The Vans Pro Midwest Skate Tour rolls into St. Louis.
There's a scene is the comedy classic National Lampoon's European Vacation where Clark W. Griswold asks two honeymooners what tourist attractions they've seen. When they tell him they haven't seen any Clark boasts to his family, "We've seen ten times as much as they have!" Skate trips are sort of that way; when we go home and tell our wives/girlfriends/moms where we've been they're always shocked that we didn't see any of the tourist spots one would expect to see when visiting cities. Generally there's just no time. It's either demos or street skating and then move on down the road. We may not know what the Alamo looks like on the inside but we know about the bump to bar right behind it.
Yesterday's day in St. Louis was a rare occurrence on a skate trip when we had time to spare and could play tourist. So we visited the gateway to the west, the St. Louis Arch, and kicked the soccer ball around while we waited for the demo at Sylvan Springs Skatepark to start.
As much as it is the older guys' job to try and teach the young ams and flow bros the correct way to conduct themselves to try and nurture their dreams of one day going pro it is equally important to toughen up their mental endurance by lying to them with a wealth of disinformation. Yesterday Alec Majerus, our fake-Canadian flow bro from Minnesota, got a dose in spades. It began by telling him the building of the St. Louis Arch actually began with the middle section with hoverboats and originally the arch was fastened to the ground with tent stakes but it kept falling over. It was also meant to be the world's largest tire swing but was never completed. Once we saw him staring long and hard at the arch, ponding our lies, we realized the young fellow might be just ripe enough for some really grandiose tales. So we decided to teach the lad a bit about the birds and the bees. "Oh, your dad never taught you how the bees stung the hell out of the birds and killed them?" At one point he asked us what anxiety was because one of the other guys cried at every chance that he was suffering from the ailment. "Well, Alec, anxiety is when you just think about dudes wieners non-stop. That's why he has so much anxiety at demos because there's so many dudes and he's just thinking about their parts." "Dude," he replied, "I hope i never get anxiety!" From there things took quite a graphic turn but I'm sure you can imagine the hilarity of it all.
The rain threatened to put the kibosh on the demo all day. The sky darkened as we rolled into skatepark parking lot but the skate gods held off the elements so that the guys could give the amazing St. Louis crowd one hell of a show. Alec Majerus purposely destroyed the demo to prove he was in no way afflicted with anxiety. Gilbert Crockett shook off his head and foot injury from KC and found lines no one had ever seen. Johnny Layton and Taylor Smith went big over everything. It was Chima Ferguson's last demo before flying out to his Real x Odd Future deck release today in SF and he gave the crowd everything he had in the tank and then some.
The St. Louis crowd was one of the best we've seen. The locals ripped and were really welcoming of the team. Thanks to Infinity Skateshop and all the kids that came out for some kicks before the rain set in.
Sadly we had to say goodbye to Chima and Alec but today we pick up Anthony Van Engelen and head to Rise Skateboard Shop for a signing at 7pm. You should come out and meet up with us.
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