Finally a kind of warm day in the 50s. After work I went to Target to get Liz an anniversary card (15 years of awesome tomorrow!) and saw a cheap candle begging to be used on ledges instead of burned slowly. And since I was right there I went to this ledge. John was thinking of meeting up and I figured he could grab Jake. So I skated for awhile and it was fun. Waxing it was a good call, wow it was slick. Had some fun front 50s, front 50 shove. Lots of noseslides and a few crooks. Followed them with attempts over the hip (from steep to mellow). Got a couple b/s flips over it and maybe a kickflip over the f/s hip. John bailed so I needed to go get Jake. That fool should get a car. Ha. Before I left though I did a fun run of switch front 180 off the very start of the ledge, ollie a corner of curb along the bike path, b/s flip on the hip then fakie flip on flat. Neat.

Then I drove to Jake’s and we came back. I almost got the crooks then f/s flip line again. Kept stepping off the flipper. Tried noseslide then front bigspin, came close. Jake killed the ledge with back 50s, crooks, crooks fakie, noseslide, front 50, front tailslide. The light wasn’t turning on so it got tough to see the ledge after awhile. I got a couple bad back 50s and one front tail that slid. We did some bonelesses over the hip. I got a no comply bigspin. I tried a few 3 flips over the hip before we left for the next spot.

Jake suggested a manny pad spot so this seemed like the perfect fit. I was on the phone with my mom for awhile while Jake rolled around working on some stuff. He got a line with manual, ollie onto the sidewalk, kickflip off. I couldn’t manual one of the pads initially so instead I just manualled the long one first try. Ha. Tried to nose manny it too to relive my Blame The Filmer part, but couldn’t quite get it. We put a little plastic bucket out to do tricks over. Jake worked on a line of front 180 over it then halfcab manual. He had never done hc manual before, but he got a couple. Sick! I tried a few things then settled into a line attempt of kickflip manual, ollie onto the sidewalk and then 360 flip off. Never quite got the manual part or the 3 flips. Switched it up to nose manny instead and got closer, but still never rode away from the tre. Doh. At one point the funniest thing happened. Jake nollie front 180’d the little bucket and I tried to get his back with a kickflip and I landed right on it and it shattered. Disgusting wet cigarette butts and old banana peels went flying. Ha. We laughed for awhile. Even though I didn’t land much it was a really fun session.

Another snowy and cold night in late April. Will it ever end? Seriously though I have seen plenty of snow in April before, but it’s not normally accompanied with temperatures in the low 20s. Ridiculous. Luckily though I have a ramp in my garage. Jake hit me up and we made it happen. I skated a few runs before he showed. I have a couple gnarly blisters from my new basketball shoes and new skate shoes I was trying to break in. Ouch. I didn’t do anything special before Jake got there and ended up tossing some darts around for awhile. When Jake showed it was on though. We both skated hard knowing we didn’t have a lot of time and pounded out tricks quick. Jake has pivot fakie every try now. Didn’t have backside blunt this time though. I didn’t have any new tricks, but stacked up most of the ones I have. I guess I got a fakie front smith which is very rare for me. Such an awkward trick. And a few front tails. Fun night.

Jack had shown me a photo on his phone of this spot and when us older dudes were thinking of spots to meet at I remembered it. Dave had gotten to the school before us and said there was nothing at the school. Ha. But this spot was there and I thought it looked pretty awesome. Luckily we had to wait for Neil to show so Rob (yes, Rob is back!!!), Dave, Ollie and I were forced to wait there and skate. Unfortunately we didn’t have any wax, but I thought it was still fun without it. Ollie found a basketball so he just hung out and shot hoops so he was hyped. Rob was reaquainting himself with skateboarding. I saw a first try kickflip. Dave was doing lots of 180s and nollie/fakie shoves. I was hyped on how my legs felt. This might partially be because I got some basketball shoes for when I play with Ollie. We played for awhile on Saturday and it felt like leg rehab. I guess playing basketball in tiny vulcanized shoes is not a good idea. For that matter maybe tiny vulc shoes hurt even when skateboarding. Or at least when they are worn down to just the insole. With all of that said, I had some new shoes.

