“With Love, From the Attic”
Support the local homies
I had a homie in elementary school named Charlie. He was the “cool new kid” and he became my best friend. He was my gateway into skateboarding. He had a Tony Hawk “Birdhouse” board that he would let me skate at his house. My first time I went to a skatepark was with him and his grandparents to Boomers! when they had a skatepark. From there, my love only grew for skating. I grew up watching vert and would discover street until later. At the age of seven, my favorites were Tony Hawk because it’s Tony Hawk, Bucky Lasek and Andy Macdonald. Once my brother and I got our hands on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, that would quickly switch to Eric Koston, Geoff Rowley and Rodney Mullen.
Truth be told, I never did more than just kick and push on my board up til recently. A couple hard falls when I was younger kept me leaving my wheels on the ground. I didn’t want to look like a scrub when my kids got older and couldn’t do any tricks, so I had made it a goal to ollie by the time I hit 30; I didn’t make it. I extended that goal to before I hit 31. My good homies at Canyon Speed Shop got my wheels off the ground (not high, but off) in 15 minutes. I’m not saying I’ll be on the cover of THRASHER Magazine this year, but keep your eyes open in years to come.
One of the key aspects of skating is the core skate shop. Core shops carry staple brands in terms of apparel and accessories l, as well as parts, boards and shoes. With stores such as Tilly’s, RSQ, Zumiez and more “chain” stores, it’s more about making a sale, and less about brand and product knowledge.
Core skate shops are also an integral part of the local skate park and skate communities in which they are located. Here in Orange County, it’s hard to find a skatepark that doesn’t have a skate shop within a mile of it (exception Laguna Hills aka Pinks). These core shops also will sponsor local amateur riders, put on contests, and do give back programs to support the local community.
Shop layout of a skate shop has always intrigued me from the consistent lack of typical retail organization. Let’s say you’re looking for a Sci-Fi Fantasy hat. They will all be together on a display rack. All of one brand will be stacked together with different designs in said stack. Oh, you also want a red shirt that Kevin “Spanky” Long designed? Go look on the rack with all of the other red shirts from the other 15 brands they have. But these are not unique to just one store. Either an organize stack of a brand, or a rack of like colors and different brands all mixed in, it seems consistent.
So whether if you’re like me and getting ready to film your “sponsor-me” tape, or you like what the brand puts out, or you just happen to be a local and want to check out the shop, make sure you go to your local core skate shop. I’ll put a list below of some favorites.
4- ATTIC
6- ART & REC