MALLBEATING
THRASHER
Maxi
00
ROLL YOUR
OWN
Renegade Concrete Cures
San Diego's
Skate Spot Shortage
Words and Photos by
Michael Burnett
Left to right: MJ from East County tests the bridge's
earthquake-worthiness with a kick-ass frontside tail-
bone transfer. Skaters make the best workers and
kink-checkers. Tommy "The Brain" Budjanec devises
a backside tailslide plot to conquer the flatbar and
make Pinoside his undisputed domain.
Y
OU THINK SKATING SUCKS IN
your town? Let me assure you, regard-
less of the seemingly flowing miles of
perfect ledges and set after set of glis-
tening rails that shoot past in the videos and
across the pages of the mags, regardless of
what the media has led you to believe, it's no
picnic in Southern California either. In fact,
the daily struggle that is spot-hunting has
evolved from a carefree four-wheeled adven-
ture (best illustrated by Tommy Guerrero's
"Skateboard Blues" segment in Future
Primitive), into a practice not unlike beating at
dead horse.
Skateboarding in skateboardland sucks.
And unless something changes, it will con-
tinue to do so. When a panel of 100 of
today's top pros and sponsored ams were
asked to describe, in two to three words, the
skate conditions in Southern California, 95%
responded with the word "sucks." Of the
remaining five panelists, one pro emphasized
his point by underlining the word a number
of times, while three others used the
stronger "sucks hard." The last panelist.
oddly responded with the word "socks,"
which was later found to be a typo.
A pro who was not part of the panel was San
Diego's Joe Pino.