Back to the scanner for some old rollerblading photos. This is the third time now I sat down to reminisce a bit about the great times I had with my homies through the old photo collections. If you haven’t seen the past ones click the Skating category on the right side and you can catch up the other gems. Maybe it’s the fall weather that does it to me? It’s my favorite time of year to skate because you don’t sweat as much, the cool breeze makes the rollin so much more pleasurable, hoodies are optional. All that. Plus I’ve been hitting the Astoria park a bunch but usually solo so it makes me think back to skating with 4, 6, 8 guys at a time all having a blast. Enjoy.

This set up is by the clamshell by the Patchogue waterfront. When we didn’t have gaps to do we used to just skate fast and jump off of big things. I mean it wasn’t a bad idea just funny to think back on

Mike Lent kickflip at the Temple. This was when I was experimenting with double exposures in photo class – I tried to make a little motion happen

Bren top torque soul at that Rose something place. The Budweiser distro place

Mikey G at Ryder. Oxygens with soul plates. Classic

Me and some other hands getting in the mix on the boom box at Board Sports. Base Brooklyn hoodie with a Victory Style II poster in the background

“Airing” on the Board Sports ramp

BK in the Salomons at Medford bike racks

Mike G the man himself

Oof that fix did not last well, nice going Cordone. Corey with the alley oop sweatstance

Bren top soul at Clara Rose (is that it?) with the Birdhouse shirt on

This was Peconic. A little mini heaven for skaters and bikers alike. The place was a huge abandoned factory that would get raided by the cops every couple months. People built ramps inside one of the building then had kickers and shit in the overhanged outside spot

The sunlight was particularly dramatic on this day and every shot I took came out awesome

Check out that Triple 8 jersey. I love that shit

Lui Kang!

Mike G sporting the Cindy’s run long sleeve. RIP.

Those were my custom painted and stickered up k2s. I loved the flex of those things.

Corey at the Chase bank hitting the gap. Whose’s shadow is that over there?

Brendan snowboarding somewhere

The posse at Medford train station. BK, Matt Dowsey, Brendan, Mike G and Zach. I think that bike my still be in my mom’s basement.

Corey with the backside farfegnugen at Stop and Shop.

Mike Lent on rollerblades at the Chase. Man that shit had NO runway at all

Young BK and Mike G. More classic gear with the Hangers hoodie

This was a super weird photo where I was in between a fall or something trying to 540 the steps I think? Those are Rise Above jeans

Soul at Stony Brook. Man, I loved that rail. I wish I could still skate that shit. We used to get into so much shit from those rent-a-cops

Soul at Chase with one glove on. Ill finger print on the picture. Half of these we would print in Photo class and we’d trade negatives so that we could print each other’s shots. That way we would have copies of everything. I remember having pictures of myself on my rolls of film and Mr. shithook Cordone giving me shit. Half of these pictures have grades on the back of them. Pretty funny

Mike G in Full Circle Era Pennywise Shirt. Corey B to the right

Corey on the backwards print

Bren at Medford rails with the Jordan jersey. I think that was the one Ryan Carroll gave him when he got rid of a bunch of shit and dumped it onto me and Brendan. I don’t remember why that was. I really wonder where that dude is in life now

Alley oops mizou with orange hair. and bandanna around my mouth. That soft ledge is probably so fucked now

Mike Lent at the weird office house thing next to South Ocean

Back at the Stony Brook rail/ledge

La Bonne Vie rail. Again another “always” spot for us. That old lady fucking HATED us for fucking up the grass

The Staples bank that wasn’t huge at all but still somehow fun. I think it was just cause we wanted to skate a bank so badly and there were so few of them

A rare moment – a photo of Zach Kelly skating. What was this called? Top unity?

Brendan top mizou

Mike G alley oop soul. Man I want a fuckin bagel from across the street so bad. A fucking TWIST. Why is it I can’t get that shit out here???

Mike Lent doing the narrow 6 set at the Patchogue station. It took him a while to land this but when he did it was sick.

