Leo Romero in "Skater"

for Emerica by Leo Romero

After our fruit and oatmeal breakfast over coffee, my girlfriend leaves for a noon appointment. She walked Mars when we woke up, now he and I pass an hour relaxing in the sunny front room. I look up from the end of a Jim Harrison essay to see Mars gazing out window and sense his suggestion. On our previous skating attempt he turned around before we had a chance to reach the park, but now I feel optimistic as I grab my board and ask if he wants to cruise.

Mars plays no table games in his doorfront eagerness to accompany me, so I attach his harness and swap eight-foot leash for his 30 footer. He hurries outside and strains at the lead while I’m locking up, then we trot to catch the blinking tail of our crosswalk opportunity. Over empty sidewalk ahead Mars shows more interest in movement than sniffing as I quietly set down my board and kick a few pushes behind him. Mars glances back when he feels my weight restraint through the leash, as an uphill push slows before the next propels me again in his wake. I push a bit harder to allow his desired acceleration, but also test his willingness pull me like sled dog flexing his strength and speed. The late February day shines bright and crisp; I wear an unzipped heavy coat over my t-shirt.

We ascend much of the block and approach a crew pushing a couple strollers. Mars slows, then reacts uncertainly to the sight of me on board approaching behind him. I step off before a tree narrows the sidewalk path and we curve around the crowd. Mars pulls ahead, but we’ve missed the crossing light, then my cautious scan reveals clear path so, before an approaching box truck draws too near, we jog across to the park.

Mars’s nose guides him toward the near right entry, hooking us left onto bare branching dirt paths where we pass some other pups and their walkers. Daffodils sprout through brown patches of last fall’s leaves and Mars poops what I scoop and drop in can at the base of Lichfield Manor. The paved park road has 90-degree parking on the lefthand manor side, parallel parking spaces along starboard woods and no moving vehicles other than us at the moment. Mars follows my pushes to compete for the lead, looking at me as he bounds along with our lengthiest speed so far. A big navy truck approaches from behind and, even as I am pushing goofy on left shoulder side facing Mars who is even further protected, the truck honks at us as it passes with space to spare. Thankfully, the targeted honk doesn’t faze Mars as we continue along. An approaching car grants space and poses no problem.

With the whole lot crossed, where the road bends right, Mars chooses the dirt path leading left so I step off board. He sniffs toward stairs across the bike road, where we hurry across before a cyclist, then pees on growth along the fenced wilderness left up to the Picnic House crowd. Mars stands silent regarding a passing pack of a dozen dogs and their walker, then he noses our way northward alongside the meadow. I don’t skate when he’s sniffing off path, as poles and obstacles would catch the leash. A dozen young schoolchildren and their escorts walk past as Mars poops for the second time. I scoop the poop and some fallen leaves, tie up the bag and step on board.

An open dumpster sits at the bottom of the hill ahead. I lead Mars with a loose, medium leash and suggestive nod as I push off down the rough cobblestones. He catches up toward the bottom and I toss the bag of poop over his head into the dumpster as we speed past. I push to match his continued gait up the next mild grade. He looks back at me when he feels the leash reach extension, which I loosen again as I catch up to then push past him with an inviting shoulder suggestion. I don’t want him distracted sniffing right now and Mars seems to understand the tension in the leash tie binding us together. We reach the top of the hill and these children again, along with another friendly dog at the crossroads scene. Mars elects westward, homeward, stepping over the bike path again. Passing a playground I photograph these both-side ledges into passageway I want to skate. Mars considers a route through dirt, but instead continues on concrete out of the park as I quietly roll behind him.

Alongside Prospect Park West, the broad pedestrian path of yellow pumice stone is sparsely trafficked. Mars realizes the potential for speedy cruising and looks alongside me to move with our most sustained speed so far. We pass an elderly couple on their left, then Mars slides right to take the lead as a scooter rider approaches and passes on our left. Street numbers rise along the mild downhill, cruising as fast as we desire until the curb cuts down then up past Panther’s Gate for our last uphill section. I push strong on my cruiser wheels to accelerate as Mars leaps and bounds to maintain lead. I shoot a selfie video of us to send to my girlfriend. I’m curious how long Mars’ll run, but he stops at the moment we reach her street number. The white walk icon has anticipated our arrival as we cross street on feet homeward bound.

