Tony Hawk Tour - chrisnieratko.com

Tony Hawk Tour

[ photos by kosick ]

Growing up, I wasn't much of a fan of Tony Hawk. I wasn't much of a fan of anyone with long, blond hair and blue eyes. At 13 I associated that hairstyle with California, and Caiifornia I associated with tree-hugging hippies, surfer kooks. Lance Mountain, on the other hand, he was sick. He always seemed like the guy from the Boner Brigade that would be the most fun to hang out with. Tony seemed like the kid you'd get to do your science homework. And Lance totally didn't have blond hair. That shit was black. Black hair is cool. So much cooler than that look that Tony was rocking back in the day. Then as I got older I saw a change in Tony. A gradual change, so minor I couldn't put my finger on it. Maybe he was skating better. Maybe he was suddenly less of a nerd now that he was on a team with Jeremy Klein. Maybe it was that he knew every trick on Earth, and I had to start liking him by default. No. It was his hair. He was cutting his hair differently. It was getting shorter, yet he wasn't balding. I think it was around the time he really started combing it nice that I was like, "Hey, this guy's all right. He's made some bad hair choices along the way, but who hasn't? He's trying to make up for all that. I should be supportive." And so I started actually looking at the photos and ads in magazines of Tony instead of just flipping the page hoping to see a shot of Lance. Dude. Lance. Dude. I even found myself going back and sitting through all of Tony's parts in the Powell videos, which we all know are way too long and boring as shit because they, like, slow-mo every damn trick he does. "Hey, Stacey, slow-mo that fakie rock and make me a sandwich." "You got it, George." Shit. What was really odd was that Tony started doing something that few other skaters were doing, and that was getting me antsy, excited in anticipation of his next video part. The dude is like 50, and he keeps building all kinds of crazy loops and detachable ramps and shit. Building shit is hard. You need wood. And I heard that everything he builds, he builds by himself. At night. In complete darkness. With his bare hands. No tools. With a whistle in his mouth. While turning his stereo all the way up, listening to blank tapes. While dressed like an owl. Crazy shit. So, yeah, hearing all that, and with his newfound hairstyle, I became a born-again Tony Hawk fan. When I found out that this year's Tony Hawk's Big Skatepark Tour was going to be the last one ever, I cried. Not real tears. Not the ones that roll out your eyes and run down your cheek and ruin your makeup, but the kind that come from the back of your throat and trickle down to your heart and make you sad, so sad you don't even want to get out of bed to drink anything until like five o'clock. Then Rick told me we were going on Tony's tour, and I was happy again. Oooh, Tony. I'm going to hang with Tony. Then Rick said we couldn't go because the people at Transworld were fags and something about advertising and AOL/Time Warner whatever, and we just couldn't, so forget it. Then real face-wetting tears joined the bruise I had on my face from that one time I walked into that door at Subway. And suddenly I didn't like Tony Hawk anymore. F him and his tour. That dude is totally lame. He can gay out with Transworld 'til the cows come home for all I care. Dick. I think I was halfway through taking my posters of Tony off my bedroom wall when Kosick called me and told me he scammed us back onto the Tony Hawk tour. He was all, "Yeah, we're going to ride with the Birdhouse ams in their van and follow the tour." And I was like, "Dude, Where's my roll of tape? I got posters to hang back up." Tony Hawk was awesome again. Fuck Transworld. Me and Tony were going to get ice cream and do stuff and totally have a beer and maybe a hamburger. Shit. Does Tony Hawk eat hamburgers? What does Tony Hawk eat? What if I'm like, "Tony, want to get a burger?" and he's like, "That's it. You're off the tour." And they just leave me on the side of the road. I'd let Tony always pick what we ate. That seemed safe.