After my previous pair of these I had said I’d never skate them again, but Meta Sam said that Lakai has a new manufacturer and he hasn’t seen any problems with them. This is great news because the Carlo is one of my favorite shoes ever. Considering the previous pair wore flat in one session and this pair showed almost no signs of wear in one day I’m guessing Sam was right. Anyways, enough about shoes. I skated pretty hard out of the gates. I love random spots that aren’t perfect. I got ollie up the curb, front board transfer up. Ollie down the “bigger” drop, front 180 off. Front 180 down then switch back 180 off (so stoked! although there was no pop involved). Eventually kickflip up the curb then front board fakie transfer up. Hyped on that one too. The smaller setup was ruling it and solidified in my head why I like low trucks. They are so much better for street skating and trying to have somewhat quick feet. Even without wax Dave and I tried to cali grind off the two stair. He managed to get one and then did a drop down boardslide off it too. Neil looked at it and was over it immediately. He skated a bit, but mostly just played basketball with Ollie. Jack, lets skate there again! These dudes suck! Ha. With wax the spot would be amazing. You can even wax up a long ledge for boardslides.

Next we went to a long, red metal flatbar/curb that we later coined as Retal Curb. Ollie continued his non skating ways and just hung out. The rest of us had some fun boardslides to get started. Neil and I added crooks and halfcab boardslides. Rob did a lot. lap over lipslide, smith. boardslide pop out. Dave straight slayed this thing. Boardslide, boardslide fakie, long front 50s, almost front 50 back 180 out, feeble grind transfers. So good. Lazer showed and did a couple tricks before sitting down. I got a couple tiny front 50s on it and tried a bunch of kickflip back boardslides, but my board was too new to commit to it.

We got some burritos, picked up Jason and headed to Southern Hills for a mostly mellow session. Ollie skated a little finally. Did some pop shoves and a coffin down the handicap ramp before finding a tennis ball to shoot hoops with. What a jock. Ha. Rob, Neil and I played a game of SKATE to get started. I was the first out. I wasn’t too into the game. I started skating the ledges though and had fun. Boardslides, noseslides, crooks, a couple slow front 50s. Rob ruined his board on a wallride nollie out attempt on the brick wall and tried some 3 flips (both tricks on his ‘by 40’ list). I skated kind of hard for awhile. I have been so bad at ollieing onto stuff lately that I forced myself to ollie onto a bench for awhile. I couldn’t do it with any speed, but I did manage to get one with a kickflip off at the very end of the session. I had also landed a 3 flip with one hand down and man it rules being 40 and not even thinking I need to clean that up. Fun times. Great having Rob around again. Great to see Jason.

These shoes lasted 15 skate days

Rating: STYLE
Rating: COMFORT
Rating: BOARD FEEL
Rating: BREAK IN PERIOD (Good rating means quick break in period)
Rating: SOLE DURABILITY
Rating: UPPER DURABILITY
Rating: OVERALL

DC is as corporate as I will go with a shoe company. Wes Kremer rules though and it was about time I support my fine friends at Motive and get some shoes from them. I wish I could have tried them on as it seems DCs run smaller then other skate shoe brands and I would have liked a bigger size. Oh well, they are vulc so they stretched out and ended up fitting great. Other then the ugly brown/black colorway this is one of the best shoes I’ve had in awhile. The board feel was great, they were ready to skate pretty much right out of the box and they held up well. They should give up on the “Super Suede” saying though, I had to shoe goo the toe just as quickly as any other shoe brand with normal suede. All in all though a great shoe that I was really impressed with.

