MA
RE
In Loving Memory of
RUBEN ORKING
February 28, 1999, 12:35 PM PST
You want to hear something ironic? I know irony is cheaper
than sarcasm these days, but here you go: the day I met Ruben.
Orkin was the day I met Jake Phelps. This must have been
somewhere back in the spring of '84. Jake would know for sure.
Joel and Dave Chavez had taken me to a shitty little halfpipe
nestled in the Berkeley hills. Six and a half feet high, eight feet
wide, six feet of flat, whatever.
Jake was killing it, doing the most brutal steamroller
frontside grinds I had ever yet seen. He was loud, funny, and
obnoxious. I remember Jake pointing at some kid he was about to snake, singing,
"They call me...Dr Love..." as he dropped in. He was a perfect asshole, and he skated
like a man.
Rube, on the other hand, was just a goofy egg-headed little kid. He looked like a
baby bird fresh out of the nest; his head was still too big for his body. I guess I
he was
still just learning to skate. All I remember is he busted his wrist. Rube was wearing a
homemade-looking Suicidal Tendencies t-shirt featuring a skull-headed, bandanna-
wearing skater doing a frontside snap-grind on the hip of an empty swimming pool.
Loving it from the start. He showed me his wrist, which was bent all funny. I told him
to ice it. He did. Jake, then, apparently stole the bowl of melted ice water which
Ruben had been soaking his wrist in (probably wristguard and all), and drank it. That
was the last I saw of either of those guys for a while. I was doing my own thing and I
they were doing theirs.
guess
I left town.
When I got back a year or so later, our lives started criss-crossing again. I was told
that the Phelper was blazing his path of destruction through SF. And I heard Rube
had gotten real good and also that he had broken some more bones and shredded the
cartilage in his knee. If you ever skated with Rube you may or may not have noticed
that learning to skate with a cast on left a permanent imprint on his style. Check out
the way he holds his left arm. Anyway, when I got back Joel informed me, "Rube is
the rippingest."
And he was
was.
Rube had become a straight-up tranny dog with a vast array of lip tricks he had devel-
oped at the tennis courts. His signature maneuver was, of
course, the Rube-a-Dube: an alley-oop frontside grind to
hang-up and yank it in. Nice. Ruben Orkin was down for
skateboarding from day one. Basically if you loved skate-
boarding, Ruben Orkin loved you, even if you were a
kook. For a while at least.
All I am saying is that everyone has a history and this is
Rube's and I'm stoked to be a part of it; and I'm stoked to
have been there at the beginning. Between then and now
the Rube has been on a single-minded mission to skate
vert and backyard pools. San Jose Warehouse I and II,,
Bryce's, the Widowmaker, Jake's, Andy's, Max's, Red
Onion, Pleasant Hill, the Oakland Fire pools, Salbaland,
Portland, etc. Anyone who has ever skated with the Rube
will agree: he's a great skate pal.
He's also graduated into the industry, becoming the
Thunder/Spitfire team guy several years back. Rather
than getting jaded, Rube got more stoked: stoked on the
opportunity to
nity to work directly with his favorite pro guys;
stoked
to promote gnarly skateboarding.
A little
e over a year ago, right when we had the
Livermore egg pool, Rube was diagnosed with lung
cancer. Lately it's been getting worse and worse. Rube's
still breathing as I write this, but it doesn't look like he
has a lot of time left. And he knows it. The other night
at dinner he said, "Man, I wish I had just gotten to
skate Pepper a few more times. I know I could go over
the stairs." That pretty much broke my heart.
When I saw him last night he looked into my eyes and
told me, "I'm all right, brah." And I told him that I believe
him. I believe he's going to be.
Ruben Orkin died on February 28, 1999 at 4:14 PM PST. He died in his sleep in his wife
Dziep's arms.
Jake, Joel, and I are the only ones left from that spring afternoon in 1984.
Every shallow end grind from here on out is pretty much for the Rube.
Always and forever, bro, one love. Curtis Hsiang
Co
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