These Past Couple of months
Third Blog post in one day! Just to make up for the lack of posts since this site was originally published in October of 2020. So shortly after publishing this site and making my first post on Elijah Berle’s Thrasher Cover, my life threw me a curveball of epic proportions. The post was published on October 8th, and shortly after on the 17th, I found out I was COVID positive and had to sit the next couple of weeks out. Now, fast forward to the 31st, shortly after getting out of quarantine, my car’s alternator dies, forcing me to either BMX or Skate everywhere for the next five months. Next day, On November 1st, I was hit by a car head on while bombing a hill. I’ve been skateboarding for 21 years, I have fallen every which way, but I have never gotten hit by a car. One of the worst pains I’ve ever experienced, I was hospitalized with gnarly injuries. Five months later, my finger is still broken, and I occasionally experience odd knee pains I’ve never had previous to the accident. Now at this point, I was carless, injured, and working a dead end job that didn’t allow me to save enough money to fix my car. For five months, I had to either skate or BMX to work, which was 5.5 miles away from my house, in hilly Tallahassee, in rain, heat, or freezing cold. With a messed up knee, this was no easy task. However, I persevered. What was once an hour and a quarter bike ride, slowly became a 25 minute breeze of a ride. What was once an hour and a half skate, eventually became a 30-35 minute skate depending on the day. Then I had to work a 7 - 12 hour shift as a restaurant server, and then make the bike ride or skate back home. Grocery shopping was a nightmare. Getting things such as 12 packs of Soda was a mission, let alone everything else I needed. Life was hard, exhausting, and some times too much to handle, and updating a website and making a day for photography was the last of my worries. But now, I can look back at my life from October 2020 through February 2021 and thank the heavens I made it through. It made me stronger as a human being, both mentally and physically from the amounts of miles I covered. From my estimation and calculations, I worked an average of four days a week, making an estimated total of 72 total trips to work from November through February. 72 (shifts total) multiplied by 11 (miles total a day) equals 792, which means in total, in only four months I covered somewhere around 792 miles on my cruiser board and BMX bike. And this doesn’t include the miles I’ve skated around for fun or to the grocery store. I would estimate in total, I covered 1000 or so miles, in ONLY FOUR MONTHS! That’s a huge number and something that I’m most definitely proud of. I also had to develop a mindset of ‘there’s better days ahead. Get through hell now and celebrate later’ which propelled me and made my trips to and from work a little more enjoyable. On my last day of skating home from work, I thought to myself about how much I’m going to miss skateboarding and BMX’ing home, something which I would’ve never thought a month into it. My music tastes blew up thanks to Youtube, and being able to browse different artist’s songs while I was walking up on of the many hills on the way to and from work. On the bottom of this posts will be some of the many songs and artists I’ve either discovered or listened to religiously on my rides.
Thankfully, many other great things came out of this. I purchased a Canon Rebel II, a 90’s film SLR to play with. I complemented it with a nifty 50 and a 300mm lens that are both compatible with both my Film SLR and DSLR. I am currently sitting on a couple rolls of undeveloped film, and a bunch of unused rolls for the future. The film section of this website will now thankfully be updated a couple times a year, depending on how fast my film is developed. I am now also finally no longer carless and skating everywhere. I am the proud owner of a brand new Honda Fit Sport, a car I’ve always loved since a friend in high school had one. I now have a reliable ride to both scenic locations and skateboarding contests, and I no longer have to rent a car to get places. Being away from photography for so long has only given me great ideas for shooting film photos, skateboarding contests shots (once they ever come back), and other shots. I am excited as very to get back into building and adding on to this site as time goes on.
As promised, heres photos of my injuries and music I’ve been enjoying thanks to my long rides. Enjoy!
Jefferson Airplane, particularly White Rabbit and Somebody to Love
Oski’s Nike SB part that came out in December 2019 hooked me on to Siouxie and the Banshees, especially Jigsaw Feeling, the song chosen for that part. Honorable mentions include ‘Hong Kong Garden’ which was skated to by Pedro Delfino in his 2020 ‘Spitfire’ part; Monitor, which Robbie Russo skated to in Antihero’s 2014 full length ‘Destination Unknown’; and Icon, which Grant Taylor skated to in his 2014 ‘Welcome to Antihero’ part.
My grandfather was a huge Roy Orbison fan, so I already knew a hand full of his tracks. But once Elijah Berle’s part in Vans’ ‘Alright, Okay’ came out to him skating to ‘In Dreams’, I was hooked. I went through a DEEP dive of Roy’s music.
Sly and the Family Stone has always been a favorite of mine, but this song, for whatever reason, really pushed me to skate or bike faster.
Looking for a song while Bombing Hills in the pitch black at Midnight? Boy, do I have the track for you!
Thanks to Spanky’s ‘Baker 4’ part, I’ve been stoked on this song. Apparently this is the ‘shitty stage’ of The Ramones, when nobody liked them, but this song is still a banger to me!
Every time I hear Steely Dan, I think of Joel Meinholtz & Omar Salazar’s part in the Original Boys of Summer video. I also think of The Big Lebowski thanks to all of the clips from the movie put into Boys of Summer. However, this song is far from Reelin’ in the Years, and perfectly describes what its like being 28 in a college town.
Pretty much any Ferry Corsten. Gouryella, System F, New World Punx, or just Ferry by himself, I’ve been completely extra stoked on Ferry lately. With the revival of his early 2000s alias ‘System F’, trance has been helping me through the rough times.
I heard Morrissey’s version of The Pretender’s ‘Back on the Chain Gang’ in the Credits of Girl’s ‘Nervous Circus’ where they introduce both Griffen Gass and Neils Bennett as Pros. Its one of my favorite songs of all time covered by one of my favorite singers of all time.
The Sex Pistols were introduced to me through Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4, and ever since the COVID19 Pandemic started, I’ve been itching to play THPS4 again. Since I can’t play it, I’m just listening to the soundtrack. ‘Anarchy in the UK’ was on the THPS4 Soundtrack, so I broke away and listened to ‘Nevermind the Bollocks’ on repeat to get my amped to skate.
Nasty gash before nine stitches. My jaw bounced off of her windshield, spiderwebbing it instantly.
Car mirror that was imprinted into my chest for over a month. This is the very tail end of it, maybe three weeks in.
Huge scar, three months after the accident.
