Photos & story: Brooks Fritz

Did I mention it’s hot and humid on the East Coast in August?

What’s good when it’s hot out? Something cold to drink right? When we first arrived at Sperm’s house in Philly off the Greyhound that was our first agenda; some cold drinks and of course he didn’t have any. He said to skate around the corner to the bar and pick up a couple 40’s. I replied with, ” What? The bar sells 40’s ? ” Maybe you already knew that but me being a So Cal barney bro I am not used to that kind of stuff. So off to the bar I went to buy some beers…. When I walked into the tavern everyone at the bar stopped mid drink and looked at my white ass walk in. I guess they weren’t used to strangers. Especially thirsty white ones. The bar tender lady, a nice 400Ib black woman said ” What the fuck do you want? ” I replied with, “two 40’s please?” There was a moment of awkward silence. The bar tender didn’t say another word. She just took my money and handed me the two beers. Everyone went back to their drinks and I was on my way back to the house knowing Sperm had just done that shit to me on purpose. I loved it!

Damn, I suck. I can have the worst time remembering people’s names sometimes. I cant remember the guys name right now who had this great ramp in his backyard. But I do remember him being cool as hell, having some rad job building movie sets, crazy record collection and having seriously one of the funnest ramps I have ever had the opportunity to skate. John Doe took full advantage of having a backyard at his place and made a ramp with half a sheet wide of flat bottom and tranny straight up to the cinder block wall. Who needs decks anyways? Truly world class… Here’s Sperm with some maneuvers. The frontside hack.

Tailblock

Lien to tail.

On one of the last days I was staying with Sperm he decided to take me to this infamous barrier spot. This as with most jersey barrier spots was really fun to skate. I was pissed I didn’t get the chance to skate here more. I asked Sperm why he waited so long to take me to it. He said he was sick of it. Thanks Dingus… at least you took a photo of me doing a shitty lip slide and this wack ollie.

After the barrier we got on the subway and headed down to FDR for the rest of the day. Sorry I didn’t take any photos. I decided to skate the whole day not breaking out the camera until….. (below)

The Confessor was calling out this 6′8″ jock bmx tool and the bmx giant backed down. The bikers know they are stuck with early morning scraps or the night time shift. Take that bullshit back to the dirt.

Later on that night after the biker heckle session we went to this undisclosed backyard Gem. People on the East Coast got heart. I don’t know too many people with a ramp like this. It had it all and it wasn’t funded by some energy drink company or some stupid sunglasses company. By the way, The Confessor fucked it up.

Joey P with a Mach 5 5.0 grind

The dog was on point. You really had to mix your lines up or he would catch on knowing where you would go next. Unknown avoiding the dog with a lien slide.

Joey P doing some fs air calculations.

Where you gonna go?

To my surprise later that night the crew took me to Tony Luke’s cheese steak shop. I cant explain my excitement with words…

Check: A Philly cheese steak in Philly. Damn I could go for one of these right now…

I spent a few more days in Philly after the cheese steak and then it was back on the Greyhound to New York so I could catch my plane to Oregon.

Stay tuned for the West Coast part of this trip next week.

Happy schralping this weekend! - brooks

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Photos & story by Brooks Fritz

Don’t ever try to save money by getting a indirect flight to anywhere. If you are anything like me you will end up spending the money your trying to save at the bar inside the airport…

4 Bloody Marry’s + a few beers + a couple shots = the money/time/hangover you could of saved yourself just flying the direct flight in the first place.

My host: SPERM

Not too long ago my friend Sperm was living in Philly with a few friends for the summer. He called me up one day in July knowing that I was leaving for Oregon soon and said I needed to come out and visit him first. Something about experiencing skateboarding on the East coast in August. It sounded good to me, not realizing at the time how hot and humid it was on the East Coast in the summer. Plus I’ve always wanted to eat one of those philly cheese steaks so going to visit my friend was a perfect excuse to get me my cheese steak!

The real reason to visit the East Coast: The Cheese Steak!

