Michael Allen sent this to me over the email and I figured I would share it with the rest of you:
"I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT JUST F***ING HAPPENED"
I caught myself saying that a lot the past week. Here’s the story....
First off, you have to realize the week I've had. Rain, rain, rain all week. Then the two most gorgeous days come out of nowhere, and as my s**tluck would have it, I'm too sick to leave my f***ing bed. On one of these rainy days, my friend Gabe Martinez, busts into my dorm and says "Dude, someone broke my bike lock while I was in class and took my bike!"
And that’s when I said it for the first time this week. "I can't believe that just f***ing happened".
On another one of these rainy days, three-fourths of the Aster St. "Young Guns" house (T.J. Gills, Brandon Sanford, and Cody Miller all went. David Gamble's knee is swollen bigger than his thigh, and he was at work so he didn't come) decide to go to Buck Nutty's skate ranch in Lafayette, and yours truly took the ride as well. On the way there we hear a loud banging coming from the roof, and immediately everyone panics, because we think the either Cody Miller's bike or my bike is now road trash. So we pull over and asses the situation. And come to find out, the front bolt that was holding my bike came loose and only the back strap was holding my bike to the roof of the car. Keep in mind that we were going about 80 mph when this happened so my bike would have, and probably should have been done for. After securing the bike and getting back on the road, I found myself saying "I can't believe that just f***ing happened" once again.
So, there it was, Saturday night and i found myself once again on Aster St. As I'm getting murdered in Guitar Hero by David Gamble gets a call from some friends, Danny and Darrin, that are in town. So the decision is made to go to New Orleans, meet up with these dudes from Vegas, ride Fastlane Skatepark, and then spend the rest of the night out on the town. Well, we load the bikes up onto David’s bike rack and begin our journey.
Sometime down the road, David turns down the music and asks, “Dude, do you hear that?” I answer “Yeah man, are you running over the reflectors on the road?” “Naw man, I think I’m driving pretty straight.” “Well, Louisiana roads are pretty s**tty, I think that’s it.”
So we go back to rocking out and driving like usual. Not even stopping even for an instant that something may be wrong. BIG MISTAKE.
We arrive at the skate park and I hop out of the car, all psyched up and ready to shred. As I walk around to the back of the car, I see David’s bike, barely hanging on the rack. This is when I found myself saying it in the third situation this week: "I can't believe that just f***ing happened.”
My bike was gone. Nothing left of it but a memory. I don’t care what anyone said about my bike, after riding bikes that didn’t fit me and only half way worked for 5 years, losing that bike was nothing short of heart breaking.
David was still too hurt to ride, so he let me cruise around on his bike for a whole, but it just wasn’t the same. Nothing against David’s bike, it is f***ing D-I-A-L-E-D, but not even riding could make me feel better at this point.
After warming up, I figured I would have to get used to riding a smaller bike since was going to be using hand-me-downs for a good while. So I decided to try one of the tricks that hates me…the tailwhip. The first few came around alright, so I decided to go a bit faster and really commit to it. HORRIBLE IDEA. I went up and flailed in the air like a duck until I came down right on the bike.
“F***! I can't believe that just f***ing happened!" was all I could say for the next five minuets. So now I don’t have a bike, and I’m so beat up I don’t even want to try to ride anyone else’s.
I wake up to a text message from Gabe. I ignored it, I was tired and depressed. I didn’t want to move. It was a completely gorgeous day outside, a perfect day to ride. And I couldn’t stand it. About half an hour later Gabe busts into my dorm and says “Get up, were going look for your bike.” “Dude, there’s no way were going to find it. What we need to do is check the news and see if someone hit a bike last night and died.” After about ten more minuets of prodding I finally get up and we head to New Orleans. The drive to Fastlane Skatepark takes about an hour and fifteen minuets. And every five minuets I would see something blue in the grass and have a flutter of hope, only to realize that it’s just some trash on the side of the road.
All hope is lost when we arrive at the skate park with no luck in finding even a shard of my bicycle. Gabe and I hang out at the park for a while, shooting the s**t with G-rad, Eric, Ron, and Thomas. All the while I'm trying to keep this façade of indifference, while on the inside I almost want to cry because they all are at the skate park with their bikes, can ride, and they aren’t, while I'm sitting here with no bike. Then we decide it’s about time to pack it in. So we head to his house then make the ride back home. As I'm reading an issue of Dig that Gabe had lying around, Gabe yells at the top of his lungs “Dude! Look, there’s your bike!” Quite a few things are running through my head after I comprehend what he is saying.
Here they are in order. 1. F***ING SWEET. 2. It can’t be there because a. Were on a f***ing bridge b. And were going the opposite direction we were going when it dropped. 3. I can’t believe Gabe would f*** with me like that, I don’t think I ever want to talk to this mother f***er again.
