Stand Up For Skateparks
Tony Hawk has been raising money for public skateparks for a while now thru his foundation. Every year he throws a party in Beverly Hills and raises over a million bucks. It all goes to building free, public skateparks in low-income areas, so you know I'm down to do whatever I can to support the effort. For me that means signing some autographs and sessionings the demo ramp with Tony, Bucky and Shaun White--easy. The whole family came this year and once again Tony showed he knows how to throw a party.
After the red carpet ride and interviews we could get down to the business of eating all sorts of junk food and hitting high fives with Bugs Bunny and crew that showed up to support the cause. I always tell Miki, Tony Hawk Foundation director, that as long as there is a chocolate fountain there, I'll be there. Will skate for chocolate. He didn't let me down. In fact this year there was even a bowl of dipping chocolate in the athlete tent. The first thing I ate was a chocolate chip cookie on a stick that I'd dunked in chocolate. Awesome!
Social Distortion played a great acoustic set on stage while we ate pizza and cotton candy. Then all the athletes jumped up on stage for introductions before the live auction started and we proceeded to raise $76 thousand bucks for a new skatepark in Tirrasanta CA. It just happens to be the town where Tony grew up.
Finally, we climbed to the top of Tony's perfect demo ramp to close out the day. There are no excuses on that ramp. I made my first varial 540 and my first 720. Shaun made a heelflip body varial-frontside 540 and Hawk was on point as usual with every combo in the book. Tony and I passed some boards around and finished it off with a triple stack with Shaun. The photo is kind of a butt shot but you get the idea. Having helped to raise over a million bucks for skateboarding on the day, we all left feeling like we were one step closer to our goal - a skatepark in every town...

Two Seconds
After a long, hard-fought season, the AST Dew Tour has come to a close. With a second place finish at the last stop in Orlando, I ended in second for the year as well. Team Positiv was once again the only team to have every rider make the tour. Orlando also marked the first time this season that every Positiv team rider made the finals at a single comp. Sandro qualified first to join me in the finals on Saturday night while both Rodney and Carlos held it down on Sunday night in the street final.
My first run in the final was my best. I made my 720 to 540 to front rodeo combo and it was enough to hold off Danny Mayer even with the kickflip-540 he made in his run. PLG was unstoppable this weekend though, winning the contest as well as the year-end.
In true Florida fashion there was an alligator pit on the street course. I watched the finals with Dune and Jason Lee, then hung out to receive the Playstation "Player of the Year" award. The award recognizes one athlete who gives back to the community and promotes the positive aspects of Action Sports. Playstation donated $5K to the Athlete Recovery Fund in my name and hooked me up with a PS3. Smooth.
Mike Rogers was out in the festival village all weekend with a sweet Grind for Life booth. The year-end wrap-up for the Grind for Life AM series is in November and I'll be in Coco Beach to check it out. I can't believe there's still three more contests this year!

Hossegor, France
The Quiksilver stop of the pro surfing tour was once again in Hossegor this year. It's just a short ride up the coast from Bairitz in the South of France. Tony Hawk and the crew were heading over for a vert demo before the surfing got under way and I was invited along.
When Quiksilver France decides to put on an event, they don't play around. The vert ramp was built in the center of town overlooking the beach and the demo crew was flown in from all over. Staab, Fritch, Elliot, Hawk and myself were all flying in from Cali. Sergie flew down from Virginia Beach and met us in Atlanta for the flight across the pond. Once in France we were joined by the Euro contingent including: Pete and Sam from the UK and Sasha from Germany.
We spent the first half-day like anyone usually does on a trip to Europe--drinking coffee and eating baguettes at cafe's and trying to stay awake till nightfall. We woke the next morning with a day to practice down at the vert ramp. I thought it was a bit overkill to have practice for a demo but as it turned out, we all needed it. The vert ramp was a lot smaller than we were all used to and it took the whole afternoon to get comfortable with it. A quick dip in the Atlantic and we were off to our obligatory four-hour Euro dinner.
The next day it was show time. Tony called me in the morning and said he was going surfing with Tommie the Quik team guy. I told him "Charlie don't surf" but I went along to shoot some photos. When we got back to the hotel, everyone else was just getting up. We headed back down to the ramp for a bit more practice. If the practice sessions were any indication, this demo was going to be big. At each practice there were fifty to a hundred people watching.
