the place back then. You, uh, still just letting 'em chill like that? I mean, if I could score a couple decks I might be able to trade 'em for a sack of endo or something.

Sir Thurgood Von Whitebread

TVW: Why heavens no, you childlike waif! They are all locked securely in the impenetrable vaults of the royal treasury.
DC: Damn, G. You can't part with any of those mufuckas? Weed don't be growing on bushes and shit, you know.
TVW: Ha. Your childlike beggary is amusing as always. It reminds me of back in the "day" as you menial types of the laboring classes refer to it, when you and your lawless band of disaffected social miscreants used to "hang" at our "crib."
DC: That was the shit, right! We got fucked up in the east turret for about a month before they kicked us out of there dog... My ass fell in the moat and shit.

TVW: Interesting, my malodorous plebe, that many of my prized decks seemed to disappear during that month-long riotous fete... 'Twas only a coincidence, I'm sure.
DC: Well we figured if you weren't gonna ride 'em... I mean, nah, dog, we didn't steal shit... er, what you said.
TVW: Ah but I managed to protect the main corpus of memorabilia!
DC: Dude, I didn't even know they made fingernail pads and shit. So how did you know all this skate shit was gonna be worth all this money today? I mean, we just rode our boards, we didn't really think about saving 'em in mint condition and shit. Damn, you even gots photos of Jay Boy and shit... how'd you know dumasses, I mean collectors would wanna buy all that crap?
TVW: If, in your barbaric vernacular, you are referring to my photo collection, it only includes epic and iconic shots of influential pop culture pioneers.
DC: You mean old skate mufuckas like me?
TVW: (Laughs) Oh your merry wit is sublime. I've never seen you in Juice Magazine!
DC: Fuck. I guess you're right. I ain't getting shit off skating... I guess you were smart all along not to actually skate and just keep the boards.
TVW: Youthful naivete leads not to wealth, my inglorious halfbreed.
DC: Yo, man, come to think of it, I, uh, do got some, uh, old mint conditioned-ass decks and shit for you back at the crib if you, uh, wanna buy 'em and shit... Just, uh, gimme till tomorrow... I gotta score some spray paint, I mean, I gotta make sure the shrink wrapping isn't scratched up and shit...
TVW: Well done, my man! I'll buy whatever epic and iconic youth culture relics with which you can part. To eBay!
DC: Heh... we'll see who the stoopid mutha-fucka is now, bitch... er, I mean, cool, Thurgood, nice talking to you... hey is your sister still around?
TVW: You know damned well what happened to her, Jeeves.
DC: Oh yeah, the fucking moat! Sorry about that shit, brah.

So there you have it. Thurgood Von Whitebread, skateboard collector extraordinaire, visionary, and memorabilia archivist. Damn, if I'd only known, I'd have some cash to go with these memories and scars and shit. If I could just find a way to profit off of the actual experience of skateboarding...

Shit You've Skated

I don't know, but for my money the list of "shit you should have skated" is pretty long and probably includes a lot of places that don't quite live up to their reputation. Today, a lot of those places are probably skate parks. I mean, if you get a chance to skate Orcas Island I'd say you'd have to do it... but that's just me. Nevertheless, there are other spots out there that aren't supposed to be all that great that just are somehow. I get the feeling it's because they capture the spirit of skating in a timeless kind of way. The coolest spots out there in my book are the ones that unexpectedly turn out to be memorable, even though they probably shouldn't even be there to begin with. A good skate spot has to capture your imagination somehow.

It seems to me that Kanis Park in Little Rock, Arkansas rates highly as that sort of skate spot. I mean, look at it: Doesn't it remind you of one of those crazy New Zealand parks you always see in videos? To this day no one has really satisfactorily told me the story about how it got there... please don't, by the way! I'm sure the story's really simple and would ruin the place's mystique for me. The coolest thing about Kanis is that both times I skated it, I was actually in the area to skate the Dreamland built North Little Rock park, which, by the way, is rad in and of itself. However, Kanis kinda stole the show both times. One, no one was there to skate it and two, it was just, well, fun. Really kinda the place you gotta figure out a little bit, you know? Arkansas is a weird place, if you haven't heard, and all the KKK activity around there is a little unnerving, and then there's this crazy park. What do you do?

