You might know him, you might fear him, you might be annoyed by him, but you can’t really miss Adam “Auby” Taylor. He skates in real life the way you might skate in your dreams. So here is his Mag Minute, I promise you will be stoked!
If you ever want to see Adam in real life you might find him lurking in Index!
Index is about to celebrate its 5 year anniversary, it is also about to open a new shop in Dallas (Mockingbird Station), and right in the mix of all that about to release its first video. These are big, exciting, and stressful moments in the life of a skate shop. 2010 will probably be called the year of Index. Dameon and the entire Index Family have worked extra hard to make this shop not only successful but dominant! I thought that as a fan of the shop I would throw my creative hat in the ring and help with naming the new video. If you like any let me know, if they inspire you comment your idea, and maybe just maybe I can steal your idea and say it was my own!
1. Index Finger
2. The Good, The Bad, and The Index
3. 5 years
4. Shoes, Booze, and Pure Heat!
5. Pure Heat.
6. Making Awesome.
7. 5 Years Deep
8. Not The Promo
9. Stimulus Package
10. The Index Nation
11. Pure Awesome
12. Our Shop
13. Last Call
14. Kickflips, Kgrinds, and Last Calls
15. Xedni
16. Home Sweet Home
17. Dallas has a skate shop and its name is Index.
18. Wheels, Deals, and Steals.
19. What happens when dreams come true?
20. Fish Boy
21. Fish Boy Chronicles.
22. The Real Deal.
23. Super Stoked.
24. Long 5 year wait!
25. Texas Living
26. Rockets, Dragons, and Index
27. Extreme Danger Skating
28. Blamoo
29. Open Mondays!
30. Total Package
31. In it to win it!
I am sure I will have more working titles to come. This is all I could come up with this early in the morning. I hope that even if they are not the best, that maybe they make you laugh or cry or wonder what else is out beyond the stars?
32. Survival Guide.
33. How its done!
34. Maximum Index
35. One trick at a Time.
36. Index Skateboarding
37. Our Shop, Our Board, Our Reason
38. Stimulus
39. Stimulate
40. The Card, The Finger, The Shop.
41. Kgrinds and Goodtimes!
42. There is a Video?
43. What Video?
44. Banging out the dents.
45. Grandtastic
46. Melt your face off!
47. It’s about time.
48. Chapter 5
49. In your face!
Shane barely made it into the Es Game of Skate at Index but in the end made it to the fourth round and the website!
Now I think this pic is sweet but Shane described it as “gay” either way its sick when you make the website. Index and Lakai might owe him some photo incentive.
I miss Havik and I am sure there are still a few other people out there that miss it too.
It will be a sad day when all these stickers disappear. This sticker was hanging out at the Es game of skate at Index.
I made sure I had today off so that I could make it out to the big Es game of skate at Index. You can usually bump into a lot of homies at events like this and also talk a lot of smack! I saw a bunch of guys I have not seen in awhile Aaron Baugh, Houston, Ryan, P.J., Frankie “I used to push mongo” Heck, Zack, Shane, Sturgeon, Cody, The Pirate, The Slob Crew, and about a million other random dudes. I was sort of stoked on the idea of entering this event until I saw the 400 crazy kids hanging out as I drove up. I don’t mind losing but I hate waiting to lose.
It was a hot and wild day! Congrats to all the dudes who worked hard threw the heat and lines. I did come up with an idea for next year a 30+ game of skate for all the older dudes. It will involve beer, injuries, old people, and more beer. I am hoping that the 30+ crowd can get behind me on this one!
So I have lost my mind. I have suddenly become a crazy non-skateboarding hermit that lives in a 2 bedroom cave! Maybe I can blame the satellite cable, or my 4 girls who crave attention, my bowling obsession, or the nerf guns. Socially I have just been unable to have a regular life. I want nothing more then to see my friends and get down on some kickflips but it never seems to happen. So I am making a come back. Or at least I am training for a come back.
I have decided to start doing a lot of at home work outs that can improve my skating. I also got a sweet outfit to make my work outs seem more serious.
