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On this page we have four stories from four legendary
Florida skaters; Dan Murray, GBMII, Tim Ebaugh, and Paul Patala. It had to
be a great weekend to get this much enthusiasm for four articles from this
crew. Can't wait for the next adventure!
Great pics of this classic weekend
can be seen at these sites:
Kelly
Lynn's Home Page
Tim
Ebaugh's Vintage Florida Skateboard Site
(Dan Murray's
recollection of the "Olliewood" weekend)
Saturday, November
16, 2002
8:15am
As I slowly gain consciousness from a restless sleep, I hear the sound
I’ve feared all week… rain. “Damn… not today!”
I say not today because “THEY” are coming!
I scrabble out of bed yelling, “Andrew get up, let’s go!” As my son
starts coming out of his coma I start throwing our skate bags into the truck.
The sky is solid overcast and dismal but… “It looks kind of clear to the
north,” I say to myself. We grab a quick breakfast… I kiss the wife
goodbye… Love ya Hon, and we are on our way.
I had been prepping her for this weekend all month.
After what seems like the longest 35 minute drive in my life, we pull in
to the YMCA parking lot and IT’S NOT RAINING!!! No rental van in the lot means
… “THEY” are not here yet. We are not ones to wait… the rain may close
start at anytime. We quickly throw
our gear on and hit the pool.
The first skaters to arrive are Dave Bamdas and local Y rippers Kurt B.
and Eric “Roach”. These three are not the “THEY” I refer to… but they
will definitely do. Kurt and Roach immediately tear it up and Dave is laying
down those cool Old School/New School combo tricks that only he can do so well.
I drop in; carve the deep end tile, pop out of the shallow end and its then that
I see… “THEM.”
Looking half asleep from the long drive, Chuck Dinkins is walking up the
hill towards me and the YMCA kidney pool. He
reaches the deck and sees the pool… Now he is awake. The same scenario plays
itself out again and again as one by one, Kelly Lynn, GBM and Donny Mhyre walk
up to the pool. Their eyes open, they glance at the sky and hurry back down the
hill to get their gear saying “Lets skate!”
I turn around to see Steve Marinak dropping in the pool. Where did he
come from? He must have arrived in stealth mode.
In short order the pool is being torn apart by these
Florida
legends. Steve was grinding every wall at will and going for deep
end rocks. Kelly Lynn was busting’ out with frontside and backside layback
rollouts as well as “really” stalled one-footed tail stalls. George was
throwing lappy frontside grinds, deep end rock-n-rolls and Bert reverts for good
measure. Chuck and Donny were showing us just how fast you could carve the
pool… both frontside and backside. Dave was pulling his layback air to
elevators with ease and Andrew was doing frontside rocks, 50-50s, Penser Flips
and frontside stiffy airs to keep the local’s end up. Most of the action was
happening in the kidney pool with occasional side trips to the small bowl to
work out a trick before taking it back to the pool. We skated for about an hour
and a half before the rain started.
Ignoring the rain, we kept skating until our wheels started making water
tracks and sliding out. Forced to take cover from the dreaded wet stuff it was
decided that food was the next order of business. Steve bids us good-bye, as he
has family things to do, but he assures us he will be at Olliewood later
tonight.
We were packing to go when, as the
South Florida
weather is known to do, clears just
long enough for a 20-minute minipipe session. The YMCA’s mini is 6 feet with
8-foot extensions and is lots of fun. The whole crew was ripping it.
Finally, I get a chance to show that I haven’t lost all of my skills. I
rocknroll, rocknroll boardslide, reversal and shuvit kickturn for all I’m
worth until the rain starts in. It’s heavy this time…with no chance of
letting up. So it’s “to the vehicles” for a not so quick food stop at
Pollo Tropical and on to Pompano Indoor Skatepark or as we locals lovingly call
it, “P.I.S.”. As we arrive Sean
Dunn is there to greet us. Sean was a Cadillac Wheels Concourse skater in the
late 70’s and is just getting back into skating. Also joining us is Cory
Smalley, a 10-year-old ripper who rides for P.I.S. This kid is really good now
and you can just tell he is going to be great in the future.
