First time ever jumping a fence into a California public school SkatePark-like playground.
The day before yesterday
Personal life update
I posted the day before yesterday morning, at 1am about how my wife and I had to move out of our apartment, we didn’t know where we’d be going other than a temporary hotel. I didn’t think I’d be out skating again till after this blind transition.
To our great joy, many solutions suddenly appeared before us, including a new place to live (maybe for free) in a private cottage on the grounds of a mansion, for at least a few months. Still must hotel surf for a few weeks, but in the end we’ll save so much money and have so much time to prepare for our next move, and we’ll love the cottage so much, it’ll be worth the hotel floating.
As for the skating
Along with the fortuitous housing score, a few time factors worked out amazingly in our favor on the actual move out day. Hence, smack in the middle of what is usually the most stressful time, my wife went and taught her class and I went skating for almost 3 hours!
What’s this? My wife finding me skate spots
Three or four nights ago my wife was walking home through a neighborhood, passing a closed school and she heard skate sounds but was puzzled about the origin. She found it, hidden from sight behind a storm fence and encircling concrete wall on the grounds of the school.
Through a crack in the fence she learned from skaters that this is a secret skate spot, hidden away from cops, no security. She was so excited to share it with me, we drove over after my work was done.
The best skate spot I’ve ever enjoyed.
So on the move date (day before yesterday) as soon as I knew I had a few hours I texted a fellow stand-up comic whom also skates and we met up, hopped the fence and found a world of good.
There's a lit lot, sheltered from sun and rain, filled with waxed curbs and manual pads. They're a semi-shaded area filled with unbolted plastic topped picnic tables, two of which were already set in place for long grinds and slides. There's smooth open pavement, various stairs, rails and gaps.
We met another skater, Justin, and were thrilled beyond belief to skate in this private playground.
This and the above two shots are just a fraction of the new school playground spot my wife discovered for me.
First time skating with friends in about twenty years
For me it was extra special because it was the first time I skated with a friend since I was a kid. I’ve known my stand-up comedy buddy for about ten years but only recently discovered our mutual love of skating. He’s about 30 yrs old, but you’d think he was 20. I’m almost 40, you’d think I was 30.
He is an awesome skater and I’ve already begun to learn a ton from him. He filmed me doing the above pictured board slide across the two benches.
I slammed a few times, including unfortunately jamming my left ring finger. Now both of my ring fingers are too bruised and swollen to wear my wedding ring. Alas, this is one of the difficulties of being an adult relearning how to skateboard.
Then we departed and I resumed moving into hotel limbo.
Having to move to a hotel along with all of our stuff posed a problem. Had to give away tons of stuff, including my old Pharmacy deck that was all beat up. Was very hard to give up.
Yesterday
Knowing that we don’t need to look for a new apartment for months, and can take a few days off before we figure out where we’ll stay from the 30th till the 10th, we basically treated ourselves to a post-move relaxing day in our posh temporary hotel (posh cuz it’s fancy and was a gift from a buddy whom works at the hotel chain). No worries yesterday.
Desert skating
Our hotel for the next 5 nights, and the last two night, is in a very hot town called Baldwin Park in the San Gabriel valley, about 30 miles away from Hollywood, friends, stand-up, and much of our livelihood. It’s just the only place for us to redeem the emergency hotel gift. It’s basically the desert. Super hot, about 20 degrees more than Hollywood. Little to no shade.
A few months ago, also noted in this blog, my wife and I stayed in this same hotel, also gifted, when our douche bag ex-landlord rendered our former apartment temporarily uninhabitable.
Cool thing is I already knew a couple places to skate. On top of that I searched and found two SkateParks, one only a few blocks away!
Skating with William at the school gave me the confidence to Ollie gaps and stairs again! I slammed hard just before this, twice.