We had gotten word of a "mini-ramp" over at the Carhartt headquarters but when someone showed us pictures it was on for sure. Turns out, this ramp was really a pirate ship. Or the pirate ship was a ramp depending on how you looked at it. Staab, being the pirate that he is, fit right in. Shiver me timbers the trany's were really tight but we all had a great time swabbing the deck and walking the plank. I even did a "tail kracken" off the mast. Thar she blows!
We got a quick break at the hotel before it was go time. I spent the whole time looking up the lyrics to a Gang Starr song the Sergie and I had stuck in our heads but couldn't remember the featured rappers names. Smooth B and Greg Nice downloaded on my phone and we were off to the Quiksilver store for a signing. With no roped off areas or anything that resembled a line of any sort, they kept it real--Euro style. There were a lot of people there. I signed till I ran out of signature cards and then I signed some more. Finally, they shut the doors to the shop and we all padded up to skate.
I've been doing demos for a long time and I've had some pretty elaborate entrances before including limos and helicopters. This one ranks right up there. Rocking full pads, we all climbed into an old convertible Chevy and paraded through town waving at people. When we arrived in the main square we were astonished by how many people had turned up. Hossegor is just a sleepy little surf town. Where did everyone come from! Security hustled us right through the thick of it down a red carped that must have been an eighth of a mile long. It wasn't until I climbed up onto the ramp that I really got a measure of the crowd. I'm guessing anywhere between five to seven thousand people were packed into that little square. They were spilling out of the streets and onto the beach so they could stand watching from the sand all the way back to the water. Part way through the show I noticed people sitting on rooftops and they'd brought a Jumbotron down the beach so the overflow people could watch on TV.
We skated for almost an hour and a half. Everyone was killing it. Somehow you always skate better in a demo when there are thousands of people screaming their heads off every time you do a flip trick, invert or McTwist. Tony and I set off some doubles action with side-by-side 540's and some board passing. Then the Huck Jam Crew showed'em some gnar-weave (multiple over-unders on every wall) and they didn't know what hit them. Tony and I even broke out the tailslide on the 50-50 trick from X Games doubles 1997. Not shocking but still amazing was the 720 Tony made first try. Granted he invented that trick on a ramp about the same size, but still. With transition that small I never even thought to try one. They milked the ending for as long as they could thanking each of the skaters one by one, the crowd cheering all the while. It even got a little sketchy when kids started barging up on stage trying to get autographs. With the help of security we snuck off to the side and into one of the restaurants where the after party began. The band came on and everyone got loose till the wee hours.
Thank you Mr. Hawk, Quiksilver and of course all the people that came out. Memories we will not soon forget.
Marcie, au revoir.

Finally!
Finally! I've won quite a few titles in my fourteen years as a pro. I've got more X Games medals than any other skater and I won the Overall World Cup Championship for eight years in a row. For some reason though, a win on the AST Dew Tour had eluded me for the four years it's been running-- until now.
Salt Lake City was the fourth stop on the NBC Action Sports Tour. With a disappointing showing at the Portland stop, I'd fallen back to fourth in the overall rankings. That meant that I'd have to skate in the qualifiers as only the top three get the by directly to finals. I flew in on Tuesday for what would be almost a week in the SLC. Wednesday was practice, and on Thursday, after a strong second run in the prelims I'd edged out teammate Sandro Dias for the top spot.
Friday was a practice day so I headed out to the local cement park with: Chris Miller and his son Zack, WCS judges Owen Neider and Charlie Wilkins and fellow pro Renton Miller of Australia mate. It was a legit park with a decent street section and really fun clover-type bowl with pool coping. We skated in the heat for almost three hours. I nearly killed Charlie trying to set up for a doubles photo op. He was doing frontside grinds and I was dropping in right behind him so I could shoot under him when he aired the hip. One of his grinds got away from him and he had to bail out as he came toward me but not before I had already committed to my drop-in. We both ended up in a pile at the bottom of the bowl as I tried not to entirely run him over. Eventually we pulled it off and had a really fun session in the process. On the way home I treated everyone to Frosties at Wendy's with some gift cards Bucky had hooked me up with. There's nothing like topping off a good sesh with a little ice cream.
The only down side was that somehow I'd put a bit too much stress on my lower back during the day. By the time I got on the vert ramp for practice that night I could barley bend over to grab my board. I'd struggle with back pain for the rest of the weekend spending a lot of time down at athlete medical.