For
those of you who haven’t skated it… P.I.S. has a character all its own.
It’s all wood and massonite with a large rounded square bowl section. The high
side is about 9 feet high with a roll-in. The low side is 5 to 6. The whole
thing feeds to a 16 foot vert wall with 8 feet transition and 8 feet of vert. It
has one more endearing feature… an 8-foot high door cut right in the middle of
the 16-foot wall to add to the fun. With no wait we start right in.
Andrew is in his
element and blasts up to the top of the 16-foot wall to build speed for head
high slob airs on the 9-foot side. It takes Chuck only a few seconds to get
adjusted before he is throwing wildly fast frontside carve grinds where no local
even thought to go. As he comes down his wheels squeal in protest as he forces
his board to angle toward the 16-foot wall. He blasts up the wall wheels
breaking loose as he board slides over the eight-foot door. He pulls it back in
and head across the flat to do it all over again. Kelly and Donny are shredding
everything. I was waiting for Kelly to do it… and there it was… a smooth
layback air off the 9 wall. I flashed back to the Sensation Basin… 1978 when I
first saw him do it. Fast-forward 24 years… he is just as smooth as ever.
Let me pause for a moment to talk about wood ramps. Wood ramps are held
together by screws… and when aggressive skaters of the caliber we are talking
about skate them… these “screws” tend to come loose… and should one of
these skater happen to find one of these “screws” during their run…
well… such was the case for Chuck Dinkins. See the picture on the site.
I can’t remember if he was doing a 50-50 or frontside carve grind.
I’ll have to check the videotape. All I know is his run came to an abrupt stop
at the bottom of the ramp. A screw had hooked his shorts and tore them within an
inch of his… lets say… life. Skate Pompano Indoor… Cost… One pair of
shorts. Photo op… priceless! As he Chuck went to the pro shop looking for a
seamstress it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen GBM since we got to Pompano.
It turns out that jetlag had caught up with George and he was napping in the
lobby. I go to check on Chuck’s progress and find them both kicked back on the
couch watching the gravity games on TV. Damn Bob Burnquist is good! That 540
must have been 10 feet out!
While we were in the lobby disaster struck in the Skatepark. Sean Dunn
was going for backside air… landed wrong and tweaked his ankle… SNAP! I’m
glad I didn’t see it. My son Andrew and Lee, the park’s owner, carry him in.
He must have been in huge pain because he starts to go into shock and pass out.
We start treating him for shock and talk to him to keep him awake. Lee calls the
Paramedics. Within a few minutes he is back to his normal self even cracking
jokes. The only problem is by now his ankle is swollen to the size of a
grapefruit. You could tell it was broken. A gutsy guy! All of us took it as a
sign to take a break. GBM, Kelly and crew headed off to check-in at their hotel.
Andrew and I headed home to shower and get ready for the Olliewood Jam. Sean
Dunn headed off to the hospital to confirm what we all knew. As we left, we
promised Sean if he was up to it we’d gladly serve as his chauffer to the
night festivities. Even amidst pain, all is right with the world.
Dan
Florida
Skate Legends (
Central Florida
Chapter) Heads South
(Sent in by GBMII)
The
central
Florida
crew started making plans as soon as Ollie announced
his event. The Skate Legends crew
together that tore up
New Mexico
just a few months prior was trying to re-unite.
Kelly Lynn, Donny Myhre, Chuck Dinkins, Chris Baucom and George McClellan
made plans to hit Olliewood as well as tick a few South Florida Skateparks off
their “to do” lists. Fellow
legend Chris Homan would join the crew in
Hollywood
. Ed
Womble was still nursing an Albuquerque Jam induced injury and couldn’t bear
the thought of driving from
North Carolina
and not skating.
