music, that's what they want. How's you're
music appreciation these days? I like all kinds of music,
but I have three rockin' bands. There's a band called Circus
Tents that live by my house. They're great. They're also in
the new Powell video. I suggest you check them out. Circus
Tents, Black Flag, the best group ever, and Rollins band.
What would you do if you were president? I would get rid
of racism, balance the budget, help the homeless and kill
people who rape other people. Rape pisses me off more
than anything in the world. If I could wave my wand I would
make everybody treat everybody the way they want to be
treated. Are you religious? Yeah, I believe in God. I call
myself a Christian. Some people might say I'm stupid but i
don't care. I mean I wish I was a better person, but I try to be
a good person. What's the craziest skating you've ever
seen? The absolute craziest thing I've ever seen on a skate-
board is the handrail Mark Gonzales does in the Blind video
Not the lightning bolt one, but the one that goes down and
drops off about twenty feet on one side. Also that big huge
hill that Frankie Hill olles. Sean Sheffey doing a late shove-
it in the SF contest-crazy stuff that'll be crazy no matter
how much time goes by Yesterday Remy Stratton was skat
ing vert on his regular board and he was ripping. Then he
got on this old Sims board, like hella skinny, no concave,
thick, big huge. Sims wheels and he was doing the exact
tricks and he was still ripping better than I could possibly
ever dream of ripping Well Remy rips. Yeah and that's
what a skateboarder is. You can ride anything or do anything
and have fun too. I don't think tricks are actually rad. I think
the stuff you do the tricks on is rad. Like a long time ago
when Natas did that spin thing on the fire hydrant, that was
rad. Everything that Mark Gonzales skates is rad. The stuff
that Stranger and John Cardiel skate is rad. Some tricks
rule, like the noseblunt slide. It's a trick you can adapt to any
kind of obstacle. When you leam a new trick you're stoked
It's something they did a year ago, but you're still stoked.
You realize the fun of doing a backside lipslide. People say
tricks are out, like, that tricks out." But what about the ole?
The olie's out, is the push out? You know? Nothing's out.
SKATER: JOHN MONTESI
JOHN MONTESI IS NINETEEN YEARS OLD AND JUST MOVED
INTO HIS OWN CRASH PAD IN OLDSMAR, FLORIDA, WHERE
HE AND ALL HIS FRIENDS HANG OUT. HE CHILLS WITH
CHERYL WHEN HE'S NOT SKATING. HIS NAME HAS BEEN
MISSPELLED SO MANY TIMES, IT EVEN HAS TWO SS ON HIS
BOARD GRAPHIC. AN ELBOW INJURY ON A VERT RAMP
TURNED HIM ONTO STREET, AND EVER SINCE, NO CURB,
BENCH OR GAP IS SAFE FROM JOHN MONTESI'S FURY.
Hometown: Tarpon Springs, Florida. Family: Older sis-
ter, me and my mom and dad. Food: Spaghettis the best
because you pay 49 for a can of tomato sauce and $1.19
for pasta and just boil it and mix it with some cheese, you
know what I mean. My dad makes the rad spaghetti sauce.
you know, Mon TEHsss Music: Cypress Hill, Too Short.
old Ice-T but I don't really like Body Count Code Blue, all
rap mainly. Ice Cube is one of my favorites. Injuries:
broke my left elbow skating a vert ramp, that's why I started
skating street. Then I broke my two front teeth street skating
They're fake now I flipped over a wall in Orlando, that was
a good one. I just got off a sprained ankle that took about a
week to heal and it's good to be back skating Friends:
Lance and Scott Conklin, Jeb Stewart, Bo Tumer and Lee
Hicks-this kid I skate with, nobody knows him. This kid
Blake and another little kid Casey World Situation: It's
pretty messed-up. St. Pete is about forty minutes from my
house and it's illegal to skate there. It's a five hundred dollar
fine or ninety days in jail to ride your skateboard downtown.
in downtown Tampa they'll take your board away or threat
en to take you to jail. This whole status of kicking skate-
boarders out and letting rollerbladers ride everywhere is
ridiculous. It pisses me off. We just have to break the rules
we're criminals, we're rebels, dirballs of society. I'll be like
Mad Max pretty soon, all skateboarders packing the jails
But then you go down to Miami where Felix Arguelles and
my buddy Jose live, and the cops don't care. They got a lot
more to worry about than skaters. When did you start?
