Speaker 1: 0:09

Hey there, welcome to how Do you Skate, the ultimate destination for all skating enthusiasts. We cater to everyone, from beginners to pros, whether you love inline and ice skating or prefer quads and skateboarding, we have it all covered, and we bring you exclusive interviews with professionals, talented amateurs and influencers in the industry. So sit back, relax and get ready for an exciting journey into the world of skating.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Welcome to this week's episode of how Do you Skate. I'm your host, sean Egan, and my co-host, not co-host. My guest today is a fellow Gen Xer, rob Didemar. And how are you doing today, sir? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm doing good. So start us at the beginning. When did your skating journey started? Because I know you have multiple skate things. So what was the beginning for you?

Speaker 3: 1:07

I, I would say my. The beginning of my skating career is probably the same as most every gen xer, and it began on a pair of red, white and blue ridells I went rollerblade TRS lightnings.

Speaker 3: 1:28

I got my first pair. I got my first pair of roller skates. I must've been, I know. I know I was in first grade, like because I went to. I remember going to a skating skating party in first grade with the my red, white and blue Rydell quad skates on my feet and there was two pairs. You either had white or three pairs white for girls, black for whomever, and then you had the red, white and blue Rydell's. I think Nice, if I'm remembering correctly.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Yeah, so that's when it all started for you, then.

Speaker 3: 1:57

Yeah, I had my skates on all the time. If I wasn't in my garage or going down my driveway, I was over at my aunt and uncles in their basement, because they had a really smooth basement surface and and skating parties were the epitome of everything I looked forward to like in elementary school and I still remember, and it's true to this day the longest period of time you'll ever experience is how long it takes you to lace up your skates before you can get out on the rink that is true especially with quads especially with quads yep so

Speaker 2: 2:33

laces now, because I've seen your tiktok but and we've discussed a little bit, but you've done a little bit of everything quad, inline and skateboarding.

Speaker 3: 2:53

So yeah, I was gonna say skateboarding not so much just when it was the fad, but I roller skated up through elementary school and I probably stopped once roller skating parties weren't really a thing anymore. And then in high school I had a friend who graduated the same year as me. He played hockey and so he had a pair of rollerblades with, like the metal chassis these were like first gen rollerblades and he used those so that he could practice during the off season. And right about then was when all of the allblades you know the TRS, lightnings, bauer was coming out, so everybody was starting to come on the scene with rollerblades.

Speaker 3: 3:31

So a bunch of us got rollerblades and we started playing street hockey behind our high school. And that's what we did all senior year. When the weather was nice, we'd just go out behind the high school and play street hockey. Even made it into the local paper because we had a reporter just happened by and see us out there in the parking lot on our rollerblades playing street hockey and that. And honestly, like when I first started roller skating, I I could cross over right, over left, but I couldn't skate backwards, I couldn't skate opposite direction. I was pretty much all about speed. It wasn't until I got on my inline skates that I really started learning how to skate backwards and crossing over backwards and you know being far more maneuverable on your skates. But that was because we were playing hockey, so you had to be.

Speaker 2: 4:12

Yeah, hockey, you got to go forward, sideways, backwards, all different directions, so I'm a little familiar with that.

Speaker 3: 4:20

So when having this, having the stick out front, I think kind of helps a lot too.

Speaker 2: 4:24

Yeah, I would have to say so because now I'm thinking about how I skated better backwards on quads than I did in lines. So I played a little rink hockey recently.

Speaker 3: 4:42

So now, when did you ever get into ramps and freestyle skating at all? Yeah, so that's sort of a little bit further down the road in my skate journey. What happened was we, when we'd take a break from playing skate hockey, there there would just be like little areas that we could jump and there I think there's some speed bumps that we could hit just right, and we were able to catch like a few feet of air over, just like a dip or something. So whenever we take a break from playing street hockey, I'd go like try to like hit some jumps and catch some air. And then my freshman year in college, I my my roommate and I we just go out all over campus, and that's when people were removing their middle two wheels for grinding. Everybody was making their own grind plates out of plastic and whatever they could find, and so we'd just go out on campus and just skate all over campus and tear it up.

Speaker 3: 5:38

But it was when my roommate and I decided and his name is Benny Kelly, so he was in the movie too, in Airborne it was that year in school when we decided to go audition for the movie Airborne and by then we were both pretty aggressive, like we were hitting some big drops, catching some sick air, not really grinding as much, but we were 360ing over staircases. I mean it was a lot of hardcore street skating is what we were into. Then, when we both got the stunt double parts in the movie Airborne, after we'd wrap on the set, we'd go back to where they had everything staged Longworth's Hall down in Cincinnati, this big parking lot area and Team Rollerblade was on the set. They built a Masonite 10 foot vert ramp, like in that parking lot, just so that they had something to do when they, when we were wrapped for the day, and and I I can't remember his name anymore but one of the Team Rollerblade guys said, hey, like, let me show you how to drop in on a ramp.

Speaker 3: 6:45

And I was like what? He's like, yeah, come on, it's real easy. So he took me up to the top of this 10 foot ramp and he's like oh, just just put the, put the coping between you, know, your middle, two, two, middle, two wheels, bend your knees and just lean in and drop straight forward down. So I was, I, I mean I was scared, of course, and but when I did, like everybody and I think everybody does this on their first drop in my skates, got out in front of me and came out from underneath me. So I was, you know, on my back and laying on my butt and he's like, come on, come on, real quick, get up here again. Like just get up here and drop in again real fast. And so I went back up, dropped in and rode it out the second time fell in love with vert ramp.

Speaker 2: 7:25

Nice. Now, did you have your protective gear on when you were doing it?

Speaker 3: 7:29

Oh yeah, oh yeah. That was a nice thing about being on the set, is they you base? That was one of the. I don't think they were specifically intending to pay you with gear, but all the gear that you used on the set you got to keep.

Speaker 3: 7:41

So you know we had the big beefy knee pads. You know helmets, wrist guards, you know freestyle elbow pads. I mean we had the good gear. Nice, now, down down in Cincinnati there's a airport called Lunkin airport and back in the nineties there was a metal vert ramp and I think I'm pretty sure it was 10 foot, but there was a metal vert ramp that everybody would think I'm pretty sure it was 10 foot.

Speaker 3: 8:05

Um, but there was a metal vert ramp that everybody would go and session at, and so after, after work I mean, so I'm in like early twenties every day after work I'd end up heading down to Lunkin and you know everybody that you skate with would be down there just sessioning.

Speaker 3: 8:18

You know, on the on the, on this, on this metal metal ramp, that in the summertime that thing would cook you, like it would cook you. But you know we and that's I I felt I'd still to this day, would ride vert ramp if I could. Um, and I'm actually I'm actually contemplating transitioning over to roller skating ramp skating as well. I've been kind of, I've been kind of I don't know if the right word is being kind of snobby about it, but like I haven't really been able to break away from using my inline skates on vert ramps and for aggressive skating. I haven't really decided. I want to make the transition to doing that on quads, but I spend so much time on quads these days it kind of makes sense, so I might transition again to ramp skating on quads. See how that goes.

Speaker 2: 9:08

So now we discussed it before we started the episode. But who were you? A stunt double for Seth Green, and how was that whole experience working with him?

Speaker 3: 9:21

It was one of the coolest experiences of my entire life. It was. It was one of the coolest experiences of my entire life. Um, the, the way that I got the part was because I was one of the shortest skilled skaters that was auditioning and the joke. I think. Uh, I think this is the same joke with any set of skills, but it takes somebody who's good at a particular thing to look bad at a particular thing.

Speaker 3: 9:44

Yeah, bad at a particular thing yeah so in in the movie airborne, seth green's character, wiley, was not a very good skater and chris edwards actually played the part of the uh, other bad skater on the other group of skaters that you know wiley's character went up against.

Speaker 3: 10:06

So you know it was always funny, because you have to be a good skater to look like a bad skater. And I was the shortest skater that auditioned, that actually could skate, and so Seth Green pulled me aside at the audition and said hey, do me a favor, like hit this ramp and just when you, when you come off the ramp, just flail through the air and I want you to like land on your knees and your elbows, like on your pads, like you just wrecked. So like okay, I mean I've wrecked countless times and, you know, had the beefy pads. So I was like no problem, did it, and you didn't really find anything out that day. So I did it. We went home from the audition and I think it must have been like a week later. They called us all back and told us like what we were going to be doing for the movie. But probably the coolest story that I have to tell you from the movie is one of the scenes.

Speaker 3: 10:59

So in the movie they have this race called Dev's down, devil's backbone, which is not a real thing it is, it is to me, I, I doing movies, made it or doing doing the movie airborne made it difficult for me to really like appreciate movie magic from that point on in my life, because I understood how cut scenes work.