I met up with Dave after work on a nice friday afternoon. My legs didn’t feel as bad as normal. I rolled around a little before Dave got there. Once he did we started skating the mellow flat bank and mostly just stayed there the whole time. We rattled off quite a few tricks. Dave got fakie flip and a first try kickflip to fakie. Dude! He also came remotely close to a switch flip. I was getting used to a new board (8″ this time since I’m out of 8.1s) and my low Venture trucks again. I really like how quickly that setup kickflips. I got a sloppy b/s flip, a fun feeling f/s flip followed by a b/s flip flyout. b/s halfcab flip. Then started going for 360 flip to fakie which I’ve only landed a couple times in my life. I got one. It was an over 40 make with a hand down, but you know what, I’m 40. It counted! Ha ha. Dave did some more cool tricks like nollie bigspin, switch front shove. There was this little kid from Isreal riding around on a plastic board having the time of his life doing early grabs and stuff. It hyped us up. He had no concerns about doing cool tricks, he was having a blast and it ruled to see. I added fakie flip to my collection, couldn’t get fakie 3 flip and landed a few f/s halfcab flips at 90 degrees and stopped. Doh. We finally moved on to the other corner of the park where Dave crushed the little bank that’s the top of the oververt corner. Back tailslide to fakie. He also got nose manual the long ledge. I lined out halfcab flip then crooks, but struggled with front 50 so bad. Finally got a couple at the end, but I slammed pretty hard as Dave was leaving and decided I’d leave too. I was glad that my legs were feeling a little bit better. I give credit to the low trucks. Ha ha.

My legs have felt horrible for a week now. I have no jump at all. And my stubberness insists I still go skating. It was around freezing after an early dinner and I wanted to go somewhere I’ve never skated before. I drove around for about 25 minutes to find something dry enough to potentially have fun. I found a Chase bank that had some little snow piles and a few options. I set my board down and immediately felt weirder then I ever should on my board. I tried to do some warm up tricks and this is how it went.

I was getting really angry. Not so much at my board going in the snow a bunch, but how horrible I felt on it. I tried a couple lines.

First run was to ollie the little table top kicker (which I was kind of surprised I was doing) then a 3 flip on flat and then manual a median. Never got the 3 flip. Ugh. Second run was a f/s halfcab flip, then a heelflip, then ride through a bunch of crappy salt and ollie up the curb and front 180 the snow pile. Only once did I get to the snow pile. Actually I got there a second time, but a car had pulled in to use the ATM or something. Jerk. The f/s halfcab flip was not working at all so I gave up on it and went to b/s halfcab flips which pissed me off even more because I would land on them, but they were horrid. So I gave up on that and went for fakie bigflip which I got first try then slammed hard on a stupid ass pop shove. Seriousy? I’m amazed my soaked, cracked, chipped deck survived that one. Then I could not land another fakie bigflip to save my life. I couldn’t even get close. I lost my shit and got all Jack / Rick Howard on that thing. I’m out of 8.1s so I guess it’s back to 8″ and I think I’ll put my Ventures on again. But wow, what a depression session. Hopefully my legs get better again with warmer weather that should eventually enter CO by July.

Went out to Rampy for a bit after a snowball fight with Ollie outside. Yes, there is two feet of snow outside. Ugh! I hooked up my phone to the speakers and put Pissed Jeans on shuffle. Sometimes it inspired me a ton and sometimes I just stopped because I wanted to listen to the awesomeness. My legs have felt like dog piss since turning 40. This was no exception. I blame the cold weather for this one. I landed quite a few of my small bag of Rampy tricks along with a few flatground kickflips, heelflips and was 3 for 3 on 3 flips. The only thing out of the norm was some attempts at frontside melons. Ha, I have never done that trick and was thinking how I’ve wanted to do it forever. I had a couple where I got some decent air, but missed the grab. I have no idea what would have happened if I would have actually gotten the grab. Such a cool trick though. I should keep trying it.

