We hit a little Soiree Friday night at the Super store on Howard. The event was for the launch of custom model of sunnies designed by skateboarding legend Mark Gonzales. He was there autographing copies of a ‘zine that he published in connection with the event. A bunch of our friends were also in attendance. I brought along the range finder and got a few snaps. Made for quite an enjoyable evening.

A pretty funny story (possibly only funny to me) about my first encounter with the Gonz: Tenish years ago, I used to frequent the skate park in Riverside Park. It was the only public park on the island with a (barely) vert ramp. One Saturday morning I arrived at the park right as it had opened. The only thing required for admission was to have a helmet with you, and sign your name on a piece of paper. An NYC Parks worker was the gatekeeper. I picked up the pen to sign in, and noticed that I would be number 2 on the list, right below “Mark Gonzales.” Assuming that some punk kid had signed in as the Gonz, I snickered to myself and for a split moment considered signing “Tony Hawk” or something instead of writing my real name. When I walked up the stairs onto the deck of the halfpipe, Gonz was up there. I remember him wearing bright green corduroy pants and no pads. We skated together for like 2 hours. It is probably my most memorable session that I ever had on that ramp.

Probably my favorite shot of the night (below).

And one flick from Saturday: