East Coast Love
Story and photos by Jason Aragon.
Edited by Harmon Finkle

That’s right, we said better side of the country. People who haven’t skated on the East Coast don’t know what they’re missing. Think California is where it’s at? Check out spots and riders on the East coast and your brain might explode.

People got pop over there. Spots have charm. The cities are older and sometimes that means the streets are rougher, the hooligans tougher. But the chicks are nicer (sluty). And that makes up for everything.

Skaters in the East have heart. They don’t care what clique you’re from or what tricks you do. For them, skating is about skating. Plain and simple. These cats got their shit together. You run into a lot more skaters who are artists or musicians and generally have more on their minds than trying to get an overkrooks down a 75 stair handrail. Most of them did shit like that ten years ago anyway.

Day one
5 O’clock in the morning.
Gather up the crew (Balz, Chris T’s, Greg) who have been partying all night.
We drive to the airport and check in. Security takes Greg’s skate tools.
Plane takes off, T’s throws up 2 or 3 times in the plane bathroom.
4 p.m. (now Eastern time)
We land, eat, check out a rental van. Purchase rental car insurance. Meet up with Norm and drive to Absecon New Jersey.
About 7pm.
We meet up at Cliff’s house (our East coast rep) and he shows us where we’ll be sleeping, which turns out to be at an apartment in the same building. The owner is a kind lesbian named Celeste. It has a beer bong on the patio, which gets put to much use.
8:30 p.m.
We go to a skatepark near Atlantic City called Brigantine. It has a snake run, a flat bar, a pyramid and a quarter. Not the best park, but satiating, after a long plane ride. Crappy ground and tons of mosquitoes. We pass out stickers and cheese, then hit up the liquor store, buy tons of mini 8 oz. beers and some Pennsylvania brew called Yuengling. The beer is delicious and becomes our nourishment and life blood. After a few beer bongs we all cash out.
Day 2
Daytime
We awake to cliff saying we have to be at the contest/demo NOW. We hit the road to the Ocean City skatepark, bust a few practice ollies then do our demo. The park is wood and about 20 yards from the beach so every chick is in a bikini. Beautiful! Our demo is decent considering one of our key riders from Washington D.C. is late. We get some love in the form of autograph hounds and sticker junkies. We give out tons of product for the contest winners, hit up a mini session at the park when Scott arrives, then we hit the beach for Frisbee with scantily dressed chicks and a scantily clad Norm. We get a few phone numbers then head back to home base.
Nighttime
After a few drinks and some good D.C. skate footage from Scott, we get more beer and start calling chicks. Norm devises a plan to get Balz too drunk to hit on chicks. After a dozen beer bongs a couple chicks arrive. They’re on vacation from Maryland. A team rider snatches up the blonde and is shortly under a blanket with her. The rest of the group ensues in some strip poker with the brunette.
Late night
1/2 the house is drunk, naked, getting it on in the rental van, or getting busy in the woods. Celeste comes home and fits right in. She buys more beer and calls a friend over. She takes another team rider into the bathroom and makes him give her some lap dances.

Day 3
Early morning
I go pick up Rex (our rider from Virginia and Latin for king) at the bus station.
Noon
We head out for New York City. Our caravan includes our new female friends from Maryland. The ride is about 3 hours long and T’s hangs outside the van throwing up for most of the drive. The scenery looks like the intro to the sopranos, woody and industrial.
4 p.m.
We arrive at K.C.D.C, a skate shop throwing an art show and half-pipe session latter that evening. With a couple hours to blow, Brian, Cliff’s friend, our flow rider and New York local, shows us to the Brooklyn banks. Part of the banks are now closed or used as parking, thanks to 9/11 and kids are using it as a fun park, riding orange barrels down the banks. We skate the banks, get a few video clips, and head back to K.C.D.C
Night. The art show starts. There are easily a couple hundred people drinking, checking out the art and participating in a snake session at their indoor 6ft high half-pipe. We also get word that back in Absecon Cliff’s wife is tremendously unhappy about our night of drunken debauchery at Celeste’s house. She makes Cliff stay with Brian and the rest of us find a hotel. We all go straight to bed.