Saturday was yet another practice day so I made time to check out the BMX Super Cross. Whenever I see a course like that I always wish it was made of Skatelite so I could skate through it. It'd be so much fun hitting those rhythm sections and whipping around the burms. My friend Nadia was there from Swatch because they sponsor that event. She brought me Haribo gummy bears straight from Zürich. The best. I watched the street finals that night along with the rest of the record-breaking crowd inside Energy Solutions Stadium. Teammate Carlos De Andrade was on his game making it to the final jam and placing fifth for the night with a sweet nollie big spin over the hydrant. Go team Positve! Fourteen-year-old Chaz Ortiz took the big win in street flipping in and out of a frontside board slid on the flat bar. Whew! That kid's good.
Sunday rolled around and it was finals time. I hit up a Verizon Wireless store in the morning to program my new phone and then headed to athlete medical. My back was getting better but it was still sore and really stiff. Adding to the stiffness was that the stadium kept the floor of the arena freezing cold all weekend. If you weren't skating you needed a sweatshirt to hang out inside. I warmed up for over an hour and then it was go time.
I was relieved to stomp my first run but I'd held off on my 720 and scored an 88.00. I was in first after round one but I knew it wouldn't hold up. It was time to step it up. I rolled in for my second run and pushed through every trick. I under-rotated my 720 but somehow slid it around with enough speed to get a McTwist on the next wall. I landed that with even more speed than I'd gone into it with and through a lien rodeo on the next wall. Two more flip tricks and a nollie-front-five and I was out. Happy to have made another full pull and even happier when the scores came up. A 90.50. The first time on this tour I'd scored in the 90's. It was just enough to hold off PLG and Bob who ended in second and third respectively.
It felt good to stand at the top of the podium. Utah: The State of Sport, kicked in an extra three gees and a snowboard for winning. Thanks to the Dew Tour staff for getting me to the airport on time straight from the contest. Home for two days, then off again for a demo in France with Tony Hawk and crew. Still going...

Portland
If I didn't live in San Diego, I'd live in Portland. There are already so many great places to skate in that town and the city has plans to build nineteen more public skateparks over the next couple of years. In the downtown area there are bike lanes and skate lanes on the city streets. I look forward to the AST stop in Portland every year more for the skating I do away from the contest at the contest itself. This year was no different.
Because I was seated in the top three overall rankings, I didn't have to skate the preliminary round. That gave me even more time to get out to the parks. On my first day in town I skated vert at the contest for a few hours then headed south with a film crew from Rush HD TV. We stopped at a new park in Tigard that has a cement dinosaur sitting in the middle of it. It was a pretty fun flow park and I had do a nose bonk on the "trannysaurus rex". And just to be a cheeseball I did a caveman off the dinosaur too. Unfortunately I forgot to shoot a photo.
From there we headed further south to the little farming town of Aumsville. The population is only around three thousand people but they didn't mess around when it came time to build a skatepark. Build by Grindline in 2000, it is still one of my favorite parks in the country. Lots of smooth hips and speed lines with a flow that connects it all together better than most parks could hope for. We skated till dark and then made it back to town in time for a slice at Pizza Schmizza.
The next day was a practice day on the vert ramp as well. I stuck around the venue long enough to catch the street finals and then headed out for another cement skatepark adventure. This time I was rolling with Chris Miller, his two boys Zach and Luke, Paul Zitzer and Owen of the World Cup judging staff. Pier park is just about twenty minutes out of town and I got a chance to skate it for the first time last year. It has a sweet full pipe that empties into bowls at both ends. The challenge last year was to carve frontside over the doorway that's cut into the side of the full pipe. You've got to make it up to about ten o'clock to make it over safely. This year I wanted to do it backside. It took some figuring out but I managed to pull both the backside and frontside in the same run. Chris and his son Zach were both killing the bowl and the locals were on point as well. There's a local there they call Grover that I used to skate with in Michigan when I was just a grom. We skated till dark again and I was late for the Positiv Team dinner but I had a good excuse.
Oh yeah, the contest! That went down on Saturday and I'm sad to report that I didn't have such a great showing. I fell on the 720's on both my first two runs putting all the pressure on my last run. I changed it up and saved the seven till the end and it worked out. I pulled my whole last run clean but it was only good enough for 5th behind teammate Sandro. That'll bump me out of the top three for the next stop so I'll be skating prelims in Salt Lake in a couple of weeks.