Speaker 3: 11:22

But um, but the beginning scene for the race, so the starting line, was filmed at the top of this incredibly steep road Like this.

Speaker 3: 11:33

This road was so steep and one of the things I remember about it was that they had a floating cam on a trailer that was being pulled by a motorcycle and at one point the guy driving the motorcycle told us he's like I have to, I have to keep this thing at 60 miles per hour just to stay out in front of you guys. So here we are on our non-speed aggressive inline skates, getting up to like 55, 60 miles an hour, ripping down this hill. But the wildest part about it was is, if you fell and a lot of guys did because you got at that speed, you're getting speed wobbles serious in your skates, but um, a lot of guys fell as soon as you hit. When you fell, you're, you went faster, like as soon as that plastic hits the road. You go faster than the, than the people on the skates, but yeah, we were just ripping down that hill and it was one of the coolest experiences ever just going that fast on skates. It was wild.

Speaker 2: 12:33

Yeah, I was actually going to ask you about Devil's Backbone because that's like for us inline skaters that have seen the movie, it's something we want to do. So are you telling me?

Speaker 3: 12:46

that it's all in pieces. Yeah, damn it, it's, it's. There's bits and pieces filmed in just about every area of cincinnati I can think of. But and I don't know if you could do this legally it'd be worth it to ride that hill if you, if you can handle getting up to speed on your skates uh, if you have speed skates, um riding that hill I probably wouldn't do it on speed skates, just because how much speed I get.

Speaker 2: 13:12

I mean 100 millimeter wheels with ceramic bearings.

Speaker 3: 13:15

Yeah, that's no sense well, and you're not gonna have it. You're not gonna have a stop, a break on speed skates either, and that's what was saving us, because it because the bottom of the hill you had maybe about 300 feet until it completely teed off into another road, yeah so so we were doing all sorts of ridiculous stuff. As soon as we get to the bottom of the hill, you had to basically lay on your brake. So we're like sitting there riding one-footed on our break, doing like freestyle moves, like doing like grabs and stuff, because we're just like coming to a stop because it took you I mean, it might have taken you like 20, 30 feet just to stop, because there was one scene where I think it was jack black's character, or was it seth greens?

Speaker 2: 13:56

yeah, where they hit the, they hit the neighborhood and ended up running across the grass down the hill. Was that your scene, or?

Speaker 3: 14:54

yeah, so there was a scene one of the scenes I was in, um, and it was chris edwards and I. Um, we were coming down everybody like the the devil's backbone hill. If you're going down the hill like the skater's view cuts to the right, and so what chris edwards and I had to do, we had to step up onto this rock like wall and step over it.

Speaker 3: 15:19

Yeah, and then we had to scramble down this like grass, like just little hill, but the problem it wasn't just like a continuous hill, it cut off onto a driveway. So there's like another retaining wall and it was probably like a five foot drop onto a driveway. So there's like another retaining wall and it was probably like a five foot drop onto a driveway. Well, the idea was for us to like hit a couple steps, jump over the other retaining wall, roll across the driveway and down the hill into these trees. Problem was is that the grass was really soft, so chris edwards was hitting it, just fine, but my skates kept sinking into it and and twice I did, and we had like full body pads, like you know, pads for your back and your front and everything. I kept literally like somersaulting over the retaining wall and landing on my back on the driveway. We did it twice and the director uh, second unit director was like we're, we're good, like that's actually a really good shot. I don't want to like keep having you do this. I don't want you to like risk hurting yourself because you keep falling the same way.

Speaker 3: 16:21

Um, but yeah, so that was, that was the scene I was in, and then I in another scene, uh one of the scenes, so, in jack black's scene, or at least one of the ones where you see him a bunch, and I think it's uh the one where one of the skaters wrecks onto the front porch of a couple old dudes and they spit a little tobacco, like tobacco juice, on them. I remember that, um, that that scene was filmed out near fort ancient, out in lebanon, because there's just this really steep, windy road that just goes downhill for a lot of ways. So you're, you're literally like in probably eight different parts of Cincinnati, and some of the areas were way, way, way out of Cincinnati, like 30 miles.

Speaker 2: 17:04

So I'm just going to have to film myself just a small clip of doing devil's backbone and just say I skated it.

Speaker 3: 17:11

Do the, do the, do the starting line, starting line, that's. That would be the most exciting part, in my opinion, uh, but falling would freak me out a lot of cuts.

Speaker 2: 17:20

What's that? I said the falling would freak me out, especially at that speed. Yeah, I've seen some of the downhill skaters. Have you seen them? They're like in columbia, where they're like full gear, like helmet everything. Where they're like full gear, like helmet everything, and they're doing like 75 kilometers an hour and then they hit and they just it's like sliding into home base right past the pitcher, right out of the right out of the stadium.

Speaker 3: 17:44

So One of the one of the guys that, uh, that I skated with outside of the movie, who also got a part in the movie I skated with outside of the movie, who also got a part in the movie, I remember him getting kicked off the set because he couldn't stay on his feet going down the hill and he kept sliding off into the trees and they're like you got to go, dude, like you know, you can't, we can't risk you getting hurt. And then the way, and then we just all they had like a, a van, you know, for transporting people around. So when we get to the bottom of the hill we'd all just grab onto the van and they'd just drive us back up the hill to do it again. That's pretty cool.

Speaker 2: 18:22

That's the easiest way to get up the hill, because skating up hills sucks yeah.

Speaker 3: 18:25

Especially if it's as steep as you said it was. Oh, you would not be able to skate up this hill. You would not be able to skate up this hill. You would not be able to skate up this hill. There'd be no point, no point at all. You'd be like sidestepping the whole way. You'd have to.

Speaker 2: 18:39

How long of a hill was it Like? What's the?

Speaker 3: 18:43

Maybe three quarters of a mile, maybe a mile.

Speaker 3: 18:48

Yeah, that's too long to skate up hills. Yeah, it's a long hill, well. And and then in college uh, because I went to uc we would start up by the campus and then we'd skate down this bing log, bing log main main road mcmillan road, I think is what it's called down to like a little, um kind of an artsier area of clifton called in the gaslight district, and you'd have to time the intersection just right because it was where another main road crossed. So if you wanted to just cut through it entirely, you had to make sure that by the time you got to that intersection the light turned green and you just rip through the intersection. But we do the same thing. We just hide behind a car and we just hold on to the bumper and let him pull us back up to the top of the hill again.

Speaker 2: 19:37

Nice now yeah, so that was a huge experience for you. Did you do anything else as far as movie wise after that?

Speaker 3: 19:47

um, I got a. So yeah, um one. One day after we wrapped on set, uh, so I was second unit, so I was in the stunt unit. But one day after we wrapped I was turning in my hours up in the production office and as I was leaving I happened to get on the elevator with the executive producer. So Airborne was an Icon Productions movie, so Mel Gibson's production company. But I got onto the elevator with the executive producer I believe his name was steve and my cavity.

Speaker 3: 20:18

But, and here and I, I was 19, I was from ohio, I'd never been anywhere and I'm on this elevator with this dude from california and I kept noticing him looking at me. So I I'm just thinking like, why are you looking at me? What is going on? Like you're starting to make me feel really uncomfortable, like you know. And so we get to the, we get to the bottom of the elevator and he's like hey, do me a favor. He's like, come back up to the office with me real quick. I think we might be able to use you for something else.

Speaker 3: 20:47

And I was thinking just for like another role in that movie, like another stunt double role or something. So the very next day they sent me over to first unit, which was the acting unit, and I had to find, uh, the photographer. I believe his name was Jim and and they're like, yeah, he'll take a couple of pictures of you. I thought it was going to be really quick, like it. I mean, I can't tell you how many pictures they took of me, but it was about an hour it took to do all the pictures. They had me in a bunch of different positions, standing up on stuff. Well, what had happened was they were also in the process of finishing up filming the man Without a Face.

Speaker 2: 21:27

Okay.

Speaker 3: 21:29

So that was the movie where Mel Gibson had half of his face burnt.

Speaker 2: 21:33

And the little kid befriended him Saw that one too. And so what's that I said? I saw that one too.

Speaker 3: 21:41

Yep, then you've seen me before, because here's how this story goes. What happened was the actor, nick Stahl, who played Chuck most probably I'm pretty sure it's Chuck. They couldn't get him to look realistically older and I think at the time he was maybe 14, 13 or 14. He might have been younger but but they couldn't find a realistic double and they couldn't make him look realistically older to do the last scene of the movie where he's 17 and he graduates from the military academy where he's going. So that's what the that's what the executive producer on airborne was looking at me for. Because when I went back up to the production office, he, he called everybody. I was like look, look at, look at his face, look at his ears, like doesn't he look like blah, blah, blah, blah? And they kept talking about stuff and it was going right over my head.