One of the lamentations I have in the era of perfect skate parks is that places like Kanis get ignored somewhat these days. There was a time when skaters really focused on finding places that weren't made to skate and (though Kanis was) tried to conquer them. Kanis has always struck me as a really familiar place. That is, it reminds me of one of those epic, graffiti laced skate spots (the Toilet Bowl in Shalem Colony, New Mexico, for example) that were just going back in the day. No one ever really bothered to ask who was first, or why. Where did that whole ethic come from? And where did it go?--I mean for me, hopefully not you. Back then there just seemed to be such a strong desire to skate anything that was even remotely worthwhile and of course really get after it. There just seemed to be this drive to find stuff and ride it. Kanis fits in on that list quite nicely... And, for me, that's the list of shit I wanna skate, even if a lot of those spots aren't technically that good. Whereas a skate park is something like a porno, leaving nothing to the imagination, spots like Kanis make you think about them a little bit. For me, that's what makes skating so fun... it's about what you can do. Not what you didn't do.

Mission Accomplished

Four weeks. 7,950 miles. Ten states. Dozens of beers. Twenty two skate spots. Trinidad. La Junta. The Humbler. Jackson. Driggs. Hailey. Sumner. Ballard. Burnside. West Linn. Astoria. Lincoln City. Walport. Port Orford. Brookings. Klammath Falls. Aumsville. Donald. Tedder's. Hood River. Logan. Denver.

One tent. One truck. One cooler. No real plans. $350 bucks round trip.

It's not even funny. In May, 2003, just before the summer during which we accomplished this skate mission, "Mission Accomplished" was announced over in Iraq. The average price of gasoline per gallon was $1.72 that summer. Now it's $3.85... which is exactly why I'm sitting here instead of planning another trip to Oregon. In fact, I haven't been there since. Why is it that every time the Land of the Free colonizes another country overseas, shit gets more costly right here? Because freedom really isn't free, that's why. Just make sure you know what you're paying for.

Know Your ABCs

Okay, so there used to be a band that looked like the one featured in figure A.

Figure A












Apparently, the band is still around. But I think it now looks like figure B.

    Figure B















 

Or wait a minute. Is that them in figure C?

Figure C
















I can't tell. But if that really is the same band in figure B as in figure A, I for one would much rather see the dudes in figure C play than the ones in figure B. I guess if you know your ABCs, it's pretty easy to figure out why so many of these bands living off nostalgia deserve an F.

Doing it Wrong

I've always found it interesting that skateboarding, of all the activities out there, hasn't generated much writing dedicated to it. In comparison to golf or fishing or even handball, it seems skateboarders don't spend much time reading or writing about the activity (I don't know what else to call it, by the way, though if forced to choose I'd say art before I'd say sport, that's for sure). Sure there are magazines, but the best ones have kinda let the pictures do the talking and have noticeably avoided philosophizing about it over  the years. The general absence of well-respected books and the like on skateboarding is especially interesting considering that so many skaters are hyper-talented in all the artistic areas peripheral to skating itself. Music, photography, graphic arts, video, not to mention working with wood and concrete to create unbelievable skate terrain (plus the creative energy that goes into skating itself) are all omni-present among skaters, yet writing about skating or even talking about it (you dropped a name, asshole!) seems to be almost looked down upon. It's kinda weird.

It certainly isn't that skating doesn't mean anything to its participants. If anything, I'd say skating means so much to us that we feel almost helplessly incapable of describing it to anyone, especially people who don't skate themselves. I mean, what's the point? Like I always say, the beauty of skating in every respect is that you have to do it. And in that regard, skating is so individually significant that you really can't generalize about its meaning to people--even other skaters--beyond the obvious anyway... it's fun, for instance. Gee, thanks for the insight. Maybe that's what's so different about skating. You can write books about flyfishing or bowling--in fact maybe you have to write books about them--because actually doing them is so fucking boring.

Not so with skating. One way or another, skating defies precise articulation. At its essence, I hope that's because there really are no rules about how it should or should not be done. When I do see writing about skating anymore, it sure seems heavily geared toward the opinions of barneys who don't really skate but who seem to want to tell everyone who does that they're doing it wrong. Fuck those dudes. Nevertheless, in an ideal skate world, even their lame asses and advice on how to properly execute "maneuvers" would be welcome. That is, as long as they're actually skating and not talking--let alone writing--about it.

