This fool started asking Damon about fighting tech-
niques; Damon's some kind of high karate, akido,
judo, kickboxin' bad-ass from South Pas. Damon
asked the kid, "If I attacked you what would you do?"
The kid answered, "I'd blind you," and he faked a
cheesy eye-poking technique, adding a kung fu movie
sound to his demonstration, with an elongated
"Huaaaaa!" Damon gave him the number to his fight-
ing school and told him to come try out some classes,
in hopes that he would get a chance to knock the kid
on his ass a few times. The hag, who solicited body-
guards for her son's main event, paid Damon and
Bobby $20 each for showing up. The wandering-eyed
karate kid's opponents never showed up, so we got
some burritos.
Frankie Vasquez says SAC skaters are nothing but
"lazy fucks who skate for an hour and then go drink."
So they're like most urban youth skaters. It's probably
true, but these guys do have a rad philosophy about
skateboarding. Gabriel Martinez got a good photo
every time we went out. For a while I thought this
article was going to become a Gabriel Martinez inter-
view. After shooting a switch ollie over a large fence
into a huge drop, he said one of the coolest things I've
ever heard: "I'm just expressing 11 years of skate-
boarding." This reflects the general outlook that
Pasadena skaters have on skateboarding.
These skaters are just like all of you; they're good and
they want to share that with the world. If you want to
skate with these guys, forget it. All they do is work,
skate, and party. You may be able to find them at
Atomic Garage, the local shop in Old Town. One place
you can definitely meet up with these cats is at
McMurphy's on Thursday nights, along with the
Daggers and the IE click, or Mr. T's on Tuesdays.
Actually they've got a bar for every night of the week;
I just don't know all seven places.
Clockwise from far left: The
Pasadena public library added two
wings and a ramp entrance in 1968,
just in time to give Abijah Martinez a
place to switch 5-0. Victor Magallon
hardflips the Xerox gap and the
crowd goes wild. This spot is known
for its skating and soliciting of protec-
tion. Damon nosegrinds the famous
white rails. Redneck, hick-tooth Jon
Gratigny looks up at himself going
up, up on a rail in a nocturnal back-
side tailslide.
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