Words and photos by Rob Meronek

Going by the Weekly Poll about how old you are, most of you out there seem to be between 13 and 18. Like 80 years ago when I was that young, I had no idea about the business side of skateboarding, including the crazy trade shows that went down in California every year. Somehow over the last 20 years, skateboard companies got all mixed up and married with doing trade shows with an association that also does surfing, rollerblade, every new Xtreme gimmick, etc. They lump them all together and call them "Action Sports" as opposed to football and baseball where everyone stands still and there is no action - right. It took a long time for the skateboarders that run your favorite companies to actually act on their thoughts of "why don't we do our own trade show?" That's what the Bayview Rumble thing is - pure skateboarding run by skateboarders. We here at Skatepark of Tampa know that's one part, among many others, of the formula for success. Plenty of other companies still go to the other trade shows - look for photos and a story from Ryan Clements on that next week.

Yesterday before I left for the Bayview Rumble in San Francisco, I made a detailed list of everything I need to remember to take. After all that, my stupid ass forgets my skateboard at the Park. Brian Schaefer picked me up at the airport and we immediately went to the Deluxe offices. Deluxe makes plenty of the gear you're probably using right now - Real, Krooked, Anti-Hero, Spitfire, Thunder, and a few others.

I'm not sure if I felt more like a kid in a candy store or a Deluxe team rider when I got to go through their large warehouse of all those companies and pick out whatever I wanted to set up a new complete. Thanks to Jim Theibaud for that hook up. Since I'm too old and set in my ways to change trucks, I had to get some Ventures somewhere. No problem there since it's a walk across the street to get to the Lucky, Think, and Venture warehouse. Jim over there hooked me up right. After that, Brian and I took a walk through the Thrasher and Slap buildings. I tried not to nerd out and act too excited, but that was just cool as hell being there and seeing where it all gets done at a magazine I grew up reading cover to cover and still do to this day. All of these places are on one city block right next to each other.

Nothing much skate-wise went down today. Once Brian and I got settled in his house and took care of some bid'niss matters, we headed out to the local hangout called Pop's, but not before driving around the city for a little bit for me to check things out. Here's a condensed version of the interesting points:

• In San Francisco, you can be sitting in 80 degree temps and have full sunshine, while a few blocks away there's some creepy fog on a giant hilltop that makes you feel like you're a thousand miles from the sunshine because it's darker and 15 degrees cooler.
• I can't believe they make roads and homes on hills that steep.
• The subways are the cleanest ones I've been in.
• When driving through the city, it seems you can spot something skateable on nearly every block.
• The Castro district that we drove through is really, really, very openly gay. Is everyone really openly straight in other parts of the city? Well, no. I guess that would be too weird. Rainbow signs were embedded into everything - cars, business windows and signs, the sidewalks, etc.

Elissa Steamer and Dustin Dollin make good use of the pool table	Everyone should be as happy as Rob Hoovis when they're drunk
LJ and Rob Hoovis like to skate and breakdance after a few beers	The inside and outside of Pop's bar - kiddies, don't spend too much time at places like this if you grow up

At the bar, the same old rukus went down that you're used to reading about. Blah, blah, blah was wasted. Blah blah blah threw a beer bottle. Blah blah blah got in a fight. Just take a look at the photos if you're into that. Tomorrow look for a full report on the what's going on. According to the schedule, this is what we have to look forward to on Saturday:

• 9:30 am - Bayview Rumble gets started
• 12:30 am - Free Vans BBQ begins and the Pabst Blue Ribbon starts flowing
• 2:00 pm - Bootleg signing
• 4:00 pm - Best Trick Contest on the obstacle Schaefer built last week
• 5:00 pm - Bayview Rumble closes
• 8:00 pm - Thrasher's "King of the Road" video premiere
• 1:00 am - Back to Pop's bar
• 3:00 am - I write you another stupid story of what went down for the day