SAN JOSE 1991
SELO
ade was calling me for two weeks 'cause he wanted me to go
drive in his dumptruck with him and check it out. I was
way too tired; I just got off work and he works at night. After a
couple weeks he got fed up with me turning him down to work,
and he called me up to go skating Antioch the next night. He
called for me to meet him at Cheesesteaks for dinner and then
go skate. So I grabbed my helmet and board and Dave asked,
"Where are you going?" And I said, "To meet Wade to go skate."
I was waiting at Cheesesteaks and Wade pulled up in his
dumptruck and his first words were, "I can't go skate. I got to go
to work." So I said, "Oh, man, I'm not going to work with you."
And he said, "If you're not too tired to skate then you're not too
tired to work with me." I went to work with him, he dropped
me off at BART, and said, "Is it cool, Doggin?" I said, "Yeah. I
just want to go home." I think I was set up. -Casey Kelly
CH 1998
SACTO 1992
93 Rock
Common courtesy
Levi's
Hot and dusty
Mesh caps
Pitbulls hanging from ropes
Do your dish
Dirt bike racing
Slayer
Weed eaters
♦ Chain wallet
RF
Copenhagen (quite)
100 mph
Tajmawall (Powell wall)
◆ Tractor
The Black Room
◆ Sick Boys
100% skateboarder
Fuckin' Peterbilt
◆ Danville pride
ams
Hall of Famer one of the few to
ever wire skateboarding. -Jason Jessee
remember skating with Wade for the first time at
the Blind school pool back in around '88 or '89. In
between my runs, consisting mainly of slash grinds and
slap-dog wheel bonk airs, Wade was manhandling the
pool with screamin' stand-up 5-0 grinds 3 coping blocks
long, and the sickest slew of slaytanic airs, all high
enough to knock your granddaddy's dentures out. I was
trippin', man, because I had never seen anyone ollie
into an air before. The raddest thing about Wade
(besides the fact that he skated like a rabid animal)
was that he was just as stoked on skating with us dirt-
bags as we were on skating with him. He didn't give a
flying fuck about any superficial bullshit; he was just
amped on our enthusiasm and fed it right back to us.
After many more insane sessions with Wade, he
offered to take me to the Kennedy Warehouse in San
Jose. I'll always remember that first drive down to San
Jose. Wade was flooring it the whole way down in his
busted-ass little Honda Civic with this humongous
Gullwing army sticker covering nearly the entire hood
of the car. He was cranking Slayer or Metallica (I'm
not sure which; he only had like two tapes) as loud as
his little Radio Shack stereo would go. I was nervous
as fuck to be going to a real vert ramp and to be
skating with the big guns, but Wade was like, "Don't
trip, dude. You're gonna be so stoked!" Stoked I was,
man, because as soon as we got in the place, we were
sessioning down with like Ross Goodman, Grosso,
Cab, Kendall, etc. Wade must have only been about
15 years old, but he was already in the same league
as those guys. He was actually pushing everyone to a
higher level by busting out new shit all the time,
and just generally showing more power. Since that
first day that I met him, Wade has always been one
of my favorites. Through all the lame trends and
sketchy times that skateboarding has entertained us
with, Wade has always stayed true to his game.
And his game is to skate where he wants, how
he wants, when he wants, and with whoever he
wants. He's the only guy I've ever seen go over-
head over a spine or grind around a whole
freakin' bowl. He's definitely the only human
being able to weld a handrail in your front yard,
grind the fuck out of it, level your backyard
with a back hoe, build a vert ramp, kill it, and
still have enough left to prune your trees. He's
one of the most easygoing guys I know, and he's
always down for the rip-ride. He's one of the
greats. He's the Nor-Cal Barbarian. He's
fuckin' Wade Speyer! -Ruben Orkin