PHOTOS AND TEXT BY BRIAN PERRY
10/13/02

Rune Glifberg indy to fakie

We flew to San Diego and then jumped on a train heading north. I know most won't even remember but when I think of Oceanside I think of the old video of the street contest there. It was one of the first organized street contests & also the place where the first handrail was done. As the story goes, Gonz told Natas that he did a boardslide down the handrail of the outdoor stage. Natas was asked him if it was hard & Gonz said it was easy when in reality he never did it at all, he wanted Natas to try it first. And thus skateboarding took a new turn.

Austin Seaholm noseslide shovit

Before I forget I learned a new word. 'Pro-ho'. A pro-ho is a girl that only screws pro skaters. There weren't as many hot girls around Oceanside as I was hoping and when I did see one I'd point her out to Dooner and he's say, "Don't bother. She's a pro-ho". Another funny line was one night we went out for beers with Dave Duncan and this woman named Rita. When we were in the bar this girl came up to Dooner that we had seen with a friend earlier and were talking to outside the bar. We laughed about picking them up because they were pretty ugly. But anyway, Dooner's gal found him and was standing there chatting with him. I didn't think much of it but after a while Dooner comes over and tells Duncan how annoying this girl is and Duncan says, "it's cool, man. It's just somethin' to spit on while you talk".

Anyway, Oceanside is a small beach town and it was taken over by the Triple Crown. What seemed like the entire beachfront was packed with shit. There was a gigantic vert ramp with a tombstone extension over an 8 foot set back channel, a vert bowl (Soul Bowl), a permanent skatepark, the skaters street course and a separate bikers street course. There were scaffolds placed above everything that were connected so you could go up top and get a birds eye of everything. It was sponsored by Ford, X-box and some other big companies for NBC (they said it would be on around Dec 21st).

Who invented the McTwist? Who won the masters bowl? Seriously Cab, I wasn't watching. Who won?

Dooner got me a 'significant other' pass which freaked me out a little bit but at least I could get backstage where I wanted to be. When we first walked in we ran into Eddie Reategui and Dave Duncan. Dooner was checking in and everyone was happy to see him. I stood there like a tool giggling to myself as I see all these old pros walking by. McGill, Cab, Ben Schroeder, Eddie Elguera, Tony Magnusson, the list goes on and on. They were there for the 'Masters bowl' contest which was interesting. McGill won it again and Schroeder slammed on his head (the night before the contest he was ridiculously wasted). There was a 'young guns' vert bowl too that Omar Hassan won. Chris Gentry got second. No other details needed.

Anyway, the street prelims were long and I couldn't watch a lot of it. I was frying in the sun and after Carlos De Andrade I didn't need to see anyone else. He rips. I think he qualified first but then didn't make the next round of cuts. Other stand outs were Tony Trujillo, Austin Seaholm, all the Brazilians, Kosten and Chris Senn. Not to be anti-climactic but Senn won the street contest (18 grand by the way) It was actually pretty close between him and Rodil Junior. Rodil is rad but man is he boring to watch. He does everything switch but just goes back and forth like a robot. Senn fucked that course up. He didn't do one flip trick but he skated fast and big. He ollied over the box to feeble down the handrail on the other side, fs smith down a big hubba, big indy transfers, just killed it. Seaholm got 3rd. My favorite trick he did was a backside 180 front foot impossible over this death gap. Every trick he does is a combination. Every nose or tailslide had a shovit or kickflip out. TNT was top 10. I don't remember exatly. But he (and I'd have to say Kosten) were the funnest to watch. He's got a sketchy ass style that combines old and new tricks that makes him stand out. I saw Nesser like the day I got back at City Billiards and was telling him that he needs to go to these contests. I've seen him take runs that he could've won this contest with. Clint needs to go and Seth too. Seth would've killed this course. There's money to be made out there and they should take it.

Darren Navarrette was the life of the party. Here he is blasting a nice Japan air.

We found Darren Navarrette as soon as we arrived. He's not hard to spot. He was heckling the skaters on top of the vert ramp trying to make them all do inverts. But Darren was skating really well. He's on Foundation now and is out there trying to make some money. He's in a band that got sponsored by Miller beer so his fridge is packed with High Life. But he was sticking his indy 5's, kickflip melons and the like. He almost made the cut for the vert finals but fell short. It turns out that I'm glad he did because the next day for the vert finals I hooked up with him and we smuggled beer up to our seats right on the platform of the ramp. It was like 10:30 in the morning and Dooner was down judging street best trick (I don't even know who won that). Security was everywhere but Darren had one of those beer can wraps that made it look like soda. I opted for red masking tape. We killed our first six pack during warm ups and slowly our group began to grow. Matt Dove joined us, Tony Trujillo and his girlfriend, Danny Mayer - who I hadn't seen in years - was there somewhere. But soon we ran out of beer again so a few minutes go by and Ben Schroeder comes stomping down with a gigantic cooler. At this point there's no need to be stealth anymore. The contest had started and Navarrette was raising hell. Yelling at everyone, unplugging NBC's amplifiers and blasting his little boom box. Chris Gentry's wife asked Darren to please be quiet during her husbands run (and he didn't). It was pretty funny. I'm curious to see if any of this will be on television. I hope not. But our seats were fantastic and I'd never seen this caliber of skating up close. Everyone was there. Guys that weren't skating even came out to watch (Hawk, Way, Collin). It ended up that Bob won the contest. He did a switch backside kickflip over the 8 foot gap in the vert ramp. He's too good.

After the contest we were shipped back to San Diego to be closer to the airport. It's sure nice to take a trip where the rooms are paid for, there's food and entertainment around, you've got nothing to worry about except skating. Pro skaters have a pretty amazing life and many of them don't even realize it. It's hard to come back to the responsibilities of real life here in Minnesota but I also don't know how long I'd last out there until I went nuts. My family and friends are more important than weather and scenes. Or maybe I just try and convince myself of that. Who knows.