The hunt for Hensley: in god's land of hot ditches

Thrasher Magazine, August, 2003

Rhino

WHEN ASKED TO BE THE PHOTO GOON on board the Duffs' van to Arizona and New Mexico, I said hell yeah! Damnit, Hensley can't make it? Then I thought perdium, which meant skaahh. No, not the noise of a skateboard tail cracking an ollie, no, not the noise of my camera firing a shot or sequence--skaahh, skaahh--I'm talking the noise a can of beer makes when you open it. It's real dry out there in the desert and one must drink lots of fluids to maintain. This was going to be great I thought. But doesn't everyone go to Arizona during the winter? RP asked me if I knew of any street spots out there: "Sure I do. I go out there all the time." Except when I go out there, it's to skate pools and occasional skateparks at night. This was going to be a tricky one, but once the beer started flowing everything came into place. Just wing it and see what we get as we go along. Plus, how could you be that picky about whatever spots you encounter when you have The Kid, Alfaro, Lowery, Brian Howard, DJ Chavez, and Santa Fe? Next t ime I won't have to lie, I have some spots.

RELATED ARTICLE: Highlights

--Getting out of San Diego

--DJ wearing some random chick's stained G-string on his wrist the whole trip

--Having Brian Howard on the trip as an excuse for me to go skate pools

--Stacy Lowery beating everyone and their sisters at pool

--Stacy's $170 bar bill for Irish car bombs and Jameson shots, St Patty's night

--RP Bess as the designated driver the entire time

--Four iPods and an iRoc for the whole trip in the van

--Three laptops for watching skate flicks and movies while drinking beer on the long drives

-Generator and lights only used once to light up a pool in Tucson, AZ

--Rain the day before and the day after St Patty's Day. Good for the green beer hangover

--The only bars that were hit were fiat bars and ones where you had to be over 21. None with stairs (ie: handrails)

--Street skaters who never bucketed a pool before

--Lots of ditches to skate

--Having Mike Santa Fe on the trip, similar to having Butthead on a trip

--Watching Howard's Terror At Tahoe DVD on the way back to SD

--Having a bar next to every skate shop where poster signings went down

--No vegetarians on the whole trip, except filmer Vein (who doesn't count)