Schmitt is also in recovery mode, off the stick but back on his feet
after ACL surgery in October. Bruce
Mason was M.I.A., but further searches found him shooting Bambi in the swamps of
Georgia
. Reggie
and Brad sent their regrets, and Chris West was unable to break away from his
current gig that has him choosing between Shirley Manson and Gwen Stefani on a
nightly basis (touring with Garbage and No Doubt).
Day One
GBMII
hits town on Thursday night, picks up the tricked out minivan and scores a
comp’ed suite at the
Hampton
(courtesy of the House of Blues Artist Relations).
Friday morning GBMII dragged his jetlagged ass off to Orlando Vans for
the early session with local Chuck Dinkins.
Chunklins came rolling into the Vans Parking lot with three cops on his
tail; apparently they didn’t enjoy his Mario Andretti act coming down
International drive. Chuck smooth
talked the officers into a warning and after signing a few autographs for the
officers kids, Chuck headed inside to rip. I’m
not down with paying to skate but Chuck had the answer, a couple of passes
later, we were slippin’ and slidin’ all over this skatelite playground.
Chuck was hip to the skatelite surface but GBMII had a hard time
adjusting, slamming more than a few times as his wheels hit banana peels.
Vans Orlando
After
a cursory inspection of all the areas, our boys headed outside to the ‘crete
where Chuck threw down and GBMII woke up. After
digging on the second-generation skatepark feel of the outside area the crew
headed back inside to hit the pool. The
pool at Vans Orlando is a wide, multi-level amoeba-shaped affair with dual 9
foot deep bowls at one end topped with real tile and pool coping.
The pool has a “pump hump” in the middle which works great, it’s
kinda like riding the snake run at the ‘Basin, (just beware the first time you
hit it fakie). Chuck was ripping
hard as GBMII got used to the smooth concrete.
Vans Orlando is five minutes away from Chucks’ office and it shows,
he’s got tons of lines wired all over the park.
And just a little bit of friendly advice, don’t ever get into a long
carve contest with Chuck at Vans (he was up to 12 coping blocks at last count).
Longtime Orlando lens man Al P was on hand and sliced through some red
tape to shoot some photos of our boys. As
the session wound down, Scrogger showed up and dragged the crew to Hops for some
barely-based adult beverages and story telling.
When the bartender (who professed a lust for Tony Hawk) found out we were
former pros the drinks got stronger and the tab somehow disappeared.
I love Orlando. Lunch wound
down and Scoggs headed back to the couch to convalesce from a recent operation,
Chuck headed back to the office and GBMII headed west (actually north) on I-4 to
the Lake Mary skatepark.
Lake Mary Skatepark
As
GBMII rolled into the Lake Mary Skatepark he was greeted by the familiar sounds
of “the Rude Boy” Chris Baucom giving some poor BMXer grief in the pool.
It turns out that the park doesn’t allow skaters and bikers in the park
at the same time and the gathering crew was forced to sit outside the fence and
watch some gomer flail around the pool for an hour.
As more of skaters arrived the bribe offered to the lone biker to
relinquish the park grew to over two cases of beer but he would not relent.
The group of hecklers in the parking lot now included Kelly Lynn, Donny
Myhre, Rich Rogers, Mike D Walrus, Craig DuPree (AKA Super Duper), and some guy
named Bud. Chuck Dinkins had to skip
the Lake Mary session to generate enough “papa points” to get a pass to
Olliewood. After registering with
the park, getting our photos taken, paying our $3, getting our wristbands and
strapping on our helmets the crew got busy in the pool.
The
pool is the main attraction at Lake Mary, but there is a looped street
area/track with the requisite grind boxes and bars that remained crowded the
whole night. Local ace Caesar Ricci
was ripping (on a broken stick!) on the street course and was joined by Florida
Speed-Skating Champ KeKe Hennessey (and her Aussie Coach Geoff) as she zoomed
around the track and even jumped into the pool.
