Thrasher Magazine

Is he the one who makes the funny faces, or the dude who runs his board into shit?” I asked Rye when he told me that Gus Gordon was coming on the trip. I knew I’d seen that name in a recent video, but is anybody else having a hard time keeping up with all the new guys out there? “The first one,“ Rye replied, “He’s great. You’re gonna like him.” I had no doubt. A dude who makes crazy faces and was able to pass muster with the elite 1-8? Good enough for me. And as a fun bonus, he showed up on the trip with both eyeballs completely blown out—all the white parts pulsing red, like the swirling lights of a fire engine. Yep, he’s with us.


Rock hops, sock hops and street spots, everything a road trip should be—watch the Homies spread the hype from Evan's nuptials to the TFT's backyard send-off

It’s rare that I get to jump on a trip with no clear agenda (so heavy is the pull of my editor’s desk), and all I knew about this one was that I was meeting Rye’s crew in Pittsburgh after Evan Smith’s wedding and we had one week to make it to Atlanta for the Thomas Taylor Memorial session. New beginnings, sad goodbyes, might as well throw a trip home to Mom in there somewhere. And that’s exactly what we did as Gus guided us through the Blue Ridge mountains to see his folks in beautiful Boone, North Carolina. A more lovely night and delicious feast I have not experienced in many years. Makes me think we should visit more mothers on these missions. Maybe a whole Mom Scramble? Shit, anything’s better than another trip to Tampa.

Mama tried

Psycho Dro, boneless fakie board snapper

Gus got a mean melon for all terrain

Top view of Cedric’s insane front feeble cradle crunch

Not an egg, but Gus Gordon’s not all there, so it works

From the cradle to the grave, Cedric slices a front feeble while Roman plants frontally on a granite tombstone. Definitely no waiting at this suburban Pittsburgh pit

Pabich Power



How much for one rib?

When it's Zero Sunday you gotta toss it any way you can. Pedro in Pitt

Chappy with the macho tail drop in Pitt

Q: What kind of cheese do skaters eat? A: Finely shredded

Ramp owner Mike Myers goes Halloween on a spooky handplant






Down in the Dungeon
When I first saw photos of Mike Myer’s wooden bowl, I thought it was in a giant barn or outbuilding. Instead, you reach it by squeezing to the back of the tightly-packed garage of his modest Pittsburgh home and going straight down a Silence of the Lambs “Put the lotion in the basket” hole. Are we in the basement? Did he dig a giant pit beneath his house? The bowl is massive, and it’s hard to figure out exactly how he could fit such a thing underneath the garage. Turns out Mike’s house is on a hill, and the bowl and building around it are actually hanging off the back into space. The other surprising thing about Myers’ bowl is that there doesn’t seem to be a single, full-sized piece of lumber involved in the construction. Instead, it’s a giant jigsaw puzzle of scraps, including the rafters above. “It was all salvage,” he told me proudly. “We picked every single piece out of the dumpster. We did not buy one two by four!” For bowl heads, it’s kind of like the Skatopia barn bowl, but with possibly even more vert in the shallow end, and a better waterfall. The boys jumped right in, especially Ceddy who went to town with everything to fakie and massive corner stales. He turned 23 on the trip and carries a tin of Old Bay seasoning with him at all times. Grosso once said that Cedric’s skateboarding is driven by anger, and while that may or may not be true, he does look pissed off a great deal of the time if you don’t know him very well. “Actually, this is the greatest trip I’ve ever been on,” he told us one day. Warmed my heart. Cedric shreds.

Cedric palms a stale above 10,000 pieces of scrap

Mike scrapes out frontside in his own creation. You should have seen him before the hip replacement!

Cedric to fakie over Pittsburgh’s scariest plywood pit

Roman rocks the rafters with a raging fastplant

Stand up, all yinz! Kanfoush slays it back for a fun group photo


Weddings are a special time to cut loose and celebrate, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to blow it. You’ve seen those old blooper videos. Read up and live to catch another bouquet.

Dress Up
Weddings are often the first formal event a skater may have to dress for outside of court. “Formal” can mean anything from your best Pig Wheels hoody and a pair of Chucks with no ollie marks, all the way up to an actual suit. To be safe, don’t ask your buddy who’s getting married what to wear; ask the bride to be. Also, avoid wearing white so as not to upstage the bride—unless it’s those new white Austyn Gillettes. Those shits are fire.

All Mixed Up
Unless your pal is a secret Mormon, most weddings are heavy drinking affairs, with the added hazard of several disparate types of booze. It’s not uncommon to find yourself cracking White Claws at the La Quinta beforehand, only to follow that up with a pre-party cocktail at the venue, chased with several glasses of the red wine they put on the tables, then the champagne toast, ending with Jäger shots on the dance floor—the whole mixture staging a battle royale in your stomach before clawing it’s way up your brain stem to give you a three-day hangover. Long story short: abstain, pick one and stick with it, cut yourself off early or stuff down two dinner rolls for every glass of poison you ingest.  

