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Roller skating used to be such a thing. Ask your grandma about it, she’ll tell you. When I was in school we used to have all-school skate nights at the roller rink and they were kind of the best and kind of a living nightmare. The best because roller skating was so fun, and who doesn’t love to party. The living nightmare because it was still everyone from school, including the child-sized pieces of human garbage that you didn’t want to have to see during off-peak hours. Now, of course, roller-skating is pretty much limited to a thing that Europeans seem to enjoy doing in ancient public squares, preferably with some kind of slalom of miniature orange cones set up. It’s confusing. But it’s also a good visual metaphor! I mean, look at this guy! He is doing it. And doing it. And doing it well. (LL Cool J, a staple of the roller-rink scene.) And isn’t that what we’re all looking for? Someplace to do what we do best? It might not be the most popular thing to be doing or the most popular place to be doing it, but if we’re lucky we might just find that one rink where you pay your 5 dollars, you lace up your skates, and you soar like a goddamned eagle. So to speak. LET’S GOOOOOOOO!
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Damn. Sweetness has not aged well.
Uhhhhhh
Side Note: He Hit on my Mom in 1996
#MonsterWikiLeaks
Where my Roll Bounce fans at???
I guess you’re reading Jeff Pearlman’s new book?
Idk what this means, r2d2esq
And If This IS IN FACT Zombie Walter Payton, well… I’m Scared.
And The Chicago Bears need to Sign Him, YESTERDAY
And I need to warn my Mom
Just in case, I’m going to warn my mom as well. Everyone warn their moms. LET’S GOOOOOO!
No matter where you were skating, there was always this guy. Our guy wore red short-shorts and had a mustache. He was my hero, naturally.
In my time here on earth, I have trod (rolled?) many a rollerskating rink. This statement is true. In fact, I may or may not have become this guy. Minus the smooth.
easy for you to say, he was your dad
#verygoodburn
Our guy was this awesome dude
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKtVt4PQWaY
He was at the rink every day, when they shut it down for refurbishment he took to spending the day doing yoyo tricks(whilst dancing) out behind the mall where everyone went to smoke. He was my hero, naturally.
Yup, ours was rather gothy and when he wasn’t skating he was smoking in the parking lot. He also got really into having multiple wallet chains attached to his pants which jangled when he skated. Eventually the rink manager gave him a job running the music.
After the roller rink closed he became the “slightly older goth always in line for Dance Dance Revolution” at the nearby arcade.
My local “this guy” told me last weekend that he thinks I am so cool he named his World of Warcraft character after me.
/not a joke
I also remember all-school-roller-rink (ASRL) days. I wasn’t a good skater/roller so I would just play the Simpsons arcade game on the side; except when they played “wipe out.” Everybody went out there for wipe out. ahhhhh memories.
Dude, that game was great. I always played as Homer, and I never made it past the second level.
Always Be Lisa. I got surgical with that jump rope.
ABL at ASRL, SRSLY.
I was in Portland recently and they have a place called Ground Kontrol which is packed with old arcade games and sometimes on Thursdays you pay $5 and then all the games are free all night. So my friends and I finally beat BOTH the Simpsons AND X-Men games. It took unlimited lives but we did it.
I think when we saw the final screen I was just as excited at 25 as I would have been at 10.
Oh god I remember Wipe Out, and watching the rollerbladers who were so cool with their rollerblades and bright neon t-shirts and the existential angst that can only come when one is young and trying to get up the nerve to ask cute math class boy if he wants to skate with you (and you never did ask). And then getting distracted for seven hours by skeeball, because skeeball is the best.
#nostalgiaalert
#universalexperiences
Ah yes, the pains of the couple skate.
In honor of Gabe’s first old man post since coming back, I decided to give it the Andy Rooney treatment.
“Roller skating used to be such a thing. LET’S GOOOOOOOO!”
Oh man, late ’80s skating to “Do The Dinosaur” at the roller rink. Memories!
We should all be so lucky, Gabe.
It is scientific fact that stopping on roller skates without first SLAMMING into a wall is a physical impossibility. I am writing my doctoral thesis on this matter. And you guys said the University of Phoenix wasn’t a real school…
“Brick Wall Or Glass Ceiling: The Patriarchal Subtext of Roller Rinks And Elementary School”
as a hockey player, i never ran into walls while on roller skates as i was already adept at turning. However, the natural impulse to turn the wheels sideways to stop claimed many a victim, myself included, the first few times out.
Hey guys, Videogum is actually remembering me! I feel like a king!
i know this guy! i do recreational roller derby in portland, oregon and whenever i go to the roller rink to practice, he is there doing his sweet-ass moves. hooray!
Tell him he’s now a star, thanks to Videogum!
Derby monsters unite! There are a few of us floating around here.
apparently when word got out about this guy and his moves–how he throws shapes out there on the dance floor without giving a frig–some local toughs have been sent to give him a message…
Ummmm…. Roller skates are amazing and the best things ever, and are coming back (for real).
/I own a roller skate shop
“Trust me, just because you own a shop doesn’t mean that the goods you sell are “coming back”"–Devil Sticks shop owner
hahaha – very funny!
No really, roller derby is the fastest growing sport in history and the technology and manufacturing of roller skates has gotten a lot better in the past 10 years or so. There are a surprising number of people that prefer skates to blades, and you do see skate shops popping up all over the place these days.
I think there is or used to be a roller rink in Chicago that served alcohol. I never went there but it sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
The image quality of this video has allowed me to pretend that it is a video of Gustavo Fring roller-dancing. Please, no one correct me.
detective nordberg.