Countrymen separated by the belief
that their God, or the way they worship
"the God" is the only way, and that
they're gonna kill anyone who says
different. Maybe tie their wrists to the
steering wheel of a bomb laden truck to
further their cause by blowing away as
many people as possible, but it's ok. with
them because they have guaranteed safe
passage to the heavens as a hero of the
religion, absolute martyrdom.
Yup, it was this frame of mind constantly
rearing itself upon me, in the form of an
ever conscious,
who also happens to be a staff writer for
Thrasher magazine, under the moniker
There probably wasn't one single thing throughout the course of the whole day that wasn't curious
enough to astound at least somebody's mind. The glant crowds, the individual characters and their
personalities all playing some part in this madness that was straining out the reins to go absolutely
berserk and out of control. One example of refined madness were the runs that Billy Ruff was taking.
Above, he readies to thrust himself back in for more insanity. On the opposite page, notice the wall of arms
and hands extending to Grigley for the big prize; a sticker or two.
28
Chef Boy Am I Hungry. The guy's a bit
strong willed, and at times grates at
peoples nerves. It only bothers me about
50% of the time, but it's o.k.; the guy
survived some heavy shit in Vietnam. He
was a medic: there to save lives; got
wounded eight times under heavy fire.
Enemy and friendly. So, as far as I'm
concerned the guy has paid his dues, and
like I said, only bothers me fifty percent of
the time.
IN A WIERD PLACE
There we were, Me and the Chef. After
numerous uncalled for delays on the
air-line dealies, we finally arrived in
downtown Virginia Beach.
We slipped into a real, honest to good-
ness "greasy spoon" called "Waffles and
Things. The personnel there, i.e., waitres-
ses and cooks, were so severely bummed
on life that they cast a depressing air in the
room. The Chef belched real loud, gaining
one of the waitresses attention. There
were three of the so called waitresses. All
looked like the epitome of a pig farmer's
daughter, as the Chef immediately pointed
out. He gasped on the presence of a near
three hundred pound pig farmer's daughter
behind the stove, bursting at the skin
seams. "Whaah!" he said.
Our first experiences in Virginia Beach
are ones of near drama, in a Twilight Zone
all night cafe where the proprietors could
care less whether you choked on the
mortar-like grits.
A MIGRATORY THOUGHT
"You gotta shoot this contest and I gotta
keep your flank covered. I don't think they
like our kind around here and I'm the only
guy you can trust. Notice; these natives
are pretty devious looking. Look at those
eyes, what do you see?"
"Nothing," I said.
"Precisely, nothing. Trailer court resident
potential. Bred to cook, or kill. Now we'll
pay our check and slowly back out of here."
went to
bed and I went for a five a.m. swim in the
Atlantic ocean. The balcony of our fourth
story motel suite overlooked the immense,
cruel Atlantic, it was the furthest east in the
United States that I had ever been.
The contest was to be on Sunday at a
ramp located on Mount Trashmore, which
was a grassy public park built on a pile of
trash, with guards roaming the premises,
armed with rules and walkie-talkies. The
ramp was surrounded by a seven foot high
cyclone fence, keeping us media types,
dignitaries, pro skaters and ultra-scam-
mers-IN, and them-the vicious skate fan,
enthusiasts and parents of said order-
OUT: Everytime somebody from our side
went to take a pee down the road, a mob
scene would ensue: "Gimme a shirt!
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme!. Sign this, or
this, or me!"
It was Saturday, the pro's were practic-
ing, the weather was good, there was a lot
of young wife material strolling around, the
chef was careful to point this out to me.
"You see, they act all coy at first, they drag
you in to their traps with this suave South-
em baby-belle-betty accent and you melt.
Next thing you know, they're following you
back out to California."
"How horrible!" I sarcastically replied,
then tore a hole in my elbow with a
protruding nail on the railing of the ramp.
"Ha, you see, rinse that wound im-
mediately. It could be a trick, a booby-trap.
Can't trust anything. Back in Nam, my
second or third tour, a private did the same
thing sorta, to his elbow, 'cept it was on a
razor blade in a doorway. Turned out,
Cong had smeared human excrement on
the blade, with full intention of infecting one
of the peace keeping force. Poor kid, had
to amputate.
Many of the pro's present had already
laid out big stakes and claims on their
share of the local female populace, leaving
absolutely no stone unturned. Others were
merely content on sessioning hard on the
ramp with the bro's from yon' and hither,
from the wayside to the nearside, and
eventually upside the head.
Spiritedly sessioning off and on during
the day in controlled practice heats that
were spread out over several, gruelling.
hours on a ramp, behind a fence sur
rounded by hungry fans and guards with
walkie-talkies were guys like Lance
Mountain, Jeff Phillips, Tony Hawk, Monty
Nolder, Christian Hosoi, Joe Lopes, John
Lucero, Lester Kasai, Craig Johnson, John
Gibson, Caballero, Al Losi, John Grigley,
Bill Ruff, Neil Blender, Groholski, Mike
McGill and Ken Park.
