Sunday night, Reagan was being all artsy, working on some stuff for Piper’s birthday. She was having so much fun cutting up paper and stuff, that I decided to get in on the action. I got this great idea to draw and cut a stencil for the grip tape on my longboard. So I pulled out the pencil and x-acto knife and went to work. This is what I came up with.

It didn’t come out exactly how I wanted it to on the longboard, so I painted one of my freestyle skates, also. I found that it was tough to get the stencil to lie correctly because of the concave in the deck. Oh well. I don’t feel like it was time wasted.

It’s a new sport. I can tell by your face that you haven’t heard of Kung Fu Skateboarding. Ok, it isn’t really a new sport (or a sport at all), but it sounds like it would be pretty sweet, if someone were to invent it. Way cooler than rollerblade basketball. We bombed some hills in the north end of CP again last night. Col got this shot of me, using the force to make myself go fast. It was perfect weather, again. Don’t let the hoodie and the beanie in the picture fool you. They were both overkill. In fact, I ditched the beanie after about 10 minutes. I love skating so much and I have to say that I’m really bummed out that I’m going to miss out on the Broadway Bomb, again this year. I will be running a marathon (boring). Alright, marathons aren’t really boring. But compared to a skateboard race all the way down Broadway NYC, they seem totally boring. Next year, next year. Go here if you want to check out some more Central Park skate session pics. They are lumped in with the rest of “random October,” so you may have to wade through some other stuff.

I got out and skated last night for the first time since June. It was the type of weather that was custom built for skating. The temperature was less than 80, but more than 70, with a very mild breeze. Another thing that was cool about last night, is that instead of freestyle skating, we were just bombing hills on the longboard. I can’t even remember the last time that I rolled out the longboard. I had forgotten how fun it is. Part of the problem is that there is a severe shortage of smooth pavement and of hills in NYC. Even though longboarding is a relatively simplistic counterpart to normal freestyle skating, I think that the simplistic aspect is what makes it so appealing. My friend Col and I were discussing it a bit last night during our session. There is something very liberating about making huge esses down a long hill. It is super smooth and has such good asthetic.

I’m so glad that longboarding has come back with such force. For a while it seemed like longboarding disappeared. The skating, of course all keyed from what was going on with surfing. All of the really old guys, like Duke Kahanamoku rode longboards. But they were also made of redwood, so they probably had to be huge, just for the buoyancy factor. Then it seemed like the 80′s were all about getting as technical as possible on shortboards, even if your style was weak. PS, remember T&C shirts? I had like 10 of them. Hahahaha. The only people who rode longboards, it seemed were the traditionalists and beginners, who needed the extra stability. Thankfully, in the early 90′s guys like Wingnut, started to showcase how cool longboarding really was. Then guys like Joel Tudor and Bonga Perkins (my personal favorite longboarders), who really brought the sport back to the competitive level.

Joel Tudor, rocking the I heart NY garb.

My first Longboard. A Hawaiian built Keoki, 11′ 6″.

Anyway, we owe the old guys, big time. Our session last night reminded me just how much.