Kelly
was flying around the pool at mach speed on some “secret formula wheels”
that Reggie Barnes turned him on to. Kelly
said they were scary fast (scary slick too).
The pool is a perfectly surfaced capsule with a 5-foot deep end and an
8-foot deep end that just gets to vert. Donny,
Mike, Rich and Craig were putting on a pool riding demo, throwing airs, ollies
and lip tricks at will. GBMII and
Baucom got into a lively game of old school add-a-trick that was complicated by
the two of them swapping boards as well. CB
ended up the victor, as GBMII couldn’t match the sliding frontside
rock-n-roll.
The session was a riot
although some of the crew had to get transfusions after sacrificing gallons of
blood to the bionic mosquitoes that inhabit the Orlando suburbs.
The local cops made more than a few passes through the parking lot,
hopefully just checking out the action, but it was probably another case of
muscle flexing. All skating stopped
as Ed Wombles’ ultra-fine sister Lee came strolling up to the park with her
friend Kimbra to check out the action. After
introductions to these lovely ladies were made, Baucom and Myhre placed calls to
find out if Ed was adopted or what. The
session came to a close and after we found Donny’s keys in the grass we joined
the charming Gabriella (new hair version) for beer and wings at local eatery,
Mulligans. At the restaurant GBMII
iced down his banged up wrist but couldn’t get the waitress to buy into
Florence Nightingale syndrome. Baucom
was in fine form, but we couldn’t talk him into heading down to Olliewood with
us (he headed home to play soccer dad). The
night ended way too late with Donny and Lee discussing offshore investment/early
retirement strategies over one last Budweiser.
Day Two
The
morning started WAY too early, especially for GBMII and Donny as they headed
downtown to meet up with Chuck, Kelly and Gabi.
After Chuck bid farewell to his wife and kids the crew hit the turnpike
south at 110 per. The assignments
had GBMII as pilot, Chuck D as navigator, Gabriella as document control and
Kelly as the mix-master (great old school and punk mixes from KL).
As they drove south through torrential rains Chuck and Kelly discussed
marketing and artwork for their soon to be released signature models.
The mood turned somber for a few minutes as we passed a recent accident
scene where a Blazer had run off the road into the ditch and was submerged up to
the roof rack. We assumed that the
caravan of emergency vehicles had the situation under control and blazed on to
West Palm.
West Palm YMCA
The
skies parted and the rain stopped as the crew pulled into the West Palm YMCA.
We paid our money and headed out back to meet the smiling faces of Dan
and Andrew Murray, Steve Marinak, Kurt, MR and a handful of ripping locals (I
know I left out some names, sorry!). The
Y has a magnificent street/vert park with a street area, three concrete pools
(great coping and roll-in deck, marcite finish?), and a mini-half.
A great session came together as the locals welcomed the steady stream of
visitor’s caravanning to Olliewood. Andrew,
Kurt (a guy who looks like Boober Bentley and skates like Gator) and MR were
absolutely shredding the pool, treating the deep end like a mini-ramp.
GBMII followed Dan Murray (fellow tall regular footer) for lines, a
tactic he started using nearly 25 years ago.
After a brief rainout the crew hit the street course and half pipe to
close out an epic session. Kelly,
Chuck, Dan, Andrew and GBMII played in the half pipe until the rain chased them
out. It was pretty interesting
watching the father and son combo of Dan and Andrew tearing it up.
Andrew has mad skills but has yet to develop the arsenal of tricks dad
had in his prime (but I’m sure it’s coming).
We left the Y with plans to return and followed Dan-O to the Pompano
Indoor Park, listening to Gabriella’s’ demands for a stop at Taco Bell all
the way.
Pompano Indoor Park
The
boyz drove through more rain on the way to Pompano but it didn’t matter much
as they strolled inside to an already heavy session.
Andrew, Kurt, Dan and the boys showed their knowledge and local lines and
Kelly, Donny and Chuck picked them up and added some spice to them.
