Sunday afternoon Nate says he could be down for a little session; he just has to wait for this package to deliver any minute now. I catch a train to Delancey in the meantime and he steps down to meet me on his stoop. We skate west on Broome to try Lower Flat, where the freelance tennis instructor and a pupil have set up their net occupying most of the court, so we make our way to SoHo Curbs, empty of skaters with the street open. We pull two orange barriers from the curb by Jack’s Wife Freda to block auto turns from Spring Street and get to grinding. In 86 degrees of full sunlight we warm up quickly and begin considering our next move.
The last time I saw J was the first time I met him, here at curbs two times ago. He said my style was giving him Jake Phelps vibes high-key. We followed each other on IG and now he’s rolling up and wonders if he can buy some Dollar Stories and Skate Part Reviews. Absolutely. He pays through Zelle and says he’s going to chill here for a few. It’s too hot and sunbaked for Nate and me, so we say goodbye then turn to ride where Lafayette’s downhill takes us.
A block and half, as it turns out. Nate and Jason only had a few tries at this pink wooden flat gap yesterday evening when Sushirama was open for business and staff kicked them out. Today the restaurant opens at 5 so we have uninterrupted time. Nate pops onto the platform and ollies the gap first try. I land my ollie across after three attempts. We agree I can kickflip the gap so I set about my mission.
First I need to ollie onto the pink platform then quickly situate myself to kickflip. I lengthen my sidewalk approach each time back up the hill to better flow down until I begin starting from the bicycle lane past the citibike rack, then ollieing up the curb onto the sidewalk and taking a couple pushes before reaching the platform for ollie up. This spot is just as hot and sunny as Curbs had been, even further South so perhaps more so, and I appreciate Nate’s willingness to film in such conditions. My attempts add into double digits as I grow closer feeling the heat. Each time returning to my starting point I tell myself I’ll drink water after the next try, then instead I immediately turn back around following each mis-fire and head up the hill telling myself the same lie again.
Wearing a hat and glasses with a strap plus my shirt feeling constrictive on my shoulders even though it is XXL and half unbuttoned during aerobic exercise in heat leads to my gag reflex catching as I am reaching the point up the block where I turn around for my next attempt in front of the photo lab when Hunter steps out from the store with his bicycle. I say his name, then I start to dry heave. This has happened before when I’m trying a challenging trick many times. Usually I turn away from my filmer and wait for the moment to pass, as I am doing now, where Hunter’s presence in front of me is a surprise. He’s been to my apartment before and helped me make Dollar Stories, but that was about a decade ago. We haven’t spoken in years and hold off on conversation for a bit longer until I finish retching.
Hunter asks if I’m hungover. I did consume multiple alcoholic drinks during a dinner party last night, but so few that I went to sleep commending my restraint and woke up hours ago feeling fine, so consider that consumption unrelated. Anyway, my gagging spell has passed and clear sidewalk ahead beckons. I want to land this try with Hunter watching, but don’t and he rides off. Next try my board shoots forward toward the wall where I’ve stashed my beaded Susan Alexandra water sling and pops off two of the attached floral charms. I take this occasion to swallow a refreshing drink from the bottle and move my stash to the pillar’s far side. Next try I succeed in ollieing up onto brief pink wooden platform and kickflipping over to the next, longer landing before I drop back down to sidewalk with a smile. I thank Nate for filming my best banger since knee injury recovery and we seek shade to determine our next move.
We walk up Crosby to skate west on Prince then down Wooster into Tribeca, where the old loading dock ledge around the corner from the cafe that Dennis Feliciano nosegrinded has been replaced by a new diamond-plated metal configuration. After ten attempts I land a tall noseslap that may have been the first trick done on this new spot. En route back east we stop at the Marriage Ledges where I film Nate crooked grind most of the first one. We refill our water bottles in Columbus Park, then end up sitting on yellow chairs in the shade of the Allen Street Promenade below Grand Street talking for a bit before we go our ways.