Sayville Highschool. I used to push slowly on that ledge and do a 180 off. Not big at all thinking back on it now but still cool I guess. I wish I still had that Powell shirt

Corey at Saxton

Airing again at Board Sports but with BK and John-Pierre on looking. John was always one of the cooler skateboarders who didn’t refer to rollerblading in derogatory terms. He would clap for sick tricks and shit. I saw him recently and he looks like he hasn’t aged a fuckin day. He just doesn’t have the tribal necklace any more

I don’t know if this is Farrell or Brendan

That’s me with the big hair flowing in the snow

Me again. I have no idea what mountain this was at

Off the side bump

Some more printing trickery by someone (maybe me?) where you can see the tape that was used to put down an inverted print or something

Bren again at Saxton

Mike Lent portrait deep in thought and reaaal young

The short ass thing on the side of Saxton is a mystery to me now. Again I guess we were so desperate to skate things we just put up with whatever was around

Another funky double exposure. This one sucked but it’s Corey on a sweatstance at Stony Brook

BK doing a 180 at Medford

South Ocean back farf

Squirrelly alley oop sweat

BK farf at Saxton I’m super curious what shirt he’s got on

Mike G soul

Here’s another example of us jumping off shit. This was on a snowy day as you can see behind the Bob’s in Patchogue. I dunno, he landed it but it was so weird the shit we’d do

This was me behind the bagel place on the Medford side of 112. Real weird face there

Bren doing a funny double leg grab, sort of a crab thing

Negative mizou

Alley oop soul with Tim Liles looking on from the side

Back royale from Corey

Alley oop negative mizou at Board Sports. Check that FR Crewneck! I want that shit!!

Peace Love FR. RIP shirt

Another double exposure experiment

Alley oop mizou with gloves on. I love it. For some reason it seems to 90s with that striped hat.

Corey always had mad Senate gear

This shit is the best – The group shot of BK doing a 180 at Medford Fix problems once more

Top acid with a flipped negative again because I never do that trick that way unless its on a ramp

BK top mistrial

Leeeeean Back

Is that Tim again? It’s hard to imagine him wearing clothes that loose knowing him now. Look at Corey’s pants in the back right though.. wow

Another weird ass face from tourquing that soul

Weird Lui Kang 360 shot

That’s a sick Hawks jersey

Random shot of Mike Holter getting weird on a gap. He looks like he’s in trouble

Bren going for a grab at the Post Office

This day was me, Corey and BK I think. I don’t even remember the runway for that gap. That Dude VEX got up all over town

I would love to skate those skate now

Same gap again. I think it was sort of an angle thing

Temple Beth El again. Pig shirtt

Is that a bush in the shot or is that fucked up chemicals? We’ll never know

The gap from the thin brick ledge to the street. Getting speed for that was always a trick

BK in those Salomons again. Those thing just look so weird to me

Oh boy this stuff was the best. We had to do some sort of posed assignment for photo class like everything else we made jokes of it. Brian is dropping a pencil in the butt crack when the shoe tying goes on and Brendan is getting a good look at the crack from the tree. Obviously a normal scenario

Bren over the rail and over the steps gap.

Bren, Tim and Mike hanging in a tree

Farrell! Up close and personal. He looks like a BA-by

Me hanging from  pole… don’t know why

South Ocean gap BK

Check it out… it’s Mitch! Little BAAAAbies

Whoever shot and developed this one got some reaaaal nice tones.

Infamous Posse in Effect in the Attic

Tim doing something in the background. Dunno

I love this wall ride shot, always have. The pattern of the bricks and the long shadow makes it awesome

Another fading daylight shot. At the 7-11 which was frequented for slurpees and what not. I ended up gapping over the bushes this one time

Another one of our set up shots. Here Tim crashed into Brendan on the bike and landed in the tree obviously

Huge thumbprint on the negs of this one but this shot shows how much easier it used to be to do backslides. At least for me. K2s worn in it was like fucking buuttttteerrr

Here’s another example. Yo honestly wish I had those soccer shin guards still for skating. They were super lightweight but provided a good barrier between the rail and bone. At St. Joe’s College

Top Mistrial at St. Joe’s again. No fill flash on this one

Suit Skating at Board Sports. Me and Tim used to randomly buy Leisure suits at Salvation Army and Selden Thrift and just dress up. Then one day for the photos I decided to skate in one. I felt naked but  it looked suave.

