Fuck Yea
These shots were from Boston in the early 90′s. Harley rips.
Category Archives: Boston
Robbie Gangemi
Robbie Gangemi was always one of my favorite Boston skaters.He ripped but was pretty casual about the whole thing. He loves to skate. And that seems to be his whole motivation. Plus he is funny as shit.
On the serious tip, Robbie is an industry innovator. With a patent pending for recycled skate decks, the material and method, his company Pop Master Innovations is on the cusp of creating an eco-conscious wood manufacturing outlet with “Recycled Wood Fiber Veneer Substrate”.
check it out: popmasterinnovations.com
Robbie rode for Placid Planet/Liquid Spaceship. And he was always down for a session.
Robbie was the first guy I knew personally that was really going for street tricks on ramp. He tried this backside kickflip 100 times and couldn't get it. I told him I can't run a photo if he doesn't land it. At which point he got a serious look and just began crushing them.
The low angle makes the kickflip look huge. Considering that was shot in 1990 or so, it is actually pretty sick. Check out the guy in the background. The look on his face matches his shirt.
High to low frontside ollie at ZT's
The low angle makes the kickflip look huge. Considering that was shot in 1990 or so, it is actually pretty sick. Check out the guy in the background. The look on his face matches his shirt.
Memories of Yoda (part 1 of many)
Tonight, the skate park owner’s dog, Coco, was at the park. It brought back memories of my main man Yoda. Here are a few choice shots from sessions past.
Yoda watches Pete Thompson (I think) ollie the hip at Middle School in Hampstead, NC
Stoners get stoned at aptly named Pot Springs Ditch. Yoda wasn't down with it, so he bailed.
Placid Planet Team guy and Transworld cover boy Adam Ayer sliding tail as Yoda hangs out
Robbie Gangemi uses a handicap ramp to lauch above the lens flare. If you look close, you can see Yoda chillin in the back.
Inside the Liquid Spaceship Surfshop in Boston, Yoda gets busy on a board while I assemble another
Yoda watches Pat Noonan slide in Copley Square
Colorful Characters in Full Color
Boston yo. Streets was mad ill, son.
Well, not really.
And that isn’t how I talk either, but some of the crew did and I love to imitate it. Fo realz, the streets were a constant source of entertainment. I didn’t always carry my camera cuz we were riding to and from spots. And I didn’t shoot much color in those days. It meant money out of pocket as opposed to the bulk film roller-process yourself black and white. But I did bust it out when the situation called for it. Here are a few tidbits that survived the moves and storms and fires. Peace out yo.
While the pros hung out and procrastinated, Adam Ayer 180's down the steps into a demo platform.
During the World Demo, Kareem Campbell nails a gnarly rail (in those days).
Snap Grind on the bricks at City Hospital by Mike "Mikey Dread" Savage. Note the PMA!
Robbie Gangemi pops one over the hip.
Preston Maigater was fun to skate with. Totally humble. Here he is with a big ollie over a small hip.
Blue Davis did these weird tube rides on the outside of the tubes. Kinda like a rock n' roll, sort of.
Adam Ayer. Ollie. Street. Barricade. Fun.
Jahmal didn't want to do this, but I think Noonan pressed him saying it would be a good shot. I walked up and down looking for a good angle. Couldn't find one. But Jahmal did it anyway—a long, fast downhill slide into a underground parking garage.
Ollie snag at Turtles by John____. I'll remember his name. Give me a second.
Didier Munza, a visiting Frenchman, lets go of a ollie grab at Turtles.
Dread recently joked about how we survived on one piece of Newbury Pizza a day. This photo shows that you don't need money to have style.
Noonan!
Patrick Noonan. Skateboarder. Tattoo enthusiast. Beer drinker.
I loved to skate with Noonan. He was always cracking up and having fun. He’s a big guy and skates with a a touch of style that belies his stature. Here is two view of him from Copley Square.
The front view
View from ass-side
New England Inspiration
What would drive a man to move north before wetsuits got good?
A silhouetted surfer lines up a shitty one while a nice stands up.
Chris Minesinger had suggested a trip to Rhode Island to see his girlfriend and our good buddy Skeets. It was fall so the water wasn’t that cold yet and I had heard about the quality of surf from several people. So we loaded up the S10 and hit 95 North.
Eight hours, 2 packs of cigarettes and several Slayer and Warrior Soul albums cranked all the way to 11 later, we finally pulled up at Skeet’s house. We were crazy thirsty for a beer and stayed up all night catching up with Skeets and eating burned popcorn.
On that weekend we lucked into almost empty Ruggles Point. Although a soft and slow wave, it was head high and clean. And uncrowded. And lined up perfectly on every wave like a real point, which it is. We had no idea this is the weak little sister of Around the Corner—the real wave—nor did we care. Dry hair paddle out. No crowds. Good waves. Fun times. It was sunny and warm and playful surf. We were hooked.
