I know I've put up pictures of these tricks before. But just so you get the point of how gnarly this hubba is to skate, I'm putting these up again. And, until you get the point, I just might put different angles of them up another time, just so you learn to behave. I have that kind of authority to put up more pictures, and I will not hesitate to do it! Don't test me, don't you dare, don't you dare...
I will just come straight out and say it: the hospital has a security guard that is insane and must be stopped. By "be stopped" I mean just ignore him. Don't actually use physical force to try and make him do anything, that's not what I'm advocating. Our lawyer was sure to make me add that for legal purposes, and I stand by it. I stand by my lawyer, too. Ok, so the security guard is crazy, irrational, overweight, and in general not the brightest person I've come across. I've run into him two different times in my life, and each time was memorable enough to deserve a post dedicated to them. He's the kind of person that offends you so very badly when you just look at him, whose personage radiates discontent, malice, and ill-will towards others. It's probably the fact that he's a retired cop that he's so unhappy with his life, and he's sure to tell you that at the beginning of his crazy rants against you. Each encounter I've had with him started with him saying, "I'm a retired cop and a security guard!..." What, since you're not a cop any more, do I have to listen to you? Do you even have any real authority? I don't know...
So the first encounter I had with him was during omelet night at the hospital cafe. Yeah, the hospital actually has an omelet night, meaning they want outsiders to come and eat there. These events are usually chock full of hypocritical hipsters who denounce the love of meat then divulge themselves on the fetuses of unborn chickens... Anyway, I was there with Ammon and some other friends, you know, just eating our omelets and minding our own business. Because there was a large group of us, we put two tables together and were all huddled around our tables. We were just talking when out of left field came this 6 foot 5, 300 pound flabby security guard with a chip on his shoulder the size of.. the size of a large chip, and hatred in his soul for us. He came up to us and just started yelling. Forget asking us to put the tables back, just yell instead. This is the kind of idiot we're dealing with, he shoots first, then doesn't even ask questions later. He just shoots. In all directions too. You don't even know what he's shooting at. So he started his rant with the usual lecture, "I'm a retired cop and a security guard! You can't have the tables put together like that! This isn't Denny's or Arby's where you can do whatever you want; this is a quality establishment!" Ok, all you had to do was ask kindly, but whatever, we'll put them back... So our friend Dan, not Daniel R Shaw, but another friend, who wasn't going to take it, No, he ain't gonna take it, told the security guard, "You're a jerk!" This for some strange reason came as a shock to the dude that people would consider him a jerk, after all, he had asked nicely... So the cop retaliated by taking Dan aside and telling him that he had to leave the hospital or he'd call the cops on him for trespassing. So Dan came back, told us he was kicked out, and we had to leave. We all went outside and for about 1 minute tried discussing what we were going to do next, but the guy followed us outside and said that we were trespassing because we hadn't left yet, and he was calling the cops.
There are moments of true bravery. Then there are other moments of confusion and disarray. This was one of those other moments. Dan, not wanting the cops to come and arrest him for calling a security guard a jerk or for trespassing at the public omelet night at the hospital, remained silent when the cop asked him his name. Three times the cop asked him his name, and he opened not his mouth... Then, seeing as he was headed to the chair if he stayed around and fell into the hands of the cops, Dan did the extreme. He ran. It wasn't a fast run, but a hesitant trot. Like every step he was thinking, "should I be doing this? Should I just go back?" But he was in too deep, there was no going back now. The security guard, having eaten too many happy meals in his day, was in no shape to chase after a half-trotting Dan, so we all just stood in the parking lot in silence, watching Dan run across the street and hide in the parking lot across from the hospital. The best part of this scene was Dan's hair. He had this curly blonde white-man afro that bounced around with each step, making his head look like one of those bobble head toys that you put on your dashboard in your car. Good stuff.
After Dan ran away, the security guard couldn't come up from all this yelling empty handed. So, for reasons beyond our human understanding, the guy singled out Ammon as his next victim. The guy kept demanding that Ammon tell him Dan's name, but Ammon refused. Ammon ain't no rat. Even in the face of certain death, Ammon refused to say anything. The mark of a true friend. The guy blocked our car in with his golf cart, called the cops, and had Ammon banned from the hospital cafeteria for an entire year on account of his non-compliance. "I'm trespassing you!" the security guard kept telling Ammon. Can one trespass another? Or does one trespass on one's own? I think the cop got mixed up in his transitive and intransitive verb use. Retard.
A couple days later, craving the hospitals recycled frying oil and chicken strips, Ammon took his chances and went back to the hospital. To disguise himself, Ammon drew a mustache on his upper lip with a sharpie. It was the perfect disguise and got us safely into the cafeteria. Ammon - 1, Security Guard - 0.
The second incident I've had with this dude was a month or so ago in the final stages of filming for the video. We skated the hospital hubba two days in a row, which is not the best idea. You usually don't get more than a couple minutes there, but we stayed a combined total of more than an hour in those two days. The first day we skated it just fine, but my camera died, so we couldn't film Wizard's 50-50. Wanting to get it for the video, we went back the next day and Wizard got it again. Parker also skated it this time and crooked grinded it. But we flew too close to the sun on wings of hubbas, and the security guard pulled up in this huge truck trailer, blocking in our cars. He got out and gave us the same well-rehearsed dialogue, "I'm a cop and a retired security officer!" He's the kind of guy that comes on so strong that most people have no choice but to fight back. But, having served missions and having had our fair share of run-ins with idiot cops, me and Matt new the drill: just be nice and leave. He was shocked when we just said, "Ok, have a good day," and started packing up all our stuff. All of us there calmly and quietly started putting our boards away, getting ready to leave in our cars, but the guy wanted action. He didn't come all this way over to the other side of the hospital to watch us leave. He wanted blood. Man blood. He wanted to drink man blood. "No, you are trespassing! I will trespass all of you if you don't leave!" "ok, we're leaving," and we kept putting our stuff away. By this time he was livid that there was not fighting back, and he got out his notepad and started writing our license plate numbers. I guess he's going to go home, google those numbers, and see if he can't find any warrants floating around on the intranet with our names on them... He prolonged the incident by having our cars blocked in, and we wanted to leave, but he hadn't moved his truck yet. Finally, after we had all gotten in our cars and hadn't argued with him, he came up to our window and said, "look, I hate to be the bad guy, and I hate to be so mean about it... But you're not allowed to skate here..." HA! He even apologized for having been mean about it. Our Gandhi-style passive aggressive resistance proved to be effective in disarming the ogre, and we got out of there unscathed. Us - 2, security guard - 0.