Andrew and Kurt were driving as high as they wanted on the vert wall over
the door throwing tricks and slides on 5 plus feet of vert.
Andrew ruled the park but Chuck D came up with the trick of the day, a
backside slide combo he named “the Stripper”.
Noticeably absent from the session was GBMII who never left the van after
succumbing to a combo of Motrin, jet lag and too much skating in a 24 hour
period. The first casualty of the
weekend surfaced as Sean Dunn hit the transition wrong while bailing on a
frontside air and snapped his tibia. Sean
had recently returned to the sport after more than a decade off the stick, I’m
sure he’ll be back much sooner this time.
The crew bid their farewells and hopped back on the highway to Olliewood.
Gabi’s demands for Taco Bell had subsided into pleas but we had to
ignore them in order to make it to the EconoLodge before they gave away our
rooms.
Olliewood
“Olliewood,
the event” was epic. I won’t try
to describe the party and skating, read the stories by Ebaugh and Patala, they
say it all. It was incredible.
Alan Gelfand stepped up to the plate and absolutely delivered.
The event was first class all the way; he did not miss a detail.
The DJ and food was nice, but the open bar, cases of bottled water,
couches, the velvet rope, and full facilities (indoor and out) was over the top.
Talking story and skate history with the South Florida crowd was almost
as much fun as the skating. As with
any event with a hundred or so skaters Mr. Wilson showed up extracted payment in
the form of heavy slams from Chris Homan and Kyle Sokol (A.K.A. Old School
Kyle). They sucked it up and walked
away, but Homan was definitely seeing tweety-birds for a while and Kyle was in
need of a bag full of ibuprofen. Serious
ripping occurred all night with numerous stars and high points (AG flying low
section to high section ollies, awooo!), but everyone left saying the same thing
“Make Lake rules”. As the kegs
ran dry our crew hopped in the van to see some local sights and find a Taco Bell
for a late night chow session. After
an hour or so of cruising we had almost given up, but Gabriella (riding shotgun)
would not be denied. As we were
close to throwing in the towel, not only did she find a charming south Florida
native to give us directions to the elusive Taco Bell (three blocks away) but
she also scored a hook-up for the recently single GBMII.
The girl is money.
Day 3
A
nasty thunderstorm woke the crew up on Sunday morning.
Fortunately we were headed back to Olliewood where rain would be a
distant memory. After picking up
Alan (Tarzan) Gelfand and Sharon up, we hit downtown Hollywood for some
breakfast before our morning session. Dan-O
and Andrew met us at the café and we raced over to the ramp.
Olliewood II
The
magnitude of Olliewood was not apparent the night before, at least not to me.
It really struck me as we walked in on Sunday morning.
The six of us walked in to a climate-controlled, well lit, private
skating paradise with nothing on the agenda but skating our asses off until the
BBHJ. It is difficult to express
what a great set up this place is, you really have to skate it.
The usual suspects had a riot on the ramp; Kelly turned up the heat as he
really got the ramp wired, Andrew was working on his ever-expanding arsenal of
tricks, Donny pulled some old tricks out of the bag (fakie ollie reverts), GBMII
and Dan were extending slide-n-rolls across the lengths of the ramp, Chunklins
worn out knees made him take it light but he was still able to rip the vert
throwing his signature Madonnas, and OS Kyle showed up and cranked a few runs
despite his ailing shoulder. The
session came to a close as the crew started to get ready for the evening events.
Both kegs from the night before were dry, but somehow Kelly found a beer,
which prompted a search of all coolers that yielded nothing but five sets of
frozen hands. Once we all got
cleaned up and said our goodbyes to the ramp, we loaded up and caravanned over
to dinner and the Office Depot arena.
BBHJ
The
BBHJ was unreal. The whole event was
sensory overload. So many things
went down but a few really stick out. While
picking up our tix at the “will call” window the excitement was growing.