X Games Fourteen
X Games Fourteen has come and gone. This year SuperPark was the new brainchild of ESPN. Basically it was a cement skatepark made of wood, complete with spine, volcano, hips and a cradle. There were two bowls with zero flat and the most fun of all some pretty sweet rollers on the roll-out decks. They finished the SuperPark construction a week early and opened it up to practice but for the most part only Omar, Rune and I showed up every day. I'm glad I did because as fun as it was, I needed some time to get my lines down. I even took time to stop by Flake, the hot new breakfast joint that my bro Simon just opened in Venice Beach. Any cereal you want with any topping you want--awesome.
After taking the weekend off, I drove up to LA and checked in to the athlete hotel. I had my work cut out for me so there would be a lot less driving if I just camped out in LA for the week of the Games. Every day I'd wake up early and drive over to the Home Depot Center in Carson. I'd skate vert for a few hours then SuperPark for a bit before driving up to The Staples Center in downtown LA. There I'd suit up once again and ride the Big Air ramp for another three hours. I'd take a break in the middle of that practice and eat my dinner fully padded-- OK, I'd take off my helmet and gloves. I skated seven or eight hours every day till Thursday, the day of the Big Air contest which just happened to be my birthday. My goal at the morning qualifiers was simply to make the two cut and join the other four pre-qualified riders in the finals that night. I ended up boosting the highest air of my entire life-- a 24 foot, 1 inch high judo air. Happy birthday to me! Stoked. I qualified first and went on to take fourth that night in one of the most dramatic skateboard finals I've ever skated in. Big Air is gnarly. Danny Way, in case you missed it, is made of nails.
I had one "day off" to get ready for Saturday where I'd be skating two events in the same day. I practiced vert and Superpark once again. On Saturday morning, I woke up early again and started off the day by saying out loud, pace yourself. I was the first skater in the first heat of Superpark. It was a jam format, in order and the scoring was immediate. That meant that before you dropped in for you run, you knew what place you were in. I won my heat but I needed to make a ten cut for the final and there were still four more heats to go. I didn't have time to watch them however because I had to get my mind switched over to vert.
When I arrived at the vert ramp, Alex asked me why I'd missed practice. I reminded him that I was the only skater competing in three events. Vert practice had taken place while I was skating in the SuperPark qualifiers. The vert contest got under way right after the BMX comp. I was in the first heat of five and had to place in the top two in order to advance to the final five. I did it without falling once in five runs.
My teammate Sandro was the bubble boy getting in to the final but he made it in and Positiv was representing. The new format was good because it kept the action moving but bad in that if you were at the bottom of a heat, as Sandro and I were, there was potential to get less runs than the rest of the field. That's exactly what happened. When the clock stopped Sandro and I had taken one less run than the other three guys. I'd made all my runs except for one but only the best three runs were scored. In the end I walked away in fourth place just ahead of Sandro. I was a tired dude but there was still one more contest. One more day.
I'd gone home to get the family after the vert finals so it was once again rise and shine the next morning, pile in to the family wagon and drive to LA. The SuperPark format was just like vert--two heats of five to qualify to the top five final. This time I was the bubble boy but I made it through for my last chance at a medal.
I'll pause here for an update on the medal count. Tony Hawk and I had been tied for the most X Games medals for skateboarding at 16 each. We'd been tied since 2005 when I got the bronze in Big Air. I just needed one more to pull ahead but with a fourth place in Big Air and another fourth place on vert, it seemed like I just had the curse of fourth place.
SuperPark started out well for me as I made my first two lines solid but then I fell for no reason on my third run and found myself in fourth place again with just two runs left! Not another fourth! I dropped in and made a frontside 50-50 on the sub-box that I really should not have made but pulled it in anyway. Luckily the time allowed for everyone to get the same amount of runs this at this final. I was the last to go and made a transfer line that I'd only done one other time during practice. I didn't want anyone else to take my line so I'd snaked in on the BMX practice to learn it and then just saved it till I needed it. I must have worked because I ended up with the silver medal. It's my seventeenth medal in fourteen years of X Games-- more than any other skater. I was so tired I couldn't feel my legs but I've never been so happy to get second place.
It was awesome to have my wife and son there to see it. Haden came up on the podium with me and held my water bottle. He wasn't too stoked on the medal right away but later on he wouldn't take it off. My phone didn't stop ringing for the next two days with messages of congratulations. You'd have thought I won! The most important thing that came across over the course of the week was apparent to anyone that watched or was there. I love to skateboard...all day, every day.

Thank You Cleveland!