Stretching is a very important part. I do not want to get injured just warming up. I got to stretch out those 31 year old limbs!
Strength can also be very important I want to improve my over all pop and control.
Sure I mean I look at my lack of skating has a direct link to my current hermit like living style. The only reason I have had to leave my house for the last 17 years has been to skate or work. And work is not a social environment they pay me to be social.
I hate carpet skating but if that is all you got then you got to do it. I got to get out of my living room. I actually saw a lot of my old buddies recently on the 4th. It was cool, it was funny, it was how it should be when you hang out with friends.
So to all the people out there who thought I died, or quit skating, or went crazy. You only got one out of three. And to all my friends out there lets go skate some time! Just call me until I answer the phone! E-mail me, Text me, Facebook me, Twitter me, Myspace me, or drive by my house! I got motivation Index Video I have to sneak in a trick, Shane actually has mentioned Mediocre 2 to me twice, Juma has me on some grip tape, and I love skateboarding.
First I would like to thank Samantha and the girls for helping me and motivating me to have this party. Without Samantha I would have been way too lazy to get it done. Big thanks to all my friends that came out Jesse, Adam, Victor, Justin, Matt, Chris, Sidney, Wesley, and Shane!
Samantha picked out the cake which explains the pink flowers. I was so stoked that some of my best homies made it out. There was Mediocre all over the place! And Mediocre bowling down all the lanes. Skank aka Matt Greer had a pretty sweet come back game that really showed us he meant business. And Weirdo aka Justin Greer had one hell of a game right when our time cut out! He might have won the last game! Big time thanks for finally busting out the Tupac grip and we will be working very soon on the MOMO 2.0 grip!
Adam was also super down to party but did not bring his A game to the bowling alley. But he could really chunk that thing down the lane!
Adam also had a pretty sweet gift that he brought with!
Other random pics!
Strike!
I would like to really thank my friends for coming out, throwing down on the bowling, bringing gifts and having a good time. It means so much to me to be able to spend some time with true friends. This has to be hands down one of the best birthday parties I have ever had. I hope we can all get together and skate more and bowl more! I could never have hoped for a better group of guys and gals to spend my 31st birthday with! I hope we can have many more great times this year! Who wants to Bowl??????
How many people really get the chance to live their dream? You here it all the time that people have that mystery dream job. That almost impossible dream that would just make life super awesome. For me Havik was that dream. It made my entire life! I was given a huge opportunity to live my dream right in my home town. The weird part is losing your dream. Where do you go from the top? What do you do after you live your dream? What do you do when you lose your dream? I decided to make a list of what I might have been able to change or do differently to save Havik. I mean Havik was more then just my dream. So many kids really seemed to love that place.
1. Maybe I should have listened more to Marc.
2. Maybe I should have worked harder.
3. Maybe I should have taken a pay cut.
4. Maybe I should have ran the whole place by myself.
5. Maybe we didn’t need the Big Ass Fan.
6. Maybe I shouldn’t have hired all my friends.
7. Maybe I could have gotten more demos.
8. Maybe I could have made everybody pay. Every single person, even Mark, Andy, Chris, and every single DICK who thought he was too cool to pay or too good to care.
9. Maybe I should have stayed at Woodward.
10. Maybe I could have ordered cooler stuff for the proshop.
11. Maybe I could have managed the payroll better.
12. Maybe we didn’t need the remodel.
13. Maybe we could have opened later or earlier.
14. Maybe I could have never let anyone drink in the parking lot.
15. Maybe I should have let everyone drink in the parking lot.
16. Maybe we could have had less lock ins or maybe more!
17. Maybe we should have worked harder at the summer/winter camps.
18. Maybe I got paid too much.
19. Maybe I wasn’t the guy for the job.
20. Maybe Marc should have given us one more year.
21. Maybe I could have taken on more responsibility.
22. Maybe I should have talked to Marc about Dug being a kook.
23. Maybe I should have not put my face on a board.
24. Maybe we didn’t need camp shirts.
25. Maybe I should have never ordered any shoes or shirts.
26. Maybe I should have been cool with Mark (alliance) and I could still be running a park.
27. Maybe I wasn’t core enough.
28. Maybe I didn’t know the industry well enough.
I feel like I let a million people down. I let every kid down that loved that park. I let the Janni family down. I let Shane, Dillon, Dave, Sparky, Kyle, Chris, Alyx, and every person that ever built a ramp or swept the park. Havik has a special place in my heart. It was one heck of a great time and I will probably never get the chance to live that again. I love and hate skateboarding but I live it everyday.
