Adventures in babysitting.

My life is full of uncertainty. "I don't know where I want to skate today.... I don't know what I want to be when I grow up.... I don't know why I can't switch flip.... I don't know what kind of beer I should buy." One thing I do know for certain, though, is that I never want to be a team manager; the guy responsible for making sure that skateboarders have their skateboards, that they have their shoes, that they get fed, that they get to a skate spot, and that they get on the airplane. Maybe I was a precocious 19 year old, but I would have never left a box of boards laying on the ground at the airport or gone on a two-week tour without shoes, or gotten all the way to a spot to bitch about the color of my shoelaces. These are just some of my favorite debacles that have arisen on tours. I've always told myself I'd rather not work in the skateboard industry than have to deal with shit like that. Apparently, fate has a way of testing such things, because Thrasher rented me a van and gave me the job of being the babysitter for two weeks.

NOT TO SOUND like being the team manager is without its perks. I suppose any job where you get to be outside and even skate a little can't be all that horrible. You essentially get paid to keep up to date with the skate world. And if you're lucky, you get a real cool-looking pass to the ASR trade show, where you can use your powerful and important looks to try and pick up the 18-year-old Reef girls. Throw in the fact that you have a company credit card, and I guess being the TM is a logical choice for those of us who don't possess the superstar skills, or costumes, it takes to be a pro skateboarder.

Nevertheless, being the team manager requires something that I have the least of: patience. My natural response to, "Oh, I forgot my boards at the airport," was, "Oh well, I guess you'll be riding someone's old stuff." Honestly, if I forgot my camera on a trip, I really don't think people would be sympathetic to my plight. I can deal with the unavoidable things that come up, but it's the thoughtless acts that I have no tolerance for. It's always the thoughtless acts that plague skate trips.

For my own personal health, and the safety of others, Thrasher let me pick the crew. The criteria for the group consisted of two basic components: (1) does the dude rip, and (2) is he not a bitch? Typically, I like to shoot with ams who are hungry to skate rather than bitch about not having had a "proper three-course breakfast."

This was the first time I played authority figure on a skate trip. A conventional TM's priorities are basically to make sure everyone is content and to the demo not more than two hours late. My priority, since I work for the magazine, is to get skate photos. What follows are the basic constituents of team managing, and how I went about them.

SCHEDULE

The thing I hate most about trips is having a schedule. It reminds me of school, and often times you end up scheduled in the shitty towns and pinched for time in the good towns. I decided this was a play-it-by-ear trip. The basic idea was to drive up to Vancouver and stop wherever along the way. Collin requested the first stop be the 26-stair rail in Bakersfield, pretty much music to a photographer's ears. No matter how far off the beaten path, big rails were scheduled in on this trip. Bakersfield is as Arizona as it gets in California, a place I would never want to be; although, I can suffer through anything when grade A ripping is involved. The freshly redone rail got the standard grinds and feebles, and then Collin threw down a Lance Armstrong lipslide. Probably the longest slide since Cab's boardslide days. Love it or hate on it, this is going to be the next blown-out I'm-sick-of-seeing-that-place-but-always-interested -to-know-what-went-down-there spot.

DRIVING

When I'm following soccer mom Suburbans, I always notice that there seem to be TV screens on the back of all the headrests. Looking like something straight out of Pimp My Ride, I just figure it's some pretentious trap to show off how much money people can waste. Yeah, well, I've severely underestimated its functionality: to pacify the children. I had this revelation about six hours into driving when Dallas and Collin started throwing shit at everyone as we sped along Interstate 5. As we passed some decent looking chicks, Dallas came up with the bright idea to make a "Show us your tits" sign for the window. After a couple hours of failed attempts, he made another, more grotesque sign, "Throw your tampon at our van." While he succeeded in procuring looks of disgust from everyone, not a single tampon or feminine hygiene product was thrown at the van. This did not deter the 20 year old from making sure the signs stayed visible for the entire 3,000 miles we were on the road. Other popular driving past-times included eating copious amounts of sunflower seeds and putting stickers in people's hair.

EATING

Dallas recently turned vegetarian for reasons still unclear; although, he did allude to the fact he was losing weight. Trying to eat healthy on a skate trip is damn near impossible. Not only is it expensive, but sometimes you just can't get it. You should see the look on the waitress' face when you try to order a tofu burger at a truck stop diner. Since I had no company card to treat the crew to those posh 600-dollar dinners, budget dining was on the agenda. The most "healthy" and prevalent alternative to McDonald's was Subway.

I was never into Subway. Probably because a couple of my buddies used to work there. We'll just leave it at that. More likely, however, I never liked Subway because of their advertising campaign. Whenever a restaurant runs its campaign on losing weight, it immediately translates, in my mind, to

SLASH, aka BRIAN HANSEN

Don't kid yourself, this guy is as gnarly off the board as he is on. He's all over the place. He's out of the van and sight before half the crew realizes we've stopped. Not only does Slash approach skating with a "fuck it" attitude, but he also approaches non-smoking hotel rooms the same way. Future consequences take a distant second priority, both on the board and with the numerous 100-dollar room cleaning charges.

