Ozzie Ausband

Jay Adams / Guest Post

jayadams1

“The Krypto bowl was a little one we had going for a short time. It was off of Pico in west LA.The guy who owned Kryptonics came to it one day and gave us all wheels and he had one of his boards with him. Jimmy Plummer and Marty Grimes were there and rode his board and ended up getting a few nice photos from that day. What I remember most about that pool was a day that we hung out with some guy who had a gun and were told by a few guys to bail because we were just young, dumb and feeling a little buzzed from the sherm we had smoked. If you know anything about drugs, you’ll know that drugs and skating don’t mix very well – especially hard drugs. I’ve never been able to drink alcohol and skate either. I know drinking was getting pretty popular for awhile especially with the backyard pool scene. I would see it going down and wonder how someone could skate when they’re drunk like that. These days, the level is so high that if you wanna be a top skater – in any area – you better be on your game and have all the help you can get. Sure, guys can have a few beers and tear up a backyard bowl with the boys, but I’m sure Bob Burnquist isn’t downing any beers before he drops into the mega ramp at the X games.”

ÿÁ

“Ok. So back to my story about the Krypto bowl. We were taking it to a whole other level and I don’t mean the skating part. We were smoking sherm and trying to ride the pool. Angel dust is the worst drug you could ever try to skate on. It’s way worse than smoking weed. I’m not gonna say smoking weed is okay because I’m down for sobriety these days, but weed is something we once smoked to enhance our whole skate scene.You can skate stoned all day but in reality, its just taking away from what you could be doing on your skateboard if you have a clear mind. So we were all shermed up and trying to ride the Krypto bowl. Just sitting there watching is hard enough let alone grinding some coping when you’re on that stuff. Basically,  our skating attempts failed, but we were in another state of mind. Whoever showed up got a gun pointed at them and were told to beat it. Usually I’m pretty cool and almost always try to make friends wherever I go but this day was different. We ended up bailing and going to some mall or whatever and somehow we got separated from the guy with the gun. As far as any other stories from that pool, I  really cant remember too many but I did get one of my favorite photos of myself from that pool.  It’s the one with my hat on backwards with the coping block flying up.”

“Back then,  it was just another day in another pool.  Skateparks were lame,  filled with little kids wearing dayglo rad pads or whatever they were called….  I  used to laugh when a kid would yell - “AFTER”  and then the next little  guy would yell - “AFTER AFTER”  That is right about when I’d remind them what snaking was all about!!  Ha-Ha-Ha. Now-  the Marina Dogbowl had the hardest little hole to drop into and you’d have twenty guys lined up ready to drop in. That was funny.  I’d just sit back every now and then, giving some of the older  and slower guys a chance to get a ride. ALVA used to piss off guys so bad because he was very good at snaking and he’d go three times before most guys got one!  Ha-Ha-Ha.  But, that’s a whole other story right ?” - Jay Adams

Thank you to Jay Adams for the memories and Glen E. Friedman for the images. Skate and don’t smoke  the ‘sherm’ - Ozzie