Mike Mo handles a halfcab manual backside flip out back at the 2009 Manny Mania contest.
I love demos. I don't care who it is, I just love watching talented dudes shred firsthand. It's a certain feeling that just can't be conveyed in glassy, quick-cut videos. Over the past 20-plus years I believed I'd seen every possible variation of demo from traveling Powell ramps to H-Street trying to skate a quarterpipe held together by far too few nails and duct tape. I've seen demos held on parking blocks and Rodney Mullen do freestyle demos. I've witnessed Lance Mountain air out of Sayreville's barely oververt section like no one had before.
I've seen it all. Then Mike Mo Capaldi came to town.
Earlier this year, we had Matix do a demo at NJ Skateshop. From the moment Mike Mo exited the van to the second he climbed back in he was mobbed by kids. I've seen Tony Hawk and other big names surrounded by autograph hungry kids before but this was quite different. First off, Mike could lead the crowd anywhere he wanted, like the Pied Piper. I asked him to take the crowd out of the street and he simply walked 30 feet to the grass and the 200+ kids that surrounded him followed him. But they didn't want his autograph, they wanted something even more personal; they wanted to play him in SKATE 1 on 1. And he obliged. It was like an '80s breakdance circle in the parking lot of the skatepark.
And the actual park was empty. It wasn't used once during the entire demo. Mike Mo never stepped into the skatepark. Yet I had kids telling me it was their favorite demo ever. One mom came to me with tears in her eyes (I kid you not) and said, "My son is playing against his hero. You made his life complete. Thank you."
And Mike Mo relished it; he let little kids get letters on him just to feel like they came close to beating him. This was, without a doubt, the weirdest demo ever. I felt like I was in the twilight zone.
A little kid asked me, "Is he going to skate the park at all?"
I said, "I don't think he even noticed it's there."
Then I asked him, "Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?"
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Josh Brooks
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