Speaker 3: 22:30

But what ended up happening was, a couple of weeks after we wrapped on airborne, I got a call from the same casting person that I'd talked to for airborne, and and so and I, I knew her, cause it's weird, like on a movie set, you kind of just get to know each other, like you, just you're friendly with everybody. But Lisa Baker was a name. She called me and I had a post-it note on my college dorm desk saying to call her back. So I called her back and literally she's just like hey, listen, we're, we're flying you out to la. We think we could use you for another movie. Um, I need you to catch a cab to the cincinnati airport, you know, as early as you can in the morning. We've got one. That's gonna like I think they sent one to pick me up at like five o'clock in the morning. They're like you know, pack light. They, you know they they'd already bought the ticket.

Speaker 3: 23:20

She's like we think that we can use it for another scene. It's an acting role. You know the chances of you making it into the movie are very slim. You could very well just end up on the cutting room floor, but we wanted to see for sure. So literally like I call her that night, the very next morning I'm on a plane out to Los Angeles. Again, I'm 19 years old, I've never been anywhere. You know to me, at that point in my life I thought everybody was the same as everybody I knew in Ohio.

Speaker 3: 23:46

So, here I am flying to Los Angeles. That was a paradigm shift, but definitely culture shock. So what ended up happening was they wanted me to play the older version of chuck when he graduated from the military academy and I did a good enough job that actually made it into the movie. So the very last scene of that movie is literally me. So I had a couple of lines and the movie ends going from a closeup of my face to credits. Nice.

Speaker 3: 24:18

It was, it was. It was a pretty wild experience. I was. I was certain that I was going to drop out of college and move out to Hollywood and try to make a go as an actor. Everybody out in LA was like and I can't. I can't remember the name of snake, uh, the, the character who played snake and airborne. He's a really popular actor nowadays.

Speaker 3: 24:41

Um I know what you're talking about yeah, I should know his name because he's, because he's very renowned, um, and I feel bad, but he was. He was on that set too. So you know, I got to, I got to rub elbows in Airborne, I got to rub elbows with Seth Green Jack Black and then the other guy that I'm trying to I'll have to look up his name.

Speaker 2: 25:02

Yeah, it's weird that you've and this is all in the beginning of their careers too. It's like who? Knew I mean Jack Black did Never Ending Story 4 or something like that also, so you never thought Jack Black would. I saw him one time at when was it? The Rainforest Cafe at Disneyland and I wanted to go up to him like Augie, is that you? Because that was his name in the movies. Yeah, he's an icon now.

Speaker 2: 25:31

Which is funny because you don't think about that when you're starting off in a movie and you're just hanging out and doing something at the beginning. But it's just amazing how many people have come out of that movie. And then did you get to meet mel gibson when you did man without a face or yep.

Speaker 3: 25:46

So they, they flew me out to la in the morning. I had to go get contacts fitted because my eye color was different. We got to the set. I had a total skater haircut, you know. It was like shaved on the sides long. You know, like flop my hat over top of it. So they gave me a haircut to look like I was in a military academy and then they marched me out to the set.

Speaker 3: 26:11

Mel was basically like straight down to business. You know. He looked to see, you know just what I look like. And he's like yep, like let's try it. And so we did a few shots. He told me basically, like you know, here's what I want you to say, here's how I want you to feel when you say it. There was one shot we did that.

Speaker 3: 26:31

I was having a hard time hitting my mark, cause here I am, like I'm not a professional actor, but I, we, we kept having to shoot it again because I kept missing the mark. And I remember one of the camera guys looked at me. He's like just hit your mark, like he got really frustrated with me. He's like just hit your mark, um and there. And in that shot I was supposed to be waving out to Mel Gibson, you know, like who was kind of there at my graduation or there at Chuck's graduation and wasn't really wanting me to see him. But I see him and so I get up on this chair to get a better perspective and I'm looking, and I'm looking and I see him out in the out, in the distance, and he turns around and he sticks his hand up and I and I waved to him as well and I'm literally like just waving at a big black board with an orange X through it, which is where they wanted me to be looking. So I was like, oh, okay, now I see how movies happen, like now I get how these work, um, but but I I ended up staying, uh in LA for the weekend.

Speaker 3: 27:34

They put me up at the universal Sheraton hotel. I got to do a lot of sightseeing. I got to hang out with a lot of people that I knew from doing airborne uh, back in Cincinnati, um, hung out with, uh, seth green, uh, and again these this was back before like a lot of these actors were big names, so you know, it was kind of wild just to know them. Then I got to go to a cast and crew party, I think on a saturday night, and then I flew back to uh, back to cincinnati on sunday night or monday morning, I'm not sure which, and was ready to drop out of school to move to la to become an actor just be glad nobody supported that dream just be glad you did, and it is so expensive out there now, it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2: 28:16

So I mean I just I moved to Colorado a couple of years ago, so I've had 50 years in. California.

Speaker 3: 28:24

Colorado is the state that I love the most and that's because you know I'd say after my movie career with the skating and learning how to aggressive inline skate. From there I started rock climbing and whitewater kayaking and snowboarding and mountain biking, doing a lot of adrenaline sports. So I spent a lot of time in Colorado doing that stuff. Colorado is one of my favorite places to be.

Speaker 2: 28:49

Nice. Yeah, I plan to get those ODR skis that I sent you. I plan on getting a pair of that for next winter. So that's the goal.

Speaker 3: 28:58

I'm going to have to try it.

Speaker 2: 28:59

I'm going to have to try those for sure, don't know if the girlfriend we were just talking I think it was today she's got this big fluffy jacket that someone bought for her for skiing and she's like I'm never going skiing again. So might be able to talk her into getting odrs. Those look like a lot of fun. But so now how did your skating like? Did you just continue with inline? After the movie, after your movie career?

Speaker 3: 29:25

and oh, like I said, I basically I think I probably hung up my skates for maybe 10, 15 years and I honestly didn't start skating again until I became a father. Um, and you know, it was at the age where my boy was like starting to get to that point where getting them skates was just the thing to do and I was like, well, if he's going to have skates, then I'm going to get myself a pair of skates too. I don't think I'd own a pair of skates, you know, and, like I said, 10 to 15 years. So I just got myself a pair of like inexpensive k2 athletic inline skates just to skate on. So, you know, he'd go out on the road and skate around and I'd just go out on my skates and skate with him. Um, you know, and at the time, uh, when his mom and I were together, his older sister was going to skating parties for her elementary school. So I would go and her mom, you know. So we would go kind of to these skating parties as a little family, you know, and I'd take my boy out skating with me, but I was still on inline skates. Yeah, and I stayed on inline skates until I started the TikTok channel that I have now. I stayed on inline skates until I started the TikTok channel that I have now.

Speaker 3: 30:34

And what? What had happened was, um, when, when my son's mom and I split, you know not to be too specific, you know, we just ran into a lot of problems trying to get them into any kind of organized sports. So, you know, due to a lack of cooperation between the two of us, we couldn't get them into, like the baseball. You know, baseball, soccer, football, all the normal kind of sports. I looked at him. I was like, look, buddy, like I was, I was a pro skater back in the day, like you know, like I, here's what we're going to do. I was like skating is going to be your sport until we can solve this problem.

Speaker 2: 31:08

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 31:09

So I'm going to. So I had him Tuesday through Friday, because I'm a bartender, so I worked on the weekend, so I had him during the week. So whenever I'd pick him up on Tuesday, we would go straight from his mom's house straight to the skating rink and we skated. And we would skate every week. I was like this is what we're going to do, so this is your sport until we figure something else out and there's an opportunity to let you do something a little more traditional. And that never materialized and, honestly, we just kept skating.

Speaker 3: 31:36

So we've skated every Tuesday for geez since, let's see, probably almost eight years, nice, and then we moved from Cincinnati back up to Dayton, continued skating at the rank that we are locals at now, like regulars at Skate World in kettering, ohio, um, which is one of the ranks where I used to have skating parties back in elementary school. So that was kind of a cool full circle. Uh turn, but my son does not like inline skates. Okay, and I got him inline skates because I was kind of like I wanted him to get into inline skates because inline skating was my thing. You know, I hadn't been on quads since I was, you know, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

Speaker 3: 32:21

But he didn't like inline skates. So I got to a point where I was like you know what, like if he's going to grow as a skater, I need to be able to skate on skates that he can relate to. So if he, if, if he can't see me skate on inlines and learn much for me on inlines, like I have to get, I have to get back on quads. And so I asked him. I was like hey, I was like you know what if I got, what if I started skating on quads again? I can't remember what year it was. I think it might've been like 2021, that Christmas I got myself a pair of um first pair of quad skates and gosh 40 years maybe 30 years I don't know but and and start and started the Tik TOK channel cause I thought it'd be fun to document.

