included in the company that evening. We
were told this party was free by some jerk
poseur with flyers at the ramp. When we
got there we were informed it was $5 a
head. We almost turned around and left,
but then decided to talk some good ole
L.A. gig scam, which never fails under
heavy pressure. Our rap was that we
were from Calif. and we were cordially
invited for the evening. So this chick let us
all in (about 10 of us) for $5! Once inside
we proceeded to check out the scene real
quick and then straight to the keg. Gator
kept the beers flowing for a quick game of
quarters and the war cry was "swim."
After swimming more than a few laps, I
noticed some camoflaged hippy band was
setting up. At the same time Bob Dick
was amping out the crowd and blowing
people's ear drums with some sonic
YEEE-HAAAWS! He was ready to have a
real good time tonight. The band started
up their first tune and Duane grabbed the
mike for a few quick vocals, this totally
pissed off the hipple guitarist so he kicked
Duane in the chest with his jap slaps on.
Duane just laughed and jeered at the guy.
The evening looked as if it was going to
liven up a bit from this point on. Their
singer finally came and joined the band.
He was a pretty raunchy lookin' skinhead
with no shirt and a few teeth. He almost
made the band cool. We danced around
smashing New Wavers and an occasional
friend or foe. After a few songs we got
bored and headed back to the beer. The
keg was empty. So Cooksie and I headed
for the bar. After ordering a couple of
brews, we kicked back in our usual
location, by the tables. We guzzled the
brews down to cool off and just as I'm
finishing off the remnants, a fight breaks
out and rumbles towards us. Duane
seems to be the center of attention as he
and some other guy come flying against
one of the tables. So Bob Dick and I jump
in and start decking people, who are
trying to jump in against Duane. Meanwhile
Duane is on the ground (in my new Levi
jacket) rolling through the inch of beer and
mud on the floor, fighting some guy.
Kicks and punches instinctively fly
against the guy's head as Duane rolls
over on top of him. The guy lets go of
Duane and they both jump up. I pull
Duane away as this other guy's friend
grabs him. The guys start yelling at us
while I'm giving Duane shit for thrashing
my jacket. In a rage, I throw a snapping
right across into the guy's jaw whom
Duane was fighting. His jaw snaps back
for a clean knock-out punch as one of his
friends catches him before he hits the
ground. Well, that takes care of that, the
old one punch never fails to solve
problems. We are then informed that we
have beaten up the guy and his friends
who've given the party and that we should
leave. The Dick bros agreed, so we head
to their pad for some computerized
downhill skiing and Big Bad Bob Dick's
famous cocktails. We sat back, tried to
learn how to ski, sipped our drinks and
laughed our asses off about the fight. We
never did get to see the so-called
"Butthole Surfers." Oh well, maybe next
time.
26
Saturday: The day of the contest had
finally arrived. No skating for us today, we
were the judges. The contestants had
plenty of time to warm up. Newton put the
judges seats up on top of Donel's roof, so
we had a very good view of the contest
scene. As soon as Duane arrived back
from the super mall with his Jaks and the
inflatable giraffe (his new toy). We
proceeded to get the contest under way.
The first division had local favorites
such as Z-nose and Bugger, the out of
town Texan Sims skater. He definitely
looked strong. Joe Blow, Tex's friend,
also looked good. Next, Heckles and
Jeckles heat was a teaser, heading up to
the bigger guys' event. The goofy foot
Jeckler blazed his event with a pretty
complete repertoire. I have a feeling it
was the new haircut Duane gave him that
provided the energy.
Tex Mex of BMX did a short demo
before going into the main event, the
sponsored rippers. Everybody skated
rather well, but there were a few definite
standouts. Jeff Phillips looked really hot in
practice but the minute the clock ticked
into action, he jelled on a bio (or basic,
whichever you prefer) kickturn. Craig
Johnson pulled off a totally insane
handplant to get the highest score of the
day. Gator rode into the finals with some
original moves never seen before. Tex
Gibson was very sure of himself and rode
with Texan authority. Duane and Kiwi
handled the announcing in a Howard
Cosell/Frank Gifford fashion even they
would have been proud of. Góing into the
finals it was: Gator 4th, Phillips 3rd, Tex
2nd, Johnson 1st. Johnson was a bit
bummed because he thought his one run
was the winner. You don't win contests
with one lucky run, you win with consis-
tency and endurance, which he would
soon learn. Another small warm-up and
then into the finals, which showed us the
best skating of the day. Gators' two runs
were unreal with only one fall at the end
of his second run. He pulled off his
backside handplant twister aerial, as
people remarked, "What was that?" This
final gave Jeff Phillips another chance to
show his stuff. He skated to really
impress the judges. Craig Johnson out-
bioed his local bro once again by totally
going all out. Last, but definitely not least,
Tex Gibson showed what competitive
experience is all about as he casually
ripped with complete confidence and not
even the slightest slip-up in to the #1
spot. The guy was very impressive with
both air lines and connecting moves
during his routine. The clear winner but
only by a very narrow margin. The judges'
scores were very consistent and Tex won
by a 100th of a point. Gibson 1st, Johnston
2nd, Phillips 3rd, and Rogowski 4th was
the final outcome of a well-run Texan
event. Some good vertical aggression
was the outcome and result. The Big
Boys had come up from Austin to play
after the contest and just to have a good
time raging with us. Tim, Chris and Biskut
were even skating around a bit after the
contest, just to loosen up before setting
up their equipment on the middle of the
ramp. Two officers of the law were
present to make sure no minors were
drinking beer or people were getting
rowdy. They were pretty mellow though.
