Vilcim NYC

I'VE REALLY GOTTEN LAZY, I KNOW. Every time the caller ID says 'Jake Phelps' or any 415 area code phone number, I swerve it and go into a whole spin-out where I say to myself "Well, that's it, I'm fired. Time to go get a normal job." I've been waiting for the call for years, and when that day comes, I'll accept it. Jake's always weirdly had my back, though. But my rationality is that I don't make very much money, so if I spend a month or so hidden in my room but emerge with a gangster still of Dustin Dollin, that should keep my head off the chopping block. Basically I'm just a fucking lazy piece of shit. When the Volcom dudes got an apartment in NY for a month and they flew out Luke Ogden to shoot the skate pictures, I was like "What am I? Chopped liver?" I know the spots here, Luke doesn't. But then I looked at the bright side: I could do what I do best--write the story, take some snap shots, and sit in the van and say "turn left."

SHOWING DUSTIN DOLLIN spots is dangerous because he kills everything. He may not make too many friends around here. He basically rolled from spot to spot pissing on everything, doing the gnarliest tricks I've ever seen. Just spot to spot, trick to trick. I first met Dustin when he was 15 and had just gotten on Stereo. He was at Skatopia on a hit of liquid acid. He was just a tiny kid then, but Spawn had already spawned. In fact, the notoriously anti-professional, hardened and xenophobic Skatopia locals welcomed this foreign sponsored kid as one of their own. No easy feat. I heard one guy scream, "All you pro guys can go home, but we're keeping the kid!"

So I've known Dustin off and on for a long time and I really think he's a great dude, but he's got one of those alcohol disorders that kinda turns him into a huge nightmare at about 11:00pm. Every night he'd call me and say, "Hey, it's me, Dustin. Is anything going on tonight?" and I'd tell him to meet me at Max Fish or somewhere, but by the time I'd run into him he'd already have morphed into such a major league asshole that I'd have to bail out on him. He'd look me up and down and tell me head to toe what he didn't like about me. Then he'd bite my head and steal my iPod. I'd introduce him to my friends, and they'd all say "I don't like your friend Dustin, he's a jerk."

I'd have to agree. One early afternoon I made arrangements with another group of skaters to shoot photos with--actual skate photos--but when Dustin heard about my plans he called and yelled, "What? You're a traitor!"

He called me a traitor! That's my weak spot, so I said "Alright, I'm coming with you."

When I think of traitors, I think of Nick Dompierre. We used to call him Benedict Arnold for his upwardly-mobile crew tactics. See, Nick has always been kind of a kid in my skate crew, and once he graduated from lukewarm to hotcrew, we never let him live it down. But then again, if you listen to me, you wind up with a dead-end job bar-backing or pizza-cooking and never traveling the world doing what you love. My advice is always "Don't try," and that's bad advice. I just like to trick my friends into remaining a nowhere loser like myself. It keeps them around.

WHO ELSE WAS THERE? A bunch of kids whose names I forget. Australian kids. Shane Cross--I kept thinking he was Bryan Herman; they're like weird twins. They must be from the same gene pool, like a parallel Australian Victorville.

Who else? Darrell? He's a cool man. Geoff Rowley? I saw him for a second. He left fast, claiming New York was going to kill him. Oh yeah, Javier. He's my undercover favorite skater ever. I'm a totally nerdy fan of his. I've seen all his video parts. He's got the smoothest buttery style. If I could skate like anyone, it might be him. But we didn't really bro down; he doesn't know much English. Or maybe he does and I just didn't make enough of an effort.

Remy Stratton was there, he's the team manager and is like the Javier of vert. He used to do those seatbelt airs. I get a little nervous around him because I used to call him like 13 years ago when I was a dumber kid and he was working at Acme Skateboards. I'd call him once in a while and just ask him the things any dumb kid from Ohio would ask a pro skater working in the skate industry. So when I see him now, it's like "Yeah, you and I both know how retarded I am, shut up." I feel like I have to give him hush money.

SHIT, SO SOME DUMB IDIOT wrote Thrasher and said I should write about skateboarding more. Do you know how gay that is? Writing about the actual act of skateboarding? Like how a trick looks? Do you want me to write a poem? Like "The air rushed through his hair and he clicked his tail and the board slowly started spinning until it hit his feet." Are you serious? That's gross, like writing about sex or something. But worse because it's gay. Anyway, dumb kid, you're dumb, but then again so was I. Ask Remy.

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