running into pros

[coupedepill]

Peter Smolik

I was in San Diego for a GIS convention and after a work dinner I wanted more beers. I went to a sports bar near the baseball stadium. Right around closing time, Smolik entered, beer tab chain and all. I was about to leave so I gave him props and was expecting to leave. He was fucking hyped, he pulled out his iPhone with a super shattered screen and we watched old video parts of his (not the shortys videos, maybe some local thing). We had a beer or two and he asked me what I wanted to do, I wanted more drinks but he was like nah everything is closed. He invited me to come along with him and some nerd type dude who was driving. I hopped in the back seat of some busted kind of Acura and we went to pick up some smokes, I bought Smolik a pack of American Spirits. He again asked me what I wanted to do! I asked for a ride back to my hotel. We cruised, jamming e40 and Smolik kept shared his tall boy of pbr with me. When we got to the hotel we smoked a few more cigs and I asked him for a pic. He was hyped, we jumped on two newspaper stands and did the sk8 mafia sign. He looked at the picture and said damn the sign is upside down, it was. He gave me his number and told me to hit him up the next day. I didn't because of work obligations

Say what you want. Smolik rules, is a straight skate rat and could not have been cooler to me

[stephop]

Not sure how it is now because I don't skate enough anymore but still follow it but growing up in the East Coast and the contest scene you'd run into the East Coast pros in Worcester Providence or Boston all the time at contests or at spots. It's just how it was. Randomly skate with Barley, Pupeci, Jamal Williams, Matt Pailes, PJ , Gallant, Jay Maxwell etc just because they were at spots. My best memories were old demos with Vallely Ed Templeton and Dune. Then a 101 demo with Koston and fucking Natas . I mean when the fuck are you going to skate with Natas !!!  I've even seen Donger and Sheffey. Also seen lots of pros when they did gravity games and X games in providence actually street skating downtown when Koston was an absolute beast like larger sessions at a spot with 10 or more pro's. Specifically old lady banks if you know providence.

[JumpManShorty]

Peter Smolik

I was in San Diego for a GIS convention and after a work dinner I wanted more beers. I went to a sports bar near the baseball stadium. Right around closing time, Smolik entered, beer tab chain and all. I was about to leave so I gave him props and was expecting to leave. He was fucking hyped, he pulled out his iPhone with a super shattered screen and we watched old video parts of his (not the shortys videos, maybe some local thing). We had a beer or two and he asked me what I wanted to do, I wanted more drinks but he was like nah everything is closed. He invited me to come along with him and some nerd type dude who was driving. I hopped in the back seat of some busted kind of Acura and we went to pick up some smokes, I bought Smolik a pack of American Spirits. He again asked me what I wanted to do! I asked for a ride back to my hotel. We cruised, jamming e40 and Smolik kept shared his tall boy of pbr with me. When we got to the hotel we smoked a few more cigs and I asked him for a pic. He was hyped, we jumped on two newspaper stands and did the sk8 mafia sign. He looked at the picture and said damn the sign is upside down, it was. He gave me his number and told me to hit him up the next day. I didn't because of work obligations

Say what you want. Smolik rules, is a straight skate rat and could not have been cooler to me

Post the photo if you still have it

[coupedepill]

Here's the pic

[scaryghoul]

Julian Davidson once gave me props for a flat ground kickflip

thats pretty tight

[asakusa75]

Here's the pic

Two posts in and you come in hot with a sideways Smolik pic...? Amazing.
Excellent start.

[shark tits]

jahmal williams borrowed a ride from boston hospital to copley from us once.
drank/skated w/ julien more than once through mutual friends.
skated w/ jerry fowler, panama dan, eli, gangemi, barley, brian tucci, ryan gallant and pj, jereme, mike graham, kyle vadeboncuer, new jack of the 90s vinnie ponte, satva leung and more on the east coast.
harold, dr z, pang and other zoo cats in cleveland.
johnny fonseca, cardona brothers and matt rodriguez at a demo [featuring mic-e reyes]
in sf, seen cairo, phelps, gonz gave a shirt to dirty gary [from kids], karl watson, danny fuenzilida sw heel the bike rack gap, tim upson wouldn't tell me a gagne story, bastien sw heel 5-0 180 in a line at new spot, geoff rowley, brad staba on his phone not skating, brian anderson at ftc, natas and billy pepper at old ftc, carroll, koston and howard at desert west in late 90s.
randy colvin at the PV.
more recently, cutthroat colin fiske, nick 'big' murray and alexis sablone at indoor park. once 'big' broke his board doing manny kickflip those benches in providence and he goes 'wee man stole my chi'.

