SSSSSecret Skate Sesh

What’s that?
No, theres no pictures. This was a secret.

The plan was to meet up with the rest of Stoked and shred a tennis court, because apparently that’s not illegal anymore.

But, it rained the night before, so I got a foreboding call that it was canceled.

However, I’ve learned never to trust a weather man, so I made plans with MCash to go skating anyways. In Harlem, where he lives.

It was feeling very nyc skate-core all of a sudden.

So, I met him in front of the projects, and this was honestly my first visit although I had mouthed many a rap verse about living there and gettin’ paper.
Whatever that means.

I met his brother upstairs, who takes care of him and his other brother and it was a pretty nice set up, I’ve got to say. A beautiful view of the city, and of central park.

And right outside their window was a huge, open park with vacant basketball courts, perfect for skating. However I was informed that it was a mecca for gun play, so we decided to take our boards to the happy rolling hills of central park.

Which ended up being just that. Not the best place for busting 180 nollie kickflips.

So we scoured the city streets and it was actually pretty cool to see Mcash start to understand the skate culture a little bit more in the process.

We went from fenced-in playground to parking lot, until Mcash threw his fingers through a chain link fence, keeping us out of a perfectly vacant school yard and said “Man, why’s it so hard to find a place to skate?”

And just the fact that he could relate to the persecution of skaters was enough to make my day, but we ended up finding an open parking lot and skated for the next two hours.
Because it was perfectly sunny and dry. (Shake fist at weather man)

Not only did he land a few little ollies on his first day skating, but he was already trying to manual, and bombed a huge hill later on in the park without ever dropping a foot.

Oh the recklessness of youth.

It’s definitely going to pay off for him in this program.

I honestly can’t wait to see what he accomplishes this Saturday at our next Skate event.

There will be pictures.

Skate = Bowl

There was no skate kick-off this weekend
No assembly required
No scars compared

But ice was broken
Generations were introduced
Names were signed
Balls were rolled

Let me explain.

The skateboards hadn’t all arrived from Zoo York yet. And the ones that had arrived were already assembled.
So plans changed and the new class of mentors and mentees were introduced to the previous classes.
We played some ice breakers, which really only resulted in the conclusion that 6o people can’t stand in a circle, backs turned, arms linked and sit down, then get up again.
I can’t say my life is any better or worse off now that I know that.

But I can say that I know it.
And knowledge is power… And with power comes great responsibility… so I’m now a more responsible person…which would make me a better mentor.
Wow. My life IS better off now.

Well after the apparently life-altering ice-breaker, MCash and I were signing some papers and he mentioned that he never learned how to write cursive. Which I guess makes sense since we don't have to make our own handwriting beautiful now that the computer does it.

It does, however, feel like we're losing a little bit of an art even though I only really use cursive to sign my name anymore.

When I was growing up it was nice to always know that if I needed to write a love letter or forge a note, I could rely on cursive’s wondrous pomp to really drive home the idea that this was a pretty big deal.

So I spent a little while working with MCash on his signature and I think we came up with something pretty cool.
Maybe one day you’ll see it when he signs it on your face at one of his shows.

Then we went bowling.
I tried to coach MCash on how to throw a strike, but after watching me throw a few gutter balls, I noticed that every subsequent lesson on where to put his feet, or how to release the ball fell on deaf ears.
Well not as much deaf ears as ears that were covered up.
By his hands.
Ears attached to a shaking head, with closed eyes and a mouth going “Noooooo!”

Obviously the ice-breaker fell short of its lofty promise to make me a better mentor.