The second stop of the Dew Tour was in Cleveland. That city must really love action sports because we always seem to be going back there for contests. I remember going to Triple Crown Events in the late 90's. Then the Gravity Games camped out in Cleveland every summer for a few years. Now the Dew Tour continues the tradition. I saw guys scalping tickets for the "Gravity Games". Whatever, all they know is that it's another skateboard contest right on the lake next to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
From an athlete perspective, having the ramp right on the lake is bad news. It might make for great blimp shots but there is always wind coming off the lake. If not wind, wind and rain. We often refer to it as "mistake on the lake". This year was no different; although I must say it was the mellowest it's been in a while. The BMX event was rain delayed about three hours and the FMX demo got called off because of wind but that's about it. Our skateboard vert contest went off without a hitch. The only complaint was the heat. It was hot, hot, hot and muggy. I went through three shirts just in the finals. That said the crowd never disappoints and my biggest fan in Cleveland was there like clockwork to give me my traditional bag of red vines. He knows they're my favorite.
Despite the heat, I was good at pacing myself and saved my best for the finals. I made all my 720's and honestly skated more solid and confident than I have in a long time. I thought I was in a solid second place behind the Flying Tomato but the judges saw it differently and I ended up third behind Bucky. Even Bucky knew his run didn't beat mine and was apologizing to me after scores came up. It's not like it's his fault. When they called us up to the podium, Bucky pushed me over to the second place stand. In any case, it's always nice to be on the podium after skating well.
My teammate Carlos skated well too and placed sixth over on the street course with a sweet backside 270 to boardslide on the flatbar and an amazing nollie backside 360 on the quarter pipe. Team Positiv autograph sessions went down and I even got to check out the new Batman movie. It was all good in Cleveland. On to the X Games.

Hannah Montana
I can never guess what's going to happen sometimes when I pick up my cell phone. I get some pretty random requests. A couple of year ago a got a call from my manager asking if I'd like to go to Israel to skate a demo at a bar mitzvah. Sometimes it's my friend Tom from the WaveHouse asking if I'll go surf a Flowrider in Chile or South Africa. I got another random call the other day.
This time is was the stunt coordinator working on the new Hanna Montana movie. I don't watch much Hanna Montana but apparently she's got a best friend named Lilly that skates. The actress playing the part of Lilly was in need of some skateboard lessons--thus the phone call. I had practice for an upcoming contest the day they wanted to do it, so I told them it would have to be early in the morning to fit into my schedule.
After waking up at the crack of dawn and driving two hours north I arrived at little house in Burbank with a mini ramp in the back yard. Donny, the ramp's owner and the stunt coordinator met me out front and "Lilly" showed up soon thereafter. The first thing you learn to do skateboarding is how to fall, right? That's where we started. After "Lilly" had her knee slides down we got to some tic-tacks around the flatbottom and then tried for a fackie just barely up the bottom of transition. Having never been on a ramp before she course shot her board out and had the stuntman and myself diving to catch her.
I'm glad to report that after just a couple of hours together I had the Hanna Montana co-star doing fackies on her own power almost to the top of the ramp. We also worked on some boneless ones, tail stops and the famous Michael J. Fox kick tail to get the board up into her hand. We did a quick interview for the behind the scenes DVD guys and I was off to practice at the contest. Good times on the set of the new Hanna Montana movie. Go check it out.

Maloof Money Cup
There was a lot of hype leading up to the contest with the biggest prize purse in the history of skateboarding. The Maloof Brothers, owners of the Sacramento Kings and The Sands Resort in Vegas had decided to get into the skateboarding game. The athlete areas and catering, which had been promised to blow minds, left a lot to be desired but the opposite was true about the street course and vert ramp. From the freshly rolled out turf and bushes lining the course to the working fountain in the middle of the all cement street plaza, no expense was spared. If you're willing to spend $250 thousand dollars just on your street course, you know you won't be hearing any complaints from the skaters. Not a complaint was heard. Games of SKATE went down with $15 thousand dollars going to the winner. The girls division gave out $25 thousand to its winner--again the largest ever pay out. P-Rod came up $100 thousand bucks winning the street event while his dad (Paul Rodriguez Sr.) was on the microphone cracking everyone up.