COLLIN PROVOST, aka LITTLE MAN

Whenever I hear of or see little kids getting sponsored, I immediately wonder if the child is really good or just "good for his age," which I think is a euphemism for "the kid has a hot mom and the TM thinks he'll get some by flowing kiddy some product." Despite any predisposition I may have had, any initial thoughts were dispelled within the first 20 minutes when Collin offered, "I know of this 26-stair rail right off the freeway." Not just a rail dog, he has it all--stairs, ledges, and tranny skills that make even the most seasoned bowl trolls watch in envy. I guess that's what happens when you grow up with a skatepark in your backyard. shitty food. Not only does Subway pound this "healthy alternative" idea into our heads, they have this nerdy mascot, Jared, who is the purported proof that only eating Subway will make you lose weight. "Hi, I'm Jared and I lost 200 pounds on the Subway diet," he boisterously claims. Well Jared, you're no longer a fat, pathetic loser, now you're just a pathetic loser. I really don't like Jared telling me his story every time I turn on the TV. I guess in the end I'm just perplexed; what does Subway do for you that walking 10 minutes a day won't?

Dallas and I ate Subway nine times in two weeks. I figured if Jared could lose weight by only eating cold cuts, maybe I could improve my tranny skills by doing the same. Ten minutes at Medford park showed how wrong that idea was. Here I was eating cold cuts thinking I was getting something out of it, when all I really got was a shinner and a swellbow.

The rest of the crew was definitely on the construction worker diet the entire time. The only break to the continuous smoking was to eat greasy McDonald's three times a day and rehydrate with some coffee; a practice taken to a new height by Bachinsky, who managed to smoke a carton in five days. With smoke that dense, no one in a 20-foot radius needs to even light their own cigs, because his second-hand smoke alone is like being downwind of a camp fire. Seriously, though, how much did that lady with the tube coming out of her throat have to smoke to get to that point?

MATT ALLEN, aka SCOOTER

I shot with Scooter twice before this trip. Both times he was relatively punctual (something unheard of in skateboarding), and put his tricks down without a lot of hassle. We met up with him in Portland, where he flew in from the Emerica bike tour. Although a bit tired from his prior time on the road, that didn't stop him from skating every spot we went to, and then some.

ANTHONY SHULTZ, aka IVORY GUY

I had seen Shultz skate once before and it was obvious he was a ripper. Slash backed him and said he was a cool kid, not a bitch, so we recruited him. I really had no idea about him other than that. He naturally killed every park we took him to with moves that will for sure earn him some World Cup points later on down the road. He's also a street ripper, maybe just too shy to ask to shoot all his tricks. One of his more clandestine talents is his ability to make a bong out of just about anything.

Arguably, the best part of being the TM is having the company credit card. The boss may sweat you later, but there's nothing more satisfying than spending someone else's money with impunity. Think of all that worthless trap you'd never buy at a convenient store with your own money, then imagine buying three of each. The same goes with finding suitable lodging. "Never mind those Motel 6's, nothing below a Best Western is good enough for my company card." A true sign of a seasoned TM is knowing the hierarchy of hotels, something I know nothing about. Add to the mix that all these room charges were going on my personal credit card, and suddenly my reimbursement apprehension seemed reasonable. The last thing an accountant at a skate company is going to approve for reimbursement is cleaning charges for smoking in a non-smoking room. The corollary is that I get to play debt collector, and since no one on this trip rides for Campbell's soup, there wasn't tons of extra money to waste. By the end of the trip, we were down to getting two rooms a night--for eight guys.

DALLAS ROCKVAM, aka DALLY ROCKINGHAM

A very quiet and direct type of person, he prefers to just skate, and whenever possible check his myspace.com account. For most, checking into a hotel offers asylum from a long van ride; for Dally, it's a chance to see his new posted comments. When skate time comes around, though, he has his priorities straight.

The usual dilemma when skating with a group of people is that each person wants to skate a different spot. While some sit there and harp tirades, others try to give the silent guilt trip, each in hopes of getting their way. Usually the TM will just give in to whomever wants to skate the closest spot. We didn't have this on our trip, which was good, because I would have taken it as an invitation to personally choose the spots--and no one would have been happy. I think people's priorities were fairly straight on this trip so we didn't have to spend a lot of time at the curb-high ledge spots.

DAVE BACHINSKY, aka LEBOWSKI

Dave's strict diet of McDonald's, coffee, and cigarettes is what fueled his kickflip down El Toro. The kid is generally quiet, but he was more dissuaded from talking because roughly every 20 minutes a reference to The Kickflip came up in normal conversation. I brought Lebowski on the trip because his skating is unique; he has that smooth Boston style crossed with the Call gnar. For some, El Toro is their starting--and simultaneously--finishing point. I'm quite sure this is not the case for Dave.

The Broken arm debacle

Collin broke his arm at Newberg park in Oregon. We drove to Portland that night where the doctors told us it was too swollen to cast. In Seattle a few days later, it was still too swollen to cast, but we got a plaster splint. Then in Canada, nearly a week after it happened, Collin and I went to the hospital in downtown Vancouver. The place was infested with cracked-out zombies who were endemically covered in open sutures and track marks. While we were in the waiting room, a social worker approached us and asked Collin to go with him. Likewise, another social worker with a police officer came, got me, and took me into a little room. Once inside, he told me that he suspected me of abducting the child and abusing him. Dumbfounded by the accusation, I rebuff, "Come on! I would have taken a much better looking kid than him." Social workers have no sense of humor. Five hours later, the Canadian doctor told us he didn't believe Collin's arm was really broken, and he gave him an Ace Bandage. Then I got to pay $450 for this experience. Maybe socialized medicine does suck.

Memorable quotes

"Is it sketchy to get blow jobs from hookers around here?"

"Sorry, I don't go to the playground to find a girlfriend." (Referring to the single morns) "Shim was kind of hot."

"What would you do for a ticket out of this place?"

"I need to get back to planet Marley."

"Mellow out on the greens, granola head."

"Sometimes you got to slay the beast to get to the princess."