Before I met up with Sperm I spent a few days lurking around New York checking out the city and it’s interesting characters..

Frank Gerwer’s got nothing on this tranny… This was my very first experience in NYC besides getting off the airplane realizing how humid it was. This was the first morning right around the corner from where I was staying. I snapped this photo and “it” freaked out on me when “it” heard the shutter click. For some reason “It” couldn’t get up so “it” proceeded to throw it’s high heel at me. Then this newspaper seller guy wanted to fight me because he said I was exploiting the city. I was cracking up…

Concrete Jungle Cowboy

New York city Nomad.

So I’m down in one of the subway stations about to catch a train uptown when I go around the corner and see this going on. A fucking midget Michael Jackson impersanator! Just imagine that song “Billy Jean” and this guy going to work. Seriously, the guy was killing it.

Hoooooooooooo!

My friend Sean Shouldis lives in New Jersey and I figured I’d give him a call since I was pretty close by. Sean answered and said he’d come pick me up. I thought he was going to drive over. I thought wrong. Nope, Sean got in his boat told me to meet him at the NYC Yacht Club and made me run out on one of the docks jump in his boat and try to get out of there before they stop and hassle us. The key word is “try” and sure enough they had the harbour blocked before we could get out. A little sweet talking and we were on our way. Yeah Sean! that was the best! Cruising around the city by boat.

After Sean’s boat tour we went back to his house dropped off the boat and drove around some neighborhoods where the drug dealers make crazy ass faces at you to show that they got what you need. Sean told me that he got pulled over there not too long ago because the cops thought Sean was trying to buy some drugs. When Sean explained that he just likes to drive around and check out all the spun people the cop asked him if he wanted to die and said get the hell out of there and never come back.

A couple of street spots

Sperm arrives! My few days in NYC were fun but I was ready to skate. Doing that solo with a 60Ib bag kind od sucks. So that night Sperm showed up we didn’t sleep since we had nowhere to stay. So we just skated around the city waiting for the Greyhound to show up in China town in the morning.

Pillar yanker…

When we got off the bus in Philly we felt like piles of shit. The bus ride was hot as hell and took forever. On the bright side we did get to see a man riding his bike on the side of the road. Now that would of sucked if that was the end of the story right? Just a guy riding a bike? Boring…. That’s why life is so great because I couldn’t make this story up if I had to….. So there was this telephone pole on the corner of these two streets. The telephone pole had these metal cables attached to it helping to hold it up. Know what I mean right? Big ass cables all taught into the ground? Well this guy on the bike couldn’t see the cables for some reason and rode his bike right into them getting closed-lined immeditately and thrown from the bike yet wrapped up in it all at the same time. It was quite amazing he didn’t loose his head. You should of seen the look on his face. It was like this what the fuck just happend look but on a higher level. You think people would be concerned but it was the exact opposite. I’ve never seen so many people laugh at once. Seemed like everyone on the bus somehow witnessed it. Just picture a greyhound bus full of black people besides me and Sperm. Too classic. Later that day we went to FDR and I shot this photo of J.R. Neeves. Yeah it is crust. but not as crusty as Brian Patch was crying about.

Sperm’s roommate the Confessor. This guy is awesome. Cant explain his skating in words. You just gotta see it.

Indy air into the over vert…

Stand up 5.0

Sperms other roomate, Joey P. What can I say about this guy? High school math teacher that rips….

fs air

50/50

5.0

Sperm kept taking me to these ridiculous street spots in Philly. Here he is trying to 5.0 and 50/50 the loading dock from the metal ramp and pop out before running into the steps. Almost had it. Then the place opened up. I was kinda glad. I think I was laying in piss. That’s it for now…

Have a good weekend. Go shred. Stay tuned next week for part 2….

Tags: east coast skateboarding, FDR, NYC skateboarding, Sperm

Who: JR Neves

What: Frontside pillar yanker.

Where: FDR

When: August 2005

Why: Skating under bridges is the best. Try it and you too might find out why.