Seriously, Folks

Is skating really any different now than it was ten, twenty, even thirty years ago? For the most part I really don't think so. Sure, there are a lot more people doing it now, and whatever limitations existed in the olden days have all been destroyed. Not to mention that it seems you (or I should say, somebody) can make a lot more money off it now. God knows people have been trying to do that for a long time, too. Occasionally, though, it's nice to be reminded that there is actual skateboarding going on around me, because the essence of that never really changes. Or so I've heard. People sometimes prove it when they send me pictures and video and the like.

Backyard ramp. Dudes ripping. Come skate. Show up and you're in. If not, maybe next time. Timeless skating in this clip. But wait a minute. Maybe there is something that's changed a bit over the years. Seems like nowadays people can take this whole skateboarding thing pretty seriously. A little too seriously perhaps. People have their whole sense of identity wrapped up in it. Tossed boards, bad vibes, bowed up brawls and broken windshields are as common as griptape, wheels, and trucks among us older, more "mature" types. Is it really that important? I mean c'mon... it's a toy for chrissakes.

If you're expecting me to moralize here by saying "Grow up! Get serious folks!" I'm sorry. Far from it: Skating exists to ensure one thing, that we never grow up. So, I advocate acting as immaturely as you feel like. If that's not a priority in your skating life, what is, after all? Anyway, thanks to our crack reporter Renaldo for the short clip... See! We do cover skating here at the Coiler on occasion.

*UPDATE* Wallride Side

I met up with the Wallride Side crew today and after some heavy negotiations they let me snap a few photos of the work they're doing. Apparently they got clued in about this site by someone and got fully pissed about me 1) putting a picture of Estéban and the crew up; 2) naming the place "Wallride Side;" they apparently haven't officially named it yet; 3) committing a bunch of Spanish grammatical errors in the interview I posted with them. I figured the usual couple of brews peace offering wouldn't work, and fortunately I had some powder on me and everything was cool. These locs aren't fucking around though. Check out the recent progress:

This is excavation on the bowl area. The plan is an 8-foot deep end but it'll have pretty tight trannies and some real vert. This would be moving a lot more quickly if Tim, the backhoe guy, wouldn't drink brew on the job and have to stop and take a fucking leak every three minutes. I swear that guy drained six or seven cold ones in the half hour I was there today. He's not shy about asking for money either. Unlike his co-workers, he did say he liked the Daily Coiler site except for "all those fucking words" and suggested that if I'd post up more "naked whores" maybe more people would log on. Everybody's a  fucking critic, but I guess I see his point there.

Emiliano was shot-creting the bonus pocket area in this pic. I didn't even try interviewing him, though, since he didn't buy my whole "my back's killing me" excuse that I've been using around this site. He kept mad-dogging me and asking "porque no ayudas mujer?" while waving a fucking seriously sharp looking blade in my direction until I finally broke down and opened a brew for the dude. Poor baby! I don't understand why these DIY dudes don't practice what they preach! Fucking do it yourself, asshole! Don't ask me to help since you're so damn punk. I'll skate the damn thing when it's done! People need to learn how lucky they are to get to build stuff for people like me to skate. I mean really.

Anyway, like I said it took some serious doing to get these guys to cooperate with me, and I hesitate to even post this stuff since I'm sure they're gonna raise hell about it next time so as to mooch a couple more OZs of sugar off me. But, in the end these dudes are doing a sick DIY so I guess it's all worth it. They can be pretty cool, though, and keep saying that if I'd just come by "after dark" they'd "show my fucking ass what's up." But I don't know. I guess I'd be more trusting of the dudes if they didn't threaten me with all sorts of physical harm during the day. But like I said, I gotta skate this thing once it gets built so, as always, I'll keep everyone posted.

Ode to Pools Past: "That Pool"

Long about the year 1999 or so me and my compadre--who at the time was going by the humble moniker of "C Bad"--were tossing back a couple frothy cold ones at our favorite Southern New Mexico saloon, El Splatio, listening to the Slayer tracks we'd talked the bartender into putting on the jukebox. Out of the shadowy corner of the dank shithole a crew of the youngens in the local skateboarding scene emerged, sidling cautiously toward us, waving a white flag to demonstrate that they'd come in peace. The usual tense pleasantries were exchanged before one of the crew lost his composure: "We got a pool," he blurted out. "You gotta come skate it!"

