Couch Tour 2005

Thrasher Magazine, Feb, 2003 by Patrick O'Dell

THERE IS NOTHING more lucid than a man down. The premise for this article began out of necessity. Not long after my girlfriend and I broke up, I was stuck with a Brooklyn rent I could no longer afford. After a two year stint in domestic bliss, I was to rejoin the world of skate houses with my tail between my legs, complete with piss-stained Thrashers in the bathroom and a sticker-covered refrigerator that hasn't been cleaned out it years. I figured I could string it all together in some sort of epic travel log. I pitched it to Thrasher and got the usual "Yeah, whatever." "At least," they thought, "we'll get some skate photos out of the guy for once."

I envisioned staying at all my friends' houses for a week or two each, getting some skateboard pictures of them, spending the money I save in rent on gifts for these kind spirits, and stringing it together into an epic monthly column. I'll begin the article with the trip I made just before I moved out, a trip to Rhode Island to go with the Package and about nine other dudes to go see Andrew WK and Flogging Molly in Boston. Sid Abruzzi had all these backstage passes and tickets 'cause Andrew WK's guitar player is Eric Payne, Tim Payne's brother. You know, arguably the best park builder in the world.

The trip started off easy enough. I woke up early and drove to Water Brothers in Newport, where a van was waiting at noon and everyone was already midnight drunk. In the Van, Package would say "Mr O'Dell, thank you for coming, this trip's for you, I owe you everything Mr O'Dell." He would rub his nose and kiss my hand. I think he has me confused with somebody else really. I think he thinks I'm MoFo.

But whatever, in the van was most of my crew, the TFL (Totally Fuckin' Later'd): Logan, Manute Bol, Ryan Wiebust, Schmitty, and then a bunch of rather surly-looking older dudes. One of them was named Ken Park (but not THE Ken Park); he liked to pull his dick out for no reason, and whenever Package would do something epic, like jump out of the car and stop traffic, Ken Park would find a way to ruin it, by being like "Why do you guys ride his dick so hard?" He was all about being antagonistic. It came to a boil when he pissed in a bottle and then poured a little down Manute Bol's shirt. I saw him do it, and when he went to do it again, I grabbed his arm and was like "What the fuck!?"

So we start arguing a little bit, and boom, we're fighting. Just punching the shit out of each other in the back of the van. And the row in front of us happened to be his surfer crew and so they start punching me too, all I could do was curl in a ball and let these three dudes keep pummeling me. whatever, so we finally make it out of the van, and the dude is still trying to fight and I'm pissing him off by making snorting noises and snorting an imaginary line out of the air. "You're just a loser fucking drug addict" I would yell. He was fired up. Fighting a man on drugs is like fighting two people. It's not even fair. Especially cause I was drunk. That's like, one guy is in full Matrix mode and the other is slow motion, and falling down. But at this time the crew was keeping us apart. and I was mildly pleased to notice that he was covered in blood. We were both covered in blood. So we go to the show, and I looked just like Andrew WK on his record cover. I felt pretty badass. I think I ordered some drinks for the crew, Andrew WK played and it was sick, everyone was on stage, and he dedicated the show to Sid.

After he was done, I went out to get some food, not really thinking that they wouldn't let me back in. So I hid behind a desk in the lobby of a hotel (It was freezing outside). I was trying to call somebody to come pick me up, cause I didn't want to get back in the van with the strung-out suffer brahs again, but my phone had died. I went to the bar of the hotel and ordered a drink--covered in blood mind you--and the bartender gave it to me for free. I think I ordered a beer and a coffee. a disgusting combination, but necessary.

Finally I find the crew after the show, and they say "Package and Ken Park are gone, so let's just ride in the van." OK. So mid-way back to Rhode Island, I'm sitting with my head leaning back on the seat, half sleeping, when I feel something hit the side of my face. I turned my head around and got punched again. It was suffer brah with a lisp this time, he sucker punched me twice! I was ready to attack, but my friends were like "Chill, we got another half hour in this van, you don't want to brawl in here." it was a good point, so when the van finally stopped and we were in the Water Brothers' parking lot I went up to the dude and socked him; it was an honor thing. Then it turned into an all-out war between the TFL and the Suffer guys. it was like out of some '80s movie. The fight got ugly when the suff dudes pulled out tire irons from their cars and wanted to take it to the next level.

So we all got in our cars and made our getaway. As we sped off they tried to throw beers at us but missed. Whatever, we didn't have any tire irons, plus fighting is completely stupid. Plus drugs are completely stupid. I don't even feel any hatred towards those guys, what we saw that night was like a shell of a former person. A Mr Hyde. It's like Phelps told me, "When you ride the white wave, eventually you wash up on the beach." Seriously, to you younger readers, don't go there, I've seen it ruin great men.