‘Best sneakers worn in a skate photo’

“Best sneakers worn in a skate photo. Bar hop in Jordan 4s. Billy Rohan used to wear them too, but his were fake.” — Matt Mooney

All the Menace Epicly Later’d episodes are sick, especially the Fabian Alomar one, but it would’ve been great to get a full Steven Cales episode. Read his 48 Blocks interview instead.

The story behind that was that I was at a bar and Monica Lewinsky was there. They used to have stars in there – it was in New York. From skating and going out since I was little, I had friends in the party world that would run the doors and we would just walk in. It was cool cause they wouldn’t let your average person up in there even though I’m average. Anyway, I was with Peter Bici that day and he had a camera. I happened to have beef with this kid that was in this party, right. I was sitting next to this girl, her name was Cameran Manheim – she was in The Practice. That was Monica Lewinsky’s friend, they were together. So, I go and sit down next to them and Peter snaps the photo. So that’s how that photo came out. After that I got up cause the guy I had trouble with came to me and we just started fighting. We shut that place down, everybody was running out – I was fighting and then all my other friends were fighting too. They put it in the Daily News, “Monica Lewinsky Bar Room Brawl!” E TV and all that shit was there the next day interviewing people. I was scared because I was on parole. I didn’t want to go to the media and be like “hey this was because of me.” Anyway, Peter gave me the photo and I shopped that motherfucker around. I went to Russell Simmons – he had a magazine, their pay was too low so I was like “nah I’m out of here.” I flew to Cali and went to Keenan’s house and was skating with Gino and all them. I went to the National Enquirer. First I went to Star Magazine, but their pay was kind of cheap – so I was like “nah, I’m going to the National Enquirer, last one.” Their pay was all right you know, so I just sold the picture, got the check, and was happy!

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Deeper in the Skate NYC Archive…

It has been a quietly monumental week for New York City skate footage, at least from a historical perspective. While the Skate NYC Apple Juice documentary is quickly working its way over 5,000 YouTube views, several lesser-exposed video clips have been released to accompany it, and they might be even more precious than the doc itself. I have no clue who “skinnypoo” is on Youtube, but he just uploaded a fifteen-minute gem of raw, late-eighties New York footage featuring Harold Hunter, Hamilton Harris, Jamal Simmons, Ryan Hickey, and even Steven Cales, all in their teen years. We’re talking people who already have sparse video appearances throughout their regular skate careers, let alone footage of them skating Tompkins in 1989.

These videos, along with the documentary from earlier in the week, have quickly managed to fill in the aforementioned late-eighties/downtown gap that the Deathbowl doc glossed over. It’s amazing how there is barely any Banks footage throughout the videos, yet plenty of Midtown, World Trade Center, and Tompkins stuff, not to mention a few cutty East Village spots, including the (now blocked-off) manual pad in front of P.S. 19 on First and 11th, and the two-stair curb next to the NYU dorms on 9th Street between Third and Second. You can go two decades hearing about an era of skating that was barely documented outside of a few iconic Shut or Harold Hunter photos, and then out of the blue, someone unloads thirty minutes of never-before-seen footage. The stuff that turns up on YouTube is absolutely amazing…

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