The O-town Scene

July 10, 2014 O-Town Scene 9 "All beginners, the skate park is yours right now!" This call from emcee Jessica Madera signalled the official kickoff to the Mu- seum Skateboard Competition on July 5 in Neahwa Park. At Madera's cue, sev- eral brave beginners who also looked to be beginning their earthly lives took to the concrete surface of the city's skate park. "That kid just got wrecked over there!" a rapt baseball player said from his side of the fence, before the face-painted youth got right back up to test an incline again. Music by Lit and Blink 182! spilled out from huge speakers, what may be considered classic rock in 2014, if only by default. "Cookie," the mutant amphibian mascot of the "Sweet Frog" frozen yogurt chain, showed up for photo opportuni- ties and skate park street credibility, but proved too cowardly to actually compete. The competition was part of the Home- town 4th Festival's designated "Bonus Day," but along with a battle of the bands, the competition came off as one of the weekend's central attractions. Originally scheduled to run from 4 to 5 p.m., the contest drew on until well after 6, when skaters were still eagerly pitting them- selves against the unforgiving scenery. For an attentive crowd that sat in chairs or on soft grass under tree-scattered shade on a warm and windy afternoon, the event was effortless fun. For the skate- boarders themselves, however, fun was a more serious, even painful pursuit. The older, more experienced athletes, diverse- ly "uniformed" in skinny pants or plaid shorts, tried every intricate trick under the sun while very nearly baking beneath it. A small group of judges presided over The Comp's early stages, perched atop the high sides of the scooped, graffiti-tat- tooed valley called the "half-pipe." Among them was a watchful Anthony Robinson, owner of the Museum Skateshop that hosted the tournament. Robinson opened The Museum in De- cember because, as he explained, "There were no good skateboard shops around. There were a few, that lasted for a while, but they were short-lived." The 30-year-old Brooklyn native was something of an unlikely convert to skat- ing. "My boy got me into it," he explained from a seat behind the counter of his Main Street shop a few weeks before the July 5 competition. "He used to come by my house every day with his board, and that's how it happened." Now a purveyor of premier brands, Rob- inson got his own start in a more humble fashion. "My first board was from Walmart," Rob- inson laughed. "But my friend was like, 'No, you got to go down to Sport Tech and get a Plan B. After that, I was official." Robinson's idea to host a skateboard competition in Oneonta had been brewing for a long time. "I wanted to do it from the time I opened up, but I didn't want to cut anybody's throat," Robinson explained. But he got the push he needed from Carol Mandigo, chairwoman of First Night Oneonta, which organized this year's Fourth of July events. "She basically made me do it." During the July 5 competition, groups of five helmeted skaters simultaneous- ly crouched and concentrated in tireless approaches to slabs and steps. The grind- ing of wheels against asphalt gave way to the smooth, musical clink of a board alighting on a slim steel rail. These were the skeletal landmarks of the skate park, a paved span of pretend city inside the larger Neahwa Park that housed the whole Festival. Its unforgiving features afforded O-Towners brief but almost infinite oppor- tunities for creativity. More often than not, the ambitious boarders and their simpler vehicles, whirl- ing with a complexity that the eye fought to follow, could not remain together for too long. As the "thrown" riders scrambled to find their footing without wheels, the lost boards did their own listless routines: One might wobble to an upside-down stop, a turtle tipped onto its glittering black back. Another might cling to the low rail — a scrap of food stuck not in a monster's teeth so much as its monstrous retainer. Those who most impressed the judges advanced to a second round, during which each finalist got to display their skills solo for three minutes. Throughout the exhibition, resilient skaters offered les- son after lesson in persistence, relenting only when their allotted time ran out, even if their cruel soundtrack happened to be supplied by Robin Thicke. When the Comp had run its course, Jesse Hamway came away with the first- place prize, a package of goodies from the Museum Skateshop that included a Gravity board. Second- and third-place prizes went to Lucas Nurnberger and Kyle French, respectively. In a separate, "Best Trick" contest that sent boards spinning and their boarders sprawling for more than 15 minutes, an especially inventive Lucas Nurnberger triumphed. By Sam Benedict and Emily Popek

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