Even though I thought he was f***ing with me I looked to where he was pointing and was completely surprised. My bike was not on the side of the road, but in the back of some guys truck!
I have to pause and make it clear how incredibly nuts this is. The bike fell off of the car some where between 9 and 10 p.m. Saturday night while we were traveling east on I-10 and here it is3 p.m. the next day, and there’s my bike on the back of some redneck’s truck as were traveling west…..F***ING NUTSO!!!
Well, needless to say as soon as I saw it in his truck I’m half way out of the window, flagging him down, trying to yell over the 70 m.p.h. wind. As were pulling over, 456786787654678 things are running through my mind. The most pertinent one being that I hope this guy didn’t hit this thing in the middle of the night and was waiting for the motherf***er who dropped it to come along so he could beat the living s**t out of them.
The conversation between him and I went something like this: Me: “Oh my God, I can’t believe you found my bike!” Guy: “Yeah, I found it on the side of the road this morning, I was just going to give it away.” Me: “Well thank you so much for giving it back to me. It fell off the back of the car last night and I thought it was gone forever.” Guy: “Yeah man, that’s an ugly ass bike….” Me: “It gets the job done”
When we get back into the car, after loading the bike in, I actually caught myself looking back at it to make sure all of this actually happened. After the initial shock wore off I turned to Gabe and said, "I can't believe that just f***ing happened.”
So there you have it. Next time you are complaining about life, think about poor old Mike (and all the other people out there who have it waaaayyyyy worse than that).
Not too much has been happening around NOLA, as of late. Ronald has been steppin' it up on the icepick grinds while Thomas from Myspace has been working on his freecoaster skillzzz. There are also some younger kids on BMXs that have been getting WILD at the park and just SENDING it! I guess they might have caught wind of this...
(thanks Cody for making the flyer) Well, its about time the only rider-owned park within 4 hours has a bike contest. James will be BBQing all day and this shin-dig kicks off at noon, so dont be late! There will be corner wallride put in and possible a new ramp(spine/box?!) James will be talking to the companies that he orders from for sponsors within the next few days. I'll keep you posted on that and anything else that might change. So take off work, invite your boyfriends, learn a hot new stunt, paint your bike/nails, whatever; but it's going to be freakin awesome.
Here's a couple of little things that have been going on in the Baton Rouge area:
The community planning meeting for the BREC "X-treme Park" went X-tremely well (they had a tendency to use the word extreme a lot). The BMX riders outnumbered every other group at the meeting by about 4 to 1 which was a really good sign. The meeting was to show off the revised master plan for the Perkins Road park which will have several "X-treme" elements to it including a rock climbing area, an X-treme playground, a new BMX track, a dirt jumping area and a concrete skatepark (somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 square feet). All of this plus a couple of visual improvements to the signage and look of the entire park. There was some concern that BMX would not be allowed in the concrete park but the majority of the riders at the meeting stayed afterwards to talk to BREC officials and tell our side of the story- by the looks of it bikes will be allowed in the park. As far as a timeline for the project goes... this is going to take a while. The bidding process for the individual construction jobs won't begin for another few months, and this process will probably take a bit of time. The BREC officials claimed that the schedule for breaking ground on the first group of projects would be sometime around the start of 2008. The skatepark is in the initial group of planned projects so hopefully by summer next year we will have a concrete skatepark here in Baton Rouge. Also, I talked to the head of BREC (Bill Palmer) about the short notice and lack of advertising for the meeting (I only found out about it 2 days prior because Michael Allen had seen it in the newspaper). I am going to be added to the BREC Perkins Road mailing list so in the future we should have some advance notice about these sorts of meetings.
Another bit worth mentioning... Capitol Cyclery at 5542 Jones Creek Road will be having a video premier on February 3rd at 6:15 pm for the new RideBMX DVD "Flipside". There will be free pizza at the premier and also a manual contest. The winner of the manual contest will win a full team sponsorship from Mirraco, one of the video's producers. Everyone is encouraged to get out there and practice manualing because this contest is going to be pretty cut-throat.
Here's a link to the preview for the video: http://www.bmxonline.com/bmx/video/article/0,27679,1209767,00.html
Also, if anyone out there has pictures from any previous Savage South trips I would really like to get my hands on them. Hit me on the electronic mail so we can work something out. (bmxman187@hotmail.com)
For those of you in the Baton Rouge area there will be another community planning meeting at the Perkins Road BREC park this Thursday, January 25th at 6 p.m. The changes to the plan from the previous meeting in September will be shown and the BREC officials will be taking questions and comments at this meeting. The better the turnout at this meeting the better our chances of getting a public, BIKE-FRIENDLY park. For those of you who were not at the last community meeting, the proposal included a concrete skatepark which did not allow bikes, and 2 different BMX tracks. Our voices need to be heard so come out to the meeting on Thursday. Get on your phone, on facebook, Myspace, whatever you can to spread the word. See you at the meeting on Thursday.
