Thrasher Magazine

I’m sitting in a bar trying to remember this mission from a few weeks ago, but this wasn’t no ordinary Mickey-Mouse trip, this was Skate Rock! This time the Skate Gods deployed us to Vietnam and Bali. When we got the word that we were heading to these foreign lands, our crew didn’t even flinch. We stay ready for anything that comes our way. If you happen to get in front of a Skate Rock tsunami, get the fuck outta the way ‘cause we’re gonna run right through you. As I’m sitting here, I start tripping out on every loud noise I hear: someone skates by and I have a flashback to the destruction our crew laid upon those lands. Every time a beer gets cracked, my mind flashes back to the insane late nights after the shows. Holy shit, I think I’ve got PTSRD: Post Traumatic Skate Rock Disorder.

Pacific Rim front board. Beach Bum Row Zo gets down like that



Every night was war


This was the first Skate Rock without the Big Dog, P-Stone, so you know we had to keep the fire lit and rev it up extra heavy. Trixie brought some of Preston’s ashes with her in a small pouch. It weighed a million pounds, so it must have been a part of the Big Dog’s heart. Stone lived for this shit, and we made sure to spread his ashes in places he would love. And even though he wasn’t with us physically, it still felt like he was guiding us. Every time we’d take a random turn and find a sick spot, crack a cold one or find a good place to eat, The Big Dog was right there with us on the mission—and he will be forever.

Preston’s ashes make it to the ocean

When it’s like 10-million degrees, you best got a beach. Nuge heelflips the seawall

Pedro shifty ollie in the globe bowl

And the gods made love. Ishod back lippin’. Pretty poison

Fo' sho

Nuge is Vietnamese and this was his first trip to the motherland. His dad was 44 when he decided to jump on a boat and head to America and he was on that boat for four months. Sounds pretty rough, but he pulled it. He got to the States and he and Mama Nuge made one of the most solid humans I’ve ever known. So when Nuge said he wanted to spread his dad’s ashes in the Saigon River, no questions were asked. We made the journey, dispersed the ashes, poured out a couple of beers and kept rollin’. His pops was back home and we were happy to be a part of that mission. Big love to the Nuge family.




Colorful + Juicy + FSO + Pedro = Yep


Find it hard to hate on the caveman crew. Ralphy, back bone




Paddy ain’t skert of a banger. Front board

Two tricks, same spot, no problems. Rowen crook bonker


Ishod said he was hurt and couldn’t skate. Five minutes later he ollied this insanely huge gap. He is jacked in the best kind of way


Pedro blasts a fat double on some sacred ground. RTMF



Half the crew arrived in Vietnam without any clue of what to expect; it was insane. No wonder when drafted soldiers returned home they never fully came back, mentally. That’s how most of us felt—heavy shit. But when the Skate Gods draft you, you better man up and get your ass on the fuckin’ road. What most people call hell, we call heaven. The heat and humidity were brutal. It felt like our bones were cooking from the inside out like hard-boiled eggs. With how steamy it was, someone was bound to blow a gasket. Unfortunately for us, it happened to our General in Chief. Phelper bit the dust in the middle of a high-traffic street—heat stroke to pass out to dome crack on the hot concrete. Skull-cap salad. Phelps only has one switch and it’s permanently flipped to fucking go mode; he can’t stop the rock. When he woke up, we had to force him to skip the show and go to the hospital. Five stitches later, the old man was back in business. He always bounces back.

All smiles on the FSO tip, Paddy does it hella goot






PTC: Pony Tail Cruiser—Row Zo, ollie up ollie back

Postcard City—Ishod, frontside showtime



The shows in Bali were more organized than in ’Nam—we had a show every other night in Indonesia. Figgy was supposed to come on the trip but couldn’t make it, so we needed someone to get on stage and fill in. Surprisingly, Sean “The Gut” Gutierrez was ready and willing to hop up there and sing. And he fucking nailed it—freestyling lyrics to songs he and the band came up with on the spot. One night he was completely blacked out before the show. We woke his ass up and—sure ’nuff—he got his ass up on stage and killed it! I still have no clue what the impromptu band was called, but they sounded sick.

Bad Shit couldn’t get their shit together for the first three shows. Someone was always fucking up, either not staying on beat or drinking too much. Either way, shit happens and they eventually got it together for their last show and it was fuckin’ killer. I was on stage firing it up like I usually do. The security kept trying to pull me off stage ’cause they thought I was gonna burn the place down. By the time we finished it was too late. We left the place in cinders, burnt it down forever.




Big cheddar item, Rowan Zorilla switch flips out of the chicken coop. Him and Ishod were money


Let me stand next to yer fire Photo: BTX



Post-Skate Rock is always a tough one. Two weeks on the road with some of your best friends in an unknown, foreign land—friends who got each other’s backs, who doctor up your battle wounds, who won’t ditch you, who let you borrow their board when yours breaks, who buy you a beer when you’re broke, just lookin’ out for one another. Then you try to go back to your normal life? Good luck! Like Rambo said, “You don’t just turn it off!” Watering plants, girlfriends nagging, same ol’ food joints, paying rent, doing laundry, water and electricity bills—ugh. It’s so painfully boring. Put me back in the shit. The normal world just ain’t for me. We belong on the road.