Lot of Lots

Occasionally, I bid on things on auction sites knowing I’m not going to win them. It’s fun. You get that little retail therapy thrill without actually having to spend money. The other day… I accidentally won a Pushead lot that I didn’t intent to win.

But man it was worth it!

Three skateboard decks:
Conspiracy Orange Alien
John Gibson Gringo Zorlac reprint
Conspiracy Punker. (I’m making up these names since I don’t know what the official names are)

A Sanda Kuwait Print (#30. I already have a framed one)
the Mountain Dew Genie headphones (I already have a pair MIB)
Sparrow Book 1st printing (again….already own)

Lastly, there were a bunch of old Pushead Fanclub mailings. Really fun stuff from when the FC was super active. Holiday cards, letters…. such good stuff.

Zorlac

Growing up, being a skater and a comic-nerd didn’t exactly endear me to the farm kids of Plant City, Florida. While my brother and I still did our farm chores we weren’t really in line with kids our own age. I didn’t really have an outlet for either; reading comics by myself and skating alone on the road closest to my farm on ramps that my Dad made in the shop.

All that changed when Henry Lariscy opened ‘Hobby Express’ in the Strawberry Plaza. Henry and I became friends and the store became my preferred hangout spot; a place where you could read and discuss comics, D&D (which I proudly played, along with Call of Cthulhu) and buy, build and work on skateboards.

I was already a diehard Pushead/Zorlac fan when Henry had them sponsor a Pro/Am event in the lot behind his store. The Zorlac guys came with bags of swag… Pushead stickers galore. Most of them, I’m loathe to say, ended up on everything I owned. My decks, my notebooks at school, etc.

I was looking for something in my hall closet today (which I still haven’t found, and should still be searching for instead of updating a dang blog!) and came across this little guy from back in the day. 1988.It survived the notebooks.

I don’t really know where Henry got off to, but on the off chance he ever finds this (be honest: we all google our names) I’d sure like to say thank you for all the good times.

Possessed to Skate

Conspiracy Decks

Like I said in the intro, I got into Pushead’s art because of skateboarding. I was lucky enough to be friends with the local skateshop owner, and was able to pick up the Zorlac decks with Pushead art at wholesale. Over the years I built up an impressive collection of unused decks.

This is the part of the story where you smack your forehead; when I moved from Florida to PA, I left the decks at my folk’s house. Like so many Star Wars toy collections before them, my skateboards were purged when my Mom needed extra space. I should have known what was up when she called and asked if I still skated.

For the sake of not giving myself an aneurism, I won’t list the decks I had…

There’s no way to rebuild the collection I had, but I still pick up a deck from time to time.