[L33Tg33k]

Chris Dobstaff told me how awesome God is.

[expired]

Currently not pro but when Spencer Hamilton had just put out his 'city of new lights" part I ran into him at underworld skateshop in vancouver and he was super cool and was just a local skater at the time.

Last summer I went to NY and when sitting in the airport to fly to Mtl I ran into Dick Rizzo, said that I was a fan and he gave me a couple quasi stickers from his bag, seemed super relaxed

[Ryguy]

I ran into Brandon Biebel a few weeks ago in Hollywood at a farmer's market. He was with a girl who I believe he got pissed at because she couldn't make up her mind on what type of smoothie she wanted.

He went off to the side and had a cigarette.


Then the other day, Ishod pulls up beside me in his car. We both look at each other, he throws up a shacka.
I throw up one too, tell him he's the man and we both drive off.

[tura]

About to go to the next spot, I was in a van with tinted windows. Nick Boserio came right up to my window and picked his nose, using the window as a mirror without realizing he was looking me right in the eye. Wasn't introduced to him until the next spot. He didn't skate all that much but was hyped on everyone else and shredded and had tantrums when he did.

Went to a bar with a bunch of the Bowlarama pros. I was on shrooms and not too sociable, so I threw bits of bark from the garden at Rune Glifberg and he never caught me. At one point I recognized Dave Bachinsky and shouted 'Oi Dave,' without thinking it through. He came up and talked to me for a while and was real friendly. He said he'd never taken shrooms, but I should talk to this guy about it, pointing to some other guy who was with them that I didn't recognize.

See Lee Ralph out drinking a bit. He laughs a lot and seems to be able to read minds to some degree.

[DCLOVE]

I got more than a few- justn Eldridge gave me a Nollie trick tip as a kid and I drunkenly saw him at black and he remembered or at least lied about it but maybe not as were from the same time and my friend dates his sister. Cyril was also there that night and just walked up and gave me a fist bumped when i double took to figure out why I recognized him.

Drunkenly yelled hey you're Johan Stuckey at johan stuckey, see him a lot at Ralphs actuallly. Lizard king just randomly shook my hand at an art show I was at once. My mom actually had some long ass talk with Reynolds at a demo as she went full mom mode to get some order to the product toss. And then the rotating cast of dudes out front supreme you see just walking by but that don't count.

[Rocko]

I was at Ayala Park and the Emerica guys were there after a signing. I was chillin outside the fence and Skate Talk Bob walks up and asks if I've seen Heath and I look over and he's blasting a kickflip on a hip, so sick

Though my favorite Chino park story (I might've posted this before) is going on a Tuesday afternoon and getting denied by two security guards because Nyjah was filming that cracker commercial haha

Another one: I was skating a spot alone and a dog runs by me and a minute later Dane Burman walks by. I nodded and said what's up Dane and he asks if I've seen a black dog run by here

One more I remembered: I went to an active once and Christian Maalouf and I think Taylor Caruso were skating outside and Maalouf and I were wearing the same pair of State's and both wearing Brixton hats, he looked me up and down and said, "tight"

[Level 60 Dwarf Paladin]

98 or 99 I was walking up Haight, coming from FTC on Shrader to go piss at the McDonalds, and I see Muska in a white Escalade going way too fast, windows down, techno blasting. It was glorious.  Then I saw Pancho Moller and Satva at Amoeba, said Hi, they were buying vinyl.

[GinosGroceries]

I got Kalis' phone number off an Internet forum once.

[planman]

I got Kalis' phone number off an Internet forum once.

+1

[TreBombMartin]

I spent some time in Sydney and saw some people skating a set of stairs as I was pushing towards a bar so I figured I'd stop and watch. 2 dudes skating and a couple others filming. A few others were also spectating and one happened to be Dane Burman. He walked by me while I was observing the session and was probably confused by my AntiHero deck combined with my Supra Ellingtons.

[Master Roshi]

Me and a pal flew were on a trip in California and flew from SF to LA to go watch Ethan Fowlers bands record launch gig.
Spoke to him for a little while and was super hyped as he is one of my all favourites.
Later he pulls up in his van and yells 'Yo English dudes lets go party'
Jumped in the back of his van and went to his house to party.

