Not long ago, I awoke from the shred zone to realize I had just been throwing myself at a wall at speed for the past hour. I’m gonna get em someday, but still wallrides are eluding me. I have always wanted to do that move, but I never really tried to learn them with any conviction before. Why had I suddenly chosen this night and this spot to learn them? Why do we learn certain moves? How do we choose which moves to learn? How come some people never learn frontside fifties on tranny, but on a ledge it’s the most basic maneuver? How come some people never learn hardflips? Recently, a girl led me on pretty hard and droppedme for a dude who happens to have wallride nollie out.
I know shit happens, get over it. But still, my little heart got pretty broke, and you know as well as I do that when you feel like shit the best thing to do is go skating, and suddenly I’m trying to learn wallrides. Funny timing huh? It occurred to me that I might be trying to learn wallrides not because Natas is rad, or so that when someone asks what I did last night I could say, learning to ride on walls. As epic as that sounds. I mean those are reasons that are true, but I personally think I wanted to learn them so I could prove to myself this dude I got dropped for isn’t better than me. If I can do wallrides too, it must mean that it wasn’t my fault I got dropped by this girl, right? How fucking pathetic is that? I wanted definitive proof that I’m as good as this dude at life in general, so I went skateboarding. Obviously I’m lacking something as a human being, but I don’t know what it is or how to fix it, so I’ll try to learn wallrides. So weak, dude! Why can’t my boyfriend wallride? I know wallrides have nothing to do with my romantic life, but I feel like they symbolize something about it. Why do we learn the moves we do? What separates you and me, reading this homemade zine, from the soul boarder kid with a longboard he/she got from PacSun? I feel like I’m a real skater and that kid is a fake or to use a 90s word, a poser. 
And I feel like that notion is justified for some reason that, when I try to pin it down, makes no sense. Are we skaters because we have some truer notion of fun or skating than those kids who haven’t paid their dues? The PacSun kid is arguably having as much if not more fun that me, breaking myself against the wall cause I think wallrides are cool. Learning wallrides isn’t a happy time, it doesn’t feel good. It’s about exorcising demons for me. Why does that make me more of a skater than Longboard Kid? Because that kid hasn’t put in the blood sweat and tears I have? Maybe that kid is a natural and can do wallrides first try, I don’t know. Maybe he/she can have a good time doing it too. So it’s not about having a more pure fun or paying your dues. As I write this from inside my place of work I see kids with puffy cupsoles push mongo past the window. Who’s the real skater now? I’m here, thinking about skating, single, while kids are out there actually rolling around and engaging in romantic liaisons that last longer than one night. Awesome. 413 baby!
Love, Toro
P.S. After writing this article Toro finally did a wallride.
