Old Friend...

So, This post will have some old pictures of my friend Sam. The first one here is of Sam at my Mom's's house in her recliner chair around 1996. Notice Sam is sporting some suede Vans Fairlanes for a session later, or earlier, I don't remember. We had a friend who worked for a Beer distribution company and his job was to set up the displays at the stores. He always had free swag left over promo ish, like this nice Red Dog wall sign for your Basement Bar. Now the one thing that was always said about the logo was the fact that if you took the Cap, or any part of any Red Dog merchandise, it looked as if it were Batman going down on Catwoman or any Woman for that matter. A guy in this blog, whom which I'd found in my quest for this story, has done some very elementary PhotoShop skills to bring this myth to a visionary reality.

Sam was and is a great guy who took his skill from skateboarding to transmissions and now has his own transmission shop simply called "The Tranz Shop" sorry he doesn't have a kewl webfacility for you too waste time at, the one review on the link I gave you pretty much Hit The Nail On The Head, I hate when people say Spot On, I mean come on you're not from britain. He had quite a nice pop on that skateboard of his, he never could Ollie that low.

As you can see he KNDA just sucked it up into his chest to get over these here bread crates, now even though he is coming out of a driveway, the driveway is not that steep. If you went to this spot, if it hasn't been torn down by the city of St. Charles, IL, you would see that the help from the bank is very minimal and that the actual Ollie is huge in and of itself.

This picture is just of an Ollie down the Embarcadero 7, even though it's 6 stairs, there is actually a stretch in one of them making it as long as a 7 stair set. This has to be one of the funnestest summers's I have had. We went to Tahoe and Cali with my parents in 1991, they gambled on Keno and Nickel slots while we skated, climbed mountains, ate Spaghetti-O's and swam in 60* Lake Tahoe.

When we got to my Aunt and Uncle's house in Martinez, CA. they had this old ass Video Days type Cadillac in which we were specifically told "not to drive over the bridge into Benicia," Guess what we did? Yup, we went to Benicia anyway, like any normal teenager doing the opposite of what they're told not to, while they all left for the day to do Adult stuff like drive to the top of Mount Diablo or some ish. We skated the Benicia park for quite some time, met some kid who was originally from around the Chicago area had chatted us up in the Taco Bell next to the park and commented on my Public skateboards sticker, apparently he knew someone sponsored by them. I remember thinking it was kool because the house directly across from it had the address of 666. This is the same park that Natas, Julien & Curtis skate in the post card that Natas sends to Jason Jesse in Streets on Fire.

When we went to SF we went to Chinatown looking for the China Banks, only to realize later that it was an actual bridge that we had been walking under the whole time in our search. Well, at least we think it was the bridge we were walking under since we never did find it. So, we skated down the road passing all the piers until we get to the imfamous Embarcadero where we see the most amazing ahead-of-the-rest skateboarding I have ever seen. Big Dirty aka: James Kelch was there doing big spins that were more along the lines of a backside 180 inward late shove-it, Jovantae Turner was there also skating and doing some crazy ish for being 1991 that it left me being a T-dog.

Now, I had no idea who any of these people were at the time we went there until their careers started to take off and they got more coverage. So when I looked at the photos a few years later, it was only then did I understand who I was standing and skating next to. My Dad took the last photo here of me doing a Noseslide to Fakie on the big ledge that Danny Sargent does a slappy on in the New Deal video 1281, either that or it was in Useless Wooden Toys. My Dad is no Bryce Kanights or Otis "O" Barthoulameu so this is the best photo.

Okay, so that was just a slice of life that I really should do something with. I have much more to write about that trip, but don't wanna waste my whole day, it's beautiful and perfect SF weather outside, how fitting. Maybe I will end up writing my memoirs someday or at least dictate them.

As of the end of this post I am currently listening to "Lessons That Burn" by Evan Johns & His H-Bombs from the album "Bombs Away" 1989. This baby is not on iTunes, this is the actual cassette tape of mine from 20 years ago that I am listening to. I hooked up my tape deck with the encouragement of my GF because she is an analog angel who loves and appreciates tape as much as me. I had gotten caught up in the digital convenience of it all that I let it invade and affect my home life.