Saturday rolled around, the plan today was a morning session that started around 930am. Wrex and Kim made the journey down from Oxford. So the stoke meter was high, I had not seen Wrex skate in person until now. And skate he did, Wrex along with Hammond tore Al Town up that morning. Then David was killing it on that monster long board and we were pleasured by some nice wall ride transfers from Chris Ulander, front side no less. Wrex was hitting the spine and doing some gnarly airs. Dont forget Mike showing us how to Rock and Roll on the spine while John rocked the BMX bike with some excellent airs. It was fun times, great way to start the day. Not to mention, I think it was Chris's daughter, Tara Torture, she picked up all the trash in the area, made the place look real nice for any unexpected guests. Right around 1230 most of the bunch split over to Barksdale's for grub, after that to take a peek of Tobey Park and later to hit a unnamed wooden bowl which produced wonderful photos like this. I would have loved to tag along with those guys but I promised people I would play golf, so I played golf.
Sunday sails into the harbor with a bright and early morning session on my backyard mini ramp. David and I skated a couple of runs, sat down and said forget this, we feel wrecked. Both of us were beat up from skating Al Town all week. We want to skate but our bodies are saying no way, go sit down old guy. I really feel for Hammond who lives near Al Town and complains the burden pays its price, skating through pain. So David and I say screw it, lets go it eat lunch and get wasted. So we go to Dan Mcguinness for some Sheppard's Pie and Fish-n-Chips nicely accompanied with a nice Belgium Ale. Right, I had one beer to David's two waters, so lame I know.
Are you going to get to Toy Machine in this story?
So I get home after lunch and are sitting there surfing the net. I get a email from David, he left his phone at home (he can't call me) and he needs me to pay attention to the Cheap Skates FB Wall. Ron Hale posted that Team Tum Yeto were about to roll into town and wanted a place to skate. He was unclear on the facts but I jumped into my car and headed toward Mid-Town never the less. By the time I got into Mid-Town Ron had posted they decided to go to Sun Studio's for a tour (I got the smart phone). I was not far from Sun so guess where I went. Sure enough, there was a van sitting in Sun's parking lot with big Tum Yeto stickers on it. I parked my car and just waited, sure enough Matt and Dakota - from Toy Machine- came out of the front door, sat down in the alley way and had a smoke. I just started talking to them and ask if they wanted to skate which they where down. The team manager came out with the 6 other guys and asked me if our DIY spot was on the way to Nashville? Uhmm, yeah dude, it is totally on the way. Ok then, he said, we will follow you. In a matter of minutes we were pulling up to Al Town. They were impressed. Half the team popped out of the mini van and directly dropped in on the quarter, the sickness had begun. The only people there were a few neighborhood kids skating the great Tusk. These guys from Toy Machine just started flying every where, I thought I was in another world. I see Wrex skate on Saturday and then these guys on Sunday. My life could not be any better at this point.
After a little while some locals started to trickle into our converted basement called Al Town. They were like, ok, some other people are here. Then they would see Leo Ramero ollie and clear the swamp while Taylor Smith was smashing a wall ride on the left side of the quarter to melon. The expressions on their faces when they started to realize this was not just local regular rippers was classic. Then more locals show and more show. They may have come to skate but all eyes were on Toy Machine at the moment. Little Jack was in on the action showing how to represent, Jack the Ripper. I was trying to take pictures but the level of mayhem that Toy Machine were inflicting on Al Town over shadowed any good photos. The high light of the show was Leo Romero, he kept trying this one trick over the swamp. Over and over, bail after bail, then we all knew it, he was going to land the next one, we could just see it. Yep, he landed a 180 Back Side Kickflip over the swamp, total madness. Soon after, they packed it up, the team manager and Leo shook my hand in thanks as they sped off to Nashville on their way to the Maloof Money Cup in Washington DC. Maybe look for some photos in Thrasher of Al Town in the future, who knows, Toy Machine's photographers were busy it seemed.
Hope yall enjoyed that as much as I did. Here is the photo album, take care now.
