ΦΙΛΙΠΑ
KUDE
Waste
(Clockwise, this page, from above) The boys check
out the forms for the giant pipes. Micke Alba,
eye-contact, cess-slide. Brian Branon "crushes
all" on these bare-truck, double-axle grinds over
the death-box, Mondo peeks out from beneath
Micke's board while he executes a backyard,
backside air. In terrain that looks like it was taken
from the streets of Beirut, Mondo blazes a
below-the-board, backside wheeler. Salba
ultra-grinds over the death box at the "Air Bowl."
An up-close and personal look at the detail of
Salba's "Voodoo-pipe-and-pool-tool." The
"Stuntman" soon after earning his name. Rob
Roskopp two-wheeling it.
(Clockwise, next page from top right) Lester
picturesque-perfect style air at the One-hit banks.
T.A. didn't care, and I had to go to the bathroom. We stayed there
for about twenty minutes, then left to go find Mondo's board.
Back at the Air Bowl, no one is there and there's no board. We
then go to the hospital where Roskopp's getting nine stitches in his
head. Mondo checks Brian's car, but they didn't grab his board
either, so Mondo is bummed and T.A. calls him an idiot.
It's getting dark so we go to some big mall where there's a
skateshop called Scottsdale Sidewalk Surfer. I guess we're in
Scottsdale, but it's hard to tell, it all looks the same. Mondo decided
to trade some wheels for some shorts and there were hundreds of
gorgeous Arizona co-ed chickies in tight shorts and tanned legs
strutting all over the place. We gave about a hundred hoots, and
tongue laps, then went to find a burrito stand.
There was supposed to be a party somewhere, so we waited
around a chick's house and got ready to go. We sat preparing for
about three hours and then Tony buys some big bottle of something
and mixes it with Seven-Up and makes most of us drink it. I decide
to skate but almost everyone else is too tired except for Don
Pendleton, Mondo, Bam and Joe Heavy Metal with the Venom
tape. Skating at one-thirty in the morning on cement banks sucks
when your board discontinues to operate. Plenty of grinds and
enough of my share of hippers. Mondo grabbed my camera and
began taking art photos, but they were over-exposed.
Somehow I ended up at Don Pendleton's house. Salba was
Mondo, rainbow-tape flair-air. Brien, minutes after
attaining "shit list" status, billowing a grind across
the covered portion of banks after the One-hit.
Tony Alva unselfishly grinds at the pool. Micke
handplant. Roskopp, air out of the pipe, onto the
flat wall from 11 o'clock. Salba backside up into the
flatwall. Roskopp, within seconds after disaster
struck. Don, grinding the curb atop the Proving
Grounds ditch.
already there, asleep on the floor. Don and I ate a bunch of toast,
and listened to a cool live recording of The Damned before we went
to sleep. I woke up after someone kicked me in the head, I think.
Not too sure because I WAS asleep. It's 7:30 or 8:00 or 9:00 in the
morning. It doesn't matter. We loaded up the car and headed for the
legendary giant pipes.
After about an hour or so on the road, we find ourselves virtually
in the middle of nowhere. But it's O.K. because we soon come upon
a small town that was right next to a giant federal penitentiary, which
was also close to where the pipes lay hidden.
We rolled along a dirt road for a ways, pulled off and parked by
some giant cactus. Walking down an embankment, we spotted the
massive 30 ft. banked wall that lay at the mouth of this 25 foot pipe.
It looked like it went on forever, but that was just one of them there
illusions. It did reach far back though. Salba put on his pads and
started to take some runs. At the mouth, the pipe opened up flush,
to flatwall with the radiused transition eventually tapering down to
the giant 30 ft. banks. The radical part was the enormous amount
of vertical flatwall above the rideable part of the transition. It seemed
to rise up forever, dwarfing us, laughing at us. Especially when
someone would try and ride up it, maybe getting four or five feet up
on the flatwall, a silent laughter emerged from up another ten feet,
up on the lip.
Some goofy voices began echoing down in our chamber. They
came from up above, Brian, Malba and Roskopp. They declared
last night Lester had gone to hookup with Kevin Staab, but he'd be
by today.
Salba paused to change his wheels as a couple of locals, here
before we arrived, were gliding the highlines in the tunnel as we
poised for a monster skate session.
Micke took some rides and coursed up between ten and eleven
o'clock consistently, frontside and backside. Dun Pendleton was
really gliding high, proceeding down the pipe about twenty yards
and then working his way back to the mouth, only to complete a fully
extended Bertleman right at the mouth.
Brian was surprisingly blazing. Didn't realize he could ride that
good.
Roskopp wore his helmet for awhile as he rode, his head must
still be a little tender. He cranked just as well, in fact, he worked.
the flatwall out the farthest of everybody.
Soon Lester joined us, fully equipped and ready to jump in the
pipes. Micke had a few pointers to lend Lester, and soon he was
blasting higher, and better than he had imagined. Darned Lester's
style is so effortless, he doesn't even look like he's trying, but still
gaining unimaginable heights. He'd usually end his runs with an
ollie on the left hand wall near the mouth. After about a half hour or
forty-five minutes, he left with Kevin Staab, to some ramp.
After that, the sessioning went on and the boys took periodical
breaks. Impromptu pipe-pasting was the call and soon the
collection had grown from what it had started out to be before we
had arrived.
Some workers on the property came up and checked out the
action. They were so blown away. They didn't even order us out, but
informed us of new plans for future pipes till 1988.
During the course of the session, I shot roll after roll of film. The
dust was so intense inside the pipe from the riding, I had to retreat
from time to time to clean off the camera so it wouldn't choke and
die. They rode hour after hour, I wondered where Tony and Mondo
were, and luckily remembered that I had some oranges and a
grapefruit in the car.
Another hour, bored with the scenery, we split into the horizon for
a place Brian called the Proving Grounds. Forty-five minutes found
us there, right across the street from a General Motors Proving
Grounds.
The ditch, that's what it is, stretched for as far as the eye could
see. Brian and Don were on "intimate terms" with this terrain. They
just adapted from pipe-session, to banked ditch session. It was real
scenic. Well, if you call vast plains of nothingness "scenery," it was
real, real scenic. No ugly buildings, no people walking by and not
understanding, saying stupid things, questions, clarifying their
stupidity.
Well, Brian took a pelvic slam from about 6 ft. up, and had to retire
to the back seat of his car.
We decided to call it a day, our flights were to leave in a little while.
It was a long weekend, wonder what happened to T.A.?
THER
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