A old man passes pushing his walker alone. I wonder where he’s coming from and going. I wonder if he has a home. He struggles to move himself and his mobility device over this rough decaying patch of concrete grid, but ultimately suceeds in reaches the shady smoother section of the path where he pauses and catches his breath. He notices my attention and holds up an empty, twisted plastic bottle. Do we have any water for him? I imagine this man knows the nearest active fountain locations in this neighborhood as well as I do, as his look conveys how even reaching those fountains two and three blocks away would cost him considerable time and effort in heat when already parched. I have my metal bottle of fountain water in the Susan Alexandra water sling right here in my lap, plus thankfully my drawstring backpack holds an Arizona Green Tea bottle refilled with water as well, which I offer him. He takes the bottle, drinks, and thanks me before he tucks it in a compartment and continues on his slow path to somewhere with a spare pair of shoes dangling by their tied laces from his walker.
***
Max Capacity is Chris Ochoa’s new 56-minute independent production from Sacramento featuring Shmitt, Colin Barton, Marc Gordon, David Faila, Kenny Prattico, Jayson Flowers, Emonté Denson, Mauricio Farias, Tj, Malik Barnett, Angel Vasquez, Chris Ochoa, Jeff Walters, Julian Reyes, Davaughn White, Matt McDonald, Dom De La Torre, Jasper Fuchs, Daeveon Beard, Jax Duncan, Seth Frost, Gary Lemmons & more. “The fam that grows on”’s feature presentation begins with clips from Luis Diaz and a dedication to his memory, then an acid-washed carnivalesque introduction heralds the forthcoming sequence of slam sections, full parts, friends sections, shared parts and guest tricks assembled à la grainy copy of the worn VHS tape passed between friends dubbing their footage sections into a mixtape as shown through first 41 minutes. The concept of post-legality within a corrupt system stretched beyond sustainable limits appears considered though a number of manifestations viewers will appreciate, while never ultimately distracting from the service of documented heavy shredding. Sacramento is the state capital of the skateboarding state, so these dudes are obviously going to stand out and put on.
Just past the 42 minute mark, whiskey river flows into SpongeBob Squarepants’ Shell City living room where his televised entertainment is sweaty, frustrated Gary Lemmons onscreen wearing a green shirt and white visor stomping his already broken board into further quartered pieces. “I’m going home, Chris,” Gary says to video maker Ochoa as he grabs his battered board by a truck and flings it back to the ground. SpongeBob’s eyes google in engagement as Gary the snail mewls over to watch his namesake. “Gary!” exclaims SpongeBob. As he aims and presses remote, static evaporates.
Untrained camera shows hip-cocked incidentals while Gary’s voice is instantly recognizable. “Say ‘shut the fuck up, Gary’ one more time, ***** what’s up?” One senses how filmmaker Chris Ochoa may seek to rile Gary by mimicking SpongeBob’s tone of voice when addressing his friend; introductory ribbing is price paid in ribald company.
As one friend watches, leaning against the top of an adjacent handrail with its bottom kink cut off and a fisheye filmer crouches on the stairs, Gary’s white visor is cocked backwards with white tee, belted baggy blue jeans and white shoes as he attempts to back lip a silver kinked six-stair rail to fakie. Instead, his board shoots away as his chest absorbs impact. At the bottom of a ten-stair, Gary’s under-rotated back bigspin pitches him backwards, then he tumbles forward trying switch frontside flip from a pillar to underpass bank. DIY transition on a Los Vegas reservoir tombstone complicates his finger-flip to fakie descent and Gary yells, “Fuck!” loudly.
