Monday, December 25, 2017

Steve Saiz.



EMB Vibes.

I got a Steve Saiz deck for Christmas in 1989. The recent Powell Peralta reissue reminded me of how much I liked that board. Steve had been on the team as an am for a bit and after a couple video parts, they finally turned him pro. He skated a mix of street, mini, and vert. The one I got was white, and although I'm not big on white as a board color, it made sense for this graphic because it has a lot of detail. I had blue Powell rails and white Thunder trucks. I took three or four of the Bones stickers that looked like warning labels for flammable material and put them across the top over the Ripper. The rest of the board was covered with grip. I think I had some A-1 Meats Sex Cells on it first and soon swapped those out for T-Bones to keep it all Powell.

I'd been skateboarding for a little over two years at this point so I was starting to figure out tricks better and feel more comfortable on board. This setup felt really good and I remember learning new stuff on it. I don't remember exactly what all we were doing for tricks back then, but it would have been boardslides and 50-50s on curbs. There were launch ramps and quarter pipes, too.

One of our friends had a mom who was the office manager for this mail order seed company with a large warehouse. The warehouse was right next door to his house. Shortly after this particular Christmas, a couple of us went over to his place on a cold Saturday night. His mom was out for the evening with her friends and he somehow snagged the key for the warehouse. We got in a nice little session with a launch ramp and maybe some boards to ollie over. It was winter so this was bonus time skateboarding. I think we were back in the house safely before she got home, but a light in the warehouse was left on or something. It could have just been a mother's intuition for all I remember. She knew what happened and he got a darn good lecture about how he shouldn't have done that. The rest of us didn't get in trouble, but we never skated the warehouse again.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays. Make sure you got permission before you barge at will. Or at least remember to turn the lights off on the way out.

Transworld - October 1989 Volume 7 Number 6

4 comments:

Nonickname said...

No barging or shredding (for a variety of reasons) but I did get myself a Paulo Diaz Brujaria deck for Christmas, it's a full dipped 90's shape so it may end up being an office wallhanger.

Justin said...

That's cool. I think I'm done with skateboarding for the year due to snow. I'm hoping to maybe get to a park this weekend, but the odds are slim.

Henry said...

Man, the news was showing the weather in the northeast. You're probably like, "Oh, five feet of snow, whatever." It makes me glad to live in the south.

Justin said...

We missed out on the bulk of that storm. Weather travels across the midwest - across Ohio and into Pennsylvania - and it usually stays along the NY/PA border so we end up missing out on some bad thunderstorms and snowstorms. It's not too far from me - only like a half hour, but it makes a big difference at times.

Nearly every year we get a brief blast of warm weather at Christmas or New Years. It's not happening this time around.