Had another long day of work couped up in the basement of a building installing software. Followed with a late dinner and desert and I got back to my hotel around 9pm. I did a few stretches and hit the streets again. The knee wasn’t feeling so good and the first attempt at an ollie up a curb hurt super bad. Ugh. I rolled around aimlessly for awhile thinking I should probably not be skating because of my knee. But it was my last night in St Louis and I had been thinking about a spot all day.

Oh yeah, this thing was across from my hotel. Pretty gnarly, not a lot of run up, but pretty much perfect. Too big for me.

I ended up here for a boardslide which hurt really bad. Ugh, I thought I would stop skating, but pushing didn’t hurt so I just rolled around into sketchy areas that I probably shouldn’t have been.

This is one of those handrails that my friends would probably say “Hey Glen I bet you could boardslide that rail” and I totally wouldn’t be able to.

After quite a bit more pushing and not seeing anything fun I ended up at a good window sill ledge. I reminded me of the famous PJ Boston spot, but it didn’t grind so I moved on. Seriously St Louis skaters must either be lazy or there are so many other ledges that they just don’t care. Next I ended up at the little curb cut kicker above. My knee wasn’t hurting too bad at this point. Ollie’ing it was harder than I thought it would be because of cracks. I lined it out with some Oyola feeling lines with some faster than normal (for me) kickflips up the curb then ollie from cut to cut then got one with a bad back 180 off another curb cut. It was fun though. Next I ended up at the AT&T place again which is where I was working so I didn’t stay long. It was vacant and creepy. I tried a line of ollie up a curb to quick ollie down 3 then then crooks the perfect marble ledge, but it stuck. Argh St Louis, a 200 foot marble ledge that is perfect, not a bust, and no one skates it? Some old man with not very many teeth asked me if I was a professional after I ollied the three stair, so maybe there just aren’t any skaters in St Louis? I mean clearly I don’t resemble a pro skater ever.

This spot was crazy too. Lots of good ledges, no recent marks on them. Maybe I was just having the luck of the century and not getting booted? I manualled this thing which took longer than it should.

As I was walking/rolling to the next area I snapped this photo. There were three ladies nearby taking photos too and one of asked if it was the state capitol. I said “No, it’s the old courthouse”. One of them said “Oh, we don’t live here” I said “Me either I’m just staying near it” and then one of them said “We’ll clearly your a better person then us”. Ha ha wtf?

I wish this spot wasn’t a quick bust and I wish the homeless lady wasn’t sleeping at the other end of it. I didn’t get to skate this spot really at all.

This is the spot I was thinking of all day. It starts here, but behind where the photo was taken. Ollie up the curb, ollie up the two, lots of good flatground then the following set of stairs.

A totally epic spot. All day at work I had thought about my dream lines there and was saying to myself that I’d skate until 4am if I had to to get every line I thought of. Well, maybe I should have taken into account my knee acting up again. That and I did the first line first try and it felt so good I almost didn’t want to touch it. Ollie up 1, ollie up two, fast kickflip on flat, ollie the 4, front 180 off the curb. Sure they are all basics, but it felt really cool to do a line that spanned a block. Once again someone asked if I was a professional. So weird. I really wanted to go with ollie up curb, kickflip up two, no comply 180, fakie flip, front shove down the 4, but I didn’t. I gave up and called it a night. Part of it was the bum sleeping near the 4 stair, part of it was doing that line first try, part of it was too much solo skating, being tired, etc, but most of it was my knee and me wondering if I was damaging it. It had swelled up pretty crazy. Ugh. I’m super stoked I had the motivation to skate in St Louis though. Skating the city was a blast. I can’t believe I didn’t see one other skater though and I can’t believe how many spots there are that no one appears to skate. Weird town.

I finally installed a youtube video plugin so naturally the first thing that went up is the Off The Couch teaser. This is going to be one fine video featuring full parts by several over 30 year old men who still ride skateboards. It’s gonna be a hoot. Basically it started when Brian Ball farted on me and I jumped off a couch all quick. Neil asked if I was ok and I said it kind of hurt. Somehow the name ‘Off The Couch’ got coined after that.The video will feature full parts from Brian Ball, Neil Thurman, Jeremy Frankovis, Rob Helmstetter, Jason Heidecker, Lazer Rubenstein (under 30 alert) and somehow me. Although I’m recruiting the help of the Null team to make my part at least somewhat interesting to watch. The goal is to have this video out around Thanksgiving this year. But who knows, there are no rules with this video.