U.S.SR
Although skateboarding's roots lie
in the U.S. of A., it has now become
a truly international occupation. Even
in countries where freedom of
creative expression is priveledge not
policy, skateboarding has made in-
roads which are now being ripped
upon. Certain political figureheads
may label the Soviet Union an "evil
empire," but we know different. Just
like America, the U.S.S.R. is full of
young people eager to assert their in-
dividuality through four-wheeled
flailing. Here is correspondence from
Soviet comrades who get rad.
マ
Bullets. Trains. Bullet trains, or Shinkansen
to the Japanese. I chose the train and wound
up in Nagoya two days before the skate con-
test at the "Marine Port Festival '88"
On contest day I waited while others skated
and got their lines ready for the contest. Then
the rain came. Still, in the midst of the
downpour two men kept riding. Call them
Christian and Pat, because that's what their
names are. Team Hosoi was in the middle
of "Hosoi Japan Tour #2" and not even a
typhoon would deter them from "the cause."
Dedication or madness? You decide.
Even though Christ could skate on water,
he couldn't skate under water, so eventually
all skating activity ground (or sank) to a halt.
Christ and Pat debated taking a train run to
Tokyo for some après-skate activity. Being a
temporary (I hope) resident of Tokyo, I was
called upon to point out some of the finer late-
night locales. Time to decide-either party
in Tokyo and hit the demo in Funabashi (a
semi-sure thing) or stay in Nagoya for the
ramp contest and pray for sun (sketchy at
best). Since the ramp was starting to look
more like a swimming pool (the full kind), I
opted for Tokyo. Besides, there was a gap
62
between the coping and the platform that my
kingpin felt a very strong attraction to, often
lodging there at most inopportune moments.
The only person to regret our decision was
Japanese tour organizer, Mr. Kizaki. Chris-
tian's repeated refusals to accompany Mr. K.
back to the hotel and make an early night
of it nearly caused Kizaki-san a stomach
ulcer. To prevent Mr. K. from having a total
nervous breakdown, we agreed to have
Masayoshi "Rick" Kuroda come with us in
a chaperone/interpreter capacity. We took a
train back to Tokyo station, sessioned "The
Wall" in front of the station and then head-
ed for my apartment to get Ph-balanced for
the night's activities.
Mr. K. spelled relief with a capital R when
we answered his wake up call the following
morning. Rick got us to the station and
bought the tickets. We had 30 glorious
minutes to sleep off last night's excesses
before we reached Funabashi station.
Wall of aggression by Pat Ngoho and Christian Hosol.
Due to either a lack of communication
and/or translation, we arrived at Funabashi
station to find ourselves the main attraction
of "Skate Attack "88" Upon arriving at the
"attack" site we found Aaron Murray, who
had come up from Shizouka where he had
been spending the summer with Dogtown/
Japan's Mr. Ono. Aki Akiyama was handling
the roller skating duties and a BMXer was
thrown in...just because. Said BMXer later
earned himself a free trip to the hospital
courtesy of the ramp's flat bottom. Aside from
that lesson in gravity, everyone was stoked.
The crowd was stoked because Christian
was blazing. I was stoked that we didn't get
rained out and Aaron was stoked because
he didn't have to wear pads.
After the demo, we introduced the
Japanese to a quaint American custom: the
product toss, or "pu-ra-do-ko-to ta-so." It was
a big hit with the crowd but not with the un-
suspecting security forces. We left the mob
scene before we became victims instead of
perpetrators. We had done our job. We came,
we skated, we flowed. Time to rage. After one
final night of nocturnal activity, Team Hosoi
packed it up and took their show back to the
States, leaving the Japanese skaters with a
new outlook on high altitude skating, party-
ing and the English language. Somehow
Holmes" just doesn't sound the same in
Japanese. Skate and late.
LETS
LIVE IN
In an effort to share a bit of Americana with the Soviets, journalist Bill Strubbe of California
and Michael Taylor of Solida, Colorado, brought skateboards along on a Soviet-American
Peace Walk through the harvest farmlands and remote villages of the Soviet Ukraine. One
of the boards and a message came to rest on the steps of St. Andrews church in Moscow.