Piss pedalin'

Enjoying the Epicly Later'd Ricky Oyola episodes even more than I thought I would. Great to see early footage of some Philadelphia spots that have changed over the years or disappeared altogether. Something tells me the rat curbs won't be making an appearance in any of these episodes. It was one of my favorite spots but it was basically just a square ledge around a defunct fountain. Pretty small. Not the type of place to go out of your way to get to if you've got City Hall and Love park to skate. Not saying heads didn't skate it but... I skated that spot and the sundial and the rest of Penn's Landing for the first time around '92 to put the time period in perspective. I liked it because there were less people crowding the spot and nobody cared if you skated there. I don't remember ever running into a police or pedestrian incident. Police Or Pedestrian? There's your new band name.

So... people can be pretty judgmental in the case of Ricky Oyola. I've seen some harsh words in the comments pages on some sites and everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion. I can see how he could be coming across as a self righteous asshole, but that's not what I'm feeling.

I remember walking to the Mellon Bank at 9th and Walnut to make a deposit for my job everyday. Everyday I would imagine a line around that corner, where there was a marble bank meeting a giant window. It was a bank that started a foot off the ground so you needed to ollie onto the bank and carve, kickflip or whatever. One day I was on my route and Ricky and a few other dudes came hauling ass down the sidewalk. He ollied onto the bank, frontside wallride on the glass, then came down the bank and kept pushing. No cameraman in tow. Moving forward and never looking back. Just onward... a continual forward and onward, ever pursuing motion of perpetual aggressive onslaught apreggio .

I moved to Philadelphia the same year the Sub Zero shop video dropped. There is just a special place in my heart for the dudes of that era. Not to mention he has killed it in every one of his parts. That New Deal 7 Year Glitch vid is an all around all time favorite.

The Epicly Later'd stuff is good for a few laughs. Talking about the act of pushing mongo when in the switch stance and other "gay" styles. Fortunately I never had the switch mongo push because I started as a mongo pusher in my regular stance. After a couple years of skating I realized I looked like a stupid idiot and forced myself to push regs. So pushing switch looked identical to my regs stance. Cause I had already been there. You know what I mean?