Evidence III: Go Skateboarding Day

I feel kinda bad, because Cowtown is a ruling shop and I should always do whatever they say. Several years ago, a crew of us went up to Prescott and skated the new park on Go Skateboarding Day. On the way back, after imbibing several beers, we stopped by the old Cowtown ramp that was in a warehouse in Phoenix. They had an event there for the day, and they were making announcements and someone just handed me the mic and said "say something." So I said something along the lines of "Everyday is go skateboarding day, not just today. In fact, don't do what people try to tell you to do, take a day off from skateboarding on go skateboarding day! Be a non-conformist! Go against the grain! Carpe Diem! Hail Caesar..." and I kept muttering stuff until someone took away the microphone. So, I get it, not cool to tell the kids to not go skateboarding on Go Skateboarding Day. Am I forgiven?

Yesterday was Go Skateboarding Day 2011, so we went skateboarding. Hoss, Andrew, Brad and I set off for the West Side. We met up with Dixon at the new Cowtown ramp, and he gave us the coordinates for the pool on the agenda for that day. We took back the alley, in through the open gate, and there she stood. Crazy weird left hand wall, a little tight in the shallow, but everyone grinded. Andrew went for light-death, but that will have to wait for next time. After 20 minutes or so we got spooked with a lot of activity, including what sounded like a big dog (along with a small dog) next door trying to jump over the fence and eat us. We split.

Andrew checks the specs.

B-Rad, regs, BSG.

Hossy, goofs, BSG.

If you see this in a pool, I've skated it.

Takin' back the alley (photo Hoss).

Spits are playing at this year's Johnny Rad Fest!

Back at the ramp, some young guns were shredding. We all took some runs (although Hoss bowed out -- but Rob Locker skated, which guaranteed that I wasn't the oldest guy at the session) and shot the shit. Then it was on the Cowtown event.

Court and Jay.

Dickman.

Young gun going FS 5-0.

We rolled up and there were half a dozen cop cars and SUVs, and about 15 or 20 cops. I Thought this was funny, and when we walked by said "Wow, heavy presence at the skate event," to one of the cops, who didn't think it was funny. I guess it wasn't meant to be. They showed a Transworld video, which was OK (but I swear it seemed like after every trick they filmed they tried to get arty by either zooming in on the skaters' legs or slowly panning the camera up and shooting the sky, which got very old and very repetitive very fast -- but there was some sick skating).* Then mayhem ensued as the Cowtown crew unleashed a fusillade of product from on top of their van. It was just like an old product toss but multiplied by 4.3 on the Sickter scale. Oooh... that was a bad pun. They gave away so much stuff, seems like every kid walked away with something. As we were leaving, I asked some of the cops if they were having fun and snapped their photo. One of the cops saw I had a camera and quickly reached for his flashlight and shined it at me (to wash out my photo?) but it was too late. He was also by far the shortest cop in the bunch, so I thought maybe his flashlight makes up for his small penis?

I told Hoss that eating ice cream in public is not punk, a lesson I learned from Tom Price.

Product Toss mayhem, it was so dusty all my flash photos look like shit.

Soda, doling out product to the masses.

Trent lets a board fly while a competing blogger attempts to block my access to the money shot.

The fuzz. Reactions range from making a face, to amused, to tough guy, to "I'm gonna get a flashlight and blow out the photo" (far left). Didn't work, guy.

We then went to the George and Dragon for some of the worst food I have eaten in a long time, and watched overweight and generally unhealthy looking middle age dudes get a little too caught up in their sweet poker games.

At home, the team of Janet and Meg gave conflicting advice to my suggestions to Brad about women. Their advice: "Don't fart in front of girls except on very rare occasions." My advice: "You can't respect a girl until you have held her close and farted on her." Listen to me Brad, I know what I am talking about.**

*Disclaimer: I work for Thrasher, the real skateboarding magazine.
**Please don't write and tell me I am fucked, because I already know that.