Like I have said before Long Beach has a great skate scene. Cherry Park has been a part of the scene for a long time; there is even a book called Cherry Life written by Mike Nesbit which is a photo documentary of life at Cherry Park. In an excerpt from the book Mike says:
Anyone who lives in Long Beach, California knows that Bixby Park is really called Cherry Park. Situated at the intersection of Cherry Avenue and Ocean Boulevard, this small park reflects the diversity of the city itself. As a prime skateboarding spot, the park united residents from all walks of life. That is, until the city remodeled it in 2002.
The first Cherry Park was nothing more than an open air theater stage where skaters would meet, skate, and hang out. You can watch some of the old skate videos and see the old spot in action. A couple of years ago the theater was torn down to be remodeled so skaters were regulated to a few wooden ledges and flat ground. After that another spot was opened called LB Free. It was an old parking lot on Willow and Lakewood converted into a skate spot by skaters. Recently this spot was closed by the city but this did not stop the Long Beach skaters.
This year the pro skaters from Toy Machine and Listen Skateboards that started LB Free decided to take some of the obstacles at the old LB Free spot and relocate them to Cherry Park. It started with a concrete ledge with a metal edge and a brick rail slide ledge and blossomed into a full fledged street course in a couple of months. Since it started I have frequented the park a few times to meet up with my brother Chad TimTim to go skate. I am not that big of a street skater but if I were I have to say this is a really good spot. On my recent visit there were a lot more obstacles from when it first started and on any given day you will find 20 – 30 people skateboarding, which on that day there was.
You will also most likely see a lot of Long Beach pros hanging out there like Danny Montoya, Rob Gonzalez, Ray Barbee, Austin Stephens, Josh Harmony, and many more. The day I visited I saw my old friend Stacy Lowery. One thing I like about this spot is that you get to see old friends and it was good to see Stacy.
Another thing I like about the park is that it is a good place to just meet up with friends to warm up to go skate other places. It can be an end of day spot or you can just hang out. This is definitely a street skating spot so if you like transition then this is not the place to be. The ground is smooth concrete which is nice to roll around on. It has eight obstacles—the first two I already talked about. There is also a nice three step ledge with metal edges, a long parking block curb in the middle, a banked manual pad with metal edges, a plastic bench, a flat concrete bench and a cement bench with a back rest. You also have the new theater stage with a fifteen foot over grass gap which is on the other side of the park.
Cherry Park used to be a premier spot back in the day until they remodeled it, but from what I see now it is again a premier spot in Long Beach. So if you are ever in Long Beach and want to skate, or maybe catch a session with some pros or just want to hang out—come to Cherry Park and say “hi”. I will be the guy trying to perfect my rail slide or I will be in the corner trying to perfect my kick flip; like I said I am not much of a street skater. That I leave to my brother.
Long Beach has a great skate scene. My brother moved to Long Beach first and he was the one who introduced me to Long Beach. When I skated more often back in 1999 – 2000 my brother and I used to skate with the 508 crew with the likes of Rob Gonzales, Danny Montoya, Stephen Attardo, Dave Hoang, Tuan Nguyen, Stacy Lowrey, Justin Reynolds, Allison Castro, and many others. This was the time they were making the New Horizon video and a lot of the skating in the video came from those moments. At that time there weren’t any skate parks in Long Beach. We used to skate at the Civic Center, Belmont Plaza Pool, the Catalina Boat Landing, Cherry Park and all the other little spots in Long Beach. That was a good time but I always wondered with such a great skate scene in Long Beach why there are no skate parks here. I guess the city got the message because today there are four skate parks in Long Beach—El Dorado, Houghton, Cherry Park, and Mike Green. I will review all four parks; the first being the Mike Green Park which is the newest and my current favorite skate park in Long Beach.
Today my back is finally feeling better to skate. The last time I skated was in Venice about a week ago (see my last blog). My body doesn’t recover as well as it used to so Epson salt baths are good as well as having an awesome girlfriend to rub your back. Thanks honey, you rock! Anyway, Jeff Petrick wanted to go skate today because he has been filming lately and has been getting a lot of footage. He sounded excited so I wanted to watch him skate some spots. I know he has been excited to skate because he told me we were going to go skate at 9:00am and he called me at 8:15am to make sure that I was up. He is motivated to skate. He came to pick me up with Josh Erickson, one of Jeff’s high school buddies, and we proceeded over to AJ’s house. AJ is another great skater that moved here from Seattle and is currently killing it all over the place in Long Beach. He started a skateboard filming company where he wants to help promote young skate talent in the area which I think is really cool. You have to check out his blog which has some great footage of some good local skaters. AJ is not only a great skater but he is also a great host. When we got to his place we had to wake him up and as he was getting ready he put in the new Thrasher Video “Prevent this Tragedy” for us to watch, which got us all pumped up to skate. Thanks AJ! We then all decided to go to Mike Green Park to warm up.