Day 4
Morning
We say goodbye to our Maryland friends, then decide to check out the city. We meet up with Cliff around the Soho area then head for Central Park. On our way, we see a gay pride parade, a man ready to beat up a bus driver and some of the craziest traffic I’ve ever seen. This is a very colorful area.
Afternoon
After we get some cheap N.Y. hotdogs (some real dogs attack T’s while we skate) and a Central Park excursion, we go to the Bronx to check out some of the local spots Cliff grew up around. We arrive at the elementary school Cliff attended which has a nice bench set up and tons of ledges. Finally we can get some real skating in. during warm-up Cliff tries an impossible foot plant and dislocates his elbow. It pops back in but fractures some bones in the process. Cliff being a real trooper tells me about a hospital a few blocks away so I take him there. They give him a wrap to replace the wrap Norm made him (its okay he’s a lifeguard) and we return to the session. Everyone gets some footage and we chill a while with the locals, which are the coolest kids we meet on the trip. We pass out stickers, slang some decks, and chill. They give us a video which turns out to be very well made with a positive feel to it. We say our goodbyes and head back to Absecon, paying an unexpected $10 in .35 tolls.
Late night
We drop Cliff off at the Absecon hospital and head to Celeste’s apt. where we find a big fat rat in a cage on the kitchen table. Since Cliff’s wife was very upset about the last night we spent at Celeste’s, and we where still unsure about how Celeste felt we decided to kick it down a notch, limiting the beer bong use to a minimum and not inviting anyone over. We later find out she was cool with everything. Sleep.

Day 5
Morning
We wake up, and head for Washington D.C.
It’s about a 3 or 4 hour drive and we arrive in the afternoon. Scott shows us a few spots that are a bust then he takes us to a school in a poverty stricken area with a double set. We get a few clips, a free lunch (it was one of those areas where people pass out free lunches to the less fortunate) and a show consisting of a kid running from some cops. They catch him and take him away. Rumors go around that he stole a car. We head back to Freedom Park which is a sick skate spot in D.C., hit up a night session then head out.
Night
We spend the night at Scott’s house watching videos, eating and drinking beer.

Day 6
Balz takes the biggest slam of the trip attempting a caveman to 5050 on a handicap rail. He also gets a speeding ticket.

Day 7
We head to Philly, about an hour drive. We get directions to F.D.R. which is a homemade skate park under a bridge like Burnside. It has a large 1/2 pipe, a mini 1/2, and a sick street course. The key factor at F.D.R is speed. “FDR is a place where you have to respect the locals because they’ll just shred on your ass. You spend the first few days just learning how to get speed”-Norm.
We meet up with a local who shows us to south street, which is the artsy, headshop, skateshop, alternative area of town. For lunch we head to Pat’s Cheesesteak place. Which is supposed to have the best cheesesteaks in Philly. Gino’s cheesesteaks are across the street and supposedly pats and ginos employees and patrons yell and heckle across the street to each other saying that their cheesesteaks are the best.
About 2 steps into Love Park we notice security herding up ready to bust anyone who steps on a skateboard. We hit up a session a few blocks away then head back to jersey. When we get back to jersey we say our goodbyes to Rex, we settle in to our beer drinking and chilling.

Day 8
We meet up with some locals, slang some products and chill. We decide to check out the boardwalk in Atlantic City. We get a few souvenirs then head back to our home base and settle into another night of partying.

Day 9
Balz reflects,” It was a great environment, much thanks to Celeste. There was no one great spot.
All the spots were great. All the people were great. There will be stories about us going
around there for a long time.”

Still Very drunk we head for the airport. We return our now thrashed rental van in and wait for our flight.
Thank G-d for rental insurance.