-Morizen Foche
Right: Master verticalist Steve Caballero
proves how rad he can be on the flatlands by
finger flipping his way to fifth place.
Below: Mike Foster, a new face, executes this
picture perfect 2-board handstand, into a
dismount onto the bottom deck
SKATEWEAR
PROTECTIVE GEAR
PARAMOUNT
Facing Page: Rodney Muller checks out Per
Holknekt in confidence on the second day of
competition.
All Photos, Mofotos.
No matter where a contest is, or when
it's gonna happen, it's all the same. I gotta
get up at 5 a.m. This particular time it was
on a Saturday morning. Gnit the Pique
was outside, ready to shove off for the
airport (this time we FLY). I drew the
curtain to see what sort of mood he might
be in. He looked anxious to get going and
he was smiling this didn't last long.
especially when I informed him that we
had to stop by my office to get my flight
ticket. The ends of his moustache slowly
began to point further and further down.
My first major sketch of the day.
Anyway, we made our flight all right,
along with a few "minor" sketches that I
managed to tack in here and there, i.e.,
when loading the car, I threw my travel
bag on the head of a wall-fish (the kind
you hand over your fireplace)-I dropped
a 40 lb. porthole (that we were transporting
to Lowboy) on the foot of an Israeli
colonel who was visiting the U.S. It was
his fault anyway, he was obese, he
bumped my arm. When I turned towards
the guy, I commented, "Ya sure are fat,"
and he got more bummed. He thought I
was trying to be funny by saying Yasser
Arafat (you know how those primordial
Yasser-haters are). My plane was
boarding, I had to blaze out of there right
quick. "See ya later, colonel." He was
screaming what sounded like. "KURSHEH-
LIBIDO (curse your libido?).
I hopped on the craft right after Gnit, he
was carrying that wall-fish. That fish was.
to haunt me most of the weekend. "Watch
out for that fish. Don't touch that fish.
Make sure the fish is comfortable," Gnit
would say. I wish the fish would've stayed
home, I hate fish. I wanted to shove that
wallfish down Gnit's throat and see if it
was all comfy. Damn fish.
The stewardi were extremely accept-
able. They came by and asked us if we
needed anything. I knew what I needed.
Gnit knew what I was after and nearly
choked me to keep from telling what it
was. When I regained my composure, I
settled for a beer.
Beer, when consumed at high altitudes,
tends to conjure up vapors in the internal
regions. So, on the approach to LA.X.,
the vapors were looking for some outlet of
escape, namely in the form of loud
belches. In my opinion, they were the best
ones that I've ever heard although there
were two ladies and a nun seated in front
of us who were inclined to disagree with
me. One of them said, "Young man, you
should be ashamed of yourself." All of this
hassle so far wasn't worth it anymore, I
reached forward, pulled her seat back and
calmly said in her ear, "Pardon me, lady.
but would you rather that...burp...that I
fart?" That shut her up.
Finally we landed at LAX safe and
sound. So far, we managed to bum the
lives of virtually everyone we came into
contact with (unintentionally, of course,
and we weren't even legally awake yet-it
was only 9 a.m.), from the stewardess,
who kept telling me to keep my boots off
the seat and to stop yanking on her dress,
and the pilot, whose groin Gnit managed
to jab with the wallfish as he made his
way out of the plane. To the people who
perplexed themselves with the black and
white visions blazing from my new BLACK
FLAG t-shirt (a picture of a sweating cop
with a gun in his mouth). From the looks
of the LA. types, I thought maybe my fly
was undone or something.
We rented a 1982 Firebird and pro-
ceeded to look for the nearest freeway for
a test drive. It did 180 gnarlers pretty well,
but it wasn't too keen on the 360 bloopers.
We figured that it would suffice for the
weekend and decided to look for the
skatepark.