Day Eight
Wahoo! It’s time lay down the first ply. Gordon drops us off to go pick some saw blades and a god-damned radio for Christ’s sake. The blades we are using are so dull that Grover has renamed the saw – its now called the wood burning circle. Grover and I try to fire up the forklift so we don’t have to carry two giant stacks of plywood across the whole parking lot by hand. The forklift is broken down. The construction guys say it was supposed to be fixed yesterday. Gordo says it’s supposed to be fixed today. We could wait around for days or carry it all by hand. Fortunately we find a decrepit looking high-lift in a different building. We load it up about 16 sheets at a time and wheel it out. After we’ve got the flat in place Gordo comes back with saw blades and no radio. It turns out he’s been driving around looking for the cheapest radio. On the weekend we were able to borrow a radio because the warehouse guys weren’t working for the most part. Gordo’s got one at home but it turns out it’s been running on batteries since he lost the cord when he moved to SLC. We suggest buying a cord at Radio Shack but Gordo insists that isn’t an option. He wants to go to Sears at lunch time, but rather than waste 2 hours driving around we offer/beg to give him 10 bucks a piece if he would for once go out and come back with something he was sent out for. He grudgingly agrees to go buy a power cord.
On Gordo’s return we rock out to the new wave station that is in the midst of a format change. They play what they call “first generation alternative music” from the eighties. It’s actually a pretty good station that plays a wider variety of so-called alternative music without the Night Ranger, Bon Jovi, Ghost Buster theme songs and other assorted 80’s crap. It’s still a litlle predictable, but overall its pretty good, especially since it was commercial free last week and this week it’s only got commercials every hour or so. I can’t imagine this programming format being a big success in SLC though. Almost as if to prove my point, a local guy named Casey straggles by to check out the ramp. The new wave station fuzzes out and Eddie Money starts bleeding through. Casey offers his wisdom on the local radio market and says he can turn us on to a station that plays the new metal/hip hop like Incubus and Limp Bizkit. That idea leaves us limp, but Casey used to skate in the eighties and he seems really amped about his favorite radio station so we let him tune it in for us. He promises to come by and help us out tomorrow.
We had the flat and one side of the trannies plied up to the last full sheets. We started working on the other side. About halfway through the day we ran out of batteries. We suggested buying extra batteries or another corded drill. Gordo has grudgingly agreed to buy another corded drill, but we’ll believe it when we see the twisty nails we asked for three days ago. For some reason he doesn’t want us to have all the tools that we need. He’s also intent on returning any tools he buys for us as after we are done using them. There’s a cool looking bomb in a nearby lot that I finally get around to taking a picture of.
Alright! The fork lift is fixed. Grover comes tearing around the corner with the propane powered horn bleating. He picks up an almost full stack and makes his way eagerly to the ramp. Maybe a bit over-eager because he loses the stack when he cuts too hard on a turn. At this point Gordo’s face turns from a nice crayola-flesh to sort of a burnt umber with traces of cartoon steam starting to come out of his ears. There are a lot of sentences that get started but not finished. Grover tries to pass it off on a bump but the laws of physics and his overall meekness blow his cover. In short, if you‘ve seen Three Stooges, you can pretty much envision the scene. As we got back to work I had had enough of the new generation of emo-metal-rap. I was able to find the new wave station again, and just in time because the Clash came on and belted out “Clash City Rockers” not a minute too soon. Have you ever heard that song on commercial radio in the USA? The volume was raised and so was the first ply. The sky was the limit, except that Gordo told us we had to pack it in so he could go to a party at the Sundance film festival. Now, we wouldn’t want to deprive anyone of their fun, even if they don’t invite us. Who wants to go to a lousy party at Sundance? Besides being uninvited, we were a little miffed at having to quit with over an hour of daylight left. Gordo offered to bring halogen lamps so we could make up the time tomorrow night but we explained that we weren’t really up for freezing our asses off more than we already needed to.
Back at Gordo’s place. Gordo and his wife get ready to split. We take off for Real Ride skate park again. It’s slightly more active this time. Instead of the foam pit, the raging scene is at the mini. The locals are ripping and so is Grover. For some reason the little street rats here have much respect for Grover’s vert-inspired antics. It’s a far cry from his home state. The older kids are ripping, including one gentleman from Spain who works in Boston but is in the SLC area to snowboard. Gordo’s car is on empty and Grover thinks it would be funny to put in one dollar’s worth of gas. We ultimately decided to fill it with a more reasonable two dollars instead. Back at home in another generous moment, Grover offers me some of his mac-and-cheese, but only if I make it for him. I’m too lazy so we both eat microwave popcorn. Gordo calls and says “Guess who we ate dinner with?” I’m going to kill him if he says “Stacy Peralta” because chances are, he’s at Sundance promoting the Z-Boys Dogtown movie which looks unbelievably intense. Yeah, that might interest us a little. His answer of “Kieth Hernandez” is met with silence. “You know, the famous pitcher?” That means nothing to me. He also sat accross from Jodie Foster. He bugged Kieth Hernandez to take a picture with his baby, but for some reason he didn’t bug Jodie Foster about JFA. He did meet a guy who claimed to be a college roommate of Jim Murphy. How is it that Gordo got invited to this thing?
We’re starting to realize the race is on. It’s a Monday and we have plane tickets outta here on Sunday. Will we get it done in time to skate it? Will the Skatelite show up in time? It’s being donated, can we really complain? Yes. We’ve been trying to get Gordo to nail down the arrival since last week. We are going to be sour if we don’t get to skate this. We’d be ready for the Skatelite by now if the job was organized. We’re still optimistic though. Tomorrow is a new day.
Oh yeah, we met Park, the guy who owns Boneless pads. He seems like a decent fellow. Also, I was walking backwards on the flat trying to get a good look at the level staus of the top of the ramp and I steped off the flat in between the ribs on the tranny and fell on my back. I also had a couple of good slams at the skate park. I asked Gordo for some ibuprofin but he gave me a happy pill instead. Don’t tell Grover.
Next Day: Snow Day.
