Hood games: Oct. 14, Oakland, California.

THERE'S SOMETHING FUN besides sideshows and motorcycle gangs going on in downtown Oakland. On October 14th, the city held the Hood Games, an event that hella skaters and random fools come out to for skating, lurking, to see someone rapping, painting, dancing, for the fashion show, or just to get free shit. It's put together by some local heads and this guy K-Dub, who's an Oakland school teacher. These guys have been doing this for a while--this was their fifth one. Underneath the 880 freeway, the empty parking lot was filled up with so many weird, fun obstacles, beats were bumping, dreads were shaking...it was getting hyphy. There were tons of skaters from all over The Bay From little kids to pros, white, black, and all the other colors, the Hood Games were carried on with positive vibes and showed what skating can do for a community like Oakland.

At one point Jim Thiebaud's son Jack (age seven) was messing with my camera, shooting anything he was interested in. Dennis Busenitz was smashing around the whole area, destroying every obstacle. He ended up at this weird, blue triangle thing, and snapped an ollie. Dennis tried a kickflip on it, and Jack started to shoot the sequence. After a couple more tries, Dennis did a buttery-ass kickflip in front of Jack, who was bursting my digi. A seven year old photographer got his first sequence and the Hood Games were over, right after I heard from behind me: "It looks better than Ken's photos!"