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Pictures First! Then words! Any picture can be enlarged by double clicking on it.
House of Vans 20th anniversary party for the half cab (October 4th, 2012)
Love + Guts art show at Max Fish (October 5th 2012)
(People in these pictures from top left to bottom right: 1. me, and Simon Heath 2. me and Eugene Kang 3. Eugene Kang, Ronnie Seward, me, Mike White. 4. me and Alex Corporan 5. Jami Doria, Erick Colon, Gizzy Collado 6. Erick Colon, Bog Dan? Gino, a woman 7. me and Danny Supa 8. Ron Chatman 9. Mike White and his girlfriend 10. Christian Hosoi and Mike White 10. Ronnie Seward and Christian Hosoi 11. Christian Hosoi and me 12. me and John Lucero 13. John Lucero and John Grigley 14. me, Steve Caballero, and Lance Mountain 15. Simon Heath and Chris Miller 16. Simon Heath, me, Aly, and friends.)
MY REVIEW OF BOWL-A-RAMA WEEKEND IN NYC!!!!!
I heard of the ‘Bowl-a-Rama’ only a few weeks prior to the event. I went to three of the four planned events and it turned out to be quite a weekend. From Thursday October 4th to Saturday October 6th I met several of the pro transition skaters from the 80’s era, and a lot of them are still ripping.
Thursday it started at the House of Vans in Brooklyn for the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Half Cab shoe. This shoe is considered the best selling skate shoe ever and has not been changed much in 20 years. During Steve Cabellero’s speech that night he said around 1991 or so he noticed everyone was cutting his shoe converting it to a midtop from the former hightop. He suggested they make it that way, and he said he was glad they listened to him.
House of Vans, is partially indoors with a bowl area, and usually a street set up, and an outdoor area. They had food trucks with free food, and free beer if you wanted to wait in line. A large stage was set up, and bands played. I noticed Tony Alva played in one of the bands, and later Steve Caballero played with Agent Orange, apparently a known skate punk band. On display they had several pairs of Half Cabs painted by various artists in the industry. I took pictures of some of them. My favorite pair was the ones done by Chris Pastris, because I could imagine wearing them.
Over the course of the night I saw Chris Miller, Christian Hosoi, Jeff Grosso, Pat Ngoho, Rune Glifberg, and others. They all seemed happy to be there, and really are an inspiration to be still competitive at skating will passed age forty. My friend Simon had a new blank deck, and was collecting signatures. Simon is from the 80’s skate generation, whereas I’m more of a 90’s kid. I appreciated and liked being there but Simon was having a blast getting signatures and talking it up with his childhood idols. Lastly about this night, the organizers did a good job of making this accessible to everyone in the skate scene in NYC. I’m standing in proximity of these legends while talking to people I know from the parks or other spots. It seemed that people that cared about skating were able to get in.
On Friday October 5th was the Love + Guts art show at the skater bar, Max Fish. I got there after work. At first it seemed too crowded but Simon took my camera and took a picture with me and Steve Cabellero and Lance Mountain. For whatever reason that loosened me up, and I decided I wanted to take photos of my friends at this. I got several photos of people I skate with regularly, and I photographed some of the pros at the event. I think I learned a lesson from this, that maybe I should take more still photos of people. Usually my photography consists if objects or buildings. I film skating but I think I’ll venture into taking photos of people now. I had a blast doing so that night, and I already posted them on facebook to several likes and comments. That night made me thankful that I’m back into skating and therefore have a connection to a lot of people I otherwise wouldn’t.
On Saturday October 6th I got to Chelsea around 11 in the morning. I watched some of the masters’ qualifiers, and was amazed at how flawless Christian Hosoi looks on his board. I watched the documentary on him, and his book is coming out soon. In the 80’s he was one of the biggest names. In the mid nineties he fell into heavy meth addiction. He ended up serving at least 5 years in prison, found religion, and was able to get his life back on track. Now he is pushing the boundaries of age on a skateboard with his level of skating. I also saw Pat Ngoho and Chris Miller in their qualifying runs.
I saw my friend Mike and we decided to go skate the LES skate park. We had a nice session, maybe a few hours. The park wasn’t super crowded, and it felt nice to roll around. After skating I went back to the Chelsea. I got there in time to see the pro finals. These guys were amazing. I never was able to skate transition, and watching the best at it, I don’t know if I want to. Going that fast, the falls have to hurt! After the comp was over several of us went to a Chinese restaurant-bar that is frequented by skaters. Within an hour the place was filled with skaters, and there was a good camaraderie about it. But I was exhausted from the weekend festivities. So I did not make the after party, but instead went home early. Slappy Sunday would have been huge because the Bowl-a-Rama folks sponsored it but it got rained out. Glad I’m getting so many opportunities in NYC to celebrate skating!
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