Speaker 3: 33:04

You know someone who was at one point like an aggressive inline skater. You know skating rails, you know skating vert ramps, like doing like all the like aggressive stuff going from that kind of skater back to like a more jam style rhythm. You know quad skater at the rink, and so that's what motivated me to start with the TikTok channel. I thought that'd be fun to document.

Speaker 2: 33:26

Yeah, and the nice thing about skating. I mean, even though that's a sports, now there's so many different avenues. You can go Even on quads. You've got hockey, you can do speed skating on quads. And if he's an aggressive kid, roller derby, I mean there's like so many different. Yeah, roller derby for sure.

Speaker 3: 33:45

So I mean go ahead. Well, I was going to say the thing that I've told him, you know, and the thing that I love is that you know at the time that we couldn't get them to play soccer or could get them on to like a football team or anything like that, because you know, we just couldn't figure it out and I was disappointed that I couldn't give him that opportunity and I felt kind of like, well, I'm teaching you how to skate, but you really should be playing soccer Now that we've done it for as long as we have. I played soccer as a kid, all through high school. I was a varsity soccer player in high school and as soon as I got out of high school, I rarely played soccer ever again.

Speaker 3: 34:26

So you know, my perspective on skating changed a little bit because what I realized I was giving him was a lifelong sport Like he's he. I was like you can skate for the rest of your life, buddy. Like you have skating that you can do. If you want to move to a brand new city, if you want to go live somewhere that you've never lived before and you're having trouble meeting people, grab your skates, find the local skating rink and go become a regular at that skating rink and you will meet people so easily.

Speaker 2: 35:00

Absolutely. I mean because I've started hanging out at the rinks out here. I started back up really getting serious about skating last november or december um, cool, like over a year ago, and it was just kind of like you know what? I'm going to the rink, I have my k2, 100 millimeter boas, I've got speed skates, nice, um, nice, so that all developed where it's kind of like the skating community. It's like we go now and we get a bunch of people in there and we give them compliments, like we help them. It's like if someone's struggling, we stop and help them. The community you get at the roller rink is going to be way better than anything you get at the local bar. I'm just hands down.

Speaker 3: 35:43

Take it from me. Take it from me. As a bartender of 20 years, I can attest to that fully. I used to be a bouncer, so I know also.

Speaker 2: 35:52

So it's like one of those things where it's kind of like you bump into someone at the roller rink, you're like, oh, I'm sorry, and then you help them back up and they don't get mad at you, they don't go. Let's go outside, buddy, you don't have to fight them, right? So yeah, but it's.

Speaker 3: 36:05

The roller skating community is an amazing community, and what I'll tell you this is the thing that I found most interesting, though, and I did not know this. It should have made sense because of what I used to do back when I was kayaking and climbing. You know, we travel all over to go to the spots that we wanted to kayak and climb at, and things like that. What blows my mind, and something that I want to start doing with my son and I think we're going to start trying to do it more this summer is traveling to other rinks in different areas of the country to go skating.

Speaker 2: 36:37

Let me know when you're in Colorado.

Speaker 3: 36:40

Oh for sure. Well, I was going to say Colorado is a destination spot that I absolutely intend to take my son to and know, and he's, he's 13, going on 14. So we're at that point where a 20 hour road trip out to Colorado from Ohio is totally doable and he can, he'll be able to handle it just fine. Um, but Colorado is the first place I want to take him, like on a road trip, just so that he can experience that drive across Kansas, that drive across, like you know, Eastern Colorado plateau, and then when you finally start to see the mountains appear on the horizon, just that amazing. Like there are the mountains, they are freaking huge.

Speaker 2: 37:22

But when you take it through the cornfields. You have to teach him about he who walks behind the rows. I don't know that, children of the corn. When you have to teach him about he who walks behind the rose I don't know that, children of the corn yeah, when I, when I was a kid, I was not allowed to watch horror movies really dude.

Speaker 2: 37:35

That was no, it was funny because I grew up loving horror movies. I would watch him. My mom got to a point where she didn't even care anymore. And now my 13 year old I I mean, I've taken him to horror cons and he's got to meet the guy, two different people that have played Jason Voorhees. So like he's met all these people and it's like he'll sit and binge watch horror movies by himself in the dark.

Speaker 3: 38:00

That's awesome. My son loves horror movies. I don't do them so well. So he'll be like, hey, will you watch this movie with me? I was like I will watch. Like okay, I know that you saw this movie in the theater. Do you remember when pet sanitary was in the theaters? The first, the first one? Yes, I, I, I walked out. It scared me so bad I had to get up and leave the theater. It freaked me out so incredibly bad. So he loves horror movies and if you want I'll watch. I'll watch them with him to the point where I can't anymore.

Speaker 2: 38:36

So we grew up with a family cabin in Lake Tahoe, so I spent.

Speaker 2: 38:40

that's where I learned how to drive in snow and we were playing laser tag in the meadow. So it's like you go down the street from our cabin, walk through the forest, there's a meadow and on the other side of the meadow. So we're playing laser tag and at 11 o'clock at night we found the pet cemetery that they have on the other side of that meadow. We went straight home, it was done. Laser tag was over at that point, especially 11 o'clock at night. When you find the pet cemetery, you're like and this was after we watched the movie, so we're like we're done we're going home.

Speaker 3: 39:13

Nope, we're done we don't need nothing coming out. I've been out of there, I've been the first one gone, but yeah, so it's like we grew up in a good time.

Speaker 2: 39:20

so fast we definitely grew up, I agree. I agree that, especially with the skating and everything. But it's's nice to see the pandemic did a resurgence and got more people interested. But kids nowadays don't understand the struggles we had when skating. When we were younger we didn't have skate parks. You were lucky to get a vert ramp because in Livermore we had the Chicken Ranch which had a vert ramp for the skateboarders. Nobody was doing inlines on the ramp, it was just all skateboarders back in the 80s, oh yeah, but it's nowadays.

Speaker 3: 39:56

Those were the only people that were at skate parks. Now it's BMX free riders inline skaters, scooters, quad skaters with the wide trucks. Yeah, I mean, it's it. Skate parks are crowded nowadays.

Speaker 2: 40:12

Yeah, it's nice and have you do you know who estrogen is? Yes, so she does she does a lot of the, the skate ramps too. She does a lot of that kind of stuff, and she's amazing yeah, and unfortunately she got eliminated in the first round on roller jam her crew, oh really so. Have you watched that show?

Speaker 3: 40:35

um, I know what you're talking about. There's, uh, there's a lady, um, what's her name? But she, she used to perform with, uh, uh, the parliament funkadel, george clinton and the Parliament Funkadelics Okay, and she's a roller skater on, I want to say her name's Kim. She's a roller skater on TikTok and she was also in it as well.

Speaker 2: 40:58

Okay.

Speaker 3: 40:59

So on her channel she would post up every once in a while like some behind the scenes kind of stuff of being on Roller Jam. I haven't seen it yet. Oh you got gotta watch it. It's a must watch for me.

Speaker 2: 41:09

Yeah, I actually don't know what service it's streaming on max, hbo, max, I don't even know what to call it anymore, okay, so okay, they keep merging everything, so I'm not even sure what things are called anymore. So, right, but I had terrell ferguson who was one of the judges on there. Um, I had, uh, honor roll skate crew who actually won the show. So I've had them on the show too, and it was funny, because when you were talking about teaching yours, is his son right? Yeah, teaching your son about skating. Last week's guest, the the show, right before the one you're on, um, he started skating in 1957.

Speaker 2: 41:48

my gosh and he's still skating metal wheels. Tell me they're metal wheels. He started off on metal wheels. I started off on metal wheels. I had the one that adjusted to your shoe size, so, and he's 72 now and that's awesome he's got roller dance academy. He's got his own skate from Rydell. That's so cool.

Speaker 2: 42:10

It's amazing, and the cool thing about his story is that he did a lot of this before we even had the internet, and I mean he was talking about recording stuff on VHS tapes. I'm like great, my younger generation is not going to know what you're talking about.

Speaker 3: 42:27

What's a VHS tape? Who has a vcr these days?

Speaker 2: 42:31

I don't even have a dvd player, and the funny thing is is my kids do, because they have ps5s. So unless you have a gaming system, you don't really even have a disc player anymore because everything's streamed.

Speaker 3: 42:42

Yeah, but yeah, there's no hardware associated with like media, like it used to be when it was in our day, and I mean if you walked up to somebody and said be kind, rewind, they would have no idea what you even mean.

Speaker 2: 42:54

They don't even know what a video rental store is like. Yeah, that was, that was the best. But you sit by the counter, wait for people to bring movies back to make sure you got your movie.