For those of you that do not know him, “Michael K. Green” for which the park is named after, was a 19-year-old upcoming local Long Beach Skater who on April 2005 was caught in the crossfire of a gang shooting. He had no gang affiliations he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn’t know him but from what I’ve heard, he was a great guy and loved skateboarding. You can check out the Documentary “On the Grind” which showcases local Long Beach skaters and also highlights the Mike Green Story. In January 2010 they remodeled and reopened the skate park on 14th St. (between Pacific & Pine) and dedicated it to Mike Green. The Mike Green story is a tragic story and when skating at the park you know the locals feel it because they are very protective of the park. Even in a rough neighborhood the park is known as a memorial and is protected. Just ask the guy who tried to tag the park; needless to say he will not be visiting anymore. The park is great and I have been coming here a lot because it is close to where I live. It is a mixture of concrete and metal ramps with some kind of cool material for the surface which makes the ramps fast and smooth. It has two street areas and a mini half pipe. For me the best thing I like about the park is the half pipe, it is fast and fun. But over all, the whole park has something to offer for everyone.
Today when we got to the park there was no one there—the great thing about getting up early to skate is usually you will have the place all to yourself. The bad thing is that you have to get up or make sure your buddy gets you up, thanks Jeff! We got there at 10:00 am so nobody was up yet except for us. It just rained the night before so the park was not in the greatest shape. One of the design flaws of the park is the dirt sand ring around the whole park and, especially after a rain, the park gets really dirty with sand dust. It was ok though because we had the park all to ourselves. We all warmed up in the middle street area and I played a game of SKATE with Jeffery and AJ. They took me out early and I think AJ won. I went over to the mini ramp and tried to clean it up the best that I could and preceded to skate. I was still trying to take it easy because of my back but just doing some grinds and fakie rocks, was fine with me. I actually pulled a board slide to fakie which I was happy about because I had been trying them lately and I couldn’t do them. I guess I was feeling good today because I pulled it on the first try. I love getting my old tricks back; it’s like when you first started skating and got that rush when you pull tricks off for the first time. What a great feeling. I love skateboarding!
The Park has some great locals—in particular Billy Moya who was the first person to arrive after us. Billy is a local ripper who I met the last couple times I have been at the park. He is fun to watch skate because he looks like he is always having fun. Billy is a super cool guy and I can’t wait to see him skate in the next couple of years because I know he is going to be good.
While I was taking a couple pictures of the park I noticed some construction guys checking out the park and watching the skating. I ended up talking with them and found out that they were some of the guys that built the park. It was Michael Cross and Zach Cowie. I just wanted to say thanks guys for building a great park!
We ended up staying there till 11:30am and then went to go check out a couple of other spots to film but the guys were not feeling any of them. I ended up going back home because I had to go pick up my step-daughter from school, such is the family life.
Long Beach has one of the great skate scenes and I know I am going to have fun documenting my adventures here. With the addition of the Mike Green Park the scene is only getting better. Another reason I love the skate scene in Long Beach is because of the skaters. The Skaters here are like one big family and I believe all the skaters here are connected in one way or the other. So, if you haven’t been to Long Beach come to Mike Green Skate Park to meet the family. You will most likely see me there or any of the great skaters I mentioned. If so feel free to say “hi” and have fun skating!
Today I visited Venice. I wanted to check out the new skate park which I heard was pretty awesome. The last time I had been to Venice to skate was back in the 80’s when the Pavilion was one of the happening spots. I remember the quarter pipe to wall rides and the jump ramps that you could see the likes of Christian Hosoi, Jesse Martinez, Natas Kampas, Scott Oster, and everyone else that skated in Venice at the time. I remember street plants, Ho-ho’s, Method Airs, Judos, Japan Airs, and all the great tricks being put down by the best. I used to live in the South Bay and I remember skating all the way to Venice with some of my friends to go skate and hopefully catch a glimpse of some of those great pros. So Venice has had a great influence on my skating and I know it has been a great influence on the skating culture in general. Fortunately I did not have to skate there because I know I wouldn’t be standing right now. I planned on going to Venice for the whole week and was excited because I combed You Tube for all the available clips on the park and it looked fun as hell. I wanted to go with my brother Chad but he was on an Element tour; he was supposed to get back the day before but he was coming back late. So I grabbed my skate buddy Jeff Petrick. Jeff is great young skater that lives just down the street from me. His mother used to work with me and since he moved into my neighborhood we have been skating together around Long Beach. Jeff loves skateboarding and is always down to skate. I love his skating style—he is as happy on transition as he is skating street which I find unusual in young kids now a days. He skates fast and always looks like he is having fun. It is great to watch. I believe you will be seeing a lot of Jeff in the future because of his passion for skateboarding.
