It’s been a while since we had some classic videos up here. Blind’s Video Days is one of my first skate videos. It also had a long arching story for me. It belonged to this friend Scot actually. He heard it was playing in a scene in the background of the movie Kids, he scored a copy and we all watched it feeling we had scored some secret skate scene points. We payed extra attention to pick out the seconds that appeared in the aforementioned movie.
Several scenes of Video Days where shot in the emptied pools next to the Eiffel Tower. Seeing this I decided it was my mission to skate Paris. This prompted me to take French so I could join the French Club and go with my high school to France. I actually was more interested in learning Spanish, but at the time the French Club was the only language at my school that went on any trips.
After nearly failing French, which would have negated my participation in the trip, I was all set to go. Packed my bag full of CDs and a couple changes of cloths. My board of course I used to skate through the airport to meet my classmates and French Teacher, Ms. Kibble. When I arrived Ms. Kibble was not having it. She told me to leave my deck with a family member, because “there was no way I was going to be allowed to Skateboard on our French Club Trip.”
My older sister told me to give her my deck and bag, she asked me if i brought my tools. She then took my gear to another gate and quickly de-constructed and repacked my deck into my backpack. The backpack just so happened to be the over extended camping type so hid the deck perfectly. I got on the plane with my board, trucks, and wheels packed away. Ms. Kibble was none the wiser.
That was until we got to the hotel. As soon as I got to my room, I busted out the gear. Set up my board and bid Ms. Kibble, au revoir as I passed her in the Lobby. It was the most perfect July afternoon in Paris, 1998!
I actually had little to no idea which way I was going. With in minutes I was lost. But I just kept pushing through the streets. Eventually I found myself at a plaza, (the Trocadéro) . Kids where rollerskating, a few skateboarders peppered amongst them. And there is was off in the distance. The Eiffel f’ing Tower! I made my way down the hill, slaloming around tourist. (Just so happened The World Cup was in France that summer.) I was really booking and totally ate shit as I was crossing the bridge over the Seine. No matter. I was 17 and my body was invincible, though bloodied. When I finally make my way to the pond, which is on the southwest side. what do I find. A pond. full of water. Do’h!
No matter. There where so many other amazing spots. Not to mention the streets can be so smooth, it truly is my favorite city to skate.
While I was gone, my crew of friends had been wrongly accused of planting fireworks as a prank at that years High School graduation ceremony. They had brought them all in for questioning, but really had wanted to talk to me. It all played out over the 15 days I was in France. By the time I got back, the jocks who actually planted to fireworks had confessed. My crew of punks and skaters had been threatened with all kinds of crazy charges including Attempted Murder. The kids who actually did it where never charged with anything, turns out one of their parents was on the city council.
So yeah. Video Days!
