Yesterday summer made a surprise encore, and the weather turned so beautiful after a week or so of rain that I had to get out and skateboard even though I had about fifty pages of Walter Benjamin to read for the 8:30 class that I'm sitting in on on Fridays. But I asked myself what Walter would do, and decided to indulge in my own form of accelerated flannerie. I've already mentioned how much I love the oldschool re-issue Mark Gonzalez deck that the owner of the local skate shop gave me a great deal on last fall. It seems that nobody really wanted that particular deck and it had been sitting around on the bottom shelf for a while. I should start looking for a replacement as the tail is starting to splinter on the Gonz. But stepping on my deck, and rolling into the unexpected and splendid sunlight made me extremely happy, and I felt as if poetry itself were flowing through my blood vessels as I made my way downtown.
I should mention that for the first time in a while I've also managed to find a decent pair of skateboard shoes. I have wide, flat and large feet, and I find it difficult to get shoes that fit the way skateboard shoes need to so as not to feel that one is tripping over one's toes. It is actually extremely hazardous to your health to have too long toes on a pair of skate shoes. My last pair of clearance Adidas saw me through an entire year, but they were starting to become paper thin on a good part of the sole, not to mention the fact that they looked (and smelled) aweful. But they were SO comfortable and good to skate that I had the darndest time replacing them. Happily, a couple months ago my neighbour gave me the lowdown that the evil skateboard store West 49 was having a clearance sale on its remainder shoes, and this spelled good news for me. At the end of each summer, these stores end up with left over pairs of shoes that haven't sold, and they are usually in the larger sizes, which is perfect for 'ol flatfoot here.
It turns out Lakai makes a shoe type that fits my feet perfectly. I bought two different pairs for 30 bucks each. Given that skate shoes usually retail for between $80-110 (a price I refuse to pay, making the job of finding good shoes even harder), I feel that I did all right. The blue suede lowtops are the coolest shoes I've ever owned. The are also comfortable as stink. I'm worried about wearing through the toes (which don't have protective rubber or leather reinforcement like some other shoes), but so far they have held up. I was dismayed to find, about a month ago, that the soul had come unstuck along the entire instep of the left shoe. Apparently this has been happening alot with this particular model, and West 49 has been replacing them. But I had already become attached to this pair--I felt a kind of spiritual bond with them (how's that for commodity fetishism?)--and besides, I wasn't sure that they would replace shoes sold on clearance, even if I still had the receipt. So I glued the soul back together with Shoe Goo, and its still holding strong today.
Heading downtown along the newly laid sidewalk past the newly renovated library and farmer's market, I did a wall ride on the angled footings of the support struts for the second floor of Jackson Square that overhangs the sidewalk. I was just skating along and !BAM! rode that incline backside and dropped off the edge, back onto the flat. I'd always wanted to do that, but only with my wider oldschool deck did I have the gumption. Practicing on the Jersey Barriers at Bease helped some too. Heading east allong Wilson, there was a lane of roadway blocked off with large pylons, which were protecting piles of gravel that have been deposited for a future project. The lane gave me a wide area to skate without worrying too much about the cars sneaking up behind me. Normally I take the sidewalk towards Beasley park, but it was a nice change to take the road.
At the park, there were about four or five skaters and some younger kids. Not as many riders as I had expected on such a great, fall evening, but more showed up as things progressed. Now that the new obstacles have been installed, friendly neighbourhood sessions have been raging regularly at the Bease, and it is much like old times--better, actually, because there is more stuff to skate, and some of the excess skater kids have siphoned off to the new park on the mountain, leaving Bease to the downtown regulars. I like hitting up the Jersey Barrier backside, then doing a half figure-8 to take the tight transition of the tapered barrier frontside. You can also do a fronside wall-jam into a little "wallie" and launch into the air off the side of the thing. Other riders do crazy tricks off the lip of these new obstacles, but I keep to the basics. I really have no desire to fall off the top of one of those things. Perhaps if I had learned how to skate ramps when I was younger I would be less wary of lip tricks now, but I just don't know how to do them.
Other folks know how though. One fellow was trying a bluntslide to 360 shove out on the Jersey Barrier. I'm sure that if he hasn't landed it by this writing, he will soon. It's amazing to see skaters attempt these tricks like it's no big thing. I do the same stuff I've done for years, perhaps trying a new twist or application of an already-mastered move to a new obstacle, but I leave the big stuff to the guys who still have cartilage in their knees and spine. I'm good for about an hour (if I haven't been out for a week or so), and then I just run out of juice. But you can land a lot of tricks in an hour, and the ones I can do, I do well.
Bo showed up all stoked about getting a new job. He pulled some amazing tricks in the bowl, on the quarter, and out of the bowl. His 360 airs are so wild, and he almost landed a casper stall from the top of the bowl. Skating a park is different
from drifting around town and taking in the sights. At the park on the mountain I often feel a sense of competition and one-upmanship. But skating at Beasley is a kind of club or loose affiliation, with guys doing crazy new tricks, kids just learning the basics, and old dinosaurs re-living their glory daze for what might be the last or second to last time. It's usually pretty relaxed and fun, and on any given day you can see some of the sickest skateboard tricks performed on ghetto retrofit terrain. Regarless of how many more trips my bones have left in them (each time I make it home safely, and wake up the next day feeling like I was in a car wreck, I swear it will be the last time), this summer has been a really fine gift, and I feel grateful for every wheelie down the sidewalk I still manage to navigate.