Over on the vert ramp there were some serious obstacles to keep us busy. Whether it was the two offset walls, the two 20-foot-high banked drop-ins or the two extensions with six feet of vert and pool coping, it was hard to find your way around.  I felt like I was skating the 21st century version of the Terror at Tahoe contest (see: N.S.A. contests circa 1988ish- Lance Mountain won taking his last run with the tail of his board on fire). It wasn't just the prize money but the format as well that made this contest so different. On Saturday we skated the "8 Ball" in which we each had eight tries to make our run of just 8 walls--half as many as a normal contest run. After the scores from the day were compiled I was sitting in 5th place but I was a happy camper. I had landed 100% of the 720's I tried and made some combinations that I had never done before. I made a seven to a five to a rodeo frontside five as well as a seven to a nollie frontside five.
The standings after Saturday served not only to rank us for the heats on Sunday but also counted as half your overall score. Sunday as a jam format and I didn't skate as well but still made the tricks I'd planned to just without the gusto I'd hoped. My teammate Sandro Dias landed his 900 with two minutes to go in the jam and overtook me in 5th. I ended up in 6th place but it's interesting to note that I earned the same amount of money for 6th at this event as I did for winning the Asian X Games earlier this year.
It was a fun event, close to home and was a great break from the same ramp blues of the AST Dew Tour. I heard talk of the Maloof brothers wanting to do it again next year. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

AST Baltimore
The first big contest stateside this season was the first stop of the NBC Action Sports Tour. Baltimore, MD was the spot and I'm pretty sure everyone that came last year, came again this year and brought a friend. During the vert finals on Saturday night there were not only packed bleachers at the vert ramp but on the street course and the FMX course as well watching on the jumbotrons.
I tried two 720's in practice for the finals and when I made them both I knew it was on. On my first run I made the whole run, including the seven but slammed on my last trick-- a frontside 540. I hit my head and scorpioned enough to hurt my back pretty good. On my second run I slammed on the seven, this time taking a rib shot that would make it hard to breath for the rest of the night. My last run was by best. I stuck another 720 clean and did a 540 out of it. Unfortunately, I slid out again on my last trick just at the buzzer went. I ended up fourth behind Bob and PLG with hometown hero Lucky Basic (Bucky) taking the win.
It was a fun weekend. I got to see the BMX vert finals and shoot some photos with the new digi camera that Panasonic hooked me up with--being that it was the Panasonic Open. I did a fun little talk show with "Dune" for Fuel TV. The kids get to ask most of the questions so it made it pretty cool. The whole Positiv team was in the house with three of the four of us making the finals. We signed some autographs and I signed beat up Rodney Jones model. That's the way we like them. Keep rippin' kids. The folks that run the VZW STR8TLK Tour also run the PR for the traveling museum exhibition "Body Worlds". They set everyone up with passes. Of course I liked the skateboarder the best. Check the photos.

Portland str8tlk
Portland Maine was the second stop on the VZW STR8TLK Tour this year. I hadn't been to Portland in years but I still remember the job I had at the country club there right after High School washing dishes. Everyone should be a professional dishwasher at some point in life. It builds character. You might think that Maine is just all about lobster right? Well, check this one out. Every kid in middle school in the entire state of Maine, gets a free Macintosh laptop. How cool is that? When I'm in the East I'm all about pizza. I think I ate at least a slice a day all nine days I was there. So in between being jealous that kids in middle school these days get free laptops, at least I was eating some good pie.
The schools were all good and the kids were great. Biddeford Middle School has a sweet state-of-the-art auditorium in case you've ever passing through. Biddeford is the town just south of Portland that was home to the best park in New England when I was growing up. I found a way up to Ratz every weekend from Boston just to skate the vert ramp and bowl. That's where the Who Skates team originated. OG team members included: myself, Donny Barley, Matt Pailes and Dan Drehobl-- all of whom are still pro skateboards today. I on tangents sometimes. Bear with me.
We had something happen at a school this tour that has never happened in the tour's four-year history. I was about half way through the program on the second school of the day when the fire alarm when off. Everyone, of course, had to get up and walk out. Being that it was the end of the school day, I never got to finish the gig. Kids had to just get back on the school bus and jet. Sorry, guys. At the end of the program I was going to try and ollie over your principle and maybe even the superintendent. We missed out.
The demo was at the Bath Skatepark just north of Portland. My man Tom Noble built the place and recommended it for the demo. I saw Tom one night while I was in town. He bought me sushi so I bought him ice cream. The park's got a sweet mini ramp that spines into a bowl next to a solid street course. It's the place to be most of the year in Maine when there's snow or rain outside. They do a great job getting kids involved at the park and there was quite a posse to join me for the session. The Verizon Wireless Street Team was in the house and along with a board, a helmet and about a million T-shirts we also gave away a brand new cell phone. Can you hear me now?...