dreds of blazers. On any given day at any-
time there were a dozen or more bros tearing it
apart. It was behind these abandoned apts.
where various hardcore locals took residence in
rooms called "The Black Hole" and "Room
13." One could always depend on a place to
stay and vertic perfection to skate, with inter-
mittent partying, as long as one wished.
Concurrent to this era many halfpipes were
being constructed. The Summit V ramp, Cabs
ramp, Joe's ramp, Buddy's ramp, the Pinle
Tree ramp, Howser's and a dozen more had al-
ready been shredded.
This whole evolution to wooden substitutes
for vertical pool action resulted from the deep
rooted desires inherent in each skater that fre-
quented the park. Together with the construc-
tion that was predominant all over the silicon
valley, ramp locals began to session each
others' structures. This give way to some very
heavy duty competition culminating in the full
blown events at the Summit, and the San Jose
Amateur Summer Ramp Series.
With all this skate activity many locals found
that they were far more "into" skating now than
ever before. The fact that all skating was done
in the streets helped generate more enthusiasm
and participation by beginning skaters, some of
whom might not have even given it a second
thought if they hadn't seen so many thrashers
having so much fun. This fact is reflected by
the great increase in board sales by various.
local shops.
This brings me to the most intense of all
shredding being done in this area, the kind of
ripping that is rarely done in the public eye.
Shortly after the establishment of the San Jose
Pool Exchange, a virtual gold mine of godly
bowls was uncovered. The energy that went
into finding, scamming, trading, and hiding-
pool information was enough to occupy many
skaters every waking hour. Literally dozens of
pools were blazed daily during the drier
months.
Tight knit gangs of skaters were resultant
from this underground, esoteric activity. They
called themselves: S.P.S.T., S.S.G., F.S.T..
S.J.P.E., and others. Out of these various
brotherships were formed local mini-mags
such as SKATE SCENE, SAN JOSE's
SKATE RIPPER, SKATE PUNK, LOOPS,
SKATE FATE, etc. With the formation of the
little publications, the cement that bonds all the
skaters together becomes apparent. There is an
A 7-11 diet is adhered to by most skaters in San Jo. Rob Roskopp adapted quickly with a "Big Gulp"
rock 'n' roll. Ramsay photo,
хч
thx
Gaven O'brien, board sliding at the monorail.
ongoing network of communication that ex-
ceeds that at any skatepark. If your park closed
tommorrow, how many of your bros phone
numbers would you have? You'd probably
loose contact with at least half of them.
A few weekends ago the Howser brothers
had a skate party. They told a few friends to tell
their friends and so on. On party day there were
four bands (all skate bands) and more than 200
skaters to shred the halfpipe and guzzle the
kegs. Everybody had a good time skating and
thrashing, and the bottom line was a scene that
promoted unity, and a reassuring sense of the
successful metamorphasis of skating progres-
sion since the park closed.
This is not to say that your scene cannot exist
if you have a park, it merely suggests that out
there in the cruel, cold, industrial wasteland
they call technology and urban sprawl there are
lines to be conceived of and brash manuevers
to be attempted that are only limited by the
space between your ears.
There is no excuse why you shouldn't be out
there terrorizing the very streets you inhabit at
any time in any manner. Reading this mag is
not even a viable excuse for inactivity.
I've put our fair city on the podium not as a
model, but as an everyday example of what im-
agination, commitment, innovation, enthusi-
asm and communication will achieve in terms
of the skating environment that any true skater
chooses to live in.
It's the same commitment to progression
that went into the formation of the very first
THRASHER Magazine and each and every
issue after. Both K.T. and MoFo were raised
most of their life in San Jose, and were major
contributors to the attitudes of most of us on the
streets today.
So whether you've got a park or not, the po-
tential for a full-on skate scene in your area was
never better than NOW!
TER
PHOTO/ARTICLE OF THE MONTH
TWA
by Tom Groholski
TIME-WEATHER-ABILITY-This is what
is needed to have a good skate session.
On Sunday morning when I got up, it was still
snowing from Saturday afternoon. I had to
shovel my folks driveway, clean off the cars and
then go do my neighbor's driveway and
sidewalk. By the time I got to shoveling the
ramp, it was around 11:00A.M.-the snow was
still coming down, but lightly. I spent about 45
minutes on the ramp (luckily we only got about
six inches of snow). The ramp was still not
finished when a few skaters showed up around
12:30. With a neighbor, three other skaters, a
girl and myself, we spent about a ½ hour
scraping ice and shoveling snow off the
platforms and surrounding area.
Our session finally started with music
blaring-the energy was immense! The
temperature was around 20" with the wind, and
about 25-30 in the sun. We had some trouble
with blowing snow, wet wheels, and wet grip
tape, but it was dealt with.
As the pictures show, we had a great session!
We are glad to share a part of it with you by
showing you some pictures of skating in the
Winter in the GARDEN STATE
Photography by Robert Groholski
Tom Groholski & Crew
North Brunswick, New Jersey
Tom Grohotak, wintertime pogo-ing
Visitor Jim Murphy, caught in a cool hand plant position
27