Becky and I went to Chinatown to grab busses heading in two opposite directions. I had told her I would go to Philly with her this past weekend, like, a month ago, but when my paps called and mentioned how he was running the Boston Marathon by himself and both my mom and my sister were too busy with school to go with him, I felt compelled to ship up yonder and support him. Yeah, I’m an amazingly considerate son, but I’m a pretty thoughtless boyfriend. Anyway, though, fam over clam, you know what I’m saying?
Becky saw this street with all the lanterns that spill confetti when they swing in the breeze and said, oh, how pretty, before she snapped a photo.
Once I got to Boston and hung out with my paps for the evening, I went skating the next day. In fact, I recognized a few spots when I was here about seven years earlier when my mom ran Boston.
I decided to take pictures of all the spots I skated. Next best thing to skating with a buddy who’s totally down to swap back and forth with the bro-cam (wish I knew someone like that).
I saw this spot by some college area, right by the tram tracks. Judging by how smeared and scraped the rail was, virtually every trick imaginable had been slung across it. The rail was so wide I gave up hope trying to lock into my noseslides, opting instead for a 50-50 on the bottom half. Between breaks in traffic, the board kept sliding out from under my feet, as if I was trying to no-comply out of it or something. A nearby patio-table-full of brohans snickered at a few of my initial attempts which, naturally, caused me to wish them immediate and excruciating deaths. Yet as I was rolling back to the beginning of my run-up, one of the brohans, walking past me on the sidewalk said, “Hey, this ain’t no LOVE Park, is it?” I was thoroughly confused. “You know. You’re from Philly, right?” No, I sheepishly admitted. I said “LOVE is iconic, though,” in a way that made me feel like I was a New York Times reporter writing about skateboarding.
Later on I came across this. The fountain is literally the size of a football field, with that super fun outsized marble coping wrapping all the way around it. I was awed by the endless possibilities as I skated to its far corner. I knew I stood no chance of skating it because this elderly fucktard in a golfcart followed me the whole way there.
As much of an anti-authority grudge I have, gramps and I had an amicable back-and-forth. Shit, he’s smiling at me for chrissakes.
OK, who doesn’t remember Jerry Fowler’s backside tailslides on this legendary Bostonian spot? It’s tougher than it looks. With 58 mm wheels, boardslides and lipslides are an impossibility. The best I could manage was a 50-50, which was really fun to pop out of into the bank. Tailslides were super tough to lock in to, and with a lack of wax and traffic zooming past me, I didn’t feel like exerting myself.
Oh! Here’s my paps hanging out in front of another super famous spot. I showed him how to wallride and he acted like he didn’t know me.
The morning of the marathon I hung out with my friend Jonna, her sister and her boyfriend at a marathon party at around the 23rd-mile marker. We saw the top men and women run by. For once in a long while, white people finished in the top three. This is a picture of a little girl who was too busy making out with her reflection while saying grr-ga-gard-ard-ad—rdgrd-d-DADTH! to notice the ongoing marathon.
I finally figured out where my paps was after the race, and while I was feeling harried and impatient as I navigated throngs of deliriously exhausted marathoners and their overly concerned loved ones, I found this tall glass of jack ‘n coke slam chillin’, munching on a bagel, cool as a cucumber. 26.2 miles ain’t sheeeeeeeit, he composure said to me before running me through a variety of elaborate high-five varations.
I had a good time hanging out with my paps before heading back home on the Fung-Wah bus to New York. Outside Stamford, Connecticut, however, the bus broke down.
An hour away from the City, it took two hours for us to get another bus driven up here to carry us down to Chinatown. I drowned out the complaints with my ipod, yet when it finally ran out of juice I was pleased to find out my bitching neighbors we’re pretty funny about the whole thing. “Yo, son. I’m about to get real tight with this chino nigga right now. I’ma go to jail tonight–no joke!”
We had broken down on I-95 in the middle of an overpass. That means there was no shoulder to pull over on, which means this was a somewhat dangerous thing to have happen. The second bus showed up and we were about an hour past being happy about it.
Finally we get back to New York. People were talking about getting their 15 dollar refunds, but all I wanted to do was to get home.
Of course I hopped on an express train and ended up two stops past the L. When it rains, it pours–even in the subway.
I was having a crumby day until I got to the bottom of 
That’s a Malto portrait from Sam’s 
See, this is what happens when you give crustpunks a dollar for dogfood. Everytime.
Crust + Commerce 