Northwest Skatepark Blitz

It all started with a phone call late on a Friday night. Marc Conahan was on the other end of the line and he'd informed me that he and a crew were gearing up for non-stop attack on some of the skateparks around and outside of Portland's metro area from sunrise to sunset. In the spirt of Cannonball run, their goal was to skate 16 parks on the 16th of February. It sounded like a worthy cause, but with an early morning wake up call and first grinds at Burnside at 7am the very next morning, I didn't promise to be there in the pre-dawn chill. I told Mark that I'd connect with him and the others when I was out and about according to my schedule.

So after a good breakfast and errands out of the way, I hooked up with Mark, Rich, Randy and a friend of theirs new to me named Rick at the Vancouver skatepark. It was their 4th stop of the day's whirlwind tour schedule. Soon after my first rides, Mark made the call for us to move one. Damn, I was just warming up!

Next up, we stopped at a little public skate zone a mile or so away. It was a blast, but again due to the hectic schedule, we had to keep moving. The pace of the exhaustive schedule permitted us to skate each park for perhaps 15 minutes tops. Then it was back on the road for a number of miles until we did it again and again and again until the skies had fully blackened. All said and done, I skated 12 parks within a nine hour period and the other die hards in our group skated and achieved their goal of 16 parks total. It was a good experience, despite the shortage of actual skate time vs. distance traveled.

As a result, a scaled down fun run of 8 parks on 08.08.08 is where I will find myself this summer. The sun will be out longer, the weather will be much warmer and I'm sure there will be a crew, ready, willing and able to do the distance.

Check the photos and footage from our very own "Cannonball Run" below.

Comittment

Lately, I'd been thinking about this piece of video footage that I'd filmed back in 1994 with Sean Young. This mellow kid arrived from Atlanta and was a new resident to San Francisco at the time. I'm not sure where it came from, but he'd acquired the guts and determination to bomb down the many steep hills all over the city. No foot drags whatesoever. Here he is dropping a straight line down Jones Street on a busy mid afternoon. The rest is history as they say.

From The Jam Drops in on Stumptown

Late in January I had the chance to catch the reunion tour with the UK's original Jammers Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler and their touring outfit known as From The Jam. Along with Dave Moore (guitar and keyboards) and Russell Hastings stepping up for The Jam's vocalist and front man Paul Weller, the power and energy of FTJ was captivating as they rocked through anthems of my youth. Without a doubt, Hastings took control and properly filled the shoes, vocals and guitar duty Weller left behind over 25 years ago. When I closed my eyes, the band's audible energy (and vocals) filled the small confines of Portland's Aladdin Theater as if I was listening to The Jam live. Note for note, their performance was great.

From their set list they nailed The Jam's greatest hits - "Going Underground", "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight", "The Eton Rifles", "Strange Town", "Town Called Malice" and one of my favorites, "Smithers Jones." It was an amazing evening not soon to forget. Thanks for the heads up on this one Chris!