New York Skate Stories: #3 My Brother Bob

My brother Bob, fuckin' ripped on a skatboard so hard. For those of you not familiar with skateboard lingo, Fuckin' Ripped means skateboarding on terrain extremely aggressive, with great skill, and precision. Most of the tricks he did back in the 80's are still rad and difficult today. 

He was genetically built for it.

He was the most physically fit from elementary school into high school. In 6th grade during physical fitness tests, he was called down on the loudspeaker to do the physical fitness test along with Jamie Van Dunk in front of a all the gym teachers. Jamie was an african american who got left back once or twice. He was super man back then, and so was my brother. I think the only thing Jamie beat him in was the long jump.

Bob did the most sit ups, and pull-ups and sprinted the fastest. 

In baseball he was an amazing pitcher and could hit home runs out of the park both righty and (switch) lefty. I never hit one out ever.

So anyway he was pretty much physically built to conquer.

When my parents separated, my dad got a job in California.

So the next summer we went to visit him as we did all following summers. He lived in Torrance and bought us skateboards so we could keep up with him when he jogged the Redondo Beach bike path after work everyday. The skateboards were wood with fast soft wheels.

Bob had the skate with the blue wheels, mine red.

The first day we skated following my dad jogging, Bob could skate standing up.

I think he was nine and I seven. I'll never forget pushing along on my knee and looking up at him astonished and blown away at how he could skate standing up and I only on my knee.

Little did I know he would continue to astonish, and not only me.

He built an ollie box on our driveway and kept piling more and more wood on it until it became a four and a half foot quarter pipe, the first quarter pipe in our neighborhood.

Bob was the first person on the block to learn how to ollie, kick-flip, do hand plants, and go off street ramps big. While most of the kids on the block were simply going off the street ramp without slamming, Bob was doing big Method Air tweaks, the raddest most tweaked out Japan Airs (where his back leg was almost straight) Judos and maybe even 360's and 360 Judo's

He was master of the Ho Ho Plant which is where you put your board onto your feet while going into a hand stand, and walk around on your hands while tweaking out your legs in different positions.

We used to go to skate demos in Westwood New Jersey, not only did we get to see the best skaters in the world come though town (Rodney Mullen, Jesse Martinez, Mark Gonzales, Natas) all the best skaters in the tri-state area would show up and skate before and after the demo.

The only reason our neighborhood crew got to meet to the best skaters at the event was because Bob impressed.

One of the best skaters out of  Jersey by the name of Brian Blake was there and watched Bob try to rail slide a hand rail right after Gonz tried it during a demo, I'm sure Bob was doing other things that stood out... all I remember was that Brian kept saying BOB! BOB! BOB!

Anyway this led to befriending most of the best skaters in the Jersey Area. Brian Blake, Charlie Butterly two influential skaters in the history of East Coast Skateboarding. Brian being one of the best amateur street skaters in the world at the time, and Charlie starting his own company and sponsored skaters who would later be the most influential east coast skaters in skate history to date.

Anyway my brother Bob's skills opened the door to meeting the most talented skaters in the area who would quickly become our friends.

Possibly the first to ollie slide a hand rail from the east coast?

Any one out there to prove me wrong? The only one I can think of is I don't know.

Master of frontside and backside wall rides off flat ground.

He could do frontside wall ride mute grabs off flat.

Ses Slides on ramp to wall on the coursest concrete walls to flat.

Not just bomb drop off ledges. Which means hold onto your board from standing position and jump onto your board off a ledge.

Bob would run off the back of a Semi Truck and do Saran Wraps,

which is when you jump into the air with your board in one hand and pass it in between you legs to your other hand and then land on it.

He would do this in one swift stylish (effortless) motion and land so solid.

He would ride off the back of semi trucks and do what he called Helicopters, where he would ride off straight towards the ledge, put his front hand down on the lip of the drop in front of his board, grab indy, and whip a 360 off the nose and land so solid.

One of the raddest momemts in my memory was when there was a demo with Mark Gonzales, Natas Kaupas, and Mike Vallely, at Westwood, New Jersey. These were the 3 best street skaters in the world at the time. They brought a street ramp and were just dorking around and not skating their hardest.  The best punk rock legendary NYC  skate team riders of Shut Skates got bored and wanted to show them up, so they crashed their demo and started skating the ramp to show off their skills. Doing things off the street ramp like big ollie japan tweaks, big 360 Judos, Troy with his 360 varials. Bob quickly got in there and blasted his BIG 360 METHOD to INDY NOSEBONE. He would switch his grab at 270 degrees from Backside grab  to Indy grab , and tweak a nosebone and he did it so high and covering big distance.

Other skaters quickly jumped in after and it turned into a free for all pandemonium skate session, but none were going as big and high as the Gonz, Mike Vallely, the Shut Riders, or Bob.

My last radical memory was when I watched Bob after easily frontside and backside rail sliding the Paramus Ditch hand rail, was Bob trying to ollie grind the rail before ever seeing it in magazine.

Moments like the ones mentioned make my Brother Bob a Skate Legend to me.