Speaker 2: 43:06

Oh yeah, and the most disappointing part was when there was a new movie that came out and you're like so excited to get it and you went to the store and they were all gone and just like just all the covers were there, just and, yeah, they stick it out in your face so you can see everything, but you can't get it because it's not in, and that's why we stood by the, by the side, so we can make sure that when someone dropped it off, we grabbed it like, can you check that in really quick? Can you check that? So?

Speaker 2: 43:30

my two older ones got to kind of experience the tail end of that. I don't think I've ever taken my younger ones to rent a movie because I mean they had red box. So and it's like the nice thing is is like with uh, where you rent the movie for like 99 cents on amazon or whatever. At least I don't have to remember to take the damn movie back, yeah. But I guess even they just end it. Yeah, I guess Redbox went out of business too. Makes sense.

Speaker 3: 44:01

I'd say Netflix would have followed them if they didn't start their streaming business, which was smart.

Speaker 2: 44:06

Well, I think they approached no, they approached Blockbuster first. Netflix actually approached Blockbuster first to go into business and help them get the streaming thing off the ground. They're like that's never going to work. I bet you the owners are kicking themselves in the butt now.

Speaker 3: 44:23

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 44:23

Oh yeah for sure.

Speaker 3: 44:25

Just out of curiosity, what part of Colorado are you in?

Speaker 2: 44:28

North Glen, which is basically North Denver.

Speaker 3: 44:32

Okay, Very cool. I took a trip I want to say I don't think it was a snowboarding trip, but I was meeting a buddy of mine from California and so it was the 4th of July, and so I was traveling out from Ohio and he just moved out to California. So he traveled to Colorado, so Colorado was halfway and we went up to Chautauqua park in Boulder, colorado, to watch the fireworks displays. It was like we'll just go sit up at Chautauqua park, which is at the base of the Flatirons, and just watch Boulder's fireworks displays. But what we didn't realize is that we were up high enough that we were able to see the fireworks displays all out across, like you know, the the front range and all the way out, like into the plateau area. But we could see all that. We could see all the way down to Denver, nice, like we're like, we could see all the way down to Denver, nice, all the way down to Denver. And I think we were probably seeing fireworks displays up so far as, like Fort Collins.

Speaker 2: 45:35

Yeah, cool thing, I love it here. There's no way you're getting me to go back to California and just the amount of roller rinks we have. I mean, we have an adult skate night every night of the week, seriously, and it's just amazing. So have you gotten your son?

Speaker 3: 45:57

into trail skating or is he just rink skater now? Not really much trail skating, but he does it on his own, so when he goes with his mom he'll take his skates with him sometimes because they've got like a little bike path and he'll skate around there. So it could be something that he wants to start doing.

Speaker 3: 46:15

I I'm still kind of an inline snob, like when it comes to trail skating. Like I don't want to roller skate on a trail like I see a lot of people posting videos and they do it and I think that's great. But if I'm going to go on a trail and and I was going to ask you for some advice like I want to get a pair of like speed fitness skates to where I can like use it as exercise, yeah, um, because I we've got a bike path that runs right past our backyard so we have access to like that kind of trail like literally like outside the fence to our backyard. Um, I think he'll stay on quads, but but, yeah, I, he, I he's gotten into some trail skating on his own. We've never done it together.

Speaker 2: 46:54

Yeah, I've got K2, the 100 millimeter Boas, and I've got outdoor wheels and indoor wheels.

Speaker 3: 47:02

Okay, but I like Is it that short? Is it the small, like kind of shoe, like boot?

Speaker 2: 47:08

It's not the short. Those are my speed skates, but it's like a regular boot.

Speaker 2: 47:14

OK it's definitely got 100 millimeter wheels and of course, I change the wheels out. My rink wheels are junk wheels, voodoos, and I switch out to ceramic bearings. So it's it's as you get older and you can actually afford skate stuff, it's like, yes, you get bearings, and it's like I'm I'm working on putting together a pair of uh, inline speed skates for indoor. So because I I have my speed skates for outdoor are 125 millimeter wheels and I actually plan on doing the rollerblade series this year, so my first race is may 31st. So and that'll be in st paul, minnesota.

Speaker 2: 47:55

So yeah, there's two in minnesota, one in wisconsin and one in north dakota do you have a three-wheel chassis for your skates, or is it ours?

Speaker 3: 48:07

is it a four-wheel chassis?

Speaker 2: 48:08

I've got a three-wheel for the speed skates, so that's why the 125-millimeter wheels. But I'm switching those out to. Voodoo and Ceramic Barings too. So I like junk wheels. That's my under-the-boot brand, Okay that's fair.

Speaker 3: 48:24

Yeah, back when I was getting into aggressive inline skating, there was a wheel manufacturer that was coming on the scene because everybody was doing new stuff called Fat Boys. Do you remember those?

Speaker 2: 48:37

wheels. I remember. I do remember those I used back in the 90s. I used hyperlights 80s and 90s.

Speaker 3: 48:47

So yeah, I remember those too well because everything had that like super, like speed profile and there weren't, there weren't wheels for aggressive skaters that had that thick base and that kind of flatter, you know, edge to them. And fat and fat boys came on the market and that, and that was one of the companies I had a sponsorship with for a short period of time, because after the movies I did a little, I I did some demos and some competitions around the Dayton, cincinnati area for a little while Until I moved on to other things. Nice, but Fat Boys takes me back.

Speaker 2: 49:24

Do you have? Inline skates now too? Or did you get yourself a new?

Speaker 3: 49:27

pair of aggressive no, I, uh.

Speaker 3: 49:31

So I, a couple summers ago, um and this was I have a couple videos posted on my channel um, I got my son a scooter, like one of those freestyle scooters. Yeah, uh, he and I play pickleball together and there's a uh skate park near where we played pickleball and so I got him a freestyle scooter so he could go there and he could ride around on the ramps and stuff like that. Um, and I was like, well, if we're gonna do that, I'm just gonna go ahead and get myself a pair of inline skates, you know, and and you know aggressive pads, and I'm gonna, because they had there's a I'd say it's probably maybe like a six foot quarter pipe, you know half pipe, okay, um, so I was like I'll just go ride the half pipe. So I was for a little while one summer I was getting kind of back into some more aggressive skating.

Speaker 3: 50:23

The problem with the skates was they are super heavy, like yeah, like each state was like, think, two to two and a half pounds each, and so they're just like a super heavy skate. But it's what I could afford at the time. So I was like, well, this will be fine. And you know, we did it. We did it for a summer and just didn't do it the next summer. So I do have an aggressive skate setup. I do have an aggressive skate setup, um, and I did a few videos on my channel, uh, about like just videos of me doing like some uh half pipe and like some street skating and stuff.

Speaker 2: 50:56

I did catch those. So now, have you upgraded since then or are you still like what? What's the? What skate did you pick up?

Speaker 3: 51:06

So, so when? Okay, so, when I went from inline to quad, I got, um, it's a, it's a uk company, uh, rio mayhem's, okay, and it was just, and and I, and honestly, like again, I was just looking for a skate that I could afford. They had this cool green boot, white-wheeled skate. I thought that looks cool. That doesn't look like everybody else's skate. That's out there, it's at a price point I can afford. Give me a little bit of novelty, since I'm going to be posting videos on TikTok. That was my first quad skate. It took me a while, and another skater friend of mine, to realize that the wheels that I was rolling on were way too soft for the rank. So I upgraded wheels and I upgraded bearings, but then eventually the laces started pulling through the islets. Laces started pulling through the islets. So I was like I have, so I had, I knew I had to get a new setup. Um, you know, and, being a single parent, you know I'm, I'm, you know I'm not dropping $600 on a pair of skates Like those are the cheap ones.

Speaker 3: 52:17

Yeah, fine, yeah, and the and honestly, these skates, they held up for a good couple of years Like they were. They were a great, you you know. Reintroduction back into quads, you know, for me there are plenty good for what I needed them to be. Um, but it was a canvas boot and so the eyelets pulled through eventually and then so so again, I was kind of like man, like you know, like I'm not going to give up quad skating, you know, because my skates blew out like so I'm just I'll find them. So I got end up getting like a pair of roller derby elites. You know, it's the high top boot.

Speaker 3: 52:50

Um, it wasn't a style choice, it was just like, well, these are what I can afford. So I'm gonna get these and that's what I'm skating on now. But where I'm at currently, I'm gonna go a few different routes and I'm not sure which one I'm gonna do first. Um, I'm currently learning jb style skating, which I love. Um, I didn't know it was JB style skating when I first started like really getting into, like watching other skaters on TikTok. I just saw all these skaters doing these amazing footwork moves and I thought that looks so cool. So when I finally learned it. It was JB style skating. I was like that's what I want to learn. So that's what my focus has been on, probably for the past year.

Speaker 3: 53:29

But once I feel like I have a good handle of JB skating and I'm happy with where I'm at, I don't know if I'm going to go to slides.