Although the event was not sold out, OS Kyle and Donny had no problem
selling their extra tix for a C-note. Rodeos,
540s, 720s and bionic airs were common, the Birdman even threw a 900, and Bucky
pulled a backside ollie to tail to revert across the gap that covered at least
20 feet and was 6 feet out that will be forever burned into my mind.
During a break in the action Barry Zaritsky was inducted to the Florida
Skaters Hall of Fame, which just added to his already overblown stoke. His ramp
side antics were a hoot to watch. This
guy has touched so many lives in our sport, and now his wisdom is being passed
on to a second generation. It is a
privilege to know the man. After the
event we grabbed a case or two of those silly pudding in a tube things, and
bypassed the “meet and greet” to get our tired butts on the road as we faced
a 3-hour drive and it was after 10:00.
Goin’ Home
The
drive back was a blur. We ran into
MR in the middle of a 2-mile traffic jam on I-95.
Zeppelin cranked to max volume kept the pilot on the road.
We stopped into Starbucks that was OUT OF COFFEE, a freakin’ coffee
shop – out of coffee - how does that happen?
We made it into Orlando around 1:00 and dropped Gabi off and pushed her
huge Rhodesian Ridgeback out of the van, and said our farewells.
It was one epic weekend of skating. GBMII
had a flight out in a few hours and grabbed a few minutes of shut eye at the
local HoJos (only to wake up to find only decaf coffee in his room, what is it
with coffee in this state?) Later
that day GBMII landed in Portland with perfect weather, his afternoon meetings
were cancelled so he headed off to one of Oregon’s 40 skateparks (Newburg,
Burnside and Donald parks rock!) to
start the sequence all over again….
Ollie
for one and one for Ollie
(read
backwards)
by:
Tim Ebaugh
One
perfectly transitioned forty-eight foot wide dual-level halfpipe.
One
coat of Skatelite.
One
large outdoor awning tent.
One
kick-ass sound system.
One-hundred
plus skateboarders, family, friends and spectators.
One
Ollie.
In a large warehouse, mix all these ingredients with a heaping pile of
burgers, dogs, goodies, drinks and brew. Add a generous array of tables, chairs,
comfortable sofas, skate banners and a multitude of cameras.
Turn up the energy level to its highest setting and cook for five hours.
To kick it up a notch, throw in a South Florida downpour.
A recipe for one fuckin’ good time, indeed.
The Vehicle Assembly Building, in Titusville, where the space shuttles
are manufactured, is so tall and expansive that sometimes during bad weather,
clouds form and it begins to storm….inside!!
Much the same can be said about Olliewood and the “Olliewood Skate
Jam”, held Saturday night, November 16, at Alan “Ollie” Gelfand’s indoor
ramp in Hollywood, Florida.
Outside, the driving rain beat hard on the
tin roof, leaves and debris were flying through the air.
The lightning cracked and the nasty storm rumbled and bumbled.
Inside the skaters were driving hard, the sound system rumbled, skaters
and skateboards flew through the air. The
atmosphere inside the arena was intense as the weather outside, the skaters
providing a little electricity and thunder of their own.
Among the notables I watched while enjoying my potables were Mark Lake, a
forty-five year old rubber-band, who spent as much time in the air as he did on
the ramp. Kurt from West Palm was
also shredding the ramp to splinters along with Andrew Murray, Chuck Dinkins,
Old School Kyle, Kelly Lynn and of course, Ollie himself just to name a few.
(See Paul Patala’s story for the detailed report!!)
Alas, due to one certain grommet gone astray at Satellite beach Sk8Park I
had a fractured wrist. This, coupled with a stern warning from my caring wife
meant I would not be able to join in any skateboard games. Maybe. Not that I’m
even worthy of sniffing the sparks spitting from the trucks of these rippers I
just mentioned, but I definitely would have liked to get in a few grinds.
Waiting for Paul to arrive and while my wife showered, I smuggled my
skate and gear out of the hotel room. Just
before the bulky door slammed shut, I heard the zippy-quick voice that I know
and love…..”You better NOT skate that ramp Timothy Weston Eba…”WHAM!!
