background. You could tell Remy felt a little dumb and he
explained to us that he was just doing R as a favor to his mother
That night we slept in the deep end of the bowl with Tex hold-
ing a big knife under his pillow He told me that he whipped it
cut a bunch of times in the night because he heard something
Tums out we just me snoring
The sun woke us up at 6:30, and we skated for a few hours
before making the short trip down the road to LA. As I walked
down to the car. I started to check out all the trash that was
strewn around the place. A bamed out van was the largest piece
of refuse, but there were dan about 50 million broken bottles, a
bunch of single shoes, a discarded "Strat Pack" box, and then
something that really caught my eye a perfectly sealed three
peck box of enemas I grabbed i
A
few hours later, w
at our frend Andy Hama house where he lives weth ha mem.
Marylou, Andy looked in good as ever except his little beard
has gotten even bigger and is starting to make him look more
and more like he's got a muskrat stuck on his face. We slated
the Basic bowl, which was as fun to skate as it looks in the
videos. I really thought I'd be able to do all my vert tricks in the
big bowl bat had to be content with a few grinds. All these year
h the mini-ramp may have taught me a mess of reset and in-
kertoy combinations, but I realized how much have to lea
about pool skating It's kind of a shame that a lot of skaters won't
ever even try to skate pools, but 1 guess I wouldn't have both
ered either in my pslide Smith, pslide Smith, revert days 1
tightened my trucks for the t
few wobbly carve the bought them after a
tire You end gee geing so fast
It was crazy to think that we were the only ones that wanted to
skate such a great pool on Saturday afternoon. Steve did lay-
way around the 7 t bowl
back grinds all the we was Chicken's, which was more my
nest pool we rode w
speed. It's about a fi deep and goes right up to vert.
Chicken, Eddie Restega, Skip Pranier, and a handful of oth
es were cruising under the shade trees and showed us some
lines to get us started
The second time we rode there we were joined by Brewce
hucks himself like a muppet
Bellman's was the list of the Huntington Beach there, which
we aansioned solo. Roth and Tex came real close to jump-
ing the channel, but darkness came before the trick did. The next
day we left for San Diego
It seems land of stupid to mention, but our times spent in the
car together were consistently marred by Tea and Revord's
ass. I don't know what the heck is wrong with these
guys'
bowels, but pulling our shirts up over our noses band
I car position for me and Ro
In San Diego w steed
In San Diegowe stayed with Kevin Marks who
with Kevin Marks who you might
remember as the strange guy with the mustache that came
Texas Kevin left the world of retail last
with me on that trip to Texas
year and now does intemational sales with the Foundation Supe
Co They really hit the jackpot with Kevin. He's got the work
ethic of a mule is in bed every night by nine, and unce studied a
book called How to Live on $10 a Week Texas Dan grew up
with Kevin and told us stories about Kevin mowing hundreds of
yards a week in high school Apparently, he always smelled a lit
THESE GUYS ARE TRUE TRANSITION DIEHARDS AND WOULD PROBA-
BLY SCARE THE POO OUT OF THE AVERAGE BIG SHOE TONGUE SKATER
a super tight mini ramp where Andy unloaded his complete
vert runs with M Melike contency We then headed over
to the Girl ramp, but it was kind of tore up, and one wall
made you look
look straight into the sun Andy scored a free brand
from a friend there by striking up a "Whoa, is that a new con
cave o
conversation
Staying at Andy's was a the vacation We tried to surf every
morning west seating every afternnen, and then ate home
cooked meals before going out on the town with Andy's many
lady friends. It reminded me about the long lost comforts of
Ing with the folles
One day we went to Seal Beach to see a vert demo at the
Inflight skateshop I guess it's an annual event, and they'd put up
anice-sized Masonite vert ramp. Crum, Remy, Genery, Patch
Dave Duncan, and a kid from Italy named Giorgio a ella
I put on
quite a show, while Roth and Revord clowned through a few
runs. It was strange, even though it was a skateboard demo, al
the booths set up around the ramp were for snowboard compo
nies I wonder when those guys are going to get their
The remainder of our days in LA were spent skating the
backyard bows of Huntington Beach. The first one we rode was
shen?
Martin and his surly crew from West Virginia, Brewce had
sted for the Warped Tour fax in Inng Beach and in lieu
of his plane ticket he get Vues to give him a money for his
van so that he might bring his son and posse along with him
These s
These guys were truly a treat. Brewce is in his 30s and started
every other run with an acid drop t
was drop revert-arms s
Dave Maxwel was another one. He did bonelesses on
the face wall where he would bonk b fin the head with the
nose of the board. Sometimes he would just roll out, smack
himself in the head a few times, and then jump back in. I
thought their friend Sloppy had drunk himself into a daze
unal he hopped up and threw stand up grinds through the shal
low end corners and into the channel. These guys are true tran
sition diehards and I would probably scare the poo nut of the
average big
big shoe t
tongue skater. Rather than think of them a
old school or any such retarded label, all I could think of was
how much fun they were having
Right as we were about to leave, Brian Patch and Alabama
Nily showed up and pulled out the best lines of the night, in the
dark. Billy even pulled an invert to fakle, padless, and th
death box. You'd like him. He goes about 100 miles per hour and
tle bit like grass and would give the sink eye to any kid he saw
mewing any of his las
If that weren't enough of an industry connection, our friends
Luciano Mor and Balls Brown San Diego now, where
they
first
nun Elwood Clothing for Sated the
weight we went and skated the Graffix warehouse.
house 40t wide vert r and some crummy quarter-
pipes. Oscar Jordan was there skating the small ramps and
our direction every time he landed
so everyone was claiming. I can't help feeling com
passion for the underdog-l like Andy MacDonald too.
we skated the Foundation mini-ramp with Kevin
and a couple of his co-worke
s co-workers. The r
te ramp is only ft high, which
prompted the vert-hungry Roth to start piling these big metal
shelves on the lip to create makeshift extensions. It was ridicu
lous. Soon he was balancing them up on their ends, and Tex had
to sit inside to keep them from shooting back when Roth
slammed himself to the top of them. The highlight was a 5 ft.
stalefish tweaker to near flatbottom landing.
After that we headed back to the Craffix warehouse because
we had heard rumors of big Friday night session. The place was
56 THUCHE
OD
Above: I'ts good to have friends in high places.
Jeff XXX heads for the roof at Paul's playland.
Left: If Steve Revord fell on his wrist really hard at
Temecula, it wouldn't break-his arm would!