AND THE WINNER IS...
CARY JACKSON OF TEAM ALL
Skateboarding means different things to different people. For me,
it's always been about surpassing your own expectations, blowing up
old ideas of reality and putting new ones in their place. My reality
never took such a beating as when I went to San Francisco as the win-
ner of the Dreamskate '94 contest on the first weekend in May.
It all started with a postcard I forgot I had sent, and a phone call
from Jake Phelps, telling me I'd won an all-expenses paid skate week.
end in SF. I didn't believe him at first, thinking one of my friends was
prank calling me. I said he was a liar and made fun of him over the
phone. I covered my bases though, saying, 'If this is really Jake
Phelps, I want to apologize for not believing you."
I guess that was a good thing to say, because on May 5th I flew the
friendly skies into SF with my pals Bryan Nelson and Tally Beskrowni.
When we got off the plane it was raining. We found some roses in
the restroom and decided to give them to Jake Phelps. Jake's an
intense character, he doesn't have a car (he picked us up in a rental),
which may explain why he drives the way he does: Traffic signals, stop
signs, right of way, driving on the right side of the street-none of
these concepts hold any meaning for Jake. We made it over to the
Thrasher offices and toured the place. The offices are funny, every-
where you look there's a skateboard, even the receptionist's desk is
made of skateboards. The staff is pretty small, I only saw about ten or
fifteen people there. The thing I could not
get over was the great attitudes everyone
had. Every person I met the whole week-
end was totally nice and totally into skate
boarding. The key word here is dedica
tion, it made me want to live there.
Thrasher has a good operation going.
They showed us the darkroom, (where
they took cheesy fashion photos of us).
the warehouse (where they loaded us up
with lots of goods), the production offices
(where they showed us how an issue gets
made), and the meeting room (where we
ate pizza and premiered the new Sponsor
Me! video.) It was all quite overwhelming.
The next few days went by in a blur. We
hit a bunch of spots in and around SF. The
list included: Jake's ramp (The Widow-
maker), Fort Mason, Fort Miley, Wallen
berg, EMB, China Banks, Black Rock, Palo
Alto Skatepark, Bruno's Banks, Andy's
ramp, two Safeways, the Hilltop Dish and
a bunch of hills.
Some highlights of our weekend included:
•Trying to skate the Widowmaker on the same board Mark Gonzales used
to do the ollie on Thrasher's June 1993 cover
Skating in the rain at night with Jake, Bryce Kanights and Kevin Thatcher
Jake Phelps playing chicken with an eighteen wheeler and winning.
Skating with Chris Senn at Wallenberg and downtown and finding out he's
married and has a kid.
Watching Jim Thiebaud read poetry at the Deluxe store.
Touring Think Skateboards offices and meeting Wade Speyer.
While he had heard many bad things about
the San Francisco ottraction known as The
Dish, Dreamskate winner Cory Jackson
(opposite top) had other things on his mind
when he got there: Fat ollie into the jaws of
death. Team All (opposite right) pose it up
at Fort Miley-Cary Jackson, Bryan Nelson
and Tally Beskrowni. Bearded Bryan (top)
took a couple of beefs on the Three at
Wallenberg, but stuck it after some friendly
gooding. Talking shop (above), with Chris
Senn. Out of the dish, Tally (left) goes "JT."
Before the skating, a mandatory pinger
session (opposite left) was definitely in
order at the Thrasher arcode.