 |
as recalled by egomaniac
|
ids have been watching the ASA Pro Tour on television for years now. Well, since 1994 anyway. Every year kids see the event, read about skaters and go out and skate to become like their heroes. Or they just play the new playstation and dream of the new Pokemon characters. Who knows anymore. This goes out to those who have ever exclaimed "Cletus, where ya'll tink dat dare roller' thingey come from?" (This is a reason we have attempted to keep competitions away from the south)
Nonetheless, we have gotten to the point where kids think the courses spring up at their local skateparks and then disappear after all the
television cameras have packed up. THAT IS NOT HOW IT HAPPENS, DAMNIT! We do it. It is time the unseen ASA heroes emerge for their fifteen minutes of fame. Yes, I'm talking about the roadies. I'm talkin' Bobby G, Colby E, Jason H, Dave P (names have been changed to salvage shreds of integrity, I think…) and the others who squeegee the street course when it rains. This is our moment in the spotlight. This is what we do and how we do it.
A roadie's life almost always begins in a local bar, talking to an operations guy. That's how Bobby and I got suckered into the deal, anyway. Our ops guy was buying us drink after drink and we managed to stay upright. He knew he had some larks then. Before long he had a contract out and a pen in our hand. Goodwin, the ops guy, explained that we needed to sign the paper in order to get to travel all over the world. When your eyes are hazy, you never see the fine print. Hell, you never see the large print. So we signed.
One week later we were in a truck on our way to Milwaukee. It was a 52-foot semi that was licensed as an RV with no stereo and seats that refused to recline. We had 48 hours to get from Costa Mesa to Milwaukee. We took turns driving and sleeping and making sure neither of us ran off the road. We were given $18 in food stamps and told to make it work. Then we were on the road.
It didn't all come together that easily, but the roadies only have fifteen minutes of fame, so I will cut it short. We made it through the season, our only friends being Shirley Temples and the occasional glimpse of ourselves on ESPN or espn2. We came to realize our lives as roadies and where we stood on the food chain. This really hit home when we became welcome at trucker bars and truckers knew us by name and bought us drinks.
Skipping ahead, since this story is based on the ASA World Championships, we packed up to leave for Fort Myers, Florida on some Saturday in October as everyone else enjoyed Margaritas by the beach. Occasionally one of our numerous bosses would drop in and tell us that we needed to work a little faster or harder. Roadies have so many people in charge of them that they are often duped by local bums into helping them collect empty cans out of the garbage. We wrangled ten-percent of the profit when we figured out the scam, though. The recycling money helped us pay rent for our corner of the sidewalk in downtown LA, but our refrigerator box was repossessed. If we didn't enjoy the skating industry so much, we would take on recycling full-time. It is less work and not as degrading.
©1995-2003 ASA Properties, LLC |