Skateboarding is a double edged sword that I have loved and hated for more then half of my life. It has led to many ups, a ton of downs, and all the in between stuff that you don’t here about. It brought me tons of friends, lots of scars, and lost me lots of ladies. It has made my dreams come true and made me wish this nightmare would end.
I can look back laughing and crying at all the memories I have that revolve around my skateboard. I remember the skateboard demonstration that Lance and I gave at the Wellington Place Basketball Court on our Nash boards. We didn’t call it a demo cause we had no idea that’s what you should call it. I remember selling Shane a used Real deck out the back of my car while I was working at Fast Forward. That was the beginning of a friendship that has lasted more then a decade. I think back to road trips to Tennessee with Adam and Joel to skate and buy fireworks. With no video cameras, no plans, no maps, and a lot of fun. There was all the trips to Cali that included sleeping in the car, watching dudes die on hand rails, swimming in the ocean, San Francisco, LA, and 24 hours of driving. There was good times at the X games park, Rapid Revolutions, Eisenbergs, The Denton Park, The Colony Park, Havik Skate Park, Woodward, and there was a lot of bad times at those same places. I could never forget all the videos that Shane has made from Focal Point to Mediocre. And I can never forget all the Mediocre Home Boys!
Skateboarding has been so weird and so unforgiving. It has kept me skinny and kept me feeling like a kid. Most days whether I work or not I spend most of my time dreaming of skateboarding. I am just about to turn 31 years old in the eyes of the world I am a full grown man. And this full grown man rides around on a wooden toy to bring himself some cheap form of happiness. Not to get paid, or for exercise but because I want to have some sort of victory on this thing.
Most days I feel like I forgot to grow up. I feel like I should have interests in other things, that I should have more adult plans for my life. Like I should worry about how nice my furniture is, or worry about where I live, or maybe get a better wardrobe. Everything in my life has to do with skateboarding. When I buy shoes I only buy shoes that I can skate in, my pants have to be good for skating, my apartment needs to be close to skaters or a skate park, everything revolves around my board.
Now I have come to some weird cross roads in my life. I feel like a kook! When dealing with other things in this world I have realized that I am just a Man who lets a weird wooden Toy rule his life. Even when I basically blow at it. Is this weird? Can I grow up and not lose my love for my toy? Is this the feelings you get when you know its time to hang up your board? Most my friends have long since retired, some still skate but I hardly see them. I have lost touch with the guys I grew up skating with and its hard to go out and skate with 16 year old kids when your 30.
I am in skateboard limbo. Been in it too long to quit and would have no idea what to do if I did. It seems like such a silly game that I play with my skateboard and with my life. I have been off my board for over a week. I did this on purpose to see exactly what I want to do. I can either get back on it and spend 10 more years skating and extending this love affair. Or I just stay off this little wooden toy and find a new way to live my life.
Working Titles for Mediocre Part 2
April 13, 2009 — themostmediocreMediocre 2 : Allergic to Awesome.
Mediocre 2 : Return of the Wash Ups.
Mediocre 2 : Mr. Darnell’s Opus.
Mediocre 2 : The Medium Hitters
Mediocre 2 : Still Not Great
Mediocre 2 : The Re-Learners
Mediocre 2 : Kickflips are Wack
Mediocre 2 : Too Old To Make It and Too Dumb To Care
Mediocre 2 : Rail Dipping Eagle Style
Mediocre 2 : Dreads, Beards, Mustaches, and Pain!
Mediocre 2 : Last Call!
If you got any other sweet ideas make sure to leave them in the comments yo!