b. ferdinand 1990

when i was about 13 my
mom would take me to this shitty beach
in Alameda, Ca. Not a beach with waves but just
where some land ends
on the shore of the bay. Sludgy
muck sand that lays on the edge of filthy bay
water. Alameda is one of the towns that butts up
against Oakland, 5 minutes away.
The beach is fairly deserted in the winter
and on weekdays,... but come summer it becomes
beach party USA. Sorta.
Not really.
Picture a ghetto beach
5 minutes from
Oakland and blue collar towns
like fremont, san leandro,
and hayward. What I'm getting
at is the mix of people is
bizarre. At the time there were
brothers with the stove-top afros
playing frisbee with their chicks
sportin the crazy neon 2-live
crew bathing suits. Right next
to them was some dude probably named
Gary that drove a bitchin tubbed Nova
and was downing Coors lite
like water...and next to that some
goth kids that hate their parents
huddled up under a black umbrella...... somewhere
in the mix was my Mom
and i pulling up in a light blue pinto
station wagon with the words "chavo"
spray painted across the hood. At the
time my Mom had long black hair on
one side of her head and the other was
a combination of dreadlock and shaved
patches and some small braided strands
with copper wire wrapped around the
ends. When we showed that whole mix of
people, that i mentioned above that
had nothing in common,....suddenly had
one thing in common. They were all
staring at my Mom.
At this time i wanted a skimboard real
bad. Cause this beach was flat,
had no waves, and was pretty boring in
general the one thing it did have
was these massive shallow puddles when
the tide went down. So if i had a
skimboard i could fly across them. My
Mom explained to me that skimboards
were to expensive and we could easily
make one. So she took an old piece
of 3/8" plywood (i remember it was 3/8
cause it was spray painted on the
piece of wood) and cut out the shape of
a skimboard. She handed me a piece
of sandpaper and told me to sand the edges.
So i did. When i was done i told
her "i think we need wax".
she handed me a candle. I didn't know
which side to wax and
my mom didn't either so she told me to
wax both a sides. So i did.
So it was a hot summer day and the
beach was filled with people
and we showed up. Mom and me with our
bathroom towels and a "new"
skimboard equipped with some pretty
killer graphics that
read 3/8 across the bottom. i boogied
as fast as i could down
to the longest most shallow puddle i
could find. held the skimboard
by the tail and the side and ran my
little ass off.... when i dropped
the board down and was thinking i was
going to jump on it, it nose
dived and i endo-ed over the front sliding
face first into the puddle.
But after some time and flipping it from
side to side to see which
worked better it started to work.
somehow.... a flat piece of shit
cut out of left over plywood, waxed
on both sides....worked.

That's the day I met Brian Ferdinand.
He came up and just stood
at the edge of the puddle watching me
struggle with this thing.
He wanted to try it... so he did.
We quickly figured out that we both skated.
He wanted to show me his board. A black Christian
Hosoi with indy's and four different color wheels.
Only a pro skater had four different color wheels at
that time. Brian could already ollie and tear around
and was already part of some skate crew. We parted
ways and didn't see each other again for a couple
years.... but that's a whole other story.





brian- seven years later.
with one of my favorite spitfire
ads.