The Stupidest Thing I’ve Ever Seen

Starting when I was about 12 years old and up until about the age of 15 or so, I used to love to go roller skating at Skateland. They had pinball, girls, and slurpees. Oh yeah, and some roller-skating. Real skating. Not like you kids today in your fancy-pants inline getups. These skates had the traditional, stable 2 dimensional platform and the big rubber stopper/goer on the bottom/front of each skate. It served the purpose of both braking and rapid acceleration. If you stood “on your toes”, you could run on the stopper for a few strides until you got up to speed. It was important to slow down in transition from the rink to the carpet or you'd continue on at the same speed while your skates lagged behind.

The skates were off-white suede with pink wheels. If you were cool, you had your own skates. Black leather with whatever color wheels defined you as a person. Then you could tie the shoestrings together and drape them over your shoulder as you casually walked into the rink, winking and pointing to your make-believe friends. I was not cool. I tried to tie the shoestrings of my rental skates together, but they (the shoestrings) were too short so the skates didn't lay nicely on my shirt, but propped up from my shoulder to the front and rear as I found a locker.

There were a few Skatelands around town and a place called “Cheap Skate” up on 90th and Maple, but Skateland near Irvington was our home rink.

The evening of skating was typically 2-3 hours. In that time, there was the default “Free skate” where all were allowed to skate, provided they skate slowly and carefully all the way around that black traffic circle. This was a black piece of tape that circumnavigated the inner part of the rink. If you were a rebel, you’d skate dangerously close to the tape, flirting with cutting the corner. I won’t lie. Sometimes we cut across the tape at either end. Usually the end opposite the DJ/Skate Patrol station. Sometimes we got flagged for cutting, but usually we got away with it. The Skateland peace officers ran a pretty tight ship. Once after a rather egregious black traffic circle infraction (My friend was completely on the other side, so I cut through the middle), I was sent to cool off with the stern admonition, “That shit might fly at Cheap Skate, but it’s not happening here. Not on my watch, kid. I mean, look at you in your stupid rental skates.”

To keep everybody honest, Skateland would stage various specialty skate sessions throughout the evening. They were two songs long and I was excluded from most of these for one reason or another. That was OK with me. Mostly, I just liked to see how fast I could skate. I used to think I was like some sort of Eric Heiden on wheels. I’d even put my left arm behind my back as I sped through the crowd for a few “laps”, only to bring it (my arm) down for the final burst …




Whistle!! “Slow down, kid”

“Oh yeah, I know, Cheap Skate, yada yada yada. Sorry.”

The first specialty skating session was the “Ladies Only” Skate. The songs were, Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” and “Brick House” by the Commodores. This was the time when the girls got to show off their disco/skate moves. Well, except for the cool girls. They just skated at a walking pace, complaining to one another about all the losers at Skateland.

During the Ladies Skate, The gentlemen lined up along the rail to watch. Everyone in their new velour shirt. Except me, of course. I couldn’t afford velour, so I had to watch from the confines my cheap terrycloth wanna-be-velour shirt. At least my watch was the cool red L.E.D. kind that required the push of a button to see the time. Not one of those stupid grey and black L.C.D. ones.

Next was the Backward skate. Backward skaters only, please. I don’t remember what songs they played for the backward skate. Nonetheless this was a very important skate. We "forward only" skaters needed to find out which girls could skate backwards. This way, I knew exactly who I was going to be too afraid to ask to accompany me to the “Couples Skate”.

The songs for the couples skate were “Beth” by KISS and the heartwarming domestic abuse number, “Don’t give up on us” by David Soul a.k.a “Hutch”. There were 3 couple skates during the evening. I usually spent those times looking out at all the happy couples skating. I’d reflect on what it would be like to be brave enough to ask a girl to skate with me. Ahh, those would have been the days! Occasionally, a girl would ask me to skate, so I got to go. But then, if she liked me, she might try to kiss me or something. Panic! Ahh. I don’t know how to do this! Fear of looking like a fool has hindered me in some way for most of my life. Unfortunately, my grasp on what looks foolish is all topsy-turvy.





