Moving Movie

Blogging

I finally figured out what blogging is for me.
It is my daily time to say whats up to my homies, friends and family near and far.

Aloha Oe! may sound funny but I mean it.
Right to left: Levi, Duke, Jude, Benno, and Keau- the young bros I coached last Sunday.
The three on the left I have couched a few times already. They are so hungry to skate!  They can barely wait to drop in.  Its so rad! Last week Beno and Keau came to check it out. May they catch the bug.
It gets me so stoked when they do things they've never done before and each of them did even though if it meant taking a hard slam like never and getting up and trying again.

There is so much to learn from them.

Next week I will teach them about Skate Park Ettiquite so they can continue to skate a long time and have fun with others in the park. The Skate Park is the Fun Zone!
Manny Skate Coach.

Favorite Artists

This was an exceptional day of my life that I want to share with the world.

On this day I painted with two of my favorite artists, David Ellis and Steve "Espo" Powers.

Dave was a new friend, and Espo I had not met before. On this day I had a terrible morning with my girlfriend who had a substance abuse problem (I was probably not too far behind her). I think I may have banged my head on a plaster wall extremely frustrated the night previous almost giving me neck damage. I was pretty much on the verge of a mental breakdown but not showing it. Anyway this was a show called "No Condition is Permanent" held at Smack Mellon Gallery in Brooklyn in "2001. All I knew was that David had invited me to come down and paint whenever I had time. He had the gallery for his experimental art show all month.  Each day a new artist would paint on the floor. Each artist had the floor all to themselves for one day which was recorded to create a stop motion video.  Each day the next artist painted over the last. The walls were there as well to paint over every day. My painting didn't last 24 hours.

 A few days later I had the floor with my other favorite artist and best friend UFO 907. David new me as Wello 907, because that is what I wrote all over Williamsburg and Lower East Side. My biggest graffiti pieces weren't even done by me but by UFO. Most of what I tagged was on street level.

UFO more often than not put me up as I did he. Its just that he got up big and on really hard to get places like on the top of buildings right in front of subway spots. He made me look really good and hardcore.

Anyway, this day I went down to the gallery just to see what was up with Dave, and he invited me to paint. He said grab a brush and go.  The red lightning bolts were remnants form the last painting. Espo was on the floor and in the 8 hours or so that I was there, I don't think I said a word to him. We all didn't do much talking. Just painted from about noon to 8pm? Something like that. To this day, it was the largest painting I ever did in the shortest amount of time.

The whole time there, I felt honored to just let loose and do whatever I wanted with artists I respected and admired.

Since this image was only up for a day, I thought I'd post it.

The photos were taken by great photographer friend Tony Hamboussi.

Slam and Stoked

Today while doing a skate lesson at Hawaii Kai skatepark I tried to prove a point which was sometimes you have to try things you never tried before, so I tried to drop in switch stance from an axle stall and totally ate it on the flat bottom. Thank god it was on the small quarter pipe and that I'm laughin' about.

We focused on expanding their vocabulary in the park by skating different lines.

One of the best parts of my day was pushing one of skaters Jude to drop into a section of the park he was scared of. He was dropping into way more difficult sections, so I knew he could do it. At the end of the lesson he overcame his fear and did it. He was so stoked, and so was I.

Method Airs

Photo of Jesse Martinez

Photo taken from: http://noneco.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/jesse-martinez/

I just spent about an hour writing about my brother Bob and how he learned Method Airs form Jesse Marinez, but then somehow lost all the writing by clicking a wrong tab on my blog page.

Well, I'll save most of it for next time.

There is a photo somewhere buried at my moms house of my brother Bob looking exactly like this doing a method air... down to the toe hanging off the back end of the board.  I remember, shortly after seeing Jesse blast airs at a demo around 1987,  Bob was blasting airs a few weeks after. It seemed like in one week he learned Method Airs, Judo Airs, Frigid Airs, tweaked out Japan Airs, 360 Airs. He totally taught himself and then everyone else in the neighborhood modeled after him. I had to practice doing method air motions in Ron Sabo's pool, another skater in our neighborhood, then pull it off in a dream sleeping, before ever doing it in reality.

Shout out to you Brother Bob and all my skate bros from Suffern, NY- Ron Sabo, Eric Lynn, Rob Blandi, Jimmy Lynch, Mike Singer, Matt Duffy, John Sansone, and Brian Pistolesi.

Anyway before I erase this by accident again, I'll sign off.

Self Portrait

Self Portrait as my favorite Board Shorts.

This is the pattern of the board shorts 

that my wife bought me at a sample sale for $20 dollars a few years ago.

Every time I wear them I have a rad session. They are officially my magic shorts.

I wore them last Thursday when I got barreled at Bowls. Last Sunday I met the dude

who witnessed me coming out of the barrel and I asked him if I wasn't tripping.

He reassured me it was a perfect full size set wave and that I was in there.

What else... Better go to bed my wife is making fun of me for blogging. 

Plus gonna try to catch some early waves.

Skateboard Lessons

Taught my first skate lesson last Sunday.
It was fulfilling and felt so natural.

I look forward to teach again next Sunday.
I learned that if I try to control their skate exercises, it stunts their performance.
But actually each skater is different and requires different types of attention.

Teaching is like surfing. No two waves are the same... yeah yeah. I'll tell you later.
Gotta spend time with wifey before bed.

THE SECRET TO MAKING "THE NEXT NEW THING"

is to keep it secret until you make it happen.

NO WIND WINDOW.

May the wind die down for a two hour period when I paddle out to the wind protected magic zone.

Shack or No Shack.

I did it.
I'm very stoked, but exhausted.
Got shacked twice. It was a memorable experience
I think I was a dumb though and let all my energy out by telling friends I ran into.
tell you more tomorrow.
Maybe this will make you feel better.
On the skate home tonight I hit a deep crack in the sidewalk and wiped out
as hard as you can wipe out off a crack in the street.
There was a thud sound when I hit the sidewalk concrete.

I slammed so hard onto my elbow and back pack, but got up and cruised on before the people at the red light who saw the whole thing could heckle me.

Gotta go to bed. I'll tell you better details tomorrow.

SURFS UP!

Surfs up on the South Shore.
Gotta be at work at 8am.
Leave the house at 7 to catch the bus.
Gonna try and squeeze in a Super Dawn Patrol.
Wake at 4:20
Leave house at 4:45.
Get in ocean by 5am.
Surf for an hour and a half.
be out by 6:30.
Hussle home, drop off car.
and skate to the bus to make it to work.
I can actually probably leave for work by 7:15am.
that may give me a little more time to get shacked.

I have this vision that I just might get shacked tomorrow.
I'll keep you posted.
As long as I actually make it in the water and catch a few and
make it to work on time, I'll be stoked.
It's 10:20pm and I'm folding diapers and laundry.
Gotta hussle to bed.

Buenos noches!
Hasta luego!
-Manuel Aloha

Roll Skateboards Sidewalk Surfer

Blogging

I haven't blogged in a while because I heard on NPR that there were millions of people blogging every day and all of sudden I am re-evaluating blogging.