so basically i was blown away by the skating at times and at times i was yawning. contests are for the benefit of the television audience and not the live spectators. we were merely there to provide a cheering backdrop or whatever.

but at one point, there was a sparkle of specialness. i'm sure that non-skateboarders and the like have never heard of eric koston, but he won the contest and he wins almost every contest. so at the end of his run he turned to the crowd and threw his helmet high into the air.

hands flew and waved past the molded-plastic projectile as it careened through space towards its final destiny:

my clutching grasp.

i caught his helmet like a little girl catching a plectrum thrown out at a hanson show.

i may be gimpy in the legs, but at least i have a helmet worn by a guy who is represented in a video game.

lets say i went to fenway park and was hoping to catch a foul ball. my chances are roughly one in 35,000 on a given night. and i can cut those odds in half by attending a second game and proceed to whittle them away in direct proportion to the number of games i attend.

the gravity games are but once a year and the attendance equals that of a major mainstream sporting event and i would like to point out that my chances of catching a helmet thrown into the crowd at this event are a close rival to those chances involved with being struck by lightning.

so if you see the gravity games street finals on NBC on one of the upcoming sundays upon which they will air, look for the dopey bloke who caught the helmet. red shirt. that idiot is me.

i have eric koston's helmet.

who wants to touch me?