We looked at each other in utter disbelief. "Bullshit," we thought. "No way these dudes come up that way all of a sudden." Boy, were we wrong... and thank God we were. Those little bros wound up hooking us up with one of our all time favorite spots. Turned out that Reedical, who was getting into photography at the time, was chasing a lightning storm up on the East Mesa and pulled off the freeway onto a hill overlooking the Organ Mountains. To his eternal surprise he wound up stumbling across a demolished home site with nothing left but this sick little copingless right hand kidney.

The scenery says it all. No bust. No neighbors. No lurkers. Nothing. In all my years of skating to that point, I'd never had a situation like this: Skate at will. And that we did. This pool was good. In fact, it was much better than these pictures let on. Nestled in with a killer view of the mountains and close to my mom's house, the liquor store, and some of the best Mexican food in the world, this place saw heavy action for about a year or so before it got dozed. Everyone pretty much skated this bowl at some point. Tommy lived about a block away and would bring mixed drinks by for everyone and then fucking shred that place. If anything, this pool should have been named after him, but Reedical, the afore mentioned "C Bad," Adrian, Miguel, and a slew of up and coming groms held their own here. Characteristically of that strange era in skateboarding, there were a lot of other people invited out to skate the bowl ("Dude, we gots weed growing out there... we show up with a keg and fucking skate!!!!") who declined. Like the pool itself, they'll remain nameless.

We got so spoiled having this place to ride that we didn't even bother naming it. No one could agree on one anyway, and I heard a bunch of suggestions tossed around that never stuck. After a while people just referred to it as "that pool," since everyone knew what you were talking about and that you were going there to skate regardless. But more importantly, I think this pool truly defied any simple name. It meant too much to the people who skated and partied there regularly. It definitely represented skating in Southern New Mexico: The locals embraced the place and wouldn't have had it any other way, while most of the folks who came in from elsewhere to skate the thing didn't much care for it. "Not good enough for you, eh? Perfect. Fuck you. Leave."

This pool got ripped from top to bottom by the locs out there and no one but them will ever truly know what went down there. There aren't a lot of pictures of this place floating around, and we like it that way. A lot of memory, maybe a little myth: that's good history. For anyone who skated here, this one weighs heavy. And well it should. It was "that pool," the one we never took for granted.

Fuck Weather.com

Sometimes you just get lucky. But, as they say, you also gotta make luck happen sometimes, too. After dodging a freaking tornado on Saturday and having my plans to actually go skate once again foiled by being stupid enough to pay attention to the weather forecast (which was actually a lot worse than they thought it would be), I decided to say "fuck it" on Sunday and head south to skate with some locs. This despite the fact that the weather was supposed to be nice. IE, it was surely going to rain. It did. But the crew had it all taken care of and this is what they came up with:

Sick, right? I for one was pretty stunned that the thing was built over a decade ago. It's got a lot going for it conceptually: mellow but fast as you want it be. Good idea. Moreover, the people who live there were super cool and hooked us up sight unseen. The entire compound was littered with incredible artwork, and the bowl rates pretty highly in that category as well. We had a fun three-man session and called it a day. Thanks to everyone involved and--for once--I didn't get chased by the Hulkster or have rocks thrown at me by the Wallride Side crew. But I'm most proud of the fact that we screwed Weather.com, which has had most of us on lock since about November.... Not to mention that the last time I tuned in to their TV equivalent they were trying to convince me that they had a bunch of "scientists" (meaning veterinarians and coal industry engineers) claiming there's no global warming and shit. I don't mean to get all political and shit, but give me a fucking break. Anyway, hope to get back down here sometime soon... Wait a minute... is that a covered bowl pictured there? Hmmmmm.

Anonymity

Taxation. Conscription. Census. Income. Harvest. Labor. Regimen. Wage. Bureaucracy. Administration. Budget. Election. Fraud. Colony. Media. Organization. Assimilation. Structure. Coercion. Career. Property. Authority. Nature. Geometry. Cartography. Boundary. Limitation. Regulation. Appropriation. Expansion. Absorption. Protection. Intervention. Security. Freedom. Corporation. Retirement. Leisure. Charity. Medicine. Expertise. Latin. Class. Definition. Predictability. Legibility. Visibility. Governance. Hierarchy. Theory. History. Officialdom. Gendarme. Penal system. Sentence. Production. Standardization. Coercion. Conscription. Census. Taxation.