When the skate action had settled down a
bit, the Big Boys began their set. Most of
the locals were familiar with their songs
and proceeded to dance and have a good
time thrashing. Some even helped out on
backup vocals. One song in particular I
liked was a white funk version of Hollywood
Swingers, this being my first Big Boys gig
I thoroughly enjoyed myself and the band.
One little mishap did occur. I accidentally
elbowed Joey in the nose when Cooksie
and I started dancing around, being
drunken fools. It all started when Joe
smacked into Cooksie knocking his
"cool cat" Vaurnets to the ground and
then dashing back into the crowd. Well,
Cooksie and I kinda gave each other the
nod and decided to give some dancing
lessons. So Joey got a bit of a broken
nose blood gusher. Accidentally, of
course! Luckily for him, Carlos is an
expert in cracking and restraightening
nasal septums. Joey was a good sport
about it and moments later was spotted
singing backup for the Big Boys. The
Cravens played a short noise songs after
the Big Boys, but didn't get much of a
reaction. Sorry, guys, it's a hard act to
follow, you know.
Well, now that everyone was all fired
up, we needed a place for everyone to
rage the rest of the evening. Kurt's friend
Peter solved the problem by inviting us all
out to his father's lakeside pad for the
evening. Everybody met at the hotel first
to clean up a bit. Duane had left earlier to
play with his giraffe, so when I got there
he took a little too long opening the door
to the hotel room. He was surprised with a
30-person dog pile when he finally did
open the door. The bottom of the pile is
always great fun. Finally after a democratic
decision, we caravaned it, with a keg of
beer and 12-car line-up, to Peter's house.
We stopped quickly once just to kill the
rest of another keg left over from some-
one's barbeque. Arriving at Peter's house
brought hoots and hollers from the
demolition crew we had brought with us.
Two mass quarters games were started.
up instantly. Then the sandwich brigade
hit the kitchen for ham and cheese
gnarlers. Fifteen minutes later all that was
left was a rather large ham bone. Myself
and many others began to swim the beer
stroke in a full cup quarters game. The
spleefs were abundant also. The party
was really cranking after about a half an
hour. Everybody was getting sauced and
rowdy as hell. Ed, the drummer from the
Cravens, supplied the porno while
everybody watched through the outside
bedroom window, laughing and smoking
herb. He was whomping some roller-
skating chick non-stop for at least half the
party. People were banging on the
window and yelling and whistling but it
didn't phase them one bit. The party got
rowdy as hell when the keg ran out. A
lamp got kicked in, the stereo got thrashed
(because there were only three records),
and I got thrown on a quarters game and
broke the table they were playing on. I'm
sure the chicks that were there got just as
wasted, but they were pretty mellow, as
girls will be. I'm sure they were planning
on saving some energy for after the party
hours. We finally got kicked out of the
house by some fat ass chicks and their
boyfriends. I suppose they knew Peter's
father. A fight almost broke out. But we
decided to leave instead. We piled 12
people into some guy's car in order to get
home to the hotel. Cooksie got head
bangers on the cement before we left in
an intense dog pile. Robin got left by Jeb.
Oh well, a crazy night for sure.
Sunday: Next morning we awoke to the
sound of the Big Boys hanging around out
front of our hotel. Biscut was wearing his
usually outrageous garb, which
represented his own unique style. They
were packing and getting ready to hit it
back to Austin. We exchanged greetings
and I thanked Biscut once again for my
Big Boys t-shirt. I told him I would guard it
with my life. He beat it with a Texas
sagebrush covered with red paint, a rarity,
to say the least. We had our minds set on
hitting that big underground monster pipe
near Armadillo. Newton was driving his
truck, and the Z-28 would start its long
trek back home, since this was on the
way. Poindexter and Brett (I think that's
his name) would join us for this 6-8 hour
journey through the vastness of Texas.