I dropped my skate in the hallway, “Shit” I said aloud, middle name,
big trouble.
In
a great and meaningful act of defiance I flipped my board over and skated down
the carpeted hall towards the elevator. “Tell me I can’t skate…hmmph.”
Looking back, I see my daughter, Rachel, her head sticking out the door,
“MOMMMMM, He’s skateboarding!!” I
hop off, wagging my head back and forth and in my best whiny-mock Rachel voice
“MOMMM, he’s tatedording” Of course, this not loud enough for her to hear.
More than once during the early evening I
went to go pad-up, then, I’d hear that echoing voice, trailing after me like
the acrid odor of freshly burnt toast.
“You better NOT skate…”, my lovely wife Clarice, 8 months
pregnant and equipped with some sort of damn Radar-ESP-Sonar thingy. “How are
you going to hold the new baby if you mess that wrist up more?”
If I’d skated, she’d have known it.
I didn’t and she knew that too. How
the fuck do they do that? Of
course she’s right, better I just videotaped and shot photos anyway.
After the third Heineken draft slid effortlessly into my expanding
gullet, I was pretty much over wanting to skate.
A good thing too, I could just envision the Ebaugh shaped hole at the
bottom of the ramp. Buried and smashed down about two feet into the concrete
below the ramp, I’d peer up at Ollie’s face, which would then morph into my
wife’s face, finger wagging and holding the remnants of my severed arm….”I
told you so.”
There will be more Jams, and countless more skate sessions I plan on
being part of when I heal (I’m still in the re-learning stages of the
come-back). The OllieWood Jam
was a hoot-and-a- half!! I had a blast shooting pics and vids, talking to old friends
and new and just being a part of this resurrection of the skateboard spirit!!
Watching these guys (and girl!) shred serves only to toss kindling on
that skate fire inside of me. The
same fire that roared ferociously twenty years ago, then dwindled to a pilot
light. Skating, like surfing to me,
is a soul sport, once a skater, always a skater.
It becomes adhered to your soul, part of who you are now, and part of who
you’ll become. What is so
unbelievably cool about this group is that most of us really were part of
the root system that make up the big skateboard family tree of today!
Long live Florida Skaters!!!!
Hooray for OllieWood….and….THANKS FOR EVERYTHING ALAN!!!! I
now humbly turn my pencil over to Mr. Paul Patala, my best friend and skateboard
compadre of twenty-seven years!!
OllieWood Jam
11/16/02
by: Paul
Patala
Leaving
Melbourne 2 hours later than planned, I finally am on my way toOlliewood in the
worst weather conditions to hit Florida in months. Torrential
downpours all the way to the Hollywood exit - good thing Ireplaced my 4 may-pops
with radials two days earlier: I knew I'd find a wayto get there! Static from my
spouse kept me from leaving early enough toskate Alan's ramp without a crowd.
(When your marriage counselor includesthe name "Ollie" in your
sessions it's not a good sign, or worse still "who is this 'Marinak' person
Paul is always talking about?") That's cool, I made this flight to get that
same energy I felt back in April at Kona, to see some fierce skating, talk to
old friends, and new ones, meant more to me than an arguement over how free time
is spent. My best bud Tim Ebaugh was about an hour ahead of me, a couple of
pay-phone calls solidified the plan to be at Olliewood by 7pm. We reach Hayes
Street and go in to find the masterpiece of lumber and Skate-light waiting to be
carved. On top of the ramp is the one and only MARK LAKE. Instantly I recalled a
photo, which appeared in the now-defunct Skate magazine, of a smiling Lake fully
compressed in a stylish frontside grind at the Cherry Hill park with the caption
"the highly influential Mark Lake".
Twenty-three years or so later and
Mark has the same way of making you feel like the session can now begin because
you're there. Mark flashed that same smile and quickly dropped in and greeted me
with a set of handplants, egg-plants, and finally a phat contorted-Andrect-plant
with all the ease of a twenty-something year old skater. To use a Marinak-ism:
This guy is all-time!