We decided to try to get there early because I heard the park gets packed really fast. So we left at around 9:00am and got on my favorite ride, the 405 freeway. Of course there was traffic so it took us a little while to get there, fortunately it was a beautiful day so I didn’t mind the drive—plus we were going to Venice. If anybody has been to Venice you know that parking sucks. I ended up paying 10 bucks for a space in a lot only to find out later that you can park a block down for 5 bucks, oh well at least we were right there by the park. I didn’t want to drive around to find better parking. As I said it was a beautiful day and skating up to the park I took in the view. It was bright and sunny and we were right on the beach where the waves were pumping and right in the middle of it was a beautiful concrete skate park. Lucky we were early enough that it was not that crowded, the bad thing was I pulled my back a couple of days ago skating and I hoped it wasn’t going to bother me. I didn’t care though because we were in Venice and I was going to skate through it.
My first run was on the snake run which I was excited to try—I saw it on You Tube and hoped it was as fun as I imagined. I guess as you get older you appreciate long fast carves around the bowl; I could do them all day and not get bored with it. I checked out the big bowl which was kind of intimidating to me but I dropped in anyways, it was fun but I think I want to come back and bring my pads so I feel a little more comfortable in it. The street course looked cool but it really isn’t my thing—I liked the mini bowl in the middle better. Jeff and I skated that to warm up a little. We also played skate on the little wavy quarter pipes which Jeff won, but I will get him back. All in all this is one great park. It is not only the park it is the whole vibe: the beach, the waves, the weather and the people. If you are a skateboarder Venice skate park is one of the places you have to skate before you die.
One of the best things about skateboarding is the people you meet. You meet the coolest people when skateboarding and they come from all walks of life. For example, I met Eric Andersen, better known as “Froggy”. He is an old-school skater who skates with the Z-Boys. It was hard not to notice him because he was carving up the snake run liked he owned it and did I mention he was 42! We did a couple of doubles in the snake run, talked about skating and talked about the Venice scene. He said he was planning on doing a documentary on the Venice Skate scene with some friends, which I think will be very cool. I will keep in touch with him so I can update everyone on it. I think it will be very interesting. I also met Adrian Cefay, another local ripper from Portland. Adrian is just a guy that loves skateboarding and also likes to help others. He is kind of an unofficial skate instructor for kids at the park, which he usually does on Sunday, so if you have kids that want to learn some basics check him out or you can email me for his info. Another reason why I know he likes to help people is because I saw him help out a kid that needed new wheels. He had some that he wasn’t using so he gave them to this kid who needed them; how cool is that!
So after a couple good slams on the concrete and an aching back we decided to go check out the mini ramp at Venice United Methodist Church on Lincoln and Venice Blvd. Jeff said he had been there before and it was a cool ramp. Adrian decided he wanted to come with us. Jeff was right it was a cool ramp and even though my back was aching I proceeded to skate. I wanted to hopefully get back at Jeff so I got him to play a game of skate with me. We have this on-going battle of playing skate where we mainly do simple tricks and this time I got the better of him! After that my back was hurting a lot and I started to cramp up so I decided to get some footage of Jeff skating with my little canon camera, it is not the best thing to film but it works. I am planning on upgrading soon. Also while we were there I met another guy, Jay St. Germain. He is from New York and moved here with his actress girlfriend to try out the LA scene. He just started skating again after not skating for 10 years which I thought was really cool. I notice that there are a lot of people that used to skate and are starting to skate again. I don’t know if it is the surge of all the new skate parks opening up or if it’s just something that sticks with you.
I asked Jay why he started skating again and I loved his answer which was one word: “Freedom!” I think Jay summed up skateboarding great. If you think about it skateboarding gives you the freedom to express your self, there are no boundaries, you can skate pretty much anywhere, there is no barrier of race, religion, politics, country or age. It is an art form where the world is your canvass and if you don’t keep your eyes open you might miss its beauty. I like the fact that one of the first places I wrote about is Venice because most will agree like Froggy, Adrian, and Jay that it all started in Venice!
"Do you remember when you were a kid playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft."
I am what they call an "old school skater". I was born in 1971 so you can do the math and for some reason I cannot stop skating. As the title suggests my brother is a pro skateboarder so I wanted to write about it. I figured the next best thing to being an actual pro is to have one as a brother. My brother and I are really close and I like to believe that I got him started in skateboarding. So this is my attempt to live an old dream through him and to have fun doing it. I also wanted to show everyone that you can live your life doing something you love to do. I hope you enjoy this on-going story because I know I will!