Anonymity.









It's your choice.

Bowl Build Squelched

Anyone who reads internet blogs was bound to see it coming. I mean, I'm sure half of our followers are like, "Alright, where is it? Where's the obligatory 'My neighbor's a dick' entry." Indeed. A recent survey shows that fully half the content on internet blogs should in fact be categorized under the heading: My neighbor's a dick. But there is a key difference that separates the following such entry from those found in other blogs: My neighbor! He really is a dick and he hates skating... I mean, just check out this pic I snapped of the dude!

My neighbor

See what I mean? So anyway, the dude caught wind that me and the crew were going to pour some renegade crete in the alley behind his house and got full-on pissed about it. Being the dick he is, he fucking stomped it out.

The bastard! Fortunately, I took a pic of the templates and backfill before fucking Hulkster showed up. Anyone who wants to use it as a reference to start rebuilding the quarter is welcome to it (maybe Estéban and the Wallride Side locs?). Just be warned that the dudes who got started on this before I got there totally fucked things up... I guess I need to specialize in fucking Do It Myself, since no one seems to be able to follow orders!

As for me, no way I'm fucking around in dude's alley anymore. That roided-up ass bitch literally ate my skateboard last time he chased me out of there, and I don't have the funds to keep replacing shit like this. God knows my board sponsor over at FBM Skates ain't hooking shit up (plus that guy's generally just a cocksucker). So if anyone throws down and gets this site going again, cool. But in the meantime, consider this another Tri-Cities DIY spot squelched.

Ode to Pools Past: The "Good One"

It's been noted that pools get way better names than ramps or parks or other such made-to-skate terrain. That's because most pools get named after some element in a pool's shape or location or history that gets right to its essence. That said, I've looked back and wondered about the names of some of the pools I've ridden. They don't seem quite right. For example, I actually liked the name "Dumbass" for one pool when I thought it was named after me (I slammed on my face and bit through my tongue there). When I found out that it actually got its name because it was off of "Dumas" street, I had to wonder.

When there's an abundance of pools, you have to get to the point in naming them without missing what's essential in the pool's character. To my knowledge, there were over 30 pools being skated in Houston in 2003 thanks to the work of a small crew of dudes who were on a serious tear back then. Just about every one of those pools was a keeper, the type of pool you would look back on and wish you could get at just one more time. So the fact that the pool pictured below was simply known as the "Good One" says something.

Pictures really don't do this place justice, but I only have this one anyway so it wouldn't much matter. The place was about to be dozed, as I remember it, by the time I got to ride it but I'm damn glad I made it down there. Like all these one time hits, I have mixed feelings: Glad to have skated it at all, but wishing I'd gotten more of it.

Fuck it. It's done. The pool, like pretty much everything else I've skated over the years, literally doesn't exist anymore. Seems like I never got enough runs, never took enough pictures, can't remember it vividly enough... Where was it? Who was there when we hit that one? Was it really that good? Yeah. It was. The fucking "Good One." That was one well-named pool.

Wallride Side

There are some seriously sick DIY projects going on in the Tri-Cities right now as the result of the hard work of some mega-dedicated skate warriors. These projects are so fucking underground that they're turning up in some of the least obvious locations anyone would suspect: suburban neighborhoods. In fact, the only way I found out about this one--Wallride Side--was completely by accident. I was cruising around trying to score a sack of chron about a week ago and stumbled on this DIY build. I finally got the balls to introduce myself and do a quick interview with the leader of the crew, Estéban Cantú. Here's how it went:

DC: What up locsta?
EC: Que mueras puto.