In honor of all Tony Hawk's bad haircuts, I volunteered to get a really bad haircut for the tour, and it totally sucked. Jacked-up mohawk. Half-shaved eyebrows. Lines in the side of my head. A happy face and my initials cut into one side of me skull and "TNT" on the other. Total kook cut. I just knew Tony was going to heart it. Fast forward. Cab. Airport. Cab. Denver. Hit play, and I'm sitting at the back of Tony Hawk's big tour bus with Tony and all these people all up on his tits. Handing him cell phones. Having him sign posters and contracts. Feeding him. Videotaping him being fed. Massaging his feet and ass. Combing his hair. All this at once. Right then, as 12 or so people pampered and primped him, I imagine what life would be like as a quadriplegic Tony Hawk and how great it would be to talk on so many cell phones at once and just say silly things to whoever was on the other end. "If you want me there at noon you're going to need a fishing rod and a stop watch." "Put me down for seven and stick a can of beer in your ear." "I don't care who this is, make me some lemonade with your ass." And just having my own tour bus would be the best. I don't know if I'd want my picture on the side because sometimes I'm shy, but it would be so cool to have bunk beds. I was just coming off the heels of my Osiris Aftermath tour when I found myself beside Tony and already knew that I was made for life on a big rock-'n'-roll tour bus, and I'd make a great quadriplegic Tony Hawk, maybe even better than the real Tony Hawk because I've already been mentally preparing for the role. I was either thinking about how many chicks I would filet if I was the quadriplegic Tony Hawk or how funny it would be for my manservant to hover me above the toilet so my quadriplegic ass could piss, when suddenly Tony looked me in the eye and asked, "What's up with your haircut?" I was glad those were the first words out of his mouth. It would be pretty lame if he said, "Hi." Because then I'd have to tell you how I replied, "Hey," or "Hi," or whatever greeting I chose to use at that particular front door to our conversation. Instead I was able to say, "Huh?" Which wasn't what I meant to say. I heard him clear as day, but I was all in quadriplegic mindframe, and I had to reset my brain to hanging-with-Tony mode, and that takes a few seconds. You know what I'm talking about. "What's up with your haircut?" To which I answered, "I learned it from watching you," like in those drug commercials where the dad finds the kid's reefer stash and is all, "What the fuck?" But Tony couldn't make much sense of it, and then I felt stupid. "Why am I so stupid?" I kept saying while smacking my head. I just wanted to go back to my special place where I was quadriplegic Tony Hawk, master of the universe. But I couldn't. I was there with Tony's battalion, and I was a useless conversationalist to him, so instead of sitting there like a bump on a log, I started massaging his temples. I didn't know what else to do. It was like some greater power compelled me, kind of like Carnie professing his love to Morrissey. But where Morrissey is totally into dude love, Tony was all, "What are you doing, Chris?"
"Nothing. Later." I said, and ran off the bus. I needed to regroup. Rethink my plan of attack. I needed to script my next chat with Tony and work on my lines, preparing for any deviation of linear flow on his part. The next time I would be ready.