There was also the “Hokey Pokey”. I was never sure how to shake my “left side” about without affecting the rest of my body, so I gave up and just let my right side go too. The neat thing about the Hokey-Pokey (besides its apt name) was that it was held at the center of the rink and you were actually allowed to skate on the black traffic circle when you turned yourself about. I’d emphatically tap the tape with the front wheels of my right skate, glancing innocently at the official. He’d glare back at me powerless, barely concealing his rage. “Kid, if this wasn’t the Hokey-Pokey, I’d open the double doors of this place with your smarmy little skull.”

Judges? Ok yes, we’ll accept “smarmy” - but we're not happy about it.

Then came the “Gentlemen’s Skate”. The 2 songs for the Gentlemen’s Skate were always Foghat’s “Slow Ride” and “Ballroom Blitz”, but I don’t know who performed it and we didn’t have the internet available back then so I can’t check. But it was these guys.



Who years later became these guys:



Anyway, this post is about the stupidest thing I ever saw (Remember, I couldn’t actually see myself trying to skate like a speed skater). But first, I have to talk about the coolest thing I ever saw, because they’re related. It was during the Dude’s skate, and some dude (with his own skates, of course) was leaning back on one skate, one foot forward, rolling along, pretending to be playing a guitar to the song “Slow Ride”. He had nothing in his hands at all. But by position alone, it was obviously some sort of pantomime of a guitar player. Brilliant. Also, it may not have been called a "mullet" yet, but he was sporting a damn cool one.

If only I had my own skates, a shiny red shirt, unbuttoned to reveal my fashionable Italian horn necklace, the ability to lean back like that, and permission to grow my hair, I’d be as cool as that guy. I don’t know if this type of pantomime was called “Air Guitar” yet (I'm from the time before things had names). It was the first time I ever saw anybody do it. What a great idea. Like lip syncing, only not as realistic looking. All the cool guys wore black pants and a red shirt because it approximated the Skateland Traffic cop uniform and most of these guys yearned to hold that position one day. A friend once rhetorically asked me, “You know how much tail those guys get?”

I think it was rhetorical. Maybe he wanted to know because he did actually get the job a few years later. I don't know if he got any tail though. We went our separate ways after I stopped going to Skateland and he didn't.

The day after witnessing the fabulous air guitar demonstration, I was standing at the jewelry counter at Target, browsing the Italian horn necklace section (they had one of those in the 70’s), When I decided to see if I could knock out a few licks on the “no guitar in my hands at all.” I couldn’t do it. It just didn’t feel right. Mostly because I had taken guitar lessons. On acoustic guitar. Sitting down. When I tried to “Air Guitar” I looked more like Leon Redbone, hunched over, looking down at my fingers, etc. Nobody “Air guitars” to Leon Redbone. So when I tried to air guitar to some rockin’ Van Halen or something, I’d always miss the chord, stop, look at my hand, back up and start again. By that time, the guitar solo would be pretty much over. Turns out I can’t air guitar any song I can’t actually play on real guitar. And it’s not like I could request “Tom Dooley” at Skateland, is it? That air guitar performance remained the coolest thing I had ever seen until 1999. That’s when “The Matrix” came out.

Oh yeah, the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen was in a Documentary called “Air Guitar Nation”. The documentary is excellent. It is about a very serious worldwide Air Guitar competition. Some of these guys actually hate the other competitors. There are accusations of cheating, song stealing, etc. It is unbelievable the amount of time, practice and preparation that goes into pretending to play an instrument. Granted, the end result is well worth it. Whatever. It’s the stupidest effing thing I've ever seen.

Hang on I think I know who’s at the door, but I’m going to go check and make sure it’s not a you-know-what. Holy crap! Snap crunch slurp die.

Note: It wasn't until many years later that I realized the cool air guitar guy at Skateland was Shim.