School Daze

It has been a while! Where was I? Oh, just school.
I just finished a hellish 8 months, with very little skateboarding in the mix, so today was the first day I ventured out in a while!
I managed to land a few kickflips, did a few grinds, all from my two trick repertoire. hahah I even ollied a tree stump! Yes, at the Dunbat skatepark, someone hacked apart a 100 year old tree, left the rest of it in the forest and brought the pristine stump to adorn the beautiful ice-rink-turned-skatepart at Dundas and Bathurst. Thank you, Nature! I always knew you could contribute!

And now it is raining.

I'm back.

Here's some footage of 2 of my pals, who are both around my age (OLD), and who both kick my ass on transitions! I was in the wimpy, training wheels part of the park. This park is called Vanderhoof, and is famous for its "half-shell" bowl!
Anyway, all three of us are really into heavy ass-kickin' music, but I always like skate vids with a bit of contrast with the musical selection....

Cold weather already setting in

I just found out, from a skater colleague at Gazele's Falafel, that the DunBat skatepark was going to close up for the winter in a few days. The weather here has been pretty rainy and cold, so I suppose this is the sign that the "Toronto" skate season is coming to an end. 

I still want to go back to the new Ashbridge's Bay park. When I went there for the first time last month, it started raining after 20 minutes! Pretty disappointing.

So what is an aging skateboarding like myself supposed to do when the weather is crap? Where am I going to huck my old, uncoordinated body down some stairs? Where am I going to be the laughing stock of all 16 year olds?

Two words: Skate It! "Skate It!" is the Nintendo Wii's flagship skateboard game. I played it last winter intensely for about 3 months. I never left my couch. I developed a weird muscle strain in my right shoulder from twisting my arm in a weird way to mimic ollies and kickflips with the Wii remote--but it was all worth it! I was a superstar pro skater in the world of Skate It! My Mii was able to effortlessly do 50 ft. grinds down 25 stair handrails with a 360 flip out at the end! It was a dream come true! And unlike other consoles, moving the Wii remote to do tricks was much more fun than stabbing a few buttons on the conventional controllers from other game consoles! Whoa. Ok. This post is slowly turning into a gaming review! But who cares! It's cold outside. And I'm as good as Chris Haslam in my world of Skate it.

trip to the skatepark

We went to the skatepark at Warden and Ellesmere on the weekend. It was rammed with children everywhere! They were all much better skaters than I, zippin' around! So I felt I needed to prove myself by aggressively trying to jump a 6 stair gap and grind a metal bar. Needless to say, I slammed a lot, and every time I slammed I was met with concerned looks and comments from my junior companions, "Whoa! are you okay?" I'm not sure if it was their higher-pitched voices but I would respond with an angry, frustrated, "Ya, I'm fine! (aargh! leave me alone!)" I even re-injured my toe--which was slowly healing from having a futon dropped on it a few weeks ago (don't ask). Anyway, I've concluded that skateparks are a conundrum of embarrassment: if I go during the afternoon and evening, all the good skaters are shredding it up, and if I go during the morning, all the good lil' skaters are shredding it up. And their parents are watching from their suv's. And they're probably the same age as I am.

stiff legs @ 7:30 AM!

So my middle finger felt ok enough to skate today. I hit the DunBat park. It was a little slippery on the ramps due to the morning dew! Which explains why I skated like doo-doo.

Fingerjams! Yay!

I went to the DunBat skatepark today, thinking I would just do a leisurely skate, but of course, when it's raging with shredders half my age, I end up trying to skate as much as I can, doing the only 3 tricks I only know--everywhere! I repeatedly skated up and down the ramps, funbox, and manual pad, doing bonelesses, ollies, and grinds! I was on fire! And then that fire quickly fizzled out when I fell during a grind, fingers outstretched, jamming into my hand because I was at a weird angle and did not roll with my fall! 

In fact I am gingerly typing this at the moment. My mani destra is a bit mani swollen.

A crappy ol' video

Here's  a crappy old video (filmed by my buddy Joe Kippax) of me slamming a lot. It's from a few years ago, around 2004. I apologize for the grainy, choppy movement of the screen!

I'm even wearing an elbow pad! This is what a geriatric skater like me has to wear, because my bones are rather brittle, and can break easily.