The Denver sun is probably the same sun that's in California, but maybe not. It seemed much brighter and hotter and more annoying than the sun I am accustomed to. As I sat burning my ass cheeks on the scorching cement of the park, watching everyone skate, I thought about how I should approach my next meeting with T. Hawk. (When I say I was watching everyone, I mean everyone. I can't think of one pro skateboarder that wasn't there. There was Bam, Kris Markovich, Colin McKay, Jason Ellis, Mike Vallely, Alex Chalmers, Kerry Getz, Brian Sumner, Jesse Fritsch, Kevin fucking Staab, Bob Burnquist, that snowboard kid that rides for Birdhouse, Bucky Lasek, that BMX guy Rick Thorne, Willy Santos, Tony Hawk of course, Vinnie Vegas, Birdhouse ams Dylan Reiter, Matt Allen, Joey Poirez, Matt Ball, Shawn Eaton.) The demos were like nothing I'd ever seen before. An estimated 3-5,000 kids came out everywhere we went to catch the show. And they ail loved Tony. The kids loved most everyone, but Tony could do the ugliest late shove-its on the street course or bail a frontside air or fart, and the crowd would go nuts. And it wasn't just the kids, parents and businessmen everywhere adored him. I saw him take as many pictures with other people's babies as the Pope or the President. He was on the cover of every local paper of each town he passed through, he was swarmed for autographs every time he tried to eat. Very early I started feeling bummed for him. I personally wouldn't want the kind of fame that he or any movie star has, where they can't take a shit without having someone kick in the door to get a photo of them. I like working the shadows and retaining my anonymity, I like being able to spit on people, tell them to fuck off or smack them without having any kind of legal problems or popularity backlash. I guess in that sense my detestation for notoriety would kind of make me a shitty quadriplegic Tony Hawk. Just from the few times I was recognized as "the puke guy from Jackass" I realized that type of attention is not for me. I get in enough trouble on my own with no one knowing who I am. I don't need a spotlight cast on me to highlight all my pimples. You start getting scumbags coming up to you, wanting to fight you for no reason and people you never liked asking you for favors you'd never do. Watching Tony having to smile for everyone and always having to be "on" made me somewhat protective of him from that first day in Denver on. In an unspoken way I think it made most of the other people on the trip feel the same way. I found myself trying to shield him from annoying people or telling bratty kids to eat a dick when they asked for free shit because he just couldn't say it. Tony Hawk can't break hearts. The Internet is too vast, and all it takes is one kid to start pissing and moaning on a message board to start a tidal wave of turncoats. Then Tony and that ugly red-haired snowboard kid were doing some doubles routine when some dickhead from the crowd threw a beer can into the 11-foot bowl as they were about to land. Tony almost lost it and would have gone face first into the wall and wouldn't have been so pretty anymore. The crowd went silent. My first reaction was, "Let's fuck that dude up." It was like someone had taken a shot at the President, and me and the others were G-men, hired to protect and kill if necessary. Before I could even react, Jason Ellis was on the mic offering free product to anyone who pointed out the asshole who threw the can. Moments later, the culprits took off running. After that everyone stood a little closer to the Birdman. Maybe not everyone. Just the guys who were fortunate to ride on his fancy tour bus with the leather seats and the PlayStations and the food and the trainer and the DVD player. Not everyone was so lucky. There were those who were on the first leg of the tour who weren't supposed to be on the second leg but decided they were having much too much fun to ieave and decided to stay on and foot their own bill, and then there were those who weren't supposed to be there at all, like the Birdhouse ams and me and Rick. For us, it was a shitty 12-passenger van full of little kids. I took one look at the van and looked back at the bus, then looked back at the van, then looked at the RV that was rented for the guys who would be dubbed the B team, and I was like, "No way." I told Rick I was going on the RV. His eyes told me he wanted to ride on the RV too and not with a bunch of kids less than half his age, but he knew he couldn't. He scammed our way on the trip saying he was going to shoot the ams, and he felt obligated to stick with them. So I jumped in the RV with the B team. The B team consisted of Kevin fucking Staab, Jesse Fritsch, Bucky Lasek, Alex Chalmers, Sweet Pussy Frank (the driver, who got his name for being a pussy, not because he gets sweet pussy), Willy Santos, me, Kerry Getz and a filmer. One story was, everyone was lined up and told who went on the B RV. One by one they were told either B or A. Mike Vallely was supposed to be B, but whoever was responsible for telling Mike he had to ride with the B team was too shit scared to break the news to him for fear of getting clobbered and instead just told Mike he was A team. I would have liked to have had Mike on the B team, but then there wouldn't be that story. I can just picture the guy passing each guy, "A, B, B, A, A," then coming to Mike, "...uh (gulp), uh, buh-buh-buh—AYE." We were the underdogs. We were the unwanted and unpaid, and for that we were above the rules that the A team had to abide by. If the A guys had to be somewhere at 10 a.m. the B boys would roll in at 11 a.m., if they rolled in at all. If the bus drove north, the RV went south. When they went for food, we went for beer. And when it came to vandalizing their bus with avocados and condiments, we were the baddest bunch of guys on any road in any state in America. We were punk as shit. No masseuse on the RV No Internet connection. Shit, we barely had working air conditioning. We were the rebels of the tour, we made everything fun, and everyone, I mean everyone, wanted to be on the B team. Especially after we went white-water rafting.

