CRETIN: /kret'in/, /kree'tn/, n.
Congenital loser; an obnoxious person; someone who can't do anything right

CONCRETIN: /kahn'kret'in/, /kahn'kree'tn/, n.
Cretin who loves to skate concrete

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Doubles Run!

Whilst cleaning up the hard drive I found a few nuggets worth sharing. Enjoy!

3 Comments:

  • At 1:05 PM, Blogger ImExiled said…

    I am the guy who skated with you guys at Ollie’s last Friday. I was the dude in black doing all the slides and shit on the bike ramp.

    Greetings from another aged and alienated elder statesman from the bronze age of skateboarding. After a seventeen year hiatus from skateboarding in general, I sometimes feel like some sort of quasi-post punk Rip Van Winkle.
    I remember distinctly the day I quit all those longs years ago. I was limping back from the ramp, using my skateboard as a makeshift cane. As I hobbled along I started thinking … I’m twenty five years old, all of my “peers” are fourteen. I am in real pain… I think I’ll start a band.
    That was it.
    Then somewhere around ten years ago I moved to West Virginia to begin an exiting new career as an “outdoor adventure guide” for one of the rafting companies on the New and Gually rivers. Spending my days on the scenic splendor of some the world’s most challenging whitewater, my afternoons and evenings climbing on the various cliffs, boulders, and nubile collage interns, life seemed perfect. Then one day, while at the local indoor climbing wall, I looked in the room next door. Lo and behold someone had built a perfect mini, surfaced in masinite, with a three foot vert wall on one side. Of course, the owners had strapped a chain across the flat, but a quick trip out to the truck to get the tool box remedied that situation nicely. Having sent some first year river guide back to my camper for the purposes of retrieving my long neglected board, within ten minutes I was skating. A little rusty at first, I was soon pulling off hand plants, five-o’s and a few front side airs.
    I knew in my heart that life was now complete.
    Then the guy who built the ramp showed up.
    At first he was stoked that someone was skating the ramp. Then he saw the tool box and bolts scattered across the floor. Man was he pissed. I felt like I was fourteen again, getting busted skating somebody’s backyard pool. I finally calmed the dude down, and convinced him of my legitimacy. Things were looking pretty good, but then the next week, the entire building housing the climbing wall, and the ramp, burnt to the ground.
    fuck…
    So much for that.
    So, five or six years later I found myself once again trapped like a helpless animal in the confines of Cincinnati. Slowly going insane amongst the endless traffic, the wasteland of pavement, and worst of all, what seems like wall to wall humans. Then one day, salvation appeared in the form of an eight year kid.
    Now I had seen some of the local kids skating around in previous months. I talked to them a few times, mentioning that I had once lived on a skateboard. Then one of the little bastards looked me up on the internet. For the next two months I couldn’t leave my house without cries of “come skate with us Mark”, with me replying “No, it’s too depressing riding around the cull de sac.”
    The one afternoon I heard the um-mistakable sound of a half pipe. My ears pricked immediately. I walked over to the house a few doors down, and inside the garage the kids dad had built this tiny little half pipe! Immediately I ran to the local mega big box capitalistic fetish palace (wall-mart) and grabbed the first pair of canvas high tops I could get my sweaty little hands on and returned.
    Of course the ramp was like way to small for me to actually skate, but I convinced them to make the drive to Louisville and check out the huge park that had been built down there. What wonderment and joy filled my heart as I looked upon the concrete wonderland before me. Real vertical! Coping!
    Then I fell and went back to skating the banks and minis.
    Upon returning to Cincinnati, my neighbor mentioned the fact that there at least five skateparks within a thirty minute drive of where we live. None of them are of the caliber of Louisville, but none the less fun in there own right. Of course the best one is Ollie’s, with the added bonus of being indoors. A big plus what with the cold and flu season.
    So, I plan to spend these next months skating as much as I can. Hopefully when I return to West Virginia to resume my exiting lifestyle on the river, rocks, and interns I will be able to find time to make various pilgrimages to other skateparks around the south east. One of my kayaking buddies was a former skatetopia local, and there is what looks like a nice little park about thirty miles down the road from the river company.
    Getting back to the present, it was fucking awesome to skate with people my own age last Friday. I have read your entire blog, and I totally relate to almost everything. I want to skate with you guys more. I don’t feel so much like an idiot wearing full gear when I am in the midst of a heard of other humans wearing the same.
    So…
    This is my e-mail: imexiled@hotmail.com
    This is my sponsor: http://www.sgskateboards.com/
    This is my rafting company: http://www.narr.com/

    E-mail me, let me know when you are coming to Ollie’s. Let me let you know when I am coming to Louisville. Let us all go to skatetopia. As I said, I kayak with some people who were locals there. (a lot of kayakers are former skateboarders, it’s easier on the knees)

    Mark Mounts

     
  • At 11:53 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    You guys are freakin' INSANE!!! That is so damn cool and off the chain fearless. F%$k yeah!!!!!

     
  • At 4:04 PM, Blogger gimpinainteasy said…

    Damn Mark, that is probably the best comment I ever read. It was cool skating with you too. We'll have to hook up another Ollie's session real soon cuz I'm definitely itching to skate that place again (and it's freezing balls outside anyway). You'll have to hit up LouEvil with us when it gets warmer.

     

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