Speaker 3: 53:39

Okay, and the reason why is because inline skating, a lot of your aggressive moves, you're sliding sideways across the coping, you know down the handrail, you know you're going, you're doing power stops and things like that. So I'm kind of like that's cool, like I kind of want to do slides because you can kind of slide sideways and that that's in my wheelhouse, like so my muscle memory, like I know how to slide sideways on skates, yeah, so I might do slides, is a direction that I want to go. But the other direction might be getting a pair or turning, you know, a pair of skates into, uh, ramp skates, getting like a wider pair of trucks and and biting the bullet and saying, all right, I'm done inline skating on ramps. I'm going to try quad skating on ramps, um, and get into aggressive quad skating on ramps. So I'm not sure which skate I'm going to go to first, whether I'm going to do like an aggressive ramp, quad skate or a pair of slides.

Speaker 2: 54:39

Just do all three yeah, it'll take time to get them all, but you know it's that's nice.

Speaker 3: 54:49

Yeah, it's, it's not. It's not. You're right, it's not an either or choice, it's more of a which one first.

Speaker 2: 54:56

Exactly, and my last case cause he like used to work on at skates on hate. So he's got major background in skating. He said, when it comes to quad skates, make sure you get yourself a nice leather boot. He said, when it comes to quad skates, make sure you get yourself a nice leather boot. He said don't get pleather, don't get just, you want leather boot because they last longer. And there's people you know he's, he's had skates that he's had for years, so it's, it's just one of those things. So now, what was your what's? Uh, so now, what was your what's? Did you say the brand of your inline skates that you have that you're using right now? They.

Speaker 3: 55:38

I can't think of what brand they are. It's not a mainstream brand. It was probably like oh man, so this is them.

Speaker 2: 55:51

That's the nice thing about editing yeah, anarchy revolution. Okay.

Speaker 3: 56:00

So yeah.

Speaker 2: 56:02

I don't think I've heard of it.

Speaker 3: 56:04

This thing is two and a half pounds but it's got that nice wide grind base plate. And then they didn't make chassis like this. When I was aggressive skating with the already cut out yeah, this was the damage that we did to our own skates skating, coping and rail and just grinding on curbs and stuff like that, just wearing down our chassis to the nub I mean I would love to get into that but unfortunately, due to certain health issues, I have to be careful about falling.

Speaker 2: 56:39

So at least speed skating. I mean I had to stop. I was planning on roller derby. Can't do that. I was expecting to play more rink hockey. I can't do that because I can't. If I hit my head too hard and bleed, I'm done.

Speaker 3: 56:55

It's one of those things.

Speaker 2: 56:56

Sorry, exactly, but at least I can still speed skate.

Speaker 3: 57:00

I was going to say any kind of movement on skates I think is nice. I know I'm'm gonna skate until the day I die and some of my favorite, some of my more favorite videos to see on tiktok are when there's like much older skaters out there just kicking it hard. Yeah, it's like that's gonna be me. That's gonna be me probably 10 years, 10 or 10 or 20 years.

Speaker 2: 57:27

Friday nights at the adult skate I'm usually the oldest person in the rink. There's people that look older than me but I'm the oldest, so I I own that one. But if I go to like the other ones, like if I go to Arvada, cause I mean we have a skate city five minutes from my house, then there's one in Arvada, there's one in Littada, there's one in littleton and aurora and colorado springs, and then we have a wagon wheel in um brighton and roller city down lakewood. So between all of them every night that's a lot of ranks, yeah so.

Speaker 3: 58:01

So what? What's? What's the distance of travel to? Like most of these ranks, are they all pretty central or is one super? I'd imagine colorado springs has got to be the furthest one yeah, definitely the furthest one.

Speaker 2: 58:12

For me, lakewood is about maybe a 30 minute drive, arvada's 20 minutes um westminster's five minutes. For me, uh, brighton, brighton's like 10, 15 minutes. So it's, it's, they're all relatively close so it just makes it nice.

Speaker 2: 58:32

And the cool thing is is because you were talking about what you do with the jam skating. We have the adult night and that ends at 11 30, but from 11 30 to 12 15, they have a thing called flow skate. So we got people just learning how to do like the different. So and there's people that'll teach you. The more advanced skaters will help younger, so it's just.

Speaker 2: 58:55

Everything that's developed from skating is just amazing. It's kind of like I can't. I mean we got speed skating programs, we got rink hockey, we got skate lessons, so everything's there. It's just you know what you want to do, you figure out what you want to do and you make it your own and that's the nice thing about I mean I was talking to Chris about it the nice thing about aggressive or artistic or jam skating there's no limit to what you guys can do. Like everything's open. You can invent new stuff that hasn't been done before. But, like with skating and stuff, like in hockey, we have rules that we have to follow, but just the creative freedom that you get doing different forms of skating is amazing and I don't know why more people don't go that route.

Speaker 3: 59:46

Well, the thing I enjoy about it that you know I obviously didn't get from aggressive inline skating and maybe kind of. But when you learn a certain style of skating, like jam or rhythm or J and B or JV skating, once you kind of get the fundamentals down, you sort of start making it your own. You know so, so you'll. You'll start doing moves that like are. It just becomes your own style.

Speaker 3: 1:00:15

Yeah and that's why I love watching skaters on tiktok and I love the community of skaters that exist there and just around, because I think the thing everybody understands is that everybody has their own unique style of skating exactly everybody accepts you for that it doesn't.

Speaker 3: 1:00:36

It doesn't matter if you're a beginner just learning how to do it or if you're like one of the super advanced people that everybody's watching kicking it around the rank like everybody is just out there doing it. You, you know the only person who's who's not like. If you're the person that's not doing it, then you know that's your own problem.

Speaker 2: 1:00:55

Yeah, and it just it's funny how many people are afraid to fall. I'm like once you get the falling down, you're good. I mean the guy that taught me when I first started in line skating he would actually knock me over while we were skating, and we were skating in the street, we weren't even in a rink. So once I got past that fear of falling, I mean I still fall now occasionally, but it's part. I mean, when you learned how to walk, you fell, so yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:01:23

Oh yeah, so what? So back in my aggressive skating days before my roommate and I did the movie, and probably afterwards too, because we still had the school year to finish up, when we would go out and like session around campus, you know like we were doing everything that we could and we would bail every night. And so you know, we're 19-year, 19 year olds, first time living away from home. We didn't really know anything, so we would always come back to our dorm room with all the road rash that we'd given ourselves that night and we had, and we and because of course we didn't know any better what our ritual was we take rubbing alcohol to the bathroom and we'd both like get, get the bottles ready and then we just dump it on our road rash and just run around the hall screaming until the pain went away I was gonna say epsom salt, that was our go-to.

Speaker 1: 1:02:20

We would we listers road rash poured in the bathtub and soak.

Speaker 2: 1:02:26

My mother hated that because I screamed pretty loud sometimes, but but those were the days. It's because we didn't have. We had one rink, yeah, that we went to and that was in san ramon. So we would skate friday and saturday night there, and even sunday. It got to a point where we were skating four or five nights a week at the rink, but then, like saturday morning, we would get up early, catch bart, go out to san francisco, skate golden gate park all day, come back, switch to our indoor wheels and then go to the rink. So like we would skate, you know, 15 hours in a day, 16 hours in a day, as much skinnier back then.

Speaker 3: 1:03:09

But I mean, I'd love to be able to skate five days a week. That'd be amazing.

Speaker 2: 1:03:13

It's, it's.

Speaker 3: 1:03:13

I'm getting back to it so well the issue here is like what you're saying you have an adult skate every night. Um, there, there's a lot of rinks in my area, you know. So my son and I've skated at least three different rinks in the area and a couple of them fairly regularly.

Speaker 3: 1:03:32

But because it's not as a high demand business in Ohio, like in in, you know, south central Ohio, you know you really have to like find when the rink is going to be open okay so it's not just open, because there's always business, you know for, for skating rinks like you have, you have to pick and choose your sessions because they're, you know, they're sometimes too and far between, which is unfortunate well, yeah, I mean I think that would make it hard to build up the skating community there.

Speaker 2: 1:04:06

if they're not open, are they at least open Friday and Saturday nights?

Speaker 3: 1:04:10

Yeah, well, as I say, all the rinks have like plenty of sessions, ok, but you know, like on a night where, like my son and I could go to a different rink, we can't go to that rink because it's their adult night.

Speaker 2: 1:04:24

OK.

Speaker 3: 1:04:26

So you know. So it's kind of like all right, well, we will do this rink this night and this rink this night it's like, oh wait, we can't do that rink because that session, you know, it's an adult night, you can't go. Blah, blah, blah. There was a session at a local rink that started at, I want to say, 1 o'clock in the morning. Oh geez, like they had an adult skate and it might have been from like 11 to 1. I'm not sure. I think it was like 11 to 1 o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 2: 1:04:54

Do they not know we're old, we can't stay up that late anymore.