In a white tee, jean shorts and backwards white visor he approaches a white 14-stair rail with a drop to lot on the other side. Here Gary hops onto switch noseslide, hangs up halfway, tangles his toes on the railing, then his shoulder and chin scrape across bottom steps to bear the brunt of his fall to earth. He hops up quickly, showing dirty marks and sweat stains across the back of his white tee from this session where he already switch boardslid the rail then determined he could do more, now jumping on his left foot as he announces, “I broke my leg.” A trial to support himself on this right leg causes Gary to buckle forward onto the ground, “Oh my god,” he cries.
Just past golden hour, shadows settle over low buildings as a gathering of stakeholders appears in a street standoff. A male’s voice off camera speaks on behalf of concerned citizens, “Let’s go man, what the fuck, get out of here!”
Gary, the recipient of this directive, wears a white crew neck sweatshirt, black pants and black cuffed pompom beanie as he appeals, “I just need one try, dog, before we go.”
“Bounce,” suggests a different man’s offscreen baritone as a bare-armed white woman expresses alarm to someone on her cell phone.
“I’m going to do it right here,” Gary says.
“Bounce,” repeats the monosyllabic man with more stressed threat.
“No, you’re not,” a woman’s voice uncertainly tries to influence action from behind the filmer’s right shoulder.
“Bounce.”
“He’s going to try to come down the stairs,” another rural-accented woman declares from back left. Perhaps she recalls Gary front lipping this same rail for his Purple Gold part.
“We’re leaving, sorry,” says one friend as he begins walking away to show good faith and buy Gary time with a 49ers beanie pulled over his black hoodie, back of which displays, with robust branded flair, SunCult’s riff on the Dogtown logo.
“Right here, Chris. Fuck it!” says Gary.
“Bounce!”
“He’s not leaving,” realizes the main man as Gary returns beyond the top of this steep outer string eleven-stair square rail. “This is a place of respect. Get the fuck off my property.”
“Alright. We’re going to do that,” soothes the cameraman while keeping his lens trained on Gary.
“You’re still standing there. If he comes down these steps, dude, I’ll crack a whip.” Gary is Black, so the racist implications of this threat further charge the scene reaching climax as Gary throws down at the top of the hill while someone behind tinted windshield drives the skaters’ white getaway car creeping down this street ahead of Gary on through the bottom front of the frame to force back these contrary gathered civilians and clear the landing space to protect him from anyone who might harbor ideas about physically impeding his acknowledged progress. Gary snaps and wrangles an early grab into front smith grind down this handrail with the pressure of the moment releasing as he continues forward on board and raises his fist turning the corner. The SunCultist quickly squats to not block any angles then bounces up and throws his board chasing after Gary to offer congratulations while the flat-topped property owner looks on with helpless petulance as ticking beat accelerates.
In a burst of sunny sound, Gary Lemmons’ name appears onscreen in Max Capacity’s cutout neon production style while Mary J. Blige’s voice enters telling us, “You know I love music. And every time I hear something hot, it makes me want to move. It makes me want to have fun. But there’s something about this joint, right here...” during a second, further downhill angle of Gary’s early grab to front smith, “this joint right here, it makes me wanna… Wooooo!”
Dance beat hits “Just Fine” to start this line as regular-stance Gary no-comply front 180s a six-stair with left shoestring flapping as he bridges the distance between sets with a flatground switch flip before switch back bigspin down eight. “Feel free right now go do what you want to do. Can’t let nobody take that away from you, from me, from we,” speaks of fierce devotion to communal craft practice as Gary fakie front bigspins off a drop into a concrete arroyo down to dry river wash where his friends have stacked earlier in this video.
“No time for moping around, are you kidding?” Gary front tailslides a 10-stair campus rail beneath white modern buildings wearing shorts and a purple Kings jersey to regular, then he completes the six-stair back lip to fakie from intro, shown twice looking like Mike Ward.
“No time for negative vibes, 'cause I'm winning.” Gary back 5-0s a 15-stair rail with yellow visor facing forward. He pop shoves over and past the kinked six-stair rail in SF’s Union Square, then frontside half-cabs 13 in slip-ons. He hucked one of these down eleven stairs in his Groundzero part six years ago, so nice to see continued progression surpassing lofty marks.