He now lives in Lafayette, Colorado where he opened his own restaurant called Eats and Sweets with his beautiful wife and two kids.

I love you Bro.
-Manny

Some of my accomplisments

My son Hayden making "Big Chair" with his 

new Lego set from Aunt Julia before I go to work.

View of Diamond Head from where I'm working.

Where I'm working. Hmmmm

View from Deck

My paint job.

Many times my accomplisments are not measured by 

a material gain or production of an object.

Besides creating a wonderful son with my 

beautiful and awesome wife Marisa, 

some of my surf and skate accomplishments 

from the past five years have been:

Surfed the Banzai Pipeline with Jamie Obrien,

Surfed Rice Bowls with Jerry Lopez,

Rocky Point with Tommy Curren,

Backyard Cholo Bowl private skate session with Chrisian Hosoi, Jeff Hartsel and Honolulu's finest super surf skate braddah Ethan Lau.

Surfed Ala Moana Bowls with Makua Rothman,

Camie Land with Jeff Hackman and Randy Rarick.

Sidewalk surf sesssion down local hills of Kaimuki with Jeff Hartsel and Ethan Lau 

Skated Cholo Bowl with John John Florence (the youngest in history to win surfing's prestigeous Vans Triple Crown)

I'm am honored to play with people I respect and admire.

Surf Skate Create

New York Skate Stories: #2 Nimbus Skates

If any there is any New York Skate Story that must be told, it is the story of Nimbus Skates.
As the leading East coast team Shut reached its peak and came to its demise, a new company was  brewing. A knew generation of skaters were evolving and two young passionate skater entrepreneurs Charlie Butterly and Ian McCarthy were carefully picking the best.

Charlie Butterly was a rad skater who had a solid glue foot ollie, and arsenal of street ramp maneuvers as well as a bag full of HO HO maneuvers. A Ho-Ho was a popular trick of the mid to late 80's when the skater would go upside down, put the board onto his feet and walk around on his hands doing different poses with the board on their feet. Street ramps and street ollies were the newest aspect in skateboarding. Charlie was a master of the Ho Ho and Street Ramp, and again, had a solid ollie. He began receiving decks from the infamous Shut Skates, but had a falling out with one of the founders Bruno Musso

He decided to start his own company Nimbus Skates with friend Ian McCarthy.

Ian was business prodigy, who much later became schizophrenic and disappeared from he face of the earth.  More importantly prior to his mental illness. Ian had an eye for talent. Together Charlie and Ian hand picked the next best skaters in the New York and surrounding metropolitan area.
As all the riders of Shut skates moved to bigger and better companies,
The Nimbus team began to form. These riders would later be the foundation of riders for  Zoo York, the  biggest skate company to come out of New York.
Who rode for Nimbus?, Jefferson Pang, Peter Bici, Peter Hyun, Jim Lynch, Qulon Douglas, Bobby Puleo, Brian Loki, Ryan Hicky, Dan Zimmer, Jon Burk, Pablo Fuster, Giovanni Estevez, Rich Arbitell, Justin Pierce, Matt Obrian, ? from Boston, and myself, Manny Pangilinan. If I missing anyone, please let me know, if you are out there reading. Although I never felt completely on the team because I never got completely free boards, I can say I was by default because,  I only rode Nimbus Boards, received the Homeboy Discount of $15 per deck and the occasional free set of Alva wheels, and Jim, Ian, Jeff, and Charlie, and the whole team were my closest friends and skate brethren during the time. I never realized or thought about how much better my bros were than until I watched rare Nimbus Skates footage. I skated because I loved to skate and that I believed I was good. I don't know about how everyone else felt, but there's no doubt in my mind, when I skated anywhere I was sure to try and show everyone up, and let them know I was riding a Nimbus deck.  Maybe one thing I contributed was a proper spirit, as well as invent one staple trick the nose slide which I'll tell you about later.

More importantly Nimbus Skates held down the fort while the New York Street skating scene was trying to figure itself out. Nimbus didn't have much money, but It had the riders who stayed together (for the few years that it did) for the love of skating and the new decks with the fresh shape, fresh pop, and fresh graphics that kept coming out ready to ride.Charlie as the elder owner,  for the most part, gave his home as the headquarters for Nimbus first in Paramus NJ then closer to NYC across the Hudson river in Hoboken NJ.

No one really knew where street skating was moving to. No one knew that it was going to become a multimillion international industry.

Another way to look at it : Nimbus was the transition between Shut and Zoo York.
While Shut was coming to its demise, Nimbus was finding the next best skaters and developing the next street skating board shapes. Each new batch of boards that came out of Ian or Charlies' basement shop came a new shape feature, and a new graphic drawn by one of the riders. Peter Hyun, Rich Arbitell, Dan Zimmer, Charlie? ( If you guys are out there please help me with these memories) These were the brothers who had the skills to create the graphics, for boards with names like, "The Homboy" (Charlie... or any Nimbus Bros out there,  Please help me remember.)

The team began to disperse as Ian began to lose his mind to Schizophrenia. And the riders began to realize bigger dreams like getting casted to star in Larry Clarks new movie "Kids" (A movie about youth skater life in NYC).

