Alienation vacation: Japan

Thrasher Magazine, March, 2002 by Tim O'Connor

For every 10 Dawes stories tola only one may contain the whole truth. The others are not so true. But he's been going this for so many years now that it is not his fault anywhere, and he may in fact himself believe these magical fairy tales that slip out of his mouth.

Hey Thrasher fans, it's me. Woo-hoo! My font has made it to this magazine now, but the Thrasherians told me to get right to the point in this article, so I'm gonna do just that. The athletic mammals on this trip to Japan were Anthony Pappalardo, Anthony Van Engelen, Jason Dill, and Me-self. Joe Castrucci the Earthy tree-toucher came with us too, so that he could film and just be outright organic all over Japan. And last but least, Lance Dawes came along to take photos of us doing moves and being cool as piss in the public eye.

When we landed in Tokyo I went outside to greet my comrades that I hadn't seen in a short while. Lance was all denimed out head-to-toe with some checkered slip on Vans and a mesh hat complete with flipped up bill- very Mike Muir-ish. Lance was completely extended to the other end of the fashion spectrum, He looked like an aging, rebellious, confused teen, completely opposite of iced to the marrow; but nonetheless, he was still extended in his own way. We all hugged one another in a macho un-gay way, and then a Japanese person came and picked us up. His name was Moto. Moto threw us in a van with a navigation system in it; they actually use those things as a normal, everyday, helpful tool unlike the States where heads get a navi just to tell other heads that they got a navi. We got on the highway and were headed to Yokohama when I took notice of all of the automobiles and how they looked like they had been shrunk down. This was due to an old Japanese law called the cute factor law. This law was passed by their Emperor so everything that may possibly appear to be dangerous or pose a threat in any way must now be disguised and look soft, safe, or cuddly. All items that fall into this category must also alert you to any pending dangers via word boxes from the mouths of little innocent cartoon kittens. The automobiles are extremely petite and I think that they might have an edible candy gobstopper shell.

The ride from the airport to the hotel was long-dong, and the whole time AVE, Dawes, and Dill wouldn't stop running their pie-eatin' holes about gettin' gnarly in some pools that we weren't anywhere near. This is right about the time when "Suicidal Dawes" segued into some old war stories about skating for the last 46 years. I have figured out Dawes' story formula at this point in our relationship because I have known him for many moons and many tours now. He does know a lot of stuff, but there is also the truth ratio for his stories that goes: For every 10 stories told, only one may contain the whole truth. The others are not so true. But he's been doing this for so many years now that it is not his fault anymore, and he may in fact himself believe these magical fairy tales that slip out of his mouth.

The park we did the demo at that day was a nice wide open space completely furnished with some decent skateboarding obstacles. Among these obstacles was a long, wacky flexible wammy bar that started from the height of my sprained ankle and ended at the height of my nipple region. AVE was attacking the thing ferociously and threw down some obnoxiously stupid fast 50-50s up it, and exited the obstacle by way of steroid-induced muscle ollies. He got brave after a couple of 50-50s and started feeble grinding up the whole thing. He was almost doing it when he slipped off of one right at the top--he was fractions of a second away from tearing his new Crown Royal crushed velvet satchel sac cover that he had been wearing that day. He wedged his finger just in time between sac and pipe, so instead of tearing his goodie bag open and spilling his treats like a pinata, he ended up with a broken finger in two places. I think the satchel was a family heirloom, though. It is much better to have sacrificed a finger in place of that irreplaceable satchel.

We tried to go out street skating, but our guides didn't really seem to know where the spots were. We would all pile up in the van and ask Moto questions about stuff. He would always reply "I think so?" which was his translation equivalent to, "Yes. I am 100-percent positive and affirmative."

We would drive around looking for skate spots and never get to anything 'cause the traffic is thick and slow, much like a fat guy who suffers from Down Syndrome. We couldn't have been any closer to not being anywhere most of the time, and when we finally made it to a spot it was usually dark. The spots weren't lit up good either, so we would then go to McDonald's which is McEverywhere out there and hork sweaty meat products down our throats.

We did a demo in Tokyo on one of the next days. As soon as we pulled up we ran out of the car and started blazing around the set up they had erected. Dill was gettin' down and dirty with some Bertlemans on everything that could be considered a thing. Then someone pulled me aside and told me to stop skating because there was a contest going on right then that hadn't exactly ended yet. This would explain why there was only one little kid with a helmet on skating out there with us. We were messing up his whole run and we had no idea due to the language barrier. I started to yell at Dill to stop, but he couldn't hear me because all he could hear was the viciousness of Bertlemaning and the sound of him expressing himself. Dill messed up on one of the Bertlemans and accidentally flung his board at the little kid while he was in the middle of his run. It took awhile for us to realize what was going on, but we eventually caught on and all stopped skating. The contest came to an end and we did a short demo in the dark with Caine Gayle and Kevin Taylor who were there on an Axion tour. That was that and we broke out.