Went to a hockey party the night before that a friend of Josh’s was having. He’s a bartender. He likes to make people merry. He succeeded. After another kind of mediocre breakfast (is DC known for having mediocre restaurants?) Bernie and I went to the last crime scene. The brick bank area we found by the metro the day before. It wasn’t as fun this time. We skated it a bit, then crossed the street to a rough brick area that had some marble curbs and wallrides. Bernie was on point with some good wallrides and manuals. I sucked as bad as I could. Below that building we found this weird brick 3 stair with a ledge going off it that Bernie front boarded first try and then ollied onto it and off. Then he sat in good spirits while I pansied out of a boardslide for a long time. Ugh. Across the street into a parking garage for a weird yellow/black painted ledge that was creepy and not so great. I fell off some front noses. Some walking, skating later we came upon this:

Looks amazing right? Unfortunately the bricks are the rounded edge type making for some hefty cracks that even filmer wheels would have trouble with. We skated it though. There were 4 of these. Bernie did some long front 50s, front 5-0, probably some more. I got some back boardlides, back noseslides and a few back crooks that felt decent. Yeh I finally landed something. Couldn’t get front 50 though, mainly because I can’t seem to ollie anymore and also the cracks were messing with me bad. This was the end of the skating. We found a couple more ledge spots that looked good and had good ground, but we were beat and needed to eat before heading to the airport.

Surprisingly the day after seeing Pissed Jeans I was not wrecked. Bernie and I took the Metro to downtown DC with no idea what to skate other then Freedom Plaza. We didn’t want to start there though. First thing we found was this little flat bar that you didn’t have to pop out of. I was feeling really weird, maybe it was old age. I’m gonna say that at least. Bernie did a bunch of front boards and some to manny off the curb. We saw these dollar bill people walking and he asked them to pose for the money shot. Ha ha. I had a fun run of back board pop out on a different one, then crooks this one then a b/s flip to stop. Every trick landed like I was about 55 years old.

We found this a few blocks later. It was another frustrating session for me. I actually slammed pretty hard and rolled down a couple of them. Ugh. Bernie was killing it though. Manaul the low one ollie up to the 2nd still manualing and ollie the 2. Mannies, nose mannies, 180s out, kickflip out (with a sore ankle even). Bern was ripping. I got one lousy manual and a bunch of frustration. Some dude in an I Love Haters DGK shirt came up and did a heelflip on my board in some thick basketball shoes. Pretty tight.

Pretty sure we ended up here next. Bernie did this ride over the grate a few times. So sick. I struggled to ollie that high, but ended up getting a couple wallrides and a front 180 fakie one like Bernie did a bunch.

We pushed downhill through crowds of people and ended up at Freedom Plaza which was totally mobbed with people. We didn’t even try to skate. Those ledges are not short. It was cool to see such an iconic skate spot. The Suciu back tail gap out is pretty nuts.

Saw the gold rail nearby and whipped out this NBD first try.

Then we hit this fun somewhat downhill area for a bit. There was a circle of stairs. 3 or 4 down, 2 up. And some good asphalt in the street and sidewalks above it. I started with ollie up the curb, ollie down the 3, 180 up the 2. Bernie manualed the sidewalk then ollied the 4. I ended up doing my favorite line of the trip with kickflip up the curb, manual a sidewalk section, ollied up the curb then ollied the 4. Put a smile on my face. It was a narrow 4 too and my knee almost hit the ledge. It felt cool to ollie it. We moved on.

We found this little kicker in a back alley that had lots of weird traffic. I guess it was kind of an art studio area or something, but it was weird. We both had some some ollies off it. Mine didn’t pop of course. I back 180’d it with some nice tic tacs that Bernie called steezy since his phone took the photo way too late.