Sidenote - The next morning I woke up with a stinking hangover and dropped maybe the biggest turd of my life in his toilet, needless to say that was the icing on the cake for me.

[somethingmustbreaknow]

some time ago we were at a streetleague stop

the day before, we went skating in the streets

matt miller pulled up at the spot. super nice guy
he complimented our skating & has huge nollies

we drank beer all day long while we out skating
then later in a busy shopping street we saw paul
zitzer from SPOT drinking a coffee all by himself.
we yelled some shit that we always enjoyed his
tampa am/pro commentary haha. he said thanks

later in the metro station near that same street
we ran into geoff rowley and david gonzales. we
were pretty hyped all around. daveed is so tiny.
we talked to them straight up. they were kinda
cool. they asked if we are drunk. we surely were

later that night we went to a club and there were
tx, lemos, even smith, nyjah, shane oneill, monster
girls, matt miller with his gf and a couple of others.
even smith was cool as fuck. tx was so stoned, he
was leaning/more like lying on a parked mercedes

met some others these were like most recent ones

oh yeah, met dr. z's ex gf once in barcelona. cute
and super nice. i didn't believe her.  she showed
me pictures of them together on her phone. cool.

[mooraga]

Not "full pros" at the time, but pretty famous now (skatewise):

I skated with the Les blobys crew at the republique plaza (then recently refurbished) in a cold winter of 2015
I'm from Chile so I didn't knew who they were at all, thought they were just locals (they are anyway); talked to them, smoked some, filmed tricks and then they invited me to go around paris skating and looking for spots, such an amazing time, everyone was blasting shit all around. We ended the session at Nozbone, got some free shit, bought some other and went back home with a happy face

At the metro, looking the Kingping mag they gave me I found out who they were, and why they were so good at skating: it was Remy taveira, Roman Gonzalez, Kevin Rodriguez, blobygreg and few other dudes.

It was the only day I skated in Paris and it was freaking perfect, great memories.  

some clips I got from that day

[Johnny Rad]

A couple funny ones-

Saw Andrew Reynolds literally get thrown out of a bar (the bouncer had him by the collar and pushed him through the front door) after the premier of The Storm in San Diego in 1999.

I was sleeping on a floor of some random skaters that let me crash in SF and Lavar McBride came in, sat on the couch, and played THPS as Kareem. I was such a fan but I just played it off like I didn't care so I didn't look like a kook.

I was smoking a cig in front of Kilowatt in SF and Scott Bourne came stumbling out of the darkness, stopped in front of me holding an empty 40 oz, and said "Would it be improper etiquette if I just smashed this bottle in the street?" I just mumbled "I don't think so". He walked into the middle of the street (stopping traffic) and just smashed the bottle. Then walked into the bar without saying another word.

I was skating a little school by where I grew up in Illinois and out of nowhere a white van pulls up with a bunch of Foundation/Toy Machine guys. They just jump out and start skating. Heath and Josh Beagle played basketball the whole time. Berra kickflip 5-0'd the ledge and then started screaming that the spot sucked. I have no idea who told them about the spot or anything, such a weird surprise.

I also had a long story I posted here about going on a family vacation when I was about 15 and running randomly into Muska right when he got on Toy Machine. I had never heard of him at the time but we skated together for a few hours that day and just hung out. A year later he was a giant skate mega star. Still have the devil cat stickers he gave me.

I have tons of other random ones just from my California years.

[rejectpaul]

this grumpy old man was shouting at his kid trying to pressure him into drop in an 8ft quarter pipe, i end up dropping in on his kid who is still at the top of the ramp and the man shouts at me, i tell him to fuck off, do a lap of the skate park, get back to my mate who says, as if you told Tas Pappas to fuck off. didnt realise it was Tas and didn't really care either, let ya kid do he wants to do and dont try force shit on them.

[Mark Renton]

I already mentioned this years ago but Pontus Alv rules. I met him at Ultrabowl in 2012 when In search of the miraculous was still recent video and polar was starting and it was the OG team which I preferred.
I had a friend shooting a photo of me with him. Then me and my friends went home (Monty Burns appartment lol) and watched that video again, it was their first time and they were mindblown. We wanted to get physical copies so we mailed him, he gave us his mobile and we went to the polar HQ. It was crazy going there, he showed us some clips from a recent gothenburg trip that were going to the edits he did after. We thanked and said goodbye and went to ICA to buy some food. As we were eating chicken outside of the store he saw us while driving his OG turquoise VW polo/golf and waved at us and honked. We replied 'oh yeah oh yeah oh yeeeah'. I know it's nothing special but it was so fucking sick for us.