We made it to the dam right before the
sun went down. We searched frantically
to find the pipe before dark. Spotting a
drainage runoff (a very steep one, too) we
knew the pipe had to be at the top. Sure
enough, as Kiwi and I jumped the fence to
the wall below we could see the top roof
section of the pipe. It was a fuggin' big
one. As we climbed higher along the wall,
we could see more of the pipe. The wall
also got higher and higher which made us
cling tighter to the fence as we headed
upward. We finally got to the top and
hooted at the sight of a monstrous 24-foot
pipe with an intense flat wall section at the
end. The pipe was slightly downhill angled
and very smooth. We were stoked so we
decided to grab something to eat and try
to sleep in the cars somehow. It wasn't
going to be easy but we would do it. We
picked up a couple of beers, cheese,
bread, bologna, chips and ski rope. A
thrifty and simple meal. It sucked, but it
was better than nothing.
Duane and I took a walk among the
screaming frogs but it was cold so we
headed back to the truck for warmth and
relaxation. Warmth we did find but
comfort or relaxation we didn't. It was the
full body sanwich session with six bodies
in Fig's truck. Cooksie and Carlos slept in
the Z-28.
After trying our hardest to sleep, Duane
and I decided to go raid our neighbor's
camp for drink, anything would do, we
were desperate. I kept a lookout as
Duane grabbed an ice box. We galloped
back to the truck. Duane was anxious to
see what he had gotten. Knowing we had
a successful venture, all the boys popped
out of the truck. Duane reached inside the
ice box in the dark and instantly let out a
muffled screech. "What's in there, man?"
Everyone roared with laughter as
Duane pulled out a dead fish by the tail.
We were bummed but it was pretty
hilarious. Duane said, "I thought that ice
tasted kinda wierd." Duane snuck back to
their camp to drop off the ice box and then
we tried once again to get some half-ass
sleep before the sun came up.
Monday: The sun came up before we
knew it so we packed up and headed
towards the pipe. Somehow Duane and I
managed to catch the beginnings of a
cold and I still had the dreaded desert
dust disease I had contracted the day we
left Calif. I felt pretty shitty but this pipe
had to be shredded. Why? Because it
was there! We squeezed and hopped
over a barbed wire cattle fence and then
climbed over the same fence Kiwi and I
had the day before onto the wall below. It
was another good 8-10 foot drop on the
other side of that. We then tied our ski
rope to the fence in order to get down and
back up the wall. Carlos couldn't wait so
he did a belly flop onto the cement below.
This was just the beginning of a hard day
of cement slams for the big guy. Everyone
made it over the fence and down the
rope, no problem. Then up the incline and
to the top, we were
at the mouth of the
pipe.
It left us awestruck at first, but then
we stripped down to shorts and knee
pads quickly. The top end of the pipe had
an intense 30 to 40 foot deep bowl that
blended into the transition of the pipe. All
you needed to do was a few shallow
carves to get speed and then you could
kick turn frontside and backside as high
as you dared all the way down from the
top to the mouth of the pipe. It was a little
dark at first, but as the sun got higher a
little more natural light was shed into the
pipe. After every ride dust and peels of
dirt would fly out the mouth of the pipe,
proof that this pipe had not been ridden in
quite a while. There were a few small
stickers here and there but other than that
no recent trace of skate kind. Front side
thrusters, backside ceiling carves and
brisk rock walks were possible at speed.
Duane ripped heavily as did the rest of
the crew. Poindexter and Brent rode very
well considering their inexperience.
Cooksie rode with reckless abandon, as
usual, and Kiwi, in typical confident
fashion. It wasn't one of my better days,
but I did have a good time and I drew my
share of high lines. The sensation of pipe
height is unmatched by any other skate
experience in my mind. It just so happened
this pipe was in the middle of a completely
surrealistic setting which only added to
the intensity of the whole trip. The location
and aura that surrounded the lake area
was beautiful. After skating for a few
hours we were pretty exhausted. We felt
the urge to get on the road towards home
sweet home. As everyone climbed over
the fence, we swore we would return
someday soon.
A quick swim in the fresh cold water of
the lake cleansed us of the dust and
perspiration. We then exchanged saluta-
tions and thanks to each other and
headed on our way home, with our new
Texas THRASHER t-shirts and a Big
Boys & Dicks tape.
Tuesday: After marathon driving and
drinking for the next 18 hours, we finally
made it into Orange County Calif. and
some good ole So. Cal. bumper to
bumper traffic. Just in time too. The clutch
on the good ole Z-28 race special went
out completely a block away from Big O.
The end of the road for Duane and I.
Carlos, Kiwi, and Cooksie still had to
make it up to the City, this was it for me
though. A million thoughts flew through
my brain at once, while the hour we spent
waiting for Barcly to rescue us seemed
like an eternity. We looked, felt, and
smelled like the long dusty road.
Only sleep, surf, and sex could mend
this poor tired soul.
-Fritz Coy, aka T.A.