Wallride Side

DC: Hey man, sick bowl build! No one would ever guess this was even a made to skate spot, right in the backyard of this new home... where'd you get the idea?
EC: Cojiendo tu pinche hermana, wey.
DC: Rad. You guys seem to dig some seriously tight trannies. Fucking sick.
EC: Como tu panocha, puto.
DC: That's right... no way anyone's gonna stop this bowl from happening! So how long has it taken you guys to get to this point?
EC: Quieres comprar algo, guero? Si no vete al diablo, vavoso.
DC: Kill, brah. This place is the raw dog real deal! How long have you and the crew been skating? You dudes are fucking hecka undercover. No one would ever even guess you homies skated and shit, G.
EC: La patineta (laughs). Unos cuantos maricones!!  (laughs a lot more) Vete wey. Tengo una bolsillita para tí, wey. Nada más veinte... o sea, para tí cincuenta... es la buena, puto.
DC: Yeah, this park is rad dude. I wish I had a sack of chron for you locs, dog. Fuck dude I gotta break out. We'll hit this spot up bro! I'd help but my back is killing me, ya know...
EC: Chinga tu madre pendejo.

Estéban and the CRü!!

I know they'll probably be pissed, but I snapped this pic of Estéban (center) and the DIY crew before I split. These dudes are mega-underground, so I don't think one photo should hurt anything. I'll keep everyone posted on this site as it nears completion and definitely get pics of some sessioning. Damn, these dudes are heavy undercover.

Anger Management

First off, the usual apologies for being lame and not posting regularly. However, it should be pointed out that when I started this nonsense I swore not to rely on my usual m.o. That is, I decided that this dumbass blog, if nothing else, would be about the things I actually like about skating, thus saving any audience members who may wander across these posts from encountering my usual seething, raving, fuming, violent, vulgar diatribe against the things I don't like about it. So, as part of my "anger management" regimen this week--which happens to be a week at work every year where I want to kill a lot of people--I'm just not posting anything.

Hopefully this shot of a rare, vintage--nay, priceless--board, whose graphic also summarizes my Little Engine that Could approach to this week quite nicely, will get everyone through the weekend. It's about all I can muster right now.

Snippets

Anyone who has looked at the drivel I post here knows that we've actually had one worthwhile cause amid our otherwise pointless content. That is, we've tried to convince the choir that it's important to save Caleb's bowl by building a roof over it. I didn't make it down to Caleb's last weekend for the epic bowl bashery, but I understand they raised a good amount of the money necessary to build the aforementioned roof over the bowl and thus save it from the Appalachian winter. Or is Shelby in the Piedmont? I don't know. All I know is it gets cold and wet there so every dime raised will obviously really come in handy over the coming years, hopefully, of the bowl's existence. Which is a good thing because it may be that long before I get out of the office again; This blog shit is killing me! Gathering information, fact checking, interviews, research... geez! Anyway, if you haven't been to Caleb's and thus don't know what you're missing, or if you just wish you could skate really fast, I've posted a good snippet of the bowl which was sent in to me by Rico:

The crew down at Caleb's is pretty gnarly, bro. For instance, this one guy showed up in pads and they wouldn't let him skate until he did a stationary boneless drop (they even tried to confuse him with the name of what he was supposed to do) off the five-foot extension in the deep end.... phew! Burly. Don't believe me? Check out the video proof below!

 

Some other dudes showed up without donations (no!) and they all had to do said boneless type drop thing without pads! Oh, those radical skate rebels! What daredevil antics will they think of next to demonstrate their utter contempt for mankind's foolish laws? 

Anyway, glad to hear the bowl party was a success. If I get down there soon I'll post up more pics.

Broken Back Chronicles

Let me tell you, doing without certainly makes one nostalgic for pools past. There were times in what I consider the hey day of my pool riding life when it seemed like they were almost too easy to come by, a proverbial dime a dozen. Looking back, it's hard to believe how much I used to take them for granted. That was especially easy when I lived in Texas because people would just call me up and take me to pools; I often didn't even have to sweep. I was lucky enough to fall into the right crowd of people and wound up riding a ton of good pools, even some epic ones.

Although I didn't realize it at the time, I looked at many of the ones I rode with a tinge of skepticism, as though I expected another, even better one to come along shortly. Oddly, though, there are a few pools that have made my memory's short list over the years that were anything but the really "good" ones. The pools I miss the most seem to be the ones, I guess, that summarize my relationship with skateboarding the best. The ones that really took effort on my part.  The ones no one else really fucked with.

