AoS-Fest II : The Return of the Green Monkey
|
|
|
Day 1: Friday October 1st
|
Friday night....let the mayhem begin!
|
| AlvaCollector: I finally get to meet
"the Gus" after spending Lord knows how many hours on the
phone with him over the last year. The Alabama crew shows up and all
I kept thinking is "I'm staying within 5 feet of Amorone at all
times, I'm in TN and drinking, my smartass needs a bodyguard".
I then coined him "The Chrisinator". Also got to meet Greg(Oldschoolrulz).
I couldn't stop thinking this guy looks familiar then it clicked.......CW
did and article on him. Greg is a great guy and offered up his indoor
place for skating if it rained, very cool. I'm still bummed we didn't
go and at least check it out. |
| Amorone: Like I said, we rolled up around
6:30pm to find AC, TGM and ShackleMeNot already hanging out and holding
"red cups" (that's code for "adult beverages"...which
is a nice way of saying "cold beer"). So we joined right
in !!! Introductions were made, stories of getting there exchanged
and then it was time to skate. This was my first trip there, so I
felt like a kid in a candy store...I love that "new park"
feeling. After stretching a bit and get warmed up, I tried to hit
as much as possible. I took the occassional "red cup" break
but that was the extent of my rest. Although I hit most all areas,
I liked the flow bowl best. There were these two guys that were just
passing through on their way to Virginia or somewhere. They were from
Washington (state, not DC) and you could tell. They killed that place!!!
Both were just floating these effortless ollies all over. One guy
was nailing them from shallow to deep over the hip and he seemed to
just hang in the air. Nice guys and great to skate with! I was doing
my best to try to get some lines going....also played on the shallow
side exchanging mini-ramp tricks with ShackleMeNot and barking orders
at him to do one foot grinds, rodeo flips and one foot inverts on
command...it was funny. I continued to seek my lines, hit the General Jackson
a few times and so forth...but something wasn't clicking...my balance
was off a bit though, and I could not
figure it out...I thought it might be the beer but my head felt stuffy...
I would later find that I had a sinus infection that would last the
next 2 1/2 weeks...gotta love flying on planes and weather changes. Uggg.
Still, I had a great night just being able to skate period as well as
skating with all the fun folks that were there! |
| ShackleMeNot: I think that night we
also met up with Amorone, and his friends from Alabama. (not the band).
He was pretty stoked on my gimpy style of air tricks and immediately
requested a rodeo flip, as I'm very full of myself and talk about
that trick alot, and I had alot of fun skating with him and his buddies.
Lush showed up around 4 or 5 with Gusto from the airport. He had run
out of gas, so I followed him down to the station in the Jeep, because
Jeff had been drinking all day and didn't feel like driving, and I
ended up having to push him up the exit ramp when he really did run
out. He tossed me a shirt for my efforts, but I think I left it in
someone's car during the weekend. I forgot to talk about the big pool,
the "General Jackson", I believe it was tiled. This was
a fairly amoeba shaped pool, with a deep end of about 10-11 feet,
the shallow being 5-6 and the mid range being about 8. Had real pool
coping and some nice blue tile under it. I was scared of it though,
too tricky for me, since I'm not great at pools yet. There were some
locals there who just RIPPED that thing. We ended up calling them
T&A, they both look like Tony Alva and skate faster than greased
lightning. They also smoke more weed than the Jamaican Bobsled team…I
think that was Jeff who said that. |
The whole gang as Amorone arrives
(l-r)ShackleMeNot, Green Monkey, Jon,
???, Gusto, Jeff(AC)
(Amorone taking picture)
|
ShackleMeNot posing for the camera
(some how his head fit in the frame too!haha)
|
ShackleMeNot airwalks
to fakie in the flow bowl
|
|
|
| ShackleMeNot: Friday, Gusto also
dragged AlvaCollector into a flirting match with some youngin's
who hated him with a passion. |
Jeff(AC), Gusto and young friends
|
| AlvaCollector: Correction.
he "tried", I walked. Gusto, alcohol and two 15 year
olds...I considered leaving the state at that moment just to
steer clear of that mess. |
| Amorone: Gusto was
Mr. Entertainment...I will give him that....and most
was harmless fun. I was only pissed at him once really and that
was when he was trying to hit on some 13 yr old girl walking
down the sidewalk with her dad....that was just wrong. I did
like his smooth way of handling rejection at the skatepark.....while
trying to pick up the two 17yr old chicks and dragging AC into
it, they finally told him "we're only 17....you're too
old...go away"....upon which, Gusto replied "that's
cool...I wasn't really interested in you....you two will be
pregnant in 6 months anyways".....that of course triggered
a flurry "Asshole!" barrages interspersed with flying
the "finger" at Gusto directly. |
| Gusto: If I only pissed ya off once,
then I was well behaved. I've calmed down in my old age. |
|
| Amorone: There were two guys Friday night
that were passing through on their way from Washington state to Virginia.
They were typical North West skaters. Where the Ohio guys haul ass at mach
5 (watching Tim and T2 5-0 around the corners was like watching a pinball
shot around a loop), the North West guys similarly have their own thing
going on....everyone I see from there seems to just "feel" concrete.....watching
them skate there was a thing of beauty....like watching moths dance around
a light....zigging and zagging and bouncing and hopping and going from a
smooth line to dart off in an opposite direction....those guys were just
amazing. I have a few pics of them to post as well. Damn, I wish I could
learn to ollie on concrete like those guys...it's like they didn't even
pop the tail....they just thought of ollies and suddenly they would just
float....float across effortlessly for like 8ft and then gracefully land
and continue...I just don't get it. Teach me anyone? |
Washington guy floats from
shallow to deep in flow bowl
(this is nuts if you have seen it!) |
Jon, Gusto, unknown Washington
skater #2, and ShackleMeNot |
Washington unknown floats from
deep end over the hip...burly! |
|
| Amorone: As the night went on...more folks
arrived and the antics of those already there continued to get funnier and
crazier. Jay Salillias (another Birmingham skater) showed up and got right
down to business...business being, ripping the park up. The crew from earlier
began to tire and drink more than skate....or maybe they just wanted to
drink more period. It seemed that Jeff (AC) somehow became in charge of
"wrangling" Gusto when needed...when he wasn't participating in
Gusto's mayhem himself, that is. Anyways....some time around 10pm or so,
we all decided we had had enough and it was time to head to the hotel and
out on the town! |
Green Monkey with some night skating |
ShackleMeNot Miller flip 540s in the flow bowl
(he says it's a Rodeo Flip but his hand is down) |
Jay Salillias takes a break
|
|
Green Monkey and a local ripper |
Let the curruption begin!
(Jeff, local kid and Gusto) |
Gusto is just
getting warmed up
|
|
|
Previous