Yep,
this is the place to be tonight! Although I brought my new board and gear, the
growing throng at the door and around the ramp vibed me to the point of settling
for video camera guy for the night. The thought that I was pussin' out on
skating this trip bothered me for a few minutes, until Mark took a break and
showed Tim and I the Glen Freidman photo essay with a shot of him at Casey's
ramp back in 79'. I began quizzing Mark about his skate frequency these days.
"I've been skating Piccolo Park vertical so much that now I want to
practice lip tricks here at Alan's. I can't do nearly as many tricks here as I
should." Say what?!
More
and more skaters were gathering on the ramp. As they padded up, Alan was
executing precision backside-air-to-double-axle stalls, smooth cess-slides, and
the oddest move where he goes up the wall frontside and and just where he might
grind the coping his board levetates off the ramp and over the coping without
holding on to the board and he comes back on to the wall!
Whoa,
howz he do that? It's a thrill to see an Ollie on vertical, and who better to be
floating them than the man himself. Alan skated all night, and greeted everyone,
including strangers like me, as if they were old friends.
At
this point Kurt Bodenshack(spelling?) had the smoothest lines with straight-arm
frontside airs and traversing every inch of the ramp. Chris Homan, Old Skool
Kyle, and Johnny Miller materialized; after months of seeing their guestbook
exchanges it was cool to place the skater with the name. Kyle has a neat
repotoire of sweepers which he threw at will. I looked forward to seeing Andrew
Murray skate and he did not disappoint with a complete bag of tricks using the
whole ramp with flair and variations. I swore I wouldn't type this, but the
flippy-thingy was the coolest thing to watch, it needs a name, Dan, can you help
me here? Soon the group of Chuck Dinkins, Kelly Lynn and GBM arrive and are soon
padded up and dropping in.
By
now I felt satisfied to be watching - the wait to drop in and get warmed-up
probably would have been deadly for my rusty joints. After Chuck snagged a few
drops he soon displayed an arsenal of slides and lip tricks that were both
technical and dumbfounding. Kelly Lynn got big! I remembered this in April, but
seeing him skate after all these years was cool, he still tears it up. Since
April I've had the pleasure of hearing-reading much authentic recreation of
those golden skate days of the late 70's and early 80's via one GBM. Now in
person he tells me how many parks he's been to in the past 24hrs, thus
confirming what I expected: He does have a Leer jet. George is such a viable
force for skaters young and old. He is the purest skater, digging every thing
skate related. Talking to GBM was worth the drive in itself. Other notables I
hope to spell correctly; Robbie Weir with BIG inverts and power skating, Howard
Montaque also covered the ramp with strong frontside moves, and Chris Garfus
(spelling?) brought his bag of tricks which he and Andrew murray often seemed to
be in a finals heat the way they seemed to answer each others moves and
applause. Steve Marinak in person was also an honor and sharing tales of the
woes we have with skate-wives was helpful venting. Yet Alan made the difference.
His hospitality and generosity is impeccable. He provided: quality hamburgers
and hot-dogs, side dishes and chips galore, a sound system that kept the place
jammin with everything from old Metalica, and The Ramones, to more current Snap
Case and Flaw, not one but two kegs of beer - Heineken and Bud Lite - with two
bartenders carefully screening any minors (not a problem on this night!), and
commerative t-shirts for all, all for FREE.
An incredible evening,
well-worth the anticipated "how-could-you's" waiting for me at
home. Thanks Alan.
Also GBM's journey through Florida's many
skateparks, Olliewood, and the Huck Jam. Coming Soon!
Andrew Murray, doing Kelly's move..very nicely I might
add.
"I'm too sexy for my pants...."Chuck
Dinkings gets screwed at Pompano Indoor....ouch!
Sean Dunn, all smiles even with broken ankle. Man
that's tough.
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