Back at her apartment, we’re back on the sofa soon enough. I open my laptop and see Emerica and Thrasher have released Leo Romero’s new standalone part, “Skater.” Burnout’s photo gallery from the premiere lures my scroll just below, but I decide to save that. I refill Mars’s water and food. I wrap and scarf two turkey and Swiss rollinis with mustard. I pour a Pineapple Spice Tepache can into a glass with one big ice cube, add strawberry-orange juice then stir and suck with rubber tipped metal straw. My girlfriend bought three Raw Garden crushed diamond prerolls and I twist one fresh stick’s open tip to fill my elephant shaped bowl with a trunkful of green. Smoked, sated and hydrated, I settle into bed with Mars at my feet for Leo’s twelve minute feature. My girlfriend texts back, “OMG! Cuties!” She’s watching the clip of Mars and me skating on her Brooklyn bound back this way…:

Backseat banjo strums as Super 8 wielding passenger shoots windshielded Western vista midstream along divided interstate, passing a slower truckful of piping. Sunglassed Leo sits in the Ford’s driver’s seat. He wheels left toward palm tree oasis that is a fuel stop. Over the intercom in Spanish a man recites recorded welcome as sunglassed Leo steps out wearing a tee shirt white as his passenger van and bluejeans blue as the mile high sky to tanktop his E-Series in preparation for the long road ahead.

Leo and I were both born in 1986, so we were high school sophomores when he first appeared on my screenscene in a black bobbed haircut torquing front crooks through Foundation’s twenty minute 2002 tour video, Madness and Mayhem: a post-Art Bars celebratory glory daze headlining Emerica-era Daniel Shimizu and “No Talk, Just Hammers” Corey Duffel alongside Leo’s amateur contemporaries including Mike Rusczyk and Gareth Stehr. Next year, Emerica brought Jon Miner and Leo’s first work together, in This Is Skateboarding’s brutally relentless amateur section where, sandwiched between Brayden Szafranski and Matt Allen, Leo delivered a memorable offering of sixteen different single clip hammers.

I bought Pharmacy Skateshop’s Chily video from Unicron.net because I read on Slap Message Boards that Leo had last part. Rewatching Chily now is quite a time capsule, including someone in the vehicle shooting a homeless person with an airsoft gun, numerous make-out clips, and parts from Joey Poirez, Keelan Dadd and Bryan Herman prompt musings on how these paths diverged after adolescence, but we see here what brought them together in the first place, that is stay gold salad days amber cast skating. In finale, which is also his first full part, with Patrick O’Dell shooting photos, Leo conquers long nights and impossible odds, skating to “Blue Collar Man,” a cusp of manhood on a mission statement that proves durable blueprint for his voluminous adult work.

Leo turned pro on Foundation when I left Indiana for NYU then released his First Love part the summer after my freshman year. Leo moved to Baker Boys sponsorship as I obtained my bachelors degree, and now has spend the past 13 years riding Toy Machines. Due in part to board sponsor moves, Leo has said people most brand-associate him with Emerica, for whom he’s sold pro model shoes this past decade after lengthy amateur tenure. At this point we see Leo’s board-free left hand brush back dark widow’s peaking hair as he stands beyond lawnsprinklers’ spray alongside a fabric coating plant in Grand Rapids, Michigan’s Southeast side. “Welcome to Arco AM/PM Mini Market,” a woman’s voice now intones the same welcome script in English, as memoryscreen shifts to pitstop, cut to Leo taking a few quick pushes then he gaps to front boardslide one-flat-seven stair rail, rollaway past open warehouse docks.

Flashback to gas station, where in-van camera shows outside Leo lifting wiper and washing windshield. Cut back same rail for long lens gap to front lip while a filmer wearing Toy Machine t-shirt shoots fisheye under the rail. Leo brushes sweat off his brow then this fisheye filmer captures Leo’s next gap to back lip, his first hit down the left railing closest to warehouse siding. In background, his econovan’s backdoor rests open with a couple homies onlooking plus the filmer whose angles documented Leo’s first two tricks. Back at the pit stop, crusted bird shit proves pesky and necessitates special scrubs, then gap to front smith, further washing, gap to crook, rubberswipe to dry, gap to front nosegrind, tuck the gas pump and close the tank, gap to front feeble. By now, the back of Leo’s burnt sienna t-shirt shows fall marks scraped as dark as black breast logo on front. Hop back in the van cuts to gap into back 5-0, shown twice with Leo’s trademarked talon spanning, turning the ignition, buckling up and shifting into drive as the voice over the intercom bids safe travels.