FR SHIRT!

Farrell, Bren, and Mike on the playground and it was no big deal

Farrell busting a 180 off that shit and Brendan can’t believe it

This was funny I guess

GENO! He was warm.

Farrell’s ass for some reason

Suit Skating again. 180 over the stairs

Mike with his long board. Him and Tim both had them I remember

More playground shots

Mike had skates on in all the other shots, wonder if he had them on in this one somehow

People look weird upside down

Suit 180 or 360 or something

Stony Brook flat rail wearing And-1 shorts under my pants.

Again, why did I do shit like this? Skating with basketball shorts on. Lakers right yellow shorts. 180 over the gap. That’s all I got for now. Always good to go back in time for a minute…

I think I missed something throughout this whole ordeal of writing about the journey of two bands through the west. Did I ever explain the misspelling on the title? Well if you’ve traveled throughout the U.S. one of the things you notice is that we all speak the same language. The difference between us is our pronunciation of the words we use. As a New Yorker, specifically as a Long Island bred New Yorker, I tend to say things without pronouncing letters. These hooligans from the Northwest just add extra letters. After the third or fourth day I decided to give them something to be self conscious about. The word “tour” – which in the East is pronounced “tore” – was having an extra syllable added to it. “Tu – Er” – but said more rapidly of course. “Yeah, we did a to-er of the west last summer, but that to-er was different than this one. Other to-ers we’ve done were like this” and so on.

I’m sure according to Oxford neither of us is correct but it’s just some funny shit that carried through the trip, noticing each others accents and commenting on them. Trying to recreate each others accents and such. I will say Bobby has the absolute best North West accent I will ever hear in my life and I want him to record for my GPS. Hearing him try to recreate our NY accent was quite a scene as well. Conor gets awards for best impression of Joe’s “Up here we have a saying – pipe down.” Anyway, onward with the photos…

So I think some of these were taken on the way out of Oakland but honestly I have no clue. They just look like city to me. We were done with the shows now and on our way to Seattle to drop Justin off at the airport.

What’s funny though is that originally we were going to play a show in Portland (or somewhere) before he had to take off. I can’t imagine the amount of stress involved in that. We were supposed to have been coming from Reno for that plan but the idea was still in the air for a few minutes there.

The drive back to SeaTac ahead of us was at least 14 hours if not more. The early morning hours were spent laughing about the events of the previous night. Probably one of the funnest 10 minute sets I’ve ever played. The So Adulters just being hilarious, with HoJo leadin the pack. Homie grabbed a drum stick and jumped in on bell duties for “Knitting Circle” and moshed hard while scattering the ear plug jug all across the floor. I laughed through the whole set and could barely keep time.

Justin sent our dog, Cone-anne, some texts the next morning which were met with funny responses. It was quite funny but I won’t go into much detail. The drive was of course very long with some of us sleeping, some of us sleeping inside our pillows.

After a well earned rest stop the fellas started to wake up a bit more. I did my best to capture the mood of the back seat crew.

But it sure was tough to fit everyone in the frame

Up in the front Bob-o was pulling in another 40,000 mile drive with Derek as the co-pilot. Probably another 2 hour circuitry discussion as well.

Moving along quite nicely at this point and getting close to Portland we pulled off for a dinner break.

The gents took us to a Middle-Eastern spot they frequented on other trips. I will say one thing about the West – they may have tacos down but they ain’t got shit on some falafel or gyros.

The wait was to be a little while so we posted up outside and I started snapping some photos. The light was incredible because the glass was set up right in front to bounce some warm light onto the dudes

I moved around to get comfortable but ended up snapping a bunch more to really take advantage.

I love a stacked shot like this one a few people at different levels.

Bo posin hard.

Joe contemplating life.

Derek doing a “and I’m reaping all the benefits”

Then I decided I wanted to nab a group shot by setting up the self timer. I love this shot. Like I said before, these guys… these are the guys.