Speaker 3: 1:04:59

It was hopping. It was unreal Like this place was jam-packed.

Speaker 2: 1:05:04

Nice.

Speaker 3: 1:05:05

You know, and it's always, it's always funny and I know, I know, you know what I'm talking about Like being having what I feel like is a pretty solid skillset. I still love walking into rinks where I'm like one of the bottom skill level skaters at the rink and I'm just looking around like oh my God, yeah, oh my God.

Speaker 3: 1:05:23

Like I'm just looking around, like oh, my God, yeah oh my God, like, like when I, when my son and I go to like our local rink on our skate night, like he and I are usually like some of the more experienced skaters there, but I love walking into a rink where it's just like, wow, I suck, like you guys are amazing, like, amazing, like I'm going to watch you guys like dang.

Speaker 2: 1:05:48

But then it's cool because you can go up and talk to them and they'll teach you some stuff too and give you advice. Yeah, that's the nice thing about skating. Like next month we have a thing called mile high roland, which is a giant, basically jam, rhythm skater, all that kind of stuff. So it's the big event. I'm fortunate enough that I'll be able to set up and do some live streaming and all that kind of stuff. So I'm excited enough that I'll be able to set up and do some live streaming and all that kind of stuff. So I'm excited about that.

Speaker 3: 1:06:09

I get the media credentials so when's that event going on? 4 20 easter weekend so, um, I was gonna say I'll keep an eye out for it. If you're gonna go live, I'll at least try to pop in, if i'm'm usually just kicking it during the day, on the weekends.

Speaker 2: 1:06:26

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:06:28

I'll pop into your live.

Speaker 2: 1:06:30

I probably won't have it by then, but my goal for maybe next year is actually get a drone so I can actually do some filming with a drone and stuff get above Very nice.

Speaker 3: 1:06:43

There's a lady that I follow on TikTok. She's an artistic skater. Her mom got her a drone for christmas okay, that will track you, and so she's posted a bunch of videos on her on her page where she's taking the drone on like a trail skate and set it up to track her. Um, okay, obviously, obviously not in the rink. Yeah, even though Even though I would want, I would want to take it into the rink, just because it's like, come on, like what's the worst that can happen, as long as they don't have ceiling fans, you're good, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:07:16

Yeah, it's like. I mean I think you can program it like how high it can say it needs to stay off the ground, but like it's cool yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:07:28

Seeing the drone footage that she posts, definitely send me her link because I'd like to find out what she's using. So because I will, for sure, definitely. So now we're getting to the final questions. Who was your biggest influence for skating? Because I mean, you've gone through through stages of skating.

Speaker 3: 1:07:44

My biggest influence for skating through stages of skating. My biggest influence for skating, um, I mean when I was an aggressive inline skater definitely Chris Edwards and all the dudes on team roller blade, like freaking amazing. Um, I was never really much of a skateboarder, so Tony Hawk was never really someone that I looked up to for skate purposes. Uh, and honestly, when I first started skating as a kid like I didn't really have any buddy that I looked up to. I just wanted to go fast, I just wanted to strap on my skates, get out. I was the kid that was always getting sat on the bench for going too fast, that the rank guards would come up and they'd like make you go sit out for a little while because I'd be like buzzing in and out of all the other skaters. Um, so I'd always get sat out. But honestly, like when I probably when I was an aggressive inline skater, chris edwards and the team rollerblade guys were who I really looked up to because they were the ones that taught me how to skate vert ramp in the beginning. You know they're the ones that sort of like gave me that push to take my skating to that next level where you know I wouldn't have otherwise. Um, and I and I still to this day, I, if I could build a 10 foot Masonite vert ramp in my backyard and put it in a building so that it doesn't need like constant maintenance, I would go, I would go back there and I would skate that ramp every day, cause the it's such great exercise and it's just so much fun.

Speaker 3: 1:09:23

It's so much fun, it's so much fun and and unless you've like skated vert ramp, you really have no idea, like, when you see people like going back and forth, and they're going back and forth like by the fifth time, you go back and forth, like you're worn out, like these professionals that are just doing some amazing stuff, like at the x games and stuff, people that haven't done it don't realize that, like you know, you drop in and you go back and forth, maybe like three or four times, like by that fourth or fifth times, like your body is worn out and it's just, it's so much fun, it's such great exercise. Uh, as far as far as like other let's see roller skating I think what motivated me to get quads was I broke down and got TikTok, cause I was one of those people that was like nah, I'm not getting TikTok. Nah, nah, no TikTok, no TikTok.

Speaker 3: 1:10:15

I know the feeling and yeah, I I had to be forced onto Facebook also, like I didn't want to do social media, but they're like you know, I had friends lived in different parts of the country, like it's an easy way to stay in touch. So I'm like, but tiktok, I was kind of like, all right, everybody loves tiktok. I want to see what the hype is. So I just like set up a personal account wasn't even like you know anything, it was just for me to like watch videos. Yeah, and I remember push. Do you know who I'm talking about? I don't Older gentleman, I say older, but he's probably our age P-U-S-H-E. Okay, like he's a super smooth skater. I remember seeing some of his and this is just randomly, I wasn't looking up skating videos, but look him up P-U-S-H-E. And then Lacey Skates Okay, looking up skating videos, um, but, but look him up p-u-s-h-e.

Speaker 2: 1:11:12

And then, um, lacy skates, okay. And then the griffin brothers. The griffin brothers, I like. I've been trying to get a hold of them, to get them on the show.

Speaker 3: 1:11:19

So so those three skate that well, those three skaters, like channels, kept popping onto my fyp and I'm like man, like what they're doing on on roller skates is so cool, looking like that, looks awesome, and and so that's what motivated me to switch from inline skates back to quad skates, because they were doing stuff on quads that there's no way I could do on inline skates. I mean, on inline skates you can go fast. You know, and I see a lot of like really, you know, uh, skilled skaters do like some similar moves on inline skates that quad skaters are doing, but I wasn't going to be that skilled, um, and so, you know, lacey skates push and the Griffin brothers kept popping onto my FYP for some reason and I just was totally captivated by their skill. And the Griffin brothers kept popping onto my FYP for some reason and I just was totally captivated by their skill and the way that they were skating and I was like I want to learn that and you might, you'll understand this.

Speaker 3: 1:12:19

One of the things when I was younger and quad skating before I switched to inlines, I had people my age that were shuffle skating, yeah, and I and I couldn't do it Like I, I would try. I was like, how are you like, how are you doing that? Like I can't, like I have no idea how to shuffle skate. Like I can skate, I can cross over, you know I can kind of go backwards, you know, but you guys are, you guys are jamming, like you're jamming in sync and it looks so cool.

Speaker 3: 1:12:44

And I was so jealous of like all the, all the guys my age that were out there shuffle skating and looking so cool. So when I got back on my quads and some of my earlier videos like have videos showing this my first goal was to learn how to shuffle skate. That's all I wanted to do. So when I got back on quads I was like I am going to master shuffle skating and so that was my first goal back on quads was to get down shuffle skating. And I remember when I finally got the rhythm down and I finally like got the muscle memory for it and I was like, okay, like I felt accomplished.

Speaker 2: 1:13:18

Nice so now what advice you have towards up and coming people that want to actually doesn't even have to be younger skaters, it can be older skaters, that people that want to do stuff. What, what's some advice you can give them?

Speaker 3: 1:13:33

Uh, get skates as fast as you can get to the closest rink that you can find. If you don't have a rink close to you, get on your skates and go skate around your neighborhood rink close to you. Get on your skates and go skate around your neighborhood. Skate in your driveway, skate in your garage, you know anywhere that you find like a nice, smooth, uh, clean surface. Obviously, like I see a lot of skaters that'll go to like uh, big picnic areas, like at parks and stuff that have big, you know coverings over like really nice concrete, you know uh surfaces. Um, just just get the skates and start. Because you're going to and you said for newer skaters, you know, my advice would be for anybody our age, like, if you're in, if you, if you've reached your middle age, that's the time to start skating. If you haven't, you've always wanted to, because what I and this is coming from me as a bartender, having seen people like getting into the dating scene, you know, in their forties and fifties, you're, you're going to find a community of people that is going to be instrumental in, you know, your social life. At an age where it's hard to find people, yeah, like and I'm not talking about it doesn't necessarily have to be people like our same age either. You're just going to be able to go to a rink and you'll have a community of people there to hang out with, socialize with, learn from, teach stuff to I mean anything anytime you think about a community. That's what skating is. You know, and and honestly, with so much that's going on in our world right now and not to make it like any kind of caveat here, like I wish the world could learn from the skate communities that you and I have had an opportunity to experience, like over the course of our lives and then like in our recent lives yeah, because, because it's everybody you know, every culture, every ethnicity, every age. You know like every type of person is at the rink skating and nobody cares, nobody is getting bent out of shape because that type of person skates or that type of person skates Everybody's out there doing it. Yeah, you know, and you may and you may not get along with some people, and that's okay. But you're going to find the skaters that you do get along with and you're going to find a community that's. That's kind of hard to find. You know, when you get to a certain point in your life. Exactly.