Cops and ex-gang members stopping my drills, on to Baldwin Skate Park
About a week ago now I skated for a few hours at Stoner Skate Park. Loved it. Favorite park so far. However, as I wrote, I came away dissatisfied due to not getting in at least some of my all important drills. So yesterday before going to the SkatePark I drilled behind Home Depot until cops came. After I left I finished in the parking lot of the SkatePark. A very cool, very tattooed 33 year old, heavyset dude and I started talking outside the SkatePark. He’s getting back into it just like me. I learned a lot from him about pressure flips, disasters, half-cabs and truck tightness. I feel so lucky and stoked to have made another connection with another skater. What?! 3 skate buddies in two days. (Oh I forgot to mention above that the other dude Justin let me know some insider info about some hidden Hollywood ditches, banks and school yard!).
Great chatting with the dude, inspirational, but after awhile I got back to drills.
Drills
Did at least ten each of the following, to keep it fresh:
Rolling Popshovits
Stationary Kickflips
Rolling Kickflips
Rolling Varial Flips
Things I didn’t practice that I want to keep fresh and improve upon:
Nollie practice
180 backside Ollie Practice
K-grind practice
Tre Flip Practice.
The park itself
Baldwin Skate Park.
Beautiful park. Great transition, great hips and pyramids. Rails and ledges abounding. A whole 100+ degrees of quarter pipe with various tombstones.
However, I’ll opine that this park is similar to Venice in that there are very few obstacles for the beginner or intermediate skater. The only manual pad is at the top of a pyramid for me only approachable backside, and all of the 15 to 20 ledges and rails are almost exactly the same height: too high for me, like 2.5 to 3 feet. Kind of retarded actually. A rail in the about picture is about 1.5+ feet tall but that’s the lowest, and there’s no good curbs, ledges or manual pad other than stuff that’s hard to get into or out of for a beginner. Give us some variety. I can front tail and practice other grinds and slides on stuff up to almost two feet high, but I want to practice on something lower. That one 10 inch pad on top of the quarter pipe was crowded by about 10 locals whom weren’t using the 6 empty pyramids. A few kids were doing runs, using the pyramids for Ollie bumps, but due to the way the other pyramids were laid out they actually had to start on the quarter pipe, cross flat, go up and over another pyramid, across more flat and up to the bump. Super fun, I did it a bunch too, but also a ton of unnecessary obstacles just to get to the destination. Took those skaters about a minute to reset before each attempt.That’s like the street portion of Venice Skate Park too, all the stuff is broken up by the different plateaus, and most of the ledges and curbs are higher than knee high. Cool for shredding when you can already shred, shitty for learning. Seems like Baldwin Skate Park park was designed by an ego man with little regard for the newer skaters and kids.
Don’t get me wrong, there is flat in which to practice and transition to endlessly carve. But anything meant to mimic a curb or low ledge, forget about it. They are all about the same height of too high, and/or the approach is messed up by a pyramid.
Even with the stairs I ollied in the above photo it was hard to get speed, unless I wanted to go clear across the park and execute the quarter pipe and two pyramid obstacles first.
I got a hipper doing an accidental board slide down the sharp angle of a hip. But it was awesome and for sure is something I can practice when I return.
After all the above
I now have two ring fingers too swollen to wear my wedding ring, a broken toe, hairline fracture in my heel, a huge bruise on my knee and hip, and am blissfully very skate sore. I now also have some cool video and more confidence than ever. And my wife, while showing more support for skating than usual, also got very pissed at the increasing gnarliness of my skating and injuries, and is demanding that I somehow make a ton of money and get insurance. I want that too, and I want to be careful. Hence still never trying to get rails.
Today and the future
Much of what this caution inspires me to do is a continuation of what I started: endless drills of stationary or rolling tech tricks. Safe, rewarding, fun.
Am working today, a long day on the movie set. I probably won’t be able to skate today, but if I do I’ll start alone, not at the park! Time permitting I’ll head to the park! Glad am overcoming my resistance to parks and skating around other people. In fact, it’s been a joy meeting other skaters.
Relearning to Skateboard 