Chris cranks off the bottom at the Point
Gibber, ass-up, face-down on a crappy little one
Chris does a pretty mean carve despite the supposed crappyness of Ruggles Point
Ho brah, Gibba snapped so hard the camera got blurry
Pre-Show hang out
Diggin In The Crates
Installment #1 – Boston
Not sure if this was a fashion show, a dance event or what. Some Placid Planet event in Boston. Probably a fashion show since Kadri Kurgun is in the photo (far left). That’s Mikey Dread, Blue Davis, Carol Cohen, Mark the Shark, Al-E-Al, and a few others I can’t recall, but should. Sorry.
Dog Days
Typically, a surf session during a New England winter is cold. This day was excruciatingly cold. The kind of cold that makes a fifth generation Maine lobsterman say, “Holy crap, it facking cold!” But I was excited. There was surf. The wind was offshore. And I was going surfing for the first time in almost five months. Plus we were going to one of my favorite places, Long Beach in Gloucester.
In Cape Ann, at the end of a long road, far from anything yet somehow right next to everything, sits a point break. Jay surfs it alone in the middle of the winter a lot. I just happen to check it one day when he was going out.
During the painfully flat and arm-pit-hot summer prior to this day, I took alcohol a lot. There were many occasions that Gutterboy and I drank the Spauldings from the previous night’s activities as soon as we got to the surf shop. This was just to keep from being sick. Which sounds sick, maybe even retarded, but hair of the dog is a good option when you plan on drinking all day anyway. May as well go ahead and have a drink, right? So as we were cleaning up broken hangers, Jager empties, Goldschlager glittery spills, and funky half ashtray/half beer cans from every crevice of the surf shop, we drank. So what if you haven’t been sober for a minute in something like 40 days? There hadn’t been any surf.
I had met a girl during this run of debauchery. Actually, whore is more appropriate. Well, no, I never paid. Anyway. It should have been a red flag that this girl thought that my lifestyle was fun. But like I said, I was drunk, so why would I care? In order to ply this female with adequate intoxicants to make me more interesting and her clothes easily detachable, I set up a evening with my friend Mike, the heavy metal-ist, drug ingesting, English teacher. We ate. We drank. Everyone ate pills of some sort except me. Not a fan. Really.
We found ourselves at a bar at some point. When the bouncer stopped my companion for i.d. I could see this not working out as I planned. She was just shy of drunk to perfection. So I questioned the overzealous fellow about his reasoning. Bad idea.
As I laid in the gutter waiting for a cab to take me to the hospital I saw down her shirt as she comforted me. That was when the pain really set in. I should have eaten some of those pills.
There are characters in every beach town who rip balls. You have never heard of any of them. Kadri Kurgun owns it. Now you know.
Fastforward and here it is, winter. Surf season. Crutches gone. Rehab almost finished. And I was sitting in a crowded car full of gear and cigarettes and New England surfer stink. Staring at the perfect head-high tubes. There was one car in the lot and it owner was out solo. He’s a nice enough guy who has a couple dogs he takes with him everywhere. And I love dogs. So this guy is cool in my book. Everything looked perfect. Except…
I gotta shit.
Just like that. Good surf gets me fired up and a lot of the time the tirds just start rushing. I have no options. Gotta go. Now. I opened the door and everyone cursed the cold, or more specifically, they cursed me for letting cold in the stench-mobile. I dashed around like a mad man looking for cover. The beach houses were empty so I ran behind them and backed up against a snow drift about six feet high. I actually felt bad to be crapping on someone’s back patio, but fuck it. They wouldn’t be around for another few months. I think my shit should be gone by then. And I had no options. I dropped my pants, squatted and the adrenalized fun-factory pumped out yesterday’s New York Pizza at high velocity. As I ached through the intense cold of being pantless, squating in a snow drift while 20 mph northwest wind stung my balls I started to get bummed. It was intensely unpleasant and I was already frozen. I hadn’t even paddled out yet and I was cold. I started to dwell on it when the dogs ran around the house and trotted up to me for a sniff-and-greet. I struck myself clean and patted the dogs hello as they went about dog stuff unaware of how fucking cold it was. My attitude began to change as I pondered their attitude. They didn’t give shit that it was 10 degrees out. They just want to…
Wait.
They just ate my shit!
Holy crap. They saw a steaming hot tird and gobbled it up in a nanosecond! My eyes almost popped out. I had to do the look away and look back to see if it was real. Holy shit balls, the dogs ate my poop! I gagged back whatever was left of breakfast and hustled back to the car. I told the boys what happened and we all laughed until the foul smells of wetsuits, feet, booty sludge and cigarette butts snapped us back to reality.
Jean Pierre Knight’s Long Beach floater on the shorter, closed-out-but-punchier right. Kadri hacking the shoulder inside the rocks at the end of the left at the far right.
The session was short but nice. The waves were a bit soft but a good first day back after a long stint dry-docked. As I sat aching in the water between waves my mind jumped back and forth between the shit-eating dogs and my needs to get my own shit together. I hatched grandiose plans to self improve. No more all-day drinking, no more lighting each other on fire, no more wine tastings for 3 hours during work, no more… But it was just too brutal. After changing out of a wet wetsuit in 10 degree weather with numb appendages, I said fuck it, stopped at Taco Bell, then grabbed a 12 pack, a pack of smokes and headed back to Boston.