At the proving grounds, Don Pendleton grinds the
dirt. The ditch goes on as far as the eye can sale in
both directions. Trespassing fine here, 5500
Salba continually proved that his "gung-ho"
attitude went down to the bone, because when he
skated the pipes, he thrusted with an unnerving
authority. Here he blasts high on the flatwall, as
eerle echoes reverbate down the tube.
BARKING AT THE MOON ON
THE LONE PRAIRIE by Mo.
"Hey, you've got to go to Arizona this weekend. There's a full pipe
out there."
*Fine. Just give me the plane ticket, and I'm gone."
"...so you're going to fly to L.A.X., get picked up by..."
"No way. Fly me all the way there, that's at least a six hour drive
with highway maniacs"." I never trust those southern California
drivers. They're too close to Tijuana.
That's what happened for twelve weeks in a row. At the end of
each week, it was always a different story.
"You can't go this weekend, because you got to do this."
"Well, I can't go that next weekend because I've got to do this
other thing."
Two weeks later:
"O.K., this weekend you go."
"We can't because there's a possibility that the pipes are a bust."
"Well, check into it."
"Right, Chief."
Two days later:
"I checked and there's no problem. The pipes are rideable."
"Well, you can't go this weekend."
"What now? Why?"
"You waited too long, nów we can't get the price break on the
tickets."
"Shit. Now I've got to call everybody and tell them it's all off,
again."
"Yes."
Finally, one Friday evening, I was racing to the airport accom-
panied by Rob Roskopp, with about five minutes left till the plane
was to take off.
"If we miss this plane, it's all your fault. You're gonna catch hell
for this one," said Roskopp.
"Shut it. We're almost there and we still got a full four and a half
minutes to go."
"We're not gonna make it."
The airport parking lot's speed limit is about 5 mph, but I found
that the course was easily navigable at 35 and 40 mph. At that
speed we found a parking place in no time. We slid into the slot,
flung open the doors, got the bags, and skates out of the trunk,
locked up the car, hopped on the boards with baggage in each
hand, rode into the terminal and got on an elevator as Rob was
saying, "we got a minute and a half," I said, "It's O.J. Simpson time."
We got off the elevator, slalomed around pedestrians on a beautiful
waxed white floor, ran up some stairs (instead of using the
escalator), turned left at the top and skated through a gigantic crowd
of people, with Rob shouting, "LOOK OUT!" and me following with
"Someone's gonna get hurt
Rob got to the ticket window first. Before he could say anything.
the lady behind the window said, "The flight has been delayed. You
are exhausted because you thought you were late for the flight to
Phoenix, aren't you?"
I was a little slow in getting to the window, my bags and camera
equipment threw me off balance as I crashed into a very conserva-
tive looking lady handing out pro-nuclear information. Somehow, I
didn't feel so bad. As I rolled up, Rob was walking away from the
counter.
"What's up?" I asked.
"She says we've got forty minutes, our plane's been delayed."
We walked all the way out to the gate, down corridors, up a few
flights of stairs, down a couple other flights, another corridor and we
were there.
"We would never have made it," Rob said, reflecting on the trip
from the counter to the gate.
"Hey, it would've been close. C'mon, I'll buy you a beer." The
cocktail lounge was within spitting distance of our gate.
It was raining in Phoenix when we landed. Meeting us at the gate
was Brian Branon and Don Pendleton of the band J.F.A. At
baggage claim, we met up with Steve and Micke Alba.
"Let's party," one of them said, I couldn't tell which, it was dark.
We grabbed all of our stuff and piled into one car. Don took off with
his girlfriend because he had to work the next morning. We had
work to do too.
"To a party!" we all said to our driver, Brian Branon.
"Where's the liquor store?"
"I'm hungry."
"Look out for rattlesnakes!"
The topics of our conversations were deep and intimate. It
stopped raining after awhile and we found ourselves at a place
where there were hundreds of apartments. Apartmentland.
"We're here," said Brian switching off his car.
"All of us are here. But what good is being here if we're in the car?"
said Steve.
Brian explained that this was some sort of student-type housing
for the nearby university. As we walked between the buildings, we
could hear the sounds of rock music coming from one of the rooms.
It always ends up like this.
Plane. Liquor store. Car ride. A condo, or an apartment setup,
which leads to rock music blasting from behind one of the hundreds
of doors. That always seems to be the case, and the door with the
music always seems to be the place of destination. Inside were
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