Radio twists into guitar strums as a cowboy icon lassoed onto rearview mirror gallops mileage and one considers how much Leo came of age and has lived adulthood in an American touring van, encountering countless middle American rails like this, unique in some way that suitably showcases his talent, receiving similar eight-trick sausage-making progressions, then speedy lifestyle montage ambiently anticipates Leo white tee wearing, full color front 5-0ing an Emerica green lucky 13. This fat round rail descends from a brick institutional building’s elevated side exit, and Leo rolls away on sidewalk past windowbars painted same green as the handrail, shown again in Super 8 with congratulatory hugs from mates.

Leo side profiles in a sculpture’s blank space then turns to face the camera in sunglasses. “Here we are, standing into shooting stars,” as Leo in holy black tee sings switch flip nose manual along a downtown out-ledge past ten stairs to drop. Leo resembles Stefan Janoski in his hair flip and has been riding Emericas since before the Janoski was a twinkle in Nike’s eye. Photomontage suggests butterfly bandaged forehead damage occurred in process of green tee Leo smith grinding down buildingside railing, his face facing inches away from wall, filmed backside, then nollie back heel off curb into blacktopped loading lot. Quick cuts acknowledge Emerica sponsorship and Mexican heritage as Leo in black tee again glides long front boardslide down slowly descending walkway rail bordering a building exit that four stairs descended long ago, then back heels off sidewalk in burgundy slip-ons to parking lot pan where Dakota sits pulling off his sock out behind the back of the van.

Failure is not an option in the belly of the whale, as Leo handrail hooks into a pathway spanning front smith, then parking lot tre flip seals the deal as his girl pirouettes in homestead memories. Leo takes her cue to begin speedy line half-cabbing up curb then bank vaulting ollie over roadside fence. Leo checks for traffic before he prepares nollie back 180 off curb, but his truck hanger unattaches on impact and sends him tossed. Next clip picks up midway through a different fall, this one down grass a gap, then shows the handrail noseslide preceding successful frontside flip over said grass gap as vanside friends cheer. Next spot behind a warehouse, Leo propels and catches backside flip from loading dock bank over one then another handrail, which merits a visit to the swimming hole with his woman, spinning a backflip into water. Romero switch flips a grass gap with the same silhouette shown since This is Skateboarding, then continues his line to switch heelflip double digits.

Cattle watching wind turbines prod Leo out the van to heelflip up four stairs through shady lane then sunnyside boardslide down 5-flat-5 double kinked rail. Affront red brick schoolhouse, the red patch on Leo’s forward facing black hat matches the red railing that descends six stairs then spans 40 feet bisecting backside grass / frontside concrete. Red kink pinch folds Leo’s first b/s 50-50 attempt, but he perseveres to grind this red railing’s entirety then pops out over eight stairs to sidewalk landing. Nollie flip in the parking lot comes second nature and comrades approve. “All my friends have crooked tails and that’s the company I like to keep,” signals Branden Hoban’s arrival, blowing feathered dandelion seeds to windswept back 5-0 across the lengthy white flatbar upon which Leo now hangs a crooked grind that shows his Tall Hat graphic 8 inch pro model deck matching same rusted root t-shirt from first spot sequence.

Painted shoes are an Emerican classic as Leo kickflips up four Hesby Oaks stairs, no-push situationship sets sail for ten stack nollie flip. Hoban front 180s the same four then switch tres same ten. “This is the way, we move,” packed up ever onward, Leo holds moving van’s bumper to motorspeed his propped approach ascending an empty white-collar commercial park’s euro gap, up the left chute siding five lower stairs to backside flip up six more to the landing top. Mirrored chute up right side attracts his frontside flip, a holistic double-dipped spot treatment topped again with shoulder-checked powerslide into glassfront doors.

This fast strumming self-propelled soundtrack reminds me of Busenitz in Roll Forever skating to Old Canes, as Leo resembles Dylan with switch front heel down banked island before strong parking lot pushes to pop onto further, broader island and then blasts frontside ollie over both interrupting stair set and hand railing to land into furthest bank. A realized dream blows his through t-shirt as Leo adds a little manual to bid spot farewell. Since “Skater” premiered at Volcom HQ, I imagine Leo is wearing Emerica or Volcom pants throughout this minimally logoed part.

Nollie heelflip declines Leo’s credit card charge up three stairs, but he cashes next attempt smooth with speed to spare for front 50-50 atop most of a tall mellow rail out far past three stairs, then front boards to regs this same long rail’s entirety as a single. Further upstairs tricks chime as Leo kickflips up three, heelflips down two, then front boards down a sunny sporting campus’s fifteen stair rail. Pacific Northwest affords opportunity for steep nosegrind down twelve stairs leading to Leo’s downhill powersliding skyscoped under grey skies and deep green trees. Oregon’s concrete appears rain darkened even when dry and Leo finishes line with nollie frontside flip up three longer stairs. For his next single, Romero pushes once and hops f/s 50-50 straight-locked onto a big and tall white handrail down a quarter turn.