My buddy got a John Lucero Schmitt Stix with the guy
behind bars and I was all, "Wow!" Then on Easter I got a
remote control helicopter, but it blew up. So we went to Toys
R Us to replace it and I saw the Nash Executioner skate-
board and I was all, "Whoa, rad, I want that I started hav-
ing so much fun and thought skating was just the raddest.
Then I noticed how everyone made fun of me, so I bought a
Vision Old Ghost Guardan because John Grigley lived in
Florica and was a big name. First tricks: 180 boneless
and a little olie. Any influences on your skating during
those years? I used to look in the mags and see Natas, but
around my house I would see people like Jeb Stewart,
Lance Conklin and Mike Netter. How about today?
Some of the guys I look up to are Mike Carroll, Sheffey, Rick
Howard and Ryan Fabry Danny Sargent is my favorite all-
around skater. I was just in SF and I skated with Wing Ding
and Justin Girard. The EMB crew is totally the raddest,
James Kelch, Scotty, G-Man and Chico are seriously cool
guys. On tour, Ron Knigge and Armando Barajas kick ass
When did you feel that you were good? I still don't feel
it, but probably when I won my first contest I said, "Whoa" It
was the Suits and Sails contest at Astro Skatepark by our
house. I just always skated and had fun and then all the pol-
rics came into it. I never asked to get sponsored Tricks
now: Switchstance kickflip stuff and noseblunt slide tricks
and just olieing stuff. I just did a 360 shove-it out of a nose
blunt slide for an ad photo. I learned 360 nolle kickflips
Even more lanely it's been frontside shove-it latefips, nose-
grinds and nosegrind to shove-its. Nollie stuff is fun. I've
been skating with Justin Girard during this tour around Call-
fomia and he is super good at technical flip tricks
What
do you think is gnarly? Danny Sargent's switchstance
backside 180 the seven at Embarcadero was probably one
of the gnarliest things I've seen. Where do you skate
most? We skate a place called Searstown with this cat
named Chunk, he's a good guy, he skates naked. It's got
curbs, a couple manual things, two benches, a mid-size one
and a big one with backs on them to ollie, it's a cool place.
There's this garage with curbs called Arbor, but it's kind of a
bust now, so we skate a place called High Park in Tampa. In
Seattle, we skated this concrete six-step wall with a kink at
the bottom, like a concrete handrail but it grinded. Justin did
a noseslide down it. In Oregon we skated Burnside, that was
rad. What do you think of the flatland skating that's
going down? Sometimes it gets too crazy for me but I like
to watch it. I love watching all skateboarding, it doesn't both
er me. Sometimes, with new tricks, I get so frustrated and I
just want to go out and oile something I don't hate ramps or
pools. Anything bug you about skating right now?
Some of the politics do. The way people get all huffy over
other companies. Like the way companies think they are the
greatest and don't worry about making good skateboards. I
hate seeing kids go out and buy a board and see it last them
only two days. Overall, people want to just skate and not
worry about everybody else, except that it should be a big
ger and more accepted. A lot of kids out there are little guys
and I like to skate with them. Maybe they'll leam to skate for
fun and not worry about all the dumb stuff. Plus, they're fun
to skate with and hang out with because they don't have an
attitude. Set-up: My nose is seven, the tail is six-and-a-
quarter and it's nine inches wide with a fourteen-inch wheel-
base. Overall length is probably over thirty-two. I ride 43mm
Duckets and Thunder Trucks. Jose, my friend from Miami, is
bringing in new designs for a slick bottom. Terrain: A mid-
size bench about ten feet long, a double-sided curb and a
five-step handrail. All cement, real street stuff. A lot of pec-
ple don't realize how rad Florida is. There's a lot of good
street spots here. Thoughts: I'm just a skateboarder like
anyone else. I don't try to think any differently. I'm lucky to
get paid for having fun. Quote: Watch out for the little
guys, help them out when they need it, because they help
skateboarding out a lot. Thanks: Steve Douglas. Paul
Schmitt, everyone at New Deal, my mom, my dad. Cheryl
and my sister Janet
32 THRASHER MAGAZINE
ZUTO
O
A long and grassy
gap proves no match
for John Montesi
(sequence) and his
backside 180 olle
charge. Calm as can
be, Montesi rides the
rail with a classic 5-0.