A few weeks ago I got an issue of Offline in the mail. It's a Hungarian magazine that had a 6page interview with Danny Josa earlier this year. The new issue has a full-page photo of Danny doing a bunnyhop whip inside a train car and a 10-page interview with Terry Adams with photos I shot before I moved to Cali. Check it...
(Click photos to open larger in new window.)
Cover -
Danny Photo -
Terry Interview Layout - (Black pages = Advert)
Speaking of foreign countries, Terry Adams and photos... In February I'm going to Mexico for the Red Bull 14 flatland contest with Terry Adams and Scott O'Brien. Then two weeks later I'm going to Japan for the Circle of Balance contest with Terry. I'm real excited about both of them. I'm planning on doing an article for Ride about different but similar flatland contests on opposite sides of the world.
On another note, it's Carly's birthday (Jan. 23) so wish her a good one...
I hope you guys make it, its at buck nuttys. Tomorrow night I'll post up a pic of everything I got so far. Its looking like its going to turn out good. Alright, I'm off to bed. If you have any questions you can e-mail me at chs2517@aim.com
So Cody Miller put together a little trailer for the new Louisiana Young Guns video. From the looks of the previews there will be some pretty ground-breaking riding going on here. Prepare to be amazed!!!
Hey guys, I am working on the Savage South part for the new Props and I have to use music that is cleared (ie FREE). I was wondering if anyone out there has any local bands that would like to get some exposure. All you have to do is email me with some contact info for the bands. I am not too sure how long the part will be but the more music I have on hand the better the chances are of finding something that fits to mood of the part. So help me and your musician friends out and send me some tunes. You can email me at bgomez(at)lsu.edu. Thanks for the help guys.
I know its a little (ok, a lot) late, but here's the video from the Buck Nutty's Stayin Alive Jam back in November. The edit has been done for a while but it never got posted. Micheal Allen edited the part and it was filmed by Erik Stevenson and myself. Sorry about the low quality but YouTube will have to do until I learn how to post stuff on the server.
In other Louisiana news there have been several folks from the Las Vegas, NV area roaming the streets of Baton Rouge on 20" bicycles. David, Nathan and Doug all made the trip out here for the winter and are planning on staying around for a while. We've also seen visitors from New York and Wisconsin in the last few weeks. No telling who will show up next...
Also, G-rad of the infamous Aster St. compound is having a 25th birthday party this Saturday, the 13th. Everyone is invited unless you are sketchy and like to steal video cameras from other peoples houses.
Hey guys whats up, Just thought I'd let you guys know that we're having a jam session on Feburary 10th at Buck Nutty's. All the money made will be donated to Hurricane Katrina Victims through a web site called regencycares.com. So far I've received e-mails from Empire, DK, Mutiny, and Primo agreeing to help out with the jam. I just sent off those e-mails last night and today I had 4 new ones. I'll keep you guys informed on all the messages I get.
A couple of months ago www.bmxonline.com had video contest in conjunction with Props. I decided to enter and film a one minute part with Mickey Marshall. If any of you have seen Mickey ride you understand why I chose to film him. Anyway, on the second day of the trip Fat Tony called me and told me that our part was chosen as the winner of the contest. This morning I woke up and found a box with over 30 DVDs in it on the coffee table in my living room. I called Mickey up and he came over to check out the goods. Needless to say we were both really, REALLY psyched. The part should be up on www.bmxonline.com sometime soon. I don't even have a copy of it to post so you'll just have to keep checking up on the Ride site.
In other (no so exciting) news, the Savage South trip has officially ended. There isn't much I can say about the trip because typing just won't do it justice. There were a lot of cameras on the trip so be on the lookout for some video footage coming your way- maybe in Props, maybe a full length DVD. And if anyone has some pics from the trip that they would like to share just email them to me (bmxman187(at)hotmail.com).
One more thing for you guys to look at before you get back to talking shit on the guestbook- I put together a new frame earlier in the week while the rain was pouring down. It's a T1 barcode that is pretty freaking dialed. Usually I don't care what my bike looks like but I figured if I am going to take it completely apart I might as well make it look pretty. Here's a pic of the new ride:
Sorry for the lack of updates but I'll be doing my best to keep up with the site from here on out. If you have any news hit me up through the email (bmxman187(at)hotmail.com) or on mySpace. Now go outside and ride because the weather is nice and it won't be that way for long.
