We drive through this city of extremes. The heat brings people out into the street as we pass neighborhoods that look like they should be condemned. Zombies roam the streets, some hustling for money and others sat totally vacant on the stoops of rundown houses. I’ve noticed before, but it’s a common theme with Bob, he shows you the America that other Americans would probably prefer you didn’t see. Bob will tell me that he’s looking for new stuff to ride all the time and these grimy areas are untapped in that respect. I understand that this is true, he doesn’t want to ride the rinsed downtown spots anymore. But I know he loves roaming around these parts of town, observing this way of life. On one occasion we stop whilst riding around Kensington, after following the El train north and watch an addict struggle with his dope lean. The guy’s body slowly gyrates around his feet like he’s been nailed to the floor. Bob watches him for a few minutes before we ride away. I never hear him once pass judgment on what we see – I can’t work out what he thinks about it all and this occasion is no different. Bob likes to observe, that’s all I can gather from it. I feel like seeing all this madness is like catching the whole country with its pants down. Part of me wants to turn away, but another part of me can’t believe what I’m seeing. Another evening on the way to the store, we take a detour past three stationary police cars and an ambulance. Bob spots it from down the road. “That’s a shooting. There’s no way all those cops would be out of their cars round here,” he tells me as we turn towards them. Sure enough, a guy is slumped against a garage door, his neck stained claret whilst two cops talk on their radios above him. I’ve no idea if he’s dead, but the guy looked it. Bob seems unfazed by what we see, his elbow on the window as always. We pass the scene and end up back under the El. I think the noise of that train could be the soundtrack to this interview. We stop by the only liquor store in the area that sells Mickey’s, a malt liquor that seems to be synonymous with New Jersey, Bob’s home state. Bob exits the shop with two bottles and a smile on his face. I’ve never seen a guy so happy as Bob when he’s just bought a forty to finish up the day.
"i just want to document what people do. i don’t want to create the scenario"
[a] Wallride, Philadelphia.
Bob shares a flat with Ryan Navazio in North Philly. I find it funny, the pair of them, all the epic videos they’ve made and now all I can picture when I watch All Day or when I’ll finally see the Cult video is that they both lay on their beds to edit, the pair of them sticking heads round each others doors asking for some advice or an opinion. I’m amazed when Bob flippantly tells me that Edwin wanted to have Sonic Youth ‘Teenage Riot’ for his first section on the first Animal video. Can you imagine that section with that song instead of Del ‘Catch a Bad one’? In the end it was Bob
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The Freewheelin’
who used Teenage Riot after talking Ed out of it. It was a choice that seemed perfect for Bobs riding, as was Del with Edwin. Bob’s on some downtime after releasing Animal’s latest offering Foreign & Domestic, but Navaz is on deadline with Cult. To set the scene a little better, it’s probably worth mentioning that there’s a side narrative running along with Bob’s piece and that’s the final weeks of Navaz and the Cult guys finishing up the video. When I arrive, the flat is full of riders waiting for Navaz to emerge from his room to try and get a few extra clips. Navaz, on the other hand, seems firmly rooted down in his room editing. At times, you could cut the tension with a knife. Bob laughs at the situation, commenting that this won’t be the last time they’ll be asked to film a section. I remain firmly in the middle, with a leg each side of the fence. Navaz finally emerges and announces with a jubilation you’d expect to see when a man reveals the sex of his newly born baby to the family, but instead of “It’s a boy!” Navaz declares that he’s halfway through Dakota’s section with all the passion of a new father. Regardless of the madness that video is causing, it makes me thankful of the relatively stress-free days I have riding around Philadelphia with Scerbo. The day always starts with a trip to the coffee shop. Bob always sits in the seat with his back to the wall, so that he can see everything that’s going on around him clearly, like a gangster who’s aware he’s about to get whacked. My order changes depending on hangovers and money, but Bob sticks to the same thing, the creature of habit that he is. Time seems to slow down around Scerbo. At once you get a glimpse into the past and a look into the future all at the same time. It’s hard to explain. On one hand, there’s this hardboiled attitude that riding is fine as it is, that it doesn’t need to constantly catapult itself into the future. Yet at the same time, Bob himself has always represented a markedly refreshing outlook on whatever he chooses to ride and because of this there’s a strange fandom that surrounds him. It’s like when grown men become infatuated with a band that they grew up listening to, they’re down for life. In a similar way, Bob’s riding, the videos he’s made and even some of the photos he’s shot have come to define a side of riding that is for many, what ‘it’s all about’. All of this seems strange to attribute to a rider like Bob. It feels strange putting him on a pedestal like this. But there’s a reason I’m here spending two weeks working on this interview with him and it all somehow comes back to this. He’ll sit there, eating his breakfast bagel – observing as always – and I wonder if he thinks too much about the affect he’s had on riding over the years albeit in the videos he’s made or stared in, or both. I don’t ask him on this occasion. Later, I think. His phone lights up and it’s a message from Tom White. The phone itself is worth noting. I can only describe it as a clam style flip phone that looks like it’s from the nineties. Everybody comments on it and Bob seems to always get some pleasure from telling us, “it’s the new iPhone 5. I sent