We went in finally and ate. I mean it wasn’t horrible but there just wasn’t much spice to any of it, and I don’t mean specifically heat, I mean out here the use of spices is taken advantage of a bit more. They did have they massive pitas though which were awesome. The light was too poor in there for me to get them in focus but just understand they were close to the size of a pizza.

On the way out Joe was ridin the vibes high and for some reason that is now lost to me and started bustin some moves. It  started with his left overs, but then to properly give it to the camera he laid down his weapons and went for it  unarmed.

Giving me some Pulp Fiction

This might be a Ric Flair type deal? I can’t remember

Then he pulled out the peasant mosh

Going for it hard in a butthole universe

Just look at the toughness in those eyes

Then he just ran some circles through the parking lot. After Joe settled down a bit I said I wanted to get some more groups shots. My only regret is that I didn’t do it in the location I had originally planned. Someone said we should do it in the back near the graffiti  and I obliged but the light was terrible there.

Not only that the overgrown ledge I had to prop my camera up on was so far away. Oh well. Live and learn. Here are some dimly lit pictures of the group that are poorly scanned

I kept running in back thinking I would be cut off more than I was cause I forgot how much room the ledge left me

The scans suck but the moment is there. We had fun and it shows so yeah whatevs brah

We got back in the van still laughing and giddy. At this point we set every movie quote to a butthole universe and were so tired and ready to sleep it was all the funniest shit we had ever heard.

The drive back from Portland was still another four hours or so and in the back of our minds we were still worried about getting Justin on his plane in time.

The drive back was really awesome though.

These photos of course do no justice to the sunsets I was seeing

We got Justin back to the airport with time to spare and said our goodbyes. That dude had to take a  7 hour flight with layover in Texas after doing a 15 hour drive and then go to work! I don’t know how he did it.

After dropping Justin off we made another of the 761 trips from Seattle to Bellingham and were getting pretty spacey but we made it in one piece.

I was stoked to be going to sleep and happy to see this little one for a last time.

The next day we geared up to get some breakfast and said hello to one of the neighbors as she passed through.

They took us to fill our stomach with some breakfast burritos. Why don’t they make them like this back home? I mean come on. Potato burritos NEED to happen here.

The gear was still sitting in the van so we headed back to the bowling alley for a last time

In scanning this shot (I wish Bobby wasn’t blinking, sorry Bobby!) I was trying to figure out what looked so wrong and I realized it was just because Bobby was still so sun burnt from Soak City.

I think I nearly passed out in the van from the fullness I was experiencing around now.

We loaded stuff in one last time to the place we all met a pair of weeks earlier. Bummer to have it end obviously but I was stoked to get back to New York. Derek is always the jokester.

We rolled to Bobby’s with Bo because he was going to drive us back to Seattle again.

Bo (or Derek or someone) pulled up to his apartment and followed behind him to his dumpster. He was not loving it. We went back to Whole Foods in Seattle to say goodbye to Cecelia (who was already in town working farm stand) and then said goodbye to Bo who stayed with her. Bobby got us to SeaTac just in time. We had a few hours still to kill but we had no trouble crashing for a few hours.

Of course our flight was delayed a few hours so that sucked, but there was enough to do in the terminal. They have a giant food court with huge windows which made for this lovely view of the mountainous landing strip. Matt spent a lot of time chillin in one of the bars knockin em back and catching up on sporting matches. The flight were descent and flying into NY was clear as day, I saw our apartment building on the way to LaGuardia. Getting out and hearing different accents and seeing different colors is always so refreshing to me and really makes me feel at home. Big Matt was nice enough to grab us from the airport and drive us home.

I was most excited to see these ones. (Plus Mackie who was in hiding during these pictures)

I missed Ms. Chuck Davis like crazy and was really pumped to see her finally. I won’t go into it because y’all don’t need to hear that.

My kitties are the best

Little summertime puffballs

Back in Queens again. It’s been a couple months now and I miss those buttheads. Looking forward to next summer when we crash the East. Get Pumped for that, world.