N THE ROAD
TORONTO
Jessie Sorrenson (opposite right), backside 180° kickflip over a dry fountain.
A garbage can (left) at Beasly gets flipped by Scott. Frontside hockey puck air
(below) by the Flying Frenchman. Pool sharks (below left) in the house. Justin
and the crew (bottom), trolling for snitch. Steve Kelly (opposite bottom) taking
a big stair jump. Looking up the dress (opposite left) of the CNN Tower.
alf an hour before
we got to Toronto,
we took the Hamil-
ton exit. The corner
was sharp and the
speed limit went
down to twenty.
Small town hicks get
drunk on Saturday
nights and see how
fast they can race
around the curve
while listening to
Guns N' Roses. I
saw one car flipped
and burning on the
side of the road.
Hamilton was all one-way streets. We got lost and asked a couple
of hockey-haired BMXers to help us negotiate our way to The Beasly
Bowls. They seemed oddly friendly. The youth in small towns often
feel confined by their own surroundings. I saw it in their eyes. They lis
ten to Maiden as a form of release, and end up frying their brains in
the downward escapist spiral of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. We
raced around the streets screaming
stupid obscenities out of our car,
making asses of ourselves. We were
just passing through and we would
never see them again anyway. Their
inner conflict was not our problem.
Beasly was a cool spot with a
super-steep bank, a mini-bowl, and
some mellow banks and benches.
Hip young girls were perched on
grassy knolls gazing at the skate.
boarders. Their eyes were like black
saucers. It was mad fun, everyone
rocked, and you know Axl Rose
would have loved that shit.
WELCOME TO TORONTO
It felt good to get home. Toronto is massive, the home of all things huge.
There was the CNN Tower, the world's largest free-standing structure, and
Yonge Street, the world's longest street.
There were lots of pretty lights all over Yonge Street. It was also lit
tered with more strip bars and porno stores than any place I had ever seen
before. Crazy tourists burned themselves cut on strip club marathons try
ng to do it all in one night. I saw them wandering off the sidewalk and into
the street, their minds caved in on titties and beer. One of the strip joint
posters advertised Miss Candy Floss, the woman possessing the world's
largest breasts. The lights on the posters went round and round all night.
Toronto's skateboarders seemed very cosmopolitan. They all listened
to rap music and talked funny. This was so that they could attract the right
type of girls. It is important for skateboarders in Toronto to attract a suit-
able mate, so that they can settle down to the serious task of procreating
before they grow too old and withered up. There were lots of young cou-
ples with babies riding the subway up and down Yonge Street.
These big city skateboarders spent plenty of time hanging out at the
Logs. This was a typical skate hangout where there was practically nothing
to skate. They were just sarcastic punks who jumped off roofs into swim-
ming pools whenever they got drunk. But when you come down to it, they
were nice people who let us stay on their couches and took us skating.
Everything was skateable in Toronto. The huge downtown ran for
miles. There were schoolyards tucked away in residential neighborhoods
with banks of all shapes and sizes. There was usually someone building a
skatepark, or someone going bankrupt and losing it all.
For all Toronto's size, its tallest free-standing structure, longest road, and
girl with the largest breasts, it felt surprisingly small, homey, and safe..
BILL WEISS AND JUSTIN BOKMA? I HATE THOSE GUYS!
There aren't many people anywhere on the planet that are like Bill Weiss
and Justin Bokma. Actually they are the only ones. According to them, it is
safe to say that there are even fewer people on the planet that like them.
This worldwide contempt has forged them
into celebrities of rock star proportions.
Because of this, an article about Toronto
would not be complete without them.
It has happened to me so many times: I
tell people I am from Toronto, and the first
thing they ask me is if I know Bill and
Justin. The next thing that happens is they
tell some crazy story invariably ending with
the statement, "I hate those guys."
There are millions of these stories My
favorite is the one about the time someone
from out of town that they didn't care for,
stayed at Bill's house. During the course of
the night they covered this person from
head to toe in permanent marker. In the morning, he looked at himself and
proceeded to run out into the street in his boxer shorts and cursing at
the top of his lungs in French. Nobody ever heard from him again. The per-
son who told me this story finished it with, "I hate those guys."
A TALK WITH BILL WEISS AND JUSTIN BOKMA
What do you think of Toronto?
Bill: The place rips, man.
Justin: The Land of the Giants
Bill: It's a good place, man.
Justin: The place is hot
Bill: It's, uh, well actually, it sucks.
Norm: I'm on the first bus out
Bill: Don't get me wrong. Toronto is
an alright city, it's fun in the sum-
mer, but in the winter you basically
have nothing to do. It's definitely a
good city, but it's not like one of
those cities like DC or Philly, where
we sit around and steal people's
boards, and all hang out in little
groups, and tag each other and
what-not. We just hang out in cars
and don't talk to anyone because
we don't have any friends.
Justin: We're not very popular in
this town, man.
-Hai Haberman
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