Real close was a sick ledge as a manny pad or off a 3 stair. We went around the corner just to see what it had to offer and it was this cool downhill long ledge with flat gaps in it. Bernie ollied one then ollied the next to manual. So sick. I couldn’t ollie one of the flat gaps to save my life. We got a friendly kick out and kept going. There was the same downhill ledge going the other way which was more of a frontside ollie and I was finally able to ollie a flat gap.

This was right nearby and easily the hardest I’ve laughed in awhile. Bernie would ollie onto it and when he would ride off he would fall into dirt every time. It was so funny. I had to do the lame ollie up to rock and yank it up onto the ledge to ride it. Then we spotted a weird ledge. See where Bernie is in the photo above? Click on it, blow it up, analyze it. The runway is a narrow step. If you go off into the metal grate you hang up. So no angle at all in the approach. The ledge was a bit taller to get on then it looks, but still not tall. The landing has a handrail if you get too out of control.

Bernie back 50’d it a bunch then back 5-0’d it first try.

I took a million tries to get a front 50 both hands down that would only count if you were 50 or older. Oh well. I normally take a lot of angle into front 50s so it was really weird for me. Hyped to have mostly landed it though. This was pretty much the end of downtown. We found a little granite ledge that I did a few crooked grinds on. It was not waxed and sharp and felt pretty raw to grind. It put some crazy grooves in my trucks too. I thought we were done for the day, we took the Metro back to Alexandria, but got off at a different stop to meet Josh.

We got to the stop before Josh and this was directly across from the Metro stop. WTF!!! There were 4 of these in a row and they were not even touched. We got to skate for about 30 minutes, all of which was a blast for me. I thought this spot was beyond amazing. Wallie’ing the corners ruled. Bernie did a front wallie to manual. These did not grind unfortunately. Some wax would have made them go, but we didn’t have any. I just had a blast lining out wallies and different stalls. Got front feeble, back smith, back crooks, a lot. Finally didn’t feel old. Got a wallie front 180. Then we was out.

This band was at the top of my must see list. Mainly because I love their music, but also because I’ve heard they put on one hell of a live show. So when they announced they were playing on my 40th birthday in DC where I’ve owed my homie Josh a trip for years it was on. Bernie signed up for the trip too and the three of us showed up at the Black Cat before the doors to upstairs were open. We were in high spirits and got to meet the band and chat a little. I made a song request of Dream Smotherer. The song that changed me from fan to fanatic. White Lung was the opener. Bernie liked them, but Josh and I were happy when their short set ended.

Pissed Jeans hit the stage and opened with Dream Smotherer. Oh man. And it just got better from there. They only played newer songs from Honeys and King Of Jeans. The material from Honeys was insanely intense. Romanticize Me, In Vain and Bathroom Laughter almost made my head explode. The band was giving it their all. Matt Korvette is a lunatic on the stage and it rules. Saluting flags, swinging his legs around, climbing the wall with his hands on the ground and feet on the wall, standing completely still during Cafeteria Food, rocking a hilarious mohawk, a million things that made amazing music even more enjoyable to watch. The guitarist Brad was rocking out super hard too. They seriously killed it. Their closer was False Jesii Part 2 and they seemed like they had finally ran out of energy. It was a short, but sweet set. They came back out on different instruments and messed around a bit starting off Boring Girls before bringing in a random fan from the crowd, pulled his pants down and gave him the mic. He didn’t really know the words, but the crowd did. Then the guitar switched to a fan and it just kind of fell apart into this hilarious noisy mess where the only original band member still on stage was the drummer. Then it was over. Amazing show. Not sure where it fits in my all time list, but it was pretty darn epic and I’m so glad I was able to finally see them.

After the show the band was at the merch booth again so I asked for a photo op. Sean decided it would be funny to stand right in front of me for the photo. So funny.

Once again, so funny.

“Thanks for coming to our show” – Matt Korvette. Sure thing. It’s always cool when you meet a band and they are nicer then you would think. Thanks to Pissed Jeans, Bernie and Josh for making my 40th Bday so awesome!