to fit in with the modem skateboard philos
ophy. I was bummed. Shine slowing things
down to flip the board around! In my opin-
ion, the different ways that the board flips
or spins as it moves with the body, the dif
ferent turns that the body makes is a sub-
stantial, but far from dominant part of the
actual act of skateboarding. The actual -
motion. The lines that the skater carves,
the aggression released, the speed, fluidity
and size of the movement is all neglected
by this petty focus on the board flipping
around, Sacrificing speed in exchange for
that, by shrinking the board and wheels
down, is something I've got to disregard.
So was running the skate shop aver at
H
Transition Skatepark in East LA. That place consisted of two very mini
mini-ramps and a fun street course. My Blazer had been rolled at the
tradeshow parties, and my license revoked in San Jose, so I drove the
Hell-Van on the sly into East LA to work. There wasn't too much work to
do in the shop, though, so I was essentially getting paid by the hour to
skate there. The Hell-Van had been sitting in the car graveyard at my
dad's shop before then, but she still had the fire in her. So had been
driving it without permission. My dad figured this out and did something
mysterious to his engine. I began to take the bus to work. The skatepark
dosed and John stopped making my board because nobody bought it.
There was nothing left around for me to skate but the streets, so I
went back to the hills. I live in the foothills of the mountains to the North
of LA. There is a road going up to a camp area that's called Chantry
Flats. There's banks and dirt along both sides of it all the way down, so
my friends and I would ride down it on Duanes with big, soft wheels, hit-
ting the banks and doing drifters in the dirt. Sometimes we'd luge down
it. It's a curvy road, so it's good for sliding around the corners, going like
thirty-five on our luge boards. I took the bus to school and skated like
this for a couple of years. We'd occasionally try to get the Hell-Van start-
ed for a Chantry all-nighter, but we always failed. Then rumors circulated
that my dad was going to take the V-8 engine out of it to make a truck.
My girlfriend Jennifer and I joined a caravan road trip to San Jose. The
WW van that we were in broke down, so we got in the back of a pickup
truck that had no shell. Big mistake The driver fell asleep, and we drifted
into the oncoming traffic lanes. There was no center divider because we
were on Highway 152 which goes by the nickname of "Blood Alley" in
the local hospitals. We collided head-on with another truck, going 60
mph. Jennifer's back was broken in seven places, and I broke my liver,
back, neck and skull which resulted in coma for a bit. Riding in the backs
of trucks is illegal for a reason. I
spent the next month-and-a-half
hallucinating in the hospital on
amnesia-inducing drugs Jennifer
and I can now both skate down the
road again. I was skating down
Chantry again within two months of
being released. But the rumors of
the Hell-Van's demise were verified.
Awake is being planned usually
either skate the ramp at my dad's
shop, the pools down in Huntington
Beach or on the way home from
school. I was just paid to judge a
new age vert competition down in
Costa Mesa. I wondered the whole
time if I could get the Hell-Van
rolling again. The Hell-Van rolls."
-Ben Schroeder
Top to bottom: When he wasn't running the
pro shop, he was out skating the ramps of
Transitions-big frontside ollie grab over the
jumper. On the other wall at the Dam Ramp,
Schroeder hoists a honkin' Madonna. Before
lailgrabs were cool, Ben was one-foot body
jarring 'em of Eric Nash's ramp in Arcadia.
MIKE
Watt
BALL-HOG
OR TUGBOAT?
AMAZING
SHOCKER
TIFFANY
BROCK
VS.
TONY
ANDERS ATHERTON AVERY
VS.
JOE
FRANK
vs
BAIZA BLACK
vs.
CARLA
BOZULICH
GARY
BUTLER vs.
VS.
CONNER
FLEA
DANNY
1.
FRANKEL
vs.
VS.
ADAM
15.
V
KATHLEEN
HANNA
BOB
NELS
MARIO
CLINE
CALDATO
HOROVITZ
WAYNE
GRIFFIN
LEE J MASCIS VS.
DAVE vs
GROHL
CRIS
KIRKWOOD
TONY
MAXWELL
MOLO
KRIST
NOVOSELIC
VS.
VI
MIKE
PETRA
D.
1. DANDO
HADEN VS.
CURT
Vs
RACHEL
HADEN
MARK
KIRKWOOD LANEGAN
MCCAW VS
COCO HAYLEY
GORDON MOORE
V.
DAVE
STEPHEN
PERKINS PIRNER
VINCE
MEGHROUNI
THURSTON
vs. MOORE
LEE
15
TODD
VS.
KEITH
RONDA
MICHAEL
PREUSSNER
PAUL
RANALDO RIGIONE RINDONE ROESSLER
ROLLINS
EPIC
SOUNDTRACKS
ANNA
WARONKER
JOHN
STROHM
ZANDER
SCHLOSS
STEVE vs. PAT
V5.
SHELLEY
SMEAR
* SPOT
EDWARD
VEDDER
RICHIE
WEST
"WORRELL
MWWF
PRODUCED BY MIKE WATT
PRESENTED BY COLUMBIA IN ASSOCIATION WITH
THE DEBUT SOLO ALBUM FROM MIKE WATT, FORMER BASSIST OF THE MINUTEMEN AND IREHOSE.
GET READY TO GO 17 ROUNDS WITH MIKE WATT!