Edit: I want to smoke pot and listen to 67 with Lucien Clarke once in my life. He's the boss.

[Master Roshi]

I already mentioned this years ago but Pontus Alv rules. I met him at Ultrabowl in 2012 when In search of the miraculous was still recent video and polar was starting and it was the OG team which I preferred.
I had a friend shooting a photo of me with him. Then me and my friends went home (Monty Burns appartment lol) and watched that video again, it was their first time and they were mindblown. We wanted to get physical copies so we mailed him, he gave us his mobile and we went to the polar HQ. It was crazy going there, he showed us some clips from a recent gothenburg trip that were going to the edits he did after. We thanked and said goodbye and went to ICA to buy some food. As we were eating chicken outside of the store he saw us while driving his OG turquoise VW polo/golf and waved at us and honked. We replied 'oh yeah oh yeah oh yeeeah'. I know it's nothing special but it was so fucking sick for us.

Edit: I want to smoke pot and listen to 67 with Lucien Clarke once in my life. He's the boss.

Pontus is the best, He showed us round all the spots in Malmo probably about 10 years ago.
Bumped into him in a shop near his house a year or two ago (didn't remember me but didn't expect him to after that long time) but we chatted to him and he bought us a bag of his favourite candy, some weird boiled sweets with salt in the middle, real good guy.

[PatrickSkateman]

Bumped into Gino in the Standard Hotel lobby in LA and talked tennis for a bit.

[shit_for_brains]

I was at a wedding when Jamie Thomas jumped off of a patio in my direction and I had a few seconds to decide whether to catch him, possibly risking my internet career, or let him fall and possibly risk his skate career. I kind of caught him.

[silhouette]

for some reason i can't help but read somethingmustbreaknow's post as a wesley willis song. try it below (bold parts are a typical wesley willis-styled chorus i added in order to enhance the effect)

some time ago we were at a streetleague stop

the day before, we went skating in the streets

matt miller pulled up at the spot. super nice guy
he complimented our skating & has huge nollies

running into pros, running into pros
running into pros, running into pros

we drank beer all day long while we out skating
then later in a busy shopping street we saw paul
zitzer from SPOT drinking a coffee all by himself.
we yelled some shit that we always enjoyed his
tampa am/pro commentary haha. he said thanks

running into pros, running into pros
running into pros, running into pros

later in the metro station near that same street
we ran into geoff rowley and david gonzales. we
were pretty hyped all around. daveed is so tiny.
we talked to them straight up. they were kinda
cool. they asked if we are drunk. we surely were

running into pros, running into pros
running into pros, running into pros

later that night we went to a club and there were
tx, lemos, even smith, nyjah, shane oneill, monster
girls, matt miller with his gf and a couple of others.
even smith was cool as fuck. tx was so stoned, he
was leaning/more like lying on a parked mercedes

met some others these were like most recent ones

running into pros, running into pros
running into pros, running into pros

(solo)

oh yeah, met dr. z's ex gf once in barcelona. cute
and super nice. i didn't believe her.  she showed
me pictures of them together on her phone. cool.

running into pros, running into pros
running into pros, running into pros

rock over london, rock on chicago
wheaties : breakfast of champions

[Makaveli]

I was at a wedding when Jamie Thomas jumped off of a patio in my direction and I had a few seconds to decide whether to catch him, possibly risking my internet career, or let him fall and possibly risk his skate career. I kind of caught him.

Who are you, dude? You grow up skating with Ryan Nix and Danny Renaud. At a party, Bobby Puleo fucks your girlfriend. Now, you go to the same weddings as Jaime Thomas. Your whole life is a revolving door of encounters with pro skaters.

What's next? Nate Broussard is gonna pull up in his UPS truck and deliver a package to your apartment?

[Atiba Applebum]

i went on a vacation down the danube.  when i was checking into my hotel in budapest, I saw Omar Salazar skating down this ramp trying to warm up to do something.  Just one a filmer and another guy there, no team or anything like that.

kevin terps came to my grad school to pick up the guy who worked in the lunch truck that comes by

[DISTANT RUMOURS]

Just ran in to Lizzie Armanto at Axel's pro party.

Actually ran into her, said sorry, she said it was alright...

Cute girl, skates well.

mike anderson and raney rip as well...