Tampa Bay Street Team

“I refuse to medicate my kids for ADHD,” Clothier told me as if reading my facial expression. “Skateboarding is the only effective treatment.”

We were at The Market on 7^th pizza parlor and pub in Ybor for the after-party of the Skatepark of Tampa’s Back to School Bash Contest.

I made the mistake of arriving at the all-ages show early. I felt like I was reliving my middle school Fridays at the skating rink. DJ Colonic was spinning some Jackson 5. A table of young girls sat by themselves giggling and pointing to boys. Dance lights moved over a polished wood floor that had yet to be filled. I used to be so cool I wouldn’t even bring roller skates to the rink. I’d just sit in a sticky booth bumming off someone else’s junk food, trying to hide braces, impressing girls by exchanging punches and gay jokes with buddies, and fighting the urge to strap on some wheels and chase each other around the floor like the teeny boppers we were. That same awkwardness returned to me.

 I don’t think I’ve ever mastered the skill of talking to anyone between the ages of 13 and 15. Again, I was the weirdo who didn’t bring his skates to the skating rink. Part of the problem was that I couldn’t tell the dirty-blonde longhaired boys from the girls in tilted ball caps. And, I didn’t know what I would talk to them about other than to ask if their moms were the kind who brought a lot of men over for slumber parties.

The key difference between Market and a skating rink was that Market wasn’t charging a cover, the playlist wasn’t composed of Casey Kasem’s Top 20, and the pizza didn’t taste like the retarded cousin of the frozen pie that lives in my freezer. Oh, and did I mention that Market serves alcohol? And not just any type of alcohol but the best kind, the cheap kind: $2 drafts, $1 jager and $5 pitchers.

Things remained relatively tame until The Sunday Bladers rolled up in helmets, pads, sports bras and sweat. This gang goes around the city doing things normal people do, except on roller blades. For them, skates are like a healthy version of alcohol. They are a social lubricant that make conversation and dancing easier. I felt like I was at the beginning of Michael Jackson’s Bad video, where the two gangs converge for a wicked dance fight. I anticipated an epic battle between the giant wheel-footed race and the blond-haired, sexless elf creatures who had the power to throw firecracker poppers and hide under tables. OK, so maybe it was a cross between Jackson and Lord of the Rings on ice.

The bladers fought break-dance-style with youngsters who were deprived of the grace of their wheels. The kids were at the age where they didn’t know how to dance but weren’t embarrassed about performing moves that looked very much like they were having pizza and energy-drink induced seizures. A few attempted their first strides at the moonwalk. One kid did handstands. Another pair played leapfrog.

“It’s exactly like a Disney movie,” Kelly said.

Lesser men would have been discouraged by being trapped in a G-rated, extreme-sports movie. Such people are oblivious to the fact that these little competitors often come equipped with hot single moms or older sister types — the kind who started to fill the Market later in the night. By the looks of some of them, I might have to start spending my nights outside the skatepark, after midnight, with the bad moms looking for a way to fill the time in their minivans while waiting to pick up their kids.

E-mail Alfie at shawn.alff@creativeloafing.com