The ramp was wide, real wide. It was so
wide, I couldn't remember, but someone
told me it was wide. Fool thing about the
ramp, is that after it was recently re-plyed,
it was painted a glaring, bright, blinding
white. This eventually became one of the
first of the skater's many complaints to
come throughout the course of this frivolic
weekend.
I was following the Chef, up the stairs on
one side of the ramp when he suddenly
stopped, lifted his right arm for me to halt
and sniffed the air. I stopped, almost
smacking my nose on his elbow. "Smell
that?" he said.
"Yeah, you need a bath, you stink."
"No," he pointed, in the direction of
which the wind was coming from, towards
a group of young, spicy looking women
who were checking their appearances in
pocket mirrors and spraying themselves
with cologne as they approached the ramp
in search of some California prime cut.
That's amazing Chef, how do you do it?"
"I don't smoke."
"Well I'll be damned."
"Don't say that, it might come true.
C'mon, from up top we can see them real
good."
The skating?" I queried.
"No brethereen. The female material.
Cleavage."
"Chef, you ARE looking out for my best
interests."
We stood there for awhile, staring
mostly at the amazing sight of so many
killer women, but alternately, we checked
out the skating, which at times would get
intense. Vicious stuff was harrowing back
and forth. Mike Smith was coming across
like a vicious dog. He can babble you into
the ground, and then ride all over the ramp
in a sense of uncontrolled control. Always
almost bailing, but not falling until he was
through.
Funky things began to happen. Skaters
began signing autographs more than they
wanted to skate. It was cool. It was
wonderful. It was curious. There was
practically a never ending stream of
autograph seekers, hounding the fence,
beckoning for some noteworthy type to
venture forth and scribble their "John
Hancock onto a piece of paper, a
magazine, a shoe, an arm, a cheek, a
chest, a shirt, or whatever.
There was some savage activity going
on on the ramp's surface. Monte Nolder
held a straight edge, razing a serious
concern. Groholski was twisting some
quick lines, trying to get the place ultimately
wired. Christian has been looking consis-
tently more amazing each time he enters a
contest. He goes from air-to-air, to wicked
slashed out body-jars or ollie-to-tail,
always covering massive distances. On
one instance, he bailed, and ended up
crunching himself against the edge of the
flat bottom and kinda laid there for awhile.
It looked like the standard Christ "Oh I'm
hurt lay down and look wounded for
awhile routine. But this one was for real,
and he limped away with a severely
bruised thigh, putting him out of the contest
as serious competition. It was an opportu-
nity to become a wounded athlete begging
for sympathy, and it worked good.
It was dark, we isolated ourselves from
the masses in an effort to exclude our-
selves from beer-drinking games and the
subsequent beckoning for us to go buy
more beers merely because we were of
the beer buying age.
Instead we huddled within our motel
room, trying to plot out a plan to assault the
town. The guy at the check out counter
asked us if we knew where we could attain
the good.
"What do you think we are, Com-
munists?", the chef replied pointedly to the
man behind the counter.
"You'll have to excuse my friend." I
commented to the desk- dude, "The guy
did the Vietnam thing and stuff y'know.
Don't set him off."
"Oh, o.k.," he said, withdrawing to do
some filing of some sort. He was actually a
really cool guy, the coolest I met out here.
We furthered our lives by testing "Waffles
and Things," for some more grub (no grits
this time. I'd declined to mention, the fact
that we'd both nearly choked on the grits
for the most part of the day). Then, we
strolled down the street that passed in front
of our motel. The further down we got the
more a social activity became evident. It
was reminiscent of cruising, but the
low-rider, cholo effect wasn't there, which
was much like I was used to. But, I guess
one could call it cruising. O.k., it was
cruising, I just decided. Anyway, the
further we walked down this boulevard, the
more it got congested with jarheads and
swabees (Explanation: Jarheads are
gentlemen who are employed by the
United States Marines, and Swabees are
types who be employed by the U.S. Navy).
Now, these said types are inclined to come
into resort towns like this and wreak a holy
hell of a shit-ass potential disturbance. We
cajoled ourselves through a very con-
gested sidewalk scene. One example;
meandering our way down the block, (
very well might add there were, on the
average, at least eight police squad cars.
on every corner, of every block, overlook-
ing the proceedings. In fact, one guy, fully
wailing and tailgating another type,
slammed him and the cops swarmed on
him like flies) some "just out of boot camp
types, who knew everything, or so they
thought," came upon us in a sidewalk
sweeping manner. A manner consisting of
their insistence to stick their shoulders out
hard and try to bump anyone that they
could with their elbows. One of them struck
the Chef.- Ooh!
He proceeded to grab the guy by the
neck and chuck him and two of his buddies
into the side of a van that was paused at a
stop light. "How did I get mixed up in this?"
I thought to myself. "I don't know," I
answered myself.
29