Things were evolving fast...

I have to cut this story short and continue probably after the holiday. I have to work tomorrow morning at 7:30 am and it's already 1:16 am.

Don't let me forget about details about all the rider, like

Jim Lynch who did a legendary maneuver, "Boards slide to Fakie on the Marriot Banks Fat Rail" and how he would pull other insane maneuvers like riding up curbs into grind (Slappying), going so fast you were sure he was going to eat shit, and rail sliding double sided curbs going way too fast down spiral parking garage ramps.

Pretty much all the skaters named above were the most talented, and stylish skaters in the New York Area. And they were all carefully hand picked by Ian and Charlie, who would soon become the foundation of riders for the biggest Skate Company to ever come out of NYC Zoo York The riders deserve there credit simply for being the most radical and stylish street skaters on he East Coast.

Charlie and Q and Rich and any other Nimbus Bros out there, please let me know your thoughts additions or corrections in a comment or email to mannyaloha@gmail.com

Let me know know if I should cut out details like stuff about drinking 40's


To be continued.

New York Skate Stories: #1 Shut Skates- What Made Them Bad Ass

It's been a long time since I've wrote and each day that goes by I say to myself, I want to write a story, I want to write a story. And each day that goes by the stories get buried deeper and deeper. Stories that were once so clear in my mind become cloudy and less vibrant. So her I go before they disappear forever.

So often have I read stories about "New York Skate History" and I've said to myself, that's not how it all went down, or what about that time... I also realize that for every moment in time each person has their own account of what happened. Well this is my account of some radical skateboard events that went down in the late 80's in New York and New Jersey.

The following skate stories are not in chronological order, but are pieces of a longer story that I plan to one day reassemble into a book.


Shut Skates
Shut Skates was a bad ass skate posse based in New York City. Most of the skaters on the team were actually from across the Hudson River in New Jersey- specifically from towns like Weehawken  (pronounced We-hawk-in), Union City, Edison,... towns within an hour or so from Manhattan.

Off the top of my head some of the early riders were: Felix Arguelles, Mike Kepper, Coco Santiago, Rich, Charlie Butterly ...  The dudes on Shut were the best in the area. And it never seemed like any of them ever talked. They just skated hard.

Charlie was cut from the team early without hardly an explanation, so he started his own team Nimbus Skates. The skaters of this team would later become the foundation of riders for Zoo York. This is another story I want to tell.

More important and interesting than name dropping, is what made Shut Skates so "Bad Ass"
Here is a moment that attempts to illustrate it.

The Brooklyn Banks were not only a meeting place for most skaters in the NYC metropolitan area which included the 5 Borrows, Upstate New York, New Jersey, Connecticut. But it was the meeting place for all skaters in the world who came to East Coast during the time. The Brooklyn Banks was the East Coast Skate Mecca during approximately the years 1986 to 1991.

There were banks everywhere made out of brick and the brick laying was masterful. If it wasn't a bank, it was a marble curb, ledge, step, rail, smooth street, wood bench or metal curb. A skateboarders dream.

Most Spring, Summer, or Autumn days there would be anywhere from 20 skaters to a hundred. And on contest days, all skaters from the Metropolitan area would be there and that meant hundreds and easily breaking a thousand. How anyone accomplished anything is a phenomenal. Doing a trick up and down the bank meant navigating through constant moving obstacles (aka other skaters) An ollie down the nine step was a big deal then. It meant clearing a path between a hundred skaters, pushing down a narrow path and going for it.

This Shut moment occurred on a contest day when hundreds of skaters were warming up before an ESA Contest. It would be hard to walk 5 feet without getting hit by a skater. Yet somehow hundreds of skaters went one by one or two by two or back to back going up and down the banks, over walls into the street, going up walls for wall rides. At least an our or so before the contest amongst the functioning chaos of skaters, here comes a Van going super slow cutting across the main path of every skaters line.

Who is in the Van? Shut Skates. Out comes Bruno Musso and Rodney Smith.
They open up the back of the van and take out a 3ft+ street ramp and start spreading there arms out clearing a path which makes it pretty much impossible to skate the banks. Out of the van comes Shut riders Felix, Coco, Mike Kepper, probably Jeremy Henderson and others whose names I can't remember. They started launching off the street ramp pulling off bigger more tweaked maneuvers beyond the skill level of every skater amongst the sea of hundreds:

Frontside 360 Japan Airs. 360 Judos, Saran Wraps, 360 Methods, Nosebones, Ollie airs, Ollie Japans.
They came and blew minds then put the ramp away and let the contest go on.

Stuff like that is what made Shut Skates Bad Ass.

The next contest they brought on an Animal of a skater named Sean Sheffey. He was BIG and FAST and that's how he skated. He unlocked jaws and made eyeballs pop out of heads when he Sheffey Popped the big wall something no one imagined or pulled off until him. Maybe I'll explain what that is another time.

Surf Life "Pray"

Hand Made Holiday Market by Baby Awearness

Saturday Dec. 10, 2011

11 am to 4 pm at Manoa Market Place.

I will have a table.