Over a small hip at the top of a big ditch, Gary fakie front bigger spins to switch ride pump down channel in a yellow shirt resembling Clint Peterson. A sideways skateboard props the grate bank to electric box where Gary switch noseblunt slides to regular first, then switch noseblunts to switch in unzipped vest and visor. “It's been a long week, I put in my hardest. Gonna live my life, feels so good to get it right.”
Slap and dap with the filmer precedes Gary’s front shove that lands with a satisfying ding onto back boardslide down a 13-stair rail, shown from overhead then fisheye. Yin to yang, a seven-stair rail gets back shove into front boardslide shoulder stomp to regular along the harbor.
At the Arizonian rail that Kevin Taylor gap to crooked in Aesthetics’ Ryde or Die Vol. 1, Gary gaps to back smith grind at night, shown twice. Gary gap to back lipped here in Hood Legal’s Colors video in 2021. Next he switch front shoves nine yellow-painted stairs at night bathed in halogen glow.
Picture in picture shows Gary’s approach carve toward Powell Station’s gold rail against the brick wall where he switch front 180s into 5-0 revert out to switch wearing a color-blocked pullover jacket and camouflage pants. Upstream at the loading dock with yellow flatbars set on top of the edges that appears throughout this video, Gary ascends the lower bank and pops up into switch back 50-50 across the embedded flatbar edging pop down onto the top of the lot.
“Get the best out of life. Treat yourself to something new,” such as when Gary switch Barley grinds the blue rail with bottom kink sawed off to expose three pitchfork prongs that he front nosegrinded in his Groundzero part. Keeping his head so high as to nearly scrape the overpass ceiling at the cusp of his pop, Gary channels self-belief to surmount the switch frontside flip into underpass bank wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt and Hood Legal HL4L denim.
Under a white bucket hat with sweat rag in his back left hand, Gary switch varial flips the big two-block on 2200 Fulton St in Sacramento. Over Hiram W. Johnson High School’s long ten-stair, Gary holds a different shirt in front left hand for backside bigspin.
Majestic Park Reservoir is the Los Vegas ditch complex where Gary rides the DIY-faciliated concrete pike to tip top frontside pivot to finger flip down to fakie, another troublesome trick from the intro now sorted and shown twice. First angle presents graphic proof of Gary’s skate rat tendencies that have elsewhere manifested as spot homages with this tricking being executed on a Nestor Judkins enjoi x WWE collaborative deck.
Gary nollie 360 flips down eight at night wearing a purple and yellow vest, then switch 360 flips the same eight during daylight in a yellow vest.
“Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine fine,” repeats on track as Gary surpasses 13 stairs via a low hubba holding perfect back tailslide turning to regular when Mary punctuates her repetition with “Ooh!” as Gary’s unbuttoned short-sleeve collar over a white undershirt with blue jeans and goatee gives him an aspect of Marcus McBride skating at Pier 7.
Only the top button of Gary’s vertically-striped oversized dress shirt is affixed, billowing around white undershirt as he nollie heels on flat then pushes toward his favorite backside trick rail, where in Purple Gold he rifled off a sequence of early grabs into boardslide, feeble grind, then back 50-50. For something new here and now, he introduces early grab back lipslide down twelve. In same outfit with chain shining on his neck Gary switch front shove switch back boardslides the other handrail down the right side of the same twelve stack, showing again in slo-mo.
Downhill 360 flip in a green shirt and forward white visor precede frontside powerslides that aim Gary’s route down a quick drop then pump up to pop from the top of a hump over its parking space-sized plateau to drop down on far side with his late backside shove again reminding me of Clint Peterson with a hint of Caswell Berry’s late front shove down Macba Big 4 on a spot similarly shaped to Peter Ramondetta’s ender in Roll Forever without the rail hurdle. Gary power slides down the hill around the corner where a turtle on a sign encourages slow speed and maybe I’m thinking of Clint Peterson because Gary’s carving between streets, sidewalks and driveways reminds me of Chris Pastras as Mary’s song ends and footage glitches off-soundtrack.
