i grew up in wisconsin with the coolest mom ever. she took us to 4 seasons all the time and would chill there and became friends with neil the owner and a buncha the dudes who worked there, took me and my bro and all our friends and like dudes from the northern ahtletik team to louisville ky. anyways,4 seasons was lutzka's old stomping ground and my mom was super loud and became friends with him. anyways we got to skate his like 18th or 19th bday party at 4 seasons. must have been like 02 or 03. they had that punk rock band playing in the park that uses guitars and shit made out of old school decks. anyways, only us like little park groms were there because greg and all the older guys were burning in the limo with the von zipper models. it was pretty awesome though.
my mom asked brad staba what a beef flag was after she saw it in a marc johnson ad at the hot chocolate demo in milwaukee. super funny. he laughed and just said it was anatomy and my mom asked male or female and he laughed and said female. we ended up staying in the same hotel as the entire team in chicago the very next day. i almost pissed when gino got out of the elevator i was getting into. too scared to say anything though.
but for sure the dopest encounter i've ever had with a pro was when i was in 8th grade. my buddies dad had a business trip out in cali so me, this kid travis erickson from madison (super rad skater who lives out in SF and rides for santa cruz now. hes been gettin a little bit of coverage lately), and this kid garret went out there and we were staying between garrett's dad's hotel by santa monica pier and this dude trevor who use to manage 4 season's madison. trevor took us to wilson elementary, the spot with the blue bleachers. and brian wenning and kelly hart showed up. kelly was just SHREDDING. like i had never seen switch flips so high in my life. but they were there with a crew so we didnt talk to them. anyways, when we stayed with garret's dad; every morning we'd wake up super early and skate down to the santa monica sand gaps. and like two days in a row, at like 8 am, brian wenning was there by himself sessioning the end block. and this is right after the DC video came out and there was that whole video segment about how he disappeared and no one could find him and there he fucking was. he would just skate back and forth and just bang out every ledge trick switch and regular. come thru back 50-50, do it switch, back 5-0, come around and do it switch. ect, ect. after like an hour he sits down and we go up to him and are like damn dude you're brian wenning? we thought you disappeared blah blah blah. and he laughed like na that shit was a joke. anyways we just chilled on the blocks with him for like an hour and a half talking about skating. he was super fuckin cool. said DC flew him and his friends out because it was winter back in NJ. he was asking us about wisconsin, about spots, about what we were skating out there, just a ton of shit. dude was super cool, especially since it was 3 little ass kids. i feel bad about all the whirlwind of bullshit that swirled around him.