Wednesday, October 5, 2011

.... andy's ramp ....


....the older i get the harder time i have
remembering the year of old photos. i'm
guessing this is 1993...i"m riding venture
trucks which i only rode for a short time.
but it might be 1992? It's a slob air but
looks a lot like a regular footed indy nose
bone. Kevin from thrasher
had sent this over months ago and it just
sat on my desktop. I clicked it today and
stared at for a while. At the time this was
taken this ramp was "andys ramp"... but we tore
down "bryces" ramp to get it over to oakland.
after "andys" it became "wiggys" and after that
it became "kevins".... i think we moved it
over from sf in about 91? Now it's josh's place
and it's a different ramp..but it's been a skatespot
for almost 20years. I knocked my self out on the vert
part of it real good one time... out cold, twitching
and talking to myself on the flat bottom. MRI to
the brain. Cardiel jumped through the rafters and
Curtis died there... another dude tied a noose to
his neck and was going to attempt suicide by
rolling into the ramp, but was interrupted by
one of his bros. Every drug has been shot,
smoked, and snorted at the ramp. I'm sure the
ramp has torn at least 50 tendons.
The ramp was pretty ghetto in terms of its
dimensions...12ft wide vert?? pretty stone age,
and the low part was way to mellow, but man this
ramp would get torn to shreds during heavy
sessions. Coco, julien,cards, gluehead,sarge,
phelper, and so many other visiting psychopaths
would rip this ramp. It was pretty nuts because
you could blast a 6 foot air and then transfer
down to the low part and do the latest disco
lip trick. the transfers from
low to high were the funnest. but it could be
a very humbling ramp... Dozens of times
a non local would show up to show his stuff,
and end sitting down. And shit when it
rained out, it was the place to go. Those nights
went off.
I look at his photo and just realize how
precious spots like this were to me as a young
man. They were my living room, my bar room,
my boxing ring, the highest mountain,
and greatest book ever written. So i guess
that's the point of this ramble.

15 comments:

matthew said...

thanks for sharing man!

Jaybird said...

yeah man, definite thanx for sharing & funny that i was just looking @ the new venture catalog before looking here

Mighty Whitey said...

Those wheels are so small, definitely early 90's.

Dan said...

Wed night sessions were the shit for us living in SF-making the trek over there always got us amped, work all day at ermico/high speed then mach over the bridge for a nights worth of chaos. i have quite a bit of video and photo's saved from those sessions-you,gonz,cards,rube,curtis,sarge,tommy,shawn,lee ralph,jagger,burnquist,chris,our own paris st. crew,tony m,trujillo,it goes on for days-crazy cool memories..insane shit, glad we lived it.

max schaaf said...

yes dan...thought about you and franco
when i was writing it.

Gus said...

very humbling place. went as a kid with john and julien for the first when i moved to the city. saw some weird and rad shit there. it was wiggys then. never could do anything there except slam.

Dan said...

right on max...

ben colen said...

awesome photo and story.

FRANCO said...

Fuck yes max and Dan
Carpe diem
All hail Curtis

F

Dan said...

I think the story about Franco rushing me to highland park hospital after i split my chin wide open is one of my favorites.,blood all over the flat bottom and bathroom- such a sketchy night. i miss that place.

rustic_fences said...

I went to a party there maybe 8 years ago when they just attempted to pour concrete coping. Apparently, they used the wrong kind of concrete or didn't allow it to dry long enough. The coping steadily disintegrated as the night wore on causing the flat bottom to be covered with small pebbles. Super dangerous and real fun session.

kt said...

Tuesday night fights.
I swear I got possessed by Rube one night there and did a perfect rupe-a -dupe on that fucked up Red Coping. Haven't been able to do another one since… Met a lot of my lifelong friends there. Nice pic Max. Thanks

Patrick M. Jenkins said...

thanks for the inspiration max and for keeping it real. i'm only 25 but i've grown up watching videos of you shredding. when spots seem to die off, things like this give younger dudes hope. thanks man.

rickless life said...

Heavy shit Max. Great post.

Eric John Powers said...

Respect to Curtis. RIP.