The B team just kills it on land, in the air and in the water. And so it was no surprise to me when we passed the lead boat and won the race downriver. I'm sure it didn't help that the A team hit a rock, and everyone but Bam flew out of the boat and almost drowned. But In our defense it wasn't too helpful that I was in our boat. I was fully clothed, refused to paddle, kept puking my liquid dinner up from the night before and spent most of the time chain smoking or trying to light my soaking-wet cigarettes. I guess it's just the B team can adapt to any situation. The B team abides. Unfortunately Kerry Getz had to leave the tour early, which left a huge hole in the B-team roster. Not only were we losing a valuable drinking buddy and an amazing hockey temper and a so-so rower, but he was also what validated the B team on the street course. He was a one-man demo, and, as good as everyone else was skating, Kerry was always skating better. We held a meeting at the B table and scouted the free-agent market to see who we couid pull off the bus. Everyone had their suggestions, but we never came to any decisions and somehow ended up with Kosick. Kosick for Getz. Somehow I missed the benefits of the trade, but was happy nonetheless to have Rick out of the child-care van. He was beginning to lose his mind, and we were only two days in. Kosick is an older guy who likes to be mellow, his wild and crazy days are few and far between now, but he'll still drink you under the table with some sake. He was not made to endure what those ams were dishing out. They whined about spots not being perfect, and they whined about this, and they whined about that, and they lit ireworks, and they threw stuff at cars and generally tormented the world. In other words, they were normal 15- and 16-year-old kids. Rick doesn't like kids, so I was glad to have him on the RV with the older, more mature guys who whined about this and whined about that and lit fireworks and threw stuff at cars and generally tormented the world. Then another trade was made, one that wasn't as easy to swallow as the Getz/Kosick trade. Not to say I could swallow Kosick by any means, After white-water rafting, everyone went luging in Park City, Utah, on these carts on a downhill cement track. This was the kind of stuff that was done to kill time and create "real" TV for Tony's ESPN show while waiting for the sun to fall and the real fun to start. Everyone on the tour enjoyed a good friendly bet, some more than others. Some enjoyed large, unfriendly monetary bets that sometimes put people in debt up to 20 grand. One of the side bets that was waged, without the knowledge of the B team, was between Sal Masacela and Robert Earl, the surfer kook with the hair and the clown outfits who's always on Tony's show. The bet was whoever won in a race down the hill would have to ride in the B bus for the rest of the trip. Sal won. Kosick was sent back to the minor leagues to shoot the ams, and in his wake was Earl, who was by no means B-team material. He came onboard and started covering the side of the bus with posters of corporate sponsorship and writing his Web site on the back of the RV. "Dude, this guy has to go." I said. "No, we'll just jump him in," Fritsch suggested. There was this huge, 'roid-filled musclebound Vinny driving the A bus, and he hated the B team. Naturally so. We bombed his bus with avocados, wrote our names on the side of it with ketchup and mustard, snuck on there during demos and colored in the leather seats with paint markers, and when he'd ask who was responsible, the sweet sound of a choir of shitbags singing in unison filled the air, "The B team did it." He wanted us dead. And if Earl was going to be one of us, there could be no going back, he had to be hated too. So as we headed south to go rock climbing somewhere in Utah, we had Frank pull up beside the A bus, made Earl get their driver's attention, smile and peg his front windshield with an avocado. In the rearview we could see him pulling over to wipe it off and freaking out. We got on the highway and never looked back. We had a four-hour drive and a 20-minute lead, we'd be in our beds asleep before they even reached town. And Earl was in. And he wasn't that big of a kook—no, actually he was, and his fashion sense is on acid, but he's an all-right guy. even if he doesn't know the difference between an eggplant and a kickflip frontside invert. Twenty minutes down the highway, the cell phones started ringing. Bruno Musso, NYC legend and Dimitry's better-looking doppelganger, as well as the dude who kept everyone in line, was warning us not to throw food because their driver was out for blood. That's when the B team got beer muscles. "Fuck that dude, we can take him."
"Pussy."
"That dude ain't shit."
That was all short-lived because we all knew that together we couldn't take the guy if his 'roid rage kicked in. "He's gonna kill us."
"We're so dead."
"What are we going to do?"
In the midst of it all someone came up with a plan, a brilliant and diabolical plan that surpassed anything we'd done up 'til that point. I wish I could remember whose idea it was. For some reason I think it was Bucky's idea, but I'm not sure. Most likely Staab's, since everything was either blamed or credited to Staab. We were going to kidnap Tony Hawk. And the funnel. And force Tony to do beer bongs. Genius, whoever's idea it was. We called back Bruno, asked him when and where they were stopping for gas and hung up. We showed up to the rest stop five minutes before the bus and cased the joint. We waited for Tony to enter the store before we pulled around When he came out. we wrapped him in a bedsheet, quickly tied him up and in seconds were back on the highway with our hostage, leaving only a scribbled ransom note behind to mark what we had done

