Viva Las
POOLS
by Brian Brannon
The sound and beauty of a backyard
pool session: snarls and growls rising from
a painted deep end, shouts and howls
from a crowded shallow, mad speed lines
cut all around.
Can it compare to the safe, sane, mun-
dane atmosphere
of a controlled and
contrived contest?
Ask the coping. It
quivers at the
sight of a pool
rider's bare trucks.
It stands battered
and abused. But
that is what it's
for; its round edge
protrudes to be
pulverized, its ce-
ment cries to be ground to the bone, its
fat lip exists as an earthly exit for sky-
bound wheels.
a Rocket Air," "Sign my Underwear." And
when they cheer, it is barely heard.
Ah, but at a pool session, the air is
saturated with enthused hoots and
hollers, along with ohhs and whoas that
accompany missed and barely made
re-entries.
The energy that
flows in and a-
round a backyard
bowl could sustain
a major metropolis
for weeks. The
only thing that
strong at a ramp
contest is the reek
of B.O. and B.S.
Is it because
ramp contests are
held only for the sake of the almighty
dollar? Is it because anything done to im-
prove the quality of the skating conditions
is merely a concession to appease the
riders and attract more spectators? Yes.
A feast for a hungry skater, Sacto community pool.
Metal coping? Plastic? Wood? Bah hum-
bug. Poseur copings, the lot. Wannabe
grind surfaces. Nutra Sweet lips. They are
not, and never should be called coping. One
never hears a respectable sound when
these are ground.
Let's look at the onlookers. What do
you hear from the crowd at a typical ramp
contest? Stuff like "Do a McTwist," "Do
72
With nothing but the pool and its lines
on his mind, the skater is free to invent
and imagine a multitude of moves. What
is a move? A trick that has no master.
Each time it is done, it is done differently.
Sometimes they are made without plan-
ning, like a backside edger lock-up ►
Brian Brannon smokes coping in the Blue Tile Lounge.
Micke Alba stays away from the lip in the Leprosy Pool.
BA
CUAGE!
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