Speaker 3: 1:15:58

My advice would be to people our age, like in their forties and fifties, even sixties, get skates and get skating as soon as you can. And of course I'd have to say, like, risk, wear wrist guards. Wear at least wrist guards. Wear elbow pads. Like I just recently started wearing pads Cause I took a couple of hard falls on my right elbow and I was like man, like at some point I'm just going to break my elbow, like, so, like what's the point?

Speaker 3: 1:16:23

Like my rationale was when I would aggressive inline skate, even back in my twenties, like I had the biggest, fattest knee pads. You could find elbow pads, wrist guards, I had hip pads. I even wore shin guards when I was first starting to learn how to ride, coping, you know, and a helmet, you know, and that was standard. That was standard issue equipment for just getting on a ramp. And so it's like, if I'm like, why am I not using pads at the rink? Yeah, and it's just for the look of it. You know, some people just don't necessarily want to look, maybe they just don't want to look silly, I don't know. But that's one of the things I'm hoping to do, is I'm hoping to be influential to other skaters to start wearing at least like wrist guards when you go to the rink.

Speaker 2: 1:17:10

Yeah, and we got people that show up on adult skate that have knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards and helmets. Nobody makes fun of them. They're there to skate, they're there to learn, they want to protect themselves. That's their choice and that's good for them. So you're absolutely right.

Speaker 3: 1:17:26

Yeah, it's totally accepted. That's what's great, exactly.

Speaker 2: 1:17:30

I just don't know how people skate with the masks on that one Just I need to breathe.

Speaker 3: 1:17:38

I'm on your side. I don't think I've that. Thankfully I didn't. I didn't well, not thankfully, but I didn't really go to the rink much during COVID to need to wear a mask, um, and I think the times that we might have it wasn't very busy. But I'm with you like, like that that's trying to trying to get your blood. You know what am I, what am I trying to say? Trying to get your heart rate up. You know and and and use it and and do the exercise like. You need to be able to breathe freely without a mask.

Speaker 2: 1:18:08

Exactly. I mean, I hate wearing a mask at work, with all the dust and everything when I have to sometimes, so that drives me nuts, let alone skating and doing exercise with it on that. That makes it a lot more difficult.

Speaker 3: 1:18:19

So well I remember wearing masks in the restaurant industry, you know, during 2020 and for a short period of time after and I think the one thing that I liked the most about wearing a mask is that if somebody made you angry, you could literally turn around and just out loud say whatever the heck you want to say, and they're not going to hear you. I, I, I, I told people all the time. I was like, if you took my mask and held it up to your ear like a conch shell, like the things that you would hear that I've said into that mask because of people that have like upset me and like frustrated the crap out of me, I was like, oh, oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:18:59

Yeah, it was a. What was it? Oh, I forgot what I was going to say happens.

Speaker 3: 1:19:07

But so we're wearing a mask with extra when exercising. I forgot what I was going to say. Happens Wearing a mask when exercising.

Speaker 2: 1:19:09

I think is tough. Yeah, I mean I have a training mask which actually helps restrict your breathing, so it helps build up your cardio. And then I have a little thing I don't know where it's at Somewhere around here. You just stick it in your mouth and it trains your breathing. So I use that too and it's kind you just stick it in your mouth and it trains your breathing. So I use that too and it's kind of like I actually brought it to the roller rink the other night and I was like had it in my mouth and it's you can adjust how much air gets through. So I'm trying to build up my cardio. But the funny thing is is being in colorado. Once I go somewhere else to race, my cardio is going to be a lot better than everybody else's because of the high altitude that I've been training in.

Speaker 3: 1:19:49

So that is so true. Yeah, people don't understand altitude. One of the areas that I climbed out in Colorado was down near Pueblo and I think it was in the Sangre de Cristos, but the peaks were Crestone, needle and Crestone, and there are two 14 000 foot peaks we got a few of those out here, yeah, and I and I had not been to elevation quite like that, even though I'd been out to colorado so many times.

Speaker 3: 1:20:18

so it was an interesting experience, like once you finally hit 12 000 feet, that you're like, if you're're, if you're not moving, you can breathe normally, but the minute, the minute you move, even just to walk, it's like like where's all the air, like it's a wild experience.

Speaker 2: 1:20:34

Yeah, I mean, even moving here it was an adjustment to get used to the altitude for a little bit. But like I said, going to Tahoe, Tahoe is actually a thousand feet higher than Denver, so kind of has I had no idea idea.

Speaker 1: 1:20:49

Yeah, it's like 6100 something feet, so it is higher I had no idea, and that's in the valley of tahoe yeah, I love it there.

Speaker 2: 1:20:55

Okay, um, yeah, tahoe is really cool, so now, how can my followers follow you?

Speaker 3: 1:21:01

um, so my, my handle on tiktok is skate dad, underscore x. Uh, I think once you type in skate dad into the search bar, I'm like one of the first two or three that pops up like underscore x. Uh, my, my, my icon. My picture icon is just a picture of me giving my boy a kiss on his forehead when he was super, super little, like it's one of my favorite pictures of the two of us, and my and my skate channel is literally you know about his and my skate journey together.

Speaker 3: 1:21:34

He's shy when it comes to like me posting videos of him. I always ask him. I was like let me, let me do some videos of you, and he just would prefer to be behind the camera. So 100% of my videos I'd say like 99.8% of my videos my son has filmed for my channel. So he has, he has been the one, even you know like, even when he was younger, he's been the one that has followed me around the rank, you know, with the, with the phone.

Speaker 3: 1:22:01

So that's one of the. That's one of the traditions that we have when we get to the rank, we'll get to a point in the night and I'll just be like hey, do you mind filming for a little bit so I can do some videos. There's always that point in the night where he'll follow me around the rink with my phone doing a little bit of video. It's fun to see because he gets super proud of himself for taking a good quality video. He likes doing the videos. I love being able to do the channel because, even though most of the videos I post are me, you know, and the things that I'm learning and the things that I'm trying to like get really good at cause I just think it looks cool it's always him behind the camera.

Speaker 3: 1:22:41

That's one of the things that makes my channel special for me.

Speaker 2: 1:22:44

You probably got a future filmmaker in the works there we'll see.

Speaker 3: 1:22:49

Hey, he's, he's 13, going on 14, and I've made it very clear to him that that's the only thing he needs to be worried about right now yeah, I was like do not worry about what you want to be when you're an adult. Just focus on being a 13 year old, being a 14 year old.

Speaker 2: 1:23:03

That's plenty, like that's good enough my youngest is 13 also, so he wants to go into horror and special effects.

Speaker 3: 1:23:11

So yes, heck, yes, hey. If he, if he starts producing his own video or his own like horror movies, I will bite the bullet. I will like, I will watch those movies to support his career.

Speaker 2: 1:23:24

I told him I'm like you want to do makeup and special effects, that's what you need to do. Your youtube channel on is your journey through going through all that. And I go and like that one kid that tested toys they kept sending them all the toys to test. You're gonna get stuff and you may even end up with a scholarship to go to um film school.

Speaker 3: 1:23:44

So I'm like start now, right, but yeah, that's that's the one thing. That that's the one thing that I think. Uh, you know, it's something that I try to do, like you know, like I'm not, like I'm not a full-time teacher, I'm just a substitute teacher. But I love being able to engage with the students, you know, because you, you can kind of start to see what you know. Each individual student sort of like has a passion for you know, and having just even a small opportunity to show interest in something. Like you know, I had a student the other day that had finished all their work and they, they asked me if they could knit. Like, do you mind if I knit? I'm like not at all. Like, not go for it. Like what? And I'm like, show me what you're making. Like I want to see what you're doing. Like, show me what you're knitting. Like I got to see this. Like that's actually pretty cool.

Speaker 2: 1:24:29

Yeah, that is cool, but you're right.

Speaker 3: 1:24:36

I mean encouraging kids to follow their passion and taking advantage of what we have available to us right now in terms of social media to, like, document your process through. It just gives an extra dimension to that journey, exactly.

Speaker 2: 1:24:47

Well, I appreciate you coming on the show today.

Speaker 3: 1:24:50

Yeah, thanks, sean. I appreciate you reaching out. It's funny. Like anytime someone reaches out on TikTok it's kind of like well, I don't know, like what's going on. Like, uh, maybe yeah, maybe no, but I had a great time. So thanks for asking me to come on your podcast. Well, thank you, thank you.