The Chain Bank was a lesser known, but serious skate spot in the 1990's. In this video, pro skater Rob Dyrdek narrates as Tom Penny flat out shreds the place.
When I left this blog, again, back in May of 2022, I started Steve Emig's Street Life, because that's been the theme of my life for quite some time. Years after taxi driving died, I'm middle aged, fat, and homeless, but still pretty motivated to write and create. I've managed to spend a long time homeless without alcohol and drugs, just not being able to find good paying work for years.
Going back to my late teens, I'm an old, fat BMX freestyle and skateboard Has Been rider/industry guy, and want to start getting back in shape, and riding and skating again. A couple of weeks ago, I had the idea for a new blog, which I call The Spot Finder. In this new blog, I'm telling the stories of well known BMX freestyle and skateboard spots, and eventually exploring and showing some new ones, as time goes on. As freestyle and skateboarding evolved in the 1980's and 1990's, particularly street riding and street skating, obscure little places that we rode or skated started to become known. Much to everyone's surprise, some of these spots gained worldwide fame. From Baldy Pipe, and Pipeline Skatepark in the late 1970's, to Sheep Hills BMX jumps, and sets of stairs like El Toro or Hollywood High these days, locations now have fame and stories.
Action sports are always evolving, and as an old, out of shape blogger, trying to get my life back on track, this seemed like a good times to start blogging about spots in the BMX and skateboarding world, along with a few art and other sports spots. So that's my new project, it's something I'm really stoked on, and like all my crazy ideas in the past, like publishing a freestyle zine in 1985 (landed me a magazine job), talking Scot Breithaupt into making the first BMX street riding TV show in 1989, producing my own BMX video in 1990, helping stuntman Johnny Airtime brainstorm a BMX stunt for TV in 1991, and then doing BMX memoir blogs starting in 2008, this may or may not turn into something bigger down the line. Who knows? It's fun now, and the idea is already evolving beyond the initial concept. We'll see where it goes.
So if you're a BMXer or skater, or even an artist, this blog may be worth checking out. But that's what I'm up to now, in October 2022.
#thespotfinder