No prior insurance? No problem! Our star of track and field begins line with a bump to bar hurdle full speed ahead to evergreen grass gap kickflip. Leo cafe races across Main Street to ollie over six stairs, a gap and a cornerstone barrier in a fell swoop, snaps a motorcycle selfie then offers reminder how power tools can remove skate stoppers. Back lipslide a thirteen precedes noseslide 270shove on a red mellow rail I think I recognize from old Crailtap coverage. A visual headrush follows Leo’s four-stair nollie flip-booking past blue and orange seats through an empty amphitheater’s stage-bound grade where he presents to his trusty tall, lengthy nose manual to nollie flip off stage to please his front row friends.

Past five minutes in Corona, California stands a sign for Promenade (Elementary) School, visible from the road, fifteen-feet long, neck-high, big, grey block. Leo, who’s been stretching his noseslides up and out for years, here summons probably his biggest boundary span ever. We watch again front facing. While most tricks co-exist alongside viable concrete pathways, Leo’s utilitarian noseslide here shows the most direct passage span possible and first double-angle since beginning.

Fellow long-time Emerican Jon Dixon approves the following frontside nosegrind over Essentium signage. In cover photograph, “Essentium” is edited out so nosegrind appears to be on textually unadorned block. A step-up in trick difficulty from the Promenade noseslide upon a similarly large structure, this 3-D printing brand’s corporate sign packs less iconic heft than Promenade’s grey carved stone face. A black site flatgap receives consecutive nollie heelflip and nollie flip. Twelve O’Clock Boys pass Leo hopping onto f/s 5050 black snake moan at a red brick castlefront. He grinds horizontal past five support posts then reaches kink down to further railride sixteen stairs. A local onlooker brings Leo in for a congratulatory embrace.

Through offseason pool complex, Leo pops out from a crooked grind down pathrail, passes stacked lounge chairs and underneath awning with a few quick pushes to gap front lip on a double set rail. A different gap to double set gets gap to front five, then a different set gets gap to back lip, chorus echoing the location-focused intro sequence now unleashed upon multi-spot trajectory. Barrage climaxes with a Matt Allen tribute gap to front salad shown twice as vanmates cheer from the pitch. A coolsculpted hip boosts front 270 lipslide down brief exit rail though adroit Austin Gillette acknowledging balleticism. Double kink crooked grind to start a line appears twice as second filmer follows Leo’s powerslide before he 360 flips a gap of gnarled blacktop and grass to state park rollaway.

Leo suffers the joy and loses his hat on thirteen-stair hubba before landing camera-flashed front blunt. Friends with scab shined permanent swellbows embrace as song fades to black sonic silence ender preparation. After black hammers bask in the recording studio’s hymnal glow while preparing gap grind between two rooftops. Leo gets tossed, never off the roof, but along and across the far side, in accumulating shows of commitment that slide the holes we’ve seen into his shirts. Elbow blood shines as angles focus. Do your thing, Thunder Wing: nosegrind across this roof gap walkway railing, sky framed airborne overhead shown three times in flight sequence. Unobstructed Leo lofts 360 flip and nollie heel until he decides he’s had his fill with interstate traffic background as organ music hums out.

SKATER titling appears at eight minutes, over organic montage of traces left on spaces. Through 20 year career, Leo has honed his road-dogged production process and musical collaboration with Leo, Langhorne Slim and Matt Costa provides custom soundtracks. We see Leo in western hat and bandana, with guitar, dog and girlfriend receiving nods. His interest in baseball surprises me. Another huge 50-50 re-emphasizes the relative length of all of this, the part, career and grinds. The teammates we’ve seen watching all appear for bangers of their own, stacking more clips on more spots with more Leo tricks set to relaxed slide guitar for basically another full part.

As Leo looks back on miles in the rearview meeting miles in future, a twelve-minute part feels modest. I don’t notice if people are wearing Emericas in New York, though young Tyshawn and Leo used to be teammates on both Toy Machine and Emerica, which I think speaks to both brands’ pinnacular appeal to skate rats worldwide. Leo lists Tyshawn’s picnic table switch ollie as one of his five favorite Thrasher covers and it’s nice to see him finding inspiration in a younger generation who he inspired so much. Mars starts barking and I look out the window. Our girl’s home!