Paranorm | Parakhan

I woke up, confirmed that my buddy Marc was still meeting me at the event, ate a fried egg sandwich, showered, and hit the door. After a short ride on the 1 train to 116th, I surfaced above ground around 11:30 to see a massive amount of skaters preparing to rage. Marc found me, we snapped some pics and then it was time for the race to start.

The weather was amazing, the crowd was enormous, and the people lining the sides of the street were, for the most part, happy to see us. I can’t say the same thing about the buses, cabs, tourist buses, and cops. The cool thing about the crowd and something I never really thought about…they’re really into hand slapping to show support. I must’ve slapped at least 50 hands on the way down to Wall St.

Blazing through the UWS into Midtown was a breeze. There is nothing like skating on a smooth street with 1500 other skaters and straight up punking out traffic. Around 88th & Broadway, we heard the shouts from our fan club members (Amy, Stephanie, & Todd). Thanks for coming out to see us guys.

The video above is me kinda just rolling through Times Square. Times Square wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, but the pedestrian plazas were packed and I saw fools with no board control wiping out here and there. Near the end of Times Square, some skater’s board shot out as I was narrowly ducking past a cab….so I tried to avoid it and ended up in a wreck with some guys behind me. We all popped up and kept it moving.

Herald Square and Union Square were a different story. Those areas were a true clusterfuck of gridlocked traffic, skaters, and pedestrians who were brave enough to cross the street with 1000 skaters flying at them. I skitched a van at some point between the squares to catch my breath while moving (hey, I’m out of shape) and then it was time for the final leg of the race. As I was flying with a group some car pulled out and almost hit me so I had to do a four wheel slide on rough concrete with a longboard. That shit was gnar gnar and I almost ate shit trying to slide my big ass Dog Town longboard.

Near the end of the race we ran into the Occupy Wall Street crowd and they cheered us on for the most part. I finished the race, met up with my friends, sat down to catch my breath, and headed back uptown. Good Shit. Props to whoever is behind organizing the event and every skater that participated. Today is a day I will never forget…my first Broadway Bomb.

–P