Shake that Junt
Of course you can do that funny dance move you always do, you just don’t want to be the first guy out there busting the worm while the grandparents are still sipping their Sanka. When the drunk aunt starts twerking to “Hot in Herre” by Nelly, that’s your signal to fire it up.

Wedding photos: Papke and Beres

Mafia Related
If you’re Papke’s dad and are doing the Sk8mafia hand sign with Wes Kremer, remember that it’s always left over right to make the S.

Hook Ups
A wedding is a great place to meet someone special, but you gotta take it super slow for a couple of reasons. First, the atmosphere is way too charged with romance, emotion and Coors Light. Second, half the people there are related. That woman attempting to give you a lap dance by the punch bowl might also be another guest’s precious granddaughter, or crazy ex-wife, or horny landlord. To be safe, get as buck as you like on the dance floor, but go home with the homies.

Present Presence
Unless the bride and groom are registered at Zumiez, do not attempt to give them any skate gear or clothing you got for free as a wedding gift, you cheap fucking asshole.

Hold Tight
Despite the lessons you’ve learned from hip-hop and TV awards programs, dropping the actual microphone usually ends up breaking it and gets everyone kicked out of post-wedding karaoke. Which is fine for the cool mic dropper, but not so much when you’ve been waiting all night to sing “Islands in the Stream” with the twerking aunt.

Lights Out
As the ancient proverb goes, “If three men tell you you’re drunk, go to bed.”





Yinzer and proud: Xeno, Cheddar Bob and Kanfoush

Yinzers
Xeno Tsarnas shot photos for the mag for several years, even joining Antihero on their one-and-only King of the Road run, if you can believe that. He was top notch and still shoots to this day, but at some point decided to put down roots in Pittsburgh, buying a fixer-upper home for about the same price as a 20-year-old Honda Civic, $10,000. “Did you know how to fix houses?” I asked, “Well, no, but I figured it out.” he replied. We skated a vigilante DIY built on the third-floor gymnasium of a half-burned-out church, Pedro floating an egg on the windowsill for a photo I have long dreamt of shooting. Cheddar Bob of Ex-Filmer comics and Fuck Yinz fame met up and we made a trip back to the ’90s with Austin Kanfoush at an indoor bike park, complete with disgusting rental helmets and the dude yelling at us to put them back on every five minutes. I guess what I’m trying to say is… nice town, Pittsburgh. Friendly folks, too. Can’t wait to get back.

Cody Chapman taps out in silhouette

Pedro Delfino, Humpty Dumpty vibes at the Pittsburgh cathedral

Roman, for the Lord

Cody with the Indy floater

Hit me in the ankle so hard bailing this one. I can still feel it

GG with the switch pivot, living on the edge

Early-grab crooked cop is a sick one

Stepping nimbly on the good ol’ BSB

Frontside pivot tap on the whiplash wall

Gus Gordon is a barrel of monkeys—ape hanger at the bike park

Roman strikes another blow to skate/BMX relations with a provocative wallride to free fall at Pittsburgh’s The Wheel Mill

Roman cross locks across and down in what might have been his wedding pants

Roman after the rail entanglement

They called it the Gator Chin ramp and the Homies gave it a proper workout –stiffy through the fence

Pedro on Andrecht detail

Roman with the rarely-seen rocket! Thanks, y’all!

What are curbs but the couches of the streets?

Quick stop at the Greenville DIY. Nice work, boys!

Bug splat flyaway over thousands of hours of concrete crusading

Another roadside attraction ––Cody and the world’s nicest kickflip

Guitar Center is closed but Pedro still got wild on the whammy bar

Cody Chapman takes it home in Atlanta. Thanks, y’all and yinz for treating us like family



C’mon Tom
Whenever Jake Phelps and Thomas Taylor got together there would eventually be a showdown. Put two top dogs in the same yard and sooner or later they’re gonna snap. They were way too much alike, those maniacs. One visit ended after Thomas punched Jake in the ear super hard, sending him grumbling home. Revenge was sweet, however, when Jake bought Wheatberry a one-way flight to Atlanta along with cab fare. “Just tell ’em to take you to Stratosphere!” he laughed as he dropped him off at the airport. At least that’s how the story goes. It felt very strange to be in Atlanta without Thomas, but good to honor his memory with stories, skating and lots of laughs with friends and family. That said, I’m gonna need my few remaining heroes to all live to a ripe old age—I’m talking Independent rocking chairs and flame-logo adult diapers, NA beers slurped casually from sippy cups. No more dead dudes. I’m sick of this shit.

Skate or die, another day. A million years from now.

Ronnie Sandoval pays respects at Slim’s

Layback Smith at Slim’s

Met up with Ronnie in Atlanta to see him go showtime off the tree

Patlanta slaps a front D

Danny Way used to punch himself in the head mid-run too

Gus and the switch 50 roll-in. Built different

GT on bean? Who knew?!

Gold standard, in a sea of green




Pat McLain goes hip to tombstone for those who can’t. Which is basically all of us. That thing is fucked-up gnarly

He takes his shoes off to avoid getting hurt. Makes sense?

And life goes on ….