The note read, "We have your leader. You should learn not to mess with the B team, or you'll get stung. Our demands are one DVD player with Spaceballs, one Playstation II with Tony's Street Skater and a big bucket of KFC. —The B team." The chicken was my Idea. I love me some chicken. And, as planned, we made Tony do beer bongs until he was loaded, which took a lot more beers than I gave him credit for. When he finally said enough, though, I was barely getting started and felt that this time I was ready to hold a good conversation with him, drunk or not. And we actually talked for the duration of the ride about growing up in different sides of the country and how rough our school days were, and I told him about my friends on heroin and guys I knew that stabbed a cop, and he told me he was in a fight once In fourth grade, It was awesome. And then we held hands all the way to our hotel-room doors, and we kissed goodnight and just smiled at each other, wishing the night would never end. Or did we just pull into the motel parking lot, and he just kicked the door open and yelled, "Get me off this piece-of-shit RV," before taking off to his room and not looking back? Whichever, It was still totally kill. Yet the next day totally sucked. This was the day we were supposed to go mountain climbing. The B team didn't want to go mountain climbing. We wanted to go to Vegas and get loaded, and that's what we were going to do regardless of what anybody said. As soon as we made this known, Bruno instructed our driver to take us straight to the rock-climbing spot or get fired. We weren't about to get Frank fired, but we also weren't going to scale some goddamn rocks In the desert when the thermostat had already reached 108°. So we kidnapped Frank. Which was easy, since we already had him. We Just tied him to a chair, stuck an avocado In his mouth and duct taped It shut and commandeered the RV. Then we called Bruno and told him we'd left Frank on the side of the road and were headed to Vegas. He freaked. We laughed. We didn't really leave Frank on the side of the road—I mean we had, but we only left him there for a few minutes to take some photos and film him being left behind with a sign that read "B team" strapped to him. But in those few minutes, a number of cars passed and saw what we were doing and made their own interpretations, most of which were illegal. So they called the cops, As we were rolling through town, back to the highway, the RV was surrounded by cop cars. Must have been seven, if not eight of them. All of the reports to the police were twisted, and I suppose I can understand why, what with a man tied to a chair left for dead on the side of the road, but the best one was, since I'd put some dirty white boxers that Getz had left behind on Frank's head, one citizen said we had a Taliban man tied up and were filming him before we threw him off the cliff. That made me laugh out loud. The cops didn't think it was too funny. They asked for all our I.D.s and began to do background checks. Earl was explaining to the cop in charge of the situation how it was a joke, we were with ESPN, blah, blah, blah. The cops liked ESPN, because the mood got lighter when he mentioned it, and everyone started relaxing. Except for me. I had just left a half-empty beer on the console next to the driver's seat, which doesn't really look good for someone with two DUIs, not to mention an outstanding warrant in Jersey and a $26,000 one in LA. and a pocket full of various colored pills. I was about to shit a brick and only felt worse when the cop with the I.D.s kept my passport separated from everyone else's licenses. He started giving them back one by one. "Willy. Robert. Jesse. Charles." "Who the hell is Charles?" I asked. Bucky stepped up and grabbed the I.D. "Charles?" I asked. "You're name is Chaz?" He just smiled. The cop kept on. "Kevin. Frank. Richard." Again I was like, "Who the hell is that?" Turns out Chalmers' real first name is Dick. They called all but mine. Mine was last, and just as they were about to give it back or lock me up, the cop searching the RV asked, "Who's beer Is that next to the driver's seat?" I raised my hand. "Were you driving?" I shook my head no. "Do you always drink warm beer at 11 am?" I shook my head yes. Fear was drenching my face in sweat as he looked me over. This was going to be It. I was to be left behind in some nowhere desert town and then extradited back to California. No Vegas for baby, he was about to practice his ass fucking in the big house. "Well, it's not a very good idea to leave it by the driver's seat. It could get the driver in a whole lot of trouble. Keep that in mind next time," he said. And as I tried to register him letting me off, I heard my name, "Christopher," the one holding my passport said, and just like that my thoughts reset to fear. "Here you go." He handed it back to me, and that was that. Next thing I know, the cops are hamming it up for the cameras, asking if anyone wants to be put in handcuffs for photos and if they are going to be on ESPN. I watched as they cuffed each of the guys on the B team. With each one they'd give a fake pat down, but they'd always slide their hands into the guy's pockets to see if they were holding anything. "You want to be arrested?" a cop asked the back of my head. I turned to him, smiled, thought of my pocketful of pharmaceuticals and thought about how much I wanted to be on all of them at that very moment. "No thanks," I replied and climbed back onboard the RV and finished the rest of my piss-warm beer. And I didn't stop drinking until I got back to LA, three days later, so you're just going to have to ask someone else how Vegas was.

Comments

dave
28 Feb 2007, 18:27

Super slow mo vert parts in old powell videos really do suck

dude
02 Mar 2007, 17:41

fuckin beautiful, i havent read this one in a long time. i miss big bro

Chris
06 Mar 2007, 13:42

ugly red-haired snowboard kid was a good one.

sopitikoj
09 Sep 2007, 05:32

Hi all!

Keep it going, thanks. I found exactly the information.

G'night

huh?
09 Sep 2007, 15:21

uh, what's that gook?