We see Gary looking down the barrel at Hollywood High 16 in consult with crew as passing sirens wail and an on-set speaker plays a bar from “Shook Ones Part II.” He wears a brown short-sleeved zipped-up vest over a long-sleeve white shirt. Huddle breaks and people assume positions. One filmer’s rooftop perch scopes Gary walking up Hollywood 12 with board in hand. He takes a few long strides and throws down halfway across that flat, then crouches and snaps early grab up into boardslide down the 16. “Ohhhhooh,” sounds a young boy’s voice as his front-row viewing experience lodges indelibly. “Aye, aye, aye, aye,” he continues feral chirping as Gary flings his beanie like a frisbee through bottom lot, “aye, aye, aye,” as another dude in a backwards Braves hat films vertical on his phone leaning over the roof and someone else screams, “Let’s fucking gooooo!” Landing pad angle shows Gary’s early grab boardslide again with the boy’s same vocal reaction as Gary rides away with his fingertips pressed to his forehead to fully absorb the feeling. “Holy shit, bro.”
Cameraman confirms that feeble is coming next. Gary makes eye contact as he reapplies his beanie and heads back up. He stands spinning at the top of the twelve then announces, “Right fuckin’ here.” It wasn’t actually, as clip cuts to a different throw-down when Gary hits the sixteen with his backside early grab feeble grind. The same offscreen child cheers again in a similar style, still amazed, though slightly less stunned this time, as second landing angle shows the early grab feeble again and the first mournful tones of “America Eats Its Young” by Parliament begin to play. “Oh my god.”
Gary’s already heading back up as he locks eyes with the landing pad camera then the rooftop filmer yells down, “Fifty right here,” with full-throated confidence in his friend about to make this dream sequence a reality. There’s no real question at this point, you know Gary dials in and delivers his third in a row Hollywood 16 NBD of early grab backside 50-50 grind. Many onlooker’s oohs are more muted by this point, having seen two similar hammers already, but Gary knows exactly how much this trick means to himself. He flexes his arms as he rolls into lot and yells “Yeah” then he shoots his board into the wall with three-trick downstate landmark mission fully accomplished. “That’s the power of the king.” He throws his hat to the ground, clasps his palms and looks skyward before turning to camera. “Yes, dude. Fuck, yes. It’s over, *****,” as Gary flashes HL4L finger signs, Max Capacity reached and overflowing into credits.
Receiving just acclaim may seem a guessing game. Gary’s backside biggerspin down the Sacramento stone gap that finished his Purple Gold part showed his knack for expanding a landmark spot’s possibilities, a concept now executed at greater, global scale for these early grab Hollywood turns. @Garyghiradelli’s instagram tagged sponsors include Orbs Wheels, the world’s only haunted wheel company, and Sk8Slabz, a Southern Illinois-based board maker and skateshop. Gary’s hearty allegiance to his Hood Legal crew assures that his priorities are straight, while his willingness to make his own lane is fully displayed throughout. Gary’s style mixes Milksnake with Erick Winkowski, plus some Skate Mafia switch savantism achieved through growing up around NorCal’s equivalent to San Diego. Furthermore, Gary gets top additional filming credits in Max Capacity, which indicates his willingness to help others. I wouldn’t mind seeing Gary with a shoe sponsor, for example, but sense that he anticipated the interest this video part will bring him and made sure to choose this Mary J Blige soundtrack to let everyone know he’s already doing Just Fine, thank you and any offer brought better be worth his while. As the credits end, one skater rides past a wave of bicycle cops telling them all “fuck you,” over and over.