One such pool was the Broken Back, which, I don't mind saying, I almost single-handedly kept going from 2000-2004. Don't let the pictures fool you. It wasn't an especially great pool. It was cancered out, elongated and slow. The motherfucker was always wet and, with the humidity, took forever to get skateable, which was why it got named the "Broken Back" in the first place (as opposed to the gay cowboy movie theory, thank you). The name also connoted the fact that, considering the pool was almost exactly fifty miles from my house out in the pine forest backwoods, it was one hell of a task to get ride-able in the first place.

This picture was taken about half an hour into our first effort to clean it. We had the gas pump going, but it was almost immediately clogged because the pool--which was eight feet deep--was fully three feet thick with leaves, tires, etc., debris that made use of the pump tricky and slow at best. I remember poking the trannies with a broomstick and swilling Budweisers the whole time, fully stoked out, while the dude I was with kept questioning whether it was skateable and mentioning that there was a mini-ramp session later. I was a straight dick back then and I remember calling all my friends that night in utter disbelief: these dudes don't skate pools! To my smug satisfation, dude and his crew wound up skating the thing only a few times and then left it to me. To each his own in the skateboarding world, but it used to trip me out that those dudes never bothered with this pool after all the work we put in to get it going. I guess they got the last laugh in the end because I know they scored a couple epic ones years later. But the Broken Back was decent! Yeah it was rough, but it had a good shallow and there wasn't a bad wall in it. You could tell once we got the main water out of it and were left with just the crap to deal with.

After a couple of trips and with the help of some rain it started to look better, but we eventually turned up everything from snapping turtles to catfish in the thing; it was a regular  self-supporting eco-system. I don't think this was anywhere near the nastiest clean up in skateboarding history, but considering the logistics involved and the fact that, in the end, it was me and one other dude who did 99% of the work, it at least makes it an interesting side bar.

 

It took some serious doing, but at long last she was clean, ready to ride. I really tried not to tell anyone about the pool, but one way or another lots of people came through over the years. By the time it was all said and done I heard a dozen stories about who found it, who cleaned it, even who skated it. The weird thing, though, was that I never ran into anyone there. Occasionally I'd show up and the fence would be left open, or a brew can would be laying on the deck. Despite clear evidence that it was being skated, if only so often, I never actually saw anyone do it.

I know for a fact that some homies from a nearby town used to hit it up when I wasn't around. I remember being pissed off at first, since they'd found out about it via the internet and from people who I'd let in on it. But after a while I was honestly glad when anyone else but me had to schlep rainwater and debris out of the thing for a change. One thing's for sure: I never once showed up at the thing in over four years of it going and found it clean. There was always some shit to deal with and, more often than not, I didn't even get to skate it. That's why I always made sure to show up with a twelve pack. I did skate it a lot, though, and almost always by myself. Considering its location, which was deep behind the pine cone curtain and not far enough from Arkansas to make anyone feel safe, plus the fact that I often couldn't get there until the evening and almost always skated solo, the thing looms in my mind even now kind of eerily. On most days, though, I had to deal with about two feet of water thanks to the constant rain.

The pool was so far off the beaten path that only a few of my friends made it out. After a while I even considered just posting up directions and letting everyone at it in the hopes that maybe I'd find it clean more often. Fortunately I came to my senses and pretty much tried to keep it to myself. The one dude who took a special liking to the pool and would actually come down and ride it regularly, and thus bring some real energy to the place, was my homie Jason, who skated it about as well as anyone I ever saw there. 

It's funny. All that time spent there and aside from about three minutes of lame video and about twenty photos, I don't have anything. No relic. No piece of brick coping. No tile. No scar. But that's exactly why I think the Broken Back works so well as a metaphor for my life in skating. When it comes down to it, I don't want anything from it.  And, given the choice, I like skating by myself. Always have. The Broken Back never hosted an epic session, never came close to making skateboarding's radar. For the most part, no one--not even the skaters who lived closest to it--had any idea it was going on. Thus, as much as any place I've ever been a part of, it represented that pure kind of devotion that only skating seems to elicit from its participants. There was no motivation that went on in or around the Broken Back that didn't revolve around the simple act of riding it. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who skated the Broken Back is down for that very reason. And I'm sure that, while their story may not include me, it's probably pretty damned similar